criminal

Reporting from Washington — Jared Kushner may finally get a win.

President Trump’s son-in-law has been a drag on the administration for his friendship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman since the Oct. 2 killing of a U.S.-based dissident Saudi journalist. His family business continues to raise questions of conflicts of interest, he repeatedly has amended financial disclosure reports to remedy omissions, and he endured an embarrassing yearlong delay in obtaining a security clearance. Meanwhile, his chief assignment, a Mideast peace plan, is as elusive as ever.

Lately, however, Kushner has been instrumental in helping his father-in-law secure a rare bipartisan victory: a long-sought overhaul of the criminal justice system.

Both Republicans and Democrats who’ve worked on the bill in Congress credit Kushner as a key architect. He helped convince the two most powerful Republicans in Washington — his father-in-law and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, both of whom embrace the traditionally Republican tough-on-crime stance — to make the criminal justice system less punitive.

The bill cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate on Monday evening, 82 to 12, a vote margin that belies the arduous effort to overcome initial opposition from conservatives. Final Senate passage is expected later this week and the legislation is expected to easily get through the House and to the White House for Trump’s signature.

Called the First Step Act, the legislation would undo some of the sentencing crackdowns of the 1990s and create programs to reduce prisoner recidivism.

It would allow low- and minimum-risk prisoners to earn time credits for early release to either reentry centers or home confinement; reduce some mandatory minimum sentences, including those imposed by so-called three-strikes laws that automatically result in life imprisonment; and allow reviews of sentences that reflect significant disparities between harsh punishments for crack cocaine use, which disproportionately involve minorities, and lesser penalties for powder cocaine.

Kushner, driven by the experience of his father’s 14-month prison sentence for tax evasion and other crimes, has made prison and sentencing changes a priority since the beginning of the Trump administration. But unlike loftier goals Kushner has embraced, such as peace between Israel and Palestinians, criminal justice reform is likely to be signed by the president.

Kushner helped work on policy details and knew where the political fault lines would be, according to lawmakers. He was on the phone repeatedly with other advocates to discuss strategy and next steps. He personally lobbied senators, including McConnell, who openly was not eager to make time for a Senate vote. And he served as a bridge to conservative media, which could have blown up the effort with even a whiff of opposition.

“There would be some very outspoken right-wing [opponent] and [Kushner] would tell me, ‘I called him this morning. I straightened him out and now he’s going to be OK,’” said Democratic supporter Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, declining to name the commentator. “I’m thinking, ‘Who would have dreamed that a bill I’m cosponsoring would be OK with this person?’”

Advocates of the criminal justice overhaul tried to pass a similar bill at the end of the Obama administration, only to be stymied by congressional Republicans. They had little hope of getting it through during the Trump administration given the president’s campaign rhetoric on crime, including a call to execute drug dealers, and because of the fierce opposition of his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

“This is a president that ran on American ‘carnage,’” said Jessica Jackson, a Mill Valley, Calif., City Council member who started the advocacy group #cut50 with liberal CNN host and commentator Van Jones. “I thought everything was over.”

“I’m a Democrat,” Jackson said, but “Jared is politically brilliant and he’s relentless and he’s also extremely loyal. If he tells you he’s going to do something, he does it.”

Kushner started early. He made his support for criminal justice changes known to the leaders of the bipartisan congressional effort — including Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, and Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee — within weeks of Trump’s inauguration.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), another architect of the plan, knew Kushner was taking the issue seriously when Kushner started dropping “the very precise nomenclature thrown around by criminal justice reform geeks” — for example, citing the relevant U.S. criminal code lines by their numbers.

While Kushner’s initial goal was prison reform, which is an easier sell with conservatives, it quickly became clear that had to be paired with sentencing reform to get the backing of Grassley and Durbin.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle was McConnell’s reluctance to bring up a bill that would unify Democrats and divide Republicans, handing the opposition a potential political cudgel in the 2020 campaign. He told a group of Republican advocates in September that he would bring the bill to the Senate floor only if it was endorsed by Trump and they secured 65 votes — five more than the minimum number needed to overcome procedural roadblocks.

Given the goal, Kushner relentlessly lobbied reluctant Republican senators to get on board, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

He called “everybody — and often,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, whose late endorsement was part of a groundswell that made clear that enough Republicans would support the legislation. “He was dogged.”

On numerous occasions he lobbied McConnell directly, even trying to figure out the Republican leader’s dinner companions so that he could lobby them before their meal.

Advocates of the First Step Act also rallied high-profile celebrity supporters, such as Kim Kardashian West, which demonstrated to the media-obsessed Trump the positive publicity he could get. Kushner worked with Jones, and eventually got support from celebrities including Alyssa Milano and former Fox News host Eric Bolling.

“Jared Kushner absolutely was one of the main conduits,” Bolling said.

The dam broke this month when Trump tweeted “go for it, Mitch” and several noteworthy conservatives backed the bill, including Sens. Cornyn, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas.

Lee, the Republican senator allied with Kushner, said: “One of the things I’ve appreciated about him is he doesn’t cut corners with this. I haven’t seen him abuse the position of trust as the president’s son-in-law. He doesn’t throw that around.”

Everyone in Washington knows Kushner’s trusted place in the Trump orbit; members of Congress return his phone calls and know he speaks for the president, at least as much as anyone can. Yet when Vice President Mike Pence came to a meeting of Senate Republicans to lobby on the bill last month, Kushner was deferential; attendees said he sat in the room but barely said a word.

The bill does have significant critics. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and John Kennedy (R-La.) argue that it could allow dangerous criminals to get early release, and have proposed a series of amendments that could get votes this week. Still, passage is considered all but certain.

The latest from Washington »

jennifer.haberkorn@latimes.com

@jenhab

HAYDEN Panettiere’s on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson has been spotted for the first time since her shocking death.

Brian, 37, looked solemn as he stepped out on Wednesday in a hat, sunglasses and hoodie in his native Greenville, South Carolina – close to where his on-off girlfriend Hayden died on Sunday at just 36.

Brian has been keeping a low profile in recent days, and has not made a public statement since her death.

Brian and his brother Zach were at the Greenville rental apartment when Hayden was discovered unresponsive in a “possible overdose” on Sunday afternoon.

In a police report obtained by The U.S. Sun, cops said Zach walked into the apartment after 1 pm to find Hayden unconscious on a chair in the living room.

Brian was apparently asleep in another room at the time of the horrific discovery.

One of the brothers called 911, and an emergency medical team rushed to the scene.

While police said Zach was extremely emotional as the first responders attempted to save her life, Brian apparently did not shed a tear until Hayden was officially declared dead an hour later.

Brian told cops Hayden regularly took a “bag of medication,” and a long list of redacted prescription names were included in the police report.

Now, the tragedy’s fall-out is unfolding for Brian and his family.

Police arrived to Brian’s grandmother’s home on Wednesday morning.

“Greenville Police officers responded to a call for a welfare check at a home belonging to Brian Hickerson’s family on Wednesday morning,” police told The U.S. Sun in a statement.

“The call is unrelated to the Hayden Panettiere death investigation and did not require an incident report.”

But TMZ reported earlier on Wednesday that a criminal investigation has been launched into the death.

According to the outlet, the investigation was triggered because Hayden’s death was “unexpected.”

Hayden and Brian have a long, tumultuous history since first meeting in 2018.

In May 2019, Brian was arrested for domestic violence.

According to the LAPD, cops were called to Hayden’s Los Angeles home after a heated altercation on May 2 at 2:30 am.

“Right off the bat, I noticed that she had bruising on her eyelids, a swollen face. She did have marks on her neck, the left side. When I continued to talk to her she removed the sweater that she had on. I saw bruising on both her arms,” the responding officer said.

The case was ultimately dismissed.

But on Valentine’s Day 2020, Brian was arrested again for domestic violence while the pair was vacationing in Wyoming.

Hayden told officers he threw her and then punched her in the face.

Soon after this arrest, Hayden released a statement to fans.

“I am coming forward with the truth about what happened to me with the hope that my story will empower others in abusive relationships to get the help they need and deserve,” she said.

“I am prepared to do my part to make sure this man never hurts anyone again. I’m grateful for my support system, which helped me find the courage to regain my voice and my life.”

Brian ultimately was sentenced to 45 days in jail.

Despite her harsh words, the couple was spotted back together again in 2021, with Hayden insisting she “forgave” him.

Three months before her death, Hayden said she was happy and healthy, and it was reported Brian was in her rear-view mirror.

A source told TMZ the pair was secretly together during this time.

NASHVILLE — The Justice Department is pushing to revive criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, telling a federal appeals court late Monday that a judge erred in his scathing ruling that called the case against the man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison an “abuse of prosecuting power.”

The government is appealing the May ruling by U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw that threw out charges of human smuggling against the Salvadoran national. The ruling amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a Justice Department that under President Trump has repeatedly been accused of targeting defendants for political purposes.

Crenshaw found that Abrego Garcia would never have faced criminal charges had he not successfully sued the government over his 2025 deportation. The ruling was an embarrassment for the Trump administration, which only brought him back after securing a criminal indictment against him.

Crenshaw stopped short of finding the government acted with “actual vindictiveness,” a rarely-met standard that usually requires evidence such as a prosecutor admitting that charges were filed in retaliation against someone. But the judge did find there was enough evidence of “presumptive vindictiveness.”

That included the timing of the indictment. Homeland Security had been aware of the 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee that was the basis for the human smuggling charges for more than two years before Abrego Garcia was deported. The agency only reopened the case and began investigating in earnest after Abrego Garcia was ordered returned to the U.S.

Crenshaw also found that statements by U.S. Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche, who was a deputy at the time, suggested the Justice Department was targeting Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful-deportation case.

In a brief filed Monday night with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal prosecutors argued that Crenshaw got it wrong. Blanche’s statements, they argue, demonstrated a legitimate motive for prosecuting him. His rationale reflected a “normal assessment of the societal interest in punishment,” not an “improper penalty,” they said. The statements “explained that the government was seeking to protect the public and confirm its prior assertions about Abrego’s criminal activity,” the brief states.

But even if Blanche’s statements reflected an animus against Abrego Garcia, they are irrelevant because the person who actually brought the charges was then-Acting U.S. Atty. for the Middle District of Tennessee Rob McGuire, the brief states — rehashing an argument thoroughly rejected by Crenshaw that McGuire’s motives were the only motives that mattered in the case.

Crenshaw’s ruling noted the sustained oversight of the case by top Justice Department officials, including regular communications between McGuire and Associate Deputy Atty. Gen. Aakash Singh, in finding that the criminal case was thoroughly tainted. Crenshaw also noted that prosecutors never called as a witness the investigator who actually reopened the case, to explain why.

Abrego Garcia, 31, is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years, although he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. A 2019 order by an immigration judge prohibited his deportation to El Salvador, finding he had a “well founded fear” of a gang that had targeted his family there. The judge allowed him to live and work in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision, but he was not given residency status.

Blocked from re-deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, the Trump administration has vowed to deport him to a third county, threatening to send him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and, most recently, Liberia. Abrego Garcia has said he would agree to be deported to Costa Rica, which has said it will accept him, but the government has so far declined to send him there.

He is fighting deportation to Liberia in a separate federal court case in Maryland.

Loller writes for the Associated Press.

Judge previously found US government brought charges against Abrego Garcia as retaliation for case that embarrassed it.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump is seeking to revive criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man whose wrongful deportation became a source of embarrassment for US immigration authorities.

The US Department of Justice asked a federal appeals court late on Monday to throw out a previous ruling by a judge that slammed the administration’s prosecution of Abrego Garcia as a form of political retaliation.

In his May ruling, US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw found the government’s efforts to bring criminal charges against Abrego Garcia to be an “abuse of prosecuting power”.

Federal prosecutors argued in a brief filed with the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals that Crenshaw’s ruling was flawed in a push to revive criminal charges the Trump administration brought against Abrego Garcia after being forced to return him to the US.

The Salvadoran national was brought back to the US after the government admitted that it had wrongfully deported him to El Salvador, where he was held in a detention facility that was operated by the Salvadoran government and that was notorious for abusive conditions and alleged use of torture.

The Trump administration initially fought efforts to return the 31-year-old Abrego Garcia to the US, even after admitting that he had been wrongfully deported despite a 2019 order from an immigration judge that he had a “well-founded fear” of being targeted in El Salvador.

The administration then filed criminal charges against Abrego Garcia when he arrived back in the US, accusing him of human trafficking.

Crenshaw found that there was evidence of “presumptive vindictiveness” on the part of the US government and that the charges would not have been brought if Abrego Garcia’s case had not been a public setback for the government.

Abrego Garcia has previously said that he is willing to agree to be deported to Costa Rica. But the Trump administration has instead fought to have him deported to the African nation of Liberia, to which he has no connection and where he would be far from friends and family.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A former Southern Poverty Law Center official has been charged in the Department of Justice’s broader criminal case against the Alabama-based civil rights group, a frequent target of conservative critics who claim the nonprofit is politically biased.

Heidi Beirich, a political extremism expert who left the law center about six years ago, was named in an indictment unsealed Wednesday.

Beirich, 59, of Palm Springs, is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. She was charged in the government’s existing case against the SPLC in Montgomery, Ala.

In ankle cuffs and wearing a red T-shirt, Beirich made her initial court appearance for a bond hearing in Riverside, Calif., on Wednesday afternoon. She did not enter a plea and U.S. Magistrate Judge David T. Bristow ordered her to surrender her passport and appear in court in Alabama within two weeks.

The judge released Beirich on her own recognizance after prosecutors declined to file a request for detention. Her lawyer, Michael Proctor, said in court that Beirich is a “highly, highly responsible, pro-social and trustworthy” member of society with no criminal history.

Earlier in the day, Proctor said his client is innocent of the charges and described the case as politically motivated. He accused prosecutors of trying to punish his client for her “decadeslong record of success dismantling hate groups.”

“A free and fair society does not use the justice system to silence its political opponents,” Proctor said in a statement.

Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche announced the new charges at a news briefing in Washington, but did not name Beirich. CNN was first to report on the charges against Beirich.

“This is exactly what we said would happen in a case like this,” Blanche said. “Our investigators and the U.S. Attorneys and the agents working the case will keep on working it even after the initial indictment.”

An SPLC spokesperson said the case against it and Beirich “will not shake our resolve.”

“Taking on violent hate and extremist groups is among the most dangerous work there is, and we believe it is also among the most important work we do,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We are confident in our position and look forward to presenting the evidence and making our case in court.”

Beirich led the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, which incurred the anger of conservatives with its annual report on organizations that it classified as hate groups. Critics accused the law center of unfairly tarnishing right-wing groups with the same label that it applied to white supremacists.

Beirich co-founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism in 2020 after leaving the SPLC. She has testified before Congress about far-right extremism and is frequently interviewed about the subject by news outlets. Her current organization did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Wednesday.

A superseding indictment filed in June appears to refer to Beirich as “Employee-2” and by her former title as director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project.

The indictment alleges that between 2007 and 2023, more than $4 million in donated funds were secretly funneled to people who infiltrated or were associated with violent extremist groups. Prosecutors said some of the money was used for recruiting new members and purchasing Ku Klux Klan robes and materials for cross-burning ceremonies.

The indictment says “Employee-2” oversaw the payment of donor money to SPLC informants or “field sources,” including KKK members and white nationalists who initially approached the SPLC for help leaving the extremist organizations. The SPLC employee was in a romantic relationship with a source who infiltrated a neo-Nazi group at the direction of the law center, the indictment alleges

Proctor said Beirich “won’t be silenced or intimidated by the government’s false and politicized allegations.”

Kunzelman, Chandler and Ding write for the Associated Press. Kunzelman reported from Washington and Chandler from Montgomery, Ala. AP writers Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer and Collin Binkley in Washington and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Aug. 11 (UPI) — A federal judge has approved the Trump administration’s request to dismiss criminal charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani while chastising the Justice Department for its reasoning and methods for abandoning the high-profile case.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed with prejudice three fraud-related charges against Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain, while reserving judgement on two conspiracy charges against five other defendants, asking the Justice Department for more information before deciding their dismissals.

The Justice Department charged Gautam Adani and the seven other defendants, all current or former executives of Adani Group or its subsidiary Adani Green Energy, in November 2024, alleging various defendants participated in schemes to pay $265 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure lucrative solar energy contracts, lied to U.S. and international investors to raise billions of dollars in financing and impede the investigations of three U.S. government entities.

The three alleged schemes were conducted between 2020 and 2024, according to the indictment.

In May, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter requested that the charges be dismissed, stating “the Department of Justice has reviewed this case and has decided, in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants.”

In response to Garaufis’ demand that the Justice Department explain its motion to dismiss, McCotter said that the case is predominantly foreign, India has investigated the allegations and found no actionable misconduct, investors lost no money, there would be “extraordinary proof problems,” the defendants would likely never appear before U.S. courts and the indictment was unsealed during the final days of the Biden administration in order to drop “a potential quagmire of a case into the lap” of the incoming Trump administration.

In his Monday order, Garaufis called the “irregularities” in McCotter’s decision to dismiss the indictment “concerning” and said the principal associate deputy attorney general “appears to have eschewed the professional opinions of innumerable officials from various federal offices and replaced them with his singular judgment.”

He said McCotter’s decision, reached largely in collaboration with Adani’s defense counsel and seemingly without input from those who investigated and brought the case, “evinces a lack of respect for the judiciary.”

Garaufis also strongly rebuked McCotter for alleging the Biden administration’s Justice Department unsealed the indictment during its final days to hinder the incoming Trump administration, stating he appears to be accusing officials from four different government agencies without providing “a scintilla of evidence” to show that the unsealing of the indictment was politically motivated.

“McCotter’s baseless assertion is unbecoming of his office. It is also inconsistent with this court’s experience,” Garaufis said.

“The court has presided over innumerable cases brought by the SEC, the FBI, the department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office over the last 26 years (and counting) and does not agree with McCotter’s characterization of their integrity and motives.”

His order also recounts several events involving Gautam Adani and President Donald Trump or his inner circle as he was being investigated and prosecuted, including congratulating Trump on Nov. 6, 2024, on winning re-election and announcing a commitment to invest $10 billion in the United States days later. The order also cites reporting that Gautam Adani and Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., held meetings as early as November 2025.

In a social media statement on Monday, Gautam Adani said he welcomed the court’s decision “with humility and deep respect for the judicial process.”

“Throughout this challenging period, our faith in truth, fairness and the rule of law remained unwavering,” he said.

“We will continue doing what matters: building our nation, creating value that outlasts us and serving a purpose larger than ourselves. That is our commitment.”

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department moved Friday to dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with deliberately damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Government lawyers said in a 20-page court filing that information provided since the indictment of David Hearn shows that the damage was the result of a “flawed installation by the contractor” as well as “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”

“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” said the filing from U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro.

Hearn’s lawyers said in a statement that the case against him should never have been brought.

“Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong. The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology,” the lawyers said.

Hearn pleaded not guilty earlier this month to one felony count of property destruction and has a trial scheduled to start Sept. 28 in D.C. Superior Court. The charge, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years upon conviction, accuses Hearn of causing at least $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn told the Associated Press he was detained by National Guard troops and U.S. Park Police for five hours after stopping by the pool during a bike ride on June 19. He said he reached in to examine the pool’s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool, but said he obeyed a park worker who told him to let go of it.

Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Md., competed in three Summer Olympics, earning his best finish, ninth, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee says on its website.

He and his supporters have said the prosecution is a politically motivated attempt by the Trump administration to deflect blame and scapegoat others.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

JARED Leto has broken his silence on allegations of criminal sexual conduct, calling them “categorically false”.

Four women including accused the Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman of criminal sexual conduct, with one alleging he raped her as a teenager.

He said: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”

The allegations against the Oscar winner, 54, date from when the women were aged between 16 and 19.

One accuser alleges she had sex with Leto when she was 17, which under Californian laws would be classed as statutory rape.

The Hollywood star, aged 34 at the time, invited the woman and a friend to his Californian home, the alleged accuser told the BBC.

She claims Leto told her friend to wait in a separate room as the alleged rape took place.

A second woman claims she was sexually assaulted in a “dingy” Las Vegas motel bathroom when she was 17.

Leto, who was in his early 30s at the time, allegedly invited the girl into the bathroom as he showered and made her touch him inappropriately.

A third claims the Dallas Buyers Club star threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19 after the pair were left alone in a hotel room.

The allegations came after a Thirty Seconds to Mars concert at London’s O2 Arena in 2013 when Leto would have been 41.

A fourth accused Leto of grooming her and alleges he once took advantage of his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16.

He suggested they should have sex on at least one occasion, the alleged victim claims.

The accusations all come from a new BBC documentary titled Jared Leto: Hollywood‘s Dark Secret.

The BBC claims they have seen at least one non-disclosure agreement (NDA) sent to a woman aimed at preventing her from talking about her relationship with Leto.

Another woman also accuses the Morbius lead of ordering a security guard to take her backstage at a music festival when she was 14.

More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online

Thesun.co.uk is your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video.

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July 28 (UPI) — Chad has announced it is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, days after a U.S. official urged the central African nation to consider doing so and amid a concerted U.S. campaign seeking to dismantle the court.

In an official communique made public Monday, Chad’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it notified United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of its decision to withdraw from the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the court, following what it described as an “in-depth examination” of its operations.

The ministry said the court’s effectiveness “has remained limited and uneven in light of the expectations that led to its creation,” alleging an anti-African bias and noting that its first nine investigations concerned situations in Africa. The ICC currently lists 17 situations under investigation.

Chad also highlighted that six of the seven people in the court’s custody are being prosecuted in connection with situations in Africa.

“Taken together, these objective factors explain the perception, widely shared among numerous states and their populations, that the court’s judicial activity has remained durably concentrated on the Global South in general and on the African continent in particular, which have consistently been victims of a form of political instrumentalization of the ICC,” the ministry said.

It called on the African Union and member stats to reconsider the future of what it called an “apparently biased system” and to strengthen the African judicial mechanisms instead.

The decision, which is to take effect in one year, comes amid an intensified U.S. campaign against the ICC following the court’s issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a campaign seeking to “dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.”

The United States is not a member of the ICC, and although the Trump administration has taken a more aggressive stance toward the court, the United States has long rejected the cour’s assertion of jurisdiction of U.S. nationals without Washington’s consent.

Four days before Chad announced its decision to withdraw from the ICC, Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul spoke with U.S. Under Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Frank Garcia Jr..

A statement from Chad said the call was made at the request of the United States. During the call, Garcia expressed the United States’ concerns about the ICC’s operation and requested that Chad review its membership, which Fadoul said Chad would.

“The United States welcomes Chad’s decision to withdraw from the ICC and join the growing number of nations reclaiming their sovereignty from this flawed institution,” the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs said in a statement.

“The United States will never surrender its sovereignty to an unaccountable global tribunal, and we are launching a comprehensive, whole-of-government campaign to end the ICC’s illegitimate overreach. We call on all other ICC members to withdraw from the Rome Statute.”

The announcement comes days after Venezuela announced it was withdrawing from the ICC.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger all announced their withdrawals from the court in June 2026.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani releases a video statement calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to face trial for war crimes, citing the ICC’s arrest warrant. But, after days of speculation, Mamdani says New York does not have the power to arrest Netanyahu.

July 16 (Asia Today) — The South Korean government is considering lowering the maximum age for exemption from criminal punishment from 14 to 13 for juveniles who commit violent, serious or repeated offenses.

The debate intensified after President Lee Jae-myung ordered officials Tuesday to reconsider an initial proposal that would lower the age by only one year and apply the change to limited categories of crimes.

Lee questioned whether the proposed change was substantial enough during a Cabinet meeting.

Under South Korean law, children younger than 14 cannot be held criminally responsible. Those ages 10 through 13 who commit offenses may instead receive protective measures under the Juvenile Act.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family presented the Cabinet with the results of a public consultation on the issue. It proposed making some 13-year-old offenders eligible for criminal punishment when they commit particularly serious or repeated crimes.

Cabinet members, however, raised concerns that applying different ages of criminal responsibility depending on the type of offense could create legal problems.

The minimum age of criminal responsibility has remained unchanged since South Korea enacted its Criminal Act in 1953.

A deliberative survey of 212 citizens showed that 46.7% supported lowering the age only for violent, serious or repeated offenses while 30.2% favored lowering it for all offenses.

Among participants who supported a reduction, 55.8% favored lowering the threshold by one year.

The government is expected to conduct a second public consultation to determine whether the change should apply only to specified offenses or to all crimes. The process also will consider whether the current threshold should be lowered from younger than 14 to younger than 13 or younger than 12.

The Ministry of Justice is expected to lead the second consultation because the proposal requires a detailed legal review.

Officials will need to determine which offenses qualify as violent or serious and whether applying different criminal responsibility standards according to the offense would conflict with the purpose of the juvenile justice system.

The second consultation could begin this month and conclude within one or two months.

The government said it would gather additional public input before reaching a final decision.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family also plans to pursue revisions to the Criminal Act and Juvenile Act while considering the creation of an interagency committee focused on preventing juvenile delinquency.

Officials said the government would strengthen post-offense management and rehabilitation programs designed to reduce repeat offenses regardless of whether the age threshold is lowered.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260716010006327

Rams offensive lineman Alaric Jackson is not facing charges related to his arrest last month on suspicion of domestic violence, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office confirmed.

“Charges are not filed against the respondent at this time, however, the case stays open throughout the length of the statute of limitations. It can be re-evaluated if there are further developments,” said Ivor Pine, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.

Pine said the matter has been assigned for a City Attorney hearing, a pre-filing diversion that is an alternative to misdemeanor prosecution.

Jackson was arrested on June 9 after police responded to a call at a West Hills home involving Jackson and a pregnant woman.

Jackson, 27, could still face discipline from the NFL if the league determines that he violated its personal conduct policy for the second time.

In 2024, Jackson served a two-game suspension. If the league finds he committed another violation, Jackson could face a six-game suspension or possible banishment for at least one year.

The Rams are scheduled to report to training camp on July 25 in preparation for their Sept. 10 season opener against the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia.

Staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this report.

Marine Le Pen, the far-right French politician, announced Tuesday she is running for president next year after an appeals court shortened her election ban. Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement and ordered to wear a tracking bracelet and banned from running for office for five years.

The National Election Commission’s (NEC) fact-finding committee investigating ballot shortages during the recent local elections called for a criminal probe into the commission’s former chief Friday, citing systemic failures in the election management system.

Cho Hyun-wook, chairperson of the committee, made the announcement during a briefing at the NEC headquarters in Gwacheon, south of Seoul, as the panel wrapped up a weeklong investigation conducted to determine the cause of the ballot shortages.

The committee recommended that former NEC Chairman Roh Tae-ak, who stepped down from his post over the debacle, and other key officials be referred for criminal investigation.

Cho also stressed that the NEC requires a sweeping overhaul tantamount to dismantling the organization.

“Given the systemic failures in the election management system exposed by the ballot shortage incident, the NEC requires sweeping reforms akin to dismantlement,” she said.

According to the committee, 140 of the country’s 14,288 polling stations requested and received additional ballot papers after anticipating shortages on election day. Of those, 91 used the additional ballots they received, while voting was at least temporarily disrupted at 26 polling stations due to ballot shortages.

The committee, launched on June 10, consisted of six members recommended by civic organizations, media, legal and academic communities.

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a Trump administration appeal and decide if “criminal aliens” may be held indefinitely while they fight deportation.

The case to be heard in the fall could give the administration more power to arrest and hold immigrants, including green card holders, who have criminal records.

The government’s lawyers say immigration laws call for deporting non-citizens with “aggravated felonies” on their records. And in such cases, they say these people may be held for months or even years while their claims are before the immigration courts.

Judges have been split on whether non-citizens fighting deportation have a right to a bond hearing and a chance to go free if they pose no risk to public safety.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled for a pair of green card holders who faced deportation to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Both had been convicted of assaults that were characterized as aggravated felonies under the immigration laws.

However, the appeals court said their “prolonged detention” was unconstitutional if they were given no bond hearing and no chance to go free.

They were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, whose lawyers urged the court to turn down the appeal.

“For the first time in this litigation, the government argues that civil detention ‘does not implicate any fundamental rights’ and so the Due Process Clause affords the detained men no protections—substantive or procedural,” they wrote.

In the past, they said the Supreme Court had accepted the “bedrock principle” that detained persons may have a right to seek their release on bond.

One of the two men had left this country and returned to Jamaica, the ACLU lawyers said. But Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer urged the court to rule on the issue.

The detained men “have no procedural due-process right to a bond hearing on whether they are a flight risk or danger to the community,” he told the court. “Individualized findings about flight risk and danger are irrelevant” under the immigration laws which called for “mandatory detention based on their aggravated-felony convictions alone.”

Shimon Peres, who passed away Wednesday aged 93 after suffering a stroke on 13 September, epitomised the disparity between Israel’s image in the West and the reality of its bloody, colonial policies in Palestine and the wider region.

Peres was born in modern day Belarus in 1923, and his family moved to Palestine in the 1930s. As a young man, Peres joined the Haganah, the militia primarily responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages in 1947-49, during the Nakba.

Despite the violent displacement of the Palestinians being a matter of historical record, Peres has always insisted that Zionist forces “upheld the purity of arms” during the establishment of the State of Israel. Indeed, he even claimed that before Israel existed, “there was nothing here”.

Over seven decades, Peres served as prime minister (twice) and president, though he never actually won a national election outright. He was a member of 12 cabinets and had stints as defence, foreign and finance minister.

He is perhaps best known in the West for his role in the negotiations that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords which won him, along with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yet for Palestinians and their neighbours in the Middle East, Peres’ track record is very different from his reputation in the West as a tireless “dove”. The following is by no means a comprehensive summary of Peres’ record in the service of colonialism and apartheid.

Nuclear weapons

Between 1953 and 1965, Peres served first as director general of Israel’s defence ministry and then as deputy defence minister. On account of his responsibilities at the time, Peres has been described as “an architect of Israel’s nuclear weapons programme” which, to this day, “remains outside the scrutiny of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).”

In 1975, as secret minutes have since revealed, Peres met with South African Defence Minister PW Botha and “offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime.” In 1986, Peres authorised the Mossad operation that saw nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu kidnapped in Rome.

Targeting Palestinian citizens

Peres had a key role in the military regime imposed on Palestinian citizens until 1966, under which authorities carried out mass land theft and displacement.

One such tool was Article 125 which allowed Palestinian land to be declared a closed military zone. Its owners denied access, the land would then be confiscated as “uncultivated”. Peres praised Article 125 as a means to “directly continue the struggle for Jewish settlement and Jewish immigration.”

Another one of Peres’ responsibilities in his capacity as director general of the defence ministry was to “Judaise” the Galilee; that is to say, to pursue policies aimed at reducing the region’s proportion of Palestinian citizens compared to Jewish ones.

In 2005, as Vice Premier in the cabinet of Ariel Sharon, Peres renewed his attack on Palestinian citizens with plans to encourage Jewish Israelis to move to the Galilee. His “development” plan covered 104 communities – 100 of them Jewish.

In secret conversations with US officials that same year, Peres claimed Israel had “lost one million dunams [1,000 square kilometres] of Negev land to the Bedouin”, adding that the “development” of the Negev and Galilee could “relieve what [he] termed a demographic threat.”

Supporting illegal settlements in the West Bank

While Israel’s settlement project in the West Bank has come to be associated primarily with Likud and other right-wing nationalist parties, it was in fact Labor which kick-started the colonisation of the newly-conquered Palestinian territory – and Peres was an enthusiastic participant.

During Peres’ tenure as defence minister, from 1974 to 1977, the Rabin government established a number of key West Bank settlements, including Ofra, large sections of which were built on confiscated privately-owned Palestinian land.

Having played a key role in the early days of the settlement enterprise, in more recent years, Peres has intervened to undermine any sort of measures, no matter how modest, at sanctioning the illegal colonies – always, of course, in the name of protecting “peace negotiations”.

The Qana massacre

As prime minister in 1996, Peres ordered and oversaw “Operation Grapes of Wrath” when Israeli armed forces killed some 154 civilians in Lebanon and injured another 351. The operation, widely believed to have been a pre-election show of strength, saw Lebanese civilians intentionally targeted.

According to the official Israeli Air Force website (in Hebrew, not English), the operation involved “massive bombing of the Shia villages in South Lebanon in order to cause a flow of civilians north, toward Beirut, thus applying pressure on Syria and Lebanon to restrain Hezbollah.”

The campaign’s most notorious incident was the Qana massacre, when Israel shelled a United Nations compound and killed 106 sheltering civilians. A UN report stated that, contrary to Israeli denials, it was “unlikely” that the shelling “was the result of technical and/or procedural errors.”

Later, Israeli gunners told Israeli television that they had no regrets over the massacre, as the dead were “just a bunch of Arabs”. As for Peres, his conscience was also clean: “Everything was done according to clear logic and in a responsible way,” he said. “I am at peace.”

Gaza – defending blockade and brutality

Peres came into his own as one of Israel’s most important global ambassadors in the last ten years, as the Gaza Strip was subjected to a devastating blockade and three major offensives. Despite global outrage at such policies, Peres has consistently backed collective punishment and military brutality.

In January 2009, for example, despite calls by “Israeli human rights organisations…for ‘Operation Cast Lead’ to be halted”, Peres described “national solidarity behind the military operation” as “Israel’s finest hour.” According to Peres, the aim of the assault “was to provide a strong blow to the people of Gaza so that they would lose their appetite for shooting at Israel.”

During “Operation Pillar of Defence” in November 2012, Peres “took on the job of helping the Israeli public relations effort, communicating the Israeli narrative to world leaders,” in the words of Ynetnews. On the eve of Israel’s offensive, “Peres warned Hamas that if it wants normal life for the people of Gaza, then it must stop firing rockets into Israel.”

In 2014, during an unprecedented bombardment of Gaza, Peres stepped up once again to whitewash war crimes. After Israeli forces killed four small children playing on a beach, Peres knew who to blame – the Palestinians: “It was an area that we warned would be bombed,” he said. “And unfortunately they didn’t take out the children.”

The choking blockade, condemned internationally as a form of prohibited collective punishment, has also been defended by Peres – precisely on the grounds that it is a form of collective punishment. As Peres put it in 2014: “If Gaza ceases fire, there will be no need for a blockade.”

Peres’ support for collective punishment also extended to Iran. Commenting in 2012 on reports that six million Iranians suffering from cancer were unable to get treatment due to sanctions, Peres said: “If they want to return to a normal life, let them become normal.”

Unapologetic to the end

Peres was always clear about the goal of a peace deal with the Palestinians. As he said in 2014: “The first priority is preserving Israel as a Jewish state. That is our central goal, that is what we are fighting for.” Last year he reiterated these sentiments in an interview with AP, saying: “Israel should implement the two-state solution for her own sake,” so as not to “lose our [Jewish] majority.”

This, recall, was what shaped Labor’s support for the Oslo Accords. Rabin, speaking to the Knesset not long before his assassination in 1995, was clear that what Israel sought from the Oslo Accords was a Palestinian “entity” that would be “less than a state”. Jerusalem would be Israel’s undivided capital, key settlements would be annexed and Israel would remain in the Jordan Valley.

A few years ago, Peres described the Palestinians as “self-victimising.” He went on: “They victimise themselves. They are a victim of their own mistakes unnecessarily.” Such cruel condescension was characteristic of a man for whom “peace” always meant colonial pacification.