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WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have given preliminary approval for a cryptocurrency venture tied to President Trump and his family to operate a digital-asset bank, a decision that has drawn immediate condemnation from Senate Democrats who are now pushing legislation to bar such an action.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, and nine other Senate Democrats introduced a bill Saturday that would bar the president, the vice president, their immediate family members and other senior government officials from owning or controlling banks.

The measure was proposed a day after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — which is part of the Trump administration — granted conditional approval for World Liberty Trust Co. to become a trust bank. The firm was founded in 2024 by two of Trump’s sons and the sons of Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special envoy to the Middle East.

If the firm gets final approval, it would not act like a conventional bank and take deposits or make loans. Instead, the chartered bank would be able to issue and manage cryptocurrencies and digital assets. But the move would grant new financial powers to the Trump family’s crypto business, which has already shown to be profitable for the president in his first year back in the White House.

Trump’s financial disclosures show the president has earned more than $1.2 billion from crypto-related projects as he has pushed to deregulate the digital-asset industry. He hauled in more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling new crypto products and is a significant owner of the firm through an entity called DT Marks DEFI LLC, which holds about a 38% stake.

Aside from World Liberty Financial, Trump last year took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his likeness.

Trump’s crypto windfall has lately fueled Democrats’ argument that the president stands to personally gain from the same regulatory apparatus he oversees, and has led to acrimonious negotiations in Capitol Hill over how to regulate the industry.

The White House said Tuesday “there are no conflicts of interest.” But the recent decision by federal regulators in relation to World Liberty Financial is now giving more ammunition to Democrats, who have pushed for more ethical guardrails to crack down on the Trump family’s crypto ventures.

“This is the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen — and Congress cannot allow it to stand,” Warren said in a statement. “The Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act will close the door on this kind of unprecedented corruption.”

Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) said the decision to allow a Trump-linked crypto firm to charter its own bank is “injecting risk into our financial system and fueling the Trump family’s business endeavors.”

“It is Congress’ responsibility and duty now to rein in this corruption and ensure that bank charters, deposit insurance, and other banking licenses cannot be handed out to entities influenced or controlled by any President’s family,” Alsobrooks said in a statement.

David Wachsman, a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial, disputed the criticism, saying the preliminary approval is “great news for consumer and investor protection advocates and for the American financial services industry.”

“Critics are missing the point: World Liberty Financial is running towards regulation and continuous oversight, not away from it,” Wachsman said in a statement. “World Liberty Trust Company’s national charter will ensure robust and permanent regulatory supervision from the OCC, a federal banking regulator, that will outlast the Trump administration.”

Wachsman said World Liberty will be required to provide weekly reports about its operations that will be subject to independent reviews. He added that federal banking laws such as anti-money-laundering rules and consumer protection statutes will be “directly applicable and enforceable.”

The White House did not comment directly about the administration’s involvement with the World Liberty application to charter a bank. But in a statement, the White House disputed claims that the president’s decisions in office have financially benefited him and his allies.

“All of President Trump’s investment holdings are in held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. “The President only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media.”

Kelly added: “There are no conflicts of interest.”

A salvage operation is under way to stabilise the stricken tanker behind a major oil spill off Oman, the risk management company coordinating the effort has said.

The announcement by Ambrey on Thursday came a day after Oman’s environmental authority confirmed that oil from the Caroline Bezengi had reached beaches along the sultanate’s central coast.

The tanker, a suspected member of Russia’s shadow fleet used to transport sanctioned Russian oil, has been leaking crude into waters near the Hallaniyat archipelago since June, when the ship’s crew reported an unidentified explosion.

Ambrey said it was working with Omani authorities and that its services had been engaged as part of a “significant international response” that included salvage vessels, aircraft and specialist personnel.

Apart from Oman and an unnamed “leading international oil spill response company”, Ambrey did not elaborate on which other countries or firms were involved in the effort to salvage the vessel, which has flown the flags of states including Cameroon, Palau and Liberia.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) – the United Nations maritime agency – said on Thursday that it was “closely monitoring” the situation and would “continue to support ongoing efforts”, without providing further details.

The International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, a pair of intergovernmental organisations established to provide compensation for oil pollution, said it would not be involved in the cleanup operation after determining that the incident likely resulted from an act of war.

Ambrey, based in Hereford in the United Kingdom, said it expected salvage vessels to reach the Caroline Bezengi soon and that specialist personnel had already boarded the vessel to begin stabilising its cargo.

Ed Wollaston, director of global response at Ambrey, said the “extremely challenging situation” had been complicated by adverse weather from the annual Khareef monsoon.

“However, we have deployed the leading experts in each aspect of the response and have mobilised the appropriate supporting equipment, aircraft and vessels,” Wollaston said in a statement.

“We are working around the clock to mitigate the environmental impact of the situation.”

The oil spill has expanded dramatically in size over the past week, according to analyses of satellite imagery, raising fears for coastlines and ecosystems in the region, including a marine reserve established last year off the Hallaniyat archipelago.

Environmental NGO Greenpeace said on Thursday that, based on satellite imagery, the spill had grown from 45 square kilometres (17sq miles) in late July to about 1,300sq kilometres (502sq miles) as of Wednesday.

Omani authorities as recently as Monday estimated the size of the spill at approximately 400sq kilometres (154sq miles).

Hanen Keskes, Greenpeace’s head of campaigns for the MENA region, said the circumstances of the spill made it “especially challenging” to respond to.

“Given the scale of this – a damaged tanker in a remote location, during monsoon season, with no clear owner or verified insurer to compel a rapid response – this is a case where international assistance should be mobilised urgently,” Keskes told Al Jazeera.

“Capabilities like specialised salvage equipment and expertise can exceed what any one country has on hand, and every day of delay allows more oil to disperse.”

Najmedin Meshkati, an expert in oil spills and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California, said that authorities should have moved faster to contain the spill.

“That two-month interval was the response window, and it closed. In spill response, source control on day three is worth many multiples of source control on day 60,” Meshkati told Al Jazeera.

Meshkati acknowledged, however, that Omani authorities had been dealt a difficult situation.

“It was handed an orphaned wreck with no responsive owner, no verifiable insurer, no functioning flag state, and a compensation regime containing a war exclusion that may void it entirely,” Meshkati said.

“No mid-sized maritime administration on earth is resourced for that. But that is precisely the argument for escalating harder and earlier.”

Damilola S Olawuyi, a professor of energy and environmental law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, said the spill highlighted the need for stronger international mechanisms to hold polluters accountable.

“The obligation of the entity responsible for pollution to pay for the cost of cleanup and remediation, ie, the polluter pays principle, has for long been a bedrock of international law,” Olawuyi told Al Jazeera.

“However, in an era of increasing geopolitical realignments, identifying the responsible polluter has become complex, therefore complicating effective risk reduction, response and remediation measures,” he said.

Iran has held firm on its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as Pakistan’s interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, visited Tehran, and the United States and Yemen’s Houthis launched attacks on shipping in the Gulf and the Red Sea.

The developments on Tuesday came as the US-Israel war on Iran showed no sign of ending, despite repeated claims from US President Donald Trump that a deal was close.

Mohsen Rezaei, the newly appointed head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told China’s ambassador to Tehran that Washington must end its military campaign and release Iranian funds held abroad for a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

“As long as the US does not change its behaviour and accept Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened,” Rezaei said, according to Iranian media.

Writing on X, he insisted on an end to the US’s naval blockade on Iranian ports as well as a region-wide ceasefire, including in Gaza and Lebanon.

“IRAN’s message is clear,” he wrote. “The Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until the U.S. ends the war and blockade, releases Iran’s frozen assets, and agrees to a region-wide ceasefire, including in Lebanon and Gaza.

“Until all conditions are met, the Strait will remain closed.”

There was no immediate comment from Washington.

Trump has swung between threats of escalation and assurances of an imminent peace deal throughout the conflict.

In an interview broadcast late on Monday, he suggested that the uncertainty could last ⁠for a while, saying he might just “bop along” and let Tehran fail economically, or “hit” them “really, really hard”.

“I’m sort of negotiating,” Trump told Real America’s Voice. “They’re very devious negotiators.”

In Tehran, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Pakistan’s interior minister, with the two sides discussing closer political, economic, trade, cultural and security ties, according to the Iranian presidency.

Naqvi’s visit comes as Islamabad mediates efforts to end the ongoing conflict.

Earlier, Qatar – another mediator in the conflict – said talks between Iran and Oman on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz had reached an advanced stage.

“We have heard positive statements from both capitals in the recent couple of days,” said Majed al-Ansari, spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry. “Our main priority here is the reopening of the strait, maintaining the ceasefire and making sure that we are able to push forward towards the negotiation.”

Iran, meanwhile, said any agreement between it and Oman on routes in the Strait of Hormuz will have no impact on the reopening of the waterway.

US, Houthi attacks

Separately on Tuesday, US Central Command said a US Navy MH-60 helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles to disable the steering gear of a Panama-flagged cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

It said the ship had ignored repeated warnings to stop violating the US naval blockade of Iranian ports.

At the southern end of the Red Sea, four crew members were killed in a suspected Houthi attack on a small cargo vessel in the Bab al-Mandeb strait, according to Yemen’s Transport Ministry. Two Yemeni rescuers from an anti-Houthi military group were also killed, Yemen’s coastguard said.

The killings on board the Egyptian-owned Tihamah would be the first by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi strikes on shipping since the war on Iran began in late February.

The Houthi-run Saba news agency reported that the ‌group had attacked a Saudi ship carrying military equipment in Bab al-Mandeb. It did not name the ship, and there was no immediate Saudi response to the report.

Thousands of people have been killed since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28. Iran has also struck US assets and infrastructure in Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

In Iran, at least 3,527 people have been killed, while more than 27,00 have been wounded. At least 18 Americans have also died.

The conflict has also widened to Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah has launched attacks on Israel, and Israeli forces have carried out near-daily strikes.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says Israel’s latest military escalation there, which began on March 2, has killed more than 4,300 people and injured more than 12,000. In Israel, at least 60 people have been killed in Iranian and Hezbollah attacks.

Umm al-Khair, Occupied West Bank — There were weddings in Umm al-Khair this week, but almost no one danced. The small Bedouin village, located in Masafer Yatta, was marrying off two of its sons. Cauldrons of slow-cooked lamb meat for mansaf – a large platter of traditional Arabic food – fed the whole community. But there was no dahiyya, the line dance and chant that normally opens a Bedouin wedding.

Residents said it did not feel right coming so soon after the first anniversary of the killing of Umm al-Khair activist and community leader Awdah Hathaleen, allegedly by Israeli settler Yinon Levi. The community continues to endure daily settler attacks, arrests and incursions by Israeli soldiers, and the threat of further demolitions by Israeli authorities looms.

During celebrations, families spread out in different areas rather than gathering in one place, wary of drawing any attention that, in the past, has brought soldiers to disrupt the celebrations.

“There is a wedding, but they are not letting us celebrate quietly,” said Tariq Hathaleen, an English teacher and community leader in Umm al-Khair.

On Thursday, the first day of the wedding, Shimon Atiya – the Israeli settler behind the illegal outpost of Havat Shorashim, established roughly 800 metres from the village in 2022, and who has been under a restraining order since July 2025 for harassing Umm al-Khair families — crashed the wedding in the only style he knows. He brought his livestock to graze in a resident’s vegetable garden, escorted by Israeli soldiers who stood by as it happened.

When villagers told the soldiers that the plot is recognised as Umm al-Khair land, they were told the maps had changed; when they asked to see the new maps, they were refused. That night, the outpost’s fence towards the village homes was torn down – a prelude to pushing the boundary further in, residents believe.

Hathaleen says the settlers’ timing was a reaction to Levi’s indictment days earlier — one of the few times an Israeli has been charged with the killing of a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank since October 2023.

Just a couple of days before, on Thursday, Hathaleen watched as buildings and vehicles in the nearby Palestinian community of Khirbet Tuba were set ablaze by settler arsonists.

“The occupation always tried very hard to erase the Palestinian Indigenous people and their history, their legacy, their heritage,” Tariq said. “This really reminds me of the Nakba, and how the Israelis destroyed Palestinian cities and villages”, he noted, even planting cactus over the ruins to bury the evidence. “Back then it wasn’t documented. Nowadays, it’s happening, but it is documented.”

Sunday marks the United Nations’ International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. In Umm al-Khair, the wedding felt symbolic of the threats to Indigenous Palestinians’ way of life and their basic presence on their own land.

‘They try to imitate us’

According to local Palestinians and watchdog NGOs, the threats facing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip include detentions, killings, demolitions, restrictions on movement and evictions.

Since October 2023, Israel has killed 1,100 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including 242 minors, according to the Israeli NGO B’Tselem. Israel has also demolished more than 3,000 Palestinian homes since October 2023, the vast majority due to a lack of Israeli-issued permits that Palestinians in Area C are routinely denied.

According to the latest figures from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), demolitions and settler violence displaced an average of 17 people a day this year, double the rate of the previous three years.

A June report by the West Bank Protection Consortium, which includes the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and monitors more than 200 communities it judges at risk of forcible transfer, said 96 percent of those who had been forcibly displaced were previously dependent on farming or herding. They have mostly lost access to these lands or pastures.

However, residents and watchdogs say such dispossession takes place within a system of Israeli permits, demolition orders and land policies controlled by the state alongside hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding for settlements and outposts. Israeli NGO Peace Now counts 146 illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and 390 unauthorised outposts and farms.

In 2024, the International Court of Justice found Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful.

Amid dispossession of their traditional grazing lands, 13 structures in Umm al-Khair were issued demolition notices last October, following demolitions in 2024 that left a third of the village homeless. The restraining order against Atiya, residents say, has done little to stop him.

Tariq argues the erasure is not only physical, but cultural also, and that it comes paired with an attempt by settlers to claim the very Palestinian identity they are displacing.

“The settlers nowadays try to imitate that lifestyle, building tents that they probably stole from Palestinians somewhere, using tractors to bring water from far away,” he said.

Young men from the hilltop outposts can be seen grazing camels, goats and sheep. All the while, Tariq observes them wearing Palestinian scarves and even attempting the Bedouin dialect when leading their own flocks.

“They know the Indigenous people of this land are the Bedouins and other Palestinians. So, they try to imitate that – to show to themselves and to the world that they are the Indigenous people of this land,” he added. “[But] this land doesn’t relate to them, because only the Indigenous people of this land know how to live in this land.”

‘We are the Indigenous people of this land’

Many outpost settlers serve as military reservists while living on the farms themselves, Tariq noted – a status that comes with state-issued weapons.

He recalled Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich publicly distributing all-terrain vehicles to South Hebron Hills outpost settlers. He also remembers the day Awdah was killed, when soldiers let Levi point out five community members for arrest.

“This is not only settler terrorism backed up by the state,” Tariq said. “It is the state’s plan, carried out by the settlers, well planned in rooms where officials sit around a table and tell them what to do.”

Yair Dvir, spokesperson for B’Tselem, said: “Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and an all-out assault on the Palestinian people. We see it on many levels: military violence and repression, home demolitions, and the funding and backing of settler militias.”

Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the NRC, described the same pattern as a coordinated strategy across the Israeli-occupied territories.

“For nearly 80 years, we’ve seen Israeli efforts to drive Palestinians from their land play out, starting with the Nakba and continuing to the present day,” she said. Low cited an acceleration of these actions since October 2023, when the genocidal war on Gaza began, that has seen expanding settlement infrastructure, rising West Bank demolitions alongside East Jerusalem evictions in neighbourhoods like Silwan. There has been an “astronomical increase” in settler violence documented, Low added.

Gaza shows the same agenda but taken to the extreme. Since the October 2025 “ceasefire”, more than 1,200 people have been killed in Gaza, on top of a cumulative death toll that has climbed past 73,000 since October 2023, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

According to UN satellite analysis, roughly 81 percent of all structures in Gaza have been damaged. Even with the “ceasefire”, OCHA reports that some 59 percent of Gaza’s population faced crisis-level food shortages or worse between April and June, a share it projects will rise again by year’s end as aid funding shrinks.

Following successive campaigns of expansionism, the Israeli military now controls at least 64.9 percent of Gaza. “These policies are all working together,” Low said. “They may be different tactics, but it’s all part of the same agenda to force Palestinians from their land and increase Israeli control over the territory and expand Israeli presence.”

Still, on the eve of a day meant to mark the world’s Indigenous peoples, Tariq was resolute.

“They will try a million ways to erase the Palestinian Indigenous people, but they will fail because this land doesn’t speak their language, it doesn’t carry their colour, it doesn’t go by their ideologies,” he said.

“This is our land, and we have always been living here in harmony – with nature, the desert, the mountains, the valleys of Palestine – because we are the Indigenous people of this land, and we always will be. Their attempts are failing, and will fail. One day, we will get our freedom.”

Aug. 8 (UPI) — Greenland has issued a “strong warning” to an American oil company linked to President Donald Trump, as it prepares to drill on the territory despite lacking proper permits.

Local residents in the southeastern region of Jameson Land recently spotted a barge carrying drilling equipment, The Guardian reported.

The equipment belongs to Greenland Energy, a Texas-based oil company whose chairman, Larry Swets, is part of Trump’s inner-circle.

Two days after a rebuke from the Greenlandic government, the president posted on Truth Social an AI-generated image showing a giant Trump, looming over the island, with the words, “Hello, Greenland!”

Greenland Energy officials said they plan to spend $60 million to drill two wells in Jameson Land, the Guardian reported. The company believes there could be as much as $1 trillion of crude in the region.

“The Department of Industry and Minerals can, in connection with the above, state that the licensee did not have the necessary approvals from the mineral resources authority in place before initiating this operation,” Greenland’s government said in a statement.

The statement added the government was sending a “strong warning” to the operators behind the move.

Due to environmental concerns, the Greenlandic government has not issued oil licenses since 2021.

But Greenland Energy acquired exploration rights previously held by British company 80 Mile. In exchange for funding exploration, Greenland Energy would retain a majority of the proceeds from the venture, the Helsinki Times reported.

Transferring the rights still requires government approval, which Greenland Energy has not yet managed.

“The approval has since expired and has not currently been renewed, but is under processing,” the government said in the statement.

A spokesperson for Greenland Energy said the company has 300 containers of drilling equipment ready to be shipped from Canada in September, with the goal of launching operations in earnest in October, the Guardian reported.

Trump has, for years, been adamant in his desire to annex Greenland. He has claimed the United States needs it “for defense.”

In January, he told European leaders that one of the reasons he renewed his push to own the territory was because he did not win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump has been rebuffed by officials in both Denmark and Greenland.

The National Enquirer’s parent company paid a Manhattan doorman $30,000 for a story it never published alleging that Donald Trump secretly fathered a child, according to news reports.

Former doorman Dino Sajudin told the story to the National Enquirer in late 2015, when Trump was the top contender for the Republican presidential nomination, the Associated Press and the New Yorker reported early Thursday.

Sajudin, who worked at Trump World Tower near the United Nations headquarters, told the National Enquirer that he’d heard from co-workers that Trump had “knocked up” one of his employees, who gave birth to a girl, according to documents posted on the website of Radar Online, a sister publication of the National Enquirer.

The supermarket tabloid requested a polygraph exam, and the examiner concluded that Sajudin was telling the truth about hearing the story, the documents say.

Four unnamed National Enquirer employees told AP that top editors, despite the polygraph results, ordered them to stop reporting the story.

Sajudin signed a contract with the tabloid’s parent company, American Media Inc., led by President Trump’s close friend David Pecker. Sajudin, who received the $30,000 in return for giving American Media exclusive rights to the story, agreed to pay a $1-million penalty if he failed to keep quiet, according to the AP and the New Yorker.

“I can confirm that while working at Trump World Tower, I was instructed not to criticize President Trump’s former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump which produced a child,” Sajudin told CNN on Thursday.

It is the second known case of American Media spending money in a way that protected Trump from a potentially harmful story during the 2016 presidential race — a practice known in the tabloid gossip world as “catch and kill.”

Days after Trump won his party’s presidential nomination, American Media paid former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for exclusive rights to her story of a nine-month affair with Trump, but never published it.

McDougal is suing to void the deal, alleging that her attorney was secretly colluding with Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is prized for his loyalty — and willingness to attack the president’s rivals »

The FBI raided Cohen’s office, home and hotel room this week under search warrants reportedly seeking records on McDougal’s nondisclosure deal with American Media.

The search warrant also reportedly sought records on a separate confidentiality agreement that Cohen reached in October 2016 with porn star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. He set up a shell company that paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about Trump’s alleged 2006 sexual encounter with her.

It’s unclear what crimes federal authorities suspect were committed. But McDougal’s lawsuit charges that American Media’s $150,000 payment to her was an illegal secret donation that federal election law required the Trump campaign to publicly disclose.

Common Cause, a nonpartisan ethics group, has filed complaints with the Justice Department and Federal Election Commission alleging that the payments to McDougal and Daniels were illegal campaign contributions.

On Thursday, Common Cause submitted new complaints alleging the payment to Sajudin, too, was an unlawful attempt to influence the 2016 election by protecting Trump’s candidacy from bad publicity.

“Secret payments to hide affairs may have been commonplace in the president’s previous life as a tabloid figure, but when he became a candidate for the presidency, any new payments to safeguard his candidacy became violations of federal law,” said Paul S. Ryan, the vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause.

Cohen acknowledged that he discussed Sajudin’s story with the National Enquirer when it was reporting on the allegations, but denied knowing in advance that the tabloid paid the former doorman $30,000, the AP reported.

Neither the AP nor the New Yorker named the woman who was alleged to have had Trump’s child about 30 years ago.

The documents posted by Radar Online indicate that the National Enquirer found in late 2015 that the woman was then living in Queens, and her daughter in Northern California.

Radar Online reported that despite the polygraph results, National Enquirer editors concluded after four weeks of investigating, that Sajudin’s story was false.

“When we realized we would be unable to publish, and other media outlets approached the source about his tale, we released Sajudin from the exclusivity clause that had accompanied his $30,000 payment, freeing him to tell his story to whomever he wanted,” Dylan Howard, the chief content officer at American Media, told Radar Online.

American Media, or AMI, led by longtime Trump friend Pecker, released a statement denying that Cohen or Trump had anything to do with its decision “not to pursue a story about a ‘love child’ that it determined was not credible.”

“The suggestion that David Pecker has ever used company funds to ‘shut down’ this or any investigation is not true,” the statement said. “In addition, AMI and Mr. Pecker emphatically deny any suggestion that there might have been be any ‘partnership’ created which might influence any business ties in regard to AMI. These claims are reckless, unsubstantiated, and false.”

The statement also quoted Howard defending the decision to not publish a story.

“Paying for information has long been a practice of The National Enquirer and to suggest that it has only paid for, and not run, stories about any particular person is absurd,” he said.

The former National Enquirer employees told the AP that the tabloid failed to pursue its standard reporting practices for proving paternity, such as exhaustive stakeouts.

In 2007, when the National Enquirer disclosed that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards had fathered a child with a mistress, it did so in part by rummaging through a dumpster for material to use in a DNA test. Months later, Edwards admitted the story was true.

Edwards, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina, was tried on federal charges of using campaign money to hide the pregnant mistress from voters during the campaign. The case ended in an acquittal on one charge and a mistrial on five others.

michael.finnegan@latimes.com

Twitter: @finneganLAT

UPDATES:

6 p.m.: This article was updated with a statement from American Media Inc.

1:30 p.m.: This article was updated with Sajudin’s statement to CNN and background on John Edwards.

12:20 p.m.: This article was updated with new Common Cause complaint.

This article was originally published at 10:55 a.m.

EasyJet has agreed to be taken over in a £5.7bn deal by US firm Apollo.

The deal was announced after rival suitor Castlelake said it was dropping out of the bid battle for the no-frills airline.

EasyJet is one of Europe’s largest airlines. It employs more than 19,000 people, and flies around 1,200 routes across 35 European countries.

It was founded by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in 1995 to offer cheap air fares to Europe from the UK.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday that U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro “choked” and “folded like an umbrella” in moving to drop charges against a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Speaking at an unrelated Oval Office event, Trump ducked questions about whether he’d fire Pirro, a former Fox News host and longtime ally he handpicked as top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital.

But the president kept up his drumbeat of sharp criticism, saying he remained disappointed by her assessment that damage to the Reflecting Pool was the result of shoddy construction, not vandalism.

“Frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious. Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department, and I guess she choked,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question after he signed an executive order for military spouses. “I don’t know what the hell happened.”

The move to dismiss charges against David Hearn was an embarrassing setback for the Justice Department and marked a rare moment during Trump’s second term of an aide or political appointee openly defying him.

After initially posting on social media over the weekend, “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro,” Trump was still fuming two days later, insisting for several minutes that vandalism had marred the troubled project.

“I was disappointed with Jeanine Pirro, really disappointed,” the president said Monday. “She folded like an umbrella.”

Pirro has not commented publicly since Trump’s initial social media post criticizing her.

Hearn has said he was on a bike ride June 19 when he reached in to examine the pool’s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool. But he said he obeyed a park worker who told him to let go of it.

The president also used the opportunity Monday to distance himself from the troubled project, which he had touted as part of his overarching efforts to spruce up the nation’s capital.

Trump said in April that he had consulted with a trio of firms that had worked on swimming pools at his properties and that the one he picked for the Reflecting Pool project had done work at his golf course in Northern Virginia. That firm was Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which was awarded a $14.7 million no-bid contract to repaint and waterproof its concrete floor.

“I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools,” Trump said then. “He looked at it. He called me up. He said, ‘Sir, we can do something on it.’”

But Trump insisted Monday that “I didn’t know the contractor” and for the first time hinted that he wasn’t pleased by the work that was done to get the Reflecting Pool ready in time for Independence Day celebrations.

“I’m not saying I was 100% thrilled with the contractor, but the contractor was rushing. We wanted to get it open for July 4th,” he said.

Crews drained the Reflecting Pool weeks ago to launch a new round of repairs. The White House hasn’t said when those might be finished or how much more they will cost, but the Trump administration did not seek new bids from other companies on the new round of repair work.

Trump also said Monday that the Reflecting Pool would be “fixed” and reopened in the next week and a half to two weeks — without providing further details.

Weissert writes for the Associated Press.

Aug. 3 (UPI) — Florida-based Complete Health will pay a $14.1 million settlement stemming from allegations that it inflated patient diagnoses to overcharge Medicare, the Justice Department said Monday.

DOJ officials said from 2020 to 2023, the company routinely added bogus diagnosis coding to its billing — saying its patients had drug and alcohol dependencies as well as bipolar disorder — that “were not clinically valid.”

Under Medicare Part C, also known as Medicare Advantage, the government pays a fixed monthly rate to private health providers depending on the severity of a patient’s diagnosis.

This differs from Medicare parts A and B, in which a provider is paid fees per service.

DOJ said the Complete Health added the false diagnoses to receive a higher monthly premium per patient.

“Companies that attempt to improperly boost their own profits by reporting bogus medical conditions of Medicare Advantage enrollees — as alleged in this case — will be held responsible for their actions,” said Special Agent in Charge Isaac Bledsoe, of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, in a statement.

“Today’s settlement demonstrates our office’s commitment to safeguarding the integrity of federal health care programs, including Medicare Advantage, which exist to provide necessary care to enrollees, not as a vehicle for improper financial gain,” Bledsoe added.

Complete Health is a management services organization based in Jacksonville that operates in Florida, Alabama and Colorado.

“This settlement sends a strong message to our district, its residents, and medical providers doing business here, that our focus on this vital practice area has not wavered,” said U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe, of the Middle District of Florida, in a statement.

Avanti West Coast has partnered with Family Holiday Charity to offer free family train tickets to vulnerable families, supporting summer holiday breaks at destinations on the West Coast Main Line from London to Glasgow and Edinburgh

A rail operator is offering free travel to vulnerable families so they can enjoy a holiday this summer.

Avanti West Coast has revealed it’s teamed up with Family Holiday Charity to enable breaks at destinations along the West Coast Main Line, which runs from London through to Glasgow and Edinburgh via the West Midlands and north-west England.

The getaways will be made available to families facing challenges including financial struggles, bereavement, caring duties, housing insecurity and domestic abuse.

Avanti West Coast customer experience director Kathryn O’Brien said the firm is “really proud” to help families embark on holidays they “may otherwise not have the chance” to experience.

OPINION

She continued: “We serve many picturesque towns and seaside destinations along the West Coast Main Line that will be the perfect destination for the families to enjoy new experiences and escapism from their day-to-day reality.

“The trips will offer something that many could take for granted – the opportunity to nurture relationships, create memories and reconnect with one another.”

Family Holiday Charity depends on referrals from sources such as social workers and the NHS to identify people it can assist.

Rob Parkinson, chief executive of Family Holiday Charity, said: “While many of the families we support have not been on a holiday before, it will also be the case that some have never travelled together by rail.

“Providing new experiences and opportunities to make enduring memories is central to what we do as a charity, and so we’re very excited to be working with Avanti West Coast on this summer pilot project.”

Avanti West Coast confirmed it will initially assist six families with summer holiday travel, calling the trial a “first for the rail industry”.

Family Holiday Charity’s mission is to help “families’ children who have never seen the sea, for teenagers who can’t remember when they last saw their mum smile. For parents having to choose between a day out and a new pair of school shoes. For young carers, kinship carers, families facing illness isolation and bereavement.”

Its philosophy is that holidays open up new possibilities and provide a time to reconnect, to try new things, and to make happy memories together.

The charity’s website features stories of those it has helped, as well as details on how you can support it.

One family who received help is Tobi’s. The 12-year-old has Takayasu arteritis, a type of vasculitis that causes inflammation in his blood vessels, damaging his large arteries. It’s treatable but not curable. He’s had two major heart surgeries this past year and life has been so hectic. If Tobi has to go to the hospital, all his family have to go.

“We could be there for months at a time, with Lanny commuting from the hospital to his school. At one point, Tobi was going in every three days for blood transfusions and he missed three years of school,” his mum Fathimas said.

Family Holiday Charity paid for Tobi, his siblings and mum to stay at the seaside in Essex.

“We were so happy to hear it was near the sea. We all love the beach and it reminded us of our days in Ghana. We hugged each other as we started making plans. I checked how far Clacton-on-Sea was from London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital by train, just to be sure we could get there quickly if we had to. That helped ease my mind,” Fathimas said.

Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said Apollo was focusing on EasyJet’s potential.

“While the carrier has been buffeted recently by higher fuel costs and geopolitical turbulence, it has built a resilient European network, a strong balance sheet and, crucially, a fast-growing holidays business. That’s likely to be one of Apollo’s biggest attractions.”

“Package holidays generate higher margins and more predictable revenues than airline tickets alone,” she added.

“For passengers, it’s very much business as usual for now, with flights, bookings and loyalty schemes unaffected while any deal works its way through the regulatory process.”

The latest statement from EasyJet does not mean a deal has been confirmed. Apollo has been set a deadline of 17:00 on 7 August to either make a firm bid for EasyJet or walk away. Castlelake’s deadline to make a firm offer is 3 August.

Apollo’s move came after Castlelake had made a series of offers for EasyJet, which had initially been rebuffed by the carrier after it accused the US firm of trying to buy it “on the cheap”.

However, on Sunday, EasyJet said it had reached an agreement in principle with Castlelake, a US investment firm, over a potential takeover offer worth around £5.2bn.

One significant regulatory hurdle to any EasyJet takeover is that European Union regulations stipulate the carrier must be majority-owned by EU citizens.

Castlelake had proposed going into partnership with two EU nationals, businessmen Peter Bellew and Mark Breen. They would own an EU-based company that would have majority control of the airline.

Apollo said it will take “all necessary steps” to meet any EU conditions surrounding the deal.

EasyJet said the offer from Apollo represented an 81% increase from its share price of £3.94 on 28 May, the last day of trading before the takeover interest from Castlelake was made public.

Until EasyJet reached agreement with Castlelake, it had accused the US firm of being “highly opportunistic” with its bids, arguing that its share price had been “temporarily depressed” partly due to the impact of Iran war on the travel sector.

The travel company was founded back in 2011 and operated three separate websites offering chalets, skiing breaks, and spa holidays. ATOL has now offered advice for any consumers who had breaks booked

A UK travel firm that offered a range of ski and spa holidays has ceased trading, with customers who have booked a package holiday being urged to take action.

Travel Bespoke Ltd was launched in 2011, and traded under three names: Chalet Bespoke, Ski Bespoke, and Spa Bespoke. The firm’s websites are now unavailable. The company was based in an office in Midhurst, West Sussex.

Ski Bespoke’s X page, which is currently still active, described the firm’s operations as offering bespoke ski trips to resorts in Austria, France, Italy, Switzerland, Canada and USA.

Financial protection scheme ATOL (Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing), confirmed in a statement that the company had ceased trading as an ATOL holder as of May 29. It said: “We have contacted the affected ATOL protected consumers directly. If you have not been contacted and believe you are entitled to a claim against an ATOL protected booking, please supply your booking details with supporting documentation by email to claims@caa.co.uk.”

The time limit for making a claim to ATOL is May 28, 2027. Its statement went on to explain: “Bookings sold as accommodation only, non-flight Packages & Cruise Only bookings which do not include a flight element are not covered by the ATOL scheme. Please contact your travel insurance or card issuer for further assistance.”

ATOL also has a claims information page where customers can check whether the holiday they’ve booked would come under ATOL protection, or whether they’ll need to look for alternative ways to claim their money back.

Travel Bespoke is not the only travel firm to go bust in recent weeks. Long-running firm Groupia Ltd recently went into administration after 24 years in operation. The company who operated brands including Groupia Golf, GoHen, StagWeb, Groupia School Trips, and Company Away Day, served over 750,000 holidaymakers before going bust.

By law, any UK travel company that sells holidays or flights is required to have an Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (ATOL) number, so always check your holiday is booked with a reputable firm.

This means that if the holiday firm you’ve booked with goes bust before you travel, you can apply to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for a full refund. If you’re already on holiday, the CAA has a responsibility to get you home.

However, you should also make sure you have travel insurance that covers a travel firm going into administration, as this can also cover additional expenses from having your holiday cancelled or being stuck abroad. Credit card protection can also be helpful in this situation. If you’ve paid for your holiday or flights on a credit card directly with the holiday company or airline, and spent over £100, you may be able to claim the money back through your credit card company.

Mastercard and Visa debit cards also have a chargeback scheme which is available for most UK high street banks. You can request your card provider reverses the transaction, giving you your money back.

Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com

Former Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger and Thrive Capital founder Joshua Kushner have hired investment bankers and discussed making a bid for the National Basketball Assn. expansion team in Las Vegas, according to people familiar with their plans.

The bid would be for a majority investment in the team, according to the people, who asked to not be identified because the discussions are private. The NBA’s board of governors approved the exploration of a potential franchise expansion in Las Vegas and Seattle in March.

Iger and Kushner are discussing making the bid through Thrive Eternal, a company set up by Kushner’s firm to invest in iconic brands and cultural assets. The company operates as a holding company, structured to raise new capital and make investments into businesses without a set exit timeline. Iger is involved with Thrive as an advisor.

It’s unclear what the size of the bid and the valuation of the franchise would be. Representatives for Thrive Capital and Iger declined to comment.

Iger, who took over as CEO of Disney from 2005 to 2020 and then again from 2022 to March of this year, had a tenure marked by acquiring marquee entertainment franchises and expanding them, including Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox. The executive previously bought a controlling stake in Angel City Football Club, a women’s soccer team, with his wife, Willow Bay. A big basketball fan, he’s had a lot of experience with the NBA through Disney’s ESPN sports networks.

Kushner, meanwhile, has been building an investment portfolio of tech startups for decades, from investing early into OpenAI and Instagram, and working on dozens of incubations through his venture firm, Thrive Capital. The venture firm has total assets under management of more than $50 billion, according to a regulatory filing. Earlier this year, the firm raised more than $10 billion for its largest fund ever. The NBA discussions show the latest iteration in how Thrive is expanding beyond its roots of investing in technology startups, into also influencing culture through entertainment and sports.

Announced in April, Thrive Eternal, which operates a permanent capital vehicle, raised its initial capital from existing Thrive investors. “These are assets with qualities that cannot be replicated by technology,” Kushner said in a social media post. “In a world shaped by abundant intelligence where creation scales and distribution fragments, we believe they will matter even more.”

Thrive Eternal’s first investment, though not a controlling stake, was backing a Major League Baseball team, the San Francisco Giants. The capital of that deal is set to go toward the Giants’ Oracle Park and its surrounding real estate, according to a person familiar with the matter, Bloomberg previously reported.

Mascarenhas writes for Bloomberg.

Scheffler’s score was deceptively good on a day when gusting winds reached 40mph and ensured that the greens became firmer and even more perilous.

Only one other player, Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo – who moved to level par for the championship after signing for a three-under 67 – broke the par score of 70.

It was attritional. As US Opens often are. Ten players began the day under par. By the end, there were only five.

The third-round scoring average was 73.61, the highest of the championship.

It took one hour and 50 minutes for the first birdie to be registered, one of only two in 70 combined holes played by the field over the opening two hours.

Scheffler’s performance was all the more impressive given he bogeyed the first two holes and his resurgence arrived entirely on the harder back nine.

A birdie on the 10th provided some impetus but his chip-in on the 14th followed by an outpouring of emotion signalled a shift in momentum.

Further birdies at the 15th and 16th helped him play the final nine holes in 32 shots, matching the lowest score of the week.

But Clark’s lead was barely threatened.

Unheralded American Stevens briefly got within two shots at four under par but he was one of several players whose challenge faded on the back nine.

Rory McIlroy was another. The Northern Irishman had a hat-trick of birdies from the fifth, one of which was a sensational 66-foot putt, to get to two under but five bogeys in his closing nine holes derailed his title hopes.

And Fitzpatrick’s hopes of adding to his 2022 US Open triumph were all but sunk by a ruinous run of three successive bogeys to start his round.

The normally unflappable Yorkshireman, playing in the final group with Clark, had started four back at three under but by the final hole his frustration was evident after he hacked out of deep rough and then overhit a chip. It led to a fifth bogey of the round as he finished eight off the pace.

Those at one under know they need to shoot low on Sunday and hope Clark makes mistakes.

Perhaps they will follow Fleetwood in taking inspiration from the last US Open held at this Long Island layout when the Englishman shot a 63 in 2018’s final round as he came from six back to finish one behind champion Brooks Koepka.

Fleetwood, who will start eight adrift said: “We’ll see what conditions bring. It’s nice when you have good memories of a place, isn’t it? I have great shots to go off and good feelings, so you know, I can draw on that.”

But equally Clark knows that if he can emulate the only three players to have finished under par at a Shinnecock Hills US Open – Ray Floyd in winning in 1986, and champion Retief Goosen and runner-up Phil Mickelson in 2004 – then the title is likely his.

Embattled reality TV personalities Todd and Julie Chrisley are suing an Atlanta law firm and one of its attorneys, alleging that legal mistakes led to the couple’s conviction.

The lawsuit, filed June 5 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, alleges that Atlanta-based Balch & Bingham LLP and attorney Chris Anulewicz “put their own interests ahead of their clients’ lives” by taking on the couple’s case and appointing Anulewicz as the lead, which they say meant “money, publicity, and the kind of high-profile notoriety that brings in business.”

According to the Chrisleys, Anulewicz “had no meaningful criminal defense experience,” and “Balch knew this — or should have.” They also claim that while representing them, Anulewicz steered them into a $75,000 investment in his brother-in-law’s food truck business.

The lawsuit claims that the couple’s conviction and subsequent federal prison sentence were the result of an “unlawful, warrantless search of the Chrisleys’ warehouse” by the Georgia Department of Revenue, and that Anulewicz missed a deadline to suppress derivative evidence that was ultimately used as the foundation of the prosecution’s case.

“That illegal search launched the entire federal case,” reads the lawsuit. “The district court agreed the search was illegal and suppressed the physical documents. But Anulewicz — operating without supervision from Balch — never moved to suppress the derivative evidence: the emails, bank records, and financial documents that federal agents obtained because of what they learned from the illegal search.”

The couple is seeking $25 million in damages, claiming that because their team didn’t have the documents suppressed, they were convicted on every count.

“They served time in federal prison,” reads the suit. “They were separated from each other and from their children. They lost their television show and endorsement deals, costing them more than $25 million in income. Their reputations were destroyed. They have spent millions more in appeals and post-conviction proceedings, all of it an attempt to undo harm that a single timely motion would have prevented.”

In 2022, an Atlanta court found the “Chrisley Knows Best” couple guilty on charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and tax fraud. Julie Chrisley was also charged with wire fraud and obstruction of justice.

Todd Chrisley received a 12-year sentence, along with 16 months’ probation, while his wife was sentenced to seven years in prison and 16 months’ probation.

In 2024, the Chrisleys’ daughter, Savannah, appealed to President Trump to free her mom and dad. During the Republican National Convention, she gave a speech about the “rogue prosecutors” who locked up her parents.

Last year, Trump granted the reality stars a full pardon.

Jay V. Surgent, an attorney who represents Todd and Julie Chrisley, said in a statement to The Times that the reality stars “have correctly been pardoned by President Trump.” He alleged that Georgia officials violated the “Chrisley Knows Best” stars’ constitutional rights due to their notoriety and criticized local authorities’ “improper seizure of evidence.”

Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.

US-based investment firm Castlelake confirmed it is in the ‘early stages’ of weighing up a potential takeover offer for budget airline easyJet following recent speculation

A major investment firm has issued a statement and said it is considering a possible takeover bid for easyJet.

US-based Castlelake confirmed it is in the “early stages” of weighing up a potential offer for the budget airline following recent speculation.

The company stressed that “no approach has been made to the Board of easyJet” and warned there was “no certainty” that a bid would actually happen. Under takeover rules, Castlelake now has until June 26 to either announce a firm intention to make an offer or walk away.

The development comes just days after easyJet insisted it still plans to operate its full summer schedule despite fears over aviation fuel supplies linked to the Iran war.

EasyJet chief executive Kenton Jarvis said the airline had seen “absolutely no issues with fuel supply” at airports across the UK and Europe.

He told the BBC Today programme: “We’ve seen absolutely no issues with fuel supply at any of our airports in the UK, across Europe, or indeed beyond. We stay in very close contact with our fuel suppliers, airports, governments, and they are equally raising no issues looking forward.

“What is true is obviously there’s a lot less oil coming from the Gulf region, but fuel suppliers have successfully diversified with production increased in Norway, in West Africa, in the Americas. Refining capacity for jet fuel has also increased substantially outside of the Gulf region.”

The airline recently reported losses of £552 million for the first half of its financial year – a 40% increase compared with the previous year. Despite the losses, easyJet said demand for the summer holidays remains strong, with travellers continuing to book trips closer to departure dates.

Mr Jarvis said: “Demand seems to be very strong in what we call the late market. As we ran through April, demand was very strong for the month of April. We’re seeing it again in May.

“But as you look further out, people are more cautious. People are waiting and watching, but they are booking as as you approach, and I expect that strong late booking market to run through the summer.”

The airline has also faced disruption linked to the EU’s new biometric border checks. Mr Jarvis described delays caused by the entry-exit system as “completely unacceptable”.

“I’d encourage all the European countries is to use the flexibility that’s been given to them by the European Commission, that they can phase the introduction of this if they see queues in peak times,” he said.

“They can go back to normal border force control with stamping of passports, so they should use this.”