probe

The children’s author and comedian denies the sexual assault allegations, says he has not broken the law.

London’s police have opened an investigation into allegations of serious sexual offences after media reports accused British comedian and children’s author David Walliams of grooming and sexually abusing girls and young women.

Walliams, 55, denies the allegations.

The Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Friday that it “has received a number of allegations of non-recent serious sexual offences involving a man now in his 50s”.

In the statement, Met Police Detective Superintendent Mike Cagney urged anyone affected to come forward.

The Met said the new allegations are separate from those reported this week by ITV News and The Guardian.

The two news organisations published reports on Tuesday that several women had accused Walliams of sexual misconduct, with the allegations dating back as far as 2003.

The reports came out a day after comedian Russell Brand was sentenced to more than 10 years in jail for rape and sexual assault.

Multiple allegations

The Guardian and ITV said they spoke to more than 100 people during a three-year investigation.

One woman said Walliams sexually assaulted her at his London home when she was 15, while others accused him of grooming them as teenagers. The reports also included allegations that he harassed young female colleagues.

In a letter to ITV and The Guardian, he said: “Whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something that I never did.”

He added: “I am not a sexual predator … I have not broken the law.”

The investigative reports were published after he lost a High Court bid to block the media outlets from naming him.

The judge, Matthew Nicklin, said an injunction would be “an exceptionally serious interference” with the media’s rights.

Dropped by BBC, literary agency

A spokesperson for the BBC told the AFP news agency that it had taken down some shows involving Walliams, including all episodes of Little Britain, the comedy sketch show that made him famous.

His literary agency, Independent Talent Group, said it was “no longer representing him in any capacity”.

Walliams’s publisher, HarperCollins, dropped him last year, following accusations that he harassed female staff, which he had also denied.

Walliams rose to fame as a comedian with sketch shows Little Britain and Come Fly With Me. He was also a judge on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent.

He penned children’s books that have reportedly sold more than 50 million copies, including Mr Stink, Gangsta Granny and The Boy in the Dress.

Nov. 6, 2026 2:09 PM PT

WASHINGTON — The top federal prosecutor in Miami who had been tasked with overseeing an investigation into foes of President Trump has resigned, joining other high-profile Justice Department officials departing in the wake of the midterm elections, officials said Friday.

Jason Reding Quiñones’ resignation follows frustrations among Washington officials with his management of the office assigned to lead the so-called grand conspiracy investigation, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues.

The Justice Department’s top national security official, John Eisenberg, also resigned Friday, Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said. On Thursday, Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who led a radical overhaul of the department’s Civil Rights Division, also announced her departure.

Quiñones was confirmed by the Senate last year as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, where the Justice Department had centered its meandering probe into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired against the Republican president.

His departure comes as the investigation has shown signs of faltering amid a spate of staff turnovers and delays. Investigators in recent weeks have put off scheduled grand jury testimony of several witnesses, according to multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Blanche said in a social media post that the department is grateful for Quiñones’ “leadership in combating violent crime, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and transnational crime, including the indictment of Raúl Castro.”

Castro, the former Cuban president, was indicted by Quiñones’ office in May on charges related to the 1996 downing of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles.

Quiñones said Friday that he is leaving with “immense pride in what we accomplished together and profound gratitude for the opportunity to serve our great Nation.”

“I am grateful to President Trump for his trust and to the extraordinary men and women of the great Southern District of Florida for their dedication, friendship, and unwavering commitment to justice and the rule of law,” Quiñones wrote in a social media post.

The “grand conspiracy” investigation has proceeded in fits and starts for over a year with repeated setbacks and departures. Last April, a lead national security prosecutor in the investigation of former CIA Director John Brennan was replaced on the team after raising questions about the strength of the case.

Shortly afterward, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, took over the probe. DiGenova resigned from the Justice Department in September without bringing any criminal charges.

Eisenberg was sworn in as assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s National Security Division in June 2025 and oversaw cases involving espionage, terrorism, export control violations, cyber crimes and other matters.

Among the division’s most high-profile cases under his watch was the prosecution of former national security adviser John Bolton, who pleaded guilty this year to allegations of mishandling classified information and is awaiting sentencing.

“He has served with distinction, strengthening our nation’s ability to address threats, both foreign and domestic,” Blanche said in a statement.

Richer and Tucker write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is escalating a criminal investigation over an Alaska Senate candidate who shares a name with the Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, issuing a raft of new grand jury subpoenas, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Subpoenas seeking grand jury testimony or documents, along with records preservation demands, were issued after the New York Times reported that Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan Jr. as part an alleged effort to confuse voters in the highly competitive race.

More subpoenas were expected to be sent Thursday, according to a person briefed on the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing probe. Neither the recipients of the subpoenas nor the number of them were immediately clear.

The Justice Department for months has been looking into allegations that Dan J. Sullivan Jr. entered the race to siphon votes from the incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.

The potential targets of the Justice Department’s investigation are unclear, but President Trump earlier this week called for the criminal prosecution of Peltola and her campaign.

The new subpoenas were confirmed by a person briefed on the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing probe.

Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche in a Fox News interview on Wednesday said he wouldn’t discuss any criminal investigations but accused Democrats of “cheating.”

“They are trying to take votes away from the incumbent, not by running an election, not by running on issues, but by putting up a person with the same name,” Blanche said.

The race is among a handful of Senate contests this year expected to determine control of the chamber. Trump had previously directed his Department of Justice to sue to block certification of the Senate race should Peltola defeat Sen. Sullivan.

Dan J. Sullivan has long denied he was running at Democrats’ behest and has said he had no contact with Peltola’s campaign. “Zero, none, zilch,” he said in June after announcing his run.

Separately, Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has ordered an investigation into Peltola, saying the newspaper’s reporting “reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates — including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator — to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes.”

“Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections,” Dunleavy added, noting that the reporting “substantially supports” earlier findings by the state’s elections board into the matter.

Trump on Thursday cast doubt on whether Peltola would be seated in the Senate even if she won the election. “Well, you’re going to have to see what happens,” the president told reporters on his way to a rally in South Carolina. “It’s hard to believe that she could even be allowed to run.”

Later, as he rallied for GOP Sen. Darline Graham, Trump said he felt Peltola “actually should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted.”

Peltola’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message Thursday seeking comment on Dunleavy’s order. But during a campaign stop in Soldotna, Peltola, a former congresswoman, suggested the Times’ report was a “distraction” from issues such as Sen. Sullivan’s support of the war in Iran.

“This is just another distraction. It’s another diversion,” she said in a video posted online. “This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions.”

And the situation in Alaska isn’t that unusual. Political parties often support extra candidates on ballots to try to pull votes from their rivals. If state courts allow it, legal experts say, the federal government has no role challenging the results.

In Ohio’s Senate race, Republicans have been tied to an effort to boost a socialist on the ballot who would pull votes from the Democratic candidate challenging Sen. Jon Husted.

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance didn’t go as far as Trump did in calling for Peltola to be prosecuted but said he supported a probe into possible election fraud.

“I mean, she is a person who, for months now, has pretended that she has had nothing to do with the fact that they have put a fraudulent person, a person explicitly designed to confuse Alaska voters, on the ballot,” Vance told reporters ahead of a campaign trip to Texas. “She is trying to steal a Senate seat from the voters of Alaska, and it’s disgraceful.”

Earlier this year, a top state elections official ruled Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher in the small fishing community of Petersburg, ineligible for the primary ballot, concluding that his declaration of candidacy was filed “with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.”

The case went to the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled he was qualified to run. Alaskan voters will see “Dan S. Sullivan” identified as a “registered Republican” and “incumbent” on their ballots, while “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” will not have a party affiliation.

The New York Times reported that interviews, text messages and documents prepared for a potential lawsuit showed Peltola’s team aimed to coax candidates into the race, with the aim of splitting support for the GOP senator.

Asked about the reporting on Wednesday, Trump told journalists, “I think they should be prosecuted.” He earlier had posted on social media that “Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done.”

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

The US tech giant is investing $15bn in a huge new data centre project in northern Finland.

Finnish police have launched a criminal investigation into suspected breaches of environmental law at the construction site of a planned Google data centre in northern Finland.

The project is part of a $15bn deal announced last month by Alphabet’s Google to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in Finland, which the US company described as its largest investment in Europe.

Authorities have said Tuike Finland, a local subsidiary of Google, conducted forest clearing and drainage at a planned site near the town of Muhos, before the environmental impact assessments required under Finnish law had been completed.

“We are investigating whether the company’s operations have breached the Water Act and resulted in environmental damage,” Detective Superintendent Kari Pakanen told the Reuters news agency on Thursday, adding that a guilty finding could lead to a corporate fine.

Pakanen declined to say whether any individuals could become a target of the investigation, and a Google spokesperson said the company would cooperate with the police investigation and continue to focus on maintaining compliance at its sites.

Tree felling prompts local anger

Videos and photographs showing the scale of the forest clearance at the site of the data centre, and Google’s initial reluctance to address the issue in the days after the news broke, have prompted widespread anger in Finland, where there is a high level of respect for the natural environment among the public.

“All the outrage and dismay directed at Google, I can very much share that, especially when we are talking about the parent company valued as the third-largest in the world,” Finnish Green MP Oras Tynkkynen told Al Jazeera. “There is just no excuse. You have to know the legislation of the country you are operating in; you can afford to hire the best legal experts to help you navigate the local legal requirements.”

Finnish authorities ordered Google to stop work at the data centre site at the start of October, and the latest information from the police highlights shortcomings in the drainage and water management at the site.

Tynkkynen called Google’s actions “unforgivable”, but cautioned that while the anger being directed at the US tech giant was justified, it was also diverting scrutiny away from legacy Finnish forestry companies, which he says are “by far the biggest contributors to biodiversity loss in this country”.

What is Finland’s appeal for data centre construction?

Finland’s cool climate, low-carbon electricity and government endorsement of AI projects have contributed to making the country one of Europe’s main destinations for data centre investments in recent years.

Finland, similar in size to Germany – but with one-seventh of the population, less than six million people – has had less vocal opposition to data centre buildouts than other places, including in the United States.

AI data centres are among the main drivers of a projected rise of up to 40 percent in Finland’s electricity consumption in the coming years, if all agreed grid connection projects go ahead, grid operator Fingrid has said.

Google’s planned investments in Finland include data centres, electricity grid improvements and clean energy and battery projects to power services such as Gemini, Search, Maps and YouTube.

Supporting Google’s plan, Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said in September that the deal would be a boost for the economy, playing down concerns that it would suck up energy and push up power prices.

Foreign ministers form security committee to share intelligence and follow up on impact of Jordan’s strikes on Syria.

Syria is reopening its border crossing with Jordan, and the two countries will investigate Jordanian strikes on suspected ISIL (ISIS) sites that killed seven in southern Syria.

Nassib, Jordan’s only border crossing with Syria, will reopen on Wednesday morning, with regular passenger and commercial traffic resuming, the state news agency SANA reported.

The crossing was briefly closed following the Jordanian airstrikes, which targeted ISIL “hideouts” in southern Syria on Monday in response to a Greek Orthodox church shooting by gunmen in Jordan’s Karak on Friday, the Jordanian military said in a statement. ISIL took responsibility for the attack.

Jordan’s strikes on Syria killed at least seven people in Deraa and Suwayda, including five members of the same family, three of whom were children. Syria’s Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management said its teams had responded to attacks at four sites.

The two countries also agreed to form a security committee to examine the aftermath of the strikes, foreign ministers said in a statement following a phone call between the two countries’ top diplomats.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Monday’s air attacks were based on field intelligence and aimed at “neutralising confirmed threats and imminent terrorist operations targeting Jordan’s security”.

Safadi expressed “deep regret” over civilian deaths in his call with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and stressed Jordan’s respect for Syria’s sovereignty and stability.

Jordan had claimed that the strikes were coordinated with the Syrian government, which Damascus denied.

In addition to investigating the attacks, the security committee will develop “field and intelligence coordination in dealing with terrorist threats” to ensure the protection of innocent civilians.

The church shooting claimed the lives of at least nine people and wounded 34 others. Jordanian security forces arrested two brothers and their brother-in-law on suspicion of carrying out the attack.

The FBI Tuesday morning raided a mansion in Beverly Hills in connection with an investigation into former Congressman Eric Swalwell, sources told The Times.

Swalwell, a Democrat from Dublin, dropped out of the California governor’s race and resigned from Congress in April after allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and acted inappropriately with other young women, which he denied at the time. Before he dropped out of the race, polls indicated that Swalwell was among the front-runners.

On Tuesday, FBI agents were in Beverly Hills executing a search warrant on North Roxbury Drive in connection with the probe.

“We are executing a search warrant. Court documents are sealed. No arrests are planned,” said FBI spokesperson Lourdes Arocho.

The raid is taking place at the home of billionaire Stephen Cloobeck, sources confirmed to The Times.

Swalwell stayed at the home several times while campaigning and used it for political events before he was kicked out in April after the allegations against him became public. In one of his last acts there, Swalwell filmed a video denying the rape and sexual assault.

Cloobeck, 64, is a one-time California gubernatorial candidate and a well-known figure in Democratic politics. He got rich in the timeshare industry, eventually selling his Las Vegas-based Diamond Resorts company to a private equity firm for $2.2 billion. He immersed himself in Nevada Democratic politics, growing close with the late U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, and later launched his long-shot bid for California governor.

He quickly faded in the crowded field, failing to garner above 1% in any poll, and then threw his support behind Swalwell. More recently, he has found himself in the news for being embroiled in a criminal case with Adva Lavie, an OnlyFans model accused of seducing rich men for money.

In August, agents seized Swalwell’s electronic devices and raided his Washington home, even briefly holding the former lawmaker at San Francisco International Airport, a person familiar with the inquiry told The Times.

The source said Swalwell was held in August at SFO for search purposes and released the same day. Federal prosecutors are using civil rights law to pursue an inquiry into his conduct as a member of Congress. Authorities in New York and Los Angeles County are conducting separate investigations.

His home was also searched during the summer, the source added, based on a warrant in connection with a civil rights investigation concerning the sexual assault allegations.

Investigators sought to seize Swalwell’s white iPhone and MacBook Pro, according to court records.

They sought the devices as part of their inquiry into whether Swalwell violated a federal law that makes it a crime for anyone acting under official government authority to willfully deprive a person of their constitutional rights, according to the court filings.

Swalwell has denied any wrongdoing, but the accusations upended the California governor’s race and shook Capitol Hill, where both parties reckoned with a culture of secrecy and silence around sexual impropriety.

Lawyers for two accused officials say Department of Justice seeking to revive scandal before midterm vote.

Two former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents have been charged in connection with a 2020 probe into a laptop belonging to former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

The former officials, Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, were charged with lying to Congress. They made their first court appearance in Washington, DC, on Friday.

Lawyers for the officials accused the Department of Justice of filing the charges to revive the salacious saga just days before the November 3 midterm vote, in which Republicans face an uphill battle against Democrats to maintain control of Congress.

A lawyer for Floris said she “served our nation as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years”, while accusing the Justice Department of building its case on hearsay.

“Yet today, the DOJ [Justice Department] has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts,” the statement said.

“It’s no coincidence the government is filing these nonsense charges now, years later, on the eve of an election.”

Floris and Benavides had overseen the Foreign Intelligence Task Force (FITF) at the FBI when Hunter Biden’s laptop was found. The pair testified to Congress that the unit, which focuses on foreign interference in US elections, was not involved in the laptop investigation.

In a criminal complaint, federal prosecutors alleged the statements contradicted messages sent during the same period.

While launched by Trump during his first term, the FITF was heavily targeted by Republicans under former US President Joe Biden. They charged the unit was politically biased and used to cover up information about Biden’s laptop.

The unit was disbanded when Trump took office for the second time in January 2025.

Scandalous saga

The existence of the laptop became known in October of 2020, just weeks before Biden and Trump faced off in a presidential election.

Its strange origins, having been dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop and apparently abandoned by Hunter Biden, prompted suspicion. Its contents were first reported on by the New York Post, based on information provided to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Several former intelligence officials warned that the laptop had the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. However, the FBI later seized and verified that the laptop and its contents, including messages related to the younger Biden’s foreign business ties and explicit photos of his drug use, were authentic.

The laptop was later used to back federal gun and tax evasion charges against Hunter Biden, although no wrongdoing related to his business ties or connection with his father was found.

Trump FBI Director Kash Patel has pledged to investigate the agency’s conduct throughout Biden’s presidency. Critics have accused him of flagrant politicalisation.

“Lying to Congress by senior FBI officials strikes at the heart of our system. No one is above the law,” Patel said in a statement posted on X.

The Justice Department has historically sought to avoid public and overt investigative acts in the direct lead-up to an election that involve candidates or that risk influencing an outcome.

But officials in the last two weeks have made a series of bold moves in cases with political undertones, including a search of Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar’s house in an immigration fraud investigation.

The department also unsealed a corruption indictment on Thursday against powerful Democratic Virginia state Senator L Louise Lucas.