Stephen King has branded Donald Trump a “horrible president” and a “horrible person”.

The acclaimed horror writer took aim at the former US President, who is facing an FBI investigation into allegations that he illegally removed classified documents from the White House, and is convinced that he took part in criminal activity while also blasting Trump’s response to his election loss to Joe Biden.

Stephen told The Times newspaper: “I happen to think that Trump was a horrible president and is a horrible person.

“I think he actually engaged in criminal behaviour, I felt that he was a sociopath who tried to overturn the American democracy not out of any political wish of his own but because he could not admit that he had lost.”

The ‘Carrie’ author is puzzled that some continue to support Trump but thinks “most people” are well-intentioned, regardless of their political views.

Stephen said: “So, I don’t really understand the people who continue to support him, but I do understand that a guy driving a pickup covered with Trump and NRA stickers – you know, ‘take my rifle when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers’- would stop and pick up a stranger if he was in a rainstorm and say, ‘Where are you going, buddy?'”

King also claimed that is “easy to overestimate” the rise of fascism in the United States.

The 74-year-old ‘It’ author said: “There is a strong right wing, a political right wing in America, and they have a megaphone in some of the media. They’re not fascists but they’re hard right-wingers.

“They’re certainly climate change deniers, so that is a real problem. But, again, it’s the stuff that’s crazy like QAnon that gets the press. You have to remember that Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by three million votes (in the popular vote) and that Biden beat Trump by seven million votes.”

Washington (AFP) – Over-the-counter hearing aids will for the first time be available to tens of millions of Americans, officials said Tuesday, in an effort to cut prices from $5,000 a pair.

“For many Americans who suffer from hearing loss, safe and effective and high quality hearing aids have been unaffordable,” health secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters in a briefing.

The action, which should take effect in October, would reduce the cost of hearing aids by an estimated $2,800 per pair, by removing the requirement to see a doctor or audiologist, added Brian Deese, director of the White House’s  National Economic Council.

This, he said, amounted to what economists call a “barrier to entry” — regulation that prevents more companies from entering the market.

At present, hearing aids cost in the region of $5,000 per pair in the United States. Though a small portion of the cost may be offset by health insurance, it still stands in contrast to other advanced countries such as Britain, where the devices are free at the point of delivery.

Children, as well as people with severe hearing loss, would still need a prescription. While hearing loss in adults is generally caused by noise exposure and aging, the reasons among children can be more concerning and require closer medical evaluation.

President Joe Biden, who had called for the move in an executive order issued last year, said in a statement the rule “makes good on my commitment to lower costs for American families… giving people more choices to improve their health and wellbeing.” 

One in eight people in the United States  aged 12 years or older — around 30 million people — has hearing loss in both ears, based on standard hearing examinations, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

The new rule applies to hearing aids that work through air conduction, bringing amplified sound into the ear canal where it moves through the eardrum and the middle ear to reach the inner ear, where the processed signal is sent to the brain.

People with more severe hearing loss may require bone conduction hearing aids that bypass the outer and middle ear.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The longtime financial chief of former President Donald Trump’s namesake real estate company is nearing a plea deal with Manhattan prosecutors over tax fraud charges, the New York Times reported on Monday.

Former Trump Organization CFO will not cooperate with a broader investigation into Trump, the Times said, citing two sources. The report did not address whether he would cooperate in the case against the former president’s family company.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney declined to comment. A lawyer for Weisselberg did not respond to a request for comment.

Court records show Weisselberg also made an unexpected appearance in Manhattan state court on Monday and has another hearing scheduled for Thursday.

Weisselberg and the Trump Organization were charged last July with more than a dozen counts of tax fraud and falsifying business records for awarding “off the books” benefits to company executives. Weisselberg, 75, had initially pleaded not guilty.

Neither a lawyer nor a spokeswoman for the company immediately responded to requests for comment.

At a hearing on Friday the judge in the case said jury selection would start on Oct. 24.

Trump, a Republican, has called the probe by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as well as a parallel civil investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James, politically-motivated “witch hunts.” James and Bragg are both Democrats.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York; Writing by Luc Cohen; Editing by Howard Goller)

Apple is reportedly planning to add more ads to the iPhone.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the Maps, Apple Books and Apple Podcasts apps could also see more advertising.

In his recent newsletter, the tech expert said the tech giant has tested having more ads in the Maps app.

Currently, the Stocks app and Apple News have ads, as does the App Store and Search bar.

Ads first appeared on the App Store in 2016.

Last year, Apple asked users if they’d like to see more Personalised Ads.

It all comes after the firm’s advertising revenue increased by a whopping 238 per cent to $3.7 billion in 2021.

By Rose Horowitch

(Reuters) – University of Oklahoma medical student Ian Peake spent four years shadowing doctors at a Tulsa abortion clinic because his school didn’t offer courses on abortion or provide any training.

But the Tulsa Women’s Clinic stopped abortion services in May when Oklahoma enacted a near-total ban, and the provider closed for good after the U.S. Supreme Court ended constitutional abortion protections in June. Peake, 33, now had no local options to learn about abortion.

“It’s basically impossible to get abortion education in the state,” said Peake, who is now applying to residency programs outside of Oklahoma. “We’re going to have whole swaths of the country where medical students aren’t going to really know how these procedures work.”

In interviews, a dozen doctors, activists and medical students said they worried that the next generation of physicians trained in states with severe abortion restrictions would lack crucial skills to treat women.

Even before the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, some conservative states restricted institutions from teaching how to provide abortions. The June ruling, which allowed states to decide the legality of abortion, has left more medical schools and residency programs unable to offer comprehensive obstetrics and gynecology training.

Ninety-two percent of obstetrics and gynecology residents reported having access to some level of abortion training in 2020, according to a study published in April by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ journal. The researchers predicted that number would drop to 56% at best following Roe’s overturn.

Already, seven states, including Texas and Alabama, no longer have any clinics providing abortion services, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research group.

The procedure used to perform elective abortions, known as dilation and curettage, is needed for emergencies such as if a pregnant woman has a heart attack, stroke or begins hemorrhaging. It is also necessary to clear tissue from the uterus after an incomplete miscarriage to prevent infection and sepsis.

“It goes beyond just what people refer to as abortion,” said Maya Hammoud, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at the University of Michigan Medical School. “It’s how it’s going to affect everything else in women’s healthcare.”

‘VERY CONCERNED’

Medical schools are not required to provide abortion training. But the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), which assesses and certifies residency programs, requires that all residents learn how to perform abortion procedures before graduating.

The council has proposed revisions to its obstetrics and gynecology guidelines after Roe’s overturn, saying programs in states that restrict abortion access must help budding doctors travel to another state to receive training. If a resident is unable to travel, programs must still train the resident using classroom lessons and simulation.

Several doctors and an activist raised concerns about whether simulation – which is often performed on a dragonfruit or papaya – could adequately prepare residents for real-world treatment.

“I’m very concerned that at some point very well-respected med schools are going to graduate students who have not received a modern medical education,” said Pamela Merritt, executive director of Medical Students for Choice, an abortion rights advocacy group. “Even if they get the green light to intervene to save the life of a pregnant person, they won’t actually be able to do it.”

Anti-abortion advocates say medical schools and residency programs will continue to teach emergency procedures to save a woman’s life even if they do not teach how to perform voluntary abortions.

“We have seen abortion activists employing misinformation and scare tactics aimed at women who do not deserve that stress,” said Kristi Hamrick, spokesperson for Students for Life of America, an anti-abortion group.

Louito Edje, associate dean of graduate medical education at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and an ACGME member, said she expects most institutions will help their residents travel to receive real-world training.

But training could still suffer, she said, if more students are crowded into fewer institutions and there isn’t enough patient flow to provide everyone with hands-on practice.

The University of Michigan has established a task force to prepare for an influx of residents coming to Ann Arbor for training, said Lisa Harris, an obstetrics and gynecology professor who is co-chair of the task force.

Given the ever-changing legal landscape around abortions in the state, however, Harris said the task force is also planning ways to help residents travel for out-of-state training if Michigan implements a ban.

(Reporting by Rose Horowitch; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Aurora Ellis)

For more than two years, Cathy Baron and Sara Alicia Costa managed to duck the coronavirus. But despite their being fully vaccinated and boosted, the omicron variant finally caught them.

Baron is an actress and dance instructor who lives in Santa Monica, California. Costa is an architect in Austin, Texas. Both are 40 and healthy. But the two friends saw two very different sides of the variant they expected to be gentler on its victims than earlier strains.

For Costa, the omicron variant lived up to its reputation for mildness, causing headaches and “something like a crummy cold” for a couple of days. She was visiting Baron and surfing in Santa Monica a week after testing positive.

Baron’s illness was deeply chastening. She was flattened for several days with a high fever and debilitating muscle aches and was too exhausted to teach her pole dancing class for three weeks. Two months later, she’s still coping with fatigue, brain fog and episodic coughing fits. She hopes never to repeat the experience.

Baron and Costa are what scientists would dismiss as an “n of 2.” If their experience were a study, the sample size would be far too small to draw any conclusions, especially one as important as whether the omicron variant really is less virulent than the SARS-CoV-2 variants that came before it.

And yet, their contrasting experiences are as telling as many of the research studies conducted to date that have tried to determine how dangerous omicron really is.

“It’s an excellent question,” said Dr. Stanley Perlman, a University of Iowa virologist and a leading expert on coronaviruses. Many researchers think they know the answer, and “I think it’s true” that the omicron variant is causing milder illnesses, he said. But the true picture is “not clear,” he cautioned.

Omicron arrived in the United States at a time when 60% of Americans had the protection of Covid-19 vaccines and roughly a third of Americans (including some who’d been vaccinated) had a past infection. Not only was there a high level of population immunity, those who did become ill had access to treatments that weren’t available to people sickened by the initial strain from Wuhan, China, or the alpha and delta variants that followed.

Perhaps these are the reasons why those infected with omicron have tended to experience milder illnesses.

“It’s widely said that omicron is inherently less pathogenic, but there is no real evidence for that,” said Dr. Christopher Chiu, a Covid-19 researcher at Imperial College London.

“Comparisons with delta are like apples and oranges,” he said. “Delta was circulating at a time when many were still not vaccinated or previously infected. In contrast, omicron is largely causing breakthrough infections in people who already have partial protection from immunity conferred by vaccines or infection.”

Since its earliest appearance in November, researchers have seen that compared with previous variants, omicron was less likely to send infected people to the hospital or to their graves.

First in South Africa and later in communities across America, the new variant bucked expectations spawned by earlier surges. In the two to three weeks after omicron cases spiked, hospitalizations and deaths rose as well — but more slowly, and they’d topped out at lower levels.

Still, as Americans have learned from hard experience, the omicron variant is a highly capable killer. Just over 200,000 of the country’s Covid-19 deaths are likely attributable to some version of the omicron variant, which arrived there around Thanksgiving and became dominant in January.

And don’t forget, Perlman added: It’s still killing some 400 people a day in the United States.

How much of omicron’s supposed mildness should be credited to the protective effect of vaccines is not really known.

During June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that Covid-associated hospitalizations among unvaccinated adults were 4.6 times higher than they were among vaccinated people. But the picture is muddier than such data would suggest.

Americans’ immune profiles run the gamut, making it hard to slot people into neat categories and compare how they fared when infected by different variants. Those who’ve been vaccinated are experiencing various degrees of waning immunity, even if they’ve been boosted. The same goes for people who’ve recovered from infections. The readiness of their immune systems depends on how long ago they had the infection, what variant infected them, their vaccination status, and factors like age and the medications they take.

With so many variables to consider, it’s hard for researchers to draw a clean comparison between omicron and its predecessors. But they’ve tried.

In one study published in Nature, scientists showed that omicron was drawn to a wide range of human tissues. When observed in petri dishes, the variant established itself in cells that mimicked the upper airways of the respiratory system, though with less gusto than the delta variant. In addition, omicron was far less adept at infecting lower airway cells, including lung tissue, than either delta or the original SARS-CoV-2 strain that left Wuhan.

And in studies that infected animals such as hamsters and genetically engineered mice, the omicron variant caused less weight loss (a proxy of severe disease) and touched off less inflammation in the lungs than either delta or the original strain.

Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that coronavirus testing was undergoing sweeping changes just as the omicron variant took hold. As at-home testing ramped up and fewer new infections were reported to public health agencies, the relationship between cases on the one hand and hospitalizations and deaths on the other – a previously dependable measure of a variant’s ability to sicken – became less reliable.

The omicron variant’s astonishing infectiousness and propensity to spin off new subvariants complicate the picture even more. In a recent meeting convened by the Food and Drug Administration, even experts from the agency shrugged when asked to compare the subvariants.

Collectively, those omicron subvariants muscled delta aside so quickly that doctors and researchers didn’t have time to collect groups of similar patients, genetically sequence the viruses that infected them, and compare how their illnesses proceeded.

That’s the kind of study that might shed light on the divergent experiences of Cathy Baron and Sara Alicia Costa. They’re a seemingly well-matched pair of healthy 40-year-old women, yet omicron attacked one of them like a lion and treated the other like a lamb. With the experiences of hundreds or thousands of people thrown in, such research might reveal factors that nudge an omicron infection in one direction or the other.

There is a more direct way to learn how omicron compares to earlier variants in its ability to sicken and kill. Researchers could deliberately infect volunteers with different versions of the coronavirus and track their physiological responses to infection over the course of an illness.

Chiu and his colleagues at Imperial College London have just such an undertaking in mind. They are planning “human challenge” studies involving the delta and omicron variants to mirror one already conducted with the original version of the virus.

The resulting data could yield a clearer picture of exactly how omicron behaves in healthy humans, and how a prior infection or different levels of vaccination affect an individual’s illness.

Chiu said a new study would seek to enroll people who gained immunity through vaccination, a past infection, or a combination of both. That would give them more insight into whether so-called hybrid immunity is an important bulwark against becoming sick in the omicron era.

If research confirms that the omicron variant is indeed milder than its predecessors, and that getting it confers some protection from future illness, some may conclude it’s time to let the virus spread.

Baron would take some convincing of that.

“When people say, ‘let’s just let it rip’ and allow ourselves to get infected over and over again — that’s scary to me,” she said. “I don’t want to just let it rip. I don’t want to get it again.”

By Filipp Lebedev

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The defence team of Brittney Griner, the U.S. basketball star jailed for nine years in Russia on drugs charges, appealed on Monday against her conviction for narcotics possession and trafficking.

Griner was convicted on Aug. 4 in a verdict that U.S. President Joe Biden called “unacceptable”. Washington says she was wrongfully detained and has offered to exchange her for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States.

Monday was the deadline for Griner to contest the verdict. Maria Blagovolina, partner at Rybalkin Gortsunyan Dyakin and Partners law firm, told Reuters the appeal had been filed but declined to comment further.

Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medallist who had played for a Russian club, was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on Feb. 17 after cannabis-infused vape cartridges were found in her luggage.

She pleaded guilty to the charges but said she had not meant to break the law. “I made an honest mistake and I hope that in your ruling, that it doesn’t end my life here,” Griner told the court at Khimki, near Moscow, at her sentencing.

It was not clear how soon an appeal could be heard.

“We demand to overturn the verdict passed by the Khimki court and impose a new sentence,” Alexander Boikov, a lawyer at Moscow Legal Center who represented Griner in court, told Reuters.

He said the appeal would be mainly based on alleged violations in the course of the investigation. Griner’s defence team argued in court that some of her case files had been drawn up without being translated for her into English.

The athlete was caught up in a geopolitical storm when Russia sent troops into Ukraine a week after her arrest and the United States and its allies responded with unprecedented waves of sanctions against Moscow.

Russia denies that the case was politically motivated. It has warned the United States against engaging in “megaphone diplomacy” and warned that any prisoner swap would have to be negotiated in private.

In a Telegram post on Monday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova took issue with the White House’s public criticism of the Russian court verdict. She contrasted that with its silence over last week’s FBI raid on the property of former president Donald Trump, of which a White House spokeswoman said Biden had not been aware.

“Let me remind you, Griner was smuggling cartridges of liquid for smoking, which contained hashish oil. The basketball player herself admitted this, since there was no point in denying it,” Zakharova said.

“At the same time, the White House refuses to comment on the investigation around Trump and the seizure of certain documents related to the White House from him. Complete silence, although we are talking about American justice and law enforcement.”

(Reporting by Filipp Lebedev, writing by Felix Light, editing by Mark Trevelyan and Hugh Lawson)

A monthly supply of period products means significant costs. In an effort to fight what is also known as “period poverty” – with people struggling to afford products from tampons to sanitary pads – Scotland is now offering free menstrual products in all public buildings.

Thanks to the Period Products Act, which came into force on Monday, councils and education providers are required to make menstrual products available to anyone who needs them.

Scottish Labour lawmaker Monica Lennon, who originally proposed the legislation back in 2020, said: “As the cost-of-living crisis takes hold, the Period Products Act is a beacon of hope which shows what can be achieved when politicians come together for the good of the people we serve.”

Scotland, which says it is the first country worldwide to introduce such a law, has spent some £27 million ($32.6 million) on providing free period products in public buildings since 2017.

Schools have already been required to make them available since last year.

“We are proud to be the first national government in the world to take such action,” said Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison.

Period poverty is an issue in many countries worldwide. According to a 2017 survey by the Plan International aid organization, 10% of girls and young women in Britain aged between 14 and 21 couldn’t afford period products, and 15% were struggling to pay for them.

Madonna has posted a series of racy snaps and asked her fans to send her birthday presents.

The Queen of Pop turns 64 on Tuesday (16.08.22) and she’s celebrated early by giving her 18.4 million Instagram followers some eye-popping content.

The ‘Vogue’ hitmaker posted a close-up of her chest in a black lacy bra with diamond chains around her neck, one of her leg over a banister in killer stilettos, and another saw her bent over kneeling on the floor with her booty taking the limelight.

Each post on her Instagram Story was cheekily captioned: ‘It’s Almost My Birthday…. Send Me Presents….”

Meanwhile, Madonna recently explained why she was determined to make her upcoming biopic herself because “misogynistic men” were trying to make movies about her.

The ‘Lucky Star’ singer – who releases the 50-song remix LP ‘Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones’ on Friday (19.08.22) – said she was “hacking off my limbs” working on the flick about her life and career.

She told Variety: “I’ve been whittling away at it, but it’s like hacking off my limbs.”

It was reported that ‘Inventing Anna’ star Julia Garner, 28, is to play the ‘Material Girl’ hitmaker, though nothing is confirmed yet.

And Madonna spilled that she came to make the movie because she was fed up with men wanting to tell her story in a misogynistic way.

She said: “I’ve had an extraordinary life, I must make an extraordinary film.

“It was also a preemptive strike because a lot of people were trying to make movies about me. Mostly misogynistic men. So I put my foot in the door and said, ‘No one’s going to tell my story, but me.’”

The ‘Like a Virgin’ hitmaker also ruled out selling the rights to her back catalogue like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young have done lately.

She told the outlet: “Because they’re my songs. Ownership is everything isn’t it?”

In 2021, Madonna released a trap version of her 1998 hit ‘Frozen’ after it went viral on TikTok, and four remixes followed.

It came after the music legend announced her plans to re-release her back catalogue.

She said: “I’m just looking for interesting, fun ways to rerelease my catalogue and introduce my music to a new generation.”

And she also hinted she’s planning to head out on tour again.

Madonna added: “The whole thing with ‘Frozen’ was so fun, but I woke up one day and went, ‘I’m sick of living in the past!’ I want to go on tour again, I’m a creature of the stage. That is my happy place.”

By Kanishka Singh and Joseph Ax

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge on Monday ruled that U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham must testify before a grand jury in Georgia, which is probing efforts by former President Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May rejected Graham’s argument that his position as a U.S. senator protected him from having to appear before the Fulton County investigative panel, which subpoenaed him last month.

“The court finds that the District Attorney has shown extraordinary circumstances and a special need for Senator Graham’s testimony on issues relating to alleged attempts to influence or disrupt the lawful administration of Georgia’s 2022 elections,” the judge wrote in an order on Monday.

The Fulton County criminal probe, one of several investigations into Trump’s attempt to invalidate the 2020 election, has ensnared multiple members of Trump’s inner circle of advisers.

Testimony from Graham, a close ally of Trump, could shed further light on the coordinated effort by Trump’s team to reverse the 2020 results. Trump has falsely claimed that he won Georgia, a battleground state that was key to Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory.

The grand jury wants to question Graham about at least two phone calls he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his staff in the weeks following the November 2020 presidential election, in which Graham explored the possibility of re-examining absentee ballots, according to prosecutors.

ELECTION OUTCOME

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is overseeing the probe, said in court papers that Graham’s calls “certainly appear interconnected” with Trump’s efforts to reverse the election outcome.

Graham, who represents South Carolina in the Senate, had argued that the phone calls were part of his fact-finding duties as a legislator. His spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The investigation began after Trump was recorded in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call to Raffensperger, the state’s top election official, asking him to “find” enough votes to give him the victory over Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

The grand jury, which was convened in May at Willis’s request in part because of its subpoena power, has also subpoenaed members of Trump’s former legal team, including personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

In addition to the Fulton County probe, a congressional panel is investigating Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and the FBI seized classified documents from Trump’s Florida estate last week after executing a search warrant.

The New York attorney general’s office and Manhattan district attorney’s office are conducting parallel civil and criminal investigations into whether Trump improperly inflated the value of his businesses.

Trump refused to answer questions from the attorney general’s office last week, citing his constitutional right not to incriminate himself.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by David Holmes)

Hollywood legend Gina Lollobrigida will run for Senate in Italy’s election next month.

The 95-year-old actress-and-model and has put herself forward to front the new Eurosceptic party Italia sovrana e popolare (ISP) in the city of Latina, near to Rome, for the Sovereign and Popular Italy alliance, which opposes Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government, the Italian daily la Repubblica reports.

The alliance has called for Italy to exit the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union.

The ‘Hotel Paradiso’ star – who became an international sex symbol of Hollywood’s Golden Era of Film in the 50s and 60s – is running alongside attorney Antonio Ingroia, who, in 2009, became deputy chief anti-mafia prosecutor of Palermo, Sicily.

According to The Times newspaper, Ingroia – who announced he would run to become Prime Minister of Italy at the head of the Civil Revolution coalition in 2019 – said: “Gina will be a great ambassador for Italy.”

The photojournalist and former Miss Italy – who secured a major scoop by getting a one-on-one interview with late Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro in the 70s – previously ran for European Parliament in 1999, for the Democratici party.

And Lollobrigida’s latest run comes just a few weeks after she celebrated her 95th birthday on July 4.

The election will take place on September 25.

Lollobrigida – the daughter of a furniture maker – moved into photojournalism in the 70s after a dazzling movie career, which saw her star alongside the likes of the late Sir Sean Connery and Humphrey Bogart.

Washington (AFP) – Lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sued the US Central Intelligence Agency and its former director Mike Pompeo on Monday, alleging it recorded their conversations and copied data from their phones and computers.

The attorneys, along with two journalists also joining the suit, are Americans and allege that the CIA violated their US constitutional protections for confidential discussions with Assange, who is Australian.

They said the CIA worked with a security firm contracted by the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where Assange was living at the time, to spy on the Wikileaks founder, his lawyers, journalists and others he met with.

Assange is facing extradition from Britain to the US, where he is charged with publishing US military and diplomatic files in 2010 related to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Richard Roth, the New York attorney representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the alleged spying on Assange’s attorneys means the Wikileaks founder’s right to a fair trial has “now been tainted, if not destroyed.” 

“The recording of meetings with friends, with lawyers and the copying of his attorneys’ and friends’ digital information taints the criminal prosecution because now the government knows the contents of those communications,” Roth told reporters.

“There should be sanctions, even up to dismissal of those charges, or withdrawal of an extradition request in response to these blatantly unconstitutional activities,” he said.

The suit was filed by attorneys Margaret Ratner Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek, and journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz.

They all visited Assange while he was living inside the Ecuadoran embassy in London under political asylum, since withdrawn.

The suit named the CIA, former CIA director and former US secretary of state Pompeo, and the security firm Undercover Global and its chief executive David Morales Guillen.

It said Undercover Global, which had a security contract with the embassy, swept information on their electronic devices, including communications with Assange, and provided it to the CIA.

In addition it placed microphones around the embassy and sent recordings, as well as footage from security cameras, to the CIA.

This, Roth said, violated privacy protections for US citizens.

Assange is awaiting a ruling on his appeal of the British extradition order to the United States. 

The charges he faces under the US Espionage Act could bring a sentence of up to 175 years in prison.

Tatiana Maslany almost quit acting at the age of 20.

The ‘Orphan Black’ actress started work as a child actor when she was 11 and landed a full time job in Canadian kids TV show ‘2030 CE’ as a teenager – but she’s now revealed she almost walked away from her career after becoming disillusioned with her life choices.

Speaking to the Guardian, she explained: “I suddenly had this urge to re-evaluate why I was doing it (acting). Was I just doing it because it was this thing I did as a kid?”

However, she changed her mind and decided to commit to her career after watching Gena Rowlands’ 1974 film ‘A Woman Under the Influence’.

Tatiana went on: “I thought: ‘Yes, that’s it! That’s what I want!’ I wanted that level of freedom and inventiveness and presence and connection. It was so powerful to watch. That movie showed me what was possible.”

Her career has since gone from strength-to-strength with a starring role in sci-fi TV show ‘Orphan Black’ as well as opposite Nicole Kidman in 2018 movie ‘Destroyer’ and she’s now leading the cast of Marvel series ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’.

Speaking about her latest TV project, Tatiana admitted she hopes the day will come when female superheroes are no longer considered outside the norm.

She told the Guardian: “I’m really interested in when these (marginalised) voices get to speak without it being like: ‘Oh my God, it’s all women,’ or, ‘Oh my God, this is a story about a queer couple,’ and those stories become as innately expected as they are now special.”

Washington (AFP) – If you think you’ve seen this movie before, it’s because you have — except the second time will be even more nerve-racking. Yes, world: get ready for Biden vs Trump 2.

That’s a potential takeaway from the scandal embroiling Donald Trump over his alleged hoarding of secret government documents almost two years after losing reelection to Joe Biden.

If Trump was previously considered likely to announce a 2024 comeback bid, one school of thought is that the FBI search of his Florida estate, allowing Trump to depict himself as a martyr, makes that decision almost certain.

“I believed he was gonna run before — I’m stronger in my belief now,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News.

If Trump does run, goes the theory, then Biden surely does, too. Despite being the oldest man ever in the job at 79, Biden sees it as his historic mission to rid the United States of Trump.

And so, after surviving the tense, at times nightmarish 2020 election, Americans may do it all over again.

This time it would be in reverse — the incumbent a by-then 81-year-old Biden and the challenger a 78-year-old Trump.

Given Trump’s constant lies that he won the 2020 election and searing evidence of his role in stoking the violent January 6 assault on Congress, a rematch would be ugly.

“If you think Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns were nasty, you ain’t seen nothing,” said American University history professor Allan Lichtman, a leading authority on US presidential elections.

Good for both sides?

To practitioners of the dark political arts, the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is a game-changing moment that, ironically, could benefit either side.

For Biden the logic is obvious.

The biggest name in the Republican Party is on the ropes, facing not only the FBI probe, but legal cases linked to allegations of everything from subverting the election, to fraud and rape.

That’s embarrassing for Republicans and energizing for Biden’s Democrats, who increasingly dream of avoiding a predicted wipe-out, or even scoring their own surprise victory, in November midterm elections to decide control of Congress.

“Trump is like a steroid boost for Democrats,” Jim Kessler, at the Democratic think tank Third Way, told The Hill.

As the Republican-supporting Wall Street Journal editorial board says: Republicans “should be making the midterms a referendum on Mr Biden’s first two years. Democrats would prefer to talk until November — really, until the end of time — about Mr Trump.”

Yet Trump will also see benefits.

Once again he’s dominating the national psyche, while his fervent base has a new conspiracy theory to feed off, lighting up right-wing social media with calls to arms and threats of Civil War 2.0.

“Donald Trump has more than $100 million in his political war chest. But he has something even more valuable — an active FBI investigation against him,” wrote Richard Lowry, editor of the conservative magazine National Review.

“It has put him front-and-center again. It has made it easy for him to portray himself as an embattled victim.”

Trump’s choice, Biden’s strategy

In a Republican primary, Trump’s political footprint would likely crush the strongest of rivals.

“If Trump wants it at this point, I don’t see how it’s not his,” Republican political strategist John Thomas told Politico. “It’ll be a coronation.”

And Trump getting in would also essentially trigger Biden’s decision to follow — scotching any thoughts he may privately have of stepping aside for a younger figure before 2024.

“Trump is the critical first mover in whether or not there is a rematch,” said Lara Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

“I do believe that President Biden is waiting to see if Trump declares and if he does, I believe he will also declare very quickly after.”

Voters may not want either man.

A July poll by NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ found 60 percent said Biden shouldn’t run in 2024 and 57 percent said the same of Trump.

Biden backs himself against Trump. “In the next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me,” Biden said in March.

While it’s been a difficult year for Biden, the last couple months have seen him turn his presidency around, racking up remarkable legislative and policy successes.

And although Biden remains deeply unpopular, with approval ratings around 40 percent, the improved record in the White House, and widespread anger at the Supreme Court’s overturning of national abortion rights, leave advisors optimistic.

So while Republicans get lost in Trump dramas, Democrats will focus on kitchen table issues, an aide said.

“This is about meeting people where they live and the things that matter most in their lives,” the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There’ll be a lot of things that will be in the news, but we are going to speak to people in their lives.”

Jennifer Lopez has told Britney Spears to “stay strong.”

The 40-year-old pop star has become embroiled in an ongoing feud with her ex-husband Keven Federline – with whom she has Sean, 16, and 15-year-old Preston – after he claimed to media outlets that her sons had “chosen” not to see her in recent weeks and took to social media on Saturday (13.06.22) to urge her followers to take advice J. Lo gave to her fans ahead of her Super Bowl performance in 2020.

Alongside an image of the pair posing together at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, Britney wrote on Instagram: “As Jennifer Lopez once said ‘You look right down that camera and tell every little girl in the world to get loud and never ever back down to giving light to injustice’. I’m here to share that freedom is a state of mind! In a world where you have the right to use your feet…heart… mouth… eyes…and body…to express yourself however you may !!! Declaration of INDEPENDENCE … for equality and to be equal !!!”(sic)

The ‘Jenny From the Block’ hitmaker was quick to offer her support to Britney – who back in November 2021 regained control of her multimillion-dollar fortune and various aspects of her life following the termination of a 13-year conservatorship – as she shared the initial post to her own profile.

Over the top of the original post, Jennifer wrote: “Stay strong.”

Just days earlier, the ‘…Baby One More Time’ hitmaker – who tied the knot with actor Sam Asghari, 28, back in 2022 – had branded her ex-husband’s claims that she had not seen her children in “months” and they had decided not to attend her recent wedding as “hurtful.”

She said: “As we all know, raising teenage boys is never easy for anyone…it concerns me the fact that the reason is based on my INSTAGRAM…it was LONG before Instagram…I gave them everything…Only one word: HURTFUL…I’ll say it…My mother told me ‘You should GIVE them to their dad’…I’m sharing this because I can…Have a good day folks!!!”

(Reuters) – The White House is planning to circulate a memo in the U.S. Congress defending President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan a year ago, Axios reported on Sunday.

The memo said Biden’s move strengthened national security by freeing critical military and intelligence agents, the report said, citing a copy of the document.

(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; editing by Grant McCool)

Meta will hold the first ever drag show in the metaverse.

Facebook’s parent company is planning to throw a kiki in their virtual universe, titled ‘Queens of the Metaverse’, which will seek to show how tech can “unlock possibilities in fashion design” featuring some of famous drag performers.

They have got ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race: UK vs. the World’ winner Blu Hydrangea, ‘RuPaul’s Drag UK’ alum Tia Kofi and Adam All, prominent drag kings working on the circuit.

Each of the trio will show off a “show-stopping drag look” created using the VR and AR technology pioneered by company – which is run and founded by Mark Zuckerberg – in association with three British designers from across the LGBT community; Nwora Emenike, a queer non-binary stylist, Sal Mohammed, a gender fluid NHS worker and life coach and Christie Lau, a non-binary Central Saint Martin’s grad.

They hope the show will liberate people from the “limitations of the physical world” and be able to push the envelope even further than they usually do in their acts.

The looks – which has all been devised in the virtual space – will be made into real life garments that will be presented in London in September.

Ineke Paulsen, the tech giant’s director of EMEA marketing said: “Creative communities are central to the development of the metaverse, ensuring that we are building a space for each and every one of us.

“The metaverse and its technologies will enable these creatives to take their imaginations further than they ever thought possible.”

“Drag is art, culture, performance. It’s visual storytelling. The hope is that technologies like virtual reality will help the drag community and other creatives unleash their potential in new and exciting ways”

Billy Eichner wouldn’t have signed up for ‘Bros’ if it wasn’t “authentic to gay audiences”.

The 43-year-old comedian was first approached about the movie by producer Judd Apatow and director and co-writer Nicholas Stoller and insisted he was “not interested” in taking a typical romance tale and making it about two men.

He told Britain’s Esquire magazine: “When Nick told me he wanted to do a gay romcom, I said to him, ‘If you think we can just do ‘When Harry Met Sally’ and swap out the man and woman for two men, then I’m not interested.’

“While I wanted the story to be accessible to everyone, it also had to be authentic to gay audiences.

“To his credit, Nick immediately said,’Whatever is honest will be best.’ “

In the movie, Billy plays podcaster Bobby, whose anti-relationship stance changes when he meets Luke Macfarlane’s Aaron.

And the ‘Billy on the Street’ star – who also co-wrote the film – insisted it was “important” to incorporate their sex lives into the film.

He said: “For so many years, the world turned a blind eye to LGBTQ people and the way we live our lives.

“And, as offensive and traumatising as that it, it can also be liberating.

“If you didn’t consider us part of ‘normal society’, then we didn’t have to operate by your old-fashioned, heteronormative rules.

“We made up our own rules. Our friendships, sex lives and relationships are different.

“I thought it was important to show these two men being physical with each other.

“I think sex is hilarious, absurd and awkward.

“I understand there is a shock value to it, because people have been so scared to go there in the past.”

Billy admitted it was daunting trying to get the movie off the ground.

He said: “Nick and Judd, as straight white men, I guess, have a certain confidence.

“But although I’ve had success, I’ve never been able to make something at this level.

“I’ve never even starred in an indie movie.

“A lot of that is because, up until very recently, Hollywood did not embrace openly gay actors and comedians.”

Michelle Visage was shocked by how much of an “introvert” RuPaul is.

The ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ judge says the 61-year-old flamboyant drag legend and television star is actually “very reserved and self-aware” in real life and leads a quiet life off-screen.

She told Australia’s WHO magazine: “Ru is really an introvert disguised as an extrovert.

“He’s not into partying at all because he got that out of his system in the ’90s.

“He is very reserved and self-aware. I love how he prioritises self-care, as I don’t think enough people do that.”

Michelle also admitted that while she faces a lot of trolling on social media for her opinions of the talent show’s drag queens, it’s all worth it.

She said: “There is territory that comes with my job, like getting abused on social media as I’ve said something about someone’s favourite queen they didn’t like.

“That’s the downside of being a judge on a reality show, but I still wouldn’t trade it.”

The 53-year-old star admits she’s as proud of ‘Drag Race’ as she is of her own kids.

She said: “It took us nine years to get this show on the air and then another nine years for it to be taken seriously.

“It started off as a programme made for queer people by queer people on a little-known queer network, so took a long time to blow up the way it has.

“I’m just as proud of the success of ‘Drag Race’ as I am of my own two kids.”