Prince Andrew has been spotted for the first time following a judge’s ruling yesterday that he must either settle or face his sexual assault accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre in court.

According to pictures obtained by Radar, the 61-year-old prince was not looking happy this morning as he sat in the back seat of his nearly $110,000 Range Rover while being driven away from his Windsor Great Park home.

As Radar previously reported, a New York judge ruled yesterday that the embattled prince must face his accuser in a United States court. The trial, which is scheduled to kick off in September, is a major cause for concern for Prince Andrew and the rest of the royal family – not only because of the money such litigation would cost but also because of the potentially damning and reputation-destroying revelations that could potentially be shared during both Giuffre’s and Andrew’s testimonies.

Because of the potential dangers that may come if the duke lets the case go to trial, many experts are speculating that the prince will settle with Giuffre.

“Judge Lewis Kaplan has thrown a reasoned judicial decision like a bomb into the middle and the heart of the royal family and threatens to provoke constitutional crisis as a consequence,” Mark Stephens, an expert in constitutional law, recently said before adding that he thinks Andrew will offer Giuffre anywhere from $7 million to nearly $14 million to settle and avoid a trial.

“Essentially, I think he’s either going to have to engage in the trial process or he’s going to have to settle and that may well be his least worst option,” Stephens added. “There is a need to limit the damage. Andrew, I suspect will be stripped of his royal titles. A settlement of five or ten million [pounds] is a good bet but Ms. Giuffre may want her day in court.”

While some believe Giuffre may reject any settlement offer because she believes she deserves her day in court against the duke, her lawyer recently spoke out and said that may actually not be the case.

“I think Virginia is determined to go to trial, but settlement is always a possibility,” David Boies, Giuffre’s lawyer, recently hinted.

“There has been no suggestion of settlement discussions at this point. Prior to the time that we brought the case we reached out to Prince Andrew and to Prince Andrew’s lawyers and suggested mediation as a possible way of avoiding litigation,” Boies added.

“There was no interest in that at that time whether that has changed or not, I think, we’ll have to wait and see. A purely financial settlement is not anything that I think that she is interested in.”

Queen Elizabeth has reportedly stripped her son, Prince Andrew, of all his military titles and royal patronages amid his sexual assault lawsuit by accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

According to Daily Mail, the Queen made the decision to strip the 61-year-old Duke of York of all royal and military titles and honors following a judge’s ruling on Wednesday that Andrew will have to face the sexual assault allegations against him in a U.S. court. The trial is scheduled to begin in September.

By stripping the prince of his titles and patronage, the Queen is forcibly making Andrew face the lawsuit against him as a “private citizen” with no help or aid from the royal family.

By Susan Heavey and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Thursday said he will deploy more military health workers to six U.S. states beginning next week, and give Americans free masks and more free tests to tackle the fast-spreading Omicron variant around the country.

The dispatch of 1,000 military health personnel is “part of a major deployment of our nation’s armed forces to help hospitals across the country manage this surge of the Omicron virus,” Biden said.

“I know we’re all frustrated as we enter this new year,” Biden said, while reiterating his message that COVID-19 continues to be a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

U.S. COVID-19 hospitalizations reached a record high this week after steadily increasing since late December, according to a Reuters tally, while Omicron overtook Delta as the dominant variant of the coronavirus. The U.S. will send the health workers, in teams of seven to 25 military doctors, nurses and other personnel, to Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island to support at-capacity emergency rooms and free up overwhelmed hospital staff for non-COVID cases, the White House said earlier on Thursday. The White House’s more aggressive stance comes after months of criticism from health experts that the administration was relying too heavily on vaccines alone to stop the spread of the coronavirus, especially given a politically motivated anti-vaccine movement pushed by some Republican officials. About 62% of Americans are considered fully vaccinated, according to U.S. data.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell, who joined Biden during his speech, told CNN earlier “the number one request continues to be staffing,” referring to states asking for federal aid. Other states are likely to need reinforcements of military and other federal doctors and nurses as well, she said.

MORE TESTS AND MASKS

Biden also announced that he will direct the U.S. government to procure an additional 500 million COVID-19 tests to help meet surging demand across the country. The order comes on top of another 500 million tests that the White House pledged would be available to Americans in January.

The president also said the administration next week will announce it will make high quality masks available for free. He noted about a third of Americans report they do not wear a mask.

Biden’s administration has deployed federal surge teams since July to battle COVID-19. In December, Biden directed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to ready another 1,000 medical forces and sent more than 100 federal medical personnel to Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Some states’ hospitals are at or near capacity.

New Jersey, for example, had 6,089 COVID patients in hospital on Wednesday. That compares with a state record of 8,270 on April 15, 2020.

About 73% of the hospital beds in the state are filled and 53% of intensive care unit (ICU) beds are occupied. In Rhode Island, 86% of all hospital beds are filled and 90% of ICU beds.

There were 133,871 people hospitalized with COVID in the United States on average over the past week, the tally showed.

The increase has strained health systems and forced several states to postpone elective surgeries.

Omicron not only drives up case loads but also has sidelined staff hit by their own COVID infections or exposures to the virus.

Several states have already declared emergencies to loosen regulations and free up funding to cope with the surge.

To date, 847,664 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States among 63,268,225 reported total cases as the outbreak enters its third year.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Additional reporting and writing by Nandita Bose and Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Heather Timmons, Howard Goller and Bill Berkrot)

CNN’s ratings are tanking after finding the network found itself entangled in scandal both on and off the screen.

According to The New York Post, the liberal channel’s ratings have taken a 90% nosedive during the first week of 2022. The left-winged news program only brought in 548,000 viewers for the January 3rd week compared to the whopping 2.7 million viewers for the same week one year before.

Of course, the January 6, 2021 capitol riots brought in eyeballs — giving CNN its most-watched day since launching in 1980. But on the one-year anniversary of the attack, audience members tuned into CNN’s rival network Fox. The Rupert Murdoch-run station collected the most watched ratings for the historic anniversary date.

CNN has found itself in hot water, not only because of two of its anchors’ questionable behavior and a few sex scandals but also because of the network’s boss. Jeff Zucker‘s personal life made headlines after Radar exposed his alleged affair with the cable giant’s Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Allison Gollust.

Their romance even got tangled up in Chris Cuomo‘s coverup mess.

But CNN’s head honcho’s relationship wasn’t the only bombshell that exploded on the network. Zucker was forced to fire Cuomo after discovering he helped cover his brother Andrew Cuomo‘s tracks amid the ex-New York Governor’s sexual harassment scandal.

The 51-year-old journalist was axed as the primetime anchor in December.

Attorney General Letitia James‘ office released a number of text messages that reportedly showed Cuomo helping Andrew strategize his response to the scandal. The CNN host was also accused of using his contacts and position at the network to bury his brother’s mess.

Following Cuomo’s firing, he was hit with his own sexual misconduct scandal.

Cuomo wasn’t the only on-camera talent whose actions came into question. Don Lemoncollected major backlash when former Empire star Jussie Smollett took the stand in his hate crime hoax trial, claiming the CNN host tipped him off that cops didn’t believe his story.

Don Lemon Attacks Jussie Smollett On-Air, Calls Actor A ‘Liar’ After Being Dragged Into Criminal Case

According to Smollett, Lemon had been told by a law enforcement source that Chicago Police Detectives were doubtful about Jussie’s attack on the night of January 29, 2019.

The host allegedly sent the text before Jussie was arrested on February 21.

Lemon later came out swinging, denying Smollett’s claims and branding the actor a “liar.” Don is also facing his own lawsuit after a man claimed the anchor sexually assaulted him at a bar.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Human Rights Watch on Thursday criticised U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders for a weak defense of democracy and for failing to meet challenges from the climate crisis and COVID-19 pandemic to poverty, inequality and racial injustice.

In contrast to what Human Rights Executive Director Kenneth Roth described as former U.S. President Donald Trump’s “embrace of friendly autocrats”, Biden took office in January 2021 with a pledge to put human rights at the center of his foreign policy.

“But he continued to sell arms to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel despite their persistent repression,” Roth wrote in Human Rights Watch’s annual World Report, released on Thursday.

“Other Western leaders displayed similar weakness in their defense of democracy,” Roth wrote, naming French President Emmanuel Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Roth also said that during key summits Biden “seemed to lose his voice when it came to public denunciation of serious human rights violations.”

“The U.S. State Department has issued occasional protests about repression in certain countries, and in extreme cases the Biden administration introduced targeted sanctions on some officials responsible, but the influential voice of the president was often missing,” he wrote.

U.S. officials have defended the Biden administration’s record, saying diplomats have frequently raised human rights concerns with foreign leaders, including in difficult talks with adversaries including China and Russia.

“If democracies are to prevail in the global contest with autocracy, their leaders must do more than spotlight the autocrats’ inevitable shortcomings. They need to make a stronger, positive case for democratic rule,” Roth said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Mary Milliken and Karishma Singh)

By Anthony Deutsch and Simon Jessop

AMSTERDAM/LONDON (Reuters) – The Dutch wing of environmental group Friends of the Earth, which won a landmark court victory against Royal Dutch Shell last year, is targeting 30 major corporate emitters of greenhouse gases in a campaign launched on Thursday.

Milieudefensie has set its sights on large companies with legal bases in the Netherlands, where a court ruled in May that Shell must reduce its environmental footprint.

The heads of the companies were being sent letters demanding that they provide plans outlining how they will trim emissions of the heat-trapping gases by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030. A failure to do so may result in legal action, said Peer de Rijk, policy officer at Milieudefensie.

“We are very clear that in the end, if needed, we are willing to go to court. But of course we are hoping these companies will be moving by themselves,” De Rijk told Reuters in an interview.

“We are willing to engage in talks, but we are in a hurry as well, so we won’t accept talks for the sake of talks themselves,” he said. “Climate science is very clear. This is exactly what is needed.”

Shell is appealing against The Hague district court order to cut emissions in line with the 2015 Paris agreement.

Among leaders in finance, retailers, oil and energy majors, builders and industrial manufacturers on the list are KLM, the Dutch arm of airline Air France KLM, ABN Amro bank and supermarket operator Ahold Delhaize.

“You lead an enterprise with control over and influence on a substantial amount of CO2 emissions. An enterprise that can and must contribute to the system change necessary to prevent dangerous climate change,” a draft letter seen by Reuters said, asking: “Are you a frontrunner or a straggler?”

Some of the businesses are “small in the Netherlands itself, but they have a very large, international, global impact and the Shell verdict very clearly states that it is …possible to hold them accountable for their global emissions via the Dutch law,” he said.

MID-APRIL DEADLINE

The move by Milieudefensie follows a commitment by countries to accelerate their emissions reductions at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow in November, with investors managing $130 trillion in assets signing up to net-zero and pressuring companies to ensure their plans are good enough.

The broadening out of Milieudefensie’s campaign also comes against a backdrop of increased climate-related litigation globally, with more than 1,000 cases brought since 2015, research from the London School of Economics showed.

Milieudefensie set a three-month deadline until April 15 for the companies to present a climate plan. They will be used to set an emissions baseline against which progress in cutting climate-heating gasses can be measured, the group said.

Other companies receiving a letter were: Pension fund ABP, insurer Aegon, paint maker AkzoNobel, insurer Atradius, builder BAM Groep, dredger Boskalis Westminster, oil company BP, Dow Chemical, nutrition maker DSM, oil company ExxonMobil, dairy group FrieslandCampina, bank ING Groep, airline KLM, chemical manufacturer LyondellBasell, insurer NN Group, pension fund PfZW, Rabobank, energy company RWE, Schiphol airport, oil major Shell, car producer Stellantis, Tata Steel, products group Unilever, Uniper energy, food group Vion, commodities trader Vitol, Vopak storage and Yara chemical.

KLM said it has committed to aligning its net-zero pathway with climate science, and planned to use more sustainable aviation fuel.

An ABN spokesperson said the bank supported efforts to limit global warming and was working to reduce emissions from its lending.

Ahold Delhaize said it had not yet received the official letter and could not comment.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam and Simon Jessop in London; Editing by William Maclean)

By Jessica Resnick-Ault

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Two months after U.S. President Joe Biden announced an unprecedented effort among major oil consuming economies to work together to bring down rising fuel prices, prices are again approaching multi-year highs. And Biden has few options to stop the rally.

Global benchmark Brent crude passed $84 a barrel on Wednesday and leading analysts are forecasting that oil could pass $100 a barrel in the first quarter. [O/R]

Biden spearheaded a coordinated release of oil from strategic reserves with Japan, India, South Korea, Britain and China in November that helped quell prices – even though, in the end, China did not take part.

Brent briefly dropped below $70 a barrel, but the effects were short-lived.

Rising oil prices present a political headache for Biden and any U.S. president, because the United States is the biggest consumer of gasoline globally, burning roughly 9 million barrels per day (bpd) of the motor fuel. Crude prices make up about two thirds of the price of gasoline, making the commodity’s price an important part of consumers’ budgets.

Republicans are pointing fingers at climate-focused policies supported by Biden, a Democrat, for rising prices, but the reality is that oil market is linked to global factors beyond any U.S. political party’s control.

Investors have been buying oil on expectations that the Omicron coronavirus variant will have a limited effect on global economic activity. Currently U.S. pump prices are about 80 cents a gallon below their all-time record hit in 2008, but they are expected to rise.

WHY ARE OIL PRICES RISING AGAIN?

Worldwide oil demand recovered to pre-pandemic levels at roughly 99 million bpd, but supply is at least a million bpd short of that, according to the International Energy Association.

Economists say the combination of strong demand, weak investment and a lack of spare capacity has caused prices to rise. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia, a group known as OPEC+, have been routinely falling short of targeted supply increases.

“OPEC+ remain steadfast in adding 400,000 bpd back to the market each month, but our data suggests that monthly additions tally closer to 250,000 bpd,” Mike Tran, commodity strategist at RBC Capital Markets, said in a note to clients.

U.S. production averaged roughly 11.3 million bpd in the second half of 2021, compared with a peak of about 13 million bpd at the end of 2019.

CAN’T BIDEN PRESSURE OPEC AGAIN?

Biden last year joined his predecessors who at one time or another pressed OPEC to raise output, with variable success.

The president announced several steps to try to bring fuel prices down in November. The White House, in conjunction with Japan, South Korea and India, announced a release of barrels from its strategic reserves.

Biden had also said China would be involved, but the country, the world’s largest crude importer, said it would sell from its reserves on its own schedule.

The group cut supply by a record 9.7 million bpd in early 2020 as the pandemic broke out. It has been slowly restoring output, but currently OPEC+ is still withholding more than 3 million bpd in supply.

WHAT ARE BIDEN’S OTHER OPTIONS?

Biden could increase sales from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). However, that supply is limited, and pales in comparison to the size of the global market.

SPR crude inventories have fallen to 593 million barrels, their lowest since November 2002.

Biden’s announcement in November was for a release of 50 million barrels in sales and loans – roughly half of one day’s global consumption.

The president could also consider a federal gas tax holiday; the federal excise on gasoline is 18.4 cents a gallon.

In 2008, lawmakers floated this idea in response to a surge in prices that brought gasoline costs to more than $4 a gallon – but because refiners cannot quickly produce more gasoline, such a move would likely only boost demand, which would ultimately send prices higher, economists have argued.

(Reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault; Editing by Heather Timmons, David Gaffen and Marguerita Choy)

By Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – Personalized smart guns, which can be fired only by verified users, may finally become available to U.S. consumers after two decades of questions about reliability and concerns they will usher in a new wave of government regulation.

Four-year-old LodeStar Works on Friday unveiled its 9mm smart handgun for shareholders and investors in Boise, Idaho. And a Kansas company, SmartGunz LLC, says law enforcement agents are beta testing its product, a similar but simpler model.

Both companies hope to have a product commercially available this year.

LodeStar co-founder Gareth Glaser said he was inspired after hearing one too many stories about children shot while playing with an unattended gun. Smart guns could stop such tragedies by using technology to authenticate a user’s identity and disable the gun should anyone else try to fire it.

They could also reduce suicides, render lost or stolen guns useless, and offer safety for police officers and jail guards who fear gun grabs.

But attempts to develop smart guns have stalled: Smith & Wesson got hit with a boycott, a German company’s product was hacked, and a New Jersey law aimed at promoting smart guns has raised the wrath of defenders of the Second Amendment.

The LodeStar gun, aimed at first-time buyers, would retail for $895.

The test-firing of the LodeStar gun before Reuters cameras has not been reported elsewhere. A range officer fired the weapon, a third-generation prototype, in its different settings without issue.

Glaser acknowledged there will be additional challenges to large-scale manufacturing, but expressed confidence that after years of trial and error the technology was advanced enough and the microelectronics inside the gun are well-protected.

“We finally feel like we’re at the point where … let’s go public,” Glaser said. “We’re there.”

Most early smart gun prototypes used either fingerprint unlocking or radio frequency identification technology that enables the gun to fire only when a chip in the gun communicates with another chip worn by the user in a ring or bracelet.

LodeStar integrated both a fingerprint reader and a near-field communication chip activated by a phone app, plus a PIN pad. The gun can be authorized for more than one user.

The fingerprint reader unlocks the gun in microseconds, but since it may not work when wet or in other adverse conditions, the PIN pad is there as a backup. LodeStar did not demonstrate the near-field communication signal, but it would act as a secondary backup, enabling the gun as quickly as users can open the app on their phones.

SmartGunz would not say which law enforcement agencies are testing its weapons, which are secured by radio frequency identification. SmartGunz developed a model selling at $1,795 for law enforcement and $2,195 for civilians, said Tom Holland, a Kansas Democratic state senator who co-founded the company in 2020.

Colorado-based Biofire is developing a smart gun with a fingerprint reader.

Skeptics have argued that smart guns are too risky for a person trying to protect a home or family during a crisis, or for police in the field.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the firearms industry trade association, says it does not oppose smart guns as long as the government doesn’t mandate their sale.

“If I had a nickel for every time in my career I heard somebody say they’re about to bring us a so-called smart gun on the market, I’d probably be retired now,” said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the NSSF.

Guns coming to market could trigger a 2019 New Jersey law requiring all gun shops in the state to offer smart guns after they become available. The 2019 law replaced a 2002 law that would have banned the sale of any handgun except smart guns.

“The other side tipped their hand because they used smart guns to ban everything that’s not a smart gun,” said Scott Bach, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs. “It woke gun owners up.”

When Smith & Wesson pledged in 1999 to promote smart gun development, among other gun safety measures in an agreement with the U.S. government, the National Rifle Association sponsored a boycott that led to a drop in revenue.

In 2014, German company Armatix put a smart .22 caliber pistol on the market, but it was pulled from stores after hackers discovered a way to remotely jam the gun’s radio signals and, using magnets, fire the gun when it should have been locked.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Donna Bryson and Leslie Adler)

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the U.S. Senate has led to them making new calls to change the chamber’s longstanding “filibuster” supermajority rule to allow them to pass a voting rights bill that President Joe Biden will urge https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-biden-filibuster-idUSKBN2JK1L8 action on on Tuesday.

Critics say the “filibuster,” which requires 60 of the 100 senators to agree on most legislation, is an anti-democratic hurdle that prevents Washington from addressing pressing problems.

Supporters say it forces lawmakers to seek consensus, serves as important check on the party in power and ensures that major laws that affect American life don’t change radically with every election.

Once a rarity, the filibuster is now routinely invoked. In recent months, Republicans have used it to block voting-rights bills and bring the United States perilously close to a crippling debt default.

Democrats could use their razor-thin Senate majority to eliminate the filibuster altogether. But centrist Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema oppose this move, saying that it will shatter the few bipartisan bonds that remain and give Republicans free rein if they take a majority in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has warned that his party would use other tactics to bring the chamber to a halt if the filibuster is eliminated.

WHAT IS THE FILIBUSTER?

Unlike the House of Representatives, the Senate was set up to allow for unlimited debate. In the 19th century, lawmakers developed the filibuster — a word derived from Dutch and Spanish terms for Caribbean pirates — as a way to talk a bill to death.

Then-Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond set the record https://www.cop.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture/overview.htm in 1957, when spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to block a major civil rights bill. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy spoke for nearly 15 hours in 2016 to press for gun-control legislation and Republican Senator Ted Cruz spoke for more than 21 hours in 2013 to protest President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act. None of those efforts were successful.

Senators agreed in 1917 that a vote by a two-thirds majority could end debate on a given bill. That majority was reduced in 1975 to three-fifths of the Senate, currently 60 senators.

Under current rules, senators don’t need to talk to gum up the works — they merely need to register their objection to initiate a filibuster.

Over the past 50 years, the number of filibusters has skyrocketed as Democrats and Republicans have become more politically polarized. From 1969 to 1970 there were six votes to overcome a filibuster, the nearest reliable proxy. There were 298 such votes in the 2019-2020 legislative session.

WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM FOR DEMOCRATS?

Democrats control 50 seats in the Senate, which allows them to eke together a majority with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking 51st vote when needed. They can’t overcome filibusters unless at least 10 Republicans vote with them.

Democrats were able to bypass the filibuster to pass Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus plan using a special process known as “reconciliation” that only requires a simple majority for certain budget bills. But that process is subject to complex limitations and cannot be used regularly.

Republicans have blocked many other Democratic priorities, though 19 of them did vote for a $1 trillion package to revamp the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

CAN THE FILIBUSTER BE CHANGED?

There have already been changes.

In 2013, Democrats removed the 60-vote threshold for voting on most nominees for administration jobs, apart from the Supreme Court, allowing them to advance on a simple majority vote.

In 2017, Republicans did the same thing for Supreme Court nominees. Both the 2013 and 2017 Senate rule changes were made by simple majority votes.

Some Democrats have called for eliminating the filibuster entirely, but they lack the 50 votes needed to take that step.

Democrats plan to vote sometime over the next week to scale back the filibuster so it would not apply to voting-related legislation. But it’s not clear whether they have the votes for this either; Manchin said last week that he would prefer https://www.reuters.com/world/us/senators-meeting-with-manchin-voting-rights-bills-schumer-2022-01-04 to get some Republican buy-in for that change.

On Sunday he said he might support making the tactic more “painful” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-senate-fillibuster-idUSKBN2AZ0IW by requiring senators to keep talking on the Senate floor.

Biden, who spent 36 years in the Senate, long supported the filibuster but has grown more open to changing it as Republicans have blocked several of his major initiatives over the past year.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)