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‘Unfathomable Devastation’: At Least 23 Dead After Tornado Tears Through Mississippi"I've never seen anything like this... This was a very great small town, and now it's gone," says Rolling Fork resident. Update: As daylight breaks, new footage of the tornado disaster in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, has been posted on Twitter, providing a clearer view of the destruction and devastation caused by the powerful storm https://www.newswars.com/unfathomab...after-tornado-tears-through-mississippi/
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Donald trump says he will be arrested on Tuesday. And his attorney says Trump will surrender when he is criminally charged. trump says this charge is politically motivated. And while I don't agree with him on much, he's right. Former President Donald Trump will surrender to law enforcement officials if he is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment he allegedly made to porn actress Stormy Daniels, according to Trump’s attorney.
The remarks from attorney Joseph Tacopina come in response to a report from NBC News that said federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies were analyzing security assessments and making plans to prepare for the possibility that Trump will be indicted as early as next week.
Fox News reported that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office asked for a meeting with law enforcement officials to “discuss logistics for some time next week, which would mean that they are anticipating an indictment next week.”
Tacopina told the New York Daily News that if Trump is indicted, “there won’t be a standoff at Mar-a-Lago with Secret Service and the Manhattan DA’s office.”
Tacopina later told CNBC that they “will follow normal procedures if it gets to that point.”
The New York Times reported earlier this week that it would be highly unlikely at this point for prosecutors to not seek an indictment given the amount of relevant witnesses questioned in front of the grand jury and the offer they made to Trump to come in and testify in front of the jury.
The case involves an alleged payment that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen admits he made to Daniels during the presidential race to keep quiet about an alleged 2006 tryst between Trump and Daniels. Cohen pleaded guilty to related charges and served time in prison.
Although non-disclosure agreements are legal, the potential problem for Trump centers around how his company reimbursed Cohen. The payment was listed as a legal expense and the company cited a retainer agreement with Cohen. The retainer agreement did not exist and the reimbursement was not related to any legal services from Cohen, thus setting up a potential misdemeanor criminal charge of falsifying business records. The report said that Trump personally signed several of the checks to Cohen while he was serving as president.
Prosecutors can elevate the misdemeanor to a felony if they can prove that Trump’s “‘intent to defraud’ included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”
Prosecutors argue that the second crime is that the $130,000 hush payment was an improper donation to the Trump campaign because the money was used to stop a story for the purpose of benefiting his presidential campaign. Onward and upward, airforce |
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Farmers' protest party win shock Dutch vote victory
By Anna Holligan & Paul Kirby In The Hague and London
BBC News
A farmers' party has stunned Dutch politics, and is set to be the biggest party in the upper house of parliament after provincial elections.
The Farmer-citizen movement (BBB) was only set up in 2019 in the wake of widespread farmers' protests.
But with most votes counted they are due to win 15 of the Senate's seats with almost 20% of the vote.
"This isn't normal, but actually it is! It's all normal citizens who voted," said leader Caroline van der Plas.
The BBB aims to fight government plans to slash nitrogen emissions harmful to biodiversity by dramatically reducing livestock numbers and buying out thousands of farms.
But its appeal has spread rapidly beyond its rural heartland, on a populist platform that represents traditional, conservative Dutch social and moral values.
Shocked by the scale of their success, Ms van der Plas told supporters that voters normally stayed at home if they lost faith in politics: "But today people have shown they can't stay at home any longer. We won't be ignored any more."
A left-wing Green-Labour alliance is also on course to win 15 Senate seats, while Prime Minister Mark Rutte's four-party coalition is poised to fall back to 24 - down eight seats.
Turnout in Wednesday's vote, estimated at 57.5%, was the highest for years and the biggest loser of the night was the far-right Forum for Democracy party.
For rural voters, the main incentive for backing the BBB was to protest against cuts in nitrogen emissions, according to an Ipsos poll for public broadcaster NOS.
But voters also turned out in force for the Greens, and environmental groups warned that the Netherlands' problems were not going away.
"Restoring nature is just as necessary today and tomorrow as it was yesterday," tweeted Natuurmonumenten.
Why Dutch farmers are protesting over emissions cuts
The run-up to the vote was dominated by the sight of farmers' tractors on the streets of The Hague and outside the venue that hosted a pre-vote leaders' debate.
Commentator Ben Coates described the result as "something of an earthquake in Dutch politics".
Although their policies are very much focused on opposing the government's environmental policies, he told the BBC most people would characterise them as a right-wing, populist party that was quite anti-EU, anti-immigration and in favour of banning burkas for Muslims.
Standing before supporters on Wednesday night, Caroline van der Plas wore her trademark green nail polish and a ring featuring an upside-down Dutch flag, a symbol of the anti-government protests.
The daughter of an Irish mother and a Dutch father, she lost her husband Jan to pancreatic cancer as the protests took off in 2019. She is unlike any Dutch party leader - and for many voters, that is her appeal.
She had to step back from public campaigning last year because of death threats. She was told the same fate awaited her as Pim Fortuyn, a populist leader assassinated days before the 2002 Dutch general election.
Speaking to the BBC during a visit to farmers in the rural east, she sprang to her feet in mid-sentence to avoid a bee, explaining she had been stung as a toddler and had been terrified ever since.
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