The leader of the recent protests Columbia University has been revealed as the 40-year-old son of millionaire ad execs who lives in a four story Brooklyn townhouse.

James Carlson, who also goes by Cody Carlson and Cody Tarlow, was arrested by the NYPD and charged with burglary and illegal entry after he stormed Columbia’s Hamilton Hall and re-named it ‘Hind’ Hall.

The accused, who is described as ‘a long-time figure in the anarchist world’ by officials, was also arrested for allegedly attacking a police officer during the violent G8 protests in San Francisco in 2005.

James is the son of Richard Tarlow and Sandy Carlson Tarlow, millionaire advertising duo who started Carlson & Partners together and were known for their cosmetic and fashion clients including Revlon, Victoria’s Secret, Ralph Lauren and Neutrogena.

The millionaire father was also a supporter of of John Jay College and the John Jay Justice Awards that recognize people and organizations who demonstrate a commitment to justice.

Richard died at the age of 81 in May 2022 while Sandy died in 2003 at the age of 53.

According to the NY Daily News, James graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brooklyn Law School and later became an animal rights lawyer who clerked at the US District Court in 2013.

He also had a short stint as an undercover investigator on factory farms and slaughterhouses recording animal abuse, according to the publication.

James is believed to be married to model Kim Heyrman and has two children while living in a $3.4 million Brooklyn brownstone townhouse in New York.

The main house is a two-story property with four spacious bedrooms, four wood burning fireplaces with two on the parlor floor, according to Zillow.

The carriage house, on the other hand, has 18-foot-high ceilings with a loft area, skylights, electric heat for a kitchen and bath.

While in front of the main house, there is a expansive lawn and porch and between the main and carriage house is majestic garden area with a decked porch and mature trees, one with a wooden swing.

James is suspected of burning an Israeli flag during a demonstration two days ago and is believed to be ‘previously involved in recent bridge and tunnel blocking’, according to NBC News.

Earlier this week, footage emerged of protestors smashed windows, upended furniture and caused damage throughout Hamilton Hall during the occupation before police stormed the campus and arrested more than 100 protestors Tuesday night.

Around 40 protestors were arrested on the first floor of the building after police swooped just after 9pm ending the pro-Palestine encampment that stretched on for nearly two weeks and included students taking over the hall.

Pictures and video taken of the aftermath show the hall’s trashed interior strewn with activists’ belongings.

Columbia’s President, Minouche Shafik, called in the NYPD in to ‘restore order and safety’ to the campus amid the escalating protests, which also included a massive encampment on the school’s lawns.

The raid saw demonstrators arrested across the campus and at nearby City College New York, where similar protests unfolded.

Police stormed Hamilton Hall through an upstairs window after students used furniture to barricade the entrance.

Pictures show how chairs and desks have been turned upside down to become makeshift barriers. The cost of damage to the building is likely to total thousands of dollars.

The occupation followed weeks of unrest at Columbia, which began with the establishment of the encampment on April 17.

Protestors set up tents after Shafik was grilled before Congress about anti-Semitism on campus.

They repeatedly ignored calls to disband, with the demonstrations ramping up early Tuesday with the violent takeover of Hamilton Hall.

After two weeks of chaos, which saw classes moved online and facilities shuttered, Shafik finally called in the police who managed to clear out the campus in just two hours.

University administrators have now asked the police to maintain a presence until May 17, two days after graduation.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team on May 3 acknowledged they misled U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon regarding the handling of evidence in one of the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump.

Prosecutors in a court filing said that in some of the boxes FBI agents seized from President Trump’s Florida resort, the order of papers has been changed from shortly after the seizure.

Prosecutors compared scans of the boxes done in 2022 under orders from Judge Cannon to the present state of the boxes and noticed that the order is not the same.

“There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” Mr. Smith’s team said.
In a footnote, prosecutors acknowledged that the update contrasts with what they told the judge less than one month ago, during a hearing in the case.

When Judge Cannon during the hearing asked whether the boxes were “in their original, intact form as seized,” a prosecutor on the team said, “they are, with one exception; and that is that the classified documents have been removed and placeholders have been put in the documents.”

Prosecutors were unable to confirm why the order of papers was changed but offered a theory.

“The boxes contain items smaller than standard paper such as index cards, books, and stationary, which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full,” they said.

The disclosure was made in a filing responding to a request from Walt Nauta, one of President Trump’s co-defendants, for an extension of a deadline to file papers under the Classified Information Procedure Act (CIPA).

Section five of CIPA requires defendants to serve notice when they intend to disclose classified information.

“Regardless of the explanation … where precisely within a box a classified document was stored at Mar-a-Lago does not bear in any way on Nauta’s ability to file a CIPA section 5 notice,” prosecutors said, with regards to the order of papers having changed in some of the boxes from President Trump’s residence.

In the filing, prosecutors said that the boxes were taken to the FBI’s Washington Field Office following their seizure in Florida in August 2022. The FBI then created an index to link the documents with classification markings to codes, such as “bb,” and also labeled classified cover sheets in the boxes with codes.

“The FBI also generally replaced the handwritten sheets with classified cover sheets annotated with the index code, but regardless, any handwritten sheets that currently remain in the boxes do not represent additional classified documents—they were just not removed when the classified cover sheets with the index code were added,” prosecutors said. “In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet.”

Tim Fitton, president of the Judicial Watch nonprofit, said on the social media platform X that the admission by prosecutors was a reason “to throw out this sham prosecution.”

The case was brought against President Trump and others over their alleged violation of federal law in handling documents marked classified. Defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Neither Mr. Nauta nor other defendants in the case have responded yet to the new filing.

Mr. Nauta’s request for an extension is one of many documents that are under seal, or unavailable for perusal.

In another recent filing, President Trump’s team said that the case should be dismissed because prosecutors are motivated by “improper political animus,” pointing in part to how White House lawyers worked with the National Archives and Records Administration on its referral to the Department of Justice and how President Joe Biden has said that he was “making sure” President Trump “does not become the next president again.”

Prosecutors opposed the dismissal request but their opposition was filed under seal.

Trump’s response

In Truth Social post, Trump accused Smith of “blatant evidence tampering” and called for the case to be thrown out.

“It has always been clear that the ‘Documents Case’ is nothing but an Election Interference Scam concocted by Crooked Joe Biden, Deranged Jack Smith, and their Hacks and Thugs,” Trump wrote.

“Now, Deranged Jack has admitted in a filing in front of Judge Cannon to what I have been saying happened since the Illegal RAID on my home, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida—That he and his team committed blatant Evidence Tampering by mishandling the very Boxes they used as a pretext to bring this Fake Case. These deeply Illegal actions by the Politicized ‘Persecutors’ mandate that this whole Witch Hunt be DROPPED IMMEDIATELY. END THE ‘BOXES HOAXES.’ MAGA2024!”

Salacious celebrity scandal peppered with foundation-building evidence defined the second week of testimony in former President Trump’s New York criminal trial.

Witnesses this week began digging into the minutiae of the Manhattan district attorney’s case, from bank records and non-disclosure agreements to text messages suggesting efforts to keep quiet negative stories about Trump to help his 2016 campaign.

But key witnesses’ credibility has also been sharply drawn into question, setting the stage for defense attorneys to take aim at critical future testimony.

Here are five takeaways from the second week of testimony in the hush money trial.

Celebrity scandals make a cameo

Keith Davidson, a lawyer for two women paid to keep their alleged affairs with Trump secret, gave a behind-the-scenes account of efforts to execute the agreements with the National Enquirer and ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen.

But Davidson’s testimony during cross-examination by Trump’s attorneys also dredged up a graveyard of celebrity scandals he also appeared to be linked to.

The likes of Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen, Hulk Hogan and Tila Tequila were name-dropped as clients or casualties of Davidson’s work, which defense attorneys used to suggest the lawyer has a habit of extorting famous figures.

At one point, Trump’s attorneys attempted to paint Davidson as an extortionist for stories involving everything from sex tapes to rehab stints.

Davidson’s testimony to start exposed his relationship with National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard as he worked to keep affairs alleged by porn actress Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal, who Davidson represented, from going public as Trump mounted his first presidential campaign.

But by the time election night 2016 came around, Davidson expressed remorse in a text message to Howard as Trump stunned the nation by inching toward becoming president-elect.

“What have we done?” Davidson wrote.

Hope Hicks: 2016 damage control

Hicks testified for hours about how she was central to mitigating damage caused by a series of scandals just before Election Day.

The first “crisis” came when a Washington Post reporter reached out to the campaign about the “Access Hollywood” tape, a 2005 recording of Trump bragging about grabbing women inappropriately and seemingly without their consent.

“I was concerned,” Hicks said of her initial reaction to learning of the tape – and the news organizations intent to publish it along with a story. “I was very concerned.”

When confronted with the Post’s comment request, Trump told Hicks that it “didn’t sound like something he would say,” she testified. But he later told her he believed the remarks were “pretty standard stuff for two guys chatting.” The first time Trump saw the tape he was upset, she said, describing her own reaction as “just a little stunned.”

Hicks also testified that, just four days before Election Day 2016, Cohen blew off a Wall Street Journal story that revealed McDougal’s hush money deal. Cohen, she said, didn’t believe the story would get much traction.

“Just a little irony there,” she noted on the witness stand, discussing the story in detail nearly eight years later.

Cohen credibility war underway

Cohen was already in the hot seat this week – before he takes the stand himself – as witnesses took turns taking shots at the former president’s ex-fixer, making clear the challenges of the controversial character’s impending testimony.

Davidson testified that he and others in his orbit at the time took measures to actively avoid Cohen because they disliked him so much. Texts between a top editor at the National Enquirer and Daniels’s manager revealed descriptions of Cohen as “some jerk” and “that asshole.”

In his testimony, Davidson described Cohen as a “highly excitable, sort of a pants-on-fire kind of guy.”

“He had a lot of things going on,” the lawyer said.

Even Cohen’s old banker, Gary Farro, revealed that the onetime fixer became his client because he maintained a reputation as someone who can handle clients “who may be a little challenging.”

Having coordinated the payments to a Trump Tower doorman and McDougal – in addition to paying off Daniels himself – Cohen’s testimony is expected to provide prosecutors with a key link to Trump. Cohen has said that his actions were done at the behest of his then-boss.

But testimony this week gave defense attorneys significant fodder to undercut the credibility of the soon-to-be star witness, whose own testimony is expected to mark the climax of the trial.

Trump’s courtroom entourage grows

Early in the trial, some observers noted that the former president’s family was not in court with him.

But Trump’s entourage grew this week to include a wider set of aides and family.

The former president’s son, Eric Trump, attended on Tuesday, sitting in the courtroom gallery alongside Trump campaign adviser Susie Wiles.

They were joined by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and Club For Growth President David McIntosh.

Trump himself has turned his body to face a witness testify at times, while at other moments, the former president faced straight ahead to read texts, emails and other exhibits displayed on the monitor in front of him.

Throughout the week, Trump often whispered to his lawyers — sometimes appearing frustrated — or looked through written press clippings provided to him by an aide. The former president has also closed his eyes for multiple minutes on multiple occasions, though he has denied sleeping in court.

“Contrary to the FAKE NEWS MEDIA, I don’t fall asleep during the Crooked D.A.’s Witch Hunt, especially not today. I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday.

Trial schedule comes into view

The trial schedule is constantly being tweaked, and the latest changes make one thing clear: Many partial weeks lay ahead.

The trial as of now will meet next week on its normal schedule of all weekdays except Wednesday, when the judge attends to his other active cases.

But after that, the schedule is regularly interrupted.

Judge Juan Merchan agreed to skip trial on Friday, May 17 so Trump can attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.

The following Friday, the court will not meet because a juror has plans to leave town that day for Memorial Day weekend. And, the court won’t meet on the holiday itself that Monday.

The week after that? Another skipped day. If the jury hasn’t started deliberating yet, the judge signaled he’ll skip trial on June 3 so one of Trump’s lawyers can attend a graduation.

Russia has issued arrest warrants for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as several high-ranking former officials including former President Petro Poroshenko.

The wanted list published by Moscow’s Interior Ministry was updated on Tuesday to include President Zelensky. The arrest warrant states that the Ukrainian leader is wanted over a violation of the Russian Criminal code, however, the exact alleged offence has not been published.

Russian state-run media RT suggested that the arrest warrant may be in response to unconventional tactics used by Ukraine, noting that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month in the wake of a suspected Ukrainian attack on the Crimean bridge that threats made by Zelensky to destroy Russian infrastructure demonstrated the “terrorist” nature of Kyiv.

The wanted list was also updated to include former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who came to power following the Western-backed 2014 Euromaidan protests described by Moscow as a coup against Viktor Yanukovych, who was forced out of office by the violent movement after seeking closer economic ties with Russia and rejecting overtures for further EU integration. As with Zelensky, the charges levied against Poroshenko have not been made public by the Kremlin.

The announcements come after multiple other former Ukrainian officials face arrest warrants issued on Friday, including former Finance Minister Aleksandr Shlapak and former central bank chief Stepan Kubiv.

The head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, Aleksandr Litvinenko, also had an arrest warrant taken out against him.

The move by Moscow will likely further dampen expectations for a planned peace summit set to be held in Switzerland in the middle of June. Nevertheless, neither side appears willing to budge in the conflict, with Russia flatly rejecting Ukraine’s demands to cede back the territory it occupies before negotiations even begin.

Ukraine has also argued that freezing the lines of the conflict under a ceasefire agreement would only allow Russia to regroup and prepare for another incursion into the country at a later date.

Regardless of the tough stance from Kyiv, Russia appears set to make further territorial gains, as Moscow’s forces advance after fending off Ukraine’s much-touted Spring counteroffensive last year.

In April, recently-installed Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi admitted that the “situation on the Eastern Front has significantly worsened” following the Russian presidential election and the thawing of the ground as winter subsided.

Despite the increasingly gloomy prospects for Ukraine, Western powers, appear intent on doubling down on their support for Zelensky, led by the Biden administration, which with the help of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, secured a further $60 billion in aid for Ukraine last month.

One of the tightest finishes in Kentucky Derby history punctuated the race’s 150th running as Mystik Dan just barely had his nose ahead to win the first leg of the American Triple Crown.

Second-betting favorite Sierra Leone had a late rush up the outside to try and stun the crowd of over 156,000 gathered at Churchill Downs.

Running in third was Forever Young, who was squeezed between Sierra Leone from the outside and Mystik Dan which was running on the rails.

This is trainer Kenny McPeek’s first Kentucky Derby win and his second career Triple Crown win after taking home the Preakness Stakes in 2020 with Swiss Skydiver.

Sent off at 18-1 odds, Mystik Dan and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. rode the rail down the stretch with a short lead.

Watch:

WOW. 😱

Mystik Dan WINS the 150th Kentucky Derby in a PHOTO FINISH! pic.twitter.com/N2jfd2TsKe

— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

Ken McPeek, trainer of Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan, reflects on his second massive win of the weekend. 🏆 #KyDerby pic.twitter.com/dsrMlZLgQx

— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

Sierra Leone, the second choice at 9-2 odds, and Forever Young from Japan gave chase and pressured the leader to the wire in front of 156,710 at Churchill Downs.

The crowd waited several minutes before the result was reviewed by the stewards and declared official.

‘The longest few minutes of my life,’ Hernandez said, after he and bay colt walked in circles while the stunning result was settled.

Fierceness, the 3-1 favorite, finished 15th in the field of 20 3-year-olds.

Hernandez and trainer Kenny McPeek had teamed for a wire-to-wire win in the Kentucky Oaks for fillies on Friday with Thorpedo Anna.

Actor Mark Hamill crashed Friday’s White House press briefing — the day before Star Wars Day (May the Fourth) — and instead of taking questions about the popular Sci-Fi/Fantasy franchise, all he wanted to do was gush about President Joe Biden.

Hamill, who played the role of Jedi Luke Skywalker in George Lucas’ original trilogy, joined White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at the lectern and told reporters how happy he had been to meet the president’s staff.

He opened with a joke, saying that when Biden had invited the actor to call him “Joe,” he’d asked whether he could call him “Joe-Bi-Wan-Kenobi.”

⚠️🇺🇸 CRINGE: “I said, ‘Can I call you Joebi wan Kenobi?'” – Hamill https://t.co/hUCm3Fucfz pic.twitter.com/YTfTQCLJUX

— HOT SPOT (@HotSpotHotSpot) May 3, 2024

.@MarkHamill at the White House press briefing:

“I was honored to be asked to come to the White House to meet the President, the most legislatively successful president in my lifetime. And you know, I don’t have to go through the list of bipartisan infrastructure law, the PACT… pic.twitter.com/6BuWLHEJ9g

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 3, 2024

“I was honored to be asked to come to the White House to meet the president, the most legislatively successful president in my lifetime,” Hamill began, listing off a series of legislative actions that he counted as Biden wins. “And you know, I don’t have to go through the list of bipartisan infrastructure law, the PACT Act, the Chips Act, all of that inflation — 15 million jobs.”

“Look, it’s all good,” Hamill continued, praising Biden’s staff and raving about how much work the president did day-to-day. “I mean, I was really thrilled to meet the entire staff because, you know, it’s not just one person. It’s like a composite endeavor and all these people, my goodness, you know, I mean, I have no idea — I — I had no idea. Just what went into what is on his plate on a daily basis.”

“So, that’s pretty much it. I’m open to questions, although no Star Wars questions, please,” Hamill concluded. “But I want to say once again how grateful I am, and it just shows you that just one person can be so influential and so positive in our lives and, again thank you so much. And @PeterBakerNYT, I loved your book.”

“Hamill was born in 1951,” Mike Cote pointed out in an X post. “Even for his personal politics, Biden isn’t remotely close to the most legislatively successful president of his lifetime. LBJ, anyone? Very sad to see a Jedi turn into a Sith before our eyes.”

Hamill was born in 1951. Even for his personal politics, Biden isn’t remotely close to the most legislatively successful president of his lifetime. LBJ, anyone?

Very sad to see a Jedi turn into a Sith before our eyes. https://t.co/7gLEWGahxz

— Mike Coté (@ratlpolicy) May 3, 2024

A fourth body has reportedly been discovered in a popular Mexican tourist area, where an American and two Australians vanished last week while on an apparent camping and surfing trip, the local prosecutor’s office said in a statement late on Friday.

American Jack Carter Rhoad, 30, as well as Australian brothers Callum Robinson, 33, and Jake Robinson, 30, were last seen on April 27, the Baja California state prosecutor’s office previously announced. They did not show up at their planned accommodation last weekend.

Investigators discovered three bodies dumped in a pit while searching for the trio on Friday, although officials have not confirmed if the bodies are those of the missing men.

The fourth body was found nearby, the New York Post and other outlets reported. It’s unclear if it’s connected to the other three.

Forensic tests on the remains will be conducted by a state laboratory, which will allow for positive identification of the bodies, the prosecutor’s office said in its statement.

Investigators continue to search the rugged area where the bodies were found for additional evidence, the statement added.

The bodies were found in a rugged hillside area in the Mexican state of Baja California near the popular tourist town of Ensenada, about 90 minutes south of the U.S.-Mexico border. Video from the scene shows rescuers installing ropes to enter the pit where the bodies were discovered. The site is cordoned off by police, while a navy boat was also visible in the sea nearby.

The site where the bodies were discovered near the township of Santo Tomás, was near the remote seaside area where the missing men’s tents and the burned-out Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck were found Thursday on a remote stretch of coast.

It is unclear what types of injuries the victims suffered or how they died.

“There is a lot of important information that we can’t make public,” María Elena Andrade Ramírez, the chief state prosecutor said.

Baja California prosecutors said Friday that three people had been arrested and charged with a crime equivalent to kidnapping. It was unclear if they might face more charges.

Ensenada Mayor Carlos Ibarra Aguiar said in a news release that a 23-year-old woman had been detained with drugs and a cellphone that had a wallpaper photo of one of the missing men, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Officials didn’t specify how the three people were connected to the investigation, saying only that some were directly involved and others indirectly.

Investigators said that a missing persons report was filed 48 hours after the men were last seen, although the prosecutor’s office began investigating as soon as posts began circulating on social media.

María Elena Andrade Ramírez, the chief state prosecutor, said that while drug cartels are active in the area, she said, “all lines of investigation are open at this time. We cannot rule anything out until we find them.”

The Baja California Attorney General’s Office has said that it has maintained contact with the FBI and relatives of the victims, through consular agencies.

On Wednesday, the missing Australians’ mother, Debra Robinson, posted on a local community Facebook page an appeal for help in finding her sons and noted that Callum is diabetic.

The Australian media reports that Jake is a doctor, while Callum lives in San Diego and is a member of Australia’s national lacrosse team.

The State Department’s travel advisory lists Baja California under its “reconsider travel” category due to crime and kidnapping.

In 2015, two Australian surfers, Adam Coleman and Dean Lucas, were killed in western Sinaloa state, across the Gulf of California — also known as the Sea of Cortez— from the Baja peninsula. Authorities say they were victims of highway bandits.

Labour’s Sadiq Khan has secured a historic third term as London mayor, seeing off Tory challenger Susan Hall.

It followed “wild rumours” the incumbent could have suffered a shock defeat, although both sides subsequently said they believed Mr Khan would win.

He received 1,088,225 votes (43.8%) to be re-elected, a majority of nearly 276,000 over Ms Hall, who secured 812,397 votes (32.7%).

It was the first time any candidate for London mayor has won a third term in office, with Mr Khan’s predecessors Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone both having served two terms.

As he took to the stage to make his victory speech, the re-elected mayor was booed and heckled with a shout of “Khan killed London” by the Britain First candidate, who received fewer votes than Count Binface.

Speaking at City Hall, Mr Khan said: “We faced a campaign of non-stop negativity, but I couldn’t be more proud that we answered the fearmongering with facts, hate with hope, and attempts to divide with efforts to unite.

“We ran a campaign that was in keeping with the spirit and values of this great city, a city that regards our diversity not as a weakness, but as an almighty strength – and one that rejects right hard-wing populism and looks forward, not back.”

He also thanked his family for their support, but apologised for them having to deal with “protests by our home” and “threats”.

While congratulating Mr Khan on his victory, Ms Hall said he should stop “patronising” people who care about London.

When she had previously challenged him in a mayoral debate about “gangs running around with machetes” in the capital, he had said she should “stop watching The Wire” – a gritty US-based crime drama.

In her concession speech, she said: “The thing that matters the most, and to me, is reforming the Met and making London safe again. I hope Sadiq makes this his top priority.

“He owes it to the families of those thousands of people who have lost lives to knife crime under his mayoralty.

“And I hope too that he stops patronising people, like me, who care. This isn’t an episode of The Wire, this is real life on his watch.”

The pair had repeatedly clashed during the campaign, fought out amid concerns about knife crime and the handling of pro-Palestinian marches in the capital.

Just recently, Mr Khan had described his Conservative rival as the “most dangerous candidate I have fought against” over her past social media activity.

Hitting back, Ms Hall said she had “learnt” from her mistakes and branded his comment “outrageous”.

A clear dividing line between the candidates had been Mr Khan’s controversial expansion of the ultra low emission zone (ULEZ), which has been the subject of ongoing protests and which Ms Hall had pledged to scrap.

The result comes after Rishi Sunak’s Tory party took a hammering at the local elections, shedding hundreds of seats and losing more than 10 councils.

Meanwhile, Labour has made gains across the country, winning the Blackpool South by-election with a 26% swing from the Tories and taking control of councils in key battleground areas.

The party also picked up new mayoralties, including the critical regions of East Midlands and York and North Yorkshire, which includes Mr Sunak’s Richmond constituency.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “This is effectively the last stop on the journey to the general election and I am really pleased to be able to show we are making progress, we have earned the trust and confidence of voters and we are making progress towards that general election.”

Mr Sunak has taken consolation in the Conservative victory in the Tees Valley mayoral race, which was retained by Lord Houchen and seems to be enough to calm rumblings among discontented Tory MPs.

However, the crunch contest for West Midlands mayor remains on a knife-edge.

Labour has also not had it all its own way, losing control of councils in Oldham and Kirklees after victories for independent candidates opposing the party’s stance on Gaza.

Labour also lost seats on other councils including Bristol, where the Greens extended its lead as the largest party and could now be set to run the city council despite narrowly failing to win outright control.

Notably, all 14 councillors in the newly created Bristol Central constituency are now Green, where the party is looking to unseat Labour’s shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire at the general election.

The Tories have so far lost 473 seats and control of 12 councils, while Labour has won eight councils and gained 185 seats.

The Liberal Democrats gained 104 seats and won control of Dorset council from the Conservatives, while the Greens are up 74 seats.

The Justice Department on Friday released an indictment against longtime Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and his wife, Imelda, charging the pair with bribery and money laundering related to their ties with a bank in Mexico and an oil and gas company controlled by Azerbaijan.

NBC News was first to report that the charges were coming. The congressman and his wife were each released on a $100,000 bond after a first appearance in federal court in Houston, a DOJ spokesperson said Friday afternoon.

According to the indictment, from 2014 to 2021, the Cuellars allegedly accepted roughly $600,000 in bribes from the two foreign entities in exchange for the congressman performing official acts.

“The bribe payments were allegedly laundered, pursuant to sham consulting contracts, through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar, who performed little to no legitimate work under the contracts,” the DOJ said in a statement.

“In exchange for the bribes paid by the Azerbaijani oil and gas company, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to use his office to influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Azerbaijan,” DOJ continued. “In exchange for the bribes paid by the Mexican bank, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to influence legislative activity and to advise and pressure high-ranking U.S. Executive Branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the bank.”

The congressman and his wife are each charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit bribery of a federal official and to have a public official act as an agent of a foreign principal; two counts of bribery of a federal official; two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud; two counts of violating the ban on public officials acting as agents of a foreign principal; one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering; and five counts of money laundering.

If convicted, they could spend years or even decades in prison.

In a statement Friday before the charges were unsealed, Cuellar denied any wrongdoing, saying that he had “proactively sought legal advice” from the House Ethics Committee, which had issued “more than one written opinion” about the matter. Much of his statement focused on his wife.

“I want to be clear that both my wife and I are innocent of these allegations. Everything I have done in Congress has been to serve the people of South Texas,” Cuellar said in his statement, later adding: “The actions I took in Congress were consistent with the actions of many of my colleagues and in the interest of the American people.”

“Imelda and I have been married for 32 years. On top of being an amazing wife and mother, she’s an accomplished businesswoman with two degrees. She spent her career working with banking, tax, and consulting,” he continued. “The allegation that she is anything but qualified and hard working is both wrong and offensive.”

A defiant Cuellar also made clear he will still seek re-election: “Let me be clear, I’m running for re-election and will win this November.”

A statement from the congressman’s defense attorneys was similar to Cuellar’s but also noted prosecutors indicted him just six months before Election Day.

“The government’s decision to move forward with charges so close to the general election — and their decision to execute a search warrant 40 days before his [2022] primary — undermines the electorate and puts a thumb on the scale,” said attorneys Chris Flood and Eric Reed.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and other top Democratic leaders had endorsed Cuellar’s re-election bid last summer. In a statement, Jeffries spokesperson Christie Stephenson called Cuellar a “valued Member of the House Democratic Caucus,” noting that Cuellar is “entitled to his day in court and the presumption of innocence throughout the legal process.”

In the meantime, Cuellar will step aside from his position as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Department of Homeland Security, Stephenson said.

Cuellar’s home and campaign office in Laredo, Texas, were raided in January 2022 as part of a federal investigation into Azerbaijan and a group of U.S. businessmen who have ties to the country, law enforcement said at the time. His office had pledged to cooperate with the investigation. In April, Cuellar’s lawyer, Joshua Berman, told some news outlets that federal authorities informed him he was not the target of the investigation.

Cuellar is a one-time co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus. According to the indictment, in exchange for the bribes, Cuellar promised to influence legislation related to Azerbaijan’s conflict with neighboring Armenia; insert pro-Azerbaijan language into legislation and committee reports on security and economic aid programs; deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the House floor; and “consult” with Azerbaijan officials about their efforts to lobby the U.S. government.

Ahead of the indictment’s release, Cuellar’s staff were calling other member offices Friday seeking advice on how to handle the situation, one source with knowledge of those calls told NBC News.

A year after the raid on his home — which has not previously yielded arrests or charges — Cuellar told the Texas Tribune: “There has been no wrongdoing on my part. … My focus remains the same from my very first day in office: delivering results for Texans across my district.”

Despite the raid, Cuellar narrowly defeated a progressive challenger, Jessica Cisneros, in his 2022 primary and went on to win re-election to his seat that November. He didn’t face a primary challenger this year and will be on the ballot this November seeking his 11th term in Congress.

Two years ago, Cuellar easily defeated Republican nominee Cassy Garcia, 57% to 43%. His district became bluer when he picked up parts of San Antonio following redistricting. But the indictment will make Cuellar more vulnerable than in the past; in 2020, Joe Biden won Cuellar’s district over Donald Trump by 7 percentage points.

Two Republicans will face each other in a runoff election in late May for a chance to take on Cuellar in the fall.

“Henry Cuellar does not put Texas first, he puts himself first,” said Delanie Bomar, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “If his colleagues truly believe in putting ‘people over politics,’ they will call on him to resign. If not — they are hypocrites whose statements about public service aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.”

Cuellar is facing a call to resign from a member of his own party, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., who said in a post to X on Friday night that “while the bar for Federal indictment is high, trust in our government is low.”

“That’s why office holders and candidates under indictment should resign or end their campaigns, including Sen. Bob Menendez, Donald Trump, & Rep. Henry Cuellar,” Phillips, who was among the first to call on Menendez to resign, continued.

Donald Trump’s former top aide Hope Hicks broke down on the witness stand Friday at his hush money trial, during testimony where she also defended the former president’s relationship with wife Melania.

Hicks, 35 — former press secretary then top White House spokesperson to the ex-president — began crying after the first few questions by Emil Bove, a lawyer for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

During the emotional moment Hicks dabbed her eyes with a tissue as Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan offered her a short break, which she accepted.

Althought it is not clear why she started to cry, Hicks had first become visibly flustered at the end of questioning by the prosecution, while answering questions about the $130,000 payment to porn star Stromy Daniels which is at the center of the trial.

She had testified she thought Trump thought felt “it was better to be dealing” with the situation in 2018 than before the 2016 presidential election.

Hicks also choked up when she got back on the witness stand while recalling her time working for the Trump Organization.

Hicks had been on the stand for roughly four hours displaying composure while prosecutors grilled her on her time working for the ex-president beginning in 2015 and ending in 2022 — which she said is the last time she saw him.

Earlier, Hicks told jurors how Trump tried to ensure a Wall Street Journal article from Nov. 4, 2016 detailing allegations of an affair with Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal wouldn’t be seen by Melania.

“He was concerned about the story. He was concerned how it would be viewed by his wife,” Hicks said. “And he wanted to make sure the newspapers weren’t delivered to his residence that morning.”

Later, during follow-up by Bove, Hicks explained the reason Trump didn’t want Melania to see the McDougal article was because of how much he cares and respects her.

“President Trump really values Mrs. Trump’s opinion and she doesn’t weigh in all the time but when she does it’s really meaningful to him,” Hicks said.

“He really, really respects what she has to say. I think he was really concerned about what the perception of this would be and, yeah, I know that was weighing on him.”

Hicks added Trump didn’t want anyone from his family to “be hurt” by stories that were “going on in his campaign.”

Trump wished Melania a happy birthday from the courthouse last week while she was in Florida. She has not attended the first two weeks of trial.

Hicks — a former teen model, who admitted to having no experience before coming onto Trump’s team — also took a jab at Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who is expected to be the star prosecution witness against his longtime boss.

“He liked to call himself a fixer, or Mr. Fix It,” Hicks said.

“It’s only because he first broke it so he could fix it,” she added, to chuckles from the courtroom.

Earlier, Hicks laid out how Cohen was very involved in Trump’s media response denying the allegations of his affair with McDougal.

She explained that Cohen “wasn’t supposed to be on the campaign in any official capacity,” but he tried to “insert himself” anyway.

Cohen “wasn’t looped in on the day-to-day of campaign strategy” Hicks said of Cohen, adding he would go “rogue” and would do things that frustrated the campaign.

Hicks’ testimony wrapped later Friday afternoon.

Trump is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records to try to hide that he had Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in the run-up to the 2016 election to keep her quiet about claims she had slept with Trump while he was married. He has pleaded not guilty to 43 charges of falsigying business records realted to the payment.

He’s repeatedly attacked the trial as political motivated meant to interfere with his election bid.

Leaving the court he railed against Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and the Department of Justice.

“They’ve been after us for years — Democrats, the radical left — they’ve destroyed people’s lives.

“It’s a shame what they’ve done to this country. … These are vicious, vicious radical left lunatics,” he added.

The trial is set to resume with a new witness Monday morning.

Shocking video showing a ‘transgender’ student attacking another girl in a women’s restroom resulted in a bomb threat being sent to the school after the clip went viral.

The assault at Greece Arcadia high school took place in February and saw the victim dragged out of a stall by her hair by a much larger attacker, described as transgender.

Footage of the attack was shared by feminist website Reduxx on Thursday and resulted in a bomb threat being sent to the school, forcing it to close on Friday.

The clip in question shows a student barge into a restroom stall and begin beating a girl inside while other pupils film on their phones.

The student grabs the screaming girl by her hair and drags her out along the floor and into the hallway.

The student throws several more punches before a member of staff comes running over to separate them.

Even as they are dragged away, the assailant refuses to let go of the girl’s hair.

Eventually the student is escorted away and the girl who was attacked runs up behind and attempts to fight back.

However, she is picked up and carried away by what appears to be another staff member.

In the wake of the footage going viral on Thursday, the school was sent a bomb threat at 6.07am on Friday.

🚨A girl was reportedly assaulted in the female restroom at Arcadia High School in Rochester, New York.

According to another student at the school, the attacker is a boy who identifies as a girl. He was allegedly retaliating for perceived insults.

Reduxx reached out to Greece… pic.twitter.com/f7Mt0AZfT6

— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) May 2, 2024

Several bus loads of students who had already arrived on campus had to be redirected as cops worked to investigate.

The threat accused the school of failing to make a safe learning environment and accused the district of encouraging ‘mentally ill’ and ‘degenerate’, making reference to the fight, NBC News10 reports.

‘They created a situation that allowed for a girl to be assaulted in a women’s restroom by a worthless degenerate sack of mentally ill who thinks he’s a girl,’ the threat said.

‘We’re here to send a message, we placed a bomb in the school, evacuate now.’

There has been no confirmation from official sources about any of the students’ gender identity.

However, Reduxx stated it had spoken to another student at the school who claimed the attacker is transgender.

‘It is clear that this is being used for an agenda, whether it’s a personal or political agenda, it is being used,’ Graupman said.

‘That fight that occurred was significant and very, very upsetting and disturbing, and also I want to be very clear it involved minors, it involved minors that deserve respect and privacy.

‘We don’t get to share videos and names and peoples personal identities out there.’

Graupman did not say what measures had been taken to discipline the attacking student in the wake of the fight.

The police eventually deemed that the threat was not credible and the school reopened after 9am.

New York is among states whose laws let transgender people use whichever bathroom aligns with their gender identity.

President Biden honored former speaker Nancy Pelosi, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Olympic champion swimmer Katie Ledecky and former Vice President Al Gore with the Presidential Medal of Freedom Friday, along with 15 other American luminaries.

The 81-year-old president touted Bloomberg, 82, for his professional feats while applauding Gore, 76, for accepting his Electoral College defeat in the 2000 presidential race, a clear shot at former President Donald Trump.

“That to me was amazing what you did,” Biden said — despite the fact that Gore also challenged the result all the way to the Supreme Court.

Biden appeared to stumble on his script as he hailed Ledecky, who has won seven Olympic gold medals, for her plans to “compete this summer at the Paralympics at age 27,” melding the words “Paris” and “Olympics.”

The president also mistakenly referred to Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh by the first name “Michael” before quickly correcting himself.

“I’ll tell you what, it makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?” Biden said of his guests in the White House East Room — after at one point saying his staff “hates” his “ad-libbing” of speeches.

Presidents typically use the award, America’s highest civilian honor, to more closely associate themselves with the recipients.

In addition to his business and mayoral career, Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion on his own run for the 2020 Democratic nomination against Biden, ultimately carrying just American Samoa, and was a top donor in 2022 as congressional Democrats defied expectations of a Republican landslide.

“Mayor Michael Bloomberg is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and three-term mayor. He revolutionized the financial information industry and transformed New York City’s education, environment, public health, and the arts,” the White House said in announcing the award.

Fellow ex-presidential candidates Gore, John Kerry, and Elizabeth Dole also were honored.

Bloomberg made his fortune with financial technology and served as New York City mayor from 2002-2013, initially as a Republican and then as an independent.

Kerry was the Democratic Party’s unsuccessful presidential nominee in 2004, while Dole sought the Republican nomination in 2000.

Kerry’s citation notes his Vietnam War service and “his public service career that has spanned seven decades,” including as a senator from Massachusetts and most recently as Biden’s anti-global warming coordinator.

Dole was lauded for her foundation that supports military families and career as a “trailblazing” senator and Cabinet secretary.

The unusual gathering of former White House aspirants came as Biden’s own political future is imperiled with polling showing him trailing Trump, despite the ex-president’s four criminal prosecutions, including the ongoing hush money trial in New York.

The remaining honorees included Father Greg Boyle, a Los Angeles Jesuit priest and anti-gang activist; Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), whose endorsement of Biden in 2020 helped rescue the president’s stagnant campaign; longtime talk show host Phil Donahue; civil rights activist Clarence B. Jones; educator and activist Opal Lee; astronaut Ellen Ochoa; former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); astronomer Jane Rigby; United Farm Workers union president Teresa Romero; and Matthew Shepard Foundation co-founder Judy Shepard.

Three honorees received the medal posthumously: civil rights activist Medgar Evers, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and athlete Jim Thorpe.

The first image of a Texas farm worker infected with bird flu from a cow shows he suffered bleeding in his eyeballs.

It is thought to be the first known case of mammal-to-human transmission and comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned bird flu (H5N1) viruses “pose pandemic potential.”

The dairy worker attended a hospital in March after experiencing painful red, weeping eyes with burst blood vessels.

His eyes began to swell up though he had no fever and an examination showed his lungs were clear, according to a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Friday.

The journal also contained the image of the infected man, alongside the scientific term for his eye condition: conjunctivitis with subconjunctival hemorrhage.

He told investigators he had not been in contact with sick or dead birds, but did have repeated direct close contact with dairy cows in an area known to have infected herds.

Swabs of his eyes revealed a substantial presence of the H5N1 virus, though little was found in his lungs.

This has led to researchers considering whether he was infected through the eyes by rubbing them with contaminated hands or by being splashed with contaminated liquid – such as milk.

In the New England Journal of Medicine report, CDC epidemiologists said they were unable to access the farm where he was infected, which prevented them from being able to research precisely how workers may have been exposed.

Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said it’s because the infected dairy worker “did not disclose the name of their workplace” during a visit to a field office for testing.

According to the report, the worker did not wear protective eye goggles or a face mask which could have prevented the infection.

Bird flu had been circulating in cows for an estimated four months before it was confirmed by labs in late March, according to a new report released by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Thursday.

Since then, at least 36 dairy cow herds have been infected across nine US states, including Idaho, South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina.

While traces of the virus have been found in samples of milk from grocery stores, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said pasteurized milk remains safe to drink.

Michelle Zimmerman, a 37-year-old neuroscience Ph.D., experienced excruciating pain, memory issues, and sensitivity to light shortly after receiving the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, which she believes caused brain damage, leaving her unable to work or stand for long periods.

Despite over 13,000 vaccine-injury claims filed with the government, only a handful have been compensated. Some scientists argue that patients with legitimate injuries are being ignored, while federal officials insist these effects are rare and stress that surveillance is adequate.

NYT reported:

Within minutes of getting the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, Michelle Zimmerman felt pain racing from her left arm up to her ear and down to her fingertips. Within days, she was unbearably sensitive to light and struggled to remember simple facts.

She was 37, with a Ph.D. in neuroscience, and until then could ride her bicycle 20 miles, teach a dance class and give a lecture on artificial intelligence, all in the same day. Now, more than three years later, she lives with her parents. Eventually diagnosed with brain damage, she cannot work, drive or even stand for long periods of time.

“When I let myself think about the devastation of what this has done to my life, and how much I’ve lost, sometimes it feels even too hard to comprehend,” said Dr. Zimmerman, who believes her injury is due to a contaminated vaccine batch.

The Covid vaccines, a triumph of science and public health, are estimated to have prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths. Yet even the best vaccines produce rare but serious side effects. And the Covid vaccines have been given to more than 270 million people in the United States, in nearly 677 million doses.

Dr. Zimmerman’s account is among the more harrowing, but thousands of Americans believe they suffered serious side effects following Covid vaccination. As of April, just over 13,000 vaccine-injury compensation claims have been filed with the federal government — but to little avail. Only 19 percent have been reviewed. Only 47 of those were deemed eligible for compensation, and only 12 have been paid out, at an average of about $3,600.

Some scientists fear that patients with real injuries are being denied help and believe that more needs to be done to clarify the possible risks.

“At least long Covid has been somewhat recognized,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist and vaccine expert at Yale University. But people who say they have post-vaccination injuries are “just completely ignored and dismissed and gaslighted,” she added.

In interviews and email exchanges conducted over several months, federal health officials insisted that serious side effects were extremely rare and that their surveillance efforts were more than sufficient to detect patterns of adverse events.

“Hundreds of millions of people in the United States have safely received Covid vaccines under the most intense safety monitoring in U.S. history,” Jeff Nesbit, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an emailed statement.

But in a recent interview, Dr. Janet Woodcock, a longtime leader of the Food and Drug Administration, who retired in February, said she believed that some recipients had experienced uncommon but “serious” and “life-changing” reactions beyond those described by federal agencies.

“I feel bad for those people,” said Dr. Woodcock, who became the F.D.A.’s acting commissioner in January 2021 as the vaccines were rolling out. “I believe their suffering should be acknowledged, that they have real problems, and they should be taken seriously.”

“I’m disappointed in myself,” she added. “I did a lot of things I feel very good about, but this is one of the few things I feel I just didn’t bring it home.”

Federal officials and independent scientists face a number of challenges in identifying potential vaccine side effects.

The nation’s fragmented health care system complicates detection of very rare side effects, a process that depends on an analysis of huge amounts of data. That’s a difficult task when a patient may be tested for Covid at Walgreens, get vaccinated at CVS, go to a local clinic for minor ailments and seek care at a hospital for serious conditions. Each place may rely on different health record systems.

There is no central repository of vaccine recipients, nor of medical records, and no easy to way to pool these data. Reports to the largest federal database of so-called adverse events can be made by anyone, about anything. It’s not even clear what officials should be looking for.

“I mean, you’re not going to find ‘brain fog’ in the medical record or claims data, and so then you’re not going to find” a signal that it may be linked to vaccination, Dr. Woodcock said. If such a side effect is not acknowledged by federal officials, “it’s because it doesn’t have a good research definition,” she added. “It isn’t, like, malevolence on their part.”

The government’s understaffed compensation fund has paid so little because it officially recognizes few side effects for Covid vaccines. And vaccine supporters, including federal officials, worry that even a whisper of possible side effects feeds into misinformation spread by a vitriolic anti-vaccine movement.

‘I’m Not Real’

Patients who believe they experienced serious side effects say they have received little support or acknowledgment.

Shaun Barcavage, 54, a nurse practitioner in New York City who has worked on clinical trials for H.I.V. and Covid, said that ever since his first Covid shot, merely standing up sent his heart racing — a symptom suggestive of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a neurological disorder that some studies have linked to both Covid and, much less often, vaccination.

He also experienced stinging pain in his eyes, mouth and genitals, which has abated, and tinnitus, which has not.

“I can’t get the government to help me,” Mr. Barcavage said of his fruitless pleas to federal agencies and elected representatives. “I am told I’m not real. I’m told I’m rare. I’m told I’m coincidence.”

Renee France, 49, a physical therapist in Seattle, developed Bell’s palsy — a form of facial paralysis, usually temporary — and a dramatic rash that neatly bisected her face. Bell’s palsy is a known side effect of other vaccines, and it has been linked to Covid vaccination in some studies.

But Ms. France said doctors were dismissive of any connection to the Covid vaccines. The rash, a bout of shingles, debilitated her for three weeks, so Ms. France reported it to federal databases twice.

“I thought for sure someone would reach out, but no one ever did,” she said.

Similar sentiments were echoed in interviews, conducted over more than a year, with 30 people who said they had been harmed by Covid shots. They described a variety of symptoms following vaccination, some neurological, some autoimmune, some cardiovascular.

All said they had been turned away by physicians, told their symptoms were psychosomatic, or labeled anti-vaccine by family and friends — despite the fact that they supported vaccines.

Even leading experts in vaccine science have run up against disbelief and ambivalence.

Dr. Gregory Poland, 68, editor in chief of the journal Vaccine, said that a loud whooshing sound in his ears had accompanied every moment since his first shot, but that his entreaties to colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explore the phenomenon, tinnitus, had led nowhere.

He received polite responses to his many emails, but “I just don’t get any sense of movement,” he said.

“If they have done studies, those studies should be published,” Dr. Poland added. In despair that he might “never hear silence again,” he has sought solace in meditation and his religious faith.

Dr. Buddy Creech, 50, who led several Covid vaccine trials at Vanderbilt University, said his tinnitus and racing heart lasted about a week after each shot. “It’s very similar to what I experienced during acute Covid, back in March of 2020,” Dr. Creech said.

Research may ultimately find that most reported side effects are unrelated to the vaccine, he acknowledged. Many can be caused by Covid itself.
“Regardless, when our patients experience a side effect that may or may not be related to the vaccine, we owe it to them to investigate that as completely as we can,” Dr. Creech said.

Federal health officials say they do not believe that the Covid vaccines caused the illnesses described by patients like Mr. Barcavage, Dr. Zimmerman and Ms. France. The vaccines may cause transient reactions, such as swelling, fatigue and fever, according to the C.D.C., but the agency has documented only four serious but rare side effects.

Two are associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is no longer available in the United States: Guillain-Barré syndrome, a known side effect of other vaccines, including the flu shot; and a blood-clotting disorder.

The C.D.C. also links mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to heart inflammation, or myocarditis, especially in boys and young men. And the agency warns of anaphylaxis, or severe allergic reaction, which can occur after any vaccination.

Read the full article.

US intelligence officials assess that Russia and China are working more closely together on military issues, including a potential invasion of Taiwan, prompting new planning across the government to counter a potential scenario in which the countries fight in coordination, Bloomberg reported.

“We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said Thursday in testimony to Congress.

Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota asked Haines about such a potential scenario during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He also asked the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency about the Pentagon’s planning for such a possibility.

The Defense Department has “become even more concerned about our joint force requirements in an environment where” Russia and China “would certainly be cooperative, and we need to take that into account,” Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse responded.

Rounds said that the “the bottom line is that, basically, if we were to have a conflict with one, chances are that we would have a second front,” affecting planning, equipment and manpower needs.

“Certainly it’s a possibility,” Haines said.

“The question of just how likely it is, I think differs depending on the scenario.”

Haines added that intelligence assessments indicate there is “increasing cooperation in the ‘no-limits’ partnership” between Russia and China “across really every sector of society: political, economic, military, technological and so on.”

Jeffrey Epstein is going to name names — again.

A mysterious “black book” believed to belong to the late pedophile financier, which revealed the names and addresses of 221 previously undisclosed people, is going up for auction — and bidders are being assured that their identities will be kept secret.

It could fetch up to $200,000 — or more, the auction house owner told the Daily Beast, which first reported the story.

Among the famous names reportedly in the book:

• Billionaire New York businessman John Catsimatidis
• Suzanne Ircha, co-owner of the New York Jets
• Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn
• Cristina Greeven, the wife of fired CNN anchor Chris Cuomo
• Ex-Playboy CEO Christie Hefner
• Marty Peretz, and ex-New Republic publisher and a former political mentor to Al Gore
• Clintons
• Prince Andrew
• Former President Donald Trump

None of the above people have been charged with a crime related to Epstein.

The book was reportedly found on Fifth Avenue in the East Village by a female musician in the 1990s, but how it came to be there remains unclear to this day.

What is clear is that the book names 349 people — 221 of whom were not named in a later, more famous “black book” that Epstein kept.

The book was the subject of an in-depth investigation by Business Insider in 2021.

Many of the people contacted by Insider said their relationship with Epstein was either fleeing or nonexistent.

Catsimatidis told the Daily Beast that he only met Epstein once.

Trump has previously denied knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes.

Peretz told The Post he didn’t “know what to think about” his name being included in the book.

“I suppose he had a lot of names in his book. I really don’t care.”

Peretz said he only met Epstein once some 25 years ago at a Harvard dinner, “but that’s it.”

Cuomo responded on Greeven’s behalf: “She has no comment. They have absolutely no contact. Absolutely no relationship.”

The address book, believed to be from 1997, will go up for private sale by Alexander Historical Auctions, along with a forensic examiner’s report verifying its authenticity, on May 15.

“There are no comparables for the sale of this kind of relic. But, based on my experience, if I’m pressed to offer a price I would think it would be $100,000 to $200,000, and up,” Bill Panagopulos, owner of the auction house, told Daily Beast.

In 2015, the now-defunct blog Gawker leaked the contents of Epstein’s first, more recent black book with names including Michael Bloomberg, Bill Clinton, Trump, Mick Jagger and Prince Andrew.

All have denied wrongdoing related to Epstein.

Epstein was found dead hanging in his Manhattan federal jail cell in 2019 while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

His death was ruled a suicide.

News of the black book auction comes just five months after dozens of notable names — including royalty, politicians and famous scientists — appeared in an avalanche of previously sealed court documents related to the convicted pedophile.

The trove of papers filed in Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 defamation suit against the dead sex offender’s “madam” Ghislaine Maxwell included references to Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Stephen Hawking, among other major figures.

The lengthy list of high-profile names paints a troubling picture of Epstein’s double life as an ace financier who used his wealth and connections to victimize dozens of young women.

Donald Trump is sharpening his focus on a possible running mate by taking a page from his days hosting reality show “The Apprentice” and parading the top contenders for the slot in front of rich benefactors this weekend.

Contestants jockeyed for a job with his business empire for over a decade on the NBC show, with Trump pitting them against each other for his favor. An exclusive donor retreat at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach this week promises a similar vibe — drawing hundreds of deep-pocketed GOP backers as well as allies eyeing the No. 2 spot on the Republican presidential ticket.

The spectacle comes as Trump is narrowing his gaze on a handful of potential running mates: Ohio Senator JD Vance, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, according to people familiar with the deliberations as recently as this week.

Trump is saddled with legal woes. His running mate could be a crucial surrogate on the campaign trail, helping broaden his appeal with independents, women and minority voters, while also helping tap wealthy donors as he trails President Joe Biden by nearly $100 million.

Scott, Rubio and Vance all offer valuable experience raising money for Senate campaigns. Burgum, who sold his software company to Microsoft Corp. for $1.1 billion in 2001, has contacts in tech and energy sectors that could also help him woo wealthy donors.

Trump has publicly praised all four candidates recently, but Trump and Rubio have a history of trading barbs. During the 2016 Republican primary, Trump dubbed the Florida Senator “Little Marco,” and Rubio called Trump “the most vulgar person.” On Wednesday, Trump called Rubio “great” and “one of the people I respect.”

“Anyone claiming to know who or when President Trump will choose his VP is lying, unless the person is named Donald J. Trump,” Trump senior advisor Brian Hughes said.

Game-Time Decision

The former president – known for his loyalty tests and challenges that mirror some plot-lines from The Apprentice – has repeatedly emphasized that he has yet to decide on his running mate and will announce closer to the Republican National Convention, which begins July 15 in Milwaukee.

“We’ll be making that decision I think closer to Wisconsin time,” Trump said in an interview Wednesday with a Michigan television station. “It’s very early right now.”

The campaign is vetting lots of candidates, but Trump has yet to commit his full attention to the formal process or hold official one-on-one meetings with the VP contenders, people familiar with the process said.

Last month, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed in a post on X that Trump “emissaries” reached out to him about possibly being Trump’s running mate. Ben Carson, the former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, is seen as a safe choice for Trump among those in his orbit, the people familiar said.

Guest List

The weekend donor retreat gives Trump an opportunity to test-run his top tier of candidates — Burgum, Scott, Vance and Rubio — all of whom are slated to attend. Representatives for those individuals did not immediately respond to requests to comment or declined to comment.

Other potential VP candidates, including South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and Representatives Elise Stefanik of New York and Byron Donalds of Florida, are also listed on an invitation for the event.

Donors planning to attend include Scott Bessent of Key Square Group, who has been floated as a potential Treasury secretary nominee, and private equity investor Tommy Hicks Jr., Red Apple Group founder John Catsimatidis, former Intrepid Museum chief executive officer Bill White and his husband Bryan Eure of Willis Towers Watson will also have ringside seats, giving Trump to see how potential running mates are received by the GOP’s money elite.

The backdrop for the three-day donor event at The Four Seasons in Palm Beach is a stark contrast to Trump’s week, mostly spent in a New York City courtroom where he was fined for violating a gag order for criticizing key witnesses and warned that future breaches could result in jail time. Trump is in the middle of a multi-week criminal trial dealing with the falsification of business records to obfuscate hush money paid to an adult film actress. He also faces three other criminal indictments.

The Four Seasons will be locked down for the duration of the event to keep journalists and other unauthorized visitors out of the beach-front complex, according to a person familiar with the planning.

The schedule includes a Senate panel featuring Scott, Rubio, and other senators on Friday, according to a person familiar with the planning. House members will also host a reception that same evening, while Noem and Burgum will appear at a breakfast on Saturday, the person said. Trump himself will speak at a lunch that will be held at his Mar-A-Lago club, four miles away from the Four Seasons property. One topic that will be a key focus of discussion: election integrity.

Other notable Republicans slated to attend include US Representatives Jim Banks and Wesley Hunt, Senators Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. US Senate candidates, Dave McCormick, who is running in Pennsylvania, and Bernie Moreno, who is seeking to flip an Ohio Senate seat, are also scheduled to be there.

Running Mate Material

Trump’s running mate may have to take on an unusually large amount of campaigning if the former president’s legal troubles prevent him from maintaining a robust travel schedule. Trump’s current trial is expected to wrap up in June and trial dates for the other three indictments have not yet been scheduled and could stretch out past the election.

Douglas Heye, a Republican operative, said a strategically selected running mate could give Trump the bump he needs to win in what is expected to be a close race in November.

“Just as Mike Pence helped Trump with evangelicals, the right pick can help Trump make inroads with communities he is targeting,” Heye said. “Peeling off a few percentage points could have a big impact in key states.”

The Arizona Supreme Court on May 2 overturned two lower court rulings that imposed sanctions against the state’s Republican Party for a 2020 election lawsuit against Maricopa County that a lower court called “meritless.”

The Arizona GOP filed suit against Maricopa County challenging its hand-count auditing process during the 2020 general election days after the election.
The Republicans argued that the county’s decision to conduct a hand count audit by vote center instead of by precinct violated formal state election procedures, as the GOP is seeking a new audit by precinct.

The Superior Court of Arizona dismissed the case, claiming it was “meritless” and the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld that decision in April 2023, also finding it had “no merit.”

The party shortly after appealed again, and the ruling this week reverses a slate of attorney’s fees they were set to have to pay in an amount over $27,000.

The Arizona Supreme Court also emphasized a need for caution against dismissing too quickly election-related lawsuits as groundless.

“The desire to vindicate a legal right—even if in the election context and animated exclusively by political motives—is not relevant, much less per se sanctionable,” the supreme court wrote. “Courts should focus on the legal and factual merits of a claim and the party’s and attorney’s conduct in the course of the litigation. Any suggestion that a party or attorney faces enhanced risk of sanction merely because they couple political motives with a long-shot effort to vindicate a legal right in the election law context intolerably chills citizens and their attorneys precisely in an arena where we can least afford to silence them.”

The court went on to say courts should “in their zeal to ensure that election challenges are properly grounded in fact and law” does not “inadvertently inflict real damage to our republic by slamming the courthouse door on citizens and their counsel legitimately seeking to vindicate rights, which is also important to maintaining public confidence in elections.”

The Arizona Republican Party applauded the decision in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“We are pleased with the Supreme Court of Arizona’s decision to reverse and vacate the attorney fees awards previously levied against us,” their statement said. “This ruling reaffirms the fundamental legal principle that raising questions about the interpretation and application of election laws is a legitimate use of the judicial system, not a groundless or bad faith action. We remain committed to ensuring that election laws are followed precisely, upholding the integrity of our electoral process.”

Other Matters

“We consider whether the trial court and the court of appeals erred in awarding attorney fees against the [Arizona Republican Party] and its attorneys,” the state high court’s decision stated.

The court continued, noting those attorney fees were awarded under a state law that provides for awarding fees if an attorney or party brings or defends a claim that is “groundless and is not made in good faith.”

“We hold that the attorney fees award was improper because petitioners’ claim was not groundless, thus obviating any need to determine whether the claim was made in the absence of good faith,” the court’s opinion, authored by Justice John R. Lopez stated. The court’s decision was unanimous among the seven justices.

The court vacated the attorney fees awarded against Arizona GOP and clarified the interpretation of what constitutes a claim made in “bad faith” under the relevant Arizona statute, advocating for a more measured approach in assessing the motivations behind legal claims.

The court notes that there is a legitimate interpretive conflict between the statutory requirements for hand counts and the procedures actually followed, which included voting centers not specified in the law.

Regarding the issue of good faith, the state supreme court criticized the lower courts for equating the lack of good faith with the presence of bad faith or ulterior motives. Instead, the supreme court offers a different perspective, suggesting that a claim is made without good faith if it is pursued despite the party or attorney knowing it lacks a sound legal basis, or if pursued with indifference to its validity.

The court also addresses other aspects criticized by the lower courts, such as the timeliness of the lawsuit being filed after the election and procedural errors, arguing that these do not render the Arizona Republicans’ actions groundless or in bad faith. The court emphasized that the claims were not only legally tenable but also did not constitute an abuse of the judicial process.

The economy added 175,000 jobs in April, versus 315,000 the month before, and the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percentage point to 3.9%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.

Investors had expected roughly 300,000 new jobs and for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 3.8%.

The interpretation

“It’s a little disappointing, obviously, but it’s still a strong number, and this is kind of what you would expect as the economy eases down a little bit after we’ve had such a long string of interest rate hikes,” Dan North, a senior economist with Allianz Trade Americas, told the Washington Examiner. “A little weaker on the headline, but still OK.”

What it means … for Biden

The report is unwelcome news for President Joe Biden, who is suffering from high disapproval ratings related to his handling of the economy. Biden is running low on time to turn around voter perceptions of his handling of the economy before the election.

While the economy is still adding jobs, the number was well short of expectations and a major slowdown from the months before.

What it means for … the Fed

Friday’s report shows some cooling in the labor market. If subsequent reports indicate that employment growth is slowing, that would push up the timing of a cut in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate target.

The underlying reality

It is important not to read too much into any one jobs report. The payroll numbers bounce around from month to month and are revised in subsequent reports.

Instead, it is helpful to look at the trend. The three-month moving average of jobs decreased to 242,000.

Roughly 110,000 new payroll jobs are needed each month to keep unemployment from rising, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Note, though, that a separate estimate that takes into account the full extent of recent immigration puts the number as high as 200,000.

Prime-age employment, relative to the overall population, is strong by historical standards.

Recession watch

The unemployment rate, taken from the jobs report’s household survey, is low.

Recessions entail a rising unemployment rate.

Friday’s data suggest that the United States is close to but still short of triggering one major recession indicator — namely, when the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate rises half a percentage point relative to its minimum point over the past year. This indicator, known as the Sahm Rule, signaled the start of all postwar recessions.

Industries to watch

The leisure and hospitality sector is just below the levels of employment it reached in February 2020, right before restaurants and bars were forced to shut down across the country.

Construction employment has remained robust, even as the housing market has taken a massive hit over the past few years as mortgage rates have soared alongside the Fed’s rate hikes. That’s in part because of a huge backlog of construction of multifamily housing over recent months. Economists will watch closely for any sign of slowing hiring in construction.

Unemployment rates by race/ethnicity

The household survey also includes unemployment rates by race and ethnicity. Rates for all groups neared record lows in the past few years but appear to have drifted up recently.

The IRS says it is about to ramp up audits as it cracks down on tax cheats and seeks to deliver more revenue into the U.S. Treasury’s coffers. But not every group of taxpayers will face more scrutiny, according to IRS commissioner Danny Werfel.

The IRS has been bolstered by $80 billion in new funding directed by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was signed into law in 2022 by President Joe Biden. The idea behind the new funding was to help revive an agency whose ranks have been depleted over the years, leading to customer service snarls, processing delays and a falloff in audit rates.

On Thursday, the IRS outlined its plans for the funding, as well as its efforts so far to burnish the agency’s customer service operations after some taxpayers encountered months-long delays during the pandemic. The IRA money has helped the IRS answer more taxpayer calls during the tax season that just ended on April 15, as well as beef up its enforcement, which led to the collection of $520 million from wealthy taxpayers who hadn’t filed their taxes or still owed money, it said.

“The changes outlined in this report are a stark contrast to the years of underfunding” that led to a deterioration in the agency’s services, Werfel said on a conference call with reporters.

Werfel noted that the IRS’ strategic plan over the next three tax years include a sharp increase in audits, although the agency reiterated it won’t boost its enforcement for people who earn less than $400,000 annually — which covers the bulk of U.S. taxpayers.

Here’s who will face an increase in audits

At the same time, the IRS is increasing its audit efforts, with Werfel noting on Thursday that the agency will focus on wealthy individuals and large corporations:

• The IRS plans to triple the audit rates on large corporations with assets of more than $250 million. Audit rates for these companies will rise to 22.6% in tax year 2026 from 8.8% in 2019.
• Large partnerships with assets of more than $10 million will see their audit rates increase 10-fold, rising to 1% in tax year 2026 from 0.1% in 2019.
• Wealthy individuals with total positive income of more than $10 million will see their audit rates rise 50% to 16.5% from 11% in 2019.

“There is no new wave of audits coming from middle- and low-income [individuals], coming from mom and pops. That’s not in our plans,” Werfel said.

But by focusing on big corporations, complicated partnerships and wealthy people who earn over $10 million year, the IRS wants to send a signal, he noted.

“It sets an important tone and message for complex filers, high-wealth filers, that this is our focus area,” he said.

The myth of 87,000 armed IRS agents

The agency also outlined its efforts to bolster hiring, thanks to the new IRA money. In the mid-1990s, the IRS employed more than 100,000 people, but its workforce had dwindled to about 73,000 workers in 2019 due to a wave of retirements and prior funding cuts.

Werfel said the agency has recently boosted its workforce to about 90,000 full-time equivalent employees, and that it plans to expand to about 102,500 workers over the next few years.

“That number won’t even be a record high for the IRS workforce; it’s well below the numbers from the 1980s and early 1990s,” Werfel noted.

He added that the hiring data should dissolve what he called “any lingering myths about a supersized IRS.” After the IRA passed, some Republican lawmakers warned in 2022 that the agency would use the money to hire “87,000 new IRS agents to audit Walmart shoppers.”

“This should put to rest any misconception about us bringing on 87,000 agents,” Werfel noted, adding that many of the new hires are replacing retiring employees.