By Andres Gonzalez and Jesús Aguado LONDON/MADRID (Reuters) -Spain's Santander is planning to hire around 150 bankers primarily in the

Leonardo DiCaprio met Blake Lively in 2010 when she auditioned for the role of Daisy Buchanan for ‘The Great Gatsby’

A trio of Republican House committee chairs is demanding information from the Department of Justice on the pending plea and diversion agreements between prosecutors and Hunter Biden as part of their ongoing effort to inflict political damage on his father, President Joe Biden. In a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, and Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith said the decision by Delaware US Attorney David Weiss to allow Hunter Biden to plead guilty to two misdemeanour tax charges and enter into a deferred sentencing agreement on a single charge of lying on a gun background check form “raise serious concerns ... that the Department has provided preferential treatment toward Mr. Biden in the course of its investigation and proposed resolution of his alleged criminal conduct”. Mr Biden, who is President Biden’s youngest and only surviving son, has admitted to what have been well-documented struggles with alcohol and drugs, and during an aborted plea hearing last week said he’d been in and out of rehabilitation facilities on numerous occasions over the last few decades. During that court appearance, US District Judge Maryellen Noreika objected to a provision of the diversion agreement which stated that she — not prosecutors — would be responsible for determining whether Mr Biden might have breached the agreement’s terms, which would necessitate new criminal charges. The judge said the provision in question was “not standard” and “different from what I normally see” and suggested it violates the separation of powers in the US Constitution because it would put the judicial branch in the position of making a charging decision that is an executive branch function. Legal experts have opined that the provision at issue was an attempt by the department to protect Mr Biden from a situation in which a future Republican administration would manufacture charges against him. The current GOP frontrunner for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, Donald Trump, has repeatedly pledged to jail Mr Biden, his father, and numerous other prominent Democrats. The GOP representatives asked Mr Garland to provide them with data on how often, if at all, the Delaware US Attorney’s office and the Justice Department have included similar provisions in diversion agreements. They also demanded information on who — prosecutors or Mr Biden’s defence attorneys — suggested that the agreement should place a final decision on new charges in a judge’s hands, and asked Mr Garland to provide a list of pretrial division agreements for other defendants who’ve been charged with the same gun-related offence as Mr Biden, as well as “all documents and communications referring or relating to each similar pretrial diversion agreement entered into by the Department in the last ten years”. Additionally, the committee chairs asked Mr Garland to provide a “generalized description of the nature of the Department’s ongoing investigation” into Mr Biden and an “explanation of why the Department originally agreed to a plea agreement” with Mr Biden if there are ongoing probes into him. It is unlikely that Mr Garland will provide any response that satisfies the GOP representatives, as the Justice Department’s policy for decades has been to not comment on ongoing investigations, even in response to congressional inquiries. Read More House Oversight chair admits GOP can’t back up Biden bribery accusations Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner testifies to Congress. Here’s what to know Biden acknowledges Hunter’s daughter Navy in public for first time

Demand for private credit rebounded globally in the second quarter, with 34 new funds raising $71.2 billion, more

Three former Australian Open champions — Naomi Osaka, Caroline Wozniacki and Angelique Kerber — are set to return to Melbourne Park in January following maternity leave, joined by 2022 winner Rafael Nadal and hometown favorite Nick Kyrgios

A Nasa scientist has said chemicals found on Mars would be considered signs of ancient life if they were found on Earth, leading to suggestions the Red Planet could potentially have harboured life. Dr Michelle Thaller said: “On Mars we see chemistry that on Earth, if it were here, we would say is due to life. “But the question is, how well do we understand Mars and are we being fooled by something?” It’s not a done deal, of course. Signs of ancient life that we find regularly on Earth may not mean the same thing elsewhere, particularly with the vastly different conditions between the two planets. Dr Thaller told The Sun she is certain there is life out there in our solar system, but did not reveal the exact chemical substance that had been found. Nasa has previously found methane on Mars, which it said “could have supported ancient life”, and the organisation has also revealed plans to look for amino acids that haven’t yet been destroyed by space radiation. Organic chemicals like amino acids are used by archaeologists to determine whether life was present. A blog post from the US space agency said: “Amino acids can be created by life and by non-biological chemistry. “However, finding certain amino acids on Mars would be considered a potential sign of ancient Martian life because they are widely used by terrestrial life as a component to build proteins. “Proteins are essential to life as they are used to make enzymes which speed up or regulate chemical reactions and to make structures.” Alexander Pavlov of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, added: “Our results suggest that amino acids are destroyed by cosmic rays in the Martian surface rocks and regolith at much faster rates than previously thought. “Current Mars rover missions drill down to about two inches (around five centimeters). “At those depths, it would take only 20 million years to destroy amino acids completely.” That may sound like a long time, but Nasa is looking for life that is billions of years old, because scientists think Mars would have been more like Earth back then. Dr Thaller said it was important not to actually say there were signs of life until there is 100 per cent confirmation. “The solar system may be teeming with simple life, microbial life. “We just have to get that 100% certainty to say that we found it and we don’t have that yet.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Special counsel Jack Smith's team and lawyers for Donald Trump will appear Tuesday for the first time in front of the judge who will preside over the criminal case Smith has brought against the former president, for a hearing that will be procedural nature but could provoke clashes over how quickly the classified documents case should move to trial.

Central America is experiencing a seismic shift that is remarkable even for a region whose history is riddled with turbulence

Levi Salomon has been documenting anti-Semitic slogans and acts at rallies in Berlin for 25 years, but never had he experienced such virulent expressions of hate against Jews...

The release of Lords of the Fallen is just around the corner. Players are wondering if the fantasy RPG will arrive on Xbox Game Pass.

Deon Derrico's mom Marian 'GG' had been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2014 following which she had to undergo chemotherapy treatments

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes will be sentenced Thursday after a landmark verdict convicting him of spearheading a weekslong plot to keep former President Donald Trump in power, culminating in far-right extremists attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021