List of All Articles with Tag 'ame'

Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso said Friday he will not seek reelection in the early elections prompted by his decision to dissolve the National Assembly two weeks ago. Lasso, who disbanded the assembly just when it appeared on the verge of ousting him in impeachment proceedings, announced his decision not to run in Aug. 20 balloting at a news conference surrounded by members of his Cabinet and family. “This has been the greatest honor of my life, but I love democracy way beyond the role of president,” Lasso said. "If my duty as president requires me to give up my position and protect democracy, then I will do so. Without fear and with a clear conscience.” Lasso, a conservative former banker, was elected in 2021 on a business-friendly platform and clashed from the start with the left-leaning majority coalition in the 137-member National Assembly. In May, lawmakers launched impeachment proceedings against him on allegations that he failed to intervene to end a faulty contract between the state-owned oil transport company and a private tanker company. Faced with likely removal from office on what he called frivolous charges, Lasso disbanded the National Assembly, calling it “the best possible decision,” giving Ecuadorians “the power to decide their future in the next elections.” Ecuador's constitution includes a provision that allows the president to disband the assembly during a political crisis, but then requires new elections for both the assembly and presidency. Mauricio Alarcón, an analyst with Ecuador's nongovernment organization Citizenship and Development Foundation, praised Lasso's decision to step aside, telling The Associated Press that the level of confidence in the president “had hit rock bottom.” An estimated 13.4 million Ecuadoreans will go to the polls in August to elect president, vice-president and 137 legislators. They will complete the current term of office, which end in May 2025. If no winner is declared in a first round, a second one is scheduled for Oct. 15. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide

The gamer, known for playing Dead by Daylight, dies after being diagnosed with motor neuron disease.

Controls are important in any video game, as they’re how we interact with an interactive

A Nebraska teenager who shot dead his parents in the 1950s before escaping from prison lived out his life in Australia as a successful businessman and beloved “family man”, DNA tests revealed. William Leslie Arnold shot and killed his parents at the age of 16 in a dispute over using the family car and buried them in the backyard of their Omaha home. The teenager kept on going to school for two weeks and acting as if nothing had happened before being arrested. He pleaded guilty to the slayings and in 1959 was given a life sentence in the Nebraska State Penitentiary. He pleaded guilty to the slayings and in 1959 was given a life sentence in the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Despite being viewed as a model prisoner, on 14 July 1967, Arnold and another inmate were involved in a jailbreak and went on the run. Investigators say that Arnold moved to Chicago where he moved in with a woman and worked in the city before moving to California and then to Australia. The FBI continued to investigate the case until the 1990s when they handed it back to the Nebraska Department of Corrections, who in turn gave it to the US Marshals Service. Investigators eventually discovered that within three months of his escape, he had married and established an alias, John Damon. He continued to use that identity when he moved with his second wife to New Zealand in 1992 and then to Australia in 1997, where he built a career as a salesman. Arnold died in 2010 at the age of 67 from complications caused by blood clots leaving behind a wife and two children, as well as three stepdaughters from his first marriage. Authorities say that all of the people in his life were completely oblivious to his criminal past. “It’s a total shock,” Arnold’s stepdaughter Kelly told The Omaha World-Herald, calling the revelation “Mind-blowing.” “A lot of things that didn’t make sense or were uncomfortable now make sense,” said another stepdaughter, Shawn. “We all need to work our way through it, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Donald Trump’s attorneys have been unable to find the classified document described in a recording of a 2021 conversation that is now in the possession of prosecutors, CNN reports. Earlier this week, the network broke the news that a recording existed of the former president acknowledging that he had held onto a classified Pentagon document outlining a potential attack on Iran. Citing two sources, CNN now reports that attorneys for Mr Trump could not find the document he referred to when they turned over material in mid-March in response to a federal subpoena relating to the investigation. Prosecutors sought “any and all” documents and materials related to Mark Milley, Mr Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Iran, including maps or invasion plans, the sources say. Another subpoena was sent to at least one other attendee of the recorded meeting at Bedminster, New Jersey, in July 2021, another source told the network. Prosecutors reportedly made it clear that they wanted the specific document referred to in the recording after they had issued the subpoena, as well as any other material referencing classified documents still in the possession of the former president. The report adds credence to prosecutors’ scepticism that all classified materials retained by Mr Trump after he left office have been returned. Dozens of documents of varying classification levels were retrieved from the former president’s home at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida when the FBI searched the premises in August 2022. The recording of Mr Trump was created during the summer of 2021, approximately six months after the ex-president had left office. It reportedly captures a discussion during which Mr Trump was reacting to the publication of a story in The New Yorker regarding how Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley took actions to ensure the outgoing president issued no illegal orders. In the article, journalist Susan Glasser reported that Mr Milley was concerned that Mr Trump “might set in motion a full-scale conflict that was not justified” by ordering military action against Iran. The former president was reportedly recorded as he waved a document and said it would undermine what Mr Milley had said if he could legally show it to anyone. CNN reported that the audio recording contains the sound of paper rustling as if Mr Trump was waving a document around. The recording also reportedly captured laughter after the ex-president noted that he was not permitted to show the document to anyone. The July 2021 meeting took place long before Mr Trump’s aides sent 15 boxes of records from his Florida home to the National Archives. That January 2022 transfer of documents led Archives officials to discover multiple classified documents among the records sent back from Mr Trump’s residence, leading the agency to notify the Department of Justice about the discovery. The Justice Department’s probe into Mr Trump’s alleged unlawful retention of national defence information is being overseen by a special prosecutor, Jack Smith. Mr Smith has reportedly obtained other evidence which shows Mr Trump made efforts to obstruct the investigation by concealing documents from the government, even after he was served a grand jury subpoena compelling him to return all classified documents in his possession. The investigation is reportedly in its final stages and could result in charges against Mr Trump as soon as this summer. Read More Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement Justice Department says it won't charge Pence over handling of classified documents Trump rages that Pence won’t face charges for classified documents Georgia Trump investigation could include other states in racketeering case: report

Provides an overview of French Guiana, and key facts about this French South American territory.

The Heat have been one of the best underdog stories in NBA history but the Nuggets may be their toughest test. Here's what they have to do to steal Game 2.The Miami Heat have one of if not the greatest underdog playoff run in the history of the NBA. They are the first team ever, in a full 8...

American Airlines Group's pilot leaders have rejected efforts to join the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), union spokesman

The Department of Justice will not charge former vice president Mike Pence for any potential mishandling of classified documents and has closed its investigation, CNN reported. The department sent a letter saying it will not charge Mr Pence after the former vice president’s attorney found classified documents in his home in Indiana. Mr Pence had asked his attorney to search his home after news reports that President Joe Biden had classified documents at his own personal residence. Mr Pence immediately turned the documents over to the FBI and the bureau and the Justice Department launched an investigation into how the documents landed in Mr Pence’s home.

North Carolina's Fort Bragg is now Fort Liberty, as the US Army on Friday redesignated one of the largest military installations in the world.

MAGA firebrand Lauren Boebert emerged as one of the fiercest critics to the debt ceiling deal brokered by House leader Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden to avoid a catastrophic default. But when it was time for the House of Representatives to cast their votes on Wednesday night, she failed to show up. Ms Boebert was mocked on social media after she reportedly “narrowly missed the vote, running up the steps right as they gaveled”, according to Axios Capitol Hill reporter Juliegrace Brufke. Spencer Soicher, a reporter from Ms Boebert’s home state of Colorado, pointed out that she had made 23 Twitter posts in the past week voicing her displeasure with the compromise deal. Democrat Adam Frisch, who in 2022 lost his bid to unseat Ms Boebert in Colorado’s third district by just 546 votes, wrote on Twitter: “How can you represent #CO03 when you don’t even show up? What was more important than voting?” Jon Cooper, who chairs The Democratic Coalition, tweeted: “Lauren Boebert was a vocal opponent of the bipartisan debt ceiling bill — but she ended up MISSING tonight's vote entirely. Is anyone surprised?” Ms Boebert had earlier vowed to vote against the debt ceiling deal, saying on Tuesday that the bill was a “bunch of fake news and fake talking points” that did nothing to rein in federal spending. “If every Republican voted the way that they campaigned, they would vote against tomorrow's bad deal.” The House voted overwhelmingly by 314 to 117 to raise the debt limit, after Republicans were given concessions to cut IRS funding and increase work requirements on social spending programmes. A total of 71 Republicans voted against the deal, along with 46 Democrats, avoiding an apocalyptic scenario where the US would default on its debts. The bill now heads to the Senate, where a vote is expected to be held by Friday. Read More Debt ceiling news - live: Senate races to pass Biden-McCarthy deal as Boebert mocked for missing House vote What’s next for Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling deal as Senate races to beat default deadline? White House rejects Lauren Boebert’s claim that antisemitism plan will be used ‘go after conservatives’ Boebert didn’t turn up to vote on debt ceiling deal she furiously campaigned against Lauren Boebert claims Biden plan to combat antisemitism will target ‘conservatives’ Lauren Boebert intervened in son’s alleged 911 abuse call, report says

Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur and anti-woke asset manager turned Republican presidential hopeful, has a plan for ending Russia's year-and-a-half war on Ukraine – sort of. The 38-year-old political newcomer will unveil what he describes as a plan to bring the brutal conflict to a close by halting American support for Kyiv and "negotiating a peace treaty with Russia that achieves a vital US security objective: ceasing Russia's growing military alliance with China". In remarks to be delivered on Friday in New Hampshire to the Belknap County GOP Lincoln Day, Mr Ramaswamy will say his plan is the mirror-image approach of the late US president Richard Nixon's effort to break up the Soviet Union's alliance with the People's Republic of China, citing what he describes as Russian President Vladimir Putin's status as "the new Mao". The Independent obtained a copy of his speech ahead of Friday's event. It cites a two-decade-old treaty between Russia and the PRC, as well as the "no limits" partnership unveiled by Mr Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping as evidence that a Sino-Russian alliance "presents the greatest military risk the US has ever faced" and accuses President Joe Biden of "pushing Russia into a closer military alliance with China which increases the risk of nuclear war" through his quarterbacking of US and Western support for Ukraine's defence. While Mr Ramaswamy's prepared remarks call his solution to the conflict a "peace treaty," what he lays out does not appear to meet the definition of the term. Peace treaties, by and large, represent final settlements to armed conflicts. Famous examples include the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War, and the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco that formally brought an end to the Second World War. What he instead proposes is an analogue to United Nations-enforced armistice that has been in force on the Korean Peninsula since 1953. Under the terms of his plan, Kyiv would legitimise Russia's occupation of Ukraine's Donbas region by ceding it to Russia. The US and the West would end all sanctions on Russia, cease defence assistance to Ukraine, and Nato would prohibit Ukraine from ever becoming a member of the 31-nation defensive pact. The alliance would also roll back troop deployments that have taken place on its eastern frontier since 2016 – including closing all bases on Nato territory in Eastern Europe. In return, he proposes that Russia would exit its 2001 treaty with China, end the "no limits" partnership while ceasing any military cooperation with Beijing, rejoin the New START arms control treaty, withdraw any forces deployed in Latin America and remove "all nuclear weapons and delivery capabilities" from Belarus, any Ukrainian territory it has annexed, as well as the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, which is Russia's only ice-free port for its Baltic Fleet. His prepared remarks do not offer any evidence that Russia would be willing to cease cooperation with China or give up its military presence in Kaliningrad, which has housed a major naval base since the Soviet era. Nor does he provide any evidence to support his claim that Moscow would be willing to cut off decades of warm relations with Beijing in return for an end to Western sanctions, particularly since the Sino-Russian relationship has existed since the dawn of the 21st century. Despite multiple credible reports from US officials and other Western governments which say Kyiv's defence forces have dealt a major blow to Russia's conventional warfare capability, he plans to say that he believes Ukraine "will not defeat Russia militarily" without "extraordinary intervention" on the part of the United States, which he claims would lessen America's ability to respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan. "Under my peace plan, Ukraine will still emerge with its sovereignty intact and Russia permanently diminished as a foe. Ukraine's best path to preserving its own security is to accept a US-negotiated agreement backstopped by Russian commitments to the US," he will say. The rollout of his plan for the Ukraine conflict represents the political neophyte's first foray into foreign policy waters since he launched his presidential campaign earlier this year. His opposition to continuing US defence assistance to Kyiv is in line with much of the pro-Trump wing of the GOP, which tends to view Russia far more favourably than the general US population. In a press release, the Democratic National Committee condemned the plan as "siding against our ally as Vladimir Putin wages an unjust and violent war in Ukraine" and derided Mr Ramaswamy as a "MAGA Republican presidential hopeful". "Vivek Ramaswamy is promising to end America's support of Ukraine – posing a threat to our allies on the ground and democracy itself," the DNC said. The DNC also pointed out that Mr Ramaswamy's position syncs up with much of the GOP presidential field, including the two highest-polling candidates: Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Mr Trump, who has long professed an affinity for Mr Putin and has described him in positive terms despite his having ordered an unprovoked invasion of another country, praised the war crime-laden invasion as "savvy" and "genius" just days after Russian tanks crossed over the Ukrainian border. Mr DeSantis, who is a distant runner-up to Mr Trump in most polls of the GOP primary electorate, downplayed war – the largest land-based conflict on the European continent since 1945 – as a "territorial dispute" and a flight over "borderlands". But James Stavridis, a retired four-star US Navy admiral who served as Nato's Supreme Allied Commander, Europe from 2009 to 2013, was far more generous in his reaction to the plan. Mr Stavridis told The Independent in an email that he is "all for creative ideas in international diplomacy" and said he "would love to be able to say that there is a chance of this type of settlement occurring". But he added that he could not say there would be such a chance. For one, the former Nato commander said Mr Putin is "so deeply invested in the relationship with China" that there is "zero chance" he'd abandon his partnership with Mr Xi. He added that in his estimation, Russia would "never" agree to give up Kaliningrad as a base for nuclear-capable forces, and said there is also no chance that Kyiv would agree to cede approximately 20 per cent of its territory to Moscow. "Nor do I think that the west would be willing to completely walk away from Ukraine and deny providing them appropriate security guarantees, or even membership in NATO. The red lines for both sides are significant," he said. But Mr Stavridis did say he believes a "Korean-style armistice" is the most likely outcome of the 14-month-old conflict, with the caveat that "it's too soon to know where those boundary lines might be or where the trade-offs could occur". "Our job in the west is obvious, which is to give the Ukrainians everything they need in terms of material and training, so they can be at the best position when the negotiations ultimately begin," he said, adding later that "one thing [he knows] for sure" is that the Ukraine war presents "deeply complex issues with enormous, competing equities on all sides," with the chances of a simple settlement "within 24 hours" as Mr Trump suggested at a recent CNN town hall "approach[ing] negative infinity". While the ex-Navy admiral was measured in his evaluation of Mr Ramaswamy’s plan, a prominent GOP foreign policy veteran was far less generous when asked to opine on his proposal. Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime member of the upper’s chamber’s foreign relations committee, told The Independent on Thursday that the anti-woke businessman’s plan amounted to “rewarding aggression” and called him “somebody who really doesn’t understand how the world works”. He added that rewarding Mr Putin for his aggression would result in China feeling empowered to take Taiwan. “You know, I’m glad people don’t think that way when it came to our freedom,” he said. “Go study history and give me an example where aggression was rewarded where you got less of it”. Senior Washington Correspondent Eric Garcia contributed reporting from Capitol Hill Read More Trump's welcome of Scott into 2024 race shows his calculus: The more GOP rivals, the better for him Zelensky salutes ‘powerful support’ from allies at Moldova summit – as he increases pressure over jets A six-year-old Ukrainian girl saved by adoption or a murderous adult imposter: Who really is Natalia Grace? The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary