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US hedge fund firm Capstone Investment Advisors said it’s allocated more risk capital to Japan than ever before,

A group of TikTok creators and viewers sued Montana to challenge the first statewide ban of the popular

Six years ago, Kayla Unbehaun vanished from her Illinois hometown in an apparent abduction by her mother, who did not have custody. Six months ago, the nine-year-old’s photo appeared on an episode of the Netflix show Unsolved Mysteries about parental abductions, an age-progression image flashing on screen to depict what she would look like now. This month, someone at a North Carolina store recognised Kayla as a missing child — setting off a chain of events that led to her mother’s arrest and Kayla’s reunification with her father in the Midwest. Here’s everything we know about Kayla’s abduction and safe recovery — and the questions that remain unanswered in the case. A child and mother vanished on July 4th Kayla was born on 5 July 2008 to Ryan Iskerka and Heather Unbehaun in the western suburbs of Chicago. After the couple split, a judge awarded the child’s father permanent custody. Kayla was spending July 4th with her mother in 2017, however, and was scheduled to be returned to her father the next day, on her ninth birthday. “According to police interviews, Heather was last seen packing her belongings up to the roof of her car,” Mr Iskerka wrote in a GoFundMe established just days later. “Her closest family members indicated she went on a camping trip to an unknown location in Wisconsin and was expected to return on Wednesday July 5th at 7pm for a parenting time exchange with me. “Heather and Kayla did not show up for the court ordered exchange and the police were immediately contacted and an investigation was launched. It was discovered that all of Heather’s social media had been canceled and her phone turned off. As far as we know, no one has been able to reach her or has talked to her since the 4th of July. “Because of this, the following day I had filed a missing person’s report for both Kayla and Heather. Heather also did not show up for a court date motioned by her on Friday June 7th. Her lawyer had not talked to her for days, was unaware of what happened and was very concerned.” Mother charged with abduction as father pleads for help After Mr Iskerka filed the missing person’s reports, Ms Unbehaun was charged in 2017 with child abduction, a Class 4 felony, the Kane County State’s Attorney said Tuesday in a statement. A judge set her bail at $10,000 and, “since then, South Elgin police pursued numerous leads and tips, working with police agencies from around the country in an attempt to locate the child and Unbehaun.” Mr Iskerka, meanwhile, was appealing for donations and information, writing on the GoFundMe that he planned to use the assistance “to hire a private investigator and any additional cost concerning the search for them and their health and safety for when they are found. “The safety and return of Kayla is the top priority of all of my family and I and any help we receive through this funding is greatly appreciated,” he wrote. Between July 2017 and May 2023, the page raised just over $2,500 toward its $10,000 goal, the last donation recorded on the site coming in nearly four years ago. In November, however, Kayla’s picture featured on an episode of Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries. At the end of Abducted by a Parent, the final instalment of the program’s third Netflix season, missing posters and age progression images are shown from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). For just under five seconds, a photo of Kayla at nine appears onscreen alongside a picture of what she might look like as a teenager. A Bring Kayla Home Facebook page, meanwhile, was also promoting the age progression image — sharing it as recently as 21 April. Created the same day as the GoFundMe — five days after Kayla was last seen in Wheaton with her mother — the page has more than 7,000 followers. Search meets unlikely ending Kayla and her mother were at Westgate Regional Shopping Center on Saturday evening (13 May) in Asheville, North Carolina, when they caught the notice of a person at upmarket consignment shop Plato’s Closet, according to authorities. That person “recognized Unbehaun and recalled that the child was missing,” Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office posted Tuesday on social media. “A store employee immediately contacted Asheville police, who contacted South Elgin police. “South Elgin police confirmed the identity of the two individuals as Heather Unbehaun and the missing child.” Ms Unbehauen, 40, was subsequently taken into custody, and Kayla has since been reunited with her father. Mr Iskerka, in a statement issued through the NCMEC, that he was “overjoyed that Kayla is home safe”. “I want to thank the South Elgin Police Department, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and all of the law enforcement agencies who assisted with her case,” Mr Iskerka continued. “I also want to thank all of the followers on the ‘Bring Kayla Home’ Facebook page, who helped keep her story alive and were instrumental in spreading awareness. We ask for privacy as we get to know each other again and navigate this new beginning.” South Elgin Chief of Police Jerry Krawczyk also thanked citizens across the country and other law enforcement agencies who worked so dedicatedly to help bring Kayla home. “We are overjoyed to report that the child is in good condition and in good spirits since being reunited with her father,” he said Tuesday in a release. Law enforcement agencies — and well-wishers — were celebrating across several states as the case offered hope to investigators and families looking for people who’ve been missing for years. “I certainly think this is a unique case,” Asheville Police Lt. Jonathan Brown told WLOS. “It is unusual, it’s not a case that we see routinely or often.” He marveled at how Kayla’s mother had managed to go undetected for years. “What’s most unusual is the ability to stay off the grid, if you will, for that period of time,” he said. “Typically we leave a technological bread crumb and those are usually very easy and quick to be tracked down. This was not.” What happens next Following Ms Unbehaun’s arrest in Buncombe County, she was charged with the felony offence of extradition, which she declined to waive. She posted $25,000 bond on Tuesday and was released from custody, then turned herself in the following day in Kane County, Illinois, where she was booked on the abduction charge. The 40-year-old appeared before Judge Julia Yetter on Thursday (18 May) and has been released on bond with an electronic monitoring device. Kayla’s father obtained an order of protection against Ms Unbehaun, who is barred from being within 1,000 feet of his residence and cannot leave Illinois without court permission, a Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office spokesman told The Independent. The 40-year-old’s next scheduled court date is 14 June. A Class 4 Felony in Illinois can carry a sentence of one to three years, often probationary. The Independent has reached out to lawyers for Mr Iskerka and Ms Unbehaun.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department is considering suing to block Korean Air's planned acquisition of Asiana Airlines, Politico reported

Pakistan investors are bracing for a sudden jolt as former premier Imran Khan’s showdown with the powerful military,

Embattled lawmaker George Santos has been accused of allegedly defrauding fellow Republican candidates running for office, a report says. Mr Santos, a Republican first-term congressman from New York has been accused of a string of lies and falsehoods about numerous parts of his background. He was indicted in federal court last week for, among other things, having an associate tell a donor that a contribution to a firm Mr Santos owned would go to support his campaign. Much of the money allegedly went to Mr Santos’s personal accounts instead. But deep-pocketed donors are reportedly not the only people Mr Santos allegedly conned into donating to his firm. According to The Daily Beast, Mr Santos also allegedly took money from his fellow Republican candidates. The firm in question, identified only as “Company #1” in the indictment, is believed to be Redstone Strategies — a limited liability company founded in Florida in 2021 that listed Mr Santos’ Devolder Organization as one of its managers. Mr Santos has denied that Redstone Strategies is the company in question in the indictment but said he was unsure what that company could be. Other people seem to recall more details. Redstone reportedly served as a vendor for multiple New York Republican candidates during the 2022 election cycle and was given a substantial amount of money by Rise NY PAC, a political action committee run by Mr Santos’s sister. “George didn’t only lie to his voters, but also to fellow candidates around him for his own alleged financial gain,” Stefano Forte, a Queens Republican who ran unsuccessfully for the New York state Senate last year, told The Daily Beast. Mr Forte told the publication that Mr Santos approached him personally and pitched him on hiring Redstone, which he did — parting ways with the firm only after he’d paid it $14,000. Mr Forte said he never knew that Mr Santos had a stake in the company, meaning Mr Santos did not disclose that information when he pitched him on hiring the firm. Mr Santos confirmed to The Daily Beast that he had pitched fellow candidates on hiring Redstone, but said he never personally profited from the resulting transactions and dismissed Mr Forte’s criticism as a political attack. Mr Santos is facing a bevvy of legal issues that have made his position in Congress tenuous. Following his indictment, House Democrats introduced a resolution to have him expelled from the chamber. The House voted along party lines on Thursday to refer the resolution to the House Ethics Committee, with Mr Santos himself voting against his explosion. Read More Effort to expel Santos falters as Republicans vote to send measure to Ethics Committee Aide to embattled Republican George Santos resigns: ‘You never took one point of professional advice’ Republicans will regret taking the easy way out on George Santos Jamaal Bowman: Marjorie Taylor Greene used racial ‘bullhorn’ after Capitol exchange George Santos bizarrely compares himself to a Mean Girls character Aide to embattled Republican George Santos resigns

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The office of US Senator Dianne Feinstein has confirmed that the California Democrat was suffering worse health complications from a recent shingles case than she had previously claimed. A spokesperson for Sen Feinstein, 89, told CNN Ms Feinstein, the Senate’s oldest lawmaker, experienced Ramsay Hunt syndrome and encephalitis as part of the diagnosis. “While the encephalitis resolved itself shortly after she was released from the hospital in March, she continues to have complications from Ramsay Hunt syndrome,” the spokesperson said on Thursday. Ramsay Hunt syndrome can occur when a case of shingles affects the facial nerve close to the eye, sometimes causing facial paralysis and hearing loss, according to the Mayo Clinic. Earlier in the day, Sen Feinstein claimed to CNN she didn’t have encephalitis, saying, “It was really a bad flu.” The California senator’s health and mental fitness have long been subjects of scrutiny. Some of her colleagues have called on her to resign. She returned to the Senate last week after being absent for 10 weeks as she recovered from shingles. Upon returning to the Senate, Sen Feinstein told reporters that she had never left. “No, I haven’t been gone,” she said to LA Times’s Ben Oreskes when asked how her Senate colleagues have responded to her return, reported Slate. Mr Oreskes then asked her whether she had been working from home. “No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting,” she said. “Please, you either know or don’t know.” The absence of Sen Feinstein halted the work of the Senate judiciary committee, where Republicans demanded the California Democrat either return to work or resign from the Senate, rather than allow a temporary replacement. The infighting halted the confirmation of federal judges, one of the main ways Democrats can cement their influence in a divided Congress. As The Independent has reported, Sen Feinstein is part of a generation of elderly leaders at the top of the US political system, leading critics to argue more should be done to make elected office accessible to young people. The present Congress contains the second-oldest Senate and third-oldest House in US history. Generationally, the US population fits roughly into four, equal-sized blocks of about 20 to 25 per cent: ages 0 to 18, 19 to 34, 35 to 54, and 55-plus. The composition of Congress, meanwhile, is drastically tipped toward the elder part of that range, with the median House member aged 57.9 and the median senator aged 65.3. According to Professor Munger, Kevin Munger, assistant professor of political science and social data analytics at Pennsylvania State University, author of Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture, the age of America’s most senior politicians – Sen Chuck Schumer is 71, Sen Mitch McConnell is 81 – often means that issues that matter to other generations don’t get top billing, leading both to disaffection and to bigger-picture existential issues, like a lack of serious climate legislation or the impending funding crisis of social security. “It’s been clear that because of the size of the boomer generation, at a certain point, we were either going to have to raise taxes on the workforce or cut the benefits,” he said. “We didn’t do either of those things. Sometime in the 2030s, it’s going to run out. They’re not going to cut benefits to boomers. Instead, younger generations are going to have to fully fund this obvious 30-year shortfall.” In the case of social security in particular, many of the leaders deciding on the issue are current recipients, while those younger generations who will likely pay more or get less in the future aren’t represented in office. A similar problem arises with climate change: the leaders holding up urgent action on the climate likely will not be alive to see the very worst impacts of their inaction. “The issues that matter to younger generations don’t get on the agenda at all,” Prof Munger added. Read More Dianne Feinstein’s decline is heartbreaking and difficult to discuss — but we can’t avoid it Democrats have behaved shamefully around Dianne Feinstein and Republicans are taking advantage The danger of America’s ageing politicians Diane Feinstein denies she was ever absent from US Senate California lawmakers block bill allowing people to sue oil companies over health problems Feinstein's office details previously unknown complications from shingles illness

Lenders accused one of India’s hottest tech companies, Byju’s Alpha, of hiding $500 million as part of a