List of All Articles with Tag 'rl'

Anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr has revived an antisemitic conspiracy that blames Jewish people for the emergence of Covid-19, a claim that follows a string of offensive statements and falsehoods elevated by the long-shot candidate for the US presidency. During a press event in New York City on 11 July, Mr Kennedy baselessly stated that “there is an argument to be made” that the disease is “ethnically targeted”. “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Cucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” he said, according to video of the event from The New York Post. “We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact.” His remarks follow antisemitic conspiracy theories that circulated at the onset of the pandemic, and follow other statements from the candidate elevating spurious conspiracy theories surrounding Covid-19 and vaccines that have fuelled his campaign. “The claim that Covid-19 was a bioweapon created by the Chinese or Jews to attack Caucasians and Black people is deeply offensive and feeds into sinophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories,” according to a statement from the Anti-Defamation League. “Layer upon layer of antisemitism,” wrote Jonathan Weisman, author of (((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump. “If you still think there is a left or even non-insane case for supporting or even indulging RFK Jr then you have been conned or have conned yourself,” wrote MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan. “Madness. Racist, conspiratorial, dangerous madness.” “We have no words for this man’s lunacy,” wrote nonprofit US watchdog Stop Antisemitism. Mr Kennedy responded to the reporting on Saturday morning, and a statement from a campaign spokesperson to The Independent claimed that the Post “got it wrong”. “I have never, ever suggested that the Covid-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews,” Mr Kennedy wrote on Twitter before echoing his claim that the US and other governments are “developing ethnically targeted bioweapons”. He pointed to a 2020 National Institutes of Health study finding that the impacts of the disease are disproportionately felt among Black people and people with cardiovascular and pulmonary conditions, cancer and other risk factors. “In that sense, it serves as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons,” Mr Kennedy stated. “I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered.” Mr Kennedy’s campaign, an insurgent effort for the Democratic nomination boosted by right-wing media to drive a wedge among Democratic voters, has painted a dark and conspiratorial worldview amplifying debunked and misleading claims and outright falsehoods. Earlier this year, US Holocaust Memorial Museum shot down his suggestion that life is worse for people today than it was for Anne Frank. “Making reckless comparisons to the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews, for a political agenda is outrageous and deeply offensive,” the organisation said. “Those who carelessly invoke Anne Frank, the star badge, and the Nuremberg Trials exploit history and the consequences of hate.” Mr Kennedy and his organisation Children’s Health Defense also have promoted James Corbett, a prominent conspiracy theorist who has claimed that “Hitler was a Rothschild” and “Hitler and the Nazis were 100 per cent completely and utterly set up” by the “international banking community and the international crony capitalists.” His connections to Mr Corbett join a long list of associations with and appearances on right-wing media platforms with far-right pundits. Read More Who is running for president in 2024? Robert F Kennedy Jr calls interviewer ‘unfair’ for spelling out his laundry list of conspiracy theories White House rejects Lauren Boebert’s claim that antisemitism plan will be used ‘go after conservatives’

UK Energy Minister Grant Shapps is set to meet with the heads of Britain’s biggest supermarkets and energy

The umps are at it again.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in “good condition” after being taken to the hospital on Saturday, his office

Why Alex Anthopoulos should not make these trades for the Atlanta Braves at the deadline.Although some people think he could be pressured into it, Atlanta Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos may not make a trade deadline deal after all, as he always operates in silence.The Braves have be...

Less than a month after leaving the Kremlin quaking as his Wagner mercenaries marched on Moscow, leaked photographs of Yevgeny Prigozhin in his underwear in a tent have been leaked online amid an ongoing campaign to discredit the exiled mutineer. As Vladimir Putin – whose grip on power is perceived by many to have been severely weakened by the popular mercenary boss’s armed rebellion – sought to insist that Wagner had never actually existed, images showing a dishevelled-looking Mr Prigozhin in a state of semi-nudity appeared on Telegram. In the latest bizarre twist of the saga, the president insisted to the Kommersant newspaper on Friday that the private military company “simply doesn't exist” as a legal entity under Russian law – while his emboldened ally Alexander Lukashenko claimed that some of the exiled mercenaries were now training Belarus’s military. While the latter’s remarks indicated the enactment of at least part of the deal struck by Mr Lukashenko and Mr Prigozhin for him and his fighters to relocate to Belarus, halting their armed progress less than 125 miles from Moscow last month, efforts to undermine the mercenary leader appeared to continue. Just days after a pro-Kremlin media outlet published photographs supposedly seized in a raid at Mr Prigozhin’s St Petersburg mansion showing him donning various bizarre disguises such as lengthy wigs and stick-on beards, a new image began circulating on Russian social media spaces on Friday. The picture appears to show Mr Prigozhin sitting in a tent wearing Y-fronts and a T-shirt, sparking futher speculation over his whereabouts after weeks of uncertainty. In claims appearing to chime with Minsk’s assertion that Wagner fighters are instructing the Belarusian military at a camp near Osipovichi – some 50 miles from the capital – the pro-Russian Telegram account which first posted the image claimed its metadata showed it was taken on 12 July, according to monitoring group Belarusian Gayun, which noted similarities with other photos from the camp. The floorboards in the tent appear to match those shown in photographs taken last week during an official tour of the formerly disused Osipovichi camp, at which satellite images reported by Radio Free Europe and the BBC appeared to show scores of newly erected tents and other structures. Despite the activity at the camp, and potential presence of Mr Prigozhin, Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg had told reporters as recently as Tuesday that the alliance had not witnessed “any deployment or movement of any Wagner forces into Belarus”. Despite it being a long-favoured foreign policy tool of his own creation, Mr Putin appears to have urgently sought to defang the private military company since its fighters seized the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don last month and threatened Moscow. In remarks denouncing the aborted mutiny as “high treason”, the Russian president toed a cautious line in a televised address last month in which he claimed the mercenaries – whose prestige on the battlefield in Ukraine has boosted their domestic popularity – had been “tricked into a criminal adventure”, without specifically referring to those under Mr Prigozhin. Criticising what he called “a stab in the back of the troops and the people of Russia”, Mr Putin insisted however that Wagner troops were free to join the Russian military, return to their families, or leave Russia for Belarus. The extraordinary mutiny came after Wagner withdrew from Bakhmut, which it seized from Ukraine after months of bloody attrition in the frontline Donetsk city, with Mr Prigozhin having frequently voiced his anger at an alleged lack of ammunition and coordination by Russian military leaders. The 62-year-old’s vitriolic criticisms drew surprise from many observers given their apparent disregard for the Kremlin’s typically rigid grip on the narrative of its war in Ukraine, and were widely interpreted as a sign of the former convict’s growing political stature within Russia. A former hot dog vendor, Mr Prigozhin rose to prominence as he garnered the attention and favour of the Russian president while working as a restauranteur, with both men having grown up in St Petersburg. He benefitted from large state loans while expanding his business under Mr Putin’s gaze, winning millions of pounds in contracts to provide meals to public schools, the Kremlin and Russian military – also drawing the attention of jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Claiming to have served 10 years in jail during the final throes of the Soviet Union, reportedly after the violent robbery of a woman whom he choked unconscious, Mr Prigozhin was permitted by Mr Putin to create Wagner in 2014, despite Russia’s constitution outlawing such groups. Following exploits in the Donbas and Syria, while also fighting for national leaders and warlords in Africa in return for lucrative sums and assets, Wagner has become a household name during the Ukraine war as a result of its relative prestige in comparison with the faltering Russian military – and its apparent brutality. While Mr Prigozhin’s recruitment drive in prisons fuelling “human wave” attacks deemed largely responsible for Wagner’s gains in Bakhmut, footage has also circulated of its fighters bludgeoning an alleged deserter to death with a sledgehammer, symbolism since adopted by Mr Prigozhin himself. Having long sought plausible deniability on the subject of Wagner, in seeking to discredit Mr Prigozhin following his shortlived mutiny, Mr Putin reversed his position by seeking to claim ultimate responsibility for the group, as he insisted the fighters’ wages had come out of state coffers. Read More Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin ‘dead or in prison’ after Putin meeting, former US commander claims Wagner mercenaries are in Belarus and training the country’s soldiers Putin wants to attend an August summit. Host country South Africa doesn't want to have to arrest him Russian general says he has been fired for telling truth about dire situation on Ukraine frontlines

MLB Rumors: Is Justin Verlander on the outs with the Mets?There isn't much indication right now that the New York Mets will trade away Justin Verlander. If anything, Steve Cohen would like to retool around this core -- which includes JV and Max Scherzer -- with an eye towards 2024. However, s...

Police continue to search for a woman who went missing after telling her family she spotted a child walking alone on a stretch of Alabama highway earlier this week. Rewards totaling $25,000 have been offered up for the return of 25-year-old Carlethia Nichole “Carlee” Russell, who called 911 to report that she saw a toddler on the side of Interstate 459 in Hoover on 13 July. She then called a family member, who lost contact with her while the phone line remained open, according to police. Officers who arrived at the scene found Ms Russell’s car and some of her belongings but did not locate her or the child. “We currently are investigating every possibility,’’ Hoover Police Department public information officer Lt Daniel Lowe said during a press briefing on 14 July. “We’re certainly leaving nothing off the table.” Her mother Talitha Russell said her daughter left The Woodhouse Day Spa before stopping at Taziki’s at 9pm on Thursday to pick up food for her and her mother, according to AL.com. She called 911 when she had pulled over after spotting what she said was a three- or four-year-old child, her mother said. At 9:36pm, Talitha Russell said her daughter was then on the phone with her brother’s girlfriend. “My son’s girlfriend heard her asking the child, ‘Are you OK?’ She never heard the child say anything but then she heard our daughter scream,’’ Talitha Russell said. “From there all you hear on her phone is background noise from the interstate.” An officer was dispatched to the scene within three minutes. One witness reported possibly seeing a gray vehicle and a male standing outside of Ms Russell’s car at the time of the incident, according to Hoover police. Family members have questioned why authorities did not alert an Ashanti Alert, relying on a similar Amber Alert emergency messaging system for missing children. Ashanti alerts, named after 19-year-old Ashanti Billie, who was abducted and killed in 2017, are used in critical missing adult cases for those too old for Amber alerts and too young for Silver alerts. Ms Russell – who is described as Black, 5’4” and 150 to 160 lbs – was last seen wearing a black shirt, black pants and white Nike shoes, according to Hoover police. Members of the public who believe they have seen her are directed to call Hoover Detective Brad Fountain at 205-444-7562, Sgt Drew Mims at 205-739-7274, or Crimestoppers of Metro Alabama at 205-254-7777.

Searing temperatures, forest fires and thunderstorm warnings tormented Europe on Saturday as the summer spell of extreme weather

India and the United Arab Emirates agreed to use their respective local currencies for cross-border transactions, as Prime

Former President Donald Trump has asked courts in Georgia to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from investigating him for election interference and to quash the final report of a special purpose grand jury that recommends people be indicted. Trump’s attorneys filed similar petitions in both the Georgia Supreme Court and Fulton County Superior Court. This week a grand jury was sworn in to hear evidence in the case regarding alleged interference in the 2020 election on the part of the then-president. Elsewhere, the special counsel investigating the former president threatened potential criminal charges against a Trump Organization employee suspected of lying to investigators, according to sources of ABC News. Jack Smith transmitted a letter to a staffer that indicated that he might have perjured himself in an appearance before the federal grand jury that ultimately indicted Mr Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents, the sources said. The letter appears to signal Mr Smith’s interest in the handling of surveillance footage and efforts to avoid sharing footage with investigators. Meanwhile, many of Mr Trump’s 2024 Republican opponents spent Friday taking part in one-one interviews with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa. Read More Hunter Biden lawyers tell Trump to end attacks warning they’re ‘one social message away’ from causing violence Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks have testified in front of grand jury investigating Jan 6, reports say Prosecutors say there is ‘no reason’ to delay Trump documents trial until after 2024 election Americans are widely pessimistic about democracy in the United States, an AP-NORC poll finds

The political fundraising appeal has been completely reversed: Some long-shot Republican presidential candidates will now give you money.