House Ethics Committee opens investigation into Rep. Henry Cuellar
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WASHINGTON — The House Ethics Committee said Wednesday it will open an investigation into Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who was recently indicted in a federal bribery case.
The panel said in a statement that it had unanimously voted to form a subcommittee tasked with investigating Cuellar after the Justice Department this month released an indictment accusing Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, of accepting $598,000 in bribes from foreign entities, including a Mexican bank and an oil and gas company controlled by Azerbaijan.
The subcommittee will have jurisdiction to investigate whether Cuellar “solicited or accepted bribes, gratuities, or improper gifts; acted as a foreign agent; violated federal money laundering laws; misused his official position for private gain; and/or made false statements or omissions on public disclosure statements filed with the House.”
Before the charges were unsealed this month, Cuellar denied any wrongdoing and said he had “proactively sought legal advice” from the panel.
In a statement Wednesday, Cuellar reaffirmed his innocence.
“I respect the work of the House Ethics Committee,” Cuellar said. “As I said on May 3rd, I am innocent of these allegations, and everything I have done in Congress has been to serve the people of South Texas.”
The Ethics Committee in Wednesday’s statement cited House rules that require it to establish an investigative subcommittee or explain its decision not to within 30 days of a member’s being indicted or otherwise charged.
Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., and Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., will serve as the chair and ranking member of the new subcommittee.
The federal indictment is poised to make Cuellar’s seat more vulnerable in November. Two years ago he easily defeated his Republican opponent, Cassy Garcia.
Cuellar and his wife are not the first congressional couple to face charges in alleged foreign bribery schemes in the past year. The Justice Department hit Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and his wife, Nadine Menendez, with 18 criminal charges tied to bribery and corruption. They have pleaded not guilty. Bob Menendez is on trial.
Rebecca Kaplan reported from Washington, D.C., and Zoë Richards from New York.
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BARCELONA/PORTBOU, Spain (Reuters) – Pol Dominguez, 11, is enjoying his summer season holidays in Spain. But unlike most teens his age, he would no longer utilize his days at the shoreline or pool, in its set apart staying indoors to retain a long way flung from ultraviolet radiation that is also deadly for him.
Dominguez has Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), a rare illness that has effects on his skin and eyes. Patients are unable to restore their DNA from solar spoil, which locations them at excessive bother of creating cancer.
His case is vulgar: even brief exposure to daylight causes critical burns.
With finest 2.3 conditions per million dwell births in Western Europe – and round 100 of us living with XP in Spain – the hereditary illness is on the general detected early when burns seem.
Dominguez and his family, who dwell in Barcelona, have radically modified their habits to retain a long way flung from exposure to UV radiation.
To retain a long way flung from severe sunburns and blistering, Dominguez wears a hood, jacket, shades and gloves outdoors, even in winter.
In summer season, he stays indoors as great as that which that it is doubtless you’ll perhaps perhaps judge, nonetheless when he does must leave the residence, the protective garments is hot and unlucky.
Dominguez’ college has adapted home windows and lights so he can have as customary a lifestyles as that which that it is doubtless you’ll perhaps perhaps judge, despite the indisputable truth that he desires to bundle up for outdoors activities and carries a UV meter to examine that an atmosphere is safe.
“Or no longer it is significantly warmth and I spend a fan to originate it cooler,” he knowledgeable Reuters on regarded as one of his closing days of faculty, the spend of a portable fan under the shield he wears over his face.
Dominguez’ residence is UV-gentle-proof, with protective film on home windows, blinds reduced and fans to retain the atmosphere neatly-ventilated, said his mom, Xenia Aranda.
“What we create is exit at night,” Aranda said. “At round 10 p.m. we’re asserting: ‘What would we fancy to create, Pol? Shuffle to the shoreline, take dangle of an ice cream, shuffle for a speed?'”
Pol is spending fragment of the summer season with his grandparent Ferran Aranda in Portbou, advance the French border.
When the sun sets, he can no longer as we instruct shuffle to the shoreline with out protective equipment. Factual eating an ice cream outdoors or turning his towel into a superhero’s cape brings a smile of delight to his face.
As heatwaves change into more frequent and intense and unfold all over seasons attributable to local climate switch, the hazards to Pol and others fancy him elevate.
“The more hours of sunshine, the more solar spoil. Therefore more illness,” said Asuncion Vicente, a pediatric dermatologist at Barcelona’s Sant Joan de Deu sanatorium.
(Reporting by Horaci Garcia and Albert Gea, Writing by Emma Pinedo, enhancing by Aislinn Laing and Rod Nickel)
A video showing music legend Sean “Diddy” Combs violently attacking his then-girlfriend in a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 has put the embattled star in heightened peril as he faces a federal sex-trafficking investigation.
The video shows Combs chasing, kicking, dragging and hurling a glass vase at Cassie, a singer whose real name is Casandra Ventura. It corroborates parts of a civil lawsuit Ventura filed against Combs last year, which was settled a day after it was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Allegations against Combs have piled up in recent years and he has steadfastly denied wrongdoing, including when Ventura filed her suit. But after facing intense backlash, Combs on Sunday posted a video on Instagram in which he apologized for his behavior in the video.
“It’s so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life, but sometimes you got to do that,” he said. “My behavior on that video is inexcusable.”
Combs said he entered “therapy and rehab” after the incident. “I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I’m disgusted. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now,” he said.
The video is not related to the federal probe, but it has drawn more attention to the ongoing investigation.
Law enforcement sources who were not authorized to speak publicly told The Times that Combs is the subject of a sweeping inquiry into sex-trafficking allegations that resulted in a federal raid in March at his estates in Los Angeles and Miami. Combs has not been charged with any crime and has denied any wrongdoing. The probe was launched after three women accused him of rape, assault and other abuses dating back three decades. One of the allegations involved a minor. It’s unclear whether those accusations, which Combs denies, are connected to the investigation.
(Rebecca Blackwell/AP)
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office called the video “extremely disturbing and difficult to watch” but said there is no current investigation into it.
“If the conduct depicted occurred in 2016, unfortunately we would be unable to charge as the conduct would have occurred beyond the timeline where a crime of assault can be prosecuted,” the statement said. “As of today, law enforcement has not presented a case related to the attack depicted in the video against Mr. Combs.”
But legal experts said the video, first obtained by CNN, is a major blow to Combs’ denials that he mistreated women and is likely to shift public opinion about the star.
“This video paints him in an awful light. If the people were giving him the benefit of doubt, that is over,” said Los Angeles defense attorney Lou Shapiro. Combs’ apology “was the only play, especially since the statute of limitations has already passed,” he said.
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, agreed.
“There is no legal or moral justification for what Diddy did. He violently attacked a defenseless woman,” Rahmani said, adding that the “video doesn’t lie.”
When Ventura filed her lawsuit, Combs’ attorney said the claim was “riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr. Combs’ reputation and seeking a payday.”
The video, both Shapiro and Rahmani said, presents major credibility challenges. “The problem here is he denied hitting [Ventura] and then in this video he is even kicking her when she is down,” Shapiro said.
“Diddy’s sharp denials early on are going to hurt him as the investigation progresses,” added Meghan Blanco, an Orange County defense attorney who has experience with federal sex-offense cases.
“Any apology needed to be detailed enough for the public to gain some insight into why he behaved so violently in the first place, and why, after attending counseling and engaging in years of self-reflection, he continued to deny assaulting Cassie,” she said. “This fell far short of that.”
The video could require Combs’ legal team to argue his treatment of Ventura was an isolated event and not a pattern of behavior toward women, Blanco added.
The recording, dated March 5, 2016, shows Ventura in a hoodie and carrying a duffel bag, walking in a hotel hallway toward an elevator. Combs can be seen running down the same hallway, shirtless and holding a towel around his waist.
The lawsuit said it occurred at the InterContinental hotel in Century City. After Combs fell asleep, Ventura attempted to leave the room, the lawsuit said, but he awoke and “began screaming” at her. “He followed her into the hallway of the hotel while yelling at her,” the complaint said. “He grabbed at her, and then took glass vases in the hallway and threw them at her, causing glass to crash around them as she ran to the elevator to escape.”
Security footage captured from another angle shows him grabbing Ventura’s head and throwing her on the ground, where he kicks her multiple times. He can also be seen picking up her bags and trying to drag her back to the first hallway.
The footage also shows Ventura using a hotel phone by the elevators, as well as Combs going back to his hotel room and then separately seemingly shoving Ventura into a corner. He is also seen throwing a vase in her direction.
Ventura also accused Combs in her lawsuit of raping her, forcing her to engage in sex acts with male sex workers and introducing her to “a lifestyle of excessive alcohol and substance abuse” that required her “to procure illicit prescriptions to satisfy his own addictions.”
Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas on May 15, 2022.
(Jordan Strauss / Invision / Associated Press)
(Eric Thayer / Associated Press)
Little is known about the federal probe, including the identities of any alleged victims. People with knowledge of the investigation who were not authorized to speak publicly said federal investigators are seeking telecommunications and flight records related to Combs. Back in March, investigators searching Combs’ Holmby Hills home emptied safes, dismantled electronics and left papers strewn in some rooms, sources told The Times.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigates most sex-trafficking operations for the federal government. Legal experts say one reason the agency could be involved in this case is because the women involved in the allegations against Combs might be from other countries.
Combs’ lawyers have strongly criticized the federal probe, calling the searches of his homes “militarized” and a “witch hunt.”
“This unprecedented ambush — paired with an advanced, coordinated media presence — leads to a premature rush to judgment of Mr. Combs and is nothing more than a witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits,” attorney Aaron Dyer said in March.
In addition to the federal investigation, Combs faces the civil lawsuits from the three women. He has denied wrongdoing.
The lawsuits were filed under the Adult Survivors Act, a law that went into effect in November 2022 in New York that allows individuals who believe they were sexually assaulted a one-year window during which they can sue their abusers, even if the statute of limitations for prosecuting the underlying alleged crimes had expired.
A giant Microsoft Dwelling windows BSOD (blue show veil of death) outage has impacted a couple of corporations worldwide including airlines, broadcasters and others. The mission modified into once prompted by a unsuitable substitute from security huge CrowdStrike that compelled PCs and servers into an unrecoverable boot loop. The alternate has since been rolled support, and airlines and hospitals were gradually recovering by midday in the US, nonetheless many machines are peaceable affected.
“We beget now accepted studies of BSODs on windows hosts, occurring on a couple of sensor versions,” CrowdStrike wrote in a pinned Reddit submit. “[We have] identified a voice material deployment related to this mission and reverted those modifications.” The firm went on to picture a workaround, which involves booting Dwelling windows into Protected Mode and deleting a particular driver. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologized for the global meltdown on the At the moment demonstrate (by technique ofThe NY Conditions), announcing, “We’re deeply sorry for the affect that we’ve prompted.”
The mission compelled Delta, Frontier and other airlines to ground flights, and impacted UK broadcaster Sky and the London Stock Commerce. On a Reddit thread, dozens of commenters acknowledged that their corporations were successfully offline because of the the mission. Flight-tracking service FlightAware reported in mid-afternoon that over 2,500 US flights had been canceled on Friday. They gradually recovered because the day persevered, nonetheless the restoration modified into once removed from total.
12-hour timelapse of American Airways, Delta, and United plane visitors after what modified into once likely the ultimate IT outage in historical past compelled a nationwide ground conclude of the three airlines. pic.twitter.com/wwcQeiEtVe
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg suggested airlines on Friday that they would wish to address the anguish as if it were a self-inflicted (mechanical or technical) failure, which requires them to quilt vacationers’ food, transportation and lodging costs for those whose delays closing longer than three hours. Earlier in the day, United Airways and Delta had suggested stranded airline passengers they’d wish to foot the funds themselves since the CrowdStrike meltdown modified into once out of their adjust. A United spokesperson later reversed its old stance after Buttigieg’s feedback.
IT execs spherical the sector struggled to adapt to the virtually unimaginable hand they’d been dealt.
“Even though [CrowdStrike] mounted the mission inflicting the BSOD, I am pondering how are we going to restore the thousands of devices that are no longer booting up,” one individual famed. “Let me existing to any individual who is no longer tech savvy and is working from home easy programs to boot their machine into safe mode,” but every other wrote.
Reddit users including many IT managers from Australia, Malaysia, Japan, India, the Czech Republic and in other areas beget acknowledged they’re combating via the mission. “Here in the Philippines, namely in my employer, it is like Thanos snapped his fingers. Half of of your total group [is] down because of the BSOD loop. Started at 2pm and is peaceable ongoing. What a Friday,” acknowledged one.
US court programs were affected as properly, with circumstances scheduled for the day postponed (including the most up-to-date trial of the disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein). Many hospitals reportedly postponed surgeries requiring anesthesia, and some were unable to reschedule because of the the vital appointment planning tool also being down.
CrowdStrike is a US-basically based security agency that offers loyal-time security against security threats to corporations. Even handed one of its key products is Falcon, described by the firm as “offering loyal-time indicators of attack, hyper-honest detection and automatic security” from threats. A CrowdStrike spokesperson acknowledged it modified into once likely a topic with Falcon that prompted the incident.
To add to the anguish, Microsoft looks to beget also suffered a separate outage with its Azure companies and products and Microsoft 365 app suite. “Customers will be unable to get right of entry to varied Microsoft 365 apps and companies and products,” it wrote. Or no longer it shouldn’t be clear which, if any, of the outages are related to this as a substitute of the CrowdStrike mission.
Update July 19, 2024 6:12 AM ET: CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz has acknowledged the mission on X, announcing it modified into once prompted by a defect in a voice material substitute for Dwelling windows hosts, and no longer a “security incident or cyberattack,” He added that “the mission has been identified, isolated and a repair has been deployed.” There would possibly be no point out on whether or no longer the repair will be usable on machines at demonstrate stuck in a boot loop.
Mac and Linux hosts are no longer impacted, he added. An same assertion has been posted on CrowdStrike’s blog.
Update, July 19, 2024, 3:46 PM ET: This yarn has been up up to now to add tendencies spherical flights, hospitals, court circumstances and an apology from CrowdStrike’s CEO.
