List of All Articles with Tag 'americas'

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie launched his campaign for president on Tuesday at a town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire. This is the second time Mr Christie has made a bid for the White House, the first being in 2016 when he lost to former president Donald Trump. Though Mr Christie lent his support to Mr Trump in 2016 when he dropped out of the race, he has since changed his opinion of the former president and become a vocal critic of Mr Trump. That was evident on Tuesday, as he denounced his former ally as a corrupt narcissist and vowed to draw blood in his quest for the Republican nomination. He did so several times during the town hall event, including at one point when he tore into the former president’s family for “breathtaking” levels of corruption and “grift” that he said followed them through the White House and beyond. The former New Jersey governor plans to position himself as a moderate Republican alternative to both Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, while promising an aggressive campaign unafraid to punch at his rivals. Read More Chris Christie gave Trump legitimacy. Now he can’t stop Trump in 2024 Chris Christie targets his ‘divisive’ former friend Donald Trump as he sets up bitter 2024 battle Mike Pence suffered the wrath of Trump. Now the ex-vice president wants his old boss’s job in 2024

The battle for the Republican nomination just got a whole lot messier. That was the defining message of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s campaign launch on Tuesday: get ready for blood. Calling out his opponents by name, deconstructing their campaign slogans and clever quips — Chris Christie was in prime form on Tuesday evening at St Anselm College in New Hampshire, where he addressed a small crowd of voters in a town hall-style event and put his sights clear on his top rival, Donald Trump. Mr Christie spoke at length before taking questions from his guests. In his remarks throughout the event, he remained plain-spoken and sharp-tongued while denouncing the four years of his rival’s presidency as an utter failure and little more than an opportunity for “breathtaking” levels of corruption and “grift” carried out by the Trump family. He called the man he twice supported for the White House a “self-consumed, self-serving, mirror hog”, and said that Americans now had four years’ worth of a record with which to judge the former president. At the same time, he made clear that he had little patience for his other rivals, those like Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, who have thus far played coy with their thoughts regarding the former president and his legacy. He even torched Trump family members Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump for receiving a $2bn investment from a Saudi firm into one controlled by Mr Kushner just a short time after they left the White House, deriding it as evidence of a corrupt relationship. "The grift from this family is breathtaking. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Kushner walk out of the White House, and months later, it turns out, they get $2bn from the Saudis?” said Mr Christie. “That makes us a banana republic,” he added. It was comments like that — plus his effortless deconstruction of calls from his rivals to ignore leaders who don’t “look forward”, and their calls for “generational change” — that outlined Mr Christie’s strengths as a politcian and in-person campaigner. Whether it will translate into votes for his candidacy, rather than just the destruction of his foes, is not yet evident. But what is evident is the eagerness of Mr Christie to get into a brawl with his opponents, a trait so far only shared by Mr Trump himself. That similarity was picked up on by one questioner, who identified herself as a clinical psychologist concerned about a nation “traumatised” by constant anger and divisiveness. Mr Christie responded that his brash nature and willingness to throw punches at his opponents was a strength only because it was supposedly paired with a humility and willingness to admit his own mistakes that made him a good leader. It was at least the outline of an effective campaign, if one light on actual policy. The governor did touch on a few national issues, such as when he expressed his opposition to federal efforts to ban abortion — unless, he conceded, there was real support in Congress for it — as well as when he touched on the issue of Ukraine, and labeled Republican rivals Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis the “Neville Chamberlains” of the 2024 race for their supposed willingness to give endless concessions to a dictator. But for the most part, Mr Christie focused on his real advantages as a candidate: The fiery personality that won him both praise and criticism in New Jersey, and a willingness to spar with his opponents at a surgical level. He laid the blame for Joe Biden’s 2020 victory at his opponent’s feet, calling the now-president a weak politician who had gone up against a hopelessly-damaged candidate. "He wouldn't be in office if it wasn't for Trump. Joe Biden never beat anybody outside the state of Delaware in 45 years except for one guy Donald J. Trump...not once, until he ran up against the guy who the American people knew in their heart was full of it,” said the ex-governor. And despite his insistences on Truth Social that he was not worried about the entrance of his former ally into the race, Donald Trump clearly had Chris Christie on his mind Tuesday evening as he blasted out commentary from his social media platform. So too did Marco Rubio, Christie’s unfortunate victim in 2016, who lamely insisted in his own tweet that the New Jersey governor’s onstage humiliation of him had not contributed to his downfall. If there was one takeaway from Tuesday night’s event, it was this: Chris Christie is in the GOP primary to win it all, and he plans to do so by setting himself apart from his fellows as a bold, unflinching truthteller — ironically, the same reputation that Donald Trump constructed for himself in 2016. Whether his newfound courage will be enough to convince his potential voters to break away from the man whom the governor admitted tonight to supporting in two presidential elections? That’s another story. Read More Elon Musk hosts anti-vax 2024 candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr on Twitter Spaces after disastrous DeSantis event Tucker Carlson calls Ukraine’s Jewish leader ‘rat-like’ as he launches new Twitter show with pro-Kremlin rant How to make tomato confit with whipped feta 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

A former US intelligence officer has blown the whistle on the US government by alleging they concealed a programme that has physical evidence of a “non-human origin” craft. David Charles Grusch told The Debrief and NewsNation this week that he confidentially turned over classified information to Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General in July 2021 about the programme and possible evidence. According to Mr Grusch, he experienced retaliation when his identity was revealed – something he has filed a formal complaint regarding. But now, Mr Grusch wants the rest of the world to know about some of the information that he believes was being illegally concealed, even if it means putting himself at risk. “I am for real. I am sitting here at great personal risk and obvious professional risk by talking to you today,” Mr Grusch told NewsNation. Here’s what we know about Mr Grusch and the claims he’s making. Who is David Charles Grusch? Mr Grusch is a 36-year-old veteran of the US Air Force as well as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office. He is a decorated former combat officer in Afghanistan, according to The Debrief. From 2016 until 2021, Mr Grusch served as a senior intelligence officer with the National Reconnaissance Office. From 2019 until 2021, he was the office’s representative to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force. From late 2021 until July 2022, he co-led the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s UAP analysis. In total, Mr Grusch has 14 years of intelligence experience. At the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Mr Grusch was a senior intelligence capabilities integration office and had Top Secret / Secret Compartmented Information level clearance. Mr Grusch told The Debrief that he reported to Congress on the existence of a “publicly unknown Cold War for recovered and exploited physical material” that identified UAP [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena] crashes, landings and retrieved material for “exploitation / reverse engineering to garner asymmetric national defense advantages.” Mr Grusch told NewNation that the UAP task force was refused access to the materials recovery programme. “I thought it was totally nuts and I thought at first I was being deceived, it was a ruse. People started to confide in me. Approach me. I have plenty of senior, former, intelligence officers that came to me, many of which I knew almost my whole career, that confided in me that they were part of a program,” Mr Grusch told NewsNation. What are his claims? Mr Grusch is alleging that the materials recovery programme retrieved, “non-human origin technical vehicles” but kept it hidden from the public. “Call it spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed,” Mr Grusch said to NewsNation. In a separate interview with the Debrief, Mr Grusch described how the government allegedly has evidence of spacecraft created by a “non-human intelligence” of “unknown origin.” “[This assessment is] based on the vehicle morphologies and material science testing and the possession of unique atomic arrangements and radiological signatures,” the former official said. He sounded the alarm to Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General in July 2021, confidentially alleging that the materials recovery programme was shielded from proper congressional oversight. However, he claims his identity was somehow disclosed and he suffered retaliation for disclosing the confidential information. “I hope this revelation serves as an ontological shock sociologically and provides a generally uniting issue for nations of the world to re-assess their priorities,” Mr Grusch said to The Debrief. The former defence official said he hadn’t directly witnessed or seen photos of the recovered alien objects himself, but has spoken extensively with colleagues who have. “We’re definitely not alone,” he told NewsNation. “The data points, quite empirically that we’re not alone.” He added that as part of his disclosures to Congress and the inspector general, he turned over verifiable “proof” of his claims. Altogether, Mr Grusch said his experiences have convinced him the US government has been systematically lying to the American people for decades about unidentified aerial phenomena. “There is a sophisticated disinformation campaign targeting the US populace which is extremely unethical and immoral,” Mr Grusch said in his interview with NewsNation. What has the US government said? Sue Gough, a spokesperson for the DOD said in a statement provided to The Independent that to date the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) does not have “any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.” The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) investigates unidentified flying objects and other phenomena in the air, sea, land or space. Ms Gough said the AARO is “committed to following the data and its investigation wherever it leads” adding that they are working with the Office of the General Counsel and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations to establish “a safe and secure process for individuals ot come forward with information to aid AARO in it’s congressionally-mandated historical review.” “AARO welcomes the opportunity to speak with any former or current government employee or contractor who believes they have information relevant to the historical review,” Ms Gough added. The Independent has reached out to the Intelligence Community Inspector General for comment regarding the whistleblower complaint. Read More UFO ‘whistleblower’ says government has ‘intact’ non-human craft White House dodges question on UFO whistleblower Nasa holds first public meeting about sightings of UFOs White House dodges question on UFO whistleblower UFO ‘whistleblower’ says government has ‘intact’ non-human craft Chris Christie targets his former friend Trump as he sets up bitter 2024 battle

Police in Richmond, Virginia, responded on Tuesday to a shooting that took place during a high school graduation ceremony on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. Seven people were shot in the incident, leaving with three people life-threatening injuries and four with non-life-threatening injuries, Richmond interim police chief Rick Edwards said during a press conference on Tuesday. Five others went to the hospital with other injuries, he added. Bystanders also sustained injuries fleeing the shooting, including individuals who fell and someone who was struck by a car. Two people have been arrested in connection with the violence, Mr Edwards said. Two people were killed in the shooting, WRIC reports, and children were among those wounded in the incident, according to the outlet. According to the university’s safety alert system, shots were fired on the Monroe Park campus after 5pm Eastern time, near the Altria Theater. “This does have to stop. We know where it starts,” lieutenant governor Virginia Winsome Earle-Sears said on Tuesday, speaking to reporters from campus. “If I had the accountability and the responsibility, this wouldn’t keep happening. The peope who are elected here, they’re in charge. They must make that adjustment so that this, the shooting, doesn’t keep happening.” Three off-duty officers were inside the theater and heard gunshots around 5.13pm, running outside and encountering the victims. VCU police said on Tuesday there’s no ongoing threat to the public. “Multiple injuries reported. There is no immediate threat to the public,” the Richmond Police Department tweeted on Tuesday. “Avoid the area.” The shooting took place outside of Huguenot High School’s graduation ceremony, Richmond Public Schools told the station. Jason Alexander, whose son was part of the graduation ceremony, told NBC12 the shooting sounded like “fireworks” and sent crowds scattering outside the theater. The man says he saw multiple injured and estimates he heard eight to 10 shots fired. “It just don’t make no sense,” another bystander told the station. “We’re supposed to be happy about people. We’re supposed to be supporting one another, loving on another, hugging one another. Come on now. I just think it’s bad. We have to do better.” The man told the station one of his daughter’s friends was among the wounded. “Everyone literally started running for their lives,” a witness told 8News. The incident occured close to the end of the ceremony, witnesses told WTVR. “This is heartbreaking,” congresswoman Jennifer McClellan of Virginia wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “My staff & I are closely monitoring this situation. Praying for the safety of everyone involved. I encourage everyone who can to avoid the area.” Bystander video of the shooting from bystanders shows throngs of people running across the campus green after the shooting. Virginia state police and Richmond police enforcement officers are on campus investigating. Police were seen by local reporters searching a car near the campus. Richard Public Schools will be closed on Wednesday following the shooting, school officials wrote on the RPS website. This is a breaking news story and will be updated with new information.

Tucker Carlson described Ukraine’s Jewish leader as “rat-like”, questioned the official story about 9/11, and claimed definitively that aliens are visiting Earth as he launched his new TV show on Twitter. The far-right former Fox News anchor opened the next act of his career with a pro-Kremlin rant claiming that it was “obvious” Ukrainian forces were responsible for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on Tuesday. He referred to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as “sweaty and rat-like”, “a persecutor of Christians”, and in bed with American investment bankers. This story is breaking and will be updated.

Two people were reportedly killed as seven people were shot and wounded at a high school graduation ceremony being held on Virginia Commonwealth University’s Monroe Park campus. Officials in Richmond say that three people suffered life-threatening injuries and dour non-life-threatening injuries after gunshots outside the Altria Theater on Tuesday afternoon. Police say that two suspects were arrested. The conditions of the shooting victims have not been released. Huguenot High School’s graduation ceremonies were ending when the shooting was reported, according to witnesses. The Altria Theater is the site of high school graduation ceremonies for Richmond Public Schools, according to WTVR

Police say they were able to identify a suspect in a series of two-decade old rape cases out of Boston using new advances in DNA technology, eventually arresting New Jersey attorney Matthew Nilo and charging him with a variety of crimes. Here’s everything we know. The crimes Between 2007 and 2008, police investigated a series of four different sex crimes that occured involving women in downtown Boston. The victims described being threatened or tricked by a male assailant. One woman said she encountered a man in 2007 she thought she knew who offered to give her a ride as she looked for her car. The man evetually told her to “shut up,” threatened to kill her, said he had a weapon, and raped her near a Boston railyard. The second of the four attacks occured in late 2007, as a woman was leaving a State Street bar following a high school reunion. She allegedly got into a man’s car, thinking it was a taxi, and gave an address of an ATM near her appartment. The driver flashed a knife at the woman and later raped her near Terminal Street. The third incident under scrutiny by police came in August of 2008, when a man allegedly approached a woman on Boston Common and promised her money if she went to the Charlestown area with him, later allegedly holding a gun to her back and raping her. A final attack occured in December of 2008, when a 44-year-old jogger was sexually assaulted, before repelling her assailant by poking him in the eye. Police conducted rape examanations of the first three women and established a DNA profile of the attacker, but didn’t find any matches in CODIS, a law enforcement DNA database. The investigation Last year, police in Boston got a new break in the case. Using a $2.5m grant from the federal Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, they began re-examing the 2000s rape cases as part of an effort to review unsolved sexual crimes, and used new DNA techniques to advance the investigation. Using DNA taken from the original sexual assault examinations, they searched for potential suspects using DNA information submitted by family members to commercial ancestry databses GEDMatch and Family Tree DNA, eventually landing on Mr Nilo as a person of interest. Such tecniques are known as forensic investigative genetic genealogy. FBI agents surveilling the attorney saw him handle a glass and silverware at a corporate event and were able to collect a DNA sample, according to police. The DNA on the sample allegedly matched both the evidence found in the rape kits and on a sample taken from the glove one of the women used to fend off the alleged rapist. Boston Police and FBI agents arrested Mr Nilo in the lobby of a luxury building in Weehawken last week, allegedly telling him “a large package had been delivered to him that did not fit in the ... lockers where the residents pick up packages,” according to prosecutors. The suspect Prosecutors argued during an arraignment on Monday the forensic evidence was a match, with the DNA present on the glove 314 times more likely to belong to Mr Nilo than any other male. Mr Nilo, at attorney who lives in Weehawken, New Jersey, previously worked at the cyber firm Cowbell Cyber in Manhattan. The company told The Daily Mail it has suspended the attorney. “Matthew Nilo was an employee of Cowbell and was hired in January, 2023 after passing our background check,” the company said. “Mr. Nilo’s employment at Cowbell has been suspended pending further investigation.” He attended the University of Wisconsin and got a law degree at the University of San Francisco, according to court records. The rapes allegedly occured when he was home from college on breaks. Mr Nilo’s fiancée, Laura Griffin, 37, has appeared at multiple court proceedings following the attorney’s arrest. She reportedly clutched a set of rosary beads during Mr Nilo’s arraignment. The charges On Monday, Mr Nilo was charged with three counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping, and other charges. He could face up to life in prison if gound guilty. His bail has been set at $500,000, and the attorney will be subject to GPS monitoring if he is freed from jail pre-trial. Mr Nilo pleaded not guilty. “I do understand that the procedures used by law enforcement are somewhat suspect,” his attorney Joseph Cataldo told The Associated Press outside court on Monday. “It seems that they obtained DNA evidence without ever obtaining a search warrant. If that turns out to be true, that’s an issue that will be pursued vigorously.” Read More Detectives used DNA from water glass in investigation of attorney accused of rapes in Boston Fiancee of attorney linked to three rapes through genetic genealogy stands by him in court Pensioner on trial accused of murdering young woman in 1974

In 2014, Francesca Williams moved her family from Colorado to a remote valley in Ecuador famous for the longevity of its residents to pursue their dream of building their version of “Shangri-La”. She and her husband Michael paid about $10,000 for a 10-acre plot of land on the side of a mountain just outside Vilcabamba to raise chickens, goats, horses, pigs, ducks and guinea fowl on a sustainable farm with their three daughters. It was a life they never could have afforded in the United States, but after years of hard work was starting to come to fruition, Francesca’s mother Marianna Benedict-Bacilla, 61, told The Independent in an interview. Francesca, a gifted artist, linguist, translator and published children’s author, threw her boundless energy into making the farm a success, Ms Benedict-Bacilla said. When Michael would travel back to the US for work, Francesca would remain in Ecuador with their three teenage daughters Rachel, 19, Renee 17, and Rebekah, 14, and her elderly father John to tend to the animals and plant crops. On 20 May, that idyllic life was shattered when at least four men armed with rifles burst onto the farm and shot Francesca dead. The attack was sudden, and extremely violent. The men knocked out Michael before he even realised they were on the property, and stabbed Williams’ elderly and infirm father John when he tried to intervene. Ms Benedict-Bacilla said Francesca had been hanging out the washing when she saw the assailants attack her father, and rushed to help him. “Francesca gave her life trying to save her father’s,” Ms Benedict-Bacilla told The Independent. “My daughter was petite, but she guarded her family ferociously. She always knew if there was ever a problem, nothing would get in the way.” Rachel, their middle daughter, told Colorado news site KDVR in an interview last week that she had seen her mother “scrambling after” a man trying to fight him off. Then she saw “two sparks of a gun” as the assailant fired at her mother. Her older sister ran to a neighbour’s for help. The stick up crew tied up Michael, John, and two of the daughters, and locked them in separate rooms throughout the house before making off with wallets, iPads and computers. “It was horrendous. They were essentially hostages in their own home,” Ms Benedict-Basilla said. Rachel recalled hearing the men asking in Spanish for the “large aunt”, and thought they might have targeted their home by mistake. It was only when Michael managed to untie his hands about an hour later that he found his wife’s body, Ms Benedict-Bacilla told The Independent. He put the family in their vehicle, and raced to an emergency medical centre. Michael and John received medical attention in a hospital, while the daughters were unharmed. “We were very humble people, we don’t understand why we were targeted,” Michael told San Diego’s KGTV. Francesca’s death has torn open the family’s generational trauma from the 1967 unsolved murder of her aunt Nikki Benedict who was stabbed to death walking home from school aged 14, Ms Benedict-Basilla said. ‘Everything was taken from them’ Three years before her death, Francesca Williams had written of her fears of home invasion and violent crime in her adopted home on the knowledge-sharing website Quora. Asked about Ecuadorean stereotypes, Williams said she had been told of the high risk of robberies prior to moving there. “We have not experienced this as of yet, but live in constant awareness of this danger,” she said. “I know many, many foreigners who have experienced home invasion robberies and I would not have come here if I had any idea of how close to home such attacks would be. It is essential that one have intimidating dogs and bars on one’s windows.” Ms Benedict-Basilla told The Independent the family had been especially on edge after an expat neighbour was shot dead trying to repel a home invasion. The gunmen’s modus operandi in that case was eerily similar to the attack that killed Francesca, she said. The homeowner had confronted a group of assailants as they tried to break in, and was shot dead. Ms Benedict-Basilla believes they could be the same group that targeted her family. The family are holding out hope of finding justice for Francesca, but say not enough is being done to make the town safe for the vibrant community of artists and retirees who have made it their home. “The government isn’t putting any effort into investigating the things that happen there,” she told The Independent. She said the local police were doing their best. “But they don’t give them the resources that they need and these murders aren’t being investigated.” No suspects have been identified in either killing. The local Vilcabamba police force was doing what it could, she said, but without the support of the Ecuadorean National Police there seemed to be little chance of finding the killers. The Policía Nacional del Ecuador did not respond to numerous requests for comment about the investigation. It has barely received any mention in the Ecuadorean press. In a statement, a US State Department spokesperson told The Independent: “We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss. “We are in contact with the family and are providing all appropriate consular assistance. “We refer you to the government of Ecuador for information regarding any local investigation.” State Department figures show 15 US citizens were murdered in Ecuador between 2010 and June 2022, but it’s unclear if those figures capture recent attacks around Vilcabamba. Francesca’s family have taken little comfort from the Ecuadorean authorities’ response, and will not be returning, Ms Benedict-Basilla said. “Everything was taken from them.” ‘The Valley of Longevity’ In expat forums, adopted residents have spoken out about the “impotence” of the local police force to combat a rising tide of rape, home invasion and murder against the foreigners who have made Vilcabamba their home. In response, local expat communities have formed neighbourhood security groups, and any disturbances are quickly shared through WhatsApp groups. The town, situated in the lower Ecuadorean Andes near the border with Peru, gained worldwide attention in the 1970s, when Harvard professor Alexander Leaf travelled there to report on claims that residents were living to the age of 130 for National Geographic. The subtropical valley’s year-round spring climate, crystal-clear water, pollution-free air and abundance of produce supposedly supposedly allowed the male residents to continue to carry out manual labour and conceive children until well past 100. The area, known as The Valley of Longevity, became inundated with gerontologists who wanted to know more about how that delicate balance of good genes and healthy natural environment was prolonging lives. They later grew sceptical about some of the residents’ claims when they were unable to produce credible birth records. But that didn’t stop a large number of expats moving there to buy property over the years, gentrifying the area, and sometimes bringing them into conflict with the locals who still worked the fields for a few hundred dollars per month. By 2007, that global fame was harming Vilcabamba’s local community, according to a Reuters report. “These days, the famous elders of Vilcabamba are dying at a younger age, the result of the stresses of modern life brought by the scores of tourists and health buffs who flock here in search of eternal youth,” Reuters wrote. ‘Generational trauma’ In May 1967, Ms Benedict-Bacilla’s sister Nikki Benedict was stabbed to death while she walked home from her friend’s house in Poway, near San Diego, aged just 14. She suffered knife wounds to the neck and chest in the brazen daylight attack and was found bleeding to death in a field. The murder has never been solved. Their mother had been the editor of the local newspaper at the time, and had to write an article about her own daughter’s death, Ms Benedict-Bacilla told The Independent. Ms Benedict-Basilla was five at the time, and the tragedy, and lack of answers about what had happened defined her childhood, she said. “It was all I ever knew,” she said. “We’ve had so much family tragedy. You don’t heal, you just get stronger.” Ms Benedict-Bacilla runs a Facebook group dedicated to finding her sister’s killer, and speaks out every anniversary of her death to keep focus on solving the heinous killing. As a way of dealing with her own psychological wounds, Ms Benedict-Bacilla became a specialist in trauma intervention and volunteers for the American Red Cross and the Poway Community Emergency Response Team. She likens the kind of generational trauma that her family suffered after Nikki’s murder to a “cancer” that can never fully heal, but can only be managed through finding strength in keeping their loved ones memory alive. She had seen Francesca grow up in the shadow of that trauma, and took comfort from the fact that her granddaughters would be one generation removed from it. “They stole (Francesca’s) future, and they stole her children’s future. It will be part of them now because that’s how generational trauma works,” she told The Independent. ‘A quest for knowledge’ Francesca Williams excelled at anything she turned her hand to, Ms Benedict-Basilla told The Independent. “She was an extraordinarily gifted person, just mega-smart,” Ms Benedict-Basilla said. Coming from four generations of journalists and editors, Francesca Williams wanted to be a writer from an early age, her mother said. But when it was time to choose a major, she opted to study linguistics at the University of California, San Diego. She was fluent in French and Lithuanian, her great-grandmother’s home tongue. She had known her husband Michael since they were children, and decided to move from Poway to Kommerling, Colorado, when the cost of living in California became too high. Francesca hadn’t known Spanish prior to moving to Ecuador, and within a year she was fluent and carrying out legal transcriptions, her mother said. She had also recently published her first illustrated children’s book, The King’s Magic, and was a brilliant artist on “any medium”, her mother says. “Anything she touched she turned into beautiful art. A lot of people who are that bright can get into trouble in life, she put it all into a quest for knowledge.” Francesca’s body was returned to the US last week, but the family are still trying to get their beloved Corgi Banksy home. Her funeral was held in Colorado on Saturday 3 June. A GoFundme page has been set up to help the family. Read More American expat shot dead on her ‘Shangri-La’ off-the-grid farm in Ecuador Ecuador's president declines to run in snap elections after he disbands National Assembly Funeral held for teen shot by gas station owner over false shoplifting claims as community shares outrage

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has filed paperwork to launch his 2024 presidential bid. Mr Christie, who faces long odds in the competition for the GOP nomination, is expected to formally kick off his campaign during a town hall in New Hampshire. Mr Christie plans to focus on the Granite State, an early primary state that he hopes will help give his campaign momentum. Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, leads the increasingly crowded GOP field. But Mr Christie will look to position himself as a more moderate alternative to Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who recently launched his own GOP presidential bid. At one point, Mr Christie appeared to be in the running for an administration post in Mr Trump’s government, rumoured to be a top contender for the positions of attorney general or potentially secretary of state. But the former governor has since become a vocal critic of the former president, who faces criminal charges in New York City and the prospect of additional charges at the federal level and in Georgia. In the days immediately following January 6, he urged his fellow Republicans to impeach the president for whom he had once considered working, on the grounds of inciting an insurrection — a highly serious charge that ended up going further than even the select committee formed to investigate the attack would later recommend in its referral to the Department of Justice. Just as recently as March, the ex-governor was laying out what he believed was necessary to stop Mr Trump from attaining the GOP nomination, something many in the party’s donor class are hoping to avoid given the president’s performance in 2020 and the woeful showing by the Republican Party in the 2022 midterms. “You better have somebody on that stage who can do to him what I did to Marco [Rubio], because that's the only thing that's gonna defeat Donald Trump,” he said at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. “And that means you have to be fearless, because he will come back, and right at you.” His comments referred to the infamous moment during a February 2016 Republican debate wherein Mr Christie battled a then-surging Senator Marco Rubio onstage — in a series of brutal takedowns, the governor deconstructed his opponent’s debating approach and eviscerated it, leaving the crowd jeering as the senator attempted to respond. It was a moment that quickly cemented itself in political debating history, but ultimately proved next to meaningless given that both men would be utterly overwhelmed in the contest by another man on the stage that night: Donald Trump. And it remains unclear whether that same mastery of the debate stage demonstrated by Mr Christie will serve him well against Mr Trump. In one famous instance from the 2020 contests, Mr Trump bullied his way through an initial debate with now-President Joe Biden, talking over his opponent and ignoring the rules and moderator. Matching Mr Trump’s energy both onstage and off has turned into a major challenge for Republicans, including both those who seek to end his dominance of the GOP and those who wish to emulate his style for their own gain. Though Mr Christie is a veteran of the presidential campaign universe, his chances of winning the GOP nomination are slim. He is currently polling around 1 percent in surveys of the Republican field which include him; the vast majority of voters are currently aligned behind Mr Trump and his second-place challenger, Florida’s Ron DeSantis. Read More Chris Christie –live: Former New Jersey Gov launches Trump spoiler 2024 presidential bid Chris Christie gave Trump legitimacy. Now he can’t stop Trump in 2024 Tim Scott and TV host spar about systemic racism on ‘The View’: ‘That is a dangerous, offensive, disgusting message’ Chris Christie gave Trump legitimacy. Now he can’t stop Trump in 2024 Trump secret papers crisis is his own fault for ‘jerking around’ DOJ says his former attorney general Trump threatens former lawyer who told CNN he expected indictment: ‘Angry, nasty, libelous’

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Tuesday 6 June marking his official entrance into the 2024 presidential race– hours before his official kickoff announcement in New Hampshire. Mr Christie, 60, will formally announce his campaign during a town hall in Manchester Tuesday evening. According to reports, the former governor will focus his attention in New Hampshire, an early primary state, in the hopes to give his long-shot campaign momentum. This is the second time Mr Christie has made a bid for the White House, the first being in 2016 when he lost to former president Donald Trump. Though Mr Christie lent his support to Mr Trump in 2016 when he dropped out of the race, he has since changed his opinion of the former president and become a vocal critic of Mr Trump. Likely, the former New Jersey governor will position himself as a moderate Republican alternative to Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Embattled congressman George Santos has been told by a judge that the identities of the trio who paid his $500,000 bail must be publically revealed. Mr Santos, a Republican from New York, pleaded not guilty last month to federal charges of defrauding his campaign supporters, lying to obtain unemployment money and making false statements on congressional disclosure forms. Magistrate Judge Anne Shields ruled on Tuesday that Mr Santos has until 12pm on Friday to appeal her decision at which point the names would be unsealed. Lawyers for Mr Santos had argued on Monday that the names should not be made public, stating that they“truly fear for their health, safety and well being.” The lawmaker’s attorney, Joseph Murray previously said that Mr Santos would rather go to jail ahead of his criminal trial than let the names become public. “My client would rather surrender to pretrial detainment than subject these suretors to what will inevitably come,” Mr Murray had said. Read More Judge rules to release names of Rep. Santos bond cosigners, will say secret for now as appeal mulled Lawyer says George Santos would go to jail to keep identities of cosigners secret AP News Digest 4 am

Former Vice President Mike Pence, the onetime loyal sideman to twice-impeached ex-president Donald Trump, will kick off his own attempt to win election to the nation’s top job this week when he formally announces his campaign at a Des Moines, Iowa event on Wednesday. Mr Pence’s announcement will come just days after he made his candidacy official by filing the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. The ex-Indiana governor’s presidential ambitions are nothing new, with Mr Pence having teased a presidential run for months during a string of public appearances. But the advent of an actual campaign changes the Republican landscape by putting him in direct competition with Mr Trump, his former running-mate. Mr Pence, 63, served as a member of the House of Representatives between 2001 and 2013 and as Indiana’s governor between 2013 and 2017 but first rose to international attention as Mr Trump’s running-mate in 2016. The pair always made for an unlikely double act, with Mr Pence’s quiet, respectful demeanour and devout evangelical Christian faith utterly at odds with the trash-talking New Yorker’s taste for celebrity, glitzy decor and vulgar showmanship. But Mr Pence remained at his boss’ side throughout his tumultuous one-term presidency, a source of constant support until even his loyalty was tested beyond breaking point by the events of 6 January 2021. After losing the electoral vote to Democrat Joe Biden the previous November by 306 to 232 and the popular vote by 81.3 million ballots to 74.2 million, Mr Trump immediately and baselessly began to insist the contest had been “rigged” in a vast nationwide conspiracy orchestrated by his opponents. Two months of farcical legal proceedings led by a ragtag group of misfit attorneys — most notably among them ex-New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani — ended with a whimper, as Mr Trump’s allies entirely failed to offer a court any argument that satisfied the legal requirements to bring lawsuits challenging the election, much less any proof of the fraud they’d alleged. Increasingly desperate, the president was caught on tape exerting pressure on Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” additional votes in that crucial swing state, before turning his attention to his own deputy, Mr Pence, whom he called upon to weaponise his ceremonial position overseeing a joint session of Congress on 6 January to ratify the election results. Demanding that Mr Pence rule the election results null and void, Mr Trump piled on the public pressure in a series of tweets and in person on the campaign trail, presumably knowing his vice president was reluctant to follow orders. “I hope Mike Pence comes through for us,” Mr Trump said in Georgia. “I hope our great vice president comes through for us. He’s a great guy. Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him very much.” Mr Pence refused to comply, instead writing a letter to Congress in which he explained: “I do not believe that the founders of our country intended to invest the vice president with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the joint session of Congress, and no vice president in American history has ever asserted such authority.” On the day the US Capitol was stormed by enraged Trump supporters attempting to stop the ratification, some participants even erected a gallows and chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” on the National Mall. “To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today: you did not win,” Mr Pence responded in the aftermath, sounding far more presidential than Mr Trump. “Violence never wins. Freedom wins. And this is still the people’s house. And as we reconvene in this chamber the world will again witness the resilience and strength of our democracy.” The two men held clear-the-air talks five days after the failed insurrection but their relationship has clearly never recovered. Speaking at a Republican dinner in New Hampshire in June 2021, Mr Pence told his audience: “You know, President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office. And I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye on that day.” Mr Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana, on 7 June 1959, one of six children born to Edward and Nancy Pence and is a graduate of Hanover College and the Indiana University School of Law. He married his wife Karen in 1985 and the couple have three children: Michael, Charlotte and Audrey. His net wealth has been estimated at $4m, modest compared to some prominent politicians, but has been enhanced post-presidency after he signed a two-book deal with publishing giant Simon & Schuster, thought to be worth around $3-4m, according to industry insiders. Mr Pence will now find himself in competition not only with Mr Trump but also the likes of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, South Carolina senator Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and ex-radio pundit Larry Elder. Ex-New Jersey governor Chris Christie is expected to enter the GOP primary race this week as well. 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