“Police in Moscow have detained around 60 people at a rally held by Russia’s Kremlin-friendly Communist Party, according to the organisation. A party statement said the arrests took place as the event was ending on Sunday, with its Moscow branch trying to secure the release of detainees, who were mostly young people. The gathering marked the anniversary of the Kremlin’s 1993 crushing of a parliamentary uprising. Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Novosti said protesters chanted slogans including ‘Freedom for political prisoners,’ ‘For fair elections,’ and ‘Down with the Tsar.’ The rally came as public frustration has been simmering in Russia during the intensifying Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside the country.” (10/04/26)
“Ministers have scrapped plans that would have slashed the number of jury trials in England and Wales and replaced them with a judge sitting alone. The proposals had sparked a fierce backlash from lawyers, who have welcomed the U-turn. But the victims’ commissioner expressed concern about the abandonment of measures drawn up by the then justice secretary, David Lammy, under Keir Starmer’s government, to tackle the record backlog in the courts. … Legislation would have removed jury trials for defendants who were likely to receive a sentence of up to three years. Ministers have not abandoned judge-only trials altogether, but they will only be for a small number of especially lengthy and technical fraud cases where the judge decides a jury trial is not appropriate.” (10/04/26)
“Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders took center stage in downtown San Francisco on Saturday, his latest appearance in the Golden State as he lends his star power to the effort to pass Proposition 40, a proposed one-time tax on billionaires. Sanders, an independent [sic], is arguably the measure’s most fervent supporter and its most high-profile endorser. San Franciscans and health care workers filed into the 1,650-seat Curran Theatre on Saturday evening decked out in old ‘Feel the Bern’ merchandise and signs with the message ‘SAVE LIVES, TAX BILLIONAIRES.’ Most of California’s biggest names in Democratic politics oppose the measure. Sanders was also on hand when Prop 40 supporters kicked off their campaign in Los Angeles in February.” (10/03/26)
“An 18-year-old man has been charged by New South Wales Police after a vehicle allegedly struck 10 people during a parade of rugby league side Newcastle Knights fans. A five-year-old girl is in a critical but now stable condition, while a 67-year-old man’s condition was considered critical but is currently reported to be serious but stable. A two-year old girl and a second five-year-old girl, whose conditions are described by police as stable, were among eight others hit. … NSW Police said that the driver had been released from hospital and charged with nine offences, including three counts of dangerous driving, three counts of negligent driving and three counts of causing bodily harm by misconduct, in charge of motor vehicle.” (10/03/26)
“Nicolás Maduro is not entitled to immunity from criminal charges, US prosecutors said, countering the former Venezuelan president’s bid to toss the US’s narco-terrorism case against him. Maduro and Cilia Flores — Maduro’s wife who also faces charges — are ‘former rogue officials of a formerly rogue state with no entitlement to immunity,’ the US argued in a filing in Manhattan federal court late Friday. His defense team argued last month that he is immune to prosecution in the US as the head of a sovereign country.” [editor’s note: The better argument is that the Constitution limits criminal prosecutions to “the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” and Venezuela is neither a state nor a district of the United States – TLK] (10/04/26)
“Two Iranian men conducted surveillance of a Manchester synagogue that was the site of a deadly attack a year ago as part of a plot to bomb it this year, a prosecutor said Saturday. Salam Ahmadyan, 36, and Rahman Salehi, 34, researched attacking the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in Manchester in northwest England and the Jewish Museum in nearby Cheetham Hill, the court was told. Ahmadyan and Salehi were arrested last month and charged Friday with engaging in conduct in preparation for terrorist acts. … Prosecutor Mark Luckett said the duo were directed by a third person believed to be in Iran who coordinated plans and provided instructions on making a homemade chlorine bomb.” (10/03/26)
“US authorities are searching for six people after a medical plane bound for Boston, Massachusetts, went missing early Saturday morning. The Federal Aviation Administration told the BBC that it lost contact with the Gulfstream G-100 plane and put out a search-and-rescue notice just after 1:00 local time (6:00 GMT). An air and water search is underway off the coast of Nantucket, a Massachusetts island, according to the US Coast Guard’s Northeast District. The plane departed from Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport at 23:40 local time, according to flight data from FlightAware, and was slated to land at Boston’s Logan International at 1:30 EDT (6:30 GMT). According to the tail number released by the Coast Guard, the plane belonged to Latitude Air Ambulances, a company that provides international medical flights for patients returning home.” (10/03/26)
“Tennessee’s prison chief is resigning after the failed [killing] of Christa Pike, which lawyers say was the fifth ‘botched’ [prisoner killing] under his leadership across two states since 2022. Frank Strada, the commissioner of the Tennessee department of correction, has faced mounting questions about the state’s highly secretive death penalty protocols since Wednesday evening when Pike became the first death row prisoner in the US to to be injected with lethal drugs and survive. … Death penalty lawyers said there were common threads in the five problematic [prisoner killings] under Strada, including the prisoners’ protracted suffering and questionable injection procedures, and argued that Lee should never have appointed Strada given his Arizona record.” (10/03/26)
“A team investigating a boat-shaped formation in eastern Turkey says new evidence is strengthening its case that the site could hold the remains of Noah’s Ark. ‘In archaeology, you deal with probabilities, and we’re inching towards where we believe we will have confirmation this winter after our soil analysis is done with Sivas University, who’s our partner in this,’ Noah’s Ark Scans founder Andrew Jones told ‘Saturday in America’. The focus of the investigation is the Durupınar formation, an approximately 538-foot-long geological structure near Mount Ararat. Its shape and proximity to the region identified in the biblical account have fascinated Ark hunters for decades. The boat-shaped formation was first discovered in 1959 and has long-drawn speculation over a possible connection to Noah’s Ark.” (10/03/26)
“Ethiopian government forces and allied militias have regained control of the capital of Tigray, three sources told Reuters on Sunday, dealing a major setback to the opposition alliance that rules the northern region. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which leads the opposition alliance, said in a statement posted on Facebook it had retreated from the capital and that the regional government would be ‘temporarily moved out of Mekelle and operate from somewhere else.’ A source close to the pro-government militia, the Tigray Peace Forces, said its fighters entered the centre of Mekelle on Saturday afternoon, followed by the Ethiopian military. A humanitarian source and a Mekelle resident, who asked not to be named, confirmed the city was controlled by government forces. The prime minister’s office did not respond immediately to a request for comment.” (10/04/26)
