Trump endorses Romney in run for Utah Senate seat
Reuters, Washington
President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s run for a U.S. Senate seat in Utah despite Romney often being critical of Trump.During the 2016 presidential campaign, Romney excoriated Trump as a “fraud” who was “playing the American public for suckers.” Trump responded that Romney had “choked like a dog” in his 2012 campaign against President Barack Obama.
Trump said on Twitter that Romney “will make a great Senator and worthy successor to @OrrinHatch, and has my full support and endorsement!” Romney announced Friday he would run to replace retiring Senator Orrin Hatch.
UK academic gets 32 years in prison for online abuse
AFP, London
A Cambridge University graduate who admitted 137 criminal offences involving online abuse, including encouraging the rape of a four-year-old boy, was sentenced on Monday to 32 years in prison.
Matthew Falder, who dubbed himself “666devil” and “evilmind” online, blackmailed many of his 45 victims into sending “severe abuse images” of themselves, according to Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
India arrests 6 suspects in bank fraud case
AP, New Delhi
India’s federal investigating agency says it has arrested six people in an alleged $1.8 billion bank fraud case.
Abhished Dayal, a Central Bureau of Investigation spokesman, said Tuesday that five bank workers and an employee of billionaire jeweler and suspect Nirav Modi were arrested for allegedly conspiring to cheat the Punjab National Bank over the past six years.
5 killed in Sufi protests in Iran
AFP, Tehran
Iranian police said Tuesday the number of security officers killed in overnight protests by a Sufi sect had risen to five, with around 300 people arrested.
The demonstrations by the Gonabadi Sufi order, known as dervishes, turned into running clashes with the police in northern Tehran on Monday.
Footage on state television showed a bus ploughing into a group of policemen in northern Tehran, which police said led to three deaths.
Catalan activist snubs Spanish probe
AP, Madrid
A leading Catalan politician is vowing to carry on advocating for Catalan independence from her current base in Switzerland where she is evading a Spanish judicial probe for her role in last year’s illegal secession attempt. Anna Gabriel, the leader of the anti-establishment Catalan CUP party, has told Swiss newspaper Le Temps that the Spanish Supreme Court probe is politically motivated and that she will be more useful to her party in Geneva than “behind bars.”
