PORT HURON, Mich. (AP) — President Donald Trump intensified his anti-Muslim rhetoric against Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday, portraying him as a threat to national security and questioning his loyalty to the United States in remarks that drew a sharp rebuke from a former top Arab American ally.
Trump called El-Sayed, a former Detroit health official, a "jihadist" who was "on the side of the terrorists" and would "have to go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go into the Senate." He also repeatedly invoked the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, drawing a comparison between stopping El-Sayed from entering the Senate chamber and the passengers who fought back against the hijackers aboard United Flight 93.
El-Sayed, who would become the nation's first Muslim senator if elected, has called attacks on his loyalty to the country "shameful" and repeatedly denied any ties to extremist groups. The Republican president's remarks were condemned by Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump, the group that helped lead the president's outreach to Arab American voters in 2024.
"The president's statements are out of line," he said in a phone interview. "They are crossing a red line. They are racist."
With Republicans on the defensive over inflation, soaring fuel prices and the Iran war, the president has been trying to generate turnout by claiming that El-Sayed and other Democrats are existential threats to America, instead of electoral rivals. Michigan's Senate race between El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers is among a handful of contests that could determine control of the chamber.

#senate #Trump #muslim #united

The United States military has had 81 aircraft destroyed or damaged in the war with Iran, a Congressional Research Service report released this week says.
The number includes both airplanes and helicopters as well as drones, with the MQ-9 Reaper drone – used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, close air support and combat search and rescue – accounting for more than half of the losses.
But also on the list are some of the Pentagon’s most-prized ***** ets, including an F-35A fighter jet and an E-3 Sentry, the four-engine jet with a large radar dome atop the fuselage used for target tracking and airspace management.
The total cost of the aircraft lost is between $1.9 billion and $3.3 billion, depending on the Defense Department’s plans for replacements, the report said, citing figures from the Congressional Budget Office.
The total cost of the war is much higher – at least $45 billion, sources have told CNN. That figure doesn’t include damage to infrastructure at US bases in the region, including those where some of the aircraft losses happened.

#congressional #report #including #total

WASHINGTON — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers appears to be breaking with President Donald Trump on another key issue less than a month before Election Day.
"Drinking a Labatt and watching the Red Wings, man, it just doesn't get any more Michigan than that," Rogers said in a new ad released Oct. 7. "Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war now."
The statement marks the second time in recent weeks that Rogers spoke out — without criticizing Trump by name — against one of the president's unpopular initiatives. This time, Rogers is calling for an end to Trump's widespread trade war against Canada, America's second-biggest trading partner, while drinking a Canadian beer that's banned from import under the president's latest trade restrictions.
The Republican Senate nominee also split with Trump on the Iran war in late September, saying it "needs to end and end quickly."
Rogers' public shift on tariffs comes amid mounting opposition in Michigan to Trump's tariffs and GOP concerns that voters will reject their candidates up and down the ballot for failing to address cost-of-living concerns. Election Day is Nov. 3, though more than 200,000 Michiganians have already cast absentee ballots.

#Trump #election #drinking

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A Delta Air Lines passenger jet on Tuesday struck an Air Canada aircraft being towed to its arrival gate just after it landed at Los Angeles International Airport, both airlines said.
Delta Air Lines Flight 7, slated to depart for Tokyo, carrying 275 passengers and 15 crew members, struck an Air Canada passenger jet with its left wingtip, a Delta spokesperson told Fox News Digital. No injuries were initially reported.
"While taxiing at Los Angeles International Airport, a Delta aircraft made contact with an Air Canada aircraft," a Delta statement said. "Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people, and we apologize to our customers for the experience and delay in their travel."
'WE NEED TO RETURN IMMEDIATELY,' FLIGHT CREW WARNS AS PILOT HEALTH EMERGENCY UNFOLDS

#aircraft

Nidal Malik Hasan, a former Army major who killed 13 people in a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, will be executed by firing squad, the Pentagon announced Monday.
"Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009," chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X.
He added, "The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come."
The U.S. military has not carried out an execution since 1961 and has not used a firing squad to execute a service member since World War II.
The announcement of Trump's approval came days after a failed attempt to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection. The failed execution prompted Tennessee's governor to halt further executions this year and order a third-party review.

#firing #squad #nidal #fort

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Thom Tillis says in a new book that his deciding vote to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in January 2025 is the "biggest regret of my career" and that he also "should've stopped" Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from becoming Health and Human Services secretary in the early days of President Donald Trump's second term.
In "How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents," to be published Tuesday, the North Carolina senator defends his decision at the time to not be "the lone voice in the wilderness" preventing Trump's nominees from confirmation. But Tillis makes clear he was always skeptical of allegations about Hegseth's turbulent management style, treatment of women and excessive drinking. Hegseth denied all the allegations.
"I know for a fact that there are others like me," Tillis writes, "Republicans who agreed to go along with the early demands of the Trump team no matter how ridiculous they were, believing that failing to do so would mean the end of their political career, and who now see that things have gone way too far."
He writes that he can count at least 30 of his GOP colleagues who have "expressed reservations (to put it mildly) about many of the president's actions in private. Then, when the reporters showed up with their cameras and microphones, they'd have nothing but nice things to say."
Tillis, who announced last year that he would not run for reelection in a "breaking point" with the president on his sweeping tax and spending cuts package, is publishing the book in his final months in office. He joins a long list of Republicans who have ratcheted up their public denunciations of Trump once they had less to lose politically.

#hegseth

Former Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Chapek said he hasn't been back to Disney since he was ousted in November 2022.
"I just don't know that I'm at least psychologically in a position where I can go," Chapek told Bloomberg's Businessweek Daily on Monday, adding that "it would be very difficult for me to go" and "attach that to what I've seen."
Chapek, who's on a tour for his memoir, "Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth," also sat down with Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi on Power Players for an extended interview.
"It's like I didn't exist," said Chapek, who started at Disney in 1993, detailing how he felt about the way the company removed him. "The situation itself was not warranted. But even if it was done, there's a way you do it with class and grace and respect after 30 years. I did not receive that."
Chapek ran Disney's parks business before succeeding Bob Iger as CEO in February 2020. The board removed him on Nov. 20, 2022, and brought Iger back.

#chapek #iger #removed

Officials say it will be a staging facility for people who are self-deporting.
A new facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, may begin receiving undocumented families with children, local officials and immigrant rights advocates say.
The 528-bed facility will house families with children, unaccompanied minors, and single adult females as they await removal inside renovated former Air Force barracks at England Airpark, a former military base that now houses the Alexandria International Airport and an immigration detention facility, according to a draft agreement between ICE and the England Economic and Industrial Development District (EEIDD) reviewed by ABC News.
A communications manager for EEIDD told ABC News the facility could start receiving people "within the next week or two."
The facility would be the second constructed to house children since President Donald Trump's second term began but is the first to hold unaccompanied minors who are usually held in shelters under the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services before deportation or release.

#facility #alexandria #officials #House

Election Day is still a month away, but more than 700,000 Americans have already voted across at least 30 states. There are signs emerging of the advantage Democrats have in motivating their voters – a trend that’s played out in polling all summer long.
In several states with key Senate or governor races this fall, Democrats make up a larger share of voters requesting ballots so far than they did at this point in 2024.
What early voting data is showing ahead of the 2026 midterms
In Iowa, Democrats have made 67% of ballot requests, up from 54% at this point in 2024. In Pennsylvania, it’s 66%, up from 62%, and in Maine it’s 57%, up from 53%. And according to data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, 42% of ballot requests are from Democrats, up from 36% at this point two years ago.
It’s worth noting that in all of those states except for Iowa, ballot requests at this point in 2022 were more Democratic than they are now.

#point #states #iowa #election

By Waylon Cunningham
NEW YORK, Sept 29 (Reuters) - McDonald's is increasingly using artificial intelligence to guide menu prices across the U.S. and some global markets, a plan that aims to boost headquarters' profit but risks alienating customers and attracting antitrust scrutiny.
One pricing factor supercharged by AI: an estimate of how much each store's patrons are willing to pay.
The details of how that pricing system works, its extensive use of AI, the company's regulatory concerns and the tensions with its franchisees haven't been previously reported. For this story, Reuters reviewed screenshots of the company pricing engine taken in August and interviewed nine sources with first-hand knowledge of the burger chain's strategy.
McDonald's pricing ‌engine uses machine-learning algorithms to continually ****** yze data from millions of daily transactions across McDonald's nearly 14,000 restaurants and generate what the company calls "the optimal price" at each location for each menu item, from Big Macs to discounted coffee for seniors.

#pricing #company #engine #cunningham

Wednesday’s Senate confirmation hearing wasn’t the first time much of the American public met Dr. Nicole Saphier and heard her perspective; President Donald Trump’s nominee for US surgeon general is a health and wellness influencer who has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers through her podcast and social media platforms.
In some ways, the surgeon general position – often referred to as the nation’s doctor – is the original health influencer, tasked with translating science into terms that are easy to understand and guiding the public on ways to improve their health.
“For a decade, I have specialized in translating complex, fast-evolving medical information on various media platforms into content that millions of Americans can understand and use, including during the uncertainty of the global pandemic,” Saphier, a radiologist and Fox News contributor, said in Wednesday’s hearing.
“I realized then how badly this country needs public health communication that is straightforward and grounded in the best evidence available,” she said. “My years of communicating directly with the public have prepared me to explain complex topics in a way that they can understand.”
But experts say that social media has changed how people receive health information, with increasingly blurred lines as to who is considered to have authority and expertise – and that bringing an influencer into the role of surgeon general presents both opportunities and challenges.

#public #saphier #hearing

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has confirmed for the first time that it has deployed weapons in ******* e, a remarkable revelation after previous warnings about countries such as Russia possibly weaponizing a global frontier long agreed in treaties to be used for only peaceful purposes.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Monday that the U.S. has fielded "on-orbit ******* e control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action."
Meink did not detail what the weapons were, how they work or if they were targeting other objects in ******* e or on Earth. The U.S. had warned two years ago that Russia was developing a new ******* e-based, anti-satellite weapon, though the White House said the danger wasn't imminent at the time.
But reports of the anti-satellite weapon reflected longstanding worries about ******* e threats from Russia and China, given that much U.S. infrastructure is dependent on satellite communications. The U.S. has also previously demonstrated its own abilities to shoot down satellites from Earth.
In his remarks to the Air and ******* e Forces ******* ociation's Air, ******* e & Cyber Conference, Meink also said the Air Force was adding more autonomous systems to its capabilities and predicted the service would look "radically different" by 2032. For example, he foresaw one-way attack drones replacing artillery as the "primary killer."

#space #earth

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Calls to repeal women's rights to vote are emerging from the online firestorm over the Lindsay Clancy trial, prompting Republican women to warn that the intraparty rhetoric could hurt the GOP.
"I think there's definitely a threat in the Republican Party right now," political and legal strategist Mehek Cooke told Fox News Digital.
The online calls to repeal the 19th Amendment come after Clancy's high-profile murder trial ended in a mistrial, with 11 of the 12 jurors favoring a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Clancy admitted to killing her three children, but her defense argued she was not criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Lindsay Clancy Mistrial Declared After Jury Deadlocks In Killings Of Her Three Children

#three #online

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's government raced Saturday to contain the fallout after local Iran-backed militias were accused of attacking and shuttering a key Saudi pipeline.
Though an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias in Iraq denied their involvement, Iraq's government confirmed the attacks had originated from its territory. The government pledged to investigate and dismissed two senior officials.
The country is under mounting pressure to prevent local militias from aiding other Iran proxy groups across the region. The Iraqi government has set a Sept. 30 deadline for nonstate groups to disarm, but several of the most powerful militias have said they will not comply.
Pressure to disarm the militias is especially acute as the Iran-backed Houthi rebels make an advance across Yemen's west coast in a major setback to the Saudi-backed coalition that risks escalating the war in the region. The Houthis on Friday seized an island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key shipping lane through which around 12% of global trade passes.
Their virtual control of the strait could send global oil prices — already inflated by the six-month Iran-U.S. war — spiraling. The strait has become a vital commercial lane for Saudi oil ever since the Iran war disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

#saudi #across

Some AI researchers say they think AI could hurt, or wipe out, humanity.
So we asked four of the AI models: How would you go about it?
They all said human misuse of AI is considered a more immediate risk than AI itself.
The researchers building our favorite chatbots are increasingly voicing concerns that AI could hurt — or end — humanity. So we asked four of the most-used generative AI tools what an AI doomsday could look like.
We posed the same question, in identical wording, to OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and ****** eXAI's Grok.

#claude

Passengers have welcomed the return of publicly owned bus services to Merseyside for the first time since the 1980s.
The first services launched in St Helens on Sunday 6 September and will expand to the Wirral later this year. Full roll-out across the city region is expected by 2027.
Liverpool City Region secured £86.3m in government funding to help roll out the scheme. The Department for Transport said it would give local leaders greater control over routes, branding and fares, while helping improve services for passengers.
A new service to Liverpool John Lennon Airport has launched, as well as an early morning express journey to Southport.
Catherine Howarth, 23, hopes St Helens will soon have night buses [Claire Hamilton/BBC]

#region #merseyside

Hurricane Marie, well out in the Pacific, created flooding and dangerous conditions at some southern California beaches over Labor Day weekend, with strong currents and huge waves presenting a threat to swimmers and surfers.
Rose Schoenfeld, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said Sunday that Marie stirred up "life-threatening" conditions as it churned in the ocean hundreds of miles off California's Pacific coast. Some south-facing beaches have seen surf up to 10 feet (3 meters) high, she said.
"We're getting reports from lifeguards that the surf conditions are very dangerous, specifically the rip currents," Schoenfeld said.
Hurricane Marie won't make landfall and is expected to weaken to a tropical storm by late Sunday, but will still but will still bring rain to parts of Los Angeles County before it dissipates. Some parts of the area have already seen as much as a quarter inch of rain Sunday, Schoenfeld said.
The National Weather Service advised people to swim only near lifeguards and to stay off rock jetties.

#schoenfeld #pacific #service

By Andrew Gray and Andreas Rinke
BRUSSELS/BERLIN, Sept 2 (Reuters) - European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Wednesday to increase pressure on Russia, including with new sanctions, after an attempted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany that she said showed Moscow's growing "recklessness".
Airport workers last month found a drone ‌laden with explosives and a detonator at the airport, an important civilian freight and NATO logistics hub in eastern Germany that is also a base for ‌several giant Ukrainian Antonov An-124 cargo planes.
Germany blamed Moscow for the attack, characterising it as part of hybrid warfare meant to intimidate and cause divisions in countries that have rallied around Ukraine since Russia's 2022 invasion.
Russia denies involvement. It says it will respond to what its foreign ministry spokesperson called "anti-Russian action", and summoned Germany's top diplomat in Moscow.

#airport #gray #andreas

Tupac's comeback single "California Love" was released nine months before he was gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996. Nearly 30 years later, justice was served on Aug. 31 when rapper Duane "Keefe D" Davis was found guilty of first-degree murder for orchestrating the killing. But it was only two and a half weeks before the fatal shooting that Access Hollywood was with a light-hearted Tupac on the set of the crime drama "Gang Related" for what would become his final interview.

#nearly #duane #keefe

Comedian Bill Maher mocked liberals for crying foul over President Donald Trump's decision to rename Lake Ontario, suggesting they know a thing or two about changing things to fit a political agenda.
In Friday's opening monologue of HBO's "Real Time," host Maher poked fun at Trump's renaming of one of the Great Lakes to "Lake America" during an ongoing trade war with Canada.
"Trump is so mad at Canada he renamed Lake Ontario Lake America," Maher said. "Now I gotta buy a new globe again.
Trump Taunts Canada On Renaming Lake Ontario The 'Lake America' Amid Rising Border Trade Rift
President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Washington.

#maher #canada #Trump #president

A traditional Ugandan ruler named as the world's youngest monarch has died aged 34, his prime minster announced.
Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV became king of Tooro in western Uganda at just three years old in 1995 after the death of his father.
The Tooro kingdom did not disclose the cause of King Oyo's death, but a Ugandan government minister was quoted in local media saying that he had been critically ill and was seeking treatment in the US.
Though Uganda is governed by an elected president and parliament, it has several traditional kingdoms which continue to have significant cultural influence despite not having political power.
Oyo, who Guinness World Records listed as the world's youngest reigning monarch, ruled over more than two million people. He was the 13th monarch of a kingdom that was founded in the early 19th Century.

#monarch #ugandan #tooro #youngest

The Department of Homeland Security is calling out Boston Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu's "unhinged" effort to dissuade business owners from leasing to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the city, equating it to "hunting down" private property owners.
After Boston banned ICE vehicles from using city-owned parking lots to stage operations, ICE issued a notice seeking to rent hundreds of parking ******* es in the city for five years. In response, Wu, an outspoken opponent of President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agenda, issued an open letter to parking garage and lot owners throughout Boston in which she revealed the city had submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request "for any local responses to ICE."
DHS fired back in an X post, writing that "these actions by sanctuary Mayor Michelle Wu are unhinged."
"She knows she has NO authority to block us from using private property. So, she's hunting down private property owners and threatening them for working with ICE — because she'd rather intimidate law-abiding Bostonians than get criminal illegal aliens OFF the street," wrote DHS.
Tom Homan Fires Back At Florida Democrat Over 'Ridiculous' Ice Racial Profiling Claim

#private #parking #michelle #immigration

Aug 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared Roche and partner Eli Lilly's blood ‌test to help identify signs of Alzheimer's disease in ‌people aged 55 and older with cognitive decline.
The test, Elecsys pTau217, is a biomarker blood test that can help doctors identify patients who are likely or unlikely to have Alzheimer's-related brain changes, Roche said on Monday.
The FDA clearance follows European approval for the ‌test in May.
The ⁠test can be run on more than 4,500 Roche laboratory ******* yzers already installed across the United ⁠States, which the company said could help broaden access.
Separately, Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics said that they plan to offer the test through their laboratory networks, potentially expanding availability across the United States.

#test

BEAVERCREEK, Ohio (AP) — A lip-licking alligator, a smiling moose and a hat-wearing bear are among the many cartoon animals to have found themselves in the crosshairs of Buc-ee's, the popular Texas convenience store chain that has a penchant for protecting its buck-toothed beaver.
But now Buc-ee's has set off a Buckeye backlash across Ohio and beyond after taking on a beaver in the city of Beavercreek.
It's yet another Buc-ee's Ltd. trademark infringement lawsuit. Supporters of Beaver's Mini Mart have attacked Buc-ee's online and boycotted the stores, and the mini mart's home city passed a resolution making the beaver an official part of its history. British comedian John Oliver has even weighed in on the kerfuffle.
On an episode of "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver," the comedian detailed Buc-ee's aggressive history of trademark lawsuits targeting various woodland creatures and launched a website hawking merchandise bearing a knockoff "Buc-off" logo and a squirrel mascot named Mr. Nutterbutter. On X, #boycottbucees trended.
Buc-ee's sued Beaver's Mini Mart in late July, four months after the chain known for its extensive food offerings and massive restrooms opened its first Ohio store less than a half-hour's drive away.

#beavercreek #john #store

SAO PAULO (AP) — The world is increasingly turning to Brazil to explore for rare earth minerals that are crucial for technology and renewable energy. The country's large reserves are second only to China and have attracted investors, many of them with foreign support.
An ***** ysis by The ***** ociated Press and Reporter Brasil of all National Mining Agency records through June shows that rare earth exploration applications have surged, with more than 86% filed in the past three years, including 268 in the first half of 2026.
The interest is already raising environmental concerns for the Amazon and other areas.
Here are takeaways from the story:
Rare earth minerals are a group of chemicals essential in digital and defense technologies, used in electronics, magnets and batteries. They are also used in wind turbines and electric vehicle motors, critical to the transition away from fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal that cause global warming. The International Energy Agency estimated in 2022 that demand for rare earths could increase at least threefold by 2040.

#rare #associated

Florida's Palm Beach International Airport is now President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
The name changed on July 9, and its IATA code changed from "PBI" to "DJT" on August 18.
The change, including new signage with the presidential seal, will cost an estimated $5.5 million.
President Donald Trump has reportedly expressed interest in having an airport named after him since his first term in the White House.
During his second, non-consecutive term, he became the first sitting US president to see that happen: On July 9, Florida's Palm Beach International Airport officially became President Donald J. Trump International Airport.

#airport #president #donald #july

MINNEAPOLIS — Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., officially has a Republican challenger who is making the case that Minnesota voters are "fed up" with fraud and dysfunction and are ready for a change as he looks to unseat Omar in one of the country's most closely watched progressive strongholds.
John Nagel, a Minnesota native who spent 30 years as a state trooper, told Fox News Digital in an interview that he believes his background gives him a unique opportunity to make the case against Omar in Minnesota's deep-blue 5th Congressional District.
"I think the people of Minnesota have been lied to. They've had their money stolen. They want to see somebody that's going to come in and fix things," Nagel said. "They're tired of being told the same old things."
Nagel argued that his roots in the state and decades in law enforcement separate him from the political class.
Ilhan Omar On Track For Fifth Term As Minnesota Voters Maintain Far-left Streak

#case

Ukraine said its June data shows it costs about $3,000 to take out a Russian soldier.
Meanwhile, it costs far less to strike an infrastructure facility with a drone, it said.
Kyiv said its data comes from over 230,000 battlefield reports processed a week.
Ukraine has calculated the average cost of its drone strike missions against Russia, and killing or wounding personnel ranks at the top.
The Ukrainian defense ministry said on Monday that, in June, striking a Russian serviceman cost its forces $3,032.

#data #cost

By Nate Raymond
Aug 17 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday blocked a Trump administration plan to relocate the new FBI headquarters to Washington, D.C., rather than in nearby Maryland, which had been picked in ‌2023 to host the building.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang sided with the Democratic-led state of Maryland and ‌Prince George's County in ruling the administration had unlawfully scrapped a plan to construct a new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt, Maryland, and diverted money approved by Congress for that project to an alternate location, the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington.
The judge said the selection of Ronald Reagan Building violated measures passed by Congress in 2022 and 2023 that required the General Services Administration to pick from one of three short-listed sites outside of Washington.
"Notably, the text provides no conditions under which the selection could be unilaterally rescinded or ‌switched to a nonconforming site," wrote Chuang, ⁠an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama.

#congress

A Russian court on Monday convicted a prominent opposition politician for speaking out against the war in Ukraine and sentenced him to 11 years and one month in prison in the latest crackdown leading up to next month's parliamentary election.
The verdict against Lev Shlosberg, a senior member of the Yabloko party, was another step by the Kremlin to stifle dissent since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022. Yabloko is the only official political party overtly opposing the war.
Shlosberg, 63, is Yabloko's deputy chairman and served in the regional legislature of Pskov from 2016-21. He stood trial in the city of Pskov, some 600 kilometers (370 miles) northwest of Moscow, on charges of "discrediting" and spreading "false information" about the Russian military.
The charges stemmed from a debate in which he called for ending the war and from posting on his Telegram channel a British tabloid front page featuring an image of a bloodied woman next to one of Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the headline: "Her blood ... his hands." Shlosberg has rejected the charges as unfounded.
It was the second trial for Shlosberg in the last two years. He has also been designated a "foreign agent," a label that carries strong pejorative connotations in Russia and brings additional government scrutiny. He was convicted of violating the foreign agent regulations.

#russian #Russia #next #party