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US

Trump solicits donations after FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home

Trump solicits donations after FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home

WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Former US President Donald Trump on Tuesday tried to turn the news that the FBI had searched his Florida estate to his benefit, citing the investigation in text messages and emails soliciting political donations from his supporters.

The unprecedented search marked a significant escalation of the federal investigation continues into whether Trump illegally removed records from the White House as he was leaving office in January 2021. Trump to publicly flirt with running again for president in 2024 but has not said clearly whether he will do so

Trump tried to paint the search of his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach as a politically motivated move by President Joe Biden’s administration even as the former president plays a key role in Republican primaries ahead of the November midterm elections that will determine control of the US Congress.

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“They are trying to stop the Republican Party and me once more,” Trump said in a fundraising email on Tuesday. “The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt, must be exposed and stopped.”

Trump launched his Save America political action committee days after losing the 2020 election to Biden. It has more than $100 million in the bank, a formidable war chest. read more

His Republican allies in Congress vowed to launch an investigation of the search itself if they recapture control of the House or Senate in November. House Republicans including Representative Jim Banks were set to meet with Trump at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club on Tuesday. read more

The Justice Department and FBI have declined to comment on or even confirm the search, which Trump disclosed in a statement on Monday.

‘WITHERING SCRUTINY’

The FBI could not have conducted the search without the approval of a judge who confirmed there was probable cause. The request almost certainly also would be approved by FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, and his boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, who was appointed by Biden.

A White House official said Biden was not given advance notice of the search.

“This search warrant in my estimation probably underwent more withering scrutiny than any search warrant in the history of the Department of Justice,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who oversaw prosecutions of national security offenses.

A view of former US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home after Trump said that FBI agents raided it, in Palm Beach, Florida, US August 9, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello

The FBI earlier this year visited Trump’s property to investigate boxes in a locked storage room, according to a person familiar with the visit. FBI agents and a Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran, spent a day reviewing materials, the source said.

Corcoran did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The search is only an investigative step and does not mean that Trump will face automatically criminal charges, or that he would be found guilty of any wrongdoing.

It is a criminal offense to conceal or destroy government records. Any person convicted of violating a US law called the Government Records Act would be barred from holding federal office and would face a prison term of up to three years.

Legal experts said it is unclear if the disqualification provision is constitutional. The US Constitution sets forth the qualifications for being a president, senator or US representative. Previous Supreme Court rulings have held that Congress cannot limit the list of eligible officeholders.

That means if Trump were to be convicted, he would likely challenge any attempt to disqualify him from serving in office again, perhaps to a US Supreme Court whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices he appointed.

“It is not certain that the bar set forth in the Government Records Act is constitutional,” said Mitchell Epner, a lawyer at the firm Rottenberg Lipman Rich and former federal prosecutor. “It is absolutely there and it would be in all likelihood something that would end up being litigated.”

The documents probe is one of several investigations that have focused on Trump since he left office, weeks after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an unsuccessful bid to overturn his election loss. Trump continues to falsely claim that the election was stolen through widespread voting fraud. read more

Trump remains the Republican Party’s most influential voice, though recent polling shows Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rising in stature as a potential 2024 candidate.

But Trump has weathered many political scandals and observers said this FBI search could bolster his standing with Republican voters.

“The Biden administration is only adding rocket fuel to Trump’s campaign prospects and energizing his supporters who want him to run again,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist in Washington. “There should be more transparency around the decision to have this FBI raid because it looks overly political and allows Trump to say he’s being unfairly attacked.”

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Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York, additional reporting by Brian Ellsworth, Jim Oliphant, Luc Cohen, David Morgan and Steve Holland; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Alistair Bell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Australia

Fiji Reserve Bank releases 88-cent numismatic banknote with Chinese wealth and fortune imagery

Fiji Reserve Bank releases 88-cent numismatic banknote with Chinese wealth and fortune imagery

The Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF) has begun issuing a Chinese-themed 88-cent commemorative banknote, which has been causing a stir with many questioning the timing and significance of the release.

The 88-cent collectors’ item was released on the eighth day of the eighth month of the year.

The number eight is considered a lucky number in Chinese culture, bringing wealth and fortune — and the more eights the better.

Accompanying the lucky Chinese number, one side of the note features an image of the Chinese god of wealth and a money tree.

The words “Good luck and good fortune. May prosperity be yours” are printed in the corner.

The other side has a hibiscus flower, the Fiji coat of arms and the Governor of the Reserve Bank’s signature.

The note is available for purchase from the RBF for FJ$28 ($18), but as it is numismatic, and so purely for collectors, it will not be in circulation.

The back of the 88-cent banknote showing a hibiscus flower and Fiji coat of arms.
The front of the banknote features Fijian symbols alongside the Chinese lucky number denominational value. (Fiji Reserve Bank)

Why has it been released?

The issue of the note has raised eyebrows and sparked a flurry of confusion on social media.

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People joked about the worth of the 88-cent currency, while others questioned why the RBF would release the note at a time when China’s growing influence in the Pacific has been causing diplomatic tension.

Following the “misinformation and speculation on social media,” the RBF issued a clarification statement.

It said the banknote was created to generate sales income targeting the Chinese and wider Asian market, adding that “NO NEW $0.88 numismatic banknotes will be entering into circulation”.

“The newly-announced $0.88 numismatic banknote is among the hundreds of non-circulation numismatic currency that the RBF has produced since 1974,” the statement said.

“The practice is similar to that of stamp production, whereby hobbyists can purchase the banknotes and coins for their collections.”

In the past, the RBF has issued banknotes and coins with Christmas imagery, celebrities, landmarks and Fijian fauna themes.

While it is common for the RBF to issue themed numismatics banknotes and coins, Biman Prasad — the leader of the National Federation party — said they are usually produced with a specific intention.

“They are normally produced to mark commemorative events of both national and sometimes international significance,” Mr Prasad told the ABC’s Pacific Beat program.

“I think the controversy is, what does it mean? What does this commemorate?”

De La Rue — a British company that collaborated with the RBF to design and produce the banknote — said it was released to bless people with fortune in challenging times.

“This theme was chosen because it was felt appropriate to wish people wealth and good fortune in the context of challenging global events,” De La Rue said.

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The RBF has generated over $8 million in income through the sale of numismatic banknotes and coins.

Mr Prasad said it is odd for the bank to be focusing on raising funds when there are more important issues to address.

“The Reserve Bank should be really concerned about other issues, particularly inflation and high cost of living,” he said.

Suspicion vs celebration

The Chinese community in Fiji is small but significant.

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Categories
US

Inflation Reduction Act limits pass-through tax break for 2 more years

Inflation Reduction Act limits pass-through tax break for 2 more years

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., discusses the Inflation Reduction Act on Aug. 7, 2022 in Washington, DC

Kent Nishimura | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Senate Democrats curtailed a tax break for certain pass-through businesses as part of the Inflation Reduction Act passed Sunday.

A pass-through or flow-through business is one that reports its income on the tax returns of its owners. That income is taxed at their individual income tax rates. Examples of pass-throughs include sole proprietorships, some limited liability companies, partnerships and S-corporations.

Democrats’ legislation — a package of health-care, tax and historic climate-related measures — limits the ability of pass-throughs to use big paper losses to write off costs like salaries and interest, according to tax experts.

More from Personal Finance:
How carried interest works and how it benefits high-income taxpayers
Inflation Reduction Act aims to trim insulin costs for Medicare users
Reconciliation bill includes nearly $80 billion for IRS

That limit — called the Limitation on Excess Business Losses — is currently already in place. It was scheduled to end starting in 2027, but the new bill would extend the restriction for an additional two years. That extension wasn’t in Senate Democrats’ initial version of the legislation, but it was added during the subsequent negotiation and amendment process.

The Inflation Reduction Act passed along party lines and now heads to the House.

Wealthy real estate owners likely impacted most

Republicans originally enacted the pass-through limitation in the 2017 tax law known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Specifically, the law disallowed pass-through owners from using business losses exceeding $250,000 to offset non-business income. That dollar threshold is for single taxpayers; the law set a $500,000 cap for a married couple filing a joint tax return.

Those caps are higher in 2022 due to an inflation adjustment: $270,000 and $540,000, respectively.

“The business losses can only offset other business income, not salaries and interest and investment gains,” Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said of the measure.

The provisions hurt “rich guys” who were using business losses to take tax write-offs against bonuses, salaries and investment income, for example, said Rosenthal.

The limitations can theoretically apply to any pass-through business that runs up a big operating loss each year. But real estate businesses — which can use rules around depreciation to consistently rack up big losses on paper — are likely among the most affected categories, according to Jeffrey Levine, a certified financial planner and certified public accountant based in St. Louis.

It’s a really big deal for uber-wealthy people with a ton of real estate.

Jeffrey Levine

chief planning officer at Buckingham Wealth Partners

“It’s a really big deal for uber-wealthy people with a ton of real estate, and then the occasional business that loses a ton of money every year,” said Levine, who is also chief planning officer at Buckingham Wealth Partners.

The limitation for pass-throughs was initially scheduled to expire after 2025, along with the other provisions of the Republican tax law that affected individual taxpayers.

However, Democrats extended the limit for an additional year in the American Rescue Plan, which President Biden signed into law in 2021. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that that one-year extension would raise about $31 billion.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s additional extension would presumably raise a roughly similar amount of money each year, Rosenthal said.

However, the business losses don’t necessarily disappear forever. Owners may be able to defer the tax benefits to future years, if Congress doesn’t extend the limitation again.

“The losses almost always get claimed later,” Rosenthal said.

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Categories
Technology

TikTok, Elf Radio, and the Metaverse: Nine years of iHeartRadio

Mediaweek

ARN’s iHeartRadio has blown out nine candles, having celebrated the milestone birthday on August 5th.

Since launching in 2013, the platform has evolved to become an all-in-one radio, music streaming, podcast, and live events platform available to Australians in every state.

mediaweek spoke to iHeartRadio content director Brett Nossiter about how the brand has developed so far, and what the future looks like.

iHeartRadio

Brett “Nozz” Nossiter

Having been with iHeartRadio for seven years, Nossiter has seen the evolution of the brand up close.

“When it first began, it was largely based around streaming our ARN stations – KIIS FM, WSFM, all that jazz. Fast forward to today: because it’s an open platform, it’s now so much more. We’ve got ABC on there, we’ve got SBS, the CBAA and the community stations. We’ve brought in a whole ton of podcasts.

“In the beginning, iHeartRadio was an app just to stream our stations. Now, its purpose is very much at the center of ARN’s digital strategy.”

It’s not just content that iHeartRadio has branched out in, with the evolution in technology since 2013 giving the team new challenges to tackle as well.

“We’ve all seen a huge explosion in the digital touch points,” says Nossiter. “It’s not just an app that sits on someone’s phone anymore.

“When we first started, smart speakers weren’t a thing. As soon as Google Homes were launched, we saw an immediate spike. We also saw the huge benefits of that through Covid, when everyone was at home with those smart devices – we saw a big spike in usage there as well.”

Back in 2013, Facebook users were being introduced to the Story Bump feature, the first time Facebook had moved away from a purely chronological feed. Nine years later, the News Feed algorithm is old news and Facebook – now Meta – has tech companies focusing squarely on something new.

“iHeart has got 200 developers who are constantly working on building out new stuff in new spaces. It’s even to the point now where they’re looking at exploring how iHeart lives in the metaverse – which is ballistic, but that’s where audiences are going.

“We’ve got the benefit of tapping into all of those resources to explore all these new frontiers. But if you rewind to nine years ago, there was no such thing as the metaverse.”

According to Nossiter, one of the big success stories of iHeartRadio in Australia is the rise in brand awareness through major events, both locally and internationally.

“We had our iHeartRadio Live series locally – which went by the wayside through Covid, but that will return. We’ve also got these huge events. At the moment we’re focussing on the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas – we’ll be running a national competition around that.”

Some of the highlights of Nossiter’s time at iHeartRadio include building a pop-up station for MTV’s 40th anniversary – that involved four new stations going to air over four weeks – designing the in-store radio experience for Woolworths, and creating the world’s first TikTok Radio station: TikTok Trending. The last one, in particular, is one of his “favorite projects” for a number of reasons.

TikTok Trending iheartradio

“It was so liberating to come up with a brand new way of programming a station,” says Nossiter.

“We set out to break a lot of the radio rules. Instead of having blocks of shows that run for three hours, we now have shows that run for 30 or 15 minutes tops. It’s designed to replicate the experience of TikTok.

“I really had a lot of fun building that, and I’ve learned a lot. There’s a lot of new music, and there are a lot of crazy music trends out there. Its impact on the music landscape as a whole has been huge.”

Looking into the crystal ball of the next 12 months or so, Nossiter says that the team will be focusing on the iHeartRadio Music Festival, as well as getting ready for some annual projects.

“It’s the beginning of August, so in the next two to three weeks, I will expect to start getting my first inquiries about when Elf Radio will return – people love that station! That will be another big project, and then we’re going to do pop up stations for Valentine’s Day.

“We’ve got a few other new projects in development that I can’t share much about, but I’m really excited about them.”

As for the next nine years and beyond, Nossiter says that if the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that the future is completely unpredictable. Whatever comes their way, however, the team at iHeartRadio will be there to meet it.

“Someone will invent some crazy new app, and we’ll find ways of producing an audio experience for that new environment. They seem to come up a lot more frequently these days!”

Categories
Australia

Growing concerns about spread of feral deer across northern New South Wales

Six feral deer stand in a field surrounded by a fence and old shed

When John Norton heard a noise outside his Port Macquarie home in the early hours of the morning he never expected to be attacked by a large deer.

“At two in the morning I heard this banging noise,” Mr Norton said.

“I went around the corner and in a split second I saw a male deer with horns and he actually stood up, pointed at me and charged,” he said.

“I fell to the ground, then he stomped on me and bolted.”

Mr Norton said he called an ambulance and spent a night in hospital for observation, but managed to walk away with a couple of bruises.

Man in a brown jacket stands in front of a blue house, surrounded by suburban neighborhood
Port Macquarie resident John Norton wants deer control measures to be improved.(ABC Mid North Coast: Madeleine Cross )

Deer have become a seemingly incongruous regular sighting in suburban communities around NSW, particularly in Port Macquarie.

Locals have even reported seeing the animals walking in streets in the CBD during the night, while further north in Coffs Harbor there have been reports of deer on the busy Pacific Highway.

There are growing concerns about the increased spread of feral deer across northern and central New South Wales, particularly in suburban areas.

Invasive Species Council’s conservation director James Trezise said the feral deer herd have expanded across the state over the past 10 years.

“In about 2016, feral deer occupied 18 per cent of the state. They now occupy more than 22 per cent of the state. They’re really growing in the Mid North Coast, northern NSW and the Central West districts,” he said.

Chital deer feeds on green grass
Chital deer are regularly seen at Coffs Harbor on the Mid North Coast.(Supplied: North Coast Local Land Services)

North Coast Local Land Service invasive pests team leader Dean Chamberlin urged people to stay clear of deer especially during rutting season, when deer mate.

“They’re protecting their own little space so they become a little bit more aggressive,” Mr Chamberlin said.

“They become more mobile and move around in areas where they’re not normally.”

There have also been increased sightings of large deer in the state’s north, from the NSW and Queensland border ranges and the Northern Tablelands.

Tweed Shire Council’s feral deer management officer Rachel Hughes said the Russian breed have been spotted near roads.

“Due to the unpredictability of deer and how fast they are… all of a sudden they will appear in front of you and you won’t have time to react,” she said.

“They can write off a vehicle with no problem at all.”

Ten deer with white spots graze on a grassy hill
North Coast LLS says Chital deer have been seen in the Coffs Harbor region(Supplied: North Coast Local Land Service)

Residents across the Hunter region report seeing deer almost daily in some areas.

The Lake Macquarie City Council is funding a University of Technology Sydney project to gauge the extent of the issue.

“We need to know whether they are present, how many are present and what impact they’re having before we can actually make some sensible decisions about how to manage them,” UTS environmental sciences program director Leigh Martin said.

Population has ‘exploded’

The Invasive Species Council said feral deer were likely Australia’s worst emerging pest problem, causing damage to natural environments and agriculture businesses.

“feral deer [numbers] have just exploded across the state and it’s creating a really serious challenge for management because they will keep moving north,” Mr Tresize said.

“Unless we introduce containment and control measures that really stop these populations spreading … we’re going to see deer just march straight up into Cape York.”

Large deer walks along a path in a suburban backyard
Feral deer have been spotted on private property across Australia(Supplied: Judy Owen)

The animal was originally introduced in Australia for hunting and farming purposes. But numbers have continued to grow, largely due to a lack of natural predators.

Mr Trezise said the animal’s grazing and hard hooves could have a destructive effect on vegetation.

“A very small population of deer can have a serious impact on threatened species.”

Control efforts ongoing

North Coast Local Land Service has continued its attempt to control the population through hunting methods and a trapping trial.

Mr Chamberlin said the medium-scale trapping program had been successful in keeping deer numbers static, despite delays due to recent flooding events.

More than a dozen feral deer graze on grass surrounded by a metal fence
North Coast LLS says trapping trials are continuing in Port Macquarie.(Supplied: North Coast Local Land Services )

“That will hopefully bring numbers down to a bigger degree so they don’t have to move into areas of backyards or retirement villages.”

Mr Chamberlin said people should report feral deer sightings to the LLS or the FeralScan app.

“Sight them, report them and leave them alone.”

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Categories
US

Giuliani Told to Come to Georgia by Train, Bus or Uber

Giuliani Told to Come to Georgia by Train, Bus or Uber

ATLANTA — Rudolph W. Giuliani, the lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and a central figure in the investigation into election interference in Georgia, has been telling prosecutors that he cannot travel to the state to appear before a special grand jury because he is not healthy enough to fly.

But on Tuesday, a judge in Fulton County, Ga., said that Mr. Giuliani, who had two coronary heart stents implanted in early July, could travel from New York to Atlanta some other way, and tentatively ordered him to show up to deliver in-person testimony on Aug. 17.

“Mr. Giuliani is not cleared for air travel, AIR,” Judge Robert CI McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court said. “John Madden drove all over the country in his big bus, from stadium to stadium. So one thing we need to explore is whether Mr. Giuliani could get here without jeopardizing his recovery and his health. On a train, on a bus or Uber, or whatever it would be,” he said, adding, “New York is not close to Atlanta, but it’s not traveling from Fairbanks.”

In a hearing on Tuesday afternoon, the judge also told prosecutors they should let Mr. Giuliani, 78, know whether he was a target of the criminal probe. The office of Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney, has already told at least 17 other people, including a pair of state senators and the head of the state Republican Party, that they are targets.

If Mr. Giuliani is considered to be a target, that could prompt him to invoke his Fifth Amendment right and decline to give testimony after potentially making a lengthy road trip. Letting Mr. Giuliani know in advance, the judge said, would give some clarity on “what impact he has on the extent of his time in front of the grand jury.”

The judge also said he could reconsider the Aug. 17 date if Mr. Giuliani’s doctor produced a sufficiently compelling medical excuse.

Mr. Giuliani’s role in the effort to reverse Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia is of interest to Fulton County prosecutors for a number of reasons. As part of the closed-door grand jury proceedings, they have questioned multiple witnesses about Mr. Giuliani’s appearances before a pair of state legislative panels after the 2020 vote, in which he made a number of false allegations of election fraud. Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, also participated in a scheme to create slates of fake, pro-Trump presidential electors in a number of swing states. The agreement of these electors in Georgia is another subject of Ms. Willis’s investigation.

Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers had sought to delay any in-person appearance in Atlanta and produced a doctor’s note this week advising him not to fly anywhere because of the stent procedure. Ms. Willis countered that Mr. Giuliani had recently traveled out of state to New Hampshire and had also purchased plane tickets to Europe.

Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers said that he had traveled out of state by car and that the plane tickets were purchased by the planners of a conference that was ultimately canceled. (“No such travel ever occurred,” Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers said in court documents.)

Judge McBurney said Mr. Giuliani had plenty of time to get from New York to Atlanta, suggesting that he could break up a 13-hour road trip into segments. “Maybe he goes down to Washington, as the first part, and reconnects with people there, and then travels another few hours.”

Categories
Technology

Super Punch-Out!! has a hidden two-player mode — and you can try it on the Switch

Super Punch-Out!! has a hidden two-player mode — and you can try it on the Switch

Super Punch-Out!! has a hidden two-player mode that was just discovered nearly three decades after the game’s original 1994 release (via Kotaku). If you want to mess around with it but don’t have an SNES hooked up, you can actually give the secret mode a shot on the version of the game currently available to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers.

The new two-player mode — and a fight select screen — were revealed by the Twitter account Unlisted Cheats in a thread on Monday. To activate them, you’ll need to have two controllers hooked up to your console of choice. (On Switch, I got them to work with a Pro Controller as player one and two Joy-Cons acting as one controller as player two.)

First, on the title screenhold down Y and R with the player two controller, and on the player one controller, press A or start. (On the Switch’s Pro Controller, I got this to work by pressing the plus button.) This opens up the fight select screen, which lets you jump to a bout of your choosing.

Next, you can activate the two-player mode. Highlight the fighter you or a friend might want to play as and then hold down B and Y at the same time on the player two controller, followed by A or Start on the player one controller. (I again used the plus button on my Pro Controller.) At the pre-fight screen, keep holding down B and Y on the player two controller and have player one press start to get through it.

The fight will start up, and the player two controller should be able to control the fighter you selected previously. According to IGN senior editor Kat Bailey, the player two character can do special moves, tooso if you’re taking on a friend, you might want to stay on your toes.

I’ll admit that I’ve never played Super Punch-Out!! outside of testing it for this article, but the fact that this is an option at all is a delightful hidden gem. It’s also a fun reminder of some of the secrets that used to be accessible in games with the right combination of arcane button presses. After using this hidden mode and seeing the new secrets menu in vampire survivorsI’m hoping classic-style cheats make a comeback.

Categories
US

Nicole Linton background: Who is nurse charged in deadly LA crash

Who is Nicole Linton? Houston nurse had 13 prior crashes,

The traveling nurse charged with the deaths of six people, including an unborn baby, has a history of issues, according to the prosecutor and her own attorney.

LOS ANGELES — The driver suspected of causing a fiery crash near Los Angeles that killed five people — including a pregnant woman, her baby and her unborn baby — has been charged with six counts of murder.

Nicole Lorraine Linton, a traveling nurse from Houston, was also charged Monday with a vehicular manslaughter and was ordered to be held without bail.

Editor’s note: The video above originally aired on Aug. 8

The 37-year-old didn’t enter a plea Monday at her first court appearance where she arrived in a wheelchair. Prosecutors said her Ella Mercedes-Benz was doing 90 mph last Thursday when it plowed into cars in an intersection in Windsor Hills, setting several vehicles on fire.

RELATED: Houston nurse charged with six counts of murder following fiery California wreck

A 23-year-old woman, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, her unborn child, her 11-month-old son, who was about to celebrate his first birthday, and her boyfriend all died in one car. The identities of two other women who were killed had not been released as of Tuesday.

If convicted of all charges, Linton could face up to 90 years to life in prison.

What we’ve learned about Nicole Linton

  • In court, Linton’s lawyer, Halim Dhanidina, said his client has an out-of-state history of “profound mental health issues” that might be linked to the crash but didn’t specify, the Los Angeles Times reported.
  • Authorities said they haven’t found any evidence that Linton was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Prosecutors said she had at least 13 previous crashes — including a 2020 injury accident that totaled two cars — and knew the threat posed by her driving behavior, the Times said.
  • Linton was also believed to be a flight risk since she works as a traveling nurse, so the judge denied a request to set bail.

Editor’s note: Linton claims she got her nursing degree in Houston after moving here in 2014 and worked at local hospitals as an ICU nurse before becoming a traveling nurse. We are working to verify those claims.

RELATED: Houston nurse accused in fiery California wreck that killed multiple people

WARNING: Graphic video of crash

Categories
Technology

GTA Trilogy remaster sales bomb for second quarter in a row

GTA Trilogy remaster sales bomb for second quarter in a row 98 | TweakTown.com

Physical sales of the controversial GTA trilogy remaster collection have bombed for the second quarter in a row, Take-Two Interactive’s reports indicate.

GTA Trilogy remaster sales bomb for second quarter in a row 98 | TweakTown.com

VIEW GALLERY – 2 IMAGES

The GTA Definitive Edition remaster sold a whopping 10 million copies at launch, but our tracking shows the game has significantly fizzled out over the past two quarters. There’s a big reason for this: The game is largely regarded as a failure among Rockstar fans due to graphical issues, technical hiccups, and a disastrously controversial launch that has soured public opinion.

The sales figures reflect this sentiment. According to Take-Two Interactive’s recent investor’s presentation, the GTA franchise has sold-in 380 million copies to date. A quick bit of math offers figures for the trilogy collection. GTA franchise shipments increased by 5 million units, and total franchise shipments also increased by 5 million. This squeezes the trilogy out of the equation with sub 1 million sales.

Remember that these are sell-in numbers, or physical shipments, and do not include digital sales. It’s possible the trilogy has made a lot more sales digitally, however recent GTA franchise revenues show a slump back to pre-pandemic levels.

GTA Trilogy remaster sales bomb for second quarter in a row 2 | TweakTown.com

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Categories
US

Biden approves Finland and Sweden NATO membership bids

Biden approves Finland and Sweden NATO membership bids

US President Joe Biden, alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, Swedish ambassador to the US Karin Olofsdotter and Finnish ambassador to the US Mikko Hautala, signs documents endorsing Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to NATO, in the East Room of the White House, in Washington, August 9, 2022.

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed ratification documents Tuesday bringing Finland and Sweden one step closer to joining the NATO alliance.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin thought he could break us apart,” Biden said from the East Room of the White House. “Our alliance is closer than ever, it is more united than ever, and after Finland and Sweden join we will be stronger than ever.”

Last week, the Senate voted 95 to 1 to ratify the entrance of Finland and Sweden into the world’s most powerful military alliance.

In May, both nations began the formal process of applying to NATO amid the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Moscow, long wary of NATO expansion, has opposed the two nations’ plans to join the alliance.

Both Finland and Sweden already meet many of the requirements to be NATO members. Some of the requirements include having a functioning democratic political system, a willingness to provide economic transparency and the ability to make military contributions to NATO missions.

“They will meet every NATO requirement, we are confident of that,” Biden said before signing the documents.

Earlier this year, Biden welcomed leaders from both countries to the White House and pledged to work with the Senate — which has to sign off on US approval of NATO bids — and the other 29 members of the alliance to swiftly bring Sweden and Finland into the group.

At the time Biden, flanked by Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, said the two countries would “make NATO stronger.” He called their moves to join the pact a “victory for democracy.”

US President Joe Biden, flanked by Swedens Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Finlands President Sauli Niinistö, speaks in the Rose Garden following a meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on May 19, 2022.

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

After Biden’s signature, the governments of the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Turkey will still need to sign the instruments of ratification.

“I urge the remaining allies to complete the ratification process as quickly as possible,” Biden said, a development that must occur by the end of September. “The United States is committed to the transatlantic alliance. We are going to write the future we want to see.”

In June, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the leaders of the alliance had reached a deal to admit Finland and Sweden after resolving the concerns of holdout Turkey.

Previously, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would not approve the applications, citing their support for Kurdish organizations that Turkey considers security threats.

During a NATO summit in Madrid, the foreign ministers of Finland, Sweden and Turkey signed a memorandum to confirm that Turkey will back the new NATO bids.

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