Tag: Justice

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Politics

Justice Dept. Seizes Washington Publish’s Telephone Data

Justice Dept. Seizes Washington Post’s Phone Records

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department under President Donald J. Trump has secretly obtained the phone records for three Washington Post reporters from the early months of the Trump administration, the newspaper said on Friday.

Prosecutors searched for records of reporters’ work, home and cell phone numbers from April to July 2017 to find out who had spoken to them.

“We are deeply concerned about this use of governance to gain access to journalists’ communications,” said Cameron Barr, the Post’s acting editor-in-chief, in a statement. “The Justice Department should immediately clarify its reasons for interfering with the activities of reporters doing their job, an activity protected by the first amendment.”

The department’s decision to seek a court order for the records made in 2020 would have required the approval of Attorney General William P. Barr, a department official said.

The Justice Department, under the Trump administration, had also indicted a former Senate assistant over his contacts with three reporters in a case in which prosecutors secretly confiscated years’ worth of phone and email records from a New York Times reporter. This case signaled a continuation of the aggressive pursuit of leaks under the Obama administration.

Marc Raimondi, a Justice Department spokesman, said on Friday in a statement regarding the seized postal records: “Although the department is rare, it follows the procedures set out in its media policy guidelines when looking for legal procedures to and not to telephone charges Email records of content received from media members as part of a criminal investigation into unauthorized disclosure of classified information. “

He added, “The targets of these investigations are not those who receive the news media, but rather those with access to the national defense information they made available to the media and therefore did not protect them as required by law.”

According to its guidelines, the Justice Department should exhaust other investigative steps before seeking permission to receive telephone recordings or e-mails from journalists from telecommunications companies. In addition, the division must “strike the right balance between a number of important interests”, it says in its guidelines, such as “Maintaining the essential role of the free press in promoting government accountability and an open society”.

Leak cases, as known in the Justice Department, are notoriously difficult to track and require FBI agents to devote significant time to cases that rarely lead to charges.

It wasn’t clear what caused the Justice Department to seize the Post’s records, but in July 2017 the newspaper published an article about Sergey I. Kislyak, the then Russian Ambassador to the United States, and Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General at the time the publication of the article.

The Post reported that the two men discussed the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election when Mr. Sessions was a Republican Senator from Alabama and a prominent supporter of Mr. Trump. The article referred to U.S. surveillance sections, which are highly ranked and among the government’s best kept secrets.

In addition to the phone records of the Post reporters – Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller and Adam Entous who now work at The New Yorker – prosecutors have also received a court order to obtain metadata for the reporters’ email accounts, the company said Newspaper with.

The New York Times also reported in June 2017 that surveillance wiretaps suggested Mr Kislyak was discussing a private meeting with Mr Sessions at a Trump campaign event at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. The Times has received no indication that their reporters’ records have been confiscated.

The media leaks enraged Mr Trump, who repeatedly railed against them, particularly those revealing details of the government’s efforts to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and whether any of his campaign aides had conspired with Russia.

In August 2017, as Attorney General, Mr. Sessions condemned the “dramatic increase in the number of unauthorized disclosures of classified national security information in recent months”.

Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department also aggressively prosecuted officials who provided sensitive information to reporters. In 2013, prosecutors obtained the phone recordings from reporters and editors from The Associated Press. In this case, law enforcement officers obtained the records for more than 20 phone lines from their offices and journalists, including their home and cell phone numbers.

In addition, the Justice Department confiscated the phone records of James Rosen, then a Fox News reporter, after one of his articles contained details of a secret United States report on North Korea. In an affidavit, Mr. Rosen was described as “at least as a helper, advocate and / or co-conspirator”.

The Justice Department’s decision to search the phone records was widely condemned in the news media.

In 2013, then Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. issued new guidelines that severely restricted the circumstances in which journalists’ records could be accessed, but did not prevent prosecutors from keeping phone records and emails for national security reasons to search.

In an email from July 2017, Sarah Isgur Flores, then a top Justice Department spokeswoman, tried to cast doubt that a meeting between Mr Kislyak and Mr Sessions had even taken place. She described the section as “exposed” and challenged its credibility when defending Mr. Sessions on the news media.

Ms. Isgur described the coverage as “serious leaks for our national security”. The email was received from reporter Jason Leopold of BuzzFeed News under the Freedom of Information Act.

Last year the Trump administration released confidential transcripts from Mr. Kislyak speaking with Mr. Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn. The documents also revealed extremely delicate capabilities of the FBI, showing that the office was able to monitor the phone line at the Russian Embassy in Washington even before a call from Mr. Kislyak connected to Mr. Flynn’s voicemail.

In his extensive investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, the special adviser, “found no evidence that Kislyak spoke or had the opportunity to speak to Trump or Sessions after the speech,” his office’s 2019 report said.

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Politics

Justice Dept. Requested to Study Whether or not Swiss Financial institution Stored Serving to Tax Dodgers

Justice Dept. Asked to Examine Whether Swiss Bank Kept Helping Tax Dodgers

WASHINGTON – The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday asked Attorney General Merrick B. Garland for information on whether Credit Suisse continues to help rich Americans defraud the IRS, even after signing a settlement agreement with the Justice Department promising to to finish the practice.

It’s about a retired professor named Dan Horsky, who Credit Suisse helped avoid tax payments on assets of $ 200 million. In the summer of 2014, a whistleblower drew the attention of the federal prosecutor’s office to Mr. Horsky’s account and clearly violated the provisions of the settlement agreement that Credit Suisse had agreed a few weeks earlier.

However, the Justice Department under the Obama and Trump administrations never punished Credit Suisse for violating the agreement, despite the whistleblower’s information leading to Mr Horsky pleading guilty of tax evasion in 2016.

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asked Mr. Garland for more information about the Horsky account and anything else that could reveal whether Credit Suisse executives have made false statements to Congress, the Department of Justice, and the courts when it said it vowed to work with the US government’s efforts to force the richest Americans to pay their taxes.

The review of Credit Suisse’s private wealth management practices comes at a sensitive time for the bank. Significant losses were reported last week on loans to a collapsed investment firm and the Swiss financial regulator said it was investigating the bank’s risk management practices. Regulators are also investigating a spying scandal and sales of billions of dollars worth of investments reminiscent of the bad subprime mortgage bonds that led to the 2008 global financial crisis.

“Public reports and documents from the federal court raise important questions as to whether Credit Suisse has complied with its declaration of consent in full,” wrote Wyden in a letter to Garland.

“The plea agreement expressly depends on Credit Suisse fulfilling all essential obligations,” added Wyden. it “stipulates that the agreement not to initiate further prosecution will be void if Credit Suisse fails to fully comply with its obligations.”

Should prosecutors decide that Credit Suisse is in breach of its agreement with the Justice Department, the bank could face legal liability and higher fines.

Mr. Wyden requested the Justice Department to report the Horsky case by May 11th.

A spokesman said the Justice Department received the letter but had no immediate comment. A Credit Suisse spokeswoman said the company “has been and will continue to have fully cooperated with the US authorities since the 2014 settlement.”

Wyden also asked the department to help determine whether Credit Suisse executives had made false statements to the Senate in February 2014 when they testified whether the bank had stopped helping wealthy Americans evade taxes.

Brady Dougan, then managing director of Credit Suisse, told the senators that the bank had strived to “meet 100 percent of the US taxpayer’s requirements,” wrote Wyden. At the same hearing, the bank’s general counsel, Romeo Cerutti, testified that Credit Suisse is “really looking into whether someone is a US person” in an attempt to eradicate Americans who were hiding their assets from the IRS

For nearly 15 years, Republicans and Democrats have been participating in a well-known campaign to weed out tax evaders with Swiss bank accounts, with a focus on UBS and Credit Suisse, both of which are headquartered in Zurich.

When Credit Suisse executives testified in 2014, they were in the midst of negotiations with the Justice Department about an agreement on the bank’s treatment of US tax dodgers.

The two sides signed the deal in May 2014, in which Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to assisting some American clients with tax evasion and fined a total of $ 2.6 billion. But even higher fines were avoided because federal prosecutors swore they had abandoned the practice of “closing down all accounts of recalcitrant account holders” and helping the US with other criminal investigations.

The confession of guilt and the heavy fine were rare in 2014, and it was the first time in more than 20 years that a lender of his size had admitted wrongdoing in an American court.

But a whistleblower surfaced in July of that year telling Justice Department tax officials and federal attorneys who worked on the case about an account owned by Mr. Horsky, a retired economics professor who lived in Rochester. NY and amassed much of his fortune by investing in start-ups in the 1990s.

In September 2014, when Credit Suisse appeared in court to plead guilty, the judge asked both the bank and prosecutors if they had any information that would affect the settlement agreement. Both sides said no.

But the whistleblower spike let prosecutors find out that with the help of Credit Suisse bankers using offshore shell companies, Mr. Horsky had hidden a fortune of $ 200 million, court documents show. The deal lasted months after the bank signed its pleading agreement.

As part of the scheme to hide Mr. Horsky’s assets, it was placed by bankers in the name of a relative of Mr. Horsky who lived abroad. When an account of this size changes hands, it is subject to advanced due diligence, including notifying bank managers of the change.

Mr Wyden also sent a letter to Credit Suisse Tuesday asking for information on when the Justice Department told Credit Suisse about the Horsky account. He asked if the bank had informed the government of the account before reporting the whistleblower, and if not, whether it was due to poor internal controls or a deliberate decision not to report the existence of these accounts to US government agencies. ”

It is unclear why the Justice Department failed to inform the court of the whistleblower claim and change the terms of its settlement. The department would have had the authority to review the Credit Suisse case for possible violations and to pursue the bank.

Jack Ewing contributed to the coverage.

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Politics

Biden’s Sky-Excessive Guarantees on Racial Justice

Biden’s Sky-High Promises on Racial Justice

“Biden is actually Biden in empathizing with all of the ways the current landscape is sending him messages,” said Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, a racial justice organization that was skeptical of Mr Biden during the Democrats’ primary race , but now praised some achievements and believed that much more needs to be done. “That’s good, but I don’t want to relegate this to some kind of radical leadership from the start. That really wouldn’t be all that would be possible if we leaned into it more. “

The democratic choice to deal with race issues is not without political danger, however, as these issues have been deeply defined by party political divisions. While the country’s views on race have changed, it is an open question to what extent white liberals and independents would support efforts to really dismantle some of the broader systems – like segregated schools and neighborhoods – that add to racial inequality.

A new paper from political scientists at Yale found that support for progressive policies – like the minimum wage hike, student loan debt relief, and the Green New Deal – actually diminishes when Democrats put forward their arguments despite the shift in public opinion the race racially formulate topic.

“Democrats’ use of racial frameworks in describing their progressive policies could inadvertently make it difficult for them to adopt public policies that promote racial justice,” the Yale researchers write.

Mr Biden is far from the only Democrat who speaks more explicitly about race. After George Floyd, many Democratic voters and politicians have crashed into racial inequality. Some of the solidarity efforts have been ham at best: when the Democrats released policing revision laws in June last year, they wrapped themselves in horrific kente-cloth stoles. As recently as last week, spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi reacted numbly to the guilty verdict against Derek Chauvin by thanking Mr Floyd for “sacrificing” his life, suggesting that the victim of police violence had a choice in the matter.

But during the campaign, Mr. Biden “did the job,” as liberal activists would say, despite the occasional gawk when he talked about race and black Americans. He apologized for portions of the 1994 Crime Act. His campaign published a comprehensive plan to eradicate racial differences in issues from health to policing, with a particular focus on promoting economic equality, improving access to affordable housing and education, and reforming the Criminal justice system.

Since taking office, Mr Biden has vowed to put racial justice at the center of every element of his agenda – from his response to the coronavirus pandemic to building infrastructure and shaping climate policy.

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Entertainment

Past WandaVision and Justice League: Superhero Streaming for Each Style

Beyond WandaVision and Justice League: Superhero Streaming for Every Taste

‘Iron fist’

The martial arts series “Kung Fu” from the 1970s with David Carradine crossed the martial arts film action with the themes and the tone of a superhero show. The restart of the CW “Kung Fu” won’t premiere until the beginning of April, and the MCU’s first Kung Fu film, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, won’t arrive until September. Until then, you can quench your appetite for flips and sidekicks with the Netflix Marvel series “Iron Fist”. Fair warning: Finn Jones’ Danny Rand, a white, rich Manhattan kid who wore the mighty iron fist as the chosen one, is the least likable of the defenders – casting him instead of an Asian actor sparked a lot of controversy – and the series don’t have the same finesse as other Netflix Marvel shows. Still, Jessica Henwick’s Colleen Wing and the machinations of the evil ninja mafia, the hand, should be enough to satisfy a martial arts lover until “Shang-Chi” and “Kung Fu” are added. Streaming on Netflix.

Seen? Check out the popular cartoon series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” (Netflix, Amazon).

“Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD”

Let’s say you’re more interested in the new James Bond movie than Marvel or DC. That’s fair: there’s nothing wrong with preferring pizazz over forces, and one thing that’s missing from most superhero films is good old human ingenuity. The SHIELD team is at the back of every MCU movie. But here the group, hosted by Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), is brought into the spotlight, while the narrative is explicitly woven into the developments of the MCU films.

Seen? “Black Widow” will be the next great superhero-spy genre crossover when it comes out. Until then, you can watch “Marvel’s Agent Carter” (Disney +) and the “Kingsman” movies. (Rent them on YouTube and Amazon.)

“Luke Cage”

The original Luke Cage, who appeared in comics in the 1970s, wore a short bum, a chain belt, and a shirt with large lapels and plunging necklines. He was a hero from a blaxploitation movie. The Netflix version of the character, played by Mike Colter, turned him into someone less “right on, funky” but retained his attachment to black culture, history and life in Harlem. Streaming on Netflix.

‘Lucifer’

Contrary to popular belief, Satan doesn’t always stay in Hell. Sometimes he shows up in comics, like in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, in which this polite rendition of the Fallen Angel first appeared. Lucifer got his own spin-off comic and appeared in other corners of the comic book world before landing his own TV series. Tom Ellis is a devilish charm embodied as the protagonist in “Lucifer”. He’s bored with all the fire and brimstone and moves to Los Angeles, where he opens a swanky club. In typical buddy cop TV fashion, he accompanies Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German), who is both the straight (wo) man and the love interest for the irresistible devil. Streaming on Netflix.

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Business

Firms, Vocal About Racial Justice, Go Quiet on Voting Rights

Corporations, Vocal About Racial Justice, Go Quiet on Voting Rights

This time around, however, the entertainment industry has taken a more cautious approach.

When asked for comment, Disney, Netflix, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment and ViacomCBS said either they did not have a public comment or did not respond to inquiries. The Motion Picture Association, Hollywood’s lobby group, declined to comment, as did Amazon Studios, which six months ago released “All In: The Fight For Democracy,” a documentary about the efforts of Ms. Abrams and other activists to break down electoral barriers in Georgia and elsewhere. WarnerMedia, owned by AT&T, said its parent company is working with local chambers of commerce to promote “accessible and secure voting”.

The fight in Georgia is likely a preview of things to come. Legislators in dozens of states have proposed similar electoral laws, and activists plan to put pressure on American businesses as the struggle for the right to vote becomes national.

Meanwhile, companies are trying to maintain a delicate balancing act. Although the Georgian law passed on Thursday was less stringent than originally proposed, it introduced stricter requirements on voter identification for postal voting, limited dropboxing, and expanded legislature’s power over elections.

After it was passed, Delta and Coca-Cola seemed to gain some credit for helping to ease the bill’s restrictions. Delta said it had “been dealing extensively with state-elected officials” over the past few weeks and “the laws signed this week have improved significantly during the legislative process.”

Coca-Cola made a similar statement, stating that it had sought “improvements” to the law and “continued to identify opportunities for engagement and improvements to promote and protect the right to vote in our home state and elsewhere”.

Those words were cold comfort to activists who had worked against efforts to restrict voting rights.

“They made gentle statements instead of getting out,” said Ms. Groh-Wargo of Fair Fight. “It is ridiculous.”

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Entertainment

‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ Evaluate

'Zack Snyder's Justice League' Review

Nobody knows hope like a fan: Hope your favorite author doesn’t disappoint the next chapter, hope a character triumphs, hope the heroes save the day. Hope is burned into the pages of comic book stories, which often hold the belief that good and bad exist in a clear binary file and that even in the darkest of days, a light will always shine through.

I know I’m misleading you and starting this review of Zack Snyder’s expanded Justice League cut with hope when the following sounds more like desperation. And yet hope is at the core of this four-hour marathon of a film – and also what it does not understand.

But let’s start with the story you might already know from the 2017 theatrical release. (This version of the film was adapted from director Joss Whedon, and fans were demanding the restoration of Snyder’s original.) Superman (Henry Cavill) is dead after the events of Batman vs. Superman and an alien warrior Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) is on traveled the earth to collect three mother boxes, sources of endless destructive (and regenerative) energy that, when combined into a “unit”, can destroy an entire world. Batman (Ben Affleck) recruits all the Supers he can find – Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and later a resurrected Superman – to face the upcoming Superman stop apocalypse.

The oversized runtime allows the narrative space to stretch for better or for worse. For the better, there’s an ambitious mythology that reveals the epic Snyder envisioned, restoring world-making details like Wonder Woman’s discovery of Steppenwolf’s plan and the extent of Cyborg’s connection to the mother boxes. Worse still, Snyder also trudges through seemingly endless (and pointless) exposures, adding enough backstory to any Justice League hero to make us invest in these characters so that we care when they finally put on the team jerseys and on the court.

But Snyder has never been one for nuances. “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” is divided into six parts (for the six members of the Justice League, understand?) And a tediously long epilogue with enough teasing storylines and new and familiar faces (Deathstroke! The Martian Manhunter! Lex Luthor! The Joker! ) To keep the franchise going until the next end of the world. But right now here is an inelastic orgy of special effects, battle scenes burdened with slow motion attacks that are set on Tom Holkenborg’s relentlessly didactic score. More explosions! More impaling! More beheading! The film seems to want more of everything except the quality it needs most but cannot fully understand.

Yes i’m back to hope The film is peppered with the idea: The first attack on earth was stopped by a union of people, gods, Amazons and Atlanteans in the style of the “return of the king”. So we know that teamwork is the only way to make the dream work. so to speak. And the heroes find out that the chaos didn’t begin until Superman died – his resurrection, they decide, is the best plan of action, not only because of his power, but also because of the hope he represents.

So here comes Superman, our hero ex machina: a white male superman as the standard image of hope and salvation, literally raised from the dead. Despite the other powerful, charismatic heroes on the roster (Gadot and Momoa are still intriguing to watch, even in the most unflattering sequences), Justice League can’t see past the man with an S on his chest.

Fabian Wagner’s cinematography is dark, as if the whole film was shot in the bat cave, infected with Bruce Wayne’s brooding. The few attempts at an airy dialogue and the persistent use of Miller as a comic relief through the film fall in the lead in this atmosphere of the funeral. Even Superman’s new costume makes the Kryptonian look like he’s going through an emo phase. The triumph in battle and the score – along with the shiny action shots – telegraph hope without fully subscribing to them.

But this is where the hope of the narrative collides with the hope of the franchise: the story is meant to give us a world where heroes are brought back to life, where they put their pride, restraint, and self-interest aside to form an alliance. Even an antisocial orphan billionaire in a bat costume says he has confidence in this issue. But what is the franchise hoping for? More movies, more crossovers, more money. Something that can rival the other endlessly multiplying superhero films. Snyder confidently mixes as much history as possible into the timeframe, marking the end with countless dangling threads that could be woven into a larger tapestry of future DC Comics films – had his cut released earlier.

Hope is not established. It cannot be confined to a shadow of a gesture or shouldered by a man whose extraordinary abilities are heralded in the “super” of his name. And it’s definitely not the cinematic equivalent of a four hour video game editing scene.

Spring is coming next week and people are going to the park. People get vaccinations. I probably don’t need to explain what hope looks like now after the year we’ve just had – and indeed it might look different for you. But I know one thing: it doesn’t look like the corpses of a villain and his henchmen at the end of a great saga. It’s something brighter, brighter – so much more than the darkness.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League
Rated R. Running time: 4 hours 2 minutes. Watch on HBO Max.

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Entertainment

‘After the Homicide of Albert Lima’ Assessment: Justice His Personal Method

‘After the Murder of Albert Lima’ Review: Justice His Own Way

How far would you go for justice? For Florida-born Paul Lima, the answer is to Honduras and back.

In February 2000, Lima’s father, lawyer and businessman Albert Lima, traveled to the tiny Honduran island of Roatán to settle a debt. He never returned. A decade earlier, Albert Martin Coleman, his friend’s father, had given a $ 84,000 loan to the family’s bakery. But when Coleman’s father died and his brothers began running the bakery, regular loan payments were no longer made. When Albert went to the island to take control of the business, two of Martin’s brothers – Byron and Oral – brutally beat and shot him. In the years that followed, one of Albert’s murderers remained free and prompted his son to act.

Paul decides to travel to Roatán with two bounty hunters: Art Torres and Zora Korhonen – to arrest Oral. But their mission is far from easy. Directed by Aengus James and streamed on Crackle, “After the Murder of Albert Lima” is a darkly comedic documentary about true crime where the most exciting elements fade under the overzealous drama theme.

Paul’s plan to capture oral is incredibly inappropriate. Paul wants the bounty hunters to drug and kidnap Oral while armed guards surround the bar he visits. You arrive for the mission without weapons, handcuffs, or tape. They use inconspicuous camera pens for five days while James makes guerrilla films to not only collect evidence but also capture the action. But Paul’s obsessive desire often pushes him to put himself and his bounty hunters in danger.

When the director balances Adam Sanborne’s driving score with the danger of the trio, he adds an artificiality to their real endeavors. It doesn’t make Paul’s arduous journey nearly as fulfilling as the film’s cathartic ending. And in search of entertainment, this documentary loses sight of real grief and injures a ruined son.

After the murder of Albert Lima
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch out for crackle.

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World News

Girls Name for India’s Chief Justice to Stop Over Remarks in Rape Circumstances

Women Call for India’s Chief Justice to Quit Over Remarks in Rape Cases

NEW DELHI – Indian outrage is growing over comments from the nation’s chief judge on two rape cases. Thousands of women signed a letter this week demanding his resignation.

Judge Sharad Arvind Bobde, the head of India’s Supreme Court, asked a 23-year-old man accused of raping a minor whether he would marry his victim, who is now an adult.

The victim, who cannot be identified under Indian law, accused the man, a distant relative and official of the Maharashtra state government, of repeatedly persecuting and raping her from the age of 16.

The judge’s comments sparked new demands that those in power, and especially men, do more to improve the treatment of women and girls in India.

A spate of shocking attacks in recent years has led women’s groups and other activists to change long-standing attitudes towards sexual violence.

Justice for victims is rare. Of the tens of thousands of rape cases reported annually in India, only a handful result in law enforcement, according to figures from the National Crime Records Bureau. Activists say the real scope of the problem is far worse, as many cases are never reported because of the stigma.

On Monday, Justice Bobde heard a petition from the defendant in the rape case for relief from a lower court prison order.

“Do you want to marry her?” Justice Bobde asked about Indian media reports.

“You should have thought before seducing and raping the young girl,” he added. “We’re not forcing you to marry. Let us know if you want. “

Activists said they were “appalled and outraged”.

“Your proposal to view marriage as a friendly solution to the case of the rape of an underage girl is worse than cruel and insensitive, as it profoundly undermines the victims’ right to seek justice,” the company said on Tuesday open letter.

Justice Bobde did not respond.

Sex with minors is a crime in India under the Child Protection from Sexual Offenses Act 2012. Mandatory sentences range from 10 years in prison to life imprisonment, and bail is rarely given.

According to court records, the families agreed that the man would marry the girl when she turned 18. The man later failed to keep his promise and married someone else. When the family filed a lawsuit against the man in 2019, a district court granted him early bail.

However, the Bombay Supreme Court overturned this ruling and wrote a scathing criticism of the lower court.

“Such an approach is a clear indication that the learned judge is completely lacking in competence,” the court wrote.

The defendant then turned to the Supreme Court. Justice Bobde and the other two members of the bank granted him four weeks of protection from arrest.

More than 4,000 women signed the letter calling for the Chief Justice to resign, including Anuradha Banerji, an activist with the Saheli women’s rights group.

“When the Chief Justice of India makes these archaic and patriarchal comments, it signals the deeper rot in both the judicial system and society,” Ms. Banerji said. “Millions of young girls will know that their values ​​are marriageability, not personality.”

The victim’s lawyer declined to comment on Friday.

In another case, Justice Bobde appeared to condone consensual rape, according to the letter and media reports.

“If two people live as husbands and wives, however brutal the husband may be, can sexual intercourse between them be called rape?” Justice Bobde asked upon hearing a petition filed by a man accused of rape by a woman who had been his life partner.

The excitement over the judge’s comments comes a month after another Bombay Supreme Court judge, Judge Pushpa Ganedivala, blocked her promotion after criticizing several of her sexual assault rulings.

Her decision in a child abuse case that groping for a minor without skin contact could not be described as sexual assault under the Child Protection Act sparked outrage. She acquitted the man who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old by a lower court. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling after the Indian Attorney General said he had set a dangerous precedent.

In two separate cases, Justice Ganedivala acquitted two other men accused of raping minors and said the victims’ statements were unreliable.

Following her rulings, a Supreme Court panel led by Justice Bobde overturned her decision to make her permanent judge on the Bombay Supreme Court.

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Politics

Justice Dept. Is Stated to Be Inspecting Stone’s Potential Ties to Capitol Rioters

Justice Dept. Is Said to Be Examining Stone’s Possible Ties to Capitol Rioters

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department is investigating communications between right-wing extremists who violated the Capitol and Roger J. Stone Jr., a close associate of former President Donald J. Trump, to see if Mr. Stone played a role in the extremists’ plans To disrupt the confirmation of President Biden’s election victory, a person familiar with the matter said on Saturday.

Should investigators find any news that Mr. Stone knew about or was participating in these plans, they would have a factual basis to launch a full criminal investigation into him, according to the person who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss continued investigation. While this is far from certain, prosecutors at the U.S. law firm in Washington will likely if they find this connection.

Mr. Stone, a self-described fixer for Mr. Trump, escaped a 40-month sentence when the former president commuted his sentence in July and pardoned him in late December. Mr Stone had been convicted of seven offenses, including obstructing a House of Representatives investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 election, lie to Congress and manipulate witnesses. However, this pardon does not protect Mr. Stone from future law enforcement actions.

Justice Department officials have been debating for weeks whether to open a full investigation into Mr. Stone, the person said. While Mr. Stone was speaking at an arson rally the day before the attack, right-wing extremists serving as his bodyguards and standing outside the Capitol, these actions are not crimes themselves.

But the FBI also has videos and other information suggesting that in the days leading up to and including the day of the attack, Mr. Stone was linked to men who eventually stormed the building and broke the law, those with the investigation said familiar person. This has given investigators a window in which to examine communications to see if Mr Stone knew of any plans to break through the complex.

The Washington Post previously reported that the Justice Department was investigating Mr Stone’s possible links with right-wing extremists at the Capitol.

The New York Times has identified at least six members of the Oath Keepers, a right-wing extremist group formed by former military and law enforcement officials who guarded Mr. Stone and were later seen in the Capitol after a pro-Trump mob violently builds the building. Prosecutors have accused two of these men of plotting to attack Congress.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. Mr. Stone did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement posted online this month, Mr. Stone denied any role in the “lawless attack” and said that members of the Oath Guards “should be prosecuted” if there is evidence that they have broken the law. He added that he “saw no evidence of any illegal activity by members of the group”.

A day after the Capitol attack, Michael Sherwin, the US attorney in Washington, told reporters that he would not rule out bringing charges against Mr. Trump or his associates for their possible role in inciting or otherwise encouraging the mob.

“We look at all of the actors, not just the people who entered the building,” Sherwin said. When asked if such goals would include Mr. Trump, who admonished supporters during a rally near the White House on Jan. 6, telling them that they “could never retake our country with weakness,” Mr. Sherwin stood by his testimony . “We all look at actors,” he said. “If the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they will be charged.”

Another member of Mr. Sherwin’s office soon appeared to be tracing those remarks back to them, suggesting that individuals in Mr. Trump’s orbit were unlikely to be examined. But Mr. Sherwin later said he stood by his original statement.

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Business

‘Justice League’ will debut March 18 on HBO Max

'Justice League' will debut March 18 on HBO Max

Justice League

Warner Bros. Pictures

The long-awaited “Snyder Cut” from the Justice League will hit HBO Max on March 18th.

On Friday, director Zack Snyder announced the news on Twitter. WarnerMedia followed up with additional information about the release, saying it would be a full-length film, not the four separate hour-long episodes that were originally planned.

When Justice League was released in 2017, it was tarnished by harsh critical reviews. While it grossed $ 658 million globally, it grossed just $ 230 million domestically. The budget was a whopping $ 300 million, on top of the $ 150 million marketing expense, the film was barely balanced.

The film was co-written and directed by Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon, although the couple did not work on it together. Whedon was brought on board after executives rejected Snyder’s first cut of the film. Snyder eventually left the project due to the death of his daughter.

Snyder’s first cut was 214 minutes long and featured dozens of scenes that worked out the characters’ backstories, developed the myth of the world set in “Justice League,” and teased the upcoming films. While the main plot of the film was retained, many of Snyder’s secondary storylines were cut into Whedon’s paraphrases to streamline the film.

Because Whedon’s version changed so much of Snyder’s vision, fans have asked the director to edit Justice League because they believe it is the purest version of the film.

In May 2020, WarnerMedia announced that it would invest in the repatriation of Snyder. The move was seen as a way to calm fans down and bolster signups for HBO Max.

According to initial estimates, the price was between 20 and 30 million US dollars, since most of the computer-generated images were not yet ready. However, recent estimates suggest that WarnerMedia could have spent $ 70 million or more on the project as Snyder brought back several actors to direct new material.

The re-shoots will add four to five minutes of new footage, Snyder said.

Earlier this week, AT&T announced that HBO Max activations had doubled to 17.2 million. While AT&T pointed to “Wonder Woman 1984” because of the surge in signups, much of the gains were likely due to WarnerMedia’s fourth-quarter arrangements to get the app on Roku devices and Amazon Fire TV.

The telecommunications company that owns WarnerMedia reported that HBO and HBO Max combined now have 41.5 million domestic subscribers, up 20% from 34.6 million last year.

Of the 37.7 million HBO Max eligible subscribers, 30 million were from wholesalers and 6.8 million were through retail channels. Retail subscribers are those who purchase the streaming service directly, not through a cable or other streaming subscription.

This means that nearly half of the HBO subscribers who were eligible to receive HBO Max haven’t signed up yet.