🔸‘Trump Bucks’ promise wealth for MAGA loyalty. Some lose thousands. The products are advertised online as a kind of golden ticket that will help propel Trump’s 2024 bid and make the “real patriots” who support him rich when they are cashed in. [more]
🔸Only 33% of BLM’s $90M in donations helped charitable foundations. Tamir Rice’s mother claimed the group did not support mothers of black children who had been killed in police violence. [more]
🔸The Plot Against Russia: How Putin Revived Stalinist Anti-Americanism to Justify a Botched War. By conjuring a nefarious, all-powerful adversary, Putin creates a new justification for a costly war unlikely to end anytime soon. [more]
🔸Ukraine's Zelensky introduces Iran sanctions bill. The bill would stop Iranian goods transiting through Ukraine and use of its airspace, as well as imposing trade, financial and technology sanctions against Iran and its citizens. [more]
🔸Top 10 Ways Money Launderers Are Caught Red-Handed – Number 7 Will Surprise You! [more]
🔸Chinese agents paid bribes in plot to disrupt anti-communist Falun Gong movement. John Chen and Lin Feng were charged in an indictment with scheming to revoke a New York-based Falun Gong organization’s tax-exempt status and paying bribes to an undercover officer posing as a U.S. tax agent. [more]
🔸U.S. 'won't tolerate' China's ban on Micron chips-Raimondo. These "target a single U.S. company without any basis in fact, and we see it as plain and simple economic coercion and we won't tolerate it, nor do we think it will be successful." [more]
🔸New sanctions against Russia stuck in limbo over Greek-Hungarian protest. After largely playing solo in its opposition against Russian sanctions, Budapest is now getting support from Athens in its skepticism over the freshest measures against Russia. [more]
🔸Prosecutors say they have a recording of Trump and a witness in Manhattan DA case. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office made the disclosure in a filing last week and said the evidence had already been disclosed to Trump's attorneys. [more]
🔸Texas AG Ken Paxton’s Impeachment Riles Trump and His Minions. The embattled AG faces 20 articles of impeachment, including bribery and abuse of public trust. [more]
🔸US officials believe Chinese hackers may still have access to key US computer networks. The alleged targeting of critical infrastructure in Guam adds to ongoing US concerns that China could be using its cyber capabilities in anticipation of a future conflict with the US in the Pacific. [more]
🔸Former chief scientist for GTRI pleads guilty to conspiring to defraud Georgia Tech and the CIA. In their cover-up meetings, Maloney asked Acree and Fraley to help him “weave a story around” a fictitious set of facts designed to mislead Georgia Tech auditors. [more]
🔸Nicaraguan govt accuses Catholic Church of money laundering, freezes accounts. Nicaraguan police are investigating several dioceses of the Catholic Church for money laundering, a day after local media reported that the bank accounts of parishes in the Central American country had been frozen. [more]
🔸French prosecutors charge ex-FIFA vice president with corruption in Qatar World Cup probe. The French investigation, set up in 2019, was particularly interested in a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, just over a week before the vote. [more]
🔸JP Morgan alleges wife of U.S. Virgin Islands' ex-governor aided Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activity. The bank made the allegations in a filing as part of its defense in a civil suit brought by the territory against it last year. [more]