Federal Judge Rejects Ghislaine Maxwell’s ‘Miscarriage of Justice’ Claims and Bid for Prison Release

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Federal Judge Rejects Ghislaine Maxwell’s ‘Miscarriage of Justice’ Claims and Bid for Prison Release

(Headline USA) Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to overturn her sex trafficking conviction and be freed from prison was rejected by a federal judge Tuesday who said the claims by Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and longtime associate that new evidence had emerged were “demonstrably meritless.”

Maxwell filed a habeas petition last December seeking to set aside her conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence, claiming exonerating information was withheld and false testimony presented at her trial, resulting in a “complete miscarriage of justice.”

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer rejected her arguments, saying in his written ruling they “all or almost all are frivolous” and that she had presented nothing that could upend the outcome of her trial.

“Nearly all its claims are procedurally barred; the overwhelming testimonial and documentary evidence adduced at trial conclusively established her guilt; and her petition’s claims are demonstrably meritless, and generally based on speculation, distortions, and/or outright falsehoods,” Engelmayer wrote.

A request for comment was sent to lawyers who represented Maxwell in the past.

Habeas petitions are often filed as a last resort and to protect against unlawful confinement after appeals are exhausted, as happened after Maxwell’s conviction and sentencing.

Epstein, a millionaire financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. Ordered detained until trial, he was found dead in his cell at a New York federal jail in August 2019 and his death was ruled a suicide.

Maxwell, a British socialite, was arrested a year later and was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021. She was moved from a Florida prison to a prison camp in Texas last year, shortly after she was interviewed by the Justice Department’s then second-in-command, Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney and now U.S. attorney general.

The judge noted that many of Maxwell’s claims of “new evidence” stem from documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

As a result of that law, the Justice Department over the last eight months has released 18 categories of investigative materials gathered in the massive sex trafficking probe, including search warrants, financial records, notes from interviews with victims and data from electronic devices.

Engelmayer said that material is “largely irrelevant to the charges against Maxwell and does not support her claims of error.”

“On the contrary, to the extent it is relevant, far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness of the legal rulings Maxwell challenges,” he wrote.

The judge also rejected Maxwell’s claim that she was selectively prosecuted and made a “scapegoat” when the Justice Department did not indict four co-conspirators named in a government document or 25 men who settled with victims.

Engelmayer said she could have raised that claim on appeal after her trial, but he found it to be frivolous nonetheless.

Among the recently released Justice Department documents, “she does not cite any that reveals the existence of an uncharged confederate, let alone one as instrumental as she in facilitating Epstein’s horrific crimes,” the judge said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

Dolly Parton, Music Star, Actor and Beloved Figure Who Spanned Generations, Dies at 80

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Dolly Parton, Music Star, Actor and Beloved Figure Who Spanned Generations, Dies at 80

(Headline USA)  Dolly Parton, the country music icon whose soaring vibrato vocals, poignant songwriting and sparkling costumes defined her rise from a log cabin in the Tennessee mountains to the height of stardom and acclaim, has died. She was 80 years old.

Parton died peacefully Tuesday in Nashville, Tennessee, her publicist said in a statement.

Known for her curvy physique, massive blonde wigs and skin-tight outfits that served her self-deprecating wit, she was among the most beloved personalities in music and beyond — the rare celebrity whose appeal transcended generations, geography and politics.

She wrote hundreds of songs, including classics like “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “I Will Always Love You,” that totaled more than 100 million worldwide sales and more than 1 billion online streams. Parton, who plucked bejeweled banjos, guitar and dulcimers with her long fingernails during performances, was a generous philanthropist and successful businesswoman whose projects included a theme park in the Smoky Mountain foothills near her birthplace.

Her career was forever influenced by her upbringing as one of 12 children born into what she called a “dirt poor” Tennessee family. She started her education nonprofit, Imagination Library, to send free books to children in Tennessee because her father, who quit school to work on the farm, struggled to learn to read.

Parton’s first musical performances were in church, where her grandfather was a preacher. By age 10, she was learning guitar and singing on local television shows. At 13, she appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, where Johnny Cash introduced her as “a little girl here from up in East Tennessee.”

With a suitcase of songs, she followed her uncle, Bill Owens, also a songwriter, to Nashville after graduating high school in 1964. Fred Foster, who produced Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson and more, saw her potential and got her songs cut by other artists, as well as recording and releasing Parton singing her own material. By the mid-1970s, Parton was a Nashville queen.

Parton’s partnership with Porter Wagoner, a pencil-thin pompadoured star with flashy rhinestone outfits, was key to her career. She honed her acting skills on his syndicated TV show and he advocated for her to get a record deal at RCA. Their first duet, “The Last Thing On My Mind,” was released in 1967, the same year she started her own publishing company.

While their duets were often big radio hits, Parton’s solo singles didn’t chart as high at first. With Wagoner as a co-producer, she began to adjust her country warble to a more polished, pop-leaning style.

She got her first No. 1 solo single with “Joshua,” and reached the Top 5 with the ballad “Coat of Many Colors,” about how her mother sewed together scraps of clothes to make a coat Parton wore “so proudly” even as her peers mocked her for being poor. The song, with its Biblical references and ode to maternal love, was later made into a children’s book and a TV movie.

In 1973, she had the hit that made her career — “Jolene,” a country music standard with its steady, churning rhythm and Parton’s repeated delivery of the title as she pleads for the woman not to steal her man.

The song topped the country charts, crossing over to pop and later being released internationally, opening up new audiences for Parton. “Jolene” is one of her most covered compositions, including by Miley Cyrus (Parton’s goddaughter), Olivia Newton-John and The White Stripes.

She left Wagoner’s show in 1974, amid reports of squabbling between the two, although they continued to record together and Wagoner stayed her producer for years after that. But the relationship turned litigious when Wagoner sued her in 1979 for millions in management fees and royalties.

She followed “Jolene” with a huge hit in 1974, “I Will Always Love You,” an ode and farewell to Wagoner that helped her win the Country Music Association’s female vocalist of the year back-to-back in 1975 and 1976. She famously turned down Elvis Presley, who wanted to record it, because she would not share publishing rights.

Decades later, Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” became a smash for the soundtrack of her 1992 film “The Bodyguard,” and broke sales records. Houston won a Grammy for her performance in 1994, presented to her by Parton.

“Here You Come Again,” a pop crossover hit and one of the few she didn’t write, further established Parton as a multi-genre entertainer and brought her first Grammy Award in 1979.

“A lot of people thought I had totally lost my mind,” she told The Associated Press in 1979 of changing her singing style. “But I had no fear of change. I expected success, but I was braced for failure. I didn’t care if people thought I was wrong. In my own heart, I knew I was doing the right thing.”

Parton’s other crossover hits included the title song from “9 to 5,” the 1980 comedy starring Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin; and her duet with longtime friend Kenny Rogers, “Islands in the Stream,” written by brothers Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees. In 1987, she collaborated with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris on the million-selling “Trio” album.

For millions of fans, she was simply “Dolly,” a mixture of Southern charm, humor and glamour. But she was also considered a feminist role model for holding the reins of her own career, writing her own songs, owning her content and looking after her finances in an entertainment world dominated by men.

Parton was open to making fun of herself; when she hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 1989 she told the writers that her only restrictions were she wouldn’t curse and she wouldn’t make fun of Jesus. She regularly joked about her breasts or her dumb blonde appearance, but with a wink that she was the one controlling the laughs. In the memoir “My Life So Far,” Fonda remembered Parton’s way with a wisecrack, “usually high raunch,” and a laugh that was “somewhere between a girl’s giggle, an explosive shriek, and a cascade of little bells.”

After her gown split down the front when she won CMA’s entertainer of the year in 1978, Parton quipped: “My Daddy said that’s what I got for putting 50 pounds of mud in a five-pound bag.”

Throughout her career, she embraced her glamorous style, often wearing custom curve-hugging rhinestone dresses and bodysuits even if they drew tsk-tsks from others in the industry. Her look was always a part of her larger musical business plan.

“I knew my songs were good even if I had been ugly as sin,” she told the AP in 2014. 

“So I thought, ‘Well, I would have probably chose to look this way even if I had been a waitress.’ I mean, this is my look. I mean, I like a lot of makeup. I like a lot of hair. I like flashy clothes. I like to show it off. But that’s just who I am.”

She married Carl Dean, an asphalt paving contractor, in the mid-1960s; they were together until his death in 2025 at the age of 82. Though rarely seen in public, he was an influence on her career. She told NPR that she wrote “Jolene” about a flirty bank teller who seemed to take an interest in Dean.

In her first major film role, Parton played alongside Fonda and Tomlin as office workers who rebel against their tyrannical boss in “9 to 5.” Critic Roger Ebert called her a “natural-born movie star” and the title song earned her two Grammy Awards and a ranking of 78 on the American Film Institute’s list of top 100 movie songs. Starring roles in “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas” and “Steel Magnolias” followed.

“I never thought of myself as a movie star,” she told AP’s Bob Thomas in 1979. “I knew I’d be a star, but as a singer or as a writer of songs or books or poetry. I wanted to be a famous performer and wear flashy clothes, but singing in movies was not one of my ambitions. My family lived in the mountains and we didn’t see movies.”

Her love affair with TV and film continued for decades, with appearances alongside Cyrus on “Hannah Montana” and adaptations of her music for Christmas specials, films and streaming series. She also became an author, her books ranging from the memoir “Dolly” to a bestselling novel co-authored by James Patterson, “Run, Rose, Run.”

The stage adaptation “9 to 5: The Musical” debuted in 2009, and “DOLLY: A True Original Musical” is set to open in December.

Beyond her music, Parton’s most lasting legacy might be her generosity and broad appeal.

When a deadly wildfire swept through the Smokies in 2016, she held an all-star telethon and set up a foundation that sent monthly checks to residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed.

She opened up her Dollywood theme park in East Tennessee, a major economic driver in Appalachia that draws tourists from around the country, and established the Dollywood Foundation. She wrote books and memoirs, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and was given a lifetime achievement award by the Recording Academy. She was selected for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2025.

With 55 Grammy nominations and 10 wins, Parton is the third-most nominated woman in Grammy history, only behind Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.

Parton spanned social and political divides, through multiple generations of fans, urban and rural and in between. In tumultuous election years, it wasn’t uncommon to see 

“Dolly for President” shirts. But she was strict in not voicing her own political beliefs, often turning aside questions about presidents, candidates, policies and other controversies.

“I don’t do politics,” Parton told host Jad Abumrad on his hit podcast “Dolly Parton’s America.”

“I have too many fans on both sides of the fence. Of course, I have my opinion about everything, but I learned years ago to keep your mouth shut about things.”

When the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation sent out a ballot in 2022 with her name on it, though she said she felt she hadn’t earned it, the voters answered with a “Hello, Dolly.” Parton showed up to the induction ceremony, performed and then put out a rock album.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

Lindsay Clancy Didn’t Have Acute Psychosis When She Killed Her Kids, Psychologist Says

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Lindsay Clancy Didn’t Have Acute Psychosis When She Killed Her Kids, Psychologist Says

(Headline USA) Lindsay Clancy did not have acute psychosis when she killed her three children but rather took their lives so they wouldn’t “suffer” after she took her own life, a forensic psychologist testified Monday in her murder trial.

Kirk Heilbrun said he ruled out acute psychosis with command hallucinations because he didn’t believe Clancy when she said she heard a voice telling her to “kill the children so you can kill yourself.”

“The way she described this as happening is that she heard a voice that she’d never heard before, experienced a hallucination and she’s never experienced it since. But she only experienced it for the 18 minutes or so that it took to kill the children,” Heilbrun testified. “To put it mildly, that would be a very, very unusual pattern or manifestation of how this kind of thing comes about. Very unusual.”

A key issue at trial is Clancy’s mental health. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington does not dispute that Clancy killed the children in January 2023 but says she shouldn’t be held criminally responsible because she had postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.

Clancy didn’t want to leave her children behind

After killing her children, Clancy jumped from a second-floor window and remains paralyzed from the waist down. Heilbrun testified that he concluded that Clancy killed her children because she wanted to kill herself but didn’t want to leave them behind.

“One of the things that she said when I asked about what happened, is that in the course of strangling each child, she said, `Go to God, baby. Go to God,’” he said. “That was part of her expectation that she and the children would be together in heaven with God.”

Heilbrun also mentioned Clancy’s Catholic faith, prompting a request for a mistrial from Reddington that Judge William Sullivan denied.

He later instructed the jury to disregard the reference to “the religion that the defendant was raised with,” calling it “an absolutely inappropriate area of testimony.”

Prosecution argues Clancy wasn’t suffering from psychosis

Heilbrun is the latest prosecution witness to say that while Clancy was mentally ill, she still knew that what she was doing was wrong.

On Friday, Dr. Avram Mack, a forensic psychiatrist, testified that he found no evidence of mania or hypomania to support a bipolar diagnosis — or of psychosis — leading up to the killings. He said Clancy was experiencing severe mental illness when she killed her children but that it was a continuation of the depression she had experienced for months in which she was able to control impulses and distinguish right from wrong.

However, Heilbrun said he did determine Clancy has bipolar 2 disorder, while saying it was difficult to diagnose at least in part “because of all the diagnoses in the records and all the symptoms that she experienced.” People with bipolar 2 disorder experience cycles of depression and hypomania, which is less intense than the mania experienced with bipolar 1 disorder.

Earlier in the trial, the jury heard that Clancy had sought treatment for mental health problems from multiple providers and even had admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital.

Prosecutors say the former labor and delivery nurse planned the killings and contrived to get her husband out of the house by sending him to pick up medicine for one of their children and dinner for the family.

Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, who ranged from 8 months to 5 years old. Closing arguments are expected later this week.

Defense argues she had postpartum psychosis

The condition that Clancy’s attorney says she had when she killed the children, postpartum psychosis, is more serious and less common than postpartum depression.

The last witness to testify for the defense before prosecutors began calling rebuttal witnesses was Dr. Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist and expert in filicide, or the killing of a child by a parent.

Resnick testified Friday that Clancy was “clearly psychotic” on the day she killed her children and was not in control of her actions. “It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings,” he said.

That echoed another defense witness, psychologist Paul Zeizel, who concluded Clancy “had no appreciation for the wrongfulness of her act.”

The trial will resume Tuesday with more testimony from a forensic psychologist hired by prosecutors to evaluate Clancy’s psychiatric history and asses the defense claim that she was suffering from acute postpartum psychosis when she killed the children at their Massachusetts home.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

About 90,000 Evacuated During Hawk Fire in Reno Area

Headline USA Editor
-
0
About 90,000 Evacuated During Hawk Fire in Reno Area

(Chris Woodward, The Center Square) Some evacuation orders west of Reno have been lifted as more than 900 firefighters continue to battle the Hawk Fire, which burned just over 15,000 acres and led to the initial evacuation of about 90,000 residents.

The fire began around 11:30 a.m. Saturday near the Hawk Meadow Trail in the Somersett area and spread rapidly due to high winds.

Gov. Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency over the weekend.

“This is an active and rapidly evolving situation, and I urge everyone in the affected areas to remain vigilant and follow the direction of local officials,” the Republican governor said in a news release. “The state is fully engaged, and we are working alongside local authorities and first responders to deploy every available resource.”

Conditions have begun to stabilize.

“The current footprint is holding within that 15,000-acre spread,” Chris Buckley, a U.S. Forest Service public information officer, told The Center Square. “We’ve lifted some of those evacuations in the Somersett area where the fire started, so those people are being let back in.”

No fatalities have been reported, though six to seven injuries have been confirmed.

Portions of U.S. 395 between Reno and the California state line remain closed.

Ground and air crews are focusing on strengthening perimeter containment lines and extinguishing hot spots. Still, firefighters face ongoing challenges with hot, dry weather and no significant rainfall forecast for the Reno area this week.

As of Monday afternoon, the Hawk Fire had destroyed 32 homes and damaged six homes, Buckley told The Center Square. She added that the fire was 27% contained.

There are no estimates on how much of taxpayers’ money has been spent to fight the fire, Buckley said.

Officials are holding daily live-streamed briefings at 2 p.m. on the Hawk Fire 2026 Facebook page.

“We have a community meeting tonight as well,” said Buckley. “That’s going to be in downtown Reno.”

While the Hawk Fire represents the immediate threat to populated areas near Reno, a state online dashboard shows fire activity stretching across multiple Nevada counties.

Washoe County itself is battling additional blazes, including the 40,691-acre Stallion Fire, while regional incident trackers monitor larger blazes such as the 93,733-acre Bug Fire near the Lassen County border region and the 52,000-acre Mouse Meadow Fire in Nye County.  

Iranian State Media Video Threatens Barron Trump’s Life

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Iranian State Media Video Threatens Barron Trump’s Life

(Headline USA) The U.S. Secret Service has confirmed it is aware that Iranian state media has aired a video that appears to threaten the life of Barron Trump, President Donald Trump’s youngest son.

“The U.S. Secret Service is aware of the video and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward our protectees,” Secret Service spokesman Nate Herring said in a statement. “Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence.”

Since the U.S. assassination of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian media have on multiple occasions circulated content threatening the president and family members. The assassination came at the start of the war in Iran that Trump launched alongside Israel.

The latest threat against Barron was reported Sunday by news outlet Al Bawaba. The report aired on Iran’s state-run Channel 3 with the title, “Where to kill Barron Trump?”

CNN previously reported that the Secret Service had knowledge of the Barron Trump threat.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

US Set for Largest Crackdown on Bogus Asylum Claims in History

Headline USA Editor
-
0
US Set for Largest Crackdown on Bogus Asylum Claims in History

(Headline USA) The Trump administration is preparing one of it’s biggest crackdown on illegal immigration to date: the revocation of business and tourism visas for up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history—though it would also likely face legal challenges.

Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to The Associated Press. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.

He declined to comment on the number of visas that might be revoked, saying “as the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”

The revocations would not necessarily result in their immediate deportation, the officials said. Most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorized but would lose their status as business or tourism travelers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final yet.

Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year, his administration has steadily ramped up restrictions on visa applicants — demanding more information about their social media histories, requiring the posting of expensive bonds for the processing of visas, and outright banning the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries.

In a social media post on Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called out people who he said try to use tourist and business visas to get into the United States and then apply for asylum.

“People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Landau wrote on X. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.” Landau cited the case of a Colombian citizen who came to the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa and then applied for asylum.

B1 visas are generally issued for business trips and B2 visas are generally issued for tourism, family visits or medical care. It was not immediately clear from the documents or the officials how many of these visa holders are seeking or have sought asylum in the United States and would be affected by the revocations.

Current applicants for B1 and B2 visas are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the United States and prove that they intend to return to their home countries.

In the past 18 months, the State Department has revoked about 175,000 visas for people who have been convicted or accused of crimes ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as for people who have spoken out publicly against U.S. policies, particularly in the Middle East.

The administration has also moved to crack down on birth tourism, a practice used by foreign pregnant women to come to the United States to give birth so that their child will benefit from birthright citizenship. Trump has tried several times to end birthright citizenship, but those challenges have been rejected by courts, including the Supreme Court.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Supreme Court Temporarily Allows Trump’s Mail-In Voting Order

Headline USA Editor
-
0
Supreme Court Temporarily Allows Trump’s Mail-In Voting Order

(, The Center Square) The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily allowed the Trump administration to maintain an order placing restrictions on mail-in voting.

The administration’s order, issued in March, would direct the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to curate lists with the names of all citizens at least 18 years old in each state who are eligible to vote. The order would require the U.S. Postal Service to check the lists before sending out mail-in ballots.

“This internal directive does not regulate the States’ voter registration processes,” justices on the high court wrote. “Nor does it impinge on the States’ authority ‘to create and enforce a legal code’ for elections.'”

A federal judge in Massachusetts issued an order on July 25 blocking the Trump administration from implementing the mail-in ballot restrictions nationwide. A group of 23 states and the District of Columbia sued to prevent the order from going into effect. Judge Indira Talwani allowed all 23 states to be exempt from the order.

Solicitor General John Sauer argued that the lists have yet to be implemented in any state and the order should not be valid, since there was no harm incurred by the involved parties.

“The respondent States have not suffered any cognizable injury caused by the Executive Order, because the Order itself does not affect their election processes at all, and it is entirely speculative whether and how any agency implementation may do so,” Sauer said.

Lawyers for the states said the administration could not move forward with an order this close to Election Day in the 2026 midterms.

“Requiring that plaintiffs wait to challenge the EO’s implementing actions would cause them significant hardship and, as a practical matter, threaten to insulate the EO’s unlawful directives from judicial review before the upcoming elections,” the lawyer’s wrote.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor opposed the high court’s decision to move forward with the mail-in ballot order. The three liberal justices said the majority’s decision does not address fundamental issues in the case that must be decided.

“The Government has admitted that the lists ‘might be used solely to facilitate this sort of post-election law-enforcement activity,'” Sotomayor wrote.

Further legal challenges to the president’s order are expected over the coming weeks that would prevent it from being implemented.

WaPo Journalist, Fired After Charlie Kirk Smears, Is Reinstated to Her Job

Luis Cornelio
-
0
WaPo Journalist, Fired After Charlie Kirk Smears, Is Reinstated to Her Job

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The columnist whom the Washington Post fired after she launched a social media tirade against Charlie Kirk following his assassination will be reinstated to her job.

The columnist, Karen Attiah, first joined left-wing activists who showed little mourning, and at times appeared to downplay, Kirk’s assassination, before sharing a quote falsely attributed to the conservative icon.

At the time, Attiah took to Bluesky to seemingly rebuke individuals who condemned Kirk’s murder.

“Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is … not the same as violence,” Attiah wrote.

She also shared a quote falsely attributed to Kirk, in which he purportedly said: “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.”

In reality, Kirk’s full quote came as he paraphrased then-Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s, D-Texas, comments affirming that affirmative action played a role in her admission to college, according to the LeadStories.

Kirk specifically said: “If we would have said three weeks ago […] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they’re comin’ out and they’re saying it for us! They’re comin’ out and they’re saying, ‘I’m only here because of affirmative action.’ Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”

Kirk then played a clip of Jackson Lee speaking on the House floor and claiming: “I rise today as a clear recipient of affirmative action, particularly in higher education. I may have been admitted on affirmative action, both in terms of being a woman and a woman of color, but I can declare that I did not graduate on affirmative action.”

Attiah made the social media posts in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s assassination in front of a crowd of supporters at Utah Valley University. At the time, certain individuals were celebrating or downplaying Kirk’s egregious murder while he fielded questions as part of his American Comeback Tour.

The Post fired Attiah following the controversial posts. However, Attiah retained attorneys who claimed the Post had ousted her from her job in violation of her employment contract.

Attiah announced Monday that arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa ordered the Post to immediately reinstate her.

According the New York Times, Miller Espinosa claimed the Post “did not have a good faith and sufficient cause” to terminate Attiah.

“The Washington Post failed to establish the grievant engaged in gross misconduct,” Miller Espinosa added, a shocking claim given the facts around Attiah’s firing.

The Post said it respected the decision, which also included back pay for Attiah.

The columnist celebrated the decision by positioning herself as a victim of censorship, saying the order “sends a message to journalists and media institutions everywhere that freedom of expression is always worth fighting for.”

Attiah added that she was “willing to go back” to the newspaper.

“This decision confirms what we’ve said from the start: I was doing my job as an opinion writer, and this was wrongful termination,” she continued.

$50,000 Gold? Billionaire Investor Thomas Kaplan Thinks So

Money Metals News Service
-
0
$50,000 Gold? Billionaire Investor Thomas Kaplan Thinks So

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Billionaire investor Thomas Kaplan has issued an eye-popping gold price forecast of $50,000.

In an interview on Kitco News, Kaplan said, “Seeing gold go up another tenfold from here, to me, is not just likely, but inevitable.”

“I can see gold going to 30, 40, 50,000 dollars without a problem.”

Kaplan serves as the chairman and CIO of The Electrum Group, an advisory and asset management firm focusing on natural resources. The company has roughly $2.5 billion in assets under management.

Kaplan is also the largest private collector of Rembrandt’s art.

While making a bold price forecast, Kaplan didn’t put a timeline on the rally. However, he said we are in “what will be seen to be a very, very long wave in gold and silver, that we will see more highs in both.”

Kaplan wasn’t willing to speculate on the near-term, saying we may or may not have hit the bottom in the recent correction.

“Maybe it already is, maybe it needs to test again, I don’t know.”

But he insisted it doesn’t matter.

“Because in the long term, even in the medium term, gold and silver are going to multiply from where they are.”

Kaplan emphasized that his strategy involves holding things for the long term.

“People try to be too clever. And one of the reasons why I do hold things for so long is because, I just say to myself, I’m going to be patient. So long as they are still the best assets in their class, I’ll hold it forever, and I will not be distracted by noise.”

Kaplan pivoted into gold and silver in 2007 after selling his family’s energy company. At the time, gold was hovering around $550 to $600 per ounce.

“My view was that the place to protect my wealth, my family’s wealth, when we sold our energy company, which was our biggest asset and our biggest ‘killing,’ as it were, was gold and silver.”

Why gold and silver?

“I’d entered 2007 with a view that things were just simply too good, not dissimilar to the way things are right now in certain respects. And that there was just too much bullishness in asset classes.”

At the time, Kaplan predicted gold would move from that $500 range to between $3,000 and $5,000. He said he thought it would hit $5,000 and then possibly fall back to $3,000 before recovering to $5,000 and climbing again.

Kaplan compared the recent correction to a “1987 moment” when the stock market crashed, before recovering to new highs. It was essentially a correction inside a bull market.

He pointed out that the 36 percent crash on Black Friday “really did seem like the world was falling in upon itself.”

“And yet when you look back over that chart, you can’t see it. Certainly, a person of my vintage would need glasses to be able to perceive it. It’s that minute.”

Notably, the man who pivoted to gold and silver, effectively getting out of the markets right before the 2008 crash, thinks that today’s environment has a similar look.

Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for Money Metals with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

Hong Kong Gold Futures Contract Reports Physical Delivery Record as the City’s Role as a Gold Hub Grows

Money Metals News Service
-
0
Hong Kong Gold Futures Contract Reports Physical Delivery Record as the City’s Role as a Gold Hub Grows

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) On Wednesday, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) reported record physical gold deliveries linked to its dollar-denominated gold futures contract. This underscores Hong Kong’s push to challenge Western dominance of the gold market.

The exchange physically delivered 145kg (319.67 pounds) of gold on Aug. 19. It was the highest single-day delivery since the futures contract was launched in 2018.

The previous delivery record was 63kg in December 2018.

HKEX also reported a surge of interest in its dollar-denominated gold contract.

This comes after HKEX revitalized the contract last month.

On July 6, the company implemented several policy changes to increase liquidity:

  • HKEX waived its normal $1-per-contract-per-side trading fee through June 30, 2027
  • It established incentive programs for designated liquidity providers
  • It established incentives for active traders

According to HKEX, “As the USD Gold Futures Contract has been inactive for a period of time, the introduction of the incentive programs is intended to support initial liquidity and revitalize the contract.”

The move had an almost immediate impact. On the day the new policies went into effect, the August contract traded 4,286 contracts. Volume the day before was zero. In the following week, HKEX reported record volume and open interest during the revitalization.

According to the South China Morning Post, average daily trading volume reached 9,974 contracts between July 6 and August 19. Total trading value hit $1.35 billion.

The HKEX intentionally implemented rules for its dollar-denominated futures contract to encourage physical delivery of metal.

Ramifications of the Surge in Physical Gold Delivery

The revitalization of the dollar-denominated futures contract corresponds with a broader push to challenge Western control of the global gold market.

London, New York, and Switzerland have served as the center of the gold trade for nearly two centuries. However, with gold progressively flowing from West to East, China and other Asian hubs are developing the infrastructure to challenge Western dominance.

A day after the revitalized futures contract launched, Hong Kong began trial operations of its gold clearing and settlement system. The government-owned clearing system will reportedly “mirror” the financial infrastructure used by the LBMA in London.

According to Hong Kong Precious Metals Central Clearing Company CEO John Lee Ka-chiu, the company will offer “a comprehensive suite of services ranging from gold deposits and withdrawals to transaction settlements in the over-the-counter market in Hong Kong,” adding that a new gold price ticker – HAU – would be introduced to “ensure that Hong Kong gold prices are fully accessible to global market participants.”

The new gold clearing system also features a partnership with the Shanghai Gold Exchange. Lee said that “Delivery Connect” will “bridge the fiscal liquidity pools of both markets.”

Cooperation between the Hong Kong clearing company and the Shanghai Gold Exchange will reportedly include facilitation of physical gold delivery, warehousing, and further enhancing financial connectivity between the two markets. Through this partnership, gold stored in approved Hong Kong vaults can be transferred into the SGE system and vice versa. Once the metal is inside either system, it becomes eligible for settlement without having to be re-assayed or shipped through an entirely separate process.

Meanwhile, the clearing company introduced a new gold price ticker – HAU –to “ensure that Hong Kong gold prices are fully accessible to global market participants.”

In another move to elevate its status as a gold hub, Hong Kong officials plan to expand the region’s gold storage capacity from 200 to more than 2,000 tonnes over the next three years.

Looking at the bigger picture, it reveals a slow but steady migration of the gold trade from the West to the East.

In this context, it appears the revitalized futures contract is intended to connect gold futures trading to Hong Kong’s expanding physical gold market infrastructure.

According to HKEX, this connection will attract additional gold storage and delivery activity into Hong Kong, further establishing the Chinese special administrative region as an international bullion-trading center.

Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for Money Metals with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

1...151617...3,810Page 16 of 3,810