News of the World

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Federal Prosecutor Says ‘Investigation Is Ongoing’
After Securing Hunter Biden Guilty Plea

David C. Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware who handled a long-running tax investigation into Hunter Biden, said that investigation is ongoing even after the president’s son agreed to a plea deal.

Weiss notified the U.S. District Court for Delaware that Hunter Biden intended to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts for willful failure to pay his taxes. Weiss said Hunter Biden also agreed to enter a pretrial diversion agreement for obtaining a firearm at a time that he was actively using or addicted to a controlled substance, which is illegal.

The tax charges each carry a maximum penalty of 12 months in prison. The firearm charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison but the pretrial diversion agreement could allow him to avoid a criminal conviction and a related criminal punishment.

In a comment to CBS News on Tuesday, Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark addressed his client’s plea agreement, stating, “it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved.”

While Clark said the matter involving his client is resolved, Weiss said in his own press statement on Tuesday that “the investigation is ongoing.”

Xi Calling Bill Gates ‘An Old Friend’ Is Not a Compliment

Chinese leader Xi Jinping on June 16 met with Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates in Beijing, where he called Gates “an old friend.”
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In a meeting at Beijing’s Diaoyutai state guest house, where China’s leaders have traditionally received senior foreign visitors, Xi said he was very happy to see the Microsoft co-founder after three years, and that Gates was the first American friend he had met this year.

“I often say the foundation of U.S.-China relations lies with its people. I place my hopes on the American people,” a video published by state broadcaster CCTV showed Xi saying.

“With the current global situation, we can carry out various activities beneficial to our two countries and people, activities that benefit humanity as a whole,” he said.

Gates, who arrived in Beijing on Wednesday, said he was “honored” to have the chance to meet. “We’ve always had great conversations and we’ll have a lot of important topics to discuss today … it’s very exciting to be back.”
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Pelson said it’s disturbing but not surprising to see Bill Gates embracing a huge authoritarian government whose philosophy is: “We’re smarter and better and will tell people what to do and it’s for your own good.”

The reason behind that title is simple, the expert they interviewed interpreted Xi's words as being a friend of the CCP, not the Chinese people.

Three Years After Galwan Valley Clash
Towns Along India–China Border Get an Upgrade

Three years after the bloody Galwan Valley clash, experts say China’s upgrade of two sparsely populated areas in Tibet is intended to bolster its military status along the hotly contested India–China border.
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Despite negotiations following the clash, China has continued to bulk up its presence along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) that runs between the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and India’s state of Arunachal Pradesh. Satellite images from February 2023 provide evidence that China has been constructing villages and military infrastructure near the LAC.

The elevation of Milin and Cuona to cities on April 3 is part of this effort, experts say. The new cities, although minuscule in terms of population, have strategic importance in light of the border dispute.
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The population of Milin is only 24,665, while that of Cuona is 13,932, according to the upgraded cities’ respective websites.

Milin, also known as Mainling, covers 115 miles of the Indian frontier. Despite its small size, it is a transport hub that links by rail to the regional capital of Lhasa. It lies on a route that links Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as having its own airport.

Cuona, also known as Cona, borders Bhutan to the southwest and lies across the disputed border from Tawang, one of India’s holy sites.

A portion of the area that China claims as part of the new city is currently controlled by India, noted a South China Morning Post report.

The Chinese media described the Indian territory across these counties as a part of China, while Indian experts decried the move as an attempt to strengthen the Chinese Army’s forward position on the border.

Durham: Rules Should Change so Heads Could Roll at FBI

The Department of Justice (DOJ) rules should change so that FBI agents lose their jobs when they lie to misuse the government’s spying powers in sensitive investigations, Special Counsel John Durham suggested to Congress.

Durham, who recently released a report on his review of the FBI’s handling of the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation, acknowledged that he found conduct that was wrong or “probably criminal,” but would have been difficult to prosecute in a court of law.
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His report documented extensive misconduct, including repeated use of false, debunked, and unverified information, dismissing exculpatory information, failure to interview key witnesses—all pushing forward an investigation of supposed collusion between Russia and the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

The misconduct, among other ills, resulted in illegal surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The FBI snooped through Page’s electronic communications based on a FISA warrant prepared using fabricated allegations pushed into the FBI by operatives financed by the campaign of Trump’s opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“There were identified, documented, significant failures of a highly sensitive, unique investigation that was undertaken by the FBI,” Durham testified.

“I think the investigation clearly reveals that decisions that were made were made in one direction. If there was something that was inconsistent with the notion that Trump was involved in a ‘well-coordinated conspiracy’ with the Russians and whatnot, that information was largely discarded or ignored and I think, unfortunately, that’s what the facts bear out.”

Yet, as both Republicans and Democrats on the committee pointed out, Durham didn’t pursue charges against the main actors in the Russia investigation, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane.

Unanimous Supreme Court Ruling Eases
Prison Sentences for Some Gun Crimes

Some people convicted of gun crimes can spend less time in prison, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 16.
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“Congress could certainly have designed the penalty scheme at issue here differently. But Congress did not do any of these things. And we must implement the design Congress chose,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee, wrote in the ruling.

The case involves two subsections of 18 U.S.C. 924. Subsection © outlines offenses and penalties, and states that “no term of imprisonment imposed on a person under this subsection shall run concurrently with any other term of imprisonment imposed on the person.” Subsection (j), which was added more recently, outlines other offenses and corresponding penalties. It does not include language about forbidding concurrent sentences.

District courts generally have discretion as to whether prison sentences run concurrently or consecutively. Some laws forbid concurrent sentences in certain cases.
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Lora and three others who trafficked cocaine murdered a rival drug dealer in 2002 in New York City over a dispute regarding territory.

When handing down Lora’s sentence, U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe, a George W. Bush appointee, cited a law that bars concurrent sentences for crimes that include one of the crimes for which Lora was convicted. He sentenced Lora to 25 years in prison for the conspiracy count, followed by five more years for the other crime. An appeals court affirmed the decision.

Lora argued that his sentences could have run concurrently, arguing that the aiding and abetting offense was not covered by the law Gardephe cited.
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“Combining the two subsections would set them on a collision course; indeed, in some cases, the maximum sentence would be lower than the minimum sentence,” she also said.

The ruling vacated the prison term and remanded the case for new sentencing.

Chaos Erupts on House Floor as Democrats Protest
Republican Censure of Adam Schiff

The House voted to censure Schiff a week after an initial resolution brought forward by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) was tabled. An earlier clause fining Schiff $16 million—half of the amount paid by the federal government to investigate debunked claims of Russian collusion with President Donald Trump in 2016—was removed, leading Republicans who initially voted against the measure to give it their support.

The tally was 213-209. Six voted “present.”

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who gave his backing to the measure, presided over the hearing.

A censure resolution is a punitive action that can be undertaken by the House to discipline members for actions that fall short of grounds for expulsion from the lower chamber. Schiff is only the 25th member of the House in American history to face such an action out of over 10,505 who have served in the lower chamber.
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After the House voted to censure Schiff, Schiff was asked to come to the House Well to have the charges against him read aloud.
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After this outburst, McCarthy banged the speaker’s gavel and called for order in the lower chamber to no avail, as Democrats continued to chant.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former speaker of the House, could be seen among the throng of Democrats joining in the chant.
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McCarthy continued to read the resolution, ignoring Democrat interruptions: ” … the House of Representatives censures Adam Schiff, representative of the 30th congressional district of California, for misleading the American public, and for conduct unbecoming of an elected member of the House of Representatives, that Adam Schiff will forthwith present himself in the Well of the House for the pronouncement of censure, that Adam Schiff will be censured with a public reading of this resolution by the speaker, and that the Committee on Ethics shall conduct an investigation on Adam Schiff’s falsehoods, misrepresentations, and abuse of sensitive information.”

US ‘Working to Disrupt’ Chinese Expansion
in Cuba: State Department

“Broadly, we are monitoring and responding to any PRC [People’s Republic of China] attempts to expand its military or security presence around the world, and we watch how potential PRC actions may impact the United States,” the department’s principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told The Epoch Times in a press briefing.

The Chinese communist regime, he said, will “keep trying to enhance its presence in Cuba and we will keep working to disrupt it.”

“Our experts assess that our diplomatic efforts have slowed the PRC down, and there, of course, continue to still be challenges, but we continue to be concerned about the PRC’s longstanding activities with Cuba.”

Patel made the remarks as reports suggest the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is actively trying to bolster its surveillance capacity on the island, located just some 100 miles off the coast of Florida, which houses a number of U.S. military installations.

U.S. intelligence from the Trump administration showed staffers from blacklisted Chinese telecom companies, Huawei and ZTE, going in and out of facilities suspected of hosting the CCP’s spying operations in Cuba, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources.
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“This is something we’re going to be monitoring very, very closely, and we’ve been very clear about that. And we will protect our homeland; we will protect our interests,” Blinken said.