No Labels national director vows to endorse, vote for Joe Biden
The national director of No Labels, the third-party group which on Thursday said it would not run a candidate in the US presidential election, will now vote for Joe Biden, not Donald Trump.
“Me, as a person?” Joe Cunningham told Fox News. “I would vote for Biden over Trump.”
Cunningham did not elaborate. He was also offered the chance to choose Robert F Kennedy Jr, the vaccine sceptic and conspiracy theorist running as an independent.
Asked why No Labels gave up on its quest, for which it said it raised $60m and secured ballot access in key states, Cunningham said: “No Labels was looking for a hero and a hero never emerged.
“We’ve been very straightforward and upfront and honest with the American public that we were gonna field this ticket if two conditions were met. Number one, if Americans wanted another option, which is definitely, box is checked.”
Biden and Trump are indeed historically unpopular. Kennedy has polled in double figures. But amid a barrage of warnings that a No Labels candidate stood to damage Biden most, amid warnings of Trump’s threat to US democracy, the group ultimately gave up on its search.
“Number two,” Cunningham said, “if we’re able to find candidates that we believe have a pathway to victory. And that’s where we ran into the trouble. At the end of the day, we weren’t able to find candidates we felt had a straightforward path of victory.”
Candidates courted reportedly included Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who opposed Trump longest in the Republican primary; Larry Hogan, the former Maryland governor now running for US Senate; Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who ran an explicitly anti-Trump Republican primary campaign; and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a former wrestler and Hollywood action star.
No Labels also suffered a major blow last week with the death at 82 of its founding chair, Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic and independent senator and vice-presidential nominee.
“The establishment does not reward dissent,” Cunningham said. “So we found it difficult to find the leaders to step up with the courage to be able to say, ‘OK, we are putting our country first, and, you know, damn the consequences within our respective parties.’”
Groups opposed to the No Labels’ third-party effort celebrated its climbdown.
Matt Bennett, of the centre-left group Third Way, said: “A year and a half ago, we were the first to warn that No Labels’ presidential bid was doomed, dangerous, and would divide the anti-Trump coalition. Joined by a wide array of allies, we waged a campaign to dissuade any serious candidate from joining their ticket.
“We are deeply relieved that everyone rejected their offer, forcing them to stand down. While the threat of third-party spoilers remains, this uniquely damaging attack on President Biden and Democrats from the centre has at last ended.”
But another No Labels official, Andy Bursky, told the Wall Street Journal the group might try again in four years’ time.
“I wouldn’t rule anything out,” Bursky said. “The organisation has not been beaten by this effort, it has been strengthened by this effort.”
Ukraine war: Six Russian planes destroyed by drones— Kyiv
Ukraine has carried out a drone attack against targets in southern Russia, and claims to have destroyed six Russian planes at an airbase in Rostov region.
Security sources told BBC Ukrainian eight more aircraft were badly damaged, and 20 service personnel could have been killed or injured.
The Morozovsk base houses Su-27 and Su-34 aircraft used on the front line in Ukraine, the sources said.
There has been no word from Russia on reports of an airfield attack.
The BBC has been unable to independently verify the reports.
However, Russian officials said that more than 40 drones had been aimed at the region, which borders Ukraine.
BBC Russian military analyst Pavel Aksyonov says an attack by so many drones over a short space of time could have overwhelmed air defences.
The Russian defence ministry said Saratov, Kursk, Belgorod and Krasnodar regions had also been targeted. It said all the drones were shot down.
In Rostov’s Morozovsk district, an electrical substation was hit, leaving about 600 people without power for a few hours, Rostov Governor Vasily Golubev said on his Telegram channel.
He added that there had been some damage to a 16-storey residential block.
In a later post, he said eight people had been injured by explosives detonating on one of the fallen drones during an investigation of the site “not far from the aerodrome”.
Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on targets within Russia recently, targeting military and energy facilities.
It has warned repeatedly that its army is facing severe ammunition shortages, but has set a target of producing a million drones domestically this year.
On Tuesday it claimed responsibility for a drone attack in Tatarstan, more than 1,300km (807 miles) from the Ukraine-Russia border.
The strikes, targeting a drone factory and an oil refinery, are the deepest into Russian territory since the start of the war. Twelve people were reported injured.
Zimbabwe launches new gold-backed currency
Zimbabwe’s central bank launched a new “structured currency” backed by gold on Friday, as it seeks to tackle sky-high inflation and stabilise the country’s long-floundering economy.
The ZiG — short for Zimbabwe Gold — will replace the Zimbabwean dollar which has tumbled in value over the past year, pushing inflation through the roof, Reserve Bank governor John Mushayavanhu said.
“With effect from today… banks shall convert the current Zimbabwe dollar balances into the new currency,” he said, presenting a monetary policy statement.
The ZiG will be “fully anchored and fully backed” by a basket of reserves comprising foreign currency and precious metals — mainly gold, he added.
The move is aimed at fostering “simplicity, certainty, (and) predictability” in Zimbabwe’s financial affairs, he added, presenting the new banknotes that come in eight denominations ranging from 1 to 200 ZiG.
The Zimbabwean dollar has lost almost 100 percent of its value against the US greenback over the past year.
On Friday, it was officially trading at around 30,000 against its more coveted US counterpart — and at 40,000 on the black market, according to tracker Zim Price Check.
Its poor performance contributed to the southern African country’s high inflation rate, which after climbing well into the triple digits last year, was at 55 percent in March, according to official data.
This has piled pressure on its 16 million people who are already contending with widespread poverty, high unemployment and a severe drought induced by the El Nino weather pattern.
Zimbabweans have 21 days to convert their old cash into new money, Mushayavanhu said.
– More gold needed? –
The new banknotes feature a drawing of gold ingots being minted as well as Zimbabwe’s famous Balancing Rocks, which already appeared on the old ones.
Zimbabwe boasts vast gold deposits, with the precious metal accounting for almost 25 percent of all exports in January, according to official data.
But analysts have questioned whether Harare has enough reserves to adequately back the currency, and if the latter could suffer from volatility in gold prices.
On Thursday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa inspected the central bank’s vaults that Mushayavanhu — who was appointed earlier this year — said hold 1.1 tonnes of solid gold.
The bank also keeps other precious minerals such as diamonds that if converted into gold would account for another 0.4 tonnes, he added.
“We obviously need more,” said economist Prosper Chitambara, saying that other countries such as neighbouring South Africa had much larger reserves.
“The more the reserves, obviously, the more the confidence and the more your capacity to be able to defend your currency against any shocks.”
Reining in inflation also requires other reforms and for the government to curb public spending and limit money printing, he said.
Soaring prices have brought back memories of 2008, when hyperinflation was so out of control that the central bank even issued a 100-trillion-dollar note — now a collectors’ item.
The government was eventually forced to ditch the local currency and adopt the US dollar as legal tender.
The Zimbabwean dollar was revived in 2019, but it has suffered from much the same problems as its previous incarnation.
Most Zimbabweans prefer to do business, get paid and hold their savings in US dollars.
Many who earn a salary in local money rush to currency exchange shops on pay day.
The government has previously resorted to various expedients to stabilise the economy, including issuing gold coins and launching a gold-backed digital currency but they have yielded little results.
Weather tracker: flood warnings after heavy rain in south-eastern Australia
South-eastern Australia has been experiencing heavy rain since Thursday night, which will continue until Saturday morning local time. New South Wales will be particularly badly affected, with cumulative rainfall totals of 150-200m along coastal stretches.
Hourly totals are expected to reach 10-20mm at times, with the worst-affected areas potentially receiving 50mm within three hours. Strong winds are expected to accompany the heaviest downpours, with gusts of about 45mph (72km/h) at times.
Sydney is expected to be hit hard, and authorities have warned of life-threatening floods, notably along the Hawkesbury-Nepean River to the north-west of the city.
These conditions come as a result of cooler polar air moving in from the south meeting warmer tropical air to the north and forming a frontal boundary. This pattern repeated many times in 2022, Sydney’s wettest year on record.
After the main rain band has formed, an area of low pressure looks likely to develop around the Sydney region, further intensifying rainfall and increasing the risk of flooding. This low pressure will push southwards through the weekend, introducing rain and possibly thunderstorms to eastern Victoria, and potentially affecting the capital, Canberra.
Jiangxi province in China experienced severe thunderstorms last weekend, with frequent lightning, strong gusts and golf ball-sized hailstones. The winds reached category 12 on the local scale, equivalent to typhoon strength, which is unusual in inland parts of the country.
About 93,000 people were affected by these storms across nine cities. There were seven deaths, with local media reporting that three were due to people being blown from high-rise buildings. More than 2,500 homes were destroyed, and 800 people were displaced temporarily.
North-eastern areas of the US have also been experiencing unsettled weather. A storm pushed in from the south-west on Wednesday and Thursday, bringing gusts of more than 50mph and heavy rain. Flood warnings have been issued in many areas, and a number of homes are without power. The storm is forecast to move on to eastern Canada, and snow warnings have been issued for many areas with accumulations of 15-30cm possible.
Boy, 15, suffers cardiac arrest after attack outside school in France
A 15-year-old teenager has been badly beaten in a town south of Paris and taken to hospital after a cardiac arrest, in the latest incident of school violence in France.
Thursday’s attack comes at a time of heightened tensions around French schools. Earlier this week a teenage girl was temporarily left in a coma after being beaten outside her school in the south of the country.
In the latest incident, which occurred in the town of Viry-Châtillon, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Paris, the teenager was attacked by several people as he left school on Thursday afternoon.
The public prosecutor’s office said it had opened an attempted murder and gang assault investigation.
The schoolboy went into cardiorespiratory arrest, a police source said. He was taken to Necker hospital in Paris, said Jean-Marie Vilain, the mayor of Viry-Châtillon.
The assailants “tried to massacre him”, said Vilain, calling them “the worst kind of thugs”. “This extreme violence is becoming commonplace,” he added.
Psychological help would be provided to pupils and teachers at the school, the mayor said.
According to a police source, the teenager was beaten by several people who then fled. He was found in a street “not far from his school”, prosecutors said.
The school is located in a working-class district of Viry-Châtillon, home to about 30,000 people. No arrests had been made by Thursday evening.
On Tuesday, a teenage girl was attacked outside her school in the southern city of Montpellier. Prosecutors said the girl was “seriously injured”.
Three alleged attackers have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder of a minor. One of the accused is a girl from the same school.
Dozens of messages threatening attacks have been sent to schools around France in recent days.
Fugitive former US city councillor enlists with Russia for war in Ukraine
A former city councillor and member of the Massachusetts national guard who is wanted in the US on child sexual abuse image charges has fled the country and joined the Russian army fighting in Ukraine.
Wilmer Puello-Mota, 28, former city councillor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, went missing on 7 January, two days before he was scheduled to appear in court in Rhode Island in possession of child sexual abuse images and obstruction of justice charges.
This week, Puello-Mota resurfaced at an enlistment centre in the Russian region of Khanty-Mansiysk in western Siberia, where he was captured on film signing a military contract, seated in a room adorned with photographs of Vladimir Putin and the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu
“An American signed a military contract at the patriots centre in Khanty-Mansiysk,” reads a message accompanying the video published by the region’s official channel on Telegram.
Prior to signing the contract with the Russian military, Puello-Mota appears to have fought as a volunteer alongside Russian troops during Moscow’s capture of the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka in February.
That month, Russian pro-war channels circulated footage of a blurred figure in combat fatigues planting the US flag in the ruins of a Ukrainian city in support of Russia.
“I’m here to plant the US flag as a sign of friendship and support for all the things people are enduring here,” the person in the video said, his face blurred.
“I feel proud to be here.”
The Massachusetts-based newspaper the Republican said that people who know Puello-Mota had recognised his voice in the clip.
Appearing to confirm his participation in the battle for Avdiivka, Puello-Mota in the clip on Wednesday described previously fighting in Ukraine as part of the pro-Russian Pyatnashka international paramilitary group.
“I definitely would do it again,” he is heard saying.
Puello-Mota was first arrested in 2020 after police in Rhode Island discovered sexually explicit images of an underage girl on his phone. According to court documents, he told police that he thought the girl was 22, and only learned later that she was 17.
He was later charged with forgery, counterfeiting and obstruction of the judicial system after he allegedly told one of his commanders at the Massachusetts Air National Guard that the child sexual abuse image charges in Rhode Island were fake.
Puello-Mota is a former member of the 104th Fighter Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, according to the US regional Masslive outlet.
After failing to attend his court hearing, the Rhode Island attorney general’s office issued a statement saying Puello-Mota boarded a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul on 7 January.
“His whereabouts from that location are unknown,” the court said at the time.
Puello-Mota did not respond to a request for comment.
His Facebook page now features a picture of Puello-Mota in full military gear operating a drone while he lists his current job as the Russian defence ministry.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has introduced a series of laws to lure foreign citizens to join its ranks. Nationals from Cuba, Syria, Nepal and Serbia have all been deployed on the Russian side of the war.
But it is rare for fighters from the EU, UK or the US to join the Russian army. At least two British men are believed to be fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine.
Pro-war bloggers close to the Russian military and state media on Thursday made no mention of Puello-Mota’s fugitive status in the US, instead spinning his defection as a PR coup for Moscow.
“Will served in the US armed forces, but after realising what was really happening in Ukraine, he joined the war as a volunteer a few months ago. Together with the Russian guys, he liberated Avdeevka shoulder to shoulder,” the prominent pro-war blogger Yuri Kotenok wrote on telegram.
Another Russian report said: “[Puello-Mota] is staunchly convinced of the need to support Russia and admires the tenacity and heroism of our soldiers.”
