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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told US House lawmakers in New York on Thursday that she had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's or Ghislaine Maxwell's crimes, starting off two days of depositions that will also include former President Bill Clinton. "I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein," Hillary Clinton said in an opening statement she shared on social media. The closed-door depositions in the Clintons' hometown of Chappaqua, a typically quiet hamlet north of New York City, come after months of tense back-and-forth between the former high-powered Democratic couple and the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee. It will be the first time that a former president has been forced to testify before Congress. Yet the demand for a reckoning over Epstein's abuse of underage girls has become a near-unstoppable force on Capitol Hill and beyond. President Donald Trump, a Republican who has expressed regret that the ...
The Justice Department said Wednesday that it was looking into whether it improperly withheld documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files after several news organisations reported that some records involving uncorroborated accusations made by a woman against President Donald Trump were not among those released to the public. The announcement followed news reports saying that a massive tranche of records released by the Justice Department did not include several summaries of interviews that the FBI conducted with an unidentified woman who came forward after Epstein's 2019 arrest and claimed to have been sexually assaulted by both Trump and Epstein when she was a minor in the 1980s. "Several individuals and news outlets have recently flagged files related to documents produced to Ghislaine Maxwell in discovery of her criminal case that they claim appear to be missing," the Justice Department said in a post on X. "As with all documents that have been flagged by the public, the Department i
Pope Leo XIV on Saturday accepted the resignation of an ailing Spanish bishop who is under church investigation for allegedly sexually abusing a young seminarian in the 1990s, the first known time the new pontiff removed a bishop accused of abuse. A one-line statement from the Vatican said Leo had accepted the resignation of Cadiz Bishop Rafael Zornoza, 76. It didn't say why, but Zornoza submitted his resignation to the pope last year when he turned 75, the normal retirement age for bishops. It hadn't been accepted, though, until the El Pas newspaper reported earlier this month that Zornoza had been recently placed under investigation by a church tribunal. The daily, which since 2018 has exposed decades of abuse and cover-up in the Spanish Catholic Church, said Zornoza was accused of abusing a young former seminarian while he was a young priest and directed the diocesan seminary in Getafe. The report, quoting a letter the former seminarian wrote to the Vatican over the summer, said
Observing incestuous sexual violence by a parent "tears through" the foundational fabric of familial trust, the Supreme Court has upheld a man's punishment for raping his minor daughter. A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Sandeep Kumar called the dignity of women "non-negotiable" while asking the legal system not to permit repeated intrusion into that dignity under the "guise of misplaced sympathy" or purported "procedural fairness". Justice, the August 4 order said, must not be limited to conviction and must include restitution. The top court further directed Rs 10.50 lakh to be paid to the survivor as compensation under the state of Himachal Pradesh. "Incestuous sexual violence committed by a parent is a distinct category of offence that tears through the foundational fabric of familial trust and must invite the severest condemnation in both language and sentence. The home, which should be a sanctuary, cannot be permitted to become a site of unspeakable trauma, and the courts
Pope Leo XIV has said there should be no tolerance in the Catholic Church for any type of abuse sexual, spiritual or abuse of authority -- and called for transparent processes to create a culture of prevention across the church. Leo made his first public comments about the clergy sex abuse scandal in a written message to a Peruvian journalist who documented a particularly egregious case of abuse and financial corruption in a Peruvian-based Catholic movement, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae. The message was read out loud on Friday night in Lima during a performance of a play based on the Sodalitium scandal and the work of the journalist, Paola Ugaz. It is urgent to root in the whole church a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse - neither of power or authority, nor abuse of conscience, spiritual or sexual abuse, Leo said in the message. This culture will only be authentic if it is born of active vigilance, of transparent processes and sincere listening to .
Two women, including a 27-year-old Israeli tourist, were allegedly gang-raped and assaulted while stargazing near Hampi, police said on Saturday. Three male tourists who were with the women were also assaulted and pushed into a canal and one of them was found dead, they added. No arrests have been made yet, but efforts are underway to apprehend the three identified suspects, the police said. The incident occurred around 11 pm on Thursday. After dinner, a 29-year-old homestay operator, along with the Israeli tourist and three male tourists, was sitting by the left bank of the Tungabhadra Canal near Sanapur Lake, playing the guitar, enjoying music, and stargazing, police said. Among the male tourists, one was from the United States, while the others were from Odisha and Maharashtra, police said. According to police, in her complaint, the homestay operator alleged that while they were stargazing and playing music, three men on a motorcycle approached them, asking where they could get
The Bombay High Court on Monday said the trial in the last year's Badlapur school sexual assault case should be fast-tracked and conducted expeditiously as the victim girls are very young. In August last year, a male attendant sexually assaulted the two girls - aged four and five - inside the toilet of their school located in Badlapur area of Maharashtra's Thane district. He was arrested and later killed in a shootout with police when he was being taken from jail for questioning. The Special Investigation (SIT), set up by the Maharashtra government to conduct a probe into the case, has filed its chargesheet. The chargesheet was filed against the attendant, the school's headmaster and two members of its management for "failing to report" the sexual assault, as required under provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The high court took suo motu (on its own) cognisance of the incident after it came to light that the local Badlapur police had not take
Seven more people were arrested on Saturday for allegedly raping a Dalit girl, who is an athlete, at various locations when she was a minor, taking the total number of those apprehended so far to 13, police said here as the case sparked outrage. The girl, who is now 18 years old, has alleged in her complaint that she was sexually abused by 62 individuals since the age of 13. The police said that they received evidence indicating that the girl was exploited by her sports trainers, fellow athletes and classmates. Calling for immediate arrest of all the accused, the National Commission for Women (NCW) has sought a detailed action-taken report from authorities within three days and emphasised on a fair and time-bound investigation to deliver justice. The Kerala Women's Commission (KWC) has registered a case on its own and its chairperson P Sathi Devi has directed the Pathanamthitta Superintendent of Police to immediately submit a report in this regard, the Commission said in a ...