Florida shooting: NRA-linked firms hit by consumer boycott
Several US companies have cut ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA) amid calls for a boycott of businesses linked to the powerful gun lobby in the wake of the Florida school shooting.
The firms include car rental giants Hertz and Enterprise, which had offered discounts for NRA members.
The murder of 17 people has prompted renewed calls for tighter gun controls.
Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott has backed calls to raise the minimum age for buying a gun from 18 to 21.
Mr Scott has been widely seen as an ally of the NRA who has previously opposed stricter laws in the state. However, he has come under mounting pressure to respond to the demands of students who survived the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
UN security council fails to agree on Syria ceasefire after second day of talks
Negotiations follow appeal by Macron and Merkel urging Putin to stop blocking resolution
Julian Borger in Washington and Martin Chulov in Beirut
The UN security council failed to agree after a second day of intensive talks on a proposed 30-day ceasefire across Syria to allow for emergency humanitarian deliveries and medical evacuations.
Backroom negotiations continued throughout the day on Friday. One deadline passed after another, as other council members tried to persuade Russia to agree to a resolution. The talks at the UN headquarters in New York followed an appeal by French and German leaders to Vladimir Putin, asking for Russia to stop blocking the measure’s passage, pointing to the dire situation of the trapped civilian population in the rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus.
European politicians got millions to lobby for pro-Russian government in Ukraine
A new indictment has accused former Trump aide Paul Manafort of paying some $2 million to European politicians to support a pro-Russian government in Ukraine. The lobbying group was led by a "former European chancellor."
US President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort paid a group of unnamed European politicians $2 million (€1.6 million) to lobby for a pro-Russian government in Ukraine, according to an indictment filed by US special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday.
The superseding indictment accused Manafort of wiring the money to the politicians — collectively called the "Habsburg group" — in 2012 and 2013 to give "independent assessments" favorable of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's government.
The group was meant to "act informally and without any visible relationship" to the Ukraine government, a memorandum written by Manafort in June 2012 read.
Congolese politician put on trial in his sickbed
A strange scene took place on February 20 in the Ngaliema clinic in Kinshasa when an entire court of law came to the hospital room of opposition politician Gérard "Gecoco" Mulumba to try him for allegedly "insulting the president.” Photos of the trial were widely shared on social media, where they were both criticised and ridiculed.
Mulumba, a member of parliament from the opposition party UDPS (Union for Democracy and Social Progress or, in French, “Union pour la démocratie et le progrès social”), was sentenced for "insulting the president” three months after he was arrested by the country’s security forces at the Ndjili International Airport in Kinshasa.
According to Mulumba’s lawyer, Léon Ngombwa, this trial was pure “persecution from those in power, who wanted to condemn [Mulumba] in any way possible, even through a trial that isn’t actually a trial.”
Trump announces new North Korea sanctions
Updated 0500 GMT (1300 HKT) February 24, 2018
President Donald Trump announced Friday that the US Treasury Department is imposing new sanctions against North Korea specifically targeting the country's shipping and trading companies and vessels in an effort to further isolate the rogue regime.
Senior administration officials told reporters on Friday that Trump would discuss new sanctions on North Korea during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference and touted the sanctions as the headline of the of the speech.
But it took the President nearly 80 minutes to mention the sanctions -- which he did only briefly -- at the end of his free-wheeling speech.
OXYCONTIN MAKER QUIETLY WORKED TO WEAKEN LEGAL DOCTRINE THAT COULD LEAD TO JAIL TIME FOR EXECUTIVES
PURDUE PHARMA, THE maker of Oxycontin, revolutionized the opioid industry through aggressive marketing tactics that encouraged the widespread use of prescription painkillers.
That part, by now, is well known, as an out-of-control opioid epidemic ravages a generation of young people with such potency that it has dragged down the overall life expectancy of the American people. What has not been previously revealed is that as the death toll mounted, officials at the company attempted to work behind-the-scenes to make it less likely that they could ever be successfully prosecuted for the carnage opioids were unleashing.
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