August, 2019

A large group of FBI officers were seen disembarking speedboats at the pier of Little St James on Monday morning and driving around on golf carts after the 66-year-old was found dead by suicide in his New York jail cell early on Saturday morning. Other officials with 'FBI' lettering on clear display were later seen overlooking the crystal blue sea from the top of Epstein's remote luxury home off the coast of St Thomas.

Federal agents, including FBI and CBP were seen on the dock and grounds of Little Saint James, the island owned by accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The U.S. Attorney's Office and SDNY declined to comment on the operation. https://t.co/euCLwh7rKi pic.twitter.com/leAKQqgruA

— ABC News (@ABC) August 12, 2019

scientists and doctors in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been running a clinical trial of new drugs to try to combat a year-long Ebola outbreak. On Monday, the trial’s co-sponsors at the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health announced that two of the experimental treatments appear to dramatically boost survival rates. While an experimental vaccine had previously been shown to shield people from catching Ebola, the announcement marks a first for people who have already been infected. “From now on, we will no longer say that Ebola is incurable,” said Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director general of the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale, in the DRC, which has overseen the trial’s operations on the ground.

Twelve more people were recorded dead from the storm, seven from Zhejiang province and five from Shandong, and 16 people were missing, according to data from provincial emergency bureaus and state media. The state broadcaster CCTV had put the death toll at 32 on Sunday. Typhoon Lekima made landfall early Saturday in Zhejiang province, with winds gusting up to 115 mph. The center of the storm has since traveled north through Shandong and off the coast.

Federal prosecutors announced Monday they would unseal a new indictment against a pal of Betts. The Dayton Daily News identified the man as Ethan Kollie, 24, who was arrested Friday night... Kollie allegedly purchased Betts’ body armor, as well as the 100-round double drum magazine that helped him mow down nine people in under 30 seconds.

The “public charge” regulation — pushed by White House senior adviser Stephen Miller and other hard-line officials — is the latest part of President Donald Trump’s vast immigration crackdown. While Trump has railed against migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, the new regulation represents his most ambitious effort yet to restrict legal immigration as he gears up for his 2020 reelection campaign. Acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli praised the regulatory change at a White House press briefing Monday morning.

Ghislaine Maxwell was last night reported to be ready to co-operate with the American authorities in their ongoing investigation into Prince Andrew’s late friend Jeffrey Epstein... ‘They are going to want to hold somebody to account and there is going to be enormous pressure on Maxwell as she has been accused of being heavily involved with Epstein,’ he said. ‘I would imagine she is petrified’... The suggestion that Miss Maxwell, 58, will assist the criminal case presents a further dramatic twist in a story which threatens to do yet more damage to the Royal Family’s public image. It was Prince Andrew’s ex-wife, Sarah, who first introduced him to ‘Good Time Ghislaine’, as her friends called her... But, she and the Duke of York were not in a romantic relationship. Indeed, as his new found confidante and social fixer she was far, far more important to him than that.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government set aside about $100 million to purchase to weapons when they pushed through legislation in April to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons. The bill passed after the March 15 shootings at two Christchurch mosques that killed 52 people... The buyback program launched in mid-July. A total of 10,242 firearms have been handed into police...

The most meteors are most likely to fall in the predawn hours on August 13, yet under the light of a bright waxing gibbous moon... Although the brighter Perseids will overcome the moonlight, there’s nothing like a dark sky for meteor watching. In dark skies – no moon and no city lights – the Perseids have been known to usher in 50 to 60 meteors per hour, or more, at their peak.

Gold is having its best year since 2016, soaring over 17% year-to-date, outpacing stocks, bonds, and the dollar. And Gold is strong and getting stronger.

“We’re now going from trade wars almost into currency wars,” said Whitney George, president of Sprott Inc., a precious metals-focused fund. “Gold is a currency, but it’s nobody’s obligation, so it will stand tallest when everyone else is trying to debase their currency to be competitive globally.”

The Trump administration on Monday rolled out some of the broadest changes in decades to enforcement of the landmark Endangered Species Act, allowing the government to put an economic cost on saving a species and other changes critics contend could speed extinction for some struggling plants and animals. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and other administration officials contend the changes improve efficiency of oversight , while protecting rare species.

Jeffrey Epstein’s legal team reportedly requested the wealthy financier be taken off suicide watch weeks before guards found him dead in his cell... Epstein’s lawyers requested that Epstein be taken off suicide watch, which requires around the clock surveillance of an inmate, in late July, according to the Wall Street Journal. Epstein was placed on the list after guards found him lying in his cell nearly unconscious with marks on his neck on July 23.

In 2016, Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab was arrested for overseeing a massive money laundering scheme and evading sanctions with Iran... Zarrab testified that he was attacked by another prisoner wielding a knife who said he was told to kill Zarrab for cooperating with prosecutors. Former CIA employee Joshua Schulte, 30, who is accused of leaking highly classified information to Wikileaks was being held at MCC when it was discovered that he managed to have multiple cell phones in his cell, including one that was heavily encrypted. He reportedly maintained multiple emails and had communicated with third parties outside the jail. In January, former MCC security guard Victor Casado was sentenced to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to taking more than $25,000 in bribes for smuggling contraband like cell phones to Zarrab. Another correctional officer at MCC, Dario Quirumbay, was arrested last year for smuggling contraband into the jail in exchange for bribes.

A hulking ex-cop facing the death penalty on federal murder and drug charges was reportedly Jeffrey Epstein's cellmate at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center — and an official says Epstein feared might've the former police officer, who was questioned after the disgraced financier's apparent suicide attempt last month and who was transferred out of Epstein's cell shortly before the 66-year-old died early Saturday.

Nicholas Tartaglione, who'd been a Briarcliffe Manor cop in Westchester County, N.Y., was charged in 2016 with the deaths of four men stemming from an alleged cocaine drug conspiracy. Epstein was housed at the MCC federal lockup with the 51-year-old former cop after his July arrest for sex trafficking, Tartaglione's attorney told Fox News on Monday.

Tartaglione was transferred out of Epstein's cell in the facility's Special Housing Unit — a heavily secured part of the MCC that separates high-profile inmates from the general population — after Epstein was placed on suicide watch, Tartaglione's attorney, Bruce Barket, said. It was not clear why he was transferred.

The most recent inmate assigned to Epstein's cell was transferred on Friday, just hours before his death, a source said.

Wasserman Schultz, whose southern district is less than an hour from Epstein’s Palm Beach estate, said in a Sunday letter obtained by the Washington Examiner that a probe into Epstein’s apparent suicide was not sufficient because “it will not provide true independent accountability to those who survived his horrific crimes.” Wasserman Schultz said an inspector general investigation into Epstein’s death “may only quell the irresponsible conspiracy theories President Trump peddles” but lamented it wouldn’t provide true accountability against everyone who dropped the ball regarding Epstein’s criminality.

Bill Cosby's effort to erase his conviction for sexual assault goes before a Pennsylvania appellate panel Monday for a hearing expected to focus on whether the trial judge made prejudicial errors or properly allowed testimony about Cosby's "decades-long pattern" of sexual misconduct... The hearing will be before a three-judge panel and it could be short: Typically, each side gets about 15 minutes to make its case – but that counts the questions the judges may ask. Interruptions can be expected, shortening even more the time each side has to argue.