Hunt for Tube hero who gave blind man his shoes after he lost one through the gap The hunt is on find an ‘absolute hero’

Get you up to speed: Watch Live: Jack Smith testifies on Trump probes at Senate hearing

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., Senator Eric Schmitt questioned former Special Counsel Jack Smith about his alleged attendance at an NBA game in Atlanta on February 3, 2024. Smith denied attending the game, stating he was present at a women’s college basketball match in College Park, Maryland, while Schmitt displayed text messages suggesting otherwise.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis conducted an investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia but has not disclosed when the findings will be made public. A U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on this matter took place on September 29, 2026, during which Smith was asked about his whereabouts in early February 2024.

Sen. Eric Schmitt has indicated plans to provide follow-up information regarding the text messages he presented, which he claims contradict Jack Smith’s testimony about his whereabouts in February 2024. Sen. Amy Klobuchar has called for an apology from Schmitt, stating that his confusion over the name of a basketball team has led to unjust implications.

What remains unclear — It is uncertain whether the text messages displayed by Sen. Schmitt about Smith’s alleged attendance at the NBA game will be made public.

Jack Smith testifies at Senate hearing regarding Trump investigations

Smith was pressed by Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, about whether he attended a NBA game between the Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors in Atlanta in early February 2024.

Schmitt said Smith’s alleged attendance at the game would be significant because the game occurred around the time that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis revealed she had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, whom she hired as a special prosecutor to work on an investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.

Smith said he did not attend that game, but may have flown through Atlanta on the way to Florida. Still, he told senators he “definitely did not go” to an Atlanta Hawks game.

The former special counsel also said he never met Wade or Willis while he was special counsel.

Schmitt then displayed a poster board with text messages from members of Smith’s team, including one asking if “109 Row 1” was reserved for Smith. Schmitt said the messages showed Smith was in Atlanta and attended the NBA game on Feb. 3, 2024.

Jack Smith testifies at Senate hearing regarding Trump investigations

The poster showing the text messages.

SAUL LOEB /AFP via Getty Images


“I don’t think you know that we have this stuff, so I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t, you know, perjure yourself,” Schmitt told Smith.

But the poster board on display was quickly taken down by Schmitt’s staff and Smith asked to see it again.

Schmitt said he would put the information “in a follow-up.”

“I think you’ve already perjured yourself,” the senator said, calling Smith a “total dirtbag.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, continued to push for a copy of the text messages referenced by Schmitt and said Smith should be given the opportunity to see them.

When the poster with the texts was displayed again, Smith said he did attend a women’s college basketball game in early February 2024 between the University of Maryland Terrapins and the University of Iowa Hawkeyes to see Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark play.

That game took place in College Park, Maryland. Klobuchar suggested that Schmitt was mistaking the Hawkeyes for the Atlanta Hawks.

“For a U.S. senator to have false information and imply, based on a confusion about the name of a team, which I knew, knowing my Midwestern sports, and imply that you were in another city, that you were somehow involved that day in what was happening in Georgia, and then call you a dirtbag is something that deserves an apology,” Klobuchar said.

‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents

A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.

Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.

She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.

In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.

“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”

She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.

McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”

She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”

At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.

McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.

The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.

But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.

The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.

Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.

It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.

Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.

“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”

She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/virginia-mccullough-arrest-video-murder-parents-chelmsford-b2627978.html

Sarah Wilkinson
Sarah Wilkinson@swilkinsonbc
To downplay the genocide, the israelis claim there’s only 20,000 people left in north Gaza, says @MahaGaza : the real number exceeds 400,000
Carol Voderman
Carol Voderman@carolvorders
Man of the right wing Nigel Farage taking more second jobs and freebie helicopter rides Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate Or far far worse
Zarah Sultana
Zarah Sultana@ZarahSultana
The cost-of-living crisis is far from over, yet the government’s 50% increase to the bus fare cap is a political choice, adding hundreds to annual costs. To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.

Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.

The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.

During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.

Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.

Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.

Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.

Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.

The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.

At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.

“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.

The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.

It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.

The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.

Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.

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