EXCLUSIVE Travelers Rest is haunted by Brooke's death. Now her boyfriend's been killed and the town faces an evil reality: 'These mountains have eyes'
The person on the end of the line had news: A 42-year-old man had been found dead from a suspected drug overdose inside a home in the small South Carolina town.
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The Independent
28 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump weaponization czar urged New York Attorney General James to resign over mortgage probe
President Donald Trump's political weaponization czar sent a letter urging New York Attorney General Letitia James to resign from office 'as an act of good faith' four days after starting his mortgage fraud investigation of her. Then he showed up outside her house. Ed Martin, the director of the Justice Department's Weaponization Working Group, told James' lawyer on Aug. 12 the Democrat would best serve the 'good of the state and nation' by resigning and ending his probe into alleged paperwork discrepancies on her Brooklyn townhouse and a Virginia home. 'Her resignation from office would give the people of New York and America more peace than proceeding," Martin wrote. "I would take this as an act of good faith.' Then last Friday, Martin turned up outside James' Brooklyn townhouse in a 'Columbo'-esque trench coat, accompanied by an aide and New York Post journalists. He didn't meet with James or go inside the building. A Post writer saw him tell a neighbor: 'I'm just looking at houses, interesting houses. It's an important house.' James' lawyer Abbe Lowell shot back on Monday, telling Martin in a letter his blunt request for James' resignation defied Justice Department standards and codes of professional responsibility and legal ethics. The Justice Department 'has firm policies against using investigations and against using prosecutorial power for achieving political ends,' Lowell wrote. 'This is ever more the case when that demand is made to seek political revenge against a public official in the opposite party.' 'Let me be clear: that will not happen here,' Lowell added. Lowell also blasted Martin's visit to James' home as a 'truly bizarre, made-for-media stunt' and said it was 'outside the bounds' of Justice Department rules. He included an image from security camera footage showing Martin, in his trench coat, posing for a photo in front of James' townhouse. He said Martin looked as if he were on a 'visit to a tourist attraction.' The Associated Press obtained copies of both letters on Tuesday. A message seeking comment was left for Martin's spokesperson. James' office declined to comment. The letters were the latest salvos in a monthslong drama involving Trump's retribution campaign against James and others who've battled him in court and fought his policies. James has sued the Republican president and his administration dozens of times and last year won a $454 million judgment against Trump and his companies in a lawsuit alleging he lied about the value of his assets on financial statements given to banks. An appeals court has yet to rule on Trump's bid to overturn that verdict. Earlier this month, the AP reported, the Justice Department subpoenaed James for records related to the civil fraud lawsuit and a lawsuit she filed against the National Rifle Association. Martin's investigation stems from a letter Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi in April asking her to investigate and consider prosecuting James, alleging she had 'falsified bank documents and property records." Pulte, whose agency regulates mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, cited 'media reports' claiming James had falsely listed a Virginia home as her principal residence, and he suggested she may have been trying to avoid higher interest rates that often apply to second homes. Records show James was listed as a co-borrower on a house her niece was buying in 2023. Lowell said records and correspondence easily disproved Pulte's allegation. While James signed a power-of-attorney form that, Lowell said, 'mistakenly stated the property to be Ms. James' principal residence," she sent an email to her mortgage loan broker around the same time that made clear the property 'WILL NOT be my primary residence.' Pulte also accused James of lying in property records about the number of apartments in the Brooklyn townhouse she has owned since 2001. A certificate of occupancy issued to a previous owner authorized up to five units in the building, where James lives and has rented out apartments. Other city records show the townhouse has four units, a number James has listed in building permit applications and mortgage documents. On Aug. 8, Bondi appointed Martin, a former Republican political operative, to investigate. Martin, the current U.S. pardon attorney and former acting U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., is also investigating mortgage fraud allegations against Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Schiff's lawyer called the allegations 'transparently false, stale, and long debunked." Lowell said it appears the working group Martin leads 'is aptly named as it is 'weaponizing'" the Justice Department "to carry out the President's and Attorney General's threats.'
The Independent
28 minutes ago
- The Independent
Gunmen kill at least 13 people in a mosque shooting in northwestern Nigeria
Gunmen attacked a mosque in northwestern Nigeria on Tuesday morning, killing at least 13 people during morning prayers, local authorities said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the town of Unguwan Mantau, in the state of Katsina, but such attacks are common in Nigeria's northwestern and north-central regions where local herders and farmers often clash over limited access to land and water. The attacks have killed and injured scores — last month, an attack in north-central Nigeria killed 150 people. The prolonged conflict has become deadlier in recent years, with authorities and analysts warning that more herdsmen are taking up arms. The state's commissioner, Nasir Mu'azu, said the army and police have deployed in the area of Unguwan Mantau to prevent further attacks, adding that gunmen often hide among the crops out in farms during the rainy season to carry out assaults on communities. He added that the mosque attack was likely in retaliation for an action Unguwan Mantau townspeople who over the weekend ambushed and killed several of the gunmen in the area. Dozens of armed groups take also advantage of the limited security presence in Nigeria's mineral-rich regions, carrying out attacks on villages and along major roads. The farmers accuse the herders, mostly of Fulani origin, of grazing their livestock on their farms and destroying their produce. The herders insist that the lands are grazing routes that were first backed by law in 1965, five years after the country gained its independence. Separately from the conflict between farming and herding communities, Nigeria is battling to contain an insurgency against Boko Haram in the northeast, where some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million displaced, according to the United Nations.
Telegraph
29 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Confidence in police plummets to record low
Victim satisfaction with how police handle crime in England and Wales has dropped to a record low, a new survey has suggested. The number of people who reported seeing officers regularly on the beat in their neighbourhood was also at its lowest level since records began, while confidence in the criminal justice system continued to decline. The findings have been published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) who used data from its long-running annual crime survey of people aged 16 and over. Some 51 per cent of respondents, who had been a victim of crime in the 12 months to March this year, said they were either very or fairly satisfied with how the police handled the matter. That was down from 55 per cent in the previous year, and the lowest figure since this question was first asked in 1992. Satisfaction rose steadily between 2006/07 and 2013/14 to a peak of 75 per cent, but has since been on a general downward trend. The ONS found differences in victim satisfaction in how crimes were dealt with by crime type, ranging from 62 per cent for domestic burglary and 58 per cent for violence, to 41 per cent for bicycle theft and just 26 per cent for theft from the person. Younger people were also less likely to be satisfied with the police response than the elderly. The proportion of incidents where the victim was satisfied with how the police dealt with the matter was higher when the offender was charged (95 per cent) compared with when no action was taken (36 per cent), and where the victim was kept informed by the police (77 per cent) compared with where the victim was not kept informed well (19 per cent). On the topic of police visibility, 11 per cent of respondents in the year to March reported seeing officers or community support officers on foot patrol in their local area once a week. This was down from 12 per cent in the previous year and is the lowest since this question was first asked in 2006/07, when it stood at 26 per cent. The figure peaked at 39 per cent in both 2009/10 and 2010/11, since when it has been on a continuous downward trend. People living in urban areas were more likely to report high police visibility (13 per cent) compared with rural areas (four per cent), while those aged 65 to 74 (four per cent) and 75 and over (seven per cent) were less likely to report this compared with other age groups. Some 49 per cent of all respondents gave their local police a positive rating in 2024/25, unchanged on the previous 12 months but down from 62 per cent a decade earlier. People from ethnic minorities were more likely to rate their local police positively than white people, while those who were aged 55 to 64 (44 per cent) and 65 to 74 (43 per cent) were less likely to provide a positive rating compared with other age groups. When asked whether they were confident the criminal justice system as a whole was effective, 48 per cent of survey respondents said they had confidence, down from 50 per cent the previous year and the lowest figure since 2012/13. Confidence rose from 38 per cent in 2008/09 to peak at 54 per cent in 2015/16, since when there has been a gradual decline. People aged 16 to 24 were more likely to report being confident in the effectiveness of the criminal justice system (61 per cent) than all other age groups, while people born in the UK were less likely to be confident (43 per cent) than those born outside the country (65 per cent).
