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An Indian court found a former state lawmaker from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party guilty on Monday of raping a teenager, the politician's lawyer said, in a high profile case that had helped fuel public anger over sexual violence against women. Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who was a legislator in India's most populous northern state of Uttar Pradesh, was convicted by the court in Delhi under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, lawyer Tanveer Ahmed Mir said.

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 06:10:10 -0500

A Philippine court threw out a high-profile, 32-year-old forfeiture case on Monday involving the family of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, citing insufficient evidence to order the return of $3.9 billion of allegedly ill-gotten wealth. The country's anti-graft court decided in favor of the Marcoses for the fourth time since August, with judges ruling that photocopied documents could not be used as evidence, so the case would not proceed. It has been referred to widely as the "mother" of cases in a three-decade effort by a special presidential panel to recover an estimated $10 billion allegedly siphoned off by Marcos and a family that had lived lavishly during his 20 years in power, 14 of which were ruled under martial law.

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 05:14:01 -0500

The House minority leader has brought his hard-line critics into the fold. For now.

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 05:03:37 -0500

The newly passed House bill allowing Medicare negotiations on drug prices is a first step toward taming Big Pharma and broader corporate abuse.

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 05:00:21 -0500

The House Judiciary Committee released its full 658-page report on the impeachment of President Donald Trump in the early hours of Monday, ahead of consideration by the full House later this week.The report explains the decision to charge Trump with two articles of impeachment—abuse of power and obstruction of justice. It also includes reports previously issued from the House Intelligence Committee that lay out the evidence against the president, and the Judiciary Committee’s explanation of the constitutional grounds for impeachment.The committee, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), uses part one of four of the report to detail the process it used in its investigation against Trump. Part two examines the grounds for the impeachment as laid out in the Constitution.The third part explores the Democrats’ case that Trump abused the power of his office to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate his domestic political rival—former Vice President Joe Biden—ahead of the 2020 election. Part four of the report makes the case that the president obstructed Congress’ ability to hold his administration accountable by refusing to comply with requests for documents and testimony.The report states: “President Trump also attempted to muzzle witnesses, threatening to damage their careers if they agreed to testify, and even attacked one witness during her live testimony before Congress.”The committee concludes “the articles charge that President Trump has placed his personal, political interests above our national security, our free and fair elections, and our systems of checks and balances. He has engaged in a pattern of misconduct that will continue if left unchecked. Accordingly, President Trump should be impeached and removed from office.”Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, wrote that the articles failed to establish any impeachable offense, and argued that “an accusation of abuse of power must be based on a higher and more concrete standard than conduct that ‘ignored and injured the interests of the Nation.’”The release came as the House prepares to consider the two articles of impeachment, expected be voted on this Wednesday.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 04:42:29 -0500