Netanyahu pleads not guilty at trial
JERUSALEM» Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pleaded not guilty Monday as his trial on corruption charges resumed in a Jerusalem courtroom just weeks before national elections in which he hopes to extend his 12-year rule.
Netanyahu was indicted last year for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. In recent months, Israelis have held weekly protests calling on him to resign over the charges and criticizing his government’s response to the coronavirus crisis. Protesters gathered outside the courthouse could be heard inside the room where the hearing was being held.
Man charged in Capitol riot worked for FBI, lawyer says.
WASHINGTON»A man who authorities say is a leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group and helped to organize a ring of other extremists and led them in the attack last month at the U.S. Capitol has held a top-secret security clearance for decades and previously worked for the FBI, his attorney said Monday.
Thomas Caldwell, who authorities believe holds a leadership role in the extremist group, worked as a section chief for the FBI from 2009 to 2010 after retiring from the Navy, his lawyer, Thomas Plofchan, wrote in a motion urging the judge to release him from jail while he awaits trial.
Rescuers in India digging for 37 trapped in glacier flood.
RUDRAPRAYAG» Rescuers in northern India worked Monday to rescue more than three dozen power plant workers trapped in a tunnel after part of a Himalayan glacier broke off and sent a wall of water and debris rushing down a mountain in a disaster that has left at least 26 people dead and 165 missing.
More than 2,000 members of the military, paramilitary groups and police have been taking part in search-and-rescue operations in the northern state of Uttarakhand after Sunday’s flood, which destroyed one dam, damaged another and washed homes downstream.
Officials said the focus was on saving 37 workers who are stuck inside a tunnel at one of the affected hydropower plants. Heavy equipment was brought in to help clear the way through a 1.5-mile-long tunnel and reach the workers, who have been out of contact since the flood.
U.S. plans to reengage with U.N. rights council.
WASHINGTON» The United States announced plans Monday to reengage with the much-maligned U.N. Human Rights Council that former President Donald Trump withdrew from almost three years ago, as the Biden administration reverses another Trump-era move away from multilateral organizations and agreements.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the pullout in June 2018 “did nothing to encourage meaningful change, but instead created a vacuum of U.S. leadership, which countries with authoritarian agendas have used to their advantage.”
Hackers tried to poison water supply.
Hackers remotely accessed the water treatment plant of a small Florida city last week and briefly changed the levels of lye in the drinking water, in the kind of critical infrastructure intrusion that cybersecurity experts have long warned about.
The attack in Oldsmar, a city of 15,000 people in the Tampa Bay area, was caught before it could inflict harm, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County said Monday. He said the level of sodium hydroxide — the main ingredient in drain cleaner — was changed from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million, dangerous levels that could have badly sickened residents if it had reached their homes.
Floods kill workers in house used as illegal factory.
RABAT, MOROCCO» At least 24 people died in a flooded house that was being used as a clandestine textile factory after torrential rains Monday in the northern Moroccan city of Tangier, the Moroccan interior ministry said in a statement.
Fox files motion to dismiss defamation suit.
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp. on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit brought against it last week by the election technology company Smartmatic, which accused Murdoch’s cable networks and three Fox anchors of spreading falsehoods that the company had tried to rig the presidential race against Donald Trump.