06/07/24 - The News

Friday, June 7, 2024

Hallie Biden admits to disposing of Hunter Biden's gun in testimony

June 07, 2024 0

Hallie Biden, who is also the widow of the defendant's late brother Beau, said that she had discovered the revolver amid piles of clothes and litter in the glove compartment of Hunter Biden's truck.



The Delaware court will begin hearing from two more witnesses on Friday as prosecutors present their remaining evidence to jurors.

It is unclear if Mr Biden himself will testify in what is the first trial for the son of a sitting US president.

The 54-year-old is accused of lying on a form about his drug use when he purchased the gun and ammunition on 12 October 2018 in Wilmington, Delaware. He could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Mr Biden has pleaded not guilty to three charges related to his possession of a firearm while allegedly using narcotics.

His defence team says he was in recovery at the time, so was truthful when he indicated on the paperwork that he was not a drug user.

On Thursday, the court heard from Hallie Biden, a central figure in the case who became romantically involved with the defendant shortly after the 2015 death of his brother and her husband.

Ms Biden, 50, told the court she was "embarrassed and ashamed" to have started smoking crack cocaine herself after Mr Biden introduced her to the drug.

In often emotional, detailed testimony, she spoke of the pair's "volatile" and "off-on" relationship, as well as their struggles with drug use and agonising battles to recover.

Ms Biden testified that she had stopped using the drug in August 2018, but that Hunter Biden had continued to use it.

Concerned after seeing Mr Biden looking "exhausted" and fearing he could have relapsed into crack use, Ms Biden told jurors she had searched his truck early on the morning of 23 October 2018 - something she had frequently done.

There, among piles of clothes and garbage, she had found "remnants" of crack cocaine as well as drug paraphernalia.

“Oh, and the gun, obviously," she added.

Almost instantly, she recalled, panic set in.

"I didn't want him to hurt himself, and I didn't want my kids to find it and hurt themselves," the mother-of-two said.

"I was afraid to kind of touch it. I didn't know it was loaded," Ms Biden added.

Fearful, she wrapped the .38 calibre Colt Cobra revolver into a leather pouch, stuffed it into a purple "little gift shopping bag" and drove to a nearby grocery store, where she threw it in a rubbish bin.

"I realise it was a stupid idea now," she said. "But I was panicking."

Initially, she did not plan to tell Mr Biden about what she had done. But when he woke up that morning, he realised it was missing.

"Did you take that from me Hallie," read one angry text shown to jurors. "You really need to help me think right now, Hallie. This is very serious."

At his urging, she returned to the store to find the gun but was unable to. She then filed a police report.

"I'll take the blame," she texted him from the scene. "I don't want to live like this."

It has previously emerged that the weapon was discovered by a man who often rummaged through the grocery store’s refuse to gather recyclable items.

Ms Biden also told the court that she had not see Mr Biden use crack cocaine in the days leading up to him buying the gun and her disposing of it.

As she testified, Hunter Biden appeared to look intently in her direction.

He also looked back at his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, who has attended each day of the trial so far.

Reuters Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, and his wife Melissa Cohen Biden, arrive at the federal court for his trial on criminal gun charges in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., June 6, 2024.
Reuters
Hunter Biden and his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, photographed entering court on Thursday

Hallie Biden also told the court that it was only after their relationship began that she had learned of Mr Biden's drug use.

She found crack cocaine at her house - where he would frequently stay - and later repeatedly saw him use the drug.

Crack, she said, left him "agitated or high-strung, but at other times, functioning as well".

The prosecutor asked on Thursday about a text message Hunter Biden had sent to Ms Biden the day after he bought the gun, saying he was waiting for a dealer named Mookie.

She told the court that had meant "he was buying crack cocaine".

Two days after the gun purchase, he texted Ms Biden that he was "sleeping on a car smoking crack".

The series of texts also included several emotional messages from Ms Biden in which she pleaded with him to get sober.

"I'm afraid you're going to die," one message read.

The defendant's lawyers explained the texts by suggesting their client had been lying about drug use to avoid seeing Hallie Biden - noting that she had had no way of knowing what he was actually doing at the time.

During cross-examination, Ms Biden confirmed she had not seen him using drugs around this time.

Abbe Lowell, Mr Biden's attorney, asked her whether the request to "help me get sober" could have also referred to alcohol - to which she agreed.

The prosecution's case, however, rests on convincing jurors that he was an addict.

Ms Biden's testimony was followed by Millard Greer, a former Delaware State Police lieutenant who recovered the weapon, as well as Edward Banner, an 80-year-old pensioner who found the weapon while looking for recyclables in the grocery store's bins.

As his son appears in court, President Joe Biden has continued his public duties. On Thursday, he delivered a speech in France to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

In an interview with ABC News on the same day, Mr Biden said he would accept the outcome of his son's trial and would not pardon him if convicted.

Hunter Biden also faces a trial in California in September on charges of failing to pay $1.4m (£1.1m) in taxes.



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A new ‘Hunger Games’ book — and movie — is coming

June 07, 2024 0

 

Inspired by an 18th century Scottish philosopher and the modern scourge of misinformation, Suzanne Collins is returning to the ravaged, post-apocalyptic land of Panem for a new “The Hunger Games” novel.

Scholastic announced Thursday that “Sunrise on the Reaping,” the fifth volume of Collins’ blockbuster dystopian series, will be published March 18, 2025. The new book begins with the reaping of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, set 24 years before the original “Hunger Games” novel, which came out in 2008, and 40 years after Collins’ most recent book, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.”

Lionsgate, which has released film adaptations of all four previous “Hunger Games” books, announced later on Thursday that “Sunrise on the Reaping” will open in theaters on Nov. 20, 2026. Francis Lawrence, who has worked on all but the first “Hunger Games” movie, will return as director.

The first four “Hunger Games” books have sold more than 100 million copies and been translated into dozens of languages. Collins had seemingly ended the series after the 2010 publication of “Mockingjay,” writing in 2015 that it was “time to move on to other lands.” But four years later, she stunned readers and the publishing world when she revealed she was working on what became “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” released in 2020 and set 64 years before the first book.

Collins has drawn upon Greek mythology and the Roman gladiator games for her earlier “Hunger Games” books. But for the upcoming novel, she cites the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume.

“With ‘Sunrise on the Reaping,’ I was inspired by David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few,’” Collins said in a statement. “The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more pressing to me every day.”

The “Hunger Games” movies are a multibillion dollar franchise for Lionsgate. Jennifer Lawrence portrayed heroine Katniss Everdeen in the film versions of “The Hunger Games,” “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay,” the last of which came out in two installments. Other featured actors have included Philip Seymour Hoffman, Josh Hutcherson, Stanley Tucci and Donald Sutherland.

“Suzanne Collins is a master storyteller and our creative north star,” Lionsgate chair Adam Fogelson said in a statement. “We couldn’t be more fortunate than to be guided and trusted by a collaborator whose talent and imagination are so consistently brilliant.”

The film version of “Songbirds and Snakes,” starring Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler, came out last year. This fall, a “Hunger Games” stage production is scheduled to debut in London.


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SpaceX’s Starship completes first full test flight after surviving re-entry

June 07, 2024 0

SpaceX’s Starship rocket has completed its first-ever full flight, after surviving re-entry in a breakthrough for the prototype system that may one day send people to Mars.



Three previous missions have ended with the rocket, which stands nearly 121 metres (400 feet) tall, blowing up or disintegrating, but this time Starship survived re-entry and made a controlled fall into the Indian Ocean just 65 minutes after launching from the US state of Texas.

Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean!” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns.

“Today was a great day for humanity’s future as a spacefaring civilization!” he added.

Starship blasted off from the company’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, at 7.50am (12:50 GMT), before soaring to space and coasting halfway across the globe.

It reached an altitude of nearly 211 kilometres (130 miles), travelling at more than 26,000km/h (16,000mph) before beginning its descent. A live broadcast showed parts of the spacecraft breaking off during the intense heat of reentry, and a chunk of flying debris even cracked the camera lens.

The spacecraft remained sufficiently intact to transmit data to its targeted splashdown site in the Indian Ocean.

The success of the mission marks a critical milestone in the company’s plan to develop a reusable rocket that NASA and Musk are counting on to get humanity to the moon and then Mars.

NASA has contracted a modified version of Starship for use as the final vehicle to take astronauts down to the surface of the moon under the Artemis programme and needs the company to demonstrate that it will be able to do that safely.

“Congratulations SpaceX on Starship’s successful test flight this morning!” NASA chief Bill Nelson wrote on X. “We are another step closer to returning humanity to the Moon through #Artemis — then looking onward to Mars.”

SpaceX is committed to a strategy of carrying out tests in the real world rather than in labs.

The next challenge is to develop a “fully and immediately reusable orbital heat shield,” said Musk, promising further tests as it attempts to build a reusable satellite launcher and moon lander.

Much is riding on SpaceX’s development of Starship, with NASA aiming to use it to return astronauts to the moon in 2026 in a rivalry with China, which plans to send its astronauts there by 2030. China has made several recent advances in its lunar programme, including a second landing on the moon’s far side in a sample retrieval mission.

Starship’s first launch in April 2023 exploded minutes after liftoff some 40km (25 miles) above ground, while its second attempt in November blew up after reaching space. The rocket’s third test flight in March made it much farther but broke apart during atmospheric re-entry some 64km (40 miles) above the Indian Ocean.


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GameStop (GME) to Sell Up to 75M New Shares

June 07, 2024 0



GameStop (NYSE: GME) previously entered into an Open Market Sale AgreementSM, or Sales Agreement, with Jefferies LLC, or Jefferies, on May 17, 2024, relating to shares of our Class A common stock, par value $0.001 per share, or common stock. In accordance with the terms of the Sales Agreement, we may offer and sell shares of our common stock from time to time through Jefferies, acting as our sales agent and referred to as the “Sales Agent.” We have previously sold an aggregate of 45,000,000 shares of our common stock for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $933.4 million pursuant to the Sales Agreement and the prospectus supplement filed by us on May 17, 2024. Under this prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus, and in accordance with the terms of the Sales Agreement, we may offer and sell up to an additional 75,000,000 shares of our common stock from and after the date hereof.

Our common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, or the NYSE, under the symbol “GME.” On June 6, 2024, the last reported sale price of our common stock on the NYSE was $46.55 per share. Our common stock has experienced extreme volatility in price and trading volume. From February 4, 2024 to June 6, 2024, the closing price of our common stock on the NYSE ranged from as low as $10.01 to as high as $48.75 and daily trading volume ranged from approximately 1,731,300 to 206,979,100 shares. During such period, we did not experience any material changes in our financial condition or results of operations that would explain such price volatility or trading volume. Furthermore, since January 2021 through the date hereof, the market price of our common stock has seen extreme price fluctuations that do not appear to be based on the underlying fundamentals of our business or results of operations. Investors that purchase shares of our common stock in this offering may lose a significant portion of their investments if the price of our common stock subsequently declines. Please see the section of this prospectus supplement titled “Risk Factors.”

Sales of our common stock, if any, under this prospectus supplement may be made by any method permitted that is deemed to be an “at the market offering” as defined in Rule 415(a)(4) under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act. The Sales Agent is not required to sell any specific number or dollar amount of shares of our common stock but will act as our sales agent and use commercially reasonable efforts to sell on our behalf all of the shares of common stock requested to be sold by us, consistent with normal trading and sales practices of the Sales Agent, on terms mutually agreed between the Sales Agent and us. There is no arrangement for funds to be received in any escrow, trust or similar arrangement.

The Sales Agent will be entitled to compensation at a commission rate of up to 1.5% of the gross sales price per share of common stock sold through them as sales agent pursuant to the Sales Agreement. In connection with the sale of shares of our common stock on our behalf, the Sales Agent will be deemed to be an “underwriter” within the meaning of the Securities Act and the compensation of the Sales Agent will be deemed to be underwriting commissions or discounts. We have also agreed to provide indemnification and contribution to the Sales Agent with respect to certain liabilities, including liabilities under the Securities Act. See “Plan of Distribution” beginning on page S-11 regarding the compensation to be paid to the Sales Agent.


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