Srinagar, May 06(GNS): Special Investigation Unit of Kashmir Police conducted searches in the house of a active Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Saturday.
In a handout to GNS, the police said that continuing its crackdown on terror elements, Special Investigation Unit (SIU) Kulgam today, conducted searches in the residential premises of Abdul Gani Bhat, father of active militant Farooq Ahmad Bhat @Nali, at Chek Desen Yaripora. Farooq Bhat is an active militant of proscribed militant outfit HM and is wanted in many militant related cases.
The spokesman further stated that the searches were conducted after Designated Special Judge Under NIA ACT, Kulgam issued a search warrant in case FIR No. 142/2019 of P/S Yaripora Kulgam. The case pertains to the killing of five non-local labourers at Katrosa Kulgam in year 2019. The SIU is investigating the case and has been conducting searches and investigations to bring the perpetrators to justice, reads the statement.(GNS)
SRINAGAR: Officials have reported that four people, including a couple, were killed in incidents of cloud burst and lightning strikes at two different locations in the Kashmir Valley on Saturday.
According to a senior police officer, a cloudburst occurred in the Bujbagh area of Pampore in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district this afternoon, resulting in the deaths of Hilal Ahmed Hanji (25) and his wife, Rozia Jan (25).
In a separate incident, officials informed GNS that two people died after being struck by lightning in a high-altitude meadow land in the Mujpathri area of central Kashmir’s Budgam district. The deceased have been identified as Taja Begum, wife of Abdus Samad Chopan, and Mohammad Sultan Chopan, son-in-law of Ghulam Mohammad Chopan of Gurwaith Kalan.
They added that the police have registered cases in connection with both incidents.
Srinagar, May 6 (GNS): Four persons including a couple were killed in cloud burst and lightning strike incidents at two different locations in Kashmir Valley on Saturday, officials said.
A senior police officer told GNS that there was cloudburst incident at Bujbagh area of Pampore in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district this afternoon, resulting in the death of two persons namely Hilal Ahmed Hanji (25) and his wife Rozia Jan (25).
Separately, officials told GNS that two persons died when lightning struck them at a high-altitude meadow land in Mujpathri area of central Kashmir’s Budgam district.
The deceased have been identified as Taja Begum, wife of Abdus Samad Chopan and Mohammad Sultan Chopan son-in-law of Ghulam Mohammad Chopan of Gurwaith Kalan.
They said that police have registered cases in connection with both incidents. (GNS)
Couple among 4 killed in cloudburst, lighting incidents in Kashmir
Srinagar, May 6 : Four persons including a couple were killed in cloud burst and lightning strike incidents at two different locations in Kashmir Valley on Saturday, officials said.
A senior police officer told GNS that there was cloudburst incident at Bujbagh area of Pampore in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district this afternoon, resulting in the death of two persons namely Hilal Ahmed Hanji (25) and his wife Rozia Jan (25).
Separately, officials told GNS that two persons died when lightning struck them at a high-altitude meadow land in Mujpathri area of central Kashmir’s Budgam district.
The deceased have been identified as Taja Begum, wife of Abdus Samad Chopan and Mohammad Sultan Chopan son-in-law of Ghulam Mohammad Chopan of Gurwaith Kalan.
They said that police have registered cases in connection with both incidents. (GNS)
Srinagar, May 6: Four persons including a couple were killed in cloud burst and lightning strike incidents at two different locations in Kashmir Valley on Saturday, officials said.
A senior police officer told GNS that there was cloudburst incident at Bujbagh area of Pampore in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district this afternoon, resulting in the death of two persons namely Hilal Ahmed Hanji (25) and his wife Rozia Jan (25).
Separately, officials told GNS that two persons died when lightning struck them at a high-altitude meadow land in Mujpathri area of central Kashmir’s Budgam district.
The deceased have been identified as Taja Begum, wife of Abdus Samad Chopan and Mohammad Sultan Chopan son-in-law of Ghulam Mohammad Chopan of Gurwaith Kalan.
They said that police have registered cases in connection with both incidents. (GNS)
SRINAGAR: Officials have reported that a woman is feared to have died after falling from a bridge in the Ramsoo area of the Ramban district this afternoon.
According to sources, the woman was washed away by a strong water current after falling off the Shangan bridge at Nachliana Ramsoo.
Following the incident, a joint rescue operation was launched by the police and local authorities in the area.
Confirming the incident, a police official said that they are currently ascertaining the facts regarding the incident. (GNS)
But people close to Biden still worry about the personal toll it will take on a father who has already felt anguish about a son’s struggles amid a long history of family tragedy. And they wonder how long he can compartmentalize personal anger with the attacks on Hunter and the political calculation that he’s better off not responding to it. Biden has long agonized over the fate of his surviving son, expressing that worry in phone calls with longtime friends and to Hunter himself.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden met at Justice Department headquarters in Washington last week to discuss the tax- and gun-related case with prosecutors, according to a person familiar with the matter. Often a signal that an investigation is concluding, such meetings are used by defense lawyers to urge prosecutors to refrain from seeking an indictment or to consider reduced charges. The probe has centered on whether Biden failed to report all of his income and whether he lied on a form for buying a gun. His attorneys declined comment.
“Obviously, the Biden team would hope that this investigation does not result in an indictment for a multitude of reasons,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who served as President Barack Obama’s communications director. “But the Republicans have failed — both in the 2020 campaign and in their 2023 congressional hearings — to have questions about Hunter Biden impact public opinion and I don’t think they will succeed now, regardless of what DOJ decides.”
There is no Hunter Biden war room at the White House, according to four people familiar granted anonymity to speak freely. Defense for the president’s son is being handled by his personal attorneys and the White House is not involved with legal matters.
The campaign and the Democratic National Committee officials will likely take the lead in responding to political inquiries, while White House staffers will respond if the accusations touch on official government business.
No matter what DOJ decides at the end of its six-year investigation, the decision could have significant implications for the president’s just-announced reelection bid, giving fodder to Republicans as they seek to paint the Biden family as corrupt.
There is a sense among Biden allies that he’ll face some blowback either way. If Hunter Biden is charged with a crime, Trump and Republicans will try to link his behavior to his father’s conduct and fitness for office. And if charges are not brought, Republicans have telegraphed that they will claim that the Department of Justice was biased and that Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, rigged the decision.
“The Biden administration is the most corrupt administration in American history. Hunter Biden is a criminal, and nothing happened to him, nothing happened,” said Trump at a recent rally. “Joe Biden is a criminal and nothing ever seems to happen to him because you know, say what you want, but the Democrats stick together.”
Largely, aides said, the Biden campaign will continue to move forward and focus on other issues that they believe are more pertinent to voters. The White House believes that many Americans, especially those with addictions in their own family, are, and will be, sympathetic to the Bidens.
“First of all, my son has done nothing wrong. I trust him. I have faith in him,” Biden said in an interview Friday with MSNBC. “It impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him.”
Aides to the president stress that the White House is not involved with the Department of Justice’s decision. The matter is being investigated by U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, a Trump appointee.
The probe into Hunter Biden began in 2018 and initially centered on his finances related to overseas business ties and consulting work. Investigators later shifted their focus to whether he failed to report all of his income and whether he lied on a form for buying a gun by denying that he was a drug abuser. Hunter Biden has spoken openly about his crack addiction and other drug problems.
The investigation into Hunter was discussed prior to launching the 2024 campaign. First lady Jill Biden made clear last year that it would not play a decisive role in whether or not the president would run for reelection. But the impact that the scrutiny of another campaign might have on Hunter Biden was weighed, according to three people not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
Biden advisers acknowledge Republicans will revive the issue for the 2024 campaign, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions. But they also point out that Trump made many of these allegations during the 2020 campaign, even springing one of Hunter’s ex-business partners, a man named Tony Bobulinski, as a surprise guest at the last 2020 general election debate. It had little impact.
But the claims about Hunter Biden have continued to flourish in conservative media, which has grown convinced that the 2020 attacks would have landed harder if the press corps and social media companies had not been initially skeptical of the provenance of his former laptop. POLITICO has not authenticated the hard drive files that underpinned a New York Post story about the laptop, but POLITICO confirmed the authenticity of some emails on the drive in a 2021 book.
Republicans assert that the content of the laptop offers evidence of corrupt dealings, which has fueled investigations from the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Thursday deemed the allegations against the younger Biden as “very serious.”
“I just hope that he is being treated like everybody else,” Hawley said. “There [are] various whistleblower allegations that there’s been interference, that people have tried to stymie the investigation. That better not have happened.”
Biden advisers believe the focus on Hunter could backfire on Republicans and serve as another sign the GOP is out of step with normal Americans, much as polling suggests the party is on issues like abortion and guns.
Moreover, they suggest GOP attacks could very well divert attention to Trump’s own legal peril. The former president has already been indicted in New York for falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment to a porn star and is the subject of several other probes. Moreover, Democrats have claimed that Trump’s own family benefited financially from their access to his political power and are quick to point out that Trump himself was impeached in 2019 for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Biden family’s business dealings there.
A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
The White House did bolster its team ahead of the 2022 midterms to prepare for a more hostile environment and a GOP House. It brought on communications specialist Ian Sams as a spokesperson and several lawyers to handle personal investigations into the president, including Dick Sauber, a longtime Washington defense attorney in investigations.
And Hunter Biden has taken a more aggressive tack in recent months, bringing on longtime D.C. lawyer Abbe Lowell and pushing back more forcefully against Republican attacks on his personal history and how his personal effects ended up in the hands of GOP operatives like Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani. But some Democrats are anxious about talk that Hunter Biden may create a legal defense fund, which would raise scrutiny about the president’s son raising money to pay for his legal woes.
“The president loves his son and is proud that he has overcome his addiction and is moving forward with his life,” said Sams. “Republican officials’ politically motivated, partisan attacks on the president and his family are rooted in nonsensical conspiracy theories and do nothing to address the real issues Americans care about.”
Hunter Biden has written extensively about the challenges in his life, including his addictions and struggle to cope with the 1972 car accident that killed his mother and sister and critically injured him and his brother, Beau. He also lived much of his life in the shadow of Beau Biden, the former Delaware attorney general who died of brain cancer in 2015, at the age of 46.
The president, some of his friends say, checks on his son nearly every day. Hunter kept a low profile during the 2020 presidential campaign but has recently taken on a more public role. He appeared with his father at events including the state dinner for French President Emmanuel Macron in December. And he was a nearly constant presence at the president’s side at nearly every stop during last month’s trip to Ireland, their ancestral homeland.
But there have been recent sightings that serve as a reminder of the unfortunate headlines that he can sometimes create.
Hunter Biden appeared in an Arkansas courtroom this week as part of a bitter dispute with the mother of his 4-year-old child over reducing his child support payments. The mother of the child, Lunden Roberts, has accused the younger Biden of ignoring court orders to provide information about his finances and has asked a judge to declare him in contempt and have him jailed until he complies.
The president and first lady have yet to publicly acknowledge the existence of the child, who is their seventh grandchild. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre this week declined to discuss the subject during her briefing.
The Biden campaign declined to comment. Democratic lawmakers, many close to Biden personally, often decline to weigh in on the ongoing probe.
“There’s an investigation. It’s up to the prosecutors to decide what action to take,” said Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.). “Whatever is appropriate, that’s the action that should be taken independent of what the political consequences are. It’s not our business and Congress to interfere with the prosecution.”
Jennifer Haberkorn contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
It’s been a long time since Kentucky was a competitive state in national politics: Bill Clinton carried it twice in the 1990s, but Republicans have won it by double-digits in every election since 2000, including then-President Donald Trump’s 26-point win in 2020. But Gov. Andy Beshear’s narrow victory in 2019 — and enduring popularity since taking office — means ticket-splitting may still be alive and well.
This month’s primary will only determine Beshear’s November opponent, not the fate of his governorship. But the primary marks key demographic and strategic drivers of politics in the state, foreshadowing the dynamics of the looming general election. Here are five key numbers to know:
21 percent
Just like Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, the race started off with a clear favorite: State Attorney General Daniel Cameron broke strongest from the gate among the dozen candidates for the GOP nomination and has Trump’s endorsement. But Kelly Craft, who served separate stints as Trump’s former ambassador to Canada and the U.N., has been mounting a late charge.
Back in January, a Mason-Dixon Polling and Research survey found Cameron well ahead of Craft, 39 percent to 13 percent. There hasn’t been much public polling since, but an Emerson College/WDKY-TV poll last month had a much closer race, with 21 percent of voters still undecided.
Cameron’s allies dispute that the race has closed, circulating their own internal poll showing him still comfortably leading — but with 19 percent undecided.
Like horse races, primaries break late, since the voters and the candidates are mostly ideologically aligned. Cameron and Craft, the top two GOP hopefuls, will be angling for those voters still waiting to make up their minds.
$7.2 million
If Craft can’t catch Cameron on the May. 16, it won’t be for a lack of financial resources.
Craft, the wife of billionaire coal magnate Joe Craft, has already spent or booked $5.8 million in TV advertising, according to data from AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm. She’s also been boosted by $1.4 million in ads from Commonwealth PAC, an outside group funded largely (though not entirely) by Joe Craft, though those ads aren’t on the air anymore. That means she’s spent at least $7.2 million on the primary alone.
Cameron, by contrast, has spent or booked only $564,000. He does have an outside group, Bluegrass Freedom Action, which has added $2.1 million to help him close the gap. The group is running ads touting Trump’s endorsement.
The spending advantage has been a double-edged sword for Craft. She’s come under attack from Cameron for relying on her family’s money in the primary, but she can also offer Republicans the prospect of a blank check to fund an expensive and grueling general election against Beshear.
46 percent
Kentucky Republicans finally did it last year: They eclipsed Democrats in voter registration for the first time in history, a key milestone in the state’s rapid red shift.
Four years ago, Democrats still retained a significant registration advantage, 49 percent to 42 percent. That’s already reversed: Republicans outnumber Democrats in registration heading into this primary, according to the state Board of Elections, 46 percent to 44 percent.
The erasure of Democrats’ ancestral registration advantage has been rapid. Twenty-four years ago, when Republicans chose Peppy Martin for an ill-fated run against Democratic Gov. Paul Patton, Republicans accounted for only 32 percent of registered voters, outnumbered almost 2-to-1 by Democrats (61 percent). When Beshear’s father, former Gov. Steve Beshear was first elected in 2007, Democrats had a 20-point registration advantage, 57 percent to 37 percent.
This year, more voters can participate in the Republican primary for the first time.
63 percent
Despite the state’s rightward shift, Beshear remains popular.
How popular? According to Morning Consult’s quarterly tracking, Beshear has the highest approval rating of any Democratic governor at 63 percent. He outpaces governors in solidly blue states like Massachusetts, Maryland, Hawaii, California and New York.
Beshear’s sky-high approval rating isn’t an artifact of Morning Consult’s methodology or long field period, either: The January Mason-Dixon poll gave him a similarly high, 61 percent positive job rating.
Republicans have started the process of trying to knock down Beshear’s popularity. An outside group affiliated with the Republican Governors Association began running culture war-tinged TV ads late last month hitting the Democrat for “allow[ing] sex changes for children as young as 8- or 9-years-old.”
72 points
So exactly how does Beshear cobble together a winning coalition in a state that’s become so Republican?
It involves a lot of crossover Trump voters.
According to a POLITICO analysis of election results, Trump in 2020 outran then-Gov. Matt Bevin’s 2019 performance in each of Kentucky’s 120 counties. In one rural county, Beshear won it by 20, and the next year Biden lost it by 51. The result is an unheard-of 72-point gap between those two races.
In the bluer population centers, the differences were significant, but relatively modest: Beshear won Fayette County, home to Lexington, by 33 points in 2019, while President Joe Biden carried it by 21 points a year later. In Louisville, Beshear won by 35 points, but Biden won by 20.
The gap between the two races was greatest outside the cities — especially in Eastern Kentucky, where Democrats once dominated but now barely register in presidential races. Take tiny Elliott County, where Trump beat Biden by a three-to-one margin, 75 percent to 24 percent, in 2020. Beshear actually won it over Bevin — and it wasn’t particularly close: 59 percent to 39 percent.
The same phenomenon is evident in other surrounding, conservative counties. In Boyd County, home to Ashland — the largest city in Eastern Kentucky’s coal region — Beshear won by 6 points in 2019, but Trump carried it by a whopping 33 points a year later.
Whoever wins this month’s GOP primary will undoubtedly try to nationalize the race to depress Beshear’s appeal in these solidly red areas — though it’s worth noting that Bevin pursued the same strategy in 2019 and ended up losing.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
