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This is VOA News. I'm Joe Ramsey.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled ex-presidents have broad immunity, dimming chances of a pre-election Trump trial. AP correspondent Jackie Quinn reports. Stephen Mulroy is the District Attorney for Shelby County, Tennessee, an elected Democrat. He is previously served as a law professor and federal prosecutor. "I was surprised how broad that limiting immunity ended up being." He says the Supreme Court ruling on Donald Trump's immunity definitely means some of the charges for plotting to overturn the 2020 election will be thrown out. Mulroy says the decision makes a mockery of the idea: No man is above the law. I'm Jackie Quinn. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday Israel was nearing its goal of taking out the military capabilities of Hamas, the Islamist group that governs Gaza and led the October 7 assault on Israel that sparked the war. Less intense operations would continue, he said. Netanyahu said, "We are advancing to the end of the phase of eliminating the terrorist army of Hamas, and there will be a continuation to strike its remnants." Earlier on Monday, the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad fired a barrage of rockets into Israel as fighting raged in Gaza and Israeli tanks advanced deeper in parts of the enclave, residents and officials said. Victims of Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel are suing Iran, Syria and North Korea, saying their government supplied the militants with money, weapons and know-how needed to carry out the assault that precipitated Israel's ongoing war in Gaza. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. court on Monday. It seeks $4 billion in damages. Hamas is a U.S.-designated terrorist group. This is VOA News. Turkey has begun mediating talks between Somalia and Ethiopia over a port deal Addis Ababa signed with the breakaway region of *Somalialand (Somaliland) earlier this year, Ankara and four officials familiar with the matter said. The negotiations are the latest attempt to mend diplomatic ties between the East African neighbors, whose relationship soured in January when Ethiopia agreed to lease 20 kilometers of coastline from *Somalialand (Somaliland) in exchange for recognition of its independence. Influential Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon arrived to prison on Monday to serve a four-month sentence for defying a congressional subpoena from the committee that probed the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Reuters correspondent Freddie Joyner reports. The four-month sentence could keep Bannon imprisoned almost until the November election, when Trump faces President Joe Biden for the White House. In 2022, Bannon was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress. He was charged after he refused to turn over documents or testify to the Democratic-led House of Representatives committee investigating the Capitol riot by Trump supporters. Bannon, who was a key adviser to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and a former chief White House strategist, is not the first Trump administration official to go to prison for refusing to cooperate with the committee. Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser, reported to prison in March after he, too, was given a four-month sentence. Reuters correspondent Freddie Joyner. A Chinese woman is facing charges of trying to smuggle turtles into the U.S. AP correspondent Julie Walker reports. A woman from China arrested at a Vermont lake bordering Quebec for trying to smuggle 29 eastern box turtles, a protected species, in violation of the Endangered Species Act into Canada by kayak, according to Border Patrol agents. Wan Yee Ng was arrested Friday at a Canaan Airbnb as she was about to get into that inflatable kayak with a duffel bag full of turtles wrapped in socks, according to an agent's affidavit, which also states a man believed to be her husband and another person has started to paddle their own inflatable from the Canadian side of the lake toward the U.S. The affidavit also says Lake Wallace is a known spot for human and narcotics smuggling. I'm Julie Walker. Hurricane Beryl has made landfall on the Caribbean island of Carriacou. The dangerous and powerful Category 4 storm is the earliest one of its strength to form in the Atlantic fueled by record warm waters. Carriacou is one of the islands of Granada. Officials there reported damage on Monday that included roofs being blown off in maximum winds, increasing to about 240 kilometers per hour. I'm Joe Ramsey, V... |