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Amid newly inaugurated President Donald Trump’s pardon of nearly 1,500 January 6 protesters, anti-abortion groups are calling on the president to pardon a 76-year-old grandmother and 20 others who were imprisoned and prosecuted for pro-life protests under the Biden Department of Justice.

One group, the Thomas More Society, a law firm specializing in pro-life cases, filed a petition to the new president in which it laid out the legal grounds for him to issue pardons and pointed out how President Joe Biden abused the justice system to target these pro-life activists.

Steve Crampton, a senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, told Fox News Digital that it is ‘absolutely vital’ these activists be pardoned to restore equality under the law.  

We hope by President Trump’s actions here that he will restore some sanity and rule of law to the approach of the Department of Justice and the FBI, but also help move this culture back toward a culture of life rather than one of death,’ said Crampton. ‘This small act on his part would, in fact, serve to kind of ignite a momentous movement toward restoring a respect for life in this nation that’s so desperately needed.’

Trump indicated several times during his campaign that he is open to issuing pardons for some of these pro-lifers who were prosecuted under a federal law called the Freedom of Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The activists were convicted of FACE Act violations for participating in various ‘sit-in’ protests inside abortion clinics in Washington, D.C., Nashville, Detroit, Long Island and Manhattan.

According to the Thomas More Society, Biden’s Department of Justice used the FACE Act to increase sentences for crimes that would otherwise have been simple trespassing charges. The group says Biden sought to make examples of these pro-lifers, prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law, despite their sit-in protests inside abortion clinics being entirely peaceful and with no threat of violence or intimidation.

Now that Trump is back in the White House, the Thomas More Society believes he can restore justice for these 21 activists and, in so doing, help restore confidence and trust in the justice system among the American people.

In my lifetime, I’ve never seen a president honor his campaign promises the way this president has,’ said Crampton. ‘So, we’re very hopeful that he will do so again in this case. And for these people who are really just salt of the earth, the best kind of folks that ought to be in their communities doing good rather than behind bars.’ 

Of the 21 activists prosecuted under the Biden administration’s use of the FACE Act, nine are currently in prison. Several of those in prison are elderly, with three, Jean Marshall, Paullette Harlow and Joan Andrews Bell, in their 70s. The eldest is Bell, who, at 76, has seven adult children and seven grandchildren. She was sentenced to over two years in prison.

One activist, Heather Idoni, 59, who was sentenced to two years, has undergone serious health difficulties and suffered a minor stroke while in prison.

The longest prison sentence went to 31-year-old Lauren Handy, who is currently serving a nearly five-year sentence for her role in organizing a 2020 sit-in protest at the Washington, D.C., Surgi-Clinic run by Dr. Cesare Santangelo.

Also facing prison time is 89-year-old Eva Edl, a survivor of a communist concentration camp, who has been active in the pro-life movement for decades.

‘Down is up and up is down in this case,’ said Crampton. ‘These people are folks who, some of them, have adopted several special-needs children from places like Ukraine. Some are missionaries to China and Ukraine and the worst places on the planet, going out of their way to do good to people that are in desperate need. These are folks that ought to be receiving those citizenship medals that President Biden is handing out to the likes of George Soros, who is trying to destroy our nation.’  

‘We must restore the rule of law,’ he went on. ‘The questioning of Mr. Trump’s Cabinet appointees this past week, ironically enough, from the left, points again and again, back to the need not to single out political opponents for prosecution and so forth.’

‘We have recently undertaken a disrespect for the rule of law that has undermined any respect for authority in general, let alone the law in particular,’ he said. ‘So, I really think that this also is a small step back to restoring that absolutely essential respect for the rule of law that we must have if America is to survive.’

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a full and unconditional pardon of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the anonymous marketplace website Silk Road, which the president promised to do ‘on Day 1’ while on the campaign trail.

‘I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbri[c]ht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross,’ Trump wrote in a social media post Tuesday. ‘The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!’

Ulbricht was convicted because his website, which was founded in 2011 and used cryptocurrency for payments, was used to sell illegal drugs, even though he did not sell any of the illicit substances himself.

In May, Trump delivered a speech at the Libertarian National Convention to a hostile crowd of boos in an attempt to win over Libertarian voters. Libertarians believe government investigators overreached in their case against Silk Road and generally oppose the war on drugs.

While the attendees were not favorable to Trump for most of the event, they did give a big cheer when he said he would commute Ulbricht’s sentence to time served, as the crowd chanted ‘Free Ross’ in hopes the presidential candidate would take action if elected to allow the Silk Road founder to return home to his family after more than a decade behind bars.

‘If you vote for me, on Day 1 I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served. He’s already served 11 years. We’re going to get him home,’ Trump told the crowd of Libertarians, many of whom were holding signs that said ‘Free Ross.’

Ulbricht reacted to Trump’s comments the following day on the social media platform X.

‘Last night, Donald Trump pledged to commute my sentence on day 1, if reelected,’ he wrote. ‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. After 11 years in prison, it is hard to express how I feel at this moment. It is thanks to your undying support that I may get a second chance.’

Last month, Ulbricht wrote, ‘For my last monthly resolution of 2024, I intend to study every day and to get up to speed as much as I can as I prepare for freedom.’

Trump later reiterated his promise to commute Ulbricht’s life sentence at a bitcoin conference, which he received loud cheers for.

While Trump failed to deliver his promise to free Ulbricht on his first day back in office, he followed through on the second day.

Ulbricht, now 40, operated the website from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. He was sentenced two years later to life in prison.

Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.

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President Donald Trump revoked former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s Secret Service protection after his inauguration as the 47th president on Monday, Bolton told Fox News Digital. 

‘I am disappointed but not surprised that President Trump has decided to terminate the protection previously provided by the United States Secret Service,’ Bolton said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Tuesday. ‘Notwithstanding my criticisms of President Biden’s national-security policies, he nonetheless made the decision to extend that protection to me in 2021. ‘

Bolton has faced threats from Iran going back years, including an alleged plot to assassinate him in 2021 and the Department of Justice subsequently charging a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for the plot in 2022. Trump had ousted Bolton from his first administration in 2019, and Biden had granted him a security detail in 2021. 

When asked by reporters on Tuesday why he stripped Bolton of his security clearance, Trump said, ‘Because I think that was enough time.’

‘We’re not going to have security on people for the rest of their lives,’ he said. ‘Why should we?’

‘The Justice Department filed criminal charges against an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official in 2022 for attempting to hire a hit man to target me. That threat remains today, as also demonstrated by the recent arrest of someone trying to arrange for President Trump’s own assassination,’ Bolton continued in his statement. ‘The American people can judge for themselves which President made the right call.’

The Iranian threats against Bolton were likely sparked by the January 2020 U.S. strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, the Department of Justice reported in 2022. 

Bolton served as Trump’s national security advisor between 2018 and 2019, before Trump ousted him because they ‘disagreed strongly’ on policy issues. 

‘I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House,’ Trump tweeted in 2019. ‘I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.’

In the following years, Trump repeatedly has slammed Bolton, including claiming he would have sparked ‘World War Six,’ and calling him ‘one of the dumbest people in Government’ back in 2023. 

Bolton also has taken his shots at Trump, claiming in a 2020 interview that Trump lacks ‘the competency to carry out the job.’ 

‘I don’t think he’s fit for office,’ Bolton said in 2020. ‘I don’t think he has the competency to carry out the job. There isn’t really any guiding principle that I was able to discern, other than what’s good for Donald Trump’s reelection.’

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WASHINGTON — The federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) notified heads of agencies and departments that they must begin taking steps to close all diversity, equity and inclusion offices by the end of the day Wednesday and place government workers in those offices on paid leave, Fox News Digital has learned. 

Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management Charles Ezell sent a memo to heads and acting heads of departments and agencies on Tuesday evening directing them that by no later than 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 22, they are to:

  • Send an agency-wide notice to employees informing them of the closure and asking employees if they know of any efforts to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language
  • Send a notification to all employees of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.
  • Take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) of DEIA offices
  • Withdraw any final or pending documents, directives, orders, materials and equity plans issued by the agency in response to the now-repealed Executive Order 14035, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce (June 25, 2021)
  • Cancel any DEIA-related trainings and terminate any DEIA-related contractors

The memo also directed the heads of agencies and departments that by noon Thursday, Jan. 23, they must share with OPM: 

  • A complete list of DEIA offices and any employees who were in those offices as of Nov. 5, 2024
  • A complete list of all DEIA-related agency contracts as of Nov. 5, 2024
  • Any agency plans to fully comply with the above executive orders and this memorandum

By Friday at 5 p.m., agency heads must submit to OPM:

  • A written plan for executing a reduction-in-force action regarding the employees who work in a DEIA office
  • A list of all contract descriptions or personnel position descriptions that were changed since Nov. 5, 2024, to obscure their connection to DEIA programs

The memo comes after President Trump signed an executive order to eliminate all DEI programs from the federal government.

The president also signed an order making it ‘the official policy of the U.S. government to only recognize two genders: male and female.’

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President Donald Trump has promised to usher in a new era in America’s top investigative unit — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — with day one changes being implemented as key senior roles were reassigned.

The agency’s shakeup began when former FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was nominated by Trump in his first administration, announced last month that he would step down from his post. Hours before Trump was sworn in, acting director Paul Abbate similarly stepped down.

The Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the matter, that the longtime head of the Justice Department’s office of international affairs, Bruce Swartz, was reassigned along with as many as 20 other staffers. 

On Monday, the White House announced Brian Discoll as acting director of the FBI. Driscoll’s time as acting director will presumably end when Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel is confirmed as the FBI’s next director by the U.S. Senate.

Throughout former President Biden’s term, the FBI was entangled in repeated scandals, prompting President Trump to promise to root out corruption in the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Former FBI agent and Fox News contributor Nicole Parker told Fox News Digital that Abbate’s retirement was a ‘good idea.’ 

‘He had to have known that his days were likely very much numbered,’ she said. ‘It’s been widely publicized and well known that Paul Abbate was involved in pushing the raid at Mar-a-Lago. Also, he was very involved in pushing the Jan. 6 misdemeanor cases that were worked rigorously at the FBI.’

‘I imagine that he knew, rather than being removed upon Trump’s arrival, that it might be best in his interest to just move on. And I think that probably was a good idea on his part,’ she said.

On day one, President Trump signed a memorandum titled ‘Restoring Accountability for Career Senior Executives.’ He asserted that federal employees are able to be fired. 

‘I came from the private sector before the FBI, and I noticed such a contrast. The private sector, if you’re not doing your job, of course you’re going to get fired. But when you come to the federal government, there was almost this mood of, you know, we’re untouchable,’ Parker said. 

‘And I really believe that those days are over. You are working for the American taxpayers. It is their taxpayer dollars that need to be put to good use. And if you’re not doing your job, you really should be removed,’ she said. ‘I do believe that there will be people who may not be on board with Trump’s plans, and they’ll choose to walk away on their own.’

Discroll is now heading the agency as Patel begins his Senate confirmation process. Patel’s Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, Jan. 29. 

Discroll, a veteran of the agency, joined in 2007, according to a statement on the White House’s website. Robert Kissane, the top counterterrorism agent in New York, will serve as acting deputy director, the White House said.

Prior to being appointed as acting director, Discroll most recently served as the special agent in charge of the Newark Field Office. He also previously served as the commander of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) and Critical Incident Response Group’s (CIRG) Tactical Section chief.

‘I think it’s good for the FBI, for somebody who has such an amazing background with tactical experience and HRT,’ retired FBI agent Scott Duffey told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s a tall order, and I wish him well.’

Before his career in the FBI, he was a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the agency said in a release. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Villanova University and a master’s degree in public policy and international relations from Pepperdine University.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the FBI and the Department of Justice for comment.

Fox News’ Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.

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President Donald Trump’s swearing-in ceremony Monday featured the largest, most complex security footprint of any inauguration in U.S. history. 

The nation’s capital was transformed seemingly overnight from a pedestrian-friendly city into a daunting and impenetrable fortress – the result of a multi-agency task force that erected 30 miles of anti-scale fencing, coordinated aerial surveillance and drones, and saw the deployment of tens of thousands of law enforcement, military personnel, undercover agents, and national guard trucks across D.C.

The impressive, whole-of-government security effort on Inauguration Day was unprecedented, and not without reason: Trump was the victim of two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign — including a shooter who came so close to him as to nick his ear — and a domestic threat landscape that was heightened further by the terrorist-inspired attack in New Orleans and the execution-style killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan late last year.

It’s notable, then, that this year’s sprawling security footprint did not expressly include one key component considered fundamental to U.S. tradition: The naming of a designated survivor.

In D.C., the tightly coordinated federal protection efforts were carefully planned long ahead of Trump’s inauguration ceremony by the Secret Service and many other federal agencies. 

It’s both a nod to recent security concerns, and more largely an effort to protect the U.S. body politic, foreign dignitaries, donors, and thousands of attendees from any mass catastrophe or threat. 

The designated survivor, who in a catastrophic event would bear the responsibility of leading the U.S. in the aftermath of a crisis, is typically a Cabinet officer when major security events put elected officials all in one spot, such as inaugurations and State of the Union addresses.

Previous designated survivors have included former DHS secretary Jeh Johnson, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was tapped for the role during President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009. 

Gates, a George W. Bush appointee, was kept on by Obama and served in his Pentagon role until July 2011, according to his official Defense Department biography.

The survivor’s location, and sometimes identity, remains confidential until after the event disperses and its attendees have safely returned home. In high-profile events, a broader contingency plan is in place.

As Garrett Graff reported in 2016, Gates’s role as designated survivor during Obama’s inauguration also included the support of another government heavyweight — James Clapper, then the undersecretary of intelligence — who stowed away during the ceremony deep in an underground government bunker in Pennsylvania, a backup to the backup, if you will, and a nod at the detailed succession plan carefully crafted by a group defense, intelligence, and other federal agencies over the span of some 40-plus years.

So it was notable that no designated survivor was named during the 47th presidential inauguration.

 

No reason was given for the absence of the designated survivor, which was first reported by NBC News.

It’s possible that the sprawling security presence coordinated in the run-up to Jan. 20 was deemed sufficient to protect against any threats.

It’s also possible the event, which was held indoors and thus restricted to the public and to members of the news media, was limited enough as not to warrant the designated survivor. 

Ahead of the event, FBI and Secret Service personnel stressed the stringent security measures in place and the tight vetting of any ticketed attendees.

David Sundberg of the FBI’s Washington Field Office told Fox News earlier this week that the bureau was not tracking ‘any specific or credible threats’ for Inauguration Day.

‘All attendees will undergo screening,’ said Matt McCool, special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Washington Field Office. 

These individuals told Fox News that the fencing alone is more than any other designated National Special Security Event in the past.

‘Designated checkpoints will be set up for members of the public interested in attending the inauguration,’ McCool said ahead of the inauguration — a protocol also applied to attendees of the modified Capital One festivities, which were moved inside due to frigid temperatures.

Neither the White House, DHS nor the FBI immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the absence of a designated survivor.

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

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President Donald Trump isn’t expected to carry through on his threat to impose sweeping tariffs on the first day of his presidency, a move that economists have warned could lead to higher prices for Americans and hurt U.S. businesses. 

Instead, Trump will direct federal agencies to examine different areas of trade policy and recommend actions, according to a person familiar with the plans. The agencies will also be directed to review existing tariffs and trade agreements, like the USMCA agreement negotiated during Trump’s first term, along with policies related to intellectual property rights and the purchasing of American-made goods, the person said. The administration will also study the idea of creating an External Revenue Service to collect tariff revenue. 

The plans were first reported by The Wall Street Journal and an administration official confirmed that report.

After his inauguration, Trump said he was considering 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, the United States’ top two trading partners.

Asked when he might impose the tariffs, Trump told a reporter in the Oval Office: “I think we’ll do it February 1st.”

Trump added that the reason for imposing tariffs was related to the fentanyl crisis. He also said he could impose tariffs on China if ByteDance does not agree to a deal to sell TikTok.

Trump had previously said that during his first day in office he would impose a 25% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico. The tariff would remain in place until “such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Nov. 25. 

He also said he would impose a 10% tariff on goods from China on his first day in office, which would last until the country stopped sending fentanyl to the U.S. During his campaign he’d threatened China with as much as a 60% tariff. 

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump made tariffs central in his pitch to voters for how he would grow the U.S. economy. He has argued they would protect American industries from unfair competition by making goods from overseas more expensive and encourage companies to relocate manufacturing to the U.S. in order to avoid paying tariffs.

He’s also touted using revenue collected from tariffs to pay for other policy priorities and deploying tariffs as a negotiating tool to get concessions from countries. 

But economists have warned that tariffs would drive prices higher and trigger another wave of inflation. Economists found the tariffs imposed during Trump’s first term resulted in a net loss of manufacturing jobs and a reduction in investments by companies because of higher costs for importing materials, parts and components from China.

Nearly all of the revenue collected on tariffs went to payments to farmers to offset losses they suffered from retaliatory tariffs put on U.S. agriculture products by China. The tariffs also didn’t lead to significant concessions from China, which has failed to meet its commitments under a trade deal negotiated during Trump’s first term. 

Following Trump’s recent tariff threat, Canada and Mexico vowed to put their own retaliatory tariffs in place on U.S. goods. That could cause a major disruption to the U.S. auto industry, where vehicles and their components cross between the U.S., Canada and Mexico multiple times during the production cycle.

The tariffs also would upend the USMCA trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, which Trump touted at the time as a major negotiating victory. That agreement largely allowed products to move between the three countries tariff-free, similar to how they have for decades under the NAFTA agreement. Under the terms of the deal, the agreement isn’t up for renegotiation until July 2026. 

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As the Gaza ceasefire takes hold, aid workers caution that the toughest challenges are yet to come, describing the truce as only the first step on a long road to recovery.

For humanitarian workers and aid agencies, the road is expected to be long and arduous – with challenges including areas in the north of Gaza that remain hard to reach and criminal gangs that loot United Nations convoys carrying precious food, to a looming Israeli ban on the main UN agency responsible for distributing aid in Gaza.

At least 630 aid trucks entered Gaza on Sunday, with at least 300 of them headed to the north, according to a senior UN official. The UN, which said it has 4,000 trucks ready to enter Gaza, says the availability of food is not the problem, but that the delivery mechanism is wrought with obstacles.

Enough food aid is waiting at Gaza’s borders to feed 1 million people for three months, WFP has said. It also has supplies such as food parcels, wheat flour, commodities for hot meals, and nutrition supplements.

But some areas in Gaza remain totally cut off from aid.

“Barely any food has gone into besieged North Gaza for more than two months. Winter cold and rain are further reducing people’s ability to survive,” WFP warned.

Israel launched a military offensive in northern Gaza in October for the third time since the war began, leading to a “full closure” to aid for the first 15 days of that month, Renard said. Israel had said it was battling resurging Hamas fighters.

Some Gaza governorates began slowly opening up after last October, including in Gaza City, Renard said, but parts of the north remained choked ahead of the ceasefire, which came into effect Sunday.

The northern governorates of Jabalya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun remain severely restricted. “We had to cut everything (there after the Israeli military operation),” he said.

WFP said that in the north, West Erez (Zikim) crossing is operational, but is only supplying aid to Gaza City. “Access to North Gaza governorate has been consistently denied,” it said.

Israeli ban on UN agency

Apart from cutting off parts of the north, an Israeli ban against WFP’s aid partner, UNRWA, is set to come into effect in two weeks. WFP and UNRWA each support 1.1 million people in Gaza, making UNRWA’s role crucial for aid distribution.

The ban came after Israel accused some UNRWA employees of participating in the attack that left 1,200 people in Israel dead. A UN investigation found that nine employees from UNWRA “may have” been involved in the October 7 attack and no longer work at the agency.

UNRWA has, however, long been a target of Israeli criticism. Israel has accused the UN agency of anti-Israel incitement, which UNRWA denies. In 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to dismantle the UN body.

Last year, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed two bills; one barring UNRWA from activity within Israel, and another banning Israeli authorities from any contact with UNRWA – revoking the 1967 treaty that allows the agency to provide services to Palestinian refugees in areas under Israel’s control.

The move is expected to severely restrict UNRWA from operating in territories Israel occupies, including Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

“We do not know how Israel is going to implement the Knesset bills,” Renard said, adding that the UN agency will nonetheless remain operational.

It is unclear if the UN has a contingency plan for when the ban comes into effect.

The UNRWA official added that the agency has not received “any communications from the government of Israel on how they plan to implement those bills.”

In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that there are “a lot of other agencies” that can help with humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“We have states that want to help to achieve that goal. So UNRWA is not an objective. UNRWA is also not the solution,” Sa’ar told reporters Sunday, adding that “the UN is in a position to help assure that the objective of the humanitarian aid to Gaza residents won’t be hurt.”

Criminal gangs in Gaza

Another challenge faced by aid groups is looting of relief supplies by criminal gangs operating in Gaza.

One of the ways aid trucks try to mitigate that risk is to use protected roads that aim to circumvent looting areas.

Israel has repeatedly accused the UN of allowing aid that’s been delivered into Gaza to pile up at the enclave’s borders without being distributed. But Renard said that convoys are often looted as soon as they enter Gaza.

Distributors “are too afraid of losing the cargo,” he said.

Palestinian NGOs inside Gaza have previously accused Israeli forces of targeting civil police and other aid safeguarding bodies “to incite chaos and lawlessness.”

“The law and order remain a sticky point, but with the ceasefire coming in, would the blue police be able to operate?” Renard questioned, referring to Gazan civil police.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 46,900 people during the 15 months it has dragged on, according to the health ministry there, as well as decimating large swathes of the territory and displacing nearly the entire population.

The number of people killed is believed to be significantly higher than the figure reported by authorities in the enclave, according to findings announced by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and published in The Lancet journal, which found that the ministry has underreported the death toll due to violence by approximately 41%.

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An Indian court awarded a life sentence on Monday to a police volunteer convicted of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the hospital where she worked in the eastern city of Kolkata, rejecting demands for the death penalty and saying it was not a rare crime.

The woman’s body was found in a classroom at the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9. Other doctors stayed off work for weeks to demand justice for her and better security at public hospitals, as the crime sparked national outrage over a lack of safety for women.

Sanjay Roy, the police volunteer, was convicted by judge Anirban Das on Saturday, who said circumstantial evidence had proved the charges against Roy.

Roy said he was innocent and that he had been framed, and sought clemency.

The federal police, who investigated the case, said the crime belonged to the “rarest-of-rare” category and Roy, therefore, deserved the death penalty.

“I do not consider it as a rarest-of-rare crime,” judge Das said and sentenced Roy to life in jail on both the counts of rape and murder. “Life imprisonment, meaning imprisonment until death.”

The judge said that he had come to the conclusion that it was not a rarest-of-rare crime after considering all the evidence and the circumstances linked to it. He said Roy could go in appeal to a higher court.

The sentence was announced in a packed courtroom as the judge allowed the public to witness proceedings on Monday. The speedy trial in the court was not open to the public.

The parents of the junior doctor were among those in court on Monday. Security was stepped up with dozens of police personnel deployed at the court complex.

The parents had earlier said that they were not satisfied with the probe and suspected more people were involved in the crime.

Their lawyer, Amartya Dey, told Reuters on Monday that they had sought the death penalty for Roy and also demanded that those involved in what they called the “larger conspiracy” be brought to book.

Protesting doctors had said that street protests would continue until justice was done.

India’s federal police cited 128 witnesses in its investigation, of whom 51 were examined during the fast-tracked trial that began in November.

Police had also charged the officer heading the local police station and the head of the college at the time of the crime with destruction of the crime scene and tampering with evidence.

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Eight people died and seven were injured in a fire at a nursing home outside Belgrade on Monday which authorities said was caused by arson, Serbian state TV RTS reported.

The fire started at 3.30 a.m. (9:30 p.m. Sunday EST) local time with 30 people in the home, RTS reported, quoting the head of the government’s department for emergency situations, Luka Causevic.

The fire was put out quickly and all the injured were taken to hospitals in Belgrade. One woman is in a serious condition and on a ventilator, RTS reported.

The prosecutors office said the fire was caused by one of the residents of the nursing home, who was among those who died.

A detailed statement will be released later on Monday.

“There are indications that this tragedy was caused by criminal activity of one individual,” Nemanja Starovic, the minister for labor, employment and social issues, told RTS.

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