https://thehill.com/policy/international/551300-former-us-ambassador-calls-putin-a-coward-after-navalnys-lawyer-arrested

A former U.S. ambassador to Russia called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “coward” after police in Moscow arrested opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s lawyer.

Michael McFaul, who served as ambassador to Russia for two years during the Obama administration, took to Twitter to criticize Putin after Navalny’s lawyer Ivan Pavlov was arrested on Friday.

“This is completely crazy. The rule of law in Russia is disappearing," McFaul tweeted, sharing a news story about the lawyer's arrest.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2012/10/06/newsmakers-take-a-walk-down-memory-lane-a18359

It was a picture of contrasts that perhaps could only have come from the pages of The Moscow Times.

Rubbing shoulders in a hall Friday evening were the likes of Moscow Deputy Mayor Andrei Sharonov and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul and society portrait painter Nikas Safronov, Wimm-Bill-Dann founder David Yakobashvili and Peter O'Brien, director of the European Pension Fund.

These personalities, who might never fraternize in regular life, gathered for a gala dinner to toast the 20th anniversary of The Moscow Times and share their memories of the last two decades in Russia.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/former-us-ambassador-claims-he-never-met-navalny-but-unearthed-photo-proves-otherwise/275531/

While this is certainly a defensible position, the former ambassador has not afforded it to his political opponents, whom he has declared guilty by association. McFaul has, on more than one occasion, attacked 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein as being a Russian stooge, citing her appearance at a media conference in Russia hosted by state broadcaster RT, in which she sat at the same table as Vladimir Putin (although she claims she did not speak to him).

Many seemed skeptical of the 57-year-old ex-diplomat’s claims. “McFaul is prohibited by law from telling the truth, and has no choice but to parrot the official party line. As the head of the Russia Desk at National Security Council, and later as U.S. Ambassador to Russia, he was deeply involved in highly classified programs where Navalny factored greatly,” said former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, also claiming that McFaul was key in securing Navalny a prestigious World Fellowship award from Yale University.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202105011082780178-facebook-ceo-zuckerberg-buys-600-more-acres-of-land-in-hawaii-amid-protests/

The Facebook founder and his wife – reportedly worth $117 billion – also own properties in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Lake Tahoe.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have almost doubled their land holding on a Hawaiian island.

The couple purchased three more plots totalling 595.4 acres for a cool $53 million on March 19, Pacific Business News reported.

The tech billionaire’s property is located at Kauai, the fourth largest of Hawaii's eight main islands, and home to 67,000 people.

They already own a 700-acre chunk of land nearby; the Facebook CEO started buying land there in September 2014.

Sam Pratt, president of Waipoli Corporation, said that the organisation chose the Zuckerbergs after seeing their “dedication over the years to land conservation, protecting native species and working to preserve the natural beauty of Kauai.”

The couple, however, has been facing resistance to their gradual land accumulation in Hawaii; last year a petition was created calling for them to stop “colonising Kauai,” which currently has more than 1 million signatures..

The Democrat Dream

https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/a-french-mayor-convicted-of-rape-run-his-town-from-prison-1.671872

DRAVEIL, France — When the mayor of this Paris suburb was convicted in February of rape and sexual assault and sentenced to five years in prison, France's MeToo movement claimed a victory.

Georges Tron had once been a government minister. Activists hoped his downfall and imprisonment would send a powerful message to others guilty of similar crimes.

But more than two months later, the convicted conservative party mayor is still in charge, governing the town of almost 30,000 people from his prison cell.

https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/business/national-business/article251092799.html

A Kentucky judge has ordered court officials to purge hundreds of lawsuits filed against clients by a disgraced disability attorney who masterminded the largest Social Security fraud in history, the Lexington Herald Leader reported.

Eric Conn pleaded guilty in 2017 to bribing doctors to falsify medical records for his thousands of clients and then paying a judge to approve their lifetime disability benefits. His plea agreement would have put him in prison for 12 years, but a few weeks before his sentencing Conn fled the country, leading federal agents on a six-month chase that ended when he was caught outside a Pizza Hut in Honduras. He was sentenced to an additional 15 years for his escape.