World
Prosecutors try to link alleged bribes of Sen. Bob Menendez to appointment of federal prosecutor
NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors at the trial of Sen. Bob Menendez used the testimony of his former campaign manager on Tuesday to try to link alleged bribes of the Democrat to the appointment of New Jersey’s top prosecutor three years ago.
Michael Soliman, a former top Menendez political adviser, testified immediately after New Jersey’s U.S. attorney, Philip R. Sellinger, finished two days on the witness stand at the Manhattan federal court trial that is in its sixth week.
Menendez, 70, and two New Jersey businessmen are on trial on charges alleging the senator accepted gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a luxury car from businessmen from 2018 to 2022 in return for helping them in their business dealings, including by trying to meddle in court cases.
They have pleaded not guilty. A third businessman pleaded guilty and testified against them. Menendez’s wife has also pleaded not guilty in the case, although her trial has been delayed after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Sellinger testified last week that Menendez told him that if he recommended that he be appointed as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, he hoped he’d take a look at a criminal case against Fred Dabies, a prominent New Jersey real estate developer, because he believed he “was being treated unfairly.”
Sellinger said he told Menendez the next day that he would have to notify the Justice Department that he might need to be recused from the Dabies case because he had worked on a lawsuit while in private practice that was adverse to Dabies.
Menendez then recommended somebody else for the job, and Soliman testified Tuesday that he was told by a top Menendez aide in December 2020 that the senator and Sellinger “had a falling out.”
Soliman said that after the appointment of the new candidate fell through after a series of negative news articles about her, Sellinger told him that he wanted the senator to know that he checked with the Justice Department and learned that “the issue” that he thought would require his recusal did not after all.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Richenthal asked Soliman if there was any confusion expressed by Menendez about what “the issue” was when he relayed the conversation to the senator.
“No,” Soliman said.
Soliman, who said he did not know what “the issue” was that Sellinger had referenced, also said Menendez did not ask any questions regarding the message Sellinger passed along.
Sellinger, who is not accused of any wrongdoing, was sworn in as U.S. attorney in December 2021 and has held the post ever since.
Sellinger, testifying last week, recalled his conversation with Soliman differently, claiming that he told Soliman exactly what he told the senator: that he expected he might be recused from the Daibes case because of the civil case he had worked on that was adverse to Daibes.
Sellinger said he called Menendez in spring 2022 to invite him to speak at a public ceremony celebrating Sellinger’s appointment as U.S. attorney.
“He said: ‘I’m going to pass,’ ” Sellinger recalled.
Sellinger said the senator then said: “The only thing worse than not having a relationship with the United States attorney is people thinking you have a relationship with the United States attorney and you don’t.”
Sellinger testified on cross examination last week and Tuesday in ways favorable to the senator, including saying he never believed Menendez had asked him to do anything improper or unethical.
Buoyed by Sellinger’s testimony on cross examination, Menendez left the courthouse Tuesday seeming upbeat, saying just before getting in his car: “Sellinger made it very clear. He was asked to do nothing wrong. And he didn’t.”
Dabies, who is on trial with Menendez, contracted COVID last week, forcing a three-day delay in a trial that is now expected to stretch into July. After Wednesday’s holiday, the trial resumes Thursday.
World
Secret Service Agent Assigned to Jill Biden Shoots Self in Leg
A U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to former First Lady Jill Biden accidentally shot himself in the leg early on Friday near Philadelphia International Airport, according to a source familiar with the incident.
In a statement that did not mention Biden, the Secret Service said the incident occurred just after 8:30 a.m. EST and the agent suffered a non-life-threatening injury.
“There was no impact to the protectee’s movement and they were not present at the time of the incident,” the statement said.
The agent “accidentally discharged his firearm” while traveling in an unmarked SUV near the airport, Philadelphia Police Department Cpl. Jasmine Colón-Reilly said in a statement.
Emergency medical personnel responded to the scene and the agent was transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in stable condition, Colón-Reilly said.
“The Secret Service’s Office of Professional Responsibility will be reviewing the facts and circumstances of this incident,” the Secret Service said.
The Secret Service is responsible for providing security to current and former presidents, vice presidents and their families and foreign leaders and is also an investigative agency.
—
(Reporting by Christian Martinez in Los Angeles; editing by Scott Malone and Chris Reese)
World
Body found in search for missing American Airlines flight attendant in Colombia: mayor
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A mayor in Colombia announced that a corpse had been discovered and was likely that of an American citizen who had gone missing.
Eric Fernando Gutierrez Molina, a 32-year-old American Airlines flight attendant from Texas, had gone missing while in the foreign country, according to reports.
“Since last Sunday, we have been searching for Eric Gutiérrez, a U.S. citizen who is missing,” Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez noted in a Friday post on X, according to a translation from Spanish.
AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT ATTENDANT VANISHES DURING COLOMBIA LAYOVER: ‘HIS FAMILY IS DESPERATE’
Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez speaks during a press conference on Dec. 19, 2025. (JAIME SALDARRIAGA / AFP via Getty Images)
“Unfortunately, a lifeless body has just been found between the municipality of Jericó and Puente Iglesias,” he noted.
“There is a very high probability that it is this person,” the mayor explained.
COLOMBIAN MILITARY PLANE CRASH KILLS AT LEAST 66, HEAD OF ARMED FORCES SAYS
Eric Fernando Gutierrez Molina (CDColExt/X)
“We are heartbroken by the tragic passing of our colleague,” American Airlines noted in a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Saturday.
‘AMERICAS COUNTER CARTEL COALITION’: INSIDE THE US STRATEGY TO COMBAT NARCO TERROR, CONFRONT CHINA, OTHER FOES
An American Airlines Airbus A321 departs from Harry Reid International Airport on March 11, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
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“Our thoughts and support are with his family, loved ones and colleagues during this difficult time, and we are doing all we can to assist Colombian law enforcement in its investigation,” the company added.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch contributed to this report
World
Hundreds of thousands march through London in stand against the far right
London, United Kingdom – Hundreds of thousands of people have marched through central London in what organisers are calling the largest ever demonstration against the far right in British history.
The Together Alliance march, backed by about 500 groups including trade unions, antiracism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, brought together a diverse crowd of all ages from across the country on Saturday, converging on Whitehall near the Houses of Parliament.
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Organisers said that half a million people took part.
Kevin Courtney, chairman of the Together Alliance, told crowds the march “gives us all confidence to carry on.”
London’s Metropolitan Police put the figure considerably lower, at approximately 50,000, though officers acknowledged it was difficult to reach an accurate figure given how spread out the crowds were.
The protest was met with a far smaller group of counterprotesters waving Israeli flags and Iran’s pre-1979 monarchical flag.
Aadam Muuse, a trade union activist, told Al Jazeera that racism and Islamophobia had moved from the fringes into mainstream politics, and was “being pushed by parliamentarians”.
He said the march was “much needed to push back against [Reform leader Nigel] Farage and his ilk,” adding that the populist party “must be defeated at the ballot box”.
Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic, reporting from the march, said demonstrators were pushing back against what they saw as “the politics of hate and division” in the United Kingdom.
One demonstrator, activist and writer Hamja Ahsan, told Al Jazeera he was motivated to attend after a rally organised by the far-right agitator-activist Tommy Robinson that drew 150,000 people and was marred by violence that injured several police officers. Robinson is reportedly planning another rally in May.
“We need to show them that we’re the majority,” Ahsan said. “At a street level, the far right won’t take over our streets.”
He said the atmosphere on Saturday was akin to the Notting Hill Carnival, as the march united people from all backgrounds, “from pensioners to children”.
Museum worker Charlotte Elliston told Al Jazeera that she also feels unsettled by the far right’s creeping rise.
“You think this would never happen here, and then all of a sudden this might happen,” she said. “You see that it is getting scary.”
Several left-wing politicians joined the demonstration.
Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn posted on X that the “problems we face are not caused by migrants or refugees”, arguing they were rooted instead in “an economic system rigged in favour of corporations and billionaires”.
MP Zarah Sultana said on X, “There’s one minority we should be angry at: the billionaires funding division while working class people can’t make ends meet.”
Green Party leader Zack Polanski, Dianne Abbott and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham were also among the crowds.
‘Historic demonstration’
The rights group Amnesty UK hailed the “historic demonstration”, saying marchers were “calling for a different vision of society – one which places dignity, compassion and human rights at its heart”.
A separate march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which assembled at Exhibition Road near Hyde Park, converged with the main demonstration during the afternoon.
Eighteen people were arrested outside New Scotland Yard on Saturday after staging a protest in support of Palestine Action, the protest group which remains proscribed under the Terrorism Act despite a High Court ruling in February that the government’s decision to ban it was unlawful.
The march comes amid rising racism as Farage’s Reform party surges in the polls.
Hope Not Hate, an antiracism campaign group, warned earlier in March that the British far right is now “bigger, bolder and more extreme than ever before”.
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