| Chris Brown has been arrested in Paris on suspicion of rape, the BBC reports. The singer and convicted domestic abuser is alleged to have assaulted a 24-year-old woman in a hotel suite in the city earlier this month. She is reported to have told police that she met Brown at a nightclub in central Paris before returning to the hotel. Two other men, identified by French media as Brown’s bodyguard and a friend, have also been arrested. Brown has not yet commented on the allegations. He previously received five years’ probation and a community-service order for assaulting ex-girlfriend Rihanna in his car in 2009. |
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| Rudy Giuliani, who is President Trump’s lawyer, says in a new interview that he is worried he is being painted as a liar. “I am afraid it will be on my gravestone: ‘Rudy Giuliani: He lied for Trump,’” Giuliani told The New Yorker. “Somehow, I don’t think that will be it. But if it is, so what do I care? I’ll be dead. I figure I can explain it to St. Peter. He will be on my side, because I am, so far... I don’t think, as a lawyer, I ever said anything that’s untruthful.” The comment came after Giuliani was pressed on conflicting statements he has made about the Trump Tower Moscow project. In an interview with The New York Times, Giuliani quoted Trump as saying he was involved in discussions until the day he was elected. Giuliani now says he was speaking hypothetically, but added: “I am telling you that their investigation is so ridiculous that, even if he did do it, it wouldn’t be a crime.” The former mayor managed to contradict himself during The New Yorker interview about his previous contradictions: “And the president had no conversations. I shouldn’t say he had no conversations. He had a few conversations about this early-stage proposal that he ended somewhere in early 2016, and doesn’t have a recollection of anything else, and there is nothing to support anything else.” |
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| A leaked audio tape allegedly shows that Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska and his associates planned the arrest of Anastasia Vashukevich—the Belarusian model who claimed to have evidence of Kremlin interference in Donald Trump’s election. Vashukevich was deported from Thailand last week after pleading guilty to charges including soliciting prostitution. Despite being expected to be sent back to her home country, she was detained in Moscow on suspicion of enticement into prostitution. Audio released by Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny allegedly shows Deripaska, with whom Vashukevich is believed to have had a relationship, and his associates discussing how to keep the model under lock and key. In the recording, one man says everyone in Vashukevich’s group needs to be “locked up” and suggested that she could be charged with illegal business activities. Vashukevich insists she is being framed for a crime she didn’t commit and apologized to Deripaska in court last week, saying: “Please forgive me. I was just a tool and people used me.” Deripaska reportedly loaned Paul Manafort in excess of $10 million before the U.S. political adviser became Donald Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016. |
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| Democrats truly aren’t holding back anymore. Weeks after Rep. Rashida Tlaib made headlines for saying “impeach the motherfucker” to a private audience, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has called the president “the grand wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, made his comments during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event hosted by the National Action Network in New York. “These are challenging times in the United States of America—we have a hater in the White House, a birther in chief, the grand wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” he said. “One of the things that we’ve learned is that while Jim Crow may be dead, he still got some nieces and nephews that are alive and well.” Jeffries previously called Trump a “racial arsonist” for the way he handled the white-nationalist Charlottesville rally. |
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| It's hard enough to brush for the full two minutes that dentists recommend, let alone actually floss. But what if you have an all-in-one set that easily let you switch between brushing and flossing, and took of barely any space? The AquaSonic Home Dental Center not only has an ultrasonic electronic toothbrush, but an aqua flosser with multiple heads (to clean your teeth, gums, and tongue), and a set of four brush heads. It's basically like having an array of dentist's tools in your own bathroom. For $69.99, you can get that squeaky clean, just saw the dentist feeling right in your own bathroom. Though, you won't get a baggie with a travel-sized floss when you're finished. Scouted is internet shopping with a pulse. Follow us on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter for even more recommendations and exclusive content. Please note that if you buy something featured in one of our posts, The Daily Beast may collect a share of sales. |
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| An American banker who’s said to have close ties with Vladimir Putin’s inner circle sought access to Donald Trump’s transition team the week after the 2016 election, ABC News reports. Mark Burnett, the executive producer of The Apprentice and a close Trump friend, reportedly contacted one of Trump’s closest advisers nine days after the election to see if he would meet Russia-linked banker Robert Foresman. Foresman lived for years in Moscow, led a $3 billion Russian investment fund, and has been described by his company as having connections to Putin’s inner circle. He’s reported to have been scheduled to meet Thomas Barrack, the chairman of what would become Trump’s inaugural fund, but the meeting was later canceled. However, he did meet Sergei Gorkov, the chairman of a state-owned Russian development bank that December—the same banker who flew from Moscow to New York for one day that month to meet Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Last year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sent a letter to Foresman saying the Senate Intelligence Committee “has reason to believe that you sought to engage the Trump campaign in discussions concerning outreach from senior Kremlin officials.” |
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| English Premier League soccer player Emiliano Sala was on a plane that has disappeared near Britain’s Channel Islands, French police sources have confirmed to Reuters. The Argentinian forward is believed to have been one of two people on board a Piper Malibu light aircraft that disappeared off the southern island of Alderney late Monday night. The player had signed for Cardiff City from French club Nantes on Saturday, for a club record fee of around $19 million, and Cardiff Airport confirmed the aircraft was due to arrive there from Nantes. Cardiff City said it was “seeking clarification” as to what happened. The flight disappeared off radar near the Casquets lighthouse. The search and rescue operation continues. |
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| Florida State University’s sports teams have apologized for a Martin Luther King Jr. Day tweet that showed the civil-rights icon wearing a football glove and performing the Tomahawk Chop. The chop is a celebration that’s been widely criticized as being insensitive to Native American culture and banned by several schools. Unsurprisingly, the tweet attracted significant criticism and was pulled after under an hour. The Seminoles later tweeted an apology that read: “In a well-intentioned effort to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. on this special day, a member of our recruiting staff created a graphic using one of Dr. King's quotes—‘If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.’ The quote resonated with our program’s Do Something mantra. However, in our attempt to more closely connect the message to FSU, we foolishly posted a graphic that was not in line with our intent. We are sorry for missing the mark in our attempt to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy.” View this cheat in a browser to see this embedded tweet. |
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| It was perhaps inevitable—but Donald Trump has thrown his support behind the Covington Catholic high-school students whose confrontation with a Native American activist went viral over the weekend. In the initial footage of the incident, it appeared that the students, wearing red “Make American Great Again” hats, were taunting the Native American man. Subsequent footage showed that the kids could have been provoked by a group of protesters ahead of the clash, though additional videos showed a pattern of poor behavior on the teens’ part. “Looking like Nick Sandman [sic] & Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgements proving out to be false,” Trump tweeted. “Not good, but making big comeback!” Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann was singled out for criticism for appearing to grin in the face of the Native America drummer, but he later claimed: “I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation.” |
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| Thousands of residents in New York City public housing were without heat or hot water Monday, the coldest day of the year with temperatures in the single digits, the New York Daily News reports. Housing Authority tenants bundled up to fight bone-chilling temperatures as low as 4 degrees and were forced to use unsafe methods to stay warm. Carol Miles, who lives in the Bronx’s Sedgwick Houses, told the News that she kept the stove on all day to combat the cold. “See the ice over there?” said Miles, 83, pointing to icicles forming inside the apartment. “The wind last night, I’m telling you—these windows, I thought they were going to come out. The windows are no good. Period.” While NYCHA began a coat drive for some of its residents, Miles’ son Christopher told the News the agency had done little to help tenants like his mother. “We’ve been complaining for over a year,” said Christopher, 54. “We’ve had the stove on all day today. I woke up early today—I woke up because it’s freezing… A lot of times, when there’s a three- or four-day weekend like this, we get no hot water. Or no heat.” Conditions in city housing are so bad that the Justice Department filed suit to get them corrected. |
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