Special counsel Robert Mueller has signaled to defense lawyers for Roger Stone, the longtime adviser to Donald Trump, that prosecutors might brandish Stone’s bank records and personal communications going back several years as evidence in the case against him. Legal analysts said the move could be significant because the sizable amount of potential evidence listed by Mueller – and its nature, in the case of the bank records – seemed to go well beyond the current known charges against Stone.

A court filing by Mueller on Thursday said prosecutors had seized “voluminous and complex” material including “multiple hard drives containing several terabytes of information”, material seized from search warrants executed on “Apple iCloud accounts and email accounts”, “bank and financial records, and the contents of numerous physical devices (eg, cellular phones, computers, and hard drives)”.

Stone was indicted last week on charges of obstructing an investigation, witness tampering and five counts of making false statements. Two of his residences – one in Florida and one in Manhattan – were raided during his arrest. “It’s interesting that Mueller produced bank and financial records to Roger Stone, given that they don’t appear related to the charges he faces,” former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeted. “Perhaps Mueller’s team has a practice of producing broad discovery to defendants, but it is not required by the rules.(theguardian)…[+]

The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has been held liable by a US court for the extrajudicial killing of the Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin and ordered to pay $300m dollars (£228m) in punitive damages. In a judgment published on Thursday, the Syrian government was found to have targeted journalists deliberately during the country’s civil war in order to “intimidate newsgathering” and suppress dissent.

Colvin, an American reporter who operated out of London, and Rémi Ochlik, a French photojournalist, were killed in a rocket attack on a makeshift media centre in the rebel-held city of Homs in February 2012. A claim against Assad’s regime was lodged with a Washington court by her sister Cathleen and her three children. “It’s been almost seven years since my sister was killed by the Assad regime, and not a day goes by when I don’t think of her,” Cathleen said on Thursday.

“My heart goes out to the families of the many thousands of victims of the Syrian conflict. It is my greatest hope that the court’s ruling will lead to other criminal prosecutions, and serve as a deterrent against future attacks on the press and on civilians. “Marie dedicated her life to fighting for justice on behalf of the victims of war and ensuring that their stories were heard. This case is an extension of her legacy, and I think she’d be proud of what we achieved today.”(theguardian)…[+]

JamaicaBig-game hunters from the United States are trying to get permission to head to Jamaica to hunt the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), which is reportedly breeding at an alarming rate and emerging as a major threat to the natural environment and agriculture, especially in the eastern parish of Portland.

American Thomas McIntyre is seeking permission to take the hunters to Jamaica as a new tourism attraction while creating a lucrative income-generating stream for locals. “I write for several hunting-and-fishing magazines here in the United States and have, for more than 40 years, and I can assure you that my readers would be very interested in a new deer-hunting location on the map, especially one as exotic, to them, as Jamaica,” McIntyre said in an email toThe Sunday Gleaner.

He continued: “If you could please send me information on the deer situation on your island and the presence there of any hunting lodges or tourist operators who might be able to accommodate foreign hunters, I would very much appreciate hearing back from you.(Jamaica Gleaner)…[+]