June 18, 2024

Tuesday, June 18, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

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Father’s Day was Sunday.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump's Very Different Father's Day Messages - Newsweek.

Click above 👆 to see the Newsweek analysis.

Here is what that is based on.

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Joe is always busy.

$30 million raised.

Contributors included Wealthy donors plus $20 virtual donors.

The Biden Campaign shows it is willing to fight to win.

The Muslim question.

Happy anniversary, POTUS and FLOTUS.

#47 yesterday.

Here is a new, powerful ad.

The Biden Campaign will bring it to swing state voters with a $50 million ad buy.

If you don’t live in a swing state, you may only see this and other Biden ads on the Roundup. Share it to let friends and family know that Biden is fighting tough.

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Kamala is always busy.

The Vice President at the Summit on Peace in Ukraine, June 9-15.

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Some of the shootings, some of the mass tragedies we are called upon to remember in a country controlled by gun interests.

The President spoke on this too.

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More on the Convicted Felon.

Says he visited a “Black” church in Detroit over the weekend.

What is wrong with these pictures?

There are no words.

Trump has a long history of sexual abuse charges.

Someone did some research.

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We haven’t been hearing much about Putin’s evil recently.

We will now.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to stand trial in Russia on espionage charges.

In a setback to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, the Russian prosecutor's office announced Thursday he will stand trial on espionage charges, officially ending any future pre-detention appeals.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, left, stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024.

"The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation has approved an indictment in the criminal case against US citizen Evan Gershkovich," the office said in a statement. "The criminal case has been sent to the Sverdlovsk Regional Court for consideration on the merits."

It continued, "The investigation established and documented that the American journalist of The Wall Street Journal, Gershkovich, on the instructions of the CIA in March 2023, collected secret information in the Sverdlovsk region about the activities of the defense enterprise JSC NPK Uralvagonzavod for the production and repair of military equipment."

Gershkovich has denied he was involved in any espionage and the U.S. State Department has declared him to be wrongfully detained.

The statement Thursday marks the first time prosecutors have publicly accused Gershkovich of working for the CIA, alleging without evidence that he was collecting "secret information" on a tank factory in the Sverdlovsk region. Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. government and Gershkovich's many colleagues all vehemently dispute he was working as a spy and say that he was doing his job as a reporter.

Gershkovich was on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg, the capital of the Sverdlovsk region, when he was arrested in March 2023.

Previously, prosecutors have alleged Gershkovich was working for a foreign intelligence service without specifying which one.

"Evan Gershkovich is facing a false and baseless charge," Almar Latour, Dow Jones CEO and Wall Street Journal publisher, and Emma Tucker, Wall Street Journal editor in chief, said in a joint statement published in The Wall Street Journal. "Russia's latest move toward a sham trial is, while expected, deeply disappointing and still no less outrageous."

They added, "Evan has spent 441 days wrongfully detained in a Russian prison for simply doing his job. Evan is a journalist. The Russian regime's smearing of Evan is repugnant, disgusting and based on calculated and transparent lies. Journalism is not a crime. Evan's case is an assault on free press."

Gershkovich most recently appeared in court in Moscow for a pretrial hearing on April 23 as part of an appeal against the spying charges. His appeal was denied and he was ordered held through at least June 30.

The reporter smiled and gave a thumb's up when asked by ABC News inside the courtroom how he was doing.

"He has one more appeal that he can make, appealing his detention, but what's most likely going to happen before the 30th of June is Evan will be moved from Lefortovo, where he is currently held in prison, to instead Yekaterinburg, and when he gets out to Yekaterinburg, that's when the trial process most likely will start," U.S. Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens said Thursday during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

Carstens continued: "I will tell you, if it's anything like what happened to Brittney Griner, Paul Whelan, Trevor Reed, there will be a period when he leaves Lefortovo where we won't have any contact with him. It'll almost be like it's gone dark."

The U.S. has been negotiating the release of both Gershkovich and Paul Whelan since not long after their detentions. Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, was also accused of spying in 2018 and convicted in June 2020. Like Gershkovich, he has been declared wrongfully detained by the U.S. government.

"We're going to continue to try to pursue his release," State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Thursday of Gershkovich. "We put a substantial offer on the table to secure the release of Evan and Paul Whelan some months ago, as we said publicly, we're continuing to work to secure their release. It's one of the secretary's and the president's highest priorities." (ABC News).

I was just thinking that we hadn’t heard much from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis either. Then, this.

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Polls are notoriously unreliable.

So make of this what you what.

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This is not good.👇

This is good. 👇

Watch Melinda Gates make clear her endorsement for 2024.👇

This is even better.

Hillary at the Tony awards:

• Basking in the Broadway community’s love

• Reminding everyone of the importance of the right to vote

• Introducing the great musical, SUFFS.

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Your daily reminder.

Trump is a convicted felon.

On May 30th, he was found guilty on 34 felony counts by the unanimous vote of 12 ordinary citizens.

He will be sentenced on July 11.