A top Democrat in Congress has accused his Republican colleagues of carrying out “a political hit job on the FBI in the service of the president” with the Friday release of a memo assembled by House intelligence committee chair Devin Nunes.

The extraordinary charge, which underscored the rift that has opened between Donald Trump and America’s most powerful law enforcement agency, was delivered on Sunday by Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee.

Schiff told ABC’s This Week that Republican members of the committee had declined to interview FBI officials as they bulldozed forward to release a memo they hoped would discredit the investigation of Trump’s Russia ties. Trump privately hoped the memo, which ties top figures in the Russia investigation to alleged law enforcement malpractice, would give him political cover to make changes in the justice department and potentially short-circuit the Russia inquiry run by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to multiple reports.(theguardian)…[+]

The trial of a drug dealer and slum landlord accused of harbouring two members of the cell that attacked Paris in November 2015 has given a glimpse of the tense five days after the deadliest night in France since the second world war.

The trial of Jawad Bendaoud, which opened last month and is the first linked to the attacks that killed 130 people and injured 500 more, has heard from survivors and victims’ relatives who have told horrific stories of loss and the desire to see justice. Bendaoud has provoked anger from relatives over his behaviour in court, where he has bragged about his criminal activities and sex life. He has also openly fought with his co-defendant and fellow dealer, Mohamed Soumah, who is being prosecuted for failing to alert police about the terrorists’ plot. A third man, Yussef Aitboulahcen, the brother of a woman killed in a raid on the terrorists’ hideout, is also on trial.(theguardian)…[+]

Uma Thurman has broken her silence about her experiences with the disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein. In an interview with the New York Times, the actor described an attempted sexual assault in Weinstein’s suite at the Savoy hotel in London in the mid-1990s.

Weinstein has been accused of sexual harassment, assault and rape by multiple women. Thurman, the star of movies including Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, said last year she would come forward about her experiences with Weinstein when she was ready to do so. Speaking to the New York Times, she said: “It was such a bat to the head. He pushed me down. He tried to shove himself on me. He tried to expose himself. He did all kinds of unpleasant things. But he didn’t actually put his back into it and force me.

“You’re like an animal wriggling away, like a lizard. I was doing anything I could to get the train back on the track. My track. Not his track.”(theguardian)…[+]