Twelve Israeli teenagers have appeared in court in Cyprus over the alleged rape of a 19-year-old British woman. The alleged attack was said to have taken place in a hotel in the popular holiday resort of Ayia Napa. The boys – who are aged between 16 and 18 except one, who is 15 – have not yet entered any pleas.

They have been remanded in custody and police have been given a further eight days to investigate. The British woman contacted police in the early hours of Wednesday morning saying she had been raped in a hotel in Ayia Napa. Later that day police arrested the 12 teenagers. During the hearing on Thursday morning, judge Tonia Nicolaou confirmed the names of those arrested before reporters were told to leave the courtroom due to the age of one suspect, the 15-year-old boy.

The parents of several of those arrested flew from Israel to the court hearing in Paralimni, near to the Ayia Napa resort. The suspects were led through the court building handcuffed to each other in pairs. Some parents shouted messages of support and embraced them. The mother of one of the suspects told the BBC her son had done nothing wrong. An Israeli diplomat was present in court and said they would monitor but not interfere with the case. The Foreign Office has said it is supporting a woman who was assaulted and says it is in contact with local police. The town of Ayia Napa is a resort popular with young people.(BBC)…[+]

WASHINGTON– The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to sideline an impeachment resolution against President Donald Trump, effectively killing the measure for now but not burying the issue that has divided Democrats.

The resolution’s sponsor, Democratic Representative Al Green, was seeking to capitalize on growing criticism of Trump after the president’s recent attacks on minority congresswomen. The House voted 332 to 95 to set aside the measure.

“Impeachment of your President…., is now OVER. This should never be allowed to happen to another President of the United States again!,” Trump tweeted.

Green had failed twice before to get an impeachment resolution pass-ed, but yesterday marked the first time the full House had addressed the matter since Democrats took the majority earlier this year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long tried to restrain Democrats from initiating the impeachment process against Trump, pending a House Judiciary Committee probe into whether he colluded with Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election and obstructed Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the matter.(Reuters)…[+]

 A woman who ad­mit­ted to ar­rang­ing the mur­der of her friend and steal­ing her new­born ba­by is ex­pect­ed to be sen­tenced next month. The sen­tenc­ing hear­ing for Ker­ry-Ann Hosang was ex­pect­ed to take place at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, but it had to be post­poned as a bio-so­cial re­port on her con­duct while in prison was not yet com­plete.

Jus­tice Althea Alex­is-Wind­sor, who pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed that she want­ed to com­plete the sen­tenc­ing be­fore the 2019/2020 Law Term term opens in Sep­tem­ber, agreed to ad­journ the case to Au­gust 5. Hosang was ini­tial­ly be­fore Alex­is-Wind­sor charged with mur­der­ing 28-year-old Reena Kissoon, but on Ju­ly 3, the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) agreed to al­low her to plead guilty to felony mur­der.

Un­der the felony mur­der rule, judges are giv­en the dis­cre­tion to waive the manda­to­ry death penal­ty in mur­der cas­es where death re­sults in the com­mis­sion of a less­er crim­i­nal of­fence.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]