Smuggler arrested with 300 tarantulas strapped to his body
CNN
Police in Peru have arrested a man caught trying to leave the country with 320 tarantulas, 110 centipedes and nine bullet ants strapped to his body.
Police in Peru have arrested a man caught trying to leave the country with 320 tarantulas, 110 centipedes and nine bullet ants strapped to his body. The 28-year-old South Korean national was stopped at Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima on November 8 after officials noticed that his stomach area looked “bulky,” according to a statement from the country’s national forestry and wildlife service, SERFOR, published November 13. A search revealed hundreds of insects packaged inside ziplock bags strapped to his abdomen, according to the statement. Police detained the man, who was traveling to South Korea via France, and Peru’s environmental crimes prosecutor has opened an investigation, it added. The insects are thought to have been taken from the Madre de Dios region in the Peruvian Amazon. They are now in the care of authorities. Tarantulas are a threatened species, Walter Silva, a wildlife specialist at SERFOR, explained in the statement.

Former election clerk Tina Peters’ prison sentence has long been a rallying cry for President Donald Trump and other 2020 election deniers. Now, her lawyers are heading back to court to appeal her conviction as Colorado’s Democratic governor has signaled a new openness to letting her out of prison early.

The Trump administration’s sweeping legal effort to obtain Americans’ sensitive data from states’ voter rolls is now almost entirely reliant upon a Jim Crow-era civil rights law passed to protect Black voters from disenfranchisement – a notable shift in how the administration is pressing its demands.

White House officials are heaping blame on DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro over her office’s criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, faulting her for blindsiding them with an inquiry that has forced the administration into a dayslong damage control campaign, four people familiar with the matter told CNN.

The aircraft used in the US military’s first strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a strike which has drawn intense scrutiny and resulted in numerous Congressional briefings, was painted as a civilian aircraft and was part of a closely guarded classified program, sources familiar with the program told CNN. Its use “immediately drew scrutiny and real concerns” from lawmakers, one of the sources familiar said, and legislators began asking questions about the aircraft during briefings in September.

DOJ pleads with lawyers to get through ‘grind’ of Epstein files as criticism of redactions continues
“It is a grind,” the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division said in an email. “While we certainly encourage aggressive overachievers, we need reviewers to hit the 1,000-page mark each day.”

A new classified legal opinion produced by the Justice Department argues that President Donald Trump was not limited by domestic law when approving the US operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro because of his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief and that he is not constrained by international law when it comes to carrying out law enforcement operations overseas, according to sources who have read the memo.







