Russian biathlete Olga Zaitseva and two other athletes have filed a defamation lawsuit against Grigory Rodchenkov - a disgraced doctor-turned key witness in the Russian doping scandal - saying he made up the whole story.


Zaitseva, a two-times Olympic champion, has been stripped of her Sochi 2014 Olympic silver and banned for life along with more than 40 Russian athletes after Rodchenkov named her among those involved in the alleged Russian "state-sponsored" doping program.

Now, the woman seeks to appeal this decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, together with two other biathletes from the Rodchenkov list - Yana Romanova and Olga Vilukhina. The three also filed a $30-million lawsuit in New York against the former Moscow laboratory director, accusing him of outright slandering them for some personal goals.

Zaitseva says it was one man's lie that ruined her reputation and career - and she has evidence to prove her innocence. Rodchenkov's portrayal of events was a "made up story" from the very start, at least when it comes to her case, the biathlete told German weekly Der Spiegel.

Delays to cancer diagnosis and treatment due to coronavirus could cause thousands of excess deaths in the UK within a year, research suggests.

Scientists suggest there could be at least 7,000 additional deaths - but in a worst case scenario that number could be as high as 35,000.

There are concerns routine screenings, urgent referrals and treatments have been delayed or cancelled.

NHS England said it was working hard to restore services.

Scientists examined data from eight hospital trusts and shared their findings exclusively with BBC Panorama.

A container ship caught fire on Monday in the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr, official media reported, citing the head of the protection department of the Bushehr Ports and Maritime Organisation.

According to the IRNA news agency, the fire occurred in Ameri Port in Tangestan County and firefighters are currently trying to extinguish the blaze both from the sea and the land.

There is a threat of the fire spreading to other vessels.

​The investigation into the incident will be launched after the fire is taken under control, the news agency said.

Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to take unconscious bias training after critics claimed he devalued the Black Lives Matter protests by calling them a "moment".

The Labour leader was challenged by Sharon, a black party member who called into a radio show to accuse him of "unconscious dismissive language and attitudes" that "feed into structural racism and unchallenged pervading elements of society".

Last week, Sir Keir had described calls from some activists to defund the police as "nonsense" and added: "The Black Lives Matter movement, or moment if you like, internationally is about reflecting something completely different."

Sir Keir, a former director of public prosecutions, explained later he meant to say the rallies were "a defining moment and turning point".

The builders of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are pulling the plug on the project as companies continue to meet mounting environmental opposition to new fossil fuel conduits in the U.S.

Duke Energy Corp. DUK, -2.54% and Dominion Energy Inc. D, -9.61% said Sunday that they were abandoning the proposed $8 billion pipeline — which aimed to carry natural gas 600 miles through West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina and underneath the Appalachian Trail — citing continued regulatory delays and uncertainty, even after a favorable Supreme Court ruling last month.

Dominion meanwhile said it was selling the rest of its natural gas transmission and storage network to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRK.B, 1.98% for $9.7 billion including debt. The deal includes a 25% stake in the Cove Point liquefied natural gas export facility in Maryland, which will remain majority owned by Dominion.

Something wasn't right. Starting earlier this year, police kept arresting associates of Mark, a UK-based alleged drug dealer. Mark took the security of his operation seriously, with the gang using code names to discuss business on custom, encrypted phones made by a company called Encrochat. For legal reasons, Motherboard is referring to Mark using a pseudonym.

Because the messages were encrypted on the devices themselves, police couldn't tap the group's phones or intercept messages as authorities normally would. On Encrochat, criminals spoke openly and negotiated their deals in granular detail, with price lists, names of customers, and explicit references to the large quantities of drugs they sold, according to documents obtained by Motherboard from sources in and around the criminal world.

Maybe it was a coincidence, but in the same time frame, police across the UK and Europe busted a wide range of criminals. In mid-June, authorities picked up an alleged member of another drug gang. A few days later, law enforcement seized millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs in Amsterdam. It was as if the police were detaining people from completely unrelated gangs simultaneously.

"[The police] all over it aren't they," the dealer wrote in one of the messages obtained by Motherboard. "My heads still baffled how they got on all my guys."

Unbeknownst to Mark, or the tens of thousands of other alleged Encrochat users, their messages weren't really secure. French authorities had penetrated the Encrochat network, leveraged that access to install a technical tool in what appears to be a mass hacking operation, and had been quietly reading the users' communications for months. Investigators then shared those messages with agencies around Europe.

"I've never seen anything like this."

Only now is the astonishing scale of the operation coming into focus: It represents one of the largest law enforcement infiltrations of a communications network predominantly used by criminals ever, with Encrochat users spreading beyond Europe to the Middle East and elsewhere. French, Dutch, and other European agencies monitored and investigated "more than a hundred million encrypted messages" sent between Encrochat users in real time, leading to arrests in the UK, Norway, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands, a team of international law enforcement agencies announced Thursday.

A military court in Pskov has handed a Russian journalist a $7,000 fine for an article in which she blamed police brutality for a bombing incident at a regional office of the FSB, Russia's main security agency.

The case has provoked outrage from the journalist's supporters, who believe that the criminal charge is an attack on free speech.

Svetlana Prokopyeva was found guilty of justifying terrorism after writing a 2018 story in which she speculated about the motives behind a bombing in Arkhangelsk.

The journalist argued that the 17-year-old assailant acted in response to the "repressive actions" of the government and the police. She claimed that the authorities are responsible for creating an environment that pushes citizens to fight back.

In the early hours of Monday reports emerged that Baghdad International Airport had been hit by a rocket attack although there were no reports of injuries or explosions in the area.

Iraq has denied reports that a rocket landed near the Baghdad International Airport on Sunday night.

"Several media outlets reported the fall of a Katyusha rocket near the Baghdad International Airport terminal", tweeted the security media cell of the office of Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kazemi.

"We deny this news completely, and the Baghdad Operations Command did not indicate any missile launches until 0050 hours, and we call on the media to be accurate and to take information exclusively from the security media cell".

"Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli has endorsed Kanye West's 2020 presidential election bid.

In an email to the Gateway Pundit from the federal prison where he is serving his seven year sentence for securities fraud, Shkreli wrote "Yeezy for President," and that he's "got my endorsement and vote."

"I am available for treasury secretary or federal reserve chairman. I could immediately balance the budget and restore sanity to the American balance sheet, replete with debt and runaway spending," Shkreli wrote.

The mayor of Atlanta, Georgia gave an impassioned plea to disclose any information on the gunmen who shot up a car, killing an eight-year-old black girl inside, during a BLM protest.

The shooters need to be brought to justice, because as long as they are roaming free, they pose a threat to everyone, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said during an emotional press conference on Sunday. Staying silent regarding people like them will not keep people safe, and violence undermines the cause that has gained momentum in the past weeks, she said.

"In the civil rights movement there was a defined common enemy. We are fighting the enemy within. We are shooting each other on our streets," she said. "You've shot and killed a baby!"