Ukrainian citizens should complete online courses and begin assembling drones to meet the needs of the country's military amid its conflict with Russia, Deputy PM and Digital Transformation Minister Mikhail Fedorov has proposed.

The goal of producing a million UAVs in 2024, recently announced by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is "realistic" if the public helps the government, Fedorov insisted in a post on Facebook on Saturday.

Small, first-person-view (FPV) drones have become "a game-changer" in the conflict, he wrote.

Since the fighting escalated in February 2022, the Kiev government has removed many legal obstacles restricting drone-production and the country's firms are currently increasing output, the minister added.

But any person can help boost Ukraine's UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) arsenal by completing "an engineering course that teaches you how to assemble a seven-inch FPV drone at home," Fedorov explained.

[...]

As for Ukraine, the goal of making one million UAVs this year is "achievable" but won't be enough, he warned, as the country actually needs two or three times more than that.

Ukraine's drone forces are becoming less effective, forcing it to innovate to not be left behind.

While Ukraine used to be able to rely on off-the-shelf civilian drones, Russia is getting better at countering those, forcing Ukraine to seek more advanced tech.

A Ukrainian drone operator and an expert described the situation to Business Insider.

Jammed and spoofed

They said Russia improved its jamming and spoofing equipment, making those cheaper drones more likely to fail.

Cmdr. Vitaliy Kryukov, a loitering-munition commander for Ukraine's elite Adam Tactical Group, said he believes basic drones will soon be obsolete.

Civilian-grade gear, he said, would have little worth without major software and hardware improvements to extend their range and resist jamming.

Their effectiveness is "significantly dropping" as Russia's electromagnetic warfare systems get more powerful, he said.

The estranged wife of a special prosecutor accused of having a romantic relationship with Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta district attorney who hired him, offered evidence on Friday that Ms. Willis accompanied him on trips unrelated to their work: leading the Georgia case against former President Donald J. Trump.

A court filing from Joycelyn Wade, who is in divorce proceedings with the prosecutor, Nathan J. Wade, included what it said were statements for a credit card account belonging to Mr. Wade. The statements showed that he bought plane tickets for himself and Ms. Willis, including tickets to San Francisco from Atlanta purchased on April 25, 2023, and to Miami from Atlanta purchased on Oct. 4, 2022.

The release of the credit card statements follows a motion filed last week by Michael Roman, one of Mr. Trump's 14 co-defendants in the Georgia case. That motion, which did not include any proof, claimed that Ms. Willis was having a romantic relationship with Mr. Wade that began before she hired him in 2021 to manage the high-profile case. The motion also stated that Mr. Wade, who has been paid more than $650,000 by the district attorney's office, paid for vacations with Ms. Willis.

The motion argued that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade had violated state rules of professional conduct, as well as local and federal law, and had created a conflict of interest that should result in both of them, and Ms. Willis's office, being removed from the case.

The credit card statements appear to give weight to some of the claims in Mr. Roman's motion, which said that Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis "have traveled personally together to such places as Napa Valley, Florida and the Caribbean," and that Mr. Wade "has purchased tickets for both of them to travel on both the Norwegian and Royal Caribbean cruise lines."

Adding to the scrutiny of the prosecutors, the chairman of the audit committee of the Fulton County board of commissioners sent a letter to Ms. Willis on Friday demanding that she turn over information about payments to special prosecutors and their professional experience.

Startling revelations out of Fani Willis' office suggesting an improper romantic relationship giving rise to an irremediable conflict of interest between Georgia's District Attorney and the special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, should result in the entire case's dismissal, without prejudice.

The allegations of impropriety between Willis and Wade, whom Willis' team contracted in November of 2021, are legion, and include not only an inappropriate romantic relationship, but also serious allegations of self-dealing that involves Willis abusing her public office for lavish vacations, federal funding, and myriad other ethics violations.

The fiery allegations percolated to the surface after Mike Roman, one of the 17 co-defendants implicated in the Willis indictment, raised them in a January 8^th court filing seeking to dismiss the grand jury indictment in toto as fatally defective and disqualify the district attorney's office from further prosecuting the matter.

Roman's explosive motion highlights improprieties that run the gauntlet from improper romantic relations to breaches of the District Attorney's Loyalty Oath to egregious instances of self-dealing, most of which can be independently corroborated through adjacent court filings. The misconduct is so severe and persistent that it likely imputes Fani Willis' whole office.

[...]

In other words, even the simple appearance of impropriety is sufficient to disqualify an officer from a proceeding whereby such misconduct could raise significant doubts about the integrity and fairness of the process at large.

Indeed, Wade regularly vowed to this standard himself: for example, according to the Marietta Daily Journal, in 2016, Wade stated publicly that "If there's an appearance, just a mere appearance of impropriety, and there's a request for recusal, just do it, because by not doing it, what you're doing is hurting the county in the long run, you're costing the taxpayers a lot of money."

[...]

So, what are the facts? Willis appointed Wade to her legal team in late November 2021. Wade had previously described himself as a "divorce lawyer" with "decades of experience" handling divorce cases. As far as managing complex, high-profile criminal prosecutions, his resume was patently deficient - and the revelations that have since come to light only confirm that lack of experience.

Wade's inexperience alone raises serious due process questions about the Special Prosecutor's ability to run perhaps the most consequential criminal prosecution in American history, which implicates a President of the United States on fundamental questions of election integrity, among other constitutional issues.

Wade, having never prosecuted anything beyond petty misdemeanors before, is scandalously unqualified for a national criminal prosecution of such historic magnitude involving a President of the United States. That Willis would appoint someone with so little experience, a fact that neither Wade nor Willis disputes, to a criminal prosecution of such significance, is absolutely staggering - and raises grave concerns about her own aptitude, let alone significant violations of fundamental procedural (and even substantive) due process rights.

A day after Willis appointed Wade to her team, Wade filed for divorce from his wife of more than 24 years, Joycelyn Wade. This past week, Politico reported that Wade's divorce proceeding was unusually acrimonious, and even resulted in a contempt order lodged against Wade by the judge presiding over that case. The contempt order resulted from Wade having "'inadequately responded' to his wife's discovery requests."

Part of that discovery request involved an order requesting Wade "to turn over a host of financial documents, including all income statements since 2016." If Wade had refused to turn over such documents, the judge presiding over the case threatened him with contempt and sanctions, which ultimately were filed against Wade.

There are two points worth underscoring with this divorce proceeding. First, contempt orders are extremely rare for divorce proceedings. This is because parties are typically given ample opportunities to reply in divorce proceedings, so it rarely gets to the point where a judge actually has to threaten disciplinary action, let alone order an official filing against a party for misconduct.

To do so, the violations must be so severe, so unconscionable, as to leave the court, having exhausted all other judicial remedies, no choice than to recommend disciplinary action. In Wade's case, his wife's discovery request alleged that "Plaintiff ha[d] not produced one single document evidencing this income." The fact that Wade was subsequently hit with a contempt order by the judge would seem to confirm that fact.

[...]

... Willis should have at least been aware of major issues concerning Wade's character - made even more shocking by the fact that Wade himself was a divorce lawyer for decades, and thus, presumably, was keenly aware of how these proceedings worked. Once those revelations came to light, Willis should have immediately fired Wade.

She also should have immediately recused herself for a dereliction of her oath of office and her constitutional duty to maintain the highest ethical standards possible, particularly on a case of such national-profile, by appointing a Special Prosecutor so flawed in manner of character and professional experience.

Second - and this is where things go beyond the pale - that same report said that Wade's ex-wife claimed that she had absolutely no idea that he was assigned to work as the lead prosecutor on Trump's case by Fani Willis' office until he was forced by the court to disclose such financial disclosures because of the contempt order from his divorce proceeding.

In other words, Wade was covering up decisive information about his personal finances from his own ex-wife, who, she claimed, had been given "nearly nothing" in financial support. Considering Wade's lengthy, decades-long experience overseeing divorce cases, his professional misconduct here, so appallingly derelict, necessarily borders on criminality.

What makes the latter point so troubling? Well, for starters, it ties into various other serious allegations of self-dealing and profiteering from abusing Willis' government office.

For instance, less than two months after the divorce court granted Wade's wife's request to reopen discovery, Joycelyn Wade told the court "that her husband earned almost $700,000 for his work on the Trump case since May of 2022."

This is corroborated by claims made in Roman's motion to dismiss, which stipulated that "the special prosecutor has been paid an estimated $1,000,000.00 in legal fees" since Willis tapped Wade as special prosecutor (page 6 of the filing). Arguably even more troubling is the fact that since Wade was appointed special prosecutor, he made various trips to Washington, DC, and even held meetings at Biden's White House and with the January 6^th Committee.

Since those facts came to light, House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan "launched an investigation into Willis for accepting more than $14.6 million in grant funds from President Joe Biden's Justice Department (DOJ) between 2020 and 2023," according to Breitbart. The same article stated "[t]he timeframe of the funds suggests the DOJ granted Willis federal funds to finance former President Donald Trump's prosecution."

The timetable runs in lockstep with the trips Wade made to Washington, DC, as recounted in the billing records detailed in the Mike Roman filing, on pages 13-15. Hence, the old saying "if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck" would appear to ring true here: all the evidence would seem to point in the direction that Willis' office was coordinating - perhaps even conspiring - with Biden's Justice Department, receiving millions of dollars to prosecute their leading political opponent in Donald Trump.

[...]

Ultimately, should cooler heads prevail, the only acceptable outcome is that Willis, Wade, and their office's racketeering scheme be put to a swift and consequential end. The misconduct, self-dealing, and rank corruption out of Fani Willi's entire office is simply too egregious to ignore. And what has been reported publicly likely only scratches the surface.

Stephen Gillers, a professor emeritus at New York University Law School, nobody's idea of a bastion of conservatism, and expert of legal and judicial ethics stated point blank: "Willis was conflicted in the investigation and prosecution of this case," and that "...the public and the state, as her client could not have the confidence in the independent judgment that her position required her to exercise."

In short, Fani Willis must recuse herself, at the bare minimum, from this action - and let someone without all her baggage take the reins.

Al Mayadeen's correspondent in southern Lebanon reported on Saturday that an Israeli drone strike targeted a car traveling on the Bazouriyeh-Borj al-Shamali road in the Tyre district, southern Lebanon. Our correspondent confirmed that this strike resulted in the martyrdom of two Lebanese Resistance fighters.

Israeli attacks are ongoing in southern Lebanon, as the National News Agency reported that an Israeli aircraft targeted a house in Marwahin on Saturday. The agency noted that the house had been targeted more than once during the recent period.

Earlier today, the Israeli occupation launched artillery shells directed at the outskirts of Tair Harfa and al-Jabain. This is happening as the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon - Hezbollah - persists in targeting positions and gatherings of occupation forces along the occupied Lebanese-Palestinian border, resulting in direct casualties.

Hezbollah announced that its fighters successfully targeted a gathering of Israeli occupation soldiers near the Hunin Castle and the Zarit Barracks using missile weapons, affirming a direct hit.

With the ongoing resistance operations, settlers in the north have expressed frustration with the Israeli government due to its failure to address the threat posed by Hezbollah.

Israeli sites under Hezbollah fire

Earlier on Friday, Hezbollah confirmed that its fighters carried out three operations against Israeli sites and gatherings of the Israeli occupation soldiers on the border between Lebanon and occupied Palestine.

In a statement, Hezbollah reiterated that the operations come in support of the resilient Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in solidarity with their brave and honorable Resistance. On that note, Israeli media underlined that the situation at the Lebanese border area with occupied Palestine is "extremely difficult", stressing that it would grow more difficult as time goes on.

On a related note, the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported on Thursday that Israeli losses on the northern front are on a seamless uptick as the fighting continues and amid an increase in displacement from the Israeli settlements near the Lebanese borders.

Is that one of the reasons why Israel has begun deploying women to the frontline already?

Ynet, the newspaper's online portal, reported that fear of Hezbollah's firepower has caused extensive financial damages to northern settlers, because they are unable to work on the occupied farmland. According to the Israeli outlet, the losses amount to 500 million shekels ($131 million).

Dailymail.com was barred from attending Nikki Haley's voter meet-and-greet in New Hampshire on Friday morning and has also been prohibited from covering any of her upcoming campaign events.

This decision followed the publication of an exclusive story by DailyMail.com that morning, revealing Haley's alleged false denial of infidelity accusations during her 2010 South Carolina gubernatorial campaign.

Despite providing a 24-hour window for the Haley campaign to respond, there was no comment from them on the story.

During Friday morning's gathering at Mary Ann's Diner in Amherst, New Hampshire, a DailyMail.com reporter and photographer were requested to leave the public restaurant where former South Carolina governor Haley was engaging with voters.

'Daily Mail is not credentialed for any more events. I'm politely asking you to leave,' Haley spokeswoman Chaney Denton said and pointed to the door. Asked if this was in effect for the rest of the campaign, Denton answered 'yes.'

Denton later told an editor at DailyMail.com that the publication was banned for 'printing lies.'

On Friday, Dailymail.com published a report detailing accusations of extramarital affairs that Haley refuted. According to the publication, fresh witnesses have now emerged, disputing Haley's denial of two alleged affairs in 2008 and asserting that the liaisons were openly known among South Carolina political circles.

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