The origins of Jeffrey Epstein's financial empire remain a mystery to even billionaires. But the investor's former Wall Street mentor has one theory about how Epstein amassed his fortune: Fraud.

In a phone interview with Observer, Steven Hoffenberg alleged Epstein participated in a Ponzi scheme the two ran together in the 1980s, before using the ill-gotten gains to launch his investment company with the help of financial loans from Deutsche Bank.

"Its a very simplistic financial fraud that he concealed from everybody that gave him tainted money," said Hoffenberg. "He never told anybody, and I literally mean anybody, that gave him any money since he left Towers, that he was part of Towers. And that's a securities fraud because when you take money from people, you have to tell them your history."

Hoffenberg oversaw Towers Financial, but was sentenced to 20 years in jail in 1997 for defrauding clients out of $450 million. Although Epstein was never charged in the case, a lawsuit filed last year by former Towers investors lists the financier as "an uncharged co-conspirator," and alleges he "knowingly and intentionally utilized funds he fraudulently diverted and obtained from this massive Ponzi scheme for his own personal use to support a lavish lifestyle."

Democrats Control America's Most Dangerous Cities. So Why Do They Keep Passing the Buck on Gun Crime?
Progressives and conservatives traditionally have exhibited different attitudes to the lessons of history. While conservatives have tended to take cues from the past as they build measured hopes for the future, progressives have urged that we break free from tradition in order to create bold and ambitious blueprints for a society they consider to be more just. In the United States, however, this pattern appears to be breaking down, as it is now progressives who tend to embrace a more rigid, backward-looking approach, especially on issues tied to identity. Unlike conservatives, progressives aren't looking to revive a better, sometimes idealized version of their country. But they have become bogged down in the politics of historical redress, at the expense of forward-looking policies that would actually improve people's lives.

A microcosm of this larger tendency was put on display during last month's Democratic primary debates, which touched on the issue of urban gun violence. No Democratic presidential candidate expressed a sense of responsibility for the plague of violent crime in America's cities, even though the largest urban areas are almost all controlled by Democratic politicians.

The issue first came up during questions posed to Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. NBC's moderators challenged Buttigieg by bringing up a recent incident in which a white police officer killed a 54-year-old black man. While that episode nominally relates to the issue of urban gun violence, it also allows Democrats to dwell in ideologically comfortable territory, since progressives have been drawing attention to police-involved shootings for years. (Indeed, it would be far more useful — and revealing — if it were instead conservative Republicans who were being pressed on this problem). Moreover, the preferred Democrat approach — tracing the problem to the country's original sin of racism — isn't especially helpful.

In answer to the question, Buttigieg dutifully offered a look back to history, noting "there's a wall of mistrust put up one racist act at a time." A question about the other shootings in South Bend — the vast majority of which are not committed by police officers — would have been far more illuminating. South Bend is one of the 30 most dangerous cities in America, with a per-capita homicide rate (16.8 per 100,000) comparable to that of Chicago (17.5 per 100,000). And this rate has remained virtually unchanged since Buttigieg became mayor in 2012, despite the seven years he's had to address the problem.

Europe now has to be honest with itself - with enemies in its midst, it can either sacrifice some of the legal rights it holds so dear, or tolerate the deaths of innocents as a price worth paying for keeping its principles.

The decision to pay €500 to Salah Abdeslam, the last man alive of the Paris attackers who killed 131 people in November 2015, as compensation for illegal 24/7 surveillance of his French prison cell since his arrest, has provoked widespread outrage. To many he is lucky to have avoided a public execution, a luxury not afforded to his jihadist gang's victims, never mind safeguarding his right to use the toilet without being watched.

But to advocates of the rule of law this is something of a pedantic triumph to the situation - according to the present legal system even a convicted man enjoys the same constitutional right to privacy. No one is below the law.

Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley have sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray, demanding an update on the investigation into possible violations regarding the sale of aborted fetal tissue by Planned Parenthood and its partners in the biomedical research industry.

According to a press release, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Graham (SC) and his predecessor Grassley (IA), current chairman of the Committee on Finance, wrote to Barr and Wray Tuesday, seeking an update on the federal investigation that was supposedly launched in 2017.

"Preventing the illegal sale of human fetal tissue remains a priority for the Committee," the letter stated. "In furtherance of the Committee's ongoing oversight of this issue, the Committee asks that you answer the following questions no later than July 2, 2019."

Graham and Grassley requested answers to these questions:

1. Has the FBI taken any action on the criminal referrals submitted by then-Chairman Grassley?
2. If the FBI has taken action, please provide an update to the Committee.
3. If the FBI has not taken action, please explain the justification for not doing so.
4. Are there any other investigative updates related to this matter that the FBI can share with the Committee at this time?"

A major air-traffic-control systems failure led to London's Gatwick airport implementing a complete ground stop on Wednesday evening.

At around 5 p.m. London time, the airport suspended all flights as it worked to resolve the issue. A 7 p.m. update from the airport said flights had resumed but suggested that residual delays were expected as the airport worked to bring operations back to normal.

Numerous inbound flights that were already in the air when the failure occurred were seen diverting to other nearby airports in cities such as England's Birmingham and Brighton, based on data shown by the flight-tracking software Flightradar24.

Later flights were shown to be delayed, including departing flights.

In a statement issued at 7 p.m. local time, Gatwick said:

Due to an air traffic control systems issue in Gatwick's control tower, flights were suspended between 17.08 and 19.00. Flights have resumed, but passengers are advised to check the status of their flight with their airline before travelling to the airport as we return to full operations.

In Philadelphia, 30 parks and recreation centers are outfitted with a small speaker called the Mosquito. It blares a constant, high-pitched ringing noise all night long — but one that only teenagers and young adults can hear.

Anyone over age 25 is supposed to be immune because, basically, their ear cells have started to die off.

Philadelphia parks officials have been installing the device since 2014, reported WHYY's Billy Penn, intending to shoo rowdy youths from the premises.

And it's not the only U.S. city to do so. Mosquito's Vancouver-based manufacturer Moving Sound Technologies works with roughly 20 parks departments around the country to implement the youth-repellent devices, says president Michael Gibson.

It's intended to prevent loitering and vandalism by teens and young adults at public facilities. But some say this age-based targeting is a form of prejudice.

Philadelphia City Council member Helen Gym refers to the devices as "sonic weapons" — and she's working to get them removed.

"Shelling could be happening in the morning, dinner time, at night...There was some certainty before, now shelling can happen any time." Eduard's front door is pierced all the way through by large caliber bullets, his barn is destroyed by 120 mm shells, mirror smashed by bullets is not just a bad omen any more: it's hard to imagine that someone could still be living in these ruins.

Commenting on the current situation in Kominternovo, he remarks, with bitter irony, that last week was worse than all 5 years of the war. Most of Vatutina Street where Eduard lives is destroyed by shelling. The landscape is simply apocalyptic here.

Map of Unipolar world (UPW) is

Israel is creating an 'imaginary historical reality' with tunnel excavations in occupied East Jerusalem, NGO says.

Fayyad Abu Rmeleh, 60, is afraid the floor and yard of his home will one day collapse. Every day, he says, from morning until late afternoon, the family hears the digging and drilling of tunnels beneath their building.

The excavations conducted by Israeli authorities first began in 2000, but it was not until five years ago that they began to notice damage to their home. "It's putting our lives in danger," Abu Rmeleh told Al Jazeera. "Wherever you turn your head, you find new cracks. We don't know how many tunnels are beneath our house, but we believe there are at least three."

The 50-member Abu Rmeleh family lives in Silwan's Wadi Hilweh neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, which has been marketed as the "City of David" tourist attraction, where some Israelis say King David of the Bible built the "original city of Jerusalem" some 3,000 years ago.

Underneath their home, Israeli authorities have been digging tunnels, searching for traces of the Second Temple era.

Protesters clashed with riot police in Leipzig, Germany after they surrounded a patrol car and barricaded a street with furniture, hoping to derail the deportation of a migrant.

Police were scheduled to remove the migrant, who was due to be deported, from his apartment in the city of Leipzig in eastern Germany at 8:30pm local time on Tuesday. There were several dozen protesters at first, but the crowd had grown to around 500 people within a few hours.

Details of the migrant's identity were not immediately available. According to a local lawmaker from the opposition Left Party, Juliane Nagel, who was in contact with the man's family, he was a 20-year-old man being deported to Spain, where he had earlier claimed asylum. A politician from the Green Party, Jurgen Kasek, who was present at the scene, said that the man was likely a Syrian Kurd.

Chanting 'No to deportation' and 'You are stealing our neighbors,' the people blocked the street and staged a sit-in in front of a police car.