Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was recently freed in a prisoner swap for US basketball star Brittney Griner, has signed up to a far-right pro-Kremlin political party.
The 55-year-old, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death”, has joined the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) – which has consistently backed Vladimir Putin’sinvasion of Ukraine.
The party has been largely supportive of the Kremlin, despite providing token opposition to the ruling United Russia bloc.
Experts had suggested that Bout could launch a career in politics on his return to Russia.
He was released on Thursday in a prisoner swap after spending 14 years in a US prison for illegal arms dealing.
Russia has, in the past, tended to give public positions to people wanted by the West and it had been suggested he could seek to stand for a seat in the Russian Parliament.
Bout told Russian media on Monday that he had no immediate plans to participate in “any elections”.
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Meanwhile, his decision to join politics was backed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a powerful Russian businessman and close ally of Putin.
In a statement posted by his catering company, Concord, he said: “Viktor Bout is not a person, he is an example of firmness.
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“Bout will certainly be good at the head of any existing party and any movement.”
Video posted on Telegram today showed Bout joining LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky on stage to announce his party membership.
In the footage, Slutsky tells the crowd: “I want to thank Viktor Anatolievich (Bout) for the decision he has made and welcome him into the ranks of the best political party in today’s Russia.”
Despite its name, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) has espoused a hardline, ultranationalist ideology since its founding in 1991.
One of its key demands is for Russia to reconquer the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Its founder and long-time leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who died in April, had gained a reputation as a political showman for his outrageous stunts and eccentric behaviour.
The party has a history of recruiting controversial personalities into Russian politics, including Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB agent wanted in Britain for the murder of Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko.
He was elected to parliament for the LDPR in 2007.
For almost two decades, Bout was one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers, selling weaponry to rogue states, rebel groups and murderous warlords in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Ever since his capture in an elaborate US sting, after which he was sentenced to 25 years in prison, the Russian state has been keen to bring him back.
Bout was released by the US on 8 December in a prisoner swap for WNBA star Griner, who was detained in February when customs agents said they found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
She was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Bout’s release was seen as a major PR win for the Kremlin, while US President Joe Biden welcomed Ms Griner’s return, saying she represented “the best of America”.
He also criticised Russia, saying Ms Griner had been held under “intolerable circumstances” and had been through a “terrible ordeal”.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have won baseball’s World Series for the second time in five years but the celebrations were marred by looting and violence.
The Dodgers took the title by beating the New York Yankees 4-1 in the best-of-seven final in New York on Wednesday night, US time.
But soon after the match ended and jubilant Dodgers fans spilled on to the streets to celebrate, there were reports of a bus being set on fire, shops being looted and fireworks thrown at police in scenes of “absolute chaos” in downtown LA.
At around 10.45pm, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said it received reports of “looting at several stores in the area of 8th and Broadway”.
Ordering people to “leave the area immediately” on X, the force reposted a video of looters raiding a Nike store where a door had been removed so thieves could get in.
Several dispersal orders were issued for different locations in the city, including in streets close to the Dodger Stadium in the Elysian Park area.
A bus was set on fire as part of the disorder.
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Eyewitness and LA resident Taylor Rosa, 27, told Sky’s US partner network NBC News it was “absolute chaos”, as people “got out of control and started looting and jumping on top of a bus”.
Among the comments on Instagram were “damn embarrassment” and “they act like the Dodgers lost”.
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As Betts leapt at the wall and caught the ball, one fan grabbed his glove with both hands and wrenched the ball out, as another grabbed Betts’s other hand.
They were thrown out of the game and banned from the next one.
The last time the Dodgers won the title, in 2020, the season was shortened by the COVID pandemic, which prevented them from staging a victory parade.
Elon Musk has been summoned to an emergency court hearing on Thursday over the $1m prizes he has been awarding registered voters in swing states.
The Tesla and X chief executive has been ordered by a judge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to address a civil case by the city’s top prosecutor to stop Mr Muskand his political action committee, America PAC, from giving the cash away.
The suit accuses Mr Musk of operating an illegal lottery and trying to influence voters in next week’s presidential election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Mr Musk and his PAC are backing Mr Trump, the Republican nominee.
The controversial billionaire promised to give $1m (£772,000) each day to resgistered voters in swing states who have signed his online free speech and gun rights petition.
The first $1m was awarded to a man named John Dreher during a campaign event in Pennsylvania on 19 October.
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Both Mr Trump and Ms Harris have made repeated visits to the state as they fight for its 19 electoral votes.
Mr Musk is the world’s richest person and is worth $274bn (£210bn), according to Forbes, so the approximate $17m (£13m) he’s vowed to give away is a tiny fraction of his wealth.
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The 53-year-old had donated $75m (£58m) to American PAC in the period up to mid-October.
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Documents filed by Philadelphia’s district attorney Larry Krasner also revealed that the lawsuit against Mr Musk had “triggered an avalanche of [social media] posts from Musk’s followers,” many of whom “made antisemitic attacks on Krasner”.
The attorney asked for enhanced security for the hearing, which was originally scheduled for Friday, after users on X had published Mr Krasner’s home address.
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‘Tell him I’ll register, $1 million!’
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America PAC is one of several major political action committees in the US.
Such groups can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money in support of political candidates, on the condition that they do not coordinate with their campaigns or give money to them.
Mr Trump has said he will give Mr Musk a government job if he becomes president again.
“It’s the economy, stupid”. It was back in 1992 when political strategist James Carville coined a phrase that feels to me to be wholly apt again right now.
It was by focusing on the state of the economy that Carville helped Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush 22 years ago.
For headscratchers today wondering why a man so divisive and with so much baggage as Donald Trump could be within a whisker of the White House, it may be that the answer, again, is: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
In suburban North Carolina it doesn’t take long to realise just how much people’s back pockets are pushing them to the polling booth.
Kannapolis is America’s suburbia. It’s middle class, leafy and the polls suggest it’s on a knife edge now, just as it was four years ago.
Back in 2020, Donald Trump won this town’s district by just nine votes. With small gains like this across the state, the former president won North Carolina by a whisker – 1.3%.
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You need to go back to Obama in 2008 for the last time the Democrats won this state, then by 14,000 votes. Before that Republicans won here every cycle since 1980.
When Biden was the Democratic Party candidate, the state looked like a lost cause for the Democrats. But replacing him with Kamala Harris flipped the polls. Suddenly it was a state in play. She cut Donald Trump’s sizable lead to neck-and-neck and it remained there.
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Shifting demographics, a large African-American community, a growing urban and suburban population all give Democratic Party strategists hope that it’s within reach again. With its sizable 16 electoral college votes, a win here really helps propel either candidate to the 270 needed for victory nationally.
Cabarrus County is precisely the sort of place that the Republicans need to hold and the Democrats need to swing. I’ve come to the town of Kannapolis.
The train station here, linking it with the metropolis of Charlotte 30 minutes away, is doubling as the polling station and the queue to vote early is an hour long.
All who spoke to us were passionate, thoughtful and reflected the national split that runs down to within families.
But of the issues driving the decisions, one thing dominates almost always: the economy. Inflation is now down, unemployment is down. In many ways the US economy is the envy of the world. But the perception of things and nostalgia for the past runs deep.
On one street in this one town, we spoke to a range of voters in three businesses – a local entrepreneur, a waiter, a restaurant manager, a shop owner and a customer. All three businesses we visited were chosen at random and we’ve included every person we spoke to.
Rylee Mullery, babysitting between jobs
“I would say income taxes and the open border is definitely the biggest issue for me personally. And I feel like it’s just gone downhill since then. So I hope that we can get that fixed by getting the right person in office.
“I went to the store the other day and got a full cart. Usually that costs $150 (£116). It was almost $400 (£309) for a full cart of just regular household needs from toilet paper to laundry detergent, paper towels, things like that. So I hope that that can be solved.
“I’m only 23 years old and it’s nice to know that people my age are finally waking up and seeing what’s actually good for our country.”
William Pasquale, waiter
“Right now everything is just too expensive for even basic needs. For families of four it’s too expensive. They can’t afford groceries right now. Some can’t even afford gas and that’s the way people get around. All these unemployment rates are way higher than they were before and it’s just getting worse and worse.”
Deana Ross, restaurant manager
“In the beginning…. nobody wanted to admit that they were liking him [Trump]… because he is a bit rough around the edges… but he knew what he was doing. And I think this time around, now that we’ve had that four year gap without him and they’ve seen what happened, the scales tipped a little.
Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, maybe he wasn’t that bad’. So I feel like everybody’s changing their mind and their opinion about what kind of a president he is, as opposed to what kind of a person he is.
“The Biden administration really dropped the ball for the country and what’s best for our country. And I feel like Donald Trump might try to improve that like he was trying before.”
Dwayne Jackson, popcorn shop owner
“A lot of people are basing their opinion on gimmicks. So if you’re focusing on the gimmicks and you’re not focusing on what the person’s actually saying, then you’re going to go according to the gimmicks.
“If somebody is running around here with 34 felonies, 34 plus felonies, and they’re still allowed to run for the presidency of the United States, where as if I was to go out here and commit one felony and get convicted of one felony, I could never vote again.
“I don’t like, you know, the name calling because you’re not teaching the children anything. When the kids look at this, we teach our children nothing.”
David Deal, local entrepreneur
“The pledge by both sides to scrap tax on tips is a huge issue for us. It saves us as business owners taxes and their payroll portion. And obviously them not being taxed would be fantastic. That would give them a raise and give us a little breathing room as well. Margins are tighter as inflation is pushed, the typical consumer’s daily expenses are up, even exponentially.
“There’s always advantages to both sides. I consider myself fiscally conservative. I’m a small business owner. How business principles and laws are applied mean a lot to me and whether I’m able to put a roof over my head as a business owner.
“But on the flip side a lot of times those [conservative] politics are aligned with certain groups that are less socially liberal. I consider myself fiscally conservative, socially liberal – people should do what makes them happy. A conundrum? Certainly.”