News in :90 – Oct. 11, 2019


Ray Ghansham Persaud, 20, faces three additional federal charges in connection with hoax bomb threats over the last year at St. Thomas, according to a grand jury indictment filed Wednesday.

According to the indictment, Persaud has been charged with three additional counts related to the three bomb threat incidents on the dates April 17, Aug. 20 and Sept. 17.

As of Thursday, Oct. 10, no date has been set for an arraignment, which is the next step in the legal process.

The Pioneer Press reports Persaud is not in custody. He was still jailed after his last hearing, but the judge was in the process of allowing Persaud to be under surveillance in the home his grandmother and cousin in Fridley.

Persaud, identified by St. Thomas as a commuter, was first charged in September with one felony count.

President Donald Trump was defiant in the face of an impeachment probe Thursday as he sought to convert the threat to his presidency into a weapon on the campaign trail, with biting and unsupported attacks on potential Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Confronting an investigation provoked by his unprecedented calls for Ukraine and then China to assist in digging up dirt on his political rivals, Trump continued to lay into Biden and his son Hunter, whom he and his allies have accused, without evidence, of illegally profiting off his father’s office.

The rally in Minneapolis, the first since Democrats began proceedings two weeks ago to remove him from office, served as a proving ground for the president as he tries to use the impeachment inquiry to energize supporters for his 2020 campaign by casting himself — and his supporters — as victims of Washington Democrats.

Turkish forces pushed deeper into northeastern Syria on Friday, the third day of Ankara’s offensive against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters, as casualties mounted, international criticism of the campaign intensified and thousands of civilians fled the violence.

Turkey said it captured more Kurdish-held villages in the border region, while a camp for displaced residents about 12 kilometers (7 miles) from the frontier was evacuated after artillery shells landed nearby amid intense clashes. Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis, with nearly a half-million people at risk near the border.

U.S. President Donald Trump cleared the way for Turkey’s air and ground assault after he pulled American troops from their positions near the border, drawing swift bipartisan criticism that he was endangering regional stability and abandoning Syrian Kurdish forces that brought down the Islamic State group in Syria.

Abby Sliva can be reached at sliv7912@stthomas.edu