Anita Dunn, a senior advisor to the White House and the co-founder of SKDKnickerbocker, a crisis management fund that worked with Time’s Up, ostensibly an advocacy group for survivors of sexual assault, was “basically” reporting back to then-candidate for President Joe Biden about the sexual assault accusations leveled at him by former Senate Staffer Tara Reade, Reade said in an interview.

“I went to [the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund] for help to come forward about Joe Biden. And, all the time, Anita Dunn… was basically reporting back to Joe Biden. She was literally getting paid at the same time I was there,” Reade told Sputnik’s Fault Lines. “It was egregious. It was absolutely egregious.”

Reade accused Biden of assaulting her while she worked for him as a Senate aide in 1993. She says the then-Senator and future President assaulted her in the Senate hallway.

In January 2020, Dunn was reportedly given “decision making authority” in the Biden campaign, the same month that the Biden campaign contributed $548,480,27 to the SKDKnickerbocker which also happened to be the same month Reade approached Time’s Up about legal representation.

Last year, it was reported that SKDKnickerbockerreceived more than $200,000 to provide “crisis communications” to Michael Madigan, then the speaker of the House of Illinois and the leader of the Democratic party in that case. Madigan was accused of retaliating against an employee who claimed her immediate supervisor sexually harassed her through text messages. At the same time, that employee, Alaina Hampton, was receiving legal advice from SKDKnickerbocker and Time’s Up.

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Boeing of Germany's Lufthansa bound to Chicago turns around due to air emergency

A Boeing 747-8 of German flag air carrier Lufthansa flying from Frankfurt am Main to Chicago on Thursday had to turn around over the Atlantic Ocean due to a strange smell in the flight deck, German daily Bild reported, citing the air carrier.

"Lufthansa flight LH430 from Frankfurt to Chicago returned to Frankfurt today as a precautionary measure. The reason for this was an unidentifiable smell of electrics in the cockpit. The Boeing 747-8 landed normally in Frankfurt, and all 320 passengers and 19 crew members exited the plane normally. The plane is currently being examined by technicians, the cause of the smell is still unclear," a Lufthansa spokesperson told the newspaper.

The report added that donated bone marrow for a US patient was aboard the plane, and it is not yet clear whether it has been secured.

It is the fourth incident involving Boeing airplanes in two days.

Earlier, Turkish authorities said 190 people had been evacuated from a Boeing-738 bound for Turkiye's Gazipasa from Germany's Cologne after an emergency landing as the plane's landing gear wheel tire burst. Authorities said no one was injured in the incident.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed to the State Duma to reappoint Mikhail Mishustin as prime minister, his candidacy has been submitted by the president for consideration by the lower house of parliament, State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin reported.

"President Vladimir... Putin has submitted a proposal to the State Duma on the candidacy of Mikhail... Mishustin for the post of Prime Minister. Today, lawmakers will make a responsible decision... on this issue," Volodin wrote.

The inauguration of Putin, elected in March for a fifth term, took place at noon in the Grand Kremlin Palace. Afterward, according to the law, the current government headed by Prime Minister Mishustin resigned. Mishustin had headed the government cabinet since January 2020.

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A missile, presumably of Western origin, was shot down over the city of Mariupol in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), a DPR emergency service source told Sputnik.

“Air defense systems worked, obviously successfully. Something heavy was shot down, fragments fell in the city center,” the source said.

According to the source, a missile, presumably Western-produced, was shot down.

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Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares has stopped short of confirming May 21 as a date when Madrid will recognize Palestine as an independent state, while saying that a decision to this effect has already been made.

On Wednesday, Irish broadcaster RTE reported that Ireland, Spain and several other EU member states were considering recognizing Palestinian statehood on May 21.

"Decisions of the [Spanish] Council of Ministers should never be anticipated … In fact, it is not so much the exact day that is important, but the decision [on the recognition of Palestine], and the decision has already been made," Albares said at a panel discussion with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Madrid.

In late March, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez said that Spain had reached an agreement with Ireland, Slovenia and Malta to take the first steps toward recognizing the State of Palestine to promote the peace process. The nations later issued a joint statement, in which they expressed their readiness to recognize the State of Palestine under the "right circumstances."

The State of Palestine is currently recognized by nine EU member states. Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia took this step in 1988, before joining the EU, while Sweden recognized the State of Palestine in 2014.

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The strikes targeted a way station in Snigirevka, where workshops and hangars used by Ukrainian forces are located, as well as the Armed Forces of Ukraine location in Novopetrovka, according to Sergei Lebedev, the coordinator of the Nikolayev underground, in an interview with Sputnik.

Furthermore, ammunition depots and military personnel locations in Kharkov and the Chuguev landfill were also hit in the attacks.

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Putin’s speech shows that despite US ‘best efforts to isolate Russia, it has only managed to isolate itself’ - former US Marine

“This ‘exclusivity’, or double standards, obviously create a lopsided global balance of power and results in tremendous injustice,” geopolitical analyst and former US Marine Brian Berletic told Sputnik, commenting on Putin’s assertion that Russia rejects the claims of any state or alliance to exclusivity.

“The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is a continuation of the same sort of supremacist mentality that triggered World War 2 and the invasion of the Soviet Union,” Berletic said, pointing out that “the so-called US-led international order is predicated on Washington’s primacy over the globe and its assumption of impunity to do as it pleases wherever it pleases.”

“It allows itself to uphold ‘national security concerns’ on the other side of the planet, while denying other nations the ability to [address] national security concerns right along or even within their own borders,” the retired American soldier stressed.

However, now, “the economic, military, and technological edge the US has depended on for decades to maintain this lopsided balance of power has eroded, and thus nations like Russia are able to tilt the scales back in favor of global fairness.”

“Putin in his speech mentioned specifically the importance of remembering history and warned against the danger of those attempting to now rewrite that history. As the saying goes, ‘those who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat it’. In this case, the collective West is rewriting history to deliberately repeat it.”

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Ukraine gets US weapons, but Europe to foot the bill

Germany will finance the procurement of three HIMARS missile systems for Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has announced.

“Time was of the essence. So we offered to take over, pay for and deliver three systems from US army stocks.” Pistorius told reporters during talks with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon earlier this week

He added that the idea of Germany picking up the tab for the weapons emerged during the extended wait for the $61 billion US aid package to the Kiev regime, which was finally signed by President Joe Biden on April 24 after months of delay.

At the time, Biden promised the shipments of military hardware would begin “in the next few hours”. Few weeks on, though, the effects on the battlefield have yet to materialize, with Russia continuing to advance on Ukrainian positions in several areas of the front line.

As Europe and the US spend taxpayers' money on weapons for Ukraine, Russia successfully destroys this weaponry. In one day alone, Russian forces downed two ATACMS ballistic missiles and a HIMARS missile, as well as 15 Czech-made Vampire MLRS rockets and five French-made Hammer guided bombs, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

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❗️🇦🇺 Protests outside Bisalloy Steel headquarters in Australia, which supplies armor for Ukrainian Bushmaster armored vehicles and Israeli Merkava tanks

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Polish PM’s assertion about NATO soldiers in Ukraine confirms West waging hybrid war against Russia - Foreign Ministry

The statement by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk about the presence of NATO military specialists in Ukraine confirms that the West is waging a hybrid war against Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the nation’s media.

"[This is] confirmation that the West is waging a hybrid war against Russia," she emphasized.

Tusk stated on Thursday that NATO observers and engineers are currently in Ukraine. The Polish prime minister did not specify the countries that have deployed soldiers or the exact number of troops present in Ukraine.

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The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) will be throwing its support behind Mikhail Mishustin's nomination for the position of Prime Minister, as announced by CPRF member Nikolai Kharitonov.

When discussing Mishustin's candidacy, Kharitonov highlighted his qualities of responsiveness, energy, and efficiency.

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