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A 22-year-old woman accused of stealing a laptop belonging to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and planning to sell it to Russia has been arrested, the Associated Press and Axios reported, citing the Justice Department.

Riley June Williams was arrested on Monday, both outlets reported.

CNN reported that she had surrendered herself to law-enforcement authorities. Insider has contacted the Justice Department for confirmation.

According to an FBI affidavit released on Sunday, Williams’ mother, who lives with her in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had told local law-enforcement officers that Williams had packed a bag, changed her phone number, and deleted a number of social media accounts before the arrest.

Williams has been charged with entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct in relation to the Capitol riot, but not with theft.

However, in the affidavit, FBI special agent Jonathan Lund said Williams “remains under investigation” after a person claiming to be her former romantic partner called in to say they had seen a video of Williams stealing a laptop, and that Williams planned to sell it to Russia.

On January 8, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill said that a laptop “only used for presentations” had been taken from her office during the riot.

According to the FBI affidavit, the caller said that Williams intended to send the laptop to a friend in Russia, who would then sell it to Russia’s foreign intelligence service.

READ ALSO: Pelosi, others seek Trump’s removal as world leaders flay invasion

But, according to the caller, “the transfer of the computer device to Russia fell through for unknown reasons and Williams still has the computer device or destroyed it,” the affidavit said.

Before her arrest on Monday, Williams had “left her home and told her mother she would be gone for a couple of weeks,” the FBI affidavit said, citing information from Harrisburg law enforcement.

“Sometime after January 6, 2021, Williams changed her telephone number and deleted what I believe were her social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Telegram, and Parler,” said Lund, the special agent.

In the affidavit, Lund also posted now-defunct links to two YouTube videos showing the Capitol riot, one of which was a report by the British broadcaster ITV. Lund identified Williams in the videos, saying she wore a “green t-shirt, brown trench coat, and black-and-white shoulder bag.”

The FBI is conducting a number of other investigations in relation to the Capitol riot.

The bureau is probing whether foreign actors provided funding to groups and individuals who helped instigate the violence, according to NBC News.

The FBI told Insider on Monday that US Capitol Police had detained Couy Griffin, an elected Republican county commissioner in New Mexico.

Griffin, who had pledged to bring guns to the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday, “was the subject of an arrest warrant for his role in the January 6 Capitol riots,” the FBI said.

Parler, a social media site popular among the far right, is also sharing information with the FBI to help it track down those suspected of perpetrating violent acts on January 6.

The FBI has charged more than 70 people so far in connection with the January 6 riot.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) stabilisation fund will be getting additional €19 million, it was learnt yesterday.

The additional fund is coming from the government of Germany.

This is as the ECOWAS Commission also assured  its members of access to COVID-19 vaccines.

The commission stated these at the ongoing 2nd Ordinary Session of ECOWAS Parliament .

Speaking at the virtually held session, the Vice President of ECOWAS Commission, Mrs. Finda Koroma, said an additional 19 million Euros is expected into the ECOWAS Stabilisation Fund this year by the German government.

The Fund, according to her, which seeks to address the economic stabilisation of member states, currently stands at 19 euros plus a contribution of 3 million units of account from ECOWAS Commission, which has accrued since 2018.

Mrs. Koroma said the fund would cover post-Ebola countries like Guinea and Liberia.

She said the commission was pushing for a stand-alone fund just like The Gambia that has 17 million Euros, for Guinea Bissau, some Northern states in Nigeria and Sahel countries.

Mrs. Koroma explained that the Fund would look at three priority sectors with emphasis on job creation for women and youths and that it would be managed by a fund management to be established within ECOWAS Commission.

According to her, the fund will consist of several components.

“It will have four components as a private sector promotion and employment window, consisting of short term employment like labour, construction projects, maintenance of basic economic and social infrastructure as well as medium term employment creation through investment in value chain especially in agriculture”.

The first component includes vocational training; entrepreneurship training and skill development, managed by GIZ while the second and is in the provision of infrastructure.

“The second component is basic service provision and strengthening resilience. We will, therefore, look at construction or rehabilitation of basic social economic infrastructure such as schools, health care facility, water, sanitation, transport and energy especially solar energy and other types”.

“We will look at investment that enhances resilience such as housing, dam and urban sewage.”

The two remaining components, according to Mrs. Koroma are promotion of social Cohesion and good governance which will look at social dialogue and conflict resolution as well as strengthening local and national implementation capability.

Also addressing members of ECOWAS Parliament, the President of ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Jean-Claude Kassi Brou said he will ensure equitable distribution of the vaccines among member states.

Mr. Brou also said the region will not be left out in the global commitments to accelerate the development and production of new vaccines, tests, and treatments for COVID-19.

He said talks are ongoing with other stakeholders as they join the rest of the world in finding vaccines that will be made available to ECOWAS member states.

United States (U.S.) Donald Trump is set to leave the White House and fly out of DC before 8am on the morning of Joe Biden’s inauguration after issuing around 100 pardons to white-collar criminals, high-profile rappers and a jailed Florida eye-doctor, according to media reports.

The outgoing president is due to hold a farewell ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, in Maryland, tomorrow. He will then depart the nation’s capital on Air Force One and head to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida before his successor is sworn in.

White House aides have reportedly sent out invitations for the event, with guests instructed to arrive between 6am and 7:15am. Specific details regarding the ceremony are said to still be under consideration, but it may include a colour guard and 21-gun salute.

Attendees are permitted to bring up to five guests but have been instructed to wear masks throughout.

For his final full day in office today, Trump is also reportedly gearing up to issue around 100 pardons and commutations after weeks of speculation.

A rumoured recipient of one of the clemency actions is Dr. Salomon Melgen, an eye doctor from Palm Beach, who was imprisoned in 2018 after being convicted on dozens of counts of health care fraud.

So far, Trump has reportedly made no plans to pardon himself or his children, CNN reported. The White House reportedly held a meeting on Sunday to finalise the list of pardons, according to two sources.

Trump had previously issued a number of pardons in the lead up to Christmas, but allegedly put them on pause in the days before and after the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

White House aides told CNN Trump was entirely focused on the Electoral College count in the days preceding the riot, which prevented him from finalising his decision on pardons. Officials then expected him to resume of January 6, but he reportedly withdrew after being blamed for inciting the insurrection.

Trump’s batch of clemency actions is expected to include a mixture of criminal justice reform-minded pardons, in addition to more controversial ones issued to his political allies.

He could also decide at the last minute to grant pardons to members of his family or even himself, though that’s not thought to be currently under consideration.

Trump’s desire to pardon himself, his children, and his personal layer Rudy Giuliani has said to have been complicated by the Capitol riots – an event which led to his second impeachment.

The 45th U.S. president was reportedly advised to forgo a self-pardon in the riot’s wake, because it would appear as if he was guilty of something, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Trump was further advised to refrain from granting clemency to anyone involved in the deadly attack on the Capitol, in contrast to his initial stance that those involved were ‘patriots’ who had done nothing wrong.

“There are a lot of people urging the President to pardon the folks (involved in the riots),” Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News. “To seek a pardon of these people would be wrong,” Graham said.

While Trump is expected to leave the White House early tomorrow morning, he could continue to issue pardons up until noon on Inauguration Day.

Other high profile names such as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange are also not currently believed to be among those set to receive a pardon, though the list is said to be fluid.

Agency Reporter

The party of the Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine has declared its readiness to challenge President Yoweri Museveni’s election victory as it condemned what it called the house arrest of Wine and his wife.

Amid growing international concern about the conduct of the election, Wine said in an interview from his house, where he is surrounded by army and police, that he was “worried about my life and the life of my wife”.

Announcing the planned challenge to the results, Mathias Mpuuga, of Wine’s National Unity Platform, told a news conference: “We have evidence of ballot stuffing and other forms of election malpractice and after putting it together, we are going to take all measures that the law permits to challenge this fraud.”

The continued confinement of Wine came as clashes between security forces and opposition protesters led to at least two deaths.

Museveni, 76, who has ruled Uganda without pause since seizing control in 1986, when he helped to end years of tyranny under Idi Amin and Milton Obote, claimed a sixth five-year term, extending his rule to four decades, according to official results.

In a generational clash watched across the African continent with a booming young population and a host of ageing leaders, the 38-year-old Wine, a singer turned lawmaker, posed arguably the greatest challenge yet to Museveni.

The clashes with police following the announcement of Museveni’s victory took place in a number of locations, including in Gomba, where Wine lives, and neighbouring Sembabule. They were quickly dispersed.

Wine, who dismissed Museveni’s victory as “cooked-up, fraudulent results,” remained under military house arrest on Sunday as his supporters called for his release.

Uganda’s electoral commission said that Museveni received 58% of the vote to Wine’s 34%, with a voter turnout of 52%.

The United States and Britain issued statements on Saturday calling for investigations into fraud reports and other concerns over the election as the top US diplomat in African raised questions over the integrity of the election.

“Uganda’s electoral process has been fundamentally flawed,” Tibor Nagy, tweeted, warning that “the US response hinges on what the Ugandan government does now”.

Museveni dismissed the claims of vote-rigging. “I think this may turn out to be the most cheating-free election since 1962 [when Uganda won independence from Britain],” said Museveni in a national address on Saturday.

Wine tweeted yesterday that military units are not allowing him and his wife, Barbie, from leaving their house, not even to harvest food from their garden. “It’s now four days since the military surrounded our home and placed my wife and I under house arrest,” said Wine’s tweet.

“We have run out of food supplies and when my wife tried to pick food from the garden yesterday, she was blocked and assaulted by the soldiers staged in our compound.”

“We ask Ugandans to reject this fraud,” the opposition National Unity Platform said in a statement on Sunday. “A revolution of this nature cannot be stopped by a fraudulent election.”

The party said the prominent MP Francis Zaake, who had been arrested during an attempted visit to Wine’s house on Friday, had been admitted to hospital “badly beaten and brutalised” by security forces.

Ugandan officials have said the soldiers and police were there for Wine’s own security.

The opposition party said that its “quest for a free Uganda is on despite the current attack on free speech and association,” referring to the days-long shutdown of the internet by the government.

The party urged its followers to use every “constitutionally available avenue” to pursue political change.

“As we speak now, our president (Wine) is under illegal detention at his home,” Mpuuga told reporters at the headquarters of Wine’s party in Kampala.

“Perhaps his crime was to defeat Mr Museveni on the day he has selected as his crowning,” he said. “(Wine) is not allowed to leave or receive visitors at his home.”

Wine’s party alleged that soldiers had actually broken into his compound.

“We are concerned about the state in which he is,” a party spokesman, Joel Ssenyonyi, said of Wine. “Is his house now a barracks?”

Although Museveni stays in power, at least nine of his cabinet ministers, including the vice-president, were defeated in the parliamentary elections, many losing to candidates from Wine’s party.

Wine had strong support in Uganda’s cities, where frustration with unemployment and corruption is high.

The electoral commission deflected questions about how countrywide voting results were transmitted during the nationwide internet blackout by saying “we designed our own system”.

“We did not receive any orders from above during this election,” the commission chair, Simon Byabakama, told reporters, adding his team was “neither intimidated nor threatened.”

Agency Reporter

United States (U.S.) law enforcement officials yesterday secured statehouses across the country in anticipation of potentially violent protests by President Donald Trump’s supporters, who believe the baseless claim that electoral fraud robbed the president a second term.

More than a dozen states have activated National Guard troops to help secure their capitol buildings, following a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warning of armed protests, with right-wing extremists emboldened by the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington on January 6.

Security officials eyed yesterday as the first major flashpoint, as that is when the anti-government “boogaloo” movement made plans weeks ago to hold rallies in all 50 states.

“Following the siege at our nation’s capital and reports on threats to state capitals, I’m bringing all resources to bear to protect our residents and democratic process,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker wrote on Twitter yesterday.

Pritzker added that he was activating the state police and national guard to protect the state’s capital, Springfield.

Capitals in battleground states, where Trump has directed his accusations of voter fraud, were on especially high alert.

Several hundred law enforcement officers and National Guard troops milled around Georgia’s state house in Atlanta early yesterday. Chain-link fences and cement barriers protected the Capitol grounds and multiple armoured vehicles were stationed nearby.

In Lansing, Michigan, crews were setting up barricades, blocking off streets around the capitol building as snow flurries fell yesterday morning. Office buildings around the capitol had boarded up their windows.

In addition to increasing police presence, some states, including Pennsylvania, Texas and Kentucky, have taken the further step of closing their capitol grounds to the public.

It is just days until Wednesday’s Inauguration Day, when Democrat Joe Biden will be sworn in as president amid extraordinary security efforts in Washington, D.C.

The nationwide security scramble followed the attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington by a mix of extremists and Trump supporters, some of whom called for the death of Vice President Mike Pence as he presided over the certification of Biden’s election victory.

The FBI and other federal agencies have warned of the potential for future violence leading up to the inauguration, as white supremacists and other extremists look to exploit frustration among Trump supporters who have bought into falsehoods about electoral fraud.

It was not clear whether the FBI warning and ramped up security presence around the country might lead some protesters to stay at home.

Following the Jan. 6 violence in Washington, some militia members said they would not attend a long-planned pro-gun demonstration in Virginia on Monday, where authorities were worried about the risk of violence as multiple groups converged on the state capital, Richmond.

Some militias and extremist groups have told followers to stay home this weekend, citing the increased security or the risk that the planned events were law enforcement traps.

Bob Gardner, leader of the Pennsylvania Lightfoot Militia, said his group had no plans to be in Harrisburg this weekend, where the Capitol has been fortified with barricades and will be protected by hundreds of members of its National Guard.

“We’ve got our own communities to worry about,” Gardner said earlier this week. “We don’t get involved in politics.”

A man with a loaded handgun and more than 500 rounds of ammunition was arrested in Washington at a security checkpoint near the U.S. Capitol, authorities said.

Wesley Allen Beeler, of Virginia, had driven to a checkpoint on Friday evening and tried to use a phony credential to access the restricted area where President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated next week, according to a document filed in Washington, DC Superior Court.

As officers checked against an authorised access list, one of them noticed decals on the back of Beeler’s pick-up truck that said “Assault Life,” with an image of a rifle, and another with the message: “If they come for your guns, give ‘em your bullets first.”