logo
Russian minister ‘kills himself' after being sacked by Putin

Russian minister ‘kills himself' after being sacked by Putin

Times13 hours ago
A Russian government minister who was dismissed on Monday by President Putin has been found dead in an apparent suicide just hours after the Kremlin announced that he was being removed from his post.
Roman Starovoit, who was sacked as Russian transport minister earlier on Monday, is reported to have shot himself with a handgun in his car near his home in the Odintsovo district near Moscow.
It is unclear when he died. Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the Russian parliament's defence committee, said that Starovoit, 53, had died 'quite a while ago'. He did not give further details.
Russian investigators said they were 'working at the scene to determine the circumstances' of death and that the leading theory was suicide. The Makarov pistol that Starovoit is said to have used to end his life was reportedly awarded to him by the Russian interior ministry in 2023.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Australian royal prank DJs claim their bosses MADE them phone the Princess of Wales's hospital and impersonate the late Queen before nurse's suicide
Australian royal prank DJs claim their bosses MADE them phone the Princess of Wales's hospital and impersonate the late Queen before nurse's suicide

Daily Mail​

timean hour ago

  • Daily Mail​

Australian royal prank DJs claim their bosses MADE them phone the Princess of Wales's hospital and impersonate the late Queen before nurse's suicide

The Australian 'shock jock' behind a prank call to the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated, which led to the suicide of a nurse, claims he was pressurized into making the call by bosses. Michael Christian and 2Day FM radio co-host Mel Greig made headlines around the world on December 4, 2012 when they duped staff at King Edward VII's Hospital in London, The Telegraph reported. The duo convinved nurse Jacintha Saldanha that they were the late Queen and the then-Prince Charles checking in on the Princess of Wales, who at the time was being treated for severe morning sickness while pregnant with Prince George. Falling for their deception, Ms Saldanha disclosed some of the Princess' private medical information before transferring the call through to the ward. Humiliated by the telephone prank, the nurse - a mother to two children - later took her own life. In one of three apparent suicide notes, Ms Saldanha wrote a short letter in which she expressed her deep anger at the Australian radio presenters and blamed them for her tragic death. The nurse's death led to a huge backlash against the show and brodcaster, with its two presenters forced into hiding after receiving death threats. In a lawsuit against the station's broadcaster, Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), Mr Christian alleges that he was ordered to make the call by the production team only days after starting in the role. He said that the hoax call breached the Australian Communications and Media Authority code of practice and he should never have been asked to do it. Mr Christian also said that he was given insufficient support in the wake of Ms Saldanha's suicide. He claims that the company promised to provide support in the event that any of the antics on the show overstepped the boundaries. Mr Christian, who lost his job in February, accuses the organisation of turning him and Ms Greig into 'convenient fall guys and scapegoats'. Mr Christian's lawyers wrote: 'SCA did not immediately take public accountability for the incident, but rather allowed Mr Christian and Ms Greig to be left exposed to relentless public vitriol, harassment and abuse, including death threats. 'The radio presenters were left by SCA as the convenient fall guys and scapegoats for SCA management decisions and non-compliance.' Mr Christian claims that the incident severely damaged his reputation and earnings potential. He also claims that he was discouraged from pursing legal action against SCA at the time because they promised that they would help him rebuilding his reputation and career. Among Mr Christian's greivences are that SCA filed to provide sufficient mental health support or start a PR campaign to clear his name. He also claims that he was not offered promotions or pay rises to reward his loyalty for sticking with the company, and instead was slowly phased-out. 'When we thought about making a call it was going to go for 30 seconds, we were going to be hung up on, and that was it. As innocent as that,' Mr Christian told Channel Nine's A Current Affair programme less than a week after the prank broke. Describing him and his co-host as 'shattered, gutted, heartbroken', he said 'no-one could've imagined this to happen.' 'The accents were terrible. You know it was designed to be stupid. We were never meant to get that far from the little corgis barking in the background - we obviously wanted it to be a joke,' Ms Greig added. 'There's nothing that can make me feel worse than what I feel right now. And for what I feel for the family. We're so sorry that this has happened to them.' Speaking in 2014, Ms Greig revealed that her mother had received death threats, while the 2DayFM presenter herself battled depression. 'I felt like a failure as a human being,' Ms Greig said in a tearful interview with Channel Seven's Sunday Night. 'I am ashamed of myself. I should have tried harder to not let that prank call air.' At the time of Ms Saldanha's death, the Prince and Princess of Wales said they were 'deeply saddened' by her passing. For confidential support in the UK, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit for details

JD Vance's old tweets show why the ‘Epstein client list' is becoming such a problem for Trump
JD Vance's old tweets show why the ‘Epstein client list' is becoming such a problem for Trump

The Independent

time3 hours ago

  • The Independent

JD Vance's old tweets show why the ‘Epstein client list' is becoming such a problem for Trump

President Donald Trump's team spent a good deal of energy on Monday in unfamiliar territory: on the wrong side of a losing battle against America's extreme online conspiracy theorists. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was the face of the effort at her daily news briefing. But if Leavitt is looking for who is fueling the speculation around the dead New York financier and sex criminal who appeared on camera yucking it up with her boss, she needs to remember: the call is coming from inside the (White) house. Epstein died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting a second prosecution for his long-rumored sex trafficking of underage girls. His death was ruled a suicide. At Monday's news briefing, the White House spokeswoman sparred with Fox's Peter Doocy (another bit of unfamiliar turf for her) over whether Attorney General Pam Bondi had specifically referred to the 'Epstein Client List' when she told an interviewer she had 'it on my desk' earlier this year. That remark from Bondi, made during a Fox News interview, has caused headaches for the administration as it published a report stating that Epstein died by suicide and did so without creating a list of names of powerful men directly involved in his sex crimes involving underaged girls. The FBI and Justice Department released videos the agencies say show nobody from outside entered the common area at the detention facility where Epstein was held in Manhattan over the time frame between when he was locked in his cell for the evening and the next morning. After Doocy quoted Bondi directly, Leavitt replied, 'Yes. She was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork, all of the paper relating to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes'. Previous court filings have revealed the names of men associated with Epstein, but no definitive proof has emerged linking specific people to crimes, other than Epstein and his convicted 'madam', Ghislaine Maxwell. This of course did not satisfy the online followers of news about Epstein and the rumors about the powerful figures with whom he was in contact. Intrigue over the arrest and death of Epstein in custody was supercharged by video of him with now-President Donald Trump and his extensive known relationships with a wide range of powerful people and institutions, which he cultivated through his financial largesse. Other figures with known ties to Epstein include former President Bill Clinton, Britain's Prince Andrew, and the institution of Harvard University, where he maintained an office and visited campus after his 2008 sex crimes conviction. Elon Musk, during his public falling-out with the president last month, tweeted and then deleted a message accusing Trump of being in 'the Epstein Files', and said it was the reason the list of Epstein's famous clients was not being released. His opportunistic charge served to keep the story in the minds of many, and forced a denial from Vice President JD Vance. He renewed his efforts to push that connection after the administration's announcement. 'First of all, absolutely not. Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein,' Vance said on Theo Von's podcast. 'Whatever the Democrats and the media says about him, that's totally BS.' On Monday, 'Epstein' was the top trend on X/Twitter. Laura Loomer, one of Trump's occasional White House guests and a semi-adviser responsible for a loyalty purge of the National Security Council (NSC), was in trademark venom-spitting mode as she accused Bondi of 'incompetence'. '@AGPamBondi should resign for lying to the American People,' tweeted Loomer Monday afternoon. There's no question: Trumpworld has lost the narrative on this one. But there's a reason why: this is a beast (in part) of its own making. While Vance is now in the uncomfortable spot of defending his boss from speculation, he was once one of the cheerleaders of the conspiracy himself, and not just as a one-off: it was during his previous appearance on Von's podcast that the vice president, then a U.S. senator, told his host: 'we need to release the Epstein [client] list'. And on X, Vance was even more acerbic criticizing the Biden administration over the investigation. In late 2021, just months before he would go on to become the GOP nominee for Senate in Ohio, the Hillbilly Elegy writer retweeted a 'Pizzagate' conspiracy theorist who has gone on to become a fixture inside Trumpworld, Jack Posobiec. 'What possible interest would the U.S. government have in keeping Epstein's clients secret? Oh...' tweeted the nation's future vice president. In a second, longer rant aimed at another one of MAGA's favorite targets, he then added: 'If you're a journalist and you're not asking questions about this case you should be ashamed of yourself. What purpose do you even serve? I'm sure there's a middle class teenager somewhere who could use some harassing right now but maybe try to do your job once in a while.' There's two lessons to take here: one, that not even the MAGA-fied White House can wrangle a conspiracy once the right-wing latches on to it; and second, that Vance made a serious judgement error when, in October of 2024, one week and six days before Election Day, he was presented with the choice of whether or not to fan the flames of a conspiracy involving his own running mate. Vance, then a U.S. senator, knew better. Instead of definitively confirming the supposed existence of the 'Epstein Client List' — of which his team is now denying the existence — he could have refused to speculate. Or he could have taken the DoJ at its word, given how likely it was at the time that he'd be defending that word in the future. But at the time, it was still a problem for Joe Biden's Justice Department and Kamala Harris's legacy as the 'prosecutor in the White House'. Now, that lack of foresight is coming back to bite him.

When will Khan get a grip of Wimbledon Tube chaos? Tennis chiefs to hold crisis meeting over travel madness
When will Khan get a grip of Wimbledon Tube chaos? Tennis chiefs to hold crisis meeting over travel madness

Daily Mail​

time4 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

When will Khan get a grip of Wimbledon Tube chaos? Tennis chiefs to hold crisis meeting over travel madness

Wimbledon chiefs are set to hold crisis talks with Transport for London after chaos on the Tube affected the Championships for the second week. Thousands of fans were held up by 'severe delays' on Monday with no service on the District Line between Parsons Green and Wimbledon. Many arrived at SW19 complaining their journeys had taken as long as three hours after being forced to catch buses, pay for taxis or even walk to SW19. 'It took me over two and a half hours, I had to get a bus from Earl's Court but it was gridlock in Putney so I just got off and walked the remaining mile,' one worker at the grounds said. It comes after a 'challenging' first week at the tournament when a fire alert and signalling failures led to travel chaos causing many fans to miss matches. The under-fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he was 'extremely frustrated' by the latest disruption during the event which attracts more than 42,000 spectators every day. Paul Kohler, the Liberal Democrat MP for Wimbledon, branded last week's problems an 'international embarrassment' and called on Sir Sadiq to 'get a grip' of the chaos. 'It's appalling... This is the jewel in the crown of British sport. And we can't get the infrastructure working to get people there and back,' he added. Delays have affected tennis fans visitng Wimbledon for the second week of the tournament Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, said the club was in constant talks with TfL bosses and had called a meeting to assess the service provided. 'We have arranged to catch up with them after the championships to look at not just what happened this year but also to look ahead in terms of investment into the District Line,' she added. Susan Hall, leader of the Conservatives in City Hall, said: 'What message about London does it send to tourists here to watch the tennis that not even the trains work?' TfL apologised to 'customers affected by the disruption on the District Line' which it said was due to a 'track fault at Putney Bridge'.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store