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I’m not going to take Verstappen attacks – Russell
George Russell says Max Verstappen “cannot deal with adversity” as the Mercedes driver responded to the world champion’s comments that he had “lost all respect” for him.
Verstappen was unhappy about the role Russell played in the Red Bull driver being given a one-place penalty which demoted him from pole position at the Qatar Grand Prix last weekend.
Briton Russell said at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Thursday: “I don’t know why he felt the need for this personal attack and I’m not going to take it.
“This is me just setting the record straight, I am not going to stand here and let someone slam me personally.”
Russell said that after they left the stewards’ room in Qatar after qualifying, Verstappen swore while saying he would “purposefully go out of his way to crash into me and put me on my head in the wall”.
Russell added: “I knew that was a spur of the moment thing, but the next day, we were joking around a bit with (Sergio) Perez and Carlos (Sainz), I saw it in his eyes that he meant it.
“He’s a four-time champion. Lewis (Hamilton) is the champion I aspire to be – hard but fair; never beyond the line. We have a duty as drivers.
“For a world champion to come out and say he is going to go out of his way to crash into someone and put him on his head, that is not the example we should be setting.”
After Russell’s comments, Verstappen spoke to Dutch publication De Telegraf and accused the Mercedes driver of being “a backstabber” and “a loser”, adding: “He lies and pastes all kinds of things together that aren’t true.”
Asked about Russell’s claim that he said he would deliberately crash into him, Verstappen said: “That’s not true. I didn’t say it like that. He’s trying to exaggerate it again.”
International
Azerbaijan Airlines says plane crashed after ‘external interference’ as questions mount over possible Russian involvement
Azerbaijan Airlines says the jet that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day experienced “physical and technical external interference,” according to an early investigation, as questions swirled about Russia’s possible involvement in the disaster.
At least 38 of the 67 people on board the plane were killed in the crash, Kazakh authorities confirmed, including two pilots and a flight attendant. People from Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were among those on board, according to preliminary data from Kazakhstan’s transport ministry.
One passenger told Reuters in an interview on Friday that he didn’t think he would survive after he heard a loud bang and the plane started to “behave unnaturally.”
International
FTX executives shave serious time off their sentences
Ryan Salame and Caroline Ellison, FTX executives convicted for their roles in the notorious crypto fraud led by their former boss Sam Bankman-Fried, have both shaved time off their lengthy prison sentences.
Salame, a former top executive of FTX, the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency trading platform, pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges in September 2023, and was sentenced in May to 7 1/2 years in federal prison. He began his sentence in October. But the Federal Bureau of Prisons currently lists his release date as March 1, 2031, more than a year earlier than his initial release date in April 2032. Business Insider first reported Salame’s new release date.
Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend and the former CEO of FTX’s hedge fund arm, Alameda Research, was sentenced to 2 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to seven federal counts of fraud and conspiracy and was a key witness against Bankman-Fried. Her current release date is listed as July 20, 2025, three months earlier than her initial release date.
Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison, does not have a release date listed on the prisons website.
The Bureau of Prisons didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. However, in several past statements about early release dates, the bureau has told CNN that it does not comment on the conditions of any individual inmate, but inmates can earn good conduct time that is calculated into their projected release date.
Qualified inmates are currently eligible for up to 54 days of GCT time for each year of the sentence imposed by the court. Inmates have other ways of earning time credits while incarcerated, including participation in various prison programs.
FTX was a high-profile crypto startup that allowed people to buy and sell digital assets. It had its name emblazoned on an arena in Miami and on every Major League Baseball umpire’s jersey. The exchange had several celebrity endorsers and was widely believed to be a gold-standard for safety and security.
But FTX collapsed in November 2022 when customers pulled their funds as rumors spread about FTX’s unusually close ties to its founder’s crypto hedge fund, Alameda
International
‘It’s a scary time’: US universities urge international students to return to campus before Trump inauguration
Fear and uncertainty are spreading across many US college campuses ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration, with some schools advising international students to return early from winter break amid promises of another travel ban like the one that stranded students abroad at the start of Trump’s last term.
In a country where more than 1.1 million international students enrolled in US colleges and universities during the 2023-24 academic year, the former president has pledged more hardline immigration policies upon his return to the White House, including an expansion of his previous travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries and the revocation of student visas of “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners.”
International students generally have nonimmigrant visas that allow them to study in the US but don’t provide a legal pathway to stay in the country.
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