A former top editor of an Orthodox Jewish newspaper in Brooklyn pleaded guilty Tuesday to obstructing police officers' efforts to hold back the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The editor, Elliot Resnick, entered a plea before Judge Rudolph Contreras of the Federal District Court in Washington to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder. Mr. Resnick, 40, of Manhattan, is expected to be sentenced in June.

Clay Kaminski, a federal public defender representing Mr. Resnick, declined to comment.

At the time of the riot, Mr. Resnick was the editor-in-chief of The Jewish Presswhich began publishing in 1960 and describes itself on its website as “the largest independent Jewish weekly in the United States” and “politically incorrect long before the term was coined.”

After Politico reported in April 2021 that Mr. Resnick, who started working at The Jewish Press in 2006, had been part of the Jan. 6 gang, the newspaper's editorial board published a statement saying he had been in Washington as a journalist covering the events of that day.

“The Jewish press fails to see why Elliot's personal views on former President Trump should make him any different from the dozens of other journalists covering the events, including many at the Capitol during the riots,” the editorial wrote.

Citing court records, Justice Department officials said Tuesday that Mr. Resnick had not been acting as a journalist that day. Shlomo Greenwald, who replaced Mr. Resnick as editor-in-chief of the paper in May 2021, did not respond to email and telephone inquiries on Tuesday.

According to court documents, Mr. Resnick took a bus from New York to Washington on the day of the riot and eventually joined the horde that descended on the Capitol after a speech by Mr. Trump. After climbing a staircase on the east side of the building, he turned and urged others to climb the stairs, court records show.

At that point, according to court documents, Mr. Resnick and others began fighting with police officers who tried to keep the crowd at bay. When an officer tried to extinguish some rioters with pepper spray, Mr. Resnick grabbed the officer's arm to stop the action, court records show.

The group, which included Mr. Resnick, forced open a door and entered the Capitol Rotunda, court documents show. Mr. Resnick then turned around and joined others in trying to force open a second door. An officer who tried to intervene was thrown to the ground, and Mr. Resnick reached through the open door, grabbed other rioters and pulled them into the Capitol past officers who tried to keep them out, according to court documents.

Mr. Resnick spent nearly an hour in the building, walking through several rooms before returning to the Rotunda and repeatedly urging others to come in, patting some of them on the back after they entered, according to court records .

According to the Justice Department, Mr. Resnick is one of more than 1,265 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot. A federal investigation into the day's events continues. Separately, a 40-year-old New Jersey man, Lee Giobbie, was charged Tuesday with several felonies and misdemeanors for what prosecutors said was his role in the riot.

Supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol that day in an attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination in this year's presidential election, faces federal conspiracy and other charges stemming from the riot. He has pleaded not guilty.

An Oregon weekly newspaper that fired all of its employees in December after an employee embezzled tens of thousands of dollars will resume its print edition on Feb. 8 after raising enough money through donations, its editor said Sunday.

The newspaper, The Eugene Weekly, abruptly stopped printing after discovering financial problems, including money not being deposited into employee retirement accounts and $70,000 in unpaid bills to the newspaper's printing plant, leaving all of its ten staff members with just a few had to lay off days before Christmas. , editor Camilla Mortensen said at the time.

Over the past month, however, Ms. Mortensen has continued to publish articles online with the help of interns, freelancers and retired reporters and editors — many of whom were willing to work without pay to keep the paper afloat — she said Sunday.

From this week, Ms Mortensen and three other staff members will be put back on the payroll in preparation for the February 8 edition, she said, noting that the return to the print version was made possible by readers and members of the public who had given at least $150,000 after the financial problems were reported.

“With all this support from people we just can't try – we have to try to print,” Ms Mortensen said.

The theft, the newspaper's leaders said on December 28 letter to readers, had been hidden for years, leaving its finances 'in shambles'. The newspaper has hired a forensic accountant to investigate.

Leaders of the paper said that while the situation was unprecedented, they believed in the paper's mission and were “committed to keeping EW alive.”

Eugene police could not immediately be reached for comment about the embezzlement Sunday evening, but previously said they were investigating. The employee now accused of theft, who was involved in the newspaper's finances, has not been publicly identified.

The free newspaper, founded in 1982, previously printed 30,000 copies a week. Copies could be found in bright red boxes in and around Eugene, Oregon's third largest city.

Ms Mortensen, who became editor in 2016 after almost a decade at the paper, said on Sunday that the closure had been painful.

“Every time I walk past one of our little red boxes there is no paper in it, it stabs me to the heart,” she said, noting that the plan was to print 5,000 fewer copies so the paper could be sustainable to stay.

“Obviously this outpouring has been great,” she said, “but we also want to get back to being a free weekly that pays for itself.”

The Daily Telegraph has long been seen as the house newspaper of the British Conservative Party. So it is perhaps unsurprising that a takeover battle for the 168-year-old newspaper has turned into a political battle within Tory ranks – a battle that some commentators have even labeled a battle for the future of the party.

On the one hand, an Arab-American group is trying to complete its takeover of the Telegraph Media Group. It is led by Jeff Zucker, a former president of CNN, and backed by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, the vice president of the United Arab Emirates and a member of Abu Dhabi's royal family.

On the other side is a potential spoiler, Paul Marshall, a right-wing hedge fund founder who has bankrolled GB News, a start-up television news channel that has emerged as a kind of ambitious Fox News, providing a platform for far-right Tory lawmakers like Jacob Rees -Mogg and populist rabble-rousers like Nigel Farage.

Mr Zucker's group, RedBird IMI, has sought regulatory approval to acquire The Telegraph and sister commentary magazine The Spectator. But objections to allowing a foreign state entity – one with a questionable record on press freedom and the protection of civil liberties – to take control of one of Britain's most influential newspapers have bogged down these efforts.

On Friday, the British government postponed a decision on whether to greenlight or block the deal, which saw The Telegraph's previous owners, the Barclay brothers, hand control of the company to RedBird IMI in return for the 1.16 billion repayment pound ($1.47 billion). ) in Barclay debt.

Analysts said the delay, until March 11, could help the Emirati-backed group strengthen its case for being a responsible, hands-off owner. It has submitted a new corporate structure, which emphasizes that the Emirates would be passive investors. But the government's review of this structure could also give Marshall time to build support for a competing bid.

Either way, the delay will prolong a power struggle that has attracted a slew of Britain's most prominent right-wing politicians, not to mention some of its most visible media figures. All this is set against the backdrop of an unpopular Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, facing lawmakers nervous about losing their seats in the election later this year.

“This is the first media deal in many years that is becoming a battle within the Tory party, but also within the newspaper itself,” said Claire Enders, a London-based media analyst and founder of Enders Analysis. “The fight is bizarre for what appears to the Tory Party to be its heart and soul.”

Charles Moore, a columnist and former editor of The Telegraph who is against the RedBird deal, said: “It is a clash within the Tory party and the government over how much this matters, and whether they should improve the offer can accept, since the Arabs are major investors in the country.”

The takeover has divided the Conservative Party along familiar lines, between its more centrist establishment, much of which is open to the Emirati-backed offer, and its right-wing flank, which leans towards Marshall.

For example, RedBird Capital has recruited two former finance ministers, George Osborne and Nadhim Zahawi, to advise it. But it also has outspoken opponents, including Iain Duncan Smith, a former leader of the Conservative Party.

In November, Mr Duncan Smith told The Observer: “I would be very concerned if any of the papers in Britain came under the control of someone in the Middle East. It just seems bizarre to me.”

There is also fierce opposition to the deal at the top of The Telegraph and The Spectator. Andrew Neil, a prominent broadcaster and chairman of The Spectator, told the BBC on Thursday: “If RedBird takes over, I'm out.”

In a subsequent interview, Mr. Neil said that RedBird's attempt to change its corporate structure was a miscalculation.

“All that has happened is the government has said, in that case we have to start the whole regulatory process again,” Mr Neil said. “They really are the gang who can't shoot straight and show their complete ignorance of Britain at every turn.”

Fraser Nelson, the editor of The Spectator, wrote in a column for The Telegraph on Friday that passing the Emirati-backed deal would be a victory for Russia because the Emirates, even though they are allies of Britain, are also ” proud, flagrant' brandishing 'best friends' of Putin.” He continued: “Should this give us pause?”

Others, however, argue that the intense scrutiny of RedBird would make it difficult for the new owner to interfere too much with the paper's reporting. The group has proposed introducing an editorial charter, saying it would ensure the paper's independence.

A spokesperson for RedBird IMI said the “group remains committed to acquiring and investing in The Telegraph, and reiterates that maintaining the newspaper's editorial independence is essential to protecting its reputation, credibility and value.”

Under Mr Marshall's leadership, analysts say, the paper would most likely become closer to GB News, which promotes the right flank of the Conservative Party, and to populist figures such as Mr Farage, who remains closely associated with an anti-immigration party . , Reform UK, which he helped found.

“GB News is a political project,” says Peter Oborne, former chief political commentator for The Telegraph. “They are about influencing British politics and promoting the interests of very wealthy people.”

As the battle for its ownership rages, The Telegraph's political reporting is causing a stir. The newspaper recently published a column by a former minister, Simon Clarke, calling on fellow Conservatives to oust Mr Sunak as party leader or face electoral destruction later this year.

Clarke's column came days after a poll, commissioned by The Telegraph and commissioned by public opinion research firm YouGov, predicted that the opposition Labor party would win power over the Conservatives in a general election by a margin comparable to Labour's dramatic landslide in 1997.

The poll predicted the Conservatives would lose every seat in Labour's old “red wall” stronghold they won under Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2019. And it said almost a dozen ministers, including current Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, would lose their seats.

That The Telegraph stonewalled Mr Sunak while his ministers were assessing the paper's sales came as a mystery to some observers. But former Telegraph employees said the decision was emblematic of the paper's independently minded editor, Chris Evans, who has kept his distance from the drama swirling around the company.

By provoking Mr Sunak, some said, The Telegraph was also making clear that it was a force. Although the newspaper's close ties to the party have turned its fortunes into a Tory drama, some argue that the party's role is ultimately a side issue.

“I have never seen the Tory Party, unlike the Government, control who can buy a newspaper, other than insisting that some are unsuitable,” Mr Neil said. “Sometimes they manage to blackball; sometimes not. It's not their decision.”

The Union Leader, New Hampshire's largest newspaper and one that reliably picked Republicans for a century before the rise of Donald Trump, supported Nikki Haley on Sunday in the Republican primaries.

“Of course we can't talk about Nikki Haley without addressing the elephant in the room and the rather old ass hiding in the White House,” it wrote, referring to Mr Trump and President Biden – although it makes no mention from Mr Trump. Trump by name.

The newspaper also did not support Mr. Trump in the previous two cycles.

In the 2016 Republican battle it was supported the then government. Chris Christie of New Jersey – but later has withdrawn its approval when Mr. Christie, who dropped out of the race after a poor performance in New Hampshire, endorsed Mr. Trump.

In the 2016 general election, the country did not support a Republican for the first time in more than a hundred years, choosing Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate.

And in 2020, it endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr. instead of Mr. Trump, who previously named the newspaper publisher a “low life” in a television interview.

“Nikki Haley is an opportunity to vote for one candidate instead of against those two,” the endorsement reads, again referring to Mr. Trump and Mr. Trump. It called Ms. Haley a “candidate who can run circles around the dinosaurs of the last two administrations, backwards and in heels.”

An Oregon weekly newspaper abruptly stopped publishing and fired all of its employees after an employee embezzled tens of thousands of dollars and left months of bills unpaid, the editor said.

The newspaper, The Eugene Weekly, announced Thursday it would stop printing after discovering financial problems, including money not being deposited into employees’ retirement accounts and $70,000 in unpaid bills to the newspaper’s printer, Camilla Mortensen said , the editor of the newspaper, Sunday. .

The entire ten-person newspaper staff was laid off three days before Christmas, although some employees, including Ms. Mortensen, still voluntarily published articles online.

The Eugene Weekly, a free newspaper, was founded in 1982 and prints 30,000 copies each week, which can be found in bright red boxes in and around Eugene, one of the most populous cities in Oregon.

Recent articles described a New Year’s walk led by guides in a state park, the efforts of a nearby unincorporated community, Blue River, to recover from a wildfire in 2020and a memorial for people who had died homeless in 2023.

So said leaders at The Eugene Weekly in a letter to readers that the paper’s finances were “a mess,” but they planned to fight to keep the publication alive.

“The damage is greater than most small businesses can bear,” the letter said. “The magnitude of this moment is unlike anything we have ever experienced. But we believe in the mission of this newspaper and we remain committed to keeping EW alive.”

Melinda McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Eugene Police Department, said police were investigating but could not provide further details as the investigation was ongoing. The now-former employee accused of the embezzlement and involved in the newspaper’s finances was not publicly identified.

Ms Mortensen, who joined the paper in 2007 and became editor in 2016, said charges had been filed against the person accused of embezzlement, who had worked there for at least five years.

The employee was out of the office earlier this month when questions arose about closing the financial accounts for the year and suddenly a whole host of problems became apparent, Ms Mortensen said.

“Every time I find out something, it makes me sick to my stomach,” she said. “And again, this is someone we worked with who came to the office every day.”

These problems were discovered as the newspaper tried to recover from financial losses it suffered earlier during the Covid-19 pandemic, when businesses, such as local restaurants and event organizers, had stopped buying ads, Ms. Mortensen said.

In recent years, as local newspapers have rapidly closed their doors and drastically reduced staff, The Eugene Weekly has taken steps to rein in costs by cutting back on the number of pages printed.

According to figures, almost 2,900 newspapers have closed since 2005 a 2023 report by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. All but about 100 of the shuttered newspapers were weeklies. Most communities that lose a newspaper do not get a replacement.

Before the pandemic, The Eugene Weekly had been doing well financially, Ms. Mortensen said.

The owners, Anita Johnson, who Ms. Mortensen said is 94 years old and visited the office twice a week, and Georga Taylor, never took over the newspaper’s profits and always put the money back into the business to pay costs, as employee bonuses and new equipment. They also paid the costs for the last printed edition of the newspaper, which came out on December 21.

Mrs. Johnson and her husband, Art Johnson, and Mrs. Taylor’s husband, Fred Taylor, purchased the paper in the 1990s. Ms. Johnson was a reporter at The Washington Post and Mr. Taylor, who died in 2015, was one former editor-in-chief from The Wall Street Journal.

Ms. Mortensen said that while newspapers have put a lot of focus on their digital product, in Eugene and surrounding rural towns “the printed paper is still something that people really value.”

The Eugene Weekly accepts donations to republish it and created an online fundraiser that had raised more than $35,000 by Sunday morning.

Ms Mortensen said people had also stopped by the office to make donations. A local bookseller who stopped by wept as she described how she had told visitors in her store what had happened to the newspaper when they asked if they could get a copy.

Support also came from unexpected sources, such as retired journalists from The Register-Guard, the city’s daily newspaper, who volunteered to help with editing.

Ms Mortensen said the support had given her hope that the newspaper might be able to print again.

“I can think of $150,000 we need to become a viable newspaper again,” Ms. Mortensen said. “And I look at some of the money and think, ‘Oh my God, can we do this?'”