Kenya’s deputy president, who faces impeachment, pleaded not guilty in a senate hearing Wednesday to all allegations including corruption, inciting ethnic divisions and support for anti-government protests that saw demonstrators storm the country’s parliament.

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who has called the allegations politically motivated, could be the first sitting deputy president impeached in Kenya.

The case highlights the friction between him and President William Ruto — something that Ruto once vowed to avoid after his past troubled relationship as deputy to Kenya’s previous president, Uhuru Kenyatta.

Gachagua has said he believes the impeachment process has Ruto’s blessing, and has asked legislators to make their decision “without intimidation and coercion.”

The tensions risk introducing more uncertainty for investors and others in East Africa’s commercial hub. Court rulings this week allowed the parliament and senate to proceed with the impeachment debate, despite concerns over irregularities raised by the deputy president’s lawyers.

The impeachment motion was approved in parliament last week and forwarded to the senate. Gachagua’s legal team will have Wednesday and Thursday to cross-examine witnesses, and the senate will vote Thursday evening.

Under the Kenyan Constitution, the removal from office is automatic if approved by both chambers, though Gachagua can challenge the action in court — something he has said he would do.

Kenya’s president has yet to publicly comment on the impeachment process. Early in his presidency, he said he wouldn’t publicly humiliate his deputy.

Ruto, who came to office claiming to represent Kenya’s poorest citizens, has faced widespread criticism for his efforts to raise taxes in an effort to find ways to pay off foreign creditors. But the public opposition led him to shake up his cabinet and back off certain proposals.

The Biden administration is shelling out billions of dollars for clean energy and approving major offshore wind projects as officials race to secure major climate initiatives before President Joe Biden’s term comes to an end.

Biden wants to establish a legacy for climate action that includes locking in a trajectory for reducing the nation’s planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Former President Donald Trump has pledged to rescind unspent funds in Biden’s landmark climate and health care bill and stop offshore wind development if he returns to the White House in January.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told The Associated Press on Friday it would be “political malpractice” to undo clean energy incentives that are benefiting all pockets of America, with most of the investments going to counties with below-average weekly wages and college graduation rates.

“A lot of it is going to parts of America who have felt left behind. And this is giving them opportunity,” she said. “Why would we take that away? And why would we prevent counties and cities and people and families from having future-facing jobs in industries like clean energy, which young people are very excited about being a part of?”

Still, Granholm said, she’s racing to commit funding and get contracts signed.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic nominee after Biden dropped from the race this summer, has said she will pursue a climate agenda similar to Biden’s, focused on reducing emissions, deploying renewables and creating clean energy jobs.

Announcements of major environmental grants and project approvals have speeded up in recent months as White House Deputy Chief of Staff Natalie Quillian said Biden is “sprinting to the finish” and delivering on promises to promote clean energy and slow climate change:

The Environmental Protection Agency made $20 billion from a federal “green bank” available this summer for clean energy projects such as residential heat pumps, electric vehicle charging stations and community cooling centers.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved the nation’s 10th large offshore wind farm, the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, in September, reaching the halfway mark for Biden’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. On Oct. 1, the agency gave a key approval to an offshore wind farm project in New Jersey.

In the past month alone, the Energy Department has made six announcements of a billion dollars or more, including more than $3 billion for battery manufacturing projects and a $1.5 billion loan to restart a nuclear plant in Michigan. And just last week, Biden set a 10-year deadline for cities to replace their lead pipes, with $2.6 billion available from the EPA to help communities comply.

Besides the climate law, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden is seeking to spend billions in projects approved under the bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021 and the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. The $1 trillion infrastructure law includes cash for roads, bridges, ports and more, while the CHIPS law aims to reinvigorate the computer chip sector in the United States through tens of billions of dollars in government support.

A South Korean court found the former police chief of the country’s capital and two other officers not guilty over a botched response to a Halloween crowd crush that killed nearly 160 people in 2022.

The verdict by the Seoul Western District Court drew angry responses from grieving relatives and their advocates, who accused the court of refusing to hold high-level officials accountable for an incident that was largely blamed on a lack of disaster planning and an inadequate emergency response.

Kim Kwang-ho, former chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, was the most senior police officer among more than 20 police and government officials indicted over the crush in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district in Seoul. Prosecutors had sought a five-year prison term for Kim.

An investigation led by the National Police Agency found that police and local officials failed to plan effective crowd control measures even though they expected more than 100,000 people to gather for Halloween events in Itaewon.

The investigators found that Seoul police assigned just 137 officers to Itaewon on the day of the crush. Police also ignored hotline calls placed by pedestrians who warned of swelling crowds before the surge turned deadly. Once people began getting crushed in an alley near Hamilton Hotel, police failed to establish control over the site and allow paramedics to reach the injured in time.

Some experts have called the crush a “manmade disaster” that could have been prevented with relatively simple steps like employing more police and public workers to monitor bottleneck points, enforcing one-way walking lanes, and blocking narrow pathways.

The Seoul court acquitted Kim of professional negligence, saying that prosecutors failed to prove that he had violated his duties or to establish a connection between his conduct and the high toll of deaths and injuries. The court also acquitted two lower-ranking police officers who faced similar charges.

The court stated that while Kim received status updates from various departments in his agency and the Yongsan police station about the situation in Itaewon before the crush on Oct. 29, 2022, this information would not have been sufficient for him to recognize the possibility of an incident of such magnitude.

The court also noted that Kim had instructed various police stations in Seoul, including Yongsan, to establish plans to maintain safety during Halloween celebrations.

“Based solely on evidence submitted by prosecutors, it’s insufficient to conclude that the defendants’ professional negligence and its relationship to the occurrence or escalation of this incident are fully established beyond reasonable doubt,” the court said in a statement. Relatives of the victims embraced and cried outside the court after the verdict was announced.

“This court just granted immunity to the police for whenever these kinds of incidents happen again!” one of them shouted. Others scuffled with security as they tried to approach Kim’s car as he left the court.

Itaewon Disaster Bereaved Families, a group representing the victims, said the ruling was “dishonest” and “impossible to understand” and called for prosecutors to appeal.

“We strongly condemn that the main officials of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, who ignored their duties for prevention, preparation and response despite anticipating that a large crowd would develop, and who have been denying their responsibility until now, are being given a free pass,” the group said.

The same court last month sentenced the former chief of Yongsan police station, Lee Im-jae, to three years in prison and convicted two of his colleagues of professional negligence resulting in death, citing their failure to properly prepare for the crowd and respond to the crush.

The court acquitted Park Hee-young, head of the Yongsan ward office, and three other ward officials, saying that they had no legal authority to control or break up crowds.

Lee and another Yongsan police official who received a one-year sentence appealed the ruling earlier this month. The other police official had received a suspended sentence.

A federal appeals court judge has ruled to keep Sean “Diddy” Combs locked up while he makes a third bid for bail in his sex trafficking case, which is slated to go to trial in May.

In a decision filed Friday, Circuit Judge William J. Nardini denied the hip-hop mogul’s immediate release from jail while a three-judge panel weighs his bail request.

Combs’ lawyers appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 30 after two judges rejected his release.

Combs, 54, has been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his Sept. 16 arrest on charges that he used his “power and prestige” as a music star to induce female victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male sex workers in events dubbed “Freak Offs.”

Combs has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges alleging he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.

At a bail hearing three weeks ago, a judge rejected the defense’s $50 million bail proposal that would’ve allowed the “I’ll Be Missing You” singer to be placed under house arrest at his Florida mansion with GPS monitoring and strict limits on visitors.

Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr., who has since recused himself from the case, said that prosecutors had presented “clear and convincing evidence” that Combs is a danger to the community. He said “no condition or set of conditions” could guard against the risk of Combs obstructing the investigation or threatening or harming witnesses.

In their appeal, Combs’ lawyers argued that the judge had “endorsed the government’s exaggerated rhetoric” and ordered Combs detained for “purely speculative reasons.”

“Indeed, hardly a risk of flight, he is a 54-year-old father of seven, a U.S. citizen, an extraordinarily successful artist, businessman, and philanthropist, and one of the most recognizable people on earth,” the lawyers wrote.

Combs’ lawyers have not asked the new trial judge, Arun Subramanian, to consider releasing him on bail. At a hearing Thursday, as Combs sat alongside his lawyers in a beige jail jumpsuit, Subramanian suggested he would at least be open to taking up the issue.

After setting a May 5 trial date, Subramanian briefly questioned Combs’ lawyers about his treatment at the Metropolitan Detention Center, which has been plagued by violence and dysfunction for years.

A U.S. court has given two top associates of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman until early November to start turning over any evidence in a lawsuit from a former senior Saudi intelligence official who says he survived a plot by the kingdom to silence him.

The order is among a spate of recent rulings suggesting U.S. courts are becoming more open to lawsuits seeking to hold foreign powers accountable for rights abuses, legal experts and advocates say. That is after a couple of decades in which American judges tended to toss those cases.

The long-running lawsuit by former Saudi intelligence official Saad al-Jabri accuses Saudi Arabia of trying to assassinate him in October 2018. The kingdom calls the allegation groundless. That’s the same month the U.S., U.N. and others allege that aides of Prince Mohammed and other Saudi officials killed U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose columns for The Washington Post were critical of the crown prince.

Al-Jabri’s lawsuit asserts that the plot against him involved at least one of the same officials, former royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani, whom the Biden administration has sanctioned over allegations of involvement in Khashoggi’s killing.

The ruling is among a half-dozen recently giving hope to rights groups and dissidents that U.S. courts may be more open again to lawsuits that accuse foreign governments and officials of abuses — even when most of the alleged wrongdoing took place abroad.

“More and more ... it seems like the U.S. courts are an opportunity to directly hold governments accountable,” said Yana Gorokhovskaia, research director at Freedom House, a U.S.-based rights group that advocates for people facing cross-border persecution by repressive governments.

“It’s an uphill battle,” especially in cases where little of the alleged harassment took place on U.S. soil, Gorokhovskaia noted. “But it’s more than we saw, definitely, even a few years ago.”

Khalid al-Jabri, a doctor who like his father lives in exile in the West for fear of retaliation by the Saudi government, said the recent ruling allowing his father’s lawsuit to move forward will do more than help recent victims.

It “hopefully, in the long run, will make ... oppressive regimes think twice about transnational repression on U.S. soil,” the younger al-Jabri said.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington acknowledged receiving requests for comment from The Associated Press in the al-Jabri case but did not immediately respond. Lawyers for one of the two Saudis named in the case, Bader al-Asaker, declined to comment, while al-Qahtani’s attorneys did not respond.

Past court motions by lawyers for the crown prince called al-Jabri a liar wanted in Saudi Arabia to face corruption allegations and said there was no evidence of a Saudi plot to kill him.

The Saudi government, meanwhile, has said the killing of Khashoggi by Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was a “rogue operation” carried out without the crown prince’s knowledge. Khashoggi’s killing and the events alleged by al-Jabri took place in a crackdown in the first years after King Salman and his son Prince Mohammed came to power in Saudi Arabia, after the 2015 death of King Abdullah. They detained critics and rights advocates, former prominent figures under the old king, and fellow princes for what the government often said were corruption investigations.

Al-Jabri escaped to Canada. As with Khashoggi, the lawsuit alleges the crown prince sent a hit team known as the “Tiger Squad” to kill him there but claims the plot was foiled when Canadian officials questioned the men and examined their luggage. Canada has said little about the case, although a Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigator has testified that officials found the allegations credible and said they remain under investigation.

Saudi Arabia detained a younger son and daughter of al-Jabri in what the family alleges is an effort to pressure the father to return to the kingdom.

Until now, efforts to sue Saudi officials and the kingdom over Khashoggi’s and al-Jabri’s cases have foundered. U.S. courts have said that Prince Mohammed himself has sovereign immunity under international law.

And judgments in civil cases against foreign governments and officials can have little effect beyond the reputational hit. Courts sometimes find in favor of the alleged victim by default when a regime or official fails to respond.