What happened
U.S. District Judge April Perry yesterday ordered Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros and three prosecutors in his office to testify under oath later this month over their handling of the failed prosecution of the “Broadview Six” anti-ICE protesters. There’s “more than an adequate factual basis” to investigate whether Boutros (pictured above) and his team made “willful false statements” in court, she wrote. 

Perry issued her order hours after former Chicago FBI boss Douglas DePodesta, who abruptly quit in July, alleged in a federal lawsuit that he was forced to resign after a campaign by Boutros to scapegoat him for the “unprecedented disaster” of the Broadview Six case and related “politically motivated prosecutions.” His suit also contained “crucial revelations” about alleged pressure from top Justice Department officials to charge specific Trump administration critics, the Chicago Sun-Times said.

Who said what
The Broadview Six case has become an “enduring scandal” for Boutros, The Washington Post said, and Perry’s inquiry “could lead to sanctions or criminal contempt charges.” Yesterday’s order “marks a rapid escalation of the long-simmering case,” the Chicago Tribune said, “and sets the stage for a virtually unprecedented hearing,” with the top federal prosecutor in Illinois “being questioned under penalty of perjury.”

What next?
Perry scheduled the sworn testimony for Nov. 16 and ordered the Justice Department to hand over by Thursday any records that could illuminate whether federal officials lied to her. 

What happened
Karl Bushby, a British man who spent 28 years walking 31,000 miles through 30 countries on four continents, yesterday ended his odyssey at his mother’s house in Hull, England. Bushby (pictured above), now 57, began his journey in Chile in 1998 for what he estimated would be a five- to 12-year trek. His “self-imposed rules” included not using any “mode of transport, like a car, a boat or a plane, to travel,” The New York Times said. He walked across the Bering Strait and “traversed some of the world’s harshest landscapes” before swimming home across the English Channel last month. 

Who said what
A former paratrooper, Bushby “drew a line on a world map and set ​off” after “breakdown of his marriage,” Reuters said, “inspired by his father who had wondered if it was possible to walk from London to New ​York.” It turned out to be an “eye-opening adventure full of danger and drudgery that was interrupted for years at a time by the unexpected,” The Associated Press said. It took Bushby “almost 10 years to make his way through Russia” due to visa troubles and weather. 

What next?
Bushby has six speaking engagements lined up and is working with German filmmaker Werner Herzog on a documentary about his adventure. But as he neared home, the AP said, he “spoke of his anxiety over the trip ending” and “having to live in his mom’s basement.”

Bougainville could soon gain its independence from Papua New Guinea, seven years after the resource-rich islands overwhelmingly voted to secede. Parliamentarians in Papua New Guinea will vote later this month on whether to grant full self-determination to the autonomous and ethnically distinct islands and their roughly 350,000 inhabitants.

After years of control by colonizing nations including Australia, Britain, Germany and Japan, Bougainville first declared its independence as the Republic of the North Solomons in 1975. But within weeks, it was incorporated into the newly independent nation of Papua New Guinea.

In the following decades, Bougainville’s politics and push for greater autonomy became inextricably linked to its vast Panguna copper and gold mine. Anger that less than 2% of the wealth generated by the mine went to the local community “spiraled into a decade-long civil war in the main island’s jungles as a ragtag separatist militia held Papua New Guinea’s military at bay,” said The New York Times.

A 2001 peace agreement formally ended the fighting. It established a measure of autonomy for Bougainville and, crucially, a commitment from Papua New Guinea to allow an independence referendum. In 2019, 97.7% of Bougainvilleans voted for self-government.

Many Bougainvilleans now think the ultimate route to economic self-reliance lies in “rehabilitating” the Panguna mine, which was closed by multiple acts of sabotage in 1989, said Radio New Zealand. Bougainville’s President Ishmael Toroama is already pursuing redevelopment and has signaled his intent to “separate” from Papua New Guinea in 2030, whether Port Moresby ratifies Bougainville’s independence or not.