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Clarence Thomas accepted a free yacht trip to Russia and got flown out on a complimentary helicopter ride to Putin's hometown, 2 Democratic senators say

• Democratic senators have accused Justice Clarence Thomas of accepting undisclosed gifts and trips.
• They say he accepted gifts such as a yacht trip to Russia and a chopper ride to Vladimir Putin's hometown.
• The senators want an investigation into potential tax fraud and ties between Thomas and Harlan Crow.

Two Democratic senators have accused Justice Clarence Thomas of accepting a free trip to Russian President Vladimir Putin's hometown.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon filed a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland on July 3, asking to open an investigation into the Supreme Court judge.

The letter said there was a "serious possibility of tax fraud" and accused Thomas of having "secretly accepted gifts and income potentially worth millions of dollars."

The letter's appendix , which lists 35 undisclosed gifts, shows a "yacht trip to Russia and the Baltics" and a "helicopter ride to Yusupov Palace, St. Petersburg," both listed under the year 2003.

St. Petersburg, Russia, is Putin's birthplace and where he grew up. The president now resides in Moscow.

The appendix list is titled "Likely Undisclosed Gifts and Income from Harlan Crow and Affiliated Companies." Harlan Crow is a real-estate developer and the former chairman and CEO of the Trammell Crow Company.

The senators cited a ProPublica report from May last year detailing Thomas' hushed-up financial ties to Crow.

The report said that apart from the Russia trip, Crow also funded Thomas' grandnephew Mark Martin 's boarding-school fees, which cost "more than $6,000 a month."

In their letter, the senators wrote that other gifts from Crow included "multiple instances of free private jet travel, yacht travel, and lodging," as well as "gifts of tuition for Justice Thomas's grandnephew," "real estate transactions," "home renovations," and "free rent for Justice Thomas's mother."

In September, Thomas said he'd accepted three trips on a private plane owned by Crow . He didn't mention any other gifts.

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Whitehouse and Wyden aren't the only Democrats who've voiced concerns over Thomas' sketchy financial ties.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York filed articles of impeachment against Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday.

"Justice Thomas and Alito's repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law," her statement reads.

Representatives for Thomas, Whitehouse, Wyden and Crow didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Watch: Why Clarence Thomas' lavish vacations with a GOP donor are in the spotlight

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Ranked: 5 Best Attack Submarines on Planet Earth in 2024

Summary and Key Points: Despite the notion that all military submarines are designed for offensive operations, "attack submarines" specifically target other vessels, including enemy subs and warships.

-Among the world's elite attack submarines are the Russian Project 945A Kondor Class (Sierra II) and Project 885 Yasen (Severodvinsk), the British Astute-class, and the American Virginia and Seawolf-classes.

-These submarines boast advanced stealth, speed, and weaponry, making them formidable assets in naval warfare.

Top 5 Attack Submarines in the World: The Best of the Best

To the uninformed, it would seem that all military submarines are designed to "attack" an enemy. However, even before the advent of ballistic missile submarines – whose purpose is essentially nuclear deterrence – an "attack submarine" specializes in combat with other vessels, including enemy subs and warships, as well as merchant shipping.

Where the confusion lies is that some attack submarines can be armed with cruise missiles, which increase the scope of their potential to strike land targets. Moreover, the Soviet and Russian navies employed the term "multi-purpose submarines."

Today, more than two dozen nations operate attack submarines, but these five classes stand out as the absolute best of the best.

Project 945A Kondor Class – Sierra II

The Sierra II Class, also known as Project 945A Kondor Class, remains among the Russian Navy's most expensive and deep-diving submarines. The boats were specifically developed for search and destroy missions against U.S. nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.

A follow-up to the Sierra I, the class was unique due to its light and strong titanium twin-pressure hulls, which featured space in between. That enabled the boats to dive to greater depths, while it reduced the level of radiated noise and increased resistance to torpedo attacks. The boats were also powered by a single OK-650 pressurized water reactor, rated at 190 MW.

It had greater speed and diving depth than its American counterparts at the time it was designed and would have been a serious threat if the Cold War turned hot. Two of the submarines were completed – the Pskov (ex-Zubatka) and Nizhny Novgorod (ex-Okun) – and both remain operational with the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet. A third of the class, Mars, was laid down in 1990. That boat was built to an improved Project 945B (NATO designation Sierra III class), but it was scrapped before completion in 1992.

Project 885 Yasen – Severodvinsk

Even as many of Russia's military platforms have appeared to be overly hyped – and its surface navy is in a truly sorry state, its Yasen-class submarines (NATO reporting name "Severodvinsk") are still considered to be among the best in the world.

Along with the Russian Navy's Borei-class ballistic missile submarines, the Yasen-class boats are reported to play a central role in Russia's defense and deterrence. The cruise missile subs were developed in the late 1980s by the St. Petersburg-based Malakhit Design Bureau of Machine-Building. It was initially intended to replace the aging Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarines. However, the program progressed slowly following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While the lead vessel, Severodvinsk, was laid down in 1993, due to funding issues as a result of Russia’s financial crisis, the project sputtered in the following decade.

Only in the late 2000s, did Moscow return to the project, but by that point, it was seen as being on the verge of obsolescence. Instead of starting from scratch, however, the Kremlin opted to relaunch the Yasen-class under the Yasen-M designation, which saw a slew of design tweaks and performance upgrades to address the roughly to-decade gap between Severodvinsk and the next Yasen-class submarine, Kazan.

Unlike older attack submarines built in the late Soviet period, the Yasen-M class boats were developed as multi-purpose vessels that could carry different weapons, including the most advanced new long-range Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missiles. There are ten silos for vertically launched cruise missiles, and according to reports, the submarines can also be equipped with Kalibr-PL and Oniks cruise missiles as their basic strike weapons. The Kazan is also equipped with the UKSK (3P-14B) vertical launch system comprised of 8SM-346 modules.

Astute-class

The Royal Navy's Astute-class were the first nuclear submarines in the world to be designed in a 3D computer-aided environment. While not as well known as their American or Russian counterparts, they are considered among some of the best on Earth.

The boats have been outfitted with many technological firsts, including not having an optical periscope. Instead, high-specification video technology has been employed, which enables the crew to scan the horizon and get a 360-degree view to address any potential threat.

In addition, unlike other nuclear-powered submarines, the Astute-class was developed to utilize state-of-the-art anti-acoustic tiles. Each hull is fitted with more than 39,000 acoustic tiles that mask the vessel’s sonar signature and allow the submarines to glide through the water almost silently.

The Astute-class submarines have stowage for 38 weapons and typically carry a mix of Spearfish heavy torpedoes and Tomahawk Block IV cruise missiles, which are capable of hitting a target within a few meters, to a range of 1,000 miles (1,600 km). The submarines' countermeasures suite includes decoys and electronic support measures (ESM).

Virginia-class

At the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy shifted its focus from preparing for open-ocean conflict to dominating littoral areas. As a result, it developed its Virginia class to operate in the world's coastal and deep waters alike.

This has resulted in a flexible, multi-mission platform that can carry out anti-submarine, anti-surface, strike and irregular warfare, as well as operate in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. The Virginia-class submarine can be used to deliver special operations forces support and also participate in mine warfare roles.

The Virginia class also offered several other innovations that have significantly enhanced its warfighting capabilities including an emphasis on its ability to conduct littoral operations. The subs feature a fly-by-wire ship control system, which improved the shallow-water ship handling, while the boats also have been outfitted to support forces operations. The submarines' torpedo rooms can also be reconfigured to house a small unit of special operations forces such as Navy SEALs and their equipment. The class also features a large lock-in-lock chamber for divers.

Eight of the Block V boats that are now being built will be equipped with the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) – a mid-body section that will increase the overall length of the boats. This will add four additional Virginia Payload Tubes, which have been replacing the submarines' single-purpose cruise missile launch tubes. This will increase the number of Tomahawk missiles that the vessels carry – and thus replace some of the Navy's missile strike capabilities that would be been lost when the Ohio-class submarines are retired from the fleet.

Seawolf-class

Designed to address the threat of Soviet ballistic missile submarines, and to replace the aging Los Angeles class of submarines, the Seawolf-­class of nuclear-powered fast attack submarines (SSN) has been described as the best of the best.

It featured a modular design that allowed for later upgrades including weapons development and better sonar systems, and was thus very much "future-proof." It had a maximum speed of 35k dived and a 'silent' speed of 20k.

While the Seawolf-class does not have any external weapons, it was designed with eight torpedo tubes twice as many as the Los Angeles class, along with a double-deck torpedo room to allow for simultaneous engagement of multiple threats.

A total of 29 boats were to be constructed over a 10-year period – a number that was then reduced to 12 – but only three were launched. But then the Cold War ended, and the Seawolf-class may have been the best of the best.

Still, at approximately $3 to $3.5 billion per vessel, the program was simply too expensive, especially in the wake of changing global geopolitics.

Author Experience and Expertise

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs . You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu .

All images are Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

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Amid calls for an Olympic ban, Israeli athletes are determined to succeed in Paris

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Israel is sending 88 athletes to Paris this month, the second-largest Olympic team in the country’s history. And they’re going to France against the backdrop of a bloody war at home that is entering its 10th month with no end in sight.

Yet that’s a topic few Israeli athletes seem willing — or able — to talk about.

“I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to go inside this thing,” Misha Zilberman, a four-time Olympian in badminton, said when asked about the war in Gaza.

A communications officer for a first-division Israeli soccer team, which placed numerous players on the Olympic team, was more blunt.

“We will not approve any questions regarding political/security situation/current affairs,” he warned. “I don’t think it’s fair on them to face such questions.”

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But the large and sustained global protests against Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories can’t be ignored and the questions, fair or not, remain unavoidable, even if they go unanswered.

In response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks that killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage, Israel attacked Gaza seeking, it said, to destroy Hamas by razing cities and killing more than 37,000 people, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, leaving much of the Gaza Strip uninhabitable.

And while Israeli athletes have had little, if anything, to do with the conflict, they have become a target of the international outrage over the war. In the last four months alone, large crowds of pro-Palestinian activists protested the presence of an Israeli team at a softball tournament in Canada, a women’s soccer team in Scotland, a men’s U-19 soccer team in Norway and an Australian cyclist pedaling for an Israel team outside Melbourne.

Even Israeli singer Eden Golan was targeted, with thousands of people turning out in Malmo, Sweden, two months ago to protest her participation in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Now the focus shifts to France ahead of next week’s opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics, which are being held in the country with the largest Muslim population in Europe. More than two dozen French politicians asked the International Olympic Committee to ban Israeli athletes from competing under their flag and anthem while the Palestinian Olympic committee, which will have at least six athletes in Paris, and many Arab countries have called for Israel to be prohibited from competing at all.

Palestinian sports have suffered significant damage as a result of the war with Jibril Rajoub, president of the Palestinian Olympic committee, saying last month that more than 300 athletes, referees, administrators and support staff have been killed and all sports facilities in Gaza destroyed in the attacks. One of those who died was Majed Abu Maraheel, a retired distance runner who became the first Palestinian to compete in the Olympics when he ran the 10,000 meters in Atlanta in 1996.

Maraheel, 61, reportedly died of kidney failure in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza.

1. A boy stands in front of a building destroyed by an Israeli assault near a refugee camp in the Occupied West Bank in October. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2. Women walk down a street in Jenin in the occupied West Bank in December amid operations by Israeli forces in the area. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3. People holding a banner reading “Palestine will live” protest Israel being allowed to take part in the 2024 Olympic Games during a protest in Paris on May 1. (Remon Haazen / Getty Images)

But while a ban on Israeli athletes competing in France won’t happen, protests against the country’s participation in the Games are likely to continue, and that worries Israeli officials.

“The best way to deal with such things is to win, to succeed,” Miki Zohar, Israeli’s minister for culture and sports, said at a news conference in Tel Aviv last month. Zohar also urged his colleagues — and Israel’s Olympic athletes — to avoid discussing the provocations.

However, the danger that the protests present to the Israeli delegation can’t be dismissed. Therefore, the Israeli government has doubled the security budget for the Olympic team and working with Shin Bet, the country’s security agency, and French officials to keep Israelis safe.

“Every place where there are athletes, every single person representing Israel will have security,” Eytan Ben David, a former senior official with Shin Bet, told Jewish Insider, a Brooklyn-based weekly newspaper and website.

The Israeli team was the target of the deadliest terror attack in Olympic history in 1972, when eight Palestinian militants infiltrated the Olympic Village in Munich, resulting in the deaths of six coaches and five athletes. But Israeli Olympian Liel Abada, who plays in the MLS with Charlotte FC, said he’s more concerned about family members coming to Paris to watch the Games than he is about his own safety.

“I’m not scared,” Abada said. “We will get big security and we will be safe.”

Despite the security concerns, this Israeli Olympic team has a chance to be the best in its country’s history, with Olympic Committee president Yael Arad, a former jukoda and Israel’s first Olympic medalist in 1992, predicting the country will win four or five medals in France. Three years ago Israel sent 90 athletes to Tokyo and came back with a record four medals, including two golds in gymnastics.

“We want our athletes to come and work, to compete,” said Arad, speaking at the same Tel Aviv news conference at which Zohar appeared. “To go and represent Israel and to show the best face of Israel.”

One of those gold medalists in Tokyo, Ukrainian-born gymnast Artem Dolgopyat, a world, European and Olympic champion in the floor exercise, is returning to defend his title. Linoy Ashram, an 18-year-old rhythmic gymnast, is also considered a medal contender.

In judo Inbar Lanir, the reigning world champion in the U-78 kg weight class, is among the favorites while taekwondo’s Avishag Semberg, who became the youngest Israeli to win an Olympic medal when she struck bronze in Tokyo at age 19, will be back on the mat in Paris.

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Zilberman, the badminton player and the sixth Israeli to compete in four Summer Games, believes the global spotlight now shining on Israel will be a source of motivation for many of the country’s Olympians.

“Of course what’s happened, gives extra to go on court and to play our best. I’m really proud to represent Israel and I think [with] all the situation, I’m more proud,” said Zilberman, who was born in Moscow but moved to Israel with his parents — his father, Michael, competed for the Soviet gymnastics team and his mother, Svetlana, for the national badminton team — when he was 2.

“I know that everybody looks now [at] Israeli athletes. It’s not only me. It’s everybody now. They try to push themselves to show the best they can do.”

Soccer player Ido Shahar, a midfielder with Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Premier League, agreed.

“We are grateful in these moments to represent our country with all the flags and everything,” he said. “We don’t go every four years, you know? It’s a very special moment for our national team, for our country.”

Shahar and the rest of the soccer team will make history of a sort just by showing up. Israel last qualified for the Olympic soccer tournament in 1976, before it became a U-23 competition, and hasn’t won a game since reaching the quarterfinals in 1968.

But Osher Davida, Shahar’s club teammate at Maccabi Tel Aviv, wants more than a participation trophy. He wants a medal.

“We’re not coming to the Olympic Games to say, ‘OK, we are in the Olympics now’,” he said. “We’re coming to make history and win all the games. Our target is go higher and higher.”

Israel will face Mali, a majority Muslim nation, in its opener July 24 and could meet Egypt, Iraq or Morocco if it advances to the knockout stages.

“We know there is pressure. We want to succeed and show how good we are. And we have to deal with it,” said defender Stav Lemkin, who plays club soccer for Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine. “Israel’s the underdog in football.

“Of course our main goal is to win against Mali.”

However given the circumstances Zohar, the culture and sports minister, says Israel’s Olympians have won simply by competing in France.

“Every time we succeed in hearing the Israeli anthem play while our flag flies overhead is, in my eyes, worth everything,” he said. “The reason we’re doing this, despite the economic difficulties, despite the enormous costs of the war is because it has a value that in my eyes is directly related to national morale, which is in need of a boost.”

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Kevin Baxter writes about soccer and hockey for the Los Angeles Times. He has covered seven World Cups, four Olympic Games, six World Series and a Super Bowl and has contributed to three Pulitzer Prize-winning series at The Times and Miami Herald. An essay he wrote in fifth grade was voted best in the class. He has a cool dog.

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