Donald Trump indicted by grand jury over hush money payment to Stormy Daniels

Ex-president is expected to appear for his arraignment on Tuesday where he will be fingerprinted, photographed and processed for arrest

A grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump in New York over a hush money payment made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.

No former US president has ever been criminally indicted. The news is set to shake the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, in which Trump leads most polls.

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Trump expected to surrender Tuesday – as it happened

The move to indict Trump is historic as no former president has ever been criminally charged. This blog is now closed

The indictment of Donald Trump, the former president and current presidential candidate, on criminal charges related to his hush money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, is historic.

No former president has ever been criminally indicted. We are waiting for details to emerge and for reactions from Trump or his legal team.

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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty to bribery charges

Bankman-Fried, 31, has already pleaded not guilty to eight counts over collapse of cryptocurrency exchange last year

The FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty on Thursday to new US criminal charges, which include conspiring to violate campaign finance laws and bribe Chinese authorities.

Bankman-Fried, 31, had earlier pleaded not guilty to eight counts of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly stealing billions in FTX customer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research.

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China renews threats as Taiwan president greeted by crowds in New York

Tsai Ing-wen’s trip causing controversy in China, with the government labelling it a ‘provocation’

Chinese officials have warned of “serious” consequences if Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, meets the US House speaker next week, after Tsai arrived in New York to crowds of supporters and protesters.

Tsai is stopping in the US twice during her 10-day visit to Taiwan’s diplomatic allies Guatemala and Belize. Her itinerary has not been disclosed and none of the events were open to the public or media.

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Trump’s verbal assaults pose risks to prosecutors and could fuel violence

Trump has resorted to ‘incendiary rhetoric’ to deter investigations and to rile up his base, experts say, and shows no sign of letting up

Donald Trump’s demagogic attacks on prosecutors investigating criminal charges against him are aimed at riling up his base and could spark violence, but show no signs of letting up as a potential indictment in at least one case looms, say legal experts.

At campaign rallies, speeches and on social media Trump has lambasted state and federal prosecutors as “thugs” and claimed that two of them – who are Black – are “racist”, language designed to inflame racial tension.

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Trump lawyer says ex-president based remarks about arrest last week on ‘rumors’

Trump’s prediction last week was a bust, but Manhattan grand jury could reconvene on Monday with an arraignment by end of day

Donald Trump’s lawyer has admitted that the former president based his incendiary and unfounded remarks about his imminent arrest last week on mere speculation prompted by “rumours”.

Trump ignited a week of political, media and law enforcement frenzy when he announced on his social media platform Truth Social that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday in the New York criminal investigation relating to hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Security was stepped up at the Manhattan courthouse and around the district attorney leading the case, Alvin Bragg, amid fears of renewed protests by Trump supporters, some of whom staged the deadly attack at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

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Trump says he’s not upset over possible indictment while attacking ‘fake’ case

Ex-president insisted he wasn’t afraid of the investigation into hush money payments even as he lashed out at the case

Donald Trump repeatedly insisted on Saturday night he was not upset by expected criminal charges that might arise from the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into his role in paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels as he returned from a campaign rally in Waco, Texas.

But the manner of Trump’s responses to questions suggested worries about potential damage to his image, and he came across as someone angry that his good vibrations with his “Make American great again” base in Texas could be interrupted by the reality of a possible indictment as soon as this week.

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Mysterious death of New York fashion designer ruled as homicide

Kathryn Marie Gallagher’s July 2022 death linked to ‘drug-facilitated theft’ after medical examiner’s findings of intoxication

The death of a rising New York fashion designer last year could be linked to a spate of “drug-facilitated theft” crimes in the city, authorities have revealed.

A mystery has surrounded the death of Kathryn Marie Gallagher, 35, since she was found dead in her apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side on 24 July last year.

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First global water conference in 50 years yields hundreds of pledges, zero checks

Non-binding commitments, paucity of scientific data and poor representation of global south left a lot to be desired at summit

The first global water conference in almost half a century has concluded with the creation of a new UN envoy for water and hundreds of non-binding pledges that if fulfilled would edge the world towards universal access to clean water and sanitation.

The three-day summit in New York spurred almost 700 commitments from local and national governments, non-profits and some businesses to a new Water Action Agenda, and progress on the hotchpotch of voluntary pledges will be monitored at future UN gatherings. A new scientific panel on water will also be created by the UN.

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Escaped cow that tore through Brooklyn finds home at sanctuary

Canarsie cow to meet fellow celebrity escapees at rescue center where animals live on vast pasture: ‘She’ll be ecstatic’

It’s been one hell of a week for the Canarsie cow, a black angus calf who started this week on her way to a slaughterhouse and will end it settling into her new home on a New Jersey farm.

After she escaped a truck hauling her from a Pennsylvania farm to certain death at Saba Live Poultry in Canarsie, Brooklyn, she went on a rampage through the streets. Slaughterhouse employees and workers at a nearby pizza shop tried to catch up with her, in a chase that lasted several minutes.

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Manhattan prosecutor says Trump created ‘false expectation’ of imminent arrest – as it happened

In an excerpt from her forthcoming book, CNN supreme court analyst Joan Biskupic reveals a body where the conservative majority fortified by Donald Trump is driving forward with decisions to change America – even as some of its members try to appear conciliatory in public.

She also describes chief justice John Robert’s decision to quickly move Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s papers from her office after she died in 2020, which offended some of her aides used to more relaxed transitions between justices.

Within days of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s memorial service in late September 2020, boxes of her files and other office possessions were moved down to a dark, windowless theater on the Supreme Court’s ground floor, where – before the ongoing pandemic – tourists could watch a film about court operations.

Grieving aides to the justice who’d served 27 years and become a cultural icon known as the “Notorious RBG” sorted through the chambers’ contents there.

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JPMorgan and Deutsche to face lawsuits over Jeffrey Epstein ties

Manhattan judge allows central accusations that banks benefitted from ties to sex trafficker to proceed

A US judge has ruled that a pair of lawsuits accusing two major banks of knowingly benefitting from ties to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein can proceed, though in a narrower form than had been initially filed.

The four-page ruling by Manhattan district judge Jed Rakoff granted motions by JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank to dismiss some counts against them, but permitted the central claims brought by Epstein accusers and the US Virgin Islands to proceed.

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Trump hails prospect of testimony from ex-Cohen adviser in hush money case

Robert J Costello, scheduled to appear before New York grand jury on Monday, likely to question Trump accuser’s credibility

• Trump calls on supporters to protest as potential indictment looms

Donald Trump has cheered the news that a former adviser to Michael Cohen will testify before a Manhattan grand jury investigating the ex-president’s alleged role in hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Robert J Costello, a one-time legal adviser to former Trump attorney Cohen, is scheduled to appear before the grand jury on Monday, where he is expected to give testimony “attacking the credibility of Cohen’s statements”, Associated Press reported.

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Manhattan DA warns of ‘attempts to intimidate’ after Trump calls for protest

Alvin Bragg is expected to bring an indictment against Trump this week over hush payments to adult actor Stormy Daniels in 2016

The Manhattan district attorney widely expected to bring an indictment against Donald Trump this week has vowed that his staff will not be intimidated after the former US president called for his supporters to protest any action against him.

Trump triggered a flurry of frantic headlines and statements from his political allies on Saturday when he posted a message on social media claiming he was set to be arrested this Tuesday on charges of hush payments to adult actor Stormy Daniels.

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Trump claims he ‘will be arrested’ on Tuesday in New York criminal case

Ex-president makes remark on Truth Social without any official confirmation of the likelihood or timing of charges being brought

Donald Trump has posted on his platform Truth Social that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday in the criminal case in New York involving hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Earlier this year the former US president called for protests by his supporters if he was indicted in any of the numerous criminal investigations in New York, Georgia and by federal authorities into various allegations involving illegal campaign payments, election interference, efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and keeping top secret documents at home after leaving office. On Saturday he posted: “Protest, take our nation back!”

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Trump should quit 2024 race if indicted in New York, Republican rival says

Ex-Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson: man facing charge over porn star payment should ‘respect institution of the presidency’

Donald Trump should quit the race for the Republican nomination in 2024 if he is indicted in New York over a hush money payment to a porn star during his victorious run in 2016, a prospective rival said.

“It doesn’t mean that he’s guilty of it or he should be charged,” said Asa Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas. “But it’s just such a distraction that would be unnecessary for somebody who’s seeking the highest office in the land.”

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Michael Cohen to testify in Donald Trump hush-money investigation

His appearance comes as the inquiry into the $130,000 the former president paid to Stormy Daniels comes to an end

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and intermediary in the Stormy Daniels hush-money affair, is scheduled to testify before a Manhattan grand jury on Monday about payments made to the adult film performer, according to a report on Saturday.

Cohen’s appearance before a grand jury convened by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg comes as prosecutors are believed to be nearing the end of an investigation into payments totaling $130,000 that Trump made to Daniels shortly before the 2016 election to stop her discussing their alleged affair.

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Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape can be used in civil rape trial, judge rules

E Jean Carroll can use tape of former president boasting of touching women’s genitals without consent in New York trial

The tape of Donald Trump boasting about sexual aggression towards women that detonated late in the 2016 election campaign but did not prevent him from winning the presidency will be permitted at a forthcoming civil trial in New York.

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the columnist E Jean Carroll can use the 2005 remarks by Trump, caught on tape in conversation with an Access Hollywood TV show personality, in support of her lawsuit accusing Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.

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Ex-Goldman banker given 10 years in prison for role in 1MDB fraud scandal

Roger Ng, 50, found guilty by Brooklyn jury in massive embezzlement linked to Malaysian state investment fund

Roger Ng, the former Goldman Sachs banker at the center of the multibillion 1MDB embezzlement scandal, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday, placing a capstone on one of the largest and most bizarre financial frauds of the past decade.

A jury in Brooklyn, New York, found Ng, 50, from Malaysia, guilty of violating US anti-bribery laws, money laundering and illegally skirting Goldman’s accounting controls, after a seven-week trial.

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Architect Rafael Viñoly, designer of Walkie Talkie building, dies aged 78

Uruguayan-born Viñoly’s sometimes controversial work included more than 600 structures around world

Rafael Viñoly, the Uruguayan-born and New York-based architect known for designing landmark buildings around the world, has died aged 78.

Viñoly’s death on Thursday was announced by his son, Roman, on the website of the family firm, Rafael Viñoly Architects.

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