Trump Organization to face criminal tax fraud charges in New York court on Monday

Former CFO is expected to testify about off-the-books compensation scheme to evade paying payroll taxes

The Trump Organization is set to face criminal tax fraud charges on Monday in New York in a trial that could start to tease out the many allegations against the company and by extension its patriarch, Donald J Trump.

It comes as the former US president faces a maze of legal troubles and mounting costs – by some estimates running at close to $4m a month to his leadership PAC – over his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss, the removal of government documents from the White House when he left office and a defamation case relating to a rape allegation.

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Criminal charges dropped against man left with paralysis in US police custody

Randy Cox was arrested by Connecticut law enforcement and en route a detention center when he was knocked against a van wall

A man who was left partially paralyzed while in police custody has had all criminal charges against him dropped.

On 19 June, 36-year-old Randy Cox of New Haven, Connecticut, was arrested on charges of illegal handgun possession. Cox was put into a police transport van without any seatbelts and was en route to a detention center when the officer behind the wheel, Oscar Diaz, suddenly braked. Video footage released by Cox’s family and published by CNN shows a handcuffed Cox sliding across the bench and hitting the van’s wall with his head.

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Judge dismisses fraud case against Texas man who waited seven hours to vote

Hervis Rogers, who drew national praise, was arrested by state attorney general Ken Paxton for voting illegally while on parole

A Texas judge has dismissed voter fraud charges against Hervis Rogers, the Houston man who drew national attention – and praise – for waiting seven hours in line to vote in the March 2020 presidential primary.

Rogers, who is Black, became a symbol of tenacity when news of the circumstances surrounding his voting experience surfaced. He stuck around – despite working two jobs, including one beginning at 6am – and was among the last, potentially the last, Texas resident to vote, according to KERA news.

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White House urges borrowers to apply for student debt relief despite court order

Federal appeals court temporarily halts Biden’s cancellation of student debt after motion brought by six Republican-led states

The Biden administration is urging student loan borrowers to continue applying for debt relief despite a federal appeals court order late on Friday that temporarily halted this program.

“[This] temporary order does not prevent borrowers from applying for student debt relief,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement following the eighth circuit court of appeals’ temporary stay.

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‘I just care about change’: Nevada’s Latinos on their cost-of-living fears

Nevada has an acute shortage of affordable housing – but do Republicans or Democrats have practical answers to curb one of America’s most pressing issues?

Claudia Lopez, 39, is worried for her children.

As her curly haired seven-year-old daughter bounced around a play area inside El Mercado, a shopping center within the Boulevard Mall in Las Vegas where the smell of arepas and tacos hovers over the shops, Lopez soaked in her day off from knocking on doors and talking to residents about the upcoming election.

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Early voters in Georgia face obstacles under state’s new election law

Unlimited challenges to eligibility and poorly trained poll workers cause frustration in key gubernatorial and US Senate contests

Jennifer Jones, a Morehouse School of Medicine PhD student, showed up to her precinct in Fulton county, Georgia, on the second day of early voting for the midterm elections. She was excited to cast her ballot for her chosen candidates in the gubernatorial and Senate races, Stacey Abrams and Senator Raphael Warnock. However, when she reached the check-in station at the polling site, she was informed that she would be unable to cast a regular ballot because her validity as a voter was challenged.

“When I handed in my ID, the poll worker said I was being challenged,” said Jones. “They said I had to complete a provisional ballot, but I wasn’t really comfortable doing that, so I didn’t get to cast my ballot that day.”

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Danny Masterson’s rape trial opens with tearful accuser testimony

That ’70s Show star faces three counts of sexual assault in case that also shines spotlight on Church of Scientology

The trial of actor Danny Masterson began this week with emotional testimony from one of the women who has accused the TV star of rape – marking the latest of several high profile cases now under way in Hollywood, and one in which the Church of Scientology has come under scrutiny.

Inside a Los Angeles courtroom, just down the hall from the trial of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, the first of Masterson’s accusers took the stand on Tuesday and Wednesday. She tearfully recounted a 2003 incident when she says that the actor, best known for his role in That ’70s Show, raped her.

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Appeals court temporarily halts Biden’s student debt cancellation scheme

Program has been paused as the court considers a motion filed by six Republican-led states

Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans has been temporarily halted by a federal appeals court as it considers a motion from six Republican-led states to block the program.

The eighth circuit court of appeals issued the temporary stay on Friday, ordering the Biden administration not to act on the program while it considers the appeal.

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Russian and US defence ministers discuss Ukraine war in rare talks

Few details given but Ukraine discussed in the second call between Lloyd Austin and Sergei Shoigu since war began

Russia’s defence minister held rare telephone talks with his US counterpart on Friday, after pro-Kremlin officials said they were turning Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson into a “fortress” as Kyiv’s forces advance.

Few details emerged of the conversation between Russia’s Sergei Shoigu and the US Defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, but both sides confirmed they had discussed Ukraine.

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Las Vegas teen dies from brain-eating amoeba as experts warn against panic

Investigators believe teen was exposed in warm waters at Lake Mead but epidemiologist says disease is ‘very, very rare’

Experts have said that the death of a teenager in the Las Vegas area from a rare brain-eating amoeba should prompt caution, not panic, among people at freshwater lakes, rivers and springs.

“It gets people’s attention because of the name,” Brian Labus, a former public health epidemiologist, said on Friday of the naturally occurring organism officially called Naegleria fowleri but almost always dubbed the brain-eating amoeba. “But it is a very, very rare disease.”

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US Forest Service employee arrested in Oregon over spread of prescribed burn

Unprecedented arrest comes after fire burned 20 acres of private land. Now, experts fear backlash against the wildfire control tool

A US Forest Service employee in Oregon was arrested this week after a prescribed burn in a national forest spread onto private land. It is an unprecedented move that signals an alarming backlash to prescribed burning, a critical tool in wildfire management.

Rick Snodgrass, a “burn boss” with the forest service, was overseeing a 300-acre burn in Oregon’s Malheur national forest that had been approved by the agency. A spot fire escaped control, according to officials in Grant county and charred roughly 20 acres of private land belonging to Holiday Ranches.

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House of the Dragon: HBO ‘disappointed’ as season finale leaks

The final episode of the first season of the hit Game of Thrones prequel has landed online days early

The season finale of House of the Dragon has leaked online just two days before it was set to premiere on HBO.

According to an HBO spokesperson, the much-anticipated episode of the hit Game of Thrones prequel appears to have come from a distribution partner in Europe, the Middle East or Africa.

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Angelina Jolie to play Maria Callas in Spencer director’s next biopic

The Oscar-winner will play the opera singer in a film that explores the ‘tumultuous, beautiful, and tragic’ story of her life

Angelina Jolie is set to play opera singer Maria Callas in a new drama from Chilean film-maker Pablo Larraín.

Maria will tell “the tumultuous, beautiful and tragic story of the life of the world’s greatest opera singer, relived and re-imagined during her final days in 1970s Paris” with a script from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, who last collaborated with Larraín for Princess Diana drama Spencer.

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Steve Bannon vows ‘very vigorous appeal’ to four-month prison sentence – as it happened

Steve Bannon has just spoken with reporters outside the courthouse in Washington DC, telling them he “respects” the judge’s sentence, and veering off quickly into an attack on Joe Biden’s administration.

In a brief, and chaotic appearance at the microphone, Bannon said of judge Carl Nichol’s four-month sentence:

The sentence he came down with today is his decision. I fully respect it, I’ve been totally respectful this entire process on the legal side.

I testified before the Mueller commission for more hours. I testified in front of [congressman Adam] Schiff in the House intelligence committee more than any other person in the Trump administration. I testified in front of the senate intelligence [committee], I think more than anybody, about the issues related to Russiagate, to all of that. The same process every time.

I had lawyers that were engaged, they worked through the issues of privilege. At that time, I went and testified. And this thing about I’m above the law is an absolute and total lie.

Today was my judgment day by the judge. And we’ll have a very vigorous appeals process. I’ve got a great legal team, and there’ll be multiple areas of appeal.

But as that sign says right there, vote. On November 8, there’s gonna have [sic] judgment on the illegitimate Biden regime and, quite frankly, Nancy Pelosi and the entire [January 6] committee. And we know which way that’s going.

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Police investigate car buried in yard of Silicon Valley home in 1990s

Car was discovered Thursday morning by landscapers in affluent town of Atherton with unused bags of concrete inside it

Police are investigating why someone buried a car in the yard of a multimillion-dollar northern California home in the 1990s – and left unused bags of concrete inside.

The car was discovered on Thursday morning by landscapers in the affluent town of Atherton in Silicon Valley, police said in a news release.

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Newsmax bans Lara Logan after QAnon-tinged on-air tirade

Rightwing networks says war correspondent turned pundit will not be invited back in view of ‘reprehensible statements’

The rightwing US TV network Newsmax said it had no plans to interview Lara Logan again, after the award-winning war correspondent turned rightwing pundit launched a QAnon-tinged tirade on air.

Speaking to host Eric Bolling, Logan said “the open border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world” and claimed world leaders drank children’s blood.

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Washington state woman survives being stabbed and buried alive

Victim was able to alert contacts via smartwatch after attack by estranged husband, then escape from early grave to seek help

A woman in Washington state managed to escape after allegedly being bound, stabbed and buried alive by her estranged husband.

Thurston county police officers were dispatched to a home around 1am local time on Monday, where they found a distressed woman hiding behind a shed screaming, “My husband is trying to kill me,” reported NBC News, citing a court document.

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Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of Congress

Former Trump strategist also fined $6,500 for refusing to comply with subpoena issued by Capitol attack committee

Donald Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines after he was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply last year with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 select committee.

The punishment – suspended pending appeal – makes Bannon the first person to be incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century and sets a stringent standard for future contempt cases referred to the justice department by the select committee investigating the Capitol attack.

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Weather tracker: Nigeria flooding and US blows hot and cold

Authorities partly blamed after months of deadly flooding in African nation; jet stream causes temperature divide in US

Nigeria has found itself at the centre of devastating floods over the past week, with poor preparation from authorities partly blamed for the damage caused. At least 600 people have died across the west African nation, with two-thirds of states affected by the disaster.

An estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, with up to a quarter of a million homes reportedly destroyed. The floods are a culmination of months of above average rainfall, with the first floods having occurred in summer.

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US charges seven over alleged Beijing plot to forcibly repatriate ‘elite’ Chinese

US attorney in New York criticises ‘outrageous violations of national sovereignty’ and alleges campaign of harassment against US resident

The United States has charged seven Chinese nationals it accuses of waging a surveillance and harassment campaign against a US resident and his family as part of a bid by Beijing to forcibly repatriate one of them back to China.

The eight-count indictment, unsealed on Thursday in a US district court in Brooklyn, New York, is the latest case by the justice department targeting China’s global overseas campaign, known as “Operation Fox Hunt”.

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