Donald Trump's last-ditch bid to delay hush money trial shot down by judge in one sentence - The Mirror

Former US president Donald Trump's latest attempt to delay his hush money criminal trial was rejected by an appeals court judge in one single sentence.

The criminal trial is due to start on April 15 but Trump's lawyers had argued at an emergency hearing that the trial should be postponed while they seek a change of venue to move it out of Manhattan. Trump lawyer Emil Bove argued that the presumptive Republican nominee faces “real potential prejudice” as a defendant in the heavily Democratic borough.

Citing defence surveys and a review of media coverage, Bove argued that jury selection, scheduled to start next Monday, “cannot proceed in a fair manner”. Steven Wu, appellate chief for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, noted that trial Judge Juan Merchan had already rejected Trump’s requests to move or delay the trial as untimely.

“The question in this case is not whether a random poll of New Yorkers from whatever neighbourhood are able to be impartial, it’s about whether a trial court is able to select a jury of 12 impartial jurors,” Mr Wu said. After hearing arguments from Trump's lawyers and representatives from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Judge Lizbeth Gonzalez announced her decision on Monday.

READ MORE: Donald Trump sues hush money judge 'in bid to delay trial' and move case out of New York

The criminal trial is due to start on April 15 but Donald Trump's lawyers had argued at an emergency hearing that the trial should be postponed ( Getty Images)

"Defendant's application for a stay of trial, pursuant to CPL § [section] 230.30, pending the determination of defendant's motion for change of venue, is denied," the judge wrote following the hearing on Monday. Gonzalez did not offer reasoning behind her decision.

The former US president has tried repeatedly to get the trial postponed and barring further action, the decision means the first of Trump's four criminal trials will start as scheduled on April 15. Trump is accused of falsifying his company’s records to hide the nature of payments to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who allegedly helped him bury negative stories during his 2016 campaign.

Cohen’s activities included paying porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 to allegedly suppress her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels. His lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.

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Harry Litman, senior legal affairs columnist for The Los Angeles Times, said on X of Trump's latest attempt to delay the trial: "Appellate division judge denies Trump attempt to delay trial in one sentence unsigned order. Doesn't even refer it to a panel. He is flailing and embarrassing himself within the legal system."

In a separate matter, Trump’s lawyers are also challenging a gag order imposed on him in the case, which Judge Merchan recently expanded to prohibit Trump from making comments about the judge’s family. The appeals court signalled it would take up that matter at a later date.

The former US president has tried repeatedly to get the trial postponed ( Getty Images)

Last week, Trump renewed his request for the judge to step aside from the case, citing Judge Merchan’s daughter’s work as the head of a firm whose clients have included his rival President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats.

The former president alleges the judge is biased against him and has a conflict of interest because of his daughter’s work. The judge rejected a similar request last August. Trump has also made numerous other attempts to get the trial postponed, echoing a strategy he’s deployed in his other criminal cases. “We want delays,” Trump proclaimed to TV cameras outside a February pretrial hearing in his hush-money case.

Judge Merchan last week rejected his request to delay the trial until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity claims he raised in another of his criminal cases. The New York judge has yet to rule on another defence delay request, which claims that Trump won’t get a fair trial because of “prejudicial media coverage.” Trump has suggested on social media that the trial should be moved to Staten Island, the only New York City borough he won in 2016 and 2020.

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Biden says Netanyahu making a 'mistake' in Gaza as Turkey slaps trade restrictions on Israel - Euronews

The US President has said Israel's PM is making a 'mistake' in his approach to Gaza, while tensions between Turkey and Israel over the war hurt trade.

US President Joe Biden has criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach to Gaza. 

“I think what he’s doing is a mistake," he said in an interview. "I don’t agree with his approach.” 

Biden’s remarks were some of his strongest criticism yet of Netayhanu, as tensions between Israel and its principal ally soar over the mounting death toll in Gaza. 

The Democrat leader also called for a ceasefire, warning US support depended on whether Israel would allow in more aid to the Palestinian enclave. 

He called an Israeli drone attack that killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen last week “outrageous”.

The hour-long interview was recorded last Wednesday and it aired on Tuesday night on US Spanish-language network Univision.

“What I’m calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country,” said Biden.

“There’s no excuse to not provide for the medical and the food needs of those people. It should be done now.”

Gaza sparks trade dispute between Turkey and Israel

Turkey and Israel have slapped trade barriers on one another as relations plummet over the war in Gaza. 

Ankara on Tuesday announced export restrictions on 54 types of products to Israel with immediate effect, including metals, jet fuel and chemical fertilisers. 

Israel said it was preparing a ban on Turkish products in response. 

The announcements came a day after Israel barred Turkish military cargo planes from airdropping aid into Gaza. 

“There is no excuse for Israel to block our attempt to deliver aid by air to starving people of Gaza,” said Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan. 

Stung by a local election loss last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faced intense pressure from voters to halt trade with Israel. 

Critics accuse Ankara of double standards by denouncing Israel yet continuing lucrative commercial relations.

Erdogan has said Israel’s actions in Gaza verge on “genocide” and called Hamas - deemed a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States and the European Union - freedom fighters.

In a post on X, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Erdogan was “once again sacrificing the economic interests of the people of Turkey for his support of the Hamas murderers in Gaza.”

He claimed he had asked US organisations to stop investing in Turkey and importing Turkish goods.

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Cameron’s Mar-a-Lago lobbying may not be enough to reach the new Republican party - The Guardian

Whatever happened at Mar-a-Lago between David Cameron and Donald Trump on Monday night, was clearly going to stay in Mar-a-Lago.

Dinner at the Trump Florida residence was always going to be a stiff test of the UK foreign secretary’s influence over the former president, presidential candidate, and the man he had previously referred to variously as protectionist, xenophobic, and misogynistic.

When Cameron was planning this week’s trip to Washington, the British embassy had advised him that if he wanted to help unlock US aid to Ukraine, his primary mission, it would be worth meeting the man who is orchestrating the persistent Republican block on that assistance.

The foreign secretary agreed it was worth a try, and the Trump camp was happy to oblige. Trump likes to present the Mar-a-Lago residence as the true presidency in temporary exile, and so encourages visits by foreign dignitaries.

A Trump spokesperson later listed the topics of conversation as including US and UK elections, Brexit-related policies, the need for Nato to meet their defence spending goals, “ending the killing in Ukraine”, as well as mutual admiration for the late Queen.

Despite being pressed repeatedly by journalists on Tuesday, Cameron would not even be that specific, insisting it was a private meeting, and that the two men had talked about “geopolitical” issues. British officials would say only that the meeting had been “warm and productive”.

What it did not produce is a meeting with Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker who is holding back a vote on a supplemental spending bill that includes tens of billions of dollars critical for Ukraine’s defence against Vladimir Putin’s relentless onslaught.

British officials insisted that absence of a Johnson meeting was because their “two timetables could not be aligned”. But Cameron told reporters on Tuesday that he would make time to meet “any people in Congress who would welcome a conversation” about Ukraine aid. The misalignment clearly came just from one side.

The foreign secretary and former prime minister was due to spend Tuesday afternoon and much of Wednesday in Capitol Hill, a reflection of his enthusiasm for political cut and thrust, officials said, as well the advantages of having a lord for a foreign secretary. He does not have to rush back from trips abroad for constituency meetings or votes in the Commons like a member of parliament.

Cameron stressed on Tuesday he would bring every argumentative tool at his disposal to his talks with other Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress, from hard-headed national interest – it is a cheap way to degrade the Russian war machine and creates US jobs – to the thick seam of sentiment that runs through the history of the US-UK relationship.

“When I address this issue of how not to help Ukraine I can get very emotional about it,” the foreign secretary said, adding: “I think of my grandfather landing on the Normandy beaches under the cover of an American warship.”

Cameron also listed US-UK counter-terrorist actions that he had been involved in against the Islamic State.

“This is the same thing,” he added. “We face a huge threat from an aggressive Putin, taking another country’s territory by force. And it is so important that we stick together.”

Those sentiments will work with the Republicans Cameron was due to meet, including Mitch McConnell and Steve Scalise, the Senate minority leader and House majority leader, who are towards the Atlanticist end of the party.

Johnson might also have agreed with some of Cameron’s pitch, but that is besides the point. The threat to the speaker’s job is coming from that part of the Republican party that has no sentimental or ideological attachment to old alliances, no time for talk of “special” relationships, only loyalty to Trump.

The faction’s most vocal exponent, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has threatened to lead a revolt against Johnson and potentially topple him if he sends Ukrainian funding to the House floor for a vote. The Georgia congresswoman stepped up her attacks on the speaker on Tuesday morning, with a five-page screed to her Republican colleagues accusing him of failing to live up to any of his promises to his own party and serving “the Democrats’ agenda”.

Greene responded to an earlier Cameron lobbying effort on Ukraine’s behalf in February with an invitation to the foreign secretary to “kiss my ass”. There was no sign from the Mar-a-Lago dinner with Greene’s political godfather that provided any hope that particular invitation would be withdrawn.

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David Cameron jets to Florida for talks with Donald Trump - Financial Times

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1. David Cameron jets to Florida for talks with Donald Trump  Financial Times
2. David Cameron meets Donald Trump amid push to shore up Ukraine support  The Guardian
3. The world is safer for a renewed Entente  The Telegraph
4. UK and France warn US 'the world is watching' on Ukraine aid  POLITICO Europe
5. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron meeting with Trump on Monday night  CNN

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'There is a date': Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows Rafah invasion will go ahead - Sky News

Israel's prime minister has reiterated his vow to invade the city of Rafah in southern Gaza and declared: "There is a date."

Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said Israel must send ground forces into the city, which he says is Hamas' last stronghold in the besieged enclave.

It comes as Hamas rejected the latest Israeli ceasefire proposal, after an official said no progress had been made in negotiations over the weekend in Cairo, Egypt.

"There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks," the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told the news agency Reuters.

Middle East latest: Hamas rejects latest ceasefire proposal

The international community has opposed an invasion of Rafah, arguing the roughly 1.4 million civilians who have sought shelter there will be in danger. Israel has insisted it has a plan to protect the civilians.

On Monday, Mr Netanyahu said he had received a detailed report on the talks in Cairo. However, he said the Rafah operation was essential for an Israeli victory.

"We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas," he said in a video statement.

"This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen - there is a date," he added without elaborating.

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1:26

'Nothing will stop' Rafah operation

The US, Israel's closest ally, has said invading Rafah would be a mistake and has demanded to see a credible plan to protect civilians.

Israel is purchasing 40,000 tents to prepare for the evacuation, an Israeli official told the Associated Press.

Read more:
Israel withdraws almost all troops from southern Gaza
Analysis: Key element in path to peace still missing
Royal Navy ship to be deployed in Gaza aid effort

Image: Palestinians in Rafah, southern Gaza. Pics: AP

Mr Netanyahu's remarks came as streams of Palestinians returned to the southern city of Khan Younis on Monday to salvage what they could from the swathes of destruction left by Israel's offensive, a day after the military announced it was withdrawing its troops from the area.

Allowing civilians to return to Khan Younis could relieve some pressure on Rafah - but many have no homes to return to and face the danger of unexploded ordnance left by the fighting.

Some 33,207 Palestinians have been killed during six months of conflict, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said in an update on Monday. Its figures do not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

The war erupted after Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel in a cross-border attack on 7 October.

The Israeli army says over 600 of its soldiers have been killed in combat since then.

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Foreign Office ‘elitist and rooted in the past’, says new report - The Guardian

A powerful new international department would help Britain adapt to being a middle-rank power and shed a Foreign Office identity that is “somewhat elitist and rooted in the past”, says a damning report by some of the UK’s leading diplomats.

The report, clearly directed at an incoming mission-based Labour government, has been written by the former cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill, the former No 10 foreign policy adviser Tom Fletcher and the former director general at the Foreign Office Moazzam Malik, among others.

It urges that 1% of gross national income is devoted to international engagement, including aid, to complement the commitment to 2% of GDP on defence spending.

The report, entitled The World in 2040: Renewing the UK’s approach to International Affairs, says the Foreign Office was “struggling to deliver a clear mandate, prioritisation and resource allocation”, adding: “The Foreign Office all too often operates like a giant private office for the foreign secretary of the day, responding to the minister’s immediate concerns and ever-changing in-tray.

“The merger of Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, to create the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), was presented as an opportunity to leverage the strengths of both departments: short-term diplomacy and a long term strategic focus on real world challenges. But it has struggled to deliver. A more effective approach requires a sustained focus on the international challenges that will shape the UK’s prosperity and security.”

The report continues: “The physical surroundings [of the Foreign Office headquarters] also hint at the Foreign Office’s identity: somewhat elitist and rooted in the past. Modernising premises – perhaps with fewer colonial-era pictures on the walls – might help create a more open working culture and send a clear signal about Britain’s future.”

It suggests a model similar to Canada and Australia, where a revamped international department has a strategic oversight over not just aid and diplomacy, but the climate emergency and trade.

The report says: “We cannot simply brush aside concerns around the UK’s historical legacy and questions of nationhood. The exit from the EU has opened many questions, including in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

“Former colonies are making increasingly vocal demands around the need for reparations from colonialism and compensation for the loss and damage arising from historical industrial emissions.”

The paper goes on to state that discrepancies “between our domestic and international conduct on issues such as climate change and human rights not only exposes us to accusations of hypocrisy on the world stage but also weakens the institutions and values essential to the UK’s interests”.

It suggests: “The UK has often sought to project an image of ‘greatness’ to the world that today seems anachronistic. We will be envied for what we are good at, not what we say that we are good at. This means the state working hand-in-hand with our universities, our creative sector, our sports bodies, news and civil society organisations, so they can serve as effective ambassadors for the UK and maximise the country’s considerable ‘soft power’.”

Calling for greater realism as a middle-rank off-shore nation, the paper says the UK “should not always see ourselves as the leader in efforts to tackle global challenges. UK convening power has achieved significant results. But effective solutions to global problems in a multi-polar world need a wider array of leaders. We should give space, be more of a ‘team player’, showing humility and respect, ready to follow and support wherever appropriate.”

In his foreword to the report, Sedwill says: “For the past decade, we have been wrestling with our national identity, to the bewilderment of our allies and the glee of our adversaries.”

He says the task is to harness the country’s strengths – including possessing the world’s sixth-largest economy, some of the best universities, world-class diplomatic, intelligence and security services, a formidable military and a leading international development network.

The report says: “As we move towards 2040 and beyond, the UK will not be able to rely on just its traditional alliances with the US and Europe to defend interests in the same way. Globally, economic and geopolitical power will be more diffuse as regionally strong countries – ‘middle powers’ – exert greater influence over international affairs.

“This does not mean that the UK will retreat from existing alliances, but we will need to build new issue-based alliances with states whose interests and values may be less closely aligned. We have historically under-invested in our relationships with Asia and are at risk of doing the same with Africa now.”

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Ukraine war: UN body urges restraint after Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant hit - BBC

Reuters

By Ian Aikman

BBC News

A new drone attack on Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia power plant has raised the risk of a "major nuclear accident", the UN's atomic watchdog has warned.

Russia said Ukraine was behind the attack, which it said injured three people. Ukraine has denied involvement.

The giant Russian-held nuclear plant, with six reactors, is on the frontline of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly warned against such attacks.

IAEA head Rafael Grossi said Sunday's drone strike was "reckless" and "a major escalation of the nuclear safety and security dangers" facing the plant.

The Zaporizhzhia plant, in southern Ukraine, is the largest in Europe. Russian forces seized it shortly after launching their February 2022 full-scale invasion and have occupied it ever since.

The facility stopped generating power in 2022, but needs a constant supply of electricity to cool one of its reactors which is in a state of "hot conservation", meaning it is not fully offline.

The IAEA, which has a team of experts at Zaporizhzhia, confirmed "physical impact of drone attacks" at the plant, including at one of the reactors.

The plant's Russian-installed administration said radiation levels were normal and that there was no serious damage.

The IAEA said the damage had not compromised nuclear safety, but it warned that "this is a serious incident with potential to undermine [the] integrity of the reactor's containment system".

Reuters

Mr Grossi specified there had been "at least three direct hits" against the plant's "main reactor containment structures".

"This cannot happen," he said. "No one can conceivably benefit or get any military or political advantage from attacks against nuclear facilities. This is a no go."

Both Russia and Ukraine regularly accuse each other of shelling the plant and risking a serious nuclear accident.

The plant's Russian administration has said Ukraine's armed forces were behind the attack, but Ukraine has denied the allegation.

"Ukraine was not involved in any armed provocations on the site," Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate spokesman Andriy Yusov told the Ukrainska Pravda news website. The plant is "illegally occupied by Russia," he added.

Mr Yusov accused Russia of endangering the nuclear facility, the civilian population and the environment by carrying out strikes on the plant itself.

Last month the IAEA said its team of experts at the plant had heard explosions every day for a week.

At the time, Mr Grossi said: "For more than two years now, nuclear safety and security in Ukraine has been in constant jeopardy. We remain determined to do everything we can to help minimise the risk of a nuclear accident that could harm people and the environment, not only in Ukraine."

Related Topics

• War in Ukraine
• Russia
• Nuclear power
• Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
• Ukraine

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