NEW YORK: Donald Trump has lost his latest bid for a new judge in his New York hush money criminal case as it heads toward a key ruling and potential sentencing next month.
In a decision posted Wednesday, Judge Juan M. Merchan declined to step aside and said Trump’s demand was a rehash “rife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims” about the political ties of Mercan’s daughter and his ability to judge the historic case fairly and impartially.
It is the third that the judge has rejected such a request from lawyers for the former president and current Republican nominee.
All three times, they argued that Merchan, a state court judge in Manhattan, has a conflict of interest because of his daughter’s work as a political consultant for prominent Democrats and campaigns. Among them was Vice President Kamala Harris when she ran for president in 2020. She is now her party’s 2024 White House nominee.
A state court ethics panel said last year that Merchan could continue on the case, writing that a relative’s independent political activities are not “a reasonable basis to question the judge’s impartiality.”
Merchan has repeatedly said he is certain he will continue to base his rulings “on the evidence and the law, without fear or favor, casting aside undue influence.”
“With these fundamental principles in mind, this Court now reiterates for the third time, that which should already be clear — innuendo and mischaracterizations do not a conflict create,” Merchan wrote in his three-page ruling. “Recusal is therefore not necessary, much less required.”
But with Harris now Trump’s Democratic opponent in this year’s White House election, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche wrote in a letter to the judge last month that the defense’s concerns have become “even more concrete.”
Prosecutors called the claims “a vexatious and frivolous attempt to relitigate” the issue.
Messages seeking comment on the ruling were left with Blanche. The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment.
Trump was convicted in May of falsifying his business’ records to conceal a 2016 deal to pay off porn actor Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with him. Prosecutors cast the payout as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him during his first campaign.
Trump says all the stories were false, the business records were not and the case was a political maneuver meant to damage his current campaign. The prosecutor who brought the charges, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, is a Democrat.
Trump has pledged to appeal. Legally, that cannot happen before a defendant is sentenced.
In the meantime, his lawyers took other steps to try to derail the case. Besides the recusal request, they have asked Merchan to overturn the verdict and dismiss the case altogether because of the US Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity.
That decision reins in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts and restricts prosecutors in pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal. Trump’s lawyers argue that in light of the ruling, jurors in the hush money case should not have heard such evidence as former White House staffers describing how the then-president reacted to news coverage of the Daniels deal.
Earlier this month, Merchan set a Sept. 16 date to rule on the immunity claim, and Sept. 18 for “the imposition of sentence or other proceedings as appropriate.”
The hush money case is one of four criminal prosecutions brought against Trump last year.
One federal case, accusing Trump of illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, was dismissed last month. The Justice Department is appealing.
The others — federal and Georgia state cases concerning Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss — are not positioned to go to trial before the November election.
Judge rejects Donald Trump’s latest demand to step aside from hush money criminal case
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Judge rejects Donald Trump’s latest demand to step aside from hush money criminal case
- Judge Juan M. Merchan declined to step aside and said Trump’s demand was a rehash “rife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims”
- It is the third that the judge has rejected such a request from lawyers for the former president and current Republican nominee
Leo, the first US pope, criticizes nationalist politics at Sunday Mass
Leo, the first pope from the US, asked during a Mass with a crowd of tens of thousands in St. Peter’s Square that God would “open borders, break down walls (and) dispel hatred.”
“There is no room for prejudice, for ‘security’ zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, unfortunately, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms,” said the pontiff.
Leo, the former Cardinal Robert Prevost, was elected on May 8 to succeed the late Pope Francis as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Church.
Before becoming pontiff, Prevost was not shy about criticizing US President Donald Trump, sharing numerous disapproving posts about Trump and Vice President JD Vance on X in recent years.
The Vatican has not confirmed the new pope’s ownership of the X account, which had the handle @drprevost, and was deactivated after Leo’s election.
Francis, pope for 12 years, was a sharp critic of Trump. The late pope said in January that the president’s plan to deport millions of migrants in the US during his second term was a “disgrace.”
Earlier, Francis said Trump was “not Christian” because of his views on immigration.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said when asked about Trump in 2016.
Leo was celebrating a Mass for Pentecost, one of the Church’s most important holidays.
Chad announces suspension of visas to US citizens in response to Trump travel ban
- Chad’s president on Thursday said he is directing his government to suspend visas to US citizens “in accordance with the principles of reciprocity"
N’DJAMENA: Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby has announced that his country will suspend the issuing of visas to US citizens in response to the Trump administration’s decision to ban Chadians from visiting the United States.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday resurrected a hallmark policy of his first term when he announced the visa ban on 12 countries including Chad, accusing them of having “deficient” screening and vetting, and historically refusing to take back their own citizens who overstay in the United States.
The new ban targets Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
There will also be heightened restrictions on visitors from seven others in the new travel policy, which takes effect Monday at 12:01 a.m.
In a Facebook post, Chad’s president on Thursday said he is directing his government to suspend visas to US citizens “in accordance with the principles of reciprocity.”
“Chad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give but Chad has his dignity and pride,” Deby said, referring to the $400 million luxury plane offered to his administration as a gift by the ruling family of Qatar.
Republic of Congo calls the ban a mistake
The new travel policy has triggered varied reactions from Africa, whose countries make up seven of the 12 countries affected by Trump’s outright visa ban with some exemptions.
In the Republic of Congo, government spokesperson Thierry Moungalla said he believes the country was among those affected because of a “misunderstanding” over an armed attack in the US with the perpetrators “mistaken” to be from the Republic of Congo.
“Obviously, Congo is not a terrorist country, is not home to any terrorist, is not known to have a terrorist vocation. So we think that this is a misunderstanding and I believe that in the coming hours, the competent diplomatic services of the government will contact the American authorities here,” he said in the capital of Brazzaville.
In Sierra Leone, among countries with heightened travel restrictions, Information Minister Chernor Bah said the country is committed to addressing the concerns that prompted the ban.
“We will work with US authorities to ensure progress,” he added.
Russia says pushing offensive into Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region
- A tank unit had ‘reached the western border of the Donetsk People’s Republic and are continuing to develop an offensive in the Dnipropetrovsk region’
MOSCOW: Russia said Sunday it was pushing into Ukraine’s eastern Dnipropetrovsk region in a significant territorial escalation of its three-year military campaign.
The defense ministry said forces from a tank unit had “reached the western border of the Donetsk People’s Republic and are continuing to develop an offensive in the Dnipropetrovsk region.”
Travel ban may shut door for Afghan family to bring niece to US for better life
- President Donald Trump signed the ban Wednesday, similar to one in place during his first administration but covers more countries
- Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen also banned along with Afghanistan
IRMO, S.C.: Mohammad Sharafoddin, his wife and young son walked at times for 36 hours in a row over mountain passes as they left Afghanistan as refugees to end up less than a decade later talking about their journey on a plush love seat in the family’s three-bedroom suburban American home.
He and his wife dreamed of bringing her niece to the US to share in that bounty. Maybe she could study to become a doctor and then decide her own path.
But that door slams shut on Monday as America put in place a travel ban for people from Afghanistan and a dozen other countries.
“It’s kind of shock for us when we hear about Afghanistan, especially right now for ladies who are affected more than others with the new government,” Mohammad Sharafoddin said. “We didn’t think about this travel ban.”
President Donald Trump signed the ban Wednesday. It is similar to one in place during his first administration but covers more countries. Along with Afghanistan, travel to the US is banned from Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Trump said visitors who overstay visas, like the man charged in an attack that injured dozens of demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, earlier this month, are a danger to the country. The suspect in the attack is from Egypt, which isn’t included in the ban.
The countries chosen for the ban have deficient screening of their citizens, often refuse to take them back and have a high percentage of people who stay in the US after their visas expire, Trump said.
The ban makes exceptions for people from Afghanistan on Special Immigrant Visas who generally worked most closely with the US government during the two-decade war there.
Thousands of refugees came from Afghanistan
Afghanistan was also one of the largest sources of resettled refugees, with about 14,000 arrivals in a 12-month period through September 2024. Trump suspended refugee resettlement on his first day in office.
It is a path Sharafoddin took with his wife and son out of Afghanistan walking on those mountain roads in the dark then through Pakistan, Iran and into Turkiye. He worked in a factory for years in Turkiye, listening to
YouTube videos on headphones to learn English before he was resettled in Irmo, South Carolina, a suburb of Columbia.
His son is now 11, and he and his wife had a daughter in the US who is now 3. There is a job at a jewelry maker that allows him to afford a two-story, three-bedroom house. Food was laid out on two tables Saturday for a celebration of the Muslim Eid Al-Adha holiday.
Sharafoddin’s wife, Nuriya, said she is learning English and driving — two things she couldn’t do in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
“I’m very happy to be here now, because my son is very good at school and my daughter also. I think after 18 years they are going to work, and my daughter is going to be able to go to college,” she said.
Family wants to help niece
It is a life she wanted for her niece too. The couple show videos from their cellphones of her drawing and painting. When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, their niece could no longer study. So they started to plan to get her to the US at least to further her education.
Nuriya Sharafoddin doesn’t know if her niece has heard the news from America yet. She hasn’t had the heart to call and tell her.
“I’m not ready to call her. This is not good news. This is very sad news because she is worried and wants to come,” Nuriya Sharafoddin said.
While the couple spoke, Jim Ray came by. He has helped a number of refugee families settle in Columbia and helped the Sharafoddins navigate questions in their second language.
Ray said Afghans in Columbia know the return of the Taliban changed how the US deals with their native country.
But while the ban allows spouses, children or parents to travel to America, other family members aren’t included. Many Afghans know their extended families are starving or suffering, and suddenly a path to help is closed, Ray said.
“We’ll have to wait and see how the travel ban and the specifics of it actually play out,” Ray said. “This kind of thing that they’re experiencing where family cannot be reunited is actually where it hurts the most.”
Taliban criticize travel ban
The Taliban criticized Trump for the ban, with leader Hibatullah Akhundzada saying the US was now the oppressor of the world.
“Citizens from 12 countries are barred from entering their land — and Afghans are not allowed either,” he said on a recording shared on social media. “Why? Because they claim the Afghan government has no control over its people and that people are leaving the country. So, oppressor! Is this what you call friendship with humanity?”
Colombian presidential contender in critical condition after shooting
- Miguel Uribe was speaking to supporters in the capital when a gunman shot him twice in the head and once in the knee
- Defense minister Pedro Sanchez announced a roughly $725,000 reward for information about who was behind the shooting
BOGOTA: A prominent Colombian right-wing presidential candidate is in critical condition after being shot three times during a campaign event in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said.
Thirty-nine-year-old Senator Miguel Uribe was speaking to supporters in the capital when a gunman shot him twice in the head and once in the knee before being detained.
Images from the scene showed Uribe slumped against the hood of a white car, smeared with blood, as a group of men tried to hold him and stop the bleeding.
A security guard managed to detain the suspected attacker, a minor who is believed to be 15 years old.
Uribe was airlifted to the hospital in “critical condition” where he is undergoing a “neurosurgical” and “peripheral vascular procedure,” the Santa Fe Clinic in Bogota confirmed.
Uribe’s wife posted on his X account that “he is fighting for his life at this moment.”
Police director Carlos Fernando Triana said the suspect was injured in the affray and was receiving treatment.
Two others – a man and a woman – were also wounded, and a Glock-style firearm was seized.
“Our hearts are broken, Colombia hurts,” Carolina Gomez, a 41-year-old businesswoman, said as she prayed with candles for Uribe’s health.
The motive for the attack is not yet publicly known. Colombia’s defense minister Pedro Sanchez vowed to use law enforcement’s full capabilities and offered a roughly $725,000 reward for information about who was behind the shooting.
In a video address to the nation posted on social media, President Gustavo Petro also promised investigations to find the perpetrators of the “day of pain.”
“What matters most today is that all Colombians focus with the energy of our hearts, with our will to live ... on ensuring that Dr. Miguel Uribe stays alive.”
In an earlier statement, Petro condemned the violence as “an attack not only against his person, but also against democracy, freedom of thought, and the legitimate exercise of politics in Colombia.”
The shooting was similarly condemned across the political spectrum and from overseas, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling it “a direct threat to democracy.”
But Rubio also pointed blame at Petro, claiming the attack was the “result of the violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government.”
“President Petro needs to dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials,” the top US diplomat said.
Uribe, a strong critic of Petro, is a member of the Democratic Center party, which announced last October his intention to run in the 2026 presidential election.
Authorities said that there was no specific threat made against the politician before the incident. Like many public figures in Colombia, Uribe had close personal protection.
The country is home to several armed guerrilla groups, powerful cartels and has a long history of political violence.
Uribe is the son of Diana Turbay, a famed Colombian journalist who was killed after being kidnapped by Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel.
One of his grandfathers was former Colombia president Julio Cesar Turbay, who led the country from 1978 to 1982.
Supporters gathered outside the facility, lighting candles and clutching crucifixes as they prayed for his recovery.
Uribe’s party said in a statement Saturday that an “armed individual” had shot the senator from behind.
The party leader, former president Alvaro Uribe, described the shooting as an attack against “a hope for the country.”
Miguel Uribe – who is not related to Alvaro – has been a senator since 2022. He previously served as Bogota’s government secretary and city councilor.
He also ran for city mayor in 2019, but lost that election.
