NEW YORK: A judge on Monday ruled that Donald Trump’s conviction for falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal should stand, rejecting the US president-elect’s argument that a recent Supreme Court ruling nullified the verdict, a court filing showed.
Trump’s lawyers argued that having the case hang over him during his presidency would impede his ability to govern. He was initially scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26, but Justice Juan Merchan pushed that back indefinitely after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.
In a 41-page decision, Justice Juan Merchan said Trump’s “decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch.”
Trump’s lawyer did not immedaitely respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which brought the case, said there were measures short of the “extreme remedy” of overturning the jury’s verdict that could assuage Trump’s concerns about being distracted by a criminal case while serving as president.
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The payment was for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she has said she had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies it.
A Manhattan jury in May found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment. It was the first time a US president — former or sitting — had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offense.
Trump pleaded not guilty and called the case an attempt by Bragg, a Democrat, to harm his 2024 campaign.
Judge denies Trump’s bid to throw out hush money conviction
https://arab.news/vxbqd
Judge denies Trump’s bid to throw out hush money conviction
- Judge rules Trump’s conviction for falsifying records should stand
- Trump’s lawyers argue case impedes his ability to govern
US national security adviser Sullivan says Trump should like ‘burden sharing’ AUKUS deal
SYDNEY: The AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine partnership with Australia will benefit the United States and is the kind of “burden sharing” deal that President-elect Donald Trump has talked about, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
In an interview with Australia’s Lowy Institute think tank published on Tuesday, Sullivan said he had confidence AUKUS would endure under the Trump presidency, as it enhances US deterrent capability in the Indo-Pacific and has Australia contributing to the US industrial base.
The trilateral AUKUS deal struck in 2021 is Australia’s biggest defense project, with a cost of A$368 billion ($245 billion) by 2055, as Australia buys several Virginia-class submarines from the United States while also building a new class of nuclear-powered submarine in Britain and Australia.
“The United States is benefiting from burden sharing — exactly the kind of thing that Mr.Trump has talked a lot about,” Sullivan said of the AUKUS agreement.
Australia has agreed to invest $3 billion in US shipyards that build the Virginia-class nuclear submarines it will be sold early next decade amid concerns that a backlog of orders could jeopardize the deal.
Australia having conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines enhances America’s deterrent capability in the Indo-Pacific, Sullivan said.
“Australia is directly contributing to the US submarine industrial base so that we can build out this submarine capability, supply Australia in the nearer term with Virginia class submarines and then in the longer term with the AUKUS class submarine,” he added.
Australia’s defense and foreign ministers, meanwhile, met their counterparts in London on Monday to discuss progress on AUKUS for the first time since a change of government in Britain, and ahead of Trump’s inauguration as US president in January.
Britain’s Defense Secretary John Healey said they discussed “the challenge of maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, the challenge of China — increasingly active, increasingly assertive in the region — and the vital importance of maintaining both deterrence and freedom of navigation.”
Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marles said they discussed accelerating the process of bringing Australian companies into the supply chain in Britain for building submarines.
ChatGPT search opens to all users in challenge to Google
- OpenAI has integrated search directly into ChatGPT
The San Francisco-based tech firm had beefed up its ChatGPT generative AI chatbot with search engine capabilities in late October, but made the feature available only to paying subscribers.
The newly public feature enables users to receive “fast, timely answers” with links to relevant web sources — information that previously required using a traditional search engine, the company said.
The upgrade to ChatGPT enables the AI chatbot to provide real-time information from across the web.
“We’re bringing search to all logged-in free users of ChatGPT,” OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil said in a video posted at YouTube.
“That means it’ll be available globally on every platform where you use ChatGPT.”
Examples of the new interface demonstrated by OpenAI resembled search results provided by Google and Google Maps, though without the clutter of advertising.
They also appeared similarly to the interface of Perplexity, another AI-powered search engine that offers a more conversational version of Google by featuring the sources it referenced in the answer.
“We’re really just making the ChatGPT experience that you know better with up-to-date information from the web,” ChatGPT Search product lead Adam Fry said in the video.
“We’re rolling this out to hundreds of millions of users, starting today.”
Rather than launching a separate product, OpenAI has integrated search directly into ChatGPT.
Users can enable the search feature by default or activate it manually via a web search icon.
Since their launch, data on AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude have been limited by time cutoffs, so the answers they provided were not up-to-date.
In contrast, Google and Microsoft both combine AI-generated answers with web results.
The addition of online search to ChatGPT will raise more questions about the startup’s link to Microsoft, a major OpenAI investor, which is also trying to expand the reach of its Bing search engine against Google.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has set his company on a path to become an Internet powerhouse.
He successfully catapulted the company to a staggering $157 billion valuation in a recent round of fundraising that included Microsoft, Tokyo-based conglomerate SoftBank and AI chipmaker Nvidia as investors.
Enticing new users with search engine capabilities will increase the company’s computing needs and costs, which are enormous.
Russia to boost its ballistic arsenal with new missiles and testing, commander says
- Karakayev said that Russia had not ruled out increasing the number of warheads on deployed missiles after the New START treaty expires, in response to similar actions by the United States
MOSCOW: Russia is boosting its ballistic arsenal with new strategic missile systems, plans maximum-range launches and may increase testing in response to growing external threats, a senior Russian military commander said on Monday.
In a clear warning that Russia will respond if it deems its security is threatened, Sergei Karakayev, the commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the country plans maximum-range test launches as part of testing new systems.
“In terms of range, there is no place where our missiles cannot reach,” Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Karakayev as telling the Krasnaya Zvezda, the Russian defense ministry’s official newspaper, in an interview.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Russia develops new intercontinental ballistic missile system
• Russia plans maximum-range test launches of ballistic missiles
• Russia may increase intensity of missile testing
• Moscow, Washington warn each other ahead of ICBM tests
He added that Russia may increase the intensity of tests of its advanced missile weapons if external threats grow.
Confirming for the first time publicly that Russia is developing a new intercontinental ballistic missile system, the Osina, Karakayev said the introduction into combat of Osina and a number of new missile systems is a priority.
He said, without revealing details, that Russia is also completing the development of missile systems akin to its new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as Oreshnik, which President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Russia will mass-produce soon.
Russia struck Ukraine in November with Oreshnik in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British missiles against Russia.
Karakayev said Russia’s new state armament development program will consider various options for the development of strategic offensive weapons by Russia and will take into account similar moves by the US after the expiration of the New START nuclear arms treaty between the countries in 2026.
Russian media reported in October that Moscow will not sign a replacement for the START treaty, the last remnant of efforts to slow the nuclear arms race between the former Cold War superpowers and to increase transparency by imposing verifiable limits on the number of weapons.
Karakayev said that Russia had not ruled out increasing the number of warheads on deployed missiles after the New START treaty expires, in response to similar actions by the United States.
He also said that Moscow and Washington continue to give each other a 24-hour warning of any planned test launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Russia’s armament program ensures that Russia’s strategic missile forces are equipped with mobile missile systems, Karakayev said.
“Missile divisions equipped with mobile-based missile systems will be a decisive means of inflicting devastating damage on the enemy in a retaliatory strike due to high manoeuvrability and survivability, especially in the context of the deployment of the US missile defense system,” he said.
Trump says it was ‘stupid’ for Biden to let Ukraine use US weapons to strike deeper into Russia
- “I think the Middle East will be in a good place,” Trump said, referring to the conflict in Gaza and an unsettled Syria following the ouster of Bashar Assad. “I think actually more difficult is going to be the Russia-Ukraine situation”
- Trump’s relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been scrutinized since his 2016 campaign for president, when he called on Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent
PALM BEACH, Florida: President-elect Donald Trump on Monday suggested that he may reverse President Joe Biden’s recent decision to allow Ukrainian forces to use American long-range weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Trump called the decision made by Biden last month “stupid.” He also expressed anger that his incoming administration was not consulted before Biden made the move. With the loosening of the restrictions, Biden gave Ukraine long-sought permission to use the Army Tactical Missile System provided by the US to strike Russian positions hundreds miles from its border.
“I don’t think that should have been allowed, not when there’s a possibility — certainly not just weeks before I take over,” Trump said during at a wide-ranging news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “Why would they do that without asking me what I thought? I wouldn’t have had him do that. I think it was a big mistake.”
Trump’s withering criticism of the Biden administration’s move comes as the Democratic administration aims to push every last dollar already designated for Ukraine out the door to help repel Russia’s invasion before Trump takes office on Jan. 20, with future aid uncertain.
But even as Biden tries to surge weaponry and other aid to Ukraine in his final five weeks in office, the moment underscored that it’s Trump who holds the most significant influence over how Ukraine can use its US-provided arsenal in the long run. It’s a critical piece of leverage he could use to try to follow through on his campaign pledge to bring about a swift end to the conflict.
Asked if he would consider reversing the Biden administration decision, Trump responded: “I might. I think it was a very stupid thing to do.”
The White House pushed back on Trump’s criticism, noting that the decision was made after months of deliberations that started before last month’s election.
“All I can assure you is that in the conversations we’ve had with them since the election, and we’ve had at various levels, we have articulated to them the logic behind it, the thinking behind it, why we were doing it,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said of the current administration’s coordination with the outgoing administration.
Trump’s relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been scrutinized since his 2016 campaign for president, when he called on Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent. Trump publicly sided with Putin over US intelligence officials on whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to help him, and Trump has praised the Russian leader and even called him “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine.
Vice President-elect JD Vance has said that while the US has differences with Russia, it was counterproductive to approach Moscow as an enemy.
Trump on Monday reiterated his call on both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war, calling the death and despair caused by the conflict “carnage.”
But Trump also appeared to acknowledge that finding an immediate endgame to the war — something he has previously said he could get done within 24 hours of taking office — could be difficult.
“I think the Middle East will be in a good place,” Trump said, referring to the conflict in Gaza and an unsettled Syria following the ouster of Bashar Assad. “I think actually more difficult is going to be the Russia-Ukraine situation.”
Trump declined to say whether he has spoken with Putin since the election.
Zelensky met with Trump in Paris earlier this month, while the president-elect was visiting France for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have been making a forceful effort to get Trump to maintain support for Ukraine.
But the situation on the ground in Ukraine continues to remain complicated as both sides wrestle for a battlefield advantage that will give them leverage in any negotiations to end the nearly three-year war.
The Pentagon last week unveiled US intelligence that predicts Russia could again launch its lethal new intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine soon.
Putin deployed the missile for the first time last month days after Biden loosened the restrictions on Ukraine. Putin warned the West that Russia’s next use could be against Ukraine’s NATO allies who allowed Kyiv to use their longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
Biden agreed to loosen the restrictions after Zelensky and many of his Western supporters had pressed Biden for months. They argued that the US ban had made it impossible for Ukraine to try to stop Russian attacks on its cities and electrical grids.
The outgoing president ultimately made the decision last month amid concerns about Russia deploying thousands of North Korean troops to help it claw back land in the Kursk border region that Ukraine seized this year.
Trump says he’s a ‘believer’ in polio vaccine, and other news conference takeaways
- Trump defended his choice for health secretary, prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but said he personally is a “big believer” in the polio vaccine and would preserve access to it
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump on Monday held a wide-ranging news conference in which he said he would preserve access to the polio vaccine but equivocated on other vaccines, pledged to look at bringing down the costs of pharmaceuticals and expressed doubts that his daughter-in-law might be Florida’s next senator.
Trump held forth for over an hour, the first time he took questions from reporters since winning the election. The event harkens back to his long-winding news conferences from his first term and is a stark contrast from President Joe Biden, who doesn’t often take questions from reporters.
Here’s a look at some of what he touched on:
Trump provides some assurances on polio vaccine
Trump defended his choice for health secretary, prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but said he personally is a “big believer” in the polio vaccine and would preserve access to it.
“You’re not going to lose the polio vaccine,” he said. “That’s not going to happen.”
Over the weekend, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a child, spoke out in defense of the polio vaccine after a recent report disclosed that one of Kennedy’s advisers filed a petition to revoke approval for the polio vaccine in 2022.
Kennedy has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism. Trump seemed to question whether there’s a link, saying “We’re looking to find out,” and remarked on the rising cases of autism being diagnosed.
“There’s something wrong, and we’re going to find out about it,” he said.
There are no blood or biological tests for autism; instead, a doctor bases the diagnosis on a child’s behavior. While the autism diagnosis has been available for at least 80 years, the definition gradually expanded to include milder cases, which are more common. A study last year found that about a quarter of kids with autism — about 110,000 in the US — have the most severe version of the developmental disability, which has left them unable to speak or with an IQ below 50 or both.
Of Kennedy, “He’s going to be much less radical than you would think,” he said. “I think he’s got a very open mind, or I wouldn’t have put him there.”
Trump blames middlemen for high price of pharmaceutical drugs
Trump described a dinner he had this month with Kennedy; Dr. Mehmet Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon turned talk show host and lifestyle guru whom he’s tapped to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; and top pharmaceutical executives in which they discussed drug prices.
Trump heaped praise on the companies — the same ones that Kennedy has routinely argued profit off of Americans unfairly — but said the high cost of health care was a focus of their dinner.
“What came out of that meeting is that we’re paying far too much,” Trump said.
Trump also hit pharmaceutical benefits managers, calling them “horrible middlemen” who drive up the cost of drugs. Pharmaceutical companies have been aggressively lobbying Congress to restrict the role of pharmaceutical benefit managers, which help health insurance companies’ biggest clients decide how and what prescription drugs will be covered in their insurance plans.
“I don’t know who these middlemen are, but they are rich as hell,” Trump said.
Trump’s appearance is a clear break from Biden’s style
The press conference was Trump’s most extensive public appearance since his victory six weeks ago — a rare absence from the public stage for the former reality star.
But it also underscored how even while president-elect, Trump has seized the spotlight from Biden, who still has a month left on his term in office. Biden has not held a press conference in months and has had a limited public schedule.
While Trump was addressing some of the top-of-mind issues of the day — including sightings of drones flying over the Northeast — Biden himself has been silent, leaving it to aides to try to calm the public.
‘I don’t know’ if Lara Trump will be a senator
Trump seemed skeptical that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would appoint his daughter-in-law to be a Florida senator, taking the seat held by Marco Rubio, who has been nominated for secretary of state.
Asked whether he expected DeSantis to name Lara Trump to replace Rubio, Trump said, “I probably don’t, but I don’t know.” Trump recently spoke with DeSantis at a memorial for Florida law enforcement officers.
Trump’s allies have been pushing DeSantis to nominate Lara Trump, who is married to Trump’s son, Eric, and served as co-chair of the Republican National Committee this year.
“Ron’s doing a good job with his choice,” Trump said, without elaborating.
He lavished praise on Lara Trump, including for her work at the RNC, where part of her duties involved focusing on “election integrity,” a priority of Trump’s after he falsely claimed fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump open to intervening in potential TikTok ban
Trump indicated he would look at intervening in the potential ban of TikTok in the US The popular social media platform must cut ties with its China-based parent company or be banned by mid-January under a federal law.
He didn’t offer specifics, but Trump credited the platform with helping him win the election. His campaign saw it as a bridge to reach younger, less politically engaged voters, particularly when clips circulated showing him with celebrities at UFC fights.
“We’ll take a look at TikTok,” he said. “You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok.”
Trump tried to ban TikTok during his first term but changed his mind and pledged to “save” TikTok. Once he takes office, his Justice Department would be tasked with enforcing the new federal law against TikTok.
Trump on Monday was meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Chew at his Mar-a-Lago club, according to two people familiar with the president-elect’s plans who were not authorized to speak publicly about them and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
’Everybody wants to be my friend,’ he says
Trump noted the differences between the first time he was to take office eight years ago and today, saying executives now want to meet with him.
He said they were “hostile” back then.
“Everybody was fighting me,” he said about his first term. “This term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don’t know. My personality changed or something.”
While he left office in 2021 ostracized and angry, Trump has had a stunning turnaround leading to his election win. Last week, he was honored by being named Time magazine’s Person of the Year and ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
His meeting with the TikTok executive was part of a string of meetings he’s had with Silicon Valley billionaires and other technology leaders since becoming president-elect. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai have all flown to Trump’s club to meet with him.
He revealed Monday that he had also met with Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will meet with him this week, Trump said.
“We have a lot of great executives coming in — the top executives, the top bankers, they’re all calling,” he said. “It’s like a complete opposite from the first one.”
Trump already returning to world stage
With multiple wars going on, Trump has sought to insert himself back on the world stage. He said he is working to get Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza to be released and had a “very good talk” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But on Monday he seemed to buffer expectations about his promise to solve the Russia-Ukraine war even before taking office, describing the conflict as a “tough one” and a “nasty one.”
“We are trying to get that war stopped, that horrible, horrible war” he said. “It’s a tough one. It’s a nasty one. It’s nasty. People are being killed at levels that nobody’s ever seen.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is Europe’s biggest armed conflict since World War II and has cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides.
Trump declined to say whether he’s spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin since winning the election. He met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris this month when he visited for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral.
Trump’s incoming press secretary has said that Trump invited Chinese leader Xi Jinping and other world leaders to his Jan. 20 inauguration, but Trump said Monday that Zelensky was not among them. “If he’d like to come, I’d like to have him,” Trump said.
Trump said Xi has not yet said whether he is coming. He described the Chinese leader as “a friend of mine” and “an amazing guy” but acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic had affected their relationship.
“It was a bridge too far for me,” he said.
