Category: The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com

#POTUS POTUS #DOJ DOJ #FBI FBI #CIA CIA #DIA DIA #ODNI ODNI https://t.co/PH3LtsdUTH https://t.co/aNqa3wvK2v #News #Times #NewsAndTimes #NT #TNT Putin Russia #Putin #Russia #GRU GRU #Israel Israel #World World #USA USAhttps://t.co/upllm6hvJK

— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) October 28, 2023

Former U.S. President Donald Trump is set to testify November 6 at his New York civil fraud trial, following his three eldest children to the witness stand in a case that threatens to disrupt their family’s real estate empire, state lawyers said Friday. 

It was already expected that the former president and sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump would testify. The timing became clear Friday, after Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that daughter Ivanka Trump also must appear, rejecting her bid to avoid testifying. 

The schedule sets up a blockbuster stretch in the trial of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit. She alleges that the former president, now the front-runner to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, overstated his wealth for years on financial statements that were given to banks, insurers and others to help secure loans and deals. 

Trump denies any wrongdoing and has called the trial a politically motivated sham. The case could strip Trump of some of his corporate holdings and marquee properties such as Trump Tower. James and Engoron are Democrats. 

Donald Trump and the two sons are defendants in the lawsuit, but the state is initially calling them to the stand before the defense begins its case. The defense can then call them again. 

In a surprise preview, Donald Trump ended up briefly testifying Wednesday to answer Engoron’s questions about whether an out-of-court comment was aimed at his law clerk. The judge had earlier barred participants in the trial from talking publicly about court staffers. 

Trump said his remark wasn’t about the clerk; Engoron called that testimony “not credible” and fined Trump $10,000, on top of a $5,000 fine imposed days earlier over an online post about the clerk. Trump’s lawyers paid both fines on his behalf but still might appeal them, according to a court filing Friday. 

Donald Trump Jr. is now set to testify next Wednesday, brother Eric Trump on Thursday, and sister Ivanka Trump on November 3, though her lawyers may appeal to try to block her testimony. 

An appeals court dismissed her as a defendant in the lawsuit in June, saying the claims against her were too old. Ivanka Trump announced in January 2017, ahead of her father’s inauguration, that she was stepping away from her job as an executive vice president at the family company, the Trump Organization. She soon became an unpaid senior adviser in the Trump White House. After her father’s term ended, she moved to Florida. 

Her lawyer, Bennet Moskowitz, told the judge Friday that state lawyers “just don’t have jurisdiction over her.” One of Donald Trump’s attorneys, Christopher Kise, maintained that state lawyers “just want another free-for-all on another of President Trump’s children.” 

“The idea that somehow Ms. Trump is under the control of the Trump Organization or any of the defendants, her father — anyone who has raised a daughter past the age of 13 knows that they’re not under their control,” Kise said. 

However, lawyers with the state of New York argued that Ivanka Trump was a key participant in some events discussed in the case and remains financially and professionally intertwined with the family business and its leaders. 

Engoron sided with the state, citing documents showing that Ivanka Trump continued to have ties to some businesses in New York and still owns Manhattan apartments. 

“Ms. Trump has clearly availed herself of the privilege of doing business in New York,” Engoron said. 

During her years at the Trump Organization, Ivanka Trump was involved in negotiating and securing financing for various properties, including a lease and loan for a Washington hotel and loans for Trump’s Doral golf resort near Miami and a Trump-owned hotel and condo skyscraper in Chicago, according to court filings. 

According to the New York attorney general’s office, Ivanka Trump retained a financial interest in the Trump Organization’s operations even after leaving for the White House, including through an interest in the now-sold Washington hotel. 

In court papers that included emails and other documents, the state lawyers said the Trump Organization and its staff also have bought insurance for Ivanka Trump and her businesses, managed her household staff and credit card bills, rented her apartment and paid her legal fees. 

In 2021 federal disclosures, she reported $2.6 million in income from Trump entities, including revenue from a vehicle known as TTT Consulting LLC. A company bookkeeper testified that TTT was set up for her and her brothers to reap a share of fees from some licensing agreements. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Looting ravaged the Mexican city of Acapulco after the iconic beach resort was hammered this week by Hurricane Otis, a record-breaking storm that killed at least 27 people and left thousands of residents struggling to get food and water.

Otis pounded Acapulco with winds of 165 miles per hour (266 km per hour) early on Wednesday, flooding the city, tearing roofs from homes, stores and hotels, submerging vehicles, and severing communications as well as road and air connections.

The cost of devastation left by the Category 5 storm was estimated at billions of dollars, and over 8,000 armed forces members were sent to help the stricken port recover.

“Right now, money’s no use to us because there’s nothing to buy, everything’s been looted,” 57-year-old Acapulco resident Rodolfo Villagomez said after Otis tore through the city. “It was total chaos. You could hear it here hissing like a bull.”

On Thursday evening, people carried off goods including food, water and toilet paper from stores. “We came to get food, because we don’t have any,” a woman told Reuters.

Reuters video showed people carrying boxes from a wrecked supermarket and loading up cars. Inside, shelves were bare.

“There were acts of looting in some places because there was an emergency,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday, urging residents not to take advantage of the situation.

Elsewhere, household detritus was littered among ruined deck chairs and jumbles of mangled trees outside wrecked homes.

Speaking at a regular press conference, Lopez Obrador said the government would help people in the city of nearly 900,000 in the southern state of Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest.

But many residents said the aid was insufficient.

“All the stores are closed or destroyed,” said Raul Busto Ramirez, 76, an engineer who works at Acapulco’s airport. He blamed looting on shortages and said ATM machines were out of action, leaving people with no cash.

The government has released little information about dead and injured, saying only that four people are also missing. Some officials privately express concern the death toll will rise.

Letitia Murphy said she began to worry when she lost contact with her ex-husband and father of her two children, 59-year-old Briton Neil Marshall, who was in Acapulco when Otis hit.

Murphy said she found out on social media he had died after residents discovered his body close to where he was staying.

“We can’t even get information about him,” she told Reuters by phone. “It’s horrible that we don’t know what to do.”

The Mexican and British governments did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Another weather front that could produce more heavy rain is expected to gain strength off Central America in the coming days, again moving toward southern Mexico.

Mexican authorities said Otis was the most powerful storm ever to strike Mexico’s Pacific coast. It caught forecasters by surprise, gathering strength with unexpected speed before it came ashore, and surpassed initial predictions.

Still, Lopez Obrador said: “We were lucky.”

“Nature, the creator protected us, even with the fury of the hurricane,” he added. “There’s a lot of material damage but luckily we’re not registering too many deaths.”

To evacuate tourists, an air bridge between Acapulco and Mexico City was being set up on Friday after authorities got the city’s battered airport back up and running.

The government has yet to estimate the cost of Otis, but Enki Research, which tracks tropical storms and models the cost of their damage, saw it likely “approaching $15 billion.” Lopez Obrador urged insurance companies to speed up payouts.

Governments sent messages of solidarity to Mexico, and Pope Francis expressed his condolences on Friday.

U.S. President Joe Biden expressed his condolences for the hurricane’s victims in a brief statement on Friday evening, pledging “full support” to Mexico’s government as well as help ensuring U.S. citizens in the area are safe.

State power utility CFE said on Friday it had restored 50% of the electricity service in Guerrero and Mexican telecommunications company America Movil had re-established nearly 60% of cell service.

Jeff, a 65-year-old Canadian in Acapulco, said he was stuck in the city and worried how he would survive the coming days because “all the stores have been pillaged.”

“The disaster here is unbelievable,” he said. “We don’t see nothing happening except people trying to scavenge everything they can to survive for the next couple of weeks or months.”

Related Galleries:

The man suspected of killing 18 people and wounding 13 in a shooting rampage in Lewiston, Maine, was found dead of a likely self-inflicted gunshot wound on Friday, ending a 48-hour manhunt that followed the most lethal episode of gun violence in the state’s history.

The body of Robert R. Card, 40, was discovered in the woods near the neighboring town of Lisbon Falls, near where police found his abandoned vehicle shortly after the shooting spree on Wednesday night.

“He is dead,” Maine Governor Janet Mills told a news conference, thanking the hundreds of officers from various agencies involved in the search.

“Like many people, I am breathing a sigh of relief tonight, knowing that Robert Card is no longer a threat to anyone … Now is the time to heal,” Mills said.

Card died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, said Mike Sauschuck, Maine’s Department of Public Safety commissioner.

Officials said the U.S. Army reservist opened fire on his victims Wednesday night, first at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, and minutes later at Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant, which was hosting cornhole beanbag-throwing games.

Officials have not revealed any suspected motive.

The shootings and prolonged manhunt convulsed the normally bustling but serene community of Lewiston, a former textile hub and the second-most populous city in Maine.

Earlier on Friday, Maine State Police lifted an order that had kept tens of thousands of people in their homes while the manhunt continued.

The town lies on the banks of the Androscoggin River about 35 miles (56 km) north of the state’s largest city, Portland, and nearly as far southwest of Maine’s capital, Augusta.

Card, an Army Reserve sergeant from the nearby town of Bowdoin, has been described by authorities as a trained firearms instructor who served as a petroleum supply specialist when on duty at the military reserve base in Saco, Maine.

Law enforcement officials also said he had a history of mental illness and was committed to a psychiatric facility for two weeks during the summer of 2023, after which he was released.

Within hours of Wednesday night’s bloodshed, police circulated surveillance camera photos from one of the crime scenes of a bearded man wearing a brown, hooded sweatshirt and jeans and carrying what appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle.

The initial trail of clues led to Lisbon town, about 7 miles (11 km) to the southeast of Lewiston, where Maine State Police found a white SUV they believed Card used to make his getaway and parked at a boat launch on the river. Public records showed he owned at least one vessel made by Sea-Doo, a company known for its jet ski-style personal watercraft.

Lisbon Falls, where the body was found, is the next town, still along the river.

As part of their search for Card, police trawled the waters of the Androscoggin River with divers and sonar on Friday, and sent teams of officers door-to-door in neighborhood canvasses seeking additional clues and possible eyewitnesses.

Authorities also officially released the names and ages of the victims for the first time, revealing that a cross section of Lewiston people had been killed, including deaf people playing in the beanbag-throwing tournament, a father-and-son pair of bowlers, and a couple aged 76 and 73.

Four of those killed belonged to the deaf community, Sauschuck said, asking television cameras to include the American sign language interpreter at a press conference in their frames. Nine deaf people were playing in a weekly tournament at Schemengees, the sister of one of the victims told the Lewiston Sun Journal.

Among them was Joshua Seal, 36, the director of interpreting services for the Pine Tree Society, a non-profit organization aiding people with disabilities, the Sun Journal reported, citing Noel Sullivan, the group’s president. Seal provided vital interpreting services for people isolated during the coronavirus pandemic, Sullivan said.

Stephen Vozella, 45, was a postal worker and active member of New England Deaf Cornhole, the group said on its Facebook page, adding that a moment of silence would be held at an upcoming tournament.

Bryan MacFarlane, 41, an avid motorcyclist, was also part of the cornhole tournament at Schemengees, his sister Keri Brooks told the Sun Journal.

Bill Young, 44, and his 14-year-old son Aaron were shot and killed while bowling together, Bill’s brother Rob Young told Reuters.

Husband and wife Bob Violette, 76, and Lucille Violette, 73, were also bowling together in a couples league when they were killed, the Sun Journal reported, citing his daughter-in-law, Cassandra Violette.

Tricia Asselin, 53, was a part-time worker at the bowling alley who was trying to call 911 when shot. Joseph Walker, 57, was a manager at Schemengees who stayed on the scene to help even though he could have escaped through a door near his office, his father, Leroy Walker, told Reuters on Friday.

“We were told that he picked up a butcher knife from the bar area where he was a lot of the time standing and went to attack the shooter,” Leroy Walker said of his son, who he called Joey. The gunman then shot Joey, killing him instantly.

Related Galleries:

The man suspected of killing 18 people and wounding 13 in a shooting rampage in Lewiston, Maine, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Friday, ending a 48-hour manhunt that followed the most lethal episode of gun violence in the state’s history.

The body of Robert R. Card, 40, was discovered in the woods near the neighboring town of Lisbon Falls, near where police found his abandoned vehicle shortly after the shooting spree on Wednesday night.

“He is dead,” Maine Governor Janet Mills told a news conference, thanking the hundreds of officers from various agencies involved in the search.

“Like many people, I am breathing a sign of relief tonight, knowing that Robert Card is no longer a threat to anyone … Now is the time to heal,” Mills said.

Card died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, said Mike Sauschuck, Maine’s Department of Public Safety commissioner.

Officials said the U.S. Army reservist opened fire in a bowling alley and then a bar minutes later on Wednesday night.

The shootings and prolonged manhunt convulsed the normally bustling but serene community of Lewiston, a former textile hub and the second-most populous city in Maine.

The town lies on the banks of the Androscoggin River about 35 miles (56 km) north of the state’s largest city, Portland, and nearly as far southwest of Maine’s capital, Augusta.

Card, an Army Reserve sergeant from the nearby town of Bowdoin, has been described by authorities as a trained firearms instructor who served as a petroleum supply specialist when on duty at the military reserve base in Saco, Maine.

Law enforcement officials also said he had a history of mental illness and was committed to a psychiatric facility for two weeks during the summer of 2023, after which he was released.

Within hours of Wednesday night’s bloodshed, police circulated surveillance camera photos from one of the crime scenes of a bearded man wearing a brown, hooded sweatshirt and jeans and carrying what appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle.

Meanwhile, hundreds of officers from an array of agencies ranging from local police and sheriff’s deputies to the FBI and U.S. Coast Guard joined the search. Canadian authorities, including its border officers, were on alert.

The initial trail of clues led to Lisbon, about 7 miles (11 km) to the southeast of Lewiston, where Maine State Police found a white SUV they believed Card used to make his getaway and parked at a boat launch on the river. Public records showed he owned at least one vessel made by Sea-Doo, a company known for its jet ski-style personal watercraft.

As part of their search for Card, police trawled the waters of the Androscoggin River with divers and sonar on Friday, and sent teams of officers door-to-door in neighborhood canvasses seeking additional clues and possible eyewitnesses.

Earlier on Friday, Maine State Police lifted an order that had kept tens of thousands of people in their homes while the manhunt continued.

Related Galleries:

WASHINGTON (JTA) — On the fifth anniversary of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, President Joe Biden drew a straight line between the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history and Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 invasion of Israel.

“A gunman opened fire on Sabbath worshippers as they prayed, murdering 11 precious souls, wounding many more – including first responders,” Biden said Friday in his statement marking Oct. 27.

“Deepening the wound, today’s remembrance comes on the heels of the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Biden said. “On October 7th, a sacred Jewish holiday, the terrorist group Hamas unleashed pure evil against the people of Israel, slaughtering 1,400 Jews and taking hostage hundreds more.” Oct. 7 was the Jewish festival of Shemini Atzeret-Simchat Torah in Israel.

Biden’s weaving the two attacks, one committed by white nationalists, the other by radical Islamist terrorists, into the same cloth, marks a sharp shift from the launch of his campaign and the beginning of his presidency, when he identified the threat of antisemitism as coming principally from the far right. The gunman in Pittsburgh, who was sentenced to death this summer, was influenced by a proliferation of far-right content on social media.

Biden rolled out a strategy to counter antisemitism last May, the first by any presidential administration in U.S. history. A number of U.S. Jewish groups who advised on the strategy urged Biden to take into account the threat of anti-Jewish hatred from the left and other sources as well as the far-right, particularly on campuses, where some Jewish students say they face intimidation from the pro-Palestinian left.

“Under my presidency, we will continue to condemn antisemitism at every turn,” Biden said in his statement. “We are implementing the first-ever national strategy to counter Antisemitism. Because hate never goes away, it only hides until it is given just a little oxygen. And as a nation, we must ensure hate is never given any oxygen.”

A White House spokesman on Thursday specifically called out some campus pro-Palestinian protests as veering into antisemitism.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Biden on 5th anniversary of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: Hamas invasion is ‘deepening the wound’ of antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.

(New York Jewish Week) –  A ban on corporal punishment in private schools, proposed in the wake of an extensive New York Times investigation alleging that the practice is prevalent in Hasidic yeshivas, is now law in the State of New York. 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the law on Wednesday after it was unanimously approved by the state legislature, making New York one of just four states — the others being New Jersey, Iowa and Maryland — where the practice is banned in private schools. Corporal punishment has been banned at New York’s public schools since 1985.

“Corporal punishment is unacceptable,” Hochul said in a statement. “This new law will ensure students in every New York school are protected from mistreatment.”

Allegations of corporal punishment were included in the Times series, published last September, that also delved into public funding for private Jewish schools that fell short in teaching secular studies.

“The attitude was constantly that you could get hit,” Ari Hershkowitz, an alumnus of United Talmudical Academy in Williamsburg told the New York Times at the time. “We were constantly under threat of that.”

Richard Bamberger, a spokesman for some Hasidic yeshivas, told the New York Times this week that leaders of the schools had no issue with the new law.

“What they do oppose is the inaccurate suggestion that the legislation arose because of an abuse problem in yeshivas, which the Senate sponsor publicly stated is false,” he said. 

Bamberger was referring to State Senator Julia Salazar, a Democrat whose district includes Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn. She introduced the bill the day after the Times published its article, although she later tweeted that she did not have any evidence of  a pattern of corporal punishment in yeshivas. 

Hasidic leaders and their allies have pushed back on the notion that corporal punishment is common at yeshivas. 

“As a yeshiva parent/former student, I’m not familiar with the use of corporal punishment at yeshivas, nor would I tolerate it,” Simcha Eichenstein, a New York State Assembly member representing Borough Park, posted on X in March, when the legislation was proposed. 

Charles Lavine, a Jewish Democrat who represents parts of Nassau County in Long Island, sponsored the bill in the Assembly. It defines corporal punishment as “the use of physical force to cause pain or harm to someone accused of breaking a law or rule” and includes “spanking or slapping, hitting with weapons such as paddles, rulers, or belts, and forcing students to perform physically painful activities such as crawling over rough terrain or excessive running.”

“Physical punishment in educational settings is abhorrent and I am pleased that New York is protecting our children by outlawing its use. Students must learn in a safe environment. The message to any abusive adults is very simple, keep your hands off our kids,” Lavine said in a statement.

Yaffed, a Jewish nonprofit that has urged government scrutiny of secular education at Hasidic yeshivas, welcomed the legislation in a post on X, formerly Twitter. 

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post New York State adopts ban on corporal punishment proposed in wake of yeshiva probe appeared first on The Forward.

Russia loses brigade’s worth of troops in push for Avdiivka, says Zelenskiy; heavy shelling hits Kherson; Macron condemns Orbán’s meeting with Putin

• See all our Ukraine war coverage

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claimed that Russian forces have lost at least a brigade’s worth of troops attempting to advance on Ukraine’s eastern town of Avdiivka. Russia began a renewed push to encircle the embattled town in mid-October, trying to overwhelm Ukrainian positions with constant barrages of artillery and waves of troops and fighting vehicles, according to reports.

Russian forces have heavily shelled the centre of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, injuring a number of people and damaging at least 10 buildings, a senior local official and emergency workers said.

The European Council has outlined plans to seize the profits from frozen Russian assets and direct billions of euros to support Ukraine. In a set of formal public conclusions after the culmination of the EU leaders summit, it said “extraordinary revenues held by private entities stemming directly from Russia’s immobilised assets” could be directed to support Ukraine and its recovery.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has condemned the Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán’s recent meeting and handshake with Vladimir Putin. In the situation we are in with Russia, we should not use these bilateral contacts to negotiate things about ourselves that would weaken our unity [on Ukraine],” Macron said after a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.

Russia’s top investigative body has said it had opened a criminal inquiry into the attempted murder of former Ukrainian lawmaker Oleg Tsaryov, a pro-Russian figure who was reported to have been lined up by Moscow to lead a puppet administration in Kyiv after Russia’s invasion. He is in intensive care after being shot, a Russian official said.

The wives and family of enlisted Ukrainian soldiers have gathered at Independence Square in Kyiv to call for the right to voluntarily demobilise after 18 months. “Our servicemen are strong, but they are not robots,” protesters shouted during the rally.

The new Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, has told other EU leaders that €50bn in EU aid to Ukraine should include guarantees that the funds would not be misappropriated, his office said. “Ukraine is among the most corrupt countries in the world,” he claimed.

Continue reading…

The Gaza Ministry of Health has calculated that more than 7,000 Palestinians have been killed, including nearly 3,000 children, by the latest Israeli bombing on Gaza. Those living in Gaza are under the constant threat of airstrikes, with little food, water, or access to medical care. This week on Deconstructed, Maram Al-Dada, an aviation engineer based in Florida, joins Ryan Grim; Al-Dada’s family is in Gaza, where he grew up. By the time of the interview, a shocking 46 members of Al-Dada’s family had been killed by Israeli attacks, with the rest wondering when their moment will come. Al-Dada talks about his childhood in Gaza, the escalating restrictions placed on Palestinians, and his family’s experience during these past few weeks.

Note: This episode was recorded on Thursday evening (October 26), before the Friday evening escalation by Israel and before Gaza lost cellular and internet service.

Transcript coming soon.

The post Inside a Gaza Village: “All of Us Will Die, but We Don’t Know When” appeared first on The Intercept.