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Michael Cohen’s testimony will resume in the Donald Trump business fraud lawsuit in New York

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:48:02 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Cohen will be back on the witness stand Wednesday, testifying against his ex-boss Donald Trump in a civil trial over allegations that the former president chronically exaggerated the value of his real estate holdings on financial documents.During his first day of testimony Tuesday, Cohen said he and key executives at Trump’s company worked to inflate the estimated values of his holdings so that documents given to banks and others would match a net worth that Trump had set “arbitrarily.”Trump watched as his lawyer Alina Habba then cross-examined Cohen, working to portray him as a convicted liar.Cohen worked as Trump’s lawyer and fixer for many years, but in 2018 he was prosecuted for tax evasion, making false statements to a bank and to Congress and making illegal contributions to Trump’s campaign in the form of payouts to women who said they had extramarital sexual encounters with the Republican. Trump said the women’s stories were fal...

In the Amazon, communities next to the world’s most voluminous river are queuing for water

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:48:02 GMT

CAREIRO DA VARZEA, Brazil (AP) — As the Amazon drought rages on, public authorities in Brazil are scrambling to deliver food and water to thousands of isolated communities throughout a vast and roadless territory, where boats are the only means of transportation.Across Amazonas state, which has a territory the size of three Californias, 59 out of its 62 municipalities are under state of emergency, impacting 633,000 people. In the capital Manaus, Negro River — a major tributary of the Amazon — has reached its lowest level since official measurements began 121 years ago.One of the most impacted cities is Careiro da Varzea, near Manaus by the Amazon River. On Tuesday, the municipality distributed emergency kits using an improvised barge originally designed to transport cattle.The Associated Press accompanied the delivery to two communities. It docked miles away from them, requiring residents, most of them small farmers and fishermen, to walk long distances through former riverbeds turn...

Slovakia swears in a new Cabinet led by a populist ex-premier who opposes support for Ukraine

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:48:02 GMT

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Slovakia’s president swore in a new government Wednesday, led by a former populist prime minister poised to end the country’s military aid for Ukraine as it fights Russia’s invasion.Robert Fico returned to power and took over as prime minister for the fourth time after his leftist Smer, or Direction, party won Slovakia’s Sept 30 parliamentary election. The party won 42 seats in the 150-seat Parliament after campaigning on a pro-Russian and anti-American platform.Fico formed a parliamentary majority by signing a coalition government deal with the leftist Hlas, or Voice, party and the ultranationalist Slovak National Party.Hlas, led by Fico’s former deputy in Smer, Peter Pellegrini, gained 27 seats. Pellegrini parted ways with Fico after the scandal-tainted Smer lost the previous election in 2020.Pellegrini replaced Fico as prime minister after he was forced to resign following major anti-government street protests resulting from the 2018 killin...

Houston’s Hobby airport resumes flights after two planes clip wings on an airport runway

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:48:02 GMT

Flights have resumed at Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport after after two private jets clipped wings when they were moving on the airfield.Debris was cleared from the airfield and flight operations restored, the airport posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday evening. No injuries were reported and the city fire department said there was no risk of fire after the collision Tuesday afternoon at the airport southeast of downtown.The Federal Aviation Administration said on X that a twin-engine Hawker H25B turned off a runway without permission and collided with a twin-engine Cessna C510 that had landed on another runway. The FAA did not say how many people were on board each plane. The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a six-person team to investigate the collision, the NTSB said on X.There were 54 flights cancelled and 78 diverted while operations were suspended, according to ABC-13.There has been a string of recent close calls at airports around the nat...

A century after her birth, opera great Maria Callas is honored with a new museum in Greece

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:48:02 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Finishing her class at The Julliard School of the arts in New York, Greek opera great Maria Callas gave her students a final word of advice.“Keep on going the proper way: Not with fireworks, not with easy applause, but with the expression of the words, the diction, and to really feel what you feel. That’s what I want. I’m not good at words, so that’s that.”The March 1972 speech was a detail little known to her admiring public, along with letters, jewellery and countless honors that include a postage stamp series from Kyrgyzstan and Congo.Now they are on display. The City of Athens inaugurated the Maria Callas Museum in the center of the Greek capital Wednesday, marking a century since the birth to Greek parents of the legendary soprano in New York.The museum, next to the city’s cathedral and with a view of the Acropolis, opens to the public Thursday, with sections of the museum connected by a red carpet.The top floors offer a recreated room of her Paris apartme...

Pickering councillor has pay suspended for motions deemed homophobic and transphobic

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:48:02 GMT

A city councillor in Durham Region has seen her pay temporarily suspended over comments she made earlier this year regarding the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.Coun. Lisa Robinson, representing Pickering Ward 1, has had her pay docked for 60 days after that city’s integrity commissioner deemed three motions she promoted to be transphobic and homophobic. It’s the second time in a month that Robinson has seen her pay docked following an investigation into her conduct.Pickering Integrity Commissioner Janice Atwood’s recent report addressed complaints against Robinson over comments she made earlier this year on universal washrooms and changerooms for City of Pickering facilities, specifically at the Chestnut Hills Recreation Centre.Robinson discussed the motion at length outside the Durham District School Board (DDSB) back in May. She wanted to see the recreation centre alter its policy so members could only use the changeroom corresponding to their sex assigned at birth, or the...

A battle of wreaths erupts in the Arctic when Russian envoy puts his garland over Norway’s wreath

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:48:02 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A battle of wreaths erupted Wednesday when a Russian diplomat in the Arctic town of Kirkenes in northern Norway reportedly put his garland on top of Norway’s at a monument for the 1944 liberation of the region by Soviet troops.Magnus Mæland, the municipality mayor, then angrily removed the Russian wreath — only to have a woman, described by Norwegian public broadcaster NRK as being Russian, put it back. ”You don’t behave like that here,” Mæland told NRK. “One should be able to lay flowers at a monument, but not over the municipality’s official wreath.” Several local people in the border town only 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) from the Russian border, had called on Russian officials to stay away from the ceremony.In an op-ed published last week, local historians Marit Bjerkeng and Harald Sunde wrote that “official representatives of Russia should not hold any commemoration or appear at memorials on Norwegian soil,” saying it will be seen “as an insult to N...

Israel accuses UN chief of justifying terrorism for saying Hamas attack ‘didn’t happen in a vacuum’

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:48:02 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli officials were outraged Wednesday over U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ comment that the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel “did not happen in a vacuum,” calling it justification for terrorism. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen canceled a scheduled meeting with Guterres while Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, said the U.N. chief “failed the test.” “I will not meet with the UN secretary-general. After the October 7 massacre, there is no place for a balanced approach. Hamas must be erased off the face of the planet!” Cohen posted Tuesday on social platform X, formerly known as Twitter.Israel’s envoy to the U.N. Gilad Erdan called for his resignation, saying Israel must rethink its relations with the world body. “We will refuse to grant visas to U.N. representatives. We have already refused to give one to Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths,” Erdan told Army Radio, accusing Guterres of justifying a slaughter...

Sri Lanka allows a Chinese research ship to dock as neighboring India’s security concerns grow

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:48:02 GMT

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — A Chinese research ship docked at a Sri Lankan port on Wednesday, likely adding to neighboring India’s concerns about China’s growing influence in the Indian Ocean.The arrival of the Shi Yan 6 follows last year’s visit by a Chinese naval vessel.The latest ship was given permission to dock for replenishment at the port of Colombo, the Indian Ocean island’s main port, from Wednesday until Oct. 28, said foreign ministry spokesman Kapila Fonseka.The vessel had been expected to conduct research with Sri Lankan state institutions, but Fonseka said permission was granted only for replenishment and no research work would be carried out.“The particular permission is very clear,” he said.According to Chinese television network CGTN, Shi Yan 6 is a geophysical scientific research vessel on an expeditionary voyage in the eastern area of the Indian Ocean.Organized by the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the vesse...

New report from PEN America documents vast book bannings in US prisons

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:48:02 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Tens of thousands of books are being banned or restricted by U.S. prisons, according to a new report from PEN America. The list includes everything from self-help books to an Elmore Leonard novel.“The common concept underpinning the censorship we’re seeing is that certain ideas and information are a threat,” says the report’s co-author, Moira Marquis, senior manager in the prison and justice writing department at PEN, the literary and free expression organization.Timed to the start Wednesday of Prison Banned Books Week, “Reading Between the Bars” draws upon public record requests, calls from PEN to prison mailrooms, dozens of accounts from inmates and PEN’s struggles to distribute its guide for prison writing, “The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison,” which came out last year.Marquis said that the most common official reasons for bans are security and sexual content, terms that can apply to a very wide range of titles...