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Donald Trump has told advisers he wants to be handcuffed when he appears in court if he is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his role in making secret money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Several sources close to the former president have said.
Trump has argued that since he would need to go to court for fingerprinting and a mug shot and surrender himself to authorities, the sources said, he could turn everything into a “farce.”
Trump’s growing insistence that he wants to be handcuffed behind his back appears to have various motivations, including that he wants to project defiance in the face of what he sees as an unfair prosecution and that it strengthens his base for him. Will do 2024 Presidential Campaign. But above all, people close to Trump said, he was deeply concerned that any special arrangement — such as making his first court appearance by video link or sneaking into court — would make him appear weak or a loser. Will make like
Trump’s legal team has pushed back on the idea of him visiting in person and has recommended that he allow him to quietly turn himself in next week and schedule a remote appearance, even as concerns about potential security Citing guidance from his Secret Service description in.
KWhat has Trump said in response to security concerns? Over the weekend Trump told various aides that he didn’t care if someone shot him – he would become a “martyr”. He later said that if he was shot, he would probably win the presidency in 2024, sources said.
Decision to increase interest rate on knife edge amid fears of banking crisis
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Photograph: Justin Lane / EPA
Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic face one of the toughest calls on interest rates in years, as concerns over the worst banking crisis since 2008 prompted further action to ease sky-high inflation. Doubt the necessity of
Financial markets expect the US Federal Reserve to raise its key rate by 0.25 percentage points on Wednesday, down from forecasts two weeks ago for the US central bank to raise borrowing costs by double that amount.
City traders said a rate decision from the Bank of England on Thursday was also on a knife edge, as concerns grew over the health of the banking system following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and the Swiss government rescue of Credit Suisse.
Trading in financial markets suggested a roughly 50-50 chance that the Bank of England freezes interest rates, which would kick off one of the most aggressive attacks on inflation for decades after 10 consecutive rate hikes from December 2021.
What do the experts say? “These events have put central banks in an even more difficult position,” said CJ Cowan, portfolio manager at Quilter Investors. “Financial stability concerns have re-emerged but inflation still remains uncomfortably high and is showing signs that it will not fall as sharply as had been expected.”
The day of reckoning has come for Boris Johnson during the Partygate committee hearing
Boris Johnson returns to his home after his morning run ahead of his committee appearance. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images
Boris Johnson faces an uphill battle for his political future as he tries to convince a cross-party committee of MPs that he unintentionally misled the House of Commons over the Partygate scandal.
Ahead of a marathon evidence session with the Committee of Privileges, the former UK prime minister claimed his assurance to MPs that Covid rules had been followed was done in “good faith”.
He is expected to argue that evidence gathered from Number 10 officials, more of which is due to be published by the committee on Wednesday, “conclusively” shows he did not deliberately mislead parliament.
However, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Johnson. If the committee decides that he “negligently” misled MPs, he can be suspended from Parliament. A suspension of 10 sitting days or more triggers a recall petition which could lead to a by-election in his West London seat.
What does Johnson say? In a 52-page witness statement published yesterday, he wrote: “I accept that the House of Commons was misled by my statements that the rules and guidance were fully followed at Number 10. But when the statements were made were, they were given in good faith and on the basis of what I honestly knew and believed at the time.
In other news…
Ukrainian troops fire on Russian positions near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Sergey Shestak/AFP/Getty Images
British military intelligence has said It is likely that the Russian attack on the city of Bakhmut is losing the limited momentum it has gained. Ukrainian forces yesterday repelled Russian attempts to advance into the center of the small eastern town of Bakhmut.
Vladimir Putin has welcomed China’s proposals for peace in Ukraine at a joint press conference with Xi Jinping in Moscow, warning the West will allow the Kremlin to “freeze” its territorial gains in the country. But the US cautioned against “any strategic move by Russia to stop the war on its own terms”.
Donald Trump may be in legal trouble over his alleged weakness for vice, but his plight is rapidly putting Ron DeSantis — his main rival for the Republican presidential nomination — in a political tussle. screws, One poll shows that Trump has tightened his grip on the primary race.
Beijing’s population has declined for the first time in nearly two decades. Population figures have come to the fore. There were more deaths than births in the Chinese capital in 2022, resulting in a natural population increase of zero to 0.05 per 1,000 people. This is the first time the population has regressed since 2003.
Don’t miss this: ‘I cried for a long time’—Black hair stylist’s dream crushed by racist neighbor
Angel Pittman outside her parents’ home in Charlotte, North Carolina. Photograph: Elise Bird/The Guardian
Angel Pittman’s dream was to create a mobile hair salon. So the 21-year-old stylist bought less than an acre of unrestricted land in North Carolina for $10,000 in September and three school buses for $14,000 each with money she’d saved since she was 17, writes Rita Omokha. Pitman’s plan was to keep the buses on the ground, convert one into living quarters and the other two into mobile saloons. She could do hair on her property, set up shop at different locations, or make house calls. But things went wrong when Pitman visited the land after dropping off the buses, with his neighbor harassing him with racist comments. Then he saw that his buses had been ransacked, with glass windows broken and racial slurs scrawled on them. Even though the man prominently displayed Confederate flags, swastikas, and Ku Klux Klan signs in his yard, the police did not act.
… Or this: She was one of Alabama’s last abortion doctors. then they came for what he had
Dr. Leah Torres poses for a photo at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa. Photograph: Alan G. Breed / AP
Dr. Leah Torres doesn’t tell people what she does when she meets them, which makes it difficult to make friends. She names each piece of trash before putting it out for recycling, so people passing by can see her name and find out where she lives. If a package with her name on it arrives on her porch, she calls everyone she knows who sent it before opening it – it could be a bomb. He’s not crazy. Torres is an abortion doctor in the state of Alabama, where abortion is now illegal except in life-threatening situations. She is one of many doctors increasingly targeted by lawmakers, protesters, conservative news outlets and social media, even as abortion is no longer legal in much of the US. Poppy Noor writes that she now faces her most difficult challenge.
Climate Inquiry: eight things the world must do to avoid the worst climate ever crisis
Wind turbines on a snowfield in Tongliao, Inner Mongolia. Photograph: VCG/Getty Images
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published the “Synthesis Report” of its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) on Monday. Eight years in the making, this massive report covers the full range of human knowledge of the climate system, compiled from thousands of academic papers by hundreds of scientists, and published in four parts in August 2021, February and April 2022, and March 2023 Has been done The report puts together the most important findings – but also highlights some of the key measures that governments and countries must take immediately if we are to avoid climate catastrophe. They include restoring other barren land and preventing it from being converted to agriculture, stopping deforestation, transforming agriculture, and changing the way we eat.
Last Thing: Sex on the Beach – The pressure of excessive polygamy could be driving southern elephant seals to an early death
The researchers believe that survival rates are declining as a result of competitive pressures on maturing southern elephant seal males. Photograph: Michael Nolan/Getty Images/Collection Mix: Subjects RF
New research suggests that excessive polygamy may be predisposing male southern elephant seals to early deaths. study of 14,000 southern elephant seals (mirounga leonina) at Macquarie Island in the southwest Pacific, found that survival of males declined sharply after the age of eight, with survival rates falling to approximately 50%, while female survival remained stable at 80%. Sophia Wolzke, first author of the study and a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania, said the largest and fattest male seal had a reproductive advantage. The species exhibits “extreme polygyny”, in which a small minority of the largest and most dominant males – known as the promiscuous males – control a harem of breeding females. “A giant beechmaster may have a harem of up to 100 females,” Wolzke said.
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Source: www.theguardian.com
