By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JILL COLVIN, ERIC TUCKER and JAKE OFFENHARTZ Associated Press
Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, is directly implicating the former president in a hush money scheme. He told jurors during highly anticipated testimony Monday that his celebrity client approved hefty payouts to stifle stories about sex that he feared could be harmful to his 2016 White House campaign. Cohen quoted Trump as telling him to "handle it" after learning that a doorman had come forward with a claim that he had fathered a child out-of-wedlock. The Trump Tower doorman was paid $30,000 to keep the story "off the market" even though the claim was ultimately deemed unfounded. A similar episode occurred after Cohen alerted Trump that a Playboy model alleged that she and Trump had had an extramarital affair.
An unusually strong solar storm hitting Earth could produce northern lights in the U.S. and potentially disrupt power and communications this weekend. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning Friday. The agency says the sun is producing strong solar flares and has hurled at least seven outbursts of plasma our way. NOAA has alerted operators of power plants and spacecraft in orbit to take precautions. NOAA says the storm could produce northern lights as far south as Alabama and Northern California.
The New York Times and The Washington Post were awarded three Pulitzer Prizes apiece on Monday for work in 2023 that dealt with everything from the war in Gaza to gun violence, and The Associated Press won in the feature photography category for coverage of global migration to the U.S. The prestigious Pulitzer for public service was awarded to ProPublica for its "groundbreaking" reporting on the Supreme court that revealed how billionaires wooed justices with gifts and travel. The awards also honor distinguished work in the arts, including books, music and theater. The prizes, established in the will of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, are administered by Columbia University in New York.
By AMY BETH HANSON and BEATRICE DUPUY Associated Press
The sound of a vehicle backfiring spooked a circus elephant while she was getting a pre-show bath in Butte, Montana. The pachyderm broke through a fence and stopped noontime traffic on the city's busiest street before eventually being loaded back into a trailer. Viola is an Asian elephant with the Jordan World Circus and performed Tuesday evening. The elephant escaped just after noon and walked about half a block on the street before turning into a convenience store and casino's parking lot. She plodded around the building with her trainer beside her and then walked across a street onto a lawn where she ate some grass.
Instagram says it's deploying new tools to protect young people and combat sexual extortion. The tools include a feature that will automatically blur nudity in direct messages. The social media platform said in a blog post Thursday that the new features are part of its work to fight sexual scams and other forms of "image abuse" and to make it tougher for criminals to contact teens. Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public unless the victim pays money or engages in sexual favors. Instagram and other social media companies have been facing growing pressure for not doing enough to protect young people.
Donald Trump has lashed out at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial. The former president also lambasted the judge's daughter, who posted a photo illustration of Trump behind bars. Trump posted on social media Wednesday that the gag order was "illegal, un-American, unConstitutional" and said Judge Juan M. Merchan was "wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement" by Democratic rivals. The gag order does not bar comments about Merchan or his family. Messages seeking comment were left with Judge Merchan, Loren Merchan and a court spokesperson.
