by dap | May 7, 2024 | The Guardian
The next round of talks between firebrand extremist and House speaker are scheduled for today
A lunchtime summit Tuesday could finally offer clarity on whether Marjorie Taylor Greene still intends to press ahead with her drive to oust the House speaker, Mike Johnson, or accept a face-saving alternative that would give the impression of a win.
The extremist Georgia congresswoman is scheduled to meet Johnson for a second successive day to discuss her promise to call a motion to vacate, the procedure that could lead to a vote for his removal, over his collusion with Democrats to pass US funding for Ukraine.
by dap | May 7, 2024 | The Guardian
The $130,000 hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels is at the center of this trial. Trump complained earlier Tuesday that he should’ve been given more notice about Tuesday’s witness, the Associated Press reports
by dap | May 7, 2024 | The Guardian
Kathy Hochul made comment at California conference to showcase upstate AI center before apologizing on Monday night
The governor of New York,
, has rapidly backtracked on remarks she made on Monday after she came under a blizzard of criticism for saying that Black children in the Bronx did not know the word “computer”.
Hochul had intended her appearance at the Milken Institute Global Conference in California on Monday to showcase
, the $400m consortium she is leading to create an artificial intelligence computing center in upstate New York. Instead, she dug herself into a hole with an utterance she quickly regretted.
by dap | May 7, 2024 | The Guardian
US labor department announced that Fayette Janitorial Service agreed to $650,000 fine and mandate to no longer employ minors
A
-based sanitation company has agreed to pay more than half a million dollars after a federal investigation found it illegally hired at least two dozen children to clean dangerous meat processing facilities in Iowa and Virginia.
The US labor department
on Monday that Fayette Janitorial Service LLC entered into a consent judgment, in which the company agrees to nearly $650,000 in civil penalties and the court-ordered mandate that it no longer employ minors. The February filing indicated federal investigators believed at least four children had still been working at one Iowa slaughterhouse as of 12 December.
by dap | May 7, 2024 | The Guardian
Judge warned Trump he could face jail over inflammatory comments as the $1,000 fines did not seem to be deterring him
Merchan’s latest gag order ruling came just minutes after Trump walked into the courtroom in Manhattan. And the judge appeared to be getting increasingly exasperated with Trump’s repeated violations:
“Mr Trump, as you know the prosecution has filed three separate motions to find you in criminal contempt,” Merchan said. “It appears that the $1,000 fines are not a deterrent.”
Deborah Tarasoff, a former accountant at the Trump Organization, testified that Trump personally signed reimbursement checks to his “fixer” Michael Cohen, who made the payment to adult movie star Stormy Daniels that is at the heart of this case. Showing that Trump signed them chips away at the defense claim that Trump was detached from the transactions.
Tarasoff was led through a succession of checks to Cohen that she cut, then sent to Trump for signing, some while the former president was in the White House. The purpose appeared to be giving the jury a clear understanding of the regular practices in place at the company, and how the hush-money payment to Daniels veered outside normal procedures to point of illegality.
Jeffrey McConney, the Trump Organization’s retired controller and senior vice-president, was pressed by the prosecution on the company’s accounting and reporting procedures, focusing on the argument that Trump was in full control of his personal and company finances, and had authorized and was aware of the purpose of the payment to Daniels.
Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove got McConney to concede he had never spoken with Trump about repayments to Cohen, and had never been directed to register the payments in a certain way, or improperly.
Bove suggested there was no falsification, in part because of the narrow way Trump Organization payments had to be recorded, using the drop-down menu of an “antiquated” software recording system.
Additionally, McConney conceded that Cohen was Trump’s personal lawyer, and said he always recorded payments to lawyers as “legal expenses” in the ledger during his 36-plus years with the company.
