STORY: Legal analysts say the decision to file criminal charges against Donald Trump will present distinct hurdles for prosecutors.The historic decision was taken on Thursday (March 30) to charge the former U.S. president in a case involving a 2016 "hush money" payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.Trump and his supporters have already alleged that the charges are politically motivated."There may also be an allegation of that kind in court"Stanford Law professor David Alan Sklansky said it is unconstitutional for a prosecutor to file charges based on the political party of the defendant.But he added that the defense would need to prove that prosecutors have chosen to not file charges against similarly-situated defendants."...which will be a difficult burden for Trump to satisfy in this case".However, the historic nature of the decision by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg means prosecutors are now navigating uncharted waters. That gives Trump's legal team the opportunity to challenge key elements of the case.One area of legal uncertainty has to do whether the Manhattan DA can charge Trump with a felony for falsifying records, with the alleged intent of covering up a federal campaign finance violation."We haven't seen a case where a federal campaign fund financing offense has been used as the basis for that sort of a charge. And it's possible that for some reason or another, a court would decide that that that's not within the proper use of the New York criminal statute."The payment of $130,000 in so-called "hush money" by Trump's then-lawyer Michael Cohen to Daniels had been under investigation for several years prior to Thursday's indictment."They're going to bring challenges very quickly..."Sarah Krissoff, a partner at Day Pitney law form, says that gives Trump's defense an opening, as key witnesses have given their stories many times before."Trump's team is going to be able to do a lot of damage with that because there is likely inconsistencies in those statements along the way."On Friday a New York judge authorized Bragg to make the charges public, though it was not clear when he would do so.Trump's expected appearance before a judge in Manhattan on Tuesday (April 4) comes as the Republican mounts a comeback bid for the presidency and could further inflame divisions across the country.
STORY: An eyewitness captured two tornadoes pummeling Keota, Iowa as a huge storm front moves east of the U.S. on Friday (March 31).Other footage showed overturned trucks and debris scattered all around the road on Saturday (April 1) amid a slow-moving traffic in the opposite direction following heavy storms in Whiteland, Indiana.Further video and showed a massive tornado funnel swirled through the fields in Wapello County, Iowa state on Friday.Katie Feeney was chasing the tornado and got lucky when she drove up a hill and saw it crossing the road right in front of her car.
STORY: Tate, his brother Tristan and two Romanian female suspects have been under police detention since Dec. 29 as prosecutors investigate them for suspected human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.They have denied all accusations."I truly believe that justice will be served in the end. There is zero per cent chance of me being found guilty of something I have not done. I maintain my absolute innocence," Tate said.In previous rulings that extended their stay in police custody, judges have said the Tate brothers posed a flight risk and that their release could jeopardize the investigation.Under Romanian legislation, prosecutors have filed charges against the four suspects, but the case is still under investigation and has not gone to trial.
STORY: The pontiff greeted well-wishers and light-heartedly told reporters "I wasn't frightened, I'm still alive".The 86-year-old was taken to Rome's Gemelli hospital three days ago after complaining of breathing difficulties.His medical team has said he responded well to antibiotics.Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni confirmed on Friday that Francis was expected to take part in this weekend's service for Palm Sunday - a major event in the Church calendar that kicks off Easter week celebrations.
Multiple tornadoes were reported in at least three Iowa counties on Friday, March 31, according to local reports.This video showing a possible tornado on the ground was filmed by Twitter user @1Wjosh, who said it was captured in Keota.County officials told local media that Ollie and Martinsburg were also impacted. Tornadoes were also reported in Wapello and Poweshiek counties. Credit: @1Wjosh via Storyful
Tornadoes were reported in at least three Iowa counties on Friday, March 31, according to local reports.This footage, streamed live on Facebook by Tim Jones on Friday, shows a possible tornado in Ollie, a city in Keokuk County. County officials told local media that Hedrick, Koeta and Martinsburg were also impacted. Tornadoes were also reported in Wapello and Poweshiek counties. Credit: Tim Jones via Storyful
STORY: A Delaware judge ruled on Friday that a jury will decide if Fox News defamed Dominion Voting Systems... when it aired false claims of vote-rigging in the 2020 election.The ruling is a setback for Fox - which had sought to avoid a trial in the $1.6 billion lawsuit - putting the high-profile case in the hands of a jury that will determine whether Fox acted with actual malice and whether Dominion suffered any damages.Dominion said it looked forward to the trial.In a statement, Fox said it will (quote) “…continue to fiercely advocate for the rights of free speech and a free press as we move into the next phase of these proceedings.” Dominion sued Fox Corp and Fox News in 2021, accusing them of ruining its reputation by airing false claims by former President Donald Trump and his lawyers that its voting machines were used to rig the outcome of the presidential election. Dominion has said in court filings that internal emails, texts and deposition testimony demonstrate that Fox personnel knew at every level - all the way up to Chairman Rupert Murdoch - that the election-rigging claims were false and aired them anyway in pursuit of ratings. The judge ruled in Dominion's favor on some elements of defamation... and said it's (quote) "CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”The judge also ruled that Fox could not use the "neutral reportage" defense - which holds that the press cannot be held liable for publishing newsworthy allegations in a neutral way.The trial is scheduled for April 17 and is expected to last about four weeks.
STORY: Tumbes, Piura and Lambayeque are among the most affected regions.President Alberto Otarola's government recently announced it will spend some $1.06 billion on climate and weather measures in a bid to prevent and contain adverse impacts stemming from climate change and El Niño-related weather events.Authorities expect heavy rainfall to continue on the north coast for the next few weeks.
STORY: Ukrainian forces took back control of the small towns of Bucha and Irpin to the northwest of Kyiv in late March last year as Russian invasion forces abandoned their attempts to seize the capital. Moscow denies accusations of executions, rapes and torture by its occupying troops who left bodies in the streets when they fled. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday, Ukraine would never forgive Russian troops responsible for atrocities in Bucha.
STORY: A turbulent quarter for stocks ended with a rally on Friday… as signs of cooling inflation boosted hopes the Federal Reserve might soon end its aggressive interest rate hikes.The Dow gained one-and-a-quarter percent… the S&P 500 climbed nearly one-and-a-half percent… and the Nasdaq jumped one-and-three-quarters percent to notch the index’s biggest quarterly percentage gain since June of 2020.It was also the second straight quarter of gains for the S&P, despite a sharp sell-off in bank stocks following the collapse of two regional lenders earlier this month and worries about a potentially wider financial crisis.Data on Friday from the Commerce Department showed consumer spending rose moderately in February while inflation cooled.“I think what's driving the markets is specific to the Federal Reserve…”Sam Stovall is Chief Investment Strategist at CFRA Research.“Expectations are that if they do raise rates one more time, it'll be in May and it'll be the final one of this rate tightening cycle. And history tells us that the Fed then starts to cut interest rates an average of nine months later. So I think investors are beginning to look across the valley and hoping that the fundamentals will show improvement.”Shares of big tech gained as U.S. Treasury yields eased, with the yield on the two-year note posting its largest monthly drop since 2008. Higher yields tend to be a negative for big tech companies.Also, Apple shares rose Friday after it won its appeal to dismiss a UK antitrust probe into its mobile browser.
Extensive damage was reported in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Friday, March 31, after a possible tornado touched down in the area.This footage was captured by Chris Robertson at Lake Wellington in Little Rock. The north part of the city suffered severe damage, according to local reports.The National Weather Service (NWS) had issued a tornado emergency for the area, warning of a potentially damaging tornado and large hail. Credit: Chris Robertson via Storyful
Extensive damage was reported in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Friday, March 31, after a possible tornado touched down in the area.This footage was captured by Twitter user @chaserofsuns, who filmed it by Burns Park in North Little Rock. The north part of the city suffered severe storm damage, according to local reports.The National Weather Service (NWS) had issued a tornado emergency for the area, warning of a potentially damaging tornado and large hail. Credit: @chaserofsuns via Storyful
A tornado emergency was issued for the Little Rock area as a severe weather system threatened the southeastern United States on Friday, March 31.Video posted to Twitter by Cari Reeves shows a funnel cloud looming on Friday afternoon.According to the NWS, the damaging storm moving through the area had the potential to drop quarter-sized hail. Credit: Cari Reeves via Storyful
Residents of central Iowa were warned to take shelter as severe thunderstorms carrying wind and hail moved over the region on Friday, March 31, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.Kevin Cavallin posted this video from the Iowa State University (ISU) campus on Friday afternoon, estimating the hail was approximately quarter-sized.The NWS said multiple other severe storms capable of producing large hail were moving across the Des Moines area on Friday. Credit: Kevin Cavallin via Storyful
A tornado emergency was issued for the Little Rock area as a severe weather system threatened the southeastern United States on Friday, March 31.Michael Dean Shelton said he filmed this video from North Little Rock on Friday afternoon as a funnel cloud loomed on the horizon.According to the NWS, the damaging storm moving through the area had the potential to drop quarter-sized hail. Credit: Michael Dean Shelton via Storyful
A tornado emergency was issued for Little Rock, Arkansas, on Friday, March 31, as forecasters warned of a potentially damaging tornado and large hail.This footage was captured by Blair Ball, who said he filmed it in Little Rock on Friday afternoon. Credit: @BlairBallPhotos via Storyful
STORY: Footage from a CCTV camera shows a motorist losing control of his Mercedes-Benz after entering a roundabout.The car then flew around 65 feet (20 meters) above ground and pierced the sports complex wall at 16 feet (five meters) above the ground.Loic Gachertz, a basketball coach in charge of training girls under 12-years old, was on the court as the accident occurred around 7:30 pm."I had to turn around and look again to really believe it was a car. It makes no sense", he said."Usually, the players and I are on the bench that was smashed... Some players had just put their balls in the rack, just at the spot where the car fell. It was a matter of seconds."Local police confirmed that only the driver sustained injuries and was taken to a hospital.
STORY: He says that explains "why the worst performing sectors from 2022 are now the best performing sectors so far in 2023" - adding that "that traditionally is what happens. We normally have the market gain about 14-plus percent in the year after a market decline, rather than the more normal 9 percent advance ."
STORY: A growing police presence and a throng of TV news cameras surrounded a Manhattan courthouse on Friday, where ex-President Donald Trump was due to be fingerprinted and get a mug shot next week, as he becomes the first sitting or former commander-in-chief in American history to face criminal charges.A lawyer for Trump said the former president will plead not guilty to the charges related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels made just days before the 2016 presidential election.Another Trump attorney said he will not be handcuffed when he is expected to surrender on Tuesday, under the terms of a deal agreed to by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.Legal experts said any potential trial is still at least more than a year away, meaning it could occur during or after the presidential campaign.Such a high-profile case would make it hard to find a pool of jurors who are not just impartial but also willing to serve on what will likely be the most consequential political trial in American history, says former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. "Very difficult to find jurors who've never heard of Donald Trump, don't have an opinion about the man. Difficult to deal with protests and potential outrage and the safety of everyone involved, right? There have already been threats made against the prosecutor." Jurors are also expected to be open minded to the facts of a case, but polling shows Trump supporters and his opponents are not easily dissuaded from their views of the former president. That could play to Trump's advantage, says James Sample, who teaches law at Hofstra University. "His supporters, there's 30 percent of the population that believes that he can do no wrong, has done no wrong and can never do wrong. That 30 percent of the population, they may end up on the jury and that could be part of the way that the defense may have a strategy to find that one juror, trying to find those two jurors that might vote to acquit." But Sample also notes that a court of law is a different arena than the court of public opinion. "Spin won't matter, facts will matter, the law will matter and just as happened between election day in November of 2020 and the certification of the vote on January 6, 2021, in that in between period, every single time the president took his election denial efforts to court, in court where facts and law actually matter, he lost."Trump's expected appearance before a judge in New York as he seeks the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race could further divide the country.Trump said he was "completely innocent" and indicated he would not drop out of the race.
STORY: Among those dramas: the indictment of former President Donald Trump and the party divisions over raising the U.S. debt ceiling. "In terms of a former president being indicted," said Stovall, "certainly one might go back to the Nixon era for some sort of comparison. But I think the focus really was more on the economy itself. And back then, we were in a period of recession, high inflation, high interest rates and so the market itself ended up declining more so because of the economic backdrop rather than the political turmoil."
STORY: From a close eye on U.S. jobs, to why the dollar doesn’t have a spring in its step, these are the business and finance stories to watch out for in the days to come. After weeks of worrying about banks, the U.S. focus turns back to the bigger picture. Economists expect employment data to show a gain of 240,000 jobs in March. Anything less could spur bets that the Fed will start cutting rates this year. The dollar just posted its worst first quarter since 2018, despite safe-haven demand amid the banking crisis. Now data from Refinitiv suggests fund managers are still shorting the greenback. And with signs that inflation may be cooling and rates close to peak, traders say it looks like a damp spring for the dollar. U.S. borrowing costs tumbled in March as the bank worries wiped out bets on more big rate increases. But bond traders say bet on more turbulence ahead, with prospects for inflation wildly uncertain. Australia has another rate decision on Tuesday. But a recent run of tepid data has seen markets price out much chance of another hike. In fact, some analysts now think a 10-month campaign of monetary tightening may have run its course. And monthly purchasing managers’ indexes will gauge global economic health. Investors increasingly think that banking stress - and the credit crunch that could result - mean a hard landing is in store for growth. Optimists think that could at least mean rate cuts aren’t far away.
STORY: Ukrainian forces took back control of the small towns of Bucha and Irpin to the northwest of Kyiv in late March last year as Russian invasion forces abandoned an attempt to seize the capital."Russian evil will collapse right here in Ukraine and will never be able to rise again. Humanity will prevail,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.The leaders of Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Moldova also attended the ceremony.Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger said that Slovakia will help Ukraine, "as much as we can and as fast as we can for you to become part of the European Union."Russia's occupation of the town resulted in more than 1,400 deaths, including 37 children, Kyiv said. More than 175 people were found in mass graves and torture chambers and 9,000 Russian war crimes have been identified, it said.International investigators are now collecting evidence in Bucha and in other places where Ukraine says Russian troops committed large-scale atrocities. Russia denies the allegations.Fighting is still raging in the east and south of Ukraine, but for places like Bucha, hundreds of miles away from the fighting, the war is still felt with regular air raid sirens telling residents to take cover from air strikes that have caused sweeping power outages.
STORY: Elon Musk is heading back to China.Reuters has learned exclusively that the Tesla CEO is planning his first trip since the health crisis in the hopes of meeting with China’s Premier Li Qiang.That’s according to two people with knowledge of his plans, who added that Musk could travel as soon as April.China is Tesla's second-largest market after the United States and its Shanghai plant is the electric carmaker's largest production hub.Musk last visited China in early 2020, and set the internet abuzz when a clip surfaced of him doing a bit of “dad dancing,” as some called it, at the Shanghai factory. The construction of that factory, and its opening in 2019, were overseen by now-Premier Li, back when he was Shanghai's party secretary.Tesla is grappling with multiple issues, such as delays to its plans to more than double production capacity at the Shanghai plant.Tesla cars have also been barred from Chinese military complexes and political meeting venues amid concerns over cameras installed on the vehicles, and the company is still waiting for Beijing's approval to offer its full self-driving technology.Still, the EV-maker recently reported one of its best sales quarters in China, after slashing its prices in a bid to defend its market share.China is also one of the largest, non-U.S. revenue streams for Twitter, which Musk took over last year.Sources told Reuters that Twitter's China operations have caused divisions within the company between those who want to maximize the sales opportunity and others who are concerned about the optics of doing business with state-affiliated entities at a time of growing tension between Beijing and Washington.
STORY: This Pacific Island student helped push a historic U.N. resolution calling for the world's top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ)to define countries' legal obligations to combat climate changeLocator: Sydney, Australia (Cynthia Houniuhi / Law student and activist)"So I grew up in a remote part of the Solomon Islands, I was surrounded by the environment a lot. I was in the sea after school, I had to cross the sea to go to school and during lunch time we usually fished for our own lunch. So being here on the beach, really brings back those memories and kind of re-emphasized for me sort of the reason why we're doing this, why this initiative is very important, it's because of what we've experienced as child and children and we want our children to be able to do that."The resolution now goes to the ICJwhich could take 18 months to issue an advisory opinion "I was trying to figure out how to navigate the English language at that level and imagine saying, 'UN', it's very, that's up there you know and I come from a very small town and we have less access, not too much access to the outside world. We're aware of the outside world but we don't have that much access and how do I get there? Tell me, if you're telling me if I one day I'll be with a group initiating this UN resolution, tell me how because I don't see it, if you were telling me that time"."There, our culture is so intertwined with the environment that if it's gone, if our land's gone, what will I say is part of my children's heritage, you know? Like, what is that? I want to be able to look into, if I'm lucky, my child's eye and say, we did try, you know, we did try."
STORY: The footage taken from a helicopter showed smoke billowing from the burning top of the mountains.Emergency services said on Friday that 121 outbreaks were still active across the region.Spanish Guardia Civil said on Friday they evacuated 300 people overnight in the northern region.Most of the fires could have been started on purpose by arsonists and others, authorities said on Thursday (March 30).