Kategori arşivi: PrizmaBetim

Judge Refuses to Recuse Herself From Trump Assassination Case

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Aileen M. Cannon, the federal judge overseeing the prosecution of a man accused of trying to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump, rejected the man’s request that she remove herself from the case, saying on Tuesday that she has no relationship with Mr. Trump even though he appointed her to the bench and she has ruled in his favor in a separate criminal matter.

Judge Cannon denied the request by the defendant, Ryan W. Routh, in a brief decision issued in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla. Mr. Routh was arrested last month in West Palm Beach after Secret Service agents spotted him carrying a rifle in the bushes along the fence line of one of Mr. Trump’s golf courses.

Mr. Routh’s lawyers first asked Judge Cannon to remove herself from the case two weeks ago. In their initial request, they argued that Mr. Trump had “repeatedly praised” her rulings in a separate case in which he stood accused of illegally holding onto classified documents after he left office.

In an unexpected decision in that matter, Judge Cannon threw out all the charges against Mr. Trump in July, ruling against decades of legal precedent that Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed the indictment, had been illegally appointed to his job.

But in her decision on Tuesday, Judge Cannon rebuffed the idea that she had been affected by Mr. Trump’s praise. She said she had in fact never met or spoken to the former president except “in connection with his required presence” in her courtroom for hearings in the classified documents case.

“I have no control over what private citizens, members of the media, or public officials or candidates elect to say about me or my judicial rulings,” Judge Cannon wrote. “Nor am I concerned about the political consequences of my rulings or how those rulings might be viewed by ‘some in the media.’”

Autumn in New York Has Been One of the City’s Driest Ever

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On Saturday, Sarah Antebi, a 19-year-old sophomore at Barnard and Columbia, paused for a moment while running through Central Park to take in the fall foliage at the lake. It’s unusually resplendent for this time of year, with many of the trees just starting to turn orange and yellow.

Like many New Yorkers, she was torn between enjoying the sight and feeling a sense of unease at how unusually warm and dry autumn has felt this year.

“All my friends are like, ‘We just want it to be fall,’” she said. “We just want to wear our sweaters.”

October is historically a fairly dry month, but the city has never quite seen an October like this. As of Tuesday morning, Central Park had gone 29 days without measurable rain, the second-longest dry streak in records that date back to 1869, Bill Goodman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in New York confirmed. If no rain falls before midnight on Halloween, October would be the driest calendar month in the city’s history.

And if the city makes it all the way through Election Day without measurable rain — something forecasts suggest is likely — it will beat the current record for a dry streak: 36 days, set in October and November 1924.

(For rain to be considered measurable, the rain gauge at Belvedere Castle in Central Park must detect one-hundredth of an inch or more. The last time it did that was Sept. 29, when 0.78 of an inch fell.)

Armie Hammer’s Comeback Attempt Hits the Podcast Stage

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Armie Hammer announced this week that he started a podcast.

The actor, who was once a rising star in Hollywood, has laid low in recent years after a sexual assault accusation that contributed to the derailing of his career. But on Monday he announced his new show, called “The Armie HammerTime Podcast,” on Instagram.

“Some of you are going to love this and some of you are going to hate it,” Mr. Hammer said, using an expletive, in the video announcement.

“Throughout the course of the day, every single person you interact with knows at least one thing that you don’t, so teach me what that one thing is,” Mr. Hammer said, describing the format of the podcast. His first guest was Tom Arnold, the ex-husband of Roseanne Barr and co-star of the 1994 action flick “True Lies,” who discussed sobriety and childhood sexual abuse with Mr. Hammer.

In the announcement video, Mr. Hammer, who did not respond to an interview request, appears to be skateboarding on a California boardwalk. He describes his new venture as a diary of sorts — “a chronicling of putting my life back together.”

Mr. Hammer, who had a breakout role as both Winklevoss twins in “The Social Network,” had his career quickly unravel after a series of accusations involving sexual assault and shocking comments related to cannibalism.

In July 2020, Elizabeth Chambers, a television personality and Mr. Hammer’s wife of a decade, filed for divorce. In January 2021, an anonymous Instagram account posted direct messages it claimed had been written by Mr. Hammer. In the messages, Mr. Hammer purportedly said, “I need to drink your blood” and “I am a 100% cannibal.”

Israel Hits Gaza Town for Third Time in Days, Killing Dozens, Officials Say

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The Israeli military on Tuesday hit a town in the northern Gaza Strip for the third time in just over a week, striking a residential building and killing dozens of people, Gazan officials said, as Israel intensified its offensive in the territory after more than a year of war.

The Palestinian Civil Defense, a Gazan emergency service, said at least 55 people had been killed in the strike in the town of Beit Lahia. Gaza’s Health Ministry put the toll higher, saying that at least 93 people had been killed, including 25 children.

The Israeli military, which asserts it is fighting a regrouped Hamas presence in northern Gaza, said that it was “aware of reports that civilians were harmed” and was looking into the details. The area was previously evacuated, it said, and was “an active combat zone.”

Matthew Miller, a U.S. State Department spokesman, called the strike in Beit Lahia “a horrifying incident with a horrifying result” and noted that many of the children reportedly killed had probably fled strikes in other parts of Gaza. He said the Biden administration had contacted the Israeli government for more information.

Hamas condemned the strike as a “horrific massacre” and demanded international action to stop Israel.

Israeli forces struck another residential block in Beit Lahia on Sunday, killing and wounding dozens, according to the civil defense service. They also hit a residential building in the town on Oct. 20, killing dozens of people, Palestinian officials and emergency workers said.

Wednesday Briefing: Trump’s Worrisome Business Deals

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Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Trump’s business could create conflicts if he’s re-elected

Donald Trump is cashing in on a variety of new ventures as he seeks a second term. But unlike in his first term, when he halted new international deals and hired an outside ethics adviser, he is making no promises to rein in his company’s freewheeling ways.

This year alone, his business struck real estate deals in countries that are central to American foreign policy interests: Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Doing business overseas with government entities, not just traditional corporations, creates an ethical minefield where both those governments and Trump family business interests could benefit from U.S. foreign policy, experts said.

Such conflicts aren’t new for Trump, but there are more of them now. If he were to win, there would be little ability to curb them, legal and ethics experts said.

Your questions: We asked Theodore Schleifer, who covers campaign finance, this question from a reader.

Theodore: Musk is arguing that he is not offering money to register to vote — only to sign the petition. The catch though is that the petition is only open to registered voters, and so some legal critics think that it is effectively an inducement to register to vote.

The precise purpose of the petition is not totally clear, to be honest. Musk is collecting data on hard-core supporters of his political agenda, perhaps giving him a refined universe of voters to target for Trump on Election Day. Is this all just to get some earned media? Or maybe he’d want to use that data in a future operation? We don’t totally know.

For more: Theodore and my colleagues have reported on a warning from the Justice Department to Musk that he might be violating federal law. The Philadelphia district attorney sued him for setting up what amounted to an “unlawful lottery.”

Trump Media Stock Jumps Again as Traders Bet on Election

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Shares of former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company are soaring on the expectation he will win next week’s presidential election.

Over the past six weeks, the stock of Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent group of Truth Social, is up more than 300 percent. That includes a rise of nearly 9 percent on Tuesday, in a choppy trade that saw the stock halted several times because of excessive volatility.

After bottoming out late last month, the stock has roared back, approaching the record high set just days after it made its Wall Street debut in March, following its merger with a public shell company.

Trump Media’s market value rose above $10 billion on Tuesday, making Mr. Trump’s majority stake worth about $6 billion.

The value of the company is largely divorced from the fundamentals of a relatively small, loss-making social media platform. Some employees recently sent a letter to Trump Media’s board complaining about the leadership of its chief executive officer, the former California congressman Devin Nunes.

In a report on Tuesday, the market research firm S3 Partners said the rise in Trump Media’s stock had closely mirrored Mr. Trump’s odds in prediction and betting markets, which have increasingly shifted toward expecting victory for Mr. Trump on Election Day. That outcome would probably benefit Truth Social, which has served as Mr. Trump’s primary online megaphone for reaching his supporters and attacking his enemies.

Trump Media shares also are getting a push from the fact that the stock is difficult for bearish investors, known as short sellers, to bet against.

S3 noted that, given Mr. Trump’s large stake, a limited supply of shares were available for short sellers to borrow in order to close out their positions. This limited supply has made Trump Media vulnerable to a so-called short squeeze: a scenario in which bearish investors are forced to quickly close out bets to avoid losses, which pushes the price even higher.

S3 estimates that short sellers have lost about $322 million during Trump Media’s recent run-up in price.

It is believed that much of the stock buying is coming from individual investors, many of them supporters of the former president. At last count, the company estimated it had about 600,000 shareholders, almost all small investors.

Henry Schwartz, a vice president at CBOE Global Markets, said that the trading in options in Trump Media shares was largely consistent with trades placed by individual investors. Options are a way for investors to make bets on the future direction of stock and can sometimes be used to hedge against a sharp increase or decline in the price of the underlying stock.

Trump Media’s stock could move 50 percent higher in the coming days, S3 said, but also warned that it could just as easily “become worthless if Trump were to lose.”

Alphabet Revenue Jumps 15% to $88.3 Billion

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Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported strong revenue growth on Tuesday, as its business continued to excel despite tough regulatory scrutiny and growing competition.

Alphabet reported $88.3 billion in sales for the third quarter, up 15 percent from a year earlier and above analysts’ estimate of $86.4 billion. Profit climbed 34 percent to $26.3 billion. Analysts had expected $22.9 billion.

The results showed that Alphabet’s popular online services, led by Google’s search engine and YouTube’s video platform, remained central pathways for marketers to get their ads in front of consumers. The company has maintained huge profits in the face of government calls to break up its business and greater competition for advertisers from TikTok, Amazon and others.

The company has pivoted to artificial intelligence, competing with Microsoft and OpenAI for chatbot users, developers and corporate customers. Alphabet continued making large investments in data centers, chips and other hardware in the third quarter, saying it spent $13 billion on capital expenditures, which was a 62 percent jump from a year earlier.

Alphabet’s share price increased more than 3 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday.

Alphabet has been battling two cases brought by the Justice Department that take aim at its powerful online ads business. In August, a federal judge sided against Google in a landmark ruling, saying the company had acted as an illegal monopoly to maintain its advantage in the search business. The Justice Department said it was considering asking for remedies that include forcing Google to divest its Chrome web browser and Android mobile operating system.

Another ruling, in a case about Google’s technology for advertisers and publishers, is expected in the coming months. Government lawyers have also asked for part of Google’s ad business to be spun off as a possible remedy. Google has denied wrongdoing in both cases.

Next year, Google’s share of the search advertising market is expected to fall below 50 percent, as Amazon and TikTok increase search ad sales, according to eMarketer, a research group that tracks online markets. It would be the first time that Google dipped below the threshold since eMarketer began tracking the metric in 2008.

Nonetheless, Google’s search engine, its largest business, continues to record strong revenue growth. Revenue from the search engine rose 12 percent to $49.4 billion in the third quarter, narrowly higher than analysts’ estimate of $49 billion.

Advertising sales at YouTube climbed 12 percent to $8.9 billion, matching the figure expected by analysts.

Sales at Google Cloud, the division that offers software and technology services to other businesses, increased 35 percent to $11.4 billion. Analysts had estimated $10.9 billion. The unit recorded a record operating profit of $1.95 billion in the third quarter.

Is Trump a Fascist? This Time, Mayor Adams Dodges the Question.

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The strange political courtship between Mayor Eric Adams of New York City and former President Donald J. Trump has taken another odd turn.

Two days after Mr. Trump gave what was to be his closing campaign argument at Madison Square Garden — a rally that turned into a parade of insults, grievances and hate speech — Mr. Adams was asked if he wanted to rethink his stance.

Did he still stand by his statement that Mr. Trump was not a fascist?

The mayor, a Democrat, refused to give a direct answer. He dismissed question after question, describing them as “humiliating,” “silly” and “insulting.”

“With all that’s going on to everyday New Yorkers, we are asking questions that is someone a fascist or is someone Hitler,” the mayor said on Tuesday at his weekly news conference at City Hall. “That’s insulting to me and I’m not going to engage in that.

“Everyone needs to turn down the rhetoric because after Election Day, we still have to be the United States and not the divided states.”

Asked by a reporter when he last spoke to the former president, Mr. Adams brusquely dismissed him. “Give me another question,” he said to members of his media staff, telling the reporter, “You lost your opportunity.”

What Are the Implications of Israel Banning UNRWA?

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Many humanitarian agencies have expressed fears that two measures enacted in Israel on Monday that ban UNRWA, the U.N. agency aiding Palestinians, from operating in the country could cripple its aid deliveries.

The aid has never been more urgently needed. Almost all of Gaza’s 2.2 million people have been displaced over more than a year of war, and face acute and sometimes catastrophic malnutrition.

The laws are to go into full effect in 90 days, and will almost certainly create new hurdles for the agency, formally the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. The agency also works with Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Lebanon and Syria.

Legal scholars, diplomats and aid workers were assessing the new laws’ implications on Tuesday. What was clear was that they could create new diplomatic challenges for Israel, with several European governments condemning their passage and the United States — a top UNRWA funder — being on record against the measures.

Here’s a look at the laws and what might happen next.

What do the laws say?

The 120-seat Knesset passed two bills with overwhelming majorities late on Monday, the first day of its winter session.

The first effectively revokes UNRWA’s invitation, first extended in 1967, to operate within Israel. The legislation says that the foreign minister, Israel Katz, will notify the United Nations of this no more than one week after the bill’s passage. It says that “no Israeli government agencies or representatives may have any contact” with the agency.

John Gierach, Fly Fishing Author With Wit and Wisdom, Dies at 77

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John Gierach, a fly fisherman who was as skilled with a rod and reel as he was with words, producing hundreds of articles and more than 20 books, including “Even Brook Trout Get the Blues” and “Sex, Death and Fly-Fishing,” died on Oct. 3 in Longmont, Colo. He was 77.

His wife, Susan de Castro Gierach, said the death, in a hospital, was caused by cardiac arrest.

Avuncular and white-whiskered, Mr. Gierach celebrated the everyday foibles and frustrations that make up the fly-fishing life, as well as the occasional triumph over an aggravating trout.

In a sport often considered a pastime for the well-to-do, he spoke to fly fishing’s everyman appeal. He was, as one of his book titles suggested, a “trout bum.” The expensive outfitters, private rivers and $700-a-day guides? Not for him. To have a good day in the stream, all he needed was a decent rod, the right fly and a strong cup of coffee.

When he began writing, in the 1970s, the voluminous literature around fly fishing tended to the self-serious, reverent and snobbish. Mr. Gierach brought something different: humor, irony and self-awareness.

“Trout are wonderfully hydrodynamic creatures who can dart and hover in currents in which we humans have trouble just keeping our footing,” he wrote in “Trout Bum” (1986), his third book. “They are torpedo shaped, designed for moving water, and behave like eyewitnesses say U.F.O.s do.”

Although he wrote the occasional technical article or book, most of his work was reflective, experiential and broadly accessible. He was an inveterate storyteller; many of his best articles seem at first to be rangy shaggy-dog tales about a recent fishing trip, only to reveal, upon further examination, a piquant life lesson poking through the fish tales.