Foreign News
Have Trump prosecutors made their case at hush-money trial?
For nearly four weeks, Donald Trump has sat quietly in a New York courtroom while state prosecutors laid out the first-ever criminal case against a former US president.
Lawyers from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have called on a cast of blockbuster witnesses and produced dozens of surreptitiously recorded conversations and documents to help corroborate their case.
They allege Mr Trump directed a hush-money payment to an adult-film star in 2016 to avoid a sex scandal he feared would derail his presidential campaign – and then authorised an illegal reimbursement scheme to cover it up. Mr Trump denies 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The prosecution’s final witness, Michael Cohen, will face further cross-examination on Monday before Trump’s lawyers get an opportunity to present his defence.
Legal experts say the prosecution has done an efficient job. But even with solid evidence and testimony, they acknowledge that a conviction in the complex felony case is far from guaranteed.
“The pieces are all there. But is it there beyond a reasonable doubt?” said former Brooklyn prosecutor Julie Rendelman. “I don’t know.”
“It only takes one juror,” she added.
Laying out the story
Though Mr Trump’s case centres on a reimbursement he made to Cohen, his former fixer, prosecutors spent the first weeks of the trial walking the court through what led up to the $130,000 (£102,000) hush-money payment Cohen made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.
They started with David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer.
He described a series of meetings in Trump Tower where he, Cohen and Mr Trump hatched a plan to suppress negative stories about Mr Trump – including alleged sexual encounters – as he ran for president.
His testimony proved influential, said former Manhattan prosecutor Lance Fletcher. “He doesn’t have a reputation that’s been blown apart by this. And he came into it really seeming to be Trump’s friend,” Mr Fletcher said. “So I think he comes off as almost an impartial witness.”
From there, prosecutors called a host of others, including former Trump aide Hope Hicks and Daniels’ former attorney Keith Davidson, to corroborate the story.
“They sort of connected a fascinating novel … about how all of these characters interacted,” said Columbia Law School professor John Coffee. “And that was wise.”
They also interspersed evidence such as meeting logs, recordings and receipts of hush-money payments made to a Trump Tower doorman and Playboy model Karen McDougal to bolster witnesses’ stories.
Star witnesses air secrets
Prosecutors used weeks of storytelling and evidence to build up to the most highly anticipated witnesses, including Ms Daniels.
Mr Trump’s attorneys worked hard to limit Ms Daniels’ testimony.
While prosecutors pledged to tread lightly when quizzing her about the alleged sexual encounter at a hotel suite in Nevada in 2006, she still proved at times an uncontrollable witness, Judge Juan Merchan told the court. Mr Trump has denied having sex with her.
Her explicit testimony led to several unsuccessful mistrial motions from Mr Trump’s legal team and may have opened the door for an appeal, some legal experts said.
But others said that context helped prosecutors show why Mr Trump would be desperate to pay for her silence in order to protect his campaign.
“She got into some salacious details, which I thought went too far,” said Ms Rendelman. “But at the same time, the argument for the prosecution is the more salacious it is, the more Trump would want it to be shut down.”
Ultimately, Ms Daniels could only testify to what led up to the hush-money payment.
For the behind-the-scenes reimbursement, they had to rely on a problematic witness: a convicted felon who recently has made a living off attacking Mr Trump.
A calm and collected Cohen takes the stand
Members of the public held their breath earlier this week as Mr Trump’s former fixer-turned foe, Cohen, was called to the stand. Many anticipated the same character who authored fiery social media posts attacking Mr Trump, for whom he once pledged to take a bullet. But the man speaking in a blue suit and tie took them by surprise. Cohen appeared composed as he detailed his decades with Mr Trump.
“He is measured. He is reflective,” said Diane Kiesel, a former New York Supreme Court Justice and Manhattan prosecutor. “He has not let any bias or animus for Mr Trump show through.”
Cohen told the court of his initial admiration, working as Mr Trump’s personal attorney for 10 years. He acknowledged the lows as well, including lying on Mr Trump’s behalf, leading to regrets.
His composure boosted the prosecutors’ case, and his testimony was bolstered by a weak cross-examination from Mr Trump’s legal team on day one, experts said.
Mr Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, appeared disorganised at first, stumbling sometimes in his questioning, experts told the BBC.
But he appeared to make strides on the second day, Thursday, casting doubt on details of Cohen’s testimony, including an October 2016 phone call Cohen made to Mr Trump’s bodyguard in which he claimed to have to talked to Mr Trump about details of the hush-money payment.
It was a reminder of what experts said was one of prosecutors’ largest problems: Cohen’s credibility. The defence hammered home the point that Cohen is a convicted criminal, who spent time in prison after being convicted on several charges including lying to Congress.
Cohen was able to testify to a key part of prosecutors’ case – Mr Trump’s direct knowledge of the hush-money payment reimbursement scheme.
Cohen said former Trump Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg – currently serving a perjury sentence at Rikers Island prison – decided to classify reimbursements from Mr Trump’s account as legal expenses. Cohen testified that he heard Weisselberg get the OK from Mr Trump himself.
As Cohen spoke, prosecutors also displayed the dozens of cheques, ledgers and invoices at the heart of the 34-count indictment.
But Cohen’s story may not sway all jurors.
“You are relying on a witness who in many respects … comes with a larger load of baggage than others,” Ms Rendelman said. “It makes it a bit more difficult to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Connecting the dots
Other challenges remain for the prosecution.
In a relatively novel approach, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office elevated falsifying business records charges to a felony by claiming Mr Trump did so with the goal of concealing another crime.
To prove their case, prosecutors must show intent – that Mr Trump illegally classified records for the purpose of aiding his campaign. Several witnesses seemed to corroborate this.
“He wasn’t thinking at all about [his wife] Melania,” Cohen told the court. “This was all about the campaign.”
But prosecutors must make this connection clear to the jury.
“Essentially they have to connect these payments to a motive that links them to a campaign,” said Ms Kiesel. “This requires a summation of a lifetime, because you really have to connect these dots.”
Mr Fletcher said prosecutors succeeded in doing so, with witnesses arguing the hush-money payment and reimbursement was not made to protect Mr Trump’s family.
“This was all about the election,” Mr Fletcher said. “If I was going to bet, I would bet on a conviction. But I don’t think it’s a slam dunk.”
In the end, the verdict could come down to jury selection, experts said.
The 12 members and six alternates were picked from hundreds who expressed a range of political views and familiarity with Mr Trump and this case.
Jury members are often unpredictable, Ms Kiesel said. “It only takes one person to decide that the people have not met their burden,” she said. “The people have 12 jurors to convince.”
(BBC)
A rare pink diamond is going on display in France for the first time since it was stolen almost 100 years ago to the day – the last time it was shown to the public.
The nine-carat, pear-shaped gemstone known as the “Grand Condé” was pilfered in an overnight raid on the Château de Chantilly in October 1926 and concealed in a hollowed-out apple.
The diamond – one of few royal jewels to survive the French Revolution – was recovered a few weeks later when a hungry maid at the hotel in which the thieves were staying took a bite of the apple.
It will once again be on display in the Condé Museum at the Château de Chantilly until 3 January.
The museum’s director Mathieu Deldicque said that while the apple story may sounds far-fetched, it was widely covered by newspapers at the time.
Deldicque has faced questions about whether the exhibition may be tempting fate, especially given the string of heists on European cultural institutions in the past 12 months, including the daring daylight robbery of jewellery from the Louvre museum in Paris.
While he declined to reveal to CNN how much the diamond was insured for, he noted that extensive academic study into the properties of the diamond had taken place to make it uniquely identifiable.
The results of this analysis, as well as previously unseen archive material about the gem’s history and theft, form part of the exhibition, according to the museum.
Naturally occurring pink diamonds are exceptionally rare and often sell for tens of millions of dollars. The highest price ever fetched for one at auction was $71.2m (£53.6m) in 2017, according to Sotheby’s.
The exact origins of the Grand Condé remain a mystery.
It was first mentioned in 1740 in an inventory of Louis Henri de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, drawn up following his death, the Château de Chantilly said.
It then became part of the collection of Queen Marie-Amélie of Bourbon-Sicily, the wife of French King Louis Philippe I, and then her son, Prince Henri of Orléans, the Duke of Aumale.
He bequeathed it to the Institut de France, which now owns the Château de Chantilly, 50km (31 miles) north of Paris, along with thousands of artworks and manuscripts which became the Musée Condé collection.
(BBC)
A nursery owner and five members of her staff have been jailed after they were found to have poisoned more than 200 children with lead-tainted food.
Li Huifang, who operated the Heshi Peixin Kindergarten in Tianshui, in the Gansu province, was sentenced to life in prison for producing and selling toxic and harmful food, according to Chinese state media.
In July 2025, 247 pupils and staff at the nursery were found to have abnormally high blood lead levels after children began falling ill.
A report into the incident found that chefs at Heshi Peixin had used inedible paint to “enhance the look” of its meals to attract more students – despite the paint being being clearly marked as such.
In addition to the sentence, the Lanzhou Intermediate People’s Court also ordered the confiscation of 500,000 yuan (£56,200; $74,700) of Li’s personal assets, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Nursery executive principal Zhi Jinglin was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined 300,000 yuan.
Four other members of staff who worked in the nursery’s kitchen received sentences of between six to eight years, according to state media.
The court found the four had been instructed by Li and Zhi to add toxic and harmful ingredients to food served to children and staff.
Food samples were later found to contain lead 2,000 times in excess of China’s national safety limit.
The investigation into the poisoning began after 235 children from Heshi Peixin nursery had to be treated for lead poisoning after eating steamed red date cakes and sausage corn buns.
Investigators found that the red date cake and the corn sausage rolls had lead levels of 1052mg/kg and 1340mg/kg respectively, both of which far exceed the national food safety standard limit of 0.5mg/kg.
Lead poisoning is “particularly harmful to young children” and can “severely damage the brain and central nervous system”, according to the World Health Organization.
Officials later found that dozens of provincial officials and hospital staff attempted to cover up the incident by tampering with blood tests and accepting bribes from a nursery investor.
China has since published a set of national guidelines for the provision of meals on campuses. Among the measures is the requirement for every new batch of food to be tested, and for flour, rice and cooking oil to be purchased from centralised procurement points only.
(BBC)
Five people have been killed and 16 injured in a Houthi missile attack targeting the presidential palace in the port city of Aden in southern Yemen, which is the seat of the internationally-recognised government, officials say.
Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani told the BBC that the prime minister and other ministers were unhurt when five ballistic missiles hit al-Maashiq Palace.
The Houthis’ military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said they struck “the Saudi enemy’s military operations headquarters in Aden”.
A coalition led by Saudi Arabia backs the government and is providing air support for an offensive by pro-government forces against the Iran-backed Houthis.
Yemeni health minister Qasim Buhaibeh said the casualties included “those working to guard the site and civilian employees”.
The country’s Prime Minister Shaya Zindani condemned the Houthis’ attack on Aden, calling it “cowardly” and a “continuation of their criminal behaviour”.
He said the government continued to carry out its duties and vowed that it would not weaken the resolve of its forces to continue operations against the Houthis on Yemen’s south-western Red Sea coast and other front lines.
Earlier, the Houthis denied that they had attacked Saudi Arabia on Thursday, after the coalition said its forces had intercepted a cruise missile in the Medina region, home to one of Islam’s holiest shrines.
The Houthis have been launching missiles and drones at airports, oil and gas facilities, and military bases in Saudi Arabia in retaliation for the strikes on the territory that they control in western Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.
On Saturday, a Houthi missile strike killed 13 people at Riyadh’s international airport, which was the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in more than a decade.
Saudi Arabia’s deputy foreign minister accused Iran of encouraging the Houthis to escalate their conflict with the kingdom.
“Iran continues to arm, train and support the Houthi militia in violation of UN Security Council resolutions,” Rayed Krimly told reporters, according to AFP news agency.
“We think that the escalation by the Houthis at this latest stage of the conflict is encouraged by Iran,” he added.
There was no immediate response from Iran’s government. However, it has previously denied supplying weapons to the Houthis and said it only supports them politically.
Iran’s foreign minister has also said it is ready to provide “any assistance necessary to facilitate the start of talks” between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.
Yemen has been devastated by a civil war that began in 2014, when the Houthis ousted the internationally-recognised government from Sanaa. The conflict escalated in 2015, after the Saudi-led coalition of Arab states intervened in an attempt to restore the government’s rule.
A four-year-old informal ceasefire began to unravel in July, when the Houthis announced a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia and began missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea.
The Houthis said they were retaliating for what they call a Saudi blockade of their territory, as well as an air strike on Sanaa airport that they blamed on the kingdom.
The conflict escalated in September after the Houthis seized part of Yemen’s south-western Red Sea coast near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a chokepoint for global shipping. Their advance contributed to a rise in oil prices following six months of war between the US, Israel and Iran.
Last week, pro-government forces said they had regained control of territory overlooking Bab al-Mandab after launching a major counter-offensive with the support of Saudi air strikes.
At least 1,282 people have been killed and 5,890 injured in the fighting in Yemen since 6 August, according to the government’s health ministry.
The UN says another 201,000 people have been displaced and that there has been an alarming surge in suspected cholera cases.
(BBC)
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