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Trump’s lawyer presses Stormy Daniels on day 14 of hush money trial
Donald Trump’s defence lawyer is cross-examining adult film star Stormy Daniels, the most high-profile witness to testify so far in the former United States president’s New York criminal trial.
Daniels’s account of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 riveted jurors earlier this week and served as a reminder to US voters of the more lurid aspects of the real estate developer-turned-politician as he campaigns to win back the White House this year.
On Thursday, Trump lawyer Susan Necheles grilled Daniels on the transaction at the centre of Trump’s hush money trial.
Necheles pressed Daniels on why she accepted a $130,000 payment to keep quiet about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump instead of going public.
“Why didn’t you do that?” Necheles asked, wondering why Daniels didn’t hold a news conference in 2016, as she had initially planned, to tell reporters about her encounter with Trump, which the former president denies ever happened.
“Because we were running out of time,” Daniels said.
Necheles asked if she meant that she was running out of time to use the claim to make money. “To get the story out,” Daniels countered.
The negotiations happened in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, a critical point in the case against Trump because prosecutors are arguing that he and his allies buried potentially damaging stories to influence the election results.
The former president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records pertaining to the alleged hush money payment made to silence Daniels.
Trump, the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee in November’s election, denies any wrongdoing.
Daniels’s testimony has been an extraordinary moment in what could be the only criminal case against Trump to go to trial before voters decide whether to send him back to the White House.
He faces three other criminal indictments, including two that relate to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden.
In the New York hush money case, Daniels testified on Thursday that as she negotiated a nondisclosure agreement with Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen, she was also talking with journalists as a “backup” plan.
Necheles accused her of refusing to share the story with reporters because she wouldn’t be paid for it. “The better alternative was for you to get money, right?” Necheles said.
Daniels said she was most interested in getting her story out and ensuring her family’s safety. “The better alternative was to get my story protected with a paper trail so that my family didn’t get hurt,” Daniels replied.
Speaking to reporters on his way into court Thursday, Trump called it a “Frankenstein case”. “It’s not a recognisable crime that any of us have seen,” he said. “This is a prosecutor making it up as he goes along.”
Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the case, has imposed a gag order on Trump prohibiting him from publicly attacking witnesses. Trump has already been fined and held in contempt of court 10 times for violating the order.
(Aljazeera)
Some 360 bodies have been recovered and more than 1,400 people are missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet region after a huge collapse of mud and rock into a Himalayan river triggered catastrophic flooding across local towns and valleys, authorities have said.
Rescue teams waded through mud on Thursday searching for the missing, as authorities in Nepal said at least 359 people have been killed there.
At least three people have died in the neighbouring Tibet region.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived at the mudslide site in Tibet on Thursday afternoon to “guide emergency rescue and relief work” a day after the disaster, state media reported.
Nepalese police and tourism officials said that more than 500 foreigners were among 910 people missing in Nepal.
Among the missing are tourists from more than two dozen countries: 177 are from India, 63 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from the United Kingdom, and 25 from Canada.
Beijing’s foreign ministry also said nearly 100 Chinese nationals were among the missing in Nepal.
In Tibet’s Gyirong county, 558 people are reported missing, including 260 foreign nationals, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Search and rescue operations are proving to be a “massive challenge” as just simply “getting to the affected areas … to try and recover the survivors”, is proving to be extremely difficult as the roads and bridges there have suffered extensive damage, said Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez, reporting from the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.
[Aljazeera]
India 503/9 decl (Devdutt Padikkal 117, Dhruv Jurel 115; Asitha Fernando 4-106, Prabath Jayasuriya 2-132) drew with Sri Lanka 290 (Sonal Dinusha 103, Pasindu Sooriyabandara 80; Prasidh Krishna 3-52, Manav Suthar 3-85) and 429/9 f/o (Sonal Dinusha 133*, Pasindu Sooriyabandara 92; Ravindra Jadeja 3-94, Manav Suthar 3-121)
Asif Khan the UAE batter, has been banned for 15 months after admitting to having tested positive for a banned substance – “a metabolite of mesterolone” – in an out-of-competition test conducted in September 2025, the ICC said in a statement on Thursday.
The statement said that Asif, 36, “had admitted the violation” of Article 2.1 of the ICC’s anti-doping code and accepted the period of ineligibility “pursuant to a case resolution agreement entered into with the World Anti-Doping Agency and the ICC”, which means there is no right to appeal on the part of the player.
The sanction is effective from September 8, 2025 and will run until December 7, 2026.
“Asif may return to training with a team or use the facilities of a club or other ICC Member organisation from 8 October 2026 but will only be eligible to play from 8 December,” the statement added. “The player’s individual results from 8 September 2025 until his provisional suspension on 29 December 2025 have been disqualified, along with all resulting consequences, including the loss of any medals, points, prize money or prizes.”
Asif, a former Pakistan Under-19 cricketer, made his UAE debut in March 2022 in an ODI against Oman in the ICC’s Cricket World Cup League 2. He turned out in 38 ODIs and 56 T20Is between then and September 2025.
The last three of those T20Is, against India, Oman and Pakistan in the T20 Asia Cup in 2025, came after September 8, and will be removed from his record.
[Cricinfo]
More than 360 dead, 1,400 missing in Nepal and Tibet after Himalayan floods
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Prince of Wales to celebrate 150th anniversary with six-a-side cricket
Unyielding Dinusha, spirited tail hold off India to save Colombo Test
US golfer Gogel gets six-month ban for betting
UAE’s Asif Khan handed 15-month ban for using a banned substance
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