Foreign News
Donald Trump’s New York fraud trial wraps up, with millions of dollars on the line
Donald Trump returned to Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday for the last day of his fraud trial, lashing out in court at the attorney general who brought the case.
A judge has already determined that Trump family members and executives fraudulently inflated assets to secure favourable loans. But the trial will determine damages. New York Judge Arthur Engoron has said he will issue a final written ruling in the case by the end of the month.
The outcome could be stiff penalties that may challenge the famous family’s legacy after it built its fortune in New York real estate.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is asking the judge for a $370m (£290m) penalty. She also aims to bar Donald Trump from ever doing business in New York again, a five-year ban for Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr and an independent monitor to oversee their company for the next five years.
Mr Trump’s attorneys attempted to discredit Ms James’s case, arguing during two hours of closing argument on Thursday that the family had not committed fraud. At the end, the former president interjected as well.
After defence lawyer Christopher Kise requested that his client be allowed to speak, Mr Trump told the judge the trial was a “a fraud on me”.
Judge Engoron allowed Mr Trump to continue talking despite him refusing to abide by restrictions set by the judge. Mr Trump went on to insult Judge Engoron as well as Ms James. “We have a situation where I’m an innocent man, I’ve been persecuted by someone running for office,” Mr Trump said, before Judge Engoron told Mr Kise to “control his client”.
Mr Trump has made similar complaints during the three-month trial, both in his testimony before the court and in his speeches to reporters outside. He also brought up similar grievances when speaking to the press on three separate occasions during the hearing on Thursday.
Repetition appeared to be a defence strategy at points.
Mr Kise reiterated several arguments, including that the case was politically motivated and that Mr Trump’s real estate valuations did not cause any harm to banks or anyone else. “The marketplace functioned as it should,” he said of Mr Trump’s real estate dealings.
He also claimed Judge Engoron’s ruling would have wide-ranging consequences beyond the Trump family. “This isn’t just about President Trump,” he said. “What you do, judge, impacts every corporation in New York.”
He also echoed previous testimony from Mr Trump and his two children, Donald Jr and Eric, who shifted blame to the accountants who they argued were in charge of preparing financial statements. Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka took the stand earlier in the trial, as well, although she is no longer a defendant in the case.
Ms James’ team disagreed and said the Trumps were attempting to shirk their responsibilities. In their own closing arguments on Thursday, they argued the onus was just as much on the Trump family to ensure financial statements were accurate as it was on their accountants.
State attorney Andrew Amer claimed Mr Trump did not fake numbers himself but got employees and accountants to do his bidding to “keep his net worth as high as possible”.
The prosecution also showed a host of emails during the trial that suggested Trump family members were at least aware of Mr Trump’s financial statements, despite testimony to the contrary.
Before court, Ms James said these documents and other testimony during the 10-week trial had “revealed the full scale and scope” of Mr Trump’s fraud. “I am proud of the case we presented, and I am confident that the facts and the rule of law are on our side,” she said.
Many of the courtroom tensions over the past three months have centred on the New York judge, with Mr Trump’s legal team claiming that Judge Engoron and his law clerk are biased against the former president.
Mr Trump has also insulted Judge Engoron’s clerk on social media, leading to a gag order that cost him $15,000.
Before court began on Thursday, court officials told reporters there had been a threat made on Judge Engoron’s home on New York’s Long Island. Local police later told US media that the threat was a “swatting incident”, a hoax call made to send law enforcement to a home.
The end of the fraud trial comes as several separate criminal cases against Mr Trump – including two sets of charges over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election – are heating up.
Another civil case, a second lawsuit from writer E Jean Carroll, is set to begin this month.
(BBC)
Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, who snapped one of the most famous photographs taken in outer space, has died at the age of 90.
Officials say a small plane he was flying crashed into the water north of Seattle, Washington.
Anders’ son Greg confirmed that his father was flying the small plane, and that his body was recovered on Friday afternoon. “The family is devastated. He was a great pilot. He will be missed,” a statement from the family reads.
Anders – who was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 8 mission – took the iconic Earthrise photograph, one of the most memorable and inspirational images of Earth from space.
Taken on Christmas Eve during the 1968 mission, the first crewed space flight to leave Earth and reach the Moon, the picture shows the planet rising above the horizon from the barren lunar surface.
Anders later described it as his most significant contribution to the space programme.
The image is widely credited with motivating the global environmental movement and leading to the creation of Earth Day, an annual event to promote activism and awareness of caring for the planet.
Speaking of the moment, Anders said: “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing that we discovered was the Earth.”
Officials said on Friday that Anders crashed his plane around 11:40PDT (1940BST).
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the 90-year-old was flying a Beechcraft A A 45 – also known as a T-34. The agency said that the plane crashed about 80ft (25m) from the coast of Jones Island.
Anders also served as the backup pilot to the Apollo 11 mission, the name of the effort that led to the first Moon landing on July 24, 1969.
Following Anders’ retirement from the space programme in 1969, the former astronaut largely worked in the aerospace industry for several decades. He also served as US Ambassador to Norway for a year in the 1970s.
But he is best remembered for the Apollo 8 mission and the iconic photograph he took from space.
“In 1968, during Apollo 8, Bill Anders offered to humanity among the deepest of gifts an astronaut can give. He traveled to the threshold of the Moon and helped all of us see something else: ourselves,” Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.
Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who now serves as a US Senator for the state of Arizona, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that Anders “inspired me and generations of astronauts and explorers. My thoughts are with his family and friends”.
[BBC]
A Chinese spacecraft carrying rock and soil samples from the far side of the Moon has lifted off from the lunar surface to start its journey back to Earth, according to state media.
The achievement on Tuesday is a world first and the latest leap for Beijing’s decades-old space programme, which aims to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030.
The Xinhua News Agency, citing the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said that the ascender of the Chang’e-6 probe took off at 7:38am local time on Tuesday (23:38 GMT) and entered a preset orbit around the moon.
It described the move as “an unprecedented feat in human lunar exploration history”.
The Chang’e-6 probe was launched last month and its lander touched down on the far side of the Moon on Sunday. It used a drill and robotic arm to dig up soil on and below the Moon’s surface, according to Xinhua.
After successfully gathering its samples, the Chang’e-6 unfurled China’s national flag for the first time on the far side of the Moon, it said.
The agency cited the CNSA as saying that the spacecraft stowed the samples it had gathered in a container inside the ascender of the probe as planned.
[Aljazeera]
China says its uncrewed craft has successfully landed on the far side of the Moon – an unexplored place almost no-one tries to go.
The Chang’e 6 touched down in the South Pole-Aitken Basin at 06:23 Beijing time on Sunday morning (22:23 GMT Saturday), the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.
Launched on 3 May, the mission aims to collect precious rock and soil from this region for the first time in history. The probe could extract some of the Moon’s oldest rocks from a huge crater on its South Pole.
The landing was fraught with risks, because it is very difficult to communicate with spacecraft once they reach the far side of the Moon. China is the only country to have achieved the feat before, landing its Chang’e-4 in 2019.
After launching from Wenchang Space Launch Center, the Chang’e 6 spacecraft had been orbiting the Moon waiting to land. The lander component of the mission then separated from the orbiter to touch down on the side of the Moon that faces permanently away from Earth.
During the descent, an autonomous visual obstacle avoidance system was used to automatically detect obstacles, with a visible light camera selecting a comparatively safe landing area based on the brightness and darkness of the lunar surface, the CNSA was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.
The lander hovered about 100m (328ft) above the safe landing area, and used a laser 3D scanner before a slow vertical descent. The operation was supported by the Queqiao-2 relay satellite, the CNSA said.
Chinese state media described the successful landing as an “historic moment”. The state broadcaster said “applause erupted at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center” when the Chang’e landing craft touched down on the Moon early on Sunday morning.
The lander should spend up to three days gathering materials from the surface in an operation the CNSA said would involve “many engineering innovations, high risks and great difficulty”. “Everyone is very excited that we might get a look at these rocks no-one has ever seen before,” explains Professor John Pernet-Fisher, who specialises in lunar geology at the University of Manchester.
He has analysed other lunar rock brought back on the American Apollo mission and previous Chinese missions. But he says the chance to analyse rock from a completely different area of the Moon could answer fundamental questions about how planets form.
Most of the rocks collected so far are volcanic, similar to what we might find in Iceland or Hawaii. But the material on the far side would have a different chemistry . “It would help us answer those really big questions, like how are planets formed, why do crusts form, what is the origin of water in the solar system?” the professor says.
The mission aims to collect about 2kg (4.4lb) of material using a drill and mechanical arm, according to the CNSA.
The South Pole–Aitken basin, an impact crater, is one of the largest known in the solar system.
From there, the probe could gather material that came from deep inside the lunar mantle – the inner core of the Moon – Prof Pernet-Fisher says.
The Moon’s South Pole is the next frontier in lunar missions – countries are keen to understand the region because there is a good chance it has ice.
The capsule in the last Chinese moon mission, Chang’e 5, brought back soil and rocks in 2020 (BBC)
Access to water would significantly boost the chances of successfully establishing a human base on the Moon for scientific research.
If the mission succeeds, the craft will return to Earth with the precious samples on board a special return capsule.
The material will be kept in special conditions to try to keep it as pristine as possible.
Scientists in China will be given the first chance to analyse the rocks, and later researchers around the world will be able to apply for the opportunity too.
This is the second time China has launched a mission to collect samples from the Moon.
In 2020 Chang’e 5 brought back 1.7kg of material from an area called Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon’s near side.
China is planning three more uncrewed missions this decade as it looks for water on the Moon and investigates setting up a permanent base there.
Beijing’s broader strategy aims to see a Chinese astronaut walk on the moon by around 2030.
The US also aims to put astronauts back on the moon, with Nasa aiming to launch its Artemis 3 mission in 2026.
(BBC)
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