UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The divided U.N. Security Council voted Thursday to extend an arms embargo on South Sudan despite appeals from the world’s newest nation, the African Union and half a dozen countries including Russia and China to lift or at least ease the restrictive measure.

The U.S.-sponsored resolution got the minimum nine “yes” votes in the 15-member council, with six countries abstaining – Russia, China, Mozambique, Algeria, Sierra Leone and Guyana.

The resolution also extends travel bans and asset freezes on South Sudanese on the U.N. sanctions blacklist until May 31, 2025.

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood welcomed the resolution’s adoption saying extending the U.N. arms embargo “remains necessary to stem the unfettered flow of weapons into a region awash with guns.”

But Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Anna Evstigneeva accused the United States of ignoring all the positive achievements in South Sudan and focusing on sanctions “which they present as a sort of panacea for all of the country’s problems.”

She called the sanctions “burdensome,” noted calls for their lifting from South Sudan and the African Union, and said: “It is clear that at this stage, many of the Council sanctions regimes including South Sudan’s are outdated and need to be reviewed.”

South Sudan’s U.N. ambassador Cecilia Adeng told the council that sanctions “impede our progress” and reiterated the country’s call for the measures to be lifted. Eliminating the arms embargo “will enable us to build robust security institutions necessary for maintaining peace and protecting our citizens,” she said.

There were high hopes when oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long conflict. But the country slid into a civil war in December 2013 largely based on ethnic divisions when forces loyal to the current president, Salva Kiir, battled those loyal to the current vice president, Riek Machar.

The war, which left nearly 400,000 people dead and more than 4 million displaced, ended with the 2018 peace agreement, bringing Kiir and Machar together in a government of national unity.

Under the agreement, elections were supposed to be held in February 2023, but they were postponed until December 2024. In early April, South Sudan’s president warned lawmakers “not to cling to power just weeks after Machar proposed a further postponement of elections.

A report two weeks ago by experts monitoring sanctions against South Sudan said the elections would be “a significant milestone” and warned that the country’s leaders are running short of time “to ensure divergent expectations do not fuel further tensions and strife.”

South Sudan’s Adeng told the council her country is committed to ensuring the upcoming elections are conducted peacefully, “with full participation of all stakeholders.”

“South Sudan remains dedicated to working with the international community and our regional partners to achieve a peaceful and prosperous future for all South Sudanese,” she said. “We appeal to the Security Council to support our efforts by adopting measures that facilitate rather than hinder our progress.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts marks the end of the former president’s historic hush money trial, but the fight over the case is far from over.

Now comes the sentencing and the potential for a prison sentence. A lengthy appellate process. And all the while, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee still has to deal with three more criminal cases and a campaign that could see him return to the White House.

After more than nine hours of deliberations over two days, the Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records in the case stemming from a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump angrily denounced the trial as a “disgrace,” telling reporters he’s an “innocent man.”

Some key takeaways from the jury’s decision:

PRISON TIME?

The big question now is whether Trump could go to prison. The answer is uncertain. Judge Juan M. Merchan set sentencing for July 11, just days before Republicans are formally set to nominate Trump for president.

The charge of falsifying business records is a Class E felony in New York, the lowest tier of felony charges in the state. It is punishable by up to four years in prison, though the punishment would ultimately be up to the judge, and there’s no guarantee he would give Trump time behind bars. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to say whether prosecutors would seek prison time.

It’s unclear to what extent the judge may factor in the political and logistical complexities of jailing a former president who is running to reclaim the White House. Other punishments could include a fine or probation. And it’s possible the judge would allow Trump to avoid serving any punishment until after he exhausts his appeals.

Trump faces the threat of more serious prison time in the three other cases he’s facing, but those cases have gotten bogged down by appeals and other legal fights, so it remains unclear whether any of them will go to trial before the November election.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE ELECTION

The conviction doesn’t bar Trump from continuing his campaign or becoming president. And he can still vote for himself in his home state of Florida as long as he stays out of prison in New York state.

Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who serves as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said in a Fox News Channel interview on Thursday that Trump would do virtual rallies and campaign events if he’s convicted and sentenced to home confinement.

In a deeply divided America, it’s unclear whether Trump’s once-unimaginable criminal conviction will have any impact at all on the election.

Leading strategists in both parties believe that Trump still remains well-positioned to defeat President Joe Biden, even as the Republican now faces the prospect of a prison sentence and three separate criminal cases still outstanding.

In the short term, at least, there were immediate signs that the guilty verdict was helping to unify the Republican Party’s disparate factions as GOP officials across the political spectrum rallied behind their embattled presumptive presidential nominee and his campaign reported a flood of fundraising dollars within hours of the verdict.

There has been some polling conducted on the prospect of a guilty verdict, although such hypothetical scenarios are notoriously difficult to predict. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that only 4% of Trump’s supporters said they would withdraw their backing if he’s convicted of a felony, though another 16% said they would reconsider it.

AVENUES FOR APPEAL

After Trump is sentenced, he can challenge his conviction in a New York appellate court and possibly the state’s highest court. Trump’s lawyers have already been laying the groundwork for appeals with objections to the charges and rulings at trial.

The defense has accused the judge of bias, citing his daughter’s work heading a firm whose clients have included Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats. The judge refused the defense’s request to remove himself from the case, saying he was certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”

Trump’s lawyers may also raise on appeal the judge’s ruling limiting the testimony of a potential defense expert witness. The defense wanted to call Bradley Smith, who served on the Federal Election Commission, to rebut the prosecution’s contention that the hush money payments amounted to campaign finance violations.

But the defense ended up not having him testify after the judge ruled he could give general background on the FEC but couldn’t interpret how federal campaign finance laws apply to the facts of Trump’s case or opine on whether Trump’s alleged actions violate those laws. There are often guardrails around expert testimony on legal matters, on the basis that it’s up to a judge — not an expert hired by one side or the other — to instruct jurors on applicable laws.

The defense may also argue that jurors were improperly allowed to hear sometimes graphic testimony from Daniels about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, which he denies ever happened. The defense unsuccessfully pushed for a mistrial over the tawdry details prosecutors elicited from Daniels. Defense lawyer Todd Blanche argued Daniels’ description of a power imbalance with the older, taller Trump, was a “dog whistle for rape,” irrelevant to the charges at hand, and “the kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from.”

A DEFENSE THAT CENTERED ON CREDIBILITY

The verdict shows the jury wasn’t persuaded by Trump’s defense, which hinged on assailing the credibility of some key witnesses — especially Michael Cohen, the Trump attorney-turned-adversary who directly implicated Trump in the hush money scheme.

As in many criminal cases, Trump’s lawyers tried to make a lot of their points while questioning prosecution witnesses. The defense called just two witnesses of its own, including Robert Costello, a defense attorney who had sought to represent Cohen after the latter came under federal investigation due to his work for Trump.

The move may have backfired because it opened the door for prosecutors to question Costello about a purported pressure campaign aimed at keeping Cohen loyal to Trump after the FBI raided Cohen’s property in April 2018.

Costello buoyed the defense by testifying that Cohen denied to him that Trump knew anything about the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels.

But prosecutors portrayed Costello as a “double agent” whose agenda was really to keep Cohen from turning on Trump and confronted him with emails he sent to Cohen in which he repeatedly dangled his close ties to Trump ally Rudy Giuliani. In one email, Costello told Cohen: “Sleep well tonight. you have friends in high places” and relayed that there were “some very positive comments about you from the White House.”

The pugnacious Costello annoyed the judge — at times in view of the jury — by continuing to speak after objections and rolling his eyes. At one point, after sending the jury out of the room, the judge became enraged when he said Costello was staring him down. Merchan then briefly cleared the courtroom of reporters and scolded Costello, warning that if he acted out again, he’d be removed from the courtroom.

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR A LOSS

While projecting confidence, Trump and his campaign also spent weeks trying to undermine the case ahead of a potential conviction. He repeatedly called the whole system “rigged” — a term he also used in false descriptions of the election he lost to Biden in 2020.

“Mother Teresa could not beat these charge,” Trump said Wednesday, invoking the Catholic nun and saint.

Trump has lambasted the judge and complained about members of the prosecution team as he tried to paint the case as nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt brought by Bragg, a Democrat.

He has also complained about a gag order that restricted him from speaking about some people involved in the case. Instead of testifying in the case — and subjecting himself to cross-examination — Trump has focused on the court of public opinion and the voters who will ultimately decide his fate.

_____

Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Steve Peoples and Jennifer Peltz contributed from New York.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Thursday was found guilty on all 34 felony counts in his criminal hush money trial.

It was the first time a former U.S. president was ever tried or convicted in a criminal case, and was the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial.

Prosecutors accused Trump of falsifying internal business records to cover up hush money payments tied to an alleged scheme to bury stories that might torpedo his 2016 White House bid.

At the heart of the charges were reimbursements paid to Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in exchange for not going public with her claim about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.

Prosecutors said the reimbursements were falsely logged as “legal expenses” to hide the true nature of the transactions.

The charges Trump faces are punishable by up to four years in prison. He has denied any wrongdoing and had pleaded not guilty.

Judge Juan M. Merchan has set Trump’s sentencing for July 11.

Currently:

— How Trump’s conviction affects the 2024 presidential race

— What to know about the guilty verdict in Trump’s hush money trial

— Inside the courtroom as Trump learned he’d been convicted

— Republican lawmakers come to Trump’s defense after his conviction

— Shares in Trump Media slump after former president’s conviction

— Trump hush money case: A timeline of key events

— Trump investigations: The status of the cases brought against him

Here’s the latest:

TRUMP’S LAWYER ON WHY HE DIDN’T TESTIFY

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche told CNN Thursday evening that Donald Trump wanted to testify in the trial, but “he listened to us and he relied on our counsel and he reached a decision that he thought was right.”

“Of course he wanted to testify. And I don’t say that because that’s what he has said,” Blanche said. “He wanted to get his story out.”

Blanche pointed to Judge Juan M. Merchan’s rulings about what could be asked of Trump if he took the stand, saying “some of those questions were really complicated to answer because there’s still appeals going on.”

“I don’t think there was a conviction because he did not take the stand,” Blanche added.

Asked why the defense didn’t call as witnesses former Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller and former Trump company finance chief Allen Weisselberg — whose names came up repeatedly during testimony — Blanche responded: “Because we happen to live in America and we don’t have the burden of proof.” He said the question should be why the prosecution didn’t call them.

EXONERATED ‘CENTRAL PARK FIVE’ MEMBER SAYS HE TAKES ‘NO PLEASURE’
IN CONVICTION

Exonerated “Central Park Five” member and current New York City Councilmember Yusef Salaam said he didn’t take pleasure in the former president’s guilty verdict “even though Donald Trump wanted me executed even when it was proven that I was innocent.”

Salaam won a seat on the City Council last year decades after being wrongly imprisoned for rape in a notorious case that roiled racial tensions in New York City in the late 1980s. At the time, Trump took out large newspaper advertisements calling for New York to reinstate the death penalty. Salaam, along with four other Black and Latino men, eventually had their convictions vacated in 2002.

“We should be proud that today the system worked. But we should be somber that we Americans have an ex-President who has been found guilty on 34 separate felony charges,” Salaam wrote in a post on the social media platform X.

“We have to do better than this. Because we are better than this,” Salaam said.

FORMER MANHATTAN DA PRAISES TRIAL, DOUBTS TRUMP WILL GO TO PRISON

Former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance offered his congratulations Thursday to his successor, Alvin Bragg, on “conducting a nearly flawless trial in a very difficult situation.”

“I think it’s an important case that really helps define what the rule of law is supposed to mean,” Vance told The Associated Press.

The DA’s office investigated Trump while Vance had the top job, but did not bring any charges before the Democrat retired at the end of 2021 and Bragg took over.

Responding to claims from a former prosecutor that some in his office had called it a “zombie” case, Vance said he didn’t think he had ever referred to it that way. He said he wouldn’t go into the conversations he had with his staff about the case.

Vance said he doesn’t think it’s likely Trump will be sentenced to prison time in the Manhattan case, both because “the crimes don’t require it” and because it would be more trouble than it’s worth given Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

“The idea of having him in custody is really hard to imagine, I think, given his role in the political theater of the country for the next six months,” Vance said.

POLITICAL STRATEGISTS PREDICT LITTLE FALLOUT FOR TRUMP POST-CONVICTION

Trump campaign advisers argued the case would help them motivate their core supporters. So many donations came into WinRed, the platform the campaign uses for fundraising, that it crashed. Aides quickly worked to set up a backup platform to collect money pouring in.

His two most senior campaign advisers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, were not with him in New York, but in Palm Beach, Florida, where the campaign is headquartered.

And while it may take days or weeks to know for sure, Trump’s critics in both parties generally agreed that there may not be much political fallout, although some were hopeful that the convictions would have at least a marginal impact in what will likely be a close election.

TRUMP LAWYER SAYS HE PLANS TO APPEAL JUDGE’S CHOICE NOT TO RECUSE HIMSELF

Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s lawyer in his hush money trial, said in an interview after the verdict that he expects to appeal the trial judge’s decision not to recuse himself.

Asked on Fox News on Thursday night if he thought Trump got a fair trial, Blanche responded: “No, I don’t think so.”

Trump and his lawyers repeatedly argued Judge Juan M. Merchan should not have presided over the case, suggesting he had shown signs of bias.

TRUMP HEADS TO FUNDRAISER

Donald Trump left Trump Tower shortly before 8 p.m. Thursday night to attend a fundraiser at a private residence in New York City, according to a person familiar with his plans who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The fundraiser, held at a private residence in Manhattan, had been scheduled by his campaign before it was known that a verdict would be coming Thursday.

Trump’s in-person event came as the campaign’s online fundraising platform briefly crashed shortly after the verdict came down. It was back up and running Thursday night.

____

Associated Press writer Michelle Price contributed to this story from New York.

COULD TRUMP SEE PRISON TIME?

The big question now is whether Donald Trump could go to prison. The answer is uncertain.

Judge Juan M. Merchan set sentencing for July 11, just days before Republicans are set to formally nominate him for president.

The charge of falsifying business records is a Class E felony in New York, the lowest tier of felony charges in the state. It is punishable by up to four years in prison, though the punishment would ultimately be up to the judge and there’s no guarantee he would give Trump time bars.

TRUMP HAS SEVERAL AVENUES FOR AN APPEAL

After Donald Trump is sentenced, he can challenge his conviction in an appellate division of New York state’s trial court and possibly, the state’s highest court. His lawyers have already been laying the groundwork for appeals with objections to the charges and rulings at trial.

The defense has accused the judge in the trial of bias, citing his daughter’s work heading a firm whose clients have included President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats. The judge refused the defense’s request to remove himself from the case, saying he was certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”

Trump’s lawyers may also raise on appeal the judge’s ruling limiting the testimony of a potential defense expert witness. The defense wanted to call Bradley Smith, a Republican law professor who served on the Federal Election Commission, to rebut the prosecution’s contention that the hush money payments amounted to campaign finance violations.

But the defense ended up not having him testify after the judge ruled he could give general background on the FEC but couldn’t interpret how federal campaign finance laws apply to the facts of Trump’s case or opine on whether Trump’s alleged actions violate those laws.

There are often guardrails around expert testimony on legal matters, on the basis that it’s up to a judge — not an expert hired by one side or the other — to instruct jurors on applicable laws.

The defense may also argue that jurors were improperly allowed to hear sometimes graphic testimony from porn actor Stormy Daniels about her alleged sexual encounter with him in 2006. The defense unsuccessfully pushed for a mistrial over the tawdry details prosecutors elicited from Daniels.

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche argued Daniels’ description of a power imbalance with the older, taller Trump, was a “dog whistle for rape,” irrelevant to the charges at hand, and “the kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from.”

‘PUT HIM AWAY WHERE HE BELONGS,’ TOURIST SAYS

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Following Thursday’s guilty verdict in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, public reaction varied. Some criticized the trial and the jury’s verdict while others felt it was the right outcome.

“Put him away where he belongs,” said Roy Chilton, 76, a tourist from South Africa who was visiting Oklahoma City’s Bricktown entertainment district with his wife, Celia Chilton.

Both said they were concerned about the impact that a Trump presidency would have on their home country’s trade with the U.S.

Celia Chilton said the guilty verdict confirms that in the U.S., no one is above the law.

“We feel that the U.S. justice system is better than ours,” she said.

‘I BELIEVE IN ACCOUNTABILITY’

MADISON, Wis. — Sharon Radbil Cooper, a 67-year-old retired special education teacher from Madison, Wisconsin, said her phone had been blowing up with messages after the verdict in Donald Trump’s criminal trial was announced.

She said she was afraid jurors wouldn’t see how serious Trump’s offenses were but they made the right decision in convicting him, proving the criminal justice system can still “respond intelligently.”

“I believe in accountability,” Radbil Cooper said. “People need to be held accountable for what they’ve done.” She said there’s no good label for her political leanings but she has always planned to vote for President Joe Biden because she feels that he’s honest. But she’s afraid the conviction won’t be enough to keep people from voting for Trump.

“My hope is the bloc of voters who are not informed will move in the direction of not voting for him,” she said.

US REP SLOTKIN: PRESIDENTS ‘SHOULD BE RESPECTABLE, SERIOUS PEOPLE’

Michigan’s top congressional and statewide leaders were gathered on Mackinac Island for a policy conference as news of the guilty verdict in Donald Trump’s criminal trial broke.

The situation created a surreal scene of many politicians reacting in real time next to journalists, island visitors and lawmakers from across the aisle.

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the leading Democratic candidate for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat, said she first heard the news while looking at a garden on the island with other people around, describing the situation as a “weird experience.” She said felt sad because presidents “should be respectable, serious people that kids can look up to.”

“I’m glad that no matter who you are, the justice system can work even when you’re under significant pressure, which I’m sure they felt,” Slotkin told The Associated Press.

Slotkin at one point passed Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, hugging her while joking, “Be careful, we have a reporter here with us.” Whitmer, the campaign co-chair for President Joe Biden’s campaign, walked away without providing a response to the verdict.

A VIEW FROM THE BORDER

MCALLEN, Texas — Voters along the border like Justin Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, say the verdict in Donald Trump’s hush money trial might challenge their perception of the former president but still fall short of swaying votes come November.

“He’s a lot of things, but I never personally thought of him as a liar. I guess this would change my perception of him,” Gonzalez said after learning that Trump continues to cling to his innocence.

Gonzalez is excited about participating in his first national election but given the choice between President Joe Biden and Trump, he feels issues including immigration matter more.

“Out of all the other issues, this is still bad but it’s not enough to sway me to vote for Biden,” he explained.

RNC CHAIRMAN CALLS THE VERDICT PART OF AN ATTACK ON TRUMP

Donald Trump’s handpicked Republican Party chairman echoed the former president and presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s assessment of his felony conviction.

The verdict is part of a “campaign to weaponize the judicial system to attack President Trump,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement.

Whatley added a word-for-word echo of what Trump himself said outside the courtroom earlier Thursday after the jury rendered its guilty verdicts on 34 felony counts.

“The real verdict,” Whatley said, “will take place on November 5.”

Trump’s sentencing has been set just days before Whatley and his fellow Republicans convene in Milwaukee, to formally nominate Trump as their presidential nominee.

MANHATTAN DA SAYS JURORS MADE DECISION ON ‘EVIDENCE AND THE LAW’

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, standing in front of the trial prosecutors, told reporters: “The 12 everyday jurors vowed to make a decision based on the evidence and the law, and the evidence and the law alone.”

“Their deliberations led them to a unanimous conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant Donald J. Trump is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree to conceal a scheme to corrupt the 2016 election,” he continued. “And while this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today in this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors, by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor.”

FLORIDA SUPPORTER: ‘I WOULD VOTE FOR HIM 20 TIMES’

MIAMI — A few Trump supporters in Miami arrived at the iconic Cuban restaurant Versailles, where Donald Trump made a stop a year ago after pleading not guilty in the classified documents case in Florida.

Supporters were waving Trump flags, while others were just stopping by or honking as they drove by to signal support for the former president and presumptive GOP nominee.

“This is so wrong. All of us Cubans stand with Donald Trump. This is so wrong,” said Michael Perez Ruiz, 47, who had arrived at the restaurant to order food. Perez said he still plans to support him in November. “I would vote for him 20 times,” he said.

Maria C. Gonzalez, a retired nurse, 67, said she wanted to show up to support Trump, who she thought made the country better.

“It was all arranged. It was not a fair trial,” she said. “I was not surprised. They don’t want him as president” she said referring to Democrats.

At one point two Trump supporters chased away an older man who confronted them saying he hoped Trump would be jailed soon. The three of them were arguing loudly on the street.

CHEERS AT ATLANTA BAR UPON READING OF THE VERDICT

ATLANTA — Reaction around the country to Donald Trump’s conviction largely seemed to track with partisan responses among political leaders in Washington.

At Atlanta’s Manuel’s Tavern, a popular liberal hangout near Jimmy Carter’s presidential library and the Carter Center, a small gathering of customers huddled at the bar to hear the verdicts.

They looked up at a television mounted next to a vintage portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a news anchor relayed the verdicts, they cheered. Upon the 34th guilty verdict, one bartender rang the “tip bell” behind the bar.

One patron yelled profanity while calling Trump an “idiot.”

Soon, though, conversation turned to the fact that Trump has appeal options and still will be formally nominated by Republicans as their presidential nominee in July as he pursues them.

Outside the bar, Joan Marks, a 58-year-old Democrat, hailed the verdict but offered a firm prediction: “Get ready for a felonious president.”

HEAD OF NAACP CALLS VERDICT A ‘STEP TOWARD JUSTICE’

Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, called the verdict against Donald Trump “a monumental step toward justice for the American people.”

“Whether it’s an attempt to steal an election or overthrow our government, one thing has long been apparent — Donald Trump is unfit to represent American democracy,” Johnson said after the verdict was heard on Thursday.

Johnson, who leads the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, said the crimes that Trump has been convicted of ought to disqualify him as a candidate for the Oval Office.

“As Black Americans have been denied basic human rights due to less offensive crimes, any attempt to advance Donald Trump’s nomination for the presidency would be a gross advancement of white supremacist policy,” he said.

ARKANSAS’ CURRENT AND FORMER GOVERNORS HAD VERY DIFFERENT REACTIONS TO VERDICT

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who served as Donald Trump’s White House press secretary and has been considered a potential contender to be his running mate, shortly after the verdict called his hush money trial a “politically-motivated sham trial.”

“The American people decide our elections,” Sanders posted on the social platform X. “Donald Trump will be our next president.”

Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination before dropping out earlier this year, later cautioned that the jury’s verdict should be respected.

“It is not easy to see a former President and the presumptive GOP nominee convicted of felony crimes; but the jury verdict should be respected,” Hutchinson posted on X. “An appeal is in order but let’s not diminish the significance of this verdict.”

TRUMP’S DJT STOCK DIPS

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of the social networking site Truth Social, slumped after Donald Trump’s guilty verdict was announced.

The shares, which trade under the symbol “DJT,” fell about 8% in after-hours trading Thursday as news of the verdict in his hush money case emerged. They have been extraordinarily volatile since the company’s debut in late March, frequently making double-digit percentage moves either higher or lower on a single day.

The shares peaked at nearly $80 in intraday trading on March 26. They closed regular trading Thursday at $51.84 before the verdict was announced.

MICHAEL COHEN REACTS

In a statement sent by text message on Thursday, Michael Cohen said: “Today is an important day for accountability and the rule of law. While it has been a difficult journey for me and my family, the truth always matters.”

He thanked his attorneys “for their invaluable guidance and support.”

UNLESS HE’S SENT TO PRISON, TRUMP CAN STILL VOTE

Donald Trump may have been convicted of a felony and reside in Florida, a state notorious for restricting the voting rights of felons, but he can still vote as long as he stays out of prison in New York state.

That’s because Florida defers to other states’ disenfranchisement rules for residents convicted of out-of-state felonies. In Trump’s case, New York law only removes their right to vote when incarcerated. Once they’re out of prison, their rights are automatically restored — even if they’re on parole, per a 2021 law passed by the state’s Democratic legislature.

“If a Floridian’s voting rights are restored in the state of conviction, they are restored under Florida law,” Blair Bowie of the Campaign Legal Center wrote in a post explaining the state of law, noting that people without Trump’s legal resources are often confused by Florida’s complex rules.

IN OVERFLOW ROOM AS THE VERDICT WAS READ

It was very quiet in the courtroom and an overflow room right before the verdict in Donald Trump’s criminal trial was read.

Due to the anonymous jury, monitors in the overflow room were off while the verdict was read, so members of the media and members of the public who were there to observe could not see Trump’s face as the first “guilty” was read aloud.

A court officer had warned the overflow crowd not to make any outbursts, but a hushed gasp could be heard in the room. The video feed resumed after the last charge was read aloud, showing Trump sitting with an expressionless stare as history was made.

OUTSIDE CROWDS REACT TO TRUMP’S GUILTY VERDICT

A group of around 100 Trump supporters who have gathered daily near the courthouse in lower Manhattan to watch the former president’s motorcade pass murmured in disbelief as news of the verdict in his hush money trial appeared on their phones.

A few shouted in anger. At a park across the street where small groups of people have been gathering daily to protest, Trump’s opponents let out cheers.

The cheering from the street could be heard all the way up on the 15th floor of the courthouse, in the hallway, as the decision was being read.

TRUMP ADDRESSES REPORTERS OUTSIDE COURTROOM

Donald Trump addressed reporters outside the courtroom following the reading of the guilty verdict in his hush money trial.

The former president called the verdict a “disgrace” and said the trial was rigged. He said he’s “an innocent man.”

“We’ll keep fighting,” Trump said. “We’ll fight to the end and we’ll win.”

BIDEN’S COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR REACTS TO VERDICT

President Joe Biden’s campaign sought to keep the focus on the November election even as it said Thursday that former President Donald Trump’s criminal conviction showed that “that no one is above the law.”

Communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement: “There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”

Biden himself has yet to weigh in on the verdict. He is spending the night at his family’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after marking the anniversary of his son Beau’s death earlier Thursday at church in Wilmington.

Biden’s campaign has tried for months to remind Americans of what it sees as the peril of another Trump term in office, rather than the personal jeopardy faced by the former president in court.

“A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans’ freedoms and fomenting political violence — and the American people will reject it this November,” Tyler said.

CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS SWIFTLY CONDEMN VERDICT

Trump allies released a flurry of statements just minutes after the jury’s decision in Donald Trump’s hush money case was announced.

“The verdict in New York is a complete travesty that makes a mockery of our system of justice,” Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is a potential vice president pick, posted on the social platform X.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican who is second in line to the presidency, in a statement called the trial “a purely political exercise, not a legal one.” Johnson added: “President Trump will rightfully appeal this absurd verdict—and he WILL WIN!”

Ahead of the jury announcing a verdict, one Republican urged people to respect the legal process.

Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland who is now running for the Senate, wrote on X that “all leaders—regardless of party—must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.”

SENTENCING SCHEDULED FOR JULY

Judge Juan M. Merchan has scheduled Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case for July 11, just days before Republicans are set to select him as the 2024 presidential nominee.

JUDGE DENIES DEFENSE’S POST-VERDICT REQUEST TO ACQUIT TRUMP

Defense lawyers in Donald Trump’s hush money trial moved for an acquittal of the former president after the jury had delivered its verdict.

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche told Judge Juan M. Merchan: “We move for a judgment of acquittal.”

“There’s no basis and no way this jury could have reached a verdict without accepting the testimony of Michael Cohen,” Blanche said.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass rebutted the assertion, saying “We, of course, disagree with Mr. Blanche’s characterization of Michael Cohen’s testimony.”

Merchan denied the motion.

JURY FINDS TRUMP GUILTY ON ALL CHARGES

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial has found him guilty on all of the charges against him.

A LAST-MINUTE CHANGE OF PLANS

The “hurry up and wait” beat of jury deliberations in Donald Trump’s hush money trial has given way to anticipatory tension — and some surprise. The jury transmitted the news that it reached a verdict by note to Judge Juan M. Merchan at 4:20 p.m. on Thursday, just few minutes after he’d announced to the courtroom — minus the jury — that court would adjourn at 4:30 p.m. barring a verdict.

Merchan said his plan was to allow jurors to keep working until that time and then send them home to start fresh on Friday.

Moments later, that plan went out the window. The verdict will be read in court soon.

JURY REACHE
S A VERDICT AND REQUESTS EXTRA TIME TO FINALIZE FORMS

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money case has reached a verdict. It asked for and additional 30 minutes to fill out the form.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire safety officials on Thursday upheld the license suspension of a commercial truck driver who was acquitted in the 2019 deaths of seven motorcyclists but said another hearing will be held to determine how long the suspension will last.

A jury in 2022 found Volodymyr Zhukovskyy not guilty of multiple manslaughter and negligent homicide counts stemming from the June 21, 2019, collision in Randolph that killed seven members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, an organization of Marine Corps veterans and their spouses in New England.

Zhukovskyy’s Massachusetts license was automatically suspended in New Hampshire after his arrest following the crash, but he sought to get it reinstated at a hearing earlier this month.

In an order Thursday, an administrative law judge for the Department of Safety said Zhukovskyy is subject to a state law that allows his license to be suspended for up to seven years and that a dispositional hearing will be scheduled later.

“The evidence clearly supports a finding that the respondent operated his truck and trailer in a negligent matter which was unlawful and caused or materially contributed to the accident,” wrote Ryan McFarland.

At his trial, prosecutors argued that Zhukovskyy — who had taken heroin, fentanyl and cocaine the day of the crash — repeatedly swerved back and forth before the collision and told police he caused it. But a judge dismissed eight impairment charges and his attorneys said the lead biker was drunk and not looking where he was going when he lost control of his motorcycle and slid in front of Zhukovskyy’s truck, which was pulling an empty flatbed trailer.

Zhukovskyy’s trial lawyers also said there was no evidence he was impaired at the time of the crash and that police did not make any observations in the hours afterward suggesting he was.

At the time, Zhukovskyy’s license should have been revoked because he had been arrested in Connecticut on a drunken driving charge in May 2019. Connecticut officials alerted the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, but Zhukovskyy’s license wasn’t suspended due to a backlog of out-of-state notifications about driving offenses. The Connecticut case is pending.

Zhukovskyy, who came to the U.S. as a child from Ukraine and had permanent residency status, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the 2022 verdict. A judge ordered his deportation last year, but the U.S. has paused repatriation flights to Ukraine due to the war with Russia and authorized Temporary Protected Status for qualified Ukrainians.

An Oklahoma man pleaded guilty on Thursday to assaulting a police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, where he also allegedly pushed an Associated Press photographer over a wall.

Benjamen Scott Burlew, 44, of Miami, Oklahoma, disappeared for several months after missing court appearances in Washington, D.C., last year. He was re-arrested on May 13 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and remained jailed until his guilty plea.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss is scheduled to sentence Burlew on Sept. 20. The estimated sentencing guidelines for Burlew’s case recommend a prison term ranging from 30 to 37 months, according to his plea agreement. The judge isn’t bound by that recommendation.

Defense attorney Robert Jenkins said Burlew and his family are “looking forward to putting this entire episode behind them.”

“Today, he accepted responsibility for (his) conduct, acknowledging it was criminal in nature,” Jenkins said after the hearing.

Burlew pleaded guilty to an assault charge, agreeing that he approached a police line behind metal barricades, grabbed a Metropolitan Police Department officer and tried to pull him into the crowd of rioters.

Burlew also was charged with assaulting the AP photographer by grabbing, dragging and ultimately pushing him over a low stone wall outside the Capitol. Other rioters have been charged with assaulting the same photographer, who was documenting the attack by a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters.

The photographer was wearing a lanyard identifying him as an AP journalist. One of his assailants grabbed the lanyard and used it to drag him down stairs.

More than 100 police officers were injured during the riot. Over 1,400 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. More than 800 of them have pleaded guilty. Approximately 200 others have been convicted by a judge or jury after trials.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana could soon become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom — in another expansion of religion into day-to-day life by a Republican-dominated legislature.

The legislation, which received final approval from the state’s GOP-dominated Legislature earlier this week and heads to the desk of conservative Gov. Jeff Landry. It mandates that a a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” be required in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.

Similar bills have been proposed in other statehouses — including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah. However with threats of legal battles over the constitutionality of such measures, no state has had success in the bills becoming law. If signed into law in Louisiana, legal challenges are expected to follow.

Legal battles over the Ten Commandments in classrooms are not new, but have spanned decades.

In 1980, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and in violation of the establishment clause of the US Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The high court found that the law had no secular purpose, but rather served a plainly religious purpose.

In the reliably red state of Louisiana proponents of the bill argue the constitutionality of the measure on historical grounds.

GOP state Sen. Jay Morris said Tuesday that “the purpose is not solely religious to have the Ten Commandments displayed in our schools, but rather its historical significance.”

Morris went on to say the Ten Commandments is “simply one of many documents that display the history of our country and the foundation for our legal system.”

The law also “authorizes” — but does not require — the display of the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance in K-12 public schools.

Opponents continue to question the bill’s constitutionality saying that the state is sure to face lawsuits.

Democratic state Sen. Royce Duplessis argued that while supporters of the legislation say the intent of the bill is for historical significance, it does not give the state “constitutional cover” and has serious problems.

The lawmaker also questioned why the Legislature was focusing on the display of the Ten Commandments, saying there are many more “documents that are historical in nature.”

“I was raised Catholic and I still am a practicing Catholic, but I didn’t have to learn the Ten Commandments in school,” Duplessis said on Tuesday. “It is why we have church. If you want your kids to learn about the Ten Commandments take them to church.”

The author of the bill, GOP state Rep. Dodie Horton, claimed earlier this session that the Ten Commandments do not solely have to do with one religion.

“I beg to differ that this is just Christian. But I have no qualms if it was,” Horton said during a committee hearing in April. “This is not preaching a Christian religion. It’s not preaching any religion. It’s teaching a moral code.”

Last year, Horton sponsored another law that requires all schools to display the national motto “In God We Trust″ in public classrooms.

But as lawmakers have spent hours arguing over the Ten Commandments requirement, many opponents have said that there are other more pressing issues plaguing the state.

“We really need to be teaching our kids how to become literate, to be able to actually read the Ten Commandments that we’re talking about posting. I think that should be the focus and not this big what I would consider a divisive bill.” Duplessis said.

Louisiana routinely reports poor national education rankings. According to the State Department of Education in the fall of 2022 only half of K-3 students in the state were reading at their grade level.

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — A South Dakota man pushed a police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and was among those who shoved a large metal “Trump” sign into a police line, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

William George Knight, 37, of Rapid City, was arrested by the FBI on May 26. He was charged with two felonies: obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder; and assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers. He also was charged with five misdemeanors. The Justice Department announced the arrest and charges on Wednesday.

Knight was released to home detention following a brief court hearing on Wednesday. Knight’s attorney, federal public defender Jennifer Albertson, declined comment on Thursday.

The Justice Department alleges in a court document that Knight was among the first rioters to breach a restricted area near the Capitol. After police set up a barrier using bike racks, Knight grabbed one of the racks and pulled it away so hard that he fell backward, the Justice Department alleged.

Later, Knight and others pushed a large metal-framed sign that read “Trump” toward the police line, and Knight shoved a police officer before grabbing one of the protective bike racks away from the police line, the court document states.

Knight and other rioters pushed against the line of officers, causing the line to collapse, the Justice Department said. Knight then went into the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace, where he stayed for at least two hours, the agency said.

All told, more than 1,400 people have been charged in connection with the riot, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Manure. Cigarette butts. Scraps of cloth. Waste batteries. Even, reportedly, diapers. This week, North Korea floated hundreds of huge balloons to dump all of that trash across rival South Korea — an old-fashioned, Cold War-style provocation that the country has rarely used in recent years.

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un confirmed Wednesday that North Korea sent the balloons and attached trash sacks. She said they were deployed to make good on her country’s recent threat to “scatter mounds of wastepaper and filth” in South Korea in response to the leafleting campaigns by South Korean activists.

Experts say the balloon campaigning is meant to stoke a division in South Korea over its conservative government’s hardline policy on North Korea. They also say North Korea will also likely launch new types of provocations in coming months to meddle in November’s U.S. presidential election.

Here’s a look at what North Korea’s balloon launches are all about.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Since Tuesday night, about 260 balloons flown from North Korea have been discovered across South Korea. There’s no apparent danger, though: The military said an initial investigation showed that the trash tied to the balloons doesn’t contain any dangerous substances like chemical, biological or radioactive materials.

There have been no reports of damages in South Korea. In 2016, North Korean balloons carrying trash, compact discs and propaganda leaflets caused damage to cars and other property in South Korea. In 2017, South Korea found a suspected North Korean balloon with leaflets again. This week, no leaflets were found from the North Korean balloons.

Flying balloons with propaganda leaflets and other items is one of the most common types of psychological warfare the two Koreas launched against each other during the Cold War. Other forms of Korean psychological battle have included loudspeaker blaring, setting up giant front-line electronic billboards and signboards and propaganda radio broadcasts. In recent years, the two Koreas have agreed to halt such activities but sometimes resumed them when tensions rose.

WHAT DOES NORTH KOREA WANT?

The North’s balloon launches are part of a recent series of provocative steps, which include its failed spy satellite launch and test-firings of about 10 suspected short-range missiles this week. Experts say the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, will likely further dial up tensions ahead of the U.S. election to try to help former President Donald Trump return to the White House and revive high-stakes diplomacy between them.

“The balloon launches aren’t weak action at all. It’s like North Korea sending a message that next time, it can send balloons carrying powder forms of biological and chemical weapons,” said Kim Taewoo, a former president of South Korea’s government-funded Institute for National Unification.

Koh Yu-hwan, an emeritus professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said North Korea likely determined that the balloon campaign is a more effective way to force South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s government to clamp down on the South’s civilian leafletting.

“The point is to make the South Korean people uncomfortable, and build a public voice that the government’s policy toward North Korea is wrong,” Koh said.

North Korea is extremely sensitive to leaflets that South Korean activists occasionally float across the border via their own balloons, because they carry information about the outside world and criticism of the Kim dynasty’s authoritarian rule. Most of the North’s 26 million people have little access to foreign news.

In 2020, North Korea blew up an empty, South Korean-built liaison office on its territory in protest of South Korean civilian leafleting campaigns.

WAS ANYTHING LEARNED FROM THE TRASH?

North Korea is one of the world’s most secretive countries in the world, and foreign experts are keen on collecting any fragmentary information coming from the country.

But Koh said that there won’t be much meaningful information that South Korea can gain from the North Korean trash dumps, because North Korea would have not put any important items into balloons.

If the manure is the kind made of animal dung, its examination may show what fodder is given to livestock in North Korea. Looks at other trash can provide a glimpse into consumer products in North Korea. But observers say outside experts can get such information more easily from North Korean defectors, their contacts in North Korea and Chinese border towns, and North Korean state publications.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS ON TENSIONS ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA?

The North’s balloon activities may deepen public calls in South Korea to stop anti-North Korean leafleting to avoid unnecessary clashes. But it’s unclear whether and how aggressively the South Korean government can urge civil groups to refrain from sending balloons toward North Korea.

In 2023, South Korea’s Constitutional Court struck down a contentious law that criminalized the sending of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets, calling it an excessive restriction on free speech.

“From Pyongyang’s perspective, this is a tit-for-tat and even restrained action to get Seoul to stop anti-Kim regime leaflets from being sent north. However, it will be difficult for democratic South Korea to comply, given ongoing legal disputes over the freedom of citizens and NGOs to send information into North Korea,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

“The immediate danger of military escalation is not high,” he said, “but recent developments show how sensitive and potentially vulnerable the Kim regime is to information operations.”

___

Follow AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Larry Hicks, a federal judge in Nevada for more than 20 years, died after being struck by a vehicle near the courthouse in Reno, authorities and his family said. He was 80.

Hicks was a pedestrian struck at an intersection Wednesday afternoon, taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, Reno police said in a news release. The driver cooperated with authorities, and impairment didn’t appear to be a factor.

Hicks was the father of current Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks, whose office released a statement on behalf of the Hicks family.

“Judge Larry Hicks was a deeply admired lawyer and judge, a devoted friend, mentor, and a committed servant to the administration of justice,” the statement said. “To us, he was first and foremost, a man who put nothing before family. He was a hero in all manners, a loving husband of nearly 59 years, a doting dad, an adoring Papa, and brother. His loss is beyond comprehension.”

Hicks was nominated to the U.S. District Court for Nevada in 2001 by Republican President George W. Bush and was sworn in shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. He continued to hear cases after assuming senior judge status in 2012.

Hicks was born in Evanston, Illinois; graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, and the University of Colorado School of Law; and became a prosecutor in Reno in 1968. He was elected as Washoe County district attorney in 1975 and served until 1979, when he joined a prominent Nevada law firm, according to the State Bar of Nevada. He was awarded the association’s Presidential Award in 2020.

Flags will be flown at half-staff over Nevada’s federal courthouses, the U.S. District Court said.

___

This version has been corrected to show that Hicks assumed senior status in 2012, not 2013, and was elected Washoe County district attorney in 1975 and served until 1979, instead of serving from 1974-78.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Thursday was found guilty on all 34 felony counts in his criminal hush money trial.

It was the first time a former U.S. president was ever tried or convicted in a criminal case, and was the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial.

Prosecutors accused Trump of falsifying internal business records to cover up hush money payments tied to an alleged scheme to bury stories that might torpedo his 2016 White House bid.

At the heart of the charges were reimbursements paid to Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in exchange for not going public with her claim about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.

Prosecutors said the reimbursements were falsely logged as “legal expenses” to hide the true nature of the transactions.

The charges Trump faces are punishable by up to four years in prison. He has denied any wrongdoing and had pleaded not guilty.

Judge Juan M. Merchan has set Trump’s sentencing for July 11.

Currently:

— Trump’s hush money case has gone to the jury. What happens now?

— Highlights from the first day of jury deliberations

— Rallies and debates used to define campaigns. Now they’re about juries and trials

— Trump hush money case: A timeline of key events

Here’s the latest:

UNLESS HE’S SENT TO PRISON, TRUMP CAN STILL VOTE

Donald Trump may have been convicted of a felony and reside in Florida, a state notorious for restricting the voting rights of felons, but he can still vote as long as he stays out of prison in New York state.

That’s because Florida defers to other states’ disenfranchisement rules for residents convicted of out-of-state felonies. In Trump’s case, New York law only removes their right to vote when incarcerated. Once they’re out of prison, their rights are automatically restored — even if they’re on parole, per a 2021 law passed by the state’s Democratic legislature.

“If a Floridian’s voting rights are restored in the state of conviction, they are restored under Florida law,” Blair Bowie of the Campaign Legal Center wrote in a post explaining the state of law, noting that people without Trump’s legal resources are often confused by Florida’s complex rules.

BIDEN’S COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR REACTS TO VERDICT

President Joe Biden’s campaign sought to keep the focus on the November election even as it said Thursday that former President Donald Trump’s criminal conviction showed that “that no one is above the law.”

Communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement: “There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”

Biden himself has yet to weigh in on the verdict. He is spending the night at his family’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after marking the anniversary of his son Beau’s death earlier Thursday at church in Wilmington.

Biden’s campaign has tried for months to remind Americans of what it sees as the peril of another Trump term in office, rather than the personal jeopardy faced by the former president in court.

“A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans’ freedoms and fomenting political violence — and the American people will reject it this November,” Tyler said.

CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS SWIFTLY CONDEMN VERDICT

Trump allies released a flurry of statements just minutes after the jury’s decision in Donald Trump’s hush money case was announced.

“The verdict in New York is a complete travesty that makes a mockery of our system of justice,” Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is a potential vice president pick, posted on the social platform X.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican who is second in line to the presidency, in a statement called the trial “a purely political exercise, not a legal one.” Johnson added: “President Trump will rightfully appeal this absurd verdict—and he WILL WIN!”

Ahead of the jury announcing a verdict, one Republican urged people to respect the legal process.

Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland who is now running for the Senate, wrote on X that “all leaders—regardless of party—must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.”

SENTENCING SCHEDULED FOR JULY

Judge Juan M. Merchan has scheduled Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case for July 11, just days before Republicans are set to select him as the 2024 presidential nominee.

JUDGE DENIES DEFENSE’S POST-VERDICT REQUEST TO ACQUIT TRUMP

Defense lawyers in Donald Trump’s hush money trial moved for an acquittal of the former president after the jury had delivered its verdict.

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche told Judge Juan M. Merchan: “We move for a judgment of acquittal.”

“There’s no basis and no way this jury could have reached a verdict without accepting the testimony of Michael Cohen,” Blanche said.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass rebutted the assertion, saying “We, of course, disagree with Mr. Blanche’s characterization of Michael Cohen’s testimony.”

Merchan denied the motion.

JURY FINDS TRUMP GUILTY ON ALL CHARGES

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial has found him guilty on all of the charges against him.

A LAST-MINUTE CHANGE OF PLANS

The “hurry up and wait” beat of jury deliberations in Donald Trump’s hush money trial has given way to anticipatory tension — and some surprise. The jury transmitted the news that it reached a verdict by note to Judge Juan M. Merchan at 4:20 p.m. on Thursday, just few minutes after he’d announced to the courtroom — minus the jury — that court would adjourn at 4:30 p.m. barring a verdict.

Merchan said his plan was to allow jurors to keep working until that time and then send them home to start fresh on Friday.

Moments later, that plan went out the window. The verdict will be read in court soon.

TRUMP WAITS FOR READING OF VERDICT

Donald Trump is now sitting in the courtroom with his arms folded across his chest as he awaits the reading of the verdict in his hush money trial.

JURY REACHE
S A VERDICT AND REQUESTS EXTRA TIME TO FINALIZE FORMS

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money case has reached a verdict. It asked for and additional 30 minutes to fill out the form.

JURY WILL DELIBERATE UNTIL 4:30 P.M. THURSDAY, JUDGE SAYS

Judge Juan Merchan announced jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial will continue deliberating until 4:30 p.m. and then, if they haven’t reached a verdict, they will be sent home for the day and resume their work on Friday.

Merchan summoned Trump, his lawyers and prosecutors to the courtroom to inform them of his scheduling plans. The former president told reporters in the hallway before entering, “I want to campaign.”

Once inside, he surveyed the crowd as he walked to his seat at the defense table. His son Eric returned to his place in the gallery behind the defense table.

Following the judge’s announcement, Trump and one of his attorneys, Todd Blanche, had an animated, whispered exchange, but Blanche was smiling.

IN A COURTROOM DEVOID OF JUDGE AND JURY, REPORTERS WAIT FOR NEWS

As deliberations wear on in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, it’s a bit of the old adage “hurry up and wait” at the New York courthouse.

With the jury working in secret in a separate room, and Trump and his team holed up elsewhere in the building, reporters remain in the courtroom waiting for word — or rather the sound — of a new development.

Each time the jury has a question — and eventually, if it reaches a verdict — it must send a note to the judge. The way it signals that it has a note is by ringing a bell that blares in the courtroom. The sound is akin to that of an old telephone or alarm clock.

So far Thursday, the bell hasn’t rung at all. It tolled twice within an hour on Wednesday signaling notes from the jury to have certain testimony read to them along with a portion of the jury instructions.

That’s made for a somewhat surreal scene in the normally bustling Manhattan courtroom. The front of the room where the action happens is empty, save for a few court officers and staff: no judge, no prosecutors, no defense team, no former president, and certainly no jurors.

The room that reverberated with dramatic testimony and tense arguments over the last six weeks is now eerily quiet, save for the clicks of laptop keys and the din of chatter amongst reporters and members of the public sitting, watching and waiting for the bell to ring.

NORTH DAKOTA’S BURGUM SEEN OUTSIDE OF MANHATTAN COURTROOM

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, seen as one of the potential running mates for Donald Trump, was outside the courthouse in Manhattan on Thursday doing television interviews.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is being tried on 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Burgum was among the Republican officials who accompanied Trump to court in recent weeks as a show of support, but he was not seen inside court with him Thursday.

Also seen outside the courthouse was Trump senior campaign advisor Jason Miller. He said Trump is “doing great” when asked how the former president was doing while waiting for the jury to deliberate. Miller is among the aides who accompanied Trump on Thursday.

The former president is accused of falsifying internal Trump Organization records as part of a scheme to bury damaging stories that he feared could hurt his 2016 campaign, particularly as Trump’s reputation was suffering at the time from comments he had made about women.

The courtroom has closed for lunch. Proceedings resume at 2:15 p.m.

TRUMP PROCLAIMS INNOCENCE AS JURY DELIBERATES

Former President Donald Trump is continuing to rail against his hush-money trial and proclaim his innocence.

“I DID NOTHING WRONG! IN FACT, I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT,” he wrote on Truth Social. “The testimony in Court was amazing for the Defense!”

Trump has pleaded not guilty.

The jury began its second day of deliberations on Thursday. The panel is deciding whether to convict or acquit Trump of some, all or none of the felony counts he’s charged with.

The former president is accused of falsifying internal Trump Organization records as part of a scheme to bury damaging stories that he feared could hurt his 2016 campaign, particularly as Trump’s reputation was suffering at the time from comments he had made about women.

JURORS ARE SENT TO RESUME DELIBERATIONS

Jurors have been sent to resume deliberations in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial after rehearing testimony from key witnesses.

The 12 jurors reheard portions of testimony given by former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker as well as Michael Cohen.

The jury deliberated for about 4 1/2 hours Wednesday without reaching a verdict. Before day’s end, they asked to rehear testimony from the tabloid publisher, and Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer. On Thursday morning, the judge responded to a jury request by rereading 30 pages of jury instructions related to how inferences may be drawn from evidence.

Trump faces 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

A guilty verdict would deliver a stunning legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as Trump seeks to reclaim the White House.

JURY REHEARS PORTIONS OF TESTIMONY FROM NATIONAL ENQUIRER PUBLISHER

After roughly a half hour of rehearing some of the judge’s legal instructions, jurors in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial listened to something else they requested: portions of testimony from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.

Court stenographers reread both witnesses’ testimony about an August 2015 Trump Tower meeting at which Pecker agreed to publish articles that favored then-candidate Trump and assailed his opponents and to serve as the campaign’s “eyes and ears” for potentially damaging stories and rumors so they could be suppressed.

The jury also asked to rehear Pecker’s testimony about a phone call he says he had with Trump about a hush money deal that the National Enquirer’s parent company made with former Playboy model Karen McDougal, and about Pecker’s his decision not to sell the rights to McDougal’s story to Trump.

She claimed she had an affair with Trump, which he denies.

Trump faces 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

JURORS REHEAR INSTRUCTIONS RELATING TO MICHAEL COHEN’S TESTIMONY

The 12 jurors who are weighing the evidence in Donald Trump’s ‘hush-money’ trial have reheard instructions relating to Michael Cohen’s testimony.

It was one of many instructions jurors asked Judge Juan M. Merchan to reread on Thursday, the second day of jury deliberations.

Trump fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen is crucial to the prosecution’s case against Trump, jurors were reminded that they can’t convict the former president on Cohen’s word alone.

“Under our law, Michael Cohen is an accomplice,” and a defendant can’t be convicted of any crime based only on the testimony of an accomplice unless it is supported by corroborative evidence,” Merchan said.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records.

LARA TRUMP: TRUMP WILL TRY TO CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENCY EVEN IF HE’S CONVICTED

It appears that — if he is convicted — a guilty verdict won’t stop presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump from trying to reclaim the White House.

That is according to Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump.

Lara Trump serves as co-chair of the Republican National Committee. She told Fox News Channel on Thursday that Trump would still try to campaign for the presidency if he’s convicted. Trump faces 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Lara Trump said if Trump is convicted and given a sentence of home confinement, “We will have him doing virtual rallies and campaign events if that is the case. And we’ll have to play the hand that we’re dealt,” according to a transcript of the interview.

The 34 counts against Trump are all the same charge, a low-level felony punishable by up to four years in prison, though it’s not clear that the judge would opt to put Trump behind bars if the jury convicts him.

Other punishments could include a fine or probation.

JUDGE REREADS INSTRUCTIONS TO JURORS IN TRUMP’S ‘HUSH-MONEY’ TRIAL

The 12 jurors weighing the fate of Donald Trump in his ‘hush-money’ trial listened intently as Judge Juan M. Merchan reread a portion of his instructions.

The jurors, who asked for instructions to be reread, began their second day of deliberations Thursday.

The jury deliberated for about 4 1/2 hours Wednesday without reaching a verdict. Before day’s end, they asked to rehear testimony from a tabloid publisher and Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, and on Thursday morning, the judge responded to a jury request by rereading 30 pages of jury instructions related to how inferences may be drawn from evidence.

Trump faces 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

A guilty verdict would deliver a stunning legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as Trump seeks to reclaim the White House.

At the heart of the charges are reimbursements paid to Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in exchange for not going public with her claim about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.

JURY SET TO BEGIN SECOND DAY OF DELIBERATIONS

The jury that is set to determine guilt or innocence in Donald Trump’s ‘hush-money’ trial in Manhattan has asked for headphones that can plug into a laptop computer provided to jurors so they can listen to the recordings that were put into evidence.

Presiding Judge Juan M. Merchan has also suggested that a speaker could be provided so that jurors can listen to the audio together.

Merchan asked jury members to decide which option they preferred on Thursday morning, at the start of the second day of their deliberations. Deliberations began Wednesday in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president. The seven-man, five-woman panel is tasked with deciding whether Trump is guilty of any of 34 felony counts of falsifying his company’s records.

Prosecutors say Trump falsified the records to veil reimbursements to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen, who had paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign not to air her claim that she and Trump had sex a decade earlier.

The former president and presumptive Republican nominee has pleaded not guilty.

DONALD TRUMP ARRIVES AT COURTHOUSE IN MANHATTAN

Donald Trump has arrived at the courthouse in Manhattan where jury deliberations in his ‘hush-money’ trial are getting underway.

At the heart of the charges are reimbursements paid to Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in exchange for not going public with her claim about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.

“Here we go again,” the former president said outside the courtroom, adding that he can’t talk about the case as much as he wants to.

“There was no fraud, there was no conspiracy,” he said.

Minutes later, Trump walked into the courtroom clutching a sheet of paper as he surveyed the gallery of reporters and public observers. His son Eric Trump is among the entourage of lawyers and aides that followed him in.

DONALD TRUMP HEADS TO COURT IN MANHATTAN

Former President Donald Trump has left Trump Tower. His motorcade headed to the courthouse in Manhattan, where he will await a verdict in his ‘hush-money’ case.

Jury deliberations begin Thursday for a second day.

At the heart of the charges are reimbursements paid to Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in exchange for not going public with her claim about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.

A LOOK BACK AT MEMORABLE APPEARANCES DURING TRUMP’S DAYS IN COURT

Earlier this week, President Joe Biden’s campaign showed up outside of Donald Trump’s trial with actor Robert De Niro and a pair of former police officers.

Even as Trump and his aides denounce the trial as politically motivated, he has been working to turn the proceedings into an offshoot of his presidential campaign. He’s used his time in front of the cameras outside the courtroom to criticize Biden and showcase a parade of his own political supporters.

Some notable appearances at Trump’s trial include House Speaker Mike Johnson, former GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

WHAT A VERDICT COULD MEAN FOR TRUMP

A guilty verdict would deliver a stunning legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as Donald Trump seeks to reclaim the White House.

An acquittal would represent a major win for Trump and embolden him on the campaign trail.

Since verdicts must be unanimous, it’s also possible the case ends in a mistrial if the jury can’t reach a consensus after days of deliberations.

Trump struck a pessimistic tone after leaving the courtroom following the reading of jury instructions, repeating his assertions of a “very unfair trial” and saying: “Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we’ll see. We’ll see how we do.”

WHO IS ON THE JURY?

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial is comprised of 18 Manhattan residents.

The main jury includes seven men and five women. There are also six alternate jurors who’ve listened to the testimony, but won’t join in the deliberations unless one of the main jurors needs to drop out or is removed.

The jury represents a diverse cross-section of the borough and come from various professional backgrounds, including a sales professional, a software engineer, a security engineer, a teacher, a speech therapist, multiple lawyers, an investment banker and a retired wealth manager.

Jurors’ names are being kept from the public.

WHAT MUST BE PROVED FOR A CONVICTION?

Jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial are expected to begin deliberations on Wednesday after receiving instructions from the judge on the law that governs the case and what they can consider as they strive toward a verdict in the first criminal case against a former U.S. president.

The panel has a weighty task ahead of them — deciding whether to convict or acquit Trump of some, all or none of the 34 felony counts he’s charged with.

But what had to be proved for a conviction?

To convict Trump of felony falsifying business records, prosecutors had to convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that he not only falsified or caused business records to be entered falsely but also did so with intent to commit or conceal another crime. Any verdict must be unanimous.

THE JURY HAS BEEN SENT TO DELIBERATE. WHAT EXACTLY DOES THAT MEAN?

Jury deliberations proceed in secret, in a room reserved specifically for jurors and through an intentionally opaque process.

Jurors can communicate with the court through notes that ask the judge, for instance, for legal guidance or to have particular excerpts of testimony read back to them. But without knowing what jurors are saying to each other, it’s hard to read too much into the meaning of any note.

It’s anyone’s guess how long the jury in Donald Trump’s hush money case will deliberate for and there’s no time limit either. The jury must evaluate 34 counts of falsifying business records and that could take some time. A verdict might not come by the end of the week.

To reach a verdict on any given count, either guilty or not guilty, all 12 jurors must agree with the decision for the judge to accept it.

Slovenia’s government endorsed a motion Thursday to recognize a Palestinian state and asked the parliament to do the same. It comes just two days after Spain, Norway and Ireland recognized a Palestinian state, a move that was condemned by Israel.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians in the border city of Rafah have reported heavy fighting in recent days as Israel’s military widens its offensive in the south, seizing control of the entire length of Gaza’s border with Egypt.

Beyond Rafah, Israeli forces were still battling militants in parts of Gaza that the military said it wrested control of months ago — potential signs of a low-level insurgency that could keep Israeli troops engaged in the territory.

Fighting in Rafah has spurred more than 1 million Palestinians to flee, most of whom had already been displaced earlier in the war. They now seek refuge in makeshift tent camps and other war-ravaged areas, where they lack shelter, food, water and other essentials for survival, the U.N. says.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that 53 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours, as well as 357 wounded people.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.

Currently:

— Slovenia’s government endorses recognition of a Palestinian state.

— The U.S.-built pier in Gaza broke apart. Here’s how we got here and what might be next.

— China leader Xi Jinping pledges more Gaza aid at a summit with Arab leaders.

— A ship attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels was full of grain bound for Iran, the group’s main benefactor.

— Israel says it’s taken control of a key area of Gaza’s border with Egypt that’s awash in smuggling tunnels.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

Here’s the latest:

U.S. MILITARY HAS NOT AIRDROPPED AID INTO GAZA SINCE MAY 9, BLAMES FIGHTING AND WEATHER

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Central Command says the military has not airdropped humanitarian aid into Gaza since May 9, with a Pentagon spokesperson blaming weather and Israel’s offensive in the southern city of Rafah.

The lack of U.S. airdrops comes as a U.S.-built pier to deliver aid by sea broke apart in strong winds and heavy seas just over a week after it became operational.

“The solution is to open the land routes,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said Thursday. “We need to see those land routes open. We need to see more trucks getting in.”

Gaza’s land crossings are now entirely controlled by Israel. Fighting in Rafah has made it nearly impossible for humanitarian groups to import and distribute aid to southern Gaza, and the Rafah crossing with Egypt has been closed since it was seized by Israeli forces on May 6.

The Israeli military says it has allowed hundreds of trucks to enter through its nearby Kerem Shalom crossing during the Rafah operation, but aid groups say it’s extremely difficult to access that aid on the Gaza side because of the fighting.

Although strong winds and weather have been an issue for the airdrops, the ongoing challenge is the Rafah operation in Gaza’s south, Singh said.

“We cannot do some airdrops when the IDF is conducting operations,” she said, using an acronym for the Israeli military. “We don’t want civilians running into an active battlespace. So there hasn’t been airdrops recently.”

Amid clear skies Thursday, a Jordanian-flagged military cargo plane could be seen airdropping aid to the city of Khan Younis in central Gaza.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are dependent on the aid to survive, and U.N. officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine. The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for two of Israel’s top leaders for allegedly using starvation as a weapon of war and other crimes related to the fight against Hamas in Gaza.

U.N. WARNS ISRAEL’S RAFAH OPERATION IS SEVERELY RESTRICTING THE FLOW OF AID

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. food agency is warning that Israel’s military operation in Gaza’s southern Rafah area has severely restricted aid deliveries and risks causing the same “catastrophic levels of hunger” seen in northern Gaza.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Thursday that the World Food Program is also reporting that hunger levels in central and southern Gaza “are deteriorating fast.”

WFP is calling for all crossing points to be opened to get desperately needed food and other humanitarian aid into Gaza “as the Israeli incursion in Rafah continues to have a devastating impact on civilians and on humanitarian operations,” the spokesman said.

WFP also reports there is little the Rome-based agency can do in Rafah, “with stocks very low and mobility severely restricted,” Dujarric said.

The U.N. spokesman said humanitarian officials report that aid workers are facing movement restrictions, including to border areas, and repeated denials of access and delays including to collect supplies from the Kerem Shalom crossing on the Gaza side “which is in an area where fighting continues to escalate.”

“We need Israeli authorities to swiftly facilitate access to the crossing so that aid workers can safely reach the crossing to pick up supplies,” Dujarric said. “We also need safe and unimpeded passage to distribute that assistance to scale to people in need, wherever they may need it in Gaza.”

He stressed that providing humanitarian assistance in a war zone requires security for aid workers and also requires “passable roads, adequate fuel, reliable communications, and sustained access.”

JERUSALEM HOLDS LGBTQ+ PRIDE PARADE AS OTHER CITIES SCALE BACK FESTIVITIES AMID WAR IN GAZA

JERUSALEM — Tens of thousands of people marched in Jerusalem’s annual Pride Parade carrying rainbow flags through the streets of the city. Thursday’s parade kicked off a month of events for the LGBTQ+ communities across Israel.

Many other cities and towns, including Tel Aviv, which usually throws a raucous weeklong party, opted to scale down their events due to the war in Gaza. Organizers in Jerusalem said that it was especially important to hold the parade this year because minorities are often inordinately impacted by emergencies.

“This is a way for the queer community to acknowledge we are here for anyone,” said Eldad, a participant in the Jerusalem parade who declined to share their last name.

At the front of the parade was a rainbow banner reading “Born to be free” carried by members of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a grassroots group that advocates for returning the hostages in Gaza. Other marchers held signs with anti-war messages in English and Hebrew with slogans such as “No Pride in War & Occupation.”

The march in the conservative city is always tense and tightly secured by police, and has been wracked by violence in the past. Police said around 2,000 officers were deployed along the route.

About a dozen people protested against the parade, including Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Aryeh King, who denounced the parade as being part of an “anti-God” agenda.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SAYS ISRAEL’S RAFAH OFFENSIVE STILL ISN’T A ‘MAJOR OPERATION’

WASHINGTON — Israel’s widening offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah has yet to amount to a “major operation” in the eyes of the Biden administration, a U.S. State Department spokesman said Thursday.

Deputy spokesman Vedant Patel was responding to questions about what actions in Israel’s 3-week-old Rafah offensive would cross the “red lines” that the Biden administration had earlier warned Israel about regarding a full-fledged invasion of the city.

“The truth of the facts on the ground is that we have yet to see a major operation into Rafah,” Patel told reporters Thursday. “We have been clear about what this isn’t, which is a major military operation.”

Israel has deepened its incursion into Rafah, and intensifying violence in recent days has killed scores of Palestinians. The military said a fifth brigade — up to several thousand soldiers — joined troops operating in the city on Tuesday.

The U.S. continued to urge Israel to allow humanitarian access and spare civilians, Patel said.

Biden administration officials had issued repeated warnings before the Rafah operation expanded that the U.S. could cut the supply of some offensive weapons to Israel if Israeli forces struck population centers in Rafah.

It’s unclear how many civilians are still in Rafah. At least 1 million people have fled since Israel launched its offensive into the city, which was crowded with roughly 1.3 million Palestinians, most of whom were already displaced from other parts of Gaza.

The top U.N. court ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah last week as part of South Africa’s case accusing Israel of committing a genocide against the Palestinians. Israel strongly denies the charges.

Administration officials have largely declined comment on reports of Israeli tanks moving into the center of Rafah and the Philadelphi corridor along the border with Egypt, saying they have no on-the-ground knowledge of the circumstances.

Officials have expressed sorrow at recent days’ deadly strikes on tent camps housing displaced Palestinians, but said they await the full results of Israeli investigations.

SWEDEN ACCUSES IRAN OF USING GANGS TO TARGET ISRAELI OR JEWISH INTERESTS

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — The Swedish domestic security agency has accused Iran of using established criminal networks in Sweden as a proxy to target Israeli or Jewish interests in the Scandinavian country.

The accusations were raised at a news conference Thursday by Daniel Stenling, the head of the SAPO agency’s counterespionage unit. Stenling, without offering specifics or evidence to back up his assertion, said the agency “can establish that criminal networks in Sweden are used as a proxy by Iran.”

“It is very much about planning and attempts to carry out attacks against Israeli and Jewish interests, goals and activities in Sweden,” he said, adding that the agency sees “connections between criminal individuals in the criminal networks and individuals who are connected to the Iranian security services.”

Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer and Hampus Nygårds, deputy head of the Swedish police’s National Operations Department, were also at the online news conference.

Stenling and the others made no mention of the recent episodes connected to the Israel Embassy in Stockholm and stopped short of naming any criminal groups or suspects.

In late January, the Israeli Embassy was sealed off after what was then described as “a dangerous object” was found on the grounds of the diplomatic mission. Swedish media said the object was a hand grenade.

The embassy was not evacuated and the object was eventually destroyed. No arrests were made and authorities did not say what was found. On May 17, gunshots were heard near the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm and the area was cordoned off. No one was arrested.

Sweden has grappled with gang violence for years and criminal gangs often recruit teenagers in socially disadvantaged immigrant neighborhoods.

ISRAELI WAR CABINET MEMBER BENNY GANTZ’S PARTY MOVES TO FORCE EARLY ELECTIONS

TEL AVIV — Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz’s centrist party has called for a vote to dissolve the parliament in an attempt to force early elections.

Thursday’s announcement deepens a divide in Israel’s leadership more than seven months into a war. But it appears unlikely to threaten the current parliament. Even to put the request on the agenda requires majority consent from parliament, which would need at least five members of the governing coalition to defect and vote in favor.

Parliament member Pnina Tamano-Shata, the head of the National Unity party, submitted a bill on Thursday to dissolve the Knesset.

“Oct. 7 was a tragedy the requires us to come back and receive the trust of the people, and to create a wider, stable unity government that can lead us safely against the immense challenges in security, economy, and especially – Israeli society,” Tamano-Shata said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party denounced the bill, saying it was a “prize for (Hamas leader Yahya) Sinwar, a surrender to international pressure, and a fatal blow to efforts to release the hostages.”

Last week, Gantz threatened to resign from the government if Netanyahu does not put forth a new plan for the war in Gaza by June 8. His departure would leave Netanyahu more beholden to far-right allies who believe Israel should occupy Gaza and rebuild Jewish settlements there.

SLOVENIA’S GOVERNMENT ENDORSES RECOGNITION OF PALESTINIAN STATE

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — Slovenia’s government on Thursday endorsed a motion to recognize a Palestinian state and asked the parliament to do the same.

The decision by Slovenia’s government comes just two days after Spain, Norway and Ireland recognized a Palestinian state, a move that was condemned by Israel.

Prime Minister Robert Golob said that his government sent the recognition proposal to parliament, which could convene as early as next week.

“All the world should act in the direction of peace,” Golob said after the government session. “The way to achieve peace is a two-state solution.”

“The decision is not directed against anyone, not even Israel, but that it is a message of peace,” he added as the Palestinian flag was displayed on the government headquarters in Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital.

Parliamentary approval is necessary for the move to take effect. Golob’s ruling liberal coalition has a comfortable majority in the 90-member assembly and the vote should be a formality.

With its move, Slovenia is set to become the 10th member of the 27-nation European Union to officially recognize a Palestinian state. Norway isn’t an EU member, but its foreign policy is usually aligned with the bloc.

Slovenia first began the recognition process in early May, but said it would wait until the situation in the ongoing Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza improved.

Golob said this week that he was expediting the process in reaction to Israel’s latest attacks on Rafah, which have caused more than 1 million Palestinians to flee.

More than 140 countries recognize a Palestinian state — more than two-thirds of the United Nations.

SURVEY IN MARCH, APRIL FOUND MOST ISRAELIS BELIEVED CAMPAIGN AGAINST HAMAS WAS RIGHT OR NOT FAR ENOUGH

WASHINGTON — A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late winter and early spring shows a majority of Israelis believed at the time that the Israeli military campaign against Hamas in Gaza was either about right or hadn’t gone far enough.

The poll, released Thursday, was conducted in March and early April. That was before the Israeli military offensive in the southern city of Rafah and renewed operations in parts of Gaza’s north after Hamas militants resurfaced there.

The survey shows that roughly two-thirds of Israelis expressed confidence at the time that Israel will either probably (27%) or definitely (40%) achieve its goals against Hamas.

However, majorities of Israeli adults were worried about some aspects of the conflict: 61% said they were extremely or very concerned about fighting spreading in the region, and 68% said they were extremely or very concerned about the war going on for a long time.

Forty percent of Israelis then thought that Israel should govern the Gaza Strip, while 12% thought the Palestinian Authority should. Fourteen percent thought the people of Gaza should decide that.

At the time, only 26% of Israelis said that Israel and an independent Palestinian state could coexist peacefully. That’s down from 35% last year before the war, and about half as many who thought so when the question was asked in 2013.

The survey questioned 1,001 adults between March 3 and April 4. It has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

ISRAELI MILITARY SAYS IT IS REVIEWING EVENTS THAT KILLED 2 PALESTINIAN RED CRESCENT WORKERS

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military said Thursday that it was reviewing events that killed two workers with the Palestinian Red Crescent in the Gaza city of Rafah.

The Gaza Health Ministry said the two medics were killed Wednesday when the ambulance they were traveling in to evacuate casualties came under Israeli fire.

The Israeli military said a “suspicious vehicle” approached soldiers, posing “a threat” to the forces. A tank then fired at the vehicle, the military said in a statement. The statement did not specify whether the vehicle was an ambulance.

The area of Rafah, where Israel is deepening its offensive, has seen intensifying fighting in recent days that has killed dozens of Palestinians.

Israel has come under fierce international criticism for the high civilian death toll during the war. Scores of aid and medical workers have also been killed. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 19 workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began.

Israel accuses Hamas of embedding itself in civilian areas and using ambulances to transport its members.

MORE THAN 4,000 PALLETS OF AID REACH GAZA FROM CYPRUS WITH THOUSANDS MORE PLANNED

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Over 4,000 pallets of humanitarian aid have been shipped from Cyprus to Gaza via the U.S-built pier and causeway offshore the Palestinian territory, a Cypriot official said Thursday.

Spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said Thursday some 14,000 pallets of aid have been collected in the east Mediterranean island nation for eventual shipment to Gaza as part of the maritime aid corridor initiative. Of the 4,134 pallets that have already reached Gaza, approximately half have been picked up by humanitarian aid groups for distribution to civilians in need. The other half has been offloaded and stored.

The aid includes food, hygiene items, shelters and pharmaceuticals. Donor countries include the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy and Romania. Other donors include the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism and the U.N.’s World Food Program and the International Organization for Migration.

The Cypriot official said the initiative that started May 9 is ongoing, with ships still departing with loads of aid, despite the recent damage to part of the U.S.-built pier that suspended operations. The pier is expected to come back on line by the middle of next week.

POLICE CLEAR OUT A PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTER TENT CAMP AT A UNIVERSITY IN SWEDEN

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Swedish police cleared out a tent camp Thursday outside a southern Sweden university where pro-Palestinian students have been camping since May 16.

Police say that some 40 people are suspected of disobeying law enforcement during the early morning action and video shows police carrying away people who refused to leave the area outside Lund University.

Swedish broadcaster SVT said that there were about 100 people in the camp.

In a statement, police said everything has gone smoothly.

In recent weeks, there have been campus protests by pro-Palestinian activists across Europe and in the United States as some called for a break in academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza.

2 SOLDIERS KILLED IN CAR-RAMMING ATTACK IN THE WEST BANK, ISRAELI MILITARY SAYS

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military said Thursday that two soldiers were killed in a car-ramming attack in the occupied West Bank.

The military said it received a report late Wednesday about the ramming near the Palestinian city of Nablus. The military said the attacker fled the scene and that soldiers had launched a search for him.

On Thursday, the military said the soldiers who were struck had died and that top military officials conducted an initial inquiry into the attack.

Israeli Army Radio reported that the attacker had turned himself in to Palestinian security forces, which could not immediately be confirmed.

Violence in the West Bank has surged throughout the war in Gaza. Israel has been conducting raids into Palestinian cities and towns in the territory to crack down on militancy and the incursions have led to the deaths of more than 500 Palestinians. Most of those killed have been in clashes with the military. But people throwing stones as well as others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.

Palestinian attacks against Israelis have also been on the rise in the territory.

CHINA PLEDGES MORE AID FOR GAZA DURING THE OPENING OF ITS SUMMIT WITH ARAB STATES

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated calls for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and promised more humanitarian aid for people in Gaza as he opened a summit with leaders of Arab states Thursday in Beijing.

“Since last October, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has escalated drastically, throwing people into tremendous suffering,” Xi said in a speech opening the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum. “War should not continue indefinitely.”

He restated China’s backing of a two-state solution and pledged 500 million yuan ($69 million) in humanitarian aid for Gaza. He also promised to donate $3 million to a United Nations agency that provides assistance and relief to refugees of the Israel-Hamas war.

Beijing and the Arab states back Palestinians in the conflict, where Israel is facing growing international condemnation after its strike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah in which at least 45 people were killed over the weekend. The overall Palestinian death toll in the war exceeds 36,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Beijing has long backed Palestinians and denounced Israel over its settlements in the occupied territories. It has not criticized the initial Hamas attack on Oct. 7 — which killed about 1,200 people — while the United States and others have called it an act of terrorism. However, China has growing economic ties with Israel.

IRAN OPENS REGISTRATION FOR PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS AHEAD OF JUNE 28 ELECTION

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran opened a five-day registration period Thursday for hopefuls wanting to run in the June 28 presidential election to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash earlier this month with seven others.

The five-day period will see those between the ages of 40 to 75 with at least a master’s degree register as potential candidates. All candidates ultimately must be approved by Iran’s 12-member Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists ultimately overseen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, who maintains final say over all matters of state.

The panel has never accepted a woman, nor anyone calling for radical change within the country’s governance.

Who will run — and potentially be accepted — remains in question. The country’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, a previously behind-the-scenes bureaucrat, could be a front-runner, because he’s already been seen meeting with Khamenei. Also discussed as possible aspirants are former hard-line President Mohammad Ahmadinejad and former reformist President Mohammad Khatami — but whether they’d be allowed to run is another question.

The five-day registration period will close on Tuesday. The Guardian Council is expected to issue its final list of candidates within 10 days afterwards. That will allow for a shortened two-week campaign before the vote in late June.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico goes into Sunday’s election deeply divided: friends and relatives no longer talk politics for fear of worsening unbridgeable divides, while drug cartels have split the country into a patchwork quilt of warring fiefdoms. The atmosphere is literally heating up, amid a wave of unusual heat, drought, pollution and political violence.

It’s unclear whether Mexico’s next president will be able to rein in the underlying violence and polarization.

Soledad Echagoyen, a Mexico City doctor who supports President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party, says she can no longer talk about politics with her colleagues.

“In order to not lose friendships, we decided not to bring up politics starting six years ago, because we were arguing, and the attacks started to get personal,” said Dr. Echagoyen.

Being a critic of the current administration does not appear to be easier.

“There’s too much hate,” said Mexico City student Luis Ávalos, 21. He said some of his friends accuse him of “betraying the country” for not supporting López Obrador.

Opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez has focused her ire on López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” policy of not confronting the drug cartels.

She faces former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who is running for López Obrador’s Morena party. Sheinbaum, who leads in the race, has promised to continue all of López Obrador’s policies.

López Obrador himself likes to depict every issue as a struggle between the forces of the “good people” and shadowy conservative conspiracies, and he has done a lot to stoke the flames of division and anger.

“More than an election, this is a referendum to choose the kind of country we want,” López Obrador said recently. And it really is a referendum on him: he — much like Donald Trump in the United States — is the central figure in the campaign.

In Mexico, just as across the globe, forces of angry, charismatic populism are fighting it out with an income-polarized liberal democracy. Issues of national identity, the influence of foreigners and economic exclusion have divided the country into warring camps.

“In this country, what’s being built isn’t a sense of citizenship, but rather of voter bases,” said Gloria Alcocer, the director of the civic-minded magazine Voz y Voto, roughly “Voice and Vote.” López Obrador is prohibited by law from running for reelection to another six-year term.

The battle lines are drawn: the ruling Morena Party already holds the governorships of 23 of the country’s 32 states, and is going for them all. It already has a simple majority in both houses of Congress, and wants a two-thirds majority so it can amend the Constitution at will.

It is hard to describe how chilling that is for some Mexicans who spent more than four decades trying to build a formal democracy, with checks and balances, watchdog agencies and strict electoral rules, almost all of which Morena has said it would like to defund or eliminate if it gets the chance.

Like the old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party — which held Mexico’s presidency without interruption for a record 70 years — Morena hasn’t hesitated to use the government’s power to influence elections, hand out money or embark on big building schemes that may never be truly finished.

But it’s also hard to describe how attractive López Obrador policies have been for many Mexicans who have felt excluded under 40 years of what he calls “neo-liberal,” market-oriented administrations.

Under López Obrador, Mexico has more than doubled its still-tragically low minimum wage (now about $15 per day, or about $2 per hour). While that’s not going to change anybody’s life — a Big Mac now costs about $5.19 in Mexico, compared to an average of $5.69 in the U.S. — it is the underlying appeal of Morena’s platform that draws many voters.

The implicit message for many Mexicans during market-oriented governments over the decades was that they were somehow wrong for not learning more English, working in manual labor and not in the tech economy, receiving government subsidies and living in a traditional, family-dominated culture.

López Obrador turned this narrative on its head: he intentionally mispronounces English phrases, glorifies manual labor, says subsidies are good, favors state-run companies and says Mexico is strong precisely because of its family values and Indigenous culture: he has even claimed those same values make Mexicans immune to drug addiction.

López Obrador says fighting the drug cartels — which have taken over large swaths of Mexico, extorting protection money from all walks of life — is a foreign idea, one imposed on Mexico by the United States. He has opted instead for a “hugs not bullets” approach and limiting cooperation with U.S. authorities in fighting the gangs.

Sheinbaum is an academic who lacks López Obrador’s charisma, folksy style and mass appeal. She says her administration will follow the outgoing president’s policies, but with more data to back up her decisions.

Gálvez, a woman who went from a poor Indigenous town to starting her own tech firm, has been the wild card in the race: her plain-spoken, folksy approach has produced both punchy phrases and monumental gaffes. Both women are 61. A third little-known male candidate from a small party has trailed far behind both women.

Sunday’s elections — which will also decide congressional seats and thousands of local posts — are different from those of the past in other ways.

About 27 candidates — mostly running for mayor or town councils — have been killed so far this year. While that number is not much higher than in some past elections, what is unprecedented is the mass shootings: candidates used to be murdered in direct attacks that killed only them, but now criminals have taken to spraying whole campaign events with gunfire.

And, as international studies professor Carlos A. Pérez Ricart notes, “where there are no shootings, it’s because (local government) institutions have already been taken over” by the cartels.

Mexico has also been baking under a heat wave so intense that howler monkeys have literally been dropping dead from the trees. Almost all of the country is suffering some level of water shortage and air pollution has been so bad in the capital, that a fifth of the cars have been banned from driving.

All of that is not exactly helping cool tempers or drawing people toward reconciliation. In the present scenario, perhaps the only positive thing is that it doesn’t appear the election will be particularly tight.

“This country couldn’t really handle a narrow margin of victory,” said Pérez Ricart. “We are lacking true democrats on both sides.”

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of global elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/global-elections/

Boeing officials explained their plan to improve manufacturing quality and safety during a three-hour meeting Thursday with federal officials, who will continue restrictions they placed on the company after one of its jetliners suffered a blowout of a fuselage panel in January.

Federal Aviation Administration chief Mike Whitaker said the plan is comprehensive and includes encouraging Boeing employees to speak up about safety concerns.

“This is a guide for a new way for Boeing to do business.” Whitaker told reporters after the meeting. ”Boeing has laid out their road map, and now they need to execute.”

Boeing released an 11-page summary of its “Product Safety and Quality Plan,” which described steps the company is taking, including increased inspections and tighter controls over suppliers. It also says how Boeing will measure its improvement.

CEO David Calhoun, who announced after the Jan. 5 blowout during an Alaska Airlines flight that he would step down at the end of the year, said the document was crafted from comments by employees, the FAA, airlines and independent experts.

“Many of these actions are underway, and our team is committed to executing on each element of the plan,” Calhoun said in a statement. “It is through this continuous learning and improvement process that our industry has made commercial aviation the safest mode of transportation. The actions we are taking today will further strengthen that foundation.”

Stephanie Pope, a possible successor to Calhoun who was recently promoted to chief operating officer and chief executive of Boeing’s commercial airplanes division, said the plan was designed to improve employee training, simplify manufacturing, “eliminate defects at the source, and elevate our safety and quality culture.”

Nobody was hurt during the Jan. 5 blowout of a door plug on a relatively new Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 as it flew above Oregon. Accident investigators determined that bolts used to help secure the panel were missing after a repair job in a Boeing factory.

The mishap further battered Boeing’s reputation, led to multiple civil and criminal investigations, and prompted Whitaker to order the report that Boeing delivered Thursday.

Whitaker said he wanted Boeing to develop a comprehensive, detailed plan that improves manufacturing process, quality and safety management, and encourages employees to raise concerns about safety.

“Those are all elements of the plan,” Whitaker said. He added that Boeing had accepted all the safety recommendations made earlier this year by a panel of independent safety experts.

Still, Whitaker said, the FAA will continue to cap production of the 737 Max, Boeing’s best-selling plane, and to insist on approving each plane that comes off the assembly line. He said the FAA also will maintain a “significant increase” in safety inspectors at plants run by Boeing and its key supplier, Spirit AeroSystems.

Boeing’s recent problems could expose it to criminal prosecution related to the deadly crashes of two Max jetliners in 2018 and 2019. The Justice Department said two weeks ago that Boeing violated terms of a 2021 settlement that allowed it to avoid prosecution for fraud. The charge was based on the company allegedly deceiving regulators about a flight-control system that was implicated in the crashes.

Whistleblowers have accused the company of taking shortcuts that endanger passengers, a claim that Boeing disputes. A panel convened by the FAA prior to the blowout found shortcomings in the aircraft maker’s safety culture.

Most of the recent problems have been related to the Max, however Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems have also struggled with manufacturing flaws on a larger plane, the 787 Dreamliner. Boeing has suffered setbacks on other programs including its Starliner space capsule, a military refueling tanker, and new Air Force One presidential jets.

Boeing officials have vowed to regain the trust of regulators and the flying public. Boeing has fallen behind rival Airbus, and production setbacks have hurt the company’s ability to generate cash.

The company says it is promoting a positive safety culture, improving worker training, reducing “traveled work” — assembly tasks that are done out of their proper chronological order — and keeping closer tabs on Spirit AeroSystems, including preventing the supplier from shipping defective fuselages to Boeing.

The plane that suffered the door-plug blowout was being repaired because it had damaged rivets when it arrived at a Boeing factory from Spirit.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes Thursday as a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read as cheering from the street below could be heard in the hallway on the courthouse’s 15th floor where the decision was revealed after more than nine hours of deliberations.

“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” an angry Trump told reporters after leaving the courtroom. “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people. They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here.”

Judge Juan Merchan set sentencing for July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where GOP leaders, who remained resolute in their support in the aftermath of the verdict, are expected to formally make him their nominee.

The verdict is a stunning legal reckoning for Trump and exposes him to potential prison time in the city where his manipulations of the tabloid press helped catapult him from a real estate tycoon to reality television star and ultimately president. As he seeks to reclaim the White House in this year’s election, the judgment presents voters with another test of their willingness to accept Trump’s boundary-breaking behavior.

Trump is expected to appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he returns to the campaign trail tagged with felony convictions. There are no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, though he’s expected to appear Friday at Trump Tower and to hold fundraisers next week.

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would not say Thursday if prosecutors intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked.

The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his White House pursuit.

Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the only one to reach a conclusion before the November election, adding to the significance of the outcome. Though the legal and historical implications of the verdict are readily apparent, the political consequences are less so given its potential to reinforce rather than reshape already hardened opinions about Trump.

For another candidate in another time, a criminal conviction might doom a presidential run, but Trump’s political career has endured through two impeachments, allegations of sexual abuse, investigations into everything from potential ties to Russia to plotting to overturn an election, and personally salacious storylines, including the emergence of a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals.

The case’s general allegations have also been known to voters for years and, while tawdry, are widely seen as less grievous than the allegations he faces in three other cases that charge him with subverting American democracy and mishandling national security secrets.

Ahead of the verdict, Trump’s campaign had argued that, no matter the jury’s decision, the outcome was unlikely to sway voters and that the election would be decided by issues such as inflation.

Even so, the verdict is likely to give President Joe Biden and fellow Democrats space to sharpen arguments that Trump is unfit for office, though for now the White House offered only a muted statement that it respected the rule of law. Conversely, the decision will provide fodder for the presumptive Republican nominee to advance his unsupported claims that he is victimized by a criminal justice system he insists is politically motivated against him.

Trump maintained throughout the trial that he had done nothing wrong and that the case should never have been brought, railing against the proceedings from inside the courthouse — where he was joined by a parade of high-profile Republican allies — and racking up fines for violating a gag order with inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses.

Republicans showed no sign of loosening their embrace of the party leader, with House Speaker Mike Johnson lamenting what he called “a shameful day in American history.” He called the case “a purely political exercise, not a legal one.”

The first criminal trial of a former American president always presented a unique test of the court system, not only because of Trump’s prominence but also because of his relentless broadsides on the foundation of the case and its participants. But the verdict from the 12-person jury marked a repudiation of Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in the proceedings or to potentially impress the panel with a show of GOP support.

“While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today in this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors, by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor,” Bragg said after the verdict.

The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who said she had sex with the married Trump in 2006.

The $130,000 payment came from Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen to buy Daniels’ silence during the final weeks of the 2016 race in what prosecutors allege was an effort to interfere in the election. When Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses, which prosecutors said was an unlawful attempt to mask the true purpose of the transaction.

Trump’s lawyers contend they were legitimate payments for legal services. He denied the sexual encounter, and his lawyers argued at trial that his celebrity status made him an extortion target.

Defense lawyers also said hush money deals to bury negative stories about Trump were motivated by personal considerations such as the impact on his family and brand as a businessman, not political ones. They also sought to undermine the credibility of Cohen, the star prosecution witness who pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to the payments, by suggesting he was driven by personal animus toward Trump and fame and money.

The trial featured weeks of occasionally riveting testimony that revisited an already well-documented chapter from Trump’s past, when his 2016 campaign was threatened by the disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording that captured him talking about grabbing women sexually without their permission and the prospect of other stories about Trump and sex surfacing that would be harmful to his candidacy.

Trump did not testify, but jurors heard his voice through a secret recording of a conversation with Cohen in which he and the lawyer discussed a $150,000 hush money deal involving a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump. Trump denies that affair.

Daniels herself testified, offering a vivid recounting of the sexual encounter she says they had in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite. The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified about how he worked to keep stories harmful to the Trump campaign from becoming public at all, including by having his company buy McDougal’s story.

Jurors also heard from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal. He detailed the tense negotiations to get both women compensated for their silence but also faced aggressive questioning from a Trump attorney who noted Davidson had helped broker similar hush money deals in cases involving other prominent figures.

The most pivotal witness, by far, was Cohen, who during days of testimony gave jurors an insider’s view of the hush money scheme and what he said was Trump’s detailed knowledge of it.

“Just take care of it,” he quoted Trump as saying at one point.

He offered jurors the most direct link between Trump and the heart of the charges, recounting a meeting in which a plan to have Cohen reimbursed in monthly installments for legal services was discussed.

And he emotionally described his dramatic break with Trump in 2018, when he decided to cooperate with prosecutors after a decade-long career as the then-president’s personal fixer.

“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family,” Cohen said.

The case, though criticized by some legal experts who called it the weakest of the prosecutions against Trump, took on added importance not only because it proceeded to trial first but also because it could be the only only one to reach a jury before the election.

The other three — local and federal cases in Atlanta and Washington alleging that he conspired to undo the 2020 election, as well as a federal indictment in Florida charging him with illegally hoarding top-secret records — are bogged down by delays or appeals.

____

Associated Press journalists Ruth Brown, Joseph B. Frederick, John Minchillo, Mary Conlon, Ted Shaffrey, Ceder Attanasio, Julie Walker, Seth Wenig and Julia Nikhinson in New York and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle’s embattled police chief has been dismissed, Mayor Bruce Harrel said Wednesday.

Harrell said at a news conference that he met with Police Chief Adrian Diaz on Tuesday and they agreed Diaz should step down. He will work on special assignments for the mayor with the police department, Harrell said.

Diaz’s departure comes about a week after police Capt. Eric Greening filed a lawsuit alleging that he discriminated against women and people of color, news outlet KUOW reported.

Greening is one of at least a half-dozen officers who have sued the department alleging sex and racial discrimination, and naming Diaz specifically. Last month several female officers filed a tort claim for $5 million, alleging harassment and sex discrimination.

Diaz has vehemently denied the allegations. Harrel said earlier this month that he would hire an outside investigator to examine some of the allegations.

On Wednesday, Harrell said the lawsuits were a distraction for Diaz. He praised Diaz, who appeared with him at the news conference, but said the two agreed that change could “be better served with him stepping aside.”

“I’ve accomplished so much in the four years as chief, but there’s more to be done,” Diaz said.

Diaz took over as acting chief in 2020 for Carmen Best, who resigned following a summer of demonstrations against police brutality after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He was later given the job officially.

Diaz will be replaced on an interim basis by Sue Rahr, a former sheriff of King County, where Seattle is located. Rahr most recently led the state’s police academy, where she evangelized a mantra of “guardians, not warriors.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The first ombudsman of West Virginia’s heavily burdened foster care system has resigned.

Pamela Woodman-Kaehler’s resignation will take effect June 6, the state Department of Health announced in a statement. Woodman-Kaehler said she was “choosing to pursue a new opportunity,” but did not provide more details.

Woodman-Kaehler said the ombudsman’s program is “exceptionally well positioned to serve West Virginia’s foster care system. Elizabeth Hardy, deputy director of the foster care ombudsman’s office, will serve as acting director after Woodman-Kaehler’s departure.

The ombudsman position was created by the state Legislature in 2019 to help investigate complaints and collect data about the state’s foster care system. Largely overwhelmed by the opioid epidemic in a state with the most overdose deaths per capita, West Virginia also has the highest rate of children in foster care — currently more than 6,000 in a state of around 1.8 million.

The state is facing a massive ongoing class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of foster care children in 2019. The suit alleged that children’s needs were going unmet because of a shortage of case workers, an over-reliance on institutionalization and a lack of mental health support.

In 2023, state lawmakers passed a law expanding and specifying the foster care ombudsman’s duties because they were concerned about her ability to independently investigate deaths, abuse and neglect involving children and the juvenile justice system.

In 2024, lawmakers voted to make the Office of Inspector General — which houses the foster care ombudsman — an independent agency. It was tasked with working to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse from both within and outside the Department of Health, Department of Human Services, and Department of Health Facilities. Until this year, the three departments were formerly all under the umbrella agency Department of Health and Human Resources.

During a news conference Wednesday, Gov. Jim Justice dismissed a question from a reporter asking whether Woodman-Kaehler was leaving because of a problem with the office.

“She got a better job, guys. I mean, that’s all there is to it,” he said. “I mean, this business of attacking people and everything and, you know, just, you know, digging into everything, coming and going. I mean, if she’s telling us she got a better job, why don’t we celebrate that?”

Justice said Woodman-Kaehler did an “incredible job” in the post. Ann Urling, interim inspector general for the departments of health, human services and health facilities, said in a statement that “the state appreciates her work and her passion for serving the children of this state.”

“We wish her well in all of her future endeavors,” Urling said.

Woodman-Kaehler had been a child protective services worker in Harrison County and was the state coordinator for a federally mandated review panel of the state’s Bureau of Children and Families. At the time she became foster care ombudsman, she was also a certified foster parent and had also trained people to become foster parents.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — An Ohio man received supervised probation after pleading guilty to threatening to kill a North Carolina state senator in a social media message last year.

Nicolas Alan Daniels, of West Portsmouth, Ohio, entered a plea to one felony count of threatening a legislative officer last Thursday in Wake County court, according to legal documents. He received a suspended sentence of 6-17 months in addition to the two years of probation.

Daniels, 38, was arrested in February by North Carolina General Assembly police after he allegedly sent messages to Republican state Sen. Todd Johnson on Facebook last fall threatening to kill the Union County lawmaker and his family. Ohio authorities had a hand in Daniels’ arrest.

Daniels, whose first name is spelled “Nicholas” in some court documents, initially faced two felony and 10 misdemeanor counts, but prosecutors dismissed all but the single felony count as part of a plea agreement.

Daniels’ lawyers didn’t immediately respond to Wednesday emails seeking comment. During a February court appearance, Daniels said he didn’t send the threats and that his Facebook account was hacked, WRAL-TV reported.

According to a sentencing document, Daniels must undergo a mental health assessment and could serve his probation in Ohio. He also must not contact or approach Johnson.

Johnson, now in his third state Senate term, is a chairman of the chamber’s commerce and insurance committee. Neither he nor his office responded to a message seeking comment.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ethics Committee is opening an investigation into Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, after his indictment earlier this month on allegations of bribery, money laundering and working on behalf of a foreign government.

The committee said Wednesday that it voted unanimously to take the rare step of pursuing an investigation into Cuellar, 68, while he and his wife remain under investigation by the Department of Justice over the couple’s ties to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.

“The Committee is aware of the risks associated with dual investigations and is in communication with the Department of Justice to mitigate the potential risks while still meeting the Committee’s obligations to safeguard the integrity of the House,” said the chair, Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., and ranking member, Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., said in a statement.

Cuellar, in a statement to The Associated Press, said he respects the committee’s work. He said he is “innocent of these allegations, and everything I have done in Congress has been to serve the people of South Texas.”

House and committee rules require that within 30 days of a member being indicted or formally charged, the committee shall either establish an investigative subcommittee to look into the allegations or publicly report its reasons for not doing so.

Guest and Rep. Glenn Ivy, D-Md., will lead the review of Cuellar. The committee cautioned in its statement that opening an investigation does not mean that the lawmaker has violated House rules.

Culler is the third lawmaker to face a federal indictment since the current congressional session began in January. He has said that he and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, 67, “are innocent of these allegations.”

In a statement in early May, Cuellar said that before he took action, “I proactively sought legal advice from the House Ethics Committee, who gave me more than one written opinion, along with an additional opinion from a national law firm.”

The indictment against the couple states that from 2014 to 2021, they accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico, and in exchange, Cuellar agreed to advance the interests of the country and the bank in the United States.

Among other things, Cuellar agreed to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor of the House, according to the indictment.

In addition to bribery and conspiracy, Cuellar and his wife face charges including wire fraud conspiracy, acting as agents of foreign principals and money laundering. If convicted, they face up to decades in prison and forfeiture of any property linked to proceeds from the alleged scheme.