SRINAGAR: In a tragic incident that took place more than a decade ago, a man was sentenced to life imprisonment by Principal Sessions Judge Reasi R N Wattal for killing his wife and 10-year-old child. The case had been under trial for years, and the verdict was delivered on Monday.
According to the prosecution, the police received information from reliable sources on March 7, 2010, that the body of Shiv Devi, the wife of Kuldeep Singh, was found on the road leading from Shikari to Thuroo in the Dubri forest. A short distance away, the body of their 10-year-old child, Sachin, and the weapon used in the crime were also discovered.
During the investigation, it was revealed that the accused and the deceased had been married for 13 to 14 years and had two children. The accused, who was working in Kangra Himachal Pradesh, used to quarrel with his wife over suspicions of her having an illicit relationship. Due to the strained relations, Shiv Devi was living with her parents at Bathoi.
On the day of the incident, the accused called his wife to the Dubri forest and administered some drug to her and their son, rendering them unconscious. He then killed them both. The police presented a charge sheet before Munsiff (JMIC), Mahore, who committed the case to Principal Sessions Judge Reasi for judicial determination.
After hearing the prosecution and the defense, the judge observed that the nature of the offense committed by the accused played an important role in awarding the punishment. “The penal statute has prescribed punishment for the offense of murder for life or capital punishment, and to view such offenses once proved lightly is itself an afferent to humanity,” the court said.
The judge also noted that there are only two types of punishment for an offense under Section 302 RPC – life imprisonment or the death penalty. “The convict is as such sentenced to undergo life imprisonment for the commission of the offense under Section 302 of RPC and imprisonment of two years for the commission of offense under Section 4/25 Arms Act,” the court said.
The verdict has brought closure to the family of the deceased after a long and difficult legal battle. The court’s decision is a reminder that such heinous crimes will not be taken lightly and will be dealt with severely.
A federal jury on Tuesday found that Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, a writer who accused the former president of attacking her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.
The verdict in the civil trial marks the first time that Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women, has been held legally responsible for sexual assault. And it adds fresh tarnish to the former president’s reputation as he seeks to regain the White House amid a tide of legal troubles.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The verdict came, however, with an important qualification: The jury concluded that Carroll did not prove that Trump had raped her, as Carroll had alleged, but that Trump had nevertheless sexually abused her. A finding of rape would have required the jury to conclude that Trump had engaged in non-consensual sexual intercourse with Carroll, but the jury apparently opted to conclude that something short of that — but nevertheless disturbing, illegal and sexually abusive — had happened.
Still, the jury’s verdict in Carroll’s favor is a stunning result, though for people who have been following the case closely, it was not particularly surprising. Carroll had very capable lawyers, who moved their case forward briskly and professionally and kept the pressure on Trump, who tried to dodge the case in pretty much every conceivable way. (Disclosure: I used to work with Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta Kaplan, and remain friendly with her.)
At the trial, according to reporting from journalists who watched the proceedings, Carroll’s lawyers presented an efficient, well-constructed and coherent case — including testimony from Carroll herself, from two witnesses who spoke with Carroll shortly after her encounter with Trump, from a former Bergdorf Goodman employee who testified that the relevant area in the store at the time matched Carroll’s description, and from another employee of the store who testified that there were no security cameras in the area at the time.
Other witnesses for Carroll included Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, who testified that Trump had sexually assaulted them as well. In short, Carroll’s lawyers presented her account, they corroborated it with testimony from other witnesses close to Carroll or who had had their own encounters with Trump, and they addressed head on some of Trump’s lawyers’ dubious claims in defense, which included questioning why there was no video available of an assault that occurred more than 25 years ago.
For their part, Trump’s lawyers struggled to put up much of a defense. In the run-up to the trial, they made multiple long-shot efforts to get the trial adjourned, which the presiding judge — a long-serving, well-regarded judge in the district — repeatedly rejected. At trial, Trump’s lawyers vigorously cross-examined Carroll, though this clearly did not fully persuade the jurors, and Trump’s lawyers put on no witnesses of their own. Trump did not testify in his own defense, even though nothing prevented him from doing so if he had a compelling response to offer to Carroll’s claims. Instead, Carroll’s lawyers played excerpts from Trump’s deposition, which was a debacle that effectively made Trump a witness against himself.
Of course, Trump is not the only politician — he is not even the only president — to face allegations of sexual assault. Former President Bill Clinton, for instance, has also been accused of rape — a point that Trump has raised before in trying to deflect from the more voluminous and broader array of allegations against him. President Joe Biden has also been accused of sexual assault, though that claim faded from mainstream news coverage after questions emerged about the credibility of the accuser. (Both Clinton and Biden have denied the allegations against them.)
Needless to say, every allegation needs to be taken and judged on its own terms, but even if you hate Clinton or Biden, Trump’s case now exists in a distinct realm: The allegations by Carroll were subject to a legitimate and robust adversarial legal process; the case was overseen by a highly competent judge and litigated by competent attorneys on both sides; and the claims were adjudicated by a jury of Trump’s peers pursuant to the law.
It is true that Manhattanites strongly dislike Trump, but there is no indication at this time that the jury did anything less than listen to the evidence and to the judge’s instructions. During the trial, Trump’s lawyers sought to lay the groundwork for an appeal by complaining about alleged bias on the part of the judge, but the arguments raised so far do not appear to be particularly strong.
By itself, the verdict in Carroll’s case is a remarkable and ugly turn of events for Trump, but there are broader implications as well.
Most notably, the verdict serves as at least partial vindication for many other women who have lodged their own allegations against Trump. Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women over the years. Carroll’s allegations were particularly shocking and horrifying, so the case served both as a referendum on Carroll’s specific case — albeit one that the jury resolved in somewhat mixed fashion — but also as a larger proxy battle over Trump’s mistreatment of women over the decades. Whether Trump likes it or not, the verdict lends further support to the credibility of all of those other allegations, which range in their substantive particulars but generally track Trump’s appalling comments on the Access Hollywood tape about how he can do pretty much whatever he wants to women, including assaulting them.
There is, however, little reason to believe that there will be a cascade of litigation following Carroll’s victory, but that appears to have just as much to do with legal constraints as anything else. The statutes of limitations for any other civil and criminal claims based on other alleged sexual misconduct by Trump have probably largely if not entirely lapsed, which is fortunate for the former president. Carroll’s suit, however, managed to emerge for at least two reasons — first, because Trump offered very specific and repeated denials of her allegations even after he left office, and second, because New York passed a law last year that revived civil claims based on sexual assault that would otherwise have been too old to bring in court. Under the circumstances, it is safe to assume that anyone else with a viable legal claim against Trump for comparable conduct would likely have brought it by now.
As a country, we also now have to grapple with the political implications of having a leading presidential contender who has been found liable for conduct as grotesque as sexual assault. Regardless of what one thinks of Trump’s fitness for the presidency, this is a qualitatively new development that could — or at least should — conceivably turn some voters away from him.
In the political arena, Trump might offer some version of his usual bluster to defend himself — perhaps that the judge was systematically biased against him, that Carroll’s lawyer is some sort of covert political operative working on behalf of the Democratic Party, or that he was for some reason or another unable to defend himself in court. None of this is true, though that has never stopped Trump before. Indeed, after the verdict, his presidential campaign claimed: “In jurisdictions wholly controlled by the Democratic Party our nation’s justice system is now compromised by extremist left-wing politics.”
Even before the verdict, there were assessments in the media of the political fallout — or lack thereof — from the case, but there is at least one important reason that the case did not attract more widespread or prominent coverage in the run-up to the trial: Carroll and her lawyers appear to have exercised extraordinary restraint in giving interviews or making public appearances in the months leading up to the trial, perhaps so as not to antagonize the judge, who was particularly concerned about ensuring that the case was decided based on the evidence in the courtroom rather than media coverage. Suffice to say that that may now change — both Carroll and Kaplan should now be free to give interviews if they like — now that the verdict is in.
Still, we should also be prepared for the distinct possibility that the verdict will not significantly shift voters’ preferences. This may be a dispiriting prospect, but so far, his supporters do not appear particularly concerned about his many legal problems, and many of them are likely to hang much on either Trump’s denials or the jury’s rejection of Carroll’s specific claim of rape, even though sexual assault without intercourse is awful enough on its own terms.
That political dynamic could always change, but at least one thing remains true. Trump, while often wrong, has always been right about something that the verdict on Tuesday confirmed once again. The former president is one of a kind — just not for the reason he might like.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The jury has also watched lengthy excerpts from an October videotaped deposition in which Trump vehemently denied raping Carroll or ever really knowing her.
Without Trump’s testimony, lawyers were scheduled to make closing arguments Monday, with deliberations likely to begin on Tuesday.
After prosecutors rested their case Thursday, Trump attorney Joe Tacopina immediately rested the defense case as well without calling any witnesses. He did not request additional time for Trump to decide to testify. Tacopina declined in an email to comment after the deadline passed Sunday.
On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump extra time to change his mind and request to testify, though the judge did not promise he would grant such a request to reopen the defense case so Trump could take the stand.
At the time, Kaplan noted that he’d heard about news reports Thursday in which Trump told reporters while visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, that he would “probably attend” the trial. Trump also criticized Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, as an “extremely hostile” and “rough judge” who “doesn’t like me very much.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
In the deposition, conducted at Mar-a-Lago in October, Kaplan asked Trump about the “Access Hollywood” tape, a recording from 2005 in which Trump can be heard saying, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” adding: “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
“Well, historically that’s true with stars,” Trump replied after watching a clip of his comments.
When Kaplan pressed him on whether he stood by the statement that a star could “grab them by the pussy,” the former president said: “Well, I guess if you look over the last million years, that’s been largely true — not always true, but largely true, unfortunately or fortunately.”
“And you consider yourself to be a star?” she asked.
“I think so, yeah,” Trump said.
During the deposition, Kaplan questioned him about several other women who have accused him of sexual assault, women Trump has characterized as not being his “type.”
Growing belligerent, Trump told Kaplan herself that “you wouldn’t be a choice of mine, either, to be honest.” He added: “I wouldn’t in any circumstances have any interest in you.”
Trump has defended himself by saying Carroll, too, isn’t his “type,” but earlier in the deposition, after he was shown a photograph of himself engaging with Carroll at a party, he confused the image of her with that of one of his ex-wives, Marla Maples.
“It’s Marla,” he said, looking at the photo. “That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife.”
“I take it the three women you’ve married are all your type?” Kaplan asked him later. “Yeah,” he replied.
Calling Carroll “mentally sick” and a “nut job,” Trump suggested, as he had previously, that he didn’t know her.
“She’s accusing me of rape, a woman who I have no idea who she is,” he said. “She’s accusing me of rape — the worst thing you can do, the worst charge.”
Starting on Wednesday afternoon and continuing Thursday, the jury watched about 45 minutes of excerpts of the deposition. On Thursday, jurors also heard from witnesses including Carol Martin, a longtime friend of Carroll’s. Martin testified that Carroll told her about the alleged rape at Bergdorf’s a day or two after it happened.
“I’m here … to reiterate and remember what my friend E. Jean Carroll told me … about 27 years ago,” Martin said on the witness stand.
She added: “I believed it then and I believe it today.” After an objection from Trump’s lawyer, the judge — without elaboration — instructed the jury to disregard her last comment.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Tacopina said earlier this week that Trump himself also won’t take the witness stand.
The former president hasn’t attended the trial, which began last week, but on Wednesday jurors did see a 20-minute portion of his videotaped deposition, recorded in October 2022.
On screen, Trump appeared somewhat sullen, answering questions with his arms folded on a table in front of him and his shoulders hunched. He called Carroll’s allegation “the most ridiculous, disgusting story.”
“It’s just made up,” he said.
On Wednesday, the jury also heard testimony from a clinical psychologist, Leslie Lebowitz; Carroll’s sister, Cande Carroll; and Natasha Stoynoff, a writer who has alleged Trump sexually assaulted her in 2005.
During Stoynoff’s testimony, jurors were shown a clip of the “Access Hollywood” tape, a recording from 2005 in which Trump boasts, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” adding: “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Carroll’s lawyers are expected to show another portion of the deposition to jurors Thursday.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“I’m fearful that it will have zero impact,” outgoing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who sought stricter ethics rules during her administration, said in an interview.
“You have people taking the stand and talking about fixing this and taking jobs and doing no work. It’s horrifying,” she said. “And every single person who testifies, every piece of evidence, every wiretapped call, I think, erodes people’s trust in core democratic institutions.”
There is some sense that if Illinois can’t crack down on corruption, there’s still an element of accountability.
“The trial matters because it will make people think twice about engaging in this kind of behavior if they know the feds are watching,” said Alisa Kaplan, executive director of Reform for Illinois, a nonpartisan good-government organization.
But this is the state that produced several infamous examples of wrongdoing: Former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich (convicted for trying to sell a Senate seat) … and former Republican Gov. George Ryan (convicted of accepting gifts and vacations from friends in exchange for government contracts) … and Rita Crundwell (a comptroller convicted of absconding with nearly $54 million of her city’s money) and has seen many Chicago City Council members indicted or implicated.
The Four are accused of a bribery plot where the utility arranged jobs for allies of former House Speaker Michael Madigan, who faces a separate trial next year on racketeering and bribery charges, without them having to do actual work. In return, the utility sought passage of 2011 “Smart Grid” legislation and a 2016 measure that rescued two financially struggling nuclear power plants from shutting down, according to federal prosecutors.
Madigan, who led Illinois House Democrats for nearly 40 years, hasn’t appeared in court but his presence has loomed over the trial, which is being held in Chicago’s downtown Loop business district. And political insiders have been captivated as former lawmakers and lobbyists testified about the inner workings of state government, with echoes of the once-dominant machine politics.
One element that’s drawing people into the case is the audio. The former House speaker famously didn’t have a cell phone or use email, so trial observers were particularly stunned to hear Madigan and his close aide, Mike McClain, on secret phone recordings.
The tapes were designed to cement the idea to jurors that Madigan had an outsized influence orchestrating the conduct of state government so testimony from people like state Rep. Bob Rita, a Democrat, clicked: Madigan ruled “through fear and intimidation,” he told the court.
Federal prosecutors say the ComEd defendants schemed to pay $1.3 million to subcontractors who did little or no work, though attorneys for the ComEd Four say their clients participated in nothing more than lobbying. Madigan has denied wrongdoing but resigned from office and relinquished his chairpersonship of the state Democratic Party in 2021 after he was identified in the ComEd case.
“I was never involved in any criminal activity. The government is attempting to criminalize a routine constituent service: Job recommendations,” Madigan has said in a statement about the federal investigations. “That is not illegal, and these other charges are equally unfounded. … I adamantly deny these accusations and look back proudly on my time as an elected official, serving the people of Illinois.”
The trial is also being watched warily from the Capitol in Springfield. Lawmakers are about a month away from wrapping up their legislative session but the ComEd Four trial has not sparked new, splashy ethics measures.
Joe Ferguson, the former Chicago inspector general, worries it’s already too late for lawmakers to act before their session ends May 19.
“When the indictments came out, there was a flurry of talk about reforms. But nothing has been done,” Ferguson said in an interview. “It means when the legislature meets again, the trial will be a distant memory.”
Both House and Senate spokespeople pointed to recent changes Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law that restrict government officials from lobbying activities, tighten regulations on registered lobbyists and expand financial disclosure requirements.
State Sen. Terri Bryant, a Republican who sits on the bipartisan Legislative Ethics Commission, said lawmakers are mostly watching and waiting, but remain focused on legislation for their districts.
“It’s concerning that Mike Madigan might get off the hook. There’s not a person in Springfield who doesn’t think he’s as guilty as hell,” said Bryant. “If those four get off, how can they prosecute Mike Madigan? It looks like everything hangs on this trial.”
Despite the federal government’s many probes of Illinois officials over the years, there are moments that seem as if politicians aren’t taking concerns about corruption seriously.
Early in her administration, Lightfoot had tried to push Chicago Ald. Edward Burke out, to no avail. The mayor followed through on a campaign promise to overhaul the city’s ethics laws, and introduced rules that cut back on outside employment of aldermen and expanded disclosure requirements for lobbyists.
But earlier this month, City Council members stood up one by one to offer high praise for Burke, a Democrat who spent the last four of his 54 years in office waiting on his own trial on federal charges of racketeering, bribery and extortion.
It’s the sort of display Lightfoot can’t stand.
“It was pretty amazing,” she said. “That’s all I’ll say.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Mumbai: A medical professional on Friday became the 35th witness to turn hostile in the 2008 Malegaon blast case trial.
The witness had told the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra Police that he had attended a meeting in Bhopal in April 2008 where some of the accused including Lt Colonel Prasad Purohit were present.
At this meeting of the Abhinav Bharat organisation, Purohit “discussed about Guerrilla War and taking action against Muslims,” as per the statement recorded by the ATS which probed the case initially.
Pragya Singh Thakur, another accused who is now the BJP MP from Bhopal, stated at the meeting that some persons were ready for this work, the witness had allegedly told the ATS.
He had, purportedly, also said that he was associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
But in his statement to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which took over the case later, he denied having made these statements.
When the ATS was recording his statement, he was under extreme pressure as his name appeared in the media often and his wife was suffering from cancer, he told the NIA.
On Friday, the witness failed to recognise the accused who were present in the court, and denied giving any statement to either the ATS or NIA.
The court then declared him as hostile.
Six people were killed and more than 100 injured on September 29, 2008, when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon town in north Maharashtra, some 200 km from Mumbai.
A total of seven accused including Thakur and Colonel Prasad Purohit are facing trial in the case. All of them are out on bail.
For Ed Sheeran, the release of a new album usually means a confident sweep to No 1 and steady dominance of the Top 40 over the subsequent months. But there is more at stake than usual for the 32-year-old songwriter when he releases his fifth album, – (Subtract), next Friday (5 May).
The record documents a series of events last spring that Sheeran has characterised as the most challenging period in his life. His wife, Cherry Seaborn, was diagnosed with a tumour that couldn’t be operated on until after the birth of their second child. His best friend, music entrepreneur Jamal Edwards, died aged 31 after taking cocaine. Sheeran was also subject to a high-profile UK court case in which he faced claims he had copied a pair of songwriters’ work in his 2017 smash hit single Shape of You.
Sheeran won the case – but this week finds himself in US court defending the claim that his 2014 single Thinking Out Loud infringes on the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s 1973 hit Let’s Get It On, the verdict of which may arrive on Subtract’s release date. The lawsuit is being brought by the heirs of Gaye’s co-writer on Let’s Get It On, Ed Townsend, and alleges that Sheeran and co-writer Amy Wadge copied an ascending four-chord sequence, and its rhythm.
His previous victory doesn’t guarantee success, said entertainment lawyer Gregor Pryor. “In the UK, Sheeran could probably trust the judicial process a bit more. In the US, with trial by jury – that is harder.” In a string of recent pop copyright cases, including the likes of Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, Sheeran is “one of the highest-profile targets, so it’s got a whiff of the US celebrity lawsuit about it”.
He may also be harmed by what the prosecution has called a “smoking gun” – a live clip of Sheeran segueing from his song into Gaye’s. “It’s very unfortunate,” said Pryor. “You could argue that it illustrates his case that many songs are written on the same chord progressions, but I don’t think it helps.”
Adding to the pressure on Sheeran this week is the question of whether fans of a pop everyman who has built his career on relatability will engage with a deeply personal record that pivots from his usual spread-betting genre fare to focus on a single, melancholy sound.
The lead single from Subtract, Eyes Closed – the album’s poppiest outlier – charted at No 1 at the end of March, ending Miley Cyrus’s 10-week reign at No 1 with Flowers, propelled by a signed CD single that retailed for 99p. Its second single, however, the subdued Boat, was at 38 in this week’s midweek charts.
Subtract is the final album of Sheeran’s mathematical symbols series, following + (2011), x (2014), ÷ (2017) and = (2021). He made the album with Aaron Dessner of US indie band the National – best known to pop fans as the co-producer of Taylor Swift’s two lockdown albums, Folklore and Evermore. Sheeran and Swift are old friends: when she asked Dessner to work on the re-recording of her 2012 album Red, which features two duets with Sheeran, she encouraged them to work together.
‘Struggling emotionally with some really serious headwinds of loss’ … Sheeran in a press shot for Subtract. Photograph: Annie Leibovitz
For Dessner, the potential of the collaboration lay in bringing out “the vulnerability and emotion in [Sheeran] to make music that would not normally be his inclination”, he said. Initially, Sheeran wanted to sideline his trademark guitar; Dessner convinced him to make a “really naked, avant garde but still guitar-oriented record”, and began sending him musical sketches to write to remotely.
Sheeran is known for a playing style in which he uses the body of his acoustic guitar as a percussive instrument. “His right hand is like a drum machine,” said Dessner. While he still wanted the songs to have rhythm, “I didn’t feel the need to try to make pop music.” Once Sheeran started responding to the sketches, songs came thick and fast. “One day, he sent me 14 ideas in response to a track,” said Dessner.
When they met on the Kent coast to record late last spring, they wrote 32 songs in a week, 14 of which feature on Subtract. “It was a vulnerable time,” said Dessner. Edwards died in the middle of the sessions, and Sheeran “was struggling emotionally with some really serious headwinds of loss”. He would ask Dessner if the lyrics were too heavy, detailing grief; how the birth of his first daughter prompted him to kick a “bad vibes” drug habit; sitting in the doctor’s waiting room with Seaborn – who underwent successful surgery – and asking whether this pain signifies “the end of youth”.
“There were times when he tracked vocals that were almost unusable because he was so emotional,” said Dessner. “There’s this raw, visceral beauty to a lot of it.”
During the Shape of You trial, Sheeran said the allegations had prompted him to start filming every recording session to avoid similar situations. There were documentarians in Kent, said Dessner, for creative security and to capture footage for a four-part Disney+ documentary launching on 3 May.
But filming sessions “can’t protect [Sheeran] against everything”, said Pryor. “It’s advisable. It clearly shows, ‘I wasn’t listening to Marvin Gaye and then I came up with this’, but it doesn’t irrefutably prove that he hasn’t heard the Gaye song and not copied it.”
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Subtract has a misty, limpid sound, charged with distortion and glimmering electronic touches. The Kent coastline influenced Sheeran’s songwriting, said Dessner, with songs on Subtract referencing salt water, deep blues and natural imagery. “The waves won’t break my boat,” Sheeran sings on Boat, the fragile opening song.
Ed Sheeran: Boat – video
Dessner recorded Sheeran’s voice through old tube microphones, creating a different, more vulnerable effect from his biggest hits. He singled out the song Borderline. “He sings in this very high, virtuosic voice – the only other person I think is capable of that would be Justin Vernon [AKA Bon Iver]. It was really moving, like [it’s] hanging out over a cliff. Rather than support it by building immaculate pop arrangements around it, I went in a totally different direction, supporting his voice harmonically without trying to fill every space with instant gratification.”
The effect is not a million miles from one of Sheeran’s formative influences, Damien Rice’s 2002 album O, nor, indeed, the National.
Sheeran is a commercial darling – the most listened-to artist in the UK in 2021, and second only to Harry Styles last year – but rarely a critical one. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, he balked at the idea that snobby indie fans might like this album because of Dessner’s presence. “Someone who’s never liked my music ever? And sees me as the punchline to a joke? For him to suddenly be like, ‘Oh, you’re not as shit as I thought you were?’ That doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
Dessner said he didn’t care about the potential cultural implications of their collaboration. “He’s made giant pop records that are easy to criticise, but on a human and artistic level, he’s so gifted and lovely. It couldn’t have been more natural, fun and rewarding to feel him jumping off the cliff with me. Over time, I’ve tired of the ‘what’s cool?’ debate.” The pair would continue to work together, Dessner said, and have made more than 30 new songs since Kent. “I’m even more excited about those – I feel we’re getting better.”
For Guardian music critic Alexis Petridis, the collaboration “doesn’t strike me as necessitating a huge leap of faith on the part of the public. Sheeran is an acoustic singer-songwriter, it’s not like he’s been making techno.” What would be interesting, he said, is learning the depth of fans’ investment in a famously relatable musician, who even in superstardom has written songs about the joys of cheap takeaways and is married to his childhood sweetheart. “Do you actually buy into the person, or just the person as a cipher for a normal, nice bloke?”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
On Wednesday morning, Trump posted on his social media site, Truth Social, about the lawsuit. He called Carroll’s lawyer a “political operative” and said her legal defense is “financed by a big political donor that they said didn’t exist.” He attacked Carroll directly, calling her “Ms. Bergdorf Goodman” and saying she was “like a different person” during a CNN interview.
“This is a fraudulent & false story–Witch Hunt!” he wrote.
Trump also alluded to a dress that Carroll says she was wearing on the day of the alleged rape. After filing her lawsuit, Carroll’s lawyers sought a DNA sample from Trump so they could compare it with DNA found on the dress. Trump initially refused but later changed tactics, offering to provide a sample if Carroll’s legal team turned over the full DNA report on the dress. Kaplan rejected that proposal earlier this year.
Before the jury entered the courtroom on Wednesday, a lawyer for Carroll notified Kaplan of Trump’s comments. In response, Kaplan warned Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina that Trump’s statement was “entirely inappropriate.”
“What seems to be the case is that your client is basically endeavoring, certainly, to speak to his quote unquote public, but more troublesome, to the jury in this case,” Kaplan said.
Before the trial began, Kaplan barred both sides from “any testimony, argument, commentary or reference concerning DNA evidence.”
“Here’s all I can tell you: I will speak to my client and ask him to refrain from any further posts regarding this case,” Tacopina told the judge. Seemingly acknowledging the difficulty of restraining the former president, Tacopina added: “I will do the best I can do, your honor. That’s all I can say.”
Trump, who isn’t required to attend the trial, hasn’t appeared in the courtroom.
The judge then warned Tacopina that Trump could expose himself to greater culpability if he continued to make statements related to the case.
“We’re getting into an area, conceivably, where your client may or may not be tampering with a new source of potential liability,” Kaplan said, adding: “and I think you know what I mean.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
