Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was suspended without pay from his WABC radio show over claims about the “stolen” 2020 election — deepening the legally embattled ex-lawyer’s financial woes, New York Post reported.

“He did it to himself,” radio station owner John Catsimatidis told The Post on Friday.

“I thought he was a great mayor for the city of New York so I always try to support him. But you can’t cross the line.”

Giuliani, 79, went on a “stolen election” tirade during the final three minutes of “The Rudy Giuliani Show” Thursday, violating a company-wide policy “not to state, suggest or imply that the election results are not valid,” according to Catsimatidis, who runs Red Apple Media.

Catsimatidis said he had sent Giuliani a letter warning him that he’s “prohibited from engaging in conversations relating to the 2020 Presidential Election” — prompting the mayor to allegedly fire off a defiant text to the billionaire.

“Please understand I am disregarding every order given in this letter,” he purportedly texted after his show.

Catsimatidis said he fired back Friday afternoon, “I’ve got to take you off the network effective immediately.”

“Does that mean you’re firing me?” Giuliani asked — to which Catsimatidis had not yet responded as of Friday evening.

Giuliani told The Post he had no idea the company policy existed, claiming he’s been talking about the 2020 election on the air for the past three years.

“They don’t want me to say it’s stolen, they don’t want me to talk about the election at all. It’s so broad,” he said.

“I am being told here to promise that I will engage in no conversations relating to the 2020 presidential election. Who the hell could promise that except a liar?” he said.

“It is a blow to me. Absolutely,” he said of losing the job. “This is a major screwing!”

Giuliani said he was making $15,000 a month from working at WABC, adding about the CEO of grocery chains Gristedes and D’Agostino Supermarkets: “He was paying me what I would regard as peanuts.”

He said that he still has shows on X and on Newsmax that generate income.

His on-air rant Thursday was edited out, said Catsimatidis, who said Giuliani had asked for more radio time slots in recent days.

“He wanted more hours on the air. We didn’t volunteer to give it to him,” Catsimatidis said. “He was pushing it very hard the last week or so.”

Giuliani now faces a mountain of legal bills to fight criminal cases in Arizona and Georgia, where he was charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election.

He also needs to pay attorneys to defend him against multiple civil cases, including by the voting machine firms Dominion and Smartmatic and a former associate who accused him of sexual assault.

Giuliani filed for Bankruptcy in New York in December, claiming he owed up to $500 million after a devastating $148 million civil court ruling against him.

In that case, the facts-challenged ex-attorney was ordered to pay two Georgia election workers he defamed after the 2020 presidential election.

Giuliani estimated at the time that he owed $153 million.

In January, he promised a New York bankruptcy court that he’d limit his spending to a sky-high $43,000 per month — but quickly failed to stick to the budget.

He reportedly blew through nearly $120,000 that same month, buying “60 transactions on Amazon, multiple entertainment subscriptions, various Apple services and products, Uber rides, and payment of some of his business partner’s personal credit card bill,” the New York Times reported last week.

Working as a lawyer himself is off the table, too. Guiliani, who is also a former federal prosecutor, had his law license suspended in New York City in 2021.

He faces disbarment for “his utter disregard for facts,” which “denigrate the legal profession,” a panel said last year.

Barron Trump is declining Florida’s offer to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention this summer, citing ‘prior committments,’ according to his mother’s office.

Melania Trump’s office made a statement to DailyMail.com on behalf of her son.

‘While Barron is honored to have been chosen as a delegate by the Florida Republican Party, he regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments,’ the Office of Melania Trump said.

No futher details were given.

On Wednesday, Barron, 18, was elected as an at-large delegate to help formally nominate his father Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee.

It’s now unclear if he will even attend the convention, which takes place in Milwaukee from Monday, July 15 to Thursday, July 18.

Other family members – Don Jr. and his fiancee Kimberly Guilfoyle, Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump and her husband Michael Boulos – are also delegates at large for the state of Florida.

Ivanka Trump, who served as a senior adviser in her father’s White House, was the only Trump child not on the delegate list.

Unlike his half-siblings, Barron Trump was rarely seen during his father’s White House years, mainly at the request of his mother Melania who is known to be protective of her son.

She rarely let Barron attend official White House events when she was first lady. Additionally, she would have Barron travel in a separate car – instead of the Beast – when he rode in the presidential motorcade. The dedicated mom made sure he was buckled up in his SUV.

She also had Barron board Air Force One on the back stairs of the plane so there would not be photographs of him climbing the front stairs with his parents.

The former first lady has used her own presence to signal her support or displeasure with her husband. She did attend his announcement at Mar-a-Lago that he would make another presidential bid but she was not there on the night of Super Tuesday, when Trump effectively locked up the Republican presidential nomination.

Barron wasn’t present at any of the above political events.

Previously, Barron has been the target of social media trolls.

Former NBC News executive Mike Sington said Barron was ‘fair game’ turning 18, the birthday that marks adulthood. He later deleted the tweet after facing harsh backlash and criticism online.

The youngest Trump was defended by many of his former first kids, including Chelsea Clinton.

‘I think he’s a private citizen,’ she told ABC’s The View. ‘I feel so strongly that if you are a private citizen, you have an unimpeachable right to privacy, and I think the media should leave him alone.’

And, last year, a Chicago woman was arrested for making death threats against Barron.

Friday’s announcement comes after Donald Trump revealed Barron likes politics and enjoys giving his father advice.

‘He’s really been a great student. And he does like politics. It’s sort of funny,’ the former president told ‘Kayal and Company’ on Philadelphia’s Talk Radio 1210 WPHT.

‘He’ll tell me sometimes, ‘Dad, this is what you have to do,” he added.

Trump also revealed the 18-year-old, who is graduating from high school next week, is weighing what college he might attend. But, he noted, the campus protests have been a factor in that decision.

‘He’s a senior now in high school, and he’ll be going to college. And you know, a lot of, a lot of these choices of colleges are changing because you see what’s going on in the last month,’ Trump said.

A rare and powerful solar storm may occur in outer space today which could wreak havoc on earth, officials have warned – the first in nearly 20 years if it happens.

At least five streams of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), are heading toward Earth, prompting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to issue a severe geomagnetic storm watch for Friday into the weekend.

This is the first such alert aired since 2005 when Earth was hit with the highest dose of radiation in a half-century.

This time around, the ‘unusual event’ could disrupt electronic devices like GPS and parts of power grids, NOAA said – while citing how it may also drape a huge portion of the country, as far south as Alabama, in colorful natural lights.

The CMEs exploded from a massive sunspot, an area on the sun that is cooler than the surface, on May 8 – paving the way for Thursday’s alert.

In it, officials explained how the expulsions of matter and magnetic field from the celestial body’s atmosphere could cause problems for millions of earthlings as soon as noon ET Friday.

‘NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) – a division of the National Weather Service – is monitoring the sun following a series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that began on May 8,’ the emergency alert read.

‘Space weather forecasters have issued a Severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch for the evening of Friday.

‘Additional solar eruptions could cause geomagnetic storm conditions to persist through the weekend,’ it went on, before describing the abnormal activity that tipped space specialists off.

‘A large sunspot cluster has produced several moderate to strong solar flares since Wednesday at 5:00 am ET,’ it read.

‘At least five flares were associated with CMEs that appear to be Earth-directed. SWPC forecasters will monitor NOAA and NASA’s space assets for the onset of a geomagnetic storm.’

CMEs are explosions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun’s corona, which cause geomagnetic storms when they are directed at Earth.

A solar or geomagnetic storm is a major disturbance of Earth’s magnetosphere – the area around Earth controlled by the planet’s magnetic field.

And the Friday storm has been rated ‘G4’ (on a scale of one to five), making it a ‘severe’ storm.’

‘Geomagnetic storms can impact infrastructure in near-Earth orbit and on Earth’s surface,’ the statement went on, stating how the storm could ‘potentially [disrupt] communications, the electric power grid, navigation, radio and satellite operations.’

It also could ‘wipe out the internet’ for some, scientists further warned – as NOAA upped the Geomagnetic Storm Watch from Moderate to Severe for Friday through Sunday late Thursday.

‘SWPC has notified the operators of these systems so they can take protective action,’ officials wrote upon administering the action.

‘Geomagnetic storms can also trigger spectacular displays of aurora on Earth,’ they added of some of the potential storm’s more scenic side effects.

‘A severe geomagnetic storm includes the potential for aurora to be seen as far south as Alabama and Northern California.’

The last time the Space Weather Prediction Center issued such a Severe Geomagnetic Storm Watch was in January 20, 2005, beginning just before 2 a.m. ET.

A storm of energetic protons impacted Earth just 15 minutes later, causing a radio burst with a high frequency, indicating the presence of a large number of energetic electrons in very strong magnetic fields.

In the blink of an eye, the outburst shocked Earth with the highest dose of radiation measured in five decades, tripping radiation monitors all over the planet within moments.

‘This flare produced the largest solar radiation signal on the ground in nearly 50 years,’ Richard Mewaldt of the California Institute of Technology said at the time, as other services like the internet were largely spared.

‘But we were really surprised when we saw how fast the particles reached their peak intensity and arrived at Earth,’ the scientist added.

In that case, the raging proton storm peaked in 15 minutes – though normally, the most intense part of a proton event typically takes two hours or longer to build up, officials said Thursday.

The event, if it occurs, will start as early as noon ET, officials warned – after a G5 storm in 2004 caused power outages in Sweden while damaging power transformers in South Africa.

This time around, the US will likely be affected, officials said.

The family of the Missouri teen who suffered severe brain injuries after being attacked has said that a part of her skull has been removed to help with recovery.

Kaylee Gain, 16, from St. Louis, was left in a life-threatening condition by Maurnice DeClue, 15, who allegedly smashed her head into concrete during a violent altercation.

Kaylee suffered a skull fracture and frontal lobe damage during the violent March 8 brawl that was caught on camera near her high school but has since been released from the intensive care unit.

Clint and Jaime Gain, the victim’s parents have shared an update about her health and said she is now at home, after her long hospitalization and two weeks at in-patient rehabilitation facility but still has ‘a long road ahead.’

On her GoFundMe page, the family’s attorney revealed that a part of the teen’s skull had to be removed to ‘relieve the pressure on her brain’ and she now needs to ‘wear a custom helmet.’

‘While hospitalized, Kaylee underwent a craniectomy, which is a neurosurgical procedure that involved removing a portion of Kaylee’s skull in order to relieve the pressure on her brain.

‘The portion of Kaylee’s skull that was removed still has not been put back in place. Ever since Kaylee underwent this procedure it has been necessary for her to wear a custom helmet in order to protect her brain in the event of a fall.

‘Kaylee is scheduled to undergo an additional surgery to reattach this portion of her skull which will require yet another hospitalization,’ attorney Bryan M. Kaemmerer wrote.

Her family also said that the young teen has been experiencing short-term memory loss and will be undergoing extensive neuropsychological testing to determine the long-term impact of her injuries on her cognitive function.

She has also been suffering from ‘trauma, fear and pain’ due to the incident.

The updates comes the same week as a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge’s decision whether Kaylee’s alleged attacker will be tried in court as an adult.

DeClue is facing assault charges. While the hearing is scheduled for today, it is not necessary that the judge provides a decision at the time.

Gain, due to her condition, will not attend the hearing tomorrow, but her mother, father, stepmother and attorney will be present.

‘The family is confident in the legal system, and trusts that the Judge will make an appropriate decision based on all of the facts and evidence in the case.

‘The family will respect the ruling, regardless of the outcome,’ the lawyer said.

Kaylee’s parents have previously slammed their daughter’s accused attacker, who is in custody and demand she be tried as an adult.

The last update shared by Clinton Gain on March 22 shared that Kaylee was finally able to breathe on her own and she was in stable condition at the hospital.

‘We are happy to share that Kaylee is breathing on her own, remains stable and the best news so far is that we have been moved out of the ICU. We are truly blessed by the outpouring of support and your prayers.’

The GoFundMe has raised $419,903 and has garnered over 9,000 donations.

In the weeks following the attack, Kaylee remained in a coma before finally regaining consciousness and leaving hospital at the end of March.

Her parents previously took aim at social media posts they believed were made by DeClue, which referenced WWE and made light of the situation.

However, Bryan Kaemmerer, who represents Kaylee’s family, was forced to retract the claims made in his prior statement, admitting: ‘It appears that the social media posts that were made from an account bearing the name of the accused do not appear to be legitimate in light of additional details that have surfaced about the timing of the accused’s arrest, the accused’s lack of access to her phone after she was taken into custody, and metadata showing precisely when these posts were first published.’

At that time, he added Kaylee is recovering but ‘tends to reiterate the same short sentences over and over’, and that she doesn’t know why she is in the hospital.

DeClue’s parents reportedly told local media that she ‘wants to apologize’ to Kaylee.

They have been visiting DeClue while she remains in juvenile custody and claim police have complied messages on social media which allegedly include threats towards the teen.

His statement said that Kaylee’s family were ‘encouraged’ after DeClue’s parents said she wished to apologize for her actions.

‘While these statements do not change the family’s position that it is appropriate for the accused to be tried as an adult, it is encouraging that the accused appears to be remorseful for what transpired during these unfortunate events,’ he added.

‘The family is thankful that the accused apparently did not post these entirely distasteful messages.

‘This does not, however, change the fact that the family firmly believes that there is more than sufficient evidence for the accused to be tried as an adult.’

Some California Democrats are turning on their Golden State leader after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s homelessness council failed to track whether billions of dollars spent on curbing the homelessness crisis were successful in the last five years.

“You come to a budget committee, and there’s no numbers,” Democratic Assemblymember Phil Ting said to Newsom’s housing and homelessness officials during Monday’s budget committee hearing. “How many people have we helped? How many people are off the street?”

“Because that’s what people want to know,” he added.

A California Interagency Council on Homelessness (CICH) executive responded that they’re dealing with “data quality issues,” so metrics are not yet available for how more than $20 billion was spent since the council’s inception.

“We’re working expeditiously,” executive officer Meghan Marshall said.

“What does that mean though? We spent billions of dollars, and you can’t tell us at all how many people we’ve helped,” Tang said.

Megan Kirkeby, deputy director for the California Department of Housing and Community Development, told lawmakers in the committee that the state didn’t previously require them to track its progress on spending or the viability of its programs, adding it’s not “something to be proud of.”

CICH, the blue state’s hub for coordinating the state’s homeless programs, shifted blame to local cities last month in an emailed response to Fox News Digital’s inquiry about the failure to track the money. A senior spokesperson said municipalities “are primarily responsible for implementing these programs and collecting data on outcomes that the state can use to evaluate program effectiveness.”

As the state faces a significant budget deficit that must be worked out by a July deadline, both Republicans and Democrats in the legislature fear the audit’s findings could interfere with multiple city requests for more funding to address the homeless crisis. California is ground zero for the most homeless people in the nation, with more than 181,000 people living on the streets.

In a bombshell report last month, the state auditor found that nine state agencies have collectively spent $24 billion in state funding over the past five years in administering at least 30 programs dedicated to tackling the homelessness crisis, and the auditor said Newsom’s homelessness council “is responsible for coordinating, developing, and evaluating the efforts of these nine agencies.”

The state’s independent audit noted CICH is required by law to report its finances related to all state‑funded homelessness programs but that it stopped doing so in 2021.

Over the past five years, CICH didn’t consistently track whether the money actually improved the situation, the audit concluded. It also failed to collect and evaluate outcome data for these programs due to the lack of a consistent method.

In a letter to the governor, the state auditor wrote that “the state must do more to assess the cost-effectiveness of its homelessness programs.”

Despite billions spent on homelessness and housing programs during the 2018-2023 fiscal years, the problem didn’t improve in many cities, according to the state auditor’s report. Since 2013, homelessness has jumped more than 53%.

Newsom consequently called for cities to take more rigorous steps to enforce the state’s progressive housing laws, saying he is “not interested in failure any longer.” In a press conference, Newsom announced the state would expand a Department of Housing and Community Development agency to enforce compliance with laws that require cities to meet a threshold of new homes, leading to legal action against rebellious cities like Huntington Beach that have refused to increase building.

“This will allow us to center accountability in both housing and homelessness programs going forward. And we are continuing to work with local jurisdictions to improve the type and quality of the state coming into our statewide Homeless Data Integration System,” a CICH spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

Nearly half of all cancer cases are linked to obesity, new research has found.

The study of more than four million adults, who were tracked for decades, found excess weight could be fuelling more than 30 types of the disease.

Experts said the findings, which will be presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Venice, were “groundbreaking”, showing a timebomb ahead.

Health charities urged ministers to act on the “wake-up call,” with obesity already estimated to cost the country almost £100 billion a year, including £19 billion in NHS costs.

Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, said the Government was taking “strong action” to tackle obesity, with a drive to harness apps and technology to overhaul lifestyles expected this summer.

“I want us all to be able to lead longer, healthier lives,” she said.

The study led by Lund University in Malmo, Sweden, involved 4.1 million participants who were monitored for about 40 years, with close monitoring of their weight and lifestyle.

Over the period, 332,500 cancers were identified. In 40 per cent of cases, there appeared to be a link between excess weight and the development of cancer.

There are an average of 390,000 cancer diagnoses in the UK annually, meaning that around 150,000 of them could be linked to obesity.

In total, researchers identified 32 types of cancer with an obesity link.

Previously, international research had identified 13 types of cancer which were linked to being overweight or obese, including bowel, breast, womb and kidney. The new study found that a five-point increase in Body Mass Index (BMI) appeared to increase the risks of such cancers by 24 per cent for men and 12 per cent for women.

The same increase – enough to take someone from the threshold for healthy weight to the cusp of obesity – was linked to 19 other cancers, with the risk raised by 17 per cent for men and 13 per cent for women. These cancers include malignant melanoma, gastric tumours, cancers of the small intestine and pituitary glands, as well as types of head and neck cancer, vulval and penis cancer.

In total, researchers examined 122 types and subtypes of cancer in a study which tracked patients over 100 million years of follow-up.

“The findings of this study have important public health implications. Established obesity-related cancers accounted for 25 per cent of all cancer cases in this study, and the proportion increased to 40 per cent when potential obesity-related cancers were added. Therefore, a substantial proportion of cancers could potentially be prevented by keeping a normal weight,” researchers said.

Obesity rates have almost doubled in the UK since the 1990s, with 26 per cent of adults in England now classed as obese, while 38 per cent are overweight.

Obesity has overtaken smoking as the leading cause of four major cancers, with smoking now the cause of one in five cases of cancer.

Forecasts from Cancer Research UK say that around 8,000 cancer cases in England could be avoided by 2040 if 10 per cent of those who are overweight and obese shift down one BMI category by 2030.

Prof Jason Halford, president of the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) said: “This is a really strong, large-scale analysis. As always, more research is needed but it reveals what many studying the links between cancer and obesity have suspected; that obesity is likely to be a risk factor for many more types of cancer than we had evidence for before.”

Prof Halford, head of the School of Psychology at the University of Leeds, accused policymakers of a “clear failure” to take strong public measures to prevent obesity, while limiting treatment options.

“If this does not cause concern for health policy makers it is difficult to see what will,” he said.

The Health Secretary is expected to set out Government plans to help people overhaul unhealthy lifestyles in the summer, with a focus on the use of apps and new technology to monitor step counts and take more control of health.

The NHS is also piloting schemes to expand the use of weight loss jabs such as Wegovy, which is the same medicine as the drug Ozempic, which is used to treat Type 2 diabetes.

Ms Atkins said: “I want us all to be able to lead longer, healthier lives. That starts with preventing illness through healthy lifestyle choices, like eating well, exercising regularly and not smoking.

“We are already introducing world-leading legislation to protect future generations from the harmful effects of smoking to reduce illnesses like cancer, and we’re taking strong action to tackle obesity too.

“By investing in tech like the NHS Couch to 5k app, we are helping families all over the country get fit and active, and I am excited about the new treatments and technologies that can help people achieve – and maintain – a healthy weight.”

Katharine Jenner, director of the Obesity Health Alliance – a coalition of 50 health charities and organisations, said: “The results are clear – if we can prevent obesity, we can prevent many types of diet-related cancers.

“This should be a wakeup call to the UK Government and governments around the world, to urgently implement public health policies which will make a meaningful difference, such as restrictions on junk food marketing, and levies on unhealthy food. We need to make the healthy choice the easy choice for everyone.”

Lead researcher Dr Ming Sun, from Lund University, said: “Our findings suggest that the impact of obesity on cancer might be greater than previously known, in that it is a risk factor for more cancers, especially of rarer kind. Some of these have rarely or never before been investigated in relation to obesity.”

He said further investigation to replicate the findings, and investigate the underlying biological mechanisms was warranted.

But Dr Sun said public health measures to overhaul lifestyles were “essential to address the obesity epidemic and its already known detrimental effect on health outcomes”.

Dr Jennifer L Baker, co-chairman of EASO’s childhood obesity working group, said the increased obesity risk might be explained by biological mechanisms such as chronic inflammation and changes to metabolism and hormone levels, while extra weight could render screening programmes less effective.

Dr Baker said: “In this groundbreaking study, using an extremely large population of Swedish adults, researchers show that obesity is associated with 19 new cancer forms, some of which are surprising, in addition to the 13 that have already been identified.”

“These new results show we are likely facing a significant increase in cancer cases,” she said.

Malcolm Clark, Cancer Research UK’s senior prevention policy manager, said: “There are lots of things people can do to lower their risk of cancer, and keeping a healthy weight is one way to reduce it. Other steps include not smoking, being safe in the sun, eating a healthy balanced diet and cutting down on alcohol.”

Ministers have repeatedly promised to introduce a TV and online ban on advertising junk food but restrictions have been pushed back and are currently planned for October 2025.

A Group of angry black-clad anarchists clashed with police as it stormed the Tesla gigafactory in Brandenburg.

Dramatic footage shows far-left demonstrators defying cops and breaking through police lines before reaching the fence of the Tesla plant.

In another clip, eco-thugs are seen storming over the railway tracks and clashing with police as they make their way to the site.

The radicals are seen running towards the EV plant with some being dragged on the ground by German cops.

One of the protesters and three police officers were injured in the skirmish, Bild reports.

A police spokesperson described the situation as “dynamic” as it is estimated about 1200 protesters are on the plant’s premises.

The radical group apparently divided into two groups in a bid to confuse police, the outlet reports.

A number of protesters have already been arrested.

Earlier this week Tesla announced it would halt production in the Gruenheide plant for four days due to protests, German newspaper Handelsblatt reported.

Security level 1 has been in effect in the forest and lake community of Grünheide near Berlin since Thursday.

Demonstrators from all over Germany and Europe gathered at the Grünheider Festwiese to protest against the carmaker.

Environmental activists have stormed the grounds of Tesla’s Gigafactory on the outskirts of Berlin, Germany. Police equipped with riot gear violently attempted to disperse the protesters as they staged the largest protest Elon Musk’s top factory has ever seen.

For several… pic.twitter.com/GdERtjiHvE

— red. (@redstreamnet) May 10, 2024

Grünheide’s local council is meant to approve the development plan for the expansion of the plant on May 16.

Tesla is looking to expand the facility after the factory opened in March 2022.

Manu Hoyer from the Grünheide citizens’ initiative told Bild: “We will influence the community representatives to ensure that this does not happen.”

Police fear the far-left militant group “Vulkan Group” which has declared war on Tesla could be behind the attacks.

The twisted group posted online that it was “looking forward to an exciting week of action” and that there were “many opportunities to attack companies like Tesla.”

The extremist group previously claimed responsibility for the arson attack in the Brandenburg gigafactory in March vowing that “no Tesla is safe.”

They described the hit as a gift marking International Women’s Day on March 8.

In a 2,700 – word letter posted online the group accused the firm of contaminating the drinking water and blamed Musk for “militarising the road” with cars as a “weapon.”

“Together we will bring Tesla to its knees. Switch off for Tesla,” their statement reads.

The Vulkangruppe, or “Volcano group” has been on Berlin’s radar since it was founded in 2011.

German authorities listed it as a left-wing extremist organisation, operating in the capital and Brandenburg, according to a 2019 report.

Their usual method is to target railway lines or cable ducts, data lines and radio masts.

Their first hit against the construction site at Gruenheide was in 2021 and damaged several power cables.

At the time, the far-left group accused Tesla of being neither green, ecological nor social.

Novak Djokovic’s first 2024 Italian Open match turned ugly.

As Djokovic exited the court, after beating Corentin Moutet 6-3, 6-1on Friday at Forto Italico in Rome, and began signing autographs for fans, a bottle came flying down from the stands and smacked Djokovic in the head.

Djokovic quickly grabbed his head and fell to the ground in pain, staying there for several moments before being helped into the tunnel and into the locker room.

Djokovic collapses after getting drilled with bottle in Rome.pic.twitter.com/9RtU4mtFlq

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) May 10, 2024

A child was leaning over the railing while trying to get Djokovic’s attention for an autograph, according to the tournament, and the aluminum-type bottle fell out of the child’s backpack and hit Djokovic on the head.

“Novak Djokovic on leaving the Central court at the end of his match was accidentally hit on the head by a water bottle while signing autographs to spectators,” the Italian Open said in a statement.

“He underwent appropriate medication and has already left the Foro Italico to return to his hotel; his condition is not a cause for concern.”

Subsequent video from a different angle supported that claim.

The tournament released a video showing that Novak Djokovic was hit on the head by accident.

The bottle slipped from a fan’s backpack.

Just a very unfortunate, unlucky situation. ❤️‍🩹

(via @InteBNLdItalia)
pic.twitter.com/5LIzzWZpMS

— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) May 10, 2024

An audible gasp could be heard from the crowd after the bottle nailed Djokovic.

Sky Sports reported that he was being attended to by medical staff in the locker room after the incident.

Djokovic had otherwise cruised through his opener in Rome.

“I haven’t practiced with a lefty in a while, so it took me a little bit of time to adjust to the different rotation on the balls,” Djokovic said on the court following the match, before the incident. “The first four games were quite bad for me. … But then I played well.”

UPDATE:

Thank you for the messages of concern. This was an accident and I am fine resting at the hotel with an ice pack. See you all on Sunday. #IBI24

— Novak Djokovic (@DjokerNole) May 10, 2024

Articles to impeach President Joe Biden over his decision to withhold aid to Israel for political reasons are in preparation, freshman Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) announced Thursday.

Biden’s decision to withhold bombs from Israel is concerning due to its political implications. Biden’s base wants him to defund Israel, while many moderate Democrats support Israel’s ability to defend itself against terrorists. Biden appears stuck between competing coalitions during an election year. He currently trails in the polls to Trump and has a historically low approval rating to win reelection as an incumbent.

Democrats accused former President Donald Trump in 2019 of withholding military aid from Ukraine for alleged political reasons.

“These are the same accusations made against President Trump, which resulted in his impeachment by Democrats. The same must happen for Joe Biden, which is why we’re drawing up articles of impeachment now,” Mills told Fox News.

Impeachment proceedings already have some support. “The House has no choice but to impeach Biden based on the Trump-Ukraine precedent of withholding foreign aid to help with reelection,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) posted on X. “Only with Biden, it’s true.”

Trump also believes Biden withheld aid for political reasons. “He did it as a political decision,” Trump said.

“You have to do the right decision, not the political decision,” Trump said Thursday before he entered a Manhattan courtroom for his criminal trial.

Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak reported on the contrast between Trump and Biden’s decision to withhold aid for reported political reasons:

In 2019, Democrats impeached then-President Donald Trump for allegedly withholding security funds from Ukraine for political reasons, though the funds were eventually delivered and there was never proof of a “quid-pro-quo.” In this case, the Biden administration is withholding much-needed munitions in the middle of a “hot” war against a terrorist army and other terrorist groups on several fronts, as well as against attacks from their Iranian sponsors.

Biden recently signed billions of dollars in new military aid to Israel, after first proposing a supplemental aid package several months ago, but did not push the legislation for months and tied it to other priorities, like funds for Ukraine.

Israel entered Rafah on Monday after Hamas attacked a humanitarian aid crossing and refused to agree to terms for a hostage release deal. The last four Hamas battalions are said to be in Rafah along with the remaining Israeli hostages.

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of former Trump White House senior aide Steve Bannon for refusing to testify and provide documents to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The appeals court rejected Bannon’s argument that he was not guilty because his attorney had advised him not to comply with a subpoena from the House committee.

The ruling by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit makes it more likely that Bannon will soon have to begin serving a sentence of four months in jail for his conviction of two counts of contempt.

Bannon could ask the full judicial line-up of the D.C. Circuit to hear his appeal again, which might postpone his jail term. He also could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take an appeal of Friday’s ruling.

But such requests typically face very long odds of success.

Bannon was convicted of flouting the House committee subpoena after a five-day trial in U.S. District Court in Washington. He has remained free pending the outcome of his appeal.

In March, Peter Navarro, another former adviser to ex-President Donald Trump, began serving a four-month federal jail sentence after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of his conviction for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 House committee.

In its ruling Friday on Bannon’s case, the D.C. appeal court panel noted that in September 2021 “the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol issued a subpoena to appellant Stephen Bannon to testify and provide documents.”

“Bannon did not comply — he knew what the subpoena required but did not appear or provide a single document,” the ruling said.

The law that Bannon was convicted of violating makes it a crime to “willfully” fail to respond to a congressional subpoena.

“Bannon insists that ‘willfully’ should be interpreted to require bad faith and argues that his noncompliance does not qualify because his lawyer advised him not to respond to the subpoena,” the appeals panel wrote in its ruling.

“This court, however, has squarely held that ‘willfully’ in [that law] means only that the defendant deliberately and intentionally refused to comply with a congressional subpoena, and that this exact ‘advice of counsel’ defense is no defense at all.”

The panel added, “As both this court and the Supreme Court have repeatedly explained, a contrary rule would contravene the text of the contempt statute and hamstring Congress’s investigatory authority.”

“Because we have no basis to depart from that binding precedent, and because none of Bannon’s other challenges to his convictions have merit, we affirm,” the panel wrote.

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct is investigating an alleged interaction between a New York real estate lawyer and the judge who issued a $454 million judgement against former President Donald Trump, according to NBC New York.

Real estate lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey said he had a conversation with Judge Arthur Engoron a few weeks before the judge’s decision was due, NBC New York reported. Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York sued Trump in September 2022, alleging he overstated the value of real estate holdings in order to obtain loans.

“I actually had the ability to speak to him three weeks ago,” Bailey said in the Feb. 16 interview, according to NBC New York. “I saw him in the corner [at the courthouse] and I told my client, ‘I need to go.’ And I walked over and we started talking … I wanted him to know what I think and why…I really want him to get it right.”

#WATCH | Judge Arthur Engoron is ‘under investigation’ for reportedly accepting unsolicited legal advice from a well-known attorney before fining Donald Trump $454 million, pic.twitter.com/nWfJIh4QWN

— VOZ (@Voz_US) May 9, 2024

“No ex parte conversation concerning this matter occurred between Justice Engoron and Mr. Bailey or any other person. The decision Justice Engoron issued February 16 was his alone, was deeply considered, and was wholly uninfluenced by this individual,” a spokesman for Engoron told NBC New York.

The New York State Rules of Judicial Conduct states that judges cannot “initiate, permit, or consider ex parte communications, or consider other communications made to the judge outside the presence of the parties or their lawyers concerning a pending or impending proceeding,” with some exceptions.

An “ex parte communication” is one in which a judge or member of the jury communicates with an outside party without all involved parties present, NBC New York reported.

“The Commission on Judicial Conduct is constrained by a strict confidentiality statute and has no comment on this matter,” Commission Administrator Robert H. Tembeckjian told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A New York appeals court judge in March reduced the bond Trump needed to pay to appeal the ruling. Engoron previously ruled on Sept. 26 that Trump was liable for fraud, ordering that several business licenses Trump held were to be rescinded, but an appeals court stayed the ruling on Oct. 6.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to fight Hamas with his fingernails as he dismissed US President Joe Biden’s warning that he would not provide arms for a major military operation in Rafah.

“If we need to stand alone, we will stand alone,” Netanyahu said in a message he issued on Thursday night. “I have said that if necessary – we will fight with our fingernails.”

“But we have much more than fingernails and with that same strength of spirit, with G-d’s help, together we will win,” he said.

Arms have never before been withheld

He spoke Biden told CNN Wednesday “I’ve made it clear that if they [Israel] go into Rafah… I’m not supplying the weapons that have historically been used to deal with Rafah,”

That statement followed one made earlier that day by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that a shipment of precision munitions designated for Gaza had been paused.

Should Biden make good on his pledge, it would mark the first tie-in presidency and indeed in over 40 years of American-Israel relations, that arms were withheld from Israel.

It was a move that displayed the growing enmity between Washington and Jerusalem over the Gaza war. Israel has insisted that a major military operation in Rafah was necessary to defeat Hamas and the Biden administration has been adamant that there were other ways to neutralize the threat.

Pundits warned that Biden’s statement sent a dangerous signal to Israel’s enemies, even as the Jewish state waged an existential war, that the United States did not have did not have Israel’s back.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted on X a simple message that went straight to that point, stating “Hamas loves Biden.”

Israel has viewed the Rafah operation as an important pressure lever to sway Hamas to finale a hostage deal, negotiations for which have taken place on and off in Cairo all week.

On Thursday, in the aftermath of Biden’s statement opposing a Rafah operation, KAN news reported that talks had fallen apart and that Israel’s delegation had returned home.

CIA Director William Burns left the region after shuttling between Cairo, Dohan, and Jerusalem this week in an attempt to make a deal. US National Security Advisor John Kirby told reporters that his departure was prescheduled and that talks were still ongoing in Cairo.

In Washington Republicans rallied behind Israel, issuing blistering attacks against Biden, heightening the extent to which the Gaza war is now a partisan issue in the Presidential race.

Trump condemns Biden

Former President Donald Trump, who is the presumptive Republican nominee, “Crooked Joe” is taking the side of Hamas just like he sided with the “radical mobs” taking over college campuses.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that Biden has long had a bitter history with Israel, as he recalled that as a Senator he had threatened to cut off military aid to Israel over its actions in Lebanon.

We have no choice but to enter Rafah

Cruz recalled how former Prime Minister Menachem Begin famously responded, “Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history.”

“Even though Joe Biden wants to abandon Israel and even though the Democrats in the Senate and House apparently support him in wanting to abandon Israel, America does not and we should not let him we should stand together and say America stand united with Israel and Hamas should be utterly destroyed,” Cruz stated.

In Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz, vowed to press forward with the Rafah operation.

“We have no choice,” Gallant stated. “We have no other country. We will do whatever is necessary, and I repeat – whatever is necessary, to defend the citizens of Israel, to remove the evil threats against us, and to stand up to those who attempt to destroy us.”

“We will work to crush the Hamas terrorist organization,” he stressed.

Gantz underscored the strong bonds between the US and Israel, but said, that the Jewish state “has a moral and security obligation to continue to defend itself to ensure the return of the hostages and remove the threat Hamas poses to Southern Israel.”

“The US,” he stressed, “has the moral and strategic obligation to supply Israel with the necessary tools to complete its mission.”

President Isaac Herzog came to Biden’s defense, calling Biden a “great friend of the State of Israel, and who proved as such from the first day of the war.”

Kirby defended Biden’s record on Israel, in talking to reporters in Washington, stating, “The arguments that somehow we’re walking away from Israel fly in the face of the facts,” Kirby said as he touted Biden’s record in support of Israel, particularly since October 7.

This included, Kirby explained, visiting Israel and sending massive amounts of military aid as well as defending it from the first-ever Iranian drone and missile attack, together with a coalition of armies from France, Great Britain, Jordan, and Israel.

Biden has long stressed to Israel that he believes a military operation in Rafah would create a humanitarian disaster given that over 1.3 million Palestinians are in that area. Many of them fled there in the early stages of the war to avoid bombings in the north.

“We propose alternative methods of defeating Hamas that do not involve a major ground operation in Rafah,” Kirby said, adding that talks with Israel on those options were ongoing.

He clarified that the US has not yet withheld the shipments of certain kinds of weapons but that it would do so if Israel proceeded with the operation.

Israel has understood that this is Biden’s position for some time, he said. Kirby stressed that the US would continue to provide Israel with other weapons that it needs to defend itself “against all of its enemies, including Hamas.”

The Biden administration wants to provide Israel with all the assistance it needs to defeat Hamas, Kirby said.

“Smashing into Rafha in his view, will not advance that objective,” Kirby stated.

The US will help ensure that the Egyptian border is not used to smuggle weapons into Gaza and would help Israel target the Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, Kirby said.

The Biden administration would also work with Israel to create an alternative governance structure in Gaza, that does not include Hamas.

“Whatever post-conflict Gaza looks like, it can’t look like what it does now with Hamas in control,” Kirby said.

He also noted that a Rafah operation would strengthen Hamas’s hand at the negotiating table for a hostage deal and would weaken Israel’s,’ he said.

The high civilian casualty count resulting from an IDF military operation in Rafah would also feed Hamas’s anti-Israel narrative.

“It could cast Israel in the worst possible way” and would give Hamas “more ammunition for its twisted narrative,” Kirby said.

A shocking video posted to X showed a man wrapping a belt around a woman’s neck, dragging her body onto a street in New York City, and raping her.

According to NYPD, the 45-year-old woman was attacked and sexually assaulted near 152nd Street and 3rd Avenue in the Bronx on May 1 around 3 am.

The attacker covered his face with a white towel as he assaulted the woman. No arrests have been made.

PIX11 reported:

A man wrapped a belt around a woman’s neck and dragged her unconscious body between two parked cars before raping her on a Bronx street, according to police and a viral video.

The 45-year-old woman was attacked near 152nd Street and Third Avenue at around 3 a.m. on May 1, according to the NYPD. The woman was walking down the street when a suspect came up from behind and looped the belt around her neck, the viral video shows.

The man, who covered his face with a white towel, then used the belt to pull the passed-out woman several feet along the sidewalk and into the street between two parked cars, the video shows. Police said the suspect then raped her.

The video shared on social media does not depict the entire assault. There have been no arrests, and the investigation is ongoing.

The video posted to X does not show the entire assault.

Police are urging anyone with information about this horrific assault to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).

WATCH (graphic warning):

Graphic Warning: Disgusting video out of New York shows a man snag a woman with a belt before dragging her behind a vehicle. Video was posted online without further information.
If you recognize this man contact your local police. #nyc #newyork #crime pic.twitter.com/5111yRTJwQ

— PPV_TAHOE (@ppv_tahoe) May 9, 2024

Police in riot gear began dismantling an anti-Israel encampment at the University of Pennsylvania early Friday and arresting protesters after more than two weeks of the demonstration on campus.

The officers, wearing tactical gear, gave the protesters a 2-minute warning around 6 a.m. to leave the Philadelphia campus or be subject to arrest, NBC10 reported.

It’s unclear how many protesters were detained at the encampment, which was erected 16 days ago.

As of 7 a.m., the majority of the protesters had dispersed or been taken into custody, the outlet reported.

Six students had previously been given “mandatory leaves of absences” from the Ivy League school over their participation in the protest.

“Today, the University issued mandatory temporary leaves of absence for six students in accordance with our policies and pending the results of the Center for Community Standards and Accountability disciplinary investigations. These actions are a result of the University’s continuing response to the unauthorized encampment on College Green,” the school said in a statement Thursday.

🚨 Happening Now: Police arresting protesters at UPENN#UniversityWar #UPENN #protest pic.twitter.com/FRAL2dWtaR

— 50 States of Lie (@50StatesOfLie) May 10, 2024

Demonstrators on campus refused a mandate to show school ID — and one anti-Israel group celebrated last week that no arrests were made for not complying in the days after that request.

“Because of our collective will and strength, we were able to call the administration’s bluff, resist the panic they intended to set in and win this first battle,” UPenn’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine wrote on Instagram on Monday.

The UPenn encampment is one of the many anti-Israel protests occupying college campuses across the US over the past couple of weeks.

Most of the demonstrations cropped up in response to a tent movement at Columbia University, where hundreds of students and other protesters have been arrested for trespassing and other infractions.

The encampment protesters are calling on universities to divest from Israel due to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip — though the demonstrations have been called out for their antisemitic and hateful rhetoric.

Peter Thiel was reportedly trapped inside a debate hall at Cambridge University in the UK on Wednesday as a crowd of anti-Israel supporters refused to let him leave for about an hour after he was accused of facilitating “genocide” in Gaza.

Thiel, the 56-year-old co-founder and chairman of Palantir, a software company that counts among its clients the Israeli military, was a keynote speaker at an event held at Cambridge Union, the famed debating society, on Wednesday afternoon.

According to reports, Thiel, who made his fortune as an early angel investor in Facebook and co-founder of PayPal, had to arrive three hours before the event in order to avoid the large crowd.

During his talk, he was interrupted by at least two students who gave monologues accusing him of helping Israel commit “genocide” against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Photos and videos circulating online show several of the demonstrators being escorted out of the event after they disrupted Thiel’s talk.

“Since October 7th, 14,000 children in Palestine have been murdered, and Palantir is complicit in that. Your actions are complicit in the genocide of thousands of people,”one protester could be heard telling Thiel in a video that was posted on X.

🚨NEWS: A mob of protestors against Israel have trapped Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel inside the Cambridge Union.$PLTR pic.twitter.com/PcG0PbTLcv

— Jawwwn (@jawwwn_) May 8, 2024

“Your technology is ensuring that hospitals are being bombed,” the protester said.

Sabrina Miller, a journalist for the Mail on Sunday, posted video on the X social media platform showing the crowd outside the venue.

“Peter Thiel trapped inside Cambridge Union. Protesters not letting him leave,” Miller wrote.

Several of the demonstrators camped outside of the debate hall waved Palestinian flags and chanted.

The students were later escorted out of the event by security, according to The Telegraph.

After the event, Thiel went outside and taunted the large crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators by smiling and waving at them.

At one point, Thiel reportedly started snapping photos of them.

Peter Thiel trapped inside Cambridge Union. Protesters not letting him leave. pic.twitter.com/ouBlIQhs1Q

— Sabrina Miller (@SabriSun_Miller) May 8, 2024

Thiel was prevented from leaving for an hour as demonstrators blocked his vehicle, according to reports.

Earlier this week, Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir who co-founded the company alongside Thiel, blasted anti-Israel protesters who have caused chaos on college campuses.

Karp said that the protesters should be deported to North Korea as part of an “exchange program” to give them perspective.

“We’re gonna do an exchange program sponsored by Karp,” he said. “A couple months in North Korea, nice-tasting flavored bark. See how you feel about that.”

Earlier this year, Karp said that his company has lost employees due to its overt support for Israel.

Palantir, the data-mining company, provides the Israeli military as well as that of other countries with artificial intelligence models.

Karp said that he didn’t mind losing employees who objected to his company’s ties to Israel.

“This is not a small issue. From my perspective it’s not just about Israel,” Karp told CNBC earlier this year.

“Do you believe in the West? Do you believe that the West has created a superior way of living. Are you willing to admit you believe that?”

Apple has apologized and admitted it “missed the mark” with its latest iPad Pro advertisement.

“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world. Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad,” Myhren said. “We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”

Apple confirmed the statement it provided to AdAge but declined to provide further comment.

The ad shows symbols of human creativity, like musical instruments, paint cans, an ’80s arcade video game and a bust of a human head crushed by a giant hydraulic press. As the metal slabs of the hydraulic press lift, Apple’s new iPad Pro is revealed.

“Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create,” Cook wrote in a post on X accompanying the video.

Internet backlash to the ad was instantaneous: “The symbolism of indiscriminately crushing beautiful creative tools is an interesting choice,” wrote one social media user. “This ad effectively convinced me I need less technology in my life,” wrote another.

Other users said the ad was in poor taste amid growing fears that AI could replace workers – even those in creative fields. Actor Hugh Grant wrote on social media that Apple’s ad represented “the destruction of the human experience.”

Apple no longer plans to run the ad on TV, according to AdAge.

The mea culpa was rare for Apple, though the ad has not been deleted from Cook’s X account.

Watch:

Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. pic.twitter.com/6PeGXNoKgG

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 7, 2024

Donald Trump’s defence lawyers have grilled Stormy Daniels on the transaction at the centre of the former president’s hush money trial, pressing her on why she accepted a 130,000 dollar payment to keep quiet about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump instead of going public.

“Why didn’t you do that?” lawyer Susan Necheles asked, wondering why Ms Daniels did not hold a news conference as she had planned to tell reporters about the 2006 encounter, which Trump denies ever happened.

“Because we were running out of time,” Ms Daniels said.

Did she mean, Ms Necheles asked, that she was running out of time to use the claim to make money?

“To get the story out,” Ms Daniels countered.

The negotiations happened in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, a critical point in the case against Trump because prosecutors are arguing that he and his allies snatched up these potentially damaging stories and buried them in an illegal effort to influence the November results.

Trump denies any wrongdoing.

Ms Daniels returned for more testimony on Thursday, avoiding eye contact with the former president as she walked into the Manhattan courtroom and made her way to the witness stand.

Trump’s lawyers have sought to paint the adult film actor as a liar and extortionist who is trying to take down Trump after drawing money and fame from her story about him.

Turning pointedly to Ms Daniels’ career as an adult film actor, writer and director, Ms Necheles asked: “You have a lot of experience in making phoney stories about sex appear real?”

“The sex in those films is real, just like the sex in that room,” Ms Daniels replied. “The character themes might be different, but the sex is very real. That’s why it’s pornography, not a B movie.”

Ms Daniels was first called as a witness on Tuesday, describing what she said happened during their 2006 encounter in graphic detail. That testimony came after jurors heard others in Trump’s orbit testify that they saw Ms Daniels around Trump Tower. The jury also heard nuts-and-bolts testimony about bank records and payments received.

Trump scowled and shook his head through much of Ms Daniels’ description of their alleged sexual encounter after she met Trump at a 2006 Lake Tahoe celebrity golf outing where sponsors included the adult film studio where she worked.

At one point, the judge told defence lawyers during a sidebar conversation – out of earshot of the jury and the public – that he could hear Trump “cursing audibly”.

Ms Daniels testified earlier this week that while she was not physically menaced, she felt a “power imbalance” as Trump, in his hotel bedroom, stood between her and the door and propositioned her.

As for whether she felt compelled to have sex with him, she reiterated on Thursday that he did not drug her or physically threaten her. But, she said: “My own insecurities, in that moment, kept me from saying no.”

As Ms Necheles continued comparing Ms Daniels’ testimony with past interviews, the witness insisted: “My story hasn’t changed.

“You’re trying to make me say that it changed, but it hasn’t changed at all.”

Her testimony has been an extraordinary moment in what could be the only criminal case against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to go to trial before voters decide in November whether to send him back to the White House.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and casts himself as the victim of a politically tainted justice system working to deny him another term.

As she negotiated a nondisclosure agreement with Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen, Ms Daniels was also talking with other journalists as a “back-up” plan, she testified on Thursday. Ms Necheles accused her of refusing to share the story with reporters because she would not be paid for it.

“The better alternative was for you to get money, right?” Ms Necheles said.

Ms Daniels said she was most interested in getting her story out and ensuring her family’s safety.

“The better alternative was to get my story protected with a paper trail so that my family didn’t get hurt,” Ms Daniels replied.

Meanwhile, as the threat of jail looms over Trump following his repeated gag order violations, his lawyers are fighting the judge’s order and seeking a fast decision in an appeals court. If the court refuses to lift the gag order, Trump’s lawyers want permission to take their appeal to the state’s high court.

“Here we sit after two and a half weeks, and I think you’ll see some very revealing things today,” Trump said outside court.

Inside the courtroom, Ms Necheles ran through the finer points of the nondisclosure agreement, asking Daniels to confirm that she agreed to highlighted portions. Ms Daniels responded in terse one-word answers, “Yes,” adding: “I signed this only based on what my attorneys suggested.”

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organisation business records. The charges stem from things such as invoices and cheques that were deemed legal expenses in Trump Organisation records. Prosecutors say the payments largely were reimbursements to Mr Cohen for the 130,000 dollars hush money payment to Ms Daniels.

Testimony so far has made clear that at the time of the payment to Ms Daniels, Trump and his campaign were reeling from the October 2016 publication of the never-before-seen 2005 Access Hollywood footage in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission.

Prosecutors have argued that the political firestorm over the Access Hollywood tape hastened Mr Cohen’s payment to keep Ms Daniels from going public with her claims that could further hurt Trump in the eyes of female voters.

Trump’s lawyers have sought to show that Trump was trying to protect his reputation and family – not his campaign – by shielding them from embarrassing stories about his personal life.

President Biden said Wednesday that “I’m not supplying the weapons” if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves forward with a full attack on the Hamas-controlled city of Rafah — before signaling he wants Israel to surrender the Gaza Strip’s transitional administration to Arab states.

“I made clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gotten into Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett in a rare sit-down interview.

Biden’s threat drew swift condemnation from Israel supporters in Congress and followed days of obfuscation by the White House about reports the administration had stopped the transmission of powerful precision bombs. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed to Congress earlier Wednesday the shipment had been “paused,” but claimed a final decision about its fate had not yet been made.

“Biden’s dithering on Israel weapons is bad policy and a terrible message to Israel, our allies, and the world,” tweeted Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).

Biden told Burnett the arms denied to Israel could expand to artillery shells as well — before saying that he was in talks with five Arab leaders about potentially occupying Gaza after Israel defeats Hamas, which could conflict with Jerusalem’s plans to administer the area.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden said of US arms shipments.

“It’s just wrong. We’re not gonna — we’re not gonna supply the weapons and artillery shells used.”

He added that “I’ve made it clear to [Netanyahu] and the war cabinet, they’re not going to get our support if in fact they go into these population centers.

In a potentially paradigm-shifting evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Biden proceeded to suggest that Arab nations might temporarily occupy Gaza — which Israeli leaders have floated being subject to a transitional phase akin to denazification in Germany after World War II.

“Who is going to occupy Gaza?” Biden said, before answering his own question.

“I’ve been working with the Arab states, I won’t mention them because I don’t want to get them in trouble, but five leaders in the Arab community who are prepared to help rebuild Gaza, prepared to help transition to a two-state solution.”

Burnett asked Biden, “To govern it?”

“To maintain the security and peace while they’re working out a Palestinian Authority that is real and not corrupt,” Biden replied.

Although Biden didn’t name any of the Arab nations, close US partners in the region include Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

It’s unclear if any Arab states actually would want to administer Gaza, which was controlled by Egypt until the 1967 Six-Day War — though Cairo has since relinquished its claims.

Biden has warned Israel for weeks not to attack the final major bastion of Hamas power in Rafah and repeated the message Monday in a call to the Israeli head of government.

More than a million displaced Gazans are believed to reside in and around Rafah.

Biden told Burnett he would “continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks like came out of — in the Middle East recently.”

The president, who is regularly heckled by anti-Israel protesters who have dubbed him “Genocide Joe,” has for months criticized Israel for allegedly doing too little to avoid killing civilians and aid workers in Gaza.

On Tuesday, however, Biden gave a pro-Israel speech at an event commemorating the Holocaust, saying that protesters were “forgetting” that Hamas started the war by killing about 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7.

“Too many people [are] denying downplaying, rationalizing and ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust and October 7, including Hamas’s appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews. It’s absolutely despicable and it must stop,” he said in that speech.

Polls show Biden’s re-election is at risk due to backlash over his pro-Israel stance from key Democratic constituencies including younger voters, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans.

Netanyahu has pushed back on Biden’s mounting criticism.

“If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone,” Netanyahu said in a defiant speech Sunday at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

“Eighty years ago in the Holocaust, the Jewish people were totally defenseless against those who sought our destruction. No nation came to our aid. Today, we again face enemies bent on our destruction,” Netanyahu said.

“I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself… We will defeat our genocidal enemies.

“‘Never again’ is now.”

A teenage girl was ‘loaned out’ by her ‘lover boy’ boyfriend to be sexually abused by his friends in Belgium who filmed the attack on their phones and shared images on social media, according to reports, in a case that has shocked the country.

The 14-year-old girl was abused by ten minors on up to three occasions between April 2 and April 6 over the Easter holidays, prosecutors say.

The main suspect – the girl’s 14-year-old boyfriend – is alleged to have taken the girl with him to a wooded area called Kabouterbos in Kortrijk, West Flanders. The spot is popular with mountain bikers and sits close to a highway.

Once there, the boyfriend is said to have attacked his young partner before allegedly allowing several other boys to sexually assault her as well. Reports said the group filmed the attack on their smartphones and posted clips to social media.

Prosecutors arrested ten suspects aged between 11 and 16 – all reported by local outlets to be boys of ‘immigrant origin’ – and hauled them in for interrogation.

Since then, more details have emerged about the suspects.

Citing ‘well placed sources’, Belgian outlet Nieuwsblad described the boyfriend as a ‘loverboy boy’ type who deliberately allowed his friends to abuse his young partner.

‘Lover boy’ in this case is a term used to describe human traffickers who typically operate by trying to make their young victims fall in love with them.

Nieuwsblad said prosecutors turned up ‘reprehensible behaviour’ on the part of the suspects and ‘revenge-mongering facts’, citing the sources close to the investigation who said the alleged perpetrators showed ‘a complete lack of sense of norms’.

The girl is thought to have spent at least two days in the forest where she was raped, tormented and abused by the gang of minors. She also returned a third time, reports say, but was not raped on that occasion.

The group took turns abusing the victim, and all participated ‘to a greater or lesser extent,’ Nieuwsblad said in its report.

The girl is understood to have been raped by several of the boys while others filmed the attacks on their smart phones, before sharing the clips with others.

Images were also shared on social media, reportedly over Snapchat – an instant messaging app that allows users to easily share pictures and videos.

The youngest of the boys, an 11-year-old, is said to have been used as lookout.

None of the group urged their friends to stop the abuse, sources said.

The investigation has been conducted in the utmost secrecy by the West Flanders prosecutor’s office to avoid any chance of family members of the victim or members of the public learning the identities of those involved.

Although the alleged attack took place in early April, the girl didn’t come forward for several days out of fear of telling her parents and the police.

It wasn’t until April 25 that the police were able to arrest the suspects.

In total, ten boys were detained. Six of the suspects were placed in a closed institution, while the other four were placed under house arrest.

They have since been questioned – all simultaneously and separately, so that investigators can compare all statements.

Citing its sources, Nieuwsblad said many of the statements given by the boys were contradictory, a number of the suspects blaming each other.

Some of the six minors placed in the institution appeared in juvenile court on Wednesday afternoon. It was reported that two were released on conditions.

Nieuwsblad reported that four more minors are now in custody – including the 14-year-old boyfriend who, it is understood, has been made the main suspect.

Prosecutors are now working to establish what extent each suspect was involved in the assault on the 14-year-old girl, or if any were bystanders.

Tom Janssens of the Public Prosecutor’s Office said that on account of the age of all those involved, little is being said publicly on their identity.

He did confirm that ten suspects had been identified and arrested, and that all were minors. ‘Because the perpetrators are so young, we are not releasing much information about their identity,’ Janssens told The Brussels Times.

According to the boyfriend’s lawyer, her client has disputed the events as they have been reported. ‘My client also wants the truth to come to light and for the matter to be thoroughly investigated,’ lawyer Nur Demirtas told Nieuwsblad.

‘He understands that he is now locked up, but this is also traumatising for him. This is also very difficult for his parents, wealthy people who have tried to give their son a good upbringing. They don’t understand how this could happen,’ Demirtas said.

‘It also strikes me that suspects of such crimes are becoming younger and younger. That is very disturbing.’

Lawyer Kelly De Caluwé, who is defending a 16-year-old suspect of Somali origin, said the minors had ‘all been interrogated simultaneously and the investigators will now test the statements to find out the truth’.

‘These are horrible facts,’ she said. ‘The question is how it is possible that these children have lost all sense of norms. What should we do with this?

‘How are we going to solve this? It is a question that should be asked not only to the juvenile judge but also to society as a whole. I have not yet experienced such facts in my fifteen-year career.’

Caluwé said her client said things he did not mean during the questioning and has asked for a re-examination.

‘I asked for a re-examination because due to the language barrier he said things that did not match what he meant,’ she said, according to Nieuwsblad.

‘To me he is not a rapist. Although he realises that something very wrong has happened. That realisation comes gradually.’

Kortrijk mayor Vincent Van Quickenborne said he was shocked when he first learned about the case that he has known about behind closed doors ‘for some time’.

‘The public prosecutor’s office does not allow me to say anything about the facts themselves, but I had been aware of the investigation for some time,’ he said.

‘These are cra*py acts for which there are no words. I say that not only as a politician, but also as a father of 3 young children.’

The criminal age of responsibility in Belgium is 18, meaning the suspected sexual abusers were sent before a juvenile judge and are likely to have been placed into a personal rehabilitation programme in youth facilities.

But it is possible the 16-year-old in question could be dealt with under adult criminal law, given the exceptional nature of the case.

The victim, meanwhile, is receiving specialist guidance following her ordeal.

The case in Belgium comes three years after another, similarly horrific incident shocked the country when a 14-year-old girl was raped by a group of young men in a cemetery in Ghent, in East Flanders.

Aged between 14 and 19, the group filmed the attack and circulated the footage on social media. The victim later took her own life.

The case sparked debate in Belgium about the country’s juvenile delinquency laws, as well as around increasing the minimum penalty for sexual offences.

Belgium eventually tightened the juvenile delinquency laws.

This made it possible to lock up children as young as 12 for longer periods if they are found guilty of rape and gang rape, and since 2022, offenders aged 16 and over who committed such crimes can be tried as adults.

Commenting on the recent case, East Flanders’s Justice Minister Zuhal Demir – who advocated for the tightening of such laws – said parents of children who commit such crimes ‘must be held accountable’.

‘You simply cannot deal with this kind of violence with lower [sentences],’ she said, according to The Brussels Times.

‘Such [perpetrators] must be taken off the streets and their parents must be held accountable. Juvenile judges should make more and full use of the recent tightening of juvenile delinquency law.’

On why it likely took the 14-year-old girl time to come forward after the early April incident, professor of forensic psychology Frédéric Declercq told De Morgen: There is always under-reporting of sexual crimes, whether it concerns a gang rape or an individual case. It is a well-known fact that victims usually feel more guilty than the perpetrators.’

‘In addition, there is a lot of shame in reporting crime. What also plays a role, for both female and male victims, is stigmatisation. You are no longer who you always were. If you come out, you are a rape victim.’

A Boeing 737-300 plane carrying 85 people skidded off a runway at the airport in Senegal’s capital, injuring 10 people, according to the transport minister, an airline safety group and footage from a passenger that showed the aircraft on fire.

“Our plane just caught fire,” wrote Malian musician Cheick Siriman Sissoko in a post on Facebook that showed passengers jumping down the emergency slides at night as flames engulfed one side of the aircraft at the airport in Dakar. In the background, people can be heard screaming.

Transport Minister El Malick Ndiaye said the Air Sénégal flight operated by TransAir was headed to Bamako, in neighboring Mali, late Wednesday with 79 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew.

The airport reopened on Thursday morning after closing overnight.

The injured were being treated at a hospital, while the others were taken to a hotel to rest. Boeing referred a request for comment to the airlines.

It was the third incident involving a Boeing airplane this week. Also on Thursday, 190 people were safely evacuated from a plane in Turkey after one of its tires burst during landing at a southern airport, Turkey’s transportation ministry said.

“ Boeing 737 plane ✈️“ Catches Fire 🔥 in Senegal 🇸🇳 💔AFTER FAILED TAKEOFF ATTEMPT

With people running for their lives pic.twitter.com/9Rci6SYlI3

— OjoToTheWorld (@OjoToTheWorld) May 9, 2024

The company has been under intense pressure since a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, leaving a gaping hole in the plane. The Federal Aviation Administration in February gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix quality problems and meet safety standards for building planes after the accident.

The incident has raised scrutiny of Boeing to the highest level since two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. About a dozen relatives of passengers who died in the second crash have been pushing the U.S. government to revive a criminal fraud charge against the company by determining that Boeing violated terms of a 2021 settlement.

In April, a Boeing whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, testified at a congressional hearing that the company had taken manufacturing shortcuts to turn out 787s as quickly as possible that could lead to jetliners breaking apart.

The Aviation Safety Network, which tracks airline accidents, described the plane as a Boeing 737-38J. The network published photos of the damaged plane in a grassy field, surrounded by fire suppressant foam, on X, formerly known as Twitter. One engine appeared to have broken apart and a wing was also damaged, according to the photos.

ASN is part of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group that aims to promote safe air travel and tracks accidents.