April 27, 2024

Saturday, April 27, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

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Joe is always busy.

From Hillary.

In Ukraine.

Debatable.

Word from Joe’s incoherent opponent.

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Trump trials go on. . . and on. . .

What Trump “tweets” from the desk at the court case where he faces criminal charges for pay-offs to women to protect his campaign for President. These were women he was with when Melania was either pregnant or at home with a 4 month old infant.

Where we were on Thursday.

Pecker testified

Cohen told him: “Jeff Sessions is the attorney general, and Donald Trump has him in his pocket,”

Pecker to Cohen: "I'm very worried"

Cohen: "Why?"

Pecker: "We've committed a campaign finance violation"

Where we closed on Friday.

Judge Merchan officially noted that the hearing over the Donald Trump's gag order violations has been changed from Wednesday to Thursday at 9:30 a.m. ET. (CNN)

Takeaways from Day 8 of the Donald Trump hush money trial.

The first week of arguments in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial concluded Friday after jurors heard testimony from witnesses including Trump's longtime assistant, Ronna Graff, who shared details of her 34 years at the Trump Organization and said she had a "vague recollection" of spotting Stormy Daniels in Trump Tower.

Earlier in the day, tabloid executive David Pecker concluded his four days on the witness stand, where he delved into his "catch-and-kill" arrangement with the former president.

The final witness of the week was Gary Farro, a managing director who worked at the bank used by Michael Cohen to arrange payment to Stormy Daniels -- the transaction at the crux of the district attorney's case.

Court will not be in session on Monday, meaning testimony will resume on Tuesday morning.

Here are the top takeaways from Day 8 of Trump's hush money trial.

David Pecker concludes lengthy testimony

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker spent the better part of three days on the witness stand, expounding on the inner workingsof his industry and detailing his "catch-and-kill" arrangement with Donald Trump and Michael Cohen.

On Friday, defense counsel sought to normalize the actions Pecker took on Trump's behalf, calling them "standard operating procedure" and attempting to show that Pecker was more interested in selling magazines than protecting Trump.

Prosecutors rebuffed those claims, eliciting testimony from Pecker to show that he misled his own attorneys about how he and Cohen conspired to "disguise" his company's contract with Karen McDougal, whose story of an alleged affair with Trump was caught and killed.

"The actual purpose was to acquire the lifetime rights to the story so it wouldn't be published," Pecker testified.

Emil Bove, an attorney for Trump, attempted to poke holes in Pecker's testimony, questioning the consistency of his remarks from the witness stand.

But Pecker pushed back, saying, "I know what the truth is. I know exactly what was said."

Rhona Graff, Trump's 'gatekeeper,' takes the stand

For 34 years, Rhona Graff had a front row seat to Donald Trump's ascendance from New York real estate mogul to television star to president of the United States.

Her office in Trump Tower was situated "right next door" to his, and she maintained his contacts and calendar.

In that role, she saw everything -- including, one day, Stormy Daniels.

"I have a vague recollection of seeing her in the reception area on the 26th floor" of Trump Tower, Graff testified.

Graff testified how she was responsible for updating the company contact list -- which included entries for McDougal and Daniels.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Susan Nicheles elicited responses from Graff suggesting that Daniels may have been in Trump Tower because she was being considered for a role on Trump's "Apprentice" TV show.

Graff said she was testifying under subpoena and did not want to be on the stand. She also said the Trump Organization was paying for her attorneys.

Banker testifies about 'frantic call' from Cohen

Gary Farro, a former senior managing director at First Republic Bank, testified about his interactions with Michael Cohen as the former president's onetime fixer sought to arrange a payment to Stormy Daniels.

The banker described receiving a vague email from Cohen asking for help with an "important matter," and later fielding a "frantic call" from Cohen while on the golf course.

"Every time Michael Cohen spoke to me, he gave a sense of urgency," Farro said. "This is one of those times."

Cohen told Farro he needed him to set up an LLC with a bank account to be used for a real estate transaction.

But according to prosecutors, the day the account was created, Cohen transferred in $131,000 from a personal home equity line of credit -- and the next day he transferred out $130,000 to a lawyer for Stormy Daniels. (ABC News).

The New York Election Interference Case resumes on Tuesday.

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Worry Less. Do More.

April 23, 2020.

Trump proving how unfit he is ever to be President.

President Trump Suggests ‘Injecting’ Disinfectant as Coronavirus Cure | NBC New York - YouTube.


https://youtu.be/d57zJr82dhQ?si=VqPdJHeqNpRVeh2p

Share this! 👆

Your “Worry Less Do More” Action of the Day.

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Posted by Simon Rosenberg yesterday, this quotation from Thomas Jefferson.

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On Monday, look for this.

• A New York appellate court will hear oral argument in a lawsuit — brought by the RNC, NRCC, Rep. Elise Stefanik and more — challenging the state’s new Early Mail Voter Act, which allows any voter to vote by mail during the early voting period.
  

  • A lower court dismissed the case in February after finding that the GOP plaintiffs “failed to meet their heavy burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the Early Mail Voter Act is unconstitutional under the NY Constitution.”

  (Source.Marc Elias. Democracy Docket).

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Columbia University.

Columbia’s University Senate Calls for an Investigation Into the Administration.

The senators voted for a resolution that accused the administration of breaching the due-process rights of students and professors.

Columbia’s President Nemat [Minouche] Shafik.

Columbia University’s senate voted on Friday to approve a resolution that called for an investigation into the school’s leadership, accusing the administration of violating established protocols, undermining academic freedom, jeopardizing free inquiry and breaching the due process rights of both students and professors.

The university’s president, Nemat [Minouche]Shafik, has been under attack for her decision last week to summon the New York Police Department to campus, resulting in the arrest of more than 100 student protesters, and for her earlier congressional testimony, in which professors accused her of capitulating to the demands of congressional Republicans over free speech and the disciplining of students and professors.

The resolution, adopted by a vote of 62-14, with three abstentions, fell short of a proposal earlier in the week to censure Dr. Shafik, which many senators worried could be perceived as yielding to Republican lawmakers who had called for her resignation over her handling of antisemitism claims. (New York Times).

Should Columbia expel this student?

Student Leader of Columbia Protests: ‘Zionists Don’t Deserve to Live.’

After video surfaced on social media, the student, Khymani James, said on Friday that his comments were wrong.

Khymani James’s comments came during and after a disciplinary hearing with Columbia administrators that he recorded and then posted on Instagram.

Video of incendiary comments by one of the leaders of the student protest encampment at Columbia University surfaced online Thursday evening, forcing the school to again confront an issue at the core of the conflict rippling across campuses nationwide: the tension between pro-Palestinian activism and antisemitism.

The student, Khymani James, said in the January video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”

Mr. James made the comments during and after a disciplinary hearing with Columbia administrators that he recorded and then posted on Instagram.

The hearing, conducted by an associate director of the university’s Center for Student Success and Intervention, was focused on an earlier comment he shared on social media, in which he discussed fighting a Zionist. “I don’t fight to injure or for there to be a winner or a loser, I fight to kill,” he wrote.

A Columbia administrator asked, “Do you see why that is problematic in any way?”

Mr. James replied, “No.”

The remarks were widely shared on social media and go to the heart of a question that has been swirling around the protests: How much of the movement is driven by sincere concern for the suffering of Gazans, and how much is tainted by antisemitism?

College administrators have pledged to Congress that they will take swift action against hateful attacks on Jewish students and antisemitic threats. “I promise you, from the messages I’m hearing from students, they are getting the message that violations of our policies will have consequences,” Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, told congressional leaders last week.

On Friday, a school spokesman said, “Calls of violence and statements targeted at individuals based on their religious, ethnic or national identity are unacceptable and violate university policy.” He declined to say if Mr. James had been, or would be, disciplined for the remarks.

Early Friday morning, Mr. James posted a statement on social media addressing his comments. “What I said was wrong,” he wrote. “Every member of our community deserves to feel safe without qualification.” He noted that he made these comments in January before he become involved with the protest movement and added that the leaders of the student protests did not condone the comments. “I agree with their assessment,” he wrote.

Mr. James did not respond to a request for comment.

It is unclear how many students are directing the Columbia protest movement, but Mr. James, 20, emerged as a public face of the demonstrations earlier this week when he led a news conference to assert the demands the movement is making of the Columbia administration.

“This encampment — a peaceful, student-led demonstration — is part of the larger movement of Palestinian liberation,” Mr. James said at the conference.

In his biography on X, he calls himself an “anticapitalist” and “anti-imperialist.”

Mr. James was raised in Boston, and graduated from Boston Latin Academy, according to a 2021 interview with The Bay State Banner.

He told The Banner that at Columbia, he planned to study economics and political science. “The ultimate destination is Congress,” he said. (New York Times).

“Columbia University announced on Friday that it had barred from its campus a leader in the pro-Palestinian student protest encampment who declared on video in January that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” (New York Times)

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Soccer-Period anxiety and white shorts linked to drop in performance - study Reuters.

April 25 (Reuters) - Women's soccer teams have been ditching white shorts as part of a growing trend aimed at tackling period anxiety in sport, and new research shows that women's teams who play in white perform worse.

Alex Krumer, a sports economist and professor at Molde University College in Norway, studied the results of World Cups and European Championships between 2002 and 2023, and found women's teams wearing white shorts averaged 1.27 points per game compared to 1.57 points by teams in dark colours. Men's teams in white shorts showed no drop in performance.

"This is one of the easiest conclusions for policy advice that I can give -- nothing to do with budgets, nothing to do with money. Don't play in white shorts, full stop," Krumer said in an interview with Reuters. "So easy to implement. And then women will feel good about it. And you will increase your probability of winning. It's win-win. So easy."

Krumer, whose peer-reviewed paper "On the cost of wearing white shorts in women's sport" was published recently in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, was curious about whether women's anxieties about leakage affected their performance.

"There is zero effect for men ... they just don't care because they don't have this menstrual anxiety or leakage anxiety," he said.

The issue made headlines ahead of last year's Women's World Cup when several countries including England and New Zealand ditched white.

"Anything that relieves the mental stress of the players is a good thing. If it's one less thing to worry about, then why not?" England defender Lucy Parker said when the change was announced, while team mate and forward Lauren Hemp called it a "massive step in the right direction".

Manchester City, West Bromwich Albion and Orlando Pride also binned their white shorts, while complaints from female tennis players around Wimbledon's all-white dress code prompted the Grand Slam's organisers to relax rules to allow women to wear dark undershorts.

England's Red Roses rugby team, on the other hand, decided against a switch, arguing menstruation should not be a taboo subject and women should not have to switch to make others comfortable.

Nineteen of the 32 teams at last year's Women's World Cup played at least one match in white, Krumer said.

Krumer used regression analysis and controlled for other factors such as team ranking and home advantage. When he unveiled his working paper back in October, Denmark's women's team announced they were dropping their white shorts soon after.

The issue around period anxiety stretches beyond international and professional sport. Numerous studies around the world show girls drop out of sport at a far greater rate than boys.

"And if you force them to play in white shorts, especially at the age of 14, 15, when they really care about what people will think ... that's a pity," Krumer said. "And it's taboo," he added. "People don't want to talk about it, but 50% of the population has it. What's the problem?

"Sport can (also) effectively promote awareness of social issues in general, including those concerning the menstrual cycle."

Part of Krumer's interest in the topic stemmed from what he said is a lack of research in women's sport compared to men.

"We really have some social responsibility as scientists to investigate women's sports because women's sport is heavily under-investigated," he said. (Reuters).

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3 pm Friday.

So far more than 2.5 million people have watched Caitlin Clark’s first WNBA workout.

You can watch too.👇

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Eve and I are visiting the Cherry Esplanade at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens today.

Want to come? Don’t have the time? Take a walk through with this video. 21 minutes.

Cherry Esplanade Walk 👇

https://vimeo.com/413686488

If we don’t meet up in Brooklyn, see you on Tuesday!

Enjoy the blooms of spring wherever you are.

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