The New York trial of the former president for allegedly paying hush money to a porn star will also test US justice system

He has been businessman, TV showman and president of the United States. On Monday morning, in the sobering surroundings of a New York courtroom, Donald Trump will play yet another role in American history when he becomes the first former White House occupant to stand criminal trial.

The case, involving hush money paid to the adult film star Stormy Daniels , carries profound political and legal ramifications as the Republican runs for election against Joe Biden in November. It is a jury trial not only of Trump but of America, testing the country’s checks and balances and sacred promise that no one – not even a president – is above the law.

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Police were made aware of unlicensed gun after Carroll testified in court she kept a revolver by her bed

New York writer E Jean Carroll has handed over a gun to police that she was keeping, but without a license, during her long legal battles with Donald Trump after she sued him over sexual abuse , according to a new report.

Police in Warwick, New York, “took possession” of the firearm after discussing the matter with the former Elle magazine columnist, NBC News reported , citing a police report the TV network had obtained.

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American postmodernist novelist whose experimental approach challenged literary conventions

The American novelist John Barth, who has died aged 93, was a noted evangelist for experimental fiction, beguiling his readers with complex stories within stories.

He claimed as his patron saint Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights, the vizier’s daughter whose tales, spun out for 1,001 nights, entranced King Shahryar: “The whole frame of these thousand nights and a night,” Barth said, “speaks to my heart, directly and intimately – and in many ways at once personal and technical.”

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The case was big news when it was filed last year, but it’s been overshadowed by a litany of other alleged crimes by the ex-president

As the criminal cases mounted against Donald Trump last year, one could be forgiven for not giving much thought to the New York case that charged him with 34 felony counts for falsifying business records.

The episode was a bombshell when the Wall Street Journal first reported it in January 2018. Trump paid the adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 on the eve of the 2016 election to keep quiet about an affair. He funneled the payment through his lawyer, Michael Cohen, and then lied about the purpose of the payment in his business records. By the time the case was filed last year, it had largely faded in the public psyche – buried under Trump’s efforts to steal the 2020 election and an avalanche of other lies.

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Case on Monday will be first ever criminal trial of an ex-president as Trump’s lawyers fight to put it off and try to remove its judge

A New York appeals court on Wednesday rejected, for the third straight day, a last-ditch attempt by Donald Trump’s lawyers to delay his hush money trial.

The case is due to be tried on Monday in the first ever criminal trial of a former US president.

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Exclusive: four vases in New York auction traced to Gianfranco Becchina, convicted in 2011 of illegally dealing in antiquities

Christie’s has withdrawn four ancient Greek vases from Tuesday’s auction after a leading archaeologist discovered that each of them was linked to a convicted antiquities dealer.

Dr Christos Tsirogiannis, an affiliated archaeology lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a specialist in looted antiquities and trafficking networks, told the Guardian that damning evidence was within the auction house’s own correspondence with the dealer, which was seized by the police.

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Publication by mayor’s office of environmental justice is first comprehensive survey of environmental inequalities

Nearly half of all New Yorkers live in areas with “disproportionate” burdens from pollution, a city report has found. Most affected are communities of color, which are also more vulnerable to impacts from climate change, according to a citywide assessment released on Friday.

“We’ve had the orange sky last year, we’re going to have more recurrent extreme weather events that are going to impact the most vulnerable in our communities,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UpRose, an environmental justice group based in Brooklyn.

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Experts say the US east coast earthquake was an opportunity for people to learn the official protocol: ‘drop, cover and hold on’

Millions of people across the US east coast were jolted on Friday morning when a rare 4.8 magnitude earthquake struck the region.

With its epicenter in New Jersey, the temblor jostled densely populated areas where residents are less accustomed to earthquakes, including in the New York City metropolitan area . There are no early-warning systems in place for this region, unlike on the earthquake-prone west coast, where they give people a few moments to ready themselves before the shaking starts. On the east coast, fewer people have had practice or experience with what to do when an earthquake hits.

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Class-action settlement covers people required to take off religious attire by NYPD after Muslim women said their rights were violated

New York City agreed to pay $17.5m to settle a lawsuit by two Muslim women who said the police violated their rights after arresting them, by forcing them to remove their hijabs before being photographed.

The preliminary class action settlement covers men and women required to remove religious attire before being photographed. It was filed on Friday in Manhattan federal court, and requires approval by the US district judge Analisa Torres.

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