Trump CFO’s plea deal could make him a prosecution witness
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s chief financial officer is expected to plead guilty to tax violations Thursday in a deal that would require him to testify about illicit business practices at the former president's company, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
Allen Weisselberg is charged with taking more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation from the Trump Organization over several years, including untaxed perks like rent, car payments and school tuition.
The plea deal would require Weisselberg to speak in court Thursday about the company's role in the alleged compensation arrangement and possibly serve as a witness when the Trump Organization goes on trial in October on related charges, the people said.
The two people were not authorized to speak publicly about the case and did so on condition of anonymity.
Weisselberg, 75, is likely to receive a sentence of five months in jail, to be served at New York City’s notorious Rikers Island complex, and he could be required to pay about $2 million in restitution, including taxes, penalties and interest, the people said. If that punishment holds, Weisselberg would be eligible for release after about 100 days.
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Zelenskyy to host Lviv talks with UN chief, Turkish leader
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — As a potential power broker, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will use his first visit to Ukraine since the war started nearly six months ago to seek ways to expand the export of grain from Europe's breadbasket to the world's needy while U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres will focus on containing the volatile situation at a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hosting both men far away from the front lines, in the western city of Lviv, where diplomatic efforts to help end the war will also be on the agenda.
Meanwhile, the screams of incoming shells still overpowered the whispers of diplomacy.
A total of 11 people were killed and 40 wounded in a series of massive Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
The late Wednesday attack on Kharkiv killed at least seven people, wounded 20 others and damaged residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, authorities said.
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US to hold trade talks with Taiwan, island drills military
HUALIEN, Taiwan (AP) — The U.S. government will hold trade talks with Taiwan in a sign of support for the island democracy that China claims as its own territory, prompting Beijing to warn Thursday it will take action if necessary to “safeguard its sovereignty.”
The announcement of trade talks comes after Beijing fired missiles into the sea to intimidate Taiwan after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this month became the highest-ranking American official to visit the island in 25 years.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's government criticized the planned talks as a violation of its stance that Taiwan has no right to foreign relations. It warned Washington not to encourage the island to try to make its de facto independence permanent, a step Beijing says would lead to war.
“China firmly opposes this,” Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Shu Jueting said. She called on Washington to “fully respect China's core interests.”
Also Thursday, Taiwan's military held a drill with missiles and cannons simulating a response to a Chinese missile attack.
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Post-Roe differences surface in GOP over new abortion rules
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — When the U.S. Supreme Court repealed in June a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, Wisconsin's 1849 law that bans the procedure except when a mother's life is at risk became newly relevant.
Republicans in the Legislature blocked an attempt by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to overturn the law. Yet there's disagreement inside the GOP over how to move forward when they return to the state Capitol in January.
The state's powerful Republican Assembly speaker, Robin Vos, supports reinforcing the exception for a mother's life and adding protections for instances involving rape and incest. Others, including GOP state Rep. Barbara Dittrich, say the law should stay as it is, without exceptions for rape and incest.
For decades, Republicans like Vos and Dittrich appealed to conservative voters — and donors — with broad condemnation of abortion. But the Supreme Court's decision is forcing Republicans from state legislatures to Congress to the campaign trail to articulate more specifically what that opposition means, sometimes creating division over where the party should stand.
Dittrich says consensus among her Republican colleagues on an alternative to the 1849 law would be a “tremendous challenge.”
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Police: Death toll in Afghan capital mosque bombing now 21
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A bombing at a mosque in the Afghan capital of Kabul during evening prayers killed at least 21 people, including a prominent cleric, and wounded at least 33 others, eyewitnesses and police said Thursday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack Wednesday night, the latest to strike the country in the year since the Taliban seized power. Several children were reported to be among the wounded.
The Islamic State group’s local affiliate has stepped up attacks targeting the Taliban and civilians since the former insurgents’ takeover last August as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their withdrawal from the country. Last week, the extremists claimed responsibility for killing a prominent Taliban cleric at his religious center in Kabul.
Khalid Zadran, the spokesman for Kabul's Taliban police chief, gave the figures to The Associated Press for the bombing at the Siddiquiya mosque in the city’s Kher Khanna neighborhood. An eyewitness told the AP the explosion was carried out by a suicide bomber.
The slain cleric was Mullah Amir Mohammad Kabuli, the eyewitness said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
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Armani, others flee wildfire on Sicilian island retreat
MILAN (AP) — Fashion designer Giorgio Armani and dozens of others were forced to flee from their vacation villas overnight as firefighters worked to extinguish the remnants of two wildfires on the Sicilian island of Pantelleria on Thursday.
A photo shows flames that appear to encroach on Armani’s villa, but his press office said they stopped short of the property. Armani and guests evacuated to a boat in the harbor overnight.
The head of the region’s civil protection agency, Salvatore Cocina, said arson is suspected in two wildfires that forced around 30 people to seek refuge in boats or on safer parts of the island. Firefighters used Canadair planes to douse the flames, along with ground teams to protect homes. Authorities said no structures appeared to have been lost.
The island’s mayor, Vincenzo Campo, told the ANSA news agency two Canadairs were working on putting out the last flames on difficult terrain and that the wind had dropped off.
"After the great fear of last evening and the night spent at work, Pantelleria is returning to normal," Campo said. “It seems the worst is over.”
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Climate Migration: Flooding forces Bangladesh family to flee
BHOLA, Bangladesh (AP) — When the Mehgna River swallowed Mohammad Jewel and Arzu Begum's tin-roofed family home overnight in southern Bangladesh just over a year ago they had no choice but to leave their ancestral village.
The couple fled the next morning with their four young boys to the capital, Dhaka, over a hundred kilometers (62 miles) away from their home in Ramdaspur village in the Bhola district, one of the hardest-hit coastal areas where many villagers regularly lose their houses and land to rivers flowing into the Bay of Bengal.
“We have grown up seeing the river, we live on the river by catching fish. But now it has taken everything from us,” Jewel said.
“My heart aches when I think of my village, my ancestors, my old days. I had no choice but to leave my birthplace.”
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Mideast's Jordan River: Rich in holiness, poor in water
ALONG THE JORDAN RIVER (AP) — Kristen Burckhartt felt overwhelmed. She needed time to reflect, to let it sink in that she had just briefly soaked her feet in the water where Jesus is said to have been baptized, in the Jordan River.
“It’s very profound,” said the 53-year-old visitor from Indiana. “I have not ever walked where Jesus walked, for one thing.”
Tourists and pilgrims come to the site from near and far, many driven by faith, to follow in Christ’s footsteps, to touch the river’s water, to connect with biblical events.
Symbolically and spiritually, the river is of mighty significance to many. Physically, the Lower Jordan River of today is a lot more meager than mighty.
By the time it reaches the baptismal site, its dwindling water looks sluggish, a dull brownish green shade.
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Gas-powered muscle cars drive into the sunset, turn electric
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — Thundering gas-powered muscle cars, for decades a fixture of American culture, will be closing in on their final Saturday-night cruises in the coming years as automakers begin replacing them with super-fast cars that run on batteries.
Stellantis' Dodge brand, long the performance flag-bearer of the company formerly known as Fiat Chrysler, is officially moving toward electricity. On Wednesday night, Dodge unveiled a battery-powered Charger Daytona SRT concept car, which is close to one that will be produced in 2024 as the sun sets on some petroleum models.
Stellantis says it will stop making gasoline versions of the Dodge Challenger and Charger muscle cars and the Chrysler 300 large car by the end of next year. The Canadian factory that makes them will be converted to electric vehicles. Other automakers are moving — or have moved — in the same direction.
General Motors has said it will build an all-electric Chevrolet Corvette. Tesla says its Model S Plaid version is the fastest production vehicle made, able to go from zero to 60 mph (97 kilometers per hour) in under 2 seconds. Audi, Mercedes, Porsche and other European automakers already have high-performance electric models on sale. And Polestar, an electric-performance spinoff from Volvo, just announced a new Polestar 6 roadster for 2026.
One reason for the industry shift is that electric vehicles are simply faster off the starting line. Their handling is typically better, too, because their heavy batteries create a low center of gravity.
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A look at the world's skinniest skyscraper: Steinway Tower
NEW YORK (AP) — One skyscraper stands out from the rest in the Manhattan skyline. It's not the tallest, but it is the skinniest — the world's skinniest, in fact.
The 84-story residential Steinway Tower, designed by New York architecture firm SHoP Architects, has the title of “most slender skyscraper in the world” thanks to its logic-defying ratio of width to height: 23 1/2-to-1.
“Any time it’s 1-to-10 or more that’s considered a slender building; 1-to-15 or more is considered exotic and really difficult to do,” SHoP Architects founding principal Gregg Pasquarelli said. “The most slender buildings in the world are mostly in Hong Kong, and they’re around 17- or 18-to-1.”
The 60 apartments in the tower range in cost from $18 million to $66 million per unit, and offer 360-degree views of the city. It's located just south of Central Park, along a stretch of Manhattan’s 57th Street known as “Billionaires Row.”
At 1,428 feet (435 meters), the building is the second-tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere, second to the nearby Central Park Tower at 1,550 feet (470 meters). For comparison, the world’s tallest tower is Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, which stands at 2,717 feet (828 meters).
The Associated Press
