AP Sports SummaryBrief at 5:24 p.m. ESTBLAINVILLE, Que. — Sam Oliver scored a hat trick to give him a league-leading 28 goals on the season and the Drummondville Voltigeurs kept rolling with a 6-2 win over the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada in Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League action Sunday. Ethan Gauthier, Adam Cavallin and Maxime Lambert all scored for Drummondville (22-5-3), who are 7-0-1 over their last eight games and lead the QMJHL with 47 points. Voltigeurs netminder Riley Mercer stopped 46 of 48 shots. Olivier Lemieux and Jonathan Fauchon scored for Blainville-Boisbriand (16-12-1). Armada goaltender Rémi Delafontaine kicked out 18 of 23 shots. --- ISLANDERS 4 HUSKIES 3 (SO) CHARLOTTETOWN — Alexis Michaud scored the shootout winner as the Islanders defeated Rouyn-Noranda. Egor Goriunov had two goals while Owen Conrad scored once for Charlottetown (11-15-3) in regulation. Islanders goaltender Nicolas Ruccia stopped 39 of 42 shots. Ty Higgins, Evan Courtois and Lars Steiner all scored for Rouyn-Noranda (16-6-7). Huskies goaltender Samuel Carreiras made 25 saves. --- WILDCATS 3 SEA DOGS 2 SAINT JOHN, N.B. — Gabe Smith scored the game-winning goal at 17:00 in the third period as Moncton edged the Sea Dogs. Juraj Pekarcik and Markus Vidicek also scored for Eastern Conference-leading Moncton (22-5-2). Wildcats netminder Rudy Guimond stopped 37 of 39 shots. Zachary Morin scored twice for Saint John (14-16-0), while Sea Dogs netminder Justin Robinson kicked out 36 of 39 shots. --- TITAN 2 MOOSEHEADS 1 (OT) BATHURST, N.B. — Dawson Sharkey scored in overtime period as the Acadie-Bathurst Titan edged Halifax. Liam Arsenault also scored for Acadie-Bathurst (18-11-0). Titan netminder Joshua Fleming stopped 35 of 36 shots. Lou Lévesque scored for Halifax (10-14-5). Mooseheads netminder Mathis Rousseau made 23 saves. --- EAGLES 5 FOREURS 3 SYDNEY, N.S. — Cam Squires scored three goals as the Cape Breton Eagles topped Val-D'Or. Émile Ricard and Luke Patterson also scored for Cape Breton (13-13-3). Eagles netminder Jakub Milota kicked out 28 of 31 shots. Noah Reinhart scored all three goals for Val-D'Or (9-17-3). Foreurs netminder Cédric Massé saved 29 of 34 shots, --- CATARACTES 3 OLYMPIQUES 1 GATINEAU — Mathys Fernandez made 32 saves and Kody Dupuis scored the game-winner as Shawinigan downed the Olympiques. Félix Lacerte and Matvei Gridin and Kody Dupuis also scored for Shawinigan (16-12-1). Julien Paillé scored once for Gatineau (6-18-6). Olympiques goaltender Nathan St-Pierre stopped 25 of 28 shots. This roundup was generated automatically with a CP-developed application. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 8, 2024. The Canadian Press
Billionaire and nominee to become the next head of NASA Jared Isaacman is certainly a fan of SpaceX having relied on Elon Musk’s company for his two trips to space. But he shared the love across SpaceX competitors during a commencement speech for the fall graduation class at Daytona Beach’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on Thursday. The ERAU alumnus earned a fortune as founder and CEO of credit-card processing company Shift4 Payments, which allowed him to pursue his love of aircraft and eventually spaceflight. He received a bachelor’s degree in aeronautics in 2011, and was given an honorary doctorate at the ceremony while also encouraging the graduating class to “a journey into one of the most interesting and really opportune times that aerospace has ever seen.” It’s the second time he’s spoken to ERAU graduates. The first time was soon after his return from his first spaceflight on the Inspiration4 mission in 2021, the first orbital spaceflight with a completely commercial crew. His most recent spaceflight this past September on the Polaris Dawn mission allowed Isaacman to become the first person to perform a commercial spacewalk. He has since been nominated by President-Elect Donald Trump to take over NASA. Clues to where he might try to lead the agency could be found in his commencement speech. He referenced how America’s glory days of aerospace innovation from the 1950s-1980s showcased the country’s ingenuity, but that was followed by about a 30-year drought. “It felt like we really lost our edge. We lost our will to push the boundaries,” he said. “Our tolerance for risk really became near zero, and we got so comfortable, our competitors overseas were able to substantially close capability gaps.” But giving credit the SpaceX accomplishments including the return to U.S.-based human spaceflight, rocket reusability and the potential of Starship, he let the graduating class know there is reason to be optimistic again. But he also gave credit to Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin with their suborbital space launches, gave props to Rocket Lab as a reliable launch provider and highlighted some of the accomplishments that would be part of his charge in NASA if confirmed by the Senate. He called out the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, the success of Martian helicopter Ingenuity and the Europa Clipper mission headed to one of Jupiter’s moons to see if it’s capable of supporting life. “This is wild stuff, and it’s happening right now,” he said. “There are so many exciting industry-wide projects that are underway from Blue Origin’s New Glenn that really should be launching in the very near future, possibly this month, to Rocket Lab’s Neutron, to hypersonics, to direct-to-cell satellites, flying-wing refueling tankers, a wave of autonomous drone technologies. And we’re starting to really live in the future that we all dreamed about as kids.” He praised SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation, but also highlighted similar capability from competitors such as Amazon’s in-development Project Kuiper as well as OneWeb, as essential to connecting the world. “What I’m describing here are all proof points that we are stepping into a new era, one that demands really the best talent, motivation, perseverance in the face of adversity and vision for a brighter and more interesting future, the qualities you have undoubtedly begun to develop here at Embry-Riddle,” he said. While he has a vested interest in space, Isaacman said he knows the graduating class will excel in an array of endeavors. “With your education, the opportunities and problems to solve do not necessarily have to be among the stars,” he said. “It’s about taking the knowledge, the skills and the drive that have brought you to this point and using them to solve enormous problems for the benefit of all humankind, whether you’re on or off Spaceship Earth.” But for those that do pursue space-related careers, he sees a much brighter future. “There’s going to be interplanetary spaceships. Heck, there are going to be factories that are making boosters and spaceships, satellites, probes, robots, lasers, space infrastructure. And this is going to happen as fast as we make airplanes today,” he said. He paid deference to President John F. Kennedy in the 1960s challenging a generation to reach the moon, while promoting the new call to action and the efforts already underway at NASA. “You stand at the precipice of your own moonshots,” he said. “We’re choosing to return to the moon to create a future on Mars and beyond and figure out that space economy. We’re going to design aircraft that travel faster, cleaner, more efficiently than they ever have, and to foster a sustainable space and aviation ecosystem.” Whether these solutions come from commercial efforts such as SpaceX or spearheaded by national policy, he expects them to come from the likes of ERAU graduates, he said. ‘It’s you who will make these possibilities real, working on and off the planet to create technologies that will carry our civilization across the skies into space and into the planets beyond,” he said. “And along the way, who knows? Maybe answer some of the questions that we’ve all been thinking about since the beginning of humankind.” ©2024 Orlando Sentinel. Visit at orlandosentinel.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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World of Warcraft 's newest large-group adventure will stand on the shoulders of 20 years of raids that came before—and break new ground. Literally. The Liberation of Undermine, the latest eight-boss underground raid that will launch as part of the 11.1 Undermine(d) update to The War Within expansion early next year, will contain new twists on old mechanics and some entirely new features that players haven't yet seen, game director Ion Hazzikostas told PC Gamer in an interview. WoW recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and its raids have changed dramatically over the past 20 years. So have the tools that players use to beat them, ranging from guides and tier lists (for both class/specializations and gear) posted online, to sophisticated add-ons and WeakAuras that interpret the game's code and make some mechanics easier. "Player sophistication has grown," Hazzikostas said, especially compared to the experience people had when they stepped into WoW's first raid 20 years ago. "When I first went into Molten Core, none of us knew what we were doing. That first pull of two molten giants may as well have been a raid boss as far as we were concerned. Many groups that went into Molten Core for the first time did not kill those two mobs, and if they did, the fire lord right behind them spawned a million fire spawns and that was the end of your run. "Now those things would seem simple in a dungeon, let alone a raid." The upcoming Liberation of Undermine raid will include many more-complex mechanics, including those that turn the environment around bosses into part of the fight—a trend that has developed in WoW's raids over time. "There are certainly new encounters built upon lessons learned and things tested in old ones, but part of the encounter team's job is to evolve those experiences," Hazzikostas said. "They put a fresh coat of paint on old mechanics, but also come up with some genuinely new mechanics that no one's ever seen before, sometimes delivered by new tech—like slippy, slippy floors." The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. (WoW raids' slip-n-slide floors mechanic first appeared in the Sennarth spider boss encounter in Vault of the Incarnates, the first raid in the previous Dragonflight expansion.) The Liberation of Undermine will include more new environments-as-mechanics. "We go into the Grand Casino in Undermine, and we're making our way to face off against Gallywix," the former leader of the goblins and end boss of the Liberation of Undermine raid, Hazzikostas said. "The environmental framing of that is going to be part of what makes it a unique experience. It's something we've really been trying to lean into over the last 10 years in a way we didn't originally." An exhibition event at an early BlizzCon fan convention pitted the top North American guild against multiple random bosses from raids, which were spawned into an arena together and had to be defeated. Now "there's something quaint about the idea that you could spawn in a Molten Core boss in any old room and it would still work," said Hazzikostas. So the fights have gotten more complicated, even as 20 years of experience has made many of those players savvy veterans. And the tools at their fingertips—game changing mods and add-ons—have become powerful and robust. The result has been something of an arms race. Players invent different displays and handling of raid boss mechanics using mods that can trivialize some encounters. Blizzard developers respond by making those fights even more complicated to keep them interesting, which then causes players to complain that the bosses are a bullet hell that can't be beaten without using the mods, and around it goes. Blizzard experimented with making some mechanics unreadable by mods, with varying success. Players responded by creating add-ons that perform complex actions when players push hotkeys to indicate that the "invisible" mechanics are happening. In other cases, the mods add tracking and player positioning for fights where characters must respond to triggers incredibly quickly. It's not a great experience for either the designers or the players, since those mods are frequently finicky, requiring everyone to be running them precisely in sync. For example, in the current Nerub-ar Palace raid, the Broodtwister Ovi'nax fight pits players against a giant worm, with clusters of eggs that hatch and release adds, which must be defeated. On Mythic difficulty, players randomly assigned a debuff must overlap a modest circle around their feet on specific clusters. We can't be ignorant to the fact that many of our players are using add-ons, and it will shape the feedback we get about how engaging an encounter feels. It's complicated, because two players must stand on each cluster, in a very limited amount of time. If more than two characters stack on a cluster, there won't be enough to cover one of the other clusters needed around the boss. If players performed the mechanic without the assistance of mods, accidental overstacking is highly likely, even with competent groups. So instead, a complex WeakAura assigns two of the players to each cluster, which has been pre-marked by the raid's leaders. When my Cutting Edge guild (a guild that kills the last boss of the raid on Mythic difficulty before the tier ends) tackled Ovi'nax, it took nearly a full night of progression just to get the WeakAuras working properly—not exactly compelling gameplay. As a result, Hazzikostas said, players can expect Blizzard to remove more functionality from WeakAuras in raids in the future—and, hopefully, to add more in-game sources of information and more time to react, as a result. "We can't be ignorant to the fact that many of our players are using add-ons, and it will shape the feedback we get about how engaging an encounter feels," he said. The problem comes when mods can do the thinking for players when raid mechanics happen. If a fight has three or four mechanics, and a WeakAura consolidates all of them and only yells at them when they need to do something, players don't have to process much. "A player might say this was a boring encounter, because I was doing my DPS rotation for three minutes except for the one time my mod told me to do something," Hazzikostas said. "That may make us add a new mechanic, which in turn can make the encounter feel complex or overwhelming for someone who isn't using those add-ons." That's why future raids may have more limits on those mods, he said. "I think it's an area where we likely will want to start clawing back some functionality, as long as we can make sure that our baseline game experience is offering players the information they need to have an engaging, elegant time."Agree Realty Declares Monthly Common and Preferred Dividends
Report: Institutional neutrality favored at Carolina, Wake, DukeAbu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of Syria's Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group that headed a lightning rebel offensive snatching Damascus from government control. DAMASCUS - The Assad family has ruled in Syria for more than half a century – in recent years over just part of the country. A surprise push by rebels has toppled it more than a decade after an uprising first challenged President Bashar al-Assad’s grip on power. He’s fled the country for Russia. What comes next will boil down to how the disparate opposition forces coalesce and how foreign stakeholders exploit the power vacuum created. Almost surely, an economy that had already been shredded by 13 years of civil strife will continue to suffer. Here’s a look at the domestic players – including Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the leader of the lightning offensive that toppled Assad – and the external parties with skin in the game. What do we know about Al-Sharaa, aka Abu Mohammed al-Jolani? The capture of Damascus was led by HTS, or the Organisation for the Liberation of the Levant, and it has suddenly thrust its leader – a Syrian named Ahmed Al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre, Mohammed al-Jolani – into a highly influential position with a potential say over the future of Syria. The HTS is the successor to the Nusra Front, which was an affiliate of Al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the Sept 11 attacks on the US. Al-Jolani joined al-Qaeda in Iraq after the US invasion and was detained and jailed by the Americans there. The HTS is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the US and others. The US offers a US$10 million (S$13 million) reward for information on Al-Jolani, and his past will drag up questions about the extent to which he’s purged the extremist elements in his midst. He has suggested that he’s a moderating force and, to a degree, disassociated himself from his past; the roots of his group’s rebrand as HTS date to 2017. “I say don’t judge by words but by actions. The reality speaks for itself. These classifications are primary political and at the same time wrong,” he said in an interview with CNN on Dec 6. He appears to be on a charm campaign now, but before the conquest of Damascus, the 42-year-old militant had revealed very little about himself or his journey to become an Islamist fighter. One clue lies in an interview with the PBS show Frontline in 2021 in which he talked about the second Palestinian uprising in 2000. “I was 18 or 19 years old. I started thinking at that time about how I can pursue my duty of defending the nation, which was being persecuted by the occupiers and invaders,” he said. Al-Jolani is believed to command about 15,000 fighters and is expected to focus now on building local governance in the newly captured cities, including the capital Damascus, Aleppo, Hama and Homs. Fighters from the Turkey-backed umbrella group known as the National Liberation Front have also joined the HTS. Who are the other relevant local forces? There are the dregs of the forces loyal to Assad that – with the help of Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah – had until now managed to confine the territory held by militant groups to about a third of the country. What becomes of them is an open question as they seemingly dissolved away in a matter of days. Then there is the Syrian National Army. This is the Turkey-backed rebel group working together with other rebels in the assault on the regime. They are not a cohesive group but they appear to share a common goal of overthrowing the regime and containing HTS. Another player is the People’s Protection Units, or YPG. It is the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party of Syria, which seeks autonomy for Syria’s Kurds and has shown a willingness to work with any power capable of advancing that goal. How are the foreign stakeholders gaming this out? Foreign powers – including Russia, Iran, the US and Turkey – saw the war as an opportunity to extend their influence in a country that straddles the region’s geopolitical fault-lines. Right now, Russia and Iran – supporters of Mr Assad – are seen as losers. Turkey has something to gain. And the US position appears to be in flux, given the transition to a new president in January. Russia, a Cold War-era ally of Syria, turned the war in favour of the Assad regime with a bombing campaign starting in September 2015. Russia had long maintained its only military base outside the former Soviet Union at Syria’s Mediterranean port of Tartus and in 2017 made a deal preserving access to an air base near Latakia. But Russia’s attention lately has been focused on its war in Ukraine. TASS state media said Assad and his family were granted asylum in Russia. Iran deployed its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to Syria to achieve its objective of ensuring the survival of the Assad regime, its main ally in the Middle East. The alliance gave Iran a land corridor stretching through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon through which it could more easily transport arms and equipment to Hezbollah, which has been greatly weakened by more than a year of conflict with Israel. Turkey has played a complex role in the war. Initially an ally of Mr Assad at the onset of the uprising in 2011 and then a supporter of the Syrian rebels, Turkey has been a part of the US-led coalition against Islamic State, the Al-Qaeda spinoff that used the turmoil of the Syrian war to conquer territory in that country and in Iraq. Turkey, however, has repeatedly attacked the bloc’s most effective ground force, the US-armed YPG. Turkey considers the YPG an enemy because it has roots in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has battled for an autonomous region inside Turkey on and off since 1984. The US for years provided covert support to Syrian rebels fighting the regime but it ditched that programme in mid-2017. The US played a major role in fighting Islamic State with an air campaign against the group in 2014 and sent in ground troops the next year to assist the Kurdish forces fighting the jihadists. After Islamic State lost the territory it had controlled in Syria, the US reduced its presence while still maintaining a small force there for the purpose of combating remnants of the radical group. However, President-elect Donald Trump has said the US should “have nothing to do” with Syria. What is left of Syria’s economy? The 14-year war has taken a massive toll on Syria’s economy. A scarcity of reliable data makes it difficult to pin down the country’s exact output. However, the World Bank estimated in 2022 that Syria’s gross domestic product had shrunk by more than a half by 2020 from its pre-war level of around $60 billion, and the country has been classified as a low-income nation since 2018 as a result. According to data from the United Nations Development Program, employment was at roughly 50 per cent as of 2020 and Syria’s human development index had rolled back 35 years because of faltering education and health services. Syria was a minnow oil producer even before the civil war broke out, hardly meeting its own domestic fuel needs. There was a niche export market in olive oil and pistachio nuts, but that’s largely gone as the war led to a collapse of Syria’s agricultural production. What the country has become known for is exponential growth in illegal trade in drugs, specifically the super cheap amphetamine-like Captagon pills. History recap: Why did Syria become a trouble spot? Once a French-run mandate, Syria became independent after World War II. In 1966, a splinter group from the Baath Party led by military officers belonging to the Alawite minority took power. That assured the domination of the group, whose faith is an offshoot of Shiite Islam, in a country where about 74 per cent of the people are Sunni Muslim. Syria’s population includes sizable Christian, Druze and Kurdish communities as well. Mr Hafez al-Assad, one of the figures of the 1966 coup, carried out a counter coup in November 1970 against his army comrades and built a regime underpinned by absolute power, a cult-of-personality and brutality against his opponents. After his eldest son Basel died in a car crash in 1993, Hafez groomed his second son Bashar to succeed him. Mr Hafez died in 2000 and his son was initially embraced by Syrians and Western powers as a reformer. As part of the wave of pro-democracy unrest known as the Arab Spring, protests erupted in Syria in March 2011. Using his father’s playbook, Mr Bashar al-Assad used any means necessary – including chemical weapons – to crush dissent. The conflict broke largely along sectarian lines, with Syria’s Alawites supporting Assad and Sunnis backing the opposition. BLOOMBERG Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you. Read 3 articles and stand to win rewards Spin the wheel now
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Gov. Kathy Hochul has asked the Department of Homeland Security to reverse course and fully staff the northern border with Canada, after the department announced last month it was cutting operating hours at four ports of entry. RAISED CONCERNS In a letter to Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas dated Nov. 27, Hochul said the decision to put four of New York’s border crossings with Canada on twelve- and sixteen-hour schedules, a reduction from the usual 24-hour operations, is a mistake. “These changes are wholly inconsistent with what is needed now in this state,” she wrote. “I have previously raised my concerns in meetings with the Biden-Harris Administration, and write to once again request the Department of Homeland Security immediately direct staffing and resources to expand enforcement activities along the U.S.-Canada border. In light of this week’s actions, I ask you to immediately reverse the decision to suspend 24/7 staffing along our northern border at critical locations.” The letter was first reported by the Albany Times-Union. POPULAR ROUTE In it, Hochul said the trend of increasing numbers of attempts to cross the border illegally should warrant a firmer response and said the historically relaxed policies around northern border security are partially to blame. “Long-standing immigration policies of the U.S. and Canada have contributed to the northern border becoming an increasingly popular route for non-citizens seeking entry into the U.S., policies which New York does not control,” she wrote. She cited Border Patrol statistics, showing that there were nearly 19,000 reported encounters with people illegally crossing at some point along the entire northern border in August of this year, compared to 4,500 in August of 2021. The region with the sharpest increase in encounters along the border is the Swanton Sector, covering St. Lawrence County east to New Hampshire, while also hosting one of the smallest complements of Border Patrol agents. “As of early 2024, the Swanton Sector has funding for 338 Border Patrol agents, with only 260 filled, but this area of the border requires 728 agents to carry out sufficient enforcement for elevated levels of border crossings,” she wrote. She warned that illegal crossings come with steep risks for those attempting it. In upstate New York and New England, a wintertime or even early spring crossing comes with the risk of losing the way, freezing to death, or drowning. In a much-publicized case from March 2023, an attempt to smuggle a group of Indian and Romanian nationals into the U.S. through the Akwesasne, St. Regis Mohawk lands between Ontario and St. Lawrence County, resulted in nine drowning deaths. Both the U.S. and Canada have moved to charge those involved in the human smuggling operation. GREATER RESOURCES Hochul said she is doing what she can at her level to address the issue—directing $5 million from the federal State Homeland Security Program to enhance state-level security at border crossings. The state Division of Criminal Justice Services is rolling out a broader license plate reader network along border roads, and the State Police are investing in increased staffing and technology, including drone-based surveillance and handheld x-ray machines to examine cargo. She also said she was disappointed that the bipartisan border legislation proposed earlier this year, which would have directed more federal resources to northern border enforcement among other changes to immigration and border security policies, did not pass. “Had it passed, states like New York would have greater resources to handle the influx of migrants nationwide,” she said. “Despite it not passing, New York still needs to expand enforcement at the northern border today.” A change in border policies is likely to come with the new Presidential administration in January, with border policies to be led by West Carthage native and recent Jefferson County resident Thomas D. Homan. Homan has started discussions with the mayor of New York City to discuss expedited deportation of migrants and people seeking asylum that have been sent to that city from the southern border. He has pledged to carry out President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s campaign promise to conduct a major nationwide deportation push.WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith moved to abandon two criminal cases against Donald Trump on Monday, acknowledging that Trump’s return to the White House will preclude attempts to federally prosecute him for retaining classified documents or trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The decision was inevitable, since longstanding Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution. Yet it was still a momentous finale to an unprecedented chapter in political and law enforcement history, as federal officials attempted to hold accountable a former president while he was simultaneously running for another term. Trump emerges indisputably victorious, having successfully delayed the investigations through legal maneuvers and then winning re-election despite indictments that described his actions as a threat to the country's constitutional foundations. “I persevered, against all odds, and WON," Trump exulted in a post on Truth Social, his social media website. He also said that “these cases, like all of the other cases I have been forced to go through, are empty and lawless, and should never have been brought.” The outcome makes it clear that, when it comes to a president and criminal accusations, nothing supersedes the voters' own verdict. In court filings, Smith's team emphasized that the move to end their prosecutions was not a reflection of the merit of the cases but a recognition of the legal shield that surrounds any commander in chief. “That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” prosecutors said in one of their filings. They wrote that Trump’s return to the White House “sets at odds two fundamental and compelling national interests: on the one hand, the Constitution’s requirement that the President must not be unduly encumbered in fulfilling his weighty responsibilities . . . and on the other hand, the Nation’s commitment to the rule of law.” In this situation, “the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated,” they concluded. Smith’s team said it was leaving intact charges against two co-defendants in the classified documents case — Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira — because “no principle of temporary immunity applies to them.” Steven Cheung, Trump's incoming White House communications director, said Americans “want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country.” Trump has long described the investigations as politically motivated, and he has vowed to fire Smith as soon as he takes office in January. Now he will start his second term free from criminal scrutiny by the government that he will lead. The election case brought last year was once seen as one of the most serious legal threats facing Trump as he tried to reclaim the White House. He was indicted for plotting to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in 2020, an effort that climaxed with his supporters' violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But the case quickly stalled amid legal fighting over Trump’s sweeping claims of immunity from prosecution for acts he took while in the White House. The U.S. Supreme Court in July ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, and sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine which allegations in the indictment, if any, could proceed to trial. The case was just beginning to pick up steam again in the trial court in the weeks leading up to this year’s election. Smith’s team in October filed a lengthy brief laying out new evidence they planned to use against him at trial, accusing him of “resorting to crimes” in an increasingly desperate effort to overturn the will of voters after he lost to Biden. In asking for the election case to be dismissed, prosecutors requested that Chutkan do it “without prejudice,” raising the possibility that they could try to bring charges against Trump again after he leaves office. But such a move may be barred by the statute of limitations, and Trump may also try to pardon himself while in office. The separate case involving classified documents had been widely seen as legally clear cut, especially because the conduct in question occurred after Trump left the White House and lost the powers of the presidency. The indictment included dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified records from his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and obstructing federal efforts to get them back. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. The case quickly became snarled by delays, with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon slow to issue rulings — which favored Trump’s strategy of pushing off deadlines in all his criminal cases — while also entertaining defense motions and arguments that experts said other judges would have dispensed with without hearings. In May, she indefinitely canceled the trial date amid a series of unresolved legal issues before dismissing the case outright two months later. Smith’s team appealed the decision, but now has given up that effort. Trump faced two other state prosecutions while running for president. One them, a New York case involving hush money payments, resulted in a conviction on felony charges of falsifying business records. It was the first time a former president had been found guilty of a crime. The sentencing in that case is on hold as Trump's lawyers try to have the conviction dismissed before he takes office, arguing that letting the verdict stand will interfere with his presidential transition and duties. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office is fighting the dismissal but has indicated that it would be open to delaying sentencing until Trump leaves office. Bragg, a Democrat, has said the solution needs to balance the obligations of the presidency with “the sanctity of the jury verdict." Trump was also indicted in Georgia along with 18 others accused of participating in a sprawling scheme to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election there. Any trial appears unlikely there while Trump holds office. The prosecution already was on hold after an appeals court agreed to review whether to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over her romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. Four defendants have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors. Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty. Associated Press writers Colleen Long, Michael Sisak and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this story.
Washington, Nov 26 (AP) Special counsel Jack Smith has moved to abandon two criminal cases against Donald Trump, acknowledging that Trump's return to the White House will preclude attempts to federally prosecute him for retaining classified documents or trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The decision was inevitable, since longstanding Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution. Yet it was still a momentous finale to an unprecedented chapter in political and law enforcement history, as federal officials attempted to hold accountable a former president while he was simultaneously running for another term. Also Read | Israel-Lebanon Conflict: Israel Cabinet To Discuss Ceasefire Deal With Lebanon on November 26 After Netanyahu's 'In Principle' Approval, Says Report. In court filings on Monday, Smith's team emphasised that the move to abandon their prosecutions was not a reflection of the merit of the cases but a recognition of the legal shield that surrounds any commander in chief. "That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government's proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind," the prosecutors wrote in one of their filings. Also Read | Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari Arrested in Bangladesh: Police Arrest Former ISKCON Leader Chandan Kumar Dhar From Dhaka Airport. Smith's team said it was leaving intact charges against two co-defendants in the classified documents case — Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira — because "no principle of temporary immunity applies to them". Steven Cheung, Trump's incoming White House communications director, welcomed the decision to drop the prosecutions against the president-elect, describing it as a "major victory for the rule of law". "The American People and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country," Cheung said in a statement. Trump has long described the investigations as politically motivated, and he has vowed to fire Smith as soon as he takes office in January. Now he will re-enter the White House free from criminal scrutiny by the government that he will lead. The election case brought last year was once seen as one of the most serious legal threats facing Trump as he tried to reclaim the White House. He was indicted for plotting to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in 2020, an effort that climaxed with his supporters' violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. But the case quickly stalled amid legal fighting over Trump's sweeping claims of immunity from prosecution for acts he took while in the White House. The US Supreme Court in July ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, and sent the case back to US District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine which allegations in the indictment, if any, could proceed to trial. The case was just beginning to pick up steam again in the trial court in the weeks leading up to this year's election. Smith's team in October filed a lengthy brief laying out new evidence they planned to use against him at trial, accusing him of "resorting to crimes" in an increasingly desperate effort to overturn the will of voters after he lost to Biden. The separate case involving classified documents had been widely seen as legally clear cut, especially because the conduct in question occurred after Trump left the White House and lost the powers of the presidency. The indictment included dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified records from his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and obstructing federal efforts to get them back. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. The case quickly became snarled by delays, with US District Judge Aileen Cannon slow to issue rulings — which favoured Trump's strategy of pushing off deadlines in all his criminal cases — while also entertaining defense motions and arguments that experts said other judges would have dispensed with without hearings. In May, she indefinitely cancelled the trial date amid a series of unresolved legal issues before dismissing the case outright two months later. Smith's team appealed the decision, but now has given up that effort. (AP) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
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