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The United States hiked its reward for information leading to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s arrest to $25 million Friday, saying his swearing-in was illegitimate after he “clearly lost” last year’s election.”The Venezuelan people and world know the truth — Maduro clearly lost the 2024 presidential election and has no right to claim the presidency,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, shortly after Maduro took the oath of office for a third term.Blinken called the ceremony “an illegitimate presidential inauguration” as he reiterated Washington’s position that exiled opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia was Venezuela’s rightful president-elect.Maximum rewards for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Maduro — as well as his interior secretary Diosdado Cabello — were being raised to $25 million, Blinken said.He also announced a new $15 million reward for Venezuelan defense minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.All three rewards stem from US narco-trafficking charges announced in March 2020, two years after Maduro’s first re-election that Washington also rejected as illegitimate.In a separate announcement, the US Treasury Department said it was sanctioning eight senior officials who lead “key economic and security agencies enabling Nicolas Maduro’s repression and subversion of democracy in Venezuela.”Those designated include high-level officials from the military and police, and the presidents of the country’s state-owned oil company and airline.”Since last year’s election, Maduro and his associates have continued their repressive actions in Venezuela,” acting Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Bradley Smith said in a statement.”The United States, together with our likeminded partners, stands in solidarity with the Venezuelan people’s vote for new leadership and rejects Maduro’s fraudulent claim of victory,” he added.The United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union were taking “similar actions” on Friday, demonstrating “a message of solidarity with the Venezuelan people,” the Treasury Department said. 

Today’s robots perform safety checks at industrial plants, conduct quality control in manufacturing, and are even starting to keep hospital patients company.But soon — perhaps very soon — these increasingly humanlike machines will handle more sophisticated tasks, freeing up people while raising complex questions about the roles of artificial intelligence that are gaining attention.At a panel hosted by the American Association of Retired Persons at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), experts described the next five years as a period where robots transition primarily from industrial sites to service settings, helping to address a worsening health care labor crunch.Seeing robotics in places like theme parks or universities “will lead to the companion robot probably at the end of the decade,” said Marc Theermann, chief strategy officer for robot company Boston Dynamics.Cris Gardner, a vice president in futurecasting at AARP, predicted robots will provide emotional support as they enter homes and assist with daily tasks.People “will own a generalized humanoid robot the way they would own a car,” she said.- Upheaval ahead? -Dystopian prophesies of a robot-centered future have long featured in the public imagination. However, recent breakthroughs in generative AI have given more credibility to predictions of billions of humanoid robots in everyday life.The centrality of robots in the coming years is “widely underappreciated,” said a report from Abundance 360, a conference and education venture led by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. Robots could enable an “era of unprecedented abundance,” lowering costs while freeing humans “to focus on creative and fulfilling pursuits,” it said.However, the analysis also identified nine sectors facing potential job displacement, including manufacturing, elder care, agriculture, education, and surgery.”The speed at which multimodal generative AI and humanoid robot development is progressing, paired with the lack of public discourse on this subject, indicates that there will be significant job disruption and societal upheaval,” it said.Disputes over automation have been a recurring factor in labor negotiations, most recently involving US dockworkers, who reached a tentative agreement with a shippers group, averting a strike. The International Longshoremen’s Association permitted ports to add semiautonomous cranes only if more workers are hired, according to the Wall Street Journal.- Worker shortages -At CES, companies described robots as performing tasks that humans either shouldn’t do because they are dangerous, or don’t want to do because they are grueling, tedious, or unpleasant.Hong Kong company R2C2 showcased industrial robots that can perform functions such as inspections at power plants and technician work on trains, according to San Wong, the company’s founder and chief executive.Working on trains involves “lots of grease everywhere, and it’s dirty and hot” so turnover is high, San said.Vehicle and equipment maker Oshkosh has used automation to phase out high-burnout jobs such as the finishing work on firetrucks, which requires workers to wear a mask and often leads to shoulder and elbow problems, said chief executive John Pfeifer.Those workers have been shifted to other assembly line work, such as welding. While these jobs are currently safe, they may “one day” be automated, Pfeifer said.”This has been the evolution of the economy for 250 years,” he said. “People move into more productive ways to help the economy grow.”At CES, US agriculture machinery giant John Deere showcased autonomous vehicles developed partly in response to persistent farm labor shortages.Automation allows farmers to focus on more challenging tasks, such as managing grain movement from a field to a storage area, said Deanna Kovar, president of Deere’s worldwide agriculture and turf division.”We need to continue to make sure we’re evolving the skill sets of our employees, of our customers, so that they can take advantage of the technologies and not see them as a threat,” she said.AARP’s Gardner noted that the aging US population points to a significant labor gap for caring for the next generation of seniors.”The demand is going to be enormous, it can’t be covered by human beings,” said Gardner, who views improved robotics as key to enabling older people to stay independent for longer.

A judge sentenced Donald Trump to an unconditional discharge Friday for covering up hush money payments to a porn star despite the US president-elect’s last-ditch efforts to avoid becoming the first felon in the White House.New York judge Juan Merchan handed down no jail time or fine, but the discharge upholds the jury’s guilty verdict — and confirmed Trump’s infamy as the first former president convicted of a felony.The 34 counts of falsifying business records on which Trump was convicted in May 2024 carried potential jail time.”Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances,” said Merchan.”The only lawful sentence that permits entry of a judgment of conviction without encroaching on the highest office of the land is an unconditional discharge.”Trump attended his sentencing virtually, with the judge, lawyers and media packed into the scruffy Manhattan courtroom that was the backdrop to the trial’s high drama, legal wrangling and vitriolic personal attacks by the divisive Republican.”This has been a very terrible experience. I think it’s been a tremendous setback for New York and the New York court system,” Trump said in a rambling rant before the discharge was passed.”It was done to damage my reputation, so I would lose the election — obviously that didn’t work.”The former president appeared on screens in the courtroom with two large US flags behind him, wearing a red tie with white stripes and looking on impatiently as the brief proceeding unfolded.- ‘Continuous deception’ – Ahead of the sentencing, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said Trump had been convicted of a “premeditated and continuous deception.””The verdict in this case was unanimous and decisive and it must be respected,” he said.The trial saw Trump forced to look on as a string of witnesses testified that he had fraudulently covered up illicit payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in an effort to stop her disclosing their tryst ahead of the 2016 presidential election, which he ultimately won.Trump had sought a suspension of the criminal proceedings after a New York State appeals court dismissed his effort to have the hearing delayed.But the Supreme Court ruled that the sentencing could proceed.Prosecutors opposed the effort to stave off sentencing, 10 days before Trump is due to be sworn in for a second term, arguing it was wrong for the high court to hear the case when the mogul still had avenues of appeal to pursue in New York.- First presidential conviction -An unconditional discharge is a measure without any sanctions or restriction that nonetheless upholds the jury’s guilty verdict — and Trump’s infamy as the first former president to be convicted of a felony.The 78-year-old Trump had potentially faced up to four years in prison.”He’s sticking his middle finger at the judge, the jury, the system of justice, and laughing,” said Pace University law professor and former prosecutor Bennett Gershman ahead of the sentencing.Outside the courthouse, Trump supporters held a giant banner emblazoned with his name that was buffeted by high winds. There was also a small vigil of anti-Trump demonstrators behind a hoarding reading “Trump is guilty.”Trump’s counsel had argued sentencing should have been postponed while the Republican appealed his conviction, but New York state Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer rejected that on Tuesday.Trump repeatedly called the prosecution a “witch hunt” which Steinglass said was “designed to have a chilling effect” on the legal cases against him.”This defendant has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system,” the career prosecutor said.Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche rejected that.”I very, very much disagree with much of what the (prosecution) just said,” he said.At the end of the verdict reading judge Merchan wished Trump “godspeed as you assume your second term in office.”Trump was certified as the winner of the 2024 presidential election on Monday, four years after his supporters rioted at the US Capitol as he sought to overturn his 2020 defeat.

Last year set a record for high temperatures across the mainland United States, with the nation also pummeled by a barrage of tornadoes and destructive hurricanes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a report Friday.The announcement came as Europe’s climate monitor confirmed 2024 was the hottest year globally, with temperatures so extreme that the planet breached a critical climate threshold for the first time ever.President-elect Donald Trump, a vocal climate skeptic, is just days away from taking office and has pledged to expand fossil fuel production — the main driver of human-caused warming — while rolling back the green policies of his predecessor, Joe Biden.According to NOAA, the average annual temperature across the lower 48 states and Washington was 55.5 degrees Fahrenheit (13.1 degrees Celsius) — 3.5F above average and the highest in the agency’s 130-year records.It was also the third-wettest year since 1895 and saw the second-highest number of tornadoes on record, trailing only 2004.Annual precipitation totaled 31.6 inches (802.1 millimeters) — 1.7 inches above average — while 1,735 tornadoes struck amid a punishing Atlantic hurricane season that included Hurricane Helene, the second deadliest hurricane to hit the US mainland in more than half-a-century.Wildfires scorched 8.8 million acres, 26 percent above the 20-year average. These included the devastating Park Fire in California, the state’s fourth-largest on record, which consumed nearly 430,000 acres and destroyed over 600 structures.In total, the United States experienced 27 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, second only to the 28 recorded in 2023.Weather extremes battered the country from all sides, with heavy rainfall mid-year and drought conditions covering 54 percent of the nation by October 29.The last two years exceeded on average a critical warming limit for the first time as global temperatures soar “beyond what modern humans have ever experienced,” the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed Friday.This does not mean the internationally-agreed target of holding warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels has been permanently breached, but it is drawing dangerously near.Copernicus also confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record, surpassing 2023 and extending a streak of extraordinary heat that fuelled climate extremes on all continents.A repeat in 2025 is considered less likely, with the onset of a La Nina weather system expected to offer slight relief. China remains the world’s largest current emitter, but the United States is historically the biggest polluter, underscoring its responsibility to confront the climate crisis, according to environmental advocates.But progress remains tepid, with US greenhouse gas emissions dipping just 0.2 percent last year, according to a study by the Rhodium Group — leaving the country dangerously off track to meet its climate goals under the Paris agreement.

Massive wildfires that engulfed whole neighborhoods and displaced thousands in Los Angeles have killed at least 10 people, authorities said, as California’s National Guard soldiers readied to hit the streets to help quell disorder.Swaths of the United States’ second-largest city lay in ruins Friday, with more than 10,000 structures destroyed according to the state’s fire service.”I lost everything. My house burned down and I lost everything,” said Hester Callul, who had reached a shelter after fleeing her Altadena home.Firefighters were battling multiple blazes backed by water-dropping helicopters, thanks to a temporary lull in winds, as the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner announced the death toll had reached 10.With reports of looting, Los Angeles County ordered a nighttime curfew, and the state’s National Guard was on hand to patrol affected areas.Governor Gavin Newsom said the service members were part of a thousands-strong deployment of state personnel.”We’re throwing everything at our disposal -– including our National Guard service members –- to protect communities in the days to come,” he said.”And to those who would seek to take advantage of evacuated communities, let me be clear: looting will not be tolerated.”Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said his officers were patrolling evacuation zones and would arrest anyone who was not supposed to be there.The flames have so far burned more than 35,000 acres (14,160 hectares) in Los Angeles, the state’s fire agency reported.With such a huge area scorched, evacuees feared not enough was being done and some were taking matters into their own hands.Nicholas Norman mounted an armed vigil at his home after seeing suspicious characters in the middle of the night.”I did the classic American thing: I went and got my shotgun and I sat out there, and put a light on so they knew people were there,” he told AFP.- ‘Death and destruction’ -The biggest of the multiple blazes has ripped through almost 20,000 acres of the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood, while another fire around Altadena has torched about 13,700 acres.Firefighters said they were starting to get a handle on the Pacific Palisades blaze, with six percent of its perimeter contained — meaning it can’t spread any further in that direction.But after a lull, winds were returning and new fires continued to erupt.One flared near Calabasas and the wealthy Hidden Hills enclave, home to celebrities like Kim Kardashian.The Kenneth Fire exploded to almost 1,000 acres within hours, forcing more people from their homes, with over 180,000 displaced.US President Joe Biden told a White House briefing he had pledged extra federal funds and resources to help the state cope with “the most… devastating fire in California’s history.” Unlike on Tuesday when the multi-pronged disaster roared to life and 100-mile (160-kilometer)-an-hour winds grounded all aircraft, firefighters were able to keep up a steady stream of sorties.Some of those forced out of their homes began to return Thursday to find scenes of devastation.Kalen Astoor, a 36-year-old paralegal, said her mother’s home had been spared by the inferno’s seemingly random and chaotic destruction. But many other homes had not.”The view now is of death and destruction,” she told AFP. “I don’t know if anyone can come back for a while.”- ‘Critical’ -Meanwhile an AFP overflight of the Pacific Palisades and Malibu — some of the most expensive real estate in the world and home to celebrities like Paris Hilton and Anthony Hopkins — revealed desolation.”This is crazy… All these homes, gone,” said helicopter pilot Albert Azouz.On highly coveted Malibu oceanfront plots, skeletal frames of buildings indicated the lavish scale of what has been destroyed.Multimillion-dollar mansions have vanished entirely, seemingly swept into the Pacific Ocean by the force of the fire.In the Palisades, grids of roads that were until Tuesday lined with stunning homes now resemble makeshift cemeteries.The fires could be the costliest ever recorded, with AccuWeather estimating total damage and loss between $135 billion and $150 billion.For millions of people in the area, life was disrupted: schools were closed, hundreds of thousands were without power and major events were canceled or, in the case of an NFL playoff game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Minnesota Vikings, moved somewhere else.Meteorologists have warned that “critical” windy and dry conditions, though abated, were not over.A National Weather Service bulletin said “significant fire growth” remained likely “with ongoing or new fires” into Friday.Wildfires occur naturally, but scientists say human-caused climate change is altering weather and changing the dynamics of the blazes.Two wet years in Southern California have given way to a very dry one, leaving ample fuel dry and primed to burn.

There will be “real-world harm” if Meta expands its decision to scrap fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram, a global network warned Thursday while disputing Mark Zuckerberg’s claim such moderation amounts to censorship.Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise announcement this week to slash content moderation policies in the United States has sparked alarm in countries such as Australia and Brazil. The tech tycoon said fact-checkers were “too politically biased” and the program had led to “too much censorship”.But the International Fact-Checking Network, which includes AFP among its dozens of member organizations globally, said the censorship claim was “false”.”We want to set the record straight, both for today’s context and for the historical record,” said the network.Facebook pays to use fact checks from around 80 organisations globally on the platform, as well as on WhatsApp and Instagram. There could be devastating consequences if Meta broadens its policy shift beyond US borders, to programs covering more than 100 countries, the International Fact-Checking Network warned.”Some of these countries are highly vulnerable to misinformation that spurs political instability, election interference, mob violence and even genocide,” the network said.”If Meta decides to stop the program worldwide, it is almost certain to result in real-world harm in many places,” it added.- ‘Real world consequences’ -In Geneva Friday, the United Nations rights chief also insisted that regulating harmful content online “is not censorship”.”Allowing hate speech and harmful content online has real world consequences. Regulating such content is not censorship,” Volker Turk said on X.AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking scheme.In that program, content rated “false” is downgraded in news feeds so fewer people will see it and if someone tries to share that post, they are presented with an article explaining why it is misleading. Supinya Klangnarong, co-founder of Thai fact-checking platform Cofact, said Meta’s decision could have concrete effects offline.”Understandably this policy from Meta is aimed at US users, but we cannot be certain how it will affect other countries,” she told AFP.”By allowing the proliferation of hate speech and racist dialogue could be a trigger towards violence.”Cofact is not an accredited member of the International Fact-Checking Network or of Facebook’s fact-checking scheme.- Zuckerberg courts Trump – Meta’s policy overhaul came less than two weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office and it aligns with the Republican Party’s stance.Trump has been a harsh critic of Meta and Zuckerberg for years, accusing the company of bias against him and threatening to retaliate against the tech billionaire once back in office.Zuckerberg has been making efforts to reconcile with Trump since his election in November, meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and donating one million dollars to his inauguration fund.The Meta chief also named Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) head Dana White, a close ally of Trump, to the company board.Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, said Tuesday the decision came after “extreme political pressure.”The move “will hurt social media users who are looking for accurate, reliable information to make decisions about their everyday lives and interactions with friends and family.”Australia said Meta’s decision was “a very damaging development”, while Brazil warned it was “bad for democracy”.Meta’s move into fact-checking came in the wake of Trump’s shock election in 2016, which critics said was enabled by rampant disinformation on Facebook and interference by foreign actors, including Russia, on the platform.

Research published in The Lancet medical journal on Friday estimates that the death toll in Gaza during the first nine months of the Israel-Hamas war was around 40 percent higher than recorded by the Palestinian territory’s health ministry.The number of dead in Gaza has become a matter of bitter debate since Israel launched its military campaign against Hamas in response to the Palestinian militant group’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.Up to June 30 last year, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported a death toll of 37,877 in the war. However the new peer-reviewed study used data from the ministry, an online survey and social media obituaries to estimate that there were between 55,298 and 78,525 deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza by that time.The study’s best death toll estimate was 64,260, which would mean the health ministry had under-reported the number of deaths to that point by 41 percent.That toll represented 2.9 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population, “or approximately one in 35 inhabitants,” the study said.The UK-led group of researchers estimated that 59 percent of the deaths were women, children and the elderly.The toll was only for deaths from traumatic injuries, so did not include deaths from a lack of health care or food, or the thousands of missing believed to be buried under rubble.AFP is unable to independently verify the death toll.On Thursday, Gaza’s health ministry said that 46,006 people had died over the full 15 months of war.In Israel, the 2023 attack by Hamas resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Israel has repeatedly questioned the credibility of the Gaza health ministry’s figures, but the United Nations have said they are reliable.- ‘A good estimate’ -The researchers used a statistical method called “capture–recapture” that has previously been used to estimate the death toll in conflicts around the world.The analysis used data from three different lists, the first provided by the Gaza health ministry of the bodies identified in hospitals or morgues.The second list was from an online survey launched by the health ministry in which Palestinians reported the deaths of relatives.The third was sourced from obituaries posted on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp, when the identity of the deceased could be verified.”We only kept in the analysis those who were confirmed dead by their relatives or confirmed dead by the morgues and the hospital,” lead study author Zeina Jamaluddine, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told AFP.The researchers scoured the lists, searching for duplicates.”Then we looked at the overlaps between the three lists, and based on the overlaps, you can come up with a total estimation of the population that was killed,” Jamaluddine said.Patrick Ball, a statistician at the US-based Human Rights Data Analysis Group not involved in the research, has used capture–recapture methods to estimate death tolls for conflicts in Guatemala, Kosovo, Peru and Colombia.Ball told AFP the well-tested technique has been used for centuries and that the researchers had reached “a good estimate” for Gaza.Kevin McConway, a professor of applied statistics at Britain’s Open University, told AFP there was “inevitably a lot of uncertainty” when making estimates from incomplete data. But he said it was “admirable” that the researchers had used three other statistical analysis approaches to check their estimates.”Overall, I find these estimates reasonably compelling, he added.- ‘Criticism’ expected from both sides -The researchers cautioned that the hospital lists do not always provide the cause of death, so it was possible that people with non-traumatic health problems — such as a heart attack — could have been included, potentially leading to an overestimate.However there were other ways that the war’s toll could still be underestimated.The study did not include missing people. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA has said that around 10,000 missing Gazans are thought to be buried under rubble.There are also indirect ways that war can claim lives, such as a lack of healthcare, food, water, sanitation or the spread of disease. All have stricken Gaza since October 2023.In a contentious, non-peer-reviewed letter published in The Lancet in July, another group of researchers used the rate of indirect deaths seen in other conflicts to suggest that 186,000 deaths could eventually be attributed to the Gaza war.The new study suggested that this projection “might be inappropriate due to obvious differences in the pre-war burden of disease” in Gaza compared to conflicts in countries such as Burundi and East Timor.Jamaluddine said she expected that “criticism is going to come from different sides” about the new research.She spoke out against the “obsession” of arguing about death tolls, emphasising that “we already know that there is a lot of high mortality”.

Nicholas Norman managed to save his home using little more than buckets of water when towering flames ripped through his neighborhood in a suburb of Los Angeles. But now he’s facing a new danger: looters.After surviving the terror of a chaotic wind-driven fire, Norman was at his Altadena house when he saw two suspicious men in the hours before dawn on Thursday.”They were testing doors and looking in windows” of homes that had been evacuated, he told AFP.Norman, a teacher, said a police officer friend told him that looters had been arrested a few blocks away just hours earlier.So he decided to take matters into his own hands.”I did the classic American thing: I went and got my shotgun and I sat out there, and put a light on so they knew people were there,” he said.For Norman, the evening was reminiscent of the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, when the city’s streets erupted after Rodney King, a Black man, was beaten to death by white police officers.He said that night, his father had sat with a gun at the front door — his young son at his side — to protect the family “while streets were burning and people were shooting everywhere.”He said he never thought he would see something similar in sleepy Altadena, a place he moved eight years ago.The city, home to around 40,000 people, has been ravaged by one of the multiple wildfires that have torn through the area, razing over 9,000 buildings and killing five people.The destruction was cruelly random: in some places an entire street has vanished; in others a few houses remain, while blocks away just one property was damaged.But for those who count themselves lucky enough to have come through the tragedy, the thought of outsiders preying on their misery is almost too much to bear.”I didn’t save that damn house to have some idiot come and steal from me,” said Norman. “That’s not happening.””There’s the thievery, but it’s made worse by the cowardice.”Norman, who usually doesn’t even lock his car, said he will be back on his porch after sunset, and will make a few rounds of nearby streets to keep an eye out on empty houses.- Patrols -Around 20 people have been arrested in disaster zones since the first fires broke out on Tuesday, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said.He has pledged to beef up patrols and said his officers — who are soon to be backed up by California National Guard soldiers — will be proactively stopping anyone they see in an evacuation area.”When we have an evacuation order by law, if you remain in that area, you are guilty of a misdemeanor. If you commit certain crimes, it could jump up to a felony,” he said.”If you are in one of these areas and you do not belong there, you are going to be subject to arrest.”For Chris, an Altadena resident who did not want to give his full name, even the promise of more manpower was not enough.When he returned home on Thursday morning — a house he has just spent a year renovating — the padlock on his gate had been forced. “It’s clear evidence that somebody was here in the middle of the night,” he said.No one had managed to get in, but Chris spent much of Thursday hammering plywood over his windows and doors to give his property greater protection.”We’re boarding up, kind of getting things squared away, having neighborhood watches all because some morons are out there, preying on people,” he said.”It sucks. I’d rather be helping all my neighbors.”

Donald Trump will be sentenced Friday for covering up hush money payments to a porn star despite the US President-elect’s last-ditch efforts to frustrate a process that would make him the first felon in the White House.The judge has indicated, however, that Trump will not face prison — even though the 34 counts of falsifying business records on which he was convicted in May 2024 carry potential prison time. It is instead anticipated that he will receive the mildest criminal sanction available, an unconditional discharge — a relatively uncommon measure.Sentencing, which Trump is expected to attend virtually, will happen in the scruffy Manhattan courtroom that was the scene of the trial’s high drama, legal wrangling and vitriolic personal attacks by the divisive Republican.The trial saw Trump forced to look on as a string of witnesses testified that he had fraudulently covered up illicit payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in an effort to stop her disclosing their tryst ahead of the 2016 presidential election, which he ultimately won.Daniels gave toe-curling testimony that included details about her sexual encounter with Trump — which he has always denied — as well as his flirting and interest in the adult film industry.The judge intervened to stop more explicit testimony.Trump had made an eleventh-hour plea for a suspension of the criminal proceedings to the nation’s highest court after a New York State appeals court dismissed his effort to have the hearing delayed, and the state’s top court declined to act on the request.But the Supreme Court ruled that the sentencing could proceed.Prosecutors opposed the effort to stave off sentencing, 10 days before Trump is due to be sworn in for a second term, arguing it was wrong for the apex court to hear the case when the mogul still had avenues of appeal to pursue in New York.”This Court lacks jurisdiction over a state court’s management of an ongoing criminal trial when defendant has not exhausted his state-law remedies,” the prosecution told the Supreme Court Thursday.- Legal wrangling -His lawyers have used several legal maneuvers in an effort to fend off the sentencing, which the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, has already indicated in a filing will not result in jail time.Instead, experts expect Trump will receive an unconditional discharge, a measure without any sanctions or restriction that nonetheless upholds the jury’s guilty verdict — and Trump’s infamy as the first former president to be convicted of a felony.The 78-year-old Trump had potentially faced up to four years in prison.”He’s sticking his middle finger at the judge, the jury, the system of justice, and laughing,” said Pace University law professor and former prosecutor Bennett Gershman.Trump’s counsel had argued sentencing should be postponed while the Republican appeals his conviction, but New York state Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer rejected that on Tuesday.Trump’s lawyers additionally claimed the immunity from prosecution granted to a US president should be extended to a president-elect — Gesmer also brushed those arguments aside.His attorneys had further sought to have the case dismissed based on the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year, which stated former US presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for a range of official acts committed while in office.Trump was certified as the winner of the 2024 presidential election on Monday, four years after his supporters rioted at the US Capitol as he sought to overturn his 2020 defeat.

In the skies above Los Angeles, air tankers and helicopters silhouetted by the setting California sun dart in and out of giant wildfire plumes, dropping much-needed flame retardant and precious water onto the angry fires below.Looking in almost any direction from a chopper above the city, AFP reporters witnessed half a dozen blazes — eruptions of smoldering smoke emerging from the mountainous landscape like newly active volcanoes, and filling up the horizon.Within minutes, a previously quiet airspace above the nascent Kenneth Fire had become a hotbed of frenzied activity, as firefighting officials quickly refocused their significant air resources on this latest blaze.Around half a dozen helicopters buzzed at low altitude, tipping water onto the edge of the inferno.Higher up, small aircraft periodically guided giant tankers that dumped bright-red retardant onto the flames.”There’s never been so many at the same time, just ripping” through the skies, said helicopter pilot Albert Azouz.Flying for a private aviation company since 2016, he has seen plenty of fires including the deadly Malibu blazes of six years ago.”That was insane,” he recalled. But this, he repeatedly says while hovering his helicopter above the chaos, is “crazy town.”The new Kenneth Fire burst into life late Thursday afternoon near Calabasas, a swanky  enclave outside Los Angeles made famous by its celebrity residents such as reality television’s Kardashian clan.Aircraft including Boeing Chinook helitankers fitted with 3,000-gallon tanks have been brought in from as far afield as Canada.Unable to fly during the first few hours of the Los Angeles fires on Tuesday due to gusts of up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour, these have become an invaluable tool in the battle to contain blazes and reduce any further devastation.Helicopters performed several hundred drops on Thursday, while conditions permitted.Those helicopters equipped to operate at night continued to buzz around the smoke-filled region, working frantically to tackle the flames, before stronger gusts are forecast to sweep back in to the Los Angeles basin overnight.