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The nuclear-powered US carrier George Washington arrived off the Philippine capital Thursday for a port visit, as the two allies increase defence cooperation aimed at contesting China’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea.The Nimitz-class vessel’s port call came the same day that China’s first domestically produced aircraft carrier, the Shandong, sailed into Hong Kong.Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, through which more than 60 percent of global maritime trade passes, despite an international ruling its assertion has no merit.”The US Navy along with our allies and partners are committed to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the ship’s spokesman, Lieutenant-Commander Mark Langford, told AFP by email, without offering further details about the visit.”These operations demonstrate the commitment to stability in the region, a commitment we uphold throughout the year and regardless of current events,” Langford said, calling the Philippines a “long-standing and critical ally”.Manila and Washington have deepened their cooperation since President Ferdinand Marcos took office in 2022 and began pushing back on Beijing’s South China Sea claims.Bound by a 1951 mutual defence treaty, the two allies conduct frequent maritime exercises in the South China Sea. The Philippine and US coast guards in May conducted their first-ever joint military drills in the archipelago nation’s coastal waters.The Shandong, which sailed off the northern Philippines in April, arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday after concluding combat drills in the western Pacific alongside fellow Chinese aircraft carrier the Liaoning.The US Department of Defense said in a December report that China numerically has the largest navy in the world, with a battle force of more than 370 ships and submarines.

US lawmakers teed up a final vote on Donald Trump’s marquee tax and spending bill for early Thursday after a bruising day of Republican infighting that threatened to derail the centerpiece of the president’s domestic agenda.Trump is seeking a green light in the House of Representatives for his Senate-passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” — but faces opposition on all sides of his fractious party over provisions set to balloon the national debt while launching a historic assault on the social safety net.Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson spent much of Wednesday struggling to corral his rank-and-file members as the package scraped through a series of “test” votes that laid bare deep divisions in the party.It was set for a final vote to advance it from Congress to Trump’s desk around 8:30 am (1230 GMT) after passing its last procedural hurdle in the early hours.”We feel very good about where we are and we’re moving forward,” an upbeat Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. “So we’re going to deliver the Big, Beautiful Bill — the president’s ‘America First’ agenda — and we’re going to do right by the American people.”Originally approved by the House in May, Trump’s sprawling legislation squeezed through the Senate on Tuesday by a solitary vote but had to return to the lower chamber for a rubber stamp of the senators’ revisions.The package honors many of Trump’s campaign promises, boosting military spending, funding a mass migrant deportation drive and committing $4.5 trillion to extend his first-term tax relief.But it is expected to pile an extra $3.4 trillion over a decade onto the country’s fast-growing deficits, while shrinking the federal food stamps program and forcing through the largest cuts to the Medicaid health insurance scheme for low-income Americans since its 1960s launch.While moderates in the House are anxious that the cuts will damage their prospects of reelection, fiscal hawks are chafing over savings that they say fall far short of what was promised.Johnson has to negotiate incredibly tight margins, and can likely only lose three lawmakers in the final vote, among more than two dozen who have declared themselves open to rejecting Trump’s bill.- ‘Abomination’ -Republican leaders had been hoping to spend just a few hours on Wednesday afternoon approving the package, although they had some breathing room ahead of Trump’s self-imposed Independence Day deadline on Friday.The 887-page text only passed in the Senate after a flurry of tweaks that pulled the House-passed version further to the right.Republicans lost one conservative who was angry about adding to the country’s $37 trillion debt burden and two moderates worried about plans for around $1 trillion in health care cuts.Some estimates put the total number of recipients set to lose their health insurance under the bill at 17 million, while scores of rural hospitals are expected to close.Legislation in the House has to go through multiple preliminary votes before it can come up for final approval, and a majority of lawmakers must wave it through at each of these stages.But there were warning signs early on as the package stumbled at one of its first procedural steps, with a vote that ought to have been straightforward remaining open for seven hours and 31 minutes — making it the longest in House history.Johnson had been clear that he was banking on Trump leaning on waverers, as the president has in the past to turn around contentious House votes that were headed for failure.The Republican leader has spent weeks hitting the phones and hosting White House meetings to cajole lawmakers torn between angering welfare recipients at home and incurring his wrath.”FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!” Trump thundered in one of multiple posts to his Truth Social platform that sounded increasingly frustrated as Wednesday’s marathon voting session spilled into Thursday.The minority House Democrats have signaled that they plan to campaign on the bill to flip the chamber in the 2026 midterm elections, pointing to analyses showing that it represents a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest.”Shame on Senate Republicans for passing this disgusting abomination,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters.

An 80-year-old US novelist and her husband are among several people facing a possible trial in France over the illegal sale of gold bars plundered from an 18th-century shipwreck, after French prosecutors requested the case go to court.Eleonor “Gay” Courter and her 82-year-old husband Philip have been accused of helping to sell the bullion online for a French diver who stole it decades ago, but have denied knowledge of any wrongdoing.Le Prince de Conty, a French ship trading with Asia, sank off the coast of Brittany during a stormy night in the winter of 1746.Its wreck was discovered more than two centuries later, in 1974, lying in 10 to 15 metres (32 to 49 feet) of water near the island of Belle-Ile-en-Mer.The wreck was looted in 1975 after a gold ingot was discovered during a site survey. Archaeologists in the 1980s discovered fine 18th-century Chinese porcelain, the remains of tea crates, and three Chinese gold bars in and around the shipwreck.But a violent storm in 1985 dispersed the ship’s remains, ending official excavations.Years later in 2018, the head of France’s underwater archaeology department Michel L’Hour spotted a suspicious sale of five gold ingots on a US auction house website.He told US authorities he believed they hailed from the Prince de Conty, and they seized the treasure, returning it to France in 2022.Investigators identified the seller as a certain Eleonor “Gay” Courter, an author and film producer living in Florida.- 40-odd dives for gold -Courter said she had been given the precious metal by a couple of French friends, Annette May Pesty, today 78, and her now deceased partner Gerard.Pesty had told the “Antiques Roadshow” television series in 1999 that she discovered the gold while diving off the west African island of Cape Verde.But investigators found this to be unlikely and instead focused on her brother-in-law, now 77-year-old underwater photographer Yves Gladu.A 1983 trial had found five people guilty of embezzlement and receiving stolen goods over the plundering of the Prince de Conty.Gladu was not among them.Held in custody in 2022, he confessed to having retrieved 16 gold bars from the ship during around 40 dives on the site between 1976 and 1999.He said he had sold them all in 2006 to a retired member of the military living in Switzerland.But he denied ever having given any to his American friends the Courters.He had known the author and her husband since the 1980s, and they had joined him on holiday on his catamaran in Greece in 2011, in the Caribbean in 2014 and in French Polynesia in 2015, investigators found.The Courter couple were detained in the United Kingdom in 2022, then put under house arrest.French investigators concluded that they had been in possession of at least 23 gold bars in total.They found they had sold 18 ingots for more than $192,000, including some via online sale platform eBay.But the Courters claimed the arrangement had always been for the money to go to Gladu.- ‘Profoundly nice people’ -A prosecutor in the western French city of Brest has requested that the Courters, Gladu and Annette May Pesty be tried, according to a document obtained by AFP on Tuesday.An investigating magistrate still has to decide whether or not to order a trial, but prosecutors said a trial was likely in the autumn of 2026.The US couple’s lawyer, Gregory Levy, said they had had no idea what they were getting into.”The Courters accepted because they are profoundly nice people. They didn’t see the harm as in the United States, regulations for gold are completely different from those in France,” he said, adding the couple had not profited from the sales.Lawyers for the other suspects did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.Courter has written several fiction and non-fiction books, some nautical-themed, according to her website.One is a thriller set on a cruise ship, while another is her real-life account of being trapped on an ocean liner off the Japanese coast during a 2020 Covid quarantine.

Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending bill was in limbo early Thursday as Republican leaders in the US Congress scrambled to win over a group of rebels threatening to torpedo the centerpiece of the president’s domestic agenda.Trump is seeking final approval in the House of Representatives for his Senate-passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” — but faces opposition on all sides of his fractious party over provisions set to balloon the national debt while launching a historic assault on the social safety net.As midnight (0400 GMT) struck, House Speaker Mike Johnson was still holding open a key procedural vote — the bill’s last hurdle before it can advance to be considered for final approval — more than two hours after it was first called.With no clear sign of the stalemate breaking, his lieutenants huddled in tense meetings behind the scenes with the rebels who had either voted no or had yet to come to the House floor.”We’re going to get there tonight. We’re working on it and very, very positive about our progress,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol, according to Politico.Originally approved by the House in May, Trump’s sprawling legislation squeezed through the Senate on Tuesday by a solitary vote but had to return to the lower chamber Wednesday for a rubber stamp of the Senate’s revisions.The package honors many of Trump’s campaign promises, boosting military spending, funding a mass migrant deportation drive and committing $4.5 trillion to extend his first-term tax relief.But it is expected to pile an extra $3.4 trillion over a decade onto the country’s fast-growing deficits, while forcing through the largest cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program since its 1960s launch.While moderates in the House are anxious that the cuts will damage their prospects of reelection, fiscal hawks are chafing over savings that they say fall short of what they were promised by hundreds of billions of dollars.Johnson has to negotiate incredibly tight margins, and can likely only lose three lawmakers among more than two dozen who have declared themselves open to rejecting Trump’s bill.- ‘Abomination’ -Republican leaders had been hoping to spend just a few hours on Wednesday afternoon green-lighting the package, although they have a cushion of two days before Trump’s self-imposed July 4 deadline.The 887-page text only passed in the Senate after a flurry of tweaks that pulled the House-passed text further to the right.Republicans lost one conservative who was angry about adding to the country’s $37 trillion debt burden and two moderates worried about almost $1 trillion in health care cuts.Some estimates put the total number of recipients set to lose their health insurance at 17 million, while scores of rural hospitals are expected to close.Legislation in the House has to go through multiple “test” votes before it can come up for final approval, and a majority must wave it through at each of these stages.There were warning signs early in the day as the package stumbled at one of the first steps, with a straightforward vote that ought to have taken minutes remaining open for seven hours and 31 minutes — making it the longest House vote in history.Johnson had made clear that he was banking on Trump leaning on waverers, as he has in the past to turn around contentious House votes that were headed for failure.The president has spent weeks cajoling Republicans torn between angering welfare recipients at home and incurring his wrath.Trump pressured House Republicans to get the bill over the line in a private White House meeting with several holdouts on Wednesday.”What are the Republicans waiting for?,” he posted on his Truth Social platform just after midnight.”What are you trying to prove??? MAGA IS NOT HAPPY, AND IT’S COSTING YOU VOTES!!!”House Democrats have signaled that they plan to campaign on the bill to flip the chamber in the 2026 midterm elections, pointing to analyses showing that it represents a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest.”Shame on Senate Republicans for passing this disgusting abomination,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters.

Brazilian coffee beans, French champagne and Chinese teas — drinks are a profit driver for US restaurants, but higher import costs have eaten into margins and fed into consumer prices in the three months since President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping global tariffs.A stone’s throw from the White House, a restaurant group that takes pride in dishing up fresh local meat and produce has found itself having to raise prices on its menus.”The reality is, we have to pass along some of those to our guests,” said John Filkins, corporate beverage director at Clyde’s Restaurant Group.”Could be anywhere from 50 cents to $1 on certain wines by the glass, or spirits, or some of our food menu items,” he told AFP.”We’ve seen huge increases in coffee and in teas, and we’re beginning to see some of those increases in food, as well as paper products coming on through as well,” he added.Clyde’s, which opened in the 1960s in Washington, has more than a dozen restaurants in and around the US capital.One of them is The Hamilton in downtown Washington, where drinks prices have ticked up.While management has tried to limit increases, Filkins said this has been tough.Businesses have encountered snarled supply chains and higher costs since Trump imposed fresh tariffs after returning to the presidency in January.In April, the president unleashed his widest-ranging salvo, a 10 percent duty on imports from most trading partners. This is expected to surge to higher levels for dozens of economies.- ‘Low cash, low margin’ -Leaders like Filkins are eyeing a deadline next Wednesday when the steeper tariffs are due to kick in.These are customized to each partner, with the level for European Union products rising to 20 percent and that for Japanese goods jumping to 24 percent unless they strike deals to avert or lower the rates.Filkins warned that the longer tariffs remain in place, the fewer small, independent distributors, importers and restaurants there might be.”The hope is we don’t see tariffs to the extent where we’re seeing them any longer,” he added.”Restaurants are, at the end of the day, typically low cash, low margin,” Filkins said.A typical outfit probably runs “in the single digits in terms of profit margin,” he noted.This means that cutting out 10 percent to 15 percent of their profit for wine by the glass, for example, could prove a significant blow.- 20-30% hikes -Clyde’s sources coffee beans from places like Brazil and Indonesia for its blends, while getting teas from India and China.”Over the course of the last probably six months, we’ve seen about a 20 to 30 percent increase of that cost,” Filkins said.This is partly because suppliers and distributors are not only paying the 10 percent tariff but forking out more due to exchange rates.Imports from China face a 30 percent tariff currently even though Washington and Beijing have temporarily lowered tit-for-tat levies on each other’s goods.Without a deal, products from Indonesia face a 32 percent duty come Wednesday, and the rate for India spikes to 26 percent.”For liquor, beer and wine, most of the wine we import comes from the EU,” Filkins said, noting the impact is biggest on products from France, Italy, Spain and Portugal so far.Yet, his company is trying to hold off passing on additional costs entirely.”Consumers are not comfortable spending more in the current climate,” said Filkins.The world’s biggest economy has fared well after the Covid-19 pandemic, helped by a solid labor market that allowed consumers to keep spending.But economic growth has slowed alongside hiring. Economists are monitoring to see if tariffs feed more broadly into inflation this summer, and households become more selective with purchases.With Trump’s approach of announcing, adjusting and halting tariffs roiling financial markets and fueling uncertainty — forcing businesses to put investments on hold — Filkins hopes for an easing of levies.”It’s hard for all of us to forecast what’s going to happen in the next eight days,” said Filkins. “We can’t base all of our decisions on speculation.”

Even during his federal criminal trial in New York, the descriptions of Sean Combs were frequently those of awe: one former assistant called him “a god among men.””Larger than life,” said witnesses over and over — his accusers included.And that he was, until it all came crashing down.The music and entertainment titan known for his legendary A-list “white parties” had multiple mansions, a private jet, a business empire and scores of accolades.Then in September 2024, he was arrested on sweeping charges including running a criminal ring that allowed him to commit harrowing sexual abuse.And after a two-month long courtroom saga, a jury of 12 New Yorkers on Wednesday found him guilty of two prostitution-related counts — but acquitted him of more serious allegations of racketeering and sex trafficking.The outcome was not what prosecutors had hoped for — a decisive conviction for grave crimes that could have kept him incarcerated for life.Nevertheless, even before the blockbuster proceedings began, Combs’s reputation was in tatters. The 55-year-old still faces dozens of civil lawsuits in which he is accused of lurid abuse.And even his own team’s defense came back to haunt him: the federal judge denied Combs bail as he awaits sentencing, reading back his attorneys’ words in which they conceded again and again that he has a record of violence.- Rebrands upon rebrands -Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records whose proteges included the late Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige, was known as a high-flying, smooth-talking kingpin who ushered hip-hop from the underground to bottle-service clubs.He was continuously rebranding — his monikers include “Puff Daddy,” “P Diddy” and, more recently, “Brother Love.”Court proceedings revealed a much seedier side, casting him as a violent, domineering boss whose inner circle helped him live life with impunity.Even before his arrest, the mushrooming accusations and legal action left many of his businesses reeling. There were symbolic measures as well: the city of New York had rescinded the honorary key they had bestowed upon him.But as was clear outside the courthouse throughout the proceedings, he still has a loyal fan base, especially in the city where he made his name.- Party boy and hip-hop mogul -Born Sean John Combs on November 4, 1969, in Harlem, the artist entered the industry as an intern in 1990 at Uptown Records where he eventually became a talent director.He gained clout as a party planner, which would remain central to his brand.In 1991, he promoted a celebrity basketball game and concert at the City College of New York that ended in a stampede, leaving nine people dead.The event was over-capacity by the thousands and resulted in a string of lawsuits, with Combs blamed for hiring inadequate security.He was fired from Uptown, and founded his own label, Bad Boy Records.Thus began his quick ascent to the top of East Coast hip-hop.The Notorious B.I.G. became the genre’s king following the release of his landmark debut album “Ready to Die” in 1994, up until his shock murder in 1997.Combs boasted a number of major signed acts and production collaborations with the likes of Blige, Usher, Lil’ Kim, TLC, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men.He was also a Grammy-winning rapper in his own right, debuting with the chart-topping single “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” and his album “No Way Out.”The smash hit single “I’ll Be Missing You” was a tribute to Biggie. His other major tracks included “It’s All About The Benjamins” and “Been Around the World.”He built an image as a brash hustler with unapologetic swagger, a major producer who also ventured into Hollywood, reality television and fashion. He was known as a ladies’ man — he had a high-profile relationship with Jennifer Lopez.- ‘Next chapters’ -As recently as 2023, Combs was still on top of the world — releasing a new album and taking a victory lap as he accepted lifetime honors including a “global icon” award from MTV.But his star plummeted rapidly in November of that year, when his former partner of 11 years, Casandra Ventura, filed a civil suit with a litany of allegations including a 2018 rape.Combs settled the suit almost immediately, but months later, it became clear that federal investigators were trailing him.His mansions were raided and many possessions seized. Then came his arrest and, nearly eight months later, his high-stakes federal trial.Combs’s defense conceded that he committed brutal violence. But they insisted that those instances did not amount to the extensive charges he faced — and won.Combs routinely brought self-help books or Bible passages with him to the courtroom, and his lawyers argue he’s an evolving man.He has six adult children, and a two-year-old named Love Sean Combs.”He’s been given his life back,” his attorney Marc Agnifilo said Wednesday.”He’s going to have next chapters of his life.”

Since immigration police raided his car wash near Los Angeles last month, Jose has been constantly watching the video feeds from his 11 surveillance cameras.The raid carried out by federal agents outraged the 25-year-old, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear that his business, which employs many undocumented Latin American migrants, will be targeted again. “It felt like racial profiling,” he said while showing AFP footage of the operation in Downey, a suburb of Los Angeles.In the videos, immigration officers chase and capture two car wash workers with dark complexions.Meanwhile, a lighter-skinned colleague calmly got into his car and drove away without being stopped.The two men arrested have no criminal records, with one of them working at the car wash for nearly 20 years, Jose said.”Our 10 workers that day were undocumented, they could have arrested any one of them,” he told AFP.Jose said he felt it was “not a coincidence” that the two arrested workers had darker skin than the others.A month after Los Angeles was rocked by protests against sweeping immigration raids carried out by the administration of Republican President Donald Trump, the second-largest US city has returned to calm even as raids continue in the region.In Montebello, near Downey, a raid on an auto body shop sparked criticism against aggressive immigration officers.Witness videos showed an employee being pushed against a gate. He shouted “I’m American, bro!” before being released.- Profiling? – “I believe that they are racially profiling people, which is unconstitutional. They are almost just driving around looking for people who look Mexican,” said Mario Trujillo, a Downey councilman who recorded about 15 raids in June.The Trump administration has emphatically rejected the accusation.”Any claims that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.”We know who we are targeting ahead of time,” she said, adding that agents were working “to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets.”Preliminary figures from last month’s arrests appear to contradict her statement.According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) figures obtained by the Deportation Data Project, which collects US immigration enforcement data, 722 migrants were arrested in Los Angeles and the surrounding area from June 1 to 10. An analysis by the Los Angeles Times showed that 69 percent of those arrested had no criminal convictions, and 58 percent had never been charged with a crime.”This administration lied to us. They’re not targeting criminals. They’re going for people walking on the street, workers that look undocumented, Latino,” Trujillo said. “That’s why people are getting mad.”Six Republican California state senators sent a letter to Trump last week, expressing concern over “raids targeting violent criminals, which have resulted in non-criminal migrants being swept up as well.””ICE raids are not only targeting undocumented workers, but also creating widespread fear among other employees, including those with legal immigration status. This fear is driving vital workers out of critical industries,” the letter said.In Downey, several Latin American migrants told AFP they now carry their immigration documents when they go out, for fear of arrest because of their appearance.”Permanent residents like us are not safe either,” said a 23-year-old Mexican worker at another car wash, despite her having permission to be in the country.

His gaze to the ceiling in exultation and hands miming prayer, Sean Combs appeared overjoyed as the jury foreman declared the music mogul not guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking charges, thus taking a life sentence in prison off the table.Combs, 55, was still convicted on two lesser counts related to prostitution, and could serve time. But he and his lawyers hailed the day as a win.Defense attorney Teny Geragos’s eyes welled with tears before jurors had even finished reading the full verdict, clutching Combs’s hand before embracing her co-attorney Marc Agnifilo.Combs, who has been seen in court reading books including “The Power of Positive Thinking,” contained himself as the judge thanked jurors, but his relief was palpable.He was later captured by a sketch artist having fallen to his knees, his face buried in the chair he sat in for two months listening to weeks of testimony that cast him as a serial predator and master manipulator with violent impulses. His lawyer and prosecutors then made competing arguments as to whether he should be released on bond pending his sentencing.When Judge Arun Subramanian rhetorically asked whether or not Combs wants to return to the notorious Brooklyn prison where he has been held since September 2024, he rapidly shook his head.Before retiring to a courthouse holding cell to await the judge’s decision, Combs voiced thanks and love to his family members, who have been a regular presence during the proceedings.He also softly pumped his fists in his lap and mouthed his thanks to the jury.- ‘Disturbing reality’ -It was a jubilant scene for a defense team that spent weeks picking apart harrowing testimony from women who said Combs abused and forced them into sexual marathons with male escorts.The details were often difficult to hear, as was photo and video evidence of brutal beatings the women said Combs had subjected them to.The defense never denied the violence, or the sex — encounters that prosecutors said met legal thresholds for crimes including sex trafficking, forced labor and drug distribution.Government attorneys argued that Combs led a criminal organization of loyal employees who helped him carry out those crimes and many others with impunity.But the defense dismissed, and even mocked, those allegations. And jurors took their side.It was a major blow for federal prosecutors, who appeared somber as they left the room while the defense celebrations were ongoing.Outside the courthouse, crowds of Combs supporters along with hordes of influencers and content creators — who have been a constant feature of the proceedings — created a circus of sorts, prompting police to barricade the plaza just outside the building.Many of those celebrated with an air of “told you so” — and eagerly crowded the courthouse hoping to catch a glimpse of Combs.- Bail debate -Ahead of the bail hearing, the US Attorney’s Office that brought the charges released a serious statement that stood in stark contrast with the chaos outside.”Sex crimes deeply scar victims, and the disturbing reality is that sex crimes are all too present in many aspects of our society,” read the statement. “Victims endure gut-wrenching physical and mental abuse, leading to lasting trauma.”Combs ultimately was denied bail — in relative terms, a minor disappointment on one of the most pivotal days of his life.If slightly deflated, he sat stoically as the teams debated the decision into the evening.Agnifilo called him a “remarkable prisoner” who had “lived up to his obligations.”Prosecutor Maurene Comey countered that Combs is an “extremely violent man with an extraordinarily dangerous temper who has shown no remorse and no regret.”Combs waved at the judge as if he had something to say, but then huddled with his lawyers. He ultimately didn’t take the mic.His return to prison awaiting sentencing was not particularly unexpected.Outside, Agnifilo dubbed the day a “major step in the right direction,” vowing that Combs would one day walk free.

Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was found not guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking Wednesday but convicted of a less serious prostitution charge after a high-profile marathon trial in New York.Combs was denied bail after the jury found him guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.But the 55-year-old hip-hop pioneer — once one of music’s most powerful figures — was acquitted of a major racketeering charge and two sex trafficking charges that could have sent him to prison for life.Combs bowed his head, quietly pumping his fists in his lap and bringing his hands together in prayer as the verdict was read out. At one point, he looked towards the ceiling, appearing to express deep relief.He shook hands with one of his lawyers and mouthed thanks to the eight-man, four-woman jury as they filed out of the courtroom.He then fell to his knees at the defense table, where he had spent two months wondering if he would live out his days in a cell.The verdict came after seven weeks of intense testimony, during which prosecutors accused Combs of being the boss of a decades-long criminal enterprise, directing loyal employees and bodyguards to commit myriad offenses at his behest.Jurors had been deadlocked on the racketeering charge on Tuesday — but Judge Arun Subramanian instructed them to keep working.Combs’s jubilance was deflated somewhat after the judge denied his request to be released on bail pending sentencing.Subramanian cited his confessed history of domestic violence in the decision — a defense that proved vital in his acquittal on key charges, but came with a price.”Domestic violence is violence,” Subramanian said.- Former partners testified -Along with racketeering, Combs was charged with sex trafficking two women: singer Casandra Ventura and a woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane.Both were in long-term relationships with the entrepreneur, and they each testified about abuse, threats and coercive sex in graphic detail.They both said they felt obligated to participate in sexual marathons with hired men directed and sometimes filmed by Combs.Combs’s lawyers insisted the sex was consensual. They conceded domestic violence was a feature of his relationships — footage of him beating and dragging Ventura was shown in court.Yet while disturbing, his actions did not amount to sex trafficking, the defense said. Jurors ultimately agreed.Ventura’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, released a statement saying she had made an “indelible mark on both the entertainment industry and the fight for justice.””She displayed unquestionable strength and brought attention to the realities of powerful men in our orbit and the misconduct that has persisted for decades without repercussion,” read the statement.”We’re pleased that he’s finally been held responsible for two federal crimes,” Wigdor told journalists outside the courthouse.Combs’s family members, present throughout the trial that began in early May, clapped and cheered for him in court when the verdict was handed down.- Sentencing -Combs has been incarcerated at a notorious Brooklyn prison since he was arrested in September 2024.And following the judge’s ruling he will stay there until sentencing. The judge proposed October 3, but said he was open to expediting the process, which the defense said they wished.The convictions confirm that Combs transported both Ventura and Jane for purposes of prostitution during the sometimes days-long sex parties.It was the fourth time in less than a year that Combs was denied bail — but not without an impassioned plea from Agnifilo.”He is a man who is in the process of working on himself. He’s been a model prisoner,” the attorney said, saying that Combs had applied to a New York treatment program for abusive partners.Agnifilo also said the case was “unique” enough to warrant an exception to the detention pending sentencing that his conviction would normally require.”The only thing exceptional” about Sean Combs “is his wealth, his violence and his brazenness,” clapped back prosecutor Maurene Comey.”He’s an extremely violent man with an extraordinarily dangerous temper who has shown no remorse and no regret for his multiple victims,” she said.Ventura’s lawyer Wigdor had also filed a letter to the court on behalf of her, urging the judge not to grant bond.”Combs is likely to pose a danger to the victims who testified in this case,” read the letter.

A Tennessee man who plotted to kill FBI agents who investigated his role in the January 2021 assault on the US Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday.Edward Kelley, 36, was convicted by a jury in November of conspiracy to murder federal employees and other charges.Kelley planned to attack the FBI office in the Tennessee city of Knoxville using car bombs and incendiary devices attached to drones, and assassinate FBI employees in their homes or in public places, according to the Justice Department.”Kelley developed a ‘kill list’ of law enforcement and distributed the list — along with videos containing images of his targets — to a co-conspirator,” the department said in a statement.Kelley was among the more than 1,500 people pardoned by Trump who were convicted or facing charges over the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress.He was among the first rioters to enter the Capitol building and was convicted of assaulting police officers, destroying government property and other charges.Kelley’s lawyer argued ahead of his trial for the murder plot that Trump’s pardon should also apply to the charges in the case, but prosecutors rejected the claim.”The defendant’s conduct in this case was unrelated in both time and place to the events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol,” they said in a court filing.”This case is about the defendant’s entirely independent criminal conduct in Tennessee, in late 2022, more than 500 miles away from the Capitol: threatening, soliciting, and conspiring to murder agents, officers, and employees of the FBI.”