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 Curtis Means/ReutersDonald Trump's criminal trial in Manhattan will be on hiatus Wednesday as Judge Juan Merchan takes the day to work on other cases—which is probably just as well, as it gives the public a chance to digest some of the most explosive claims made so far in the first trial ever of a former U.S. president.
After just two days of testimony, prosecutors have already asked the judge to hold Trump in contempt for violating a gag order with a series of social media posts. While the judge has held off on ruling so far, he tore into Trump's lead lawyer Tuesday in a scene that may spell trouble for the former president's defense, telling attorney Todd Blanche: "Mr Blanche, you're losing all credibility, I have to tell you right now."
When the trial resumes Thursday, we'll be getting more from David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer. Pecker, the CEO of American Media Inc. during the 2016 presidential election, was grilled for around two-and-a-half hours on Tuesday about how he offered to act as Trump's "eyes and ears" during the Republican's campaign, using his tabloids to buy the exclusive rights to potentially damaging stories about Trump in an effort to make sure they never saw the light of day—a practice known as "catch and kill."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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The bipartisan bill includes $60.8 billion for Ukraine; $26.4 billion for Israel and humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones, including Gaza; and $8.1 billion for the Indo-Pacific region.
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 Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersAs Donald Trump's hush money trial resumed on Tuesday, David Pecker arrived without the improbable smile he had when he first took the witness stand the day before.
On Monday, the 72-year-old accountant-turned-supermarket sleaze had seemed delighted to appear on center stage, even if it was to testify against a man he had once called a friend. He appeared to be energized by the drama of a courtroom packed with reporters, uniformed court officers and Secret Service agents, and initially seemed completely comfortable to assume the high profile perch of a subpoenaed stool pigeon.
But he must have been more anxious than he at first appeared, for he erupted into a sudden, surprisingly loud laugh when he momentarily had trouble remembering his phone number and the New York address of American Media, Inc. (AMI), where he had been CEO. AMI owns the National Enquirer.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Weapons from the aid package, considered "a lifeline" for Ukraine's military, could be arriving on the battlefield within days.
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(First column, 10th story, link)
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Kids Giving Up on Elite Schools -- and Heading South...
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(Second column, 15th story, link)
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Angela Rayner says she knows the Conservatives are "desperate to talk about my living arrangements", opening her question on no-fault evictions.
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Rayner's appearance at PMQs comes during a long-running row about where she lived before 2015.
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 Apple TV When we last left the residents of Deerfield, the fictional Midwest town at the center of the strange occurrences in The Big Door Prize, everyone was zapped of energy—in some cases, quite literally. The Season 1 finale of Apple TV 's existential comedy ended with a key character in the hospital after being electrocuted while trying to destroy a MORPHO machine, a photo booth-like contraption that tells you your life's true potential. The rest of Deerfield's population is just as exhausted (though, luckily, not under medical care) after spending the show's first season comically upending their comfortable lives because the mysterious MORPHO spat out a little blue card with one vague word printed on it.
The results of this small-town chaos yielded one of 2023's most unexpectedly delightful new series, which had much more to say about adult life and the nuances of our neuroses than a certain sickeningly upbeat Apple TV show. Quirky Deerfield dwellers like Dusty (Chris O'Dowd), his plucky wife Cass (Gabrielle Dennis), Cass' arrogant mother Izzy (Crystal R. Fox), and toupéed restaurateur Giorgio (Josh Segarra) struggled to understand what their MORPHO cards meant, often finding that one word could conjure endless potential outcomes. These bite-sized, intertwining character studies were a novel joy, albeit one that had limits. Even though last season's finale packed more than a few twists, repeating the same storytelling patte
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 Comedy CentralOn Tuesday, former National Enquirer chief David Pecker testified for the second day in a row as the first witness in Donald Trump's hush-money trial. While the headlines practically write themselves, it turns out that having a Pecker on the stand wasn't even the wildest part of this week so far.
As The Daily Show correspondents and this week's co-hosts Jordan Klepper and Ronnie Chieng made clear, the most ridiculously entertaining part of the trial's proceedings so far was Jesse Watters' inane claims on Monday that Trump is being subjected to "cruel and unusual" punishment by having to be present at his own trial.
"Clearly Trump thinks he's being treated unfairly in this trial," explained Chieng on Tuesday, "and he's not the only one."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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(First column, 8th story, link)
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(Second column, 1st story, link)
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For real this time...
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Highlights from the 2024 campaign trail with election results from the Pennsylvania primaries and the latest news on presidential candidates.
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The race in Pennsylvania's 12th District was considered a first test for the "Squad" of left-wing, progressive Democrats in Congress.
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Senator Bob Casey, the Democratic incumbent, will face David McCormick, a wealthy businessman whose first run for Senate was torpedoed by former President Donald J. Trump.
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(First column, 14th story, link)
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 Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyAs his criminal trial gets underway with opening statements and the presentation of the first prosecution witness, defendant Donald Trump's defense lawyers signaled a "throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" strategy that may reflect a desperate attempt to find something-anything-that may appeal to a lone holdout juror.
Indeed, the phrase "you only need one"-or some variation of that-seems to have become mantra among reporters and legal commentators covering the trial. But the scenario of a lone holdout juror causing a "hung jury" and ensuing mistrial is neither the panacea Trump may believe it to be nor as grave a danger that those hoping for a Trump conviction fear it to be.
Classically strong defense opening statements usually vary between a near silent approach-sometimes defense counsel even reserve openings until later in the trial if the rules allow for it-in which the defense lawyer simply reminds the jury of the fact that the prosecution has the extremely high burden of proof and to scrutinize the evidence and witnesses carefully and an approach that lays out the theory of defense.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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In a Washington war room, Columbia's president, Nemat Shafik, decided to call police officers to arrest protesting students. The backlash now threatens her leadership.
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 Drew AngererDisgraced ex-Republican George Santos has killed his short-lived bid for a new seat in Congress, announcing his withdrawal from the race for New York's 1st Congressional District on Tuesday.
"I have decided to withdraw from my independent run for #NY1," Santos wrote on X.
He added that he didn't want his run to be portrayed as a "reprisal against" incumbent Nick LaLota, a fellow GOP rep Santos has said he personally dislikes. In an interview with The Daily Beast earlier this month, Santos vehemently denied his bid for LaLota's seat was a "revenge run" against the ex-colleague he once called a "meathead."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Senate Democrats and Republicans approved a forced sale or ban of TikTok and a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and Taiwan.
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(Second column, 9th story, link)
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Donald Trump's New York hush money criminal trial continues Tuesday. Follow here for the latest live news updates, analysis and more.
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Beijing's bullying tactics have pushed Wellington into Washington's welcoming arms.
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The party is banking on abortion access as an issue to animate the state's competitive race for governor and, they hope, galvanize voters for President Biden.
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We speak with Mahmood Mamdani, a professor of government at Columbia who has spoken with many of the pro-Palestine protesters camping out on school grounds to show solidarity with Gaza and demand the school divest from Israel. He says there is growing outrage from faculty after the school's leadership called in the police to raid the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and conduct mass arrests, while administrators have started suspending and evicting some students. "There has been no due process on the Columbia campus," says Mamdani.
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Jury selection for the remaining alternates continues Friday in former President Donald Trump's hush money criminal trial. Follow here for the latest live news updates, analysis and more.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel says he will "act immediately" to ban Al Jazeera in the country after the Knesset passed a law Monday that allows the government to shut down foreign news networks deemed to be threats to national security. Al Jazeera, one of the few outlets with local reporters in Gaza, denounced the move and said it was part of a pattern of Israeli attacks on the Qatar-based network, including targeting its journalists in Gaza since October 7 and the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank in 2022. For more, we speak with Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator and president of the U.S./Middle East Project, who says Netanyahu's move to ban Al Jazeera is "red meat to his own base … in a situation in which the war is not going particularly well for Israel. He's looking for distractions."
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