World
8 dead as SUV hits crowd at Texas bus stop near border
Police are preparing to arrest the hospitalized driver of an SUV that slammed into a crowd, killing eight people waiting for a bus Sunday outside a migrant shelter in the border city of Brownsville, Texas. At least 10 others were injured, authorities said.
With no bench at the unmarked city bus stop, some of the victims were sitting on the curb around 8:30 a.m. when the driver hit them, surveillance video from the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center showed. Brownsville police investigator Martin Sandoval, who confirmed the latest death Sunday evening, said police did not know whether the collision was intentional.
Shelter director Victor Maldonado said the SUV ran up the curb, flipped and continued moving for about 200 feet (60 meters). Some people walking on the sidewalk about 30 feet (9 meters) from the main group were also hit, Maldonado said. Witnesses detained the driver as he tried to run away and held him until police arrived, he said.
"This SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about 100 feet (30 meters) away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” said Maldonado, who reviewed the shelter’s surveillance video.
Victims struck by the vehicle were waiting for the bus to return to downtown Brownsville after spending the night at the overnight shelter, said Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.
Most of the victims were Venezuelan men, Maldonado said. Brownsville has seen a surge of Venezuelan migrants over the last two weeks for unclear reasons, authorities said. On Thursday, 4,000 of about 6,000 migrants in Border Patrol custody in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley were Venezuelan.
The driver was taken to the hospital for injuries sustained when the car rolled over, Sandoval said. There were no passengers in the car, and police didn’t immediately know the driver’s name or age, Sandoval said Sunday afternoon.
Sandoval said there are three possible explanations for the collision: “It could be intoxication; it could be an accident; or it could be intentional. In order for us to find out exactly what happened, we have to eliminate the other two.
“He’s being very uncooperative at the hospital, but he will be transported to our city jail as soon as he gets released," Sandoval said. "Then we’ll fingerprint him and (take a) mug shot, and then we can find his true identity.”
Police retrieved a blood sample and sent it to a Texas Department of Public Safety lab to test for intoxicants.
The surge in the number of migrants this week has prompted Brownsville commissioners to indefinitely extend a declaration of emergency during a special meeting Thursday.
"We don’t want them wandering around outside,” Pedro Cardenas, a city commissioner, said Sunday after the crash. “So, we’re trying to make sure they’re as comfortable as they can be so they don’t have to go out and look for anywhere else.”
Brownsville has long been an epicenter for migration across the U.S.-Mexico border, and it has become a key location of interest for next week's end to pandemic-era border restrictions known as Title 42. The Ozanam shelter is the only overnight shelter in the city and manages the release of thousands of migrants from federal custody.
Maldonado said the center had not received any threats before the crash, but did afterward.
“I've had a couple of people come by the gate and tell the security guard that the reason this happened was because of us,” Maldonado said.
About 2,500 migrants have crossed through the river daily into Brownsville in the past few days, Cardenas said. He said the Border Patrol is aware of the city’s capacity of 1,000 at their processing area near the crossing point and a downtown building where city employees and volunteers guide migrants on how to purchase bus or plane tickets to their final destinations. The city is considering expanding services to accommodate needs in the coming days, Cardenas said.
While 80% of people released from federal custody leave the same day, the city’s emergency management official said, a bottleneck has formed over the past few days.
“Most of the people coming across don’t want to stay in Brownsville, but we don’t have enough buses for them to buy their ticket to leave,” Cardenas said. “Some are waiting for family members.”
The Ozanam shelter can hold 250, but many who arrive leave the same day. In the last several weeks, an uptick in border crossings prompted the city to declare an emergency as local, state and federal resources coordinated enforcement and humanitarian response.
“In the last two months, we’ve been getting 250 to 380 a day,” Maldonado said.
While the shelter offers migrants transportation during the week, they also use the city’s public transportation.
Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said in a statement shared Sunday afternoon: “I hope that today serves as a wake up call, and that state officials will begin investing in a humanitarian response that might have helped the people who were impacted by this morning’s tragedy."
U.S. Rep. Vicente González said Sunday that local officials are in communication with the federal government about the crash.
“We are all extremely sad and heartbroken to have such a tragedy in our neighborhood," he said.
War shadows Victory Day, Russia’s integral holiday
Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, lauds two tenets that are central to the country’s identity: military might and moral rectitude. But the war in Ukraine undermines both this year.
The holiday falling on Tuesday marks the 78th anniversary of Germany's capitulation in World War II after a relentless Red Army offensive pushed German forces from Stalingrad, deep inside Russia, all the way to Berlin, about 2,200 kilometers (1,300 miles).
The Soviet Union lost at least 20 million people in the war; the suffering and valor that went into the German defeat have been touchstones ever since.
However, many regions have canceled their May 9 observances because of concerns the events could be targets for Ukrainian attacks. Moscow’s famed Red Square military parade will go ahead following Russia's claim of an attempted Ukrainian drone attack on the Kremlin, whose spires loom next to the parade venue.
For all the fearsome armaments that will growl through the square, Russia’s failure to make gains in Ukraine spoils the image of its army’s indomitability.
Also Read: Russia will defend its interests and work together for a peaceful future: Ambassador says on country’s Victory Day
After seizing sizable parts of the neighboring country in the opening weeks of the invasion, the Russian campaign saw an abandoned attempt to enter Kyiv, retreats in northern and southern Ukraine, and an inability to take Bakhmut, a small city of questionable value, despite months of exceptionally gruesome fighting.
President Vladimir Putin, in his speech during the parade, is sure to praise the Red Army’s determination to wipe out Nazism and to repeat his assertion that Russia is taking the moral high ground by fighting an alleged Nazi regime in Ukraine, a country with a Jewish president.
But the missiles that rain down on Ukrainian civilian targets have drawn worldwide condemnation of Russia, while the Western countries that made common cause with Moscow to defeat Nazi Germany send billions of dollars' worth of weapons to Ukraine.
Analysts are divided on whether the May 3 drone incident at the Kremlin was a genuine attack or a “false flag” concocted to justify increasing the ferocity of Russia's missile barrages in Ukraine. Either explanation risks undermining the sense of security among Russians already rattled by attacks, likely committed by Ukraine or by domestic opponents, that have risen sharply in recent weeks.
Two freight trains derailed this week in bomb explosions in the Bryansk region that borders Ukraine. Notably, the region’s authorities did not blame Ukraine, which could be an attempt to whitewash the Ukrainian capability to carry out sabotage.
But Bryansk authorities claimed in March that two people were shot and killed when alleged Ukrainian saboteurs penetrated the region. The region also has come under sporadic cross-border shelling, including last month, when four people were killed.
Three prominent supporters of the war in Ukraine also were killed or injured on their home turf elsewhere in Russia. A car-bombing last week in the Nizhny Novgorod region that officials blamed on Ukraine and the United States severely injured nationalist novelist Zakhar Prilepin and killed his driver.
Last year, Darya Dugina, a commentator with a nationalist TV channel, died in a car bombing outside Moscow, and authorities alleged Ukrainian intelligence was behind the April death in St. Petersburg of prominent pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who was killed when a bomb inside a statuette he was handed at a restaurant party exploded.
Amid the heightened security worries, authorities also canceled one of Victory Day's most notable observances, the “Immortal Regiment” processions in which throngs of citizens take to the streets holding portraits of relatives who died or served in World War II.
The processions carry an air of genuine emotion, in sharp contrast to the obedient stone-faced soldiers who march across Red Square during the tightly regimented military parades that change little from year to year.
Although the processions are moving and impressively large, authorities “thought that the risks were becoming prohibitive,” said Russian analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, now at the Free University in Riga, Latvia. “If some kind of drones fly there, penetrate through the impenetrable border ... then why can’t they drop something on this column?”
Pakistan, Afghan Taliban agree to boost trade, lower tension
Pakistan and Afghanistan's Taliban-appointed government have agreed to boost trade and lower tensions along their border amid a surge in militant attacks on security forces, officials said Monday.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Afghanistan’s Taliban-appointed foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, struck the deal Sunday in Islamabad, according to Pakistan's Foreign Ministry. The agreement is designed to improve bilateral trade, combat terrorism and boost bilateral ties.
Earlier, Bhutto Zardari and Muttaqi also held talks with China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang, a departure from recent years when such dialogue had been on hold, according to analysts, who say China is expanding its influence in the region. China also has played a role in the resumption of Saudi-Iran diplomatic ties.
In Pakistan, Beijing is bankrolling the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC — a sprawling package that includes such projects as road and power plant construction and boosting agriculture production.
Also Read: UN urges Afghanistan’s Taliban to end floggings, executions
The package is considered a lifeline for this impoverished Islamic nation, which is currently facing one of its worst economic crises amid stalled talks on a bailout with the International Monetary Fund.
CPEC, also known as the One Road Project, is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global endeavor aimed at reconstituting the ancient Silk Road and linking China to all corners of Asia.
Qin arrived in Islamabad on Friday and met with President Arif Alvi, Foreign Minister Bhutto Zardari and Pakistan's powerful army chief, Gen. Asim Munir. During these meetings, he was assured that Pakistan will boost security for all Chinese nationals who are working on multi-billion dollar projects in cash-strapped Pakistan.
China has been demanding more security from Pakistan for its nationals residing and working in the Islamic country since 2021, when a suicide bomber killed nine Chinese and four Pakistanis in an attack in Pakistan’s volatile northwest.
According to a Foreign Ministry statement, Bhutto Zardari and Muttaqi on Sunday “held a candid and in-depth exchange on key issues of mutual concern, including peace and security, as well as trade and connectivity." The two sides “reaffirmed their desire to pursue continuous and practical engagement," it said.
According to the Afghan embassy, Muttaqi and his delegation met with Bhutto Zardari and other officials. “During the meeting, matters of mutual interest, Afghan-Pak political, economic, and transit relations as well as challenges of Afghan Refugees in Pakistan have been discussed,” it said on Twitter early Monday.
Pakistan's military said Muttaqi also met with Munir, the army chief, to discuss "issues of mutual interest including aspects related to regional security, border management, and formalization of bilateral security mechanisms for improvement in the current security environment.” Munir sought enhanced cooperation to “effectively tackle the common challenges of terrorism and extremism," the statement added.
Relations between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban have featured ups and down in the past year.
In February, the two sides shut the main Afghan-Pakistan border crossing at Torkham, stranding people and trucks carrying food and essential items. After a Pakistani delegation traveled to Kabul for talks on the crisis, the border was reopened after a week and Muttaqi's visit to Islamabad was planned.
Afghanistan's Taliban have been shunned by most of the international community for harsh and restrictive measures they have imposed since seizing power in August 2021, when U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war. The Afghan Taliban has banned girls from education beyond the sixth grade and barred women from most jobs and public life.
Pakistan has lately expressed concern over a surge of deadly attacks across the country by the Pakistani Taliban — an independent militant group that is allied with and sheltered by the Afghan Taliban.
Islamabad has demanded from the Taliban in Kabul that they do more to rein in anti-Pakistani groups such as the Pakistani Taliban — also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP — which have stepped up attacks on Pakistani security forces in recent months.
Out-of-control wildfires cause evacuations in western Canada
Fire crews battled wildfires threatening communities in western Canada on Sunday as cooler temperatures and a bit of rain brought some relief, but officials warned the reprieve came only in some areas.
Officials in Alberta said there were 108 active fires in the province and the number of evacuees grew to about 29,000, up from approximately 24,000 Saturday, when a provincewide state of emergency was declared.
Two out-of-control wildfires in neighboring British Columbia also caused some people to leave their homes, and officials warned that they expected high winds to cause the blazes to grow bigger in the next few days.
Provinicial officials in Alberta said the weather forecast was favorable for the next few days, with small amounts of rain and overcast conditions. But they cautioned that hot and dry conditions were predicted to return within a few days.
“People have called this season certainly unprecedented in recent memory because we have so many fires so spread out,” Christie Tucker with Alberta Wildfire said at a briefing. “It’s been an unusual year.”
Colin Blair, executive director of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, said accurate damage reports were not yet available because conditions made it difficult to assess the situation. There were of buildings destroyed in the town of Fox Lake, including 20 homes, a police station and a store.
In northeastern British Columbia, officials urged residents to evacuate the areas around two out-of-control wildfires near the Alberta border, saying there were reports of some people staying behind.
“This is impeding the response and putting their lives and the lives of firefighters at risk," said Leonard Hiebert, chairman of the Peace River Regional District.
A third fire in British Columbia was burning out of control 700 kilometers (430 miles) to the south, in the Teare Creek region, and some residents near the village of McBride were evacuated.
Turkey’s opposition denounces fairness of vote under Erdogan
As Turkey heads for presidential and parliamentary elections at the weekend that are shaping up to be the strongest challenge to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his 20 years as leader, complaints are growing about the fairness of the vote.
Turkey’s opposition has long said that the country’s elections are played out on an unlevel playing field, claims often backed by international observers.
Media coverage stands out as the most obvious example of where Erdogan enjoys an advantage over his opponents, but factors such as the use of state resources while campaigning and the questionable interpretation of electoral law also feature.
Also Read: Turkey’s Erdogan faces tough election amid quake, inflation
Some 90% of Turkey’s media is in the hands of the government or its backers, according to Reporters Without Borders, ensuring overwhelming airtime for the president. Only a handful of opposition newspapers remain in print, most having transitioned to online-only editions.
During April, Erdogan received nearly 33 hours of airtime on the main state-run TV station, according to opposition members of the broadcasting watchdog. His presidential opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, received 32 minutes.
The main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, last month launched legal action against broadcaster TRT for failing to screen its campaign video.
“Unfortunately, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation has moved away from being an impartial and objective institution and has turned into the Tayyip Radio and Television Corporation,” CHP lawmaker Tuncay Ozkan said.
The remaining independent media also face increasing restrictions. Last month, broadcasting authority RTUK fined independent channels Fox News, Halk TV and TELE1 over news and commentary deemed a breach of regulations. Ilhan Tasci, an opposition-appointed RTUK member, said in all three cases the stations had been accused of criticizing or questioning ruling-party actions.
Also Read: Erdogan hints Turkey may ratify Finland's NATO membership
In a statement following the last presidential and general elections in 2018, observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe noted that Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) enjoyed “an undue advantage, including in excessive coverage by government-affiliated public and private media outlets.”
The government’s reach has also been extended over social media, where many opposition voices have retreated.
A “disinformation” law introduced in October allows a jail sentence of up to three years for spreading false information “with the sole aim of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the public.”
Sinan Aygul, the only journalist to be prosecuted under the new law, was handed a 10-month prison term in February. He is currently free while appealing the case.
“The real aim is to silence all dissident voices in society,” said Aygul, chair of the journalists association in Bitlis, southeastern Turkey. It is “a law that targets anyone who expresses an opinion. It targets not only individuals but also media organs,” he said.
The ill-defined law creates crimes from “basic journalistic activities,” Aygul said, adding that it could be used during the elections to target groups seeking to protect ballot box security who use social media to highlight abuses.
“If there is going to be fraud in the election, all opposition channels will be silenced by using this law,” he said.
The imposition of a state of emergency over the 11 provinces hit by February’s earthquake has also raised concerns about how the polls will be conducted in the region. A U.N. report published April 11 said at least 3 million people had relocated from their homes in the quake zone, many of them heading to other parts of Turkey.
However, just 133,000 people from the earthquake region have registered to vote outside their home provinces, the head of the Supreme Election Council said last month. Ahmet Yener added that election officials are overseeing preparations, including polling stations at temporary shelters.
In 2018, a nationwide state of emergency imposed following a 2016 coup attempt was in place until shortly before the election, which the OSCE said restricted the media and freedoms of assembly and expression.
Erdogan has stepped up his public appearances, which are closely followed by most TV channels, and uses these official duties to attack his rivals. Attending a ceremony on the Friday of Eid al-Fitr last month to mark renovations to Istanbul’s Blue Mosque, he accused the opposition of “working with terrorist groups.”
The previous evening, the leaders of four political parties allied to the AKP were present for an event to launch the delivery of Black Sea natural gas, despite none holding any government position.
Other large projects that were rolled out ahead of the vote include Turkey’s first nuclear power reactor built by Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear energy company, and several defense developments.
Critics also point to the bending of election law to allow government ministers to stand as parliamentary candidates while remaining in office, despite legal requirements to the contrary.
The election board, meanwhile, has previously faced criticism for siding with AKP objections during elections.
In the 2019 local polls, the victorious opposition mayoral candidate for Istanbul was forced to face a rerun following AKP complaints of ballot irregularities. Results from district and city council votes, which were collected in the same boxes and favored the AKP, were not questioned.
Adem Sozuer of Istanbul University’s law faculty told the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper that voters had lost confidence in the election authorities. “There is widespread suspicion in a significant part of society that elections will be rigged,” he said.
At least 100 killed in armed fighter clashes: Sudan doctors
At least 100 people were killed in clashes that erupted last month between armed fighters in a city in Sudan’s restive region of Darfur, according to the Sudan’s Doctors Syndicate.
Hospitals were still out of service in the Darfur city of Genena and an accurate count of the wounded was still hard to make, the doctors’ union added in a statement posted on their official Facebook page late Sunday.
The fighting in Genena, which broke out a few days after Sudan’s two rival generals took arms against each other in Khartoum, pointed to the possibility that conflict in the capital could spiral to other parts of the East African country.
Also Read: Sudan conflict: 136 Bangladeshi evacuees arrive in Dhaka
At least 481 civilians were killed in Khartoum clashes that erupted in mid-April between the military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, according to the same doctors’ statement. The number of the wounded among civilians has jumped to more than 2560.
UN urges Afghanistan’s Taliban to end floggings, executions
A U.N. report on Monday strongly criticized the Taliban for carrying out public executions, lashings and stonings since seizing power in Afghanistan, and called on the country's rulers to halt such practices.
In the past six months alone, 274 men, 58 women and two boys were publicly flogged in Afghanistan, according to a report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA.
“Corporal punishment is a violation of the Convention against Torture and must cease,” said Fiona Frazer, the agency's human rights chief. She also called for an immediate moratorium on executions.
The Taliban foreign ministry said in response that Afghanistan’s laws are determined in accordance with Islamic rules and guidelines, and that an overwhelming majority of Afghans follow those rules.
“In the event of a conflict between international human rights law and Islamic law, the government is obliged to follow the Islamic law,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Taliban began carrying out such punishments shortly after coming to power almost two years ago, despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s.
At the same time, they have gradually tightened restrictions on women, barring them from public spaces, such as parks and gyms, in line with their interpretation of Islamic law. The restrictions have triggered an international uproar, increasing the country’s isolation at a time when its economy has collapsed — and worsening a humanitarian crisis.
Monday's report on corporal punishment documents Taliban practices both before and after their return to power in August 2021, when they seized the capital of Kabul as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew after two decades of war.
The first public flogging following the Taliban takeover was reported in October 2021 in the northern Kapisa province, the report said. In that case, a woman and man convicted of adultery were publicly lashed 100 times each in the presence of religious scholars and local Taliban authorities, it said.
In December 2022, Taliban authorities executed an Afghan convicted of murder, the first public execution since they took power the report said.
The execution, carried out with an assault rifle by the victim’s father, took place in the western Farah province before hundreds of spectators and top Taliban officials.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the top government spokesman, said the decision to carry out the punishment was “made very carefully," following approval by three of the country’s highest courts and the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada.
There has been a significant increase in the number and regularity of judicial corporal punishment since November when Mujahid repeated comments by the supreme leader about judges and their use of Islamic law in a tweet, the report said.
Since that tweet, UNAMA documented at least 43 instances of public lashings involving 274 men, 58 women and two boys. A majority of punishments were related to convictions of adultery and “running away from home," the report said. Other purported offenses included theft, homosexuality, consuming alcohol, fraud and drug trafficking.
In a video message, Abdul Malik Haqqani, the Taliban’s appointed deputy chief justice, said last week that the Taliban’s Supreme Court has issued 175 so-called retribution verdicts since taking power, including 79 floggings and 37 stonings.
Such verdicts establish the right of a purported victim, or relative of a victim of a crime to punish or forgive the perpetrator. Haqqani said the Taliban leadership is committed to carrying out such sentences.
After their initial overthrow in the U.S. invasion of 2001, the Taliban continued to carry out corporal punishment and executions in areas under their control while waging an insurgency against the U.S.-backed former Afghan government, the report said.
UNAMA documented at least 182 instances when the Taliban carried out their own sentences during the height of their insurgency between 2010 and August 2021, resulting in 213 deaths and 64 injuries.
Many Muslim-majority countries draw on Islamic law, but the Taliban interpretation is an outlier.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called a Taliban ban on women working an unacceptable violation of Afghan human rights.
On April 5, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers informed the United Nations that Afghan women employed with the U.N. mission could no longer report for work. Aid agencies have warned that the ban on women working will impact their ability to deliver urgent humanitarian help in Afghanistan.
The Taliban previously banned girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade and women from most public life and work. In December, they banned Afghan women from working at local and non-governmental groups — a measure that at the time did not extend to U.N. offices.
Under the first Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, public corporal punishment and executions were carried out by officials against individuals convicted of crimes, often in large venues such as sports stadiums and at urban intersections.
Global Covid-19 cases near 688 million
The overall number of global Covid-19 cases is gradually nearing 688 million.
According to the latest global data, the total Covid-19 case count is 687,803,066, while the death toll reached 6,871,031 this morning.
The US has reported 106,768,296 Covid-19 cases so far, while 1,162,431 people have died from the virus in the country — both highest counts globally.
India on Sunday logged 2,380 new cases of Covid-19, bringing down the active cases to 27,212 from 30,041 a day before.
READ: WHO downgrades COVID pandemic, says it's no longer emergency
According to the global data, the Covid-19 case tally was recorded at 44,969,630.
France and Germany have registered 40,021,190 and 38,411,062 Covid-19 cases so far, occupying the third and fourth positions in the world number-wise, and 166,811 and 173,375 people have died in the European countries, as per Worldometer.
READ: WHO fires scientist who led COVID search over sex misconduct
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday announced that the Covid-19 pandemic was no longer a global health emergency. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, made the announcement while addressing a media briefing on Covid-19 and global health issues.
Covid-19 situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh reported 23 more Covid-19 cases in 24 hours till Sunday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,038,338 according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,446 as no new fatalities were reported.
Boat capsizes in southern India, at least 20 people dead
Twenty people, including women and children, died after a boat carrying more than 30 passengers capsized on Sunday night near a beach in India's southern state of Kerala, local media reported.
“The boat is being hauled ashore and more bodies are expected to be recovered from inside,” Sports Minister V Abdurahiman told the Press Trust of India news agency, adding that four people in critical condition were admitted to a hospital.
Rescuers had reached Tanur, a coastal town in the state’s Malappuram district, where the capsizing occurred near Thoovaltheeram beach. It's not clear what caused the boat to overturn.
Trump rejects last chance to testify at New York civil trial
Former President Donald Trump rejected his last chance Sunday to testify at a civil trial where a longtime advice columnist has accused him of raping her in a luxury department store dressing room in 1996.
Trump, a Republican candidate for president in 2024, was given until 5 p.m. Sunday by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to file a request to testify. Nothing was filed.
It was not a surprise. Trump has not shown up once during the two-week Manhattan trial where writer E. Jean Carroll testified for several days, repeating claims she first made publicly in a 2019 memoir. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages totaling millions of dollars.
The jury has also watched lengthy excerpts from an October videotaped deposition in which Trump vehemently denied raping Carroll or ever really knowing her.
Without Trump’s testimony, lawyers were scheduled to make closing arguments Monday, with deliberations likely to begin on Tuesday.
After plaintiffs rested their case Thursday, Trump attorney Joe Tacopina immediately rested the defense case as well without calling any witnesses. He did not request additional time for Trump to decide to testify. Tacopina declined in an email to comment after the deadline passed Sunday.
On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump extra time to change his mind and request to testify, though the judge did not promise he would grant such a request to reopen the defense case so Trump could take the stand.
At the time, Kaplan noted that he’d heard about news reports Thursday in which Trump told reporters while visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, that he would “probably attend” the trial. Trump also criticized Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, as an “extremely hostile” and “rough judge” who “doesn’t like me very much.”
On the witness stand, Carroll, 79, testified that Trump, 76, raped her in spring 1996 after they met at the entrance of the midtown Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman.
She said the encounter began as a fun and flirtatious outing as Trump coaxed her into helping him shop for a gift for another woman. She said they ended up in the store’s desolate lingerie section, where they teased each other to try on a see-through bodysuit.
As Carroll recalled it, laughter accompanied them into a dressing room where Trump became violent, slamming her up against a wall, pulling aside her tights and raping her before she kneed him and fled the store.
In his deposition, Trump said Carroll made it up. He called it “a false, disgusting lie” delivered by a “nut job” who was trying to stoke sales of her book.
He also repeated comments he made in statements that she was not his “type.”
“She’s not my type and that’s 100% true,” he said.
And he repeated his claims in a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video in which he bragged that men who are celebrities can grab women by the genitals without asking.
“Historically that’s true with stars,” he said.
Carroll sued Trump in November, minutes after New York state enacted a law allowing adult sexual assault victims to sue others even if the attacks occurred decades earlier.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, wrote a letter to the judge Sunday to complain that Trump still has not removed April 26 posts on his social media network in which he called Carroll’s allegations “a made up SCAM.” And she noted that he repeated disparaging remarks about the trial three days ago in Ireland.
After the April 26 postings on Truth Social, Judge Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s lawyer, said Trump’s comments were “highly inappropriate” and expressed concern that Trump was trying to communicate to the jury “about stuff that has no business being spoken about.”
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.