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Trump Loses Appeal of E. Jean Carroll $5 million Defamation Verdict    

Former US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, US, on Thursday, April 25, 2024. Jeenah Moon/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Former US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, US, on Thursday, April 25, 2024. Jeenah Moon/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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Trump Loses Appeal of E. Jean Carroll $5 million Defamation Verdict    

Former US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, US, on Thursday, April 25, 2024. Jeenah Moon/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Former US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, US, on Thursday, April 25, 2024. Jeenah Moon/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a $5 million verdict that E. Jean Carroll won against Donald Trump when a jury found the US president-elect liable for sexually abusing and later defaming the former magazine columnist.

The decision was issued by a three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.

The May 2023 verdict stemmed from an incident around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan, where Carroll said Trump raped her, and an October 2022 Truth Social post where Trump denied Carroll's claim as a hoax.

Though jurors in federal court in Manhattan did not find that Trump committed rape, they awarded the former Elle magazine advice columnist $2.02 million for sexual assault and $2.98 million for defamation, Reuters reported.

A different jury ordered Trump in January to pay Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her and damaging her reputation in June 2019, when he first denied her rape claim.

In both denials, Trump said he did not know Carroll, she was "not my type," and that she fabricated the rape claim to promote her memoir. He is appealing the $83.3 million verdict.

Carroll's cases are continuing despite Trump's having won a second four-year White House term on Nov. 5.

In 1997, in a case involving former President Bill Clinton, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that sitting presidents have no immunity from civil litigation in federal court over actions predating and unrelated to their official duties as president.

Trump's lawyers argued the $5 million verdict should be thrown out because the trial judge should not have let jurors hear testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct.

One, businesswoman Jessica Leeds, said Trump groped her on a plane in the late 1970s. The other, former People magazine writer, Natasha Stoynoff, said Trump forcibly kissed her at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005.

Trump's lawyers also said the trial judge should not have let jurors watch a 2005 "Access Hollywood" video where Trump boasted graphically about forcing himself on women.

Both trials were overseen by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan.

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World

Kim Jong Un Vows to Boost Living Standards as He Opens Rare Congress 

This picture taken on February 19, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 20, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering the opening address at the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on February 19, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 20, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering the opening address at the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
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Kim Jong Un Vows to Boost Living Standards as He Opens Rare Congress 

This picture taken on February 19, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 20, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering the opening address at the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on February 19, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 20, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering the opening address at the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to lift living standards as he opened a landmark congress, state media said Friday, offering a glimpse of economic strains within the sanctions-hit nation.

Supreme Leader Kim took center stage with a speech to start the Workers' Party congress, a gathering that directs state efforts on everything from house building to war planning.

Held just once every five years, the days-long congress offers a rare glimpse into the workings of a nation where even mundane details are shrouded in secrecy.

"Today, our party is faced with heavy and urgent historic tasks of boosting economic construction and the people's standard of living and transforming all realms of state and social life as early as possible," Kim said in his opening speech.

"This requires us to wage a more active and persistent struggle without allowing even a moment's standstill or stagnation."

For decades, nuclear weapons and military prowess came before everything else in North Korea, even as food stocks dried up and famine took hold.

But since assuming power in 2011, Kim has stressed the need to also fortify the impoverished nation's economy.

At the last party congress in 2021, Kim made an extremely rare admission that mistakes had been made in "almost all areas" of economic development.

Analysts believe such language is designed to head off public discontent stirred by food shortages, military spending, and North Korea's continued support for Russia's war effort in Ukraine.

Kim said North Korea had overcome its "worst difficulties" in the last five years, and was now entering a new stage of "optimism and confidence in the future".

North Korea's economy has for years languished under heavy Western sanctions that aim to choke off funding for its nuclear weapons program.

But Pyongyang refuses to surrender its atomic arsenal.

Kim has already declared this year's congress will unveil the next phase in the nation's nuclear weapons program.

- Ruling dynasty -

Thousands of party elites packed the cavernous House of Culture in Pyongyang for the opening day of the congress.

It is just the ninth time the Workers' Party congress has convened under the Kim family's decades-long rule.

The meeting was shelved under Kim's father Kim Jong Il, but was revived in 2016.

Kim Jong Un has spent years stoking his cult of personality in reclusive North Korea, and the congress offers another chance to demonstrate his absolute grip on power.

Footage showed Kim stepping out of a black limousine and striding into the meeting flanked by officials.

Delegates broke into hearty applause as he took his place at the center of the imposing rostrum overlooking proceedings.

Analysts will scour photographs to see which officials are seated closest to Kim, and who is banished to the back row.

Particular attention will be placed on the whereabouts of Kim's teenage daughter Ju Ae, who has emerged as North Korea's heir apparent, according to Seoul's national intelligence service.

- 'Biggest enemy' -

The ruling parties of China and Russia -- North Korea's longtime allies -- sent friendly messages to mark the start of the meeting.

"In recent years, under the strategic guidance of the top leaders of the two parties and two countries, China-DPRK relations have entered a new historical period," said a telegram from the Chinese Communist Party, using the official acronym for North Korea.

Kim appeared alongside China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin at a military parade in Beijing last year -- a striking display of his elevated status in global politics.

At the previous congress five years ago, Kim declared that the United States was his nation's "biggest enemy".

There is keen interest in whether Kim might use the congress to soften this stance, or double down.

US President Donald Trump stepped up his courtship of Kim during a tour of Asia last year, saying he was "100 percent" open to a meeting.

Kim has so far largely shunned efforts to resume top-level diplomatic dialogue.

World

Police Search Royal Mansion as Probe Into King's Brother Goes On

British newspapers, featuring coverage of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, younger brother of Britain's King Charles, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, sit on display in a newsagent in London, Britain, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Jack Taylor
British newspapers, featuring coverage of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, younger brother of Britain's King Charles, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, sit on display in a newsagent in London, Britain, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Jack Taylor
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Police Search Royal Mansion as Probe Into King's Brother Goes On

British newspapers, featuring coverage of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, younger brother of Britain's King Charles, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, sit on display in a newsagent in London, Britain, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Jack Taylor
British newspapers, featuring coverage of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, younger brother of Britain's King Charles, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, sit on display in a newsagent in London, Britain, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Jack Taylor

British police were searching the former mansion of King Charles' younger brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on Friday after a photograph of the royal emerging from a police station was splashed on newspapers around the world.

Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on Thursday, his 66th birthday, on suspicion of misconduct in public office over allegations he sent confidential government documents to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein when he was a trade envoy.

The former prince was released under investigation after being held by police for more than 10 hours. He has not been charged with any offence but looked haunted in a Reuters photograph after his release, slumped in the back of ‌a Range Rover, eyes ‌red and with a look of disbelief on his face.

The photograph ‌of ⁠a man who ⁠was once a dashing naval officer and reputed favorite son of the late Queen Elizabeth was carried on the front page of newspapers in Britain and around the world, accompanied by headlines such as "Downfall".

Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who took his own life in 2019, and said he regrets their friendship. But the release of millions of documents by the US government showed he had remained friends with Epstein long after the financier was convicted of soliciting prostitution from ⁠a minor in 2008.

Those files suggested Mountbatten-Windsor had forwarded to Epstein British ‌government reports about investment opportunities in Afghanistan and assessments of Vietnam, Singapore ‌and other places he had visited as the government's Special Representative for Trade and Investment.

The arrest of the senior royal, eighth in line to the throne, ‌is unprecedented in modern times. The last member of the royal family to be arrested in Britain was Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649 after being found guilty of treason.

King Charles, who stripped his brother of his title of prince and forced him out of his Windsor home last year, said on Thursday he ‌had learned about the arrest with "deepest concern".

"Let me state clearly: the law must take its course," the king said. "What now follows is the ⁠full, fair and proper process ⁠by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities."

The news broke early on Thursday morning that six unmarked police cars and around eight plain-clothed officers had arrived at Wood Farm on the king's Sandringham estate in Norfolk, eastern England, where Mountbatten-Windsor now resides.

Thames Valley Police officers also searched the mansion on the king's Windsor estate west of London where Mountbatten-Windsor had lived before being forced out amid anger at the Epstein revelations.

Officers said late on Thursday that the royal had been released under investigation. They said the searches at Sandringham had concluded but the searches in Windsor were continuing.

While being arrested means that police have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed and that the royal is suspected of involvement in an offence, it does not imply guilt.

A conviction for misconduct in a public office carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and cases must be dealt with in a Crown Court, which handles the most serious criminal offences.

World

Florida Airport to be Renamed after US President Donald Trump

President Donald Trump gets ready to exit the stage after speaking at a rally at Coosa Steel Corporation in Rome, Ga., Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump gets ready to exit the stage after speaking at a rally at Coosa Steel Corporation in Rome, Ga., Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
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Florida Airport to be Renamed after US President Donald Trump

President Donald Trump gets ready to exit the stage after speaking at a rally at Coosa Steel Corporation in Rome, Ga., Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump gets ready to exit the stage after speaking at a rally at Coosa Steel Corporation in Rome, Ga., Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

An airport in Florida will soon be renamed after US President Donald Trump, after a bill proposing the change was approved by the state's legislature on Thursday.

Trump, a real estate mogul who has plastered his name on buildings around the world, has sought to leave his mark on the country in an unprecedented image and building campaign.

Florida's Republican-led legislature approved a bill to rename the Palm Beach International Airport as the "President Donald J. Trump International Airport," state records show. Governor Ron DeSantis, once a Trump opponent, is expected to sign the measure into law.

The airport in Palm Beach, a town known for its sandy beaches and luxurious estates, is just minutes away from Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

The airport renaming will also require the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration, AFP reported.

It would then become the latest institution to be renamed after Trump.

The president's handpicked board of the Kennedy Center, an arts complex and memorial to late president John F. Kennedy in Washington, voted in December to rename itself the "Trump-Kennedy Center."

Trump has also sought to rename New York's Penn Station and Washington's Dulles International Airport after himself, according to US media reports, although those efforts were rebuffed.

The Treasury Department has also confirmed reports that drafts have been drawn up for a commemorative $1 coin featuring Trump's image, even though there are laws against displaying the image of a sitting or living president on money.