Trump found liable in civil sexual abuse case
A Manhattan jury found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming the former magazine writer E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million in damages. More than a dozen women have accused the former president of sexual misconduct over the years, but this is the only allegation to be affirmed by a jury. Read the completed jury verdict form.
In the civil case, the federal jury of six men and three women unanimously found that Carroll, 79, had sufficiently proved that Trump sexually abused her nearly 30 years ago in a Manhattan department store dressing room. It also found that Trump had defamed her in comments about the case, but it did not find he had raped her, as she had long claimed.
Trump’s lawyer said he intended to appeal. The former president’s lawyers called no witnesses, and he never appeared at the trial to hear Carroll, who had sued him last year, deliver testimony about the attack she said had ended her romantic life forever. The findings are civil, not criminal, meaning Trump has not been convicted of any crime and faces no prison time.
Statement: After the verdict, Carroll said: “I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back. Today, the world finally knows the truth. This victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed.”
Response: Many of Trump’s political rivals and opponents, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, stayed quiet about the verdict. It is not clear how it will affect Trump’s presidential campaign.
For more: Why was Trump liable for sexual abuse, not rape? New York law gave jurors three types of battery to consider.
A muted war holiday in Russia
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, yesterday used the annual celebration of Victory Day, a holiday that commemorates the Soviet Union’s triumph in World War II, as a platform to denounce the West and make fictitious claims about Ukraine, equating his war of choice against that country with the Soviet Union’s fight for survival against Nazi Germany.
Putin’s list of baseless justifications for his invasion has previously included echoes of World War II. But his rhetoric has shifted from talk of a war of self-defense to drawing direct parallels to the fight against Nazism.
Reflecting the failures of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, yesterday’s parade in Red Square was considerably smaller than the vast spectacle of military might seen in past years, lacking the usual flyover by warplanes or the rows of state-of-the-art tanks. Russia has failed to topple the government in Kyiv or seize all of the territory it has claimed, and the death toll is mounting. Now Putin faces the prospect of a counteroffensive by Ukraine.
Quotable: “A real war has been unleashed against our motherland again,” Putin said in a 10-minute speech in Moscow’s Red Square, whose themes were quickly repeated by the state news media. “Battles that decide the fate of our motherland have always become all-encompassing, patriotic and sacred.”
In other news from the war:
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A trip to Europe by China’s top diplomat, aimed at persuading European leaders that they can do business with Beijing, has been derailed by discussions about China’s ties to Russia.
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Arnan Soldin, a video journalist working for the news agency Agence France-Presse, was killed by rocket fire in eastern Ukraine. He is reported to be the 17th journalist killed in Ukraine since 2022.
Debate over anti-protest law in Britain
The police in London expressed regret over their actions toward six of the 64 protesters they detained on the sidelines of the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday, fueling a national debate about the policing of the event and about the new anti-protest law that officers used in some arrests.
The law, called the Public Order Act 2023, came into effect days before the coronation, giving the police in England and Wales extended powers to detain and charge those they suspect of carrying out or preparing potentially disruptive protests. The legislation was brought forward last year after a wave of climate protests and has drawn condemnation from rights groups and legal experts.
The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has so far defended the law and the police, telling broadcasters that his government had simply given officers “the powers that they need to tackle instances of serious disruption to people’s lives.”
Analysis: Leila Choukroune, a professor of international law at the University of Portsmouth, said the legislation reflected a growing trend in democracies around the world in which governments have limited personal freedoms, including the right to protest. “What’s just happened is an example, a very concrete example, but just one example,” she said.
THE LATEST NEWS
Around the World
Striker, a blindingly white Samoyed, will never know that he did not take the top spot in last year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. And he most likely wouldn’t care.
The now-retired champion is busy playing, romping, posing and shedding, as well as spending time with his special friend, a winsome Siberian husky bitch called Awesome. “He wakes up happy and he’s like, ‘Let’s go!’” his owner said. “He never has a bad day.”
For more: See updates from this year’s show.
SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC
Why European soccer’s most glamorous rivalry is so special: A.C. Milan and Inter will meet in the Champions League. Here’s the origin story of a derby like no other.
No Messi, no problem: It’s been a chaotic week for Paris St.-Germain after Lionel Messi’s suspension — and a win over Troyes showed a very different style of team without him.
J.J. Watt, welcome to Burnley — this is what to expect: J.J. Watt, the retired N.F.L. star, and his wife, the former U.S. women’s soccer team player Kealia Watt, have invested in Burnley Football Club. There’s a lot to learn.
ARTS AND IDEAS
‘Down With Love,’ 20 years on
At the time of its release, the retro-chic sex comedy “Down With Love” was written off as a flop. Roger Ebert praised the postmodern throwback to the midcentury sex farce as “a lot of fun,” but most critics shrugged at what they considered a fluffy homage to a much better thing.
Made for $35 million, the film is a ’60s period piece bound up in a bawdier, more sexually explicit package than that of its predecessors. The clothes — and the extravagant repartee — are both marvelous. But audiences did not show up to see it, and the 2003 movie ended its domestic run with about $20 million.
More recently, “Down With Love” has become something of a cult item, a younger generation finding new appeal in its meta-referential charms.
“I recall seeing the film projected without sound at a bar-turned-dance club in Washington, D.C.,” Beatrice Loayza reports for The Times. “In February, at a packed Valentine’s Day-themed screening of the film in Brooklyn, the giddy audience was uninhibited with their oohs and aahs.”
