الكاتب: kafej

Trump’s lawyer argues the order violates free speech while judges say his rhetoric could threaten the integrity of his upcoming trial.

United States appeals court judges have signalled scepticism towards Donald Trump’s bid to overturn a gag order imposed on the former president in a federal criminal case in which he is accused of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

It forbids Trump from publicly maligning any prosecutors, potential witnesses or court employees involved in the case.

Trump lawyer D John Sauer argued on Monday that the order violates the US Constitution’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech while judges on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia asked whether Trump’s charged rhetoric would threaten the integrity of his upcoming trial.

“I don’t hear you giving any weight at all to the interests in a fair trial,” Judge Cornelia Pillard told Sauer.

Pillard is one of three judges who heard Trump’s appeal of the gag order imposed by US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case.

Chutkan ruled that public statements by Trump or his lawyers criticising prosecutors, court staff and potential witnesses could influence witnesses and lead to threats against people involved in the case.

But Chutkan permitted Trump to “criticize the Justice Department, President Biden and herself. She also allowed him to maintain that the prosecution itself was a partisan retaliation against him,” The New York Times reported.

“The order is unprecedented, and it sets a terrible precedent on future restrictions on core political speech,” Sauer said during the two-hour hearing.

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, has assailed officials involved in a range of criminal and civil cases he faces. He has called US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought the federal election-related charges, a “deranged lunatic” and a “thug”.

Trump’s remarks about prosecutors and witnesses have pit his right to freedom of speech against the need for a fair trial next year.

The gag order has been suspended during Trump’s appeal. Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case as well as all three other criminal cases.

The judges asked Department of Justice lawyer Cecil VanDevender whether the order was written too broadly.

“We have to use a careful scalpel here,” said Judge Patricia Millett, a Democratic judicial appointee like the other two on the panel.

VanDevender said the order still allows Trump to make broad arguments about the integrity of the case.

“He can say, ‘This is a politically motivated prosecution brought by my political opponent,’ ‘The Department of Justice is corrupt,’ and ‘I will be vindicated at trial,’ – all of that stuff,” VanDevender said.

The judges did not indicate when they will rule.

A partly Israeli-owned cargo vessel has been hijacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.

The Iran-backed Houthis say the move was a response to Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Israel described the incident as an “Iranian act of terrorism”. Tehran has rejected the allegation.

So, what impact could this have? And what are the possible military and economic implications?

Presenter: Folly Bah Thibault

Guests:

Trita Parsi – Executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington, DC-based think-tank

Mehran Kamrava – Professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar and author of the book The Impossibility of Palestine: History, Geography, and the Road Ahead

Farea Al-Muslimi – Research fellow on Yemen and the Gulf at Chatham House

NewsFeed

Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah is a surgeon who worked at both the Al-Shifa and Al-Alhi Baptist hospitals in Gaza. He tells Al Jazeera he believes the destruction of the health sector is part of an Israeli military strategy to to wipe out the Palestinian population in Gaza – by ensuring no one survives.

Researchers have found that a species of bat uses its penis in a unique way during reproduction, avoiding penetration completely.

Researchers from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland studied the serotine bat, which has a penis about seven times longer than its partner’s vagina.

The animal also has a heart-shaped head that is seven times wider than the vaginal opening. The size and shape in theory makes penetration impossible.

However, the researchers say the bats use their oversized penises like an extra arm to push the female’s tail sheath out of the way.

The unique use of the appendage allows the bats to engage in contact mating – a behaviour more commonly seen in how birds reproduce.

First author Nicolas Fasel said: “By chance, we had observed that these bats have disproportionately long penises, and we were always wondering, ‘How does that work?’.

“We thought maybe it’s like in the dog where the penis engorges after penetration so that they are locked together, or alternatively maybe they just couldn’t put it inside, but that type of copulation hasn’t been reported in mammals until now.”

The researchers observed the unique mating ritual with cameras placed behind a grid the bats could climb on.

Their studies found that during mating. the male bats grasped their partners by the nape and moved their pelvises in a probing fashion until they made contact with the female.

At this point they remained still and held the females in a long embrace. These lasted some 53 minutes on average, with the longest incident stretching to 12.7 hours.

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After mating, the researchers observed the female bats’ abdomens appeared wet, suggesting the presence of semen. Further research is needed to confirm that sperm was transferred during events.

The researchers suggested the male bats may have evolved their oversized penises in order to push aside the female bats’ tail membranes, which females may use to avoid sex.

Professor Fasel suggested: “Bats use their tail membranes for flying and to capture the insects, and female bats also use them to cover their lower parts and protect themselves from males, but the males can then use these big penises to overcome the tail membrane and reach the vulva.”

The researchers collaborated with a bat rehabilitation centre in Ukraine, which filmed mating pairs, and with Jan Jeucker, a bat enthusiast and citizen scientist who filmed hours of footage of serotine bats in a church attic in the Netherlands.

Altogether, the team analysed 97 mating events – 93 from the Dutch church and four from the Ukrainian bat rehabilitation centre. The findings are published in the Current Biology journal.

Joe Biden got Britney Spears muddled up with Taylor Swift in his latest gaffe in front of reporters.

The US president, who turned 81 today, was in the middle of pardoning two turkeys – Liberty and Bell – in the White House’s annual ceremony before the Thanksgiving holiday when he used the name Britney in an apparent reference to Taylor Swift’s current overseas tour.

Mr Biden said: “Just to get here, Liberty and Bell had to beat some tough odds and competition. They had to work hard, to show patience, and be willing to travel over 1,000 miles.

“You could say it’s even harder than getting a ticket to the Renaissance tour or, or Britney’s tour. She’s down, it’s kind of warm in Brazil right now.”

Spears is not currently on tour, nor is Beyonce who finished her Renaissance tour in October. However, Swift is in the middle of a string of international dates, and she postponed her concert in Rio on Saturday due to extreme heat.

A day earlier, a 23-year-old fan had died at the singer’s first Eras Tour show in the Brazilian city.

Swift said in a post on Instagram she was devastated by the death – the cause has not been confirmed.

Saturday’s concert was rescheduled for Monday.

Also speaking at the same White House ceremony, Mr Biden joked about his age, saying: “As much of you know, it’s difficult turning 60.

“This is the 76th anniversary of this event. I want you to know I wasn’t there, and I was too young to make it up.”

The White House did not immediately respond to request for a comment by Sky News’ partner network NBC News on Mr Biden’s apparent mix-up, which comes as voters express concerns in polling about his age.

Biden’s gaffes

In June, the president made a comment about Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s “war in Iraq”, which led to him being mocked online.

Mr Biden said at the time there were clear signs Mr Putin was losing his grip on power amid the conflict in Ukraine.

He told reporters: “It’s hard to tell, but [Putin is] clearly losing the war in Iraq, and he’s losing the war at home.”

In September, Mr Biden mistakenly praised the “Congressional Black Caucus” while addressing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus at the group’s annual gala in Washington DC.

He made the error while noting the group shares qualities with gala award recipient Sister Norma Pimental, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.

“I know Sister Norma lives the lessons nuns taught me growing up. Lessons based on the Gospel of Matthew: feed the hungry, care for the sick, welcome strangers,” he said.

“They echo what my dad taught me, and I mean this sincerely, my dad used to say, ‘Everyone, everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.’ The Congressional Black Caucus embodies all those values.”

And in April, during a visit to Ireland, the US president praised former Irish rugby international Rob Kearney who he said was “a hell of a rugby player, and beat the Black and Tans”.

By doing so, Mr Biden confused New Zealand’s famous team, the All Blacks, with the reviled British paramilitary force the Black and Tans, who brutally repressed opponents of British rule during the Irish War of Independence.

Most infamously, the force massacred 14 people and wounded 60 more at a Gaelic football match at Croke Park in Dublin in 1920.

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Ahead of the 2024 election, Democrat Mr Biden is currently trailing former Republican president Donald Trump, 77, among young voters ages 18 to 34, with 46% of them supporting Mr Trump and 42% Mr Biden, according to NBC News’ latest poll.

The disparity is significant compared to Mr Biden’s success among young voters in the 2020 presidential election, when he won over voters ages 18 to 29 by more than 20 points, according to the national exit poll.

Another NBC News poll in September found 59% of Americans had major concerns about Mr Biden having the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term.