Nation and world news in brief for August 20
Prosecutors defer to judge on Trump bid to delay hush money sentencing
NEW YORK (Reuters) — The prosecutors who secured Donald Trump’s historic criminal conviction on felony charges in May on Monday did not explicitly oppose the former U.S. president’s bid to delay his sentencing until after the Nov. 5 election.
In a letter to Justice Juan Merchan, prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office acknowledged that Trump had the right to appeal a forthcoming ruling on whether he was immune from prosecution, and said they deferred to Merchan on whether a delay to sentencing was warranted.
Entrepreneur Mike Lynch among missing after luxury yacht sinks off Sicily
PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) — One man died and six people were missing, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, after a luxury yacht was struck by an unexpectedly violent storm and sank off Sicily early on Monday.
The British-flagged “Bayesian,” a 56-metre-long (184-ft) sailboat, was carrying 22 people and was anchored just off shore near the port of Porticello when it was hit by ferocious weather, the Italian coast guard said in a statement.
Eyewitnesses said the yacht vanished quickly beneath the waves shortly before dawn. Fifteen people escaped before it went down, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who owned the boat, and a one-year-old girl.
The names of the dead and missing were not immediately released, but a person familiar with the rescue operation confirmed that Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, were not accounted for.
Hunter Biden loses bid to toss tax evasion case
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A judge on Monday denied a bid by U.S. President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, to dismiss a federal tax evasion case brought against him in California.
Hunter Biden was convicted in Delaware in June for lying about his illegal drug use to buy a gun, and is scheduled to go to trial in September in the tax evasion case.
Republicans ask Supreme Court to block 40,000 Arizonans from voting
WASHINGTON (TNS) — The Republican National Committee is urging the Supreme Court to intervene in an Arizona election dispute this week and block up to 40,000 of the state’s registered voters from casting ballots in the presidential race.
Republican state lawmakers say these voters did not provide proof of their citizenship when they were registered and now they should be barred from voting in person or by mail.
Although Congress made it easier for Americans to register to vote, those federal rules cannot override “the Arizona Legislature’s sovereign authority to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections,” they said in an emergency appeal filed Aug. 9.
The fast-track appeal may signal whether the conservative court is ready to intervene in partisan election disputes. The Arizona Republicans asked for a decision by Thursday because counties will soon begin to print ballots.
‘A much more infectious’ COVID variant fueling California’s relentless surge
(TNS) — California’s relentless FLiRT-fueled COVID surge is continuing to spawn infections at a dizzying rate, with coronavirus levels in wastewater reaching some of the highest levels seen since 2022.
Wastewater readings are now higher than all but one COVID peak in the last two years, and have far surpassed those seen during the typical summertime seasonal spikes in the vaccine era.
For the week that ended Aug. 10, coronavirus levels in sewage were 84% of last winter’s peak in California, according to estimates posted Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Coronavirus levels in wastewater have already blown past the peaks for the prior two summers, as well as the winter of 2022 to 23.
