A Turkish banker was convicted on Wednesday of taking part in a billion-dollar scheme to evade American sanctions against Iran, in a case that painted a picture of high-level corruption in Turkey and heightened tensions between the United States and a NATO ally.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was not charged in the indictment, but he seemed to loom over the Federal District Court case in Manhattan during the monthlong trial and even before it began. Testimony suggested that he had approved the sanctions-busting scheme.
Mr. Erdogan and other Turkish officials had bitterly denounced the charges against the banker, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, and eight co-defendants, and repeatedly urged American officials to drop the case. Mr. Erdogan even took the matter up with President Trump.
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A Halkbank branch in Istanbul. The defendant, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, was the bank’s deputy general manager for international banking.CreditChris Mcgrath/Getty Images
For the first time in half a century, visitors to the world’s largest cultural institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will have to pay a mandatory admission fee of $25 if they do not live in New York State under a new policy that begins March 1, the museum announced on Thursday.
The change reflects the Met’s efforts to establish a reliable, annual revenue stream after a period of financial turbulence and leadership turmoil, particularly given what the Met describes as a sharp decline in people willing to pay the current “suggested” admission price, also $25. But the move could provoke objections from suburbanites and tourists as well as outcry from those who believe a taxpayer funded institution should be free to the public.
“What we’re trying to do is find the right balance in generating revenue to support this enterprise and admissions income has fallen behind,” Daniel Weiss, the Met’s president and chief executive officer, said in an interview. “Everybody who benefits from this institution is being asked to contribute to its well-being because we are fundamentally a community resource.”
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People on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Wednesday. Beginning in March, the Met will eliminate its pay-as-you-wish policy for people who do not live in New York, charging adults $25 for admission.CreditAndrew White for The New York Times
Federal immigration agents descended on dozens of 7-Eleven convenience stores across the country before daybreak on Wednesday, arresting undocumented workers and demanding paperwork from managers in what the Trump administration described as its largest enforcement operation against employers so far.
The raids of 98 stores in 17 states, from California to Florida, resulted in 21 arrests, according to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which signaled intensified efforts against companies that hire unauthorized workers.
“Today’s actions send a strong message to U.S. businesses that hire and employ an illegal work force: ICE will enforce the law, and if you are found to be breaking the law, you will be held accountable,” Thomas D. Homan, the acting director of ICE, said in a statement.
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at a 7-Eleven in Los Angeles on Wednesday.CreditChris Carlson/Associated Press
A day after powerful mudslides swept through the Southern California community of Montecito, rescue crews continued to search the wreckage for missing people on Wednesday.
The disaster left at least 15 people dead, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office tweeted Wednesday. At least 25 people have been injured in the mudslides, while more than 50 people were rescued by air, officials said. Over two dozen people were unaccounted for as of Wednesday morning, The New York Times reported.
And those numbers will likely rise, as authorities told the AP flash floods have destroyed 100 single-family homes and damaged 300 more in Santa Barbara County.
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Powerful mudslides swept through the Southern California
Harvey Weinstein built his complicity machine out of the witting, the unwitting and those in between. He commanded enablers, silencers and spies, warning others who discovered his secrets to say nothing. He courted those who could provide the money or prestige to enhance his reputation as well as his power to intimidate.
In the weeks and months before allegations of his methodical abuse of women were exposed in October, Mr. Weinstein, the Hollywood producer, pulled on all the levers of his carefully constructed apparatus.
He gathered ammunition, sometimes helped by the editor of The National Enquirer, who had dispatched reporters to find information that could undermine accusers. He turned to old allies, asking a partner in Creative Artists Agency, one of Hollywood’s premier talent shops, to broker a meeting with a C.A.A. client, Ronan Farrow, who was reporting on Mr. Weinstein. He tried to dispense favors: While seeking to stop the actress Rose McGowan from writing in a memoir that he had sexually assaulted her, he tried to arrange a $50,000 payment to her former manager and throw new business to a literary agent advising Ms. McGowan. The agent, Lacy Lynch, replied to him in an email: “No one understands smart, intellectual and commercial like HW.”
President Trump on Tuesday appeared to endorse a sweeping immigration deal that would eventually grant millions of undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, saying he would be willing to “take the heat” politically for an approach that many of his hard-line supporters have long viewed as unacceptable.
The president made the remarks during an extended meeting with congressional Republicans and Democrats who are weighing a shorter-term agreement that would extend legal status for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Mr. Trump has said such a deal must be accompanied by new money for a border wall and measures to limit immigrants from bringing family members into the country in the future, conditions he repeated during the meeting on Tuesday.
But in backing a broader immigration measure, Mr. Trump was giving a rare public glimpse of an impulse he has expressed privately to advisers and lawmakers — the desire to preside over a more far-reaching solution to the status of the 11 million undocumented immigrants already living and working in the United States. Such action has the potential to alienate the hard-line immigration activists who powered his political rise and helped him win the presidency, many of whom have described it as amnesty for lawbreakers.
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President Trump said legislation around an immigration overhaul should come from love, while also pushing for stronger security measures.Published OnCreditImage by Doug Mills/The New York Times
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday unilaterally released a highly anticipated transcript of the committee’s interview with one of the founders of the firm that produced a salacious and unsubstantiated dossier outlining a Russian effort to aid the Trump campaign.
The interview, with Glenn R. Simpson of Fusion GPS, took place last summer and was expected to shed light on the origins of the firm’s work, its concerns about the Trump campaign’s activities, and what the F.B.I. may have done with the information.
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Senator Dianne Feinstein of California released the transcripts without the Judiciary Committee’s Republican chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, almost certainly escalating partisan tensions on the committeeCreditPete Marovich for The New York Times
Stephen K. Bannon is stepping down from his post as executive chairman of Breitbart News, the company announced Tuesday.
Mr. Bannon’s departure, which was forced by a onetime financial patron, Rebekah Mercer, comes as Mr. Bannon remained unable to quell the furor over remarks attributed to him in a new book in which he questions President Trump’s mental fitness and disparages his elder son, Donald Trump Jr.
Mr. Bannon and Breitbart will work together on a smooth transition, a statement from the company’s chief executive, Larry Solov, said.
In the statement, Mr. Bannon added that he was “proud of what the Breitbart team has accomplished in so short a period of time in building out a world-class news platform.”
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Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, is stepping down from his post as executive chairman at Breitbart News, the right-wing website he used as a mouthpiece.Published OnCreditImage by Lexey Swall for The New York Times
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday unanimously rejected a proposal by Energy Secretary Rick Perry that would have propped up nuclear and coal power struggling in competitive electricity markets.
The independent five-member commission includes four people appointed by President Trump, three of them Republicans. Its decision is binding.
At the same time, the commission said that it shared Perry’s stated goal of strengthening the “resilience” of the electricity grid and it directed regional transmission operators to provide information to help the commission examine the matter “holistically.” The operators have 60 days to submit materials. At that time the agency can issue another order.
After big wins in Virginia and Alabama last year, Democrats are poised to make gains in this November’s midterm elections.
But first, a series of contentious Democratic primaries could shape how well the party fares in November, as well as the ideological character of the incoming Democratic elected officials.
Some of the most pivotal Democratic Party primaries to watch in 2018.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Powerful mudslides swept through the Southern California
Energy Secretary Rick Perry
10 Democratic Primaries To Watch
James' World 2 