Headline News from The Associated Press
AP Headline News - Apr 25 2024 11:00 (EDT)
AP News. Good morning. I'm Ed Donohue. Our top stories involve former President Donald Trump. His hush money trial continues in New York. While in Washington, the Supreme Court is hearing Donald Trump's attempt to avoid prosecution for efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Lawyers for Trump claim former presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for their official acts. Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Trump attorney D. John Sauer about official acts. The president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him. Is that within his official acts that for which he can get immunity? It would depend on the hypothetical that we can see that could well be an official act. He could and why? Because he's doing it for personal reasons. Lower courts have rejected Trump's arguments. Back on the witness stand in Trump's high hush money trial in New York is former National Enquirer publisher David Pekker. The government is reporting a sharp slowdown in the economy. In the last quarter, spending still remains strong. A New York state court of appeals overturned a 2022 rape conviction of former media mogul Harvey Weinstein. Here's the AP's Margie Zaurletta. New York's highest court has ruled the judge and Harvey Weinstein's rape trial committed egregious errors, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that were not part of the case. Weinstein's lawyers have said he wanted to testify, but did not because he would have had to answer questions about alleged acts dating back for decades. Prosecutors have said the judge's rulings were proper because the extra testimony showed a pattern of Weinstein's alleged abuse. Despite the new ruling, Weinstein will not go free. He is serving 16 years in prison for rape based on a 2022 conviction in Los Angeles. I'm Archie Zaurletta. Ariel Henry has resigned as Prime Minister of Haiti. This is AP News. I'm Seth Zutel and this is Markets in a Minute. Stocks are falling on Wall Street after a report suggesting flagging economic growth and still high inflation hurt the hopes that have kept Wall Street high recently. A sharp drop for Facebook parent company Metaplastforms also dragged the market lower Thursday. The S&P 500 fell one and a half percent in the first hour of trading. The Dow lost 667 points. That's about 1.7 percent. The Nasdaq composite fell 1.8 percent. Treasury yields jumped in the bond market after the government reported that inflation remained hotter than forecast during the first three months of the year. The government also reported that the US economy's growth slowed much more than expected during the period to an annual rate of just 1.6 percent. The yield on the 10 year Treasury note jumped to 4.73 percent. Seth Zutel, New York. His lawyers say Tumage Saleh, a rapper in Iran who came to fame over his lyrics criticizing the Islamic Republic, has been sentenced to death. I'm Ed Donahue, AP News.