A Federal Appeal Court on Monday upheld a jury verdict ordering President-elect Donald Trump to pay $5 million for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.

A New York jury found after a nine-day civil trial last year that the former president had sexually abused Carroll at a Manhattan department store in 1996.

Trump was ordered to pay $2 million for sexual abuse and another $3 million for defaming Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine.

Trump denied the allegations and appealed the verdict on the grounds that two other women who said Trump had sexually assaulted them too, should not have been allowed to testify.

The three-judge panel of the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.

“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” they said.

“Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial.”

Carroll was awarded $83 million by another jury in a separate case she brought against Trump. He has also appealed that verdict.

Two federal cases brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith have been dismissed since he won the November 5 presidential election.

Trump was accused of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, but Smith dropped the cases under a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.

Trump was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Judge Juan Merchan recently rejected a bid by the president-elect to have his conviction thrown out but has postponed sentencing indefinitely.

AFP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to undergo prostate removal surgery on Sunday, his office said after he was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection.

The procedure comes with Israel at war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip more than 14 months after the Palestinian militants carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 last year.

Netanyahu underwent a test at Hadassah Hospital on Wednesday, where he was “diagnosed with a urinary tract infection resulting from a benign prostate enlargement,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

“As a result, the prime minister will undergo prostate removal surgery tomorrow,” it said.

In March, he underwent a hernia surgery, while in July last year doctors implanted a pacemaker in Netanyahu after a medical scare.

Universities in the United States have urged international students to resume before president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Trump is set to be sworn in on January 20.

The universities advised international students to return early from winter break amid promises of another travel ban by the incoming president.
Many international students were stranded abroad when Trump imposed a travel ban at the start of his first administration.
The president-elect has been vocal about his hardline immigration stance.

Some of the actions Trump has promised to take include a travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries and the revocation of student visas of “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners”.