دانلود رایگان روزنامه مجلات و کتاب انگلیسی کتاب صوتی کمیک

هیئت منصفه فدرال به رئیس جمهور سابق دستور می دهد تا 5 میلیون دلار به ستون نویس پرونده مدنی بپردازد

Trump Liable For Sex Abuse, Defamation

Federal jury orders the former president to pay $5 million to columnist in civil case

BY JAMES FANELLI AND CORINNE RAMEY

A federal jury found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages, after a civil trial in which the advice columnist alleged the former president raped her in a Manhattan department store nearly 30 years ago. The jury, following a twoweek civil trial, didn’t find that Mr. Trump committed rape but found it more likely than not that he sexually abused Ms. Carroll in a dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman, sometime around 1996. Jurors also found that Mr. Trump defamed Ms. Carroll in comments he made denying her allegations, which she first made publicly in 2019. Ms. Carroll, 79 years old who said she was inspired to come forward by the #MeToo movement, clasped her lawyers’ hands as the verdict was announced. “This victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed,” she said in a statement. Joe Tacopina, the lead lawyer for Mr. Trump, shook hands with her after the judge dismissed the jury, which consisted of six men and three women. Ms. Carroll smiled as she left the courthouse and was escorted quickly into an SUV. In a social-media post, Mr. Trump, 76, called the verdict a disgrace. “I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS,” he said. Mr. Tacopina said he would appeal. The verdict, delivered Tuesday after three hours of deliberations, is a rebuke to Mr. Trump as he seeks the 2024 Republican presidential nomination while being dogged by legal troubles. He is facing New York criminal charges connected to his payment of hush money to a porn star before the 2016 election, as well as other criminal investigations, related to the pressuring of Georgia officials after the 2020 election, his actions on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence. He is facing civil-fraud allegations from the New York attorney general and another civil lawsuit from Ms. Carroll, who was a longtime Elle magazine columnist and at one time a writer for “Saturday Night Live.” Mr. Trump has denied wrongdoing in all of these matters. He chose not to testify in the Carroll trial—or attend any of the proceedings in person— but in a videotaped deposition under oath he accused Ms. Carroll of making up her allegations for publicity and political reasons, calling it “the most ridiculous, disgusting story.” His lawyers argued Ms. Carroll’s allegations contained inconsistencies, and that she had not behaved like a rape victim at the time of the alleged incident or in the years since. Ms. Carroll’s allegations first became public in a 2019 New York magazine article that was an excerpt of a book she published the same year, “What Do We Need Men For?” The writer, who continues to self-publish a column on Substack, testified over three days, telling jurors that she and Mr. Trump, then a prominent New York City figure and real-estate mogul, struck up a rapport after bumping into one another at Bergdorf Goodman around 1996. The playful banter continued in the lingerie section, she said, but ended once the two entered a dressing room for what she thought was so Mr. Trump could try on a seethrough bodysuit as a gag. “He immediately shut the door and shoved me up against the wall and shoved me so hard my head banged,” she recalled. Ms. Carroll testified in graphic detail about the alleged rape. The attack lasted a few minutes before she broke free from him, but “it left me unable to ever have a romantic life again,” she said. Ms. Carroll sparred with Mr. Tacopina on the witness stand as he tried to raise doubts about her account, asking her why she didn’t scream or go to the police. “Women like me were taught and trained to keep our chins up and to not complain,” she said. Mr. Tacopina called Ms. Carroll’s account inconceivable, saying it shared striking similarities to a 2012 “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” episode in which a character describes a rape fantasy in the lingerie section of Bergdorf Goodman. Ms. Carroll testified she was aware of the episode but never saw it. Mr. Trump’s lawyer noted Ms. Carroll had joked on Facebook about having sex with Mr. Trump for money and said she was a fan of “The Apprentice,” the reality television show in which Mr. Trump served as the host. “It was a very good television show,” she told jurors. To find Mr. Trump liable for sexual abuse, the jury was required to find by a preponderance of the evidence that he engaged in sexual contact with Ms. Carroll by force. For a rape finding, the jury would have needed to conclude that Mr. Trump physically forced sexual intercourse with her. Ms. Carroll’s defamation claim stemmed from an October 2022 social-media post in which Mr. Trump called her account a “Hoax and a lie.” He wrote, “E. Jean Carroll is not telling the truth, is a woman who I had nothing to do with, didn’t know, and would have no interest in knowing her if I ever had the chance.” While jurors were deciding only on Ms. Carroll’s allegations, the trial became a broader examination of Mr. Trump’s treatment of women, resurfacing derogatory comments he made in the past. Two women testified at the trial in support of Ms. Carroll, saying they were sexually assaulted by him in a similar manner years ago. Mr. Trump has denied their allegations. Jurors saw a video that became public in 2016 in which Mr. Trump told an “Access Hollywood” host how women let stars “grab them by the pussy.” “That’s what you said, correct?” Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Ms. Carroll, asked Mr. Trump during the deposition. “Well, historically, that’s true with stars,” he said, later adding he considered himself one. Jurors were dismissed after a court clerk read the verdict. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, told them they were allowed to discuss the case but warned them about going public for safety reasons. “My advice to you is not to identify yourselves—not now, not for a long time,” he said, ordering them not to identify other members of the jury. Ms. Carroll’s 2022 complaint was one of the most prominent lawsuits filed under a New York law called the Adult Survivors Act, which opened a yearlong window in which people who say they were sexually assaulted as adults could file lawsuits, no matter when the alleged incidents occurred. Two of Ms. Carroll’s friends testified at trial that she told them each separately about what happened soon after the alleged attack. Ms. Carroll said she chose to remain silent for decades but came forward after the New York Times ran a series of stories of women accusing former movie-studio head Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct. He was later convicted of sex crimes. Ms. Carroll said she decided to sue Mr. Trump in part because he repeatedly called her a liar in public and on social media, making her a target of vitriol from some of his supporters. “He lied and shattered my reputation, and I am here to try to get my life back,” she said. —Alex Leary contributed to this article.

 Demand proves resilient despite inflation

تولیدکنندگان کالاهای مصرفی قوی ماندند
تقاضا علیرغم تورم انعطاف پذیر است

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Makers of everyday household goods say consumers are sticking with them despite double-digit price increases. A raft of American and European companies producing packaged food and other staples such as tissues and cleaning products have reported results over the past week or so, and the results are encouraging. The latest was Colgate-Palmolive on Friday, which said organic sales—a key industry metric that strips out the impacts of currency fluctuations, acquisitions and divestitures—increased 10% from a year earlier in the first quarter. Analysts had expected the consumer-products company to log growth of 6.9%, according to VisibleAlpha. Colgate’s overall organic pricing was 12% higher, meaning underlying sales volume fell 2%. But that is an encouraging figure. It suggests that elasticities, or the degree to which consumers respond to price increases by reducing purchases, were mild in the first quarter, and indeed improving: In the fourth quarter, Colgate’s sales volume fell 4% on 12.5% higher prices. The picture was much the same across the sector. At Unilever, the European consumer giant behind brands such as Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, sales volume was down just 0.2% on 10.7% higher prices. At Coca-Cola, volumes were actually up 1% even as pricing was up 11%, delivering 12% organic sales growth. “Every quarterly result feels the same in Q1,” remarked Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne, who covers European staples companies, in a note. There are differences between how the various companies report sales metrics, and differences between accounting standards used by European and American companies. But using broadly comparable figures, for nine major companies on both sides of the Atlantic that have reported results since April 21, pricing was up 11.3% from a year earlier while volumes fell just 1.8%. This suggests consumers worldwide have been able to absorb price increases, and have yet to trade down significantly to cheaper options such as private-label products. Tight labor markets and increasing wages, especially in the U.S., are likely a factor supporting consumers at the low end of the income spectrum who might be expected to adjust shopping habits first. What is more, private-label competitors have been forced to raise prices as well in response to cost to inflation, companies said. There were some exceptions. In a conference call with analysts, Unilever said elasticities have been higher for highly discretionary foods such as ice cream. As was the case last year, elasticities were generally higher for household goods than packaged food, perhaps in part because the perceived quality gap with private label isn’t as great. The two companies with the biggest volume declines were Kleenex-maker Kimberly-Clark at 5%, and Reckitt Benckiser, the U.K. company that produces Lysol cleanser, at 4.5%. But in both cases the pace of decline moderated significantly from the fourth quarter. This is encouraging because it suggests investors are adjusting to sticker shock after a lag. And, in the case of Lysol, sales were coming off an inflated base from the first quarter last year, when the Omicron Covid-19 variant was prevalent. On average, shares prices of the nine companies are up around 7% so far this year—in line with the S&P 500’s performance. The four major European companies in the group have fared better, climbing by an average around 12%, perhaps because they faced lower expectations going into the year. Of course, should a U.S. or global recession come that hits consumer incomes, a different set of challenges will emerge for these companies. However, recent track records suggest their stocks are still fulfilling their traditional role as a source of resilience in investor portfolios

این اقدامات به منظور فشار برای امنیت انرژی، افزایش تجارت با کشورهای تحت تحریم ایالات متحده انجام می شود

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Chinese Drillers Step Up Activity

Moves are put of push for energy security, rising trade with U.S.- sanctioned nations

China’s biggest oil companies are increasing their drilling at home and signing big deals overseas, part of a push for energy security that has also led to rising trade with countries that are subject to U.S. sanctions. China’s demand for crude oil is likely to hit 15.6 million barrels a day this year, around 5% higher than last year, according to a forecast from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. The country is the second-largest consumer of oil after the U.S., so any change in its behavior could have a big impact on global prices. The reopening of China’s economy after recurring lockdowns and tight pandemic restrictions has allowed people to travel freely again and let factories reopen, leading to more demand for crude oil. But Beijing is increasingly seeking alternatives in the global oil market, including expanding its drilling at home and signing deals with foreign countries including Brazil, Qatar and Afghanistan. China’s domestic oil companies produced 18.2 million tons of crude in March, the highest level since December 2014, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Also in March, Cnooc Ltd., one of the largest state-owned oil majors, said it discovered an oil field in the Bohai Sea, in the country’s northeast, that would add a hundred million tons of reserves to China’s oil supply. China records its crude production and imports in metric tons, a weight measure. The conversion to barrels, a volume measure more commonly used around the world, isn’t straightforward because it depends on various factors including the density and composition of the oil. The emphasis on domestic production partly reflects China’s nervousness about energy security, which became a strategic priority for many countries following Russia’s in vasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Zhang Jianhua, head of China’s National Energy Administration, said in mid-April that “increasing oil and gas exploration and development, while increasing reserves and production” was crucial to China’s energy security. China’s strategic petroleum reserves are part of this push for greater energy security. The country topped up its reserves during the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown, when oil prices were low, said Ricardo Leiman, chief investment officer and founding partner of KLI Asset Management, a commodities-focused firm. But China has never published how much oil it has in reserve. “In an increasingly polarized world, security of crude supply is paramount,” said Kelvin Yew, a senior oil trader at Ocean Leonid Investments, a hedge fund. He said China is always motivated to import oil, as there is a big gap between the country’s own output and its refining demand. “Increasing domestic production helps, but the shortfall versus demand is huge,” he added. In March, China imported 52.3 million tons of crude oil, the most since June 2020, according to its General Administration of Customs. Analysts expect imports to meet about 70% of China’s total oil demand this year. “China’s domestic demand for oil is going to grow ahead of its ability to increase the domestic supply,” said KLI’s Mr. Leiman. China also has struck deals with countries that are subject to Western sanctions, including Russia and Iran. That helps it buy oil at a discount to global market prices. After the Trump administration pulled out of a nuclear agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran, China became a crucial source of oil revenue for the country.

ماسک طرح هایی را برای کشتی ستاره ای ترسیم می کند. اسپیس ایکس حدود 2 میلیارد دلار برای موشک هزینه می کند و زیرساخت های سکوی پرتاب را اضافه می کند.

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SpaceX anticipates spending about $2 billion on its Starship rocket program this year and might not need to raise additional outside funding as that work unfolds, according to founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk. Mr. Musk outlined SpaceX’s plans on Saturday during an audio chat on Twitter about Starship, the powerful rocket the company launched for the first time last month. The inaugural test mission ended after about four minutes when a flight-termination system on the vehicle destroyed it as the rocket began to tumble. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., the formal name for the Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX, is privately held and doesn’t disclose financial information. The company has raised outside funds from investors over the years, including from Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Founders Fund. SpaceX has been developing the rocket, which stands nearly 400 feet tall when fully stacked, for several years. In addition to satellite launches, it is designed to be able to handle deep-space missions, including a high-profile National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronaut moon landing planned for 2025. Despite the expected Starship spending, the company likely won’t need to seek new funds, Mr. Musk indicated. “To the best of my knowledge, we do not need to raise incremental funding for SpaceX,” he said. The company will continue to provide opportunities to let employees sell their shares, he added. Last year SpaceX was valued at around $140 billion during a period when employees could sell shares, The Wall Street Journal reported. SpaceX is now working to put additional ground infrastructure at the company’s launchpad in Texas, located adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico and east of the city of Brownsville. The launch of Starship on April 20 spread debris over 385 acres of SpaceX and statepark land and deposited materials as far as 6½ miles from the launch site, environmental regulators have said. Chunks of concrete were thrown from the site. Mr. Musk said the company was moving ahead to build a new system at the launchpad that uses steel reinforcements and water, and is meant to tamp down the kind of plume the first flight generated. SpaceX thought the pad would erode during that launch, but didn’t think concrete would be smashed, he said, citing data collected during an earlier engine test. “We did not think that would have occurred” based on the earlier engine test, he said. “If we thought that would occur, then we would have waited for the steel.” SpaceX won’t be permitted to operate another Starship launch until the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates commercial space launches, signs off. Mr. Musk also said Saturday that the company needed to conduct fresh work on the rocket’s flight-termination system. Such systems are installed on rockets as key safety features, allowing the vehicles to be destroyed during flights. Starship’s system took too long after it was activated, he said. He added that the company has the manufacturing capability to continue producing hardware for Starship as it works to fly the vehicle to orbit. “We do have a production line that if it takes us 10 flights, we’ll do it,” he said.

Tesla Inc.’s recent string of price cuts represent a crucial chapter in the company’s near 20-year story. The moves could suggest the electric-vehicle pioneer has lost its edge and is picking up the bad habits of legacy auto makers. Or, they could be part of the next industry-changing innovation from Elon Musk. Price cuts this year sent conflicting signals about customer demand for the company’s cars, which have generated fat profits in recent years after more than a decade of heartache as Mr. Musk forged a new path for the auto business. Then last month, Mr. Musk articulated his strategy behind the moves. He declared Tesla would give priority to continued sales growth at the expense of near-term profitability. That stance unnerved some investors who expected the company to continue massively increasing deliveries while maintaining enviable profit margins. The combination helped justify its techlike market valuation that far exceeds its 100-year-old competitors’. Some fear Mr. Musk is picking a page from the industry’s dusty old playbooks by chasing a crown of global sales leadership, potentially at the expense of profit margins. Mr. Musk maintains he is making a 21st-century gamble that he can, over time, profit from future software subscription-style revenue from Tesla owners, including for autonomous-driving capabilities. “We do believe we’re…laying the groundwork here and that it’s better to ship a large number of cars at a lower margin and subsequently harvest that margin in the future as we per fect autonomy,” Mr. Musk said last month. His argument is akin to Apple Inc.’s with iPhones and App Store sales: The bigger the fleet of Tesla vehicles sold today, the more potential for future higher-margin software profits. The naked pursuit of scale— and bets that manufacturingcost savings would come through bigger buying power— has been at the root of some of the industry’s gravest stumbles in recent generations. Among them: the failed marriage of Chrysler Corp. and Daimler-Benz AG in 2007 and the awkward pairing of Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co. in an alliance that has had its troubles. Volkswagen AG’s emissionscheating scandal, a controversy known as dieselgate, was born out of its efforts to become the world’s bestselling auto maker. Even current global sales leader Toyota Motor Corp. faced struggles with quality and safety recalls after setting a goal more than 15 years ago of being the first car maker to reach 10 million deliveries a year. In that pursuit, the Japanese auto maker eventually became No. 1 globally, overtaking General Motors Co. in an industry shake-up. GM’s collapse into a government-sponsored bankruptcy in 2009 had roots in the Motor City’s practice of overproducing cars and then using heavy discounts to stoke sales. At one point, 25 years ago, GM executives placed such a collective emphasis on market share that they took to wearing lapel pins that read “29.” The number symbolized their goal of holding U.S. market share to 29%, after watching it fall from a peak of more than 50%. Mr. Musk is betting that his race to develop driverless-car technology will allow him to upend the fundamentals of the car business, saying that losses in margin now will be made up by having more Tesla vehicles on the road in the future and therefore more built-in-customers for the software it sells as downloads. Some analysts are skeptical, especially given that Tesla hasn’t yet demonstrated a fully self-driving car. Many car companies have talked about the upside of software sales, which for the industry mostly remain elusive. And investors worry Tesla’s price cuts will trigger a broader price war that will hurt everyone. To accommodate hoped-for growth, Tesla is adding manufacturing output, including a newly announced factory in Mexico, to take it beyond the more than two million units the company said it can make annually now. Ultimately, Tesla has already suggested, it could cost nearly $150 billion to reach its goal of 20 million cars produced annually in 2030. Some investors are bullish. They are betting that, software sales aside, Tesla’s cost advantage in making electric cars will allow it to absorb price cuts and capture volume at the expense of rivals still trying to catch up. Still, the expansion comes as the new-car market grows increasingly uncertain. Interest rates are making vehicle purchases tougher, and competitors are flooding the market with their own EVs. Tesla’s sales growth has slowed below the 50% year-over-year target promised by Mr. Musk. With the price cuts, firstquarter deliveries rose 36% while profit fell almost 25%. Perhaps worse, in some investors’ eyes, Tesla’s operating margins, a measure of profitability, fell behind those of European auto makers such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW, when calculating the results without the money the EV maker received from selling regulatory credits to rivals. So far, rivals have resisted following Tesla into a price-cutting battle. GM Chief Executive Mary Barra has faced tough questions about how GM could catch up with Tesla’s higher operating margins on EVs and the cost advantage in making them. On GM’s conference call with analysts Tuesday, Ms. Barra was asked which she would rather achieve if forced to choose: her target for profitability or GM’s goal of reaching one million EV sales in North America in 2025. “We’re going to work toward profitable growth,” Ms. Barra replied.

Record employment in construction sector undermines bets that the Fed will soon pivot

The building boom has helped push unemployment to around its lowest level in more than 50 years. That is perplexing investors who want to see the Federal Reserve switch course on interest rates. Construction spending and employment have risen to records this year, boosted by government outlays for infrastructure, a domestic manufacturing renaissance and a wave of apartment building that got off to a slow start during the pandemic when prices for building materials, such as lumber, were sky high. Construction companies with jobs ranging from airport overhauls to bathroom renovations said they have enough work booked to maintain payrolls—for years in some cases. Even home builders, which slowed down last year when rates began to rise, are ramping up into spring. The persistent strength in a sector that is usually among the first to suffer job loss when borrowing costs rise is undermining investor hopes that the Fed’s aggressive interest-rate increases would quickly slow inflation and rejuvenate the stock market.