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الوسم: warning

  • Trump ally Lindsey Graham sends warning to special counsel Jack Smith | US elections 2024

    South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham has sent an ominous message to special counsel Jack Smith as Donald Trump was on the precipice of being announced as the winner of the 2024 election.

    Early on Wednesday morning, mere moments before Trump took the stage in West Palm Beach, Florida, to give his victory speech, Graham posted a note on X “to Jack Smith and your team”.

    “It is time to look forward to a new chapter in your legal careers as these politically motivated charges against President Trump hit a wall,” Graham wrote.

    “The supreme court substantially rejected what you were trying to do, and after tonight, it’s clear the American people are tired of lawfare. Bring these cases to an end. The American people deserve a refund.”

    The US attorney general Merrick Garland appointed Smith in November 2022 to determine whether Trump should face criminal charges stemming from investigations into the former’s president’s alleged mishandling of national security materials and his role in the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

    Smith charged Trump last year in Florida over his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club, and in Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    With the election mere months away, Trump’s legal team tried to stall the proceedings as much as possible.

    Their case was aided in July, when the supreme court conferred broad immunity on former presidents and narrowed the scope of the prosecution.

    Smith and his team detailed their case against Trump in a 165-page filing that was unsealed in October, in which they argued that Trump should not be entitled to immunity from prosecution. In the filing, federal prosecutors said that Trump “resorted to crimes” in a failed bid to cling to power after losing the 2020 election and that he is not entitled to immunity from prosecution.

    The charges filed by Smith and his team were not the only one vexing Trump since leaving office in 2021. When he takes office in January, Trump will be the first convicted criminal to win the White House and gain access to the nuclear codes.

    In May, Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to a hush-money payment to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels. Sentencing was originally scheduled on 18 September, but delayed to 26 November after a request from Trump for it to be postponed until after the election. It’s unclear if the date will stand.

    Since the unsealing of Smith’s case in October, Trump has spoken publicly about how he would immediately fire Smith if he were re-elected.

    In a conversation with the conservative podcast host Hugh Hewitt, who asked whether Trump would pardon himself or fire the special counsel, Trump said: “Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy … I would fire him within two seconds.”

  • Tropical Storm Rafael triggers hurricane warning for Cayman Islands | US weather

    Forecasters posted a hurricane warning in the Caribbean on Monday afternoon after a late-season disturbance south of Cuba strengthened into Tropical Storm Rafael and set its sights on the US Gulf coast.

    The 17th named storm of an overactive Atlantic hurricane season will bring heavy rain to Jamaica and the Cayman Islands before strengthening to a hurricane and probably hitting Cuba, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

    Forecasters are predicting that it will bring heavy rainfall to parts of the US along the Gulf of Mexico, with longer-range projections showing the Louisiana coast, including New Orleans, and Mississippi in the so-called cone of concern.

    A hurricane warning was in effect for the Cayman Islands, while Cuba was placed under a hurricane watch, and a tropical storm warning was posted for Jamaica.

    By Monday afternoon, Rafael was about 175 miles (280km) south of Kingston, Jamaica, with maximum sustained winds of 45mph (72km/h), and moving north at 9mph.

    The storm was expected to move near Jamaica by late Monday and be near or over the Cayman Islands late Tuesday into Wednesday at near hurricane strength.

    While weather models suggest the center of the storm could eventually make landfall between Louisiana and the western edge of the Florida Panhandle, dry air and water temperatures in the 70s Fahrenheit could cause it to rapidly weaken as it moves north.

    “It is too soon to determine what, if any, impacts Rafael could bring to portions of the northern Gulf coast. Residents in this area should regularly monitor updates to the forecast,” the NHC specialist Larry Kelly wrote in an afternoon update.

    “Rafael will bring areas of heavy rain to portions of the western Caribbean, including Jamaica and Cuba through mid-week, where flooding and landslides are possible. Heavy rainfall will spread into Florida and adjacent areas of the south east US mid to late week.”

    Kelly said totals of 3 to 6in and up to 9in were expected locally in Jamaica and parts of Cuba.

    Annually, hurricane seasons are expected to last at least through 30 November. Hurricanes forming in the late stages of those seasons have been seen more often during the ongoing climate crisis, spurred primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

    Major hurricanes Helene in September, and Milton last month, followed similar paths across the Caribbean and strengthened significantly in the Gulf of Mexico before striking Florida’s west coast. Forecast models, however, show Rafael as a weaker storm veering away from Florida.

    On the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean, former Tropical Storm Patty dissipated into a post-tropical cyclone on Monday. Although no longer a tropical system, its remnants were forecast to bring heavy rainfall across portions of Portugal and western Spain.

    The Associated Press contributed reporting