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Stormy lawyer accuses Michael Cohen of lying, but it’s Trump who’s on trial

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Stormy lawyer accuses Michael Cohen of lying, but it’s Trump who’s on trial

Donald Trump’s hush money trial was back in action yesterday, and there was news right out of the box.

Judge Juan Merchan, to absolutely no one’s surprise, ruled that Trump had violated his gag order – and fined him $9,000.

Now that’s just pocket change for him, but the larger point is that Merchan ruled against the former president on nine of the 10 accusations, a thousand bucks a pop. The order barred him from attacking witnesses, but Trump has repeatedly said it’s unfair and unconstitutional to keep him, as a presidential nominee, from speaking out and responding to attacks from the likes of Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels.

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The judge had castigated Trump for breaching the gag order during oral arguments, and scolded his attorney Todd Blanche for “losing all credibility” in defending his client. So it didn’t take a soothsayer to divine how he would rule.

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Merchan ordered Trump to remove the offending posts, and said he would be subject to further fines and possibly incarceration (which is up to 30 days). No way I see that happening, even if Trump punched a witness in the nose. That would cause a surge in public sympathy, even among some Trump critics, and give the defendant something to take to the appeals court in arguing that the judge was blatantly biased against him.

The first witness, Gary Farro, Cohen’s former banker, delivered testimony that was very damaging to Trump’s fixer. It’s sure to be cited when Cohen, a disbarred lawyer who has served prison time, takes the stand.

But Michael Cohen isn’t on trial. Donald Trump is. And none of the testimony got to the central allegation–which Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg has stretched into a felony–that Trump falsified expense records to reimburse Cohen.

Farro said he had no indication that the account Cohen was establishing – with $131,000 from his home equity line – was related to a political candidate. That, he said, might have required additional scrutiny.

Nor did Farro know the account was related to someone in the adult film business. “It is not an industry we do work with,” he said.

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In Former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush-money trial in the state of New York, the names Michael Avenatti and Michael Cohen are often heard in the courtroom.

Next, Cohen created an account under Essential Consultants, and transferred it to an account that lawyer Keith Davidson maintained for Stormy Daniels. Cohen, he said, listed it as “retainer,” an obvious falsehood. 

If he had known, Davidson said when he took the stand, that this was a shell company and not an operating business, he would not have approved it.

Davidson also represented Karen McDougal, the Playboy playmate, and what followed seemed to belie her later proclamation that she didn’t want to be “the next Monica Lewinsky.” She told him her 10-month relationship with Trump was “sexual in nature” (which he denies).

Davidson started shopping her story.

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He texted Enquirer Editor Dylan Howard in June 2016: “I have a blockbuster Trump story.”

Howard responded: “I will get you more than ANYONE for it.”

THE ANTI-TRUMP MOVEMENT’S SECRET ZOOM CALLS GIVE THEIR TARGET AMMO

And: “Did he cheat on Melania?”

Davidson was also pitching McDougal to ABC.

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He arranged a meeting with David Pecker’s American Media Inc., but the company declined, citing a lack of evidence.

Later on, though, Davidson offered an AMI deal that would pay McDougal for fitness columns. “She did not want to tell her story,” the lawyer testified. “She liked the AMI deal, which wouldn’t force her to do that.” Yep, we now know why.

Davidson asked for an initial million-dollar payment. Howard cautioned it would be more hundreds than millions.

A couple of clips were played, one from the E. Jean Carroll deposition and one from a North Carolina rally, weeks before the election, in which Trump said: “I’m being viciously attacked with lies and smears. It’s a phony deal. I have no idea who these women are.”

Former President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, April 15, 2024, in New York. The hush money trial of former President Donald Trump begins Monday with jury selection. It’s a singular moment for American history as the first criminal trial of a former U.S. commander in chief. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

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In the AMI deal, McDougal was granted rights to an “affair with a married man,” who Davidson testified with Trump. 

They finally got to Stormy Daniels, whose manager told Davidson that “some jerk called me and was very, very aggressive.” It was Cohen.

Davidson said his call to Cohen was met with “a hostile barrage of insults, insinuations and allegations… He was just screaming.” 

When the “Access Hollywood” tape came out, there was a “crescendo” of interest in the Stormy story, said Davidson. His own view of the candidacy: “Trump is F***ed.”

“Final nail in the coffin,” said Howard.

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Davidson testified that he was handed off to Cohen once again, with Dylan Howard “washing his hands of the deal.

Former President Donald Trump attends the first day of his criminal trial, at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on April 15, 2024.  (Angela Weiss/AFP via AP Pool)

“The moral of the story is nobody wanted to talk to Cohen,” Davidson said. But the $130,000 deal finally got done when Cohen said he’d pay the money himself.

And yet it wasn’t a blockbuster day. One pet peeve: Since we’re all dependent on reporters’ feeds from inside the courtroom, after the networks go to break, they jump ahead to what’s happening at that moment and you miss what you missed. At one point, CNN got bored and switched to police and protestors confronting each other at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill–though nothing was happening except a standoff. Fox switched to Columbia anti-Israel demonstrators continuing to occupy a building.

At the trial, there were technical witnesses like the C-SPAN archive director and a court reporter official. This was so dull that I would have fallen asleep faster than Trump could close his eyes.

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Sure, these are building blocks, but you’d think the Bragg prosecutors would want to maintain the momentum from the damaging testimony last week of David Pecker, the Enquirer’s former publisher.

But it bears repeating: Pecker (who has immunity) isn’t on trial. McDougal isn’t on trial. Stormy isn’t on trial.

This other stuff may make for titillating drama, or would if there were cameras in the courtroom. But the case, even in anti-Trump Manhattan, will come down to whether prosecutors can prove that Trump committed a crime–and all he needs is one holdout juror.

SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF ON THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES

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Footnote: One person is kinda, sorta on trial, with his famous client, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report.

Trump has “griped” that his lead lawyer Todd Blanche has been “insufficiently aggressive” and wants him to “attack witnesses, attack what the former president sees as a hostile jury pool, and attack the judge.” He’s also complained about high legal fees.

They write in the New York Times that Trump views himself as his own best legal strategist and casts about for attorneys who will do what he wants, such as contest the 2020 election. He has told associates he needs “a Roy Cohn,” who represented him early in his career and was repeatedly indicted and later disbarred.

Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said their team was “focused entirely on fighting a ‘ridiculous’ case and that ‘anonymous comments from people who aren’t in the room are just that…I would be highly skeptical of any gossip or hearsay surrounding this case.”

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Boston, MA

When will the big nor’easters return? Boston in midst of second-longest streak without hefty snowfalls. – The Boston Globe

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When will the big nor’easters return? Boston in midst of second-longest streak without hefty snowfalls. – The Boston Globe


Have you noticed a lack of major snowstorms over the past several winters here in New England? Perhaps you’re wondering if this is a new permanent pattern. Snowfall across New England is highly variable, particularly here in the Boston area and the rest of Southern New England, where we lie on the southern edge of consistent snowfall.

First, let’s look at how radically different winter snowfall can be. On Feb. 25, 2022, Boston received 8½ inches of snow. That was the last time the city saw a 6-inch snowfall, which is meteorologically considered a “major snowfall” in New England (accumulation of at least 6 inches of snow). Roughly 1,414 days later and counting, we are now in the midst of our second-longest streak devoid of 6-inch snowfalls, since data was first recorded in 1872. You have to go back to 1988-92 to find a similar “major snow” drought. That streak lasted 1,772 days.

As a side note, the Boston area would have to make it through this entire winter without a major snowstorm to move into the No. 1 spot. Will we do it?

These gaps in significant snowstorms might be considered mini snow droughts, but when they end, the winter weather pattern tends to shift in the other direction. For example, when that streak ended in 1992, it ushered in three of four blockbuster winters, including one that dumped over 107 inches of snow in the winter of 1995-96.

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This very snowy mid-’90s was followed by highly variable snowfall seasons with as little as 15 inches of snow in 2001-02 and as much as nearly 87 inches of snow several years later during the 2004-05 winter season.

Snowiest decade on record (2008-18) vs. least snowfall (2015-present)

Then, starting in 2008 and lasting until 2018, we experienced the snowiest decade on record in Greater Boston with a total of 543 inches of snowfall.

If you move the starting point to winter 2015-16 and conclude through 2025, we received only 333 inches of snow, marking the lowest 10-year period of snowfall on record. This is where we currently sit, and it makes sense with the lack of major nor’easters nearing New England over the past several winters.

Even winter storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service have fallen. Check out the chart below, and you’ll notice that the past several years have seen fewer than six winter storm warnings issued.

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The number of winter storm warnings each year, from 2005-2025.Iowa Environmental Mesonet (IEM)

All of this should not lull you into a false sense that we are in some new paradigm without major coastal storms or that it’s not going to be snowy again. On the contrary, nor’easters are actually getting stronger and are generating more precipitation than they used to. According to research published last summer on the intensification of the strongest nor’easters, noted climate scientist Michael Mann and five of his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania looked at how our famous coastal storms have changed over the past several decades.

“Our analysis of nor’easter characteristics reveals that the strongest nor’easters are becoming stronger, with both the maximum wind speeds of the most intense nor’easters and hourly precipitation rates increasing since 1940,” the researchers said.

This NOAA GOES-16 satellite image captures a powerful nor’easter off the East Coast on Jan. 4, 2018.NOAA

The reason why I’m mentioning this while also talking about the lack of snow in our region is that both can be true. As we have seen, snowfall itself is very cyclical. That cycle is occurring amid a backdrop of a warming climate. With more and more anthropogenic CO2 — carbon dioxide emissions resulting from human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels — average temperatures have increased, and that rise has led to an availability of more energy for coastal storms.

‘Climate change has made crippling snow and flooding rain more likely despite the recent dearth of these types of storms locally. ’

As the oceans warm, they provide more latent heat or fuel for these nor’easters. Additionally, with warmer temperatures and still an availability of cold air to the north, there’s an increase in temperature contrast, or what meteorologists call “baroclinicity.” This is a critical feature and aids in the rapid intensification or bombogenesis of low-pressure areas east of the Atlantic Seaboard.

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The Perfect Storm back in 1991, the Storm of the Century in 1993, the so-named Snowmageddons in February 2010 and winter 2015, and the January 2018 blizzard are all examples of unusually strong nor’easters.

Map of four notable nor’easters. Dots along the tracks indicate storm intensity at each 6-hour time interval, color-coded by the maximum 10-m wind speed.Michael Mann, et al/UPenn

The trend in maximum wind speed in nor’easters has increased since the middle of the last century. You can see from the Mann paper some of the actual data used to reach this conclusion.

In addition, hourly precipitation has also increased in these coastal storms. This means that crippling snow and flooding rain are becoming more likely in spite of the recent dearth of these types of storms locally.

In the same way that we haven’t had a hurricane reach the shores of New England since 1991, so too are we overdue for a major nor’easter. Both are in our future. It’s just a matter of when.

Sign up here for our daily Globe Weather Forecast that will arrive straight into your inbox bright and early each weekday morning.





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Pittsburg, PA

Curtain Calls: Pittsburg Community Theatre unites behind powerful musical ‘The Color Purple’

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Curtain Calls: Pittsburg Community Theatre unites behind powerful musical ‘The Color Purple’


A celebration of hope, love and the healing power of community starts off Pittsburg Community Theatre’s new year with the powerful musical “The Color Purple.”



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Connecticut

Nestled Along Connecticut’s Coast Is A Walkable Village With Mini Cottages And A Calm Beach – Islands

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Nestled Along Connecticut’s Coast Is A Walkable Village With Mini Cottages And A Calm Beach – Islands






New England is full of atmospheric, storybook villages — particularly along the Connecticut coast, where changing seasons shape the romantic shoreline. Quaint houses, stone walls, historic churches, and harbors create picturesque scenes. Towns like cozy Stonington blend classic New England charm with eclectic boutiques, while Branford boasts a beautiful shoreline with its historic town. In a corner of Branford sits Stony Creek, a quiet coastal enclave listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This small village is dotted with charming historic homes running the gamut of architectural styles, many of them small, Queen Anne-era cottages with stick-style motifs that define the New England coastal aesthetic. At less than a mile long, threaded by a paved path, a stroll here or along the tiny village-front beach is not only scenic but easy. As New England Magazine describes, “You could probably throw a Frisbee farther than the length of Stony Creek Beach.” 

Stony Creek was Branford’s first shoreline community, settled in the late 1700s around pink granite quarries that supplied many of New York and D.C.’s ornate buildings and iconic landmarks including the Statue of Liberty, and parts of the George Washington Bridge and Smithsonian buildings. Today, visitors can see historic exhibits and artifacts at the Stony Creek Museum, or schedule an appointment to visit the still-operational quarry. As the gateway to the 365 Thimble Islands (only 23 inhabited), spending time on the water in Stony Creek is a great option. Catch a Thimble Island cruise along the Long Island Sound to hear tales of pirates who hid in the area’s coves, or book a sunset cocktail sail. Rent kayaks or canoes from Thimble Island Kayak, which delivers right to Stony Creek, or take a paddle tour around the Thimble Islands (named for the thimbleberry, a rare cousin of the blackberry).

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Stony Creek has plenty to explore

History, coastal aesthetic, and quiet charm live on in Stony Creek — the perfect Connecticut getaway. One summer-only attraction you’ll find in this village is the Stony Creek Fife & Drum Corps, a group of re-enactors who work to preserve historic music and perform seasonally in historic costumes — a quintessential New England vacation vibe. Year-round, Stony Creek Market offers breakfast or lunch with views of the harbor, and stays open later for pizza in summer. The Thimbleberry serves ice cream you can enjoy while strolling through Madeira Park or on the beach. The historic Legacy Theatre was once a silent movie theater, then a parachute factory, and is now a live performance venue, and a fun place to catch a show. While the Branford Historical Society remains a source of information on Branford and Stony Creek; the organization also owns the historic Harrison House and grounds which includes a museum, open June through September. Stony Creek also offers ferry service to the Thimbles with regular seasonal schedules and off-season availability.

Visitors can also enjoy the area’s vibrant nature trails: The Stony Creek Quarry Preserve, a 480-acre tract around the old quarry, has plenty of pathways. Meander along the Stony Creek Loop, one of several comprising the Branford Trail, a 30-mile network winding through the region. You can also explore the Trolley Trail, a marshy walk retracing old trolley tracks with beautiful views.

Stony Creek is roughly 13 miles from New Haven and its closest airport, though Bradley International Airport in Hartford, 55 miles away, might offer more flight options. Stony Creek’s also just 90 miles from New York City, making it ideal for weekend getaways. The village sits delightfully just off the Route 146 scenic drive and is 8 miles away from Guilford, another charming seaside town with historic sites and serene beaches. 

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Stony Creek’s once-thriving resort town now has limited lodging

Though it’s so tranquil now it’s hard to believe, by the time of the Civil War, Branford and quiet Stony Creek had evolved into a resort destination, partly because of its granite industry but also thanks to “no mosquitoes, flies, or malaria,” per Branford’s official website. Steamships, the train, and trolley also made it accessible. By World War I, it was attracting celebrity guests like Greta Garbo and Sinclair Lewis, where Harbor View Hotel and Shoshone Inn on Money Island, one of the Thimbles — became landmarks. Yet once the automobile equalized travel in the early 20th century, local hotels couldn’t accommodate mass tourists now flocking to the area. By the Great Depression, many notable Stony Creek hotels had shuttered, burned, or transformed into different enterprises, though today in Branford proper, the historic Owenego, or the “O,” built in 1847, still operates as a hotel and tennis club. Additionally, many of the Queen Anne cottages with Stick-style motifs that housed local workers and defined 1800s coastal Connecticut remain.

There are limited lodging offers available in Stony Creek itself. Stony Creek Depot offers two suites on Airbnb, and the modern Money Island Home on Vrbo offers water views and kayaks just a short ferry ride away. There’s just one bed and breakfast in Stony Creek itself — Thimble Islands B&B. With only two sea-facing rooms, the B&B still offers a charming, exclusive experience with modern amenities, home-cooked breakfasts, and afternoon charcuterie. “The private setting is breathtaking, with stunning views of the Thimble Islands,” wrote one reviewer on Tripadvisor. “It was a wonderful trip from start to finish.” Another wrote: “The property is right on the water with walking trails nearby and serene surroundings. It’s the perfect getaway.”

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