World
Donald Trump campaign raises more than $7m by selling mugshot merchandise
Donation haul underscores how Trump’s legal woes have been a fundraising boon for his election campaign.
Former President Donald Trump‘s campaign says it raised more than $7m after he was booked at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia on charges he schemed to overturn the 2020 election in the state.
Since appearing on Thursday to have his mugshot taken – the first time in US history it happened to a former president – Trump raked in millions in donations, spokesperson Steven Cheung said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
On Friday alone, Trump brought in $4.18m, making it the highest-grossing day of his campaign so far, Cheung said.
The record haul underscores how Trump’s legal woes have been a fundraising boon for his campaign, even as his political operation has spent tens of millions on his defence.
Mounting legal charges have also failed to dent Trump’s standing in the Republican presidential primary, with the former president now routinely beating his rivals by 30 to 50 points in polls.
While Trump described his appearance on Thursday as a “terrible experience” and said posing for the historic mugshot was “not a comfortable feeling”, his campaign immediately seized on its fundraising power.
Before he had even flown home to New Jersey, his campaign was using it in fundraising pitches to supporters.
Trump amplified that message both on his Truth Social site and by returning to X for the first time in two-and-a-half years to share the image and direct supporters to a fundraising page.
Within hours, the campaign released a new line of merchandise featuring the image that began with T-shirts and now includes shot glasses, mugs, bumper stickers, a signed poster and even bobblehead dolls.
The shot of Trump showed him with a red tie, glistening hair and an icy scowl.
Trump, elected president in 2016 but was defeated by Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, is again seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for president.
In the past three weeks, Trump has raised nearly $20m, a period that roughly coincides with his indictment in federal and state cases connected to his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
In January 2021, his supporters attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn his election defeat.
At the same time, Trump’s political operation has been burning through tens of millions of dollars on lawyers as he battles charges in four separate jurisdictions.
A recent campaign finance filing showed while Trump raised more than $53m during the first half of 2023 – a period in which his first two criminal indictments were turned into a rallying cry that sent his fundraising soaring – his political committees have paid out at least $59.2m to about 100 lawyers and law firms since January 2021.
World
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World
Climate activists glue themselves to Munich airport runway, pausing traffic
A group of climate protesters have been arrested in Germany after breaking into an airport and gluing themselves to the runway.
Six activists broke through security fencing at Munich airport in the German state of Bavaria on Saturday, according to the news outlet dpa.
Approximately sixty flights were canceled after the half-dozen protesters glued themselves to the tarmac, forcing officials to temporarily close the airport.
CLIMATE ACTIVISTS ARRESTED FOR BLOCKING AIRSTRIP IN MASSACHUSETTS
An additional fourteen flights into Munich were forced to divert to other nearby airports to avoid the disruption.
Climate protest coalition Last Generation took credit for the stunt, claiming it was intended to draw attention to the German government’s inaction on the airline industry’s environmental impact.
CLIMATE GROUP TAKES RESPONSIBILITY FOR US OPEN CHAOS, OFFERS WARNING: ‘NO TENNIS ON A DEAD PLANET’
All six protesters were arrested and charged by law enforcement.
“Trespassing in the aviation security area is no trivial offense. Over hundreds of thousands of passengers were prevented from a relaxed and punctual start to their Pentecost holiday,” German Airports Association General Manager Ralph Beisel told dpa.
“Such criminal actions threaten air traffic and harm climate protection because they only cause lack of understanding and anger,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wrote about the protests on social media platform X.
The Munich incident was just one of many similar protests around the world against air transportation. Last Generation has performed at least two similar airport disruptions in Germany since last year.
World
Russian court seizes two European banks’ assets amid Western sanctions
Freezing hundreds of billions of dollars in lenders’ assets was part of dispute over gas project halted by sanctions.
A Russian court has ordered the seizure of the assets, accounts, property and shares of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank in the country as part of a lawsuit involving the German banks, court documents showed.
The banks are among the guarantor lenders under a contract for the construction of a gas processing plant in Russia with the German company Linde. The project was terminated due to Western sanctions.
European banks have largely exited Russia after Moscow launched its offensive on Ukraine in 2022.
A court in St Petersburg ruled in favour of seizing 239 million euros ($260m) from Deutsche Bank, documents dated May 16 showed.
Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt said it had already provisioned about 260 million euros ($283m) for the case.
“We will need to see how this claim is implemented by the Russian courts and assess the immediate operational impact in Russia,” the bank added in a statement.
The court also seized the assets of Commerzbank, another German financial institution, worth 93.7 million euros ($101.85m) as well as securities and the bank’s building in central Moscow.
The bank is yet to comment on the case.
In a parallel lawsuit on Friday, the Russian court also ordered UniCredit’s assets, accounts and property, as well as shares in two subsidiaries, to be seized. The ruling covered 462.7 million euros ($503m) in assets.
UniCredit said it “has been made aware” of the decision and was “reviewing” the situation in detail. The bank was one of the most exposed European banks when Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine, with a large local subsidiary operating in Russia.
It began preliminary discussions on a sale last year, but the talks have not advanced. Chief executive Andrea Orcel said UniCredit wants to leave Russia, but added that gifting an operation worth three billion euros ($3.3bn) was not a good way to respect the spirit of Western sanctions on Moscow over the conflict.
Russia has faced heavy Western sanctions, including on its banking sector, since the start of the war in Ukraine. Dozens of US and European companies have also stopped doing business in the country.
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