Their report provides yet another measure of how the climate crisis is pushing humanity into temperatures we have previously never experienced. Here in the US right now, record wildfires are raging out of control around Los Angeles amid the kind of prolonged droughts, rising temperatures and disrupted patterns that are unprecedented.
Last year was the hottest in global temperature records stretching back to 1850, the federal agency the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) announced, with the worldwide average 1.46C (2.6F) warmer than the era prior to humans burning huge volumes of planet-heating fossil fuels.
The data supports separate figures released by European Union scientists this week that also show a record 2024, albeit those figures showed 2024 was 1.6C (2.8F) hotter than pre-industrial times, the first measure beyond the internationally-agreed threshold of keeping long-term temperatures below a 1.5C (2.7F) rise.
While a single year above 1.5C does not void the Paris climate agreement target to help protect the most vulnerable countries from worsening heatwaves, droughts, storms and other impacts, scientists have said the goal is effectively “deader than a doornail” and will be surpassed in the longer term within a decade. Trump pulled the US out of the Paris agreement in his first term and Joe Biden re-joined asap in his administration.
Follow our wildfires live blog here.
sentenced Donald Trump in his hush money case to unconditional discharge, which means the incoming president will serve no jail time and pay no fines after being convicted on 34 felony business fraud charges. Despite the leniency, Trump blasted the prosecution as a “despicable charade”, and proclaimed his innocence, while Republican lawmakers, including senator Lindsey Graham and House speaker Mike Johnson, rallied to his defense. Trump now has few unfinished pieces of legal business standing between him and inauguration on 20 January, but there remains the question of whether the justice department will be able to release special counsel Jack Smith’s report into his aborted prosecution of the president-elect for allegedly trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. A federal appeals court ruling yesterday offered some hope that it could come out, but obstacles remain.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
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Merchan said Trump’s re-election was a major factor in his decision to let him escape any meaningful penalties after his convictions.
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Trump supporters and opponents gathered outside the Manhattan criminal court during the president-elect’s sentencing, at which he appeared virtually.
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The supreme court heard arguments over a law that could lead to TikTok being banned in the United States after 19 January. Follow our live blog for more.
Victoria Bekiempis and Joan E Greve, here’s the full report on Donald Trump’s sentencing today in the New York hush money case – the only one of his four criminal indictments to reach a jury verdict before his return to the White House:
Donald Trump will avoid jail time for his felony conviction in the New York hush-money case, a judge determined on Friday, marking both a dramatic and anti-climactic development in the historic criminal proceedings weeks before he returns to the White House.
The judge who presided over Trump’s criminal trial, Juan Merchan, issued a sentence of “unconditional discharge”, meaning the president-elect will be released without fine, imprisonment or probation supervision for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. While the sentence makes Trump a convicted felon, he will face no penalty other than this legal designation.
Trump, whose presidential inauguration is scheduled for 20 January, is the first US president – former or sitting – to face a criminal trial, let alone a guilty verdict and subsequent sentencing.
Addressing the court via video shortly before receiving his sentence, Trump called the case “a very terrible experience”, an “injustice” and a “political witch-hunt”.
the Wall Street Journal reports.
Ethics groups and Democratic lawmakers have warned of the potential for Trump to enrich his businesses through decisions made in his capacity as US president. Here’s more about the new rules, from the Journal:
President-elect Donald Trump won’t be involved in the day-to-day management of the Trump Organization once he takes office and the company won’t enter into new contracts with foreign governments during his presidency, according to an ethics plan set to be released by the company on Friday.
Prominent lawyer William Burck will assist in developing internal ethics politics and procedures to avoid any perceived conflicts, the company said. “The Trump Organization is dedicated to not just meeting but vastly exceeding its legal and ethical obligations during my father’s presidency,” Eric Trump, the president-elect’s son and the Trump Organization’s executive vice president, said in a statement.
Among other measures, the company said it would voluntarily donate to the U.S. Treasury profits it receives from foreign government officials the company can identify at its hotels and other businesses. The plan states that the president-elect’s investments will be independently managed by outside institutions that will “neither solicit nor accept input” from him.
Trump will also have “limited access” to the company’s financial information. The Trump Organization said it would limit information “to only reflect general business updates of the company as a whole and not an accounting of the performance of any specific business or asset.”
Donald Trump today:
Donald Trump on business fraud charges, even after a jury found him guilty of 34 felonies last year.
Following his sentencing today, Republican senator Lindsey Graham accused Bragg of charging the president-elect for political reasons. From a statement issued by the senator:
The New York justice system is beyond anti-Trump. The New York attorney general and Manhattan District Attorney see president Trump as a political prize.
They have singled out President Trump for prosecution for offenses that either never existed before or were cobbled together to get a result and make Trump a felon.
President Trump has been tried in the most liberal state and local jurisdictions in America by the most liberal prosecutors and judges.
The judge in this case rushed this sentencing so that he can tell the world, ‘I made Trump a felon.’ I am sure he will be in great demand on the Manhattan party circuit.
I am confident the judge’s decision will be overturned by the supreme court.
The prosecutor’s statements are a weak attempt to dress up a sham proceeding.
Hugo Lowell reports:
A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected an attempt to block special counsel Jack Smith from releasing his final report into the two federal criminal cases he brought against Donald Trump but, crucially, left in place a temporary injunction that prevents it from becoming public.
The order from the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit means the injunction imposed by the US district judge Aileen Cannon who handled the Trump’s prosecution on charges of mishandling classified documents will remain in place for at least three more days.
But the temporary injunction could last longer, Trump’s legal team suggested, pointing to language in Cannon’s decision that made clear the injunction was not her last word on the matter and that she still intended to rule on whether the report should ever be made public.
That language was buried at the end of Cannon’s order on Tuesday, reading: “This Order shall not be construed as the final ruling on the merits of the emergency motion, which remains pending before this court subject to any directives from the Eleventh Circuit.”
With the 11th circuit declining to weigh in, the matter of whether the special counsel report should be publicly released appears set to return to Cannon, the lower court judge who dismissed the documents case in a decision last year that is being challenged by the justice department.
a post on Truth Social, and said the unconditional discharge sentence he was given today is proof that “THERE IS NO CASE”.
Here’s what he wrote:
The Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt. After spending tens of millions of dollars, wasting over 6 years of obsessive work that should have been spent on protecting New Yorkers from violent, rampant crime that is destroying the City and State, coordinating with the Biden/Harris Department of Injustice in lawless Weaponization, and bringing completely baseless, illegal, and fake charges against your 45th and 47th President, ME, I was given an UNCONDITIONAL DISCHARGE. That result alone proves that, as all Legal Scholars and Experts have said, THERE IS NO CASE, THERE WAS NEVER A CASE, and this whole Scam fully deserves to be DISMISSED. The real Jury, the American People, have spoken, by Re-Electing me with an overwhelming MANDATE in one of the most consequential Elections in History. As the American People have seen, this “case” had no crime, no damages, no proof, no facts, no Law, only a highly conflicted Judge, a star witness who is a disbarred, disgraced, serial perjurer, and criminal Election Interference. Today’s event was a despicable charade, and now that it is over, we will appeal this Hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great System of Justice. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
John Ahern said he flew up from Florida last night so he could be here today.
“This is a travesty of justice” Ahern, 76, said. “I just wanted to be here.”
Ahern, who was also present for Trump’s trial in the spring, lives in New York, but was down in Florida this week, before deciding to fly up for the sentencing.
He spent all day at a Staples store in Florida yesterday printing banners for his protest, he said.
His sign reads, “Enough was enough, we voted!!! Trump won!!!”.
“Ultimately, I’m enthusiastic about what’s going to happen, not just for America, but for the world”, after Trump is inaugurated, he said.
Judge Juan Merchan laid out his rationale for imposing the sentence of unconditional discharge on the president-elect.
“The protections afforded the office of the president are not a mitigating factor. They do not reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way,” the judge said.
“The protections are, however, a legal mandate which, pursuant to the rule of law, this court must respect and follow. However, despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict.”
He then handed down his sentence, noting that it is influenced by Trump’s recent presidential election victory:
It was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that once again you should have the benefits of those protections which include, among other things, the supremacy clause and presidential immunity. It is through that lens and that reality that this court must determine a lawful sentence.
This court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgment of conviction, without encroaching on the highest office of the land is unconditional discharge.
Therefore, at this time, I impose that sentence to cover all 34 counts.
Merchan concluded with: “Sir, I wish you godspeed as you assume your second term in office.”
Judge Juan Merchan has sentenced Donald Trump to unconditional discharge in the hush money case, meaning he will avoid jail time, fines or probation.
“The task is always difficult and deserving of careful consideration – whether the sentence be unconditional discharge or incarceration of 25 years to life,” Merchan began, speaking generally about the challenges and considerations of sentencing a defendant.
“One can argue that the trial was in many respects somewhat ordinary,” Merchan said of how proceedings unfolded, but “the same cannot be said about the circumstances around this sentencing.”
The judge added:
To be sure, it is the legal protections afforded to the office of the president of the United States that are extraordinary – not the occupant of the office.
Trump also claimed that the justice department is involved in the New York case, which is not true.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg brought the charges against Trump.
The president-elect concluded by saying, “I was treated very, very unfairly” and told Merchan, “Thank you very much.”
Now that Trump is done, the judge is explaining the process behind how a sentence is imposed.
Trump continued to attack the substance of the case against him.
“I get indicted for business records? Everybody should be so accurate. It’s been a political witch hunt … to damage my reputation so that I’d lose the election, obviously that didn’t work,” Trump continued.
He went on to recount how he had won the November election, noting that he had carried every swing state and the popular vote.
“I was under a gag order, I’m the first pesident in history [under] a gag order,” Trump said. “I assume that I’m still under a gag order but the fact is I’m totally innocent, I did nothing wrong.”
The gag order has been a long-running issue in this case, and was imposed on Trump by Merchan after he began attacking various parties to the proceedings. Here’s more about it:
