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Judge rejects Sean 'Diddy' Combs' bid to toss prostitution convictions

admin - Latest News - October 1, 2025
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The judge in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ criminal case rejected the hip-hop mogul’s request to toss out his prostitution-related convictions Tuesday, setting the stage for his sentencing



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Sept. 30, 2025, 10:07 AM EDT / Updated Sept. 30, 2025, 8:50 PM EDTBy Scott Wong, Frank Thorp V and Kyle StewartWASHINGTON — The federal government is barreling toward a shutdown Tuesday night, with President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders engaged in a fierce blame game and trading insults about each other.Hours before the midnight deadline, the Senate on Tuesday gaveled out for the evening with plans to return on Wednesday. A shutdown is all but assured to begin after midnight.It’s unclear where the parties go from here. The Senate Tuesday evening voted down competing Republican and Democratic plans to stave off a shutdown.House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said he hoped the defeat of the GOP bill — for a second time this month — “will open lines of communications” with Republicans. That has not yet happened.“Leader Schumer and I have made clear we are ready, willing and able to sit down and with anyone, anytime, any place to fund the government and to address the Republican health care crisis,” Jeffries said shortly before the Senate votes.Senate fails to pass funding bill, shutdown imminent00:36Bipartisan talks have been at a standstill in the 24 hours since the Big Four congressional leaders met with Trump at the White House Monday.The impacts of a shutdown would be felt by many. None of the millions of federal workers would be paid, and hundreds of thousands of them would be furloughed. In recent days, White House officials had tried to allow military personnel to continue receiving pay during a shutdown, according to a source familiar with the discussions, but those efforts were unsuccessful. So service members wouldn’t be paid during a shutdown, either.And the White House has threatened to fire federal workers in a shutdown as well. Asked Tuesday morning how many government employees his administration would lay off, Trump responded: “Well, we may do a lot, and that’s only because of the Democrats.”The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday that a government shutdown would lead to the furlough of about 750,000 federal employees.Responding to Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who asked for the assessment, the CBO said of the furloughed workers: The “total daily cost of their compensation would be roughly $400 million. The number of furloughed employees could vary by the day because some agencies might furlough more employees the longer a shutdown persists and others might recall some initially furloughed employees.”Federal agencies, including the Defense and State departments, have already posted their plans for how they will operate.In the final hours before a shutdown, the two parties traded insults rather than serious proposals.Trump shared a crude post on Truth Social Monday night that showed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., with fake AI-generated audio, saying Democrats “have no voters anymore, because of our woke, trans bulls—” and that if they give undocumented immigrants health care, they would vote for his party.The post depicted Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache as he stood silently by Schumer’s side. Mariachi music played in the background.The video referenced a Trump talking point that Democrats are demanding health care for undocumented immigrants in exchange for their votes to keep the government open. Democrats have called that a lie. They have pushed to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies and to undo Trump’s Medicaid cuts, not to pay for health care for people who are in the country illegally.Schumer responded to the video on X, writing: “If you think your shutdown is a joke, it just proves what we all know: You can’t negotiate. You can only throw tantrums.”Jeffries had tough words for Trump during a news conference on the steps of the Capitol on Tuesday morning. “Mr. President, next time you have something to say about me, don’t cop out through a racist and fake AI video,” Jeffries said, surrounded by dozens of rank-and-file Democrats. “When I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face.”The House leader also shared a photo on X of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. “This is real,” Jeffries wrote above the photo, which was taken at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 1997. (Trump has said he and Epstein had a falling out, and he was unaware of the financier’s crimes.)The personal insults indicated that the two sides were nowhere close to an agreement to keep the government’s lights on past Tuesday’s deadline.“It looks to me like we’re headed for a shutdown,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., earlier Tuesday. “And you know me, I’m the most optimistic person you know.”High-stakes White House meeting as government shutdown deadline looms02:18Political theater dominated on Tuesday. Democrats filed onto the House floor during a pro forma session as the party’s top appropriator, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, attempted to offer her party’s plan to keep the government open. But Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., who was presiding, did not acknowledge her and quickly adjourned. “Shame on you!” some Democrats jeered at Griffith. Democrats on the floor had a poster with Speaker Mike Johnson’s face on it and the words: “Missing Person.” Johnson, R-La., was in the Capitol on Tuesday and attended the Trump meeting a day earlier. But the House left town Sept. 19 after passing a seven-week funding bill and is not set to return until Oct. 7. By Tuesday evening, the GOP-controlled Senate made a last-gasp attempt to avert a shutdown but came up short. The upper chamber voted down competing Democratic and Republican funding plans, a repeat of earlier this month when the same bills failed to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to pass.The GOP bill had cleared the House on a party-line 217-212 vote on Sept. 19, but it was rejected Tuesday in the Senate 55-45, shy of the 60 votes needed to break a Democratic filibuster. Three members of the Democratic Caucus — Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Angus King, I-Maine — joined Republicans in voting yes; just one Republican, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted no with Democrats.The rival Democratic bill to fund the government was also rejected, on a party-line 47-53 vote.If a shutdown occurs, “that’s a sad day for the country, it truly is. We have to find a better solution,” said Fetterman, who voted for both bills. “As a senator, I think that’s one of our core responsibilities, keep the government open … and then debate and figure out some kind of compromise.”Republicans have argued that Democrats could avert a shutdown by simply voting for the House-passed continuing resolution, or CR, which would fund the government at current levels through Nov. 21.But Democrats said they are trying to stave off a looming “health care crisis.” Specifically, Democrats want any CR to include an extension of Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year. They have also pushed for rolling back some of the cuts and changes to Medicaid that were enacted in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” earlier this year.Speaking to reporters in the Capitol after Monday’s meeting with Trump, Schumer said Trump appeared to be “not aware” of the impacts of expiring Obamacare subsidies on everyday Americans. And he urged Trump to try to convince GOP leaders on Capitol Hill to back a deal to extend those subsidies.”It’s now in the president’s hands,” Schumer said, with Jeffries at his side. “He can avoid a shutdown if he gets the Republican leaders to go along with what we want.”Scott WongScott Wong is a senior congressional reporter for NBC News. Frank Thorp VFrank Thorp V is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the Senate.Kyle StewartKyle Stewart is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the House.Brennan Leach, Gabrielle Khoriaty and Sahil Kapur contributed.
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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleNov. 10, 2025, 5:57 AM ESTBy Chantal Da Silva, Ammar Cheikh Omar, Abigail Williams and Monica AlbaThe Oval Office is a long way from Abu Ghraib.When he’s greeted by President Donald Trump on Monday, Ahmad al-Sharaa will have completed his journey from jihadist leader to head of state receiving a warm White House welcome.Since toppling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, Syria‘s interim leader has spent the past year transforming his global image while tackling deep divisions at home.Now, al-Sharaa, who has thrown off his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, will make history as the first Syrian president to visit the White House.“I think he’s doing a very good job,” Trump said last week, setting the tone for his landmark meeting with al-Sharaa, who would not have been able to set foot in the U.S. a year ago thanks to the $10 million bounty on his head. “It’s a tough neighborhood and he’s a tough guy, but I got along with him very well and a lot of progress has been made with Syria,” Trump said.During his Washington visit, Al-Sharaa is expected to commit to joining the U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIS, two U.S. officials told NBC News. It would be a significant step in his country’s engagement with the West.The State Department removed al-Sharaa and his interior minister from the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list on Friday, while the U.K. and Europe removed sanctions on al-Sharaa after the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of a U.S.-drafted resolution to do so.The Washington trip is “a high-level sign of the trust that the American administration has placed in al-Sharaa — and the hope that he will succeed in holding Syria together during this incredibly complicated transition period,” said Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.A ‘turning point’Al-Sharaa rose to power after leading Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, in toppling Assad’s regime last December.Since then, he has sought to distance himself from his past as a jihadist who had been jailed by U.S. forces in Iraq, trading military fatigues for smart suits and vowing to rebuild Syria and unify its myriad religious and ethnic groups.Trump’s approach, a dramatic shift for the U.S., has underscored al-Sharaa’s success in breaking the country’s decadeslong global isolation.The U.S. removed its terrorist designation for HTS, along with the bounty on al-Sharaa himself, before lifting a string of sanctions following a May meeting between the Syrian leader and Trump in Saudi Arabia.President Donald Trump and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.@PressSec / via XAl-Sharaa was in New York in September to address the United Nations General Assembly, but Syria’s Ministry of Information said that being welcomed to the White House marked a “major turning point” for the country.At home, however, al-Sharaa has struggled to unify a deeply divided Syria while grappling with broader threats: a resurgent ISIS, fraught relations with increasingly assertive neighbor Israel, and Russia’s determination to maintain its strategic foothold in Syria while giving safe haven to Assad.Syria has experienced flashes of violence, including deadly attacks against minority groups allegedly carried out in part by government forces. Growing tensions with Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria have also erupted into violent clashes.“He’s certainly being (very) smart,” John Jenkins, a former British diplomat who has previously served as head of mission in Syria, said of al-Sharaa in emailed comments.“A trip to D.C. makes him look respectable,” said Jenkins, an associate fellow at Chatham House and a leader at Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics. But, he added,”the key issues are domestic.”And within Syria, opinions have been deeply divided.“He does not represent the Syrian people,” said Sami Zain Al-Din, a 72-year-old political activist from Sweida, a southern city that was rocked by deadly clashes involving the Druze community, which has close ties to Israel.For doctor Jalnar Hamad, doubts over al-Sharaa were balanced against hopes that his meeting with Trump could open a “new chapter” that could see Sweida “benefit from development or reconstruction programs,” she said.Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa with representatives of Syrian-American organizations in Washington D.C. on Sunday.AFP via Getty ImagesIlham Ahmed, co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political arm of the Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, said the Trump meeting was “an opportunity to redefine the position of the new Syrian state.” It’s also a chance for Trump to address “the rights of the Kurdish people and the coalition partners who fought terrorism on behalf of the world,” he said, referring to the SDF’s role against ISIS.Further sanctions lifted?Al-Sharaa will be hoping to emerge strengthened domestically, and key to that effort is his bid to remove remaining sanctions imposed on Syria during Assad’s rule.Already, “the pace with which sanctions have been eased on Syria since May has been absolutely spectacular,” Karam Shaar, a consultant on Syria and the research director at the Operations and Policy Center think tank in Turkey, said in a voice note.Shaar said he expected that two “main pieces of sanctions will have been either lifted or just about to be lifted” by the time al-Sharaa and Trump meet, including the removal of Syria from America’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism” and the repeal of sanctions under the Caesar Act, a 2019 law targeting the Assad regime.But sanctions will not be the only focus, with the effort to quell ISIS’ resurgence and relations with Israel also expected to play a central role.The U.S. ally has faced growing isolation on the global stage over its deadly assault in Gaza, but Trump has previously expressed hopes Syria would join other Arab nations in normalizing ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords, which were expanded again last week.It remains unclear whether Trump will push the matter during talks with al-Sharaa on Monday.Syria, historically a staunch ally of Iran, has never recognized Israel and has been locked in a state of conflict with the country since its establishment in 1948. Iranian proxy Hezbollah has also long been deeply embedded in Syria after joining the Assad regime’s military efforts.When Assad was in power, Israel routinely carried out airstrikes against what it said were Iranian-linked targets inside Syria, and since his ouster, it has deployed troops to a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone and has repeatedly launched airstrikes and incursions into Syria. Damascus has so far refused to retaliate, while both countries have kept the lines of communication open.Chantal Da SilvaChantal Da Silva reports on world news for NBC News Digital and is based in London.Ammar Cheikh OmarAmmar Cheikh Omar is a producer for NBC News.Abigail WilliamsAbigail Williams is a producer and reporter for NBC News covering the State Department.Monica AlbaMonica Alba is a White House correspondent for NBC News.
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