After learning in 2013 that Us Weekly was preparing to run a story about Donald Trump Jr. having an affair with Celebrity Apprentice contestant Aubrey O'Day, President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was able to get the magazine to kill the piece, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The Trump Organization was asked to comment on the story, and when Cohen called the magazine back, he threatened legal action, one person told the Journal. Us Weekly decided not to run the story, reportedly feeling it wasn't worth going to court over and wanting to maintain a "good working relationship" with Trump. Last month, Trump Jr. and his wife of 12 years, Vanessa, announced they were splitting up. O'Day, a singer, appeared on Celebrity Apprentice in 2011, when Trump Jr. was a judge.
The Journal also reported on Sunday that Cohen used the same limited liability company, based in Delaware, to pay off adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump, and a Playboy Playmate who had an affair with ex-Republican National Committee Deputy Finance Chairman Elliott Broidy. Cohen's home, office, and hotel room were raided by FBI agents last week, searching for documents related to the Daniels case, among other subjects. Catherine Garcia
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday pushed back on calls for a second referendum on Brexit, the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.
May particularly condemned remarks from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said this week a new vote should be considered if "none of the other options work." May accused Blair of "seek[ing] to undermine our negotiations by advocating for a second referendum," arguing "Parliament has a democratic duty to deliver what the British people voted for."
May's proposed Brexit deal with the EU has stalled, lacking support to pass a House of Commons vote. Bonnie Kristian
The North Korean government on Sunday issued a typically dramatic statement condemning the United States' sanction regime and suggesting denuclearization plans are in jeopardy.
Pyongyang accused the U.S. State Department of being "bent on bringing [North Korea]-U.S. relations back to the status of last year which was marked by exchanges of fire," warning that additional U.S. sanctions would be America's "greatest miscalculation" and would "block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever."
This comes as Pyongyang observes the seventh anniversary of the death of former leader Kim Jong Il and the rise to power of his son, current leader Kim Jong Un. Bonnie Kristian
Negotiators representing nearly 200 nations in Katowice, Poland, on Saturday agreed to universal greenhouse gas emissions limits intended to mitigate global climate change.
"It is not easy to find agreement on a deal so specific and technical," said Polish economist Michal Kurtyka, who is leading the United Nations negotiations. "Through this package you have made a thousand little steps forward together," he told the assembled delegates. "You can feel proud."
U.S. negotiators sought to label coal a possible source of clean energy but also pushed for transparency and rules which apply equally to all participant nations. "Overall, the U.S. role here has been somewhat schizophrenic — pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules," Elliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions told The Associated Press. "[T]he U.S. pushed harder than nearly anyone else for transparency rules that put all countries under the same system, and it's largely succeeded." Bonnie Kristian
