Michael Cohen made a surprise visit to a New York court on Thursday, and it's likely sealing his full departure from President Trump's side.
Through tweets and guilty pleas, Trump's former attorney has long signaled he was breaking off his partnership with the president. And on Thursday, Cohen stepped into a New York court to affirm a "tentative deal" to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and plead guilty to lying about Trump's contacts with Russia, ABC News reports.
Cohen was once Trump's right-hand man, and often discussed questionable business dealings with the president — discussions that Cohen secretly taped and gave to the FBI. But after implicating Trump while pleading guilty to financial crimes in August, Cohen has given more than 70 hours worth of interviews to Mueller's team in their investigation into the Trump campaign's interactions with Russia, sources tell ABC News.
Cohen also gave closed-door testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee last year, apparently discussing a real estate project in Moscow, per Law360's Pete Brush. Cohen originally said a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow "was stopped in January 2016," says CNN's Jim Acosta. But on Thursday, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying about when and where that project actually took place, and said discussions actually continued beyond January, CNN reports via documents being read in court. It's seemingly a continuation of Cohen's cooperation with the special counsel, seeing as a prosecutor from Mueller's office was present in the courtroom, writes The Associated Press.
Read more about Cohen's cooperation at ABC News. Kathryn Krawczyk
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says China wanted Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey fired over his Hong Kong tweet, but China is already denying it.
Silver spoke Thursday amid the ongoing controversy that began when Morey earlier this month tweeted his support for the pro-democracy, anti-Beijing Hong Kong protests. The NBA immediately distanced itself from his tweet in a statement, prompting criticism that it was kowtowing to the Chinese government due to the league's business in China.
Following that criticism, Silver defended Morey's freedom of speech, and he spoke further about the situation on Thursday, explaining that "we were being asked to fire [Morey], by the Chinese government, by the parties we dealt with, government and business,” The Washington Post reports. He added, "We said there's no chance that's happening."
But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang claims there's no chance the request itself happened, saying the "Chinese government never posed this requirement," The Associated Press reports.
Silver also said Thursday the NBA's initial statement calling Morey's tweet regrettable was "misinterpreted," since it was referring to "the fact that we'd upset our Chinese fans" and "there was no regret directed to the [Chinese] government." China's state broadcaster in the aftermath of the tweet suspended the broadcast of NBA games, with Silver saying Thursday the "financial consequences have been and may continue to be fairly dramatic." Brendan Morrow
Mexican security forces on a routine patrol in the northern Mexican city of Culiacan came under fire from a house on Thursday, returned fire and took control of the house, and discovered among its four occupants Ovidio Guzman, one of jailed drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's sons and apparent successor as a leader in the Sinaloa cartel, Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said in a televised message Thursday night. Guzman's armed allies quickly arrived and "surrounded the house with a greater force," he added, and "other groups carried out violent actions against citizens in various points of the city, generating a situation of panic."
Durazo later told Reuters that the National Guard patrol released Guzman, in what the Los Angeles Times called "a stunning humiliation for the Mexican government" and a challenge to new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. "The decision was taken to retreat from the house, without Guzman, to try to avoid more violence in the area and preserve the lives of our personnel and recover calm in the city," Durazo told Reuters.
Along with losing Guzman, who the U.S. has indicted on drug trafficking charges along with older brother Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, the state and federal police lost control of Culiacan. Video footage from the city "showed heavily armed men firing on police, with cars, bodies, and burning barricades strewn in the road," BBC News reports. Sinaloa state authorities advised residents to shelter in place as "fighters swarmed through the city, battling police and soldiers in broad daylight," Reuters reports. "They torched vehicles and left at least one gas station ablaze, and "a large group of inmates escaped from the city prison."
A rival cartel is suspected of ambushing and killing of 14 police officers in Michoacan state Monday, and the army killed 14 suspected gangsters the next day. Murders in Mexico are on track to hit a record high this year. Peter Weber
Some people are clearly happy about the five-day pause in fighting in northeastern Syria that Turkey and the U.S. negotiated Thursday — Turkey refuses to call it a ceasefire — giving America's Kurdish former allies a chance to retreat from a "safe zone" Turkey plans to carve out inside Syria.
President Trump called the deal "a great day for civilization," while Turkish officials and pro-government media hailed it as a "great victory" in which "Turkey got everything it wanted." The chaos in northeast Syria is also "proving to be a propaganda windfall" for the Islamic State, which is "racing to capitalize on the deteriorating security situation," The Washington Post reports.
But fighting continued Friday morning, with shelling and gunfire in the border towns of Ras al-Ayn and Ceylanpinar, The Associated Press and Reuters report, suggesting the truce hasn't gone into effect everywhere. Kurdish commanders, who had no part in Thursday's negotiations, suggested they would try to abide by the ceasefire unless attacked. An aide to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called Turkey's pause "ambiguous" and said Syria and its Russian allies might not sign on, BBC News reports.
The Kurds are also accusing Turkish-backed forces of using white phosphorous and possibly napalm against civilians in Ras al-Ayn. Turkey denies using the banned chemicals to burn and maim people, but photos of burned children from the area lend credence to the allegations, Foreign Policy reports. A senior U.S. administration official and an aid organization both confirmed that civilians have turned up with wounds consistent with white phosphorous, and the U.S. official told Foreign Policy that "Turkey will be held accountable by the international community for the crimes they commit against the Kurds."
At a rally in Dallas on Thursday night, Trump compared the battle between the Kurds and Turkey to "two kids in a lot," adding, "you've got to let them fight and then you pull them apart." He said the ceasefire never would have happened without the "tough love" he showed Turkey. Peter Weber
The flower girls stole the show at Lyndsey Raby's wedding, just like she knew they would.
Donning matching blue dresses, Lyndsey's grandmothers — Betty Brown, 72, Kathleen Brown, 90, Wanda Grant, 76, and Joyce Raby, 72 — made their way down the aisle ahead of her during the Sept. 22 nuptials in Benton, Tennessee. "I'm so lucky," Lyndsey told Today Style. "A lot of women don't get one grandparent at their wedding, and I was blessed to have all of them."
The flower girls had a blast, although there was a bit of a disagreement over the dresses, Lyndsey said — her grandmother Betty Brown insisted they wear something long, while Betty's mother Kathleen Brown, Lyndsey's great-grandmother, would have preferred something shorter. The newest member of the family is Joyce Raby, Lyndsey's husband Tanner's grandmother, and she has already bonded with the crew. "They're all besties now, and talking on Facebook," Lyndsey said. "Family is the most important thing to all of us." Catherine Garcia