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CTV News
16 hours ago
- CTV News
Wrestling icon Hulk Hogan dead at 71: WWE
Hulk Hogan on stage before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Retired American professional wrestler Hulk Hogan has died at the age of 71, the WWE said in a statement Thursday. This is a breaking news story. Check back for more information.
CTV News
16 hours ago
- CTV News
Trump's onetime friendship with Jeffrey Epstein is well-known - and also documented in records
This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017. (New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP, File) WASHINGTON — The revelation that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told U.S. President Donald Trump that his name was in the Jeffrey Epstein files has focused fresh attention on the president's relationship with the wealthy financier and the U.S. Justice Department's announcement this month that it would not be releasing any additional documents from the case. But at least some of the information in the briefing to Trump, which The Wall Street Journal said took place in May, should not have been a surprise. The president's association with Epstein is well-established and his name was included in records that his own Justice Department released back in February as part of an effort to satisfy public interest in information from the sex-trafficking investigation. Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and the mere inclusion of someone's name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise. Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial, also had many prominent friends in political and celebrity circles besides Trump. Trump's ties to Epstein It should have been no shock to Trump that his name would be found in records related to Epstein. The February document dump from the Justice Department included references to Trump in Epstein's phone book and his name was also mentioned in flight logs for Epstein's private plane. Over the years, thousands of pages of records have been released through lawsuits, Epstein's criminal dockets, public disclosures and Freedom of Information Act requests. In January 2024, a court unsealed the final batch of a trove of documents that had been collected as evidence in a lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre. Records made public also include 2016 deposition in which an accuser recounted spending several hours with Epstein at Trump's Atlantic City casino but didn't say if she actually met Trump and did not accuse him of any wrongdoing. Trump has also said that he once thought Epstein was a 'terrific guy,' but that they later had a falling out. 'I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,' Trump said in 2019 when video footage unearthed by NBC News following Epstein's federal indictment showed the two chatting at a party at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in 1992, when the now president was newly divorced. 'He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling-out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years.' The department's decision to not release additional files from the case The Justice Department stunned conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and elements of Trump's base this month when it released a two-page letter saying that a so-called Epstein 'client list' that Bondi had once intimated was on her desk did not exist and that officials did not plan to release any additional documents from its investigation despite an earlier commitment to provide transparency. Whether Bondi's briefing to Trump in May influenced that decision is unclear. The Justice Department did not comment directly on her meeting with Trump but Bondi and Blanche said in a joint statement that a review of the Epstein files showed that there was nothing warranting further investigation or prosecution. 'As part of our routine briefing,' the statement said, 'we made the President aware of our findings.' Eric Tucker, The Associated Press
National Post
17 hours ago
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Columbia University agrees to pay more than $220M in deal with Trump to restore federal funding
Columbia University announced Wednesday it has reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay more than $220 million to the federal government to restore federal research money that was canceled in the name of combating antisemitism on campus. Article content Under the agreement, the Ivy League school will pay a $200 million settlement over three years, the university said. It will also pay $21 million to resolve alleged civil rights violations against Jewish employees that occurred following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, the White House said. Article content Article content Article content 'This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,' acting University President Claire Shipman said. Article content Article content The school had been threatened with the potential loss of billions of dollars in government support, including more than $400 million in grants canceled earlier this year. The administration pulled the funding because of what it described as the university's failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war. Article content Columbia has since agreed to a series of demands laid out by the Republican administration, including overhauling the university's student disciplinary process and applying a contentious, federally endorsed definition of antisemitism not only to teaching but to a disciplinary committee that has been investigating students critical of Israel. Article content Wednesday's agreement — which does not include an admission of wrongdoing — codifies those reforms while preserving the university's autonomy, Shipman said. Article content Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the deal 'a seismic shift in our nation's fight to hold institutions that accept American taxpayer dollars accountable for antisemitic discrimination and harassment.' Article content 'Columbia's reforms are a roadmap for elite universities that wish to regain the confidence of the American public by renewing their commitment to truth-seeking, merit, and civil debate,' McMahon said in a statement. Article content As part of the agreement, Columbia agreed to a series of changes previously announced in March, including reviewing its Middle East curriculum to make sure it was 'comprehensive and balanced' and appointing new faculty to its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. It also promised to end programs 'that promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotes, diversity targets or similar efforts.' Article content The university will also have to issue a report to a monitor assuring that its programs 'do not promote unlawful DEI goals.' Article content In a post Wednesday night on his Truth Social platform, President Donald Trump said Columbia had 'committed to ending their ridiculous DEI policies, admitting students based ONLY on MERIT, and protecting the Civil Liberties of their students on campus.' Article content He also warned, without being specific, 'Numerous other Higher Education Institutions that have hurt so many, and been so unfair and unjust, and have wrongly spent federal money, much of it from our government, are upcoming.' Article content The pact comes after months of uncertainty and fraught negotiations at the more than 270-year-old university. It was among the first targets of Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests and on colleges that he asserts have allowed Jewish students be threatened and harassed. Article content Columbia's own antisemitism task force found last summer that Jewish students had faced verbal abuse, ostracism and classroom humiliation during the spring 2024 demonstrations. Article content Article content Other Jewish students took part in the protests, however, and protest leaders maintain they aren't targeting Jews but rather criticizing the Israeli government and its war in Gaza. Article content Columbia's leadership — a revolving door of three interim presidents in the last year — has declared that the campus climate needs to change. Article content Also in the settlement is an agreement to ask prospective international students 'questions designed to elicit their reasons for wishing to study in the United States,' and establishes processes to make sure all students are committed to 'civil discourse.' Article content In a move that would potentially make it easier for the Trump administration to deport students who participate in protests, Columbia promised to provide the government with information, upon request, of disciplinary actions involving student-visa holders resulting in expulsions or suspensions. Article content Columbia on Tuesday announced it would suspend, expel or revoke degrees from more than 70 students who participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration inside the main library in May and an encampment during alumni weekend last year. Article content The pressure on Columbia began with a series of funding cuts. Then Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student who had been a visible figure in the protests, became the first person detained in the Trump administration's push to deport pro-Palestinian activists who aren't U.S. citizens. Article content Next came searches of some university residences amid a federal Justice Department investigation into whether Columbia concealed 'illegal aliens' on campus. The interim president at the time responded that the university was committed to upholding the law. Article content Columbia was an early test case for the Trump administration as it sought closer oversight of universities that the Republican president views as bastions of liberalism. Yet it soon was overshadowed by Harvard University, which became the first higher education institution to defy Trump's demands and fight back in court. Article content The Trump administration has used federal research funding as its primary lever in its campaign to reshape higher education. More than $2 billion in total has also been frozen at Cornell, Northwestern, Brown and Princeton universities.
