Two suicide bombers struck a church in Pakistan on Sunday, killing nine people and wounding more than 50 others, authorities said, in the first attack on a church claimed by the country's Islamic State group affiliate.
A volunteer rescues a child while others removing a body following the suicide attack on a church in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. Two suicide bombers attacked the church when hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas when the bombers appeared in the city of Quetta and clashed with security forces. One assailant was killed at the church entrance. The other made it inside, said Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister for the southwestern Baluchistan province.
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Two suicide bombers struck a church in Pakistan on Sunday, killing nine people and wounding more than 50 others, authorities said, in the first attack on a church claimed by the country's Islamic State group affiliate.
Hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas when the bombers appeared in the city of Quetta and clashed with security forces. One assailant was killed at the church entrance. The other made it inside, said Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister for the southwestern Baluchistan province.
A man helps an injured woman and a child following an attack on a church in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. Two suicide bombers attacked the church when hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
A police officer shouts as children are rescued following a suicide attack on a church in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. Two suicide bombers attacked the church when hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Pakistani police officers take positions following a suicide attack on a church in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. Two suicide bombers attacked the church when hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
A rescue worker comforts a man mourning beside the lifeless body of a family member, killed in the suicide attack on a church, at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. Two suicide bombers attacked the church when hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Baluchistan Police Chief Moazzam Ansari praised the response of security forces guarding the church, saying the attacker who made it inside was wounded and unable to reach the main building.
"Otherwise the loss of lives could have been much higher," he told reporters.
Quetta Police Chief Abdur Razzaq Cheema said a search was underway for two suspected accomplices who escaped.
Local television showed ambulances and security patrols racing to the scene as women and children were being led out of the church's main gate.
The Islamic State group later claimed responsibility for the attack on their Aamaq news agency, saying two "plungers" from their group had stormed the church, without providing further details.
It was the first time the Islamic State group has claimed an attack on a church in Pakistan, though Muslim extremists have claimed church attacks in the past. The deadliest example was in September 2013, when twin suicide bomb blasts killed 85 people in a Peshawar church. In March 2015, two suicide bombers attacked two churches in the eastern city of Lahore, killing 15 people.
Fifty-seven people were wounded in the latest attack, including seven who were listed in critical condition, according to Wasim Baig, a spokesman for Quetta's main hospital.
A young girl in a white dress sobbed as she recounted the attack to Geo television, saying many people around her were wounded.
Aqil Anjum, who was shot in his right arm, told The Associated Press he heard a blast in the middle of the service, followed by heavy gunfire.
"It was chaos. Bullets were hitting people inside the closed hall," he said.
Dozens of Christians gathered outside a nearby hospital to protest the lack of security. Pakistan's president and other senior officials condemned the attack.
A paramilitary soldier and volunteers rescue an injured women following a suicide attack on a church in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. Two suicide bombers attacked the church when hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
A man helps an injured woman and a child following an attack on a church in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. Two suicide bombers attacked the church when hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
A police officer shouts as children are rescued following a suicide attack on a church in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. Two suicide bombers attacked the church when hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Pakistani police officers take positions following a suicide attack on a church in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. Two suicide bombers attacked the church when hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
A rescue worker comforts a man mourning beside the lifeless body of a family member, killed in the suicide attack on a church, at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. Two suicide bombers attacked the church when hundreds of worshippers were attending services ahead of Christmas. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.
Jurors heard a potentially pivotal piece of evidence — a 2016 recording of Trump discussing a plan to buy a Playboy model's silence — as well as testimony about the wrestler Hulk Hogan and hurricanes, literal and figurative.
Outside the jury's presence, Trump was fined for running afoul of a judge's gag order. Additional sanctions could await the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
A look at some of the highlights from the past week:
Hope Hicks, a onetime Trump confidant who for years was central in his orbit, described in detail a seminal moment of the 2016 campaign: The Washington Post's disclosure of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump boasted about grabbing women's genitals without their permission.
Hicks acknowledged being “concerned, very concerned” when a reporter reached out to her for comment before breaking the story.
"I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development.”
The recording, made public just days before a debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, is relevant to the case because prosecutors believe it helps explain the frenetic efforts by Trump and allies in the campaign's remaining weeks to try to suppress any additional harmful stories that might arise.
In fact, in the aftermath of the tape’s release, Hicks said she asked Michael Cohen, Trump's then-lawyer and personal fixer, to hunt down a rumor of another potentially damaging recording. “There was no such tape regardless," Hicks said, “but he sort of chased that down for me.”
Regardless, the immediate impact of the “Access Hollywood” story was so intense, Hicks recalled, that it took attention away from an actual storm. Hurricane Matthew was dominating the news cycle when Hicks was contacted about the forthcoming story. That didn't last long.
“The ‘Access Hollywood’ tape pushed the hurricane off the news?” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo asked.
“Yes,” Hicks replied.
Trump may be a criminal defendant, but an element of his defense came into view this past week when one of his lawyers suggested Trump might actually have been a victim.
Attorney Emil Bove implied during a notably tense cross-examination that his client had been effectively targeted for extortion by Keith Davidson, a crucial witness and the lawyer who negotiated hush money deals for two women, porn actor Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, claiming to have had sexual encounters with Trump. Trump denies it.
Bove name-dropped a gaggle of celebrities he suggested had been coerced over the years into paying Davidson's clients eye-popping sums to suppress harmful videos or stories. Among them was actor Charlie Sheen, whom Bove said Davidson had “extracted sums of money from;” Davidson took issue with the word “extract” but said he had been involved in “valid settlements” with Sheen.
Davidson also acknowledge that he had faced an FBI investigation, but was never charged, for allegedly attempting to extort Hogan to head off the release of the professional wrestling star’s sex tape.
By 2016, Bove suggested, Davidson was well-versed in the concept of squeezing celebrities such as Trump.
“And you did everything that you could to get as close to that line as possible in these negotiations without crossing it, right?” Bove asked.
“I did everything I could to make sure my activities were lawful,” Davidson replied.
The prosecution's key witness, Cohen, has yet to testify — and Trump might never at all — but their voices were played in the courtroom in perhaps the most vivid piece of evidence so far.
Prosecutors played aloud a September 2016 recording that Cohen made of himself briefing the then-presidential candidate on a plan to buy McDougal's silence with a $150,000 payment. McDougal was prepared to come forward with her account of an extramarital affair with Trump, a disclosure Trump and his allies were determined to prevent in the final days of the election.
“What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump can be heard saying at one point.
They discuss whether the payment should be done with cash or check. Then the recording cuts out.
Though the existence of the recording surfaced in the summer of 2018 and has long been known to the public, its disclosure to the jury was a dramatic moment meant to establish that the hush money payment was done with Trump's knowledge.
He appeared visibly irritated as the recording was played. Jurors seemed riveted.
The recording was hardly the only time Cohen surfaced in court over the past week. When he did, it was generally in a negative light.
Davidson said his introduction to Cohen came in 2011 when Davidson was told that he needed to return an angry call from Cohen over a blog post related to Daniels and Trump. Davidson said Cohen was described to him by Daniels' talent manager as “some jerk” who have been “very, very aggressive and threatened to sue me.”
When Davidson called Cohen and introduced himself, “I was just met with, like, a hustle barrage of insults and insinuations and allegations. That went on for quite a while.”
Davidson also recounted a memorable phone conversation with Cohen one month after the 2016 election in which the Trump attorney sounded “depressed and despondent" and complained about being passed over for a role in the new Trump administration.
“He said something to the effect of: ‘Jesus Christ. Can you (expletive) believe I’m not going to Washington,’” Davidson described Cohen as saying. “'After everything I’ve done for that (expletive) guy. I can’t believe I’m not going to Washington. I’ve saved that guy’s (expletive) so many times, you don’t even know.'”
The uncharitable characterizations may help Trump's team in its efforts to undermine Cohen's credibility. But they could also help prosecutors distance themselves from Cohen, subtly indicating to jurors that he is not a teammate but rather someone who simply has information.
A side issue throughout the trial is what to do about Trump's outside-of-court comments. He repeatedly has maligned witnesses and suggested bias on the jury — all despite a judge's gag order meant to bar him from verbal tirades against key players in the case.
Trump was assessed a $9,000 fine — $1,000 for each of nine separate gag order violations that the judge identified. Prosecutors later requested an additional $4,000 penalty for what they said were additional breaches of the order.
Yet it remains unclear what, if anything, Judge Juan M. Merchan can do in the event of continued violations. Merchan floated the possibility of jail, an unprecedented outcome for a former American president. That also would risk inflaming Trump's base as he pursues the presidency and would further upend the 2024 White House race.
Trump's attorneys insist he needs some leeway to be able to respond to relentless criticism, including from witnesses, and that his candidacy means he's the subject of nonstop news media coverage.
Merchan seemed unpersuaded, but jail, for now at least, seems to be no one's desired outcome.
“Because each of these statements was made before the Court held the Defendant in contempt for violating this order nine previous times, and because we prefer to minimize disruptions to this proceeding, we are not yet seeking jail,” prosecutor Chris Conroy said.
“But,” he added, “the Court’s decision this past Tuesday will inform the approach we take to any future violations.”
Former President Donald Trump, center, talks with defense attorney Emil Bove, left, before the start of trial at Manhattan criminal court, Friday, May 3, 2024 in New York. (Mark Peterson/Pool Photo via AP)
Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal court before his trial in New York, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP)
Former President Donald Trump Former President Donald Trump speaks to media as he returns to his trial at the Manhattan Criminal Court, Friday, May 3, 2024, in New York. (Charly Triballeau/Pool Photo via AP)
Emil Bove, attorney for former President Donald Trump, sits in the courtroom at Manhattan criminal court in New York, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Jeenah Moon/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Stormy Daniels arrives at an event in Berlin, on Oct. 11, 2018. The porn actor received a $130,000 payment from Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen as part of his hush-money efforts. Cohen paid Daniels to keep quiet about what she says was a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. Trump denies having sex with Daniels. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
FILE - Michael Cohen arrives at New York Supreme Court Oct. 25, 2023, in New York. Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer, Cohen was once a fierce Trump ally, but now he's a key prosecution witness against his former boss in the Trump hush money trial. Cohen worked for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2017. He later went to federal prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations relating to the hush-money arrangements and other, unrelated crimes. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
FILE - Hope Hicks, former White House Communications Director, arrives to meet with the House Intelligence Committee, at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 27, 2018. Prosecutors say Hicks spoke with former President Donald Trump by phone during a frenzied effort to keep allegations of his marital infidelity out of the press after the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape leaked weeks before the 2016 election. In the tape, from 2005, Trump boasted about grabbing women without permission. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media at Manhattan criminal court, Friday, May 3, 2024, in New York. (Jeenah Moon/Pool Photo via AP)
Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal court before his trial in New York, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Charly Triballeau/Pool Photo via AP)
