The defense for Sean “Diddy” Combs on Friday used upbeat social media posts to attack the credibility of one of the women accusing the music mogul of sexual assault during his federal trial in New York.”Isn’t it true that Mr Combs never had unwanted nonconsensual forcible contact with you?” lawyer Brian Steel said to a former Bad Boys Records assistant testifying under the pseudonym Mia, during questioning that included displays of her personal social media posts.The testimony came as US President Donald Trump pondered aloud if he would offer 55-year-old Combs a pardon during a press conference at the White House Friday, saying “I don’t know, I would certainly look at the facts.”The facts are still unfolding in a trial that is expected to last into summer, in a case that revolves around Combs’s relationship with his former girlfriend, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. Earlier in the trial Ventura detailed years of alleged abuse and coercive, drug-fueled sex marathons with male prostitutes known as “freak-offs.”This week, Mia described how her job between 2009 and 2017 became a nightmare as she worked to protect Ventura from Combs’s fits of rage, or care for her after the attacks, tending to “busted lips,” “bruises” and “a black eye.”Combs would tell Mia to “go take care of her,” adding that “we were not allowed” to go out until her injuries healed enough to conceal, Mia testified Thursday.She also testified that she personally endured abuses, including rapes, while working for Combs, recounting the painful and traumatic episodes with her head bowed.- Instagram vs reality -During cross examination on Friday, Steel confronted Mia with her social media posts, where she presented a much more positive image of her relationship with her boss.On a courtroom screen displaying Mia’s Instagram posts, she called Combs “an extraordinary cultural phenomenon” and shared affectionate messages on his birthdays.Steel asked how she could publish such posts about a man she now accuses of sexual assault.”Of course you post the great times,” Mia said. “Instagram is a place to show how great your life was even if it’s not true.”After Mia read her posts aloud, Steel questioned Mia’s allegations, to which she replied twice “everything I said in this courtroom is true.””Ask any abuse victim’s advocate and they could explain it to you much better than I could.”On Thursday, Mia testified that Combs subjected her to “sporadic” instances of sexual violence, including at the artist’s 40th birthday party at the Plaza Hotel in New York and his private residence in Los Angeles.”I just froze, I didn’t react, terrified and confused,” Mia said about one of the assaults.”He was the boss or the king, very powerful person,” she said.”This is years and years before social media, Me Too, or any sort of example where someone had stood up successfully to someone in power such as him,” she added.At the conclusion of the court’s proceedings, jurors will have to determine whether that Grammy-winning artist and producer has used his fame, wealth and influence in hip-hop to support a criminal enterprise and sexual trafficking.

Donald Trump fired the director of the National Portrait Gallery on Friday, claiming she was “highly partisan,” as the US president pushes his plan to remake the country’s cultural institutions.The sacking of Kim Sajet, whose publicly funded museum in Washington is home to paintings of key figures in American history, is the latest broadside against an arts world the Republican views as hostile and in thrall to his Democratic Party opponents.”Upon the request and recommendation of many people, I am herby (sic) terminating the employment of Kim Sajet as Director of the National Portrait Gallery,” Trump wrote Truth Social.”She is a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position,” he added, referring to “diversity, equity and inclusion.”The firing is the first concrete action Trump has taken against the Smithsonian Insitution — a grouping of museums in the US capital — since he issued an executive order promising to rid cultural bodies of “divisive narratives” and “anti-American ideology.” Sajet, who was born in Nigeria and raised in Australia, is a Dutch national, as well as a seasoned specialist in portraiture, who has led the National Portrait Gallery since 2013.The Smithsonian Institution, founded nearly two centuries ago, is a Washington mainstay whose 21 museums are largely dedicated to US history and culture.With free entry, they are a tourist favorite, sitting on the edges of the National Mall, a green esplanade that links the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, close to the White House.Friday’s firing, which comes as the Trump administration is engaged in a battle with elite universities like Harvard, follows the president seeking to remake the Kennedy Center, a performing arts venue, by reorganizing its board of directors.

US President Donald Trump said Friday that he would double steel import tariffs to 50 percent, speaking in Pennsylvania at a US Steel plant where he also touted a partnership between the American steelmaker and Japan’s Nippon Steel.”We’re going to bring it from 25 percent to 50 percent, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry,” he said.”Nobody’s going to get around that,” he added in the speech before blue-collar workers in the battleground state that helped deliver his election victory last year.The doubling of levies will take place next week, said the White House in a social media post.Since returning to the presidency in January, Trump has imposed sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike in moves that have rocked the world trade order and roiled financial markets.He has also targeted sector-specific goods including steel, aluminum and automobiles with 25 percent tariffs.On Friday, Trump mounted a defense of his trade policy, arguing that tariffs helped protect the US company. He added that the plant would not exist if he did not also impose duties on metals imports during his first administration.In his speech, Trump stressed as well that despite a recently announced partnership between US Steel and Nippon Steel, “US Steel will continue to be controlled by the USA.”He added that there would be no layoffs or outsourcing of jobs due to the deal.A proposed $14.9 billion sale of US Steel to Nippon Steel had previously drawn bipartisan opposition, and former president Joe Biden blocked the deal on national security grounds shortly before leaving office.The terms of the new partnership remain murky, however.The United Steelworkers union (USW) which represents thousands of hourly workers at US Steel facilities, said in a statement Wednesday that the “partnership” announcement “continues to raise more questions than answers.””Nippon still maintains it would only invest in USS facilities if it owned the company outright. We’ve seen nothing in the reporting to indicate that position has changed,” the USW statement added.Trump said previously that US Steel would remain in America with its headquarters to stay in Pittsburgh, adding that the arrangement with Nippon would create at least 70,000 jobs and add $14 billion to the US economy.But union leaders said they had no confirmation of how much of the $14 billion would go towards union-represented sites, if any.Trump had opposed Nippon Steel’s takeover plan while on the election campaign trail, but since returning to the presidency, he signaled that he would be open to some form of investment after all.

The US Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a major victory Friday in his immigration crackdown, giving his administration the green light to revoke the legal status of half a million migrants from four Caribbean and Latin American countries.The decision puts 532,000 people who came from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the United States under a two-year humanitarian “parole” program launched by former president Joe Biden at risk of deportation. And it marked the second time the highest US court has sided with Trump in his aggressive push to deliver on his election pledge to deport millions of non-citizens, through a series of policy moves that have prompted a flurry of lawsuits.On Calle Ocho, a historic street in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, Johnny Cardona, 63, was saddened by the Supreme Court’s decision.”Since I’m American, it’s not going to affect me, but I know it’s going to affect many friendships, many families, many people I know,” Cardona told AFP.The ruling sparked a scathing dissent from two justices in the liberal minority who said the six conservatives on the bench had “plainly botched” the decision and undervalued the “devastating consequences” to those potentially affected.The revoked program had allowed entry into the United States for two years for up to 30,000 migrants a month from the four countries, all of which have dismal human rights records.But as Trump takes a hard line on immigration, his administration moved to overturn those protections, winning a ruling from the Supreme Court earlier this month that allowed officials to begin deporting around 350,000 Venezuelans.The latest case resulted from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem canceling an 18-month extension of the temporary protected status of the migrants, citing in particular the “authoritarian” nature of Nicolas Maduro’s government in Venezuela.The department gave them 30 days to leave the country unless they had legal protection under another program.- ‘Needless human suffering’ -“The court has plainly botched this assessment today,” Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor wrote in their dissent.The justices said the migrants face being wrenched from family and returning to potential danger in their native countries — or opting to stay and risking imminent removal.”At a minimum, granting the stay would facilitate needless human suffering before the courts have reached a final judgment regarding the legal arguments at issue, while denying the government’s application would not have anything close to that kind of practical impact,” Jackson said.None of the other justices gave reasons for their decision, and the court was not required to make the vote public.”The ultimate goal of this policy is to leave these people without legal status, to make them subjects of deportation,” said Adelys Ferro, co-founder and executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, an advocacy group.The district court that barred the administration from revoking the migrants’ status had argued that it was unlawfully applying a fast-track deportation procedure aimed at illegal immigrants to non-citizens protected by government programs. At the Supreme Court, Justice Department lawyers said the “district court has nullified one of the administration’s most consequential immigration policy decisions” by issuing the stay.The high court’s decision means the Trump administration can go ahead with its policy change, even as the litigation on the merits plays out in lower courts.Trump campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants, claiming there was an ongoing “invasion” of the United States by hordes of foreign criminals. But his program of mass deportations has been thwarted or restricted by numerous court rulings, including from the Supreme Court and notably on the grounds that those targeted should be able to assert their due process rights. The Trump administration systematically accuses judges who oppose his immigration decisions of plundering his presidential national security powers.