The Full Belmonte, 4/2/2023
Tornado outbreak: At least 21 dead; power outages spike to 1 million
The storms left a path of destruction across states including Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Iowa. Latest updates.
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Trump indictment came after DA reviewed hush money payment to Playboy model Karen McDougal
“Manhattan prosecutors had been reviewing a hush money payment to a second woman who claimed to have an affair with Donald Trump as part of the grand jury investigation that yielded the indictment against the former president, a person familiar with the inquiry said.
It is not immediately clear whether the $150,000 payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal was part of the criminal case, which remains under seal.
Publicly, at least, the Manhattan investigation had focused largely on a separate $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign to silence her about an alleged affair with Trump years before.
McDougal's payment in August 2016 was arranged through the publisher of the National Enquirer as part of tabloid practice known as ‘catch and kill,’ in order to prevent it from ever becoming public
Federal prosecutors in New York, who investigated the hush money arrangements as part of a prior investigation into former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, said those payments violated federal campaign finance laws. And Cohen himself has claimed repeatedly that Trump directed him and then-Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg to arrange the payments.
The federal investigation ended without charges being brought against Trump, but Cohen ended up pleading guilty to two campaign finance violations for the payments, as well as a set of other felonies and served most of a three-year prison sentence.
At the time, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow said the former president and his legal team were ‘pleased that the investigations surrounding these ridiculous campaign finance allegations is now closed. We have maintained from the outset that the president never engaged in any campaign finance violation.’….” Read more at USA Today
Lamont Butler Hits Buzzer-Beater to Send San Diego State to N.C.A.A. Title Game
“You cant even dream about what just happened,” his father, Lamont Butler Sr., said moments after the shot went in.
By Andrew Keh
“Lamont Butler practiced moments like these when he was a young child, shooting on the hoop at his house, counting down to the buzzer of the imaginary shot clock in his mind.
Fast-forward to last summer, when Butler, a junior guard for San Diego State, made one-dribble, pull-up jumpers one of his primary areas of focus in his game, trying to make 10 in a row, 15 in a row, until the move and shot were committed to muscle memory.
That is the way these big moments go: years of dreaming, hours and hours of practice, thousands of shots, boiling down to a couple of tense seconds.
It all came together in a flash for Butler on Saturday night in Houston, when he coolly drained a jumper — that very same jumper — from the right side of the floor with the game clock expiring to give the Aztecs a 72-71 win over Florida Atlantic and a place in the men’s college basketball national championship game on Monday night….” Read more at New York Times
UConn puts Final Four beatdown on Miami 72-59
By EDDIE PELLS
Connecticut guard Andre Jackson Jr. dunks the ball over Miami forward Norchad Omier, right, during the second half of a Final Four college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday, April 1, 2023, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
“HOUSTON (AP) — Nobody was guarding UConn’s best player. So Adama Sanogo spun the ball to get his fingers just right, set his feet behind the 3-point line and splashed in the shot. Then, less than a minute later, he did it again.
It was as much basketball clinic as highlight video — and all of it perfectly fitting for the Huskies, who are methodically steamrolling through a March Madness bracket that has been a free-for-all everywhere else.
UConn doled out another drama-free beatdown Saturday, getting 21 points and 10 rebounds from Sanogo to dispatch Miami 72-59 and move one win from the school’s fifth national title.
‘There’s a lot of teams that want to play Monday,’ Sanogo said. ‘It means a lot to us.’
Jordan Hawkins overcame his stomach bug and scored 13 for the Huskies, who came into this most unexpected Final Four as the only team with any experience on college basketball’s final weekend and with the best seeding of the four teams in Houston — at No. 4.
Against fifth-seeded Miami, they were the best team on the court from beginning to end. Starting with three straight 3s — one jumper from Hawkins and two of those set shots from Sanogo — UConn took a quick 9-0 lead and never trailed….” Read more at AP News