- Pyongyang to 'permanently' shut border with South Korea
- Trumpet star Marsalis says jazz creates 'balance' in divided world
- No children left on Greece's famed but emptying island
- Nepali becomes youngest to climb world's 8,000m peaks
- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
Michael Cohen, the 'fixer' who turned on Trump
Michael Cohen worked for years as Donald Trump's fixer, a problem solver who was involved in every aspect of the real estate tycoon's business, even saying he would "take a bullet" for the billionaire.
But the once-loyal lieutenant has become Trump's biggest headache, appearing as the key witness for the prosecution in the ex-president's historic criminal trial.
Cohen turned on Trump in 2019, giving blistering testimony to Congress that the then-president was a "conman" who ordered him to pay a porn star hush money during a presidential campaign.
That transaction is at the heart of the New York trial, in which Trump's defense is seeking to discredit Cohen -- who has since had his law license revoked and spent time in prison -- as a witness lacking credibility.
Asked Monday by a prosecutor whether he had lied and bullied people on behalf of Trump, the 57-year-old told the Manhattan court: "Yes... It was what was needed in order to accomplish the task."
Cohen appears to be on a personal quest to see Trump punished, and has been skewering the former president on social media, prompting Judge Juan Merchan to ask him to stop publicly attacking the defendant.
Cohen recently posted on TikTok an image of himself wearing a t-shirt that appeared to show Trump behind bars in an orange prison suit.
"Trump 2024? More like Trump 20 to 24 years," Cohen, who himself spent over a year in prison, said in another clip.
- 'Intoxication of Trump' -
Six years ago in federal court Cohen said he paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels -- who claims to have had a sexual tryst with Trump -- $130,000 "at the direction" of Trump in order to keep her story under wraps, and that Trump later reimbursed him.
Then in nationally televised testimony before a US House committee in 2019, he described how he made threats to journalists who asked too many questions about the shady dealings of a man whose empire was built on loud, cocky and grandiose self-promotion.
Working for a decade at Trump's side, Cohen was eventually named vice president of The Trump Organization, the fixer assigned the most delicate tasks his boss needed done.
This devotion would earn Cohen -- the son of a nurse and a Polish-born doctor who survived the Holocaust -- the nickname of Trump's pitbull.
Before Congress, he expressed regret for his years of devoted service to the real estate tycoon, for doing "bad things," and for succumbing to "the intoxication of Trump power," as he described it.
"I am ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty -- of the things I did for Mr. Trump in an effort to protect and promote him," Cohen told lawmakers.
Behind closed doors Cohen was a key witness in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election and whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to sway the presidential vote in his favor.
From May 2019, Cohen spent 13 months behind bars and a year and a half under house arrest, after he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for lying to Congress and for financial crimes.
- TikTok and podcast-
After graduating from law school at Western Michigan University, Cohen specialized in representing people hurt in accidents -- an ambulance chaser in slang.
Along with his Ukrainian-born wife, Cohen later made a great deal of money investing in New York taxi licenses, in a pre-Uber era when their value was high and always climbing.
As Trump's personal attorney, Cohen admitted, he arranged for hush money payments before the 2016 election to Stormy Daniels and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, both of whom claimed to have had sex with Trump.
Trump's team is seeking to discredit Cohen as a serial liar who aimed to monetize his campaign against his former boss with books and a podcast.
On his podcast, "Mea Culpa," Cohen spoke with Stormy Daniels, apologizing for the "needless pain" he caused her when coordinating the hush money payment.
Daniels in her conversation with Cohen offered graphic descriptions of her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, calling it the "worst 90 seconds of my life."
D.Cunningha--AMWN