International

Trump prioritized silence of Stormy Daniels “for the campaign, not for Melania,” according to his former lawyer

Donald Trump’s former lawyer and former right-hander, Michael Cohen, assured on Monday that the former American president, accused of falsifying accounting documents to buy the silence of the porn actress Stormy Daniels, acted in this way to protect his 2016 electoral campaign, and not so much his marriage to Melania.

“I want it to be hidden until the elections are passed (2016). If I win, it will not be relevant because I will already be president; if I lose, I won’t even care,” Cohen paraphrased Trump, adding that “it was for the campaign, not for Melania” Trump.

Some statements that provoked the first ostensible gestures of denial with the head by the former president during this Monday’s session in the New York court, where he has even remained prolonged moments with his eyes closed.

“I didn’t even think about Melania. It was all for the campaign,” Cohen repeated.

Melania and Donald Trump met in 1998, when he was 52 years old and she was 28, and the couple arrived at the altar in 2005, just a year before the alleged slip with Daniels; an ‘affair’ that, if proven, took place when she was pregnant.

20260224_estafa_mh_728x90

In addition, Barron, the only son resulting from the marriage between Trump and Melania, was born on March 20, 2006 and grew up in the attic of the Trump Tower, where, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, the agreements of the former head of the American Executive were forged to hide this mess of skirts and another with Karen McDougal, a Playboy model.

Cohen, in the same way, revealed on Monday in the criminal trial that the former president faces in New York how he insisted that “not come to light” alleged extramarital relationships that could have affected his 2016 campaign.

“The purpose was to prevent the story from being sold or marketed to an external source,” Cohen explained after explaining how his role in intermediation with the American tabloid The National Enquirer was.

According to his account, Cohen was in charge of executing Trump’s requests for the aforementioned media, led by media tycoon David Pecker, to exercise the tactic known in English as ‘catch and kill to acquire the publishing rights of these alleged ‘affaires’, but finally leave them stored in a drawer and never see the light.

Trump is accused of forging accounting documents to buy the silence of the porn actress Stormy Daniels and thus safeguard her reputation in the face of the 2016 elections, in which she would eventually end up imposing.

20260224_estafa_mh_728x90

The scheme, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, consisted of Cohen advancing the payment of $130,000 to Daniels so that his alleged relationship was not revealed, which then had to be reimbursed to the former lawyer, as part of a plot that served to “corrupt” the aforementioned elections.

Another of the women’s names highlighted in the case is that of Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who also tried to filter an affair with Trump and for whose silence Cohen contacted Pecker.

First, I “asked” Trump “if he knew who he was,” Cohen recalled to questions from the Prosecutor’s Office, to which the former president allegedly replied: “She is very beautiful.”

“I told him ‘okay’, but right now he’s trying to sell a (love) story,” Cohen recalled.

“Make sure it doesn’t come to light,” Trump would answer, according to Cohen assuming that “history had to be acquired” by applying the ‘catch and kill’ technique.

20260224_estafa_mh_728x90

“What he told us (Pecker) was that he could be attentive to anything negative about Mr. Trump and that he could help us know in advance what was going to come out and try to prevent it from coming out,” Cohen said, who detailed that the media executive ended up being paid $150,000 to silence the story.

On the other hand, Cohen added that they were also aware of the publication of negative stories about Trump’s rivals in The National Enquirer and set the example with one about Hillary Clinton: “Hillary Clinton appeared with very thick glasses, among some accusations that she had a brain injury.”

In addition, Cohen said that Trump was “enchanted” with the role of this tabloid because his great competitive advantage was that it was present in most “cash registers of supermarkets and grocery stores,” suggesting that it reached a large part of society.

Cohen also narrated how he forged his relationship with Trump in the early 2000s to be part of his close circle by making important transactions or resorting to invoices that he considered “unfair.”

“I felt like I was at the top of the world when (Trump) said that I was fantastic or great,” Cohen said.

20260224_estafa_mh_728x90

Trump made all the requests, according to Cohen, in person because the former head of the US Executive “never” had a personal email address.

“Part” of the work that he entrusted to him was, according to his story, also to mediate and even “enable” those who signed articles with some kind of criticism of the former president.

“If there was an article that bothered him, I was also in charge of talking (with journalists),” he explained about his work, which he summed up in eminently “making happy” the presumptuous candidate of the Republican Party in the U.S. presidential elections in November.

Become one of Trump’s main enemies today, Cohen had already declared against his former chief during the civil trial for fraud that was held in New York where he blamed him for fictitiously inflating his assets to obtain better credit conditions. That process resulted in a fine of 364 million dollars that the tycoon is appealing.

20260224_estafa_mh_728x90

International

Peruvian presidential candidate Napoleón Becerra dies in campaign road accident

Presidential candidate Napoleón Becerra, representing the Partido de los Trabajadores y Emprendedores (PTE) in Peru, died in a traffic accident while traveling to a campaign event, local authorities confirmed Sunday.

Becerra, who also served as president of the centrist political party, ranked among the lowest in opinion polls in a crowded field of more than 30 candidates competing in the presidential election scheduled for April 12.

Recent surveys place Rafael López Aliaga at the top of voter preferences.

The accident occurred near the town of Ayacucho, in southern Peru, when the vehicle carrying the candidate overturned for reasons that remain under investigation.

“The candidate Becerra has died,” Balvin Huamani, mayor of the district of Pilpichaca, told RPP radio.

20260224_estafa_mh_728x90

According to Huamani, he personally transported the 61-year-old candidate to a local health center, where doctors confirmed his death.

The Jurado Nacional de Elecciones (JNE) expressed condolences over Becerra’s passing and wished a speedy recovery to the three people who were traveling with him and were injured in the crash.

International

Noboa intensifies anti-cartel crackdown as violence persists in Ecuador

A close ally of Washington, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has pursued a hardline security strategy against cocaine cartels for more than two years, yet homicide, disappearance and extortion rates remain high across the country.

Between Sunday night and the morning of March 31, Ecuador’s armed forces will launch a “very strong offensive” with “advisory support” from the United States, Interior Minister John Reimberg announced Tuesday.

The government has kept details of the operation confidential and has not confirmed whether U.S. troops will be deployed on Ecuadorian soil, as has occurred at times during Noboa’s administration.

As part of the security measures, residents in the coastal provinces of Guayas, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, and El Oro will be subject to a nightly curfew from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. local time for the next two weeks.

“We are in a war,” Reimberg said, urging citizens to remain indoors. “Do not take risks. Stay home and allow the security forces and our allies to do the work that must be done.”

20260224_estafa_mh_728x90

Although Ecuador does not produce cocaine, it has become a major departure point for drugs heading to the United States. Meanwhile, the violence associated with trafficking has increasingly affected the local population.

Bordering the world’s largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has gone from being considered a relatively peaceful country to recording one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America—52 killings per 100,000 inhabitants—according to the **Observatory of Organized Crime.

International

Peruvian presidential candidate proposes death penalty amid crime surge

Peru is facing an unprecedented surge in crime ahead of its presidential election scheduled for April 12, with violence fueled by extortion networks and a wave of contract killings linked to organized crime.

Police data show that 2,200 homicides tied to organized crime were recorded in 2025, while extortion complaints increased by 19%, underscoring the growing security crisis in the South American nation.

Amid this backdrop, presidential candidate Álvarez has proposed reinstating the death penalty if elected, arguing that extreme measures are needed to curb the violence.

To implement the proposal, Álvarez said Peru would withdraw from the American Convention on Human Rights—also known as the Pact of San José—which the country signed in 1978. The agreement prevents member states that have abolished capital punishment from reinstating it.

Currently, Peruvian law only allows the death penalty in cases of treason during wartime.

20260224_estafa_mh_728x90

“We have to leave the Pact of San José and apply the death penalty in Peru because those miserable criminals don’t deserve to live,” Álvarez told AFP during a campaign stop at a market in Callao, the port city neighboring Lima.

“An iron fist against those criminals,” he added, proposing to declare hitmen as military targets.

During the campaign event, Álvarez walked through stalls selling vegetables, groceries, and fish, greeting vendors while musicians played cumbia music nearby.

The 62-year-old candidate, who spent more than four decades working in television as a comedian, is a newcomer to politics and is running for president under the País para Todos party.

Polls place him fifth in voter preference with nearly 4% support in a fragmented race featuring 36 candidates.