In a major reprieve for former President Donald Trump, sentencing for his hush money convictions was postponed Tuesday until at least September — if ever — as the judge agreed to weigh the possible impact of a new Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

Trump had been scheduled to face sentencing July 11, just before the Republicans’ nominating convention, on his New York convictions on felony charges of falsifying business records. He denies any wrongdoing.

The postponement sets the sentencing for Sept. 18 at the earliest — if it happens at all, since Trump’s lawyers are arguing that the Supreme Court ruling merits not only delaying the sentencing but tossing out his conviction.

“The impact of the Immunity Ruling is a loud and clear signal for Justice in the United States,” Trump crowed on his Truth Social media site after the sentencing was delayed.

Using all capital letters, he claimed the Supreme Court’s decision netted him “total exoneration” in this and other criminal cases he faces.

There was no immediate comment on the sentencing postponement from Manhattan prosecutors, who brought the hush money case.Though the Sept. 18 date is well after this month’s Republican National Convention, where Trump is set formally to accept the party’s nomination for president in this year’s race, it is far closer to Election Day, which could put the issue top-of-mind for voters just as they seriously tune into the race. Because of absentee voting timelines in certain states, some voters may already have cast ballots before anyone knows whether the former president will have to spend time in jail or on home confinement.

The delay caps a string of political and legal wins for Trump in recent days, including the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling and a debate widely seen as a disaster for Democratic President Joe Biden.

The immunity decision all but closed the door on the possibility that Trump could face trial in his 2020 election interference case in Washington before this November’s vote. The timeline in itself is a victory for the former president, who has sought to delay his four criminal cases past the balloting.

KOREAN AIR OFFERS A RANGE OF UNIQUE BENEFITS FOR EXPAT PILOTS THAT ENHANCE YOUR PROFESSIONAL LIFE WHILE ENSURING A BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE.

Tailored Commuting : Commute from home with the privilege of selecting your Home Base from Korean Air’s global network. What’s more, you can commute in Business Class, free of charge. No lines, no bid, you simply choose the days you want to be home.

Flexible Time Off :  Enjoy a generous time-off policy that includes 11 consecutive days at home, in addition to 3 travel days each month, allowing you to select the days you wish to spend at home.

Sick Leave :  Benefit from 14 days of paid sick leave per year (10 for First Officers) to ensure your well-being is a top priority.

Competitive Pay :  We offer competitive compensation, including per-diems and overtime payments, ensuring your hard work is duly rewarded.

Renewable Contract :  A renewable 5-year contract, with potential extensions to age 65, provides you with long-term stability.

Travel Benefits :  Enjoy generous travel benefits for you and your family, making exploration and adventure a part of your lifestyle.

Premium Hotels :  Seoul/Incheon serves as the operational base, providing you with top-tier accommodation at the Grand Hyatt Incheon offering access to 5-star amenities and dining options.

World-Class Airport :  Incheon International Airport (ICN) has earned its place as one of the world’s best airports, guaranteeing you a seamless and enjoyable travel experience.

https://flytas.com/benefits/

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, extending the delay in the Washington criminal case against Donald Trump on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and all but ending prospects the former president could be tried before the November election.

In a historic 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservative majority, including the three justices appointed by Trump, narrowed the case against him and returned it to the trial court to determine what is left of special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment.

Trump celebrated a “BIG WIN” on X. President Joe Biden said the justices set “a dangerous precedent (that) undermines the rule of this nation.” The ruling reflected a muscular view of presidential power, and left dissenting judges to criticize it as undermining a core democratic principle that no person is above the law.

The court’s decision highlighted how the justices have been thrust into an impactful role in the November presidential election. Earlier, they had rejected efforts to bar him from the ballot because of his actions following the 2020 election. The court last week also limited an obstruction charge faced by Trump and used against hundreds of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The split among the justices also in many ways mirrored the political divide in the country.

“Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

The chief justice insisted that the president “is not above the law.” But in a fiery dissent for the court’s three liberals, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

Reading from her opinion in the courtroom, Sotomayor said, “Because our Constitution does not shield a former president from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.” Sotomayor said the decision “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.”

The protection afforded presidents by the court, she said, “is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless.” Trump posted in all capital letters on his social media network shortly after the decision was released: “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!”

Biden, in evening remarks from the White House, cited accepted restraints on presidential power all the way back to George Washington and bemoaned that “for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.”

Smith’s office declined to comment on the ruling. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced the ruling as “a disgraceful decision,” made with the help of the three justices that Trump appointed.

“It undermines SCOTUS’s credibility and suggests political influence trumps all in our courts today,” the New York Democrat said on X.

The justices knocked out one aspect of the indictment. The opinion found Trump is “absolutely immune” from prosecution for alleged conduct involving discussions with the Justice Department.

Sun Tracking and Racking Systems

Our company has supplied 1GW of proven solar tracking and racking systems worldwide combined with our world-class dual axis tracking deployment of 400 MW in the state of Texas.  We offer bankable solutions to residential, commercial and utility scaled projects in the U.S., and worldwide. Our world-class products include Dual Axis Solar Trackers and, Solar Carport Systems, and Fixed Tilt mounting systems to fit your solar energy needs.

Our tracking systems are engineered to provide better performance and value. That is why we’ve integrated them with our patented Real-Time Sensing (RTS) Technology which offers complete tracking. RTS works in real-time, it positions our trackers to the highest point of irradiation helping them absorb the maximum sunlight.

We centralize on making clean renewable energy accessible to everyone, and are committed in delivering high quality products on time, within budget, and to our customer’s expectations. Through concerted dedication to our principles of Quality, Production and Safety. We envision continued growth within the renewables industry and to be a world-class total solutions manufacturer.

Please contact us for a free quotation and tell us more about your project.

The Supreme Court on Thursday stripped the Securities and Exchange Commission of a major tool in fighting securities fraud in a decision that also could have far-reaching effects on other regulatory agencies.

The justices ruled in a 6-3 vote that people accused of fraud by the SEC, which regulates securities markets, have the right to a jury trial in federal court. The in-house proceedings the SEC has used in some civil fraud complaints, including against Houston hedge fund manager George Jarkesy, violate the Constitution, the court said.

“A defendant facing a fraud suit has the right to be tried by a jury of his peers before a neutral adjudicator,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court’s conservative majority.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who read from her dissent in the courtroom, said that “litigants who seek to dismantle the administrative state” would rejoice in the decision.

Federal agencies that oversee safety in mines and other workplaces are among many that can only impose civil penalties in in-house, administrative proceedings, Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan.

“For those and countless other agencies, all the majority can say is tough luck; get a new statute from Congress,” she wrote.

The case is among several this term in which conservative and business interests are urging the nine-member court to constrict federal regulators. The court’s six conservatives already have done so, including in a decision last year that sharply limited environmental regulators’ ability to police water pollution in wetlands.

Still awaiting decision are cases calling on the court to overturn the 40-year-old ruling colloquially known as Chevron, which has made it easier to sustain regulation of the environment, public, health, worker safety and consumer protection. Some of the same parties that supported Jarkesy at the Supreme Court are calling for Chevron to be overturned.

The SEC was awarded more than $5 billion in civil penalties in the 2023 government spending year that ended Sept. 30, the agency said in a news release. It was unclear how much of that money came through in-house proceedings or lawsuits in federal court.

The agency had already reduced the number of cases it brings in administrative proceedings pending the Supreme Court’s resolution of the case.

The high court rejected arguments advanced by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration that relied on a 50-year-old decision in which the court ruled that in-house proceedings did not violate the Constitution’s right to a jury trial in civil lawsuits.

The justices ruled in favor of Jarkesy after the SEC appealed a decision in which the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out stiff financial penalties against Jarkesy and his Patriot28 investment adviser.

The appeals court found that the SEC’s case against Jarkesy, resulting in a $300,000 civil fine and the repayment of $680,000 in allegedly ill-gotten gains, should have been heard in a federal court instead of before one of the SEC’s administrative law judges.

The last of three masked men pleaded guilty to a failed attempt to extort $8.5 million from a wealthy Connecticut arts patron and her companion by threatening them with a deadly virus in a 2007 home invasion.

The 38-year-old Romanian citizen, Stefan Alexandru Barabas, had been on the run for about 15 years before finally being arrested as a fugitive in Hungary in 2022. He pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by extortion, federal prosecutors announced.

Barabas is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 11 and could receive six to seven years in prison, if a plea agreement is accepted by the court, prosecutors said.

Three additional men in the case have already been convicted, including the two other masked intruders who prosecutors said entered the home in South Kent with Barabas brandishing fake guns. The men then bound and blindfolded millionaire philanthropist Anne Hendricks Bass and abstract artist Julian Lethbridge, injected them with a substance they claimed was a deadly virus and demanded the couple pay the $8.5 million or else be left to die.

After it became clear Bass and Lethbridge weren’t able to meet their demands, the men drugged the couple with a sleeping aid and fled in Bass’ Jeep Cherokee, prosecutors said.

The SUV was found abandoned at a Home Depot in New Rochelle, New York the next morning. Days later, an accordion case with a stun gun, 12-inch knife, a black plastic replica gun, a crowbar, syringes, sleeping pills, latex gloves and a laminated telephone card with the South Kent address was found washed ashore in Jamaica Bay, New York.

The accordion case and knife were eventually connected to the men, as well as a partial Pennsylvania license plate seen by a witness near Bass’ estate on the night of the home invasion, among other evidence.

Bass, credited with helping to raise the profile of ballet in the U.S., died in 2020. She was 78. In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Lethbridge said: “This has been an extremely long and arduous process. I am grateful for the professionalism and dogged work of various law enforcement authorities to bring these individuals to justice.”

“That said, I remain convinced based on the sophistication of the crime, as well as other facts, that there are others who participated in the planning and financing of this crime who have yet to be brought to book,” he said. “It is my continued hope that one day all who were involved will be known and that they too will be held to account.”

In 2012, during the trial of Emanuel Nicolescu, one of the intruders and Bass’ former house manager that she had fired, Bass tearfully described thinking she was going to die the night the three men burst into the home she shared with Lethbridge.

In the last 10 days of June, on a frenetic pace of its own making, the Supreme Court touched a wide swath of American society in a torrent of decisions on abortion, guns, the environment, health, the opioid crisis, securities fraud and homelessness.

And, with the court meeting for the final time this term on Monday, an unusual push into July, the most anticipated decision of the term awaits: whether former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The court also will decide whether state laws limiting how social media platforms regulate content posted by their users violate the Constitution.

The immunity case was the last case argued, on April 25. So in one sense, it’s not unusual that it would be among the last decided. But the timing of the court’s resolution of Trump’s immunity may be as important as the eventual ruling.

By holding on to the case until early July, the justices have reduced, if not eliminated, the chance that Trump will have to stand trial before the November election, no matter what the court decides.

In other epic court cases involving the presidency, including the Watergate tapes case, the justices moved much faster. Fifty years ago, the court handed down its decision forcing President Richard Nixon to turn over recordings of Oval Office conversations just 16 days after hearing arguments.

Even this term, the court reached a decision in less than a month to rule unanimously for Trump that states cannot invoke the post-Civil War insurrection clause to kick him off the ballot over his refusal to accept Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory four years ago.

Delaying the start of trials has been a primary goal of Trump’s lawyers in all four criminal cases against him. Only one trial has been held and it resulted in his conviction for falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment made during the 2016 presidential election to a porn actor who says she had sex with him, which he denies. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a felony.