Journal

Sept. 23 (UPI) — The Wall Street Journal filed a motion Monday to dismiss President Donald Trump‘s $10 billion defamation lawsuit over the newspaper’s reporting on a 50th birthday letter he claims he did not write to Jeffrey Epstein more than two decades ago.

According to the filing, The Journal argued the case should be thrown out because “the article is true.”

“Epstein’s estate produced the Birthday Book, which contains the letter bearing the bawdy drawing and Trump’s signature, exactly as The Wall Street Journal reported.”

“While this case’s threat to the First Amendment is serious, the claims asserted by President Trump are meritless and should be promptly dismissed with prejudice,” the newspaper said.

Trump has denied writing the letter, saying, “This is not me,” and “This is a fake thing.” He is asking for $10 billion on two counts of defamation, which could total more than $20 billion.

The Journal’s filing asks the court to order Trump pay the defendants’ attorneys’ fees. The newspaper argues the article is not defamatory.

“Even if it had reported that President Trump personally crafted the letter — and it does not — there is nothing defamatory about a person sending a bawdy note to a friend,” according to the motion, which detailed the note that included a drawing of a naked woman.

Trump disagreed.

“The Wall Street Journal and News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social in July. “The press has to learn to be truthful and not rely on sources that probably don’t even exist.”

The Wall Street Journal’s motion to dismiss comes days after a federal judge threw out a $15 billion lawsuit, also filed by the president, against The New York Times. The judge called Trump’s allegations “superfluous.”

Last year, Trump won a $15 million settlement from ABC News in a defamation suit against the network over false statements. Trump also won a $16 million settlement from CBS News over what he called deceptively edited comments during the presidential election.

In our fiercely tribal and divisive culture, when consensus is illusory and we can’t seem to agree on even the most fundamental facts, the notion of shared history as a societal precept has left the building. But if we are indeed living in a post-truth era, Ian McEwan is here to tell us that things will only get worse.

In his bracing new time bender of a novel, the great British novelist posits that the past is irretrievably past, particularly in matters of the human heart, and any attempt by historians or biographers to wrench it into the present is folly — or in the case of this novel’s protagonist Thomas Metcalfe, intellectual vanity.

Metcalfe is an associate humanities professor and a researcher living in England in the 22nd century (2119, to be exact) who has taken it upon himself to unlock the mystery of a poem called “A Corona for Vivien,” written in 2014 by a deceased literary eminence named Francis Blundy, a poet whose genius, we learn, once rivaled that of Seamus Heaney. The poem was composed for his wife Vivien’s birthday dinner in October 2014, an evening that has taken on mythic proportions in certain academic circles in the intervening years. It even has a name: The Second Immortal Dinner, in which Blundy for the first time read his corona, a poem composed as a sequence of sonnets, that had been lost long ago.

In Metcalfe’s hothouse literary universe, Blundy’s poem is important because it is a revenant. In the intervening years, interpretive speculation about it has run rampant. Some have called it a warning about climate change. Others say Blundy was paid a six-figure sum by an energy company to suppress the poem. Only fragments of it exist, certain fugitive lines that appear in correspondence between Vivien, Blundy and Blundy’s editor, Harold T. Kitchener. Metcalfe has taken it upon himself to find the long-lost document, allegedly written by Blundy on a vellum scroll and buried by Vivien somewhere on Blundy’s property.

Metcalfe’s task is greatly complicated by the fact that he lives in a future world where much of the planet has been either immolated or else submerged underwater by a nuclear cataclysm that McEwan calls “The Inundation.” There has also been a mass migration — “The Derangement” — in which millions, deprived of resources and land, have been driven from England into Africa. Entire cities have been lost, “the land beneath them compressed and lowered, so they did not drain, but persisted like glacial lakes.” Whatever repositories of learning that weren’t destroyed now exist on higher ground in the mountains, where the “knowledge base and collective memory were largely preserved.”

The built environment has eroded, but fortunately for Metcalfe, the digital world of the past is intact. Biographers from 2000 onward, McEwan writes, are “heirs to more than a century of what the Blundy era airily called ‘the cloud’ ever expanding like a giant summer cumulus, though, of course, it simply consisted of data-storage machines.” Here in the cloud are the many hundreds of emails and texts from Blundy, his wife and their circle, allowing Metcalfe the satisfaction of knowing he can piece together the events of the epochal dinner party down to granular details: cutlery used, foods prepared, toasts proffered.

Ian McEwan’s elegantly structured and provocative novel is a strong argument for how little raw data, or even the most sublime art, can tell us about humans and their contrary natures.

(Annalena McAfee)

What Metcalfe knows of the Blundys’ life together can be gleaned from the 12 extant volumes of Vivien’s journals. From the journals Metcalfe has surmised that Vivien, herself a brilliant literary scholar and teacher, had willfully lived out her marriage under Blundy’s shadow, the dutiful handmaiden to a literary eminence. “She enjoyed producing a well-turned meal,” Metcalfe posits. “She was once a don, a candidate for a professorship. Abandoning it was a liberation. She always felt herself to be in control. But it had surprised her how … she had emptied herself of ambition, salary, status and achievement.”

Despite the pile-up of particulars, Metcalfe knows he must find the lost poem, that it is the keystone without which the story crumbles into insignificance. If he fails in this task Metcalfe, already feeling like an “intruder on the intentions and achievements” of Blundy, loses his mojo: his mission aborted, his career stalled.

But just when it seems as if Metcalfe, after a long and arduous journey across land and water, has discovered something significant, McEwan drops the curtain on that story, and rewinds the narrative 107 years, back to Vivien Blundy and her story. At first, the basic contours conform to Metcalfe’s version of events: Vivien did forsake her academic ambitions for Blundy, who did write a poem for her that he read aloud on her birthday, and so on.

But Metcalfe, as it turns out, has the details right and the motives all wrong, never more so than when McEwan reveals the fact of a murder, conceived in such a way that no snooping academic could ever unearth it. Emails are composed yet remain unsent. Digital correspondence is deleted into the ether, sneaky evasions that are beyond the biographer’s grasp. Metcalfe’s thesis is driven by a romanticized notion of Blundy’s life, but as McEwan slowly and carefully reveals, his poem, ostensibly a “repository of dreams,” more closely resembles a passive-aggressive act. As for Vivien, the narrative she has proffered in her journals is far from the whole story. She is resentful of Blundy, thwarted in her career, simmering with resentment. Despite his scholarly assiduity, Metcalfe is moving down an errant path that will never square the facts with lived experience.

Of course, facts are important, but they don’t necessarily reveal anything; it is the biographer’s folly to ascribe deeper meaning to them, to extrapolate truth from a disparate series of events. Metcalfe’s pursuit of revelation in a single lost poem is magical thinking, a relentless grasping for a chimera. McEwan’s elegantly structured and provocative novel is a strong argument for how little raw data, or even the most sublime art, can tell us about humans and their contrary natures.

Weingarten is the author of “Thirsty: William Mulholland, California Water, and the Real Chinatown.”

Like most aspects of her life, Lilly Singh approaches the end of the weekend with a clear intention. “Sunday is a big deal to me,” she says. “Sunday is my self-love, reset day.”

The comedic actress and personality began a career in her native Toronto as an early YouTube star. She moved to Los Angeles in 2015, first landing at a spot near the La Brea Tar Pits before relocating to a house in the San Fernando Valley that she shares with her dogs, Scarbro and Soca.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

“I moved to L.A. to be warm and the Valley is very warm,” Singh says. “When people are complaining it’s too hot, I am thriving.”

She previously hosted the NBC talk show “A Little Late With Lilly Singh” and led the Disney+ sitcom “The Muppets Mayhem.” Most recently, she co-wrote, produced and starred in the film “Doin’ It,” playing an app-maker who is hired to teach a sex-ed class and decides she needs her own hands-on education in the subject. It opens in theaters Friday.

Singh was a night owl for most of her life, often staying up until the early morning hours and waking at noon. To improve her mental health, she’s adjusted her approach and now gets up during the week at 7 a.m. so she has two hours to mentally and physically prepare herself for the day.

There is a day of the week, however, where she shows herself compassion and makes an exception. “I’m probably not going to set an alarm on a Sunday,” she says.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

9 a.m.: Daily routine
Every morning, I have certain mental health routines. I always am going to have journaling on my front patio, and I’m always going to stretch and do breath work. Those are nonnegotiables.

9:30 a.m.: Market essentials
After I deal with and feed the dogs, the No. 1 stop is the Studio City Farmers Market. I will die on the hill of saying it is the best farmers market. I take one thing at the farmers market very seriously, which is the kefir yogurt. I literally have a yogurt dealer, Orlando. I have to text him on Saturday night to be like, “Hold these flavors for me.” If you go there and you don’t text them, they’re sold out. When the Alphonso mango is in season, you have to get there at 7 a.m. to get it.

I walk both ways, so I’m basically a fit legend because, come on, it’s usually really hot.

10 a.m.: Flower power
I get florals every Sunday. If I don’t get them from the farmers market, I’ll get them at Trader Joe’s. Every Sunday, I reset my house in terms of flowers. I put flowers in every corner of my house. I spend an hour just making little bouquets and putting them on my desk and in my kitchen and in my bathrooms because it’s an easy dopamine-hit hack and it makes me happy throughout the week.

11 a.m.: The best brunch date
Almost every Sunday, I take myself on a solo brunch. No one is allowed to come with me. This is me taking myself on a date.

I go to the same spot every single time: Sweet Butter Kitchen. It’s just down Ventura. I get a two-sunny-side-up egg breakfast with sourdough toast. I get my bacon. Depending on how much I’ve worked that week and how much I want to spoil myself, I will also get pancakes.

I love the ambience. I’ll take my journal or sometimes I’ll just vibe out and enjoy my own company.

Noon: Planning session
Every third Sunday, I do a monthly reflection. I track my last month against my yearly goals.

I’ll also plan my social activities for the next month. Almost every month, I host a poker night. Almost every Thursday, I do a dinner. I’ll make sure my social calendar is full for the next month because in L.A., if you don’t do that, you won’t have friends and you’ll be alone.

I’m very about my journal. It’s a hard-covered journal that is smooth to the touch, with a specific Sharpie 1.0 pen. It’s the only pen I want to use. And the journal has a pen holder, which is also crucial. And it has the string that saves your page — also crucial. And it has lines. I don’t want a journal that doesn’t have lines. It has to have a little flap in the back that will hold all my documents.

In my adult life, I’ve always been this organized. Perhaps not in university or in high school, but as I’ve become a career woman, I like to be very, very organized.

1 p.m.: Tastes from home
I’m ready to eat again because Sundays are for eating. I love Smorgasburg LA. Coming from Toronto, I’m really used to Caribbean food and Asian foods. In L.A., I feel like the best international food I have found is at Smorgasburg.

If I want to hang with the friends or if someone’s in from out of town and I want to show them a good time, we’ll go there.

3 p.m.: Sunshine state
I think sunshine time is so important and nature is so important. Throughout the week, I don’t always get to spend time outside, so I spend as much time as humanly possible outside, and that’s either lying on the grass with my dogs or it’s in my pool.

5 p.m.: On the A-List
I don’t want you to think I’m a loner, but if I’m ever doing things alone, it’s more often going to be on a Sunday. I love going to the movie theater. For me, it is AMC at Universal [CityWalk]. My greatest quality — this is not even an ad — is that I am an AMC Stubs A-List member. I take it very seriously.

I’d probably go to dinner and then a movie. So I don’t have popcorn solely for dinner, which I’ve done many times, but I try to avoid, I’m going to go to Kiwami by Katsu-Ya, which is on Ventura. It’s one of my favorite sushi spots. It feels very small and intimate. They have the best lychee martinis, and I’m a big lychee martini girly. The staff knows me because I go so often and they’re just so fast with the service.

It’s crucial for me to tell you that one of the reasons I go to the movies by myself is I am crazy about watching the previews. My friends always make me miss the previews. I love getting there early and I love being seated for the previews. I’ve gone to the theater sometimes 10 minutes before anything is even on the screen.

I like Universal because it is full of tourists. As someone who was not born and raised in L.A., I love seeing people experience L.A. When I’m walking from the parking lot to the theater, people have their Super Nintendo World stuff and they have their Universal merch. They’re so excited to be there, and it reminds me, like, oh yeah, this is a really exciting place for people.

10 p.m.: Ready for the week ahead
I’ll come home, cuddle the dogs, then I make sure I’m ready for the week. I make sure my house is in a good spot. I make sure my flowers are popping. I probably will do a hot tub or sauna moment, then do my skincare routine.

11 p.m.: One last journal entry
I don’t like to watch anything in my bedroom because sleeping is a huge thing for me. I have a little bit of insomnia, so I really try to wind down. On my night table, I have my nighttime journal and I do a little self-compassion journaling.

White House Correspondents’ Association condemns White House’s move to exclude newspaper as ‘deeply troubling’.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration has barred The Wall Street Journal from accompanying the president on an upcoming overseas trip amid a spat over the newspaper’s coverage of his links to the notorious financier Jeffrey Epstein.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that the Journal would not be among 13 media outlets travelling with Trump on a visit to Scotland this weekend due to its “fake and defamatory conduct”.

“Every news organization in the entire world wishes to cover President Trump, and the White House has taken significant steps to include as many voices as possible,” Leavitt said in a statement.

The move comes after the Journal last week reported that Trump sent Epstein, who died in jail in 2009 while facing sex trafficking charges, a “bawdy” letter in 2003 to mark the occasion of his 50th birthday.

Trump, who has vigorously denied the report, on Friday filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper and its owners seeking $20bn in damages.

In a statement, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) called the Trump administration’s move “deeply troubling”.

“Government retaliation against news outlets based on the content of their reporting should concern all who value free speech and an independent media,” WCHA president Weijia Jiang said.

“We strongly urge the White House to restore the Wall Street Journal to its previous position in the pool and aboard Air Force One for the President’s upcoming trip to Scotland. The WCHA stands ready to work with the administration to find a quick resolution.”

The Trump administration has taken similar action to limit the access of media outlets over their coverage before.

In February, the White House began excluding the Associated Press from news events over its decision to keep using the “Gulf of Mexico” in some cases, despite Trump issuing an executive order to rename the waterway the “Gulf of America”.

Trump has been under pressure to release more information about the government’s investigations into Epstein, particularly from segments of his “Make America Great Again” base, which had expected his administration to confirm their belief in a conspiracy implicating powerful elites in sex crimes against children.

Many MAGA supporters have expressed outrage over the Trump administration’s handling of the so-called “Epstein files” since the release of a law enforcement memo that concluded the well-connected financier died by suicide and there was no credible evidence of him blackmailing powerful figures.

Trump, whom Epstein once described as his “closest friend”, has acknowledged knowing Epstein, but said in 2019 that they had not spoken in 15 years after a “falling out” between the pair.

July 19 (UPI) — President Donald Trump sued the Wall Street Journal and its parent company, seeking at least $10 billion in damages, after the newspaper published an article one day earlier about a letter Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein before the financier was convicted of sex crimes.

The 18-page lawsuit, which was filed Friday in the Southern District of Florida in Miami’s division, names the two reporters, The Wall Street Journal, as well as Dow Jones, News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch, who controls the company, and New Corp’s CEO Robert Thomson.

“Defendants concocted this story to malign President Trump’s character and integrity and deceptively portray him in a false light,” the lawsuit, signed by Alejandro Brito of the Ian Michael law firm in Coral Gables, reads.

“We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit,” a Dow Jones spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal, which noted that News Corp did not respond to its request for comment.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump sent Epstein a letter for his 50th birthday consisting of text in the outline of a naked woman over her signature. As noted in the filing, the newspaper did not publish the letter.

The letter was one of several published in a leather-bound album of birthday messages Epstein received as a gift that is reportedly among documents examined by the Justice Department several years ago.

“The reason for those failures is because no authentic letter or drawing exists,” Trump’s lawyer wrote in the lawsuit.

On Friday night, Trump posted on Truth Social: “We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is, The Wall Street Journal. ….

“This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite President, ME, but also in order to continue standing up for ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media. I hope Rupert and his ‘friends’ are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case. Thank you for your attention to this matter. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

On his Truth Social account on Thursday, Trump claimed the letter was fake, and said “I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women. It’s not my language. It’s not my words,” threatening to sue.

“The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued,” the president posted Thursday.

He noted that Murdoch told him “he would take care to it. But, obviously, did not have the power to do it.”

Trump has been pressured by his Make America Great Again base and Democrats to release files on Epstein, of which the grand jury testimony is a small portion.

Attorney General Palm Bondi said earlier this month in a memo said that much of the information is under legal seal but that there is “no incriminating ‘client list'” in the files and that “there was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.”

On Thursday, Trump ordered grand jury testimony to be released by DOJ with victims’ names likely redacted.

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in his Manhattan jail cell as he was awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges in connection with allegations of running a child sex-trafficking ring. The memo also confirmed he died by suicide with surveillance video included through three minutes were missing.

US Justice Department files a motion in Manhattan federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts in the Epstein cases.

United States President Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal publication and its owners, including media magnate Rupert Murdoch, seeking at least $10bn in damages over the publication of a bombshell report on the president’s friendship with the infamous high-society sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump filed the lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of Florida on Friday, as he attempts to prevent a growing scandal around the Epstein case from spreading further and threatening to cause him serious political damage.

Trump also instructed the US Justice Department to file a motion in Manhattan federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts in the Epstein case and that of his former associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who in 2021 was convicted of five federal charges related to her role in Epstein’s sexual abuse of underage girls.

In the defamation lawsuit, Trump accuses Dow Jones, News Corp, Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal reporters of acting with malicious intent that caused him overwhelming financial and reputational harm. Dow Jones, the parent company of the newspaper, is a division of News Corp.

Before filing the case, Trump wrote on Friday morning on his social media platform Truth Social: “I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his ‘pile of garbage’ newspaper, the WSJ. That will be an interesting experience!!!”

Representatives of Dow Jones, News Corp and Murdoch have yet to comment on the case.

Trump once considered Epstein a friend, and the controversy surrounding the now deceased high-profile figure, who took his own life in prison, has prompted conspiracy theories, especially among the far-right supporters of the US president.

Trump supporters were enraged last week when US Attorney General Pam Bondi reversed course on the president’s election campaign pledge to release court documents that some believed contained damning revelations about Epstein and his alleged elite clientele.

Trump denies penning lewd Epstein birthday message

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that a letter bearing Trump’s signature was sent to Epstein for one of his birthday celebrations.

The newspaper said the letter contained a lewd handwritten reference to a woman, with the message: “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret,” and featured the signature “Donald”.

Following publication, Trump denied sending the letter to Epstein and lashed out at the newspaper.

Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019. Many among Trump’s base of supporters believe the government is covering up Epstein’s ties to the rich and powerful, and some do not believe he died by his own hand.

A Justice Department memo released on July 7 concluded that Epstein killed himself and said there was “no incriminating client list” or evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent people.

However, Bondi, the US attorney general, had pledged months ago to release major revelations about Epstein, including “a lot of names” and “a lot of flight logs”, before reversing course. On Friday, Bondi’s Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said public interest in the Epstein case had prompted the Justice Department to file a request with the court to unseal transcripts of the case.

Trump, who was photographed with Epstein multiple times in social settings in the 1990s and early 2000s, told reporters in 2019 that he ended his relationship with Epstein before his legal troubles became apparent.