Trump fined $1million to Hillary Clinton

Aimee Szulczewski Contributor

Former US president, Donald Trump has been fined just under one million dollars (£758,626) by a federal judge for his ‘frivolous’ lawsuit against his 2016 presidential rival Hillary Clinton.

Both Trump and his lawyer, Alina Habba, were fined by US District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks over the lawsuit, which targeted Clinton and harmed thirty individuals and organisations.

The lawsuit alleged that Clinton had orchestrated “a malicious conspiracy” to spread false information regarding Trump’s collusion with Russia during his 2016 presidential campaign. Middlebrooks called this lawsuit “completely frivolous, both factually and legally”, as the suit aimed to bring down Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party and former top FBI officials.

In addition, the judgement also evoked memories of Trump’s other lawsuits against major organisations and individ- uals such as Twitter, CNN and the New York Times, who all published claims of interference during 2016.

The New York Times published reports over the interruption of the election, which suggested that Russian actors used internet trolls on social media sites to disseminate propaganda content. This was used to boost Trump’s candidacy and antagonise politics in the US, which enhanced the support for Trump and the Republicans. Despite being examined by the Special Counsel in 2019, which concluded that there was insufficient evidence of Russian conspiracy, there are still suspicions that the election was hindered by Russian organisations.

Another one of Trump’s lawsuits was against New York Attorney General, Letitia James, who led a “politically motivated” investigation into the Trump Organisation’s real estate affairs. This was after their property values were claimed to be falsely reported, enabling them to receive loans and tax benefits. James investigated claims that the organisation inflated the value of their assets to have access to higher loans, and then undervalued others to avoid taxation.

In the 2021 lawsuit, Trump claimed that James led a “witch hunt” and violated the constitutional rights of the organisation. However, since Middlebrooks’ fine, the lawsuit has since been dropped, which he commented on, stating, “this litigation has all the tell-tale signs of being vexatious and frivolous”. Here, the irritated judge implies Trump’s flippant lawsuits are only used to cause annoyance and lack serious claims since these have all been dropped.

Nevertheless, it is clear that this will not be the last we hear of the former president, especially after his announcement of running for President in 2024. The controversial businessman, TV personality, and politician has already started laying the foundations of support for his bid to be the Republican party’s presidential nomination.

Covid blamed for drop in Welsh speakers

Alys Jones Contributor

The fall in the number of Welsh speakers has been partially attributed to covid lockdowns as there were limited opportunities for young speakers to use Welsh regularly for almost two years. The results from the 2021 census illustrated a 5.7% drop in the number of school-age children able to speak Welsh compared to results from the 2011 census. In 2011, 168,000 school-age children were able to speak Welsh, compared to 146,000 in 2021, despite the number of pupils in Welsh-medium education rising by 11,000 during that period. Pupils from Ysgol Bro Teifi in Ceredigion have said that the pandemic has had an impact on their confidence when using the language, with one pupil stating, “I’ve seen a decrease maybe around in the community since Covid and people have maybe lost the confidence to speak Welsh”. Results from the 2021 census illustrated that the largest decreases in the number of Welsh speakers were between the ages of 5 and 15. The number of school-age Welsh speakers decreased by 6% from 40.3% in 2011 to 34.3% in 2021. The number of speakers aged 3 - 4 fell from 23.3% in 2011 to 18.2% in 2021.

The government-imposed lockdowns which began in 2020 and extended into 2021 led to school closures, with many children having to learn from home. These closures had an impact on the number of opportunities available to children to learn and use the Welsh language regularly, especially if they lived in a home where

Welsh was not spoken by caregivers. Dr Rhian Hodges, a sociology lecturer at Bangor University stated that Welsh-medium education needed to be “accessible to everyone” and Welsh language commissioner Efa Gruffydd Jones said Welsh in all schools should be offered “better and more efficiently”. The first language immersion unit in Wales is set to open soon at Ysgol Panteg, Pontypool and it will allow 7 - 11-year-olds to have intensive Welsh lessons for 12 weeks before moving into mainstream Welsh-medium education. Headteacher Dr Matthew Dicken has said that the unit would offer another chance for parents to introduce their children to Welsh-medium education.

The recent 2022 census revealed that the number of Welsh speakers in Wales has fallen from 19% to 17.8%, a decrease of 1.2% since the 2011 census. There were 562,000 Welsh speakers in Wales in 2011, compared to the 538,000 measured in 2022 which represents an estimated loss of nearly 24,000 speakers. The Welsh Government introduced the Welsh language strategy in 2017 which aimed for there to be one million Welsh speakers by 2050. The strategy also aimed to increase the number of primary teachers able to teach in Welsh from 2,900 to 3,900 by 2031 and to 5,200 by 2050.

Other aims within the strategy include increasing the proportion of each school year group receiving Welshmedium education from 22 percent to 40 percent in 2050 and the expansion of the Welsh-medium early years provision to 150 nursery groups over 10 years.