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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. ABC News and its parent company, Disney, will pay $15 million and post an apology to settle a defamation suit filed by President-elect Donald Trump. Earlier this year, George Stephanopoulos repeatedly asserted that Trump had been found liable for rape. And Piers David Folkenflik reports a civil jury instead found Trump liable for sexual abuse.
Back in March, Stephanopoulos was pushing his guest, a U.S. representative who was herself raped as a young woman, on why she would support Trump. He incorrectly referred to a court verdict from last year in which a jury found that Trump was liable for sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll and but not rape.
The judge in that case said what transpired as determined by the jury fit the commonly understood definition of rape, but not the narrow one under New York state law. ABC will pay the $15 million to a foundation for Trump that's typically used to fund a presidential library and a million dollars for Trump's legal costs.
Both Trump and Stephanopoulos were to be questioned under oath for Trump's defamation suit in coming days. David Folkenflik, NPR News.
The U.S. says Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the U.S. has been in direct contact with members of the rebel group HTS today, which led the effort to oust the Assad regime. The U.S. once considered that group a terrorist organization, but Blinken says the U.S. is ready to work with them. He says he signed off on a set of principles to guide Syria toward a peaceful, non-sectarian country.
Meanwhile, rebel fighters in Syria have been uncovering huge stockpiles of the illegal amphetamine Captagon in various warehouses across the Syrian capital. President Bashar al-Assad's family and associates profited from the manufacturing and trade of Captagon, turning Syria into one of the world's biggest narco-states. Empire's Hadil al-Sholchi visited one of these drug warehouses.
I'm standing in what was probably the living room of this fancy warehouse luxury villa overlooking the Damascus countryside. But the smell in here is so strong. It smells of chemicals. Stacked behind me to the ceiling are these drums of chemicals that were used for the Captagon. And there's also these stacks that look like flower bags.
But again, they have the chemicals that are used to make Captagon. There are all these heavy duty machinery also used to make the drug in a very incongruous setting with these chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. and the end product was Captagon. these tiny pills that propped up the Syrian economy under Bashar al-Assad.
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