Can Donald Trump still run for president after Maine and Colorado rulings?

Donald Trump at a campaign event
Image caption,Mr Trump faces several legal challenges heading into the 2024 presidential race

By Tom Geoghegan

BBC News

Donald Trump has been disqualified from running as a presidential candidate in two states, Colorado and Maine. So what does it mean for next year’s general election?

Mr Trump is the clear frontrunner to be the Republican nominee in November 2024 and challenge Joe Biden for the White House. His campaign described both decisions as “atrocious” and an “attempted theft of an election”.

The top election official in Maine ruled the former president was ineligible to run because of his actions around the Capitol riot. Colorado’s highest court issued a similar, unprecedented, ruling just days earlier.

But it is still uncertain whether Mr Trump’s name will appear on the ballot when the two states pick their Republican candidate in the coming months, as both rulings are on hold while an appeals process plays out.

Why did Maine make this ruling?

Unlike in Colorado, where the state’s Supreme Court ruled on Mr Trump’s eligibility, in Maine it was decided by the top electoral official because of a quirk in its constitution.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, issued a 34-page ruling that said Mr Trump must be removed from its Republican primary ballot because of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Section 3 disqualifies people who engage in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding federal office.

Her order said Mr Trump “over the course of several months and culminating on January 6 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol”.

Ms Bellows, an elected official, was accused of making a politically motivated decision by the Trump campaign. She denied this and said it was “thorough and based on the rule of law”.

Speaking to BBC News after her ruling, Mrs Bellows said it was her duty to uphold election laws in her state, and that she hoped the “Supreme Court will settle this matter nationwide”.

What happened in Colorado?

On 19 December, the Colorado Supreme Court said it found “clear and convincing evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection”.

It was the first time Section 3 had been used to disqualify a presidential candidate.

The lengthy 213-page ruling said Mr Trump’s actions in the build-up to 6 January 2021 did constitute insurrection.

His lawyers had argued in Colorado that he should not be disqualified because he did not bear responsibility for the riot.

They also noted that Mr Trump has not been charged with inciting insurrection.

Can Donald Trump still stand in the 2024 election?

Yes. These rulings only apply to Colorado and Maine respectively.

Hours after Maine’s ruling, California’s elected secretary of state, a Democrat, ignored calls to remove Mr Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot – saying it was a matter for the courts. Michigan’s top court this week declined to hear a case seeking to disqualify Mr Trump.

Mr Trump is far ahead of his Republican rivals so can still win his party’s nomination without competing in Colorado or Maine.

In both Colorado and Maine, Joe Biden won against Donald Trump in 2020 by a wide margin, and it is unlikely that Mr Trump will need to win the states to enter the White House once more.

What happens next?

It is now likely that the US Supreme Court will intervene to offer a ruling that would apply nationally.

That’s because the Colorado Republican Party has appealed the state’s ruling to the Supreme Court.

The top US court will decide whether to take up the case in the new year, but it is not clear when.

Mr Trump’s name will remain on the ballot in Colorado until the Supreme Court makes a ruling or, in a less likely outcome, decides not to take up the case.

The Maine ruling is also on hold pending a legal appeal in the state’s courts. Any decision by the US Supreme Court could supersede this and apply nationally.

The US justices will have to consider the legal arguments which will take time, but they will be under pressure to decide before the Colorado and Maine primaries on 5 March, the so-called Super Tuesday when the greatest number of states hold ballots.

The balance of that court has shifted to more conservative in recent years, thanks in part to three justices who were appointed by Mr Trump when he was president.

There are two key legal issues to consider.

One is whether Mr Trump’s actions in the build-up to the storming of the US Capitol amount to insurrection.

The other is whether the office holders that Section 3 was aimed at barring should include the president.

A lower court in Colorado has already ruled that Mr Trump engaged in insurrection but the law did not apply to the office of the presidency.

The Colorado Supreme Court disagreed, and top legal scholars are divided on whether this law should apply to Mr Trump.

Lawyers for Mr Trump dispute that he engaged in insurrection and argue his remarks to supporters on the day of the 2021 riot were protected by his right to free speech.

What is the political impact?

Mr Trump’s campaign said the latest ruling is another example of the justice system being used to persecute him.

But there could be wider implications for the general election.

Dozens of other US states have similar lhttp://sayurkana.com/ awsuits trying to bar Mr Trump from running, and the decisions in Colorado and Maine could make it more likely some of them succeed.

If Mr Trump was stopped from running in a state where he and Mr Biden are neck-and-neck, that could be critical in a presidential race that is expected to be closely fought.

Lee Sun-kyun: A quiet farewell for Parasite star who died in the spotlight

Lee Sun-kyun

By Jake Kwon, Nick Marsh & Nicholas Yong

in Seoul and Singapore

South Korean star Lee Sun-kyun’s family bid him farewell in a private funeral, shutting out the cameras that had stalked him in his last months when he was under investigation for drug use.

The entertainment industry has been put on hold, with several events cancelled, as former colleagues turned up to remember Lee. On Friday, his family mourned him along with close friends and colleagues, after appealing to Korean media to stop making “painful and abrupt” visits to Lee’s home, agency and funeral.

His alleged last note to his wife, which a Korean media outlet was criticised for publicising, CCTV footage of the last drive he reportedly took, reruns of his last public appearance for police questioning the day before he died – all of it has been watched millions of times on YouTube.

The 48-year-old actor was found dead in a car in Seoul on Wednesday – police believe he killed himself. It was a shock to the country where he had become a household name during his more than 20-year-long career, before he shot to international fame in the acclaimed hit Parasite.

Beyond sympathy and grief, there is also anger over the relentless public glare many believe he was subjected to since October when police began questioning him. Outside South Korea, there is surprise that a drugs investigation into a celebrity could unleash such a tragic scandal.

The hearse carrying the casket of late South Korean actor Lee Sun-kyun leaves a funeral hall after his funeral ceremony at the Seoul National University Hospital in Seoul on December 29, 2023.
Image caption,Lee’s funeral was an intimate affair, after months in the public glare

The fall of a ‘model’ celebrity

Lee’s fall from grace was as stunning as his rise. A hugely successful family man, he was beloved in a competitive and conservative South Korea that expects celebrities to be model citizens.

The “abundance of attention… social pressure and finger pointing,” that South Korean celebrities face during a police investigation leads to “destructive shame”, psychiatrist Peter Jong-ho Na told the BBC’s Newshour.

In October, a hostess at a Seoul bar accused Lee of taking drugs, including marijuana and ketamine, with her. He denied consuming them knowingly.

He was never charged and the investigation was still underway when he died. But the allegations – and reports that this happened at a bar with female escorts – marred what had been seen as a perfect, wholesome reputation.

“I sincerely apologise for causing great disappointment to many people by being involved in such an unpleasant incident. I feel sorry for my family, which is enduring such difficult pain at this moment,” Lee told reporters in early October.

He underwent three rounds of questioning, with one session last Saturday lasting 19 hours, according to Yonhap News. Lee was dropped or opted out of advertisements and productions that were underway. Some media reports even suggested that advertisers could sue him for millions.

Police said that they had rejected Lee’s request that his final appearance for questioning happen discreetly. They have been accused of not being more sensitive to the public pressure Lee would face, but they said the proceedings had been “conducted with [his] consent”.

The national police commissioner also weighed in, denying that the investigation had led to Lee’s death – but he said he would look into whether there had been any problems.

Lee Sun-kyun arrives at a police station
Image caption,Lee Sun-kyun’s case was extensively covered by Korean media

Korean media covered the case extensively for a hyper-connected audience. By some estimates, more than 90% of the country uses social media. So incremental updates on Lee arrived in minutes via messenger services like KakaoTalk or YouTube. The intense appetite only fuelled the tabloid-style drip-feed, even prompting national broadcaster KBS to publish the private conversation Lee had with the female bar staff.

“He didn’t die because of drugs, he died because of the humiliation other people gave him,” reads one comment online.

Another one on YouTube says: “The punishment for defamation in this country is extremely weak. I hope all the people who wrote articles carelessly and spread them without any accurate basis would reflect on themselves.”

An imperfect victim

But not everyone has been sympathetic to Lee’s downfall – he was not seen as the perfect victim, given he had admitted to being at a bar with a female escort, and taking what she had given him, although he said he did not know they were drugs.

The insinuation of adultery was scandalous – it was a crime here until 2015.

And the investigation itself was part of a wider crackdown on drugs, which has seen tens of thousands of arrests.

This has support in South Korea, where there is huge social stigma associated with drug use – even ordinary people are ostracised by family and friends for taking drugs and the vilification is only amplified for celebrities. Such allegations are enough to ruin careers.

Director Bong Joon-ho (R) with cast and crew of "Parasite" attend the 92nd Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood and Highland on February 09, 2020 in Hollywood, California.
Image caption,Lee (C) with Director Bong Joon-ho (R) and the cast of Parasite at the Academy Awards in 2020

South Korea is not exactly an outlier in the region, when it comes to conservative social values or hardened attitudes towards drugs. Singapore, China and Japan are all in a similar boat as compared to Western countries where attitudes to drugs have softened and addiction often leads to rehab. In Asia, Thailand is the only country to legalise cannabis trade.

Where South Korea does differ is perhaps the high standard public figures, including celebrities, are held to, and the pressure this inevitably brings.

“Korea has a very strict moral standard for celebrities compared to other countries,” Korean pop culture critic Ha Jae-kun told BBC after the death of K-pop star Moonbin earlier this year sparked similar questions. And it’s not restricted to celebrities. In 2020, the Seoul mayor is believed to have killed himself after he was accused of sexual harassment.

There is also little room for seeking help in South Korea, http://kolechai.com/ as is the case with many other Asian countries, where there is a reluctance to talk about mental health and drug use.

And it has one of the world’s highest suicide rates – this year alone has seen headlines ranging from K-pop stars and teens buckling under untold pressure, to a 23-year-old teacher who killed herself over parental bullying.

Lee’s death is yet to be officially ruled a suicide – but his family has said there will be no autopsy.

Outside the funeral home, fans stuck yellow post-it notes, mirroring the tributes that have flooded Korean social media: “This cold winter, may you rest in the warmth of spring wherever you go.”

Nepal plane crash caused by pilots mistakenly cutting power, says report

Rescue workers at the site of the Yeti Airlines crash that killed 72IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERSImage caption,
Rescue workers at the site of the Yeti Airlines crash that killed 72
By Nicholas YongBBC News, Singapore

A plane crash in Nepal that killed 72 people, including two infants, was most probably the result of its pilots mistakenly cutting the power, said a report by government-appointed investigators.This caused a loss of thrust that led to an “aerodynamic stall”.The Yeti Airlines flight was flying from the capital Kathmandu to the tourist town of Pokhara on 15 January.It is the country’s deadliest plane crash in 30 years.The flight on 15 January, which involved an ATR 72, was the flight crew’s third sector of the day, shuttling between Kathmandu and Pokhara.The privately owned plane crashed in the Seti river gorge just 1.5km (0.9 miles) from the airport, prompting a rescue operation that involved hundreds of Nepalese soldiers.

“Due to its momentum, the aircraft flew for up to 49 seconds before hitting the ground,” aeronautical engineer Dipak Prasad Bastola, a member of the investigating panel, told Reuters.The pilots had likely put the condition levers, which control power, in the feathering position instead of selecting the flap lever, he explained. Mr Bastola explained that this caused the engine to “run idle and not produce thrust”.”Following the un-intentional feathering of both engine propellers, the flight crew failed to identify the problem and take corrective actions despite the Crew Alerting Panel cautions,” the report said.The report also listed a lack of appropriate technical and skill based training, high workload and stress, and non-compliance with standard operating procedures as contributing factors to the accident.It added that the aircraft had been properly maintained, had had no known defects and that the cockpit crew had been qualified in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.More than a dozen investigators from the US, Canada, France and Singapore were involved in the investigation.

Media caption,

Video from the ground appears to show the plane moments before it crashed

Local resident Divya Dhakal told the BBC in January that she had rushed to the crash site after seeing the aircraft plunge from the sky shortly after 11:00 (05:15 GMT).”By the time I was there the crash site was already crowded. There was huge smoke http://jusnarte.com/coming from the flames of the plane. And then helicopters came over in no time,” she said.For the past decade, the European Union has banned Nepalese airlines from its airspace over safety concerns.Aviation accidents are not uncommon in Nepal, often because of its remote runways and sudden weather changes that can make for hazardous conditions. Last May, Tara Air Flight 197, owned by Yeti Airlines, crashed into a mountainside, killing 22 passengers and crew.

The year the Australian Dream died

He had a full-time, well-paying job in Sydney, and had rented for a decade before an unprecedented housing crisis forced him to upend his life and move back in with his parents, two hours away.

“It’s humbling,” he says. But the alternative was homelessness: “So I’m one of the lucky ones”.

It’s a far cry from the promise of the Great Australian Dream.

Where the American Dream is a more abstract belief that anyone can achieve success if they work hard enough, the Australian version is tangible.

For generations, owning a house on a modest block of land has been idealised as both the ultimate marker of success and a gateway to a better life.

It’s an aspiration that has wormed its way into the country’s identity, helping to shape modern Australia.

From the so-called “Ten Pound Poms” in the 1950s to the current boom in skilled workers moving from India, waves of migrants have arrived on Australia’s shores in search of its promise. And many found it.

But for current generations the dreams proffered to their parents and grandparents are out of reach.

After decades of government policies that treat housing as an investment not a right, many say they would be lucky to even find a stable, affordable place to rent.

“The Australian Dream… it’s a big lie,” Mr Dowswell says.

A perfect storm

Almost everything that could go wrong with housing in Australia has gone wrong, says Michael Fotheringham.

“The only thing that could make it worse is if banks started collapsing,” the head of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute tells the BBC.

Underpinning it all is that buying a house is astronomically expensive – the average property now costs about nine times an ordinary household’s income, triple what it was 25 years ago.

It’s particularly dire for the three quarters of Australians who live in major cities. Sydney, for example, is the second least affordable city on Earth to buy a property, trailing only Hong Kong, according to the 2023 Demographia International Housing Affordability survey.

Australia has made home ownership virtually unattainable for almost anyone without family wealth. Last month the boss of a major bank, ANZ, said home loans had become “the preserve of the rich”.

Chelsea Hickman and Justin Dowswell
Image caption,Chelsea Hickman and Justin Dowswell feel let down

That’s left people like Chelsea Hickman questioning their future. The 28-year-old fashion designer always imagined she’d become both a homeowner and a mother, but now worries that may be impossible.

“Financially, how could I ever afford both? The numbers just do not add up,” she says.

She tells the BBC from her Melbourne shared house that despite working full-time for almost a decade, she can’t even afford to rent an apartment by herself. Her friends are in a similar boat.

“Where did it go wrong?” she says.

“We did everything that everyone said we should do, and we’re still not reaching this point where we’re going to have financial independence and housing security.”

Tarek Bieganski, a 26-year-old IT manager, laughs when asked if he thinks he’ll ever own property.

“It’s just so obviously out of reach that it’s not really even a thought anymore,” he says. “And this is coming from someone that, really, has got it pretty good.”

But with interest rates rising faster than at any time in Australia’s history, even many of those who have scraped their way on to the property ladder now live in fear of falling off it.

Foodbanks are being overwhelmed by mortgage holders struggling to keep their heads above water. Hordes of people are picking up extra jobs. Many pensioners have been forced back into work.

It’s not doom and gloom for everyone though.

A woman runs past an auction sign in Sydney
Image caption,Many existing homeowners do not want to see house prices stabilise

The level of home ownership across the nation – while significantly dropping for young people – has overall stayed around two-thirds.

And those Australians are quite content to see house prices climb and their wealth grow.

That’s difficult to stomach, Ms Hickman says, especially given how many households – one in three – now own a property other than the one they live in.

“I understand that people are like ‘Well, I worked hard to get these millions of houses’ and blah, blah, blah, and I’m like, ‘Okay, well, good for you. I work hard too and I just want one house’.”

‘Grapes of Wrath stuff’

As a result, millions of people are trapped in the rental market, seeking to create a watered-down version of the Australian Dream as tenants.

But that’s no paradise either.

Vacancies are at unprecedented, prolonged lows – to the point that councils across the country are begging people with empty holiday homes and short-term rentals to move them on to the long-term market.

And, with the greater demand, rents are skyrocketing.

Australian news has been awash with stories of massive rent increases and images of desperate people queuing to inspect properties riddled with defects and – in some cases – obviously covered in mould.

“It’s Grapes of Wrath stuff,” Dr Fotheringham says, referring to the famous Great Depression-era novel about a family struggling to build a life.

A line of people waiting to inspect a house
Image caption,A line of people waiting to inspect a house in Sydney

Social or subsidised housing – once a safety net for those on low or moderate incomes – is not an option for most Australians either. The number of homes available is less than half of what is needed to meet immediate demand and wait lists are years long.

And all of this is happening at a time when natural disasters and climate effects are wiping out swathes of housing stock, making even more parts of the vast Australian continent effectively unliveable.

The crisis is tipping people into homelessness or overcrowded living conditions. Demand for housing support is so high that some charities say they’ve been handing out tents.

One Tasmanian woman told the BBC she http://kueceng.com/ and her four kids spent over six months crammed into her mother’s spare room after the family was knocked back for more than 35 properties while languishing on the social housing wait list.

Melbourne woman Hayley Van Ree told us her rental prospects were so bleak that her mother raided her own retirement fund to buy an apartment and is now Ms Van Ree’s landlord – eliciting what she describes as a confusing mix of relief, embarrassment and guilt.

“Friends who have parents who are in property have this kind of morbid knowledge that when their parents die, they might be ok,” Ms Van Ree says. “I hate that it’s my reality.”

Hayley surrounded by boxes
Image caption,Ms Van Ree says she knows plenty of people with “just fine” jobs who can’t secure a home

Mr Dowswell is now back in Sydney, having finally secured an apartment after six months, but says the ordeal has been a massive tax on his finances and mental health.

“It was just demoralising… the more you think about it, the angrier you get,” he says.

Investment or right?

In 2023, the national conversation shifted from how expensive it is to buy a home, to how difficult it is to secure any kind of affordable home at all.

An end to pandemic-era rent and eviction freezes, record migration, rapidly escalating interest rates and construction delays conspired to leave housing in Australia in the worst state it has ever been, experts warn.

But the crisis is the result of “50 years of government policy failure, financialisation and greed”, wrote leading finance journalist Alan Kohler in a recent Quarterly Essay.

Particularly critical was what happened at the turn of the millennium, he argues. Until that point house prices in Australia had kept pace with income growth and the size of the economy – but this began to shift when the federal government introduced tax changes which incentivised the buying and selling of homes for profit.

Australian house prices increasingly dwarf disposable income. .  Indexed to 2015.

A sharp spike in immigration and government grants pushed up house prices in that era too, but Mr Kohler says it was these tax breaks that forever changed the way Australia thinks about housing.

“It will be impossible to return the price of housing to something less destructive… without purging the idea that housing is a means to create wealth as opposed to simply a place to live,” he wrote.

Doing so will upset a large class of voters, which will take courage and innovation from policymakers, he adds.

And that’s something critics say successive governments at federal, state and local levels have struggled to muster.

Some point to decades of neglect for social housing, or the persistence with grants for first homebuyers, which are popular but don’t work as they should and actually drive up prices further.

Others argue planning and heritage laws have been too easily abused to limit developments, often by existing residents reluctant to see changes to their suburbs and investments.

Then there’s the fear of overhauling those lucrative tax incentives for property investors – with the most recent promise of reform rejected at an election in 2019 and now abandoned.

“Housing needs to be seen as an essential service and right before an investment,” Mr Dowswell says. “There is definitely a moral imperative to act… [but] selfishness will get in the way.”

People march through Sydney in a housing rally
Image caption,People have rallied in cities across the country

National Housing Minister Julie Collins told the BBC there are “challenges” to tackle, but that her government – elected 18 months ago – is delivering “the most significant housing reforms in a generation”.

It has created or expanded schemes to help prospective buyers, though they have strict requirements and limited places. It has also promised to build thousands of new social and affordable houses – a small dent in the waiting list – and set up an investment fund to support future projects. Alongside state governments, it has pledged to create a National Housing and Homelessness Plan and beef up protections for renters.

The government is pulling other levers too: it announced earlier this month that it would halve Australia’s immigration intake and triple the fees for foreign homebuyers, both things they argue should help ease the strain.

Advocates support these changes but say they are just more tinkering around the edges of a system that needs heavy reform.

Those the BBC spoke to say that the Australian Dream has been demolished, eroding the foundations of the nation’s identity.

Australia has long thought itself the land of a fair go.

“[But] education and hard work are no longer the main determinants of how wealthy you are; now it comes down to where you live and what sort of house you inherit from your parents,” Mr Kohler says.

“It means Australia is less of an egalitarian meritocracy.”

Or as Ms Hickman sums it up: “It’s rigged.”