Trump Arraigned, Cormac McCarthy, and a Cannibal Crab

Trump Arraignment

Former President Donald Trump appeared in a Miami federal courthouse yesterday, where he pleaded not guilty to 37 federal criminal charges related to classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate last year. 

The arraignment comes after Trump, currently the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner, was indicted by a grand jury last week (see previous write-up). Before appearing in court, he was booked by deputy US marshals along with his personal aide, Walt Nauta, who was named a co-conspirator in the indictment and faces six felony counts. Nauta did not enter a plea as he seeks a local attorney; he will be arraigned June 27.

The two, who rode together to the courthouse and were released without bail, have been ordered to not speak to each other about the case. Trump's attorney requested a jury trial. Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, later delivered public remarks at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, following a planned fundraiser.

The Justice Department is also investigating the handling of classified documents by President Joe Biden and last week cleared former Vice President Mike Pence in a similar probe.  

A Golden Night in Vegas

The Vegas Golden Knights won their first Stanley Cup last night, dominating the Florida Panthers 9-3 in Game 5 of the NHL Finals. Captain Mark Stone notched a hat trick, scoring three goals, in the victory. 

The championship marked a cathartic moment for Vegas. The franchise burst onto the scene in 2017 as an expansion team, making the postseason in five of their first six seasons—including three appearances in the conference finals and reaching the Stanley Cup in their inaugural season. Vegas entered the postseason as the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, having amassed a 51-22-9 record. 

The Panthers' path followed that of their South Florida neighbors, the Miami Heat, who lost the previous day in the NBA Finals. Both were eight seeds entering the postseason, and both upset top seeds en route to the final round. In the Panthers' case, it was the Boston Bruins, who had the league's best regular season since 1996.

Separately, Toronto-based billionaire Michael Andlauer has reportedly reached a nearly $1B deal to buy the Ottawa Senators, setting a record as the highest purchase price of an NHL team. 

Cormac McCarthy Dies

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of "The Road" Cormac McCarthy—considered one of the greatest novelists of his generation—died yesterday of natural causes, according to his publisher Penguin Random House. He was 89.

Born in Rhode Island and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee (see bio), McCarthy was known for his violent depiction of life in the southern US, written in an idiosyncratic style blending poetic depth with local dialects (see examples). While 1985's "Blood Meridian" would come to be considered by many McCarthy's greatest work—dubbed the "ultimate Western" by the late Yale critic Harold Bloom—he first achieved commercial success in 1992 with his National Book Award-winning novel "All the Pretty Horses." In 2009, McCarthy received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction.

His books formed the basis of several popular films, including "The Road" and the Academy Award-winning "No Country for Old Men." Famously private, McCarthy gave only a handful of interviews; watch Oprah's 2007 interview with him here. 

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