• On Monday, a Manhattan grand jury will continue to hear evidence as part of the Trump silence investigation.
• The last witness must testify before the panel can discuss and then vote on a possible indictment.
• Monday is the earliest that Trump can be charged, although the charges will be dropped immediately.

A possible “hush” charge against Donald Trump has been put on hold until the last witness testifies before a Manhattan grand jury on Monday afternoon.

“There is another witness,” a source familiar with the investigation told an insider on Saturday evening.

The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge details of the grand jury.

The source declined to name a witness whose testimony would conclude a two-month trial for a grand jury of prosecutors led by District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

A separate source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told Insider that the witness is not Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former CFO. who is serving a five-month sentence for allegedly running the Trump Organization’s payroll tax avoidance scheme.

Monday Grand Jury Witness News first reported to CNN.

Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen — the prosecution’s lead witness in his admitted role in making an illegal $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 election — told reporters he expected to be the last witness to the big jury when he tested last Monday and Wednesday.

An unexpected latest witness gives an updated clue on the timing of a possible indictment of Trump and any co-defendants.

The grand jury, which meets secretly in an office building in lower Manhattan, meets to hear evidence only during three-hour afternoon sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Its members – between 16 and 23 – could presumably come to a vote by the end of the three-hour meeting on Monday.

But that would be unlikely. Experts who spoke to Insider about the Manhattan grand jury process say there are several stages between final testimony and the vote.

After the testimony is complete, prosecutors will “blame” the jury, that is, they will sequentially review the potential charges in the indictment, explaining each point in the potential indictment.

Sources told insiders they expect the top tally to be first-degree falsification of business records, a low-level felony alleging that Trump and any other defendants forged documents to cover up another crime, such as missing $130,000 from financial records. campaigns.

Trump vehemently denied any wrongdoing or an affair with Daniels and called the prosecution “fraud, injustice, bullying and law enforcement’s complete and total weaponry to influence the presidential election!”

Once the indictment is over, the prosecutor, bailiff, and stenographer leave the room, and the jury proceeds to deliberate.

If 12 or more people vote to indict, the foreman will be given a hard copy of the indictment to sign, after which the former president will be formally, albeit secretly, indicted.

Then this printed indictment was transferred to the nearest clerk’s office, where it was kept under seal. It will be unsealed as per Trump’s arrangement, although Bragg may ask the judge to unseal it ahead of schedule given the strong public interest.

Three hours fit a lot of activity; if the process is not completed, the grand jury may return on Wednesday afternoon to continue its work.

Earlier Saturday, Trump “confirmed the truth” that he “will be arrested Tuesday next week,” telling supporters, “Protest, take back our nation!” But that timing, already disputed by his lawyer, could never work given the new last witness.

So far, the commission has heard from a steady stream of witnesses, including Cohen. Former Trump aides Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway also appeared.

Hong Kong
CNN
—

Shares in Chinese search giant Baidu surged the day after it opened. ERNI Botit’s a response to the ChatGPT craze.

Its shares rose 14.3% on Friday in Hong Kong, making it the biggest winner in the Hang Seng index.

(HSI). They also rose 3.8% in New York during US trading on Thursday.

The day before Baidu

(BIDU) was the biggest loser of the same index. Its shares in Hong Kong fell 6.4% after a public demonstration of its bot failed to impress investors. Since February, more than 650 companies have joined the ERNIE ecosystem, CEO Robin Li said during the presentation.

The cancellation comes after the company said more than 30,000 businesses signed up to test its chatbot service within two hours of its demo.

“The high degree of interest from enterprises is positive, and we expect Baidu to continue to meet the demand of Chinese enterprises for generative AI,” Esme Pau, Macquarie’s head of Chinese and Hong Kong Internet and digital assets, told CNN.

She said the company’s stock rebounded on Friday as some users, including analysts, shared positive feedback about their own experiences with ERNIE, suggesting the bot has more advanced capabilities.

During the presentation, Baidu showed how its chatbot can generate a company newsletter, come up with a corporate slogan, and solve a math puzzle.

But its shares fell on Thursday because the demo was “pre-recorded and not live, leaving investors skeptical about the reliability of the ERNIE bot,” according to Pau.

The Baidu demo also came just days after the launch of GPT-4, which “raised the bar for ERNIE,” she added.

GPT-4 is the latest version of the AI ​​technology used in ChatGPT. The service wowed users this week with its ability to simplify coding, quickly create a website from a simple sketch, and pass exams with high marks.

Pau noted that Baidu’s shares were already “slightly down” ahead of Thursday’s software showcase, highlighting pressure from investors who raised expectations after the GPT-4 launch.

“ERNI also doesn’t have [same] multilingual capability like GPT-4 and not yet improved for English queries,” she said. “In addition, the ERNIE launch did not provide sufficient quantitative indicators compared to the GPT-4 launch earlier this week.”

Like ChatGPT, ERNIE based a language model that is trained on vast amounts of data on the Internet to generate compelling responses to user queries.

Li said Baidu’s expectations for ERNIE were “close to ChatGPT or even GPT-4.”

But he acknowledged that the software “isn’t perfect yet,” adding that it was first launched for corporate users. The service is not yet available to the general public.

Baidu announced its chatbot last month. Some critics say the service will add fuel to the ongoing rivalry between the US and China over new technologies.

Li tried to shake off that comparison at the time of launch, stating that the bot “is not a tool of confrontation between China and the United States in science and technology, but is the product of generations of Baidu technicians pursuing the dream of changing the world through technology.” “.

“This is a completely new platform for us to serve hundreds of millions of users and empower thousands of industries,” he said.

Baidu says its service stands out for its advanced understanding of Chinese queries, as well as its ability to generate different types of responses.

“ERNIE Bot can create text, images, audio and video from a text prompt, and is even capable of voice transmission in several local dialects such as Sichuanese,” the company said in a statement.

By comparison, GPT-4 can also parse photos, but currently only generates text responses. in accordance with its developer, OpenAI.

Baidu is not the only Chinese firm working on such technology. Last month, Alibaba

(WOMAN) announced plans to launch its own ChatGPT-style tool, adding to the roster of tech giants to join the popular chatbot.

For now, Baidu has a first-mover advantage in China, according to analysts.

“We believe ERNIE is three to six months ahead of its potential competitors,” Pau said.

On Friday, Baidu also announced a milestone in its transportation business, saying it is the first operator in Beijing to be allowed to provide driverless car hailing services in the city.

Companies are not allowed to charge passengers in the capital for a new service yet. Previously, the driver was required to be in the front passenger seat to take control in the event of emergencies.

Baidu provides commercial driverless taxi services in the cities of Chongqing and Wuhan.

– Mengchen Zhang of CNN contributed to this report.