INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Once dismissed as a fringe contender, businessman Donald Trump now is all but certain to lead the Republican Party into the fall presidential campaign against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton — a stunning political triumph for a first-time candidate whose appeal to frustrated voters was widely underestimated.
Trump's victory in Indiana Tuesday and Ted Cruz's abrupt decision to drop out resolved the Republican nominee for 2016, but it still left the party in a deep state of uncertainty. Some Republican leaders remain acutely wary of the bombastic billionaire and have insisted they could never support him, even in a faceoff against Clinton.
NEW YORK (AP) — Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a backroom master whose name was synonymous with political power in the Empire State for a generation, was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison, destined to take his place atop a crowded lineup of crooked Albany politicians behind bars.
Silver, a 72-year-old Manhattan Democrat, lowered his head slightly and closed his eyes briefly as a stern U.S. Judge Valerie Caproni announced his fate.
