Author: CNN

CNN
 — 

Here is a look at the life of Caroline Kennedy, former US ambassador to Japan and current US ambassador to Australia.

Birth date: November 27, 1957

Birth place: New York, New York

Birth name: Caroline Bouvier Kennedy

Father: John F. Kennedy, 35th US president

Mother: Jacqueline (Bouvier) Kennedy

Marriage: Edwin Arthur Schlossberg (July 19, 1986-present)

Children: John “Jack” Kennedy (January 19, 1993); Tatiana Celia (May 5, 1990); Rose Kennedy (June 25, 1988)

Education: Harvard (Radcliffe), B.A, 1980; Columbia University, J.D., 1988

Religion: Roman Catholic

Only surviving member of the White House Kennedy family.

Neil Diamond revealed she was the inspiration for his 1969 hit song “Sweet Caroline.”

1980-1985 – Museum of Modern Art researcher and associate film producer.

January 17, 1984-present – Member of the Board of Directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

January 6, 1987-present – President of the Board of Directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

May 19, 1994 – Her mother, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, dies of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

July 16, 1999 – Her brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, are killed in a plane crash near Martha’s Vineyard.

August 15, 2000 – Addresses the Democratic National Convention on behalf of Al Gore and Joe Lieberman.

October 2002-August 2004 – CEO of the Office of Strategic Partnerships for the New York City Department of Education.

January 28, 2008 – Formally endorses Barack Obama for US president.

August 25, 2008 – Addresses the Democratic National Convention in a tribute to her uncle, Ted Kennedy.

December 2008 – New York Governor David Paterson confirms Kennedy has expressed interest in filling Hillary Clinton’s former Senate seat, the same seat her uncle Robert Kennedy held at his death in 1968.

January 22, 2009 – Citing personal reasons, Kennedy requests her name be withdrawn from consideration for the Senate seat.

September 9, 2012 – Addresses the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her son, Jack Schlossberg, also attends the convention and contributes reports to CNN.

July 24, 2013 – Is nominated by President Obama to be the US ambassador to Japan.

November 12, 2013-January 18, 2017 – Serves as ambassador to Japan.

December 15, 2021 – President Joe Biden announces his intention to nominate Kennedy to serve as US ambassador to Australia.

May 5, 2022 – Is confirmed by the US Senate as the Ambassador to Australia. Two months later, Kennedy presents her credentials to Canberra’s Governor General David Hurley, marking the official start of her post.

CNN
 — 

Here’s a look at the life of Jim McGreevey, former governor of New Jersey.

Birth date: August 6, 1957

Birth place: Jersey City, New Jersey

Birth name: James Edward McGreevey

Father: Jack McGreevey, trucking company director

Mother: Veronica (Smith) McGreevey, teacher

Marriages: Dina (Matos) McGreevey (2000-2008, divorced); Kari (Schutz) McGreevey (1991-1997, divorced)

Children: with Dina (Matos) McGreevey: Jacqueline; with Kari (Schutz) McGreevey: Morag

Education: Columbia University, B.A., 1978; Georgetown University, J.D., 1981; Harvard University, M.Ed., 1982; General Theological Seminary, M.Div., 2010

Religion: Raised Roman Catholic; received into the Episcopal Church in 2007

Served in the New Jersey State Senate while also serving as mayor of Woodbridge, New Jersey.

1982-1983 – Middlesex County, New Jersey, assistant prosecutor.

1983 – Begins working for the New Jersey Assembly Majority Office.

1985-1987 – Executive director of the New Jersey State Parole Board.

1990-1991 – Serves in the New Jersey State Assembly.

1991 – Is elected mayor of Woodbridge, New Jersey.

1994-1997 – Serves in the New Jersey Senate.

1995 and 1999 – Reelected mayor of Woodbridge.

1997 – Runs unsuccessfully for governor of New Jersey, losing to Christine Todd Whitman by 1%.

November 6, 2001 – Is elected governor of New Jersey by a wide margin over Republican Bret Schundler, former mayor of Jersey City.

January 15, 2002 – Is sworn in as the 51st governor of New Jersey.

January 2002 – Appoints Golan Cipel, an Israeli citizen ineligible for federal security clearance, to be the state’s anti-terrorism adviser. Cipel steps down in August 2002.

August 12, 2004 – Announces he is gay and will resign as governor in three months. Also, admits to an extramarital affair with a man, whom aides say is Cipel, and asks for his family’s forgiveness.

August 13, 2004 – Cipel releases a statement saying he was the victim of sexual harassment by McGreevey. The governor claims the affair was consensual.

August 30, 2004 – Cipel’s attorneys announce that their client will not file a lawsuit against McGreevey.

November 15, 2004 – McGreevey officially leaves office.

September 2006 – McGreevey’s memoir, “The Confession,” is published.

2010 – Begins working at Integrity House, an addiction treatment facility in Newark, New Jersey.

2013 – HBO airs the documentary “Fall to Grace” about McGreevey and his work counseling women at Hudson County Correctional Center.

July 12, 2013 – Is named executive director of the Jersey City Employment and Training Program.

2014-present – Chairman of the New Jersey Reentry Corporation (NJRC), a non-profit that helps participants returning from incarceration find employment.

January 7, 2019 – McGreevey is fired as director of the Jersey City Employment and Training Program amid accusations of financial mismanagement. McGreevey tells the Jersey Journal that the accusations are false.

February 27, 2020 – Is appointed chairman of the Essex County Correctional Facility Civilian Task Force, an independent panel tasked with reviewing the facility’s “systematic issues and concerns.”

July 2023 – Forms a civic association, named the Jack and Ronnie McGreevey Civic Association in honor of his late parents, with the intention of serving the Jersey City and Hudson County communities.

November 9, 2023 – Officially announces he will run for mayor of Jersey City in 2025.

Donald Trump Jr. returned to the witness stand Monday to give his family’s side of the story in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud trial against Donald Trump.

Trump Jr.’s testimony often appeared as a lengthy effort to rehabilitate the image of the Trump Organization in the eyes of Judge Arthur Engoron. The former president’s son gushed about the properties he said his father had transformed from dilapidated run-down tracts of land into spectacular and magnificent buildings and golf courses.

Trump Jr., a co-defendant in the case, was glowing as he described the company’s portfolio – lauding praise on his father as a visionary and a real estate “artist” and talking up the value of the buildings after six weeks of testimony from the attorney general alleging that the valuations of the properties were fraudulently inflated.

The testimony signaled how Trump’s lawyers plan to mount a defense in a case in which Engoron has already ruled the former president and his co-defendants were liable for fraud. Engoron is now deciding six additional claims and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

Here are key takeaways from Monday’s day in court:

Trump Jr. boasts about the Trump Org. portfolio: Trump lawyer Cliff Robert spent most of the day asking Trump Jr. to walk through nearly the entire portfolio of the Trump Org.

Trump Jr. discussed the various projects around the world over the past several decades, narrating a sleekly produced promotional timeline from the company’s website. He described various golf holes, clubhouses, architecture and other features of the Trump properties as beauty shots were displayed in the courtroom.

While talking about the Seven Springs resort, a Westchester, New York, property that’s part of the attorney general’s case, Trump Jr. said the property was “spectacular” and a “potential canvas for [his] father’s art.”

“He’s an artist with real estate. He sees the things that other people don’t,” Trump Jr. said of his father.

The Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, was swampland before his father took it over. “No one for decades had seen any value in it,” Trump Jr. said, and his father turned it into “one of the finest golf clubs in the world.”

And of the Trump National Doral Golf Club in Florida, Trump Jr. said: “He saw a jewel in the rough and wanted to bring it back to its former glory.”

At one point, Robert even played the company’s promotional video of the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in the Bronx, featuring golf legend Jack Nicklaus praising the course.

Read more takeaways from Trump Jr.’s testimony here.