Judge dismisses Trump's attempt to avoid NY rape trial.

Former President Donald Trump's lawyers won't be allowed to tell jurors next week that he'd like to testify at a rape trial but might decide against it because he wants to spare New York City from logistical burdens posed by his presence, a federal judge said Thursday. The trial stems from columnist E. Jean Carroll's claims that the Republican raped her in late 1995 or early 1996 in the dressing room of a luxury Manhattan department store. Trump has said the encounter never happened and Carroll was trying to stoke sales of a 2019 memoir when she first publicly claimed that the two of them ended up in a dressing room after a chance encounter and a playful interlude.