The Evening: Trump’s half-billion-dollar fine thrown out

Also, Texas and California raced to gerrymander their maps.
The Evening
August 21, 2025

Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Thursday.

  • A legal victory for the president
  • Details in the trade deal with the E.U.
  • Plus, the world's biggest hockey player
Donald Trump flanked by men in suits and law enforcement offers.
President Trump leaving court during his civil fraud trial, in 2023. Dave Sanders for The New York Times

A half-billion-dollar fine against Trump was thrown out

A panel of New York appeals court judges said today that the roughly $520 million penalty imposed on President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth was excessive. The court eliminated the financial penalty while preserving the judgment that the president had committed fraud.

One of the judges, Peter Moulton, concluded that while Trump had done harm in inflating the value of his assets, "it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half-billion-dollar award to the state." The other judges agreed to toss out the fine, but they were sharply divided on how the case should proceed. Ultimately, the court decided to let the fraud judgment stand so that further challenges to the case could be heard at the state's highest court.

The ruling freed Trump and his family from an enormous financial burden that once threatened to wipe out all his cash and force a fire sale of some of his most prized businesses. Since he won back the presidency, his net worth has increased by billions of dollars thanks to his cryptocurrency ventures.

Trump celebrated the decision as "a great win for America." Letitia James, the New York attorney general who brought the case, pledged to appeal.

In other Trump news:

Gavin Newsom speaks from behind a bank of microphones, pointing down with both of his index fingers. Several people stand behind him, watching.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California. Andri Tambunan for The New York Times

Texas and California raced to gerrymander their maps

In Texas, the most populous Republican-led state, a State Senate panel voted today to advance a new congressional map that was drawn in the hopes of flipping five U.S. House seats in favor of Republicans. The governor of Texas is expected to sign the new map into law within days.

In response, lawmakers in California, the most populous state led by Democrats, planned to vote this afternoon to advance a new map that could flip five seats in favor of Democrats. The changes must be approved by voters in November, so Gov. Gavin Newsom has launched a campaign to support the effort, raising $6.2 million over the last week.

For more: Partisan gerrymandering can be hard to prohibit. My colleagues explain why, using Massachusetts as an example.

Cars lined up on green and yellow train platforms.
Cars from a Volkswagen factory in Zwickau, Germany, last year. Ingmar Nolting for The New York Times

The U.S. revealed the terms of its trade deal with Europe

The U.S. and the E.U. announced today the details of the trade agreement they struck last month in a handshake deal. Washington will impose a 15 percent tariff on most goods from the bloc, but European cars will still face a 27.5-percent import fee until the E.U. takes steps to lower its tariffs on American products.

Jeanna Smialek, our Brussels bureau chief, said that officials in Europe reacted with "a sense of muted relief."

A carousel of scenes from Afghanistan fade into one another other, including a video shot from high above the mountains and another of feet walking on a dusty trail.
Joao Silva/The New York Times; Michael Kamber

Our photographer returned to the place where he lost his legs

On Oct. 23, 2010, my colleague Joao Silva stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan and lost both of his legs. As a war photographer, he had been following U.S. troops in the village of Deh-e Kuchay when he felt the explosion ripple through his body and shot three frames before the pain forced him to drop his camera.

Nearly 15 years later, Joao returned to the village. "I was here in search of closure, but not the emotional kind," he wrote. "I had unfinished journalistic business." Here's what he found.

More top news

TIME TO UNWIND

Fans seated at an event with author SenLinYu.
Attendees of an event last month at The Strand bookstore in New York with the author SenLinYu. Ye Fan for The New York Times

Romantasy is keeping the fiction market afloat

Fiction sales, overall, have stagnated. But romantasies, which blend romance with fantasy elements like magic, fairies and dragons, are flying off the shelves.

Interest has been fueled in part by young people who grew up reading online fanfiction about their favorite characters. The fanfiction novel "Alchemised," for example, began as a story about a romance between the Harry Potter characters Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy (a subgenre known as "Dramione"). It's poised to be one of the biggest sellers this fall.

A black-and-white photo of the Beatles, tightly grouped together.
Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon in 1969. Bruce McBroom/Apple Corps Ltd.

Unreleased recordings from the Beatles are coming

More than a dozen unreleased Beatles demos are arriving this fall as part of the fourth volume of the band's "Anthology Collection." At the same time, Disney will also release a ninth episode to cap off the band's 1995 eight-part documentary, which will show material from behind the scenes of the film's creation.

A panel shows people and animals coexisting peacefully on a farmland.
Caroline Gutman for The New York Times

Dinner table topics

WHAT TO DO TONIGHT

Two halves of a sandwich with white bread and hard-boiled eggs with herbs, one on top of the other.
Johnny Miller for The New York Times

Cook: These chile egg salad sandwiches combine creamy yogurt with rich, jammy yolks.

Watch: "Ne Zha II" is a testament to the level of artistry in Chinese animation.

Read: The novelist Silvia Moreno-Garcia recommended eight haunted house books.

Pack: Here's what you should bring to your vacation rental kitchen.

Consider: Sports psychologists offered tips for achieving goals through mental preparation.

Hunt: Which Bay Area home would you buy with a $600,000 budget?

Play: Here are today's Spelling Bee, Wordle and Mini Crossword. Find all our games here.

ONE LAST THING

A very tall man with shoulder length blond hair in casual clothes standing next to a man with a large beard, missing his front teeth, who comes up to his ears.
Alexander Karmanov towers over the 6-foot-5 N.H.L. player Brent Burns. Karmanov Family

Meet the world's biggest hockey player

There are zero hockey rinks in Moldova, in Eastern Europe. Yet a teenager named Alexander Karmanov has already caught the eyes of N.H.L. teams. Scouts are impressed by his skills, but it's hard for anyone not to stop and stare when he skates by: Karmanov is 7 feet tall and 277 pounds, far and away the biggest hockey player on the planet.

He is so big that hockey equipment doesn't exist in his size. When Karmanov's team sent his measurements along to Under Armour, the billion-dollar sportswear company, it couldn't find a template large enough. Instead, his jersey was custom-made from a goalie's cut, with larger arms and a wider and longer body.

Have a grand evening.

Thanks for reading. I'll be back tomorrow. — Matthew

Philip Pacheco was our photo editor.

We welcome your feedback. Write to us at evening@nytimes.com.

Evening Briefing Newsletter Logo

Writer: Matthew Cullen

Editors: Carole Landry, Whet Moser, Justin Porter

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