essay a day without rules

TALK WITH SHIVI

Essay on : A Day Without Rules (450 words)

A day without rules essay.

Imagine a world where rules and regulations suddenly ceased to exist. What would a day without rules be like? While the idea might initially sound liberating, delving deeper reveals a complex tapestry of consequences that could reshape society as we know it. In a world governed by laws, rules provide structure, order, and a sense of security. However, a day without rules would challenge the very fabric of our existence and test the boundaries of human behavior.

At first glance, the idea of a day without rules might seem exciting. People might experience a temporary sensation of freedom and abandon, releasing themselves from the constraints of societal norms. But this unbridled freedom could quickly lead to chaos and uncertainty. Without traffic rules, streets might become chaotic and dangerous, jeopardizing lives and property. Social interactions could devolve into conflicts, as there would be no guidelines to mediate disputes or ensure mutual respect.

The absence of rules could also affect economic systems. Businesses operate within a framework of regulations that ensure fair competition, consumer protection, and ethical practices. Without these regulations, the market might become a lawless battleground, where unethical practices prevail, and consumers are left vulnerable to exploitation. Investments and financial transactions could become risky endeavors, hindering economic growth and stability.

One of the most profound impacts of a day without rules would be on public safety and health. Regulations that govern food safety, healthcare, and environmental protection play a crucial role in safeguarding human well-being. Without these rules, the risk of contaminated food, unregulated medical procedures, and environmental degradation could skyrocket, leading to dire consequences for individuals and the planet.

On a societal level, the absence of rules could expose marginalized groups to even greater vulnerability. Laws and regulations often exist to protect the rights and dignity of all individuals, regardless of their background. Without these protections, discrimination, prejudice, and injustice could run rampant, further deepening social divides and eroding trust within communities.

While the idea of a day without rules might spark creative thinking and innovation in some areas, it’s important to recognize that innovation can thrive within the boundaries of responsible regulations. Regulations often challenge individuals and industries to find innovative solutions that meet the needs of society while respecting ethical and environmental considerations.

In conclusion, a day without rules might initially appear as an opportunity for unfettered freedom, but the consequences would likely be far-reaching and undesirable. Rules and regulations serve as the backbone of a functional society, ensuring order, safety, and fairness. While questioning and revising rules can be valuable for progress, a complete absence of rules would likely lead to chaos, endangering lives, economies, and the very foundations of civilization.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Daily Plate of Crazy

A Day Without Rules

September 4, 2017 by D. A. Wolf 3 Comments

It wasn’t just about six weeks of dieting, or the rigorous discipline required of a new project, or the usual activities of daily life that require paperwork and phone calls and more paperwork and more phone calls. It was a whole host of things coming together all at once; I needed a day without rules. And this past weekend, I took it.

I put down my proverbial pen. I shed the constraints of a drag-on diet. I allowed my mind to wander, old movies to amuse me, and some of my favorite books to find their way back into my hands.

How Do You Relax?

What about you? When you feel yourself on the edge of a dense, pressing excess of Things To Do though you know you need to refuel and re-center, then what?

Do you call a few friends and coordinate an impromptu get-together? Do you grab a map — yes, an actual paper map — and head off down the road for a spontaneous adventure?

Do you allow yourself a walk through nature? Would you prefer to meander in the mall? Are you happier taking to the crowded city to enjoy the pulse of its population and the aromas of its food trucks?

Might you, like me, curl up in the quiet somewhere to take solace in stories of unusual characters and faraway places?

Doesn’t the way that you take time for yourself change based on where you are and with whom? Isn’t your “day without rules” different at age 25 than it would be at age 35, or for that matter, 15 or 65? What is the compelling reason that you need your day off, and doesn’t that reason direct you toward a varied Rx for how to spend it?

If you manage to take your day without rules because stress is crushing you, won’t you be more efficient, more effective, and more productive after a genuine break from your norm? Aren’t you, well… nicer? Happier? Refueled?

Ah… Discipline.

Some of us pride ourselves on very old school, much lauded, typically American “work ethic” values: focus, determination, persistence. And discipline? As an independent worker, if you don’t have discipline — self-discipline — you can forget it. You must be able to effectively (and naturally?) create structure within which to work where no such imposed structure already exists.

Fortunately, that’s never been a problem for me. On the contrary; if anything, the opposite is more of a struggle. Discipline has been part of my life since… well, as long as I can remember. Consequently, casting the day’s and the week’s checklist out of my consciousness (and off my nagging virtual desk), even for a few hours, is nearly impossible.

Of course, for anyone who has read about, watched on the news, or is living through the recent devastation of hurricane Harvey (or any other monumental life event), the usual daily challenges pale in complexity and need. Tumultuous external events, especially disasters, remind us how much we depend on each other, how much we take for granted, and how precious are our most fundamental gifts — loved ones, health, home, community.

Perspective Is Found When We Step Back

Sometimes, we just need to take a step back, to reassess, to give ourselves a day or even two without rules. We need to set aside the bills, the phone calls, the reading group assignment; we need to nix the newspaper, the weekend visit to an irritating aunt, the housework in a space that is already clean enough. We need to can the calorie counting (yes, just eat the ice cream), the three-mile run, and run to a quiet corner in the apartment or the house instead — to settle in with Frank Sinatra or Frank Langella, or maybe Fanny Price.

We need our angst-easing albums, our campy favorite films, our familiar words in novels that give us consistent comfort. There is little, really, that can’t be put away for an afternoon or an evening now and then — in favor of something that refills the well.

You May Also Enjoy

• How to Relax When You’re a Type A Personality
• Just Eat the Ice Cream!
• “So Busy, So Sorry!”
• Breaking the Rules

September 4, 2017 at 4:16 pm

Being without rules is a break only if 99.9% of the time you live with rules. Not everybody is like that or has that discipline. I’m more like you–routine orients me, work fulfills me, the three-mile run is no pleasure but going up stairs without panting is…. To me, a break, a day without rules, is probably reading all day, especially a really good novel that isn’t going to teach me anything.

September 4, 2017 at 8:00 pm

Relaxing with a glass of red wine ? and tuning into the silliness of Bachelor in Paradise on ABC 7pm central time, after a long weekend cleaning debris, climbing ladders trimming palm trees and repairing house damage of Hurricane Harvey!

September 12, 2017 at 9:42 am

Well….. Outlander has returned to STARZ, so I have my guilty pleasure back to help me relax. Glass of wine and gripping historical fiction! Perfect. Whether we call them “rules,” “obligations” or “expectation,” to feel overwhelmed by them serves the opposite goal from what they are intended. Order and discipline in life is necessary but there is no shame in ditching it all for a short time if we believe it’s necessary to mentally regroup and refresh. Well said, my friend. xo

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

  Notify me when new comments are added.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Parlez-vous francais?

Popular this month.

• 50 Years old and Starting Over
• Best Places to Live When You're Over 50 and Reinventing
• When a Couple Wants Different Things
• How to Comfort Someone Who Is Stressed

Food for Thought

• Why I Choose to Think Like a Man
• When You Marry a Loner
• Emotionally Needy Parents
• Sex vs. Lovemaking: Why Are We So Confused?
• Think Looks Don't Pay?
• Rebranding Mediocrity: Why Good Enough Isn't Good Enough

Privacy Overview

Could we live in a world without rules?

Professor of Behavioural Science, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Disclosure statement

Nick Chater receives funding from ESRC. He is a member of the UK Committee on Climate Change, and a director of DecisionTechnology, Ltd. He is the author of The Mind is Flat (2018) Penguin/Yale University Press.

University of Warwick provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

View all partners

I’m in my late twenties and I’m feeling more and more constrained by rules. From the endless signs that tell me to “stand on the right” on escalators or “skateboarding forbidden” in public places to all those unwritten societal rules such as the expectation that I should settle down, buy a house and have a family. Do we really need all these rules, why should I follow them and what would happen if we all ignored them? Will, 28, London

We all feel the oppressive presence of rules, both written and unwritten – it’s practically a rule of life. Public spaces, organisations, dinner parties, even relationships and casual conversations are rife with regulations and red tape that seemingly are there to dictate our every move. We rail against rules being an affront to our freedom, and argue that they’re “there to be broken”.

But as a behavioural scientist I believe that it is not really rules, norms and customs in general that are the problem – but the unjustified ones. The tricky and important bit, perhaps, is establishing the difference between the two.

A good place to start is to imagine life in a world without rules. Apart from our bodies following some very strict and complex biological laws , without which we’d all be doomed, the very words I’m writing now follow the rules of English. In Byronic moments of artistic individualism, I might dreamily think of liberating myself from them. But would this new linguistic freedom really do me any good or set my thoughts free?

This article is part of Life’s Big Questions The Conversation’s new series, co-published with BBC Future, seeks to answer our readers’ nagging questions about life, love, death and the universe. We work with professional researchers who have dedicated their lives to uncovering new perspectives on the questions that shape our lives.

Some – Lewis Carroll in his poem Jabberwocky , for example – have made a success of a degree of literary anarchy . But on the whole, breaking away from the rules of my language makes me not so much unchained as incoherent.

Byron was a notorious rule breaker in his personal life, but he was also a stickler for rhyme and meter . In his poem, When We Two Parted , for example, Byron writes about forbidden love, a love that broke the rules, but does do so by precisely following some well-established poetic laws. And many would argue it is all the more powerful for it:

In secret we met In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee?– With silence and tears.

Consider, too, how rules are the essence of sport, games and puzzles – even when their entire purpose is supposedly fun. The rules of chess , say, can trigger a tantrum if I want to “castle” to get out of check, but find that they say I can’t; or if I find your pawn getting to my side of the board and turning into a queen, rook, knight or bishop. Similarly, find me a football fan who hasn’t at least once raged against the offside rule.

But chess or football without rules wouldn’t be chess or football – they would be entirely formless and meaningless activities. Indeed, a game with no rules is no game at all.

Lots of the norms of everyday life perform precisely the same function as the rules of games – telling us what “moves” we can, and can’t, make. The conventions of “pleases” and “thank yous” that seem so irksome to young children are indeed arbitrary – but the fact that we have some such conventions, and perhaps critically that we agree what they are, is part of what makes our social interactions run smoothly.

And rules about driving on the left or the right, stopping at red lights, queuing, not littering, picking up our dog’s deposits and so on fall into the same category. They are the building blocks of a harmonious society.

The call of chaos

Of course, there has long been an appetite among some people for a less formalised society, a society without government, a world where individual freedom takes precedence: an anarchy.

The trouble with anarchy, though, is that it is inherently unstable – humans continually, and spontaneously, generate new rules governing behaviour, communication and economic exchange, and they do so as rapidly as old rules are dismantled.

A few decades ago, the generic pronoun in written language was widely assumed to be male: he/him/his. That rule has, quite rightly, largely been overturned. Yet it has also been replaced – not by an absence of rules, but by a different and broader set of rules governing our use of pronouns .

Or let’s return to the case of sport. A game may start by kicking a pig’s bladder from one end of a village to another, with ill-defined teams, and potentially riotous violence. But it ends up, after a few centuries, with a hugely complex rule book dictating every detail of the game. We even create international governing bodies to oversee them.

The political economist Elinor Ostrom (who shared the Noble Prize for economics in 2009) observed the same phenomenon of spontaneous rule construction when people had collectively to manage common resources such as common land, fisheries, or water for irrigation.

She found that people collectively construct rules about, say, how many cattle a person can graze, where, and when; who gets how much water, and what should be done when the resource is limited; who monitors whom, and which rules resolve disputes. These rules aren’t just invented by rulers and imposed from the top down – instead, they often arise, unbidden, from the needs of mutually agreeable social and economic interactions.

The urge to overturn stifling, unjust or simply downright pointless rules is entirely justified. But without some rules – and some tendency for us to stick to them – society would slide rapidly into pandemonium. Indeed, many social scientists would see our tendency to create, stick to, and enforce rules as the very foundation of social and economic life .

Our relationship with rules does seem to be unique to humans. Of course, many animals behave in highly ritualistic ways – for example, the bizarre and complex courtship dances of different species of bird of paradise – but these patterns are wired into their genes, not invented by past generations of birds. And, while humans establish and maintain rules by punishing rule violations , chimpanzees – our closest relatives – do not. Chimps may retaliate when their food is stolen but, crucially, they don’t punish food stealing in general – even if the victim is a close relative .

In humans, rules also take hold early. Experiments show that children , by the age of three, can be taught entirely arbitrary rules for playing a game. Not only that, when a “puppet” (controlled by an experimenter) arrives on the scene and begins to violate the rules, children will criticise the puppet, protesting with comments such as “You are doing that wrong!” They will even attempt to teach the puppet to do better.

Indeed, despite our protests to the contrary, rules seem hardwired into our DNA. In fact, our species’ ability to latch onto, and enforce, arbitrary rules is crucial to our success as a species . If each of us had to justify each rule from scratch (why we drive on the left in some countries, and on the right in others; why we say please and thank you), our minds would grind to a halt. Instead, we are able to learn the hugely complex systems of linguistic and social norms without asking too many questions – we simply absorb “the way we do things round here”.

Instruments of tyranny

But we must be careful – for this way tyranny also lies. Humans have a powerful sense of wanting to enforce, sometimes oppressive, patterns of behaviour – correct spelling, no stranded prepositions, no split infinitives, hats off in church, standing for the national anthem – irrespective of their justification. And while the shift from “This is what we all do” to “This is what we all ought to do” is a well-known ethical fallacy , it is deeply embedded in human psychology.

One danger is that rules can develop their own momentum: people can become so fervent about arbitrary rules of dress, dietary restrictions or the proper treatment of the sacred that they may exact the most extreme punishments to maintain them.

Political ideologues and religious fanatics often mete out such retribution – but so do repressive states, bullying bosses and coercive partners: the rules must be obeyed, just because they are the rules.

Not only that, but criticising rules or failing to enforce them (not to draw attention to a person wearing inappropriate dress, for example) becomes a transgression requiring punishment itself.

And then there’s “rule-creep”: rules just keep being added and extended, so that our individual liberty is increasingly curtailed. Planning restrictions, safety regulations and risk assessments can seem to accumulate endlessly and may extend their reach far beyond any initial intention.

Restrictions on renovating ancient buildings can be so stringent that no renovation is feasible and the buildings collapse; environmental assessments for new woodlands can be so severe that tree planting becomes almost impossible; regulations on drug discovery can be so arduous that a potentially valuable medicine is abandoned. The road to hell is not merely paved with good intentions, but edged with rules enforcing those good intentions, whatever the consequences.

Individuals, and societies, face a continual battle over rules – and we must be cautious about their purpose. So, yes, “ standing on the right ” on an escalator may speed up everyone’s commute to work – but be careful of conventions that have no obvious benefit to all, and especially those that discriminate, punish and condemn. The latter can become the instruments of tyranny

Rules, like good policing, should rely on our consent. So perhaps the best advice is mostly to follow rules, but always to ask why.

To get all of life’s big answers, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value evidence-based news by subscribing to our newsletter . You can send us your big questions by email at [email protected] and we’ll try to get a researcher or expert on the case.

More Life’s Big Questions :

Have humans evolved beyond nature and do we even need it?

Death: can our final moment be euphoric?

Love: is it just a fleeting high fuelled by brain chemicals?

• Life's Big Questions

Head of School, School of Arts & Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Clinical Teaching Fellow

Data Manager

Director, Social Policy

live a radical life of unconditional love

What a Day Without Rules Looks Like

My children said, “Sleep in tomorrow, Mum. You’re overtired. You haven’t had much sleep in the last 48 hours.” So I slept in.

When I got up, the kitchen was deserted. Everyone had had breakfast, washed the dishes, cleaned up, and disappeared. I found myself some cereal and made a cup of tea, and then went back to the warmth of my bed to enjoy my breakfast. Gemma-Rose (9) discovered me a short time later.

“Mum! You’re awake. I was waiting for you to wake up so I could make you some porridge.”

“Perhaps you can make some pikelets for morning tea instead,” I suggested. My youngest daughter smiled.

When I’d showered and dressed, I went in search of everyone else. “What are you all doing?”

Sophie (12) smiled. “I’ve been educating myself. I’ve written a blog post about my sewing. Can I show you?”

The house was clean and tidy. There was even washing on the line.

“The basket wasn’t quite full,” said Charlotte (15), “but I decided to do some washing anyway. If I’d left it until tomorrow, the basket would have been overflowing.”

I joined the younger girls in the family room, where we worked on our own projects for some time. Mid-morning Gemma-Rose made a batch of pikelets, and then everyone appeared to eat them. When we’d licked the last of the syrup-coated crumbs off our lips, we headed back to work.

“Shall we have lunch?” Imogen asked about 12.30 pm.

“Informal or at the table?”

“What do you think? Informal?”

“Yes. Sounds good.”

Imogen and Charlotte collected the orders, and they made lunch. Everyone helped clean up afterwards. Then it was back to reading and writing and piano practices.

“Have we decided what we’ll have for dinner?” asked Sophie mid-afternoon.

“I’ll make potato and red pepper soup,” I offered.

“No, you won’t,” said Imogen. “You’re tired. I’ll do it.” I didn’t protest.

When I noticed the shade overtaking the garden, I snuck outside and brought in the washing. Good thing someone was playing the piano, otherwise, the girls might have heard the pegs falling into the bucket, and I wouldn’t have been allowed to do this job on my own.

Soon Imogen will start preparing the dinner. I will wash the afternoon tea dishes. Someone will set the table for dinner. Andy will arrive home from school. Callum might make it back from his day out in time to eat with us. If he doesn’t, we’ll put his dinner aside for him to eat later. Duncan will appear from his bedroom where he’s been studying all day. We’ll chat around the table, swapping news. Then everyone will help wash and dry the dishes by hand.

After dinner, the girls will play a computer game or watch a DVD or read a book. Perhaps we’ll sit together in the family room and chat while we enjoy the warmth from the gas heater.

About 8.00 pm, Sophie will say, “We’d better get ready for bed,” and then she and Gemma-Rose will head off to the bathroom.

I will say, “Do you want me to tuck you into bed now or do you want to read for a while?”

If the girls say, “We’d like to read,” and then I don’t arrive at the right time to turn off the light, Gemma-Rose will come looking for me. “We’re tired. Can you come and say goodnight to us, please? We want to go to sleep.” They like a proper kiss and hug before closing their eyes.

About 8.30 pm, Charlotte will appear saying she is tired and is going to bed. She might read before turning out the light. Imogen might join her, but then again she might stay up chatting to Andy, or they could watch a DVD together. I have no idea when the boys will go to bed because I will have headed off to my bed long before they start to think about sleep.

Our day looks very ordinary, doesn’t it? We completed the chores. Everyone was helpful and considerate. We all worked and ate meals together. We made a few quick decisions that were mutually acceptable. The girls will go to bed at a reasonable hour. So will I. Nothing interesting at all about our day. Just a quiet, peaceful day.

A day without rules? It’s not as exciting or as wild as it sounds. Or maybe it is. It depends on how we look at it. Each day everyone is willing to work together and to help each other so that life runs smoothly and is productive. And we do this without the help of rules. I think that’s rather exciting after all. Maybe you think so too!

Image: totally random and nothing to do with the topic. I added something interesting to liven up this ordinary post.

PS: Sleeping in late isn’t typical, but then again, not having hardly any sleep in 48 hours isn’t typical either! Everything else is pretty much normal.

There are more stories about parenting responsibly without rules in my book Radical Unschool Love  !

I'm an Australian blogger, podcaster, and Youtuber. I write and speak about unschooling, parenting and family life. I'm also the author of the unschooling books 'Curious Unschoolers', 'Radical Unschool Love' and ‘The Unschool Challenge’. You'll find them on Amazon!

I didn't find it boring, sounds like the perfect day to me 🙂

I like the photo too. He's very cute.

I love quiet days, where we can stay home and just be together. I'm quite happy living a 'boring' life. Glad you like the photo!

Slightly off the topic but I was wondering how you get "Andy and Me time"? I find one of the reasons I ask my girls to head off to bed some nights (they have a suggested bed time but we don't strictly enforce it) is for time alone for me (man they can talk!) or simply for some quiet time with Iain. I find he enjoys the time alone with me (don't get me wrong ADORES his girls and spends time everyday playing with them) but he really likes to have time alone, just with me, which two little girls don't quite get yet … lol

BTW please feel free to not answer this, feel a bit rude asking but I just find this is one area I have to juggle sometimes. I can sometimes find myself putting my girls needs ahead of my mans and need to remind myself now and then to keep "stoking the relationship fire" … lol

There's no problem asking this question! I think you are so right: 'my man and me' time is very important. Andy and I always spend an hour together alone after dinner, so we can chat and catch up with the day's news. We can always retreat into our bedroom if the kids insist on hanging around, but usually we just say we need a little quiet time. We don't wait until the kids have gone to bed to have time together, because I am an early to bed person. Andy usually works to a late hour, preparing school lessons, and I couldn't possibly manage to stay awake until he is ready to go to bed. Not ideal but just the way it is.

We always make sure we have time alone at the weekends. Every Saturday afternoon we'll go somewhere together, maybe have lunch out or coffee. We take time on Sundays to sit and chat. Our children get plenty of time with dad so they are happy to go off and let me have him to myself. Actually, they sometimes say to Andy, "You need to take Mum out for coffee." They recognise it's important. Maybe as your girls get older they will 'get it' too!

I'm glad the girls helped you have some rest xxx

I was spoilt! I hope you get some similar rest tomorrow. I imagine you need it!

Oh to have such order and self-motivation/discipline in my home. Inspiring.

I wrote this post as one in a series. We were discussing the need or otherwise for rules, in order to encourage order and discipline in our children. Of course I have also had many disorganised days in our years of homeschooling. I hope you will read my posts about tired mothers and difficult days (there's a label in the side-bar) so you get a balanced picture. Inspiring… maybe. But I wouldn't want to give anyone the impression that we live a perfect life. Typical days change over time. At the moment life is very easy compared to when we had little children in the family. We just persevered through the more difficult times and yes, life has ended up relatively tranquil! I'm sure that's the way it is for many long term homeschoolers.

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and stopping to say hello!

Please add your thoughts! Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Why I Wanted to Delete My Blogs

Excited About Maths

Related posts.

Kids, Needs, and Church

Forcing Kids to Learn and to Eat, and Should We Test Them?

What Kind of Home Do Kids Need?

Discover more from stories of an unschooling family.

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

IELTS Blog & IELTS Mock Test

Ielts exam preparation for a higher band score., ielts essay: pretend you woke up one day and there were no rules.

IELTS Essay Topic:

Pretend you woke up one day and there were no rules. People could suddenly do whatever they wanted! Explain what the world would be like.

Use your imagination!

Sample Answer: Laws and rules are the regulating factors of any community. They organize and govern the behavior of people. There are several impacts for the absence of rules and laws. Chief among them are chaos and corruption.

If no rules are found, chaos and anarchy will prevail in a community and people will surely do whatever they desire even if their actions are against the public norms. Indisputably, people will behave randomly and carelessly whether in streets, shops, schools, etc. For example, drivers will neglect traffic lights causing many dreadful accidents which, in turn affect the lives of people and sabotage the public property. Another example lies in schools- students will disrespect their teachers, quarrel with each other and damage the school properties. Such actions result from the absence of rules which regulate behaviors and conducts.

Another impact of the absence of rules is the emergence of corruption in communities. Undoubtedly, if the rules are absent, the strong will control everything in a community.  For example, when the matter comes to recruitment, the strong or the rich people will take high positions or ranks and will adopt nepotism in the course of employment. Such matter will prevent the poor from obtaining job opportunities leading to their misery. Consequently, the concept of injustice will be dominant owing to the absence of laws and rules.  Therefore, the community will be corrupted and disabled.

To sum up, rules are crucial and essential for regulating any community which can suppress the two negative impacts discussed above. Such impacts will disrupt prosperity and prevent success in communities.

[Written by – Abdulaziz Alharthi]

3 thoughts on “ IELTS Essay: Pretend you woke up one day and there were no rules ”

It’s a good one👍

Good try though.

It was very helpful but if it was written in a proper essay form, it would have been better and easier to understand. But the sample was very good and easy to understand.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CAPTCHA 78 ÷ thirteen =

• Children's Books
• Literature & Fiction

Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

• Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
• Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
• Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
• A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
• Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
• Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important:  Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Return this item for free

Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges

• Go to your orders and start the return
• Select your preferred free shipping option
• Drop off and leave!

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

A Day Without Rules Paperback – August 29, 2013

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Reading age 5 - 6 years
• Print length 28 pages
• Language English
• Dimensions 8.5 x 0.07 x 8.5 inches
• Publication date August 29, 2013
• ISBN-10 1481183540
• ISBN-13 978-1481183543
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

From the author, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (August 29, 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 28 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1481183540
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1481183543
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 5 - 6 years
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.56 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.07 x 8.5 inches
• #2,419 in Children's Short Story Collections

About the author

Mr. billy norman boston.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

Paragraph on Life without Rules – by Silki

Introduction:

Although sometimes we think the life without rules would have been quite good, because we could do anything we wanted, but you know, it’s not always true.

If we could do everything we wanted, the society would become uncivilized, like a jungle.

Sometimes we do things knowingly or unknowingly which hurt our family and society well being. This is why rules are required. Our actions and thoughts should have some limits. The human nature is very greedy and destructive. Life without rules won’t be good as humans will destroy life and the nature. Our life will be worse if we don’t adhere to some of the rules, which have been developed to drive us toward the right direction.

Rule Binds Human Nature :

The human actions are driven by many factors. Our aim, perceptions or thoughts, believes and our nature is responsible for what we do. If the family raising a child is not good, it’s obvious that the influence of the family on the child’s overall upbringing won’t be good. In that case, the child will have negative personality and bad intentions. He/she will most likely do things which can hurt the others. If there is no rule to bind the actions of such people, they will create chaos in the society.

A Life without Rule:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Some of the rules of life are very important. They help us stay unite and maintain the balance of the society. For example, the rule of getting married has a deep significance. It makes us committed to a relationship. It teaches us to take responsibilities of a family. Simply put, this traditional social rule of being committed to a relationship actually makes us a responsible human being. The other intention of this life rule is to bind a man and woman into a serious relation where they will commit only to each other and not to anybody else.

Life without rule can become seriously chaotic if a man or a woman fails to understand the importance of being civilized. Even after so many regulations and bindings, humans are threat to each other. I know that some orthodox rules sometime become the obstruction to human growth, but that you’ve to understand. If not adhering to a rule doesn’t harm the well being of others, life without rule of that kind is welcomed anytime. You have to understand when sticking to a rule is beneficial for the personal safety and the well being of the society.

Conclusion:

Not all rules are important for our safety and living. If the society tells you to follow the rules of racism or caste discrimination, you should raise voice against it. If your family and relatives force you to choose a career option saying that it’s a family rule, that’s rubbish. You really have to understand the fundamental logic supporting the rules. If life without rule makes yours and others life worse, it’s not good. On the contrary, if your parents say that waking up early in the morning is a rule, there are many scientifically proven reasons to support the habit. So, it’s not always true that life without rule would have been good. What I mean to say is try to understand every rule logically and then only decide to follow it.

Related Articles:

• Paragraph on Importance of Discipline – by Silki
• Paragraph on Personality – by Silki
• Paragraph on My Family- by Silki
• Human Life is Dependent on Nature – by Silki

A world without rules Essay Example

• Pages: 2 (412 words)
• Published: July 1, 2016
• Type: Essay

I don't think there would be a such thing as 'good' if there were no rules. There would be nothing to compare it to. If there were no models for people to say "okay, this is a good person, and this is a bad person" then we couldn't really say what's good or bad. I think the existence of rules keeps people from deviating from the norm for fear of consequences, but if there were no negative consequences for people's actions, people could ideally, do whatever they wanted without fear of retribution or being outcasted. Imagine there being no consequence for murder or rape. How many scorned people are out there plotting revenge on people, but never act on their thoughts because they fear the repercutions of their actions? I think there are more than you can imagine.

tyle="text-align: justify">How many times have you been speeding on the interstate, thinking nothing of it, and slowed down because you saw a police car? If that cop car wasn't positioned on the side of the road, would you have slowed down? What if you could steal 1 million dollars and never get caught, would you do that, knowing that stealing is "bad behavior"? I think people are only as good as their options. People weigh the pros and cons of their decisions and if the pros outweigh the cons, then they act on their decision. If there weren't any cons to consider, people would act on whatever thought they had without considering the repercutions, because frankly, there would be none.

I personally think the world would slip into chaos, people would be animalistic an

act based on their instincts. Morals, values, justice, and guilt would cease to exist because people wouldn't have been taught to feel remorse or sorry for their actions. People would do what makes them feel pleasure and avoid pain. Ultimately, I think with humans being the dominant species on the Earth, we'd cause so much destruction that we'd ruin the environment and eventually destroys ourselves. I don't think people fully understand how much laws and rules make up the way we live.

All in all, the world is a much better place with the rules and laws that we have in place. No matter how often people complain that the justice system is flawed and geared towards the wealthy, without the system in place the world would be a much darker place.

• Death and the Maiden Themes Essay Example
• A View from the Bridge Essay Example
• The Unbreakable Oath Essay Example
• Ang Paglilitis Kay Mang Serapio Essay Example
• Sam Spade and Brigid O'shaughnessy Essay Example
• A Rogerian Argument Essay Example
• Frank Abagnale Analysis Essay Example
• The Good Person of Szechuan and the Measures Taken by Brecht Essay Example
• Argumentative Analysis Essay Example
• Criminal Procedure Essay Example
• A Week in December and Bonfire of the Vanities Essay Example
• Ethical and Legal Issues Essay Example
• Cry Freedom: South Africa during the Apartheid Era Essay Example
• Flatliners Essay Example
• Relevance of Society and Culture in Legal Management Essay Example
• Values of Life essays
• Ethical dilemma essays
• Normative Ethics essays
• Virtue Ethics essays
• Belief essays
• Deontology essays
• Moral essays
• Virtue essays
• Work Ethic essays
• Jurisprudence essays
• Social Injustice essays
• Juvenile Justice essays
• Culture essays
• Social Control essays
• Citizenship essays
• Social Justice essays
• Caste System essays
• Social Responsibility essays
• Socialization essays
• Deviance essays
• Modern Society essays
• Popularity essays
• Civil Society essays
• Community essays
• Female essays
• Filipino People essays
• Igbo People essays
• Indigenous Australians essays
• Indigenous Peoples essays
• Minority Group essays
• Social Institution essays
• The nation essays
• Middle Class essays
• Social Norms essays
• Discourse Community essays
• Popular Culture essays
• Car Culture essays
• American Culture essays
• Mormon essays
• Indian Culture essays
• Mexican Culture essays
• Pop Culture essays
• Cultural Differences essays
• Culture Shock essays
• Different Cultures essays
• Acceptance essays
• Age Of Enlightenment essays
• Child Observation essays
• Confucianism essays

Haven't found what you were looking for?

Search for samples, answers to your questions and flashcards.

• Enter your topic/question
• Receive an explanation
• Ask one question at a time
• Enter a specific assignment topic
• Aim at least 500 characters
• a topic sentence that states the main or controlling idea
• supporting sentences to explain and develop the point you’re making
• evidence from your reading or an example from the subject area that supports your point
• analysis of the implication/significance/impact of the evidence finished off with a critical conclusion you have drawn from the evidence.

Unfortunately copying the content is not possible

Tell us your email address and we’ll send this sample there..

By continuing, you agree to our Terms and Conditions .

Advertisement

Supported by

Climate Change Added a Month’s Worth of Extra-Hot Days in Past Year

Since last May, the average person experienced 26 more days of abnormal warmth than they would have without global warming, a new analysis found.

• Share full article

By Raymond Zhong

Over the past year of record-shattering warmth, the average person on Earth experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures than they otherwise would have, were it not for human-induced climate change, scientists said Tuesday.

The past 12 months have been the planet’s hottest ever measured, and the burning of fossil fuels, which has added huge amounts of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, is a major reason. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s population experienced at least 31 days of atypical warmth since last May as a result of human-caused warming, the researchers’ analysis found.

Hypothetically, had we not heated the globe to its current state , the number of unusually warm days would have been far fewer, the scientists estimated, using mathematical modeling of the global climate.

The precise difference varies place to place. In some countries, it is just two or three weeks, the researchers found. In others, including Colombia, Indonesia and Rwanda, the difference is upward of 120 days.

“That’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on people,” said one of the researchers who conducted the new analysis, Andrew Pershing, the vice president for science at Climate Central, a nonprofit research and news organization based in Princeton, N.J., adding, “It’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on nature.” In parts of South America and Africa, he said, it amounts to “120 days that just wouldn’t be there without climate change.”

Currently, the world’s climate is shifting toward the La Niña phase of the cyclical pattern known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. This typically portends cooler temperatures on average. Even so, the recent heat could have reverberating effects on weather and storms in some places for months to come. Forecasters expect this year’s Atlantic hurricane season to be extraordinarily active, in part because the ocean waters where storms form have been off-the-charts warm.

The analysis issued Tuesday was a collaboration between several groups: Climate Central, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and World Weather Attribution, a scientific initiative that examines extreme weather episodes. The report’s authors considered a given day’s temperature to be abnormally high in a particular location if it exceeded 90 percent of the daily temperatures recorded there between 1991 and 2020.

The average American experienced 39 days of such temperatures as a result of climate change since last May, the report found. That’s 19 more days than in a hypothetical world without human-caused warming. In some states, including Arizona and New Mexico in the Southwest and Washington and Oregon in the Northwest, the difference is 30 days or more, a full extra month.

The scientists also tallied up how many extreme heat waves the planet had experienced since last May. They defined these as episodes of unseasonable warmth across a large area, lasting three or more days, with significant loss of life or disruption to infrastructure and industry.

In total, the researchers identified 76 such episodes over the past year, affecting 90 countries, on every continent except Antarctica. There was the punishing hot spell in India last spring. There was the extreme heat that worsened wildfires and strained power grids in North America, Europe and East Asia last summer. And, already this year, there has been excessive warmth from Africa to the Middle East to Southeast Asia .

Raymond Zhong reports on climate and environmental issues for The Times. More about Raymond Zhong

Our Coverage of Climate and the Environment

News and Analysis

Over the past year of record-shattering warmth, the average person on Earth experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures  than they otherwise would have, were it not for human-induced climate change, scientists said.

The Biden administration laid out for the first time a set of broad government guidelines around the use of carbon offsets  in an attempt to shore up confidence in a method for tackling global warming that has faced growing criticism.

A group of health experts, economists and U.S. government lawyers are working to address a growing crisis: people dying on the job from extreme heat. They face big hurdles .

Adopting Orphaned Oil Wells:  Students, nonprofit groups and others are fund-raising to cap highly polluting oil and gas wells  abandoned by industry.

Struggling N.Y.C. Neighborhoods:  New data projects are linking social issues with global warming. Here’s what that means for five communities in New York .

Biden Environmental Rules:  The Biden administration has rushed to finalize 10 major environmental regulations  to meet its self-imposed spring deadline.

F.A.Q.:  Have questions about climate change? We’ve got answers .

Watch CBS News

Trump trial ends first day of jury deliberations without a verdict

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/ link copied

By Graham Kates , Katrina Kaufman , Olivia Rinaldi

Updated on: May 29, 2024 / 7:42 PM EDT / CBS News

The first day of jury deliberations in former President Donald Trump's "hush money" trial in New York ended without a verdict as jurors asked to review several portions of testimony and rehear the judge's instructions in the case.

The 12 New Yorkers who will decide Trump's fate met for nearly five hours after listening to the judge's directions about how they should wade through the sea of complex legal issues that the case presents. 

Justice Juan Merchan reminded them of their commitment to impartiality, and implored them to set aside their biases to decide the case on the facts and the law.

"Jurors, you will recall that during jury selection you agreed that you must set aside any opinions or bias you have in favor of or against the defendant and if you decide this case against the evidence and the law," the judge said. "You must set aside any opinions and bias and you must not allow any opinion or bias to influence your verdict."

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records stemming from reimbursements for a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump's attorney Michael Cohen made the payment, and prosecutors say Trump paid him back over the course of his first year in office. Trump is accused of illegally disguising the purpose of the reimbursements to hide the payment to Daniels and has pleaded not guilty.

Toward the end of the day, the jurors asked to review testimony surrounding some of the key allegations in the case, as well as the judge's instructions. They will hear both when court reconvenes on Thursday.

Here's how the first day of deliberations unfolded:

Judge begins delivering jury instructions

Court reconvened shortly after 10 a.m. as Merchan took the bench. After settling some housekeeping issues, he began delivering the instructions to the jury.

New York state courts have a standard set of jury instructions for criminal trials, and Merchan hewed closely to those directions. Prosecutors and defense attorneys proposed some alterations during a hearing last week.

"It is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here. It is yours. You and you alone are the judges of the facts, and you and you are responsible for deciding whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty," Merchan said.

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-8b1a66d7 link copied

Judge tells jurors to set aside any bias for or against Trump when reaching a verdict

Merchan reminded the jury that they agreed to set aside their opinions of Trump when they were selected to serve and vowed to decide the case solely on the facts and the law.

"Jurors, you will recall that during jury selection you agreed that you must set aside any opinions or bias you have in favor of or against the defendant and if you decide this case against the evidence and the law," the judge said. "You must set aside any opinions and bias and you must not allow any opinion or bias to influence your verdict." 

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-376eddea link copied

Merchan lays out "fundamental principles" that jurors must adhere to

Merchan laid out what he called the "fundamental principles of our law that apply in all criminal trials: the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof, and the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

He told the jurors that Trump is presumed innocent, and they "must find the defendant not guilty, unless, on the evidence presented at this trial, you conclude that the people have proven the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," referring to prosecutors. To do so, jurors can consider "all the evidence presented, whether by the people or by the defendant."

Merchan reminded them that they cannot draw a negative conclusion about the fact that Trump did not testify in his own defense, and that he is "not require to prove that he is not guilty."

"The burden of proof never shifts from the people to the defendant. If the people fail to satisfy their burden of proof, you must find the defendant not guilty. And if the people satisfy their burden of proof, you must find the defendant guilty," he said.

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-b2f24e54 link copied

Judge explains the 2 elements jurors must consider to determine a verdict

After defining the terms in the New York statute that Trump is charged with violating, Merchan told jurors they must focus on two elements of the prosecution's case when weighing Trump's guilt or innocence.

To find Trump guilty, the jury must determine that Trump, acting personally or with others, "made or caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise," and that he did so "with an intent to defraud that included an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof," echoing the language from the statute. He said the same instructions apply to all 34 counts, each of which correspond to a different business record.

"If you find the people have proven beyond a reasonable doubt each of those two elements, you must find the defendant guilty of this crime," Merchan said. "If you find the people have not proven beyond a reasonable doubt either one or both of those elements, you must find the defendant not guilty of this crime."

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-8199977e link copied

Jury begins deliberations after Merchan finishes instructions

Merchan finished issuing his instructions and dismissed the jury to begin deliberations. He laid out several rules they must adhere to when discussing the case.

"First, while you are here in the courthouse, deliberating on the case, you will be kept together in the jury room. You may not leave the jury room during deliberations. Lunch will of course be provided," he said. "If you have a cell phone or other electronic device, please give it to a court officer or sergeant to hold for you while you are engaged in deliberations."

If jurors have a question, they can submit it in writing to the judge. If a juror wishes to speak to the judge, they must do so in open court with the parties present. He told them he is not allowed to discuss "the facts of the case, or possible verdict, or vote of the jury on any count."

He said they would work until about 4:30 p.m. today if necessary, and no later than 6 p.m. on future days.

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-25a100a6 link copied

The "unlawful means" that jurors could consider

In order to find Trump guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree, jurors must conclude that he "conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means."

They do not have to all agree on which type of "unlawful means." Merchan explained three that prosecutors put forth:

• Violations of the federal elections campaign act, again otherwise known of FECA
• Falsification of other business records 
• Violation of tax laws

For the second one, falsification of additional records, the judge gave several examples of documents that can be considered, beyond the checks, vouchers and invoices at the center of this trial. 

They include tax records issued by the Trump Organization to Cohen, bank records associated with two of Cohen's limited liability corporations and records related to a wire sent to Daniels' lawyer.

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-7744d0b7 link copied

Court publishes judge's jury instructions

The court published Merchan's full set of jury instructions that he read aloud in court Wednesday morning. The 55-page document can be found here .

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-60d50430 link copied

Trump: "Mother Teresa could not beat these charges"

Leaving the courtroom after the jury got the case, Trump spoke for about five minutes, railing against the prosecution and claiming his conviction is a foregone conclusion.

"Mother Teresa could not beat these charges. These charges are rigged. The whole thing is rigged," he said. 

"The whole country is a mess between the borders and fake elections and you have a trial like this, where the judge is so conflicted, he can't breathe. He's got to do his job. And it's not for me, that I can tell you," Trump continued. "It's a disgrace and I mean that. Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we'll see. We'll see how we do."

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-49ce8d63 link copied

The Trump defense's closing argument

Trump did not take the stand in his own defense, and his legal team called just two witnesses, including a lawyer who said Cohen told him Trump knew nothing about the Daniels payment in 2018.

In his closing argument , Trump's lead attorney Todd Blanche argued that Trump did not commit a crime and that the business records at issue were not in fact falsified since Cohen was Trump's personal attorney during that time. Above all, he emphasized that Cohen, the prosecution's key witness, should not be trusted — and that there is no way the jury could find that Trump knew about the Daniels payment "without believing the words of Michael Cohen." 

He urged jurors to reject Cohen's testimony, calling him the "GLOAT," or "greatest liar of all time," and the "human embodiment of reasonable doubt." He also cast Cohen as someone who has not only lied under oath in the past, but in this very trial. 

Blanche claimed that Cohen lied on the stand about a call to Trump's former bodyguard Keith Schiller, during which Cohen claims to have spoken to Trump about the Stormy Daniels deal. "That is perjury," Blanche told the jury, raising his voice for emphasis. 

Regarding the "catch and kill" scheme alleged by the prosecution, Blanche argued that there was nothing illegal going on: "Every campaign is a conspiracy to promote a candidate, a group of people working together to help somebody win."

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-16d57cba link copied

The basics of the prosecution's case against Trump

As the jury considers its verdict, it's worth looking back on the basics of the prosecution's case against Trump.

Trump is accused of signing off on a scheme to illegally falsify records, with the goal of covering up the $130,000 "hush money" payment made by Cohen to Daniels in 2016. The scheme was designed to subvert election law and keep the payment secret, prosecutors say. 

They allege Trump falsely portrayed reimbursements for the $130,000 payment as monthly checks for ongoing legal services, paid over the course of the first year of his presidency. Each of the 34 counts corresponds to a voucher, invoice or check originating from the payments to Cohen.

Through a progression of witnesses, the prosecution began their case by laying out a broader "catch and kill" scheme to suppress negative stories about Trump during the 2016 election. 

David Pecker was the CEO of American Media Inc., the parent company of the tabloid the National Enquirer, in 2016. A longtime friend of Trump, Pecker testified about how he, Trump and Cohen devised a plan to prevent damaging stories about Trump from surfacing in the months leading up to the election. The Enquirer also published negative stories about Trump's opponents, and positive stories about him. Pecker said the tabloid would run stories by Cohen before they were published.

Pecker agreed to be the "eyes and ears" of the campaign during a meeting in Trump Tower in August 2015, he told the jury. The "catch and kill" effort resulted in three stories being suppressed: those of Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal and Dino Sajudin. AMI bought the rights to McDougal and Sajudin's stories, while Cohen paid Daniels himself.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said that AMI's purchasing of stories on then-candidate Trump's behalf, in coordination with the campaign, amounted to an unlawful campaign contribution. Steinglass said it "turned out to be one of the most valuable contributions that anyone made to the campaign. This may very well be what got Trump elected."

At its core, this is a case about documents, and through witnesses like the Trump Organization's former controller Jeff McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, who handles the company's payroll, the prosecution walked the jury through the allegedly falsified business records and numerous documents that they argue support this contention. 

Prosecutors showed bank records, emails, text messages and call logs over the course of the trial. They also showed two documents bearing the handwriting of Allen Weisselberg and McConney, laying out the repayment calculations for reimbursing Cohen, which they called the "smoking guns."

They wove together a timeline of events that they say can only lead to one conclusion: that the business records were falsified with Trump's knowledge, and that this was part of a larger effort to help Trump's candidacy and prevent voters from learning about potentially damaging information before the 2016 election.

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-7f7081be link copied

Jury sends judge a note asking to review testimony from Pecker and Cohen

At 2:56, a buzzer sounded in the courtroom, the signal that the jury had a message to share. Prosecutors, Trump and his team filed in. 

Merchan said the jury foreperson signed a note requesting to hear the following transcript portions:

• David Pecker's testimony regarding the phone conversation with Trump while Pecker was in an investor meeting
• Pecker's testimony about his decision not to finalize and fund the assignment of life rights related to Karen McDougal 
• Pecker's testimony regarding a meeting at Trump Tower
• Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower meeting

The jury will be brought in and seated, and the transcript portions will be read to them. These are moments that were mentioned during the prosecution's closing arguments Tuesday.

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-d921080f link copied

The significance of the testimony the jury is asking to review

Each portion of the testimony that the jury wants to hear again concerns a critical moment in the prosecution's narrative. 

Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer at the time, testified about receiving a phone call from Trump during an investor meeting in June 2016. An attorney for Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, was shopping her story of having had sex with Trump years earlier, a claim Trump has denied.

"[Trump] said, 'What should I do?'" Pecker said on the stand in April. "I said, 'I think you should buy the story and take it off the market.'"

Pecker said Trump described McDougal as "a nice girl." He said Cohen soon called him and said "you should go ahead and buy this story" and "the boss will take care of it." Pecker said he understood that to mean Trump or the Trump Organization would pay him back. 

Months later, Pecker said he reached an agreement to transfer McDougal's life rights to Cohen, but the deal fell through after AMI's general counsel advised against going forward with the transfer.

"I called Michael Cohen and said to him, 'The assignment deal is off. I'm not going forward. It's a bad idea. I want you to rip up the agreement,'" Pecker testified . "He was very upset, screaming basically."

Pecker and Cohen also both testified about a meeting with Trump at Trump Tower in 2015. Pecker said that was the meeting where he agreed to be the "eyes and ears" of the campaign and be on the lookout for any negative stories about Trump. Prosecutors argued this was the origin of the "catch and kill" scheme that preceded Pecker paying McDougal $150,000, which they said represented an illegal campaign contribution.

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-a70d1cc9 link copied

Jury sends second note asking to rehear judge's instructions

The buzzer rang a second time, and Merchan retook the bench. He said the jurors were requesting to hear his instructions again. He called them back into the courtroom to clarify whether they needed to hear all of the instructions, or just a portion.

Merchan said reading the sections of the transcripts that the jury requested would take about 30 minutes.

He said he didn't need an answer on reading his instructions immediately, and dismissed the jurors from the courtroom for the day. 

Merchan said the jury will hear the transcript portions they requested and his jury instructions when court reconvenes at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, meaning the first day of deliberations is ending without a verdict.

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-87752ba7 link copied

Lawyers agree on transcript portions for 3 of the requests, but argue about 1

After the jurors left, lawyers for both sides were left to determine which portions of the transcript were responsive to the jurors' requests. The two sides agreed on portions regarding Pecker's testimony about a phone conversation with Trump; his testimony about his decision not to finalize and fund the assignment of life rights related to McDougal; and Cohen's testimony about an August 2015 Trump Tower meeting.

They argued, however, over which exact lines satisfied the request for Pecker's testimony regarding that meeting.

At the end of the day, there were still a few lines — out of dozens of pages of transcript — in dispute, and the judge said he would think about them Wednesday evening.

• https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-trial-verdict-jury-deliberations-judge-instructions/#post-update-7bb10e19 link copied

Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at [email protected] or [email protected]

• International

First day of jury deliberations in Trump New York hush money trial

By CNN's Kara Scannell, Lauren Del Valle and Jeremy Herb in the courthouse

Key things to know from the jury's first day of deliberations in Trump's hush money trial

From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Lauren del Valle and Kara Scannell

The jury in Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial finished its first day of deliberations Wednesday without reaching a verdict after meeting for more than four-and-a-half hours.

Jurors will return on Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m. ET to resume deliberations.

Wednesday afternoon, the jury asked to hear a readback of four separate parts of witness testimony, including from former National Enquirer chief David Pecker and Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen.

Here are the pieces of testimony the jury requested:

• Pecker’s testimony about his phone conversation with Trump in June 2016
• Pecker's testimony about not finalizing Trump’s payment to AMI for Karen McDougal’s life rights
• Pecker's testimony about the August 2015 Trump Tower meeting
• Cohen’s testimony about the Trump Tower meeting

Jurors also want to re-hear Judge Juan Merchan’s instructions on the law that he had given them earlier Wednesday morning.

Here are the key things to know about those instructions:

• Merchan  spent an hour instructing the jury on the law before it started deliberations.
• He explained the 34 felony counts against Trump for falsifying business records over the reimbursement to Cohen for hush money payment to Stormy Daniels and went over the elements of the crime that jurors must decide prosecutors have proven beyond a reasonable doubt to return a guilty verdict.
• Merchan also reminded jurors they must put aside their biases as they decide the defendant’s fate. “Remember, you have promised to be a fair juror,” the judge said.

Fact Check: Trump’s false claim that the judge isn’t requiring a unanimous verdict

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Jeremy Herb

Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed Wednesday that Judge Juan Merchan “is not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me.”

Trump made the claim in a  social media post  in which he described Merchan’s supposed position as “RIDICULOUS, UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND UNAMERICAN.” He was echoing assertions that had been  circulating among conservatives  after Fox News anchor John Roberts  wrote  on social media earlier on Wednesday that “Judge Merchan just told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict.” 

Facts First :  Trump’s claim inaccurately depicts what Merchan said.

Merchan  told the jury in his instructions on Wednesday  that their verdict “must be unanimous” on each of the 34 counts that Trump faces and that, to convict Trump of felony falsification of business records, they would have to unanimously agree that he falsified business records with the intent to commit, aid or conceal another crime — that other crime being a violation of a New York election law. But Merchan explained that while  this New York election law  prohibits people from conspiring to use “unlawful means” to promote a candidate’s election, jurors don’t have to unanimously agree on which particular “unlawful means” Trump may have used; they can find him guilty as long as they unanimously agree that Trump used some unlawful means.   

Prosecutors provided three theories of what unlawful means Trump used. Merchan told the jury: “Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were. In determining whether the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you may consider the following: (1) violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act otherwise known as FECA; (2) the falsification of other business records; or (3) violation of tax laws.”

Court is out of session

Judge Juan Merchan is off the bench, and court is out of session.

Trump is now standing to leave the courtroom.

Judge to consider attorney requests on readback excerpts and says he will get back to them about disputes

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass says the readback testimony for the jury as it stands is about 35 pages.

Judge Juan Merchan asks the parties to get the excerpt line numbers sent to him via his clerk and he will get back to them about the disputes.

The judge asked everyone to be ready to go at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.

Defense wants to keep the readback narrow to the jury's request

Attorney Todd Blanche says the defense believes they should keep the readback narrow to the request and what happened after the meeting isn’t directly responsive to the request.

Judge Juan Merchan says he understands why Blanche would be concerned over most of the portion the prosecutors want to add.

Prosecutors want an extra page of testimony read back to jurors about Trump Tower meeting

The parties disagree about the excerpts that answer the third jury readback request – David Pecker's testimony about the Trump Tower meeting.

They're going over the first passage in dispute. They agree on what page and line to start but not where it should end.

Prosecutors want an extra page of testimony to include what happened after the meeting and the execution of the plan hatched at the meeting.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass says they tried to draw a line between the substance of the meeting and what happened afterward.

Prosecutor lists transcript page numbers to be read in court for 3 of jury's 4 requests

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is listing the transcript page numbers that will be read for three of the four requests from the jury.

Steinglass outlines the page numbers to be read for the first two requests.

When Judge Juan Merchan asks about the third request, Steinglass says, "This is the tough one."

Merchan says to skip it for now and go to the fourth one. Steinglass then lists the page numbers for the fourth request.

Prosecutor says progress has been made on transcripts but they may need judge to weigh in

Judge Juan Merchan is back on the bench.

"OK, where do we stand?" he asks.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass says they have made a lot of progress but there are a few issues they may need him to get involved with.

Trump legal team requests expedited schedule for his gag order appeal 

From CNN's Paula Reid and Nicki Brown

Donald Trump's legal team is requesting an expedited briefing schedule for his gag order appeal at the Court of Appeals, according to Gary Spencer, a public information officer for the court.

This is regarding the same preliminary appeal statement the court received last week. It has not decided whether it will actually hear the appeal or not.

“President Trump has filed a request with the New York Court of Appeals seeking expedited review of the unconstitutional Gag Order imposed by Justice (Juan) Merchan," Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement Wednesday. "The Gag Order wrongfully silences the leading candidate for President of the United States, President Trump, at the height of his campaign while he holds a commanding lead in the polls.'

Separately, Spencer said the Court of Appeals has given both sides until June 5 to file written arguments about whether or not Trump has an automatic right to appeal, which he has claimed.

After those written arguments are submitted, the court will decide if it will hear the appeal — which could take weeks, Spencer said.

Trump has continued to rail against the gag order throughout the hush money trial. He has been  charged several thousand dollars in fines   for multiple violations and  made several false statements  about its restrictions.

Please enable JavaScript for a better experience.

• My View My View
• Following Following
• Saved Saved

Trump trial jurors finish first day of deliberations without a verdict

• Medium Text

Sign up here.

Reporting by Jack Queen and Luc Cohen in New York and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Howard Goller

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. New Tab , opens new tab

Thomson Reuters

Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

Legal correspondent specializing in politically charged cases.

Andy covers politics and policy in Washington. His work has been cited in Supreme Court briefs, political attack ads and at least one Saturday Night Live skit.

Read Next / Editor's Picks

Industry Insight Chevron

David Thomas

Mike Scarcella, David Thomas

Karen Sloan

Henry Engler