In a historic clash of personality and policy, Joe Biden and Donald Trump took the stage for the first presidential debate of the 2024 election.

The showdown provided a rare opportunity for both candidates to move the needle in what has been a stubbornly tight race for the White House, but at the end of the night, Biden’s halting performance raised new concerns among Democrats and cause Republicans to celebrate.

The debate was a rematch for Biden and Trump, who faced each other twice in 2020, but a first-of-its-kind format and a vastly different political landscape presented new challenges for the two rivals.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The former school district police chief in Uvalde, Texas, who oversaw the response to the 2022 elementary school shooting that killed 21 people, including 19 children, was arrested on a child endangerment charge, an official at the Uvalde jail said Thursday.

Pete Arredondo, 52, was taken in by law enforcement officers and is accused of abandoning and endangering a child, the jail official said.

The charge was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News.

The Uvalde jail official confirmed Arredondo was being booked into the facility Thursday afternoon. Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco said Thursday night that Arredondo was released on bond.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Biden and former President Donald Trump will participate in the first presidential debate of the 2024 election on Thursday at 9 p.m. ET. 

The debate, hosted by CNN, will be the first time either candidate has been on a debate stage since 2020. The debate will also be simulcast on other networks, including CBS and CBS News 24/7 streaming.

Trump will get the final word of the night, while Mr. Biden got to choose whether he wanted the podium on the right or left side. Their microphones will be muted except when it’s their turn to speak. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio has long been considered one of Donald J. Trump’s top running mate choices and worked as hard as anyone to win the job — raising money for the campaign, speaking with a seemingly endless stream of cable news reporters and even sitting in the Manhattan courtroom with the former president to demonstrate his support.

Now, as Mr. Trump’s increasingly theatrical selection process enters its final phase, Mr. Vance acknowledged Wednesday that he would feel a tinge of dejection if he were not the pick.

The Supreme Court limited the sweep of a federal law on Wednesday aimed at public corruption, ruling that it did not apply to gifts and payments meant to reward actions taken by state and local officials.

The 6-to-3 ruling, which split along ideological lines, was the latest in a series of decisions cutting back federal anti-corruption laws.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for a conservative majority, said that the question in the case was whether federal law makes it a crime for state and local officials to accept such gratuities after the fact. He wrote, “The answer is no.”

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

The judge who presided over Donald Trump’s hush money triallifted some of the restrictions from his gag order Tuesday.

New York state Judge Juan Merchan ruled two days before Trump isset to debate President Joe Biden for the first time in the 2024 campaign.

Merchan’s ruling lifted restrictions on Trump’s ability to comment on the witnesses who testified against him during his trial, as well as a part of the order barring him from discussing the jury that convicted him — essentially finding the witnesses’ and the jury’s work had concluded, so there was no fear of affecting the proceedings. The ruling preserved a part of the order barring Trump from going after court staff members, individual prosecutors and “family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., won her GOP primary Tuesday, NBC News projects, after she decided to run in a different district from the one where she narrowly won re-election in 2022. 

Boebert defeated five other Republicans for the party’s nomination in Colorado’s 4th District, which opened up after Rep. Ken Buck announced this year that he would resign. She will be heavily favored to win the seat in the general election given the area’s rightward lean. 

Boebert, who is in her second term, eked out a 546-vote victory in the neighboring 3rd District two years ago and faced the prospect of a rematch with Adam Frisch, a well-funded Democrat. Former President Donald Trump won the 4th District by 19 points, while he carried the 3rd District by 8 points in 2020, according to calculations from Daily Kos Elections.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, agreed to plead guilty on Monday to a single felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security material in exchange for his release from a British prison, ending his long and bitter standoff with the United States.

Mr. Assange, 52, was granted his request to appear before a federal judge at one of the more remote outposts of the federal judiciary, the courthouse in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, according to a brief court filing made public late Monday. He is expected to be sentenced to about five years, the equivalent of the time he has already served in Britain, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the terms of the agreement.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents case reprimanded a prosecutor from special counsel Jack Smith’s office at a hearing Monday on a proposed gag order for the former president.

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said when attorney David Harbach appeared to get exasperated as she questioned the need to modify Trump’s conditions of release. Smith’s office has challenged those conditions over Trump’s false claims that FBI agents were prepared to kill him while they were executing a 2022 search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The tense exchange at a federal courthouse in Fort Pierce came as attorney Harbach was arguing that Cannon should bar Trump from making more inflammatory statements about FBI agents who worked on the investigation.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Little relief appears on the forecast for millions across the United States enduring record-setting heat or widespread flooding this weekend. 

The National Weather Service said Sunday that the heat wave will shift from the mid-Atlantic to portions of the southeast and southern Plains by Monday. Meanwhile, widespread storms will bring the threat of flash flooding, damaging winds and tornadoes for a second day in New England.

Elsewhere, severe storms and rainfall are on the forecast.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Former President Donald Trump said Saturday that he knows who his vice presidential pick will be — and gave a clue about his or her likely debate night plans.

Asked by NBC News at a Philadelphia campaign stop whether he has decided on his vice presidential pick, Trump responded, “In my mind, yeah,” adding that the person will “most likely” be at Thursday’s debate against President Joe Biden.

“They’ll be there,” he continued. “I think we have a lot of people coming.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The public war of words between Israel and the U.S. continued Thursday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responding pointedly to the White House after the Biden administration again denied his claim the U.S. is withholding weapons from Israel amid its fight in Gaza with Hamas.

His response came shortly after White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, in a call with reporters on Thursday, called Netanyahu’s claim “perplexing to say the least” and two days after the White House bluntly said it “genuinely didn’t know what he’s talking about.”

In a video he released earlier this week, Netanyahu claimed “the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions” Israel needed to fight Hamas.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A few minutes into his speech at a campaign rally on Tuesday, Donald J. Trump asked a question of the few thousand who’d turned up to hear him speak. “Is anybody going to watch the debate?”

Mr. Trump was in Racine, Wis., but it was clear his mind was in Atlanta, the site of his matchup against President Biden next week. He repeatedly mused about the potential scenarios, lowering expectations that he would dominate Mr. Biden and then, as if he couldn’t help himself, raising them again.

The expectations game is a particular challenge for the Trump campaign. Mr. Trump, 78, has spent months casting the 81-year-old Mr. Biden as a husk of a man who can barely walk or formulate complete sentences. Republicans have pumped out a stream of videos of Mr. Biden walking stiffly — some deceptively edited — that are meant to be proof of Mr. Biden’s decline.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law Wednesday.

The GOP-drafted legislation mandates that a poster-size display of the Ten Commandments in a “large, easily readable font” be in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.

Opponents question the law’s constitutionality, warning that lawsuits would be likely to follow. Proponents say that the purpose of the measure is not solely religious but that it has historical significance. In the law’s language, the Ten Commandments are described as “foundational documents of our state and national government.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Donald Trump went to Wisconsin on Tuesday to rail against President Joe Biden’s new immigration measures and rally the MAGA base.

But first, he had to convince them he didn’t think the state’s largest city was “horrible,” after all — and to dispute reports he planned to stay in Chicago, not the host city of Milwaukee, during the Republican National Convention there next month.

“I love Milwaukee. I was the one who picked Milwaukee,” Trump said when he took the stage for a rally in Racine, about 25 miles from Milwaukee.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

President Biden on Tuesday granted far-reaching new protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have been living in the United States illegally for years but are married to American citizens.

Under the new policy, some 500,000 undocumented spouses will be shielded from deportation and given a pathway to citizenship and the ability to work legally in the United States. It is one of the most expansive actions to protect immigrants since Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, was enacted 12 years ago to protect those who came to the United States as children.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

The presidential election is taking up much of the political oxygen in 2024. But Democrats are urging voters not to forget the importance of state legislative races — and they’re spending big to make sure they don’t.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the Democrats’ campaign arm for state legislative races, launched a $10 million spending blitz Monday to boost key state legislative candidates and campaigns across the country, according to plans shared first with ABC News. Dubbed the “Summer of the States” campaign, the investment marks the first time the DLCC is launching a push of this size at this point in an election cycle.

Along with the money, the campaign also includes a microsite that will feature key races to watch and spotlight candidates running in them.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

When former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon goes to prison, he won’t be serving time at what’s known as a “Club Fed,” the most comfortable type of facility in the federal system, as he had wanted, according to people familiar with the arrangements.

Instead of a minimum-security prison camp, where many nonviolent offenders serve their time, Bannon – now a right-wing podcaster with a following of loyal Trump supporters – is set to report next month to the low-security federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, one of the sources told CNN.

A federal judge ruled recently that Bannon must turn himself in by July 1 to begin serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress even as he appeals the case. His attorneys initially thought he may be able to do his time at a camp, the sources said.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

The Biden campaign plans to mark the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed the federal right to abortion by barnstorming the country with messaging and events aimed at contrasting President Joe Biden’s views with those of former President Donald Trump, according to information shared exclusively with NBC News.

During the weekend before and on the anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, the campaign will hold more than 30 events to mobilize volunteers and contact voters in cities across battleground states including Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Las Vegas.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday confused the name of his former White House physician just moments after he said President Joe Biden should take a cognitive test.

The mix-up happened as Trump bragged that he had “aced” a cognitive test. Trump also criticized Biden, saying, “I think he should take a cognitive test like I did.”

“I took a cognitive test, and I aced it. Doc Ronny — Doc Ronny Johnson,” Trump said, confusing the name of his White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, now a member of the House. “Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden on Saturday night warned about the possibility of former President Donald Trump appointing two new Supreme Court justices if he wins the presidency in November.

“The next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees — two more,” Biden said at a campaign fundraiser in Los Angeles, adding that Trump had already appointed two justices who are “very negative in terms of the rights of individuals.”

“I think it is one of the scariest parts,” Biden said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Even hours later, few people could agree on what, exactly, former President Donald J. Trump said about Milwaukee when he met with House Republicans in Washington on Thursday.

But on a day when Mr. Trump returned to Capitol Hill to unite congressional Republicans behind him, more than three years after a group of his supporters mounted a violent effort to try to keep him in the White House, much of the focus was instead on stray comments he made, including about a populous city in a critical battleground state that will soon play host to his nominating convention.

According to various people in the room, Mr. Trump, during his meeting with House members at the Capitol Hill Club, complained that the pop music megastar Taylor Swift would support President Biden over him. Mr. Trump has previously argued that Ms. Swift, who endorsed Mr. Biden in 2020 but has not done so this year, should back him instead.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic-led bill Thursday to codify broad federal protections for in vitro fertilizationin the midst of a growing partisan clash over reproductive rights in the United States.

The vote was 48-47, with just two Republicans voting for it: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. Others in the GOP said the legislation went too far, instead signing on to a scaled-back version that Democrats said was ineffectual.

President Joe Biden chastised Senate Republicans who opposed the measure in a statement Thursday night.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was given additional undisclosed trips by a GOP megadonor that were not included in his financial disclosure forms, according to documents the Senate Judiciary Committee released Thursday.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chairs the Judiciary Committee, released records about gifts of private jet travel provided by Thomas’ billionaire friend, Harlan Crow, that included plane trips in 2017, 2019 and 2021.

“As a result of our investigation and subpoena authorization, we are providing the American public greater clarity on the extent of ethical lapses by Supreme Court justices and the need for ethics reform,” Durbin said in a statement.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Pentagon is downplaying Wednesday’s arrival of four Russian Navy ships in Cubaas U.S. officials acknowledge that U.S. Navy ships “actively monitored” the Russian ships as they made their way to a port of call in Havana.

At the on-camera Pentagon press briefing, spokesperson Sabrina Singh downplayed the Russian naval flotilla’s arrival in Havana noting that it’s happened multiple times over the years but acknowledged that U.S. military assets had been tracking the ships on their way to Cuba.

“We’ve been tracking the Russians plans for this,” Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary told reporters Wednesday.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

When the Group of 7 pose for its ritual family photo Thursday on the rocky Adriatic coast of Italy, the image will not be of leaders at the height of their political strength.

Instead, nearly to a person, the leaders assembling at a luxury resort in Puglia find themselves weakened at home by elections, scandal or waning influence. Amid the olive trees and swimming pools, the anti-incumbent sentiments coursing through Western democracies are creating extraordinarily high stakes for global geopolitics.

Rarely has the yearly gathering of the world’s leading economies been so overshadowed by the political vulnerabilities of nearly all its members. It raises questions of how effective the “steering committee of the free world,” as US President Joe Biden’s aides have labeled the G7, can actually be amid anger and discontent from their own populations.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

House Republicans on Wednesday afternoon passed a resolution to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur on his handling of classified documents.

The final vote was 216 to 207. Rep. David Joyce of Ohio was the only Republican who voted against the contempt resolution.

Speaker Mike Johnson called the outcome “a significant step in maintaining the integrity of our oversight processes and responsibilities.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, on Tuesday defeated a well-funded primary challenger, putting her on track to win a third term. Her resounding victory also dealt a major blow to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s efforts to exact political retribution against those who voted to oust him.

Ms. Mace, 46, who once leaned center on social issues, won a Democratic seat in 2020 and claimed that all of former President Donald J. Trump’s accomplishments had been “wiped out” by his behavior on Jan. 6, 2021. But she has made a hard tack to the right over the past year as she has tried to game out her political future.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Republican Michael Rulli will win the special election for Ohio’s 6th Congressional District, CNN projects, helping his party expand its narrow House majority.

Rulli, a Youngstown-area state senator and an executive for his family’s grocery store chain, is projected to defeat Democratic Air Force veteran Michael Kripchak in the race for the sprawling district along the Ohio River in eastern Ohio.

Rulli will succeed former Rep. Bill Johnson, a seven-term Republican who resigned in January to become the president of Youngstown State University.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Donald Trump completed his mandatory presentencing interview Monday after less than 30 minutes of routine, uneventful questions and answers, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and did so on condition of anonymity.

The former president was quizzed by a New York City probation officer for a report, required by law, that trial judge Juan M. Merchan can use to help determine Trump’s punishment when he is sentenced July 11 in his hush money criminal case.

Monday’s interview was conducted privately by video conferencing. Under state law, the resulting report — which may also include information about Trump’s conviction, his social, family and employment history, and his education and economic status — will remain confidential unless the judge authorizes its public release.

Read the rest of the story at The Associated Press

A federal judge on Monday slightly narrowed the classified documents case against former President Donald J. Trump, saying prosecutors cannot charge him based on an episode in which he is said to have shown a highly sensitive military map to a political adviser months after leaving office.

The decision by the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, was more of a swipe at prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, who brought the case than a major blow to the allegations against Mr. Trump. Even though Judge Cannon technically removed the incident from the 53-page indictment, prosecutors may still be able to introduce evidence of it to the jury if the case finally goes to trial.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Jury deliberations began Monday in the federal criminal trial of Hunter Biden after prosecutors laid out what they described as “overwhelming” evidence against the president’s son as he faces gun charges.

The panel deliberated for about an hour in the late afternoon before it was sent home for the day.

Abbe Lowell, Biden’s attorney, urged the jury to find his client not guilty, arguing prosecutors had offered only “speculation or conjecture” — not hard evidence — that Biden was using drugs around the time he bought a Colt Cobra revolver at a Wilmington gun store.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald J. Trump stood in blazing heat in a Las Vegas park on Sunday and directly appealed to working-class voters by promising to eliminate taxes on tips for hospitality workers.

But beyond that proposal, little at Mr. Trump’s campaign rally suggested that his new status as a felon had changed his message. And when Mr. Trump’s teleprompter apparently stopped working, his speech — which his campaign advisers had billed as focused on issues of local concern to Nevada voters — devolved into familiar stories and riffs.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s key rival, Benny Gantz, announced Sunday that he is quitting the war Cabinet after a postwar plan for the Palestinian enclave failed to materialize.

Gantz’ resignation comes amid global condemnation of the Palestinian civilian death toll in the war on Gaza that has piled domestic and international pressure on Netanyahu.

Gantz announced his resignation in a televised event on Sunday, stating that Netanyahu stood in Israel’s way to “a real victory.”

“That is why we are leaving the emergency government today with a heavy heart, but with a whole heart,” Gantz said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A date has finally been set for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell announced that Netanyahu will address a joint meeting of Congress on July 24.

“I am very moved to have the privilege of representing Israel before both Houses of Congress and to present the truth about our just war against those who seek to destroy us to the representatives of the American people and the entire world,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden told ABC News in an interview Thursday that he will accept whatever a jury decides in his son Hunter Biden‘s criminal trial and that he will not use his presidential power to pardon him if he’s convicted.

Biden made his brief statements on his son’s historic trial in an interview with ABC News anchor David Muir in Normandy, where Biden and other dignitaries were taking part in a service to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, a turning point for the Allied forces in World War II.

Asked if he would rule out a pardon for his son, who’s facing three federal gun-related charges in court in Delaware, Biden answered simply, “Yes.” Asked if he would accept the outcome of the jury trial, a first for an offspring of a sitting president, he again replied, “Yes.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump‘s campaign has begun the process of formally requesting information from a small handful of potential running mates, ABC News has learned, marking a significant escalation in the process that will result in Trump choosing a candidate for vice president.

Among those who have been asked by the campaign for vetting paperwork include North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Sens. Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance, sources tell ABC News. The quiet outreach by campaign officials intensified last month, while Trump was consumed with his criminal hush-money trial, the sources said.

Others are likely to be considered for the No. 2 job, but the initial asks reflect who tops Trump’s list at this point. Campaign officials say the final decision will be Trump’s.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Senate Republicans blocked legislation Wednesday that would enshrine a federal right to access contraception, sinking the Democratic-led measure.

The vote on the Right to Contraception Act was 51-39, falling short of the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster and move the bill forward. Republicans said it was unnecessary because the use of birth control is already protected under Supreme Court precedent.

Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted with Democrats in support of the bill. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., switched his vote to “no” for procedural reasons so he could bring up the bill again at a later date.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Three new witnesses took the stand in Hunter Biden’s gun trial on Wednesday, recalling in vivid color the defendant’s spiral into drug addiction, foiled attempts at entering rehab, and fateful purchase of a firearm in late 2018, a year when his use of crack cocaine went out of control. 

Joining Biden for the third day were first lady Jill Biden; his wife, Melissa Cohen-Biden; close ally Kevin Morris; and other longtime friends and family members.

Hunter Biden watched closely as his ex-wife testified to how he left the family home after she discovered his drug use, and a former girlfriend recounted how he smoked crack “every 20 minutes” andabout the pain and deception she felt as he began to disappear for nights on end. Biden’s missing gun was also shown to the jury.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Facing mounting political pressure over the migrant influx at the southern border, President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order that will temporarily shut down asylum requests once the average number of daily encounters tops 2,500 between official ports of entry, according to a senior administration official.

“The border is not a political issue to be weaponized,” Biden said in a White House speech announcing the order.

The shutdown would go into effect immediately since that threshold has already been met, a senior administration official said. The border would reopen only once that number falls to 1,500. The president’s order would come under the Immigration and Nationality Act sections 212(f) and 215(a) suspending entry of noncitizens who cross the southern border into the United States unlawfully. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday in his opening statement in the Hunter Biden trial that at the end of the case he should be found guilty of all charges because “No one is above the law.”

“It doesn’t matter who you are, or what your name is,” prosecutor Derek Hines said, as he laid out special counsel David Weiss‘ case against President Joe Biden’s son.

Defendants are tried “because of the choices they made,” Hines said. Hunter Biden, he added, “chose to illegally own a firearm. His ownership of that firearm was illegal because he was a user of crack, and a drug addict. The law prohibits users and drug addicts from owning a gun. That law makes no distinction between Hunter Biden and anybody else.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A jury of 12 people and four alternate jurors has been selected in the federal gun case against Hunter Biden in Delaware, paving the way for opening statements to begin Tuesday morning.

The panel was selected more quickly than expected, after just one day of jury selection Monday. The jurors were sworn in at 4:20 p.m. ET. The jury is made up six men and six women, and all of the alternates are women.

Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, faces three counts tied to possession of a gun while using narcotics. He pleaded not guilty.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

We’re coming at you, Pacific Northwest!  Join Stephanie Miller, Hal Sparks, John Fugelsang, and Frangela with special guest Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) as they take over The Moore Theater this coming Saturday!  Tickets, merch, and VIP packages available at SexyLiberal.com!!

Chief Justice John Roberts declined Thursday to meet with Democratic senators to discuss Supreme Court ethics issues in the wake of reports that controversial flags were flown at Justice Samuel Alito‘s houses.

In a letter to Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Roberts said he “must respectfully decline your request for a meeting,” citing concerns about maintaining judicial independence.

Roberts’ refusal was not a surprise, as last year he declined to attend a hearing about the ethics issue for similar reasons.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Twelve jurors took more than nine hours to convict former President Donald Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. 

A handful of Trump’s prospective running mates took less than nine minutes to condemn the verdict.

The string of “guilty” readings began at 5:06 p.m. Thursday in Judge Juan Merchan’s New York courtroom. By 5:12, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was rushing to Trump’s defense online.

“Massively conflicted, Biden donor and Liberal judge + stacked jury with unconstitutional jury instructions + radical leftist prosecutor = wrongful conviction,” Noem, who is among those Trump is said to be considering as a vice presidential candidate, posted on X. “No doubt Trump will be easily vindicated soon as the case will obviously be overturned on appeal.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Biden is edging toward what may prove to be one of his most consequential decisions in the Ukraine war: whether to reverse his ban on shooting American weapons into Russian territory.

He has long resisted authorizing Ukraine to use U.S. weapons inside Russia because of concern it could escalate into a direct American confrontation with a nuclear-armed adversary.

Now, after months of complaints about the restrictions from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the White House has begun a formal — and apparently rapid — reassessment of whether to take the risk. Approving further uses of U.S. weapons would give Kyiv a way to conduct counterattacks on artillery and missile sites that now enjoy something of a safe haven just inside Russia.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

President Joe Biden tore into former president and his presumptive 2024 rival,Donald Trump, on Wednesday while kicking off his Black voter mobilization effort in Philadelphia.

Biden spoke at private preparatory school Girard College and told Black Americans, “I’m still optimistic, but I need you.” He asked the crowd of supporters, “Are you with me?” The audience stood and shouted back, “Yes.”

At one point during the speech, Biden took aim at some of Trump’s rhetoric surrounding his record with Black Americans.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito declined Wednesday to step aside from two pending cases relating to former President Donald Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol following recent news reports about contentious flags flown at his private properties.

In letters to members of Congress calling for his recusal, Alito said the two incidents involving flags at his home in Virginia and a vacation property in New Jersey, first reported by The New York Times, “do not meet the conditions for recusal” set out in the Supreme Court’s newly adopted ethics code.

Alito said that in both instances “a reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases” would conclude that no recusal was required. One letter was sent to Democratic senators, while the other was sent to Democrats in the House.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Two former neighbors of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife Martha-Ann Alito said that contrary to the justice’s claims, Martha-Ann was the instigator of an “ugly” encounter in which one of the neighbors used the word “cunt.”

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that three days before Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 17, 2021, an upside-down American flag flew in the Alitos’ front yard. According to the U.S. Flag Code, Old Glory should only be flown in such a way as to indicate “dire distress in instance of extreme danger to life or property.” The upside-down flag became a preferred symbol of pro-Donald Trump election deniers who believed the 2020 contest was rigged. Moreover, the Alitos also flew another flag popular with election deniers, displaying it at their beach house in New Jersey.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

The Biden administration on Tuesday expressed sympathy after dozens of civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah over the weekend, but signaled it would wait for a full Israeli investigation to play out before taking any action.

“You’ve all seen the images, they’re heartbreaking, they’re horrific. There should be no innocent life lost here as a result of this conflict,” National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said during a White House press briefing.

“Israel, of course, has a right to go after Hamas. And we understand that this strike did kill two senior Hamas terrorists who are directly responsible for attacks against the Israeli people,” he continued.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

If Donald Trump came to the Libertarian National Convention to make peace on Saturday, it could hardly have gone worse.

Within minutes of beginning speaking — and after enduring sustained jeering and boos — the former president turned on the third party, mocking its poor electoral record in presidential elections even as he appealed to them for their endorsement.

“What’s the purpose of the Libertarian Party of getting 3 percent?” Trump asked the crowd, which proceeded to pelt him with jeers. “You should nominate Trump for president only if you want to win.”

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Former President Donald Trump shared a unique message designed specifically for what he called “the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country” — Happy Memorial Day!

On the eve of closing arguments in his hush money – election interference trial,Trump returned to his nearly constant state of aggrievement that he is a victim of a political “witch hunt.” and even referenced how he was found civilly liable for sexual assault against E Jean Carroll. 

Trump too to social media Memorial Day morning and immediately lashed into the “Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge” who presided over his cases.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

With international condemnation mounting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Monday that the killing of dozens of people a day earlier at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah was “a tragic accident,” but gave no sign of curbing the Israeli offensive in the southern Gaza city.

The deadly fire that tore through the encampment on Sunday after an airstrike came at a particularly delicate time for Israel, just days after the International Court of Justice appeared to order the country’s military to halt its offensive in Rafah and as diplomats were aiming to restart negotiations for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Since its founding, the N.C.A.A. has operated with a business model that defined the college athlete as an amateur. Over the years, as college sports evolved into a mega-enterprise, lawsuits and labor actions chipped away at that model, which came to be increasingly seen as exploitative in big-money sports like football and men’s basketball.

But the N.C.A.A.’s $2.8 billion settlement on Thursday night in a class-action antitrust lawsuit represents the heaviest blow — and perhaps a decisive one — to that system.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Former President Donald Trump suggested in an early morning social media post on Thursday that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin would release imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as a personal favor to him.

“Evan Gershkovich, the Reporter from The Wall Street Journal, who is being held by Russia, will be released almost immediately after the Election, but definitely before I assume Office,” declared Trump on Truth Social at 1:30am. “He will be HOME, SAFE, AND WITH HIS FAMILY. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, will do that for me, but not for anyone else, and WE WILL BE PAYING NOTHING!”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida announced Wednesday that he is jumping into the race to succeed Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnellafter he leaves the post later this year.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Scott’s plans, which he later shared publicly in a post on X.

He said in a letter to colleagues obtained by NBC News that his bid to become Republican leader stemmed from a belief that “now is a moment we need dramatic change.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Allies of former President Donald Trump were arraigned Tuesday in Phoenix on charges that include conspiracy, fraud and forgery that are related to an alleged scheme to put forward phony electors in the 2020 election who backed Trump despite President Biden winning the state. 

Rudy Giuliani pleaded not guilty to nine federal charges in the case in a virtual appearance. The former New York City mayor and Trump attorney was served Friday night while leaving his 80th birthday party.

Other defendants include former Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb, former Turning Point USA youth director Tyler Bowyer and Arizona Republican state election officials. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

The Biden administration said Tuesday it is releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from a Northeast reserve established after Superstorm Sandy in a bid to lower prices at the pump this summer.

The sale, from storage sites in New Jersey and Maine, will be allocated in increments of 100,000 barrels at a time. The approach will create a competitive bidding process that ensures gasoline can flow into local retailers ahead of the July 4 holiday and sold at competitive prices, the Energy Department said.

The move, which the department said is intended to help “lower costs for American families and consumers,″ follows a mandate from Congress to sell off the 10-year-old Northeast reserve and then close it. The language was included in a spending deal Congress approved in March to avert a partial government shutdown.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

On May 21, voters in Georgia, Idaho, Oregon, Kentucky and California held key elections for Congress and nationally watched local races. Two key figures from one of Trump’s legal cases, Fani Willis and Scott McAfee, easily won their races, while conservatives won a Georgia Supreme Court election fought largely over abortion. In the House, progressives lost two key races in Oregon, while California voters picked a successor to Kevin McCarthy.

As usual, 538 reporters and contributors broke down the election results as they came in with live updates, analysis and commentary. Read our full live blog below.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday posted a video on his social media platform that uses a language that appears to mirror that of Nazi Germany, suggesting there will be a “Unified Reich” if he wins the 2024 election.

The phrase “Unified Reich” appears as a part of hypothetical news headlines that announce Trump’s hypothetical victory in the 2024 election, with the narrator asking, “What happens after Donald Trump wins?”

Under a big headline that says, “WHAT’S NEXT FOR AMERICA?” there is a smaller headline underneath that appears to read: “INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED DRIVEN BY THE CREATION OF A UNIFIED REICH.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are stepping up their fundraising, new reports show — but President Joe Biden and the Democrats maintained a healthy cash edge at the start of this month. 

The Republican National Committee raised more than $32 million in April, its first full month under Trump’s hand-picked new leadership, a 55% increase from the previous month. And combined, the Trump campaign and the national party had more than $88 million banked away by the end of last month, a significant uptick since before Trump became the party’s presumptive nominee.

But even with that uptick, the Democratic National Committee reported raising almost $35.5 million in April to the RNC’s $32 million. And most significantly, Biden’s campaign reported raising more than 2.5 times more money into its campaign account than Trump’s did: $24.1 million to $9.4 million. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

• Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has died in a helicopter crash, state media reported Monday morning.
• The cause of the crash Sunday was unclear. Iranian officials said fog and bad weather in the area slowed rescuers’ response.
• Early Monday local time, state-affiliated media reported that the exact location of the helicopter had been found. State media later reported that there was no sign of life.
• Raisi was returning with a government delegation that had attended the inauguration of a dam on the border with Azerbaijan. There were no survivors among the nine people on board, who also included Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

Read the rest of the story and get live updates at NBC News

Arizona’s Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes on Friday announced that Rudy Giuliani had been served with the notice of his indictment in connection with an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Arizona.

The announcement came less than two hours after a social media post from Giuliani taunted Mayes for failing to deliver his indictment. The notice was served to Giuliani during a celebration in Palm Beach, Florida, for his 80th birthday.

In a now-deleted post on X, Giuliani taunted Arizona authorities. “If Arizona authorities can’t find me by tomorrow morning; 1. They must dismiss the indictment; 2. They must concede they can’t count votes,” Giuliani posted Friday night. Accompanying the message was a photo of Giuliani smiling with six others and balloons arranged behind them.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The National Rifle Association is formally supporting former President Donald Trump, an expected endorsement that came Saturday at the group’s annual convention in Dallas.

The endorsement of his presidential campaign came shortly before Trump took the stage to keynote the NRA’s annual meeting, a speech he used to paint a picture of President Joe Biden as trying to erode gun rights without citing specifics.

“We have to have a Second Amendment that is meaningful. We will have … death and destruction like we have never see before,” Trump told a packed ballroom at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center of the possibility of a Biden re-election win.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Trucks carrying desperately needed humanitarian aid have begun moving ashore into Gaza using a temporary pier built by the United States, the U.S. military said Friday, as Israeli forces pressed on with sweeping operations in the north and south of the enclave.

The aid trucks began moving into Gaza at around 9 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET), the U.S. Central Command said in a post on X.

“No U.S. troops went ashore in Gaza,” CENTCOM said. “This is an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor that is entirely humanitarian in nature,” it added, noting that aid was being donated by a number of countries and humanitarian organizations.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

On the car ride from Trump Tower to the Manhattan courthouse Tuesday, former President Donald Trump was venting to Speaker Mike Johnson about the first 16 days of his hush money trial and how it’s kept him off the campaign trail.

“He’s clearly frustrated that he’s been tied up now for the fifth week in this trial that has no merit, that prosecutors had already passed on eight years ago, that they can’t define any crime that he has supposedly committed and the entire case is based upon a known perjurer, Michael Cohen. So it’s an atrocity,” Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday in an exclusive interview in his Capitol office with NBC News. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Sexy Liberal Albuquerque is THIS SATURDAY!!! Join me, Hal Sparks, John J Fugelsang, Frangela Duo, and special guest Valerie Plame at the Revel Entertainment Center! Tickets, merch, and hotel deals at www.SexyLiberal.com!!

Voters headed to the polls in Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia on Tuesday to set up several key down-ballot races.

Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks won the Democratic nomination in Maryland’s marquee Senate race, while Republicans in West Virginia appointed candidates likely to take over one of the state’s Senate seats and governor’s mansion.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump sailed to victory in their respective primaries, while restlessness in their respective bases persisted.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

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Israelis gathered across the country on Monday for the first national day of mourning since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, with protesters disrupting several ceremonies as they demanded that government ministers do more to secure the release of hostages.

Israel’s Memorial Day is normally one of the most somber on the country’s calendar, a date when Israelis put aside their differences to grieve fellow citizens killed in war or terrorist attacks. But the protests on Monday underscored how feelings of wartime unity have given way to deep disputes over the war in the Gaza Strip, the fate of hostages taken on Oct. 7 and domestic politics.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Nikki Haley will meet with roughly 100 of her biggest donors who supported her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination this week, taking another step toward reemerging back into public life following her defeat at the hands of her chief rival, former President Donald Trump, sources familiar with the event confirmed to ABC News.

The retreat, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, will take place on Monday and Tuesday in Charleston, South Carolina, not far from Haley’s home in the state’s low country.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

In an extended riff at his rally on Saturday in New Jersey, former President Donald J. Trump returned to a reference that has become a staple of his stump speech, comparing migrants to Hannibal Lecter, the fictional serial killer and cannibal from “The Silence of the Lambs,” as he aims to stoke anger and fear over migration in advance of the election.

“Has anyone ever seen ‘The Silence of the Lambs’? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’s a wonderful man,” Mr. Trump said in Wildwood, N.J. “He often times would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? ‘Excuse me, I’m about to have a friend for dinner,’ as this poor doctor walked by. ‘I’m about to have a friend for dinner.’ But Hannibal Lecter. Congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter.”

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Former President Donald Trump’s public defense against his four, distinct prosecutions in four, separate jurisdictions is that they are a coordinated hit job and a political persecution – evidence, he says, of a double standard of justice.

Disproving Trump’s allegation is the likelihood, which seems to be growing this week, that three of the four criminal prosecutions might not reach the courtroom before Election Day.

The other prosecution – generally seen as the weakest case against Trump – has provided salacious and embarrassing moments for the former president. But the facts of that case in New York, focused on his effort to hide an alleged affair rather than his conduct as president or his effort to overturn the 2020 election, feel like something from a different time.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

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President Joe Biden is taking heat from all sides as he faces what could be the most fraught moment in the Israel-Hamas war since fighting broke out seven months ago.

A dizzying number of recent developments, both at home and abroad, have underscored the politically perilous path Biden finds himself on as he navigates criticism from Republicans and Democrats unhappy with his approach to the conflict.

All this mixed up with his reelection campaign in which polls show voters say they trust Donald Trump to do a better job in the same tough situation.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

It’s CONCERT WEEK at LiveNation, so that means tickets to select Sexy Liberal shows (and thousands of other Live Nation concerts) are just $25 this week!!!  See the list of shows available at LiveNation.com/ConcertWeek – and get your VIP packages, merch, and links to hotel deals at SexyLiberal.com!!

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that former President Donald Trump would not accept the outcome of the 2024 election.

“He may not accept the outcome of the election? I promise you he won’t,” Biden said in an interview on CNN, adding that it was “dangerous.”

Biden was responding to a question about Trump’s remarks last week in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country,” Trump said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden said Wednesday the U.S. would not supply Israelwith certain weapons and artillery shells if its military invades Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where more than 1 million people are sheltering.

If the Israeli military launches a ground offensive in Rafah, the administration will not supply “the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities,” Biden said in an interview on CNN.

“We’re not going to supply the weapons and the artillery shells used,” Biden said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents casehas now indefinitely postponed the trial date pending resolution of outstanding pretrial litigation, including disagreements about how the classified information is used during trial.

It comes as Judge Aileen Cannon has continued to delay various deadlines in the case, making it all but certain the case doesn’t go to trial before Election Day.

“The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture — before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA issues remaining and forthcoming — would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury,” Cannon wrote in the new order.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Tensions were rising at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday after pro-Palestinian demonstrators resisted an order from the school to clear their encampment, leading to some skirmishes between the protesters and the police.

The entrenched protest movement was also causing disruptions to university commencements, with Columbia announcing the cancellation of its main ceremony. The move came after a weekend in which student activism was on display at several graduation events, alongside the usual pomp.

The weeks of demonstrations that led to police raids and arrests on several campuses — including at least 100 more at California schools on Monday morning — have spilled into the start of graduation season, with protests over the war in Gaza briefly disrupting some ceremonies over the weekend.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

An Israeli tank brigade took control Tuesday of the Gaza Strip side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, authorities said, moving forward with an offensive in the southern city even as cease-fire negotiations with Hamas remain on a knife’s edge.

The move comes after hours of whiplash in the Israel-Hamas war, with the militant group on Monday saying it accepted an Egyptian-Qatari mediated cease-fire proposal. Israel, meanwhile, insisted the deal didn’t meet its core demands. The high-stakes diplomatic moves and military brinkmanship left a glimmer of hope alive – but only barely – for an accord that could bring at least a pause in the 7-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli 401st Brigade entered the Rafah crossing early Tuesday morning, the Israeli military said, taking “operational control” of the crucial crossing. It’s the main route for aid entering the besieged enclave and exit for those able to flee into Egypt. Israel has fully controlled all access in and out of Gaza since the war began.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

After a nearly two-hour meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson, far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., emerged from his office and said the two will continue their discussions Tuesday morning amid her threats to force a vote to depose him.

“We’re going to be meeting again tomorrow based on the discussion that we’ve had,” Greene said, standing in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, though she did not elaborate on what she and the speaker discussed.

She would not answer any questions about whether she was backing off forcing a vote on a so-called motion to vacate the speaker’s chair.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Kristi Noem suggested Sunday that President Joe Biden’s dog Commander should meet a similar fate as her 14-month-old dog Cricket, whom the South Dakota governor reportedly described shooting and killing in her coming book.

“Joe Biden’s dog has attacked 24 Secret Service people. So how many people is enough people to be attacked and dangerously hurt before you make a decision on a dog and what to do with it?” Noem, who is considered a potential running mate for former President Donald Trump, said in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Commander, a German shepherd, was relocated from the White House last year after a series of biting incidents.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed legislation Thursday repealing the state’s 160-year-old near-total abortion ban, setting the stage for a 15-week restriction to remain law.

The Democratic governor signed the bill one day after it passed the GOP-held Senate, where two Republicans joined with all 14 Democrats in the chamber to advance the measure. The hourslong debate over the bill grew contentious as Republicans blasted the two defectors and railed against Democrats and a potential fall ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution.

At a signing ceremony Thursday, Hobbs and other Democratic leaders framed the repeal as the first step in a larger struggle over reproductive rights.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Taking the stand on Thursday, an attorney for porn actor Stormy Daniels fielded questions on a litany of celebrity gossip stories as attorneys for Donald Trump tried to paint him as an extortionist who helped leverage sex tapes into multimillion-dollar payouts.

Keith Davidson, the lawyer who represented two women — Daniels and Karen McDougal — who said they had affairs with Trump and were paid to stay quiet, gave jurors crucial insight into how the payment came about. Trump has denied the claims by McDougal, a former Playboy playmate, and Daniels.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump acknowledged Wednesday that he told the Secret Service he wanted to go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, depicting a different tone of an event that became a contentious detail of a former White House aide’s testimony before the House committee that investigated the attack.

In remarks at a campaign rally Wednesday afternoon in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Trump blasted the account of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Hutchinson was a key witness during closely watched committee hearings in 2022.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said Wednesday she will force a vote next week to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, daring Democrats and Johnson’s GOP allies to step in and save his job.

Wearing a red “MAGA” hat, Greene accused Johnson, R-La., of betraying the GOP and going against conservative wishes on government funding bills, passing Ukraine aid and reauthorizing the foreign intelligence surveillance program without new warrant requirements, among other issues.

“So next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate. Absolutely calling it,” Greene said at a news conference outside the Capitol. “I can’t wait to see Democrats go out and support a Republican speaker and have to go home to their primaries and have to run for Congress again.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Arizona Senate on Wednesday voted to repeal a strict, Civil War-era abortion banthat was recently ruled enforceable by the state Supreme Court.

Two Republican senators, T.J. Shope and Shawnna Bolick, joined the 14 Democrats in the minority and the bill passed 16-14, over vocal GOP objection.

Ahead of her vote, Bolick took a broadly anti-abortion position on the floor — explaining in detail the three difficult pregnancies she had herself, including the story of her own miscarriage — but she voted with Democrats, suggesting the repeal of the stricter ban might weaken support for a Democratic-led ballot initiative in November to broaden abortion access further.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Democrats won a special election for a House seat in western New York on Tuesday, The Associated Press projected, further shrinking the GOP’s narrow majority in the House.

Democratic state Sen. Tim Kennedy defeated Republican town supervisor Gary Dickson in the 26th District, a reliably blue area that includes Buffalo and some of its surrounding suburbs. Democrats will now control 213 seats in the House, compared with 217 for the Republicans. Five seats remain vacant.

Kennedy will serve the rest of Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins’ term. Higgins, who was in his 10th term, resigned in February to run a local performing arts center, and he had some choice words for partisan gridlock in the House. Higgins told The Buffalo News late last year that Congress is “in a very, very bad place” and that “we’re at the beginning phases of a deterioration of the prestige of the institution.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

• There were violent clashes between the pro-Palestinian encampment and counter-protesters at UCLA overnight.
• Hours earlier, special police units breached the occupied building at Columbia Universityentering Hamilton Hall through a second-story window using a massive truck and a ramp. Officers cleared the area and arrested almost 100 people.
• The college said it was left with no choice but to call in the NYPD, and has asked police to maintain a presence on campus until May 17, after restricting access to residents and essential staff only.

Read the rest of the story and get live updates at NBC News

The Biden administration will take a historic step toward easing federal restrictions on cannabis, with plans to announce an interim rule soon reclassifying the drug for the first time since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted more than 50 years ago, four sources with knowledge of the decision said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to approve an opinion by the Department of Health and Human Services that marijuana should be reclassified from the strictest Schedule I to the less stringent Schedule III. It would be the first time that the U.S. government has acknowledged its potential medical benefits and begun studying them in earnest.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The third week of the Donald Trump criminal hush money business fraud trial will resume Tuesday with the Manhattan district attorney’s office continuing to be secretive about it its plan of attack.

Prosecutors are expected to pick up questioning of Michael Cohen’s former banker Tuesday morning.

It’s unclear what other witnesses will take the stand this week – Prosecutors have been tightlipped on their witness order, blaming Trump for his unpredictable public comments. In court, they said they would not give Trump’s legal team much in an effort to avoid subjecting witnesses to Trump’s social media wrath before they take the stand.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Lawyers for Hunter Biden plan to sue Fox News “imminently,” according to a letter sent to the network and obtained by NBC News. 

The letter, dated April 23, puts the Fox News Channel and Fox News Digital on notice for litigation claims arising from the network’s alleged “conspiracy and subsequent actions to defame Mr. Biden and paint him in a false light, the unlicensed commercial exploitation of his image, name, and likeness, and the unlawful publication of hacked intimate images of him.” 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem – who has been considered to be a potential running mate for presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump – addressed on Sunday the recent attention on her new book where she writes about killing an unruly dog and a goat.

The Guardian obtained a copy of Noem’s soon-to-be-released book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move American Forward.” Noem is scheduled to be interviewed on “Face the Nation” next week about her upcoming book, set to be released on May 7. 

In it, she tells the story of the ill-fated Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer she was training for pheasant hunting.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

President Joe Biden held a phone call on Sunday with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against the backdrop of growing U.S. college campus protests and a possibly imminent invasion of Rafah.

The two discussed areas of commonality, with Biden “reaffirm[ing] his ironclad commitment to Israel’s security” after Iran’s missile and drone attack on the country earlier this month, the White House readout said. The leaders reviewed hostage and cease-fire discussions and talked about humanitarian aid in Gaza as well.

But the call also underscored daylight between the two on Israeli strategy in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah. Netanyahu shows no signs of backing away from a ground offensive there — a potential move that the U.S. publicly opposes.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

In the week since Columbia University started cracking down on pro-Palestinian protesters occupying a lawn on its campus, protests and encampments have sprung up at other colleges and universities across the country. Police interventions on several campuses have led to more than 400 arrests so far.

Student protests against the war in Gaza and against their schools’ financial and academic ties to Israel and to weapons manufacturers have intensified since Columbia initially cleared the encampment, on April 18. Scores of people have been arrested in recent days at Emerson College, the University of Southern California and the University of Texas at Austin.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

The Supreme Court indicated Thursday that any trial in former President Donald Trump’s election interference case is unlikely to take place any time soon, with justices expressing concern about whether certain presidential acts should be off-limits.

Although the court appears likely to reject Trump’s expansive claim of absolute immunity, it could remand the case for further proceedings, making it less likely that a trial would take place before the election.

The court is weighing the novel legal question of whether a former president can be prosecuted for what Trump’s attorneys say were “official acts” taken in office, though much of the focus remains on whether the justices will rule quickly so a trial can take place before the November election.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A key witness in Donald Trump‘s criminal trial testified Thursday about his role in hush money payments to a porn actress and a Playboy model the former president allegedly had affairs with — and Trump’s plan to make sure other negative stories about him never saw the light of day. 

David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, said Trump at one point sought to buy the rights to Karen McDougal‘s allegations of a monthslong affair with him, as well as other information the Enquirer had on him in its archives. Trump has denied McDougal’s claims.

Pecker said that he eventually backed out of the deal for fear he could get into legal trouble — and that when he heard about adult film star Stormy Daniels’ claim of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, he decided he couldn’t front any more cash to keep his longtime friend out of trouble.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

• University of Southern California police arrested 93 people after they warned protesters to disperse. The university said protests devolved into vandalism and confrontations.
• Columbia University said Wednesday that student protesters had agreed to take down “a significant number of tents,” but protests will continue.
• Police said 108 people were arrested in protests around Bostons’ Emerson College Wednesday night.
• Protests encampments are now in place on at least 20 college campuses across the U.S., including Harvard University, Brown University, the University of Michigan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt

Read the latest updates at NBC News

The first criminal trial of a former president resumes Thursday with a key witness against Donald Trump expected to describe details of the hush money agreement that was struck on his behalf with porn star Stormy Daniels.

David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, is expected to outline his role in Daniels’ agreement, as well as another hush money deal involving Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claims she had a monthslong affair with Trump. McDougal alleges the affair began in 2006, the year Daniels alleges she had a sexual encounter with him. Trump has denied both women’s claims.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Arizona Republicans on Wednesday again blocked a Democratic-led effort to repeal a controversial 19th-century ban on almost all abortions in the state, which the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled is enforceable.

Democrats in the state House failed to overcome procedural obstacles to advance House Bill 2677, introduced by Democratic state Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, to repeal the 1864 abortion law, which predates Arizona’s statehood and only provides exceptions to save the life of the pregnant woman.

Only one of the Republican representatives joined with the Democratic minority, leaving them one vote short of pushing the bill forward.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Facing a divided party and pressure to act, House Speaker Mike Johnson rolled out three bills Wednesday to provide assistance to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, with the hope of holding final votes on Saturday.

The bills represent a major test of Johnson’s ability to navigate a thicket of political and global challenges with a wafer-thin majority. And it comes as Johnson, R-La., faces a serious threat to his gavel from Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

Johnson’s biggest challenge is Ukraine funding, an issue that has bitterly divided the GOP. He has been squeezed by conservative security hawks who want to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s aggression and by an empowered isolationist wing that is feeding off former President Donald Trump’s criticism of NATO and prior Ukraine aid measures.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Senate Democrats successfully voted to dismiss two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday, just hours after the trial formally opened.

The speed of the impeachment trial was an embarrassing blow to Republicans who had threatened to gum up the Senate and delay the proceedings in a bid to highlight what they argue is Mayorkas’ failure to secure the border and stop the flow of thousands of undocumented migrants at the border.

However, Democrats, who control the upper chamber, easily dispensed with the pair of impeachment articles — as well as several motions to adjourn the Senate.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Israeli leaders on Tuesday were debating how best to respond to Iran’s unprecedented weekend airstrike, officials said, weighing a set of options calibrated to achieve different strategic outcomes: deterring a similar attack in the future, placating their American allies and avoiding all-out war.

Iran’s attack on Israel, an immense barrage that included hundreds of ballistic missiles and exploding drones, changed the unspoken rules in the archrivals’ long-running shadow war. In that conflict, major airstrikes from one country’s territory directly against the other had been avoided.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, over his handling of the border, were officially transmitted to the Senate on Tuesday.

The House impeachment managers, selected by Republican leadership, walked the two articles through the Capitol led by the House clerk and sergeant-at-arms.

The charges against Mayorkas were read aloud from the Senate dais by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green.

Mayorkas is only the second Cabinet secretary to be impeached in U.S. history after William Belknap, a former secretary of war, in 1876.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A second House Republican said he will support an effort to oust Speaker Mike Johnson from power over his handling of foreign aid for Ukraine and other issues.

Rep. Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, who is a member of Johnson’s own Rules Committee, said he informed the speaker directly in a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday that he is co-sponsoring a resolution offered by far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to remove Johnson, R-La., from the top job.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Eight days after completing one of the greatest collegiate basketball careers ever recorded, Caitlin Clark was selected with the No. 1 pick in Monday’s WNBA Draft by the Indiana Fever.

Clark is poised to not only help the Fever return to the postseason for the first time since 2016, but also use her star power to jolt the WNBA at a critical juncture in its history.

“I think more than anything I’m just really excited,” Clark told NBC News this past weekend.

Read the rest of the story at The Athletic

Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday said he planned this week to advance a long-stalled national security spending package to aid Israel, Ukraine and other American allies, along with a separate bill aimed at mollifying conservatives who have been vehemently opposed to backing Kyiv.

Mr. Johnson’s announcement, coming after he has agonized for weeks over whether and how to advance an infusion of critical aid to Ukraine amid stiff Republican resistance, was the first concrete indication that he had settled on a path forward. It came days after Iran launched a large aerial attack on Israel, amplifying calls for Congress to move quickly to approve the pending aid bill.

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As Israel on Monday weighed its response to Iran’s stunning attacks this weekend, the U.S. is privately telling officials there: If Israel strikes back militarily, it will do so alone.

It’s an unusual message for a close ally that’s spent decades receiving more US military aid than any other country in the world and whose relationship with America is often described as “ironclad.”

But after months of Israel acting on its own in Gaza — and facing tough criticism from the U.S. and other allies that its military operations have gone too far – the Biden administration made clear the U.S. wouldn’t participate in offensive military operations against Iran, fearing a broader war in the Middle East.

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The United States will cross a historic threshold on Monday when for the first time a former president goes on criminal trial in a case laced with fateful significance because Donald Trump could be back in the Oval Office next year.

When the presumptive GOP nominee walks into court for the start of jury selection, he and the country will enter a new state of reality as legal and political worlds collide in a trial almost guaranteed to deepen Americans’ bitter ideological estrangement.

The trial, related to hush money payments to an adult film actress before the 2016 election, will mark yet another extraordinary twist in the story of Trump, whose incessant testing of the limits of presidential decorum and the law has caused nearly nine years of political tumult and may still have years left to run. It raises the possibility that, depending on the jury’s verdict, the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election could be a convicted felon. And given the case’s subject matter — details about a payment to a woman who alleged that she had a sexual relationship with Trump, which he denies — it could reflect poorly on Trump’s character and ethics as voters weigh their decisions in November.

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The deadline for most people to file a 2023 tax return with the IRS is fast approaching; returns are due by 11:59 p.m., in your time zone, on Monday, April 15, with some exceptions. 

Taxpayers in Massachusetts and Maine have until April 17 to file and pay taxes because of the Patriots’ Day and Emancipation Day holidays. There are also extensions in some areas impacted by extreme weather. Individuals and businesses impacted by the Oct. 7 attack on Israel have also been given an extension, the IRS announced. There are extensions for certain active-duty military members and citizens living abroad.

The IRS had received about 100 million returns as of the week ending April 5, but the agency expects more than 128.7 million individual tax returns to be filed by the deadline.

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Israel on Monday was facing international pressure not to retaliate against Iran for its missile and drone attack over the weekend, even as some far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government called for a swift, aggressive response.

Mr. Netanyahu faces a delicate calculation: Letting an unprecedented direct attack from Iran, even one that produced little damage, pass without a military response could open him up to criticism that he is endangering Israel. But overly aggressive retaliation could significantly raise the chances of a broader war in the Middle East as Israeli forces continue to battle Hamas in Gaza.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign says it has ended its contract with a consultant who was seen on video encouraging people to vote for him in order to get “rid of Biden” even if that means electing former President Donald Trump.

Campaign manager Amaryllis Fox announced the decision in a post on X in response to a Kennedy supporter asking for the campaign to distance itself from the consultant, Rita Palma.

Video of Palma’s comments had energized Democrats online as they said it confirmed their accusations that the purpose of Kennedy’s campaign is to hand the White House back to Trump over President Joe Biden. Kennedy rejects that.

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The death of O.J. Simpson drew immediate reaction around the country Thursday, renewing public interest in his era-defining 1995 murder trial — and reviving painful memories for the families who were close to the events.

Simpson was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, capping off what legal analysts described at the time as the “trial of the century.”

Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, told NBC News that the news of Simpson’s death only further underscored his grief for his son, who was found stabbed to death outside Brown Simpson’s home in Los Angeles on June 12, 1994.

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Days after saying that abortion policies should be left to the states, former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday criticized an Arizona court ruling for upholding an 1864 law that banned nearly all abortions and said he would not sign a national abortion ban if he were elected president.

Speaking to reporters on an airport tarmac in Atlanta, Mr. Trump said he expected that the Arizona law would be “straightened out.” Hours later, Republicans in the State Legislature, which they control, blocked an effort by Democrats to repeal the ban.

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The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump‘s classified documents case handed federal prosecutors a partial victory Tuesday in a monthslong dispute by granting their request to keep the names of government witnesses sealed.

U.S. District Judge Aileen issued the 24-page order in response to special counsel Jack Smith’s request to reconsider a previous order that the government said could lead more than two dozen potential government witnesses in the Florida case to be publicly identified.

Under Cannon’s new order, potential witnesses’ names will be redacted, though significant parts of witness statements to investigators may be made public.

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President Joe Biden upped his criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s role in the Israel-Hamas war but did not indicate any significant changes in U.S. policy toward its Middle East ally.

“I think what he’s doing is a mistake,” Biden said in an interview with Univision that aired Tuesday night in response to a question about whether Netanyahu is more concerned about political survival than Israelis’ national interest.

“I don’t agree with his approach,” Biden added in the interview, which was taped last Wednesday.

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A state appeals court judge Monday denied Donald Trump‘s bid for an emergency delay of his impending criminal trial in New York.

Justice Lizbeth González of the state Appellate Division issued the ruling after attorneys for the former president argued the trial needed to be halted because “an impartial jury cannot be selected right now based on prejudicial pretrial publicity.” González rejected the request in a one-line ruling late Monday afternoon with no explanation.

Trump’s attorneys had filed the eleventh-hour motion in an attempt to delay a trial that centers on charges that Trump falsified business records related to hush money payments. The long-shot legal maneuver came exactly one week before the first criminal trial of a former president is scheduled to start.

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The full force of the moon’s shadow crossed the United States, Mexico and Canada on Monday, as the first total solar eclipse in seven years plunged the day into darkness and reminded all in its path of our planet’s place in the cosmos.

For more than four hours, the silhouette of the moon ate into the yellow orb of the sun, obscuring all but the silvery glow of the corona. The celestial marvel carved a southwest-to-northeast pathacross North America, delighting sky gazers from the beaches of Mexico to the plains of Texas, past the raging waters of Niagara Falls and through the rugged coastline of Newfoundland. There in the city of Gander, gaps in the thick clouds revealed moments of the eclipse’s effects on the horizon before obscuring the sun in the moment of totality.

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Donald Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, is calling Trump’s latest statement on his abortion policies “a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020.”

“Today, too many Republican politicians are all too ready to wash their hands of the battle for life. Republicans win on life when we speak the truth boldly and stand on the principle that we all know to be true – human life begins at conception and should be defended from womb to tomb,” Pence wrote in a post on Monday on X, formerly Twitter.

Pence has long been to the right of the former president on the issue of reproductive rights.

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Ohio’s secretary of state on Friday signaled that the Democratic National Convention may take place too late for President Joe Bidento appear on the general election ballot in the state, according to a letter obtained by NBC News.

“The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to convene on August 19, 2024, which occurs more than a week after the August 7 deadline to certify a presidential candidate to the office,” Secretary of State Frank LaRose wrote to Ohio Democratic Party Chairwoman Liz Walters.

ABC News first reported about the existence and content of this letter.

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Former President Donald Trump emphasized the importance of extending his signature tax cuts to some of the nation’s wealthiest political donors, according to a readout of his private remarks Saturday night provided by a Trump campaign official.

“Trump spoke on the need to win back the White House so we can turn our country around, focusing on key issues including unleashing energy production, securing our southern border, reducing inflation, extending the Trump Tax Cuts, eliminating Joe Biden’s insane [electric vehicle] mandate, protecting Israel, and avoiding global war,” the campaign official said of a roughly 45-minute speech to donors in Palm Beach, Florida.

The campaign declined NBC News’ requests to have a reporter present for his remarks and to make a full transcript of them available.

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The Israeli military says it has reduced the number of ground troops in the southern Gaza Strip following the conclusion of its monthslong operation in the city of Khan Younis, raising questions about the future of its offensive in the enclave amid pressure from the U.S. to reduce the war’s humanitarian toll.

In a statement on Sunday, the IDF said it was pulling its 98th commando division “to recuperate and prepare for future operations,” as Israeli army vehicles were seen heading to a base in southern Israel.

“The achievements made by the IDF’s Division 98 and its units, are extremely impressive,” Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said. “They have eliminated terrorists and destroyed terror targets including warehouses, weapons, headquarters, communication centers and more. Their activities enabled the dismantling of Hamas as a functioning military unit in this area.”

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