An Arizona grand jury's indictment of 18 people who either posed as or helped organize a slate of electors falsely claiming that former President Donald Trump won the state in 2020 could help shape the landscape of challenges to the 2024 election. The indictment issued Wednesday is part of a campaign to deter a repeat of 2020, when Trump and his allies falsely claimed he won swing states, filed dozens of lawsuits unsuccessfully challenging Biden's victory and tried to get Congress to let Trump stay in power. That campaign culminated with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The penalt ..read more

NEW YORK (AP) — After prosecutors’ lead witness painted a tawdry portrait of “catch and kill” tabloid schemes, defense lawyers in Donald Trump’s hush money trial are poised Friday to dig into an account of the former publisher of the National Enquirer and his efforts to protect Trump from negative stories during the 2016 election. David Pecker will return to the witness stand for the fourth day as defense attorneys try to poke holes in the testimony of the former National Enquirer publisher, who has described helping bury embarrassing stories Trump feared could hurt his campaign. It will cap a ..read more

(The Hill) — A majority of Americans believe former President Trump is being treated differently than most criminal defendants in his hush money case, according to a new CNN poll. Another recent poll from The Economist/YouGov found that 24 percent of Americans think the former president is going to be convicted of a crime in the hush money case, 36 percent said they don’t believe the former president will be convicted and 39 percent said they weren’t sure. Trump’s hush money trial began last Monday, marking the first criminal trial of an American president. He has been ..read more

(The Hill) — University of Texas (UT) at Austin, demonstrators arrested during a pro-Palestinian protest on Wednesday will not be charged, Travis County Attorney Delia Garza’s office confirmed Thursday. The prosecutor’s office said it has decided not to move forward with the 46 trespassing cases it has reviewed from the protest, citing a lack of probable cause. “Legal concerns were raised by defense counsel,” Garza’s office said in a statement to The Hill. “We individually reviewed each case that was presented and agreed there were deficiencies in the probable cause affidavits.” Texas state po ..read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is expected to announce Friday that it will provide about $6 billion in long-term military aid to Ukraine, U.S. officials said, adding that it will include much sought after munitions for Patriot air defense systems. The officials said the aid package will be funded through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays for longer-term contracts with the defense industry and means that it could take many months or years for the weapons to arrive. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public. The new funding — the larges ..read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukraine has sidelined U.S.-provided Abrams M1A1 battle tanks for now in its fight against Russia, in part because Russian drone warfare has made it too difficult for them to operate without detection or coming under attack, two U.S. military officials told The Associated Press. The U.S. agreed to send 31 Abrams to Ukraine in January 2023 after an aggressive monthslong campaign by Kyiv arguing that the tanks, which cost about $10 million apiece, were vital to its ability to breach Russian lines. But the battlefield has changed substantially since then, notably by the ubiquitou ..read more

(The Hill) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Thursday his state “will not comply” with recently unveiled changes to Title IX by the Biden administration. “Florida rejects [President Biden’s] attempt to rewrite Title IX,” DeSantis said in a video posted to the social platform X. “We will not comply, and we will fight back.” “We are not gonna let Joe Biden try to inject men into women's activities,” DeSantis continued. “We are not gonna let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents, and we are not gonna let Joe Biden abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us her ..read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — There was talk of drone strikes and presidential bribes, of a potential ruling “for the ages” and of the Founding Fathers, too. The presidential race went unmentioned but was not far from mind. The Supreme Court heard more than 2 1/2 hours worth of arguments on the landmark question of whether former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in a case charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Though the justices appeared likely to reject Trump's absolute immunity claim, it seemed possible he could still benefit from a lengthy trial delay ..read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kim Kardashian marshaled her celebrity in one administration to spotlight criminal justice reform — and she's doing it again in the next. The reality TV star and entrepreneur joined Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday for a roundtable highlighting the administration’s efforts on criminal justice reform and how President Joe Biden has used his clemency powers, particularly on those convicted of non-violent drug offenses who faced significantly longer sentences than they would under current laws. Kardashian was a regular presence at the White House during the Trump adminis ..read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will pull the majority of its troops from Chad and Niger as it works to restore key agreements governing what role there might be there for the American military and its counterterrorism operations, the Pentagon said Thursday. Both African countries have been integral to the U.S. military’s efforts to counter violent extremist organizations across the Sahel region, but Niger’s ruling junta ended an agreement last month that allows U.S. troops to operate in the West African country. In recent days, neighboring Chad also has questioned whether an existing agre ..read more