A Michigan judge dismissed criminal charges Tuesday against 15 Republicans accused of trying to falsely certify President Donald Trump as the winner of the 2020 election, saying that because they seriously believed him, there was no intent to commit fraud.
District Court Judge Kristen D. Simmons' dismissal is a major blow to prosecutors as similar cases in four other states have been muddied with setbacks. Each of the defendants, including a few high profile members of the Republican Party in Michigan, faced eight charges of forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery, the top charge punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
The effort to secure fake electors was central to the federal indictment against Trump that was abandoned shortly before his second term.
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Trump says cities need federal help with crime: We have to be vicious
On Tuesday, the White House released a video of Trump in the Oval Office addressing the case of Zarutska and accusing Democrats for adopting policies that release offenders too easily.
“In Charlotte, North Carolina, we saw the results of these policies when a 23-year-old woman who came here from Ukraine met her bloody end on a public train,” he said. “She was slaughtered by a deranged monster who is roaming free after 14 prior arrests.”
He said authorities must respond with “force and strength” and said Chicago and other cities need help.
“We have to be vicious just like they are. It’s the only thing they understand,” he said about criminals.
Vance and wife Usha to visit ground zero on Sept. 11 anniversary
Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, will travel to New York to attend the 24th anniversary commemoration of the worst terrorist attack on the United States.
The White House has not announced Trump’s plans as yet.
US forces not involved in Doha strike
The U.S. military did not participate in the Israeli strikes that took place in Doha, according to a U.S. official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon has directed questions to the White House, where officials didn’t immediately respond.
-By Konstantin Toropin
The rich get richer — and women fall behind
“It’s not hard to see why middle-class Americans are frustrated,” said Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union. “The frozen job market, tariffs and Medicaid cuts are going to put even more of a squeeze in 2025 on middle and lower-income households.”
For richest 10% of households, incomes rose 4.2% to $251,000, while for the poorest one-tenth saw a 2.2% rise to $19,900. A household is defined by Census as a family unit or an individual living alone or living with people who aren’t relatives.
Earnings for women barely rose, while male earnings increased, widening the gender wage gap for the second straight year after two decades of narrowing. Women on average now earn 80.9% of what men earn, down from 82.7% in 2023.
Typical US households are earning like it’s 2019
The income for the typical U.S. household barely rose last year and essentially matched its 2019 peak, the Census Bureau said Tuesday, as stubbornly high inflation offset wage gains. Highest-earning households received healthy inflation-adjusted income increases, while middle- and lower-income households saw little gain.
The Median household income, adjusted for inflation, rose 1.3% in 2024 to $83,730, the Census Bureau said. This illustrates why many Americans have been dissatisfied with the economy since the pandemic, even as unemployment has been historically low: Median household incomes are essentially unchanged from five years earlier, the report showed. It’s a sharp contrast from the preceding five-year period, 2014 to 2019, when median household income rose nearly 21%.
▶ Read more details from the Census report on U.S. incomes
New reports suggest a weaker economy during Biden’s final year
And now the Trump White House is saying it inherited a far worse economy than initially believed.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics issued benchmark revisions that found there were 911,000 fewer jobs than first reported for the year ended in March 2025. The Census Bureau said that median household income rose just 1.3% last year to $83,730.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt seized on the data to say that “Biden’s economy was a disaster and the BLS is broken.”
Trump fired the head of the BLS last month after downward revisions to the monthly jobs report showed a far weaker economy than what Trump had been claiming.
DC college students hold walkouts over US military intervention
Students at four universities in the nation’s capital are staging walkouts to protest Trump’s military policing surge. Roughly 100 demonstrators crowded a plaza at Georgetown University on Tuesday with chants to “free D.C.” and keep federal immigration officers away from the private campus.
Speakers called on Congress to end the deployment of National Guard troops in the city and urged university leaders not to cooperate with federal law enforcement. Speakers included Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass. He said the city is “under assault” and called Trump’s crackdown political theater.
Students at Howard University staged a similar demonstration, and others were scheduled at George Washington University and American University.
Texas Democrat James Talarico enters US Senate race
Talarico, a state representative with a rising national profile, joined the widening race to unseat Sen. John Cornyn. The Republican primary includes Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was impeached in 2023 on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust. Other Democrats running include former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who unsuccessfully challenged Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
Talarico, a 36-year-old divinity student with degrees from the University of Texas and Harvard University, has gained popularity through viral social media posts challenging Republican-led policies such as private school vouchers and requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
“There is a deep hunger across the political spectrum for a fundamentally different kind of politics,” Talarico said in an interview. “It’s been 10 years now of Trumpian politics, politics as a blood sport ... and there is a hunger 10 years later for a return to more timeless values of sincerity and honesty and compassion and respect.”
Democrat says Republicans ‘knew they were not electors’
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel called the the judge’s ruling Tuesday “disappointing” and a “very wrong decision.”
The defendants have maintained their actions did not constitute a crime. And the judge said their efforts to declare Trump the winner despite election results showing a majority of Michigan voters chose Biden were constitutional because rightly or wrongly, they believed there were problems with the election.
But Nessel said the defendants knew their actions were not the proper election procedure and specifically sought to circumvent the rules. “They knew they were not electors,” Nessel said.
US Forces Not Involved in Doha Strike
The U.S. military did not participate in the Israeli strikes that took place in Doha, according to a U.S. official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon has directed questions to the White House, where officials didn’t immediately respond.
— Konstantin Toropin
The US had some forewarning that Israel intended to carry out the strike on Hamas in Qatar
That’s according to an Israeli official and another person familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Pentagon officials referred questions about coordination to the White House. And the White House officials did not respond to request for comment.
It was not clear how much warning was provided or whether the U.S. expressed approval for the strike.
Congressional leaders appeared caught off guard by Israel’s strike.
— Aamer Madhani, Joseph Krauss
▶ Read more about the Israeli strike against Hamas in Qatar
Most Americans say crime is a major problem, but few support military takeovers
An AP-NORC poll on Aug. 25 found a partisan split on this issue, with 82% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats approving of using the U.S. military and National Guard to help police, and less support — 51% of Republicans, 15% of Democrats — supporting the military taking control of local police departments.
▶ Read more about the AP-NORC survey results on crime and military intervention
Johnson tells Democrats to ‘yield man’ on using National Guard to fight crime
House Speaker Mike Johnson is advocating forcefully for the use of the National Guard in the nation’s capital and other major U.S. cities, saying it can make a big difference in the quality of life for residents.
He said he could not understand why any Democrats would think it’s a good political message to oppose the deployments.
“Yield man. Let the troops come into your city and show how crime can be reduced. It’s a morale boost for the county and it’s safe and right for everybody involved,” Johnson said.
Trump calls alleged birthday drawing for Epstein a ‘dead issue’
The president told NBC News Tuesday morning that a lewd depiction of a woman purportedly drawn by him for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein is a “dead issue.”
“I don’t comment on something that’s a dead issue,” Trump told NBC in a phone call Tuesday, according to the network. “I gave all comments to the staff. It’s a dead issue.”
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released the drawing, as well as a slew of other Epstein-related documents, on Monday. The drawing includes a signature that appears to be Trump’s; the White House and the president’s allies have denied that it is his signature.
Defendants had sought to deny the result of Michigan voters
Investigators said the group met at the Michigan GOP headquarters in December of 2020 and signed a document falsely stating they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified electors,” even though President-elect Joe Biden won Michigan by nearly 155,000 votes, a result confirmed by a GOP-led state Senate investigation in 2021.
Prominent Michigan MAGA activist and former Michigan Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock was one of the accused. Her attorney, Nicholas Somberg, told reporters after the hearing that the state attorney general’s office had engaged in a “malicious prosecution.”
“There needs to be major consequences for the people who brought this,” he said.
Chicago braces for “Operation Midway Blitz”
For now, Chicagoans are describing confusion and anxiety over threats of federal intervention in the nation’s third-largest city. President Donald Trump said Monday that he intends to send in National Guard members from other states as well.
The Supreme Court's emergency docket ruling Monday lifting a restraining order against stopping people based on indiscriminate factors like race, language, job or location is boosting Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Attorney General Pam Bondi applauded the decision, posting on social media: “Now, ICE can continue carrying out roving patrols" without "judicial micromanagement.”
Voto Latino co-founder Maria Teresa Kumar called it a “direct attack on Latino and other communities of color — with nearly 130 million of nonwhite Americans now potentially being subject to the Trump Administration’s racially motivated policing.“
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Judge said Trump electors believed him, so their actions weren’t fraudulent
Judge Simmons said she saw no intent to commit fraud: Whether they were “right, wrong or indifferent,” they “seriously believed” there were problems with the election, the judge said. “I believe they were executing their constitutional right to seek redress.”
Prosecutors in Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme. None have neared the trial stage amid procedural and appellate delays. Technically, Trump is still a defendant in the Georgia case, but as the sitting president, it is highly unlikely that any prosecution against him could proceed while he’s in office.
The effort to secure fake electors was central to the federal indictment against Trump that was abandoned shortly before he began his second term.
Michigan judge dismisses criminal charges in Trump election case
District Court Judge Kristen D. Simmons said in a court hearing that the 15 Republicans will not face trial. They were accused of attempting to falsely certify Trump as the winner of the 2020 election in the battleground state. Tuesday’s dismissal is a major blow to prosecutors as similar cases in four other states have been muddied with setbacks. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced the charges over two years ago.
Each member of the group, which included a few high profile members of the Republican Party in Michigan, faced eight charges of forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The top felony charges carried a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
US appeals court considers $42 million Abu Ghraib torture verdict
A federal appeals court heard oral arguments Tuesday in the case of a U.S. military contractor ordered to pay $42 million for contributing to the torture and mistreatment of three detainees at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison decades ago. The Reston, Virginia-based CACI says the lower court lacked jurisdiction.
Suhail Al Shimari, Salah Al-Ejaili and Asa’ad Al-Zubae testified at last year’s trial that they were subjected to beatings, sexual abuse, forced nudity and other cruel treatment at the prison during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. A jury awarded each $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages.
The three did not allege that CACI’s interrogators explicitly inflicted the abuse themselves, but argued CACI was complicit because its interrogators conspired with military police to “soften up” detainees for questioning with harsh treatment. CACI has denied any wrongdoing. Photos of the abuse released in 2004 shocked the world.
Fox shares drop on end to Murdoch family succession drama
Fox dropped 5.3% after Rupert Murdoch’s family said they’ve reached a deal on control of the 94-year-old mogul’s media empire after his death. The agreement ensures that there will be no change in direction at Fox News.
The deal creates a trust establishing control of the Fox Corp. for Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s chosen heir who has been running Fox in recent years, along with his younger sisters, Grace and Chloe. Their older siblings, Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth Murdoch and James Murdoch, give up any claims to control of Fox in exchange for stock currently valued at $3.3 billion, according to The New York Times, which first reported news of the deal.
It ends a drama that has been like a real-life version of HBO’s “Succession,” only with huge financial implications and an impact on U.S. politics. Fox and its conservative opinion dominates ratings as the go-to network for Trump and his team to spread news.
US job market was much weaker than thought in 2024 and this year
Adding to concerns about the health of the nation’s economy, the Labor Department reported Tuesday that employers added 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported from April 2024 through March.
These so-called benchmark revisions are issued every year. The preliminary numbers are intended to better account for new businesses and ones that had gone out of business. Final revisions come out early the next year.
When last year’s revisions showed 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 through March 2024, Trump declared the numbers had been rigged to conceal economic weakness and help Democrats in the 2024 election. However, he did not explain why the government revised them downward before voters went to the polls.
AP investigation: US tech companies enabled China’s ‘digital cage’
American tech companies played a far greater role in designing and building the Chinese surveillance state than was previously known, an Associated Press investigation has found.
They sold billions of dollars of technology to the Chinese police, government and surveillance companies, despite repeated warningsfrom the U.S. Congress and in the media that such tools were being used to quash dissent, persecute religious sects and target minorities.
It’s a cautionary tale for other countries at a time when the use of surveillance technology worldwide is rising sharply, including in the United States. Emboldened by the Trump administration, U.S. tech companies are more powerful than ever, and Trump has rolled back a Biden-era executive order meant to safeguard civil rights from new surveillance technologies.
Read the AP investigation
Surveillance technology has spread around world — including the US
China has used what it learned from the U.S. to turn itself into a surveillance superpower, selling technologies to countries like Iran and Russia. Surveillance tech also now includes artificial intelligence systems that Israel uses to help identify people to kill in its war against Hamas. And the Trump administration uses AI to help track and detain migrants in the U.S.
“Because of this technology … we have no freedom at all,” said Yang Caiying, now in exile in Japan, whose family in China has been trapped in an increasingly tight noose of surveillance. “At the moment, it’s us Chinese that are suffering the consequences, but sooner or later, Americans and others, too, will lose their freedoms.”
Read the main takeaways from the AP investigation
‘Chipocalypse’ is now ‘Operation Midway Blitz’
Blasting what it calls sanctuary laws in Chicago and Illinois, the Trump administration said its latest effort targets people without legal permission to live in the U.S. who have criminal records. Its announcement of “Operation Midway Blitz” included mugshots of 11 foreign-born men it said should be deported.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who has been locked in a back-and-forth with Trump for days, and Mayor Brandon Johnson have defended the state and city’s extensive sanctuary laws, which bar coordination between local police and immigration agents. They're accusing Trump of using scare tactics, particularly with Latino residents in the nation’s third-largest city.
Democrats release suggestive letter to Epstein
Trump denies he signed it, and Republicans are supporting this claim after Democrats on the House Oversight Committee posted a picture on social media of a sexually suggestive birthday message for Jeffrey Epstein in a birthday book.
The president has said he did not create the drawing of a curvaceous woman it includes. Trump has filed a lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, over a report that described such a page in detail.
AP analysis: Presidentials taking longer to approve disaster aid
Disaster survivors are having to wait longer to get aid from the federal government, according to a new Associated Press analysis of decades of data. On average, it took less than two weeks for a governor’s request for a presidential disaster declaration to be granted in the 1990s and early 2000s. That rose to about three weeks during the past decade under presidents from both major parties. It’s taking more than a month, on average, so far during Trump’s current term, the AP found.
The delays mean individuals must wait to receive federal aid for daily living expenses, temporary lodging and home repairs. Delays in disaster declarations can also hamper recovery efforts by local officials, uncertain whether they will receive federal reimbursement for cleaning up debris and rebuilding infrastructure. The AP collaborated with Mississippi Today and Mississippi Free Press on the effects of these delays for this report.
“The federal government has turned its back on its own people,” said Bob Griffin, dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany in New York. “It’s a fundamental shift in the position of this country.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Trump is making sure federal tax dollars “are spent wisely to supplement state actions, not replace them.”
