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Texas Governor Greg Abbott has said his administration will deploy an “inflatable border” composed of floating barriers along the Rio Grande as part of its bid to deter migrants from attempting illegal crossings into the state. The new policy was quickly slammed by some mocking the idea and others who said that Texas taxes could be better spent on other initiatives. The barriers, seen in concept art presented at the state Capitol in Austin on Thursday as the governor signed six new border security bills into law, are effectively a string of interconnected buoys that spin when someone attempts to scale them, making them difficult to pass. Below the waterline, a web of netting weighed down by anchors will prevent anyone from simply swimming underneath The barriers will be placed along known hotspots for attempted crossings, with the first 1,000 feet to be situated near Eagle Pass, where Texas National Guardsman Bishop E Evans, 22, tragically drowned last year while attempting to rescue migrants from the river. The governor’s office said in a statement that the strategy was intended to “proactively prevent illegal crossings between ports of entry by making it more difficult to cross the Rio Grande and reach the Texas side of the southern border”. Continuing to blame President Joe Biden for the perceived failure to secure the US-Mexico border, Governor Abbott said his latest package of bills is aimed at ensuring his state can “hold the line” against illegal immigrants, drugs and weapons entering the United States from the south. They grant the Texas military the authority to use unmanned aircraft in search and recovery missions, authorise trained US Border Patrol agents to carry out arrest, search and seizure operations at checkpoints and compensate rural landowners whose property is damaged by illegal immigration-related activities. They also designate Mexican drug cartels and criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organisations and increase the penalties for those caught destroying illegal drugs and those who operate stash houses. Speaking at Thursday’s signing, Governor Abbott said: “Thanks to the leadership and hard work of [Texas Department of Public Safety] Director [Steve] McCraw, General Thomas Suelzer and their teams, Texas has pushed back against the swell of migrants and held the line to keep people out of Texas – but there’s more that needs to be done. “The Texas Legislature has stepped up to make sure we continue to robustly respond to President Biden’s growing border crisis, including allocating $5.1bn for border security. “Today, I am signing six bills from this year’s regular session to ensure that Texas can continue to do even more to stop illegal immigration at our southern border and provide new tools to the brave men and women along the southern border to protect Texans and Americans from the chaos and crisis of the border.” Regarding the barriers specifically, the governor said: “What we’re doing right now, we’re securing the border at the border. “What these buoys will allow us to do is to prevent people from even getting to the border.” Director McCraw added: “We don’t want people to come across and continue to put their lives at risk when they come between the points of entry.” He explained that the barriers are currently being tested by specialists and will be moveable so that they can be quickly relocated to new areas as needed. Of their role as a deterrent, he said: “You could sit there for a couple of days and hold onto it, but eventually you’re going to get tired and want to go back. You’ll get hungry.” Rodolfo Rosales, director of the Texas chapter of the League of United Latin Americans Citizens has condemned Mr Abbott’s latest approach to the situation as inhumane. “We view it as a chilling reminder of the extreme measures used throughout history by elected leaders against those they do not regard as human beings, seeking only to exterminate them, regardless of the means employed,” he told CBS. “It is with profound horror and shame that we bear witness to the consideration of these measures, which are evidently intended as political theatre but will undoubtedly result in the loss of innocent lives among the refugees seeking asylum in the United States.” Social media users were quick to respond to Mr Abbott on Twitter. “Texas will deploy new marine floating barriers to deter illegal border crossings between ports of entry. We continue to hold the line in Biden’s absence,” the governor tweeted on Friday. “You know they can swim under it right?” one Twitter user said. The director of the Central America and Mexico Policy Initiative at the Strauss Center at The University of Texas at Austin, Stephanie Leutert, wrote: “Some places of the Rio Grande will be shallow enough that this won’t be effective. And smugglers moving people across in rafts will quickly figure out how to cut these apart or hoist people over them from raft to raft. But... they will 100 percent cause more drowning deaths.” “I bet they didn’t think about sharp objects that can penetrate said buoys or holding ones breath. Also this seems like a waste of money, time & labor,” one account holder added. Several Twitter users compared the barrier to objects used in the NBC show American Ninja Warrior and Wipeout on TBS. “Welcome to Wipeout: Illegal Immigration special!” one Twitter user said. Gustaf Kilander contributed to this report Read More Texas businessman tied to impeachment of attorney general Ken Paxton to appear in federal court Texas camp teens airlifted to hospital after elevated walkway collapses in Surfside Beach photo Mexico charges migrant in detention center fire that killed 40 Analysis: What makes a fair election? Recent redistricting the most politically balanced in years New voting districts could change again in some states before the 2024 elections Homeland Security names Border Patrol veteran Jason Owens to lead the agency

Florida held on to win Game 1 of the Super Regionals round against South Carolina on Friday night in Gainesville, and now will look to punch its ticket to Omaha, Nebraska and the College World Series on Saturday.The Gators are slight favorites even though the hosts are the "visitors" f...

The Department of Justice is likely to attempt to have former President Donald Trump incarcerated if he’s convicted following the indictment laying out 37 charges against him in relation to his handling of classified national defence information. National security lawyer and George Washington University law professor Kel McClanahan said that the department will probably “want to go for incarceration” in the case of Mr Trump, according to Insider. Mr McClanahan said that the evidence in the indictment that was unsealed on Friday afternoon is intended to show that Mr Trump “is a kingpin who knowingly broke the law, endangered national security, endangered nuclear weapon security, [and] endangered other countries’ national security”. The charges include 31 counts of “willful retention” of documents under the Espionage Act. The consensus among most legal experts commenting on the indictment appears to be that Mr Trump is in serious legal jeopardy. If Mr Trump is convicted, he could be sentenced to decades in prison. A former assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York, Sarah Krissoff, told Insider that “to the extent that there’s a conviction here, the Department of Justice is going to want to be seeking a real sentence” because of the “nature of the conduct, how long it lasted, his involvement, the involvement of other people, working allegedly at Trump’s direction”. She noted that if Mr Trump is convicted, the sentence would depend on the judge, which seems likely to be Trump-appointee Aileen Cannon in the District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Mr McClanahan noted the novelty of possibly having to find a proper way to put a former president behind bars. He questioned how the authorities would go about imprisoning someone “who has a Secret Service detail and who has national security secrets bouncing around his brain, such that if someone holds a shiv to his neck, he’ll reveal the location of our missile bases”. He added that Mr Trump might become a “foreign intelligence gold mine for most countries on earth” if he’s imprisoned. Mr McClanahan sees it as more likely that if Mr Trump is convicted, he would be sentenced to house arrest with an ankle monitor. But Ms Krissoff told the outlet that “Trump can share that information that is in his head whether he is incarcerated or not incarcerated. So I’m not particularly concerned that, as a citizen, the incarceration will trigger the sharing of information that wouldn’t be shared otherwise”. Fox News legal commentator Jonathan Turley didn’t hold back after the indictment was unsealed. Mr Trump showed classified documents to others twice in 2021, the legal filing states. Mr Turley, the Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, said on Fox News on Friday afternoon that “it is an extremely damning indictment”. “There are indictments that are sometimes called narrative or speaking indictments. These are indictments that are really meant to make a point as to the depth of the evidence, there are some indictments that are just bare bones,” he added. This is not one of those indictments, Mr Turley said. “The Special Counsel knew that there would be a lot of people who were going to allege that the Department of Justice was acting in a biased or politically motivated way. This is clearly an indictment that was drafted to answer those questions. It’s overwhelming in detail,” he continued. “The Trump team should not fool itself. These are hits below the waterline. These are witnesses who apparently testified under oath [and] gave statements to federal investigators, both of which can be criminally charged, if they’re false.” “Those witnesses are directly quoting the president in encouraging others not to look for documents or allegedly to conceal them. It’s damaging,” Mr Turley said. “This is not an indictment that you can dismiss. There are a lot of people who are testifying under oath, and they’re saying highly incriminating things,” the attorney added. Speaking about the images from Mar-a-Lago of the boxes of documents found in a ballroom and a bathroom, in addition to other less-than-ideal places, Mr Turley said, “It’s really breathtaking. Obviously, this is mishandling. Putting the classified documents into ballrooms and bathrooms borders on the bizarre. And these are the types of pictures that hit you below the waterline in a trial. “It’s hard to show a picture of these boxes surrounding a toilet and saying ‘we really acted responsibly,’” he added, going on to note that “the government is bringing dozens of counts – they only have to land one of those punches”. “Keep in mind that every one of these counts is coming with a substantial potential sentence,” Mr Turley said. The lawyer said that the Trump legal team has “to run the table, they have to take out every single count, or you’ve got a 76-year-old man looking at a potentially terminal sentence”. Read More Trump news – latest: Trump ‘plotted to hide documents from FBI after showing military docs to visitors’ Trump kept classified documents from seven agencies including CIA, DoD, and NSA Jonathan Turley tells Fox News the Trump indictment is ‘extremely damning’ and a ‘hit below the waterline’

Donald Trump kept classified documents from seven agencies after leaving the White House, the 49-page and 37-count unsealed indictment against the former president has revealed. The agencies include the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Department of Energy, and the Department of State and its Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The indictment outlined the responsibilities of each agency with the CIA being in charge of “providing intelligence on foreign countries and global issues to the president”, the DoD being responsible for “providing the military forces needed to deter war and ensure national security”, the NSA working on “foreign signals intelligence and cybersecurity”, the Geospatial Intelligence Agency leading “the exploitation and analysis of imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information in support of the national security objectives”. A number of the agencies are under the umbrella of the Defense Department, including the Reconnaissance Office which is “responsible for developing, acquiring, launching, and operating space-based surveillance”, while the Department of Energy is in charge of “maintaining a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent to protect national security”. “The Department of State was responsible for protecting and promoting United States security, prosperity, and democratic values. Within the Department of State, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research was a member of the USIC and responsible for providing intelligence to inform diplomacy and support United States diplomats,” the indictment states. The indictment, unsealed on Friday afternoon, stems from Mr Trump’s allegedly unlawful retention of hundreds of documents at his Florida residence Mar-a-Lago. Trump aide Walt Nauta has also been charged after he was apparently spotted on surveillance footage moving boxes at the property. The ex-president stands accused of having moved classified documents from the White House at the end of his presidency despite not having the right to do so. In a short statement on Friday, the man in charge of DoJ’s investigations into Mr Trump, Special Counsel Jack Smith, said: “Today, an indictment was unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump of felony violations of our national security laws, as well participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the southern district of Florida.” “It is very important for me to note that the defendant in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. To that end, my office will seek a speedy trial in this matter,” he added. Fox News commentator Jonathan Turley said: “It is an extremely damning indictment ...This is not an indictment you can dismiss.” Mr Trump took to Truth Social to slam the Special Counsel, calling him a “Trump Hater” and a “deranged ‘psycho’”. The ex-president said Mr Smith “shouldn’t be involved in any case having to do with ‘Justice,’ other than to look at Biden as a criminal, which he is!” “Under the Presidential Records Act, I’m allowed to do all this,” Mr Trump claimed in a subsequent statement. “There was no crime, except for what the DOJ and FBI have been doing against me for years,” he added. “Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to look at the personal records that I brought with me from the White House,” Mr Trump said. Read More Read Donald Trump’s 37-count federal indictment in full Trump indictment: Ex-president kept nuclear and military papers and showed some to unauthorised people Trump indictment — latest: Trump ‘plotted to hide documents from FBI after showing military docs to visitors’

Former president Donald Trump showed highly-classified information to unauthorised persons on two separate occasions, according to a copy of the indictment against him that has been obtained by The Independent. The 49-page, 38-count indictment was unsealed on Friday after Mr Trump released a series of social media posts revealing that he has been indicted by a grand jury under the supervision of Special Counsel Jack Smith. The indictment details the charges against Mr Trump and Walt Nauta, a former US Navy noncommissioned officer who left government service to work for Mr Trump after his term ended in January 2021. According to the indictment, the 38 charges against Mr Trump and Mr Nauta include willful retention of national defence information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations. The former president has lashed out on Truth Social at Mr Smith calling him a “deranged lunatic”. The special counsel for his part gave a brief explanation of the sweeping indictment and said that the law applies to everyone. Read More What is an indictment? Here’s what Donald Trump is facing Trump indicted in classified documents case in a historic first for a former president Conspiracy, false statements and retaining national defence documents: The federal charges against Donald Trump Trump has been caught on tape. Congratulations, Donald – you played yourself Trump lashes out at ‘deranged lunatic’ and ‘psycho’ Jack Smith as startling secret papers charges revealed

Fox News legal commentator Jonathan Turley didn’t hold back after the indictment charging former President Donald Trump with 37 counts was unsealed. The indictment, unsealed on Friday afternoon, stems from Mr Trump’s allegedly unlawful retention of hundreds of documents at his Florida residence Mar-a-Lago. Trump aide Walt Nauta has also been charged after he was apparently spotted on surveillance footage moving boxes at the property. The ex-president stands accused of having moved classified documents from the White House at the end of his presidency despite not having the right to do so. Mr Trump showed classified documents to others twice in 2021, the legal filing states. Mr Turley, the Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, said on Fox News on Friday afternoon that “it is an extremely damning indictment”. “There are indictments that are sometimes called narrative or speaking indictments. These are indictments that are really meant to make a point as to the depth of the evidence, there are some indictments that are just bare bones,” he added. This is not one of those indictments, Mr Turley said. “The Special Counsel knew that there would be a lot of people who were going to allege that the Department of Justice was acting in a biased or politically motivated way. This is clearly an indictment that was drafted to answer those questions. It's overwhelming in detail,” he continued. “The Trump team should not fool itself. These are hits below the waterline. These are witnesses who apparently testified under oath [and] gave statements to federal investigators, both of which can be criminally charged, if they're false.” “Those witnesses are directly quoting the president in encouraging others not to look for documents or allegedly to conceal them. It's damaging,” Mr Turley said. “This is not an indictment that you can dismiss. There are a lot of people who are testifying under oath, and they're saying highly incriminating things,” the attorney added. Speaking about the images from Mar-a-Lago of the boxes of documents found in a ballroom and a bathroom, in addition to other less-than-ideal places, Mr Turley said, “It's really breathtaking. Obviously, this is mishandling. Putting the classified documents into ballrooms and bathrooms borders on the bizarre. And these are the types of pictures that hit you below the waterline in a trial. “It's hard to show a picture of these boxes surrounding a toilet and saying ‘we really acted responsibly,’” he added, going on to note that “the government is bringing dozens of counts – they only have to land one of those punches”. “Keep in mind that every one of these counts is coming with a substantial potential sentence,” Mr Turley said. The lawyer said that the Trump legal team has “to run the table, they have to take out every single count, or you've got a 76-year-old man looking at a potentially terminal sentence”. “The visual and the audio tape evidence is really daunting. The audio tape that they transcribe makes it sound like the President was using some of these documents as trophies. And that's likely to be the narrative that comes out of the trial, that he's boasting. That's going to undermine it even further in the eyes of these jurors,” Mr Turley concluded. According to the indictment, “In July 2021, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey (‘The Bedminster Club’), during an audio-recorded meeting with a writer, a publisher, and two members of his staff, none of whom possessed a security clearance, TRUMP showed and described a ‘plan of attack’ that TRUMP said was prepared for him by the Department of Defense and a senior military official”. “TRUMP told the individuals that the plan was ‘highly confidential’ and ‘secret.’ TRUMP also said, ‘as president I could have declassified it,’ and, ‘Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret’,” the filing says. A transcript of the 2021 tape was revealed by CNN on Friday morning, hours after news emerged that Mr Trump had been indicted. On the tape, first reported last week, he specifically referenced a classified Department of Defense document regarding an attack on Iran, according to the transcript. It was reported last week that prosecutors had procured the audio recording, which was made in 2021 at Mr Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, resort with two individuals working on the autobiography of Mr Trump’s final White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in addition to aides to the former president, such as Marco Martin, a communications staffer. The transcript implies that Mr Trump is showing the document he’s speaking about during the conversation.CNN reported that several sources have said that the sound from the recording includes the rustling of papers, indicating that Mr Trump may have been moving the document around. But it’s not clear if it was the document regarding Iran. “Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Mr Trump said. “This was done by the military and given to me.” At the time, Mr Trump was complaining about the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley. The meeting took place not long after a story published by The New Yorker outlined how Gen Milley told the Joint Chiefs during the last days of Mr Trump’s time in office to make sure that the then-president not give any illegal orders and that Gen Milley should be made aware if there were any concerns. “Well, with Milley – uh, let me see that, I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn’t that amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him,” Mr Trump said, the transcript shows. “They presented me this – this is off the record, but – they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. We looked at some. This was him. This wasn’t done by me, this was him.” “All sorts of stuff – pages long, look. Wait a minute, let’s see here. I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Mr Trump added. “Secret” and “confidential” are both degrees of classified information. Read More Hiding documents from the FBI and foreign nuclear plans: Key allegations in Trump’s unsealed indictment Mystery over female Trump family member allegedly involved in decisions over secret papers Trump news — latest: Trump ‘plotted to hide documents from FBI after showing military docs to visitors’

An indicted Mar-a-Lago staff member texted photos of top secret documents scattered on the floor of a storage room at Donald Trump’s Florida club, according to bombshell indictment unsealed on Friday. “I opened the door and found this,” Mr Trump’s “bag man” Walt Nauta texted an unknown Trump staffer in December 2021, along with two photos of the classified files sprawled on the floor. At least one document was marked “Secret//Rel to USA, FVEY”, signifying that it was only meant to be viewed by the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The photo was among several contained in the 49-page indictment against Mr Trump, which laid out in stunning detail the 15-month investigation into his reckless mishandling of top secret material after leaving office. One image showed about 30 boxes of classified documents in a bathroom haphazardly crammed around a toilet next to a shower curtain. A silver chandelier can be seen above the boxes. Another picture showed piles of classified documents on the stage at the Mar-a-Lago ballroom, where they had allegedly been left for two months. Other photos released by the Department of Justice show boxes of top secret material crammed into storage rooms around the Florida residence. After leaving the White House, Mr Trump’s private club at Palm Beach became his main residence. It also became a “magnet” for foreign spies, former intelligence officials warned. In August 2022, a Ukrainian woman posing as a member of the Rothschild family gained access to the club, according to reports. Inna Yashchyshyn mingled at Mar-a-Lago functions with Mr Trump and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, according to an article from the Organized Crime & Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). During Mr Trump’s presidency, a suspected Chinese spy was arrested and sentenced to eight months prison after being found guilty of trespassing and lying to Secret Service agents about why she was at the property. Mr Trump also welcomed Kanye West and known white supremacist Nick Fuentes to the club. The former president has been indicted on 37 counts of willful retention of national defence information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations. The indictment accuses Mr Trump of illegally holding onto materials on US nuclear programmes, potential vulnerabilities to the US and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack. Mr Nauta, a former Navy officier and longtime Trump aide, has also been indicted on six felonies, after he allegedly removed 64 boxes from Mar-a-Lago to his home. The unsealed indictment also details a conversation Mr Trump held with two lawyers in May 2023, in which the former president asks: “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” In his first public remarks, Special Counsel Jack Smith said he wanted all Americans to read the indictment in full “to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.” “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone,” Mr Smith told a press conference on Friday afternoon. Mr Trump, who will appear in court in Miami on Tuesday, faces up to 100 years in prison if convicted. He has angrily protested his innocence in a series of Truth Social posts. Read More Trump indictment — live: Trump ‘plotted to hide papers from FBI after showing military docs to visitors’ Trump indictment: Ex-president kept nuclear and military papers and showed some to unauthorised people Hiding documents from the FBI and foreign nuclear plans: Key allegations in Trump’s unsealed indictment Trump praised attorney for deleting Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 emails, indictment shows Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement

Republican US Senator Mitt Romney said that former president Donald Trump had brought an indictment upon himself for his taking classified documents and refusing to return them. Mr Romney released a statement on Friday after news that a grand jury indicted Mr Trump for his alleged unlawful of retention of national defence information at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Mr Trump said he must report to a court in Miami by Tuesday at 3pm ET. “Like all Americans, Mr Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence. The government has the burden of proving its charges beyond a reasonable doubt and securing a unanimous verdict by a South Florida jury,” Mr Romney said. “By all appearances, the Justice Department and special counsel have exercised due care, affording Mr Trump the time and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others,” he said. “Mr Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so.” The 2012 Republican presidential nominee, whom Mr Trump endorsed in that election, has since emerged as one of the GOP’s most outspoken critics of the former president. Mr Romney voted to convict Mr Trump in his first impeachment trial in 2020, the only Republican Senator to do so, for attempting to withhold aid for Ukraine in exchange for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky investigating Joe Biden’s son when Mr Trump was running for re-election. In 2021, six other Republicans joined Mr Romney to convict Mr Trump for his incitement of the January 6 riot. Mr Romney alluded to those cases in his statement. “These allegations are serious and if proven, would be consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest, such as withholding defensive weapons from Ukraine for political reasons and failing to defend the Capitol from violent attack and insurrection,” he said. The statement stands in contrast to Mr Romney’s statement after a New York grand jury indicted Mr Trump in April, when Mr Romney expressed some scepticism. New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office charged Mr Trump on 34 counts related to his allegedly making hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. “Even so, I believe the New York prosecutor has stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda,” Mr Romney said at the time. “No one is above the law, not even former presidents, but everyone is entitled to equal treatment under the law. The prosecutor’s overreach sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents and damages the public’s faith in our justice system.” Read More Trump-appointed judge will initially preside over ex-president’s federal court appearance Trump indictment — live: Trump’s brazen classified document admission revealed amid MAGA meltdown over charges Jailhouse Rock? Trump followed his furious indictment announcement with a DJ set

California Governor Gavin Newsom pushed back when Fox News host Sean Hannity repeatedly questioned whether President Joe Biden was up to the task of leading the US and whether the governor himself has been urged to run in 2024. “Do you think he’s cognitively strong enough to be president?” Hannity asked the California governor, in a preview of the Fox News host’s exclusive interview airing next week. Mr Newsom said he had no qualms about Mr Biden’s cognitive faculties. “I have conversations with him all the time. Yes,” Mr Newsom said, adding: “And I’ll tell you what. I’m dead serious about that. I’ve talked to him when he’s been overseas, I’ve been in Air Force One, Marine One, I’ve been in the limo with him. I’ve spent time with him privately and publicly.” Hannity kept trying, though. “How many times does your phone ping a day, people saying, ‘You need to get in this race’ because they agree with me that he’s not up to the job?” the Fox host asked once again. “I see where you’re going with that, Sean,” Mr Newsom said. “I’m asking,” Hannity said. “I’m not answering,” the California governor responded. Mr Biden, 80, is the oldest president in US history. Republicans have long sought to make hay out of the president’s advanced age, arguing that he is senile and confused during public events. Mr Biden’s doctor, however, has said the president remains in good health and fit for duty. “The President remains fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations,” Dr Kevn O’Connor said in a statement on 16 February. Read More California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes constitutional amendment to tighten access to guns ‘Small, pathetic man’: Inside the bitter rivalry between Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom Gavin Newsom suggests kidnap charges over Ron DeSantis’s migrant flights

Nine people were wounded in a shooting in San Francisco that police describe as “targeted and isolated”. The shooting took place on Friday evening in the Mission District. The authorities have signalled that all those injured are likely to survive, according to CBS News. Police responded to the shooting at about 9pm in the area close to 24th Street and Treat Avenue. After 11pm, police said that several people had been taken to hospital and that all of them were set to survive. The authorities said that since the shooting appeared to have been isolated, there was no further threat to the public. The shooting took place at a community block party, according to KTVU. Witnesses said it was a drive-by shooting. The ages of the victim ranged from 19 to 35 with one individual’s age being unknown. The victims, most of whom are in their 20s, have “varying degrees of injuries from non-life threatening to life-threatening,” SFPD Investigations Deputy Chief Raj Vaswani said, according to KTVU. An aide to Supervisor Hillary Ronen, Santiago Lerma, said that one victim was in surgery. Mr Lerma said that four people were receiving treatment for minor injuries. He added that he heard gunshots and spotted ambulances arrive. “I was about 10 feet away with my three-month-old son about an hour before this happened. This is an outlier. This is a very safe neighbourhood generally,” he said, according to the local TV station. He added that he often walks around the area along with his family. “So do many other people, so we’re very concerned about this incident. We want there to be a resolution.” More follows...

Mike Pence struggled to take a clear stance on troubles concerning former US president Donald Trump’s indictment in the classified documents case. Mr Trump is reportedly facing 37 counts of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate. These charges come less than three months after he was charged in New York with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Earlier this week, during an appearance on CNN, Mr Pence shared his views about Trump’s indictment. The politician, who has launched his 2024 Presidential campaign, said: “I hope the DOJ thinks better of it and resolves these issues without an indictment. “I think it would also send a terrible message to the wider world,” he added. “I mean, we’re the emblem of democracy. We’re the symbol of justice in the world.” Mr Pence also ended up criticising the FBI’s raid on Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, saying: “I was very troubled last summer when, for the first time in history, there was a search warrant executed at the home of a former president of the United States. He added: “There had to be dozens of ways that could have been handled.” After making these statements, Mr Pence undercut his own views, saying: “I don’t know the facts of the former president’s case.” The former vice president’s contradictory statement led to the host asking him whether what he was “saying is that, if they believe he committed a crime, they should not go forward with an indictment?” Mr Pence replied: “No, look, let me be clear that no one’s above the law.” He then added: “But with regard to the unique circumstances here, it – look – I – I. No one is above the law. But … unique circumstances.” Ultimately, Mr Pence ended up conceding that Trump and President Joe Biden “had no business” having classified documents after leaving office. “But I would just hope that there would be a way for them to move forward without the dramatic and drastic and divisive step of indicting a former president of the United States,” he said. Read More Trump boasts about having non-declassified papers in bombshell recording: ‘I have a big pile’ Trump news — latest: Trump ‘plotted to hide documents from FBI after showing military docs to visitors’ Fox host Mark Levin screams at camera in outrage at Trump indictment over secret papers Trump set for first public appearances since federal indictment, speaking in Georgia, North Carolina DeSantis pledges to restore name of Confederate general Braxton Bragg to Fort Liberty Will Trump’s growing laundry list of legal woes hurt his standing with GOP voters?

Newly released documents have revealed that Donald Trump’s businesses charged the Pentagon almost $1m during the first three years of his presidency. As per the documents obtained by ethics watchdog American Oversight, and verified by Forbes, Trump’s businesses charged his Department of Defense $976k from 2016 to 2019. The number is reportedly way larger than previous public information of about $300k, which was reported by CNN in 2019. “As far as we can tell, this is the first time these specific expenses have been reported– and they are long overdue,” Heather Sawyer, American Oversight’s executive director told Forbes. “While we expect to receive receipts of government spending at Trump properties for years to come, we urge the government to pick up the pace so that the American people have this information as they consider Trump’s re-election efforts.” As per the documents, the defence department spent money across 15 different Trump properties with the former president’s Miami resort being the biggest beneficiary, followed by his golf club in New Jersey. Both properties collected $274k and $266k respectively. Mr Trump’s Scottish resorts also collected approximately $181k. Mr Sawyer pointed out that “Trump’s refusal to divest from his businesses created an environment rife with the potential for abuse”. He added: “During his administration, Trump’s properties became vessels for self-enrichment. “Donald Trump is now running for president again. His ‘old’ habit of enriching himself at taxpayer expense deserves renewed scrutiny as he seeks another term.” In other news, Mr Trump is set to make his first public appearances since his federal indictment, speaking on 10 June to Republican audiences in Georgia and North Carolina as he seeks to rally supporters to his defence. The former president is going to reportedly deliver a full-throated rebuke of the charges and amplify his assertions that he is the victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt” by Joe Biden’s Justice Department. Read More Trump lashes out at ‘deranged lunatic’ and ‘psycho’ Jack Smith as startling secret papers charges revealed Trump news — latest: Trump ‘plotted to hide documents from FBI after showing military docs to visitors’ Trump boasts about having non-declassified papers in bombshell recording: ‘I have a big pile’ US announces new $2.1 billion package of military aid to Ukraine Plane lost contact with air traffic control before it crashed in Virginia White House says it wasn’t behind Pentagon decision to cancel drag shows