A McIntosh County jury found Humphreys, 34, guilty on all five counts around 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 28, after deliberating for about an hour, WTOC reported. The charges were malice murder, felony murder and several gun charges. Judge Dixon sentenced him the next morning as a recidivist, citing multiple prior felony convictions, according to WTOC's sentencing report. Humphreys can appeal.

The case at trial

Prosecutors said Humphreys shot Ferguson at a party on Georgia Highway 99 near Palmer Court. Both sides told jurors in opening statements that the two men had been friends. Humphreys was arrested about a month after the shooting by the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force in Jacksonville, Florida, WTOC reported.

The three day trial turned on two witnesses, according to WTOC's account of the testimony. A friend of both men testified that he saw the shooting after a brief argument and then saw Humphreys get into a white car as it drove off. Ferguson's brother testified that he rushed to Ferguson's side and asked who had done it, and that Ferguson told him, "Big Head shot me, brother." WTOC reported that Big Head is Humphreys' known nickname.

Jurors also heard 911 calls, watched body camera video and heard a firearms expert identify a 9 mm pistol as the murder weapon. Prosecutors showed Facebook messages in which Humphreys suggested that he and his girlfriend move to Florida, and in which, the day after the shooting, he said he did not know why people were saying he was involved.

At sentencing, the prosecutor told the court, "He's been convicted twice of threatening to kill 2 different people then he in fact did kill Tony Ferguson," and added, "We are asking for the maximum sentence allowed." At least 25 members of Ferguson's family attended. Ferguson left behind five children and a granddaughter, WTOC reported.

What the law actually says

The brother's testimony repeated something Ferguson said out of court, which is normally hearsay. Georgia's evidence code carves out an exception for it. Under O.C.G.A. 24-8-804(b)(2), when the speaker is unavailable, a court may admit, "In a prosecution for homicide or in a civil proceeding," a statement made "while believing that his or her death was imminent," about "the cause or circumstances of what the declarant believed to be impending death." The exception reflects a traditional view that people who believe they are dying have little reason to lie. It is also why the defense could not cross examine the most important accuser in the case.

The sentence rests on a different statute. Georgia's recidivist law, O.C.G.A. 17-10-7, says a person with three prior felonies who is convicted of a fourth "shall not be eligible for parole until the maximum sentence has been served." WTOC did not report which subsection the judge applied.

Our analysis: the record and the appeal issues

The prosecutor listed prior felony convictions in 2011, again in 2011, then 2013, 2016 and 2019. That is five felonies over eight years, two more than the three priors that trigger the toughest part of the recidivist law.

The defense moved twice for a mistrial, and the judge denied both, WTOC reported. The first came after a witness said he had met Humphreys in prison, which the defense argued told jurors about his criminal record. The judge noted that one charge was possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, so the jury would learn of a felony record anyway. The second came after the lead investigator testified that Humphreys feared a meeting with her was a "set up" and asked to speak to an attorney instead.

That second objection is the one to watch. In Doyle v. Ohio, decided in 1976, the Supreme Court held that using a defendant's silence after arrest and Miranda warnings to impeach him violated due process. Whether that line of cases helps Humphreys depends on facts the trial reports do not give, including when he asked for a lawyer and whether he had been warned. For the basics, see Your Miranda Rights Explained, From Miranda v. Arizona to Today.

What happens next

Humphreys can file a motion for a new trial and then appeal. The jury needed about an hour to agree. For the standard jurors are told to apply, see What Does Reasonable Doubt Mean, and How Are Jurors Told to Apply It?. For another Southern murder case that ended in life without parole, see Johnny Ray Wilburn Convicted of Murdering Three Farley Family Members in Walland, Gets Life Without Parole.

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office announced the charges against James Edward O'Keefe, 42, and Cam Higby, 26. Prosecutors allege the two visited multiple Hennepin County precincts and gave election judges the names of registered voters in each precinct without those voters' knowledge or permission, then posted the videos online. Neither man cast a ballot, and neither signed the voter oath, according to the office. The case numbers are 27-CR-26-28438 for O'Keefe and 27-CR-26-28437 for Higby. Both men are presumed innocent.

What the stunt was

O'Keefe, who founded Project Veritas, left it in 2023 and now runs O'Keefe Media Group, and Higby, a conservative commentator, said they were testing Minnesota's voter vouching law. The video O'Keefe posted on August 13 showed Higby in a burqa and O'Keefe using an accent and two false names while asking poll workers whether he could vouch for his companions, Minnesota Lawyer reported. The group left each site without completing a registration.

FOX 9 reported that the complaints describe visits to four precincts and four impersonated voters. CBS Minnesota counted three polling places and reported that the video shows O'Keefe giving election officials the name of a real voter, William Pomeranz, who said he learned about it afterward and voted that evening without a problem.

What the law says

The charges rest on Minnesota Statutes section 204C.14, which says no one shall intentionally misrepresent their identity "in applying for a ballot," in depositing a ballot, or in attempting to vote by machine. The statute ends with one sentence: "A violation of this section is a felony." The identity theft count falls under section 609.527, which covers using an identity that is not your own with intent to commit unlawful activity, and scales the penalty to the number of direct victims and the size of any loss.

That is why the case turns on the words "applying for a ballot." The defense line is already public. "I never voted, I never signed an affidavit, and I never violated a law," Higby said in a statement reported by CBS Minnesota. County Attorney Mary Moriarty answered that point directly. "You cannot go into a polling place and misidentify yourself," she said, according to CBS, adding that the law reaches people who use other identities with election judges as they apply for a ballot, "whether or not you intend to vote." She told FOX 9 that it is "a multi-step process" and that "They did begin to apply."

Our analysis: what the numbers say about punishment

Felony is the label, but the realistic exposure is far lower. Minnesota's general felony penalty, in section 609.03, allows up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine when a statute sets no other maximum, and section 204C.14 sets none. Moriarty herself predicted "presumptive probation" under state sentencing guidelines, FOX 9 reported, and said "They could do some local jail time, but it's a low level offense in terms of Minnesota felonies."

The newsroom's arithmetic on the vouching system the video targeted: the Secretary of State's office says fewer than 0.6% of votes in the 2024 general election used vouching. That is fewer than 6 of every 1,000 ballots. Vouching also does not replace identity. Under state law a registered voter may vouch for up to eight people, but only to prove where they live, and the new voter must still give a Minnesota driver's license or ID number or the last four digits of a Social Security number, according to Minnesota Lawyer. The voucher signs an oath under penalty of perjury.

Secretary of State Steve Simon said in the county's release that any attempt to disrupt or deceive election workers "will not be tolerated." Moriarty said the system for spotting misconduct "functioned well during the primary," CBS reported, and that the charges were not meant to "send a message."

What happens next

Higby was charged by summons, according to Forum News Service, which listed O'Keefe as a resident of West Palm Beach, Florida. Neither O'Keefe nor Higby responded to requests for comment from Minnesota Lawyer. The charges land days before the November 3 general election, while federal authorities are pressing their own election cases, including the grand jury subpoenas we covered in Federal Subpoenas for Voter Records Reach at Least 13 States and the record federal monitoring plan in Justice Department Plans Record 1,000 Election Monitors.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter denied the government's request for a temporary restraining order a day after a hearing in which he pressed prosecutors on why they did not simply charge anyone who voted illegally, as we reported in Appeals Court Tosses DOJ Bid on 20,000 California Ballots. The department sued California and Los Angeles County on October 15, after state officials rejected a 48 hour deadline to review its list of "likely noncitizens," Democracy Docket reported.

What the order says

Carter found the government unlikely to win, according to Democracy Docket's account of the order. He concluded the department likely lacks standing and a cause of action, and that the federal criminal ban on noncitizen voting does not let it override California's rules for processing ballots. He said the emergency was "solely due to its own neglect."

The core of the ruling is about harm. "Eroded trust in our democracy is irreparable. Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred," Carter wrote, the Associated Press reported. He reasoned that pulling ballots aside would force counties to invent new sorting methods and would work like a purge of voters, which federal law bars within 90 days of an election. He also wrote: "But California and its people are sovereign, too." And he ended with a refusal: "This Court declines to be a party to such process."

Carter, who had floated appointing a special master to test how the list was built, did not do so in this order, according to the AP. He did address the letters suggesting election workers could face prosecution. "These threats must stop," he wrote, per Democracy Docket. The department remains free to prosecute individuals when it has evidence of illegal voting. The AP noted that federal prosecutors have arrested 28 noncitizens accused of illegal voting or registration.

The government's side

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli argued that segregating a ballot does not prevent it from being counted later and that the request was meant to preserve the status quo. "This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution," he said, according to the AP. Prosecutors said they would appeal immediately and filed a second appeal to the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday evening. The first appeal was dismissed on October 26 because the government had not given Carter a chance to rule. Essayli's own authority is contested, as covered in Judge Rules Bill Essayli Is Unlawfully Serving as Los Angeles's De Facto U.S. Attorney.

Our analysis: the scale of what was asked

The newsroom's arithmetic, using figures reported by the AP: California mailed ballots to all 23 million registered voters, and more than 3.7 million had already voted. The 20,000 names on the federal list are about 0.09% of the state's registered voters, roughly 1 in every 1,150. To hold back that sliver, counties would have had to stop and sort ballots in a count where more than 500,000 ballots had already been processed, meaning envelopes verified and ballots removed. Los Angeles County officials testified that once that happens it is nearly impossible to match a ballot back to a voter. That is the practical reason Carter called the harm irreversible.

The same list problem showed up in Washington state this week. The department asked Washington to set aside ballots from more than 400 people, and Secretary of State Steve Hobbs replied that a preliminary review found U.S. citizens on the list. "This list includes United States citizens and is not reliable," Hobbs wrote, Democracy Docket reported.

What comes next

The Ninth Circuit now has the second appeal, five days before the November 3 election. The earlier panel signaled doubts about the merits, and the Purcell principle, which discourages courts from changing election rules close to an election, cuts against last minute orders. The fight is one of several federal election cases running at once, including the Alaska certification suit covered in Alaska and Peltola Ask Judge to Toss DOJ Suit Over the Two Dan Sullivans.

Special Agent Bryan Witt took the stand on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 27 and 28, at a preliminary hearing in federal court in Washington for Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, according to a report by Sarah N. Lynch published on Yahoo News. The two former counterintelligence officials are accused of lying to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 about their roles in the FBI's Hunter Biden investigations. Both deny wrongdoing and are presumed innocent.

The hearing opened Tuesday with Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui striking an unsigned obstruction charge the government had filed overnight, which we covered in Judge Strikes Unsigned New Charges Against Two Ex-FBI Officials. Witt's testimony came on the original complaint, which still stands.

What the agent said

Witt acknowledged that Patel told the supervisor of the FBI's Kansas City field office to open the investigation one day after Trump's televised speech about election interference, according to the report. He said he was first told to look at whether the former officials had suppressed evidence about China, and that the probe shifted to their testimony after agents reviewed the 2023 House transcripts.

He also testified that Patel and the FBI deputy director were "closely monitoring our progress," that the team routinely updated headquarters, and that Patel joined case team video calls at least twice. He said he feared the investigation might be viewed as "political," while saying he feels confident in the allegations.

On cross examination, Witt admitted that agents did not interview Floris or any congressional staff with direct knowledge of her testimony. He also acknowledged that Steve Castor, a Republican counsel on the House Judiciary Committee whom the earlier complaint described as an eyewitness, was not present for the testimony and had not reviewed the transcript. He said agents were not permitted to interview other congressional staffers and were limited to written questions, a point the defense says goes to whether the statements mattered to Congress. Asked whether agents approached Democrats on that question, Witt answered, "Absolutely not." He added: "No one explained to me the partisanship nature" of the committee.

Prosecutor Cory Jacobs objected that the case's origins have nothing to do with probable cause and can be raised later. "This has gone a little bit far astray from the limited purpose of this hearing," he said, according to the report.

Why this hearing exists at all

Floris and Benavides were charged by complaint on October 23, not indicted by a grand jury. When that happens, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5.1 says a magistrate judge "must conduct a preliminary hearing" unless an exception applies, such as a later indictment. The defendant "may cross-examine adverse witnesses," which is how the defense got Witt on the stand under oath. Preliminary hearings are rare in federal court because prosecutors usually indict first. For how one works in practice, see Inside the Preliminary Hearing in the Charlie Kirk Case.

Our analysis: the timeline in the testimony

Mid July 2026: Trump gives a televised speech about election interference, according to Witt's testimony as reported.

The next day: Patel tells the Kansas City field office supervisor to open the investigation, Witt testified.

Later: The focus shifts from alleged suppression of China evidence to the officials' 2023 House testimony, after agents review the transcripts.

October 23, 2026: Floris and Benavides are charged by complaint with making false statements.

October 27, 2026: Faruqui strikes the unsigned superseding complaint, and Witt begins testifying.

October 28, 2026: Witt's cross examination continues.

What the timeline shows is a case that started from the top and found its charge later. That is not by itself a legal defense, and Jacobs is right that probable cause asks only whether the evidence supports the charge. But the materiality gaps Witt conceded, no interview of Floris and no witness who heard her testimony, go straight to that question.

What happens next

Faruqui said he wants to go through the charging document line by line, testing each alleged false statement for probable cause, and that review was expected Thursday, October 29. Under Rule 5.1, if he finds no probable cause he "must dismiss the complaint and discharge the defendant," though the rule adds that a discharge "does not preclude the government from later prosecuting" the same offense, for example through a grand jury. The department has had trouble there before, as in Grand Jury Declines to Indict Cassidy Hutchinson.

Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson announced the finding on Tuesday, October 27, at a Summit County Sheriff news conference joined by officials from Utah and Salt Lake counties, according to CBS News and Gephardt Daily. Gephardt Daily reported that hunters found Smith's body on October 27, 1974, which made the announcement fall 52 years to the day after the discovery. Smith was a high school senior, CBS reported.

What investigators found

The link came through paternal DNA. According to Gephardt Daily, the Utah State Crime Lab, working at the request of the Summit County Attorney's Office, developed a Y chromosome profile from Summit County evidence and found that it matched a Utah County profile previously determined to be Bundy's. CBS reported that Utah County Sgt. Mike Reynolds described a highly similar DNA profile linked to Bundy in evidence from Smith's autopsy.

That Utah County profile came from a second case. Laura Ann Aime, 17, of Lehi, went missing on Halloween 1974 and was later found dead. In April 2026, Utah County officials announced that paternal DNA linked Bundy to her murder, and Summit County then asked to compare its own evidence against that profile, Gephardt Daily reported.

Olson said Smith's death carried the hallmarks of "pattern, motive, means and opportunity," according to CBS. Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said, "This case demonstrates the importance of preserving evidence." Rivera also said her office had told Smith's surviving family about the findings, adding, "We owe that to the families of these cold cases." Reynolds put it more bluntly: "With every case closure, may we stomp the memory of Ted Bundy out."

What a Y chromosome match can and cannot prove

This is the part of the announcement worth reading slowly. A Y chromosome profile is not the same kind of evidence as the standard DNA profile used in most trials, which we explained in How Is DNA Evidence Used in Court.

Guidance from the United Kingdom's Forensic Science Regulator on Y-STR profiling puts the limit plainly. It says "all patrilineally related males will have exactly the same combination of Y-STR alleles" and that "Y-STR profiling cannot distinguish between males who are paternally related." It also notes that "many individuals in a population may share the same Y-STR profile."

In other words, a paternal match narrows the field to a male line. It does not by itself pick out one man. That is why Olson's language matters. Investigators did not rest the conclusion on the lab result alone. They paired it with the timing, the pattern of Bundy's Utah crimes in the fall of 1974 and the separate Aime match. In a courtroom, a defense lawyer would press on exactly that gap. Here there will be no courtroom.

Why no case will ever be filed

Bundy was executed in Florida in 1989, at age 42, for a murder he was convicted of there, Gephardt Daily reported. A dead man cannot be charged, so the Smith case closes by official finding rather than by verdict. No jury will weigh the DNA, and no defense will test it.

The evidence that made the closure possible was saved decades ago. CBS reported that a vial of Bundy's blood, drawn in 1978 after his arrest in the death of a 12-year-old girl, was found in Florida in 2011, and that his full DNA profile was entered into the FBI's national database. The same logic that keeps murder open forever, which we covered in Statutes of Limitations, Why Some Crimes Expire and Murder Does Not, keeps evidence boxes on shelves long after the trail goes cold.

Our analysis: the timeline in numbers

October 27, 1974: Hunters find Smith's body in Summit County, per Gephardt Daily.

October 31, 1974: Aime disappears in Lehi, four days later.

1978: Bundy's blood is drawn after his Florida arrest, per CBS.

1989: Bundy is executed in Florida.

2011: The blood vial is found, 33 years after it was drawn.

April 2026: Utah County links Bundy to Aime through paternal DNA.

October 27, 2026: Summit County closes the Smith case, about six months after the Aime announcement and 52 years after her body was found.

The arithmetic shows how much of this depended on one preserved sample and one neighboring county's work. Without the Aime profile, Summit County would have had a Y chromosome result with nothing to compare it to.

What comes next

Bundy reportedly confessed to 36 murders, and law enforcement has confirmed at least 21, Gephardt Daily reported. Officials pointed to other Utah cases that may be resolved the same way, including the killing of 16-year-old Nancy Wilcox of Holladay, long attributed to Bundy. Rivera said her office will keep working on that case. For another decades-old case reopened by new DNA work, see DNA From a Mailed Envelope Leads to an Arrest in Spokane's 1986 Turner Killing, and for a defense lawyer's view of how Bundy and other serial killer cases shaped the field, see A Defense Attorney and His Daughter on the Minds of Serial Killers.

The request came at the final hearing of Yoon's appeal before Criminal Division 12-1 of the Seoul High Court, presided over by Judge Lee Seung-chul, according to the Seoul Economic Daily and The Korea Times. The special counsel team, led by Cho Eun-suk, sought the same sentence at the first trial. Yoon has not been sentenced on appeal and the court has not ruled.

What the prosecution argued

The lower court found that the martial law declaration amounted to insurrection and that sending troops to the National Assembly compound was an attempt to paralyze parliament and arrest key politicians, The Korea Times reported. The National Assembly voted to lift the order within hours on the night of the declaration.

On appeal, the special counsel argued that the declaration followed at least eight months of preparation, not a spontaneous decision, and that the lower court gave too much weight to mitigating factors. The Seoul Economic Daily reported the team's position that restraint shown by troops and police that night reflected their own judgment in the field, not an order from Yoon. The team also argued that the absence of executions in South Korea should not stop a court from imposing a death sentence.

"There is no reason to hesitate to hand down the death penalty," a member of the team said, as quoted by The Korea Times. "This was an unforgivable crime that destroyed the constitutional order," the team member said. Financial News quoted the special counsel as saying, "The grounds on which the lower court chose life imprisonment do not fit the facts of the crime." The quotes are English translations published by those outlets.

What Yoon's side says

Yoon has maintained that the declaration was a warning to the opposition-controlled parliament over its repeated impeachments of senior officials and its attempts to cut the state budget, The Korea Times reported. Financial News reported that his lawyers called the special counsel's case a "fantasy novel," described the prosecution as politically motivated and said they will use security camera footage, including from the National Election Commission, to argue in closing that "there was no riot."

Our analysis: the Chun Doo-hwan case in reverse

South Korea has been here once before. Former President Chun Doo-hwan was convicted of leading an insurrection, among other crimes. On August 26, 1996, the Seoul District Court sentenced him to death. On December 16, 1996, the Seoul High Court reduced that to life imprisonment, and the Supreme Court finalized the judgment on April 17, 1997, according to the record of his case. He was pardoned in December 1997.

Yoon's case runs the other way. He received life at trial, and prosecutors are asking the same appeals court to raise it to death. The history also shows why a death sentence would be largely symbolic in practice. The Korea Times noted that no execution has been carried out in South Korea since December 1997, and that Amnesty International classifies the country as abolitionist in practice.

The special counsel is also asking for heavier terms across the board. Using the figures reported by the Seoul Economic Daily, here is the gap between what each co-defendant received at trial and what prosecutors now seek.

Former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun: 30 years at trial, life sought.

Noh Sang-won, former Defense Intelligence Command chief: 18 years at trial, 30 sought, a rise of 12 years.

Cho Ji-ho, former National Police Agency commissioner general: 12 years at trial, 20 sought, a rise of 8 years.

Kim Bong-sik, former Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency commissioner: 10 years at trial, 15 sought, a rise of 5 years.

Mok Hyun-tae, former head of the National Assembly security unit: 3 years at trial, 12 sought, four times the original term.

Kim Yong-gun and Yoon Seung-young were acquitted at trial, and prosecutors now seek 10 years for each.

What happens next

The Seoul High Court plans two more hearings before it sets a sentencing date. The Seoul Economic Daily reported defense closing arguments on November 3 and November 5, with Yoon's side presenting on November 5 and the ruling date expected to be announced then. The Korea Times reported that Yoon's final statement is set for next Thursday. Rulings usually follow about a month after closing arguments, the Seoul Economic Daily reported, so a decision could come in December.

For another political fight now headed through the courts abroad, see Lula Wins Brazil's Runoff, and Flávio Bolsonaro Says He Will Seek to Annul It. For how a death sentence is handed down in an American courtroom, see Brian Martin Sentenced to Death for Killing Sheffield Police Sgt. Nick Risner.

The image of a Black defendant shackled and silenced in an American federal court became one of the defining scenes of the era. It also became a legal question. Within months the Supreme Court addressed when, if ever, a judge may do what Hoffman did, and the answer still governs disruptive defendants today.

How Seale ended up in restraints

Seale was one of eight men indicted after the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, charged with violating the federal Anti-Riot Act and conspiring to violate it, as the Seventh Circuit later recounted in In re Dellinger. The trial opened September 24, 1969.

Seale's chosen lawyer, Charles Garry, was in the hospital for gallbladder surgery during the trial, TheWrap's historical fact check noted. Seale objected again and again that he was being tried without counsel of his choice. Hoffman treated the outbursts as disruption. In the afternoon session on October 29, he ordered the restraints. Seale appeared bound and gagged before the jury over several days. TheWrap reported that on the final day he lost circulation and was carried out by guards.

The newsroom's timeline

September 24, 1969: The trial of the eight defendants begins in Chicago.

October 29, 1969: Hoffman orders Seale bound, gagged and chained to a chair.

November 5, 1969: Hoffman declares a mistrial as to Seale, severing his case. The Chicago Eight become the Chicago Seven. The same day Hoffman finds Seale guilty of 16 counts of contempt and sentences him to three months on each.

February 18, 1970: The jury returns its verdict on the remaining seven.

March 31, 1970: The Supreme Court decides Illinois v. Allen.

May 11, 1972: The Seventh Circuit decides United States v. Seale and In re Dellinger, the contempt appeals.

November 21, 1972: The Seventh Circuit reverses the criminal convictions of the remaining defendants.

What the Supreme Court said

Illinois v. Allen involved a different defendant, but it reads like a commentary on Chicago. Writing for the Court, Justice Hugo Black held that a judge facing a defendant who persistently disrupts a trial has three constitutionally acceptable options: bind and gag him so he stays present, cite him for contempt, or remove him from the courtroom until he promises to behave.

Black did not endorse the first option warmly. According to the opinion, the sight of shackles and gags might affect how the jury feels about the defendant, and "the use of this technique is itself something of an affront to the very dignity and decorum of judicial proceedings." He wrote that no person should be tried while shackled and gagged "except as a last resort."

The arithmetic of the contempt sentence

Sixteen counts at three months each comes to 48 months, or four years, imposed by a judge with no jury, on a man who was never convicted of the charges he was on trial for. The Seventh Circuit's 1972 rulings put a ceiling on that kind of punishment. In the companion Dellinger opinion, the court said, applying the reasoning of the Seale decision, that "each appellant whose sentences aggregated more than 6 months was entitled to a jury trial," and it ordered the contempt cases retried before a different judge. Seale's four years was eight times that six-month line. TheWrap reported that his contempt charges were ultimately appealed and dismissed.

Why it still matters

In the newsroom's reading, Allen makes binding and gagging the option a judge must justify most carefully, and removal from the courtroom the more natural first step, because of the jury concern Black described. The right to the lawyer of one's choice, the issue that set off Seale's protests, sits alongside the broader guarantee the Court had recognized in 1963 in Gideon v. Wainwright. Like the Scopes trial, the Chicago case is remembered less for its verdicts than for what it exposed about the courtroom itself.

The suit, United States v. State of Alaska, was filed late on October 22 in federal court in Alaska, after Alaskans had already begun voting. It targets a quirk of this year's ballot. Sen. Sullivan is listed as "Dan Sullivan," the Republican incumbent. A second candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher from Petersburg, is listed with no party affiliation.

What the Justice Department is asking for

According to Alaska Public Media, the suit asks the court to block or delay certification if Sen. Sullivan loses to Peltola but would have won had every ballot cast for the other Sullivan been counted for him, and it calls for an investigation into voter confusion if that happens. NBC News reported that the department also wants the court to find that the senator would have won if those votes, run through Alaska's ranked choice count, had gone to him.

The only law the complaint cites is the National Voter Registration Act. The complaint calls the namesake's candidacy a sham. In a later filing, Newsweek reported, the department said polls show the race within "one or two percentage points" and argued that the namesake's presence "will result in a tainted victory for Peltola." Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward signed the suit.

President Trump has said he ordered the case. "I'm the one that said do it," he told reporters. Justice Department official Todd Blanche defended it on CNN on October 25. "President Trump is not trying to take over a state election in any way, shape or form," he said, adding, "It is an obligation of the states to avoid confusion."

What Alaska and the challengers say

The Alaska Department of Law, representing the Division of Elections and its director, Carol Beecher, urged Judge Sharon Gleason to dismiss the suit "immediately," Alaska Public Media reported. The state wrote that the lawsuit "would interfere with state election administration and threaten election integrity." It argued that the National Voter Registration Act covers registration, not counting or certification, that the ballot already distinguishes the two men by party and incumbency, and that confused voters can get help under Alaska law. It also said there is no way to investigate what voters intended without breaking the secret ballot.

Peltola's campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee moved to intervene and dismiss. Their filing calls the suit "an unprecedented pre-emptive strike on democratic elections," NBC News reported. The League of Women Voters of Alaska also asked to join. The department opposed the intervention requests, saying the groups would "clog up the docket with duplicative motions." Joshua Douglas, a University of Kentucky law professor, called the case "a press release disguised as a lawsuit."

Timeline: how the namesake got on the ballot

June 2026: Beecher removed Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot after Republicans asked, finding he meant to confuse voters, according to Alaska Public Media.

Late June 2026: A state judge found the removal unlawful, and the Alaska Supreme Court then held that he was eligible and ordered the Division of Elections to list him.

October 22: The Justice Department sued, 12 days before Election Day and months after the ballot was final.

October 26: Judge Gleason set an expedited schedule, noting in her order that "the United States initiated this action on October 22, 2026." Alaska Public Media reported that after a filing deadline moved to Friday, she could rule on the dismissal motions as early as Friday night, October 30.

November 3: Election Day.

The newsroom's math

The department's own numbers explain why it filed. By its account, the race is within one to two points, and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. took 2.5% of the primary vote. If he draws anything close to that share again, his total would be larger than the margin the department describes, which is exactly the condition that triggers the relief it wants. On the department's theory, then, a narrow Peltola win would almost automatically be put on hold.

That is also the weak point the state and Peltola press. The suit asks a court to decide which candidate voters meant to pick, but a secret ballot records only whom they did pick. Blanche said the more precise demand is "to not certify if the law is broken."

Why it matters for defense lawyers and voters

The case is part of a wider federal push in the final days before the midterms. The department is separately fighting California over 20,000 ballots, as we covered in Appeals Court Tosses DOJ Bid on 20,000 California Ballots, and it has planned a record number of poll monitors, which we reported in Justice Department Plans Record 1,000 Election Monitors as States Push Back. A ruling from Judge Gleason before Election Day would tell both campaigns whether a close count in Alaska ends with certification or a federal court fight.

Most of the subpoenas went to state and local election officials in the past three months, Reuters reported, though some date to early 2026. They range from requests about individual voters to demands for entire local voter rolls. None of the jurisdictions Reuters contacted said they were resisting.

Where the subpoenas landed

California has received at least 17, aimed at Democratic-leaning jurisdictions including Los Angeles and San Diego counties, along with previously unreported subpoenas to Marin and Fresno counties. Washington's secretary of state's office said it had received about 60 in recent weeks, and prosecutors there identified more than 400 apparent noncitizens on the rolls and asked officials to set their ballots aside.

In Massachusetts, a U.S. attorney used grand jury subpoenas on at least eight cities and towns, some seeking full voter lists. In Lynn, 25 to 30 people were subpoenaed. Minnesota's Anoka and Hennepin counties and Philadelphia also received subpoenas, and Reuters listed Texas, Kansas, Georgia, Arizona, New York, Connecticut, Utah and Michigan among the other states touched.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis told Reuters, "Only Americans should be electing America's leaders." Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney for Arizona, called the subpoenas "clearly a distraction." Ben Berwick of Protect Democracy, a former Justice Department lawyer, said the investigations are "setting up" challenges after the vote.

The legal difference: grand jury versus agency subpoenas

At least 49 of the subpoenas were issued under grand jury authority, Reuters found. That matters. A grand jury subpoena is tied to a criminal investigation and is generally harder to challenge in court than an administrative subpoena an agency issues on its own. A records custodian who wants to fight one has to ask a judge to quash it.

Secrecy is a second issue. One Massachusetts letter urged recipients not to disclose the subpoena, Reuters reported, though doing so was not mandatory. The federal rule backs that reading. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) says "No obligation of secrecy may be imposed on any person except" those it lists, and the list covers grand jurors, court reporters, interpreters, government lawyers and similar insiders. A town clerk or a voter who receives a subpoena is not on it.

The underlying crime is narrow. The federal "voting by aliens" statute, 18 U.S.C. 611, makes it unlawful for a noncitizen to vote in a federal election and carries up to one year in prison. It has an exception for someone whose parents were citizens, who lived in the United States before age 16 and who "reasonably believed at the time of voting" that he or she was a citizen. Many recent cases are charged under other laws instead. The 28 California green card holders charged October 19 face counts of lying on naturalization paperwork and submitting fraudulent voter registrations, ABC7 reported.

The newsroom's math

Reuters counted at least 147 people accused since President Trump returned to office, 102 of them since early September. By our arithmetic, that means about 69% of the cases have come in roughly the last two months, the run-up to the election.

The early numbers have also shrunk under scrutiny. In Nevada, federal officials first pointed to nearly 16,000 potential noncitizens, then revised that to fewer than 200, Reuters reported, and state officials later concluded the rest were citizens. Fewer than 200 out of 16,000 is under 1.25% of the original claim. In California, state officials said a review of 200 names from the federal list of more than 20,000 found that nearly 40% appeared to be born in the United States. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told Reuters of the California list, "We're not perfect."

What comes next

Legal experts told Reuters the records could be used to contest close results, though such challenges would be legally weak because most state laws let only losing candidates or voters contest an election. The department could still try to delay certification, the approach it has taken in its Alaska Senate lawsuit.

The courts have pushed back elsewhere. A federal judge largely halted Homeland Security voter field operations in nine states, which we covered in Judge Curbs DHS Hunt for Noncitizen Voters in Nine States, and the California ballot fight is now before Judge David Carter, as we reported in Appeals Court Tosses DOJ Bid on 20,000 California Ballots. Anyone charged in these investigations is presumed innocent.

The Maricopa County Attorney's Office announced the sentence and credited prosecutors Linda Garcia and Evelyn Hernandez. County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said she was among the prosecutors who went to the scene the night of the shooting.

The shooting

On December 14, 2021, Moldovan, then 22 and nine months into his career, and his partner, Officer Zachary Johnson, answered a call near Camelback Road about cars doing burnouts, KTAR reported. Prosecutors say Williams was hiding behind a half wall on the patio of an apartment he did not live in.

As Moldovan ordered him to show his hands, Williams fired 15 rounds, including several after the officer was down and unconscious, according to the county attorney's office. Prosecutors said he then jumped the patio wall and tried to grab Moldovan's gun. Moldovan was hit eight times, including once in the head, and spent months in the hospital and in rehabilitation.

The verdict and the sentence

In August, a jury convicted Williams of attempted first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer, aggravated assault against Moldovan, aggravated assault against Johnson and two counts of misconduct involving weapons. Deliberations took less than an hour, AZFamily reported. Williams later waived a separate jury hearing on aggravating factors.

At the time of the shooting Williams was a parolee with nine prior felony convictions and was barred from having a gun, AZFamily reported. His mother and girlfriend later pleaded guilty to supplying him with guns, though none of those guns was used in the shooting.

What was said in court

Moldovan told the court "the burden is so heavy" and "the problems are so big," according to AZFamily, and he asked that Williams spend the rest of his life in prison. His wife, Chelsea Moldovan, said, "He deserves the maximum time because our life sentence started the minute he raised his gun."

Williams told the court, "I am sorry all of this happened." He also claimed self-defense, saying, "I watched him reach for his weapon and me to defend my life," and argued that police "created the whole situation," AZFamily reported.

Speaking of Williams, Mitchell said, "In retrospect, no. He should not have been on the streets." Phoenix Police Chief Matt Giordano said in the county attorney's release, "Today, the man responsible is finally facing the consequences of his actions, and justice has been served."

The newsroom's analysis: the numbers in the case

Fifteen rounds fired and eight hits means more than half the shots struck Moldovan, from what prosecutors described as close range, and several came after he was already unconscious. That fact went to intent, the central element of attempted first-degree murder.

The release date is less clear than the headline. AZFamily and KTAR's story text say Williams will not be eligible for parole or release for 25 years. KTAR's own headline says at least 50 years. The county attorney's release does not address it. If the 25 year figure is correct and runs from the date of the shooting, the earliest possible date would be around December 2046. If it runs from the sentencing date, around October 2051. A 50 year minimum would push it past 2071. Two life terms make release far from automatic in any case.

The reports also differ on the location. The county attorney's office places the apartment complex near 15th Avenue and Camelback Road, while KTAR and AZFamily say 19th Avenue.

Timeline

December 14, 2021: Moldovan is shot.

2023: Williams's mother and girlfriend plead guilty in the gun supply case, according to AZFamily.

August 2026: Jury convicts Williams on all counts.

October 27, 2026: Two life sentences plus 25 years.

Moldovan survived. Others have not, as in the Alabama case where Brian Martin was sentenced to death for killing Sergeant Nick Risner. Police shootings also draw legal scrutiny in the other direction, as in the Mississippi case where the officer who shot a 1-year-old resigned after the state ruled the force justified. Here, a jury rejected Williams's self-defense story in under an hour.

Two sources familiar with the matter told ABC News that he has landed in the U.S. ABC did not report where. A senior State Department official said "the State Department will issue visas to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States," according to the Associated Press. Brazilian authorities told ABC they did not know his whereabouts and were investigating "whether he fled to the U.S."

Bolsonaro lost to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva by about 4.4 million votes and has not conceded, as we reported in Lula Wins Brazil's Runoff. He is the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

The passport order

A sealed order from Brazil's Supreme Court, issued Sunday, required Bolsonaro to surrender both his regular and diplomatic passports, the AP reported. He was served Monday, and the deadline expired at noon Tuesday. It is unclear whether he complied. On Monday he had said, "I will hand over my passports and I will defend myself from this aberration."

Justice Alexandre de Moraes is heading one of the investigations. Bolsonaro has claimed Moraes is a Lula ally. A lawmaker allied with Bolsonaro, Mauricio Marcon, complained that "Seven minutes after the election, Alexandre de Moraes ordered his passports to be seized," according to the AP.

What he is accused of

The AP reported that Bolsonaro is under investigation for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in two cases. In one, he is accused of using a sports betting company to launder fraudulent deductions taken from government pensions paid to senior citizens. In the other, prosecutors suspect he accepted millions of dollars from a disgraced banker, money they believe paid his brother's expenses and promoted his political agenda with the Trump administration. ABC reported that Brazilian authorities also cited a probe into the production of a film about his father. He denies wrongdoing.

The reaction

Lula said he lacked precise information about Bolsonaro's location but believed he had left. He said the United States is the Bolsonaro family's first country and Brazil only its second. "The first is licking American boots," he said, adding, "Those who are not liable do not fear," the AP reported.

Bolsonaro's campaign manager, Rogério Marinho, said he had not spoken with the senator since early Tuesday and had received only a text saying he wanted a break. His brother Eduardo, who lives in Texas, had publicly urged him to leave if he lost. Two U.S. officials told ABC the administration had been tracking his plans and expected him to try to leave for the U.S. On Monday, President Trump said without evidence that Brazil's vote "looked like another rigged election, frankly."

Our analysis: a timeline of 72 hours

Sunday, October 25: Lula wins the runoff. The Supreme Court issues a sealed order for Bolsonaro's passports, per the AP.

Monday, October 26: Bolsonaro is served and says he will hand the passports over. He asks the electoral court to investigate alleged fraud and nullify the candidacies of Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, a step the AP says the court has never taken.

Tuesday, October 27: The noon deadline passes. Reports say he leaves Brazil. A State Department official says visas will be issued.

December 18: The scheduled certification of the result, according to the AP.

The legal knot

Leaving the country does not end the Brazilian cases, but it complicates them. If Brazil charges him and wants him back, it would have to ask Washington, a process that runs through treaties, courts and, finally, the U.S. executive branch, as we laid out in How Extradition Works. With the State Department publicly opening the door to him, that path looks steep. His own annulment challenge, meanwhile, would require proving fraud large enough to erase Lula's 4.4 million vote margin before the December 18 certification.

The grand jury returned what is known as a "no bill," rejecting the Justice Department's effort to charge her, NBC News reported, citing a senior U.S. official who confirmed the case was hers. Her name was not stated in court. The Associated Press reported the same outcome, citing two people familiar with the matter, and called it "the latest setback in the Justice Department's efforts to charge perceived adversaries of the Republican president." Hutchinson has not been charged with any crime.

Who brought the case

The case came from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, led by Trump appointee Harmeet Dhillon, according to NBC. That division traditionally enforces civil rights and antidiscrimination laws, not false statement cases. A grand jury heard evidence against Hutchinson in early October, a person familiar with the effort told NBC.

ABC News reported that prosecutors sought charges of lying to Congress. The AP said details of the government's allegations were not immediately clear. Neither the Justice Department nor Hutchinson's attorneys responded to requests for comment from NBC. ABC said Hutchinson could not be reached Tuesday and that she has maintained she stands by her testimony.

The testimony at the center of it

Hutchinson was a special assistant to then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. At a public hearing on June 28, 2022, announced only 24 hours earlier, she described a president who wanted armed supporters let past security screening at his Ellipse rally, according to the AP. She also testified that a White House security official told her Trump grabbed the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to drive him to the Capitol.

That second account was always secondhand, and she said so at the time. In March 2024, House Republicans released a transcript of an interview with the Secret Service officer who drove the vehicle. The AP reported that he said Trump "never grabbed the steering wheel," though the transcript corroborated Trump's push to go to the Capitol. ABC noted that former special counsel Jack Smith chose not to treat Hutchinson as a material witness because much of her testimony was hearsay.

Trump has called her a "scam artist" who lied under oath and has suggested she be prosecuted, NBC reported. In March he posted a link to a story about House Republicans referring her to the Justice Department.

Why a no bill is so unusual

A grand jury only decides whether there is probable cause, a low bar, and it hears only the prosecution's side. There is no defense lawyer in the room and no judge. That is why refusals are rare, as we explained in What Grand Juries Do and Why They Meet in Secret.

Yet this administration has heard "no" repeatedly. NBC reported that after a first case against New York Attorney General Letitia James was dismissed on technical grounds, the department tried three more times to indict her and was turned down each time. It also failed to indict six Democratic members of Congress over a video urging troops not to follow unlawful orders. Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC in April that in some of those cases the grand jury "just made the wrong decision."

The refusals now leave a paper trail. NBC reported that the chief federal judge in Washington adopted a policy this year requiring prosecutors to notify the on duty magistrate judge when a grand jury rejects an indictment, which is how Tuesday's result surfaced in court.

Our analysis: what the no bill does and does not mean

A no bill is not an acquittal. Double jeopardy attaches only once a trial begins, so the department remains free to present the case again, to the same grand jury or a new one, as NBC noted. What limits a second try is time.

The general federal statute of limitations for false statement and perjury charges is five years. If the case rests on the June 28, 2022 public hearing, the newsroom's arithmetic puts the deadline at June 28, 2027, about eight months from now. Anything she said to the committee before that hearing would run out sooner. That clock is the same pressure that has shaped the department's case against James Comey, which we explored in Information vs. Indictment.

There is also a practical cost to trying again. Prosecutors would have to persuade a fresh panel of ordinary Washington residents, after one panel has already heard the evidence and declined. The department's recent record, including the third set of charges against Comey, suggests it does not easily walk away.

Jurors convicted Wilburn on 38 of the 39 felony counts he faced, including 12 counts of first-degree murder, after less than six hours of deliberation, The Daily Times reported on October 27. The victims were Norma "Kaye" Farley, 65, her husband Delmar "Marty" Farley, 59, and his brother Cas Ivan Farley, 61.

What happened on Payne Hollow Road

The three lived together in a house on Payne Hollow Road in Walland. The house caught fire on a Sunday in January 2025, according to WATE, and the bodies of all three were recovered on January 20 after firefighters put out a blaze that nearly destroyed it.

Blount County Sheriff James Lee Berrong announced the deaths at the time. Autopsies were done at the Knox County Regional Forensic Center, and the sheriff's office said the "preliminary results are consistent with homicide as the manner of death for all three victims," WATE reported. Wilburn, then 56, was first charged with three counts of criminal homicide and held on a $750,000 bond, according to WATE.

The state's theory

Prosecutors told jurors that Wilburn, who was related to Kaye Farley through his father's earlier marriage, killed the three to get money. The state said the goal was to keep Wilburn, his girlfriend and two friends in a room at the Alcoa Inn, and that he set the house on fire to hide what he had done, according to The Daily Times.

The case was tried by Blount County District Attorney General Ryan K. Desmond and Assistant Attorney General Tyler Park. A witness identified in the reporting as Dr. Suzuki testified about the heat damage to the bodies.

Why the sentence was life without parole

In Tennessee, a first-degree murder conviction carries one of three sentences: death, life with the possibility of parole, or life without parole. To get life without parole, prosecutors had to convince the jury that at least one statutory aggravating factor applied and outweighed any mitigating factors. The paper reported that Park argued three aggravating factors fit the case, including that Wilburn knew Cas Farley was vulnerable and that the bodies were mutilated.

"Johnny Wilburn is a mass murderer," Park told the jury, according to The Daily Times.

Defense attorney Rick Owens asked jurors to weigh his client's proven illiteracy and other mitigating factors. The jury sided with the state.

The newsroom's analysis: 12 murder counts for three victims

The count totals look strange at first. Twelve first-degree murder counts for three victims works out to four counts per victim. The reporting does not explain the split, and the indictment has not been published.

A pattern like that usually means prosecutors charged the same killing under several legal theories, for example premeditated murder and murder committed during another felony such as robbery or arson. Charging alternatives protects a conviction if jurors, or an appeals court, reject one theory. In most courts, multiple murder counts for the same victim are merged at judgment so the defendant is punished once per death, which is why the outcome is described as one life sentence rather than a dozen.

The arithmetic on time also stands out. The bodies were recovered January 20, 2025, and the verdict came October 27, 2026, about 21 months later. For a three-victim homicide and arson case, that is a fairly quick path to trial.

What comes next

Wilburn can file a motion for a new trial and then appeal. The one count on which he was acquitted was not identified in the reporting. Families in cases like this one often wait years for appeals to run out, as in the Alabama case we covered when Governor Kay Ivey commuted Toforest Johnson's death sentence.

Jurors needed to find each element proven beyond a reasonable doubt, a standard explained in our guide to what reasonable doubt means for jurors. In Blount County, they took less than one working day to do it.

Edward Friedland, the district executive for the Manhattan federal courts, announced the death, ABC7 New York reported. About two weeks earlier, Hellerstein had presided over a hearing in the Maduro case.

A long career on the Manhattan bench

President Bill Clinton appointed Hellerstein to the federal bench in 1998, when he was 64, and he took senior status in 2011. Before that he served in the Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps and worked as a Manhattan litigator. He was known for an independent streak and strict courtroom discipline, ABC7 reported.

For roughly two decades he presided over dozens of wrongful death, injury and property damage lawsuits arising from the September 11 attacks. Lawyers said he met with victims' families for hours and rejected settlement offers he considered too low. The criminal side of 9/11 has stayed in the news too, as in the Supreme Court's refusal to revive the September 11 plea deals.

His docket also included a federal lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein, litigation over abuse evidence from Abu Ghraib prison and a ruling against the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans, CBS News reported. In 2020 he ordered Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen released from prison, finding the Justice Department's revocation of his home confinement was retaliatory.

The Trump hush money rulings

Hellerstein repeatedly rejected President Trump's efforts to move his New York state hush money conviction into federal court. After the Supreme Court's 2024 immunity ruling and a remand from the Second Circuit, which said it expressed no view on the outcome, he reconsidered and ruled against Trump again on August 28. He wrote that "the trial evidence does not infringe on presidential immunity," according to CBS.

The Maduro case

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured by the U.S. military in Venezuela earlier this year and brought to New York. The charges include narcoterrorism, conspiring to commit torture, importation conspiracy and weapons offenses, and an October 8 superseding indictment also references other Venezuelan leaders, Townhall reported, citing the Justice Department. Both defendants are presumed innocent.

Hellerstein took the case in January, days after turning 92, and drew criticism over his age and over reports that he appeared to briefly fall asleep during the Charlie Javice fraud trial, CBS reported. Maduro's lawyer, Barry Pollack, said, "We were saddened to learn of Judge Hellerstein's passing and offer our condolences to his family."

What happens now: the newsroom's timeline

A judge's death does not end or reset a criminal case. The case is reassigned, usually at random within the same court, and the new judge inherits the existing docket and schedule.

January 2026: Hellerstein takes the Maduro case.

October 8, 2026: Superseding indictment, per the Justice Department.

Mid-October 2026: Hellerstein presides over his last hearing in the case.

October 28, 2026: The court confirms his death. A Justice Department source told Townhall a new judge "should be assigned this week."

June 2027: Scheduled trial date, according to Reuters as cited by Townhall. That is about seven months away.

Former federal prosecutor Duncan Levin told CBS, "There's no automatic pause, and there's really no fixed period of delay," adding that a new judge can keep or adjust the existing dates. "One of the main qualifications of being a judge is that you can read a lot of paper," he said.

The practical risk for both sides is a new judge revisiting rulings Hellerstein already made or needing more time to master a record that dates to cases he oversaw as far back as 2014. Defendants brought to the United States from abroad face long pretrial runways, a process we explained in How Extradition Works.

A divided Ninth Circuit panel dismissed the government's emergency appeal on October 26, ABC News reported, saying it lacked jurisdiction because the case had not yet been decided below. The next afternoon, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter heard the government's request for a temporary restraining order in Los Angeles and ended the hearing without ruling. He said he would issue a ruling Wednesday, according to Democracy Docket. We covered the Sunday appellate argument in Appeals Judges Question Justice Department Bid to Hold 20,000 California Ballots.

What the appeals court said

The unsigned majority opinion, joined by Judges Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Gabriel Sanchez, a Biden appointee, held that "the United States failed to allow the district court adequate opportunity to consider its application," Law Dork reported, linking the order. The department had asked Carter to rule within three business hours, then argued his silence was a "constructive denial" it could appeal.

The panel was blunt about the timing. "The United States's claimed emergency, at least in part, is a self-constructed one," the majority wrote, according to ABC. In separate concurrences, Bennett expressed "serious doubts that Plaintiff's preemption claim is likely to succeed on the merits," and Sanchez said the Purcell principle, which discourages courts from changing election rules close to an election, "would require us to reject the United States' request."

Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, dissented at length. "The federal government needn't helplessly stand by when States act to frustrate federal elections," he wrote, arguing California's handling of the ballots is likely preempted by federal law.

What happened before Judge Carter

Carter called the government's request a "monumental change" to an election already underway, ABC reported. He said he intends to appoint a special master to examine how the department built its list of more than 20,000 registered voters it calls likely noncitizens. He also criticized letters suggesting election workers could be prosecuted for counting those ballots. "This court believes it would be wise that any threats to state and county elected employees cease immediately," he said.

His sharpest point was about remedies. Federal law already makes noncitizen voting in federal elections a crime. "You've got a remedy for goodness sake. Go out and indict," he told the government, per Democracy Docket, and he asked why the court should risk disenfranchising voters "where voters would not be counted versus the ability to catch those few."

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli argued the state "cannot do nothing and proceed to count the votes," but conceded, "We're never going to stand here and tell you everything's 100%." Michael Cohen, arguing for the state side, said "Congress has told the states that attestation under penalty of perjury is sufficient to establish citizenship."

Our analysis: what the sample says about the list

Los Angeles officials checked a preliminary sample of 200 names from the government's list, ABC reported. Nearly 40% "indicate that they were born in the United States," and 71.2% had no voting history.

The newsroom's arithmetic: 40% of 200 is about 80 people in the sample who say they are U.S. born. If that rate held across the full list, which a 200 name sample cannot prove, roughly 8,000 of the 20,000 ballots would belong to people claiming birthright citizenship. And 71.2% with no voting history means about 142 of the 200 had never cast a ballot on record, so many names may not produce a ballot at all.

That is the core of Carter's question. Setting aside every ballot on the list would sweep in eligible voters to reach the "few" he mentioned. Carter pointed to California's December 3 certification date as the deadline to resolve the dispute and floated a later hearing with expert testimony. The case sits alongside other federal pressure on noncitizen voting, including the field operations a judge limited last week, covered in Judge Curbs DHS Hunt for Noncitizen Voters in Nine States.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Sheldon Rennie found that because Owens lives in Tennessee, the court has no jurisdiction over her personally, Politico reported. The case continues against Candace Owens LLC and GeorgeTom, Inc. The ruling does not decide whether anything Owens said was defamatory.

The suit

The Macrons sued in July 2025. They allege that Owens falsely claimed, across multiple episodes of her podcast "Candace," that Brigitte Macron is a transgender man who stole the title of first lady, and that the claims caused "substantial and irreparable damage" to their reputation. Their lawyer, Tom Clare, called the suit "really a last resort" when it was filed, PBS NewsHour reported. At the time, Owens called it an "obvious and desperate public relations strategy." The complaint ran 219 pages.

The jurisdiction ruling

Personal jurisdiction is the court's power over a particular defendant, and the Constitution's due process clause limits it. A court generally needs a person to be at home in the state, or to have aimed the conduct being sued over at that state, before it can haul that person into its courtroom.

The suit could proceed against the companies because they are registered in Delaware, Politico reported, while Owens herself lives in Tennessee. In plain terms, choosing Delaware as the legal home for a company does not make its owner a Delaware resident for lawsuit purposes. The companies themselves, as Delaware entities, can be sued there.

The practical effect is that any judgment in this case would run against the two companies, not against Owens's personal assets. The Macrons' lawyers said they were "pleased" that the case against the companies survives and are "keeping all options open" to hold Owens personally accountable. That leaves open a separate suit in a court that does have jurisdiction over her, such as one in Tennessee. Owens said on social media she was "tremendously grateful" and wrote, "I am in the absolute best mood over this Macron dismissal."

The French clock

The second part of the ruling may matter more. Rennie found that the main harm alleged is in France, so French law, not Delaware's, should govern how long the Macrons had to sue. He wrote that French law "generally has a three-month period following publication of allegedly defamatory comments," and that it "apparently expands this limitations period to one year" when the defamation targets someone based on sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.

He ordered both sides to brief which period applies. Politico reported that there is a chance the case is restricted further.

The newsroom's analysis: why the deadline matters

Delaware courts generally treat defamation under the state's two-year deadline for personal injury claims, Section 8119 of the Delaware Code. Under that rule, statements made up to two years before the July 2025 filing would be in play. Under a French three-month window, only statements published in roughly the three months before the filing would survive, and any later episodes would each start their own short clock. Under a one-year window, the reach is longer but still half of Delaware's.

That is the choice the briefing will frame. If the court applies the one-year period because the statements concern gender identity, more of the alleged statements stay in the case. If it applies three months, much of what the Macrons complained about could fall outside the deadline. Either way, the merits fight over truth and falsity, and whether public figures like the Macrons can show the required level of fault, has not begun.

The bigger picture

This is a rare spectacle, a sitting foreign head of state suing an American commentator in an American court. Defamation suits by famous plaintiffs often turn on procedure long before they reach truth, as with the Central Park Five's suit against President Trump that we covered in our story on their exoneration and settlement. Disputes between Trump and European governments have been in the news this week too, with Norway again telling him that the Nobel Committee picks the Peace Prize, not Oslo.

U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright wrote that "Essayli is unlawfully serving as a 'de facto' United States Attorney," NBC Los Angeles reported. He found Essayli "disqualified from participating in or supervising" the prosecutions of the two defendants who brought the challenge. The ruling will not take effect until the court decides the government's motion for a stay pending appeal.

How Essayli got here

Federal law lets an interim U.S. attorney serve for 120 days without Senate confirmation. The Trump administration installed Essayli, a Republican, as acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California in 2025. As that clock was about to run out on July 29, 2025, he resigned the interim post and was appointed "special attorney" with the title First Assistant U.S. Attorney, MyNewsLA reported.

Seabright already ruled against him once. In October 2025 he disqualified Essayli from overseeing several criminal cases, finding he had stayed in the temporary role longer than the law allows, according to NBC Los Angeles. Essayli stayed on as first assistant, and because the administration never named another acting U.S. attorney, he remained the office's effective chief. Attorney General Todd Blanche later issued a revised designation that trimmed some of his duties.

The Nevada precedent

The new ruling leans on the Ninth Circuit's August decision that Sigal Chattah, the administration's first pick to lead federal prosecutions in Nevada, was unlawfully appointed. Seabright wrote that the appointment of Essayli as special attorney and first assistant "is identical" to Chattah's, and that "nothing in the revised designation order materially distinguishes it from the Chattah designation order," per NBC Los Angeles. The Blanche order, he wrote, "is functionally equivalent to Essayli's prior ineffective designation," MyNewsLA reported.

The Los Angeles fight is one of several. A New Jersey judge disqualified acting U.S. attorney Alina Habba in 2025, and in January a judge ruled that John Sarcone was not lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York. Appointment challenges have also shadowed the Comey prosecutions, where defense lawyers attacked the appointment of Lindsey Halligan, as we noted in What Happens at a Criminal Arraignment.

The newsroom's arithmetic

The 120-day limit is the yardstick the courts keep returning to, so it is worth measuring how far past it Essayli has gone.

July 29, 2025: The interim 120-day term was about to expire, per MyNewsLA.

October 27, 2026: Seabright's ruling.

Days between those dates: 455.

Ratio: Essayli has led the office as first assistant for about 3.8 times the full length of the interim term the statute allows, and that does not count the 120 days he served before the switch.

What the ruling does not do

The order is narrower than the headline. It applies to the two defendants who challenged Essayli, one of them Tu Anh Tran, whose case is in Orange County. Seabright also denied their motions to dismiss the charges, so both prosecutions go forward under other supervisors if the order takes effect. In practice, the remedy for an unlawful prosecutor is usually a new prosecutor, not a dismissal.

Still, the ruling could invite copycat motions from other defendants in the district, MyNewsLA reported. Tran's lawyer, Dean Steward, called it "a victory for the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution" and said "The Trump administration ignored the laws governing the appointment of U.S. Attorneys and got caught in Los Angeles."

Essayli's response

Essayli said the government respectfully disagrees and that "Ultimately, this question will be decided by the Supreme Court." On X he wrote, "Just so there's no confusion, today's order is stayed and has no immediate effect," and added, "I remain First Assistant U.S. Attorney and continue running the office." He said the president and the attorney general have every right to choose supervisors inside the Justice Department.

The same office is also in the middle of the federal fight over California mail ballots, which we covered in Appeals Court Tosses DOJ Bid on 20,000 California Ballots.

U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. issued the 47-page decision in Heeter v. James on October 21. The plaintiffs are Benjamin Heeter, Joseph Wurtenberg and the Firearms Policy Coalition, which sued in July 2024. The defendants are Attorney General Letitia James, State Police Superintendent Steven G. James and the district attorneys of Erie and Monroe counties.

What New York's law does

The law took effect July 6, 2022. It bars buying, selling or taking possession of body armor unless the buyer is "engaged or employed in an eligible profession." The New York Department of State keeps the list of those professions, which includes police and peace officers, the military, security guards, firefighters, EMTs, journalists, private investigators, emergency physicians, nurses, attorneys and others. The department says the legislation followed "several mass shootings in the U.S., including in Buffalo, NY." State law defines body armor as "any product that is a personal protective body covering intended to protect against gunfire."

What the judge decided

Sinatra opened his opinion bluntly. "New York enacted a first-of-its-kind law prohibiting law-abiding residents," he wrote, and "New York's body armor legislation, however, violates the Second Amendment."

The state argued that body armor "is not an 'Arm' as the term would have been commonly understood in 1791 or 1868" and is "at most" a "tactical accessory to firearms." The judge rejected that, relying on the Supreme Court's statement in Heller that the Second Amendment covers "all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding."

He also found body armor is in common use. Market data offered by the plaintiffs estimated more than 82,000 units sold in 2023, more than 87,000 in 2024 and more than 93,000 in 2025, and the opinion noted that 49 states do not ban it.

On history, the state pointed to English laws restricting armor, including the medieval Statute of Northampton. Sinatra said the state had relied on "cherry-picked prohibitions from across the span of Western Civilization" and failed "to identify a single relevantly analogous law." He added, "That Kevlar did not exist at the Founding does not alter the constitutional principles guiding the Court's analysis."

What the ruling does not do

The opinion is narrower than some headlines suggest. It enjoins enforcement only of the purchase and sale provisions, Penal Law sections 270.21 and 270.22 and General Business Law section 396-eee. It expressly leaves in place the separate crime of unlawfully wearing body armor, which applies when someone commits a violent felony while possessing a gun and wearing armor. The judge also rejected the state's argument that a statewide injunction runs afoul of the Supreme Court's 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA, reasoning that CASA limited universal injunctions against federal actions, not relief against a state statute.

Timeline: the appeal clock

July 6, 2022: New York's body armor sale restrictions take effect.

July 1, 2024: The Firearms Policy Coalition files suit.

November 8, 2024: Sinatra denies the state's motion to dismiss.

August 28, 2026: The court hears argument on cross motions for summary judgment.

October 21, 2026: Sinatra grants summary judgment and a permanent injunction, then grants the state's own request for a 14-day stay pending appeal.

November 4, 2026: By the newsroom's count, 14 days from October 21, when the stay runs out unless the Second Circuit extends it.

In granting the stay, Sinatra said he disagreed that the state was likely to win on appeal. He noted that the ban dates to 2022 and that no plaintiff had sought a preliminary injunction. New York's next step is to ask the Second Circuit for a longer stay.

Why it matters beyond body armor

The opinion leans on the same questions the Supreme Court will take up when it hears the AR-15 cases on December 2, including Grant v. Higgins, the Second Circuit case Sinatra cited by name. We previewed those arguments in Cook County and Connecticut Defend AR-15 Bans as Supreme Court Arguments Near. It also fits a run of lower court rulings stretching the word "arms," including the Fifth Circuit's switchblade decision we covered in Fifth Circuit Rules the Federal Switchblade Act's Core Ban Is Unconstitutional and the suppressor fight in Appeals Court Hears Challenge to Illinois Suppressor Ban.

Testimony began October 27 and continued Wednesday, WALB reported. Butts denies the killings and is presumed innocent.

The case

Smithville police responded to a 911 call at an apartment in the 100 block of Wells Street on March 7, 2024, and found Jessica Lynn Hatcher Thompson, 41, and her daughter Julianna Denise Thompson, 17, dead, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The GBI said Butts, then 28 and from Preston, was arrested on unrelated charges on March 9, 2024, and that agents obtained murder warrants against him in April.

A Lee County grand jury returned an 18-count indictment in June 2024, including two counts of malice murder and six counts of felony murder, WALB reported at the time. Four of the counts stem from a separate January 2024 incident in which a man was assaulted and his gun was allegedly stolen.

Why he fired his lawyer

Butts told the judge during jury selection that his lawyer did not listen to him and had suggested he take a plea early in the case, WALB reported on October 26. "My lawyer shouldn't have to come to that jailhouse and basically threaten me a death penalty," Butts said.

The judge advised him against it, then allowed it. "If you represent yourself, you cannot complain about your representation," the judge warned. Attorney Kwashnak was appointed as standby counsel to sit beside him. "If you don't want to talk to him, if you don't want to use him, you're not required to," the judge told Butts.

What the jury has heard

District Attorney Lewis Lamb called Butts "a cold-blooded, heartless murderer" in his opening and said the evidence "leads to only one conclusion." He told jurors GBI testing matched cartridges found at the scene to casings from the original owner of the stolen gun.

Seven witnesses testified on the first day, including Jessica Thompson's boyfriend, Smithville officer Michel Francis and a former GBI medical examiner who described gunshot wounds to both women's heads. On Wednesday a GBI crime scene specialist walked jurors through photos of the apartment. Francis testified that a condom was found near the front door, which WALB noted could carry DNA evidence. The reporting does not say whether it was tested.

On cross-examination, Butts asked whether anything from the scene pointed to him. He also acknowledged involvement in the stolen gun incident and said he and Julianna sold the gun before the deaths, according to WALB. "When you're in a relationship with your girlfriend then, you're gonna be the first suspect," he said.

The newsroom's analysis: what self-representation means

The right Butts is using comes from Faretta v. California, decided June 30, 1975. The Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment guarantees "an independent constitutional right of self-representation" for a defendant who "voluntarily and intelligently elects to do so." That is why a judge who thinks the choice is unwise must still allow it after warning the defendant.

Faretta also explains the two details from Butts's courtroom. The Court said a state may appoint "standby counsel" even over the defendant's objection, which is Kwashnak's role. And the dissenters noted the trade the majority accepted, that a defendant who chooses to go it alone gives up a later claim that his lawyer was ineffective. The judge's warning about not complaining later was that rule in plain words.

Butts's own cross-examination shows the risk. A defendant who questions witnesses also tells jurors things, like his admission about the stolen gun, without taking the stand or facing cross-examination himself. Prosecutors say the stolen gun is the link to the scene.

Timeline

March 7, 2024: Jessica and Julianna Thompson are found dead, per the GBI.

March 9, 2024: Butts is arrested on unrelated charges.

April 2024: GBI agents obtain murder warrants.

June 2024: Grand jury returns 18 counts.

May 20, 2025: A Lee County judge revokes Butts's probation in a 2020 aggravated assault case, keeping him jailed through at least 2029, WALB reported.

October 26 to 28, 2026: Jury selection, openings and testimony.

The state must prove each charge beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard laid out in our explainer on what reasonable doubt means for jurors. A recent North Carolina jury applied it in the Faith Hedgepeth verdict, where DNA was central. In Lee County, the jury will also be judging a defendant's skill as his own lawyer.

A California state judge consolidated two plaintiffs' cases into one trial, CP24 reported. Opening statements are set for November 4 if no further settlements intervene. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel are expected to testify starting in mid-November.

Who is suing, and over what

The plaintiffs are identified in court only by initials. S.J., a teenager from Illinois, began using Snapchat at 13. K.D.B., now 18 and from Mississippi, began using the apps at 15. Both allege that design features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling encouraged compulsive use and damaged their mental and physical health, and they seek unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, TokenPost reported. Those are allegations that no jury has decided.

The cases belong to a coordinated state proceeding in Los Angeles Superior Court, JCCP 5255, overseen by Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl, which the AEI Center for Technology, Science and Energy described as gathering more than 1,000 cases from across the country. A separate federal docket sits in Oakland before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

What is actually left for the jury

Settlements have already trimmed the trial. The newsroom's breakdown, based on CP24 and TokenPost:

TikTok: Settled with both plaintiffs before trial.

YouTube: Settled with both plaintiffs before trial.

Meta: Settled with S.J. Still faces K.D.B.

Snap: Still faces both plaintiffs.

That leaves three live claims from an original eight pairings of plaintiff and company, and Snap is the only defendant facing both.

The legal theory

The plaintiffs are not suing over what other users posted. Platforms have broad protection for third-party content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the First Amendment. Instead, the cases target the product itself, arguing that features like infinite scroll and autoplay are design choices a company can be held responsible for. In November 2025, Kuhl denied the companies' motions for summary judgment, letting the first case go to trial on negligence and negligent failure to warn theories. If a jury traces a harm to third-party content rather than design, AEI noted, those immunities could come back into play.

This is a civil trial, so the plaintiffs need only show their claims are more likely true than not, a far lower bar than the criminal standard we explained in What Reasonable Doubt Means for Jurors.

What the first trial produced

The first bellwether, known as K.G.M., ended March 25 with a $6 million verdict against Meta and YouTube, with 70 percent of the fault assigned to Meta and 30 percent to YouTube, TokenPost reported. Snap and TikTok had settled before that trial. During deliberations the jury told Kuhl it was struggling to reach a verdict on one defendant, the kind of moment we walked through in What Happens After a Hung Jury. Meta has appealed.

What the companies say

Meta said, "We disagree with these allegations and will defend ourselves in court," and in another statement said "A young person's mental health is shaped by many factors, as the evidence in this trial will show." A Snap spokesperson said, "We believe the evidence will support that we have put our community first," and the company said the allegations "fundamentally misrepresent" users' experiences and how Snapchat was designed.

Bellwether verdicts do not bind the thousands of other pending cases, but they set the price of settling them. A second loss, or a first win for the companies, will shape how much the remaining plaintiffs can demand.

The association filed two motions, WDRB reported. One is a regular appeal of the October 16 injunction issued by Jefferson Circuit Judge Brian Edwards. The other asks a single appellate judge to put that injunction on hold right away. Until a court acts, the order stays in effect.

How the case got here

The NCAA adopted a rule in June allowing Division I athletes five seasons of competition within five years. The rule applies going forward and, according to AP reporting carried by the AJC, it leaves out athletes who finished high school in 2022 and used up their eligibility in the 2025-26 school year. Those athletes have since filed suits in several states.

In Kentucky, Edwards first granted the athletes relief, but on October 2 a three-judge appellate panel dissolved that injunction. WDRB reported the panel found the record lacked enough evidence and the necessary legal findings, and held that the NCAA's rule did not apply retroactively to athletes who had already exhausted eligibility before it took effect.

The athletes went back to Edwards. At a hearing on October 14 that ran four hours and 20 minutes, Louisville basketball player Seth Trimble, Louisville football player Kalib Perry and Kentucky linebacker Alex Afari Jr. testified, as did Louisville basketball coach Pat Kelsey and Missouri coach Dennis Gates. Two days later Edwards issued a new injunction, finding a substantial likelihood the athletes would win their breach of contract claims and suffer irreparable harm without relief.

What the filing actually says

The NCAA's central argument is about the hierarchy of courts. Its emergency motion says Edwards defied the October 2 decision. Ignoring a binding Court of Appeals decision, the motion says according to WDRB, is "an affront to precedent and the rule of law." It adds: "It was the trial court's job to apply the law, not to create it."

The association also argues the five-year rule covered only athletes who had eligibility left when it took effect August 1, that the athletes have not shown a contract right to challenge the decision, and that the Kentucky Supreme Court upheld its enforcement authority in NCAA v. Lasege. It says 29 plaintiffs were named but only eight testified, and it questions whether a Jefferson County court can bind the NCAA as to athletes with little or no connection to Kentucky. It further objects to provisions that block its restitution rule, which can penalize athletes and schools after an injunction is later overturned.

On harm, the NCAA says letting these athletes play takes roster spots, minutes and money from others, and that games once played cannot be replayed. The athletes' lawyer, Hans Poppe, made the mirror image argument on social media on October 17: "Every missed game and practice is irreparable harm."

The newsroom's read on the stakes

Both sides are arguing irreparable harm, and the calendar decides whose harm is real. The athletes have until November 6 to answer the regular appeal, according to The Courier Journal as cited by WDRB, and no deadline has been set on the emergency motion. Louisville opens its basketball season on Monday, November 2, against Chattanooga. That means at least one regular season game is likely to be played before the athletes' brief is even due.

The restitution fight is the sleeper issue. If the injunction is later reversed, the NCAA's rule could let it penalize schools for games already played. Edwards's order tried to block that, and the NCAA wants that protection removed.

Afari's season shows what is at stake. After the first injunction was dissolved, he missed Kentucky's overtime wins over South Carolina and LSU, WDRB reported.

Kentucky is not the only front

The NCAA sued Ohio Governor Mike DeWine in federal court on October 16, three days after he signed an executive order letting Ohio universities play class of 2022 athletes for a fifth season, AP reported. NCAA President Charlie Baker called that suit an "extraordinary step" and said the order would make it "impossible for all schools to compete on a level playing field." The Ohio Supreme Court has separately paused an appeals ruling that found the athletes ineligible in a case led by basketball player Filip Borovićanin.

Courts have been drawing lines around athletic eligibility all month, including an Alabama judge's ruling that high school sports are not a constitutional right. Basketball's other big legal story this week was the Malik Beasley guilty plea in the NBA betting case.

Likud still emerged as the largest single party, according to The Times of Israel. But the count has moved steadily against Netanyahu's camp since election night, and Arab-led parties are on track for a record 19 seats. Those numbers turn the question of who governs Israel into a question about the Arab parties, and Likud has now put the legitimacy of their votes in play.

How the count moved

The newsroom tracked the Central Elections Committee's partial results as reported through the day on The Times of Israel's live coverage. Each line shows the share of ballots counted, then Netanyahu's bloc, the opposition led by Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party, and the Arab-led parties.

4:17 a.m., 25.2% counted: 63, 49 and 8.

6:10 a.m., 41.9% counted: 57, 47 and 16.

9:28 a.m., 66.2% counted: 56, 48 and 16.

12:39 p.m., 84.5% counted: 54, 49 and 17.

3:07 p.m., more than 85% counted: 53, 48 and 19.

In the space of about 11 hours, Netanyahu's bloc lost 10 seats on paper while the Arab-led parties more than doubled. The committee stressed at each update that the results "are partial and will change as counting continues."

The math on 61

The newsroom's arithmetic on the 3:07 p.m. figures: 53 plus 48 plus 19 equals 120, so every seat is accounted for. Netanyahu needs 8 more seats to reach 61. Eisenkot's camp would need 13 more, which it cannot find without at least some of the Arab-led parties. Combined, the opposition and the Arab-led parties hold 67.

Ra'am, projected at 7 seats, is led by Mansour Abbas, who has said he would not join a Netanyahu-led government. Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen said his party is ready to "pave the way for ousting the government of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich, and send them home." Not everyone in the opposition agrees. Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman has reportedly cut contact with the rest of the opposition and wants an Eisenkot and Netanyahu unity government, the paper reported.

The uncounted ballots

What could still move the numbers is the "double envelope" vote, cast mainly by soldiers, prisoners, diplomats and others who could not vote at their home polling stations. The committee now estimates 430,000 to 480,000 such ballots, significantly fewer than the roughly 600,000 previously reported. At roughly 40,000 votes per seat, that is about 12 seats' worth of ballots.

That does not mean 12 new seats. The Knesset stays at 120, and these ballots only shift how the seats are shared out. For Netanyahu to gain 8 seats from them, those voters would have to break for his bloc by a wide margin. The double envelopes have historically leaned away from Arab and Haredi parties, the paper reported, though the large number of reservists from across the spectrum makes this year harder to predict. Final official results are expected on November 4.

The fraud claim

Likud said in a statement that "the elections in Israel were stolen by Arab parties." It said it had submitted to police, the Shin Bet and the election committee what it described as hundreds of testimonies, thousands of envelopes with cash and Ra'am ballot slips, threats toward ballot committee members, double voting, gaps between envelope counts and voter counts, and the use of illegal voter mobilization software, according to The Times of Israel. These are allegations, and no finding of fraud has been made.

An election committee official had dismissed the fraud claims earlier in the day in an interview with Channel 12, the paper reported. It also reported that Likud operatives had been preparing before the vote to challenge results from Arab towns and to call the vote "stolen." On election day, police arrested three men from Bedouin communities on suspicion of vote buying, as we reported in our election day story. Those men are presumed innocent, and a handful of arrests is a different thing from proof of results-changing fraud.

The committee said its acting director general, Dean Livne, had notified all parties on October 25 that they could submit polling stations whose results they believed warranted examination. "The committee received Likud's request and is reviewing it as part of this operation," it said in a statement.

Why the process matters

For a legal audience, the useful distinction is between a claim and a challenge. A press statement saying an election was stolen carries no legal weight. What counts is whether specific polling stations are examined, whether specific ballots are disqualified, and whether any criminal case is brought and proven. The committee's monitoring process is the forum for the first two. Police and prosecutors handle the third.

Once results are final, President Isaac Herzog consults the parties and chooses a nominee to try to form a government, a process with fixed deadlines that we laid out in our guide to how Israel forms a government. The fight over the Arab vote is likely to shape those consultations.

The claimant, described in court as a well-known man, is seeking an injunction against Independent Television News, which produces news for ITV and Channel 4, and Guardian News and Media, publisher of The Guardian. Both oppose him. Mr Justice Matthew Nicklin is hearing the case, which was scheduled to continue on Wednesday, October 28, IBTimes UK reported. No ruling on the injunction had been reported at the time of publication.

What the case is about

According to LBC, journalists at both organisations have investigated the man's alleged conduct toward a number of people over several years, in professional and personal settings. He denies the allegations, including one that he committed a sexual offence. None of the claims has been proven, and the court is not being asked to decide whether they are true.

His case rests on his health. At an earlier hearing, his barrister, Sara Mansoori KC, told the court in written submissions that "the claimant is a well-known individual who suffers from very serious mental health problems," LBC reported. His lawyers argue that publication would put his life at risk. The news organisations say their reporting concerns matters of significant public interest.

Nicklin acknowledged the bind at that earlier hearing. "This case is going to be controversial either way it is decided," he said, according to LBC, adding that the proceedings should be as open as possible.

The warning to the internet

As speculation about the man's identity spread online, Nicklin reminded the public that the anonymity order covers everyone, not just newspapers and broadcasters. IBTimes UK reported that the order bars publishing anything likely to identify the claimant directly or indirectly, and that its definition of publication includes internet and social media posts.

The judge also addressed the idea that a name becomes fair game once it is everywhere. "Nor does repetition transform speculation into established fact," he said, as quoted by The Independent and cited by IBTimes UK. The fact that a claim has appeared elsewhere does not make repeating it lawful, he said. Contempt of court in England and Wales can carry up to two years in prison or a fine, though IBTimes UK noted penalties are not automatic and any alleged breach would go through the normal legal process. The judiciary publishes the case's anonymity and reporting restrictions order on its website.

What the case actually tests

The newsroom's analysis: this is a pre-publication fight, which is rare and difficult for a claimant in English law. Most privacy and defamation cases are about something already published. Here, the man is asking a judge to stop reporting before anyone sees it, and the court must weigh his privacy and safety against freedom of expression. What sets this one apart is that the harm he alleges is not to his reputation but to his life.

That is why the outcome matters beyond one celebrity. If a credible medical risk can block journalism about alleged misconduct, newsrooms investigating powerful people may face a new kind of injunction. If it cannot, courts will have to decide how much protection, if any, a vulnerable subject gets once a story runs.

Why Americans cannot follow this playbook

In the United States, a court order barring a news outlet from publishing is a prior restraint, which the First Amendment makes nearly impossible to obtain. American courts also rarely gag the public at large from naming a party. The closest American fights over press access involve government, not private plaintiffs, such as the suit challenging White House press bans. The divide goes back decades. The courtroom free-for-all of the Lindbergh kidnapping trial shaped how the U.S. thinks about publicity and fair trials, while English courts kept far tighter control over what can be reported.

If this story raises difficult feelings, help is available. In the UK, Samaritans can be reached at 116 123. In the U.S., call or text 988.

The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, created in 2021, released the report on October 26. It also accused Israeli soldiers and prison guards of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank, including extermination, torture, rape and persecution, the Associated Press reported. The three-member panel does not speak for the United Nations as a whole. It is chaired by Srinivasan Muralidhar, who succeeded Navi Pillay, according to Al Jazeera.

What the report alleges

On Gaza, the commission said Israel was acting "with the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza." It tied much of the harm to Israel's expansion deeper into the territory during the truce, saying Israeli forces went from controlling 53% of Gaza to at least 60%. It said Israeli fire along the advancing line has killed at least 196 Palestinians since the ceasefire, including 18 women, 32 boys and 11 girls, according to the AP.

On the West Bank, the AP reported, the commission said deaths from airstrikes rose from six in the period from 2008 to October 6, 2023, to 254 from October 7, 2023, through September 30, 2026. It also documented six cases of sexual violence against male Gaza detainees at the Sde Teiman military facility. The AP said it could not independently corroborate multiple graphic accounts in the report. The commission also faulted the Palestinian Authority for targeting Palestinians who dissent.

Israel's response

Israel's mission in Geneva said on X that the report was part of the body's "misinformation campaign to demonize the state of Israel and portray its very existence as criminal." Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, said the commission was seeking "to undermine Israel's legitimacy and deny its fundamental right to exist and defend itself," The Times of Israel reported. Israel denies the genocide and sexual assault accusations and has long rejected the commission's work.

Israel's military, for its part, accuses Hamas of breaking the truce. On Wednesday it said it had killed three Hamas members in Gaza, including a man it said took part in the October 7 abductions, accusing them of acting "in systematic violation of the ceasefire."

The newsroom's analysis: what the finding actually is

A commission of inquiry is a fact-finding body. It is not a court, it cannot convict anyone, and its conclusions do not bind any state. That is the first thing to understand about any headline that says "the UN" found genocide.

The legal test it is applying comes from the 1948 Genocide Convention. Article II defines genocide as certain acts, such as killing members of a group or inflicting conditions of life meant to destroy it, "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part," a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The UN's own guidance calls that special intent, or dolus specialis, what "makes the crime of genocide so unique," as its genocide prevention office explains. Proving the acts is the easier part. Proving the intent is where genocide cases are usually won or lost.

That is why the wording matters. "Genocidal acts" with "genocidal intent" is the commission's conclusion on both elements. A court would demand that intent be shown by evidence, and in a case against a state, that it be the only reasonable inference from the facts.

Where it could actually matter

There are two courts that could use the material. The first is the International Court of Justice, which hears disputes between states. South Africa's case against Israel under the Genocide Convention, filed on December 29, 2023, is still in its written phase. The court issued provisional measures orders in January, March and May 2024 and in May 2026 set deadlines for further written pleadings. A string of states, including the United States, has filed declarations of intervention. A final judgment is likely years away.

The second is the International Criminal Court, which tries individuals. The AP noted that the commission's findings could be used by prosecutors there or in other jurisdictions. The ICC is itself under heavy pressure from Washington, as we covered when the U.S. sanctioned the court as an institution. We explained the difference between the two courts in our piece on the ICC or ICJ warrant debate.

The bottom line

The report adds to the record that courts may one day weigh, and it will shape the diplomatic fight at the UN. It does not decide anything. Israel disputes it in full, and the ICJ has not ruled on the merits. The war began with the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, the context we revisited in our report from the Gaza border three years on.

U.S. District Judge Bill Lewis dismissed the case without prejudice on Friday, NBC 15 reported on October 26. He rejected the federal claims and declined to decide the state law claims, which leaves the families free to pursue those arguments in state court. The players, high school students whose mothers joined the suit on their behalf, are not named here.

How the dispute started

The Alabama High School Athletic Association found that Mary G. Montgomery violated its recruiting rule in connection with "Freshman Signing Day" events, NBC 15 reported. On May 18, it declared both players ineligible.

The families sued the association. They argued it relied on recruiting rule language that had never been validly adopted, and they claimed violations of free speech, due process and equal protection.

What the judge decided

The ruling turned on a basic constitutional point. The Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause protects life, liberty and property. To bring a due process claim, a plaintiff first has to show a protected interest. Judge Lewis held that participation in high school athletics is not one, NBC 15 reported. Without that interest, the question of whether the association gave the players a fair process never comes up.

He also found that the association had a legitimate interest in preventing recruiting and protecting competitive fairness, and that its limits on communications with prospective students were rationally related to that goal. That is rational basis review, the most lenient test courts apply, and rules rarely fail it.

The judge did not decide the issue the families most wanted resolved: whether the recruiting rule was properly adopted under Alabama law. That is a state law question, and federal courts often leave such questions to state judges once the federal claims are gone.

Other parts of the case fell away on procedural grounds. The mothers' own claims, and the claims against Principal David Diaz and Superintendent Chresal Threadgill, were dismissed for lack of standing. The players' request for immediate relief was denied as moot. The judge also noted that the families waited months to seek emergency relief, a delay he said would have weighed against an injunction anyway. Former coach Zach Golson has separately challenged his own suspension and removal.

Analysis: why the college cases look different

Eligibility lawsuits are everywhere in sports this fall, and athletes have won some of them. The difference often comes down to the legal theory.

Court: Federal district court. Jefferson Circuit Court (state).

Main theory: Constitutional claims: due process, free speech, equal protection. Breach of contract, with athletes as intended beneficiaries of NCAA agreements.

Key ruling: No protected interest in playing high school sports. NCAA rule applied in a way "so arbitrary that it breaches the contract".

Result: Dismissed, state claims may be refiled. Temporary injunction granted October 16.

In Kentucky, Jefferson Circuit Judge Brian Edwards granted a temporary injunction on October 16 that could let athletes at Louisville, Kentucky and other schools compete in 2026-27 despite the NCAA's four-season limit, WDRB reported. "The Court can reach no other conclusion other than that this is arbitrary," Edwards said. The Kentucky Court of Appeals had dissolved his earlier order on October 2, and the NCAA is expected to appeal again.

The newsroom's reading: constitutional claims against athletic associations face a high bar, because courts generally treat sports participation as a privilege. Contract and state law claims do not require a protected right, only a broken promise or an unlawful rule. That is why the Alabama families' best remaining argument, that the recruiting rule was never validly adopted, now sits in state court.

What comes next

Because the dismissal was without prejudice, the families can refile their state law claims. For the players, time is the problem. The football season is well underway, and the judge already noted the months that passed before they sought emergency relief.

Sports cases have been landing in courtrooms all year, from eligibility fights to federal betting prosecutions like the one we covered in Malik Beasley Moves Toward a Guilty Plea in the NBA Betting Case. Campus disputes can also leave a long legal tail, as we noted in The Duke Lacrosse Case's Shadow Over Campus Cases.

U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni of the Southern District of New York also imposed 10 years of supervised release, with sex offender treatment, and ordered Oren and Alon to pay $300,000 each and Tal $350,000, NBC News reported. "Your conduct was monstrous," Caproni told them. CBS News reported that she said "The witnesses credibly described sadistic, misogynistic sexual predators," and that the evidence was "overwhelming that they administered drugs surreptitiously." The hearing lasted about six hours.

All three denied the crimes in court. "My brothers and I have never drugged and raped anyone or conspired to harm," Oren said, according to CBS. Alon said, "I'm not a perfect man, but I'm innocent of these charges." The brothers have said they will appeal their convictions.

The hearing

Prosecutor Elizabeth Espinosa told the court, "The defendants knew exactly what they were doing, and they did it anyway," NBC reported. Tal's attorney, Deanna Paul, asked "what would another 20 or 30 years accomplish?" and Oren's attorney, Marc Agnifilo, argued, "All three defendants stopped, and that matters."

Women who testified or came forward addressed the court. One told the brothers, "We are not disposable. And they are not untouchable," CBS reported. Another, speaking to Oren, said a life sentence "doesn't even begin to cover it."

The convictions

A jury convicted the brothers in March on 10 counts, including conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and sex trafficking by force, after a five week trial at which 11 women testified. Twins Oren and Alon are 39, and Tal is 40, according to a WKRC report. Oren and Tal were known as luxury real estate brokers, and Alon ran the family's private security company. They have been jailed without bail since their arrests in 2024.

Prosecutors said the brothers lured women with luxury trips, then drugged and raped them, and that the assaults began as early as 2001 or 2002, when the brothers were in high school. In their sentencing memo, prosecutors wrote that "the defendants are serial rapists" who "felt empowered to take whatever they wanted," and said more than 70 women had come forward with allegations.

What the victims said before sentencing

In statements prepared for the hearing, one woman, who described being raped by Tal in August 2014, said: "I carry a quiet funeral in me for the person I might have become had this not happened to me," NBC 6 South Florida reported. Another, describing an assault in the Hamptons, said: "What looked like a beautiful place became for me a mansion of horror, a mansion of dark secrets."

The defense

Defense lawyers asked Caproni for the mandatory minimum. They described the men as "dedicated husbands and fathers" whose lives were "very different than what was portrayed at trial." The brothers said they were sorry for conduct "insensitive toward the feelings of certain women at certain times" but "steadfastly maintain their complete innocence," WKRC reported.

At trial, the defense argued the encounters were consensual and that the women were motivated by money. In her closing argument at trial, Tal Alexander's attorney, Deanna Paul, told jurors, "All the stories were rehearsed," NBC reported. On appeal, the defense says it will argue that the evidence was "remarkably weak" on key issues and that Caproni's rulings on what jurors could hear created "overwhelming prejudice."

Caproni has said she believes the brothers are a bad influence on one another. At sentencing she said she will ask the Bureau of Prisons to consult experts on whether they should be held together, NBC reported.

Our analysis: the three numbers on the table, and the one Caproni chose

Prosecutors: Life for each brother. No release date.

Probation Office: 15 years per victim raped. 180 years for Alon and Tal, 195 for Oren.

Defense: 15 years each. The statutory minimum.

The sentence: 30 years each, double the floor.

At 15 years apiece, the probation figures implied 12 victims each for Alon and Tal and 13 for Oren. Caproni went far below those numbers but well above the minimum. Federal prisoners can earn up to 54 days a year in good conduct credit, roughly 15%, so a 30 year term works out to about 25.5 years actually served. Counted from their 2024 arrests, that points to release around 2050, when the twins would be about 63 and Tal about 64.

Federal judges must start with the advisory sentencing guidelines but then weigh the factors Congress listed, including the seriousness of the offense and the need to deter. How much weight the guidelines' own commentary deserves is a live question at the Supreme Court, as we reported in Justices Weigh Deference to Sentencing Guidelines Commentary. The brothers went to trial rather than plead, a choice that usually costs defendants at sentencing, as explained in How Plea Deals Work.

"Today's sentence represents justice and accountability for the murder of Sergeant Nick Risner," Colbert County District Attorney Hal Hughston said, WAFF reported. He thanked jurors who "honored their oath, and demonstrated the courage to render this verdict."

The shooting

Risner, 40, was a K-9 handler and a nine-year veteran of the Sheffield Police Department. On October 1, 2021, officers across Colbert County were searching for Martin in the shooting death of William Mealback Jr., whom prosecutors describe as his friend and former roommate. Prosecutors say Martin killed Mealback and threw his body from a car earlier that day.

Risner was shot during the pursuit in Muscle Shoals and died the next morning at Huntsville Hospital, Yellowhammer News reported. Dashcam video showed Martin firing five shots toward Risner's vehicle, and several witnesses testified they saw him shooting at the officer.

A defendant who asked not to be spared

Martin's defense at trial centered on his mental health. He testified that he believed people were following him and meant to harm him, and said he remembered little of the pursuit. Prosecutors challenged that account. A jury convicted him on all counts in September.

At the penalty phase, Martin did something defense lawyers rarely see. He waived his right to present mitigating evidence that might have supported a sentence of life without parole, even though his lawyers had hired a mitigation expert, WAFF reported. "I would rather be put to death than terrorized the rest of my life," he told the court. His attorney said Martin "just doesn't believe he's safe in general population," and added, "It goes against everything I believe in, but he's my client." The judge found he had not been coerced.

The 12-member jury recommended death unanimously in under 12 minutes. Alabama requires at least 10 of 12 jurors to agree on a death recommendation.

On Monday, Martin showed emotion only while giving his own statement, in which he said law enforcement ignored his pleas for help. Risner's brother, Billy, told him, "I forgive you for what you did. As for the law you deserve death."

Why the case changed Alabama law

The outrage over Risner's death was not only about the shooting. Martin had pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2011 death of his father and received a 10-year sentence. He was released in 2016 after serving just over three years, according to Yellowhammer News.

In April 2022, Gov. Kay Ivey signed the Nick Risner Act, sponsored by state Rep. Phillip Pettus. It makes people convicted of killing someone with a deadly weapon ineligible for correctional incentive time, known as good time. "Sergeant Risner's killer should have never been released from prison in the first place," Ivey said.

The newsroom's timeline and arithmetic

2011: Martin's father is killed. Martin later pleads guilty to manslaughter and is sentenced to 10 years.

2016: Martin is released after serving just over three years, roughly a third of the sentence.

October 1, 2021: Mealback is killed and Risner is shot during the search for Martin. Risner dies the next morning.

April 2022: The Nick Risner Act becomes law.

September 2026: A jury convicts Martin and unanimously recommends death.

October 26, 2026: The death sentence is imposed, five years and 25 days after the shooting.

What comes next

Martin still faces a separate capital murder case in Mealback's death, which will be tried later. Death sentences in Alabama are reviewed on appeal, and a waiver of mitigation evidence is often a focus of that review, since appellate courts look closely at whether a defendant knowingly gave up the chance to argue for his life.

The same governor who signed the Risner Act also recently spared a condemned man, as we reported when Ivey commuted Toforest Johnson's death sentence. Martin's mental health claims also raise questions explored in our guide to how the insanity defense works.

The published opinion in Knife Rights, Inc. v. Blanche was written by Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, on a panel with Judges Willett and Wilson. "Applying the framework articulated in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, we hold that the FSA is unconstitutional," the court wrote.

What the law does

Congress passed the act in 1958. The opinion recounts that it grew out of a congressional subcommittee's work on juvenile delinquency, which estimated that 1,200,000 switchblades entered the market each year and that many crossed state lines to get around local bans. The House report said the goal was to "remove one of the favorite weapons of our juvenile and criminal element."

The statute defines a switchblade as a knife whose blade opens automatically by a button or other device in the handle, or by inertia or gravity. Section 1242 makes it a federal crime to knowingly introduce, manufacture for introduction, transport or distribute one in interstate commerce. Section 1243 bans making, selling or possessing them in U.S. territories, Indian country and other areas of special federal jurisdiction.

Who sued and what the court held

Knife Rights, Inc., five individuals and two Texas businesses filed suit in the Northern District of Texas in September 2024. The district court dismissed the case, and the plaintiffs appealed.

The panel first held that switchblades are "Arms" under the plain text of the Second Amendment. "Knives have been used for defense throughout human history, including the American founding," Elrod wrote. The court pointed to a record showing "millions" of automatic knives in the country today, used for "every day utility use, hunting, fishing, recreation, and camping and hiking." It also held that the right to keep and bear arms covers the ability to acquire them, which is why a ban aimed at the supply chain counts.

The government's main historical evidence was a law review article cataloguing nearly two hundred pre-1900 statutes on daggers, dirks and sword canes. The panel found that only two of them, an 1837 Georgia law and an 1881 Arkansas law, restricted sales in a way comparable to Section 1242. "Two laws out of nearly two hundred bring us into outlier territory," the court wrote.

The challengers lost on Section 1243. They brought only a facial challenge, which requires showing a law is invalid in every application. The government listed places where the provision plainly can apply, including courthouses, federal prisons and military bases, and the court agreed that was enough.

An unusual defender

The Justice Department, which under the Trump administration has attacked a number of gun laws, defended this one. It argued the act "fits within the tradition of regulating dangerous and unusual weapons," Reuters reported. Knife Rights said in a statement that "The Second Amendment protects knives, not just firearms." The department did not immediately respond to Reuters.

The newsroom's analysis: what happens next

The ruling reverses the dismissal and sends the case back to the district court in Texas. It does not by itself erase the statute nationwide, and state knife laws are untouched.

The government now has two clocks. Under the federal appellate rules, a party that includes the United States generally has 45 days to seek rehearing by the full court, which from October 21 runs to December 5, 2026. A petition to the Supreme Court is due 90 days after judgment, which by the newsroom's count is January 19, 2027, unless rehearing is sought first.

A split is possible. The opinion cites the Ninth Circuit's 2026 litigation over California's switchblade rules, Knife Rights v. Bonta, including a dissent from that court's denial of rehearing en banc. It also notes that the circuits disagree on where the "common use" question belongs in the Bruen test. The Supreme Court is already sorting through a crowded docket of arms cases, as our look at the November 6 conference on 24 gun petitions shows.

The decision also fits a pattern of courts testing what counts as a protected arm, from the Seventh Circuit's suppressor case to the AR-15 bans defended by Cook County and Connecticut. If the Fifth Circuit's reasoning holds, the question of whether a weapon is "dangerous and unusual" will turn on history and current lawful use, not on the fears that drove Congress in 1958.

Final pre-election television polls left both main blocs short of a majority. An average of Channel 11, 12 and 13 polls as of Friday gave the bloc led by opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot 54 seats and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc 50, Al Jazeera reported, citing Haaretz. A government needs the support of 61 of the Knesset's 120 members. Exit polls give only a first picture, and the final count can differ.

Step one: the count

Seats are allocated by nationwide proportional representation, so voters choose a party list rather than a candidate. A party needs at least 3.25% of the national vote to enter the Knesset, and about a dozen parties were thought to have a chance of crossing that line, according to Al Jazeera. A party that falls just below the threshold wastes its votes, which is why small parties can change the bloc arithmetic on election night.

Al Jazeera reported that a final tally is expected by Friday and that official results are due on November 4.

Step two: the president's choice

Israel's president does not simply hand the job to the largest party. President Isaac Herzog will ask each party whom it recommends and then nominate the lawmaker he thinks has the best chance of forming a government, Al Jazeera reported.

The nominee then has 28 days under the Basic Law, and the president can add two more weeks, as Jewish News explained when President Reuven Rivlin granted Netanyahu such an extension in an earlier round. Al Jazeera put the total at up to 42 days. The new government must then win the Knesset's confidence. No party in Israel has ever won an outright majority, so every government is a coalition.

Step three: if the first nominee fails

The law has a fallback. If the nominee cannot form a government, a 21-day period begins in which a majority of at least 61 lawmakers can ask the president to give the task to a specific member, the Israel Democracy Institute explained in a 2019 analysis. If that happens, the chosen lawmaker has 14 days. If no such request is made, or the second attempt fails, the Knesset is dissolved and new elections are set.

That stage was used in April 2020, when then-President Reuven Rivlin declined to extend Benny Gantz's mandate. His office said that without a deal, the task "will return to the Knesset" and "a period of 21 days will begin during which Knesset Members can form a majority," The Algemeiner reported.

Throughout, the current government does not disappear. If no new government is formed, Netanyahu's cabinet stays on as a caretaker, Al Jazeera reported.

The newsroom's timeline

The following dates are the newsroom's own arithmetic from the deadlines above, assuming each stage runs to its limit.

November 4: Official results published, per Al Jazeera.

November 11: An illustrative date for Herzog to assign the task after consulting the parties, one week after publication.

December 23: End of the full 42 days for the first nominee, if the assignment comes on that illustrative date.

January 13: End of the 21-day window for a Knesset majority to name someone else.

Late January 2027: End of the 14 days that lawmaker would have. Failure at that point means the Knesset dissolves and Israel heads to another election.

Coalition talks often take weeks, Al Jazeera noted, and the last round came close to the limit. After the November 1, 2022 election, Herzog gave Netanyahu the mandate and later a 10-day extension that ran to December 21. Netanyahu told Herzog he had formed a government shortly before that midnight deadline, The Times of Israel reported, and the government was sworn in at the end of December. By the newsroom's count, the talks alone ran 50 days from the vote to that deadline.

Why the numbers matter tonight

The gap between the blocs in the final polls was a few seats, and each bloc needs partners to reach 61. That makes the president's consultations, the threshold results of smaller parties and the recommendations of every party potentially decisive. The process also allows a minority government or a rotation deal in which two leaders alternate as prime minister, Al Jazeera noted.

For the day's voting and the fight over polling hours, read our report on record turnout on election day, and for the race going in, see our preview of the vote.

The two-count case, unsealed Monday, October 26, accuses Comey of Espionage Act violations tied to an alleged disclosure to a reporter on October 5, 2016, while he led the FBI, Law Commentary reported. Prosecutors filed it under seal on October 5, 2026, exactly 10 years later. Comey denies wrongdoing. "Nothing's changed with me. I'm still innocent," he said in a video posted Monday. Our news report on the charges is James Comey Charged a Third Time. This explainer covers the procedure, not the merits.

Two ways to bring federal charges

Federal prosecutors can start a felony case in two ways. An indictment is a formal charge returned by a grand jury, a panel of citizens that hears the government's evidence in secret and decides whether there is probable cause. We explained how those panels work in What a Grand Jury Does, and Why It Meets Behind Closed Doors.

An information is a charging document signed by a prosecutor alone. It needs no grand jury vote and no judge's finding of probable cause, Time noted.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees a grand jury for serious federal crimes, and the rules carry that through. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 7 says an offense punishable by more than a year in prison "must be prosecuted by an indictment." It may go forward by information only if the defendant, "in open court and after being advised of the nature of the charge and of the defendant's rights," waives the right to an indictment. Defendants often waive when they have already agreed to plead guilty. Comey has not agreed to anything.

Why the government filed one anyway

The answer is the clock. Most federal crimes carry a five-year deadline under 18 U.S.C. 3282, which bars prosecution "unless the indictment is found or the information is instituted within five years." Prosecutors say a 10-year limit applies to these charges. Either way, the statute treats an information as one way to meet a deadline.

The government's position is that filing the information stopped the clock while it seeks an indictment. Law Commentary reported that the Justice Department told the court federal appeals courts have allowed informations to suspend the limitations period in that way. As of Monday, prosecutors had not obtained an indictment, Time reported.

Comey's lawyers have asked the court to dismiss the case. They argue the government needed a grand jury indictment, not an information, before the deadline passed. Rule 7's waiver requirement is the backdrop to that argument: without a waiver, an information alone cannot carry a felony case to trial. They also note the alleged leak was investigated twice during President Trump's first term, in 2017 and 2019, without charges. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden authorized the unsealing and will rule on the motion, according to Law Commentary.

The six-month safety valve

There is a wrinkle. Under 18 U.S.C. 3288, when a felony indictment or information "is dismissed for any reason" after the deadline has passed, prosecutors generally get six months to return a new indictment. But the law does not allow refiling when the dismissal was because the original charge itself was untimely. So the core question for the judge is whether an information filed without a waiver was a timely charge at all.

Analysis: the timeline in numbers

October 5, 2016: Alleged disclosure, per the charging document.

October 5, 2021: When a five-year default deadline would have expired.

October 5, 2026: End of the 10-year period prosecutors say applies, information filed under seal.

October 26, 2026: Filing unsealed.

Six months after any dismissal: Window for a new indictment under section 3288, if it applies.

By the newsroom's count, the government filed with no days to spare. If the judge finds the information did not stop the clock, there is no later filing date that could be on time, and section 3288's safety valve would likely be closed because the problem would be timeliness itself.

The wider picture

This is the third criminal case against Comey since 2025. A September 2025 indictment on false statement and obstruction charges was dismissed after a judge ruled the prosecutor who brought it had been unlawfully appointed, the department has appealed. A separate April 2026 indictment in North Carolina, over an Instagram post the government calls a threat, is set for trial in February 2027, Time reported. Comey denies wrongdoing in each.

Charging paperwork is under scrutiny in Washington this week beyond Comey: a magistrate judge on Tuesday struck an unsigned complaint against two former FBI officials, as we reported in Judge Strikes Unsigned New Charges Against Two Ex-FBI Officials. If a grand jury does indict, Comey would be arraigned on the new charges and enter a plea, the step we walked through in What Happens at an Arraignment. For more on why deadlines exist at all, see Statutes of Limitations, Why Some Crimes Expire and Murder Does Not.

The election fills all 120 Knesset seats. Final polls before the vote put former army chief Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, with neither bloc near the 61 seats needed to govern, as we reported in our election-eve preview. Polls were scheduled to close at 10 p.m. local time, with exit polls expected shortly after.

Turnout by the numbers

The committee's hourly figures, as reported by The Times of Israel, ran well ahead of the 2022 election at every checkpoint. The newsroom's comparison:

Noon: 31.5%. not reported. n/a.

4 p.m: 55.7%. 47.5%. +8.2 points.

6 p.m: 66.7%. 57.7%. +9.0 points.

Soldiers, 5 p.m: 68%. 65%. +3 points.

The gap widened during the afternoon rather than narrowing, which suggests the surge was not simply an early-morning rush. Eligible prisoners voted at 68.1% by 2 p.m., the paper reported. Soldiers had been able to vote for a week at 850 polling stations, including in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, according to the paper's live coverage.

Who benefits is not yet clear. The Religious Zionism party warned that high turnout could push smaller right-wing parties below the 3.25% threshold for entering the Knesset. The Times of Israel also reported high turnout in Arab towns.

The fight over voting hours

Late in the afternoon, Likud and Shas asked the Central Elections Committee to extend voting past 10 p.m. Shas said the aim was to keep people still waiting in line from losing their chance to vote. Former general Ofer Winter's People of Israel party joined the request, citing "unusual congestion" at polling stations.

Yashar opposed the bid, saying "no unusual incident has occurred that would justify approving the request." The committee said polling stations would stay open after 10 p.m. for anyone already waiting in line. A ruling on the broader extension request had not been reported at the time of writing.

Competing claims of fraud

Netanyahu said opponents were "trying to steal the election from us," pointing to claims of fraud in the Arab sector that The Times of Israel described as unsubstantiated. Yashar accused him of laying "the groundwork to challenge the election results."

Several other parties, including Yisrael Beytenu, Ra'am and People of Israel, reported alleged irregularities such as missing or defaced ballot slips. The legal advocacy group Adalah reported long delays in Arab communities. The Central Elections Committee said there was no evidence of systematic tampering with ballot slips and that individual reports were being handled immediately.

Arrests and incidents

Police said at least four people were arrested over alleged election-related crimes, according to the paper. They included three men from southern Bedouin communities, described as linked to Ra'am, who were arrested on suspicion of bribing voters after searches found envelopes holding tens of thousands of shekels. Ra'am called the arrests "sham arrests." The men are presumed innocent.

In Tel Aviv, police arrested a man near opposition politician Yair Golan after a large knife fell from his clothing, Golan's party said. Police confirmed the arrest and the knife but denied that there had been an attempted stabbing. A well-known singer was also questioned over a video that appeared to call for violence against left-wing voters. He said the clip was an AI fake, though Hebrew media reported he later admitted it was genuine.

What comes next

Exit polls at 10 p.m. give the first picture, but they can differ from the final count, and absentee "double envelope" ballots, including soldiers' votes, are counted later. Once official results are in, Israel's president consults the parties and picks the lawmaker most likely to form a coalition. The vote takes place three years after the attack that reshaped the country, a story we covered in our report from the Gaza border.

Comey denies the charges. "Nothing's changed with me. I'm still innocent," he said in a short video, according to Mediaite's report, syndicated by Yahoo. Like anyone charged with a crime, he is presumed innocent.

What the filing actually says

The charging document is three pages long, and it leaves out more than it includes. Based on the descriptions published by Mediaite and Court Cast:

Count one: transmitting national defense information to someone not authorized to receive it, under the Espionage Act: What the information was.

Count two: conspiracy to commit the same offense: Who the co-conspirators are.

On or about Oct. 5, 2016, Comey, acting through co-conspirators, directed "Individual #1" to disclose the information to a reporter for a national news publication: The name of the reporter or the publication.

The conspiracy began no later than Oct. 4, 2016: Whether it came out of the leak investigation the department reopened in August.

The case was filed under seal on October 5 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Prosecutors were not seeking Comey's arrest at that stage, Court Cast reported, and he offered to surrender voluntarily.

Why the date matters

The newsroom's arithmetic: the alleged disclosure happened on or about October 5, 2016. The filing came on October 5, 2026, exactly ten years later. Comey's lawyers argue that the statute of limitations for the charged offense is ten years and that it expired that day.

The government filed an information, not an indictment, and that choice is the center of the fight. A grand jury returns an indictment. An information is a charge written and signed by prosecutors alone. Under the Fifth Amendment and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 7, a federal felony must be prosecuted by indictment unless the defendant waives that right, which Comey has not done.

Comey's lawyers moved to dismiss while the case was still sealed. They argue that an information cannot preserve charges that require an indictment, and that the deadline has passed, according to Court Cast. The government has described the filing as a way to preserve the case while prosecutors seek an indictment. Judge McFadden has not ruled. Statutes of limitations are not usually this close, as we explained in our look at why murder never expires, but in federal cases a single day can decide whether a charge survives.

The defense response

Patrick Fitzgerald, Comey's lawyer, said in a statement that "Mr. Comey steadfastly maintains his innocence," that the filing "purports to charge Mr. Comey with crimes that he did not commit," and that "Mr. Comey will fight these charges vigorously and in the open," according to the Mediaite report. Fitzgerald said two prosecution teams had investigated the same 2016 disclosure during Trump's first term and concluded that no charges should be brought.

Politico reported, as cited by Mediaite, that prosecutors allege Comey allowed then-FBI General Counsel James Baker to leak classified material. The filing itself names no one other than Comey.

Comey's three cases

September 2025, Virginia: Charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. A judge dismissed the case in November 2025 after finding the prosecutor who brought it had been unlawfully appointed. The department has appealed, Court Cast reported. We covered that case's arraignment.

April 2026, North Carolina: Two felony counts over a social media photo of seashells spelling "86 47," which Trump read as a threat. That case is pending.

October 2026, Washington: The new Espionage Act information.

The filing landed the same day a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that the Justice Department unlawfully fired Comey's daughter, Maurene Comey. If prosecutors do go to a grand jury, the secret process we described in what grand juries do will decide whether this case gets a second life.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued the preliminary injunction after weeks of hearings over the felling of hundreds of trees on the century-old public course, NBC News reported. The order also requires 10 business days of written notice before "any irreparable modification to any forms or features of East Potomac Park" while the case is pending.

The plaintiffs and the claim

The suit was brought by the D.C. Preservation League and two local golfers, represented in part by Democracy Forward. They are challenging the administration's planned overhaul of the course. When Reyes first halted the work on October 13, she found they had shown a likelihood of success on their environmental claim and would likely suffer irreparable harm without relief, CBS News reported.

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, called Monday's ruling "a big win that will rightly protect East Potomac park from further irreparable harm."

The judge versus the record

The most striking part of the opinion is about credibility. Justice Department lawyers had told the court there was no renovation plan. Then the president posted on social media that a plan existed. Reyes cited those posts, which she said contradicted sworn testimony from government employees.

"This started as a case about golf. That good walk spoiled. But it has become much more," she wrote, according to NBC. "Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President. And yet, here we are."

Reyes had said earlier, "I am not the Lorax. I do not speak for the trees." On Monday she added, "The Court still does not speak for the trees. It speaks only for the rule of law." NBC reported that she had already found the government acted in bad faith when the trees came down.

Timeline, built from court reporting

October 10, 2026: Just before 5 p.m. on a Friday, the Justice Department filed notice of a plan to remove an estimated 529 trees as part of a "tree management and cultural landscape rehabilitation project," per CBS.

October 11: Crews cut trees over the holiday weekend. A Justice Department lawyer told the court 430 were felled and about 99 more were marked for removal.

October 12: Reyes held a hearing of nearly four hours and told the government's lawyer, "You did not do your best. You did your absolute worst."

October 13: Reyes barred further cutting through October 26 and required three business days' notice before permanent changes.

October 18: Trump posted that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and an architect had developed a plan to build a "World Class Championship Golf Course," with work starting November 15.

October 19: Trump posted that work would begin "IMMEDIATELY!" and called the judge "a crazed lunatic," NBC reported.

October 26: Reyes issued the preliminary injunction, extending the protection for the life of the case and lengthening the notice period from three business days to ten.

What comes next

Trump wrote after the ruling that the judge "has absolutely no right to hold up this very important and beautiful Project," and said the course would still close on November 15 for renovations. He argued the project is "as of right" and that the notice requirement is unnecessary and expensive.

An appeal would go to the D.C. Circuit. The injunction does not decide the case. It means only that Reyes found the plaintiffs likely to win and the harm of waiting too great. Any work that counts as an irreparable modification now requires two weeks' warning, which gives the plaintiffs time to come back to court.

Reyes's frustration with the government's lawyers echoes other recent clashes between judges and the Justice Department, including the ruling that Maurene Comey was unlawfully fired and the order that halted taxpayer-funded DHS ads.

Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui dismissed the filing at what was supposed to be a preliminary hearing for Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, who are accused of lying to Congress in 2023 about the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force and the bureau's Hunter Biden investigations, CBS News reported. Both deny wrongdoing and are presumed innocent.

What happened in court

The government posted the superseding complaint to the public docket after midnight on Tuesday, without review by a judge. It added a count of obstructing a congressional proceeding to the original false statements charge.

Faruqui was not impressed. "We have never had complaints filed that are unsigned," he said, according to CBS. He called the filing "inappropriate" and said "It harms the defendants." He told prosecutors, "Everything you're doing is making me more and more concerned."

John Borchert, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, asked whether the FBI agent behind the complaint could swear to it after the fact. Defense lawyers objected, and Faruqui compared that step to a notary's role. He ordered the new version struck and said the department could try to add charges through the proper process. "We are not afraid of a probable cause finding," Borchert said.

The court will still hold a preliminary hearing on the original complaint, to decide whether there is probable cause for the false statements count.

The original charges

The case was filed by criminal complaint on Friday, October 23. Each defendant faces one count of making false statements, and both surrendered that morning, according to a social media post by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro that NBC News reported. Pirro alleged they lied about their roles on the task force and "about their roles in the FBI's Hunter Biden investigations."

Floris was the task force's deputy assistant director from mid-2019 through mid-2022, and Benavides was its section chief from mid-2019 through the 2020 election, according to CBS. The testimony at issue was given to a congressional committee on July 19, 2023 (Floris) and September 28, 2023 (Benavides). The complaint alleges their statements were meant to minimize or conceal the task force's involvement with the Hunter Biden investigations, including a counterintelligence operation called "Round River."

The defense says it is political

Floris's lawyers called her "a patriot" who "served our nation as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years," and said the department "has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts," NBC reported. Benavides's attorney, Ronald S. Safer, called the complaint "transparently political." In court Tuesday, Floris attorney Mary Dohrmann said "the evidence is mounting that this prosecution is about some political football, and not the law or the facts in this case."

President Trump, speaking in Florida on Friday, said "I heard they were bad people," and called them "Dirty cops, like Comey." The administration filed new charges against former FBI Director James Comey on Monday, a case we covered in James Comey Charged a Third Time.

Our analysis: why the signature matters

A criminal complaint is the thinnest charging document in federal court. Unlike an indictment, it does not go to a grand jury. What makes it valid is a sworn statement, usually an agent's affidavit, reviewed by a judge, that lays out probable cause. Take away the oath and the signature, and nothing is left that a court has tested.

Charges: One false statements count each. Adds obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

Sworn by an agent: Yes. No.

Signed: Yes. No.

Reviewed by a judge: Yes. No.

Status: Preliminary hearing pending. Struck by Judge Faruqui.

The bigger hurdle comes next. To keep a felony case alive past the complaint stage, prosecutors generally need a grand jury indictment. NBC noted that D.C. grand jurors have been skeptical of several cases brought in Trump's second term, including declining to indict six Democratic lawmakers. How grand juries make that call is explained in What a Grand Jury Does, and Why It Meets Behind Closed Doors.

The case was filed 10 days before the November 3 elections. No date for the preliminary hearing on the original complaint was given in Tuesday's reporting.

Officer Hunter Foster "resigned for the good of the city and the police department and to permit the process of healing," his lawyer, Martin Zummach, said, NBC News reported. Zummach said Foster "emphatically denies knowing a child was in the car or in the front seat."

What happened

On June 14, officers responded to a reported shoplifting at a Walmart in Senatobia, about 40 miles south of Memphis. Police believed two women had taken diapers and baby clothes. Kohen's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, was a passenger in the car, and her friend was driving.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said that day that "the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one," and that "An officer then discharged their weapon." The shot killed Kohen and wounded the driver. Wiley has disputed that account. In a video released by family lawyer Ben Crump, she said she lifted her son to show officers he was in the car.

Neither woman has been charged with shoplifting or any other crime, according to the Associated Press, via PBS NewsHour. Officials have not released evidence of a theft.

The ruling and the video

On October 19, Attorney General Lynn Fitch's office announced that "the Attorney General's Office found the use of force was justified," citing its review authority under Section 45-1-6 of the Mississippi Code, the Mississippi Free Press reported. Zummach said the driver "tried to kill" his client and other officers, and "He had no choice but to fire his weapon."

Crump responded: "If the footage supports the state's decision, release it." He added: "We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth." On Thursday, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety did. According to NBC, the footage from several officers shows five officers approaching the car with guns drawn, the car reversing into a parked vehicle and then driving forward toward an officer, who fired and shattered the front passenger window.

A preliminary independent autopsy cited by Crump indicates Kohen was shot from the side of the car, not the front, the AP reported. Legal expert John P. Gross called the shooting "almost certainly unjustified," saying "you don't shoot vehicles."

Our analysis: the questions the ruling answered, and the ones it didn't

Did the car move toward an officer?: Yes, per MBI and the video as described. Whether anyone was in the car's path when the shot was fired.

Was the force justified?: Yes, per the AG. Crump says it was excessive, an autopsy suggests a side angle.

Was a theft proven?: No evidence released. Neither woman charged.

Criminal case: Closed. Crump vows the family "will not stop fighting".

Under the Fourth Amendment, police use of force is judged by whether it was objectively reasonable in light of the facts the officer faced. In May 2025 the Supreme Court, in Barnes v. Felix, unanimously rejected the Fifth Circuit's "moment-of-threat" rule, which looked only at the final seconds before a shooting. Writing for the Court, Justice Elena Kagan said the "totality of the circumstances" inquiry into a use of force "has no time limit," so earlier events count. That case, too, involved an officer firing into a moving car after a traffic stop. That matters here. A car driving at an officer can justify deadly force in the moment, but courts may also weigh how the confrontation began and what the officer could see, such as whether a child was visible. The justices expressly left open whether an officer's own creation of the danger bears on reasonableness, saying that question was "not properly before us."

An attorney general's decision not to prosecute closes the state criminal case. It does not decide a civil rights lawsuit, where a jury could reach a different conclusion. Interim Police Chief Angelica Maze has also resigned, and the city named LaMorris Hampton as her successor on Friday.

For how a different police shooting played out in court, see Amber Guyger Released on Parole. For the legal line between self-defense doctrines, see Castle Doctrine vs. Stand Your Ground.

Owens, 35, pleaded guilty in August. Investigators say that between May 2023 and June 2024 she altered an ultrasound photo, faked a pregnancy video and lied several times under oath, going to "extreme lengths to manipulate men," KTVU reported. If she violates probation, she could face up to 12.5 years in prison, according to AZFamily.

The sentence

In addition to the 30 days of flat time, the judge imposed 12 months of deferred jail, set to begin October 22, 2027, AZFamily reported. The sentence was less than what "the State and the victims requested." Owens's mother, Jan Owens, had asked for probation only.

Explaining his decision, the judge said he had weighed whether Owens was "this sophisticated con person or a very sad individual making some poor choices," and concluded it was "the latter," according to AZFamily.

In court, Owens said: "I pleaded guilty to four felonies, and I am profoundly, profoundly sorry for the pain, distress and expense that I've caused them." She also told the court she was "completely, terribly sorry" to "everybody I've harmed."

What prosecutors say she did

According to the allegations prosecutors laid out, Owens contacted Echard on May 17, 2023, about a real estate deal. The two had a sexual encounter on May 20, 2023, that did not involve intercourse. On June 1 she claimed to be pregnant and in August 2023 filed a paternity action. Prosecutors say she used human chorionic gonadotropin, the pregnancy hormone, to produce false positive tests, and edited photos to appear pregnant. Her filings also included claims of abortion coercion and domestic violence.

Echard was not her only target, prosecutors said. Another man, Greg Gillespie, told the court Owens made him spend years defending his reputation, livelihood and name, and he is seeking nearly $300,000 in restitution. A woman named Stormy Mitchell said the twin ultrasound Owens passed off as her own was stolen from her and is "the only photo I will ever have of my twins together."

The victims' reaction

Echard told the judge, "I've been fighting for the last three and a half years." He was blunt about Owens's remorse: "Her tears aren't from empathy, they're not. She doesn't feel sorry. She's just sorry she got caught," KTVU reported.

His lawyer, Gregg Woodnick, said a "dangerous person left the court in handcuffs," and called Owens's expression of remorse "performative and contrived."

Our analysis: the gap between exposure and sentence

Jail imposed now: 30 days.

Deferred jail, from Oct. 22, 2027: 12 months.

Probation: 7 years.

Possible prison on a violation: Up to 12.5 years.

Put in proportion, the immediate jail term is about 0.7% of the 12.5 years hanging over her on probation (30 days out of roughly 4,560). That structure is common in plea deals for first offenders: a short taste of jail, a long probation tail and a large suspended threat that keeps the defendant in line. The trade for the state is a guaranteed conviction on four felonies, with no trial and no risk of acquittal. We explained that bargain in How Plea Deals Work.

The case is also unusual because much of the alleged conduct happened inside a family court paternity fight. Lying under oath in a civil case is a crime, and investigators say Owens did it several times. Gillespie is still seeking restitution.

Owens's case began, like every felony case, with formal charges and a first court appearance, a process we walked through in What Happens at a Criminal Arraignment.

The win gives Lula, who turned 81 on Tuesday, a record fourth term. He trailed after the first round on October 4, and Al Jazeera reported that he is the first candidate since Brazil's return to democracy in 1985 to win a runoff after finishing second in round one. His new term begins January 5, 2027, according to Middle East Eye.

The comeback in numbers

The newsroom's comparison of the two rounds, using the figures Al Jazeera reported:

Flávio Bolsonaro: 47.03%. 48.21% (59.83 million votes).

Lula: 45.16%. 51.79% (64.26 million votes).

Margin: Bolsonaro +1.87 points. Lula +3.58 points.

Turnout: 78.92%. 80.8%.

The arithmetic tells most of the story. Lula gained 6.63 points between rounds while Bolsonaro gained 1.18, so Lula won the large majority of voters who backed other candidates or stayed home on October 4. His final margin was roughly 4.4 million votes. Fernando Brancoli, an international relations professor, told Al Jazeera that many people who skipped the first round voted in the second.

The legal challenge

The dispute centers on the clock. Heavy rain and transport disruptions led authorities to keep polls open two extra hours after Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin ordered an extension, according to Al Jazeera. Both campaigns had requested more time.

Bolsonaro nonetheless said the extension tainted the result. "We will engage our legal team and seek to have these elections annulled," he said, according to Middle East Eye, which reported that he accused Lula's allies on the court of changing the rules "arbitrarily."

That position may be hard to sustain in court. Vinicius G. Rodrigues Vieira, an economics professor, told Al Jazeera the challenge was unlikely to succeed because Bolsonaro's own campaign had asked for the extension. He suggested it could still help the movement stay strong on the streets. In many legal systems, a party that asks for a ruling generally cannot later complain that the ruling it requested was unfair, though how Brazil's electoral court treats the challenge will depend on its own law.

The shadow of 2022

The fight echoes the last election. Flávio's father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, refused to accept his 2022 defeat to Lula. He was later convicted of plotting a coup and sentenced to 27 years in prison, a sentence he is serving under house arrest, Al Jazeera reported.

What Lula said

At a victory parade in São Paulo, Lula told supporters, "I just had to tell you that I love you. Tomorrow, the fight continues." He also said, "No one is required to like the president-elect, but he must govern for everyone," according to Al Jazeera. Middle East Eye quoted him saying Brazil had "defeated the interference that was coming from the outside in" and that "Brazil is no one's back yard."

Foreign policy separates the two men. Middle East Eye noted that Lula has long criticized Israel and the United States and called for Palestinian statehood, and it described Bolsonaro as a pro-Israel senator. Leaders who welcomed Lula's win included Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, the outlet reported.

A divided Congress

Lula will not have a free hand. Bolsonaro's Liberal Party and its allies could control more than 280 of the 513 seats in the lower house and up to 50 of the 81 Senate seats, Al Jazeera reported, giving the opposition majorities in both chambers.

Brazil's vote came two days before Israel's, which we previewed in Israel votes Tuesday. In the United States, the midterms are a week away, with the Justice Department sending a record number of election monitors.

The measure is a veto referendum, which makes it unusual on this year's ballot. Every other question asks voters to adopt a new law. This one asks whether an existing law should survive, GBH News explained on October 23. Early voting runs through October 30.

What Chapter 135 does

The law was the legislature's response to the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision, which struck down New York's limits on carrying handguns in public. According to GBH and The Heights, Boston College's student newspaper, its main provisions:

It requires all guns to carry serial numbers, so that ghost guns, 3D printed or assembled from parts, must be registered.

It bans modifications that convert semi-automatic weapons, which fire once per trigger pull, into automatic weapons.

It expands the state's red flag law so that more people, including health care providers and school officials, can ask a judge to temporarily remove guns from someone who poses an extreme risk. GBH reported that at most a couple dozen such petitions are filed each year.

It tightens rules on assault-style weapons, adds training requirements, sets up a real-time electronic registration system and reclassifies some gun crimes, such as making some shootings into a home a felony instead of a misdemeanor.

Gov. Maura Healey signed the law with an emergency preamble, so it took effect immediately instead of being suspended until the vote. A repeal would not erase older Massachusetts gun laws or federal law.

How it got on the ballot

The Civil Rights Coalition, a gun rights group, gathered nearly 80,000 confirmed signatures to force the referendum, The Heights reported. The group argues that "Chapter 135 set a precedent that would allow Beacon Hill to erode protections."

Toby Leary of Cape Gun Works told GBH's Boston Public Radio that lawmakers did not have the right to "erode or change or hamstring our constitutionally enumerated rights." He said the law was "horribly done by kind of ramming it through." Brendan Salisbury of the Liberal Gun Club told The Heights the registry "doesn't actually provide any meaningful safety benefit."

Supporters say the law keeps guns away from people who will not use them responsibly. "We don't throw out regulations because some people don't follow them," said Ruth Zakarin, chair of the Yes on 9 campaign. Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem told The Heights, "We did not take away the rights of people to lawfully carry a gun."

The governor's race

The question has become a dividing line in the race for governor. Healey plans to vote yes. "I think that our gun laws should stay in place, that's a big difference in this race," she said, NBC Boston reported on October 26. Her Republican challenger, Mike Minogue, signaled he would vote no. "The way it's set up now is people are assumed guilty until proven innocent, and that doesn't work," he said.

Analysis: the numbers behind the vote

A September poll by the MassINC Polling Group for CommonWealth Beacon found 70% of voters would keep the law, 18% would repeal it and 11% were undecided, according to The Heights and GBH. By the newsroom's math, that is a 52-point gap. Even if every undecided voter chose repeal, the no side would reach only 29%.

The money has been closer than the polling.

Yes side (keep the law): spending of $366,000 (GBH), about $460,000 (The Heights). Notable donor: $500,000 from the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

No side (repeal): spending of $436,000 since 2024 (GBH). Notable donors: Smith & Wesson, $50,000, Gun Owners Action League, nearly $23,000.

The two outlets reported different totals for the yes campaign a week apart, The Heights on October 16 and GBH on October 23.

Both sides also cite safety data. Massachusetts had the second lowest firearm death rate in the country in 2024, 3.8 deaths per 100,000 residents, behind only Hawaii's 3.7, according to CDC figures cited by GBH. Creem has said violent crime fell 7% and homicides fell 27% since the law took effect, but The Heights noted she gave no source or time period for those figures.

Why it matters beyond Massachusetts

A vote to keep Chapter 135 would not end the legal fight. Gun rights groups can still challenge parts of it in court, and the Supreme Court's coming ruling on AR-15 bans, which we covered in Cook County and Connecticut Defend AR-15 Bans, could affect the law's assault weapon provisions. For gun owners who travel, state laws like this one are why a permit at home does not guarantee the right to carry elsewhere, as we explained in Carrying a Gun Across State Lines. The vote also comes as federal monitors prepare for the midterms, which we covered in Justice Department Plans Record 1,000 Election Monitors.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman's 55-page decision found that the July 2025 firing violated both the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and the constitutional separation of powers, CBS News reported. He rejected the administration's argument that Article II of the Constitution gives the president unrestricted power to remove federal prosecutors.

Who she is and how she was fired

Comey joined the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan in 2015. Her cases included those against Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sean "Diddy" Combs and former Sen. Robert Menendez. The Justice Department acknowledged in court that she received "outstanding" performance ratings from 2019 through 2024, according to CBS.

She was "summarily fired via memo" from department headquarters, with no reason given, her lawsuit said. In May, the administration said then-Attorney General Pam Bondi had directed the removal and that her successor, Todd Blanche, ratified it. Comey's lawsuit alleged that she was fired because President Trump dislikes her father.

What the judge decided

The government's core argument was that prosecutors are an extension of the president's own power, so Congress cannot limit his ability to fire them. Furman rejected that view. He wrote that "Defendants invented a new and expansive theory of executive power," Al Jazeera reported, and called the position a "sweeping and unprecedented theory of executive authority," according to CBS. Accepting it, he wrote, would "unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation's constitutional system."

The department leaned in part on this summer's Supreme Court ruling that let the president fire the leaders of most independent agencies without cause, the decision behind the Court's handling of Gwynne Wilcox's NLRB firing. Furman was not persuaded. He held that the government was trying to "upend" long-settled case law allowing Congress to regulate the removal of inferior officers, the category that includes line prosecutors.

The ruling turned partly on a procedural point. Federal employees usually have to take firing disputes to the Merit Systems Protection Board. Because the government cited only Article II as the basis for the firing, Furman held in April that the case could stay in federal court, and he again denied the government's bid to send it to the board.

What she actually gets

The remedy is narrower than "reinstated" might suggest. The newsroom's breakdown:

Fired: July 16, 2025.

Took a new job: December 20, 2025.

Covered period: About 157 days, roughly five months.

Remedy: Retroactive reinstatement and back pay for that period.

Returns to the Justice Department?: No.

In effect, the order treats her as having stayed on the payroll until she chose to leave for a new job, rather than as having been fired.

The reactions

Comey's lawyers, Ellen Blain, Nicole Gueron, Deepa Vanamali and Margaret Donovan, called the decision a "hard-earned victory" for her and for all civil servants and said it "reaffirms our bedrock system of checks and balances: the President is not above the law." The Justice Department has not said when it will file its appeal, which would go to the Second Circuit.

The ruling came the same day the department unsealed a third criminal case against her father, this one under the Espionage Act. We break that filing down in James Comey charged a third time.

Smith was arrested by the Orlando Police Department on October 14 on a single count of second-degree murder. Parker, a 33-year-old mother of two, vanished on November 17, 2011, the same day an episode of "The People's Court" featuring a dispute between her and Smith over an engagement ring aired. She has never been found. Smith has long denied any wrongdoing and is presumed innocent.

What the affidavit says

The affidavit, first reported by CBS News, lays out why detectives now believe Smith's account of that afternoon does not hold up. In 2011, Smith told police that Parker only dropped off their children, and that the two "do not talk anymore." He allowed a search of his apartment, which turned up nothing suspicious.

The affidavit says the phone records say otherwise. The two exchanged 1,013 text messages between October 1 and November 17, 2011, and Smith never contacted Parker's phone again after November 17. Her phone entered the cell area near Smith's home around 3:15 p.m., about 45 minutes before Smith said she dropped off the children, and neighbor video showed her vehicle at the home at least 1 hour and 10 minutes after he said she left.

A text reply sent from Parker's phone at 4:26 p.m. mentioned Waterford, which police at the time took to mean the Waterford Lakes shopping center. According to the affidavit, the phone was actually using a tower about 11 miles west of the center and never went near it. The phone left Smith's area around 4:18 p.m., traveled about seven miles west and sat stationary from 5:08 to 8:46 p.m. It was later recovered from a lake. Her purse and belongings were still in her car, which was found the next day.

Smith's own phone showed no activity from 4:45 to 9:45 p.m., the affidavit says, and its data indicated travel west toward the area where Parker's phone was last detected. He later went to his parents' house and returned home shortly after 10 p.m.

Detectives also reexamined photos taken of Smith during his 2011 police interview. They show what the affidavit calls "recent scratches and abrasions" on his face and left arm, which detectives now believe were "defensive wounds from the victim." CBS reported there is no record that police asked him about them at the time.

Our analysis: his account vs. the data

Parker only dropped off the children: Her phone near his home by about 3:15 p.m., roughly 45 minutes earlier than he said.

She left soon after: Neighbor video puts her vehicle there at least 70 minutes after he said she left.

A 4:26 p.m. text suggested she was at Waterford Lakes: Her phone was on a tower about 11 miles west of the center.

No suggestion of a struggle: Interview photos show scratches detectives now call defensive wounds.

None of this has been tested in court. Location data from cell towers shows which tower a phone used, not exactly where it was, and the defense will be able to challenge how the records were read. The affidavit also recounts domestic violence allegations from people who knew Smith, which a judge will have to weigh for admissibility under Florida's evidence rules.

A no-body case

When Smith was arrested, Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith said the department "took a fresh, focused look at all the evidence" over the past year and "reexamined testimony and conflicting statements made by the suspect," CBS reported at the time. The department said "all evidence leads to Dale Smith Jr. as the person responsible for Michelle's murder."

Prosecuting a murder without a body is hard but not unusual. The state must prove death and responsibility through circumstantial evidence alone. Because murder has no statute of limitations, as we explained in Statutes of Limitations, Why Some Crimes Expire and Murder Does Not, a 15-year-old case can still be charged. It is one of several old cases reopened this fall with new tools, along with the Spokane 1986 Turner killing.

Parker's brother, Dustin Erickson, said after the arrest: "I've been carrying a lot of bad thoughts for 15 years that weren't happy." No court dates were listed in the reporting.

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against Trump 47 Committee Inc. and five unidentified defendants, IBTimes UK reported. Trump is not named personally. Young, described as a co-owner of the 1989 composition, asks for $10 million in damages, legal costs and an injunction barring the defendants from playing his songs at political events in the future. The allegations have not been tested in court.

What the complaint alleges

According to the reports, the suit centers on Trump's October 12 rally in Youngstown and alleges the song was also played "numerous times" at other Republican events ahead of the November 3 midterms. It says the committee had neither the necessary license nor Young's approval, and that Trump knew permission would be needed and would not be given.

The complaint calls the song "the opposite of everything that Donald J. Trump stands for," a line that reflects Young's political view rather than any legal finding. Young also claims the rally use suggests he endorses Trump and has harmed his "reputation and brand," and alleges the campaign kept using his songs despite repeated objections over the years, WLAV reported.

Rolling Stone reported that requests for comment to the Trump 47 Committee, the White House and the Republican National Committee drew no immediate reply, IBTimes UK said.

What the filing actually says, and what it does not

Three points in the reporting matter for how the case may go.

First, the defendant. The Federal Election Commission lists Trump 47 Committee as a joint fundraising committee registered in January 2024, separate from Donald J. Trump for President Inc., according to IBTimes UK. That separation matters because of the history below.

Second, the earlier case. Young sued Donald J. Trump for President Inc. in August 2020 over "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Devil's Sidewalk." Court records reportedly show he dismissed that case voluntarily, with prejudice, on December 7, 2020. The new complaint alleges the parties agreed to bar future unlicensed use. The full terms of that agreement have not been made public, and it is unclear whether it binds a separately registered committee.

Third, who chose the song. The reporting says the filing does not establish that Trump personally picked the music or told organizers to play it.

A pattern of song fights

Young is one of several musicians who have objected to campaigns using their music. The closest recent precedent is the estate of Isaac Hayes. On September 3, 2024, U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash in Atlanta barred Trump's campaign from using "Hold On, I'm Comin'" while the estate's copyright case went forward, but denied a request to force the campaign to take down existing videos, Euronews reported. A campaign lawyer said then that it had already agreed not to use the song and had "no interest in annoying or hurting anyone."

The newsroom's timeline of Young's dispute:

February 2020: Young publishes a letter criticizing Trump's conduct and environmental policies.

August 2020: Young sues the 2020 campaign over two songs.

December 7, 2020: That case is dismissed with prejudice, according to court records cited by IBTimes UK.

August 2024: A campaign official tells ABC News that Young personally authorized Tim Walz's use of the song at the Democratic National Convention, per IBTimes UK.

October 12, 2026: The Youngstown rally.

October 26, 2026: The new suit is filed in Virginia.

Why the $10 million figure is a ceiling, not a price

A damages demand in a complaint is what a plaintiff asks for, not what a court is likely to award. If Young wins, the amount would depend on proof, and the injunction against future use may matter more to him than the money. Copyright fights have been on the courts' docket lately, including a Supreme Court case over a songwriter's worldwide copyright claims. The suit lands a week before midterms in which the government plans a record deployment of election monitors.

Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told the public broadcaster NRK, in HuffPost's translation, "He knows very well that the Nobel Committee is independent." He added, "We have reminded him of that, in case anyone is wondering, and that is still the case," HuffPost reported.

What Trump said

Speaking at a midterm rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday, October 25, Trump said Norway "sucks" and used a vulgar term to describe the country. "So, I don't want anybody from Norway," he said, according to HuffPost. He linked his complaint to the prize, saying he "didn't get the Nobel Prize, even though I ended it," and contrasted Norway with Denmark, which he called a "good, nice country."

Trump also said, according to Newsweek, "I settled eight wars and I got two more coming," referring to Iran and the Russia-Ukraine war. HuffPost noted that his count of eight includes conflicts that have not ended or were not violent. Of this year's laureate, he said the prize "was gotten by a woman that nobody ever heard of."

Who won, and why it is contested

The 2026 prize went to Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, an 85-year-old South African jurist and former U.N. human rights chief who has served on international courts and tribunals. The committee cited her work to promote peace and international law, Newsweek reported.

Pillay also headed the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which concluded that Israel's actions in Gaza amounted to genocide. Israel rejects that conclusion, and her selection drew criticism from Israel and pro-Israel groups, according to Newsweek. On the day of the announcement, October 9, Trump told a rally in Syracuse, New York, "Today they gave out the Nobel Peace Prize to a person I never heard of."

What the rules actually say

The core of Norway's answer is structural, and it has not changed. The Norwegian Nobel Committee is an independent body of five members appointed by Norway's parliament, and the government does not select the winner, Newsweek reported. Members of the government cannot sit on the committee, HuffPost noted.

Erik Aasheim, head of communications at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, told Newsweek, "The Nobel Committee is entirely independent of the Norwegian government." Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has said that "the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee and not the Norwegian Government."

Two other rules have come up in the dispute. The committee keeps nomination records secret for 50 years, so public claims of a nomination cannot be confirmed from its files. And when the 2025 laureate, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, gave Trump her medal at a White House meeting in January, Nobel officials said the prize itself cannot be transferred.

Timeline, by the newsroom

February 2025: Trump says of the prize, "They will never give it to me," per Newsweek.

July 2025: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has nominated Trump. Pakistan also announces a nomination that year.

October 2025: The prize goes to Machado.

December 2025: Trump becomes the first recipient of FIFA's new Peace Prize. FIFA said this month that a committee would review the prize's creation and his selection.

January 2026: Trump writes to Støre that he "no longer feels an obligation to think purely of Peace," per Newsweek. HuffPost reported the letter followed Støre joining other European leaders in objecting to Trump's threats to annex Greenland.

October 9, 2026: Pillay is named laureate.

October 25 and 26: The Port Huron remarks and Eide's reply.

Why the structure matters

For Norway, a NATO ally, the official line is that a decision by an independent body cannot be treated as an act of the state. Its prime minister, its foreign minister and the Nobel Institute have each said the same thing over the past year, that the government does not control the outcome. Newsweek said it asked the White House and the Norwegian Embassy in Washington for comment.

The award to a former international jurist comes as Washington is also in a fight with international courts, including its decision to sanction the International Criminal Court itself. For the difference between the two courts in The Hague, see our explainer on the ICC and the ICJ.

The report landed the day before Israelis voted and a week before the U.S. midterms on November 3. It adds to a run of anonymously sourced accounts, all denied by Israeli officials, of a dispute inside Israel's leadership over whether to resume the war with Iran that began in February.

What the reports say

According to The Times of Israel's account of the CNN report, an Israeli source said Netanyahu "really wanted and tried to convince Trump for a joint attack in Iran before the elections." Trump did not approve it. The sources said Trump and senior officials asked Israel to hold off and indicated joint operations would come soon. Israel reportedly agreed in part because it would need U.S. help with missile defense if Iran, and possibly the Houthis in Yemen, fired back.

One reason Trump declined, according to a CNN source, was a warning from Israel's military chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, to his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Dan Caine, that an attack could force Israel to postpone its election.

The report also described U.S. preparations. If ordered, U.S. forces could launch a major operation "within 96 hours of receiving" the order, against military sites, nuclear facilities and key infrastructure. Ynet's summary of the CNN report quoted one American official saying, "It will be a big effort," and a senior Pentagon official saying that "developing military options is part of the department's responsibility." The White House declined to comment, Ynet reported.

The denials

Netanyahu's office called the CNN account "fake news" without elaborating. Defense Minister Israel Katz said reports of disagreement between the political leadership and the army were "completely baseless and false," said Israel had no intention of attacking Iran before the election, and warned that Israel would respond "with great force" if Iran attacks.

The Israel Defense Forces said it was focused on its missions and on a high state of alert, and called other discussion "misleading and irrelevant." The Times of Israel noted that the statement was cleared by the military censor.

How the story built

The newsroom's timeline of the reporting, drawn from the outlets cited:

Oct. 9: Trump says the U.S. will not attack Iran before the midterms. n/a.

Mid-October: Channel 12 says Netanyahu urged Trump to renew the fighting. Prime Minister's Office denies.

Oct. 21: Financial Times, citing three people, says Israel was ready to strike around October 10 but Trump opposed it. Pentagon declines comment.

Oct. 25: Channel 12 reports a clash between Netanyahu and Zamir over an order for unspecified military action. Netanyahu denies.

Oct. 26: CNN reports the push for a joint strike and U.S. plans ready within 96 hours. PMO: "fake news", Katz: "baseless".

The Financial Times account was summarized by The Times of Israel. One FT source called renewed strikes after both countries' elections "not an unreasonable scenario," while another said the early-October planning could have been a negotiating tactic.

All of these accounts rest on unnamed sources. None has been confirmed on the record by the U.S. or Israeli governments, and the officials who have spoken publicly have denied them.

Iran and the diplomats

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, accused "the Israeli regime" of being "highly skilled at carrying out false-flag operations." Delegations from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey were in Tehran on Monday for talks aimed at heading off renewed fighting, and Qatari mediators had visited on Sunday, The Times of Israel reported.

At home, opposition politician Avigdor Liberman asked Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to open a criminal investigation of Netanyahu for alleged "treason." There was no indication the request had been acted on.

The legal question in Washington

Whether the United States joins any new campaign raises the same constitutional fight we examined in who decides on war with Iran. The Senate fell one vote short of passing a resolution to rein in the war on October 22, and the timing of any strike now appears tied to two elections. For the wider debate over U.S. interests, see our report on Operation Epic Fury, and for the vote itself, our Israel election preview.

The case, Roth v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-09327, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School, according to the Knight Institute's case page. The plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction the same day.

Besides Trump, the suit names White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, communications director Steven Cheung and Secret Service Director Sean M. Curran, the Associated Press reported via ABC News.

Who is suing

The plaintiffs are Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch and a Yale lecturer, the journalist Daniel Froomkin, editor of Press Watch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale historian Beverly Gage, the New York City high school social studies teacher Peter Schmidt-Nowara, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes and Ethan Young, a University of Pennsylvania student and editor-in-chief of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

"I joined this lawsuit because my students deserve to know what's happening in their government," Schmidt-Nowara said, according to the AP.

The bans being challenged

The suit follows a series of moves by the White House against news outlets, according to the AP. Reporters for The Associated Press were barred last year from the Oval Office, Air Force One and some events after the AP declined to adopt the "Gulf of America" name for the Gulf of Mexico. That case is continuing.

In September, journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were banished from the White House. On October 13, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a preliminary injunction in CNN v. Trump blocking the administration from barring the three outlets from White House press facilities, the Knight Institute said in a statement. That ruling did not address the continued exclusion of CNN and Politico from the press pool, the small group of reporters who cover the president in places like the Oval Office. The White House is still denying CNN its usual pool slots, and CNN has threatened further action, the AP reported.

What the filing actually says

The new case differs from the outlets' own suits in two ways, according to the Knight Institute and the AP.

The first is who is injured. The outlets argued that their own rights were violated. The citizens argue that the "ultimate injury" falls on the democratic public, and that the First Amendment protects the public's right to know what its government is doing. Their complaint calls the policy "an unconstitutional attack on the public's right to trustworthy and undistorted reporting," per the Knight case page.

The second is the kind of space at issue. In CNN v. Trump, Judge Kelly found the ban was a viewpoint-based restriction in a nonpublic forum and also violated the outlets' due process rights, according to the Knight Institute. The citizens argue the White House press spaces are a "public forum." The AP reported that the complaint also describes the policy as a viewpoint-based and unreasonable restriction on a limited public forum. In practice, the label matters because courts give the government more room to set rules in a nonpublic forum, though viewpoint discrimination is barred in every type.

The relief sought is also broader. Instead of reinstating particular outlets, the suit asks for a declaration that the policy is unconstitutional and an injunction protecting every outlet that covers the White House from retaliation, now and in the future.

What each side says

"The White House cannot decide what information Americans receive by punishing critical reporting," said Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight Institute. David A. Schulz of the Yale clinic described journalists as the public's "eyes and ears" in spaces it cannot enter, the institute said.

An unidentified White House official told the AP, "No person may demand access to the Oval Office," and said outlets that peddle "misinformation and defamation are completely capable of reporting their manufactured stories from directly outside."

Timeline, by the newsroom

2025: AP reporters are barred from the Oval Office, Air Force One and some events.

September 2026: CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists are expelled.

October 13, 2026: Judge Kelly enjoins the ban on the three outlets from press facilities.

October 26, 2026: Roth v. Trump and a preliminary injunction motion are filed in Manhattan.

A threshold question for the citizens will be standing, whether people who read the news, rather than reporters who were barred, have been injured enough to sue. Courts have pushed back on the administration in other recent fights, including over Maurene Comey's firing and over taxpayer-funded DHS ads.

Chaze Cable was convicted in 2025 of premeditated first-degree murder, conspiracy and burglary. Robert Celifie was found guilty of the same charges in August 2026. Both received life sentences, Fox 10 Phoenix reported on October 26, when Signal messages between the two were read aloud at a press conference.

The shooting

Shimonov was shot nine times outside a Scottsdale hotel at about 8 p.m. on January 3, 2022. He ran his business from a bus, and three witnesses photographed a man waiting at the bus doors shortly before the gunshots, according to Fox 10. The shooter fled with Shimonov's phone.

Officers found him in the north parking lot of the Hyatt Place hotel, and he died at a hospital, KTAR reported at the time. Detectives followed leads through California, Nevada, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, with help from six law enforcement agencies.

The messages

Police say Cable drove a Mercedes registered to Celifie to Arizona to carry out the killing. Investigators used license plate readers to trace the route from Scottsdale to Las Vegas and on to Los Angeles. Celifie was arrested in Nevada days after the shooting, and the murder weapon was found at his girlfriend's home. Cable was taken into custody in Texarkana, Arkansas, two days after Celifie.

The Signal messages recovered by police show Celifie directing Cable. In one, sent December 31, 2021, Celifie wrote, "The guy they need to pay a vist they want his phones." Cable asked where the hit should happen, and Celifie gave him the address of the bus. Celifie also told Cable to grab the phone and "do your thing after he done with that cut."

Investigators believe the phone was the target, Fox 10 reported. The motive remains unclear.

What the evidence shows, and what it does not

The newsroom's reading of the quoted messages points to a gap the convictions do not fill. Celifie's December 31 message refers to "they," meaning someone who wanted the phones and wanted Shimonov visited. Neither the trial coverage nor the police statements Fox 10 reported name that person or explain what was on the phone.

That matters legally. Arizona's conspiracy charge does not require prosecutors to identify every member of the agreement, which is how two men can be convicted of a plot whose organizer is still unnamed. Anyone else who joined the agreement would face the same exposure if identified, and homicide charges generally have no filing deadline, a point we covered in our explainer on why murder never expires.

Timeline

December 31, 2021: Celifie sends the message about "the guy they need to pay a vist," per the messages read by police.

January 3, 2022: Shimonov is shot outside the hotel.

January 12, 2022: Celifie is arrested in Nevada, according to KTAR.

January 14, 2022: Cable is arrested in Texarkana, Arkansas.

2025: Cable is convicted.

August 2026: Celifie is convicted, and both men are now serving life.

"When this horrible event happened, my world collapsed. I don't think it will ever be the same," Shimonov's mother said, Fox 10 reported.

Hired killings built around a middleman are a familiar pattern in organized crime prosecutions, as in the cases described in our piece on RICO and the mob. Jurors only have to find the charged defendants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, as our guide to what reasonable doubt means for jurors explains. They do not have to solve the whole case. Here, the question of who wanted the phone, and why, is still open.

The argument comes at an unusual moment. Federal rules on suppressors have loosened sharply this year, while state bans like the one in Illinois remain fully in force. How the Seventh Circuit answers the threshold question, whether a suppressor counts as an "arm" at all, could shape challenges to state laws well beyond Illinois.

The case so far

Carlin Anderson and Dave Clark sued in February 2023, challenging the Illinois statute that bars devices designed to silence a firearm's report, 720 ILCS 5/24-1(a)(6). The case was consolidated with a similar suit, Morse v. Raoul, in the Southern District of Illinois, according to the Second Amendment Foundation's October 21 Grassroots Judicial Report.

On September 5, 2025, U.S. District Judge David W. Dugan granted the state's motion for judgment on the pleadings. He found the plaintiffs had not plausibly alleged that suppressors are "arms" under the Second Amendment's historically fixed meaning, noting that they identified no 18th or 19th century precursor to the device, the report said. Judgment was entered for the state, and the ban stayed in place. The plaintiffs appealed, briefing was complete by October 12, and the consolidated appeals (Nos. 25-2642 and 25-2663) are set for argument this week.

Why "arms" is the whole fight

Under the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen framework, a challenger first has to show that the Constitution's plain text covers the conduct at issue. Only then does the government have to justify its law by pointing to a historical tradition of similar regulation. Judge Dugan stopped the case at that first step.

Suppressor owners argue that a device that reduces noise and recoil is part of using a firearm effectively, much like a sight or a magazine. Illinois argues it is an accessory, not a weapon, and that a gun works without one.

Other courts have sidestepped the question. In United States v. Berger, decided September 1, the Third Circuit upheld the federal registration requirement for silencers without deciding whether they are "arms," according to an analysis by the Duke Center for Firearms Law. Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote that even if silencers are protected, the registration rules are "objective, minimally burdensome, and aimed at ensuring orderly exercise of the right." Judge Chung, concurring, took a different route, reasoning that silencers are accessories that a gun does not need in order to function. The Seventh Circuit could adopt either approach, or squarely decide the question the Third Circuit left open.

Analysis: where suppressor law stands now

The patchwork has become harder to follow this year. Here is the newsroom's summary of the main layers, drawn from the sources above and the Second Amendment Foundation's October 14 report.

Federal making and transfer tax: Cut to zero by Congress.

Federal registration (NFA): In Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF, a Texas federal judge ruled on August 5 that the rules could no longer rest on the taxing power.

ATF enforcement: Since October 9, ATF says it no longer requires NFA approval or registration for suppressors, short-barreled rifles and shotguns.

Third Circuit: Upheld federal silencer registration in Berger (September 1).

Illinois: Possession ban in force, challenge argued October 28.

ATF's policy carries a warning that "unregistered items may still violate state law," the report said. That is the key point for gun owners in states like Illinois. A federal enforcement decision does not change state criminal law, and a judge's order protecting particular plaintiffs is not a nationwide remedy.

The confusion has reached state capitals. The Firearms Policy Coalition sent letters on October 9 to attorneys general in 15 states whose laws tie the legality of suppressors or short-barreled guns to federal registration, asking them to stop enforcement while lawmakers consider repeal. Alaska's acting attorney general directed police to consult prosecutors before bringing affected charges, the Second Amendment Foundation reported.

What to watch

A Seventh Circuit ruling that suppressors are "arms" would send the case back to the Bruen history test, where Illinois would have to defend its ban on the merits. A ruling for the state would leave the ban intact and could deepen the split in how courts treat firearm accessories.

The Supreme Court is already set to hear the biggest arms case of the term on December 2, the AR-15 challenges we covered in Cook County and Connecticut Defend AR-15 Bans. For travelers, the state-by-state gap matters too: an item legal at home can be a crime across a state line, a problem we explained in Carrying a Gun Across State Lines.

The brief, unsigned order in City of Baltimore v. Texas, No. 26A500, came without comment and without any noted dissents, SCOTUSblog reported. The challengers were the cities of Baltimore, New Haven and Columbus and Centro Legal de la Raza, a legal services provider for immigrants. Their application to the Court was filed October 9.

What the rule did

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department office that runs the immigration courts, adopted the regulation in 2024. It let immigration judges "administratively close" certain removal cases, taking them off the active calendar. One common use was to let a crime victim or witness pursue relief, such as asylum, from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services without a deportation case moving forward at the same time.

Texas argued that federal law requires an immigration judge to decide whether a person is removable, and that the office had no power to adopt the rule.

A lawsuit with no opponent

What made this case unusual is that the federal government did not defend its own regulation. According to SCOTUSblog, Texas sued in June 2026 in Wichita Falls, Texas, where the case went to Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor. The same day, the Justice Department and Texas asked for a final judgment in the state's favor that would vacate the rule and bar the immigration courts from adopting a similar one. O'Connor granted it.

The cities and Centro Legal then tried to join the case to defend the rule. O'Connor ruled they lacked standing. The Fifth Circuit refused to pause the judgment while they appealed, and they went to the Supreme Court.

Their lawyer, Joshua Salzman of Democracy Forward, called the agreement the product of "egregious collusion." The challengers argued that "If a judgment procured through such open collusion is allowed to remain in effect," any agency could avoid the strictures of the federal law that governs how agencies change their rules, SCOTUSblog reported in its earlier account of the briefing.

The government's answer

Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that the request "attempts to improperly leverage a clear-cut dispute over" the challengers' bid to join the case into a broad attack on the merits. He argued that the cities could not challenge a consent judgment they were never allowed to join, that their claimed harms were "too 'indirect' and 'attenuated'" and that the agreement does not force administratively closed cases back onto judges' calendars.

Texas argued that pausing the ruling "would revive a rule the district court declared unlawful." It warned that if cities could sue here, "nearly every immigration measure would be judicially challengeable by municipalities on both sides."

What the order actually decides

An emergency order like this one is not a ruling on the merits. The Court did not say the 2024 rule was unlawful or that the Texas judgment was proper. It declined to step in while the cities' appeal is pending, which leaves the judgment in force and the rule gone for now.

The practical point for anyone watching federal regulation is the route. Normally, repealing a rule means a new notice and comment process under the Administrative Procedure Act. Here, a friendly lawsuit and a same-day judgment achieved the same result, with a permanent bar on a replacement rule. Whether outsiders can challenge that kind of agreement depends on standing, and so far every court has said the cities do not have it.

The order also arrived four days after briefing closed. It is the latest in a run of emergency rulings on immigration and election fights, including the limits on DHS noncitizen voter operations and the Ninth Circuit fight over California ballots. The cities' appeal remains before the Fifth Circuit.

The batch is large, and most of it comes from criminal cases. Of the 24 petitions, 21 are captioned against the United States, meaning they come from federal prosecutions rather than civil suits by gun groups. The other three arise from state courts in Florida, New York and Washington.

Analysis: where the petitions come from

The newsroom tallied the 24 petitions on the Duke list by the court they come from.

Fifth Circuit: 5.

Tenth Circuit: 4.

Eleventh Circuit: 4.

Second Circuit: 3.

First Circuit: 2.

Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Circuits: 1 each.

State courts (Fla., N.Y., Wash.): 3.

Total: 24.

Most were filed between late July and early October. The oldest, Minor v. United States from the First Circuit, was filed April 27. Only one, Holloway v. Brown from Washington state (No. 26-300), carries a docket number outside the 5000s series that covers the rest.

Conference lists do not mean much on their own. The justices routinely deny dozens of gun petitions without comment. The Duke tracker shows a group of denials on October 5, more on October 13, and two more on October 19, including Beckwith v. Frey. Any of the 24 could be denied, granted, or quietly relisted for a later conference.

Why this batch matters now

The petitions arrive in a shifting legal landscape. On October 13, the full Third Circuit ruled that the federal ban on gun possession by people with felony convictions could not be applied to Edward Williams, whose record stemmed from drunk driving offenses in the early 2000s. Judge Paul Matey wrote that Williams was "a peaceable citizen, capable of bearing arms consistent with the design of the Second Amendment," Fox News reported. The court held the ban can be applied constitutionally where a prior conviction involved violence or threats.

The same day, the court upheld the ban for James Bost, whose record included terroristic threats tied to a 2002 carjacking. "The right to keep and bear arms has limits, and this is one," Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote. Judge Arianna Freeman wrote separately, arguing that offenses like drunk driving should also count because they can show a person "poses a credible threat to the physical safety of others."

Earlier this month, the justices also declined to disturb a Fifth Circuit ruling that a drug possession felony was not enough to take away a man's gun rights, a case we covered in Supreme Court Leaves in Place a Ruling That Limited the Federal Felon Gun Ban. Together, those rulings mean a person's right to own a gun can depend on which circuit he lives in. That kind of split is one of the main reasons the Court agrees to hear a case.

The cases being held

Several closely watched civil cases are not on the November 6 list. National Association for Gun Rights v. Lamont, Duncan v. Bonta and Gator's Custom Guns v. Washington were all listed for the June 29 conference, and the Duke tracker shows no later action. The Court often holds related petitions while it decides a lead case, then sends them back for reconsideration.

The lead case this term is the consolidated AR-15 challenge, Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, set for argument on the morning of December 2. We covered the briefing in Cook County and Connecticut Defend AR-15 Bans as Supreme Court Arguments Near. A decision is expected by the end of the term next summer.

Another petition, Novotny v. Moore from the Fourth Circuit, was listed for the October 16 conference and then rescheduled, according to the tracker.

What comes next

Results from the November 6 conference will appear in the Court's orders after the justices meet. A case granted this fall could still be argued and decided before the term ends next summer.

For defendants serving federal sentences on gun possession counts, the stakes are personal. For the government, the question is whether the justices will set a nationwide rule on who can be permanently disarmed, or keep leaving it to the circuits.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said Morley was found to be unaccounted for at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday. "Further review of security cameras confirmed Morley breached the perimeter fence and exited the facility in his TDOC uniform," the department said, according to NBC News. Officials have not said how he got through the fence.

The stolen truck

By about 1 a.m., Morley allegedly stole a white 2008 Ford F-350 flatbed truck with Tennessee plates and a Lindamood Planting Company logo on the door, CBS News reported. Surveillance video released by investigators shows a man in a beanie walking to the driver's door before the truck pulls away.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation added Morley to its most wanted list and is offering a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to his arrest. It urged people near where the truck was taken to "check home security systems, including doorbell cameras and trail cameras." He is described as 5 feet 11 inches tall and 240 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes. Anyone who sees him should call 911 or 1-800-TBI-FIND, and the TDOC posted a notice on the escape on Monday.

Who he is

Morley was convicted in February 2025 of killing his co-worker, Cody Birchfield, 34, in 2022, according to Carter County court records cited by NBC. Prosecutors said he shot Birchfield in the back of the head. Birchfield's body was found in a large metal box under Morley's home in Carter County after he had been missing for a few weeks.

Morley was also convicted of abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and aggravated burglary, the last for stealing tools from the victim, NBC reported. In 2022 he led deputies on a chase that ended in North Carolina, CBS said. At trial he claimed self-defense and said he has mental health problems, including bipolar disorder.

Our timeline

Sunday, about 11:30 p.m: Officials realize Morley is unaccounted for.

After review: Cameras show him going through the perimeter fence in uniform.

Early Monday, about 1 a.m: Surveillance video shows a white Ford F-350 flatbed stolen near Tiptonville.

Monday: TDOC asks the public for help, TBI lists him as most wanted.

Tuesday morning: Morley still at large, reward up to $2,500.

By the reported times, roughly 90 minutes passed between the moment the prison noticed he was missing and the truck theft. That gap matters. A head start measured in hours, in a stolen vehicle, near the Missouri state line, turns a local search into a multistate one. CBS described the search as a multistate manhunt.

A prison under strain

The Northwest Correctional Complex sits in a rural area near a bend in the Mississippi River, about 90 miles north of Memphis. It can house 1,776 men, the department says. CBS noted that a July grand jury returned dozens of indictments tied to five inmate murders and assaults at the facility, and that a 2023 state audit found a 61% vacancy rate for correctional officers there that fiscal year.

What escape adds

Escape is a separate felony in Tennessee, so if Morley is caught he can expect new charges on top of his life sentence, along with charges tied to the stolen truck. Any capture outside the state would also raise the question of how he is returned, which we explained in How Extradition Works Between States and Countries. For background on how a jury weighs a self-defense claim like the one Morley raised at trial, see Stand Your Ground, Explained by Defense Lawyers.

This is a developing story, and details may change as the search continues.

In its answering brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, dated April 15, 2026, the Justice Department said Bowers's death sentences on 11 firearm counts should be vacated after a 2026 Supreme Court ruling on double jeopardy. It argued that his 11 other death sentences, for the hate crime at the heart of the case, should stay in place. The government's brief in United States v. Bowers, No. 24-9002, runs more than 400 pages.

The attack

The building was home to three congregations, Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light, which had gathered for Sabbath worship and study that morning. According to the government's brief, Bowers entered armed with a rifle and three handguns as services were about to begin, and in less than 13 minutes killed 11 congregants and seriously wounded two more. He also wounded four police officers. Asked why, the brief says, Bowers told officers, "I just want to kill Jews."

How the case got here

A federal jury convicted Bowers of 63 civil rights and firearm offenses, 22 of them capital, and recommended death on each capital count. The record in the brief sets out the steps.

August 3, 2023: Final judgment entered, with death sentences on the capital counts.

October 23, 2023: Amended judgment.

May 17, 2024: The trial court denies Bowers's motion for a new trial or acquittal.

May 31, 2024: Bowers files his notice of appeal.

December 2025: His lawyers file an opening brief of nearly 500 pages raising 16 issues and seeking a new sentencing hearing, CBS Pittsburgh reported.

April 15, 2026: The government files its answer.

The newsroom found no reported ruling from the Third Circuit as of Tuesday.

What the filing actually says

The government's first argument is a concession. In light of Barrett v. United States, decided by the Supreme Court this year, it agrees that "imposing cumulative punishments for a Section 924(j) offense and for the predicate crime of religious obstruction resulting in death," based on the same conduct, "violates double jeopardy." Section 924(j) punishes killing someone with a firearm during a crime of violence. The predicate crime here is violent obstruction of religious exercise under the Church Arson Prevention Act.

The remedy it proposes is narrow. The court should vacate the death sentences on Counts 23 to 33 and send them back for dismissal, "while leaving intact the death sentences on the remaining capital counts (Counts 1-11)." It argues that no new sentencing is needed because the jury was told to consider each count separately and the two sets of counts rested on the same evidence.

The newsroom's arithmetic: 22 capital counts minus the 11 the government concedes leaves 11 death sentences. If the court accepts the government's position, Bowers would remain under a death sentence.

The rest of the brief defends the convictions against Bowers's constitutional attacks. It argues that the Church Arson Prevention Act is valid Commerce Clause legislation as applied to him, citing his use of weapons that had crossed state lines and of the internet to choose his victims. It argues that the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act validly covers violence against Jewish people, who were considered a distinct "race" when the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted.

The jury questions

Some of the defense's main claims concern jury selection, CBS Pittsburgh reported. The defense challenges the seating of a juror who said they had reviewed death sentences and overseen executions in China, and the removal of two prospective jurors who had reservations about the death penalty. It also argues that marshals shackled Bowers's legs during the eligibility phase of the trial.

The government answers that the juror, identified as Juror 119, had a "brief experience 40 years ago reviewing death sentences in China" that did not create a legal presumption of bias. It says the two excluded jurors "strongly opposed the death penalty" in ways that would have substantially impaired their service.

Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at St. Vincent College, told CBS Pittsburgh, "Most criminal appeals do not result in a successful outcome for a defendant," and said, "It is going to take another period of years before this is all resolved." The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh said, "We have full confidence in the prosecution team and the judicial system as this process moves forward." Bowers remains on federal death row in Indiana.

Another federal capital case built on a racially motivated mass shooting is the Buffalo Tops gunman's trial. For how antisemitic violence has changed since 2018, read our interview on how antisemitism mutates.

His co-star George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu, was first to share the news. "My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today," Takei wrote on social media. TrekMovie reported that Koenig had been in declining health and had canceled several convention appearances this year, including Creation Entertainment's 60th anniversary convention in Las Vegas in August.

The Russian on the bridge

Koenig joined "Star Trek" at the start of its second season in 1967. A long-repeated story holds that Chekov was added as a Cold War gesture to the Soviet Union. Koenig disputed that. He said NBC wanted a young character to appeal to teenage viewers who liked Davy Jones and the Monkees, according to TrekMovie.

Either way, the casting carried a quiet irony. Koenig was born on September 14, 1936, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, and was raised in New York City, The Jerusalem Post reported. Three decades later, he played a proud Russian officer on American network television at the height of the Cold War, as part of a crew built on cooperation.

A career in numbers

The newsroom's timeline of Koenig's major roles, drawn from TrekMovie's reporting:

1967 to 1969: Ensign Pavel Chekov, "Star Trek".

1979 to 1991: Chekov in all six original-cast films, rising to commander.

1994: Chekov in the opening of "Star Trek Generations".

1994 to 1998: Psi Cop Alfred Bester, "Babylon 5," 12 episodes.

2012: The 2,479th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2023: Voice of Federation President Anton Chekov, "Star Trek: Picard".

From 1967 to his last Trek role in 2023 is 56 years, a span few actors in any franchise can match. In the "Picard" finale he voiced Chekov's son, named Anton in honor of Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the rebooted films and died in 2016 at 27. The line he delivered was, "Hope is never lost. There are always possibilities."

Of Bester, the telepathic enforcer he played on "Babylon 5," Koenig said, "It was a fleshed-out character, which was fun to play."

The writer

Koenig was also a writer. He wrote the "Star Trek: The Animated Series" episode "The Infinite Vulcan" and scripts for "Land of the Lost," "Family" and "The Powers of Matthew Star." He wrote several books, including "Warped Factors" and the memoir "Beaming Up and Getting Off: Life Before and Beyond Star Trek," and he acted, directed and taught on stage.

He was the best man at Takei's 2008 wedding to Brad Altman, with Nichelle Nichols as "best woman," TrekMovie reported. When he received his Walk of Fame star in 2012, he was the last principal member of the original cast to get one.

Family

Koenig's wife of more than 57 years, actress Judy Levitt, died in 2022. Their son, actor Andrew Koenig, died by suicide in 2010 at 41, and Koenig used the moment publicly to urge people living with depression not to suffer alone. He is survived by his daughter, Danielle Koenig, a comedian and writer, and a grandson.

This week has been heavy for television fans. Netflix's new series on another TV star is out now, as we reported in our look at the Matthew Perry docuseries and the ketamine prosecutions. For Hollywood's version of the courtroom, see our ranking of the best courtroom movies.

The rearmament centers on explosives and explosive drones that can be flown into Israeli positions, according to the report. It comes as Israeli troops still hold villages in southern Lebanon and as the government in Beirut faces pressure to disarm the group.

How the war got here

Hezbollah opened fire on Israel on March 2, days after the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began in late February. Israel's offensive in Lebanon has since killed more than 4,000 people and displaced about a quarter of the population, Reuters reported. Fighting largely eased over the summer under an interim deal between Iran and the United States that included a Lebanon ceasefire.

Hezbollah rejected a U.S.-facilitated agreement between Israel and Lebanon in early June, and a broader framework announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio later that month, demanding a full ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal, according to a Wikipedia account of the war. Israel now controls more than 600 square kilometers of Lebanese territory, about 6% of the country, according to an ABC News Australia analysis. More than 320,000 displaced Lebanese have not been able to return home.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said operations will continue as long as Hezbollah threatens northern Israel. The Israeli military told ABC it acts within international law and that "Israel does not operate against the State of Lebanon or its civilians."

What each side says

Hezbollah's media office told Reuters that Israel's occupation of Lebanese land makes resistance a legitimate right. It denied that its command and control systems had broken down and said it wanted to avoid giving Israeli leaders a reason to escalate. The group acknowledged this month that explosives seized by Lebanese authorities belonged to it.

The Israeli military said it uses remotely operated systems to watch southern Lebanon and limit its troops' exposure to threats. In Washington, a State Department spokesperson said the United States would keep "strangling Hezbollah's finances" through sanctions and other measures. A Treasury spokesperson said Iran was "running out of money and ways to move money."

Cash for the base

Some of the money is going to Hezbollah's own community. The group began a payment drive on October 13 for families who lost homes in the war, Al Jazeera reported. Families in Beirut and its suburbs whose homes were destroyed receive $14,000, and those outside the capital receive $12,000, plus furniture allowances. A State Department official disputed that Iran, under heavy economic pressure, could have sent the $200 million.

Analysts told Al Jazeera the payments are meant to hold on to Shiite support that has frayed during the war, and that they challenge a Lebanese government trying to rein the group in. Nicholas Blanford of the Atlantic Council said the money would be a major help to a group that is "very sensitive towards the needs of their support base."

The government recently seized hundreds of kilograms of explosives linked to Hezbollah and made arrests, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio called President Joseph Aoun the same week to press him on the seizure. Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah has demanded that the explosives be returned and those arrested be released.

The question of who holds the guns in southern Lebanon is far older than this war. For the long view, read why the Middle East has been contested for 5,000 years.

The vote fills all 120 seats in the Knesset, and 61 are needed to form a government. A party needs 3.25% of the national vote to win any seats, and official results are due to be confirmed on November 4, according to Wikipedia's overview of the race. The outgoing Knesset formally dissolved on July 17.

What the last polls show

The Jerusalem Post's roundup of the final polls, published Sunday, put Yashar first in every survey it cited. Averaged across four polls, Yashar had 22 seats, Likud 19.75 and Naftali Bennett's list 14.5. Channel 12 had Yashar at 23, Likud at 21 and Bennett at 15.

The bloc math is tighter than the party numbers suggest. The same average gave the opposition parties 54 seats and Netanyahu's bloc 49.5, leaving both short of 61. Arab parties combined for about 14 seats in two of the polls. Several small lists sit near the threshold, including the joint list of Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha and former general Ofer Winter's People of Israel. Whether they get in could decide who governs.

A campaign that ended in court filings

The final weekend was about the war as much as the ballot. Thousands of people rallied in Tel Aviv against Netanyahu, with Eisenkot in the crowd, AP reported. Speakers demanded a commission of inquiry into the security failures before the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, an inquiry AP said Netanyahu has refused. AP noted that all hostages or their remains have now been returned, though Netanyahu has been accused of delaying deals that could have freed them sooner.

On Sunday, Netanyahu summoned Police Commissioner Danny Levy to a meeting with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on election integrity, without inviting the opposition, The Times of Israel reported. Likud said the meeting was a follow-up on security threats and not about the election. Yashar petitioned to cancel it and said Netanyahu expects to lose.

Justice Noam Sohlberg, who chairs the Central Elections Committee, rejected the petition but warned politicians not to interfere in the election, and the attorney general said there was no justification for the meeting. At a rally, Eisenkot warned that Netanyahu would "stop at nothing" to stay in power.

Security on election day

The military is on its highest state of alert. The Times of Israel reported that Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir canceled leave, that Palestinian workers with permits are barred from West Bank settlements on Sunday and Monday, and that land crossings close on election day. Netanyahu dismissed reports that Zamir had resisted a military action against Iran ordered by the prime minister, calling them "nonsense." Opposition leaders condemned the report.

Washington is watching too. President Trump said he would not strike Iran again before the November 3 midterm elections in the United States, AP reported, while declining to say what he would do after that. "There's a possibility I will," he said, while also pointing to a possible deal.

Whoever wins the most seats, coalition talks come next, and they can take weeks. For the human story behind this campaign, read our report from three years after October 7.

Steve Haney, Beasley's lawyer, told the Associated Press by text message that they were negotiating with the government "with an expected direction in the coming days," CBS News reported on October 24. The judge has referred the case for a change of plea, but Haney said Beasley had not yet signed a deal, LegalSportsBetting.com reported. Beasley, 29, pleaded not guilty in July and remains presumed innocent unless and until a plea is entered or he is convicted.

The charges

Beasley was one of six people named in an indictment unsealed in Brooklyn federal court in June. All six face four counts, wire fraud conspiracy, bribery in sporting contests, honest services wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.

Prosecutors accuse Beasley of fixing or trying to fix his performance in at least four Bucks games in 2024. In exchange, they say, bettors reduced or erased debts he owed to former NBA player Ed Davis. In one example, Beasley allegedly tried to beat a 3.5 rebound prop bet in a March 10, 2024, game against the LA Clippers, chasing down a rebound as time expired to finish with four, the AP reported when the charges were unsealed.

Another allegation involves a January 26, 2024, game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The indictment says Beasley told Davis beforehand that he "intended to underperform with respect to rebounding in the game," according to LegalSportsBetting.com. Bets on the under for his rebounds in that game totaled about $21,228.

When the case was announced, U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said the defendants "turned professional basketball into a criminal betting operation." Haney said at the time that Beasley maintained his presumption of innocence and asked people to "reserve judgment until all the facts are known." Paolo Zamorano, a sports agent who formerly represented Davis, has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer has said he denies wrongdoing.

A widening federal sweep

The Beasley case grew out of a broader federal investigation that became public in October 2025, when 34 people were arrested in two cases. One alleged rigged betting on NBA games and named Terry Rozier, then with the Miami Heat. The other alleged a mafia-backed poker scheme and named Chauncey Billups, then the Portland Trail Blazers coach. Both men pleaded not guilty and have denied the allegations.

The poker indictment charged members of the Bonanno, Genovese and Gambino crime families, a reminder of how federal prosecutors have long used conspiracy and racketeering law against organized crime, a history we covered in How RICO Broke the Old Mob.

Former NBA player Damon Jones became the first defendant in the sweep to plead guilty, in April. In the Beasley case, co-defendant Ernesto Plasencia has also pleaded guilty, and Beasley would be the fourth of the six defendants to do so, LegalSportsBetting.com reported. If the case goes to trial, it is scheduled to begin May 17, 2027.

What comes next

No terms of a deal have been made public. In federal court, a guilty plea is entered before a judge, who must accept it, and sentencing comes later. Until then, the charges remain accusations.

The league has responded on the betting side. The NBA said in June that it would keep cooperating with authorities, and the league and sportsbooks have since adopted new limits, including bans on first basket bets and under props for low minute players, according to LegalSportsBetting.com.

Beasley played for the Detroit Pistons in 2024-25 on a one-year, $6 million deal. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.

The trial, which began with jury selection on October 6, has produced an unusual sight. The federal prosecutors bringing the case are spending much of their time attacking the state investigators who looked at it first.

The charges and the defense

Prosecutors allege Farwell met Birchmore when she was 13 through a police youth program and began a sexual relationship with her when she was 15 and he was 27. They say he strangled her after she told him she was pregnant, possibly with his child, and staged the scene to look like a suicide, according to CBS Boston. Prosecutors say the killing came a day before his wife was due to give birth to their third child.

Farwell is charged with killing a witness or victim, a federal crime that carries a mandatory life sentence on conviction. The Justice Department announced in December 2025 that it would not seek the death penalty.

The defense says Birchmore died by suicide after Farwell told her he was not the baby's father and ended the relationship. DNA testing later excluded him as the father.

A case that flips the usual roles

The Norfolk District Attorney's office, led by Michael W. Morrissey, had concluded Birchmore died by suicide, relying on the initial finding of the state medical examiner. In court, federal prosecutors have walked jurors through what that investigation missed, the Boston Globe reported.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Torey B. Cummings said State Police closed the case without seeking search warrants or attending the autopsy. Farwell and his twin brother were interviewed in parking lots, without recordings or notes. State Trooper Matthew Dunne testified that he did not interview Birchmore's neighbors or notice her broken flamingo necklace chain.

FBI Special Agent Heidi Kelsch testified that agents, by contrast, reviewed about 40,000 messages between the two, many never examined by State Police, and interviewed about 130 witnesses.

Defense attorney Joanne M. Daley has pushed back hard. She argued that prosecutors are distancing themselves from state investigators while relying on evidence those same officials gathered, and reminded jurors that the state is still part of the government bringing the case. State Police and Morrissey's office declined to comment, citing the ongoing trial.

The medical fight ahead

The central question for the jury may be how Birchmore died. Dr. María Del Mar Capó-Martínez performed the autopsy, and the state medical examiner's office initially ruled the death a suicide by hanging. Earlier this year, the office changed the manner of death to undetermined. Federal prosecutors say the suicide ruling was premature because it relied on incomplete information and misinformation, the Globe reported.

A federal judge has ruled that two prosecution experts who say Birchmore was strangled, Dr. William Smock and Dr. Michael Baden, may testify. The defense says Birchmore had a history of mental illness. Her longtime therapist, Diala Alkhalil, returned to the stand on Monday, and Farwell's twin brother, William, testified briefly under a grant of immunity.

Why defense lawyers are watching

Usually it is the defense that asks jurors to doubt an official medical ruling. Here, the government is the side asking jurors to set aside the first finding. Commentators told the Globe that jurors will weigh whether the investigations were fair and whether prosecutors are credible, since the two sets of investigators reached opposing conclusions.

Friction between state and federal authorities is not new. It also shapes the two-track prosecution in the Luigi Mangione case, though there both governments are pursuing charges. The trial is expected to last about five weeks.

It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

The series draws on previously unreleased photos and videos from the Perry family archive and features his sister, Mia Perry Bowick, and his lifelong friends, Time Out reported. Bowick says her brother spent more than $7 million trying to get sober. Netflix also lists E. Martin Estrada, the former U.S. attorney whose office led the prosecution, among those interviewed, Enstarz reported.

The criminal case that followed Perry's death is now over. Five people were charged in federal court in Los Angeles. All five pleaded guilty, and the last was sentenced in May.

How Perry died

Perry was found dead by his assistant in the hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home on October 28, 2023. The autopsy attributed his death to the "acute effects of ketamine," with drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine as contributing factors. The death was ruled accidental, CBS Los Angeles reported.

Five defendants, five sentences

Jasveen Sangha, the North Hollywood dealer dubbed the "Ketamine Queen," received the longest sentence. On April 8, U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett sentenced her to 15 years in federal prison, ABC News reported. She had pleaded guilty to five counts, including distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury, which carried a maximum of 65 years combined.

In court, Sangha said she takes "full responsibility for my actions." Her lawyers, Mark Geragos and Alexandra Kazarian, had asked for time served, citing her "demonstrated rehabilitation." Prosecutors, who sought 15 years, cited her "cold callousness and disregard for life."

Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who briefly treated Perry, pleaded guilty to four counts of ketamine distribution and was sentenced to 30 months. Dr. Mark Chavez, who once ran a ketamine clinic, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine and was sentenced to eight months of home confinement, according to ABC News. Both were sentenced in December 2025.

Erik Fleming, a former drug counselor, was sentenced to two years in prison. Prosecutors said he delivered 50 vials of ketamine from Sangha to Perry and marked up the price, Global News reported. His lawyers said he relapsed when he was approached about Perry.

Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry's live-in assistant, was the last. On May 27, Judge Garnett sentenced him to 41 months in prison and a $10,000 fine. He had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death and was the prosecution's most important witness and the first of the five to reach a plea deal. Dr. Plasencia had taught him how to inject ketamine, Global News reported. His lawyers argued he was an employee following his employer's instructions and that "he could not 'simply say no.' That inability had tragic consequences."

Perry's family saw it differently. In a letter to the judge, his mother, Suzanne Morrison, wrote, "We trusted a man without a conscience, and my son paid the price."

The law behind the case

Federal drug law treats a sale that results in death far more seriously than an ordinary distribution charge. That is the count that exposed Sangha to decades in prison.

That is why the sentences varied so much. Each defendant's plea set the charge and the exposure, and cooperation with prosecutors, as in Iwamasa's case, can bring a sentence well below the maximum.

Addiction and the criminal courts also sit at the center of another Los Angeles case. Read what the Rob Reiner case reveals about addiction, mental illness and the law. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

Prosecutors say the attacks happened on the evening of Wednesday, October 21, in and near the Diamond District, a stretch of West 47th Street with many Jewish-owned businesses. The allegations have not been proven in court.

What prosecutors allege

According to the criminal complaint as described by Fox 5, a 26-year-old man in traditional Hasidic clothing was followed and cornered against a vehicle outside 15 West 47th Street shortly before 6 p.m. Prosecutors allege he was stabbed in the lower back with a sharp object suspected to be a syringe. He was taken to a hospital in stable condition.

About five minutes later, near Sixth Avenue and West 45th Street, a second man was pushed from behind and suffered a bleeding cut to his right forearm, prosecutors say. Court documents cited by CBS New York say the attacker threatened one of the men, telling him, "Go away from here. I have a gun. I'm going to kill you." Prosecutors allege both men were targeted because they are Jewish.

International Business Times, which reviewed the complaint, reported that it does not establish that she had a gun. It also does not identify a specific object or show that either man was injected with anything. A third man told police a woman asked whether he was Jewish, and when he said he was Muslim, she apologized and walked away, CBS New York reported.

The charges and the bail fight

Mochalova faces two counts of assault as a hate crime, a count of menacing as a hate crime, two counts of criminal possession of a weapon and two counts of aggravated harassment based on race or religion, according to Fox 5. Prosecutors asked for $100,000 cash or a $300,000 bond. The judge set bail at $50,000 cash or a $150,000 bond. Her next court date is Thursday, October 29.

Her lawyer, Lila Carpenter of the Legal Aid Society, questioned the police identification in court on Sunday, IBTimes reported. Prosecutors say an NYPD transit officer recognized Mochalova from surveillance stills based on earlier interactions with her. In cases built on video, how a defendant was identified is often one of the first things the defense tests.

In New York, a hate crime charge rides on top of an underlying offense, such as assault. Prosecutors must prove the underlying crime and also that the victim was chosen because of a protected trait such as religion. If they do, the potential sentence goes up.

A street on edge

Business owners in the Diamond District told CBS New York they were shaken. "It could have happened to myself," one business owner said. A store owner who asked not to be identified said he feared "she'll just be out in a few days" and that no one knew what she would do next.

The case comes in a year of rising numbers. NYPD data cited by IBTimes show 463 confirmed hate crimes in the city from January through September 2026, up 12.9% from 410 a year earlier. Anti-Jewish incidents made up 245 of them, more than half.

Rabbi Uriel Romano warned on Episode 74 that antisemitism keeps changing its shape to fit the moment, a conversation we covered in our story on his interview. A contested identification, a hate crime charge and a fight over bail make this the kind of case Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh take apart on the show.

A home is a castle

The doctrine comes from the common law. According to Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute, a person in their own home "does not have a duty to retreat prior to using reasonable force," including deadly force when necessary. The institute describes the doctrine as an exception to the general duty to retreat, available only when the rest of a state's self-defense requirements are also met.

States draw the borders differently. The institute notes that North Carolina's version can reach a person's home, workplace and car, while Illinois limits it to the home.

Some states went further in the 1980s. Several passed so-called "Make My Day" laws, which grant immunity from prosecution to people who use deadly force against someone who unlawfully and forcibly enters a residence, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Where stand your ground goes further

Stand your ground takes the same idea out of the house. NCSL describes those laws as letting people "hold their ground" and use deadly force against an imminent threat of death, with no duty to retreat, anywhere they are lawfully present. After the Civil War, courts began extending self-defense rights beyond the home to any place where a person has a "legal right to be."

Today at least 31 states, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands recognize no duty to retreat anywhere a person is lawfully present, either by statute or by court decision. New Jersey and Rhode Island lift the duty to retreat only inside the home, through case law.

That is the practical line. NCSL defines the duty to retreat as a legal requirement to try to withdraw from a threatening situation before using deadly force. In a state that follows the castle doctrine but not stand your ground, that requirement can still apply on a sidewalk or in a parking lot. Inside the home, it falls away.

How Florida writes it

Florida, which expanded its castle doctrine with stand your ground provisions in 2005, shows how these statutes work in practice. Under section 776.013 of the Florida Statutes, a person in a dwelling or residence where they have a right to be has "no duty to retreat" and may use deadly force if they reasonably believe it is necessary to prevent imminent death, great bodily harm or a forcible felony.

The statute adds a strong presumption. A person who uses deadly force is presumed to have reasonably feared death or great bodily harm when the other person was unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had entered, a dwelling, residence or occupied vehicle, and the defender knew or had reason to believe that was happening. The law defines a dwelling broadly enough to include an attached porch and even a tent.

The presumption has limits. It does not apply when the person entering has a right to be there, such as an owner or tenant, unless a domestic violence injunction or no-contact order is in place. It does not apply when the defender is engaged in criminal activity. It also does not apply when the person entering is a police officer performing official duties who identified themselves, or whom the defender knew or reasonably should have known was an officer.

The civil side

Winning in criminal court does not always end the case. NCSL counts at least 23 states that protect people from civil damages suits when they act in self-defense. In at least six states, including Hawaii, Missouri and New Jersey, a person can still be sued even if they were never charged or convicted.

This story explains how these laws work in general terms. The details depend on each state's statutes and court decisions.

Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Larry Schweiker traced stand your ground back to the castle doctrine on Episode 70. Read our full breakdown of that conversation in Stand Your Ground, Explained by Three Defense Lawyers.

The war began at the end of February with joint U.S. and Israeli strikes, and the Senate has voted on Iran war powers measures again and again since. In March, a resolution from Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia failed 47 to 53. In late June the Senate adopted one, with Republicans Collins, Murkowski, Paul and Bill Cassidy voting yes. On September 24, a House-passed resolution failed by the same 49 to 50 margin, ABC News reported, with Republican Thom Tillis joining the yes votes for the first time.

The law behind the votes

The Constitution splits the power. Article I gives Congress the power to declare war, and Article II makes the president commander in chief. For most of American history that tension was settled by politics, not courts.

After Vietnam, Congress tried to settle it in writing. The War Powers Resolution of 1973, passed over President Nixon's veto, requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of sending forces into hostilities. If Congress does not authorize the fight within 60 days, the forces are supposed to come home, with 30 more days allowed for withdrawal.

Why it almost never works

Presidents of both parties have argued that the 60 day clock does not apply to their operations, or that they can act under their own constitutional authority. And even when a resolution passes, a president can veto it. Overriding a veto takes two thirds of both chambers, a bar far beyond the Senate's 49 to 50 votes.

On Episode 62, recorded in March, Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh spend a full segment on war powers and congressional authority, then argue the legal case on both sides. They came back to the war on Episode 65 to ask the bigger question, whether it is in America's interest at all, which we cover in a separate story.

What the numbers say now

The war is eight months old. Fighting resumed in October after a pause, including U.S. strikes on Iranian military sites on October 21. Through mid October, the Pentagon reported 21 American service members killed and 865 wounded, and the Congressional Budget Office put direct costs at $38.1 billion through August 1, according to the same Hoodline report.

For the history behind the region's conflicts, start with our piece on why the Middle East has been contested for 5,000 years.

The department sued California on October 15 in the Central District of California, according to CBS News. It asks the court to stop the state from counting vote by mail ballots from likely noncitizens until their citizenship can be determined. The trial judge set a hearing for October 27, and the government appealed to the 9th Circuit seeking an expedited decision, the AP reported.

What the judges asked

Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, questioned whether the appeals court has jurisdiction before the lower court rules. He pointed to the Constitution's Elections Clause, which lets states set the manner of congressional elections, and suggested the executive branch may simply be "unhappy with what they're doing, and doesn't like the manner." Al Jazeera, citing Reuters, reported that Bennett told the government's lawyer the requested order would conflict with California law, asking, "How can we do that?"

Judge Gabriel Sanchez, a Biden appointee, asked whether the federal government was violating the Tenth Amendment by effectively commandeering the state. Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, sounded more sympathetic to the government. He said everyone has an interest in making sure only eligible citizens vote and told California's lawyer, "Without an injunction, you will never know."

The two sides

Justice Department lawyer Matthew Donnelly argued that California is causing irreparable harm "by allowing noncitizens to vote in violation of their own state laws," adding, "The damage is irreversible and irrevocable." When the suit was filed, Attorney General Todd Blanche said, "State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America."

Sam Siegel, representing Secretary of State Shirley Weber, told the panel the government's suspicions "have no basis in law or in fact," the AP reported. Seth Waxman, representing Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan, said about 2.75 million mail ballots are expected and that checking each against the list at three minutes apiece would take 140,000 hours of work. The county said a sample of 200 records from the list included canceled or inactive registrations and voters who appeared to be born in the United States. Gov. Gavin Newsom called the suit a "sad, desperate attempt by Trump" to suppress voters, according to Al Jazeera.

The criminal cases

On October 19 the Justice Department announced charges against 28 people across California in what it called Operation Protect the Vote. All 28 are lawful permanent residents, and the department said each appears on the list of more than 20,000 likely noncitizen registrants given to state officials. Charges include fraudulent voter registration, false statements on naturalization applications and, for six defendants in the Eastern District, voting by a noncitizen in a federal election. The department's release notes that all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The law at the center

The Elections Clause gives states the first say over the "times, places and manner" of congressional elections, while Congress can make or alter those rules. The Tenth Amendment's anti-commandeering principle generally bars the federal government from ordering state officials to carry out federal programs. Those two ideas are why the judges kept asking whether a court, rather than Congress, can grant what the government wants. Siegel said the administration can ask Congress to change the process if it disagrees.

The panel said it would rule as quickly as possible. In a separate case this week, a federal judge restricted DHS field operations aimed at finding noncitizen voters. For more on how citizenship questions play out in court, see our story on what it would take to revoke a citizenship.

A fight over federal power, state power and ballots days before an election is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

The show leans into the supernatural. The legal story underneath it turns on something more ordinary, a witness with a criminal record, no physical evidence and a prosecution that chose a sure conviction over a risky trial.

A body in the river

Thompson ran the Azalea Original Pet Cemetery in Toca, in St. Bernard Parish near New Orleans. She disappeared from her home on April 13, 1985, Biography reported. On May 2, fishermen found her body in the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, weighed down with chains. She had been strangled with a plastic bag secured over her head with wire.

Investigators focused early on Brandon Nodier, who had worked as the cemetery's groundskeeper. Thompson had sued Nodier over her 14 acres, saying the land was taken through a fraudulent sale. She vanished about 10 days before that case was set for court, WVUE Fox 8 reported at the time of his indictment.

Sheriff Jack Stephens said Nodier was a prime suspect from the start, but there was not enough evidence to arrest him. The case went cold for more than 25 years, and Hurricane Katrina later washed away much of the evidence investigators had, The A.V. Club noted in its review.

The witness who said he was haunted

The break came from people who said Thompson's ghost would not leave them alone. In 2009, an anonymous caller who described being haunted by her told police Nodier had confessed. In 2012, James J. Tregler, Nodier's former assistant groundskeeper, contacted authorities from behind bars and said he had watched the killing, according to Biography.

Tregler said Nodier had visited him and threatened him to stay quiet. In April 2012, Nodier surrendered and was charged with second-degree murder. "The motive was his strong desire to possess Dorothy Thompson's land," Col. John Doran said then, Fox 8 reported.

Why it ended in a plea

The case never reached a jury. In July 2014, Nodier pleaded guilty to manslaughter under a plea agreement and was sentenced to 10 years in prison by Judge Perry Nicosia of the 34th Judicial District, The Advocate reported. Under the parole rules in effect in 1985, he could expect to serve less than five years, according to his defense attorney.

Both sides described it as a compromise. Defense attorney Pat Fanning said, "They didn't have a great case." Prosecutors were relying largely on Tregler, whose criminal record made him a gamble in front of a jury. Sheriff James Pohlmann said he would have liked to see Nodier spend the rest of his life in prison, but noted there is "always a risk of going to trial with little evidence," according to Fox 8.

Judge Nicosia told Nodier he had received a bargain. "You got away with this horrible act of violence for a long time," the judge said, according to The Advocate.

A plea to a lesser charge is a trade. A defendant trades the risk of a far longer sentence for certainty, and the state trades the risk of an acquittal for a conviction. In a cold case built on one witness, that math looks different for both sides than it does in a case with physical evidence.

When a case rests on a single witness, the alternative can be a split jury and a second trial. Read what happens after a hung jury for how that plays out. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

The case drew national attention because her daughter is Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor of NBC's Today show. The Pima County Sheriff's Department leads the investigation with the FBI, and Sheriff Chris Nanos has said investigators believe she was taken by force.

The evidence made public

Nanos said blood found on the porch tested positive for her DNA. Her doorbell camera was disconnected at 1:47 a.m. on February 1, NBC News reported, and on February 10 the FBI released doorbell footage of a masked man outside the home that morning, wearing gloves and a backpack and carrying a holstered handgun. He has not been identified.

A first ransom note sent to news outlets demanded $4 million in cryptocurrency, a second claimed she had died shortly after being taken. An FBI official told Reuters in July that three notes were deemed fake, though the FBI later said some "may potentially be legitimate," according to Yahoo News' running timeline. In July, Derrick Callella pleaded guilty to federal harassment charges for posing as a kidnapper. No suspect in the disappearance has been named or charged. Nanos has said evidence was sent to four specialized labs. The family has offered a $1 million reward, and the FBI up to $100,000.

What the panel saw early

On Episode 61, recorded in February while the case was breaking, Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh worked through the timeline, the doorbell footage and the ransom demands. Michael focused on what the footage suggested about the suspect's inexperience. Lloyd was more measured, pointing to forensic tools, AI triangulation and the absence of any proof of life.

They also discussed her health. She needed daily medication, which gave the search urgency from the first day. The panel debated the friction between local investigators and the FBI, and how far a private investigation can help when a public one stalls.

Where it stands

Savannah Guthrie returned to the Today show as a guest co-host in June. In September she made a new plea for information so the family could give their mother "a proper goodbye." In late September, the sheriff's department and the FBI task force said they were reviewing the credibility of a possible new ransom note.

Anyone with information can contact the FBI at tips.fbi.gov. For more of the panel's casework, see their breakdown of the Nolan Wells investigation.

The episode was recorded in April, as the conflict escalated. Iran had moved to shut the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump had issued an ultimatum on uranium enrichment and the strait, and Hezbollah was active in southern Lebanon. Those questions are still open six months later.

The case that it is

Part of the argument is about oil. Roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply moves through the Strait of Hormuz, so a closure there raises prices everywhere, including in a country that produces much of its own energy. The panel walks through the mines, the alternative shipping routes and why a credible threat to keep the strait open matters to every economy.

The other part is about Iran itself. The episode looks at the reach of the Revolutionary Guard, its proxies across the region and its nuclear ambitions, and asks whether removing leadership can cut off the funding that keeps those proxies running. That thread started on Episode 62, recorded in the first weeks of the war.

The case that it is not

The pushback is just as direct. Marines were deployed, and the panel asks whether there is a clean exit strategy, and whether Iran's missiles, geography and defensive depth have been underestimated. Long wars rarely end on the timeline promised at the start.

The conversation also gets into money and influence, comparing the lobbying power of AIPAC with funding from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and asking whether Israel's influence on American policy comes from strategy, votes, money or shared values. It is the kind of question that usually produces shouting. Here it produces an argument.

A history lesson in the middle

One segment revisits the USS Liberty, the American ship attacked by Israeli forces in 1967, and the debate over whether it was a tragic mistake. We tell that story in its own piece.

The episode closes with a question for viewers. Is a hard line on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz a necessary show of strength, or does it risk another long war? For where Congress stands, read the war powers fight, explained.

What the governments argue

Cook County's ordinance bars the manufacture, sale, transfer and possession of listed assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. In its brief, the county argues the law fits a historical tradition of regulating "unusually dangerous weapons," comparing it to old restrictions on trap guns, Bowie knives and slung shots, Reason reported. The brief calls AR-15s "offensive weapons of war designed for maximum lethality" and says "raw ownership numbers cannot immunize a firearm from regulation."

Connecticut first banned assault weapons in 1993 and expanded the law in 2013 after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which a gunman with an AR-15 style rifle killed 20 children and six educators. Attorney General William Tong, whose office is defending the law, has called the ban "lawful, lifesaving, and broadly supported," WFSB reported when the justices took the case.

What the challengers argue

The gun owners, joined in the Cook County case by the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation, say the rifles are protected because they are in common use. They point to more than 20 million of the banned rifles in circulation and argue the government must prove the rifles are "highly unusual in society at large," not just dangerous, according to a summary of the briefing in the Cumberland Trial Journal. They also reject the lower court's view that the guns are closer to military weapons, noting that an AR-15 fires one round per trigger pull.

The federal government is on their side. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the challengers, Reason reported. The National Shooting Sports Foundation reported in January that Americans own more than 32 million of what the industry calls modern sporting rifles.

How the case got here

The legal framework comes from two earlier rulings. District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 said the Second Amendment protects arms "in common use at the time." New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen in 2022 requires gun laws to be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Lower courts upheld both bans. The Seventh Circuit, relying on its 2023 decision in Bevis v. City of Naperville, rejected the Cook County challenge, and a Second Circuit panel upheld Connecticut's restrictions in August 2025, The Reload reported. Other courts have gone the other way. In July 2026, the Third Circuit struck down New Jersey's bans on commonly owned rifles and magazines, Reason reported.

The December arguments follow a term in which the court sided with gun owners twice. On June 25 it struck down Hawaii's rule barring licensed carriers from private property open to the public without the owner's permission, by a 6 to 3 vote. A week earlier it narrowed the federal ban on gun possession by drug users in a ruling written by Justice Neil Gorsuch in which no justice dissented.

A decision in the AR-15 cases is expected by June 2027. For more on how carry rights already change from state to state, read our story on carrying a gun across state lines. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.

Judge Keith Gregory sentenced Olivares, 33, to life without parole on the murder count. The coverage of the verdict did not say whether the defense plans to appeal.

A cold case solved by a DNA sample

Hedgepeth was found beaten to death in her off-campus apartment in September 2012. Her roommate testified that Hedgepeth, the designated driver that night, drove the two of them home from a club around 2 a.m. The roommate, who was drunk and sick, left with a friend and returned hours later to find her body.

The case went unsolved for nine years. Olivares was arrested in 2021 after a DNA sample submitted to the state crime lab matched a profile from the original scene. ABC reported that the sample was taken after a traffic stop for driving while intoxicated. When Chapel Hill police announced the charge, Assistant Police Chief Celisa Lehew said the investigation was not complete and gave few other details.

At trial, the forensic evidence was the center of the state's case. Experts testified that Olivares's fingerprints and palm print were on a wine bottle at the scene. His DNA was found on Hedgepeth's body, on a note written on a fast-food bag, and on a blood-covered rum bottle that investigators identified as the weapon. According to testimony reported by ABC, the DNA on the rum bottle top was 48.6 tredecillion times more likely to come from Hedgepeth and Olivares than from two unknown, unrelated people.

"We know who did it. The forensic evidence is screaming his name," Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca told the jury in closing, according to ABC. Special prosecutor Lisa Coltrane said Olivares "left his DNA like confetti all over that room."

What the defense argued

The defense never disputed that Olivares's DNA was there. It disputed what the DNA meant. In his opening statement, defense attorney James Rainsford told jurors that "finding something doesn't mean a crime occurred. You have to connect them."

The defense pointed to gaps in the investigation. A friend who picked up the roommate said he saw what looked like blood on her hands. A downstairs neighbor reported loud thumps between 3 and 4 a.m. Police did not search some areas of the apartment and later lost possible blood evidence from the bathroom.

In closing, the defense said investigators had "tunnel vision" and treated Olivares as a monster rather than a 19-year-old who may have had consensual sex with Hedgepeth days earlier. "Maybe he had too much to drink, maybe he forgot about an encounter," defense attorney Jason Murphy said. The defense called no witnesses, and Olivares did not testify.

Prosecutors also offered a theory that Olivares had been at a neighbor's barbecue that night and returned angry. ABC reported that no witness corroborated that theory, and the jury did not need it to convict.

Why the verdict matters

Cold cases built on a database hit often turn on the same question the defense raised here. A DNA match can prove contact. Whether it proves a crime depends on timing, context and how the scene was handled. Lost evidence and unsearched rooms give the defense room to argue doubt, and they are the kind of issues appellate lawyers typically examine after a conviction.

The trial also played out in Durham, where the Duke lacrosse case showed two decades ago what happens when DNA evidence is mishandled. This time the jury found the science left no reasonable doubt. Like the Keefe D verdict in the Tupac case, it shows that old cases can still reach a jury, and that the defense fight in those trials is usually about the gaps the years leave behind.

It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

The name itself is a provocation. Dawah is an Arabic word for the call or invitation to Islam, and Kehati plays on it to signal the conversation he wants to have, a confident case for Jewish identity made across the lines that usually divide people.

From peace activist to skeptic

Kehati describes a turn that many Israelis will recognize. He spent years believing in simple solutions to the conflict. Over time he became skeptical of them, not because he stopped wanting peace, but because he came to believe the conflict has religious roots that political formulas ignore.

That view shapes the hardest parts of the conversation. He and Rosenberg discuss whether antisemitism in parts of the Muslim world is rooted in historical power dynamics, what happens when interpretations of the Koran clash with Jewish sovereignty, and whether peace is possible if old solutions are set aside. He also argues that settlers embody a core of Jewish devotion, a position many listeners will push back on, and the episode lets him make the case in full.

Building bridges anyway

What keeps the episode from being only an argument is the other half of his work. Kehati talks about real dialogue between settlers and Palestinians, and a vision of mutual recognition built on honesty about what each side believes. He describes staying calm in heated confrontations, and seeing adversaries as teachers rather than enemies.

The thread running through it all is emunah, the Hebrew word for faith. Kehati argues that holding firmly to your convictions is what makes hope possible in hard times.

Keep listening

The episode ends with a question for viewers about balancing faith and logic when facing adversity. For more conversations on Israel and Jewish identity, hear Rabbi Uriel Romano on why antisemitism mutates like a virus and the panel's visit to the Gaza border three years after October 7.

Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the department's Civil Rights Division, first announced the plan on August 17, according to CBS News, which called it a record deployment. By comparison, CBS reported, the department sent 714 people to 86 jurisdictions in 27 states for the 2024 presidential election. A department official told PBS that 388 monitors were sent during the 2022 midterms.

What monitors can and cannot do

The department says monitors are there to "observe and report" and must not interfere with voting, PBS reported. Any enforcement would come after the election. If monitors see a problem on Election Day, such as voter intimidation, the department says it would escalate the issue and work with local law enforcement. Monitors will not be sent to early voting sites.

There is one notable change this year. The department has dropped its long standing rule against prosecutors serving as monitors, a senior official confirmed to PBS, though the official said prosecutors would not personally prosecute any violations they observed. The official said all monitors received a training video, are nonpartisan and are on a "tight leash."

David Becker, a former attorney in the department's voting section, told PBS the scale is "not normal, but I'm not particularly concerned." He added that the agency does not have "blanket authority to be everywhere" and that monitors must follow state and local rules on who may enter a polling place. The department says it is focusing on "high-population areas because that's where the most voters are" and on places with past problems with language or disability access.

How the states are responding

The reaction does not split neatly along party lines. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said her office received a letter naming Adams County, northeast of Denver, as a monitoring site, according to PBS. The letter says, "Our monitors only observe and take notes." She called the department "hostile" to free and fair elections and said she sees no "reasonable basis" for the monitors.

Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican, was less concerned. He told PBS that monitors in his state may enter a polling place like any voter but cannot go past the voter ID checkpoint, and said of the increase, "That's nothing." He said even one monitor in Kansas would be "overkill" and suggested the effort may be a "feel-good measure" for the department.

The Wyoming episode

Critics point to the August 18 primary in Wyoming. Two monitors asked a local official about poll worker training and new equipment and sought to look at vote tabulators, and the official said she had no advance warning, PBS reported. A department official acknowledged, "we didn't, unfortunately, inform the local clerk ahead of time." The Campaign Legal Center, a voting rights legal group, said the Wyoming monitors "improperly sought access to voting machines" and urged Congress to limit observers to monitoring and documenting compliance with federal law.

Asked about reports that some monitors had worked for partisan election challengers, the senior official told PBS the department had seen no "specific facts" of misconduct during the primaries. The official also said monitors are not checking voters' citizenship before they enter polling places.

The bigger picture

The deployment comes as the administration presses states on noncitizen voting. The Civil Rights Division has filed 31 lawsuits seeking unredacted state voter rolls, CBS reported, and judges have blocked the requests in 23 of them. This week a federal judge curbed DHS field operations looking for noncitizen voters in nine states, and the department is in a federal appeals court trying to make California set aside mail ballots from people it calls likely noncitizens.

Monitoring is not new. CBS reported that the Civil Rights Division sends monitors "to ensure compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act," which bars discrimination in voting. What is new is the scale, the use of prosecutors and the political climate around it.

Where the line falls between watching an election and pressuring one is the kind of question the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

The International Maritime Organization has logged 120 incidents in the strait and the wider Middle East since the conflict started, according to Reuters. More than 30 very large crude carriers, each able to carry about 2 million barrels of oil, have been damaged, 11 of them in October.

Who is firing

Raydan told Reuters that Iran is stepping up attacks to slow the recovery in shipments and keep pressure on energy markets ahead of the U.S. midterm elections on November 3. Reuters had earlier reported, citing two senior Iranian officials, that Tehran was adopting such tactics. The Reuters report included no response from the Iranian or U.S. governments.

The United States is applying pressure of its own. U.S. Central Command continues to enforce its blockade of Iranian ports and has redirected 130 merchant vessels, Lloyd's List Intelligence reported on October 8. The same brief counted at least 13 attacks on tankers or gas carriers since September 28.

Iran's commanders have been defiant in public. Gen. Ali Abdollahi, chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, said Iran "will not allow U.S. warships to enter the Persian Gulf or approach Iran's territorial waters" and warned that U.S. forces would never return to the strait, Fortune reported, citing the state-run IRNA news agency.

Why ships keep coming

The attacks have not stopped the traffic. Greece-based consultancy Marisks counted a dozen ships attacked between October 5 and 11, the highest weekly total of the war, and called October "the most intense period of maritime attacks in and around the Strait of Hormuz" since hostilities escalated in March. Even so, shipowners have grown more willing to load cargo inside the Gulf, Reuters reported, drawn by daily freight rates above $1 million and steeper discounts from regional producers.

Lloyd's List Intelligence counted at least 477 transits by ships not linked to Iran in September, the most since the war began. Much of the oil moves through a ship-to-ship transfer network in the Gulf of Oman, and growing congestion there is pushing some charterers toward faster routes, the brief said.

The British maritime security service UKMTO had recorded 135 incidents related to the conflict as of October 16, and said it struggles to capture the full picture because ship operators report voluntarily, according to Reuters.

The stakes

Before the war, about 20 million barrels of oil a day, roughly a fifth of seaborne oil trade, moved through the strait, according to Wikipedia's account of the crisis. Iran declared the strait closed on March 4, and the U.S. Navy began blockading Iranian ports on April 13.

Markets felt it quickly. Brent crude passed $100 a barrel on March 8 for the first time in four years and later peaked at $126.

Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh argued over what the strait means for American interests on Episode 65, which we wrote up in our story on that debate.

The stories he tells are vivid. A home invasion that turned into a shootout at his house. A drug case that carried a 25 year mandatory minimum. And a second act that took him to Medellín, Colombia, where he still spends much of his time. Returning guest Johnny Weekes, the attorney who helped him through that case, joins to explain the legal side.

The law that changed everything

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, became law in 1970 as part of the Organized Crime Control Act. Before it, prosecutors had to charge mob leaders for specific crimes they could personally be tied to, and bosses were good at keeping their hands clean.

RICO let prosecutors charge the enterprise itself. Proving a pattern of racketeering activity, such as extortion, gambling or murder, carried out through an organization, could send its leaders to prison for crimes committed by others on their behalf. Sentences of up to 20 years per count, plus forfeiture of the profits, gave prosecutors enormous leverage.

Why it broke loyalty

That leverage is the point Weekes makes. When everyone in an enterprise faces decades in prison, the incentive to cooperate grows, and the old code of silence starts to crack. The most famous example is John Gotti himself, convicted in 1992 on racketeering charges after his underboss, Sammy Gravano, testified against him. Gotti was sentenced to life and died in federal prison in 2002.

Technology finished the job. The episode traces the shift from payphones and street connections to modern surveillance, where conversations, locations and money leave a record that never goes away.

Second chances

The conversation does not end in the past. Weekes talks about what makes the lawyer and client relationship work, and DiGiorgio talks about direct communication, second chances and how he lives now, down to where he buys his suits.

The episode closes by asking viewers what has changed most about loyalty, trust and consequences over the past 30 years. For more from the courtroom side of the show, read Fred Haddad on fifty years of trial law and how the Tupac case finally reached a verdict.

Judge Jody Luebbers set sentencing for November 16. Prosecutors are asking for 15 years to life in prison.

A day of grief, then a crash

Henderson, who spent 33 years in law enforcement, was directing traffic near the University of Cincinnati during graduation events on May 2, 2025, when Hinton's car struck him. The day before, a Cincinnati police officer had shot and killed Hinton's son, Ryan Hinton, while responding to a report of a stolen vehicle. That shooting was later found justified.

Hinton watched body camera video of his son's death shortly before the crash. Family members said he was "upset" and "agitated" afterward, NBC News reported. Police said he "accelerated quickly" through the intersection where Henderson was standing, with no indication he tried to stop.

The insanity question

The case was always going to turn on Hinton's mind. A court-appointed psychologist found that a serious mental illness impaired his rational judgment, and two other medical professionals agreed. In January, prosecutors dropped their pursuit of the death penalty after agreeing with the defense that Hinton had a serious mental illness at the time, which bars capital punishment under Ohio law.

"He was not in his right mind," defense attorney Clyde Bennett said then. Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich answered that "Mr. Hinton deliberately killed an innocent man."

Agreeing that a defendant is seriously mentally ill is not the same as agreeing he is legally insane, and that gap decided the trial. Under the insanity standard the jury applied, the question was whether Hinton knew the difference between right and wrong when he hit Henderson.

In closing arguments on October 20, Assistant Prosecutor Kate Burroughs opened with four words. "This was murder." She leaned on a crash reconstruction witness who testified that Hinton turned the car at the last moment toward Henderson, and on a forensic psychologist who found Hinton was not insane. Hinton was grieving and angry, she said, but he "made a terrible choice."

Bennett told jurors that an acquittal or a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity was the only just outcome. He argued that Hinton was suicidal and was trying to drive into a utility pole, and that the car struck Henderson by accident. He also told jurors they could not let sympathy for the Henderson family decide the case, and pointed out that the prosecution's own psychologist found no sign Hinton tried to hide evidence or lie about what happened, two signs Bennett said bear on whether a defendant understood his act was wrong.

What comes next

Bennett told FOX19 he was disappointed and believes the body camera video sealed the murder conviction. He plans to file an appeal within 30 days of sentencing.

Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey said, "We have some finality." Prosecutors said Henderson's "family will never truly be able to fill that void."

The verdict shows how hard an insanity defense can be to win, even when both sides agree a defendant is seriously ill. The same tension ran through the Massachusetts case covered in our report on postpartum psychosis and the Lindsay Clancy defense, and through our look at how the legal system handles mental illness.

It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

How reciprocity works now

There is no national concealed carry permit. Each state decides which out-of-state licenses, if any, it will honor, and those agreements vary widely. According to RAND figures cited by IssueVoter's review of the federal bill, 29 states allowed permitless carry as of January 1, 2025, while 21 states and Washington, D.C., still required a permit.

Federal law gives travelers one narrow protection. The safe passage provision, 18 U.S.C. 926A, lets a person who may lawfully possess a gun transport it through a state with stricter rules, as long as the trip runs between two places where possession is legal. The gun must be unloaded and kept out of reach of the passenger compartment, or locked in a container other than the glove compartment or console when the vehicle has no separate trunk.

That protection covers transport. It does not authorize carrying a loaded handgun for self-defense in a state that does not recognize the traveler's permit.

The bill in Congress

The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, H.R. 38, sponsored by Rep. Richard Hudson, would change that. The House Judiciary Committee approved it 18 to 9 along party lines on March 25, 2025. It was placed on the House Union Calendar in October 2025 and has not received a floor vote.

Under the reported text, as summarized by IssueVoter, a person who is not barred from having a gun under federal law, carries a valid photo ID and either holds a carry permit or may legally carry in their home state could carry a concealed handgun in any other state that allows concealed carry. Private property owners could still ban guns. The bill would also limit when police may arrest or detain someone over gun possession and would let people sue when their rights under the act are violated.

Hudson has argued that "our Second Amendment right does not disappear when we cross invisible state lines." Opponents read the bill very differently. Everytown for Gun Safety says the bill "guts our gun laws and tramples on states' rights, putting everyone at risk," and argues that "there is no nationwide system for verifying out-of-state carry permits." The Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police have also urged Congress to reject it, according to IssueVoter.

The fight moves to Denver

While the bill waits, gun rights groups are testing the question in court. Colorado issues concealed handgun permits only to residents and honors another state's permit only when that state reciprocates. Denver also bans open carry. The National Rifle Association and the Colorado State Shooting Association sued Denver in a case announced August 31, Howeth v. City and County of Denver, on behalf of members from Hawaii and South Carolina, arguing the rules together leave qualified nonresidents no lawful way to carry a handgun in the city.

A second case, Hoffman v. City and County of Denver, was filed September 29 by the Firearms Policy Coalition and Gene Hoffman, a California resident. The group filed an amended complaint on October 6, raising a Second Amendment claim and a challenge under the Constitution's Privileges and Immunities Clause. No response from Denver or Colorado had been reported. Both cases are at an early stage.

At the Supreme Court, the justices on October 5 denied review in Johnson v. Jacobson, a petition challenging state firearm license reciprocity rules. It was one of 48 gun-related petitions turned away on the first day of the new term.

For now, the rule for travelers is the same as it has been. Whether a permit is good depends on the law of the state where the gun is carried, not the state that issued it. Carrying between states, and the mistakes gun owners make when they do, came up on Episode 70, when Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Larry Schweiker took on stand your ground and open carry.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued the ruling in a suit brought by the California Nurses Association, National Nurses United, the Voto Latino Foundation, San Francisco and Santa Clara County, Al Jazeera reported. The states covered are California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.

What DHS was doing

According to Axios, the operations ran under the administration's Unlawful Voter Initiative, and court filings show officers were told to prioritize those nine states. The judge's order described a list of targets that DHS built from sources including state voter rolls and commercial data, Axios reported. Agents conducted field interviews about voters' citizenship, and some local offices posted photos of agents knocking on doors, Al Jazeera reported. The plaintiffs said some U.S. citizens were wrongly flagged and questioned.

The order bars field operations and interviews under the initiative that involve, or are likely to involve, U.S. citizens, Axios reported. It also blocks operations against likely citizens in states that rely on records produced by the administration's voter matching policy.

The judge's reasoning

Judge Martínez-Olguín found the plaintiffs had offered substantial evidence that the government's conduct was interfering with their members' work encouraging people to vote in the midterms, according to Axios. She wrote that the operations create "an objectively reasonable fear of law enforcement entanglements" that discourages citizens from helping others vote, Al Jazeera reported.

She also questioned the data. The judge warned of a high likelihood of error because there is no federal database of the citizenship status of U.S. residents, Axios reported. A whistleblower disclosure published in September by Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Alex Padilla alleged that the initiative required federal employees to misrepresent themselves on state voter lookup tools, and the Associated Press reported that critics say DHS voter data can be unreliable and differ from state records.

Rochester station WHEC reported that the judge briefly put the ruling on hold to give the administration time to appeal, and that the investigation in the nine states "will remain on pause until polls close on Election Day."

The government's side

DHS defended the work. The department said its investigations are aimed at identifying and removing noncitizens who vote and that it has no plans to question people it believes are U.S. citizens, Al Jazeera reported. In court, government lawyers argued, according to Axios, that DHS reasonably used the best data available for its law enforcement role, even if the data was imperfect, and that the intimidation claims were too vague.

The administration has made noncitizen voting a central issue before the midterms. Days earlier, the Justice Department announced charges against 28 lawful permanent residents in California, including false statements on naturalization applications and fraudulent voter registration. Those defendants are presumed innocent. The department is also asking a federal appeals court to make California set aside mail ballots from about 20,000 people it calls likely noncitizens, which we cover in a separate story.

The plaintiffs welcomed the ruling. A lawyer for the groups said DHS "built its lists on bad data" and "never checked how often it was wrong," Al Jazeera reported. Benjamin Farley, supervisory counsel for democracy defense at the National Immigration Law Center, called the ruling "a clear rebuke" and said, "No armed federal agent is going to stop us from casting our vote."

How the intimidation law works

The Voting Rights Act makes it unlawful to intimidate, threaten or coerce anyone for voting or for helping others vote. Courts look at whether conduct would reasonably make people afraid to take part, which is why the judge's finding about a "reasonable fear" matters. Noncitizen voting is already a federal crime, and the open question in this case is how the government goes about finding it. For more on how citizenship questions play out in court, see our story on what it takes to revoke a citizenship.

Federal agents at the door weeks before an election is the kind of clash between law enforcement power and individual rights that the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

Israel apologized and said its forces had mistaken the ship for an Egyptian vessel. Official American and Israeli inquiries concluded it was a case of mistaken identity, though a review prepared for President Lyndon Johnson by Clark Clifford described the failures as gross negligence. Israel paid $3.32 million in 1968 for the families of the dead, $3.57 million in 1969 to the wounded, and $6 million in 1980 to settle the claim for damage to the ship. The commanding officer, Cmdr. William McGonagle, kept the Liberty afloat despite wounds to his leg and arm and received the Medal of Honor, presented at the Washington Navy Yard rather than the White House.

Why the debate never ended

Many survivors rejected the mistaken identity account. They pointed to the good visibility that day and the large American flag they say the ship was flying, while Israeli pilots and boat commanders reported seeing no flag. Critics also argue that the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry was rushed, finishing in about ten days, and that no Israeli personnel testified. A private committee chaired by retired Adm. Thomas Moorer later found Israel culpable. Others who have studied the Israeli and American records have concluded the attack was a tragic error in the confusion of a fast moving war.

More than half a century later, the arguments have hardly moved. Declassified documents have been read to support both sides, and the story still comes up whenever Americans argue about the relationship between the United States and Israel.

Why it came up on the show

On Episode 65, during a debate over the war with Iran and Israel's influence on American policy, Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh stop to ask the question directly. Accident, or something more? The segment is a good example of how the panel works, laying out the evidence and letting the disagreement stand rather than forcing a tidy answer.

For the rest of that conversation, read our story on the Iran debate. For more history from the show, see why the Middle East has been contested for 5,000 years and Rabbi Uriel Romano on how antisemitism mutates.

The 45 page indictment was unsealed Thursday, ABC News reported. Lucas, 82, faces five of the eight counts, including conspiracy to distribute and possess marijuana, conspiracy to launder money, money laundering and bribery, according to CBS News. CBS described the case as an alleged bribery and racketeering scheme, and Attorney General Todd Blanche called it a "large-scale RICO drug trafficking and money laundering conspiracy." Lucas is presumed innocent, and the charges are allegations that prosecutors must prove in court.

What prosecutors allege

Prosecutors say Lucas has led the scheme since at least 2019 and directed the purchase and sale of more than 100 kilograms of illegal marijuana, CBS reported. They allege she "used her political influence in Virginia to enact legislation and regulations" that benefited herself and her co-defendants, and acted to "insulate the alleged criminal enterprise she was running from state law enforcement." ABC noted that recreational marijuana sales are not currently legal in Virginia.

The indictment centers on The Cannabis Outlet, a Portsmouth shop Lucas co-owns. According to CBS, it alleges a senior law enforcement official warned her in several meetings that selling marijuana was illegal, and that the state agriculture department sent the shop violation notices in 2023 and 2024. FBI Director Kash Patel said Lucas accumulated nearly $5 million in ill-gotten gains, CBS reported.

Her co-defendants include her daughters, Lisa Lucas-Burke and Theresa Lucas-Lamb, and her grandson, Ryan Eichelberger, CBS reported. Lucas-Burke is a candidate for the Portsmouth City Council.

The investigation became public in May, when FBI agents searched Lucas's office and the dispensary. Sources told ABC the probe dates back to the Biden administration.

The fight over timing

Blanche rejected claims that the case is political. "We don't do political paybacks," he said at a news conference in Norfolk, according to ABC. "We cannot bring a charge if our purpose is improper, and there's nothing improper about this purpose." He said the probe predates his tenure. Asked about the department's unwritten practice of avoiding overt steps involving political figures within 60 days of an election, he downplayed it, saying, "The Justice Manual speaks very clearly about what the Department of Justice can and can't do." Lucas is not up for re-election this year, but her daughter, who was also charged, is on the ballot, ABC noted.

Lucas answered on X. She called the case an attack on "an 82-year-old great-grandmother," said "I grew up under Jim Crow" and wrote, "I spent my life fighting back, and I'm not stopping now," CBS reported.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, criticized the timing, saying it erodes trust in the Justice Department, while stressing that Lucas is presumed innocent until proven guilty, according to CBS.

The redistricting backdrop

Lucas, who has served in the General Assembly since 1991, was a leading force behind Virginia's 2026 redistricting push. Voters narrowly approved a constitutional amendment on April 21 that let lawmakers draw a congressional map favoring Democrats in 10 of 11 districts. The Virginia Supreme Court threw out the amendment on May 8, finding lawmakers had not followed the required procedure, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to revive it a week later.

How a racketeering conspiracy charge works

Federal racketeering law lets prosecutors charge people who agree to run an "enterprise" through a pattern of crimes. In a conspiracy case, the government generally does not have to prove each defendant personally committed every act, only that they agreed to join the scheme. Defense lawyers often attack the alleged agreement itself and the credibility of cooperating witnesses. For how the same law was used against organized crime, see our story on how RICO broke the old mob.

A sitting legislative leader charged under racketeering law weeks before a national election is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

The case is being handled by Homeland Security Investigations and the Justice Department. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin called it a strong case and said investigators expect to present it to a grand jury. According to CBS News, the inquiry centers on immigration paperwork her family filed decades ago, completed by her late father when she was a child.

Omar has not been charged with any crime. She denies wrongdoing and, in a response after the search, called it an "attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement." She became a naturalized citizen in 2000.

The fight over the search

Omar's attorneys, Amy Jeffress and Joshua Matz, sent prosecutors a letter demanding the return of her property. They argue investigators ignored a magistrate judge's orders meant to protect a sitting member of Congress and her legislative materials, and they question the timing so close to the November midterms. The Justice Department called the letter riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies and said investigators complied with every court order.

On Episode 94, Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh start where any defense lawyer would. What did agents have to show a judge to get the warrant, how far can a warrant for phones and devices reach, and what does a grand jury subpoena to family members tell you about where prosecutors are headed?

Can a citizen be deported?

Not while she is a citizen. A naturalized American can lose citizenship only through a court process, and only then could removal even come into play.

There are two routes. In a civil denaturalization case, the government has to prove that citizenship was obtained illegally or by concealing or misrepresenting a material fact, and it has to meet a high bar of clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence. In 2017, in Maslenjak v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a false statement only counts if it actually played a role in getting citizenship. The criminal route requires a conviction for unlawfully obtaining naturalization, and those charges generally must be brought within ten years. Civil denaturalization has no such deadline.

Her immigration history was also reviewed in 2019, and the Post reported that career officials found insufficient evidence of wrongdoing to warrant a full investigation. Her lawyers have asked that records from that review be preserved, the AP reported.

What else the panel covers

The episode also gets into allegations about her marriage and tax filings that critics have raised for years and that Omar has denied, campaign finance questions, and her conduct at congressional hearings. The second half turns to Donald Trump's petition asking the Supreme Court to revive his lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, which we break down in a separate story.

As always, an investigation is not an accusation and an accusation is not a conviction. Watch the full breakdown and tell the panel what you think in the comments.

Tibbett is presumed innocent. The reports reviewed for this story did not say whether he has entered a plea or who represents him. He is being held on a $1 million bond, the paper reported.

A death in East Central

Officers found Turner's body in an alley near South Ivory Street and East Pacific Avenue early on the morning of November 4, 1986. Her scarf and sweater were wrapped around her neck. In 2023, the paper reported that investigators saw signs of a brief struggle beside a garage and believed the killer had driven her there. Witnesses saw her get into a mid-1970s Ford Torino around 2:30 a.m.

Turner's life had been hard. Raised in California, she entered foster care at 11 after her mother's breakdown, and her father died a year later. She had her daughter, Manieka, at 15, and later struggled with mental illness. Her sister, Brenda Lee, said Turner sometimes turned to sex work to get by. "She did it just to eat," Lee said. When Manieka ran away at 16, Turner came to Washington to find her. Manieka was later found in Seattle and attended her mother's funeral.

For decades the case stalled. A 1998 task force reviewed 18 unsolved deaths of women in the area since 1984, including Turner's. Police saw "commonalities" with other cases but nothing solid. "It's not enough to hang your hat on," Sgt. Gene Ziegler said at the time.

The tip and the envelope

Police say DNA evidence, combined with witness statements from early in the investigation, gave them probable cause. According to court records described by the Spokesman-Review, a confidential caller to the old Secret Witness tip program named Tibbett as a possible suspect back then, saying he drove a vehicle similar to the one Turner was last seen getting into. Records say he drove a bronze 1986 Ford Elite registered to his East Decatur home, the same house where he was arrested.

Investigators then mailed Tibbett a letter asking him to return a confirmation that his stolen car had been recovered. DNA from the glue seal on the returned envelope matched male DNA found under Turner's fingernails, according to court records.

Police said the arrest would not have been possible without the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney's Office and Othram, a Texas company that uses forensic genetic genealogy and genome sequencing on degraded DNA samples.

Questions for the defense

Ruse letters like this one are a familiar investigative tactic, and they are often the first thing a defense lawyer examines, since the person never knowingly agreed to a DNA test. A match under fingernails can show contact. By itself it does not show when that contact happened or what it meant, which is where a defense would likely focus. Those questions get sorted out in pretrial motions and, if the case gets there, in front of a jury.

Police are also looking at whether Tibbett may be linked to the deaths of other women, the Spokesman-Review reported. Turner's death followed the 1980s killings of Debbi Finnern and Ruby Doss. A former Pasco police officer, Richard Aguirre, was found guilty in 2023 of killing Doss after DNA tied him to the case and was sentenced the following year to 25 years in prison. No one has been arrested in the 1984 stabbing of Finnern.

Detectives are asking anyone who called Secret Witness about the case, or who ran the program and took calls, to come forward. "We encourage anyone to come forward, even if the detail seems insignificant," police said in a release. Labs now sit at the center of investigations old and new, from this one to the open search for Nancy Guthrie. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks in Florida dismissed the case. He found, among other things, that Trump waited too long to bring his claims and that many of the statements he challenged were "plainly protected by the First Amendment." The judge then ordered Trump and his attorney, Alina Habba, to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit agreed on both counts. Chief Judge William Pryor wrote that the claims were "untimely and otherwise meritless," and the full court declined to take another look, according to SCOTUSblog. Clinton's response is due 30 days after the petition is docketed, and none had been filed when SCOTUSblog reported on the petition.

What the petition asks

Trump's petition, docketed as No. 26-518, puts two questions to the justices. First, should the deadline for his claims have been paused because of his unique role and responsibilities as president? Second, can a court sanction a president and his lawyers for making what the petition calls a substantial, unresolved argument that the deadline should have been extended? Before filing, his lawyers had sought more time from the Court.

The first question is about tolling, the legal rule that can stop the clock on a statute of limitations in special circumstances. The lower courts said those circumstances did not apply here.

Why the sanctions matter beyond this case

Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires lawyers to certify that a filing has factual support and is backed by existing law or a good faith argument for changing it. Judges can also punish bad faith litigation under their own inherent authority. Sanctions of this size against a former president and his counsel are rare.

On Episode 94, Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh take both sides seriously. The same episode opens with the federal investigation into Ilhan Omar. If the argument for more time was genuinely open, should a lawyer be punished for making it? And if courts let every novel argument slide, what stops a well funded litigant from using lawsuits as a weapon?

The Supreme Court agrees to hear only a small fraction of the petitions it receives, so the most likely outcome is that the justices decline. If they take it, the tolling question could reach well beyond Trump.

The panel asked viewers where they stand. Should the Court revive the suit, or were the sanctions justified?

The governor was careful about what her decision does not do. "My decision is not a determination of innocence," she said. Johnson's conviction stands.

A deputy's killing and a single witness

Hardy was killed on July 19, 1995, while working off-duty security at the Crown Sterling Suites hotel in Birmingham, the Alabama Reflector reported. He had gone to check on a noise in the parking lot, and the AP reported he was shot twice in the head.

Police arrested Johnson, Ardargus Ford and four other men. Charges against three were dropped, and co-defendant Ardargus Ford was acquitted at his second trial. Johnson's first trial ended in a mistrial, according to a case history on Wikipedia. At his second trial in 1998, he was convicted and jurors recommended death by a 10 to 2 vote.

The case rested heavily on Violet Ellison, who testified that she overheard a man identifying himself as "Toforest" admit to the shooting during a three-way phone call. Prosecutors did not tell the defense that the state paid Ellison a $5,000 reward, the Reflector reported. Johnson has always said he is innocent and was across town that night, and several witnesses have said in affidavits that they saw him elsewhere.

Doubts from inside the prosecutor's office

What sets the case apart is who has questioned it. Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr, elected in 2018, wrote in a 2024 court filing that the "evidence in this case has unraveled over 20 years," the AP reported. Former Attorney General Bill Baxley, former Alabama Chief Justices Sonny Hornsby and Drayton Nabers, and several former judges and prosecutors have backed a new trial.

So far the courts have not granted relief. State appeals courts upheld the conviction, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the issue of Ellison's payment. In November 2024, Johnson's lawyers filed a new challenge citing a 2020 investigation by Carr's office.

Attorney General Steve Marshall opposed clemency. In an October 16 letter, he urged Ivey to reject the request and "respect the jury's decision," the AP reported, a letter TheGrio also described. His office also opposes Johnson's request for a new court hearing, the Reflector reported.

None of the reports reviewed for this story included a statement from Hardy's family. His killing, more than 30 years ago, remains at the center of a case that has moved through four trials and decades of appeals.

Commutation, pardon or exoneration

The three words mean very different things. A commutation reduces a punishment but leaves the conviction in place. A pardon, by contrast, absolves the individual of guilt. An exoneration, as the National Registry of Exonerations defines it, occurs when a convicted person is officially cleared after new evidence, through a finding of innocence, a full pardon, an acquittal or dismissed charges. That is what happened to the five men in the Central Park jogger case.

Johnson has received only the first. "Toforest Johnson is innocent. Now it is up to the courts to overturn his conviction and grant him a new trial," his lawyer, Ty Alper, said. "We will keep fighting until he is home with his family."

Ivey has overseen 27 executions and has now commuted three death sentences, the AP reported. The Reflector noted she spared Rocky Myers in 2025 over questions about his guilt and commuted the sentence of Charles "Sonny" Burton in March.

Undisclosed witness payments and a prosecutor's office that doubts its own verdict make it the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.

The Court never reached the merits. Four justices did not take part, and the five who remained could not act on the case in the coming term. Under a federal statute covering that situation, the lower court's judgment was affirmed, with the same effect as a ruling by an equally divided Court.

A song, a 1963 contract and a termination notice

Vetter wrote the song with the late Donald Smith, who died in a plane crash in 1972. The Swingin' Medallions recorded the best known version in 1966. In 1963, the two writers transferred their copyrights to Windsong Music Publishers.

Federal copyright law gives creators a second chance at deals like that one. A termination provision lets authors take back rights they signed away, on the idea that a young writer has little bargaining power and cannot know what a work will be worth. For grants made before 1978, the transfer must be at least 56 years old, and the work cannot have been made for hire, according to the Maryland Daily Record.

Vetter sent his termination notice to Windsong in 2019, effective in 2022. Resnik Music Group bought Windsong later that year. In 2023, Vetter sued Resnik in federal court in Baton Rouge, alleging the company refused to give up its claim to the song outside the United States.

In 2025, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ruled for Vetter and declared him the "sole owner of all right, title and interest throughout the world" of the reclaimed copyright, according to Reuters. The New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit affirmed in January. The four major publishers then acquired Resnik's interest and took the fight to Washington.

Why the labels say it matters

The publishers told the Court the ruling "unsettled 50 years of industry practice" and "sharply diverges from the statutory text and settled understandings." The fight is over whether a termination reaches only the American rights in a song or the rights everywhere else too. If it reaches the whole world, the labels argued, agreements worth billions of dollars are at risk.

Vetter's lawyers answered in their own filing that those concerns were overblown.

The justices who did not participate were Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson, CelebrityAccess reported. None gave a reason. The Court needs six justices for a quorum, and their absence left it without one.

A win without a rule

The outcome is a clear victory for one songwriter, but it does not settle the question for everyone else. Because the Supreme Court issued no opinion of its own, the result does not establish a nationwide rule, and how other courts will handle similar disputes remains unsettled, as Interspace Music noted.

Law360 put it bluntly in a headline, saying the ruling leaves worldwide rights in legal limbo. Publishers, catalog buyers and songwriters with old contracts may now face different results depending on where a dispute is filed.

Music rights fights rarely make the evening news, but they decide who gets paid when a song lives longer than anyone expected. For another story about a song with a second life, read how Kosha Dillz turned a track into a movie. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

The Lindsay Clancy trial in Massachusetts is the latest example. After about 40 hours of deliberation, eleven jurors favored a finding of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility and one held out for first-degree murder. Daniel Rosenberg and Michael Dye broke down that split on Episode 90, and our report on the verdict covers the trial itself.

Why one juror can stop a verdict

Federal criminal trials require a unanimous verdict, and since the Supreme Court's 2020 decision in Ramos v. Louisiana, so do state trials for serious crimes. If even one juror cannot be moved, there is no verdict either way.

Before declaring a mistrial, a judge may send the jury back with what lawyers call an Allen charge, named for an 1896 Supreme Court case. It asks jurors in the minority to reconsider their views with an open mind, without giving up an honest conviction. Defense lawyers watch these instructions closely because they can push a holdout toward the majority.

Is a retrial double jeopardy?

No. The Constitution bars trying someone twice for the same offense after an acquittal or conviction, but a hung jury produces neither. Courts have held since the 1800s that a genuinely deadlocked jury is a manifest necessity that allows a new trial.

The options on the table

After a mistrial, prosecutors usually choose one of three paths. They can retry the case, often with adjustments based on what they learned the first time. They can offer a plea deal. Or they can dismiss the charges.

The jury split weighs heavily on that decision. An 11 to 1 vote for the defense signals that a second jury may land in the same place, while a split in the prosecution's favor encourages another try. In an insanity case like Clancy's, there is a fourth consideration, because a finding of lack of criminal responsibility can lead to civil commitment in a psychiatric facility rather than prison.

For the evidence behind the defense, see the postpartum psychosis breakdown from Episode 85. Daniel and Michael walk through that difference, the Massachusetts insanity standard and the defense strategy at trial in the full episode.

Gendron, now 23, was 18 when he killed 10 Black people at the Tops Friendly Market on May 14, 2022. He is already serving life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to state murder charges. The federal case asks a different question, whether he should be executed.

A trial where guilt is not the fight

Gendron faces 27 federal charges, including hate crimes and firearms offenses, according to theGrio. WBEN reported that 20 of those counts make him eligible for the death penalty. He has pleaded not guilty, but his lawyers do not dispute that he carried out the attack.

Investigators found racist writings and online posts showing he planned the attack around white supremacist beliefs, including the "great replacement" conspiracy theory. He drove more than 200 miles from his hometown of Conklin, New York, to a predominantly Black neighborhood. The victims ranged in age from 32 to 86 and included Aaron Salter, a retired police officer working as a security guard.

The Justice Department decided in 2024, under President Joe Biden, to seek the death penalty, the Associated Press reported. The government rejected Gendron's offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

That leaves the defense focused on one goal, saving his life. "At trial, we will offer mitigating evidence about Payton that the jury needs to consider in making its decision," his lawyers said in a statement.

Why jury selection takes so long

When questioning began on October 13, lawyers and the judge interviewed prospective jurors one at a time. One said watching the video Gendron livestreamed during the shooting would be too stressful. Another said other countries might respond to such an attack by "stoning" the offender, but said he could still fairly weigh aggravating and mitigating factors.

In a capital case, both sides need jurors who can genuinely consider either sentence. Federal law requires a unanimous jury before a death sentence can be imposed, which means a single juror can decide the outcome, a point explored in our explainer on what happens when a jury cannot agree. The court plans to seat 12 jurors and six alternates.

Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told the AP the defense will try to reveal "almost every aspect of his life before he committed his crime and even after he committed his crime." Gendron has already renounced his white supremacist views in state court, tearfully, according to the AP. How much weight a jury gives that kind of evidence is the core of the coming penalty phase.

Families divided

The victims' families do not speak with one voice. Buffalo Common Council member Zeneta Everhart, whose son survived the shooting, called the attack "domestic terrorism" and said it is important to pursue the death penalty.

Wayne Jones Sr., whose mother, Celestine Chaney, was killed, said he would rather Gendron spend the rest of his life in prison. "I really think that he should just sit and have to think about it year after year after year and just be miserable," he said.

The case also raises a question defense lawyers ask often. Why try a defendant again when he is already serving life without parole? The answer is that the state and federal governments are separate sovereigns, each with its own laws and its own penalties. The same principle drives the parallel state and federal cases against Luigi Mangione.

It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

With Halloween less than two weeks away, here is a watch list drawn from the films they cover, grouped the way the conversation unfolds.

The classics that started it

The Exorcist, from 1973, is still the benchmark people measure everything against. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, from 1980, raises the question the episode keeps coming back to. Is a movie scary because of what it shows you, or because of what it makes you wait for?

The slasher era

John Carpenter's Halloween in 1978 set the template. Friday the 13th followed in 1980, and Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. The debate here is which of these hold up for a viewer raised on faster movies, and which survive mostly on nostalgia.

Prestige and Stephen King

The Silence of the Lambs won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1992 and still gets called a masterpiece. Stephen King adaptations get their own segment, including It, the 2017 film that brought Pennywise to a new generation.

Found footage and the new wave

The Blair Witch Project in 1999 proved a tiny budget and a shaky camera could terrify a whole country, and Wes Craven's Scream in 1996 made horror fans laugh at the rules while still following them. The Conjuring universe shows how far supernatural horror has come since.

If you want the 2026 releases, Daniel and Olivia also rated the biggest movies of 2026 on Episode 89. For the newer picks on this one, Olivia and Daniel get into Sinister, Longlegs, The Substance and Backrooms, the feature film built from the internet's favorite liminal space. They also take on the bigger question of why people keep watching scary movies that disappoint them.

Why it works as a family night

The episode ends where a lot of families end up in October, on the couch with the lights off. The best part of a horror marathon is not agreeing on the rankings. It is the arguing afterward.

Their other conversation, inside the mind of a serial killer, pairs well with this list. Watch the full episode for their picks, then tell them in the comments which movie still scares you.

The denial closes one of the early legal fights over Trump's second term push to control independent agencies. It also shows how much the ground has shifted since she was removed.

How the case got here

Trump moved to fire Wilcox shortly after his second inauguration. The federal law governing the board allowed a member to be removed only for "neglect of duty or malfeasance in office," and the president did not claim either one.

Lower courts first ordered her reinstated. In May 2025, the Supreme Court paused those orders and allowed her removal to take effect while the case continued. The unsigned order said the government faced a greater risk of harm from letting a removed officer keep exercising executive power than a wrongly removed officer faced from being kept off the job, according to SCOTUSblog's account of the order.

Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented. She called the order "nothing short of extraordinary" and wrote that it "allows the President to overrule Humphrey's by fiat, again pending our eventual review."

In December 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against Wilcox on the merits. Judge Gregory Katsas, writing for the majority, held that the job protection for board members violates the separation of powers. Wilcox asked the Supreme Court to step in this June.

The rulings that changed the question

Humphrey's Executor, the 1935 decision Kagan referred to, upheld limits on the president's power to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission. For about 90 years it was the main legal support for independent agencies whose leaders could not be removed at will.

This summer, in Trump v. Slaughter, the Court ruled that the president may remove the leaders of nearly all independent federal agencies on his own. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said the FTC now exercises substantial executive power and must be "controlled by the Chief Executive." He added, "If anything more is left of Humphrey's, we overrule it," as law professor Rodger Citron recounted in a SCOTUSblog column.

On the same day, in Trump v. Cook, Roberts wrote that the legal limit on removing a Federal Reserve governor remains valid, resting that exception on "history and tradition." Any "change in that scheme must come from Congress, not the courts," he wrote. Justice Clarence Thomas challenged that historical account.

What it means now

With Slaughter on the books, Wilcox's argument that the NLRB statute protected her had little room left. The Court's refusal to hear her case does not add a new rule. It leaves her removal in place, along with the D.C. Circuit's holding that board members can be removed at will.

The practical effect reaches beyond one official. The NLRB decides disputes between unions and employers, and its members can now be replaced whenever the White House wants new leadership. The Slaughter majority reasoned that agencies wielding executive power must answer to the president. Critics, including the dissenting justices in 2025, warned that it strips away a long standing check.

The fight over how far presidential power runs is not limited to agencies. We looked at the same question in the war powers context in who decides when America goes to war. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not take part in the Mohammad case, according to the Court's docket as tracked by SCOTUSblog. The order leaves in place a federal appeals court ruling that the government could withdraw from the deals.

How the deals fell apart

The petitioners are Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who is accused of being the mastermind of the attacks, along with Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak bin 'Atash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi. All three have been held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly two decades and face charges before a military commission.

In July 2024, prosecutors reached plea agreements with the three men. They would plead guilty and serve life in prison instead of facing a possible death sentence. Prosecutors called the deals "the best path to finality and justice," according to a SCOTUSblog explainer.

Two days after the deals were announced, then Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin moved to withdraw from them, citing his own authority over such agreements. Two military courts ruled that the agreements were binding anyway. In July 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned those rulings and agreed with the government that it could back out.

What the defense argued

The defense framed the case as a question about appellate power, not just about these defendants. Their petition asked whether an appeals court can use the All Writs Act to issue a writ of mandamus reviewing a procedural order in a criminal case when the government has no statutory right to appeal that order.

The men argued that Austin had no authority to withdraw from agreements they say were already being carried out. They also said the D.C. Circuit lacked the power to give the government the "extraordinary" relief it asked for. Three amicus briefs were filed at the petition stage, including one from the group September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to stay out. He wrote that the appeals court "properly held that it had jurisdiction" and "properly cleared the way for those prosecutions to continue." He also argued the ruling "ensured that" the judgment on the death penalty "lies in politically accountable hands." He agreed the case was nationally significant but said that was a reason to deny review.

Why defense lawyers are watching

In ordinary criminal courts, a signed plea agreement is treated as something close to a contract, and backing out of one after a defendant has relied on it is rare. The September 11 case tested whether the same expectations hold in a military commission, where a senior official has authority over the deal.

The denial does not mean the justices endorsed the D.C. Circuit's reasoning. It means they chose not to review it, and the capital case goes forward without the plea deals. All three men are presumed innocent unless convicted.

Plea strategy has shaped other high profile cases too, including the state and federal split in the Luigi Mangione case. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.

Those four films are still the ones trial lawyers bring up first. Some hold up well against a real courtroom. One of them, beloved as it is, shows a jury doing things a judge would never allow.

12 Angry Men, and the jury that broke the rules

Sidney Lumet's 1957 film came out of real jury duty. Writer Reginald Rose said he served on a manslaughter jury in New York in 1954 and realized few people knew what happened in deliberations, according to Wikipedia).

The film made a generation believe in reasonable doubt. Justice Sonia Sotomayor has said seeing it in college helped push her toward law. She has also pointed out its problems. At a 2010 Fordham Law screening, she said Juror 8 bringing in a similar knife, the jurors doing outside research and their broad inferences would not be allowed in a real jury room and would likely have produced a mistrial. As a lower-court judge, she said, she sometimes told jurors not to follow the film's example, because its conclusions rest on speculation.

That is the gap between drama and law. Real jurors decide on the evidence admitted in court, not on experiments they run themselves.

My Cousin Vinny, the comedy lawyers teach

The 1992 comedy is the surprise on the list, and few legal films get more respect from working lawyers. Director Jonathan Lynn holds a law degree from Cambridge, and it shows, according to Wikipedia.

Judges have cited it from the bench. In a 2019 D.C. Circuit opinion, then-Chief Judge Merrick Garland wrote that Vinny "taught a master class in cross-examination." Judge Richard Posner praised its lessons on handling a hostile judge, using props in cross-examination and working with experts. Justice Antonin Scalia pointed to it as an example of a defendant's right to choose his own lawyer.

The film gets the building blocks right. Vinny uses discovery to get the prosecution's file. He picks apart eyewitnesses on what they could actually see. And Mona Lisa Vito, played by Oscar winner Marisa Tomei, is qualified as an expert on the strength of her real knowledge of cars, which is how expert testimony is supposed to work.

Anatomy of a Murder, written by a defense lawyer

Otto Preminger's 1959 film came from a novel by John D. Voelker, a Michigan lawyer who wrote as Robert Traver. Voelker based it on a 1952 murder case in which he was the defense attorney, according to Wikipedia.

The film follows the building of an irresistible impulse defense, a form of temporary insanity, from first client interview to verdict. UCLA law professor Michael Asimow called it "probably the finest pure trial movie ever made." The judge was played by Joseph N. Welch, the real lawyer who confronted Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings. Chicago briefly banned the film over its frank language until Preminger won in federal court.

The rest of the list

Several other films on the ABA list draw directly from real proceedings. Much of the testimony in Inherit the Wind comes from the transcript of the Scopes trial. A Few Good Men grew out of a real military case prosecuted by David Iglesias. Reversal of Fortune is based on Alan Dershowitz's own account of the Claus von Bulow appeal.

The best courtroom movies do not get every rule right. What they get right is the work, the preparation, the cross-examination and the slow building of doubt. For a real trial lawyer's view of that work, read Fred Haddad on 50 years of trying cases. It is the kind of subject the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

What the deadline is and why it exists

A statute of limitations sets how long the government has to bring charges. It bars the prosecution. It does not declare anyone innocent.

The Supreme Court laid out the reasoning in Toussie v. United States in 1970. "The purpose of a statute of limitations is to limit exposure to criminal prosecution to a certain fixed period of time," the Court wrote. Such limits are "designed to protect individuals from having to defend themselves against charges when the basic facts may have become obscured by the passage of time." Witnesses die, memories fade and alibis become impossible to prove. The deadlines also push police and prosecutors to act promptly.

The federal rules, five years or never

For most federal crimes, the default is five years. Under 18 U.S.C. 3282, no one may be prosecuted "for any offense, not capital," unless charges are filed within five years of the offense, except where another law says otherwise.

Capital crimes have no deadline at all. 18 U.S.C. 3281 says an indictment for any offense punishable by death "may be found at any time without limitation." Congress has also removed the limit for federal kidnapping of a minor and for most federal felony sex offenses and sex trafficking.

DNA has its own federal rule. When DNA testing implicates an identified person in a felony, 18 U.S.C. 3297 gives prosecutors a fresh period, equal to the original limit, that starts from the DNA identification. Our explainer covers how DNA evidence is used in court.

How the states differ

Each state writes its own deadlines, and they vary widely. Murder is usually not time barred. California, for example, allows prosecution "at any time" for crimes punishable by death or life in prison under Penal Code 799. North Carolina sets no limit on felonies at all, according to a survey of state rules.

Sexual assault is where the law has moved the most. California removed its 10-year limit for rape in 2016, and Illinois removed its limit for sexual assault and aggravated sexual abuse of children in 2017, PBS NewsHour reported. The same report said more than half the states allowed exceptions when DNA evidence emerges. RAINN says DNA can lengthen or eliminate the time limit in some states.

Not everyone backed those changes. The ACLU of California opposed the 2016 bill over the risk of wrongful convictions. "The statute of limitations is there for a reason," Natasha Minsker of the ACLU of California told PBS. The reforms also have a hard boundary. In Stogner v. California in 2003, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that a state cannot revive a prosecution after the old deadline has already expired.

Pausing the clock

Lawyers call stopping the clock "tolling." Federal law says no statute of limitations "shall extend to any person fleeing from justice," under 18 U.S.C. 3290. Some states pause the clock while the accused lives out of state. Some prosecutors charge an unnamed "John Doe" identified only by a DNA profile, which stops the clock before anyone knows a name. Many deadlines for crimes against children start counting only when the victim turns 18.

A cold case, 30 years on

In February, Los Angeles County prosecutors charged Brian Walton, 63, with murder in the 1996 killing of Claudia Guevara, a 23-year-old woman whose body was found in a drainage ditch in Azusa, KTLA reported. Prosecutors alleged the killing happened during a rape and said DNA linked him to the crime. District Attorney Nathan Hochman said the family "has waited for an agonizing 30 years to get that call," according to Fox News. Walton is presumed innocent, and the reports reviewed did not say how he has pleaded.

No deadline does not mean no defense. A defendant can still argue that decades of delay violated his right to a speedy trial. It is the kind of question the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.

This article is general information about how the law works, not legal advice.

The case fell apart. Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong had spoken publicly and often about the players' guilt, and it later came out that DNA evidence favorable to the defense had not been fully disclosed. The North Carolina Attorney General's office took over the case in January 2007 at Nifong's request, and on April 11, 2007, Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges and declared the three players innocent. The North Carolina State Bar ordered Nifong disbarred on June 16, 2007.

Why it keeps coming back

On Episode 92, while breaking down the Cornell fraternity case, Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh spend real time on Duke. In the Cornell matter, the district attorney declined to bring criminal charges, and the allegations are now being tested in a civil lawsuit.

The panel's point is not that every campus allegation is false. It is that the decision to charge has to rest on evidence that can survive a courtroom, not on public pressure. Duke showed what happens when a prosecutor decides first and investigates second. Three young men paid a heavy price, and public trust in the system took a hit that has not fully healed.

The lessons defense lawyers still cite

Prosecutors have a duty to turn over evidence that helps the defense, a rule rooted in the Supreme Court's 1963 decision in Brady v. Maryland. Duke became the textbook example of what happens when that duty is ignored.

Public statements by prosecutors are also limited by professional conduct rules, because a case tried in the press can poison a jury pool. And when local prosecutors lose credibility, a case can be handed to a special prosecutor or the state attorney general, which is exactly what happened in North Carolina.

The episode also covers New York's definitions of consent, intoxication and physical helplessness, and why a case prosecutors pass on can still go forward in civil court. For the Cornell side of the story, read our earlier coverage of the civil lawsuit, then watch the panel's full breakdown.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles approved her release on October 1, over the strong objections of Jean's family. It was the first time she was eligible to ask again after the board turned her down in 2024.

The case that drew national attention

On September 6, 2018, Guyger, still in uniform after a shift, walked into Jean's apartment, which was directly above her own, believing it was hers. She said she thought Jean was an intruder and feared for her life. Jean, a 26-year-old accountant from St. Lucia, was unarmed and eating ice cream. He died at a hospital.

A Dallas County jury convicted Guyger of murder on October 1, 2019, after about six hours of deliberation. Jurors had also been allowed to consider manslaughter. The next day, the jury sentenced her to 10 years.

At sentencing, Jean's brother Brandt forgave Guyger and hugged her in the courtroom. Jean's father said he forgave her too, but wanted a stiffer sentence.

Guyger's lawyers appealed, arguing the evidence did not support a murder conviction. A state appeals court upheld the verdict in 2021, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed it in March 2022. In 2024, a civil jury ordered her to pay Jean's family about $98.65 million.

Why the board said yes

The board said it reviewed a "plethora" of information, the Associated Press reported. It found no documented pattern of violent or assaultive arrests or convictions, and noted that she completed programs in her prison treatment plan aimed at helping her find and keep work after release. Her legal team did not respond to the AP's requests for comment.

Guyger first became eligible for parole in 2024, after serving half her sentence. More than 6,000 people signed a petition opposing her release that year, including Jean's family and the Dallas County District Attorney.

Attorney Anthony Farmer, who was not involved in the case, said the board weighs the individual against the severity of the offense, and found Guyger a candidate for release. Prison consultant Bruce Cameron called her a "model inmate" and said serving seven of 10 years was a fair ratio, while acknowledging that some would disagree.

The family's response

Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who has represented the family, told the AP that they "strongly opposed this parole" and "stood up again and again to ask that the full sentence be served." Releasing Guyger after seven years, he wrote, "makes that loss feel even smaller in the eyes of the system," according to KTVU. In a statement, the family said Jean's death "left our family forever dismembered."

In 2021, Texas passed Bo's Law, named for Jean, which requires officers to keep body cameras running throughout an active investigation.

Parole is not the end of a sentence. It is early release under supervision, and the board weighs conduct in prison alongside the severity of the offense. For defense lawyers, the Guyger case shows how much the sentence a jury chooses at trial shapes what happens years later.

The case also raised hard questions about what a person may do when they believe someone has entered their home, a subject covered in our explainer on stand your ground and self-defense law. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

What an arraignment is

In federal court, an arraignment follows an indictment. The U.S. Attorney's Office in western Texas describes it as the hearing where a magistrate judge informs the defendant of the charges and penalties, and it notes that defendants usually plead not guilty at that stage. The federal judiciary says simply that the defendant pleads to the charges at a hearing "known as arraignment."

The rules are brief. Under Rule 10 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, an arraignment must be held "in open court" and has three parts. The court makes sure the defendant has a copy of the indictment or information, reads it aloud or states the "substance of the charge," and asks the defendant to plead.

A defendant can skip the hearing only in limited cases. The defendant and the defense lawyer must sign a written waiver confirming that the defendant has the charging document and is pleading not guilty, and the court must accept it. A defendant can also be arraigned by video if the defendant consents.

How it differs from the first appearance

People often confuse the arraignment with the initial appearance, which usually comes first. At the initial appearance, the federal judiciary explains, a judge tells the defendant the charges, decides whether there is probable cause and decides whether the defendant will be held or released before trial. The arraignment comes after a grand jury returns an indictment.

State courts set their own procedures, so the names and order of these early hearings vary from state to state.

The choices at arraignment

Under Rule 11, a federal defendant may plead not guilty, guilty or nolo contendere, which means no contest and requires the court's consent. If a defendant refuses to plead, the court enters a plea of not guilty.

A not guilty plea at arraignment does not rule out a deal later. It keeps every option open while lawyers review the evidence and talk with prosecutors, a process explained in our story on how plea deals work.

The arraignment also moves the case toward trial. The western Texas office notes that federal law generally requires a defendant to be tried within 70 days of indictment, though motions from either side can extend that period. In Comey's case, the court set a trial date of January 5, 2026. That trial never happened. In November 2025, a federal judge dismissed the indictment after ruling that the prosecutor who brought it had been unlawfully appointed.

Arraignments are usually quick, but they can preview the fights to come. Comey's lawyers planned to file motions to dismiss, NPR reported, arguing that the prosecution was retaliatory or targeted and challenging the appointment of Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor who obtained the indictment. His lawyer, Pat Fitzgerald, said, "It's the honor of my life to represent Jim Comey in this matter."

A second arraignment

A defendant can be arraigned more than once. When prosecutors return a new, superseding indictment, the defendant enters a plea to the new charges.

That happened on April 22 to Brian Cole Jr., the man accused of placing pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic national committee headquarters on the eve of January 6, 2021. He pleaded not guilty to new charges that included attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, and the hearing quickly turned to scheduling and a dispute over a defense filing. His trial is set for February 16, 2027.

These early hearings rarely make headlines, but they set the terms for everything that follows. They are the kind of procedure Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh take apart on the show.

This article is general information about how the legal system works and is not legal advice.

The five were Antron McCray and Yusef Salaam, both 15 at the time, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson, both 14, and Korey Wise, who was 16 and was tried as an adult. The victim, Trisha Meili, was 28. She was found in a ravine in the park and spent 12 days in a coma. She later made her identity public in a 2003 memoir.

Confessions that did not hold up

The teenagers were held for at least seven hours of unrecorded questioning before videotaped statements began on April 21, 1989, according to Wikipedia's account of the case. Four of them gave videotaped confessions with a parent present. Each recanted within about two weeks and said the statements had been coerced.

The physical evidence never matched those statements. At the first trial in 1990, an FBI expert testified that all five were excluded as the source of the semen recovered in the case. Juries convicted them anyway in two trials that year. McCray, Salaam, Santana and Richardson received five to 10 years in juvenile facilities. Wise received five to 15 years in adult prison and was the last released, in August 2002.

The case drew intense public attention. On May 1, 1989, Donald Trump paid for full page ads in New York's four major newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty.

The real attacker comes forward

In 2002, Matias Reyes, a serial rapist, confessed that he had raped Meili and said he acted alone. His DNA matched the evidence "to a factor of one in 6,000,000,000 people." The office of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau reviewed the case, and Assistant District Attorney Nancy Ryan recommended vacating the convictions. Justice Charles J. Tejada did so that December. Reyes was never charged for the attack because the statute of limitations had run out.

The settlements and the lawsuits that followed

The five sued New York City in 2003. In 2014, the city agreed to pay $41 million, with about $7.1 million each for four of the men and $12.2 million for Wise, who had served the longest. The city admitted no wrongdoing. New York State settled a separate claim in 2016 for $3.9 million.

Salaam went on to win a seat on the New York City Council in November 2023. In October 2024, the five sued Trump for defamation in federal court in Philadelphia over his remarks at the September 10, 2024, presidential debate, where he said, "They admitted, they said, they pled guilty." The men never pleaded guilty. They were convicted after jury trials.

In April 2025, U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone refused to dismiss the suit, though she threw out a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, WHYY reported. Trump's lawyers argued that his statements were "substantially true" and protected as speech on a matter of public concern. His lawyer, Karin Sweigart, called the suit an "unfounded and meritless attack," and his campaign had called it a "frivolous election interference lawsuit."

Why defense lawyers keep citing it

The case is now a standard example of how false confessions happen, especially with juveniles questioned for hours. A law review article in the N.Y.U. Review of Law and Social Change argued that trial judges should play a larger role in spotting potentially false confessions before a jury ever hears them.

It also shows what happens when public pressure runs ahead of the evidence, a theme that came up again in the Duke lacrosse case two decades ago. It is the kind of case defense attorney Daniel Rosenberg and the Two Taps legal panel of Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh take apart on the show.

The crew set the transponder to 7700, the international code for a general emergency, and the captain brought the aircraft down safely. No one has publicly explained the co-pilot’s motive, and the investigation is ongoing.

What the panel is asking

Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh spend most of the hour on two questions. First, whether there were warning signs in the co-pilot’s background that airline vetting should have caught. Second, whether the problem sits with the airlines or with intelligence agencies that do not share what they know.

They also take on the coverage itself. A near-disaster involving a commercial jet usually dominates the news cycle for days. This one faded fast, and the panel walks through the possible reasons, including what the story could mean for Israel and the wider region.

What to watch next

Any official findings on the co-pilot, and whether the airline or regulators change how flight crews are screened. Both would answer questions the panel leaves open.

On September 9, after an eight-hour detention hearing in late August, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lauren Louis ruled that the brothers must stay in jail while the case plays out. She found they had not shown they were not a flight risk or a danger, or that "special circumstances warrant their release," the Associated Press reported.

The case is a reminder that extradition runs on two very different tracks in American law. One governs fugitives who cross state lines. The other governs people wanted by foreign governments.

Between states, a duty written into the Constitution

Moving a fugitive from one state to another rests on the Extradition Clause in Article IV. It says a person "charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice," and is found in another state "shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up," as the Constitution Annotated sets out.

Congress put that duty into a statute in 1793. The law, now found at 18 U.S.C. 3182, requires the governor of the state where the person is found to hand him over. For more than a century, though, that duty had no teeth. In Kentucky v. Dennison in 1861, the Supreme Court said federal courts could not force a governor to comply.

That changed in 1987. In Puerto Rico v. Branstad, the Court overruled Dennison, calling it "the product of another time." Today a state seeking a fugitive can go to federal court to make another state's officials follow the law.

A person facing interstate extradition can challenge it, but the review is narrow. A court in the state where he was caught does not hear defenses such as an expired statute of limitations, and it does not try to predict how a trial would turn out. Those questions belong to the courts of the state bringing the charge. One of the few ways out is to show, by clear and satisfactory evidence, that the person was not in the demanding state when the crime happened.

Between countries, a treaty and a final call in Washington

International extradition depends on treaties between governments. In the Tate case, a U.S. judge will consider whether the legal conditions for extradition are met, but under U.S. law the final decision rests with the Secretary of State, now Marco Rubio. The State Department can refuse a request even after a judge certifies it.

Getting out of jail while that plays out is hard. Judge Louis required the brothers to show "special circumstances" before she would release them, and they did not meet it. The AP described the process as potentially "monthslong," and McBride estimated the proceedings would take around 60 days.

The British case is large. According to PA, the Crown Prosecution Service brought 38 new charges, tied to alleged offenses between July 2010 and August 2017, on top of 21 existing charges. McBride called the new counts "salacious and defamatory" and said they were "designed to poison the jury pool."

What a hearing does and does not decide

On both tracks, the court is not holding a trial. Between states, the courts of the state bringing the charge decide guilt and hear the defenses. Between countries, a U.S. judge looks at whether the conditions for extradition are met, and the Secretary of State makes the final call. Guilt is decided later, in the place that brought the case.

Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh joined Daniel Rosenberg in Episode 82 to go through the UK charges and why extradition is so hard to stop. Our earlier story on the Miami arrest has more on that conversation.

This article is general information about how the law works, not legal advice.

McInerney died in 2006 and was never charged. Because he cannot be tried, the evidence police describe will never be tested in a courtroom, and no statement from his family has been reported.

A walk to morning Mass

On November 12, 1960, Gloria left home shortly before 8 a.m. to attend Mass at St. Mary of Mt. Carmel Church, a few blocks away, according to Fox News. She never arrived. About four hours later, she was found shot dead in a ditch in a forest preserve in southwest Chicago.

The original investigation was enormous. A task force knocked on hundreds of doors, interviewed more than 1,300 people and questioned more than a dozen under polygraph. Nobody was charged. Investigators kept the physical evidence, including a bullet, Gloria's coat and shoes, and a white communion purse that held her prayer book.

What police say the evidence shows

Police said that with help from the FBI and the Illinois State Police, modern forensic testing matched DNA from those items, and a fingerprint lifted from the purse strap, to McInerney. The AP noted that the technology can compare crime scene evidence with genetic profiles on genealogy websites, the same approach used to identify the Golden State Killer, and that it has raised privacy concerns.

More detail came from the Chicago Tribune, as summarized by IBTimes. Investigators sent Gloria's coat to the FBI for genetic genealogy work in 2024. They compared the print on the purse strap with fingerprints from McInerney's 1959 police application and reported a match. Records indicated he had owned three Colt revolvers of the type used in the killing. Investigators also said they found no known prior contact between him and Gloria, and his motive remains unclear.

McInerney joined the department in 1959, about a year before the murder, and was 24 when Gloria was killed, according to the IBTimes account. He worked violent crimes as a detective and retired from the department in 1987. According to a Tribune obituary cited by the AP, he then worked for the Federal Public Defender's Office in Reno and Las Vegas until he retired in 2004.

A department names one of its own

The department said McInerney "should never have worn the CPD star" and that it was devastating he was never identified and held accountable while alive. According to the IBTimes account, Chief of Detectives Kevin Bruno called him "a murderer who was acting as a police officer," and credited the investigators who kept the case open. "We don't forget, and these guys never stopped," he said.

Gloria's parents died without learning who killed their daughter. Her brother, Adam Kowalewicz, told the Tribune that McInerney "never paid his dues," according to IBTimes.

The Cook County State's Attorney's Office says it is working to identify other cases that may have involved McInerney. The FBI says it is pursuing every lead that may bring closure to other unsolved crimes from that era.

Answers without a trial

Cases closed after a suspect's death put the justice system in an awkward spot. There is no defense lawyer to challenge how the evidence was stored for more than six decades, no cross-examination of the lab work and no verdict. The public is left with the conclusions of investigators, however strong they may be. That is a sharp contrast with the Tupac Shakur case, where decades passed before Keefe D finally faced a jury and the evidence was tested in open court.

For Gloria's family, the answer came 65 years late, and it came about a man who spent his career on the side of the law. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.

The film, directed by Jesse Short Bull and David France, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025, according to Wikipedia. It uses older interviews with Peltier, new conversations with activists who were at Pine Ridge in 1975, protest footage and recreations made with artificial intelligence.

What happened at Pine Ridge

FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were killed during a confrontation on the reservation in 1975. According to the FBI, the agents were there to serve arrest warrants for robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon, OPB reported.

At trial, prosecutors argued that Peltier shot both agents in the head at point-blank range. Peltier, an activist with the American Indian Movement, acknowledged he was there and fired from a distance. He said he acted in self-defense and that his shots were not the fatal ones.

He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Two fellow AIM members, Robert Robideau and Dino Butler, were acquitted on self-defense grounds in a separate trial. A woman who said she saw Peltier shoot the agents later recanted and said her testimony had been coerced, according to OPB.

Peltier, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, has maintained his innocence for more than 50 years.

Clemency, and the FBI's answer

On January 20, 2025, his last day in office, President Joe Biden commuted Peltier's life sentence to home confinement. It was not a pardon. The conviction stands, and Peltier must serve the rest of his sentence in home confinement. His tribe arranged a house for him on its North Dakota reservation, according to OPB.

The decision drew a sharp response from law enforcement. In a letter to Biden, FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed "vehement and steadfast opposition" to any commutation and called Peltier "a remorseless killer," NPR reported. Wray wrote that a commutation "would be shattering to the victims' loved ones."

Natalie Bara, president of the FBI Agents Association, said the group was "outraged." She called the commutation "cowardly" and described Peltier as "a convicted cop killer."

Supporters saw it differently. Mark Macarro, who leads the National Congress of American Indians, told Biden that Peltier had served "five decades in federal prison for a crime that the government has admitted it could not prove," according to NPR. At least 34 members of Congress had called for his release.

Peltier left the federal prison in Coleman, Florida, in February 2025.

A film with three endings

The filmmakers kept working as the case changed. The documentary has three endings, one made before clemency, one that includes his release and a final one showing Peltier watching the film at home, according to ICT News.

Producer Jhane Myers told ICT the film's reach will be global. "It's going to go worldwide, worldwide," she said. Holly Cook Macarro, a lobbyist with the Indigenous-led nonprofit NDN Collective, which has campaigned for Peltier's freedom, told ICT that "the story of Leonard Peltier is far better known abroad than it has been in the United States."

Critics were split on the craft. The Hollywood Reporter's Daniel Fienberg faulted the AI recreations, while Screen Daily's Amber Wilkinson argued the film's subject is larger than one man, according to Wikipedia's summary of reviews.

Peltier remains under home confinement. ICT reported that Cook Macarro had hoped he could attend an October 4 art exhibit of his paintings in New York, but he was denied a furlough.

Decades-old cases have a way of coming back. Read how prosecutors finally won a verdict in the killing of Tupac Shakur. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

That rule comes from Stinson v. United States, a unanimous 1993 decision. It treats the commentary as authoritative unless it violates the Constitution or a federal statute, or is inconsistent with or a plainly erroneous reading of the guideline it explains.

The case behind the question

In October 2022, officers saw Kendrick Jarrell Beaird point a gun at another person inside an abandoned fast food restaurant, according to SCOTUSblog's preview of the case. His Glock had a magazine that could hold 17 rounds. Because he had four prior felony convictions, he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The guideline for gun crimes recommends a higher sentence when the offense involves a semiautomatic firearm capable of accepting a "large capacity magazine." The guideline text does not define that term. The commentary does, as a magazine that holds more than 15 rounds. Relying on it, the trial judge raised Beaird's guideline range. He was sentenced to 72 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, the National Constitution Center reported, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed.

The judge also said that even if the range had been calculated wrongly, the court "would have imposed the same sentence." Defense lawyers will recognize that move. It is often what keeps a sentencing error from producing a new hearing.

Three sides at the lectern

The argument was unusual. The Justice Department agreed that the Court's 2019 decision in Kisor v. Wilkie, which narrowed deference to agencies' readings of their own rules, also limits Stinson. It asked for the case to be sent back. So the Court appointed a lawyer, Anthony Dick, to defend the lower court's judgment.

Kevin Page, arguing for Beaird, took the hardest line. "The proper rule for deference to guideline commentary is no deference," he said. Dick urged the opposite. "Stinson should be upheld. There's no reason to create the chaos that would come from overruling it," he told the justices. Deputy Solicitor General Eric Feigin argued for the government.

How the justices sounded

Chief Justice John Roberts said he "just don't see" how deferring to nonbinding commentary from a judicial branch agency has much to do with Loper Bright, the 2024 decision that ended deference to agencies' readings of statutes. He suggested the dispute was largely academic because the guidelines are only advisory. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that throwing out the commentary would leave trial judges in "a sea of confusion." Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said Page's approach reflected "a fundamental misunderstanding of how the manual works," because the guidelines and the commentary are linked. Justice Samuel Alito asked how judges could define a large capacity magazine at all without deferring to what he described as a policy call by the commission.

Justice Neil Gorsuch was the most receptive to Beaird. "The whole point of Booker is that everything's supposed to be advisory in this area, not mandatory," he said, according to the official argument transcript. He also cautioned that "the more you make these things binding, you're creeping up to a Booker problem again."

What comes next

SCOTUSblog's analysis predicts the Court will leave Stinson essentially intact and keep any ruling limited to the advisory guidelines. A decision could come at any point before the term ends next summer.

For people facing federal charges, the stakes are concrete. The guidelines remain the starting point at federal sentencing, and the commentary can decide whether an enhancement applies. Sentencing law has long shaped how defendants weigh their options, from guideline ranges to the mandatory minimums that helped break the old mob. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.

Where the warnings came from

Ernesto Miranda was arrested in Phoenix after a woman identified him in a lineup as the man who had kidnapped and raped her. According to an educational summary from the federal judiciary, police questioned him for about two hours until he confessed, without telling him he had a right to stay silent or to have a lawyer. An Arizona court convicted him and sentenced him to 20 to 30 years.

On June 13, 1966, the Supreme Court ruled for Miranda in a 5 to 4 decision. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the majority that a person in custody "must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he has the right to remain silent." The suspect must also be told that statements can be used in court, that he has the right to a lawyer during questioning, and that one will be appointed if he cannot afford one.

Miranda himself did not go free. He was retried in 1967 without the confession, convicted on other evidence and again sentenced to 20 to 30 years.

What the rule covers, and what it does not

Miranda applies when police question someone who is in custody. The exact wording of the warning varies, and the judiciary's summary notes that jurisdictions have their own rules on it.

The court has tested and trimmed the rule over the decades. In New York v. Quarles in 1984, it created a public safety exception that lets officers ask urgent questions, such as where a gun is, before giving warnings. In Berghuis v. Thompkins in 2010, it held that silence or an ambiguous statement does not require police to stop an interrogation, and that a suspect who understands the warnings and then talks voluntarily can waive his rights without saying so.

The biggest threat came from Congress, which tried to overrule Miranda by statute. In Dickerson v. United States in 2000, the court rejected that effort 7 to 2, with Chief Justice William Rehnquist writing that "the warnings have become part of our national culture."

In Vega v. Tekoh in 2022, a 6 to 3 majority held that police officers cannot be sued under the federal civil rights law for failing to give the warnings. That leaves the main fight where it has always been, in criminal court, over whether a statement can be used against a defendant.

The Etan Patz case

Police questioned Hernandez for about seven hours before reading him his rights and recording the interview, according to news reports. He then repeated his confession on tape at least twice. His lawyers say the confession was false and the product of a mental illness that sometimes made him hallucinate.

A first trial in 2015 ended with a deadlocked jury. At the retrial, which began in 2016 and ended in a 2017 verdict, jurors asked whether they had to disregard his later confessions if they found he had not confessed voluntarily before being read his rights. The judge told them "the answer is no." Hernandez was convicted of kidnapping and felony murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.

A federal appeals court later overturned the conviction, finding that answer inadequate under Missouri v. Seibert, a Supreme Court case about police who question first and warn later. On June 22, the Supreme Court reversed in an unsigned opinion. It said federal law does not require a jury to decide whether admitted confessions were lawfully obtained, and that a 1996 federal law limits how far federal courts can second-guess state convictions. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the petition.

Defense lawyers Harvey Fishbein and Alice Fontier said, "We firmly believe that an innocent man is in jail for a crime that he did not commit." Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said, "It's impossible to imagine the pain of losing a child."

Convictions can be undone and restored on appeal, as the Alex Murdaugh case also showed. Confession fights like this one are the kind of issue Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh take apart on the show.

This article is general information about how the legal system works and is not legal advice.

The law at issue was the Butler Act, which Tennessee Governor Austin Peay signed on March 21, 1925. The American Civil Liberties Union then offered to defend anyone charged under it, so the law's constitutionality could be tested in court, according to Wikipedia's account of the trial.

A trial built on purpose

Dayton took the offer. Scopes, a 24 year old high school teacher, became the defendant in a deliberate test case. Historian Edward Larson of Pepperdine University told NPR the town "decided they wanted to stage this test of the new state law," and called it "a concocted trial." Larson also said that "Scopes never really taught evolution," NPR reported on the trial's 100th anniversary. The famous play and film versions of the story get the test case part wrong, the network noted.

The lawyers turned a small town case into a national event. William Jennings Bryan, a three time presidential candidate and former secretary of state, joined the prosecution with district attorney Tom Stewart. Clarence Darrow led the defense, alongside Dudley Field Malone and ACLU lawyer Arthur Garfield Hays. Judge John T. Raulston presided.

The trial opened on July 10, 1925, in the Rhea County Courthouse. Chicago radio station WGN carried it, making it the first trial in the United States broadcast nationally on radio. H.L. Mencken covered it for The Baltimore Sun and gave it the name that stuck, "Monkey Trial."

Darrow puts Bryan on the stand

The most famous moment came on July 20, 1925, according to the Linda Hall Library. Bryan agreed to be questioned by Darrow as an expert on the Bible. Because of the heat, the court had moved outdoors, and the examination ran about two hours. The judge later ordered Bryan's testimony struck from the record.

The next day, the jury convicted Scopes. Bryan died suddenly five days after the trial ended.

What happened on appeal

The defense lost the larger argument. In a ruling issued in January 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the Butler Act. But it set aside Scopes's conviction on a technicality. The state constitution did not let judges set fines above $50, so the jury, not the judge, should have set the $100 fine. The chief justice suggested the case be dropped, and the state attorney general declined to retry it.

With no conviction left to appeal, the constitutional challenge ended there. Tennessee repealed the Butler Act in 1967. In 1968, in Epperson v. Arkansas, the Supreme Court ruled that bans on teaching evolution violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

The lessons for trial lawyers

Scopes is a reminder that a criminal case can be a vehicle for a cause, and that the defendant's interests and the cause's interests do not always line up. A defense team that wants an appeal may not mind losing in front of the jury. It also showed how a winning appellate issue can come from a procedural detail rather than the big constitutional question.

The trial's legacy is still argued over. "The Scopes trial didn't start the 100-year culture war, but it made both sides realize how sharply divided we were," historian Adam Laats told NPR. The case was fictionalized in the 1955 play "Inherit the Wind," later a 1960 film.

Big trials and big crowds were not new even then, as our look back at the Lindbergh kidnapping trial shows, and they have not stopped, as the Michael Jackson trial in 2005 proved. It is the kind of courtroom history defense attorney Daniel Rosenberg and the Two Taps legal panel of Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh come back to on the show.

Davis was 20 when he signed a confession after hours of questioning. He later pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty. "I just want to live. That's the only reason I'm pleading to it," he told the court, according to the Innocence Project. Prosecutors moved to dismiss all charges, said the Exoneration Project, which helped represent him. "Today is a long time coming for Danny," said his attorney Lauren Myerscough-Mueller.

How DNA reaches a courtroom

In most cases, DNA evidence works by comparison. Analysts develop a profile from biological material left at a scene and compare it with a sample from a known person or with profiles stored in a database.

The main database is the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS. It began as a pilot in 1990 and works in three tiers, local, state and national, according to a Justice Department Inspector General audit. Profiles from crime scenes are checked against profiles from convicted offenders to link a person to a crime, link crimes to each other or identify missing people. The national level has been running since 1998.

A match identifies who left the material. It does not always explain how it got there. In the Idaho student killings, single source DNA on a knife sheath matched Bryan Kohberger, who pleaded guilty in 2025 in a deal that spared him the death penalty. Boise DNA expert Greg Hampikian, who said he does not dispute Kohberger's guilt, told KIVI that "What we can't tell is how the DNA got there." Kohberger's defense had spent years trying to keep out evidence developed through investigative genetic genealogy, which pointed investigators to him.

The exoneration record

DNA has been most powerful as a tool for proving innocence. According to the Innocence Project, citing the National Registry of Exonerations, 614 people have been exonerated based on DNA testing since 1989. DNA has cleared 38 people who were on death row. The first was Kirk Bloodsworth, who spent nearly nine years wrongly locked up.

The group's study of its first 375 DNA exonerations shows what went wrong in those cases. Mistaken eyewitness identification played a role in 69 percent. Misapplied forensic science was a factor in 43 percent, and false confessions in 29 percent. The people in those cases served an average of 14 years. In 180 of them, the real perpetrator was later identified.

Davis fits a familiar pattern. His case turned on a confession that DNA later contradicted.

Getting a test is not automatic

Every state now has a law allowing post conviction DNA testing, but the Innocence Project says many are so narrow that few prisoners qualify. Alabama limits testing to people charged with a capital offense. Kentucky bars people who pleaded guilty, even when they say they were coerced. Testing in one case can cost $5,000 to $50,000. And attackers leave DNA in fewer than 10 percent of murders, so many wrongful conviction claims have nothing to test.

Federal prisoners have their own route. Under 18 U.S.C. 3600, a prisoner must swear to actual innocence under penalty of perjury, and the evidence must still be in government hands with a documented chain of custody. If the results exclude the prisoner, a judge grants a new trial only if the results, weighed with all the other evidence, provide "compelling evidence" that a new trial would end in acquittal.

Daniel Rosenberg and his daughter Olivia touched on wrongful convictions, the Innocence Project and how DNA changed investigations in Episode 77, as our recap of that conversation explains. How forensic evidence holds up under cross examination is the kind of question the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.

This article is general information about how the law works, not legal advice.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon of the Southern District of New York granted a two week temporary restraining order sought by a coalition led by the watchdog group Common Cause, CBS News reported. The order blocks use of the money to "fund the development, creation, and/or airing of the advertisements," requires the government to cancel scheduled airings, including those set for the evening of October 11, and stays DHS's contract with the ad firm LMD Agency, The Washington Sun reported. The Sun noted that Judge Rochon was appointed by President Biden.

What the ads were

The Department of Homeland Security set aside $20 million for the campaign through U.S. Customs and Border Protection, using money Congress appropriated for border security, according to Law Commentary. About $19 million had been spent by the time the court acted. The spots began airing in late September during football games and Saturday Night Live, and each one identified the U.S. government as the sponsor.

CBS, citing the ad tracking firm AdImpact, identified five ads. One features administration officials discussing the operation that removed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from power. Another, titled "Final Battle," is a refurbished 2024 Trump campaign video in which the president vows to "demolish the deep state." Others use audio from Trump's July 3 Mount Rushmore speech, footage from the start of the Iran war and a promise to defeat socialism. AdImpact put total spending on the five ads above $21.7 million by Monday morning.

The legal fight

The coalition, which also includes labor organizations and an Alabama Democratic candidate for the state legislature, filed suit on October 7. It argues that DHS diverted appropriated funds into political advertising meant to help Trump and Republican candidates. The suit relies on federal limits on using appropriated money for unauthorized publicity or propaganda, Law Commentary reported.

The administration pushed back. In a court filing, the Justice Department argued that an emergency order was unnecessary because "the alleged offending conduct will end tomorrow," according to CBS. Judge Rochon rejected that argument. DHS official Holly Mehringer said in a sworn declaration that the money came from funds available for "commemorating efforts and events related to border security."

The White House has described the spots as public service announcements that "are nothing new," pointing to past campaigns under Presidents Bush, Obama and Biden, including Obama's Affordable Care Act ads, the Sun reported. One official told CBS the ads "are clearly not political" and that "the President is not on the ballot." Trump called the ads "rather standard" in an October 5 post and said his political fundraising operation would pay for future broadcasts. A White House official said there were no immediate plans to reimburse the government for money already spent.

Criticism from both parties

The objections did not come only from Democrats. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, said the ads "shouldn't be paid for with taxpayer dollars," and Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, said no public official should spend public money on ads for themselves, CBS reported. Senate Democrats compared the spots to government propaganda "one might expect in North Korea." The Democratic National Committee has filed a separate lawsuit.

Democracy Forward, the nonprofit representing the coalition, said it was "pleased the court acted swiftly to prevent more taxpayer dollars" from going to the ads.

What comes next

A temporary restraining order is an emergency tool. It holds things in place for a short period while a judge decides whether longer relief is warranted, and it is not a final ruling on who is right. The parties were due back before Judge Rochon on October 13 to argue whether the limits should stay in place beyond the initial two weeks. Early reports did not say whether the administration planned to appeal.

One of the five ads drew on the war with Iran. For the legal fight in Congress over that war, see our explainer on who decides when America goes to war.

A government spending money on messages that look like campaign ads is the kind of question about power and its limits that the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.

"I'm sorry for it," Bolton told the judge. His deal is a useful window into a system that decides far more cases than juries do.

Most cases end with a plea

The numbers are lopsided. The federal judiciary says that "more than 90 percent of defendants plead guilty rather than go to trial." A Pew Research Center analysis of fiscal 2018 data found that 90 percent of nearly 80,000 federal defendants pleaded guilty, 8 percent had their cases dismissed and just 2 percent went to trial. Fewer than 1 percent were acquitted. In fiscal 1998, by comparison, 7 percent went to trial.

State courts look similar where data exists. Pew, citing the National Center for State Courts, reported that jury trials made up fewer than 3 percent of criminal dispositions in 22 jurisdictions in 2017.

The Supreme Court has built rules around that reality. In Missouri v. Frye in 2012, Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion noted that the great majority of convictions come from plea bargains, and the court held that defense lawyers must tell clients about formal plea offers from prosecutors.

How a deal gets made

A plea bargain is a negotiation between the prosecutor and the defense. Under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the judge may not take part in those talks. Deals usually take one of three forms. The government can agree to drop or not bring other charges. It can recommend a sentence that the judge is free to ignore. Or both sides can agree to a specific sentence or range, which binds the judge once the judge accepts the deal.

The difference matters. If a judge rejects a deal that drops charges or fixes a sentence, the defendant must be given a chance to withdraw the plea. If the deal only includes a recommendation and the judge goes higher, the defendant has no right to back out.

Bolton's agreement shows how those terms work in practice. It recommends capping any prison term at five years on a count that carries up to 10. He agreed to a $2.25 million fine, to forfeit his federal retirement pay and to perform up to 100 hours of community service. The agreement lets him withdraw his plea if the judge imposes a longer prison term or a larger fine. Sentencing is set for October 28 before U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang.

What the judge must ask

A guilty plea is not accepted on a handshake. Rule 11 requires the judge to address the defendant personally in open court and make sure the defendant understands the rights being given up, including the right to a jury trial and to a lawyer. The judge must also explain the charges, the maximum penalties and any mandatory minimum. A defendant who is not a citizen must be told that a conviction could lead to removal from the country.

The judge must find that the plea is voluntary and did not result from force, threats or promises outside the agreement, and that there is a factual basis for it. In Bolton's case, a prosecutor read a summary of the offense, and Bolton agreed it was accurate.

His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said Bolton "took responsibility for a mistake he made." U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes said Bolton "put our national security at grave risk in violation of the law."

Why so few trials

A plea offers certainty to both sides. The defendant can limit the charges and the possible sentence, and prosecutors avoid the time and risk of a trial. The odds at trial are also steep. Of the 1,879 federal defendants who went to trial in Pew's data, 320 were acquitted, which means most were convicted.

Trials still happen, as in the Keefe D murder case over the killing of Tupac Shakur. For the steps that come before any plea, see our explainers on bail hearings and grand juries. Plea bargaining is the kind of issue Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh take apart on the show.

This article is general information about how the legal system works and is not legal advice.