Lawyers for Donald Trump urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to dismiss an indictment charging the former president with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, renewing their arguments that he is immune from prosecution for official acts taken in the White House.
Lower courts have already twice rejected the immunity claims, but Trump's lawyers will get a fresh chance to press their case before the Supreme Court when the justices hear arguments on April 25. The high court's decision to consider the matter has left the criminal case on hold pending the outcome of the appeal, making it unclear whether special counsel Jack Smith will be able to put the ex-president on trial before November's election.
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North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel engine for its new-type intermediate-range hypersonic missile, state media reported Wednesday, claiming a progress in efforts to develop a more powerful, agile missile designed to strike faraway U.S. targets in the region.
Full StoryThe House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has hit a crossroads, lacking the political appetite from within Republican ranks to go forward with an actual impeachment, but facing political pressure to deliver after months of work.
The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, has signaled an interest in another direction. He is stopping short of drawing up articles of impeachment against the president, but eying criminal referrals of Biden family wrongdoing to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.
Full StoryUkraine on Wednesday said Russian shelling had killed three people and wounded five in the northeastern city of Kharkiv.
"Russians shelled Kharkiv," Sergiy Bolvinov, head of the investigative department of Kharkiv's police, said on social media. "Three people died, five were wounded, a large-scale fire broke out".
Full StoryA Russian border region plans to evacuate some 9,000 children from the area as it is continuously shelled from the Ukrainian side, an official said Tuesday. Kyiv's forces have increasingly been striking at targets behind the extensive front line that has changed little after more than two years of war.
The children are to be moved further east, away from the Ukraine border, the governor of Russia's Belgorod border region, Vyacheslev Gladkov, said.
Full StorySecretary of State Antony Blinken underscored Washington's "ironclad commitment" Tuesday to help defend the Philippines in case of an armed attack against its forces after clashes between Chinese and Filipino coast guards in the disputed South China Sea recently turned more hostile.
Blinken, the latest high-level official to visit the United States treaty ally, met his Philippine counterpart Enrique Manalo on Tuesday before separately meeting President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Manila.
Full StoryDefense Secretary Lloyd Austin vowed Tuesday that the U.S. will continue to support Ukraine's war effort against Russia, even as the U.S. Congress remains stalled over funding to send additional weapons to the front.
"The United States will not let Ukraine fail," said Austin, addressing more than 50 defense leaders from Europe and around the world who are meeting at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. "This coalition will not let Ukraine fail. And the free world will not let Ukraine fail."
Full StoryFormer President Donald Trump has charged that Jews who vote for Democrats "hate Israel" and hate "their religion," igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.
Trump, in an interview, had been asked about Democrats' growing criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his handling of the war in Gaza as the civilian death toll continues to mount.
Full StoryUkrainian shelling killed two people and wounded four in a village near the Russian border city of Belgorod on Monday, the region's governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
"In the Belgorod district, after air defences repelled an air attack by the Ukrainian army, two people were killed and four injured in the village of Nikolskoye," Gladkov said.
Full StoryWhen Sabine Thonke joined a recent demonstration in Berlin against Germany's far-right party, it was the first time in years she felt hopeful that the growing power of the extremists in her country could be stopped.
Thonke, 59, had been following the rise of the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, with unease. But when she heard about a plan to deport millions of people, she felt called to action.
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