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According to a new Pew Research Center report released Wednesday, the Black Lives Matter movement has lost popularity among Americans in the last three years. According to Pew, 51% of Americans strongly or somewhat support the Black Lives Matter movement. According to the organisation, this is a decrease from over 70% of Americans who voiced support for the campaign in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing in 2020 and 56% last year, reports CNN. According to the report, the waning support is mostly due to a decline in the proportion of white individuals who say they support the movement. According to Pew, the total number of Black and Hispanic adults who voiced support has remained stable over the last year. Also read: Black Americans faced over 1.63 million excess deaths over 2 decades, new study finds Eighty-one percent of Black adults back the movement. According to the poll, 63% of Asians and 61% of Hispanics agreed, compared to 42% of white adults. According to the research, when asked which words best define the movement, over one-third of Americans said "dangerous" and "divisive" describe it extremely or very well, the report said. However, there were considerable disparities across races and ethnic groupings. While white adults were more likely than other groups to think the phrases "dangerous" and "divisive" characterize the Black Lives Matter movement extremely or very well, 50% of Black adults said the word "dangerous" does not describe the movement very well or at all, according to the report. Also read: Protests spread in wake of George Floyd death in US According to Pew, Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans are all more likely than white adults to say the phrase "empowering" characterizes the movement extremely or very well. However, almost one-third, or 34%, thought the same thing about the word "divisive". Adults under 30 were more likely to support the movement than those in all other age categories. The research also revealed a large ideological divide. According to the research, 84% of Democrats and Democratic leaners favour the Black Lives Matter movement, while 82% of Republicans or Republican leaners reject it, the report also said. Americans also shared their thoughts on the movement's influence on a variety of problems. According to the study, around 32% of Americans believe the movement has been extremely effective in drawing attention to racism towards Black people. According to Pew, a smaller proportion of US respondents said the movement had a similar influence on enhancing police accountability (14%), improving the lives of Black people (8%), and improving racial relations (7%). Also read: Bangladesh to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter movement These findings are based on an online survey conducted from April 10 to April 16 among a random sample of 5,073 persons in the United States, derived from panels initially recruited using probability-based approaches, the report concluded.

The homicide rate for older U.S. teenagers rose to its highest point in nearly 25 years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the suicide rate for adults in their early 20s was the worst in more than 50 years, government researchers said Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report examined the homicide and suicide rates among 10- to 24-year-olds from 2001 to 2021. Also read: 8 dead in Utah murder-suicide after wife sought divorce The increase is alarming and “reflects a mental health crisis among young people and a need for a number of policy changes,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher who studies U.S. death trends and wasn’t involved in the CDC report. Experts cited several possible reasons for the increases, including higher rates of depression, limited availability of mental health services and the number of guns in U.S. homes. Guns were used in 54% of suicides and 93% of homicides among the age group in 2021, the most recent year for which statistics were available. Also read: 446 school, high school students ended their lives in 2022: Study “Picture a teenager sitting in their bedroom feeling desperate and making a decision, impulsively, to take their own life,” Woolf said. If they have access to a gun, “it’s game over.” Suicide and homicide were the second and third leading causes of death for 10- to 24-year-olds, after a category of accidental deaths that includes motor vehicle crashes, falls, drownings and overdoses. Other researchers have grouped the data by the method of death, and concluded that guns are now the biggest killer of U.S. children. Earlier this year, Woolf and other researchers looking at CDC data noted dramatic increases in child and adolescent death rates overall at the beginning of the pandemic, and found suicide and homicide were important factors. Also read: JU student commits suicide in dormitory The report also found: —Suicide and homicide death rates remained far higher for older teenagers and young adults than they were for 10- to 14-year-olds. —In 2021, there were about 2,900 suicides in youths ages 10 to 19, and 4,200 in 20- to 24-year-olds. About 3,000 homicide deaths were reported in the younger group, and nearly 3,900 in the adults in their early 20s. —The homicide death rate jumped from 8.9 deaths per 100,000 teens aged 15 to 19 in 2019 to 12.3 in 2020. It rose to 12.8 deaths per 100,000 in 2021, the highest since 1997, according to CDC data. —Homicide deaths became more common than suicide deaths among 15- to 19-year-olds, while suicide was more common in the younger and older age groups. —While large increases were seen in homicide rates for young Black and Hispanic people in the U.S., there were not significant increases for their white counterparts, other CDC data shows. —Among 20- to 24-year-olds, the homicide death rate jumped 34% from 2019 to 2020 — from 13.4 per 100,000 population to 18 per 100,000. It held stable in 2021, but the suicide rate rose enough in 2021 — to 19.4 per 100,000 — to surpass the homicide rate. Suicide death rates in children and teens were rising before COVID-19, but they jumped up at the beginning of the pandemic. Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, a psychiatrist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, said the reasons may be hard to pinpoint, but that isolation during COVID-19 lockdowns could be a factor. “There is a misperception that if you talk to young people about depression, they’ll get depressed. A don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy for depression is not effective,” Trivedi said. “The earlier we can identify the ones who need help, the better chance we’ll have at saving lives.”

Donald Trump arrived in Florida on Monday ahead of a history-making federal court appearance on dozens of felony charges accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents and thwarting the Justice Department’s efforts to get them back. Trump’s Tuesday afternoon appearance in Miami will mark his second time since April facing a judge on criminal charges. But unlike a New York case some legal analysts derided as relatively trivial, the Justice Department’s first prosecution of a former president concerns conduct that prosecutors say jeopardized national security, with Espionage Act charges carrying the prospect of a significant prison sentence. Ahead of his court date, he and his allies have been escalating efforts to undermine the criminal case against him and drum up protests. He’s ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Justice Department special counsel who filed the case, calling Jack Smith “deranged” as he repeated without any evidence his claims that he was the target of a political persecution. And even as his supporters accuse the Justice Department of being weaponized against him, he vowed Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Joe Biden and his family if Trump is elected to a second term. Trump landed in Miami around 3 p.m. Monday and got into a waiting SUV. He was expected to huddle with advisers before his court appearance, as he looks to line up additional lawyers following the departure before his indictment last week of two attorneys who had handled the defense for months. Read: Trump set for first public appearances since federal indictment, speaking in Georgia, North Carolina He’s encouraged supporters to join a planned protest at the Miami courthouse Tuesday, where he will face the charges and surrender to authorities. “We need strength in our country now,” Trump said Sunday, speaking to longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone in an interview on WABC Radio. “And they have to go out and they have to protest peacefully. They have to go out.” “Look, our country has to protest. We have plenty to protest. We’ve lost everything,” he went on. He also said there were no circumstances “whatsoever” under which he would leave the 2024 race, where he’s been dominating the Republican primary. Other Trump supporters have rallied to his defense with similar language, including Kari Lake, the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arizona who pointedly said over the weekend that if prosecutors “want to get to President Trump,” they’re ”going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA.” Trump’s calls for protest echoed exhortations he made ahead of a New York court appearance in April, where he faces charges arising from hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign, though he complained that those who showed up to protest then were “so far away that nobody knew about ’em,” And just like in that case, he plans to address supporters in a Tuesday evening speech hours after his court date. Read: Trump charged over classified documents in 1st federal indictment of an ex-president After his court appearance, he will return to New Jersey, where he’s scheduled a press event to publicly respond to the charges. He’ll also be holding a private fundraiser. Trump supporters were also planning to load buses to head to Miami from other parts of Florida, raising concerns for law enforcement officials who are preparing for the potential of unrest around the courthouse. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the city would be ready, and police chief Manuel A. Morales said downtown could see anywhere from a few thousand up to 50,000 protesters. He said the city would be diverting traffic and possibly blocking streets depending on crowd size. “Make no mistake about it,” Morales said. “We are taking this event extremely serious. We know there is a potential of things taking a turn for the worse but that’s not the Miami way.” The Justice Department unsealed Friday an indictment charging Trump with 37 felony counts, 31 relating to the willful retention of national defense information. Other charges include conspiracy to commit obstruction and false statements. The indictment alleges Trump intentionally retained hundreds of classified documents that he took with him from the White House to his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, after leaving the White House in January 2021. The material he stored, including in a bathroom, ballroom, bedroom and shower, included material on nuclear programs, defense and weapons capabilities of the U.S. and foreign governments and a Pentagon “attack plan,” the indictment says. The information, if exposed, could have put at risk members of the military, confidential human sources and intelligence collection methods, prosecutors said. Beyond that, prosecutors say, he sought to obstruct government efforts to recover the documents, including by directing personal aide Walt Nauta — who was charged alongside Trump — to move boxes to conceal them and also suggesting to his own lawyer that he hide or destroy documents sought by a Justice Department subpoena. Read: Trump and DeSantis' rivalry intensifies as Florida governor formally enters 2024 presidential race Some fellow Republicans have sought to press the case that Trump is being treated unfairly, citing the Justice Department’s decision in 2016 to not charge Democrat Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information through a private email server she relied on as secretary of state. But those arguments overlook that FBI investigators did not find any evidence that Clinton or her aides had willfully broken laws regarding classified information or had obstructed the investigation. New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, speaking Sunday on CBS News, said there was a “huge difference” between the two investigations but that it “has to be explained to the American people.” The Justice Department earlier this month informed former Vice President Mike Pence that it would not bring charges over the presence of classified documents in his Indiana home. A separate Justice Department special counsel investigation into the discovery of classified records at a home and office of President Joe Biden continues, though as in the Clinton case, no evidence of obstruction or intentional law-breaking has surfaced. Trump’s own former attorney general, William Barr, offered a grim assessment of Trump’s predicament, saying on Fox News that Trump had no right to hold onto such sensitive records. Read: Report on FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation: Some problems but not the ‘crime of the century’ “If even half of it is true,” Barr said of the allegations, “then he’s toast. I mean, it’s a pretty — it’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning. And this idea of presenting Trump as a victim here — a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous.”    

A shooting at a birthday party killed an 18-year-old woman and injured six others in Northern California early Sunday, police said. The Antioch Police Department responded to multiple 911 calls about a shooting just before 1 a.m., the department said in a statement. Multiple shots were fired after some people arrived uninvited at a birthday party for a 19-year-old man at a home in the city about 45 miles (72 km) northeast of San Francisco. Read: 2 dead in shooting after high school graduation ceremony in Virginia capital Victims and a large crowd were found by officers outside the home, police said. The 18-year-old woman was transported to an area hospital, where she died, police said. The victims who suffered non-life-threatening injuries included an 18-year-old man and a 19-year-old man, two 19-year-old women and two 20-year-old women. Some of the victims transported themselves to area hospitals after “a panic where attendees ... fled in multiple directions and into the neighborhood,” police said. Read: 9 injured in shooting near beach in Hollywood, Florida The Antioch police said a suspect or suspects fled the scene before officers arrived, but there were no arrests immediately reported. Read more:  New Mexico high school student killed 3 women in 'random' shooting rampage, police say

President Joe Biden is welcoming outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to the White House for talks on Monday as the competition to find his successor to lead the military alliance heats up. Stoltenberg, who has led the NATO since 2014 and has had his tenure extended three times, said earlier this year he would move on when his current time expires at the end of September. The jockeying to replace him is intensifying as leaders of the 31-member military alliance are set to meet next month for their annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Last week, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made the case for U.K. Defense Minister Ben Wallace directly to Biden. The U.S. president also met with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, another potential contender. Also Read: Religious leaders shocked at congressmen's letter to Biden Asked about the NATO job at a news conference with Sunak by his side, Biden called Wallace "very qualified" but noted that the conversation among NATO leaders to find a "consensus" pick to replace Stoltenberg was ongoing. Biden's opinion carries enormous weight as the U.S. spends more than any other member in the alliance on defense. Frederiksen sought to play down her candidacy after she met with Biden last week. She declined to say whether she discussed the coming vacancy with him, telling reporters that she did not want to go "further in these speculations about NATO." The alliance has never had a female secretary-general. Also Read: NATO allies prepare unprecedented air deployment exercise over Europe in show of force to Russia A British government official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said ahead of Sunak's visit that the British leader wants to be sure the next secretary general "carries on Stoltenberg's good work of modernization but also understands the importance of defense spending at this critical time." Denmark has lagged behind NATO's target for members to spend 2% of gross domestic product on military budgets by 2030. But the centrist government announced late last month that it would look to invest some 143 billion kroner ($20.6 billion) in the country's defense over the next decade, citing a "serious threat picture." Biden and Stoltenberg are also expected to discuss Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine and efforts to persuade fellow NATO member Turkey to back off blocking Sweden from joining the military alliance. Sweden and Finland, both historically unaligned militarily, jointly sought NATO membership after being rattled by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Turkey initially blocked both countries from joining the alliance before agreeing to membership for Finland while continuing to object to Sweden. Also Read: US says ‘the time is now’ for Sweden to join NATO and for Turkey to get new F-16s In public comments since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was reelected last month, Biden has spoken with a measure of certainty that Sweden will soon join the alliance. "It will happen. I promise you," Biden said of Sweden's NAT0 ascension earlier this month. Stoltenberg and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken have both expressed hope that Sweden will be brought into the NATO fold by the time allied leaders meet in Lithuania on July 11-12.

Four Indigenous children survived an Amazon plane crash that killed three adults and then braved the jungle for 40 days before being found alive by Colombian soldiers, bringing a happy ending to a search-and-rescue saga that captivated a nation and forced the usually opposing military and Indigenous people to work together. Cassava flour and some familiarity with the rainforest’s fruits were key to the children’s extraordinary survival in an area where snakes, mosquitoes and other animals abound. The members of the Huitoto people, aged 13, 9 and 4 years and 11 months, are expected to remain for a minimum of two weeks at a hospital receiving treatment after their rescue Friday. Family members, President Gustavo Petro as well as government and military officials met the children Saturday at the hospital in Bogota, the capital. Defense Minister Iván Velásquez told reporters the children were being rehydrated and cannot eat food yet. “But in general, the condition of the children is acceptable,” Velásquez said. They were travelling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane crashed in the early hours of May 1. The Cessna single-engine propeller plane was carrying three adults and the four children when the pilot declared an emergency due to an engine failure. The small aircraft fell off the radar a short time later and a search for survivors began. “When the plane crashed, they took out (of the wreckage) a fariña, and with that, they survived,” the children’s uncle, Fidencio Valencia told reporters outside the hospital. Fariña is a cassava flour that people eat in the Amazon region. “After the fariña ran out, they began to eat seeds,” Valencia said. Timing was in the children’s favor. Astrid Cáceres, head of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, said the youngsters were also able to eat fruit because “the jungle was in harvest.” An air force video released Friday showed a helicopter using lines to pull the youngsters up because it couldn’t land in the dense rainforest where they were found. The military on Friday tweeted pictures showing a group of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children, who were wrapped in thermal blankets. One of the soldiers held a bottle to the smallest child’s lips. Read: Philippine plane crash kills 2, another carrying 6 missing Gen. Pedro Sanchez, who was in charge of the rescue efforts, said that the children were found 5 kilometers (3 miles) away from the crash site in a small forest clearing. He said rescue teams had passed within 20 to 50 meters (66 to 164 feet) of where the children were found on a couple of occasions but had missed them. “The minors were already very weak,” Sanchez said. “And surely their strength was only enough to breathe or reach a small fruit to feed themselves or drink a drop of water in the jungle.” Petro called the children an “example of survival” and predicted their saga “will remain in history.” Two weeks after the crash, on May 16, a search team found the plane in a thick patch of the rainforest and recovered the bodies of the three adults on board, but the small children were nowhere to be found. Sensing that they could be alive, Colombia’s army stepped up the hunt and flew 150 soldiers with dogs into the area, where mist and thick foliage greatly limited visibility. Dozens of volunteers from Indigenous tribes also joined the search. Soldiers on helicopters dropped boxes of food into the jungle, hoping that it would help sustain the children. Planes flying over the area fired flares to help search crews on the ground at night, and rescuers used speakers that blasted a message recorded by the siblings’ grandmother telling them to stay in one place. The announcement of their rescue came shortly after President Gustavo Petro signed a cease-fire with representatives of the National Liberation Army rebel group. In line with his government’s messaging highlighting his efforts to end internal conflicts, he stressed the joint work of the military and Indigenous communities to find the children. “The meeting of knowledge: indigenous and military,” he tweeted. “Here is a different path for Colombia: I believe that this is the true path of Peace.” Read: Flight data, voice recorders retrieved from Nepal site after deadly plane crash Damaris Mucutuy, an aunt of the children, told a radio station that “the children are fine” despite being dehydrated and with insect bites. She added that the children had been offered mental health services. Cáceres told reporters officials agreed with the children’s relatives to allow for “spiritual work” at the jungle and the hospital “ if there was no immediate emergency action” needed. She said musicians and musical instruments relevant to the children’s culture will be allowed in the hospital. Officials praised the courage of eldest of the children, a girl, who they said had some knowledge of how to survive in the rainforest and led the children through the ordeal. Before their rescue, rumors swirled about their whereabouts. So much so, that on May 18, Petro tweeted that the children had been found. He then deleted the message, claiming he had been misinformed by a government agency. The children told officials they spent some time with the dog, but it then went missing. That was a rescue dog that soldiers took into the jungle. The military was still looking for the dog, a Belgian Shepherd named Wilson, as of Saturday. Petro said that for a while he had believed the children were rescued by one of the nomadic tribes that still roam the remote area where the plane fell and have little contact with authorities. As the search progressed, soldiers found small clues that led them to believe the children were still alive, including a pair of footprints, a baby bottle, diapers and pieces of fruit that looked like they had been bitten by humans. “The jungle saved them,” Petro said. “They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.” Read more: Nepal begins national mourning after 68 killed in deadly plane crash

Nine people were wounded in a mass shooting in San Francisco's Mission District on Friday night in what police said appeared to be a “targeted and isolated” incident. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the shooting happened shortly after 9 p.m. during a party hosted by a clothing store near the intersection of 24th Street and Treat Avenue. The San Francisco Police Department initially said that all of the victims were “expected to survive their injuries.” But a statement from the Zuckerberg SanFrancisco General Hospital said one of the victims remained in critical condition as of Saturday afternoon. Another was said to be in serious condition, four were in fair condition and three had already been discharged. The victims were eight men and one woman ranging in age from 20 to 34, the hospital said. Read:Suspect arrested in Serbia’s second mass shooting in 2 days Police Chief William Scott called the violence “unacceptable.” “People should feel safe to go out in San Francisco without fear of being victims of gun violence,” Scott said. “Our investigators are working diligently on this case, and we will have a visible police presence moving forward in the community where this occurred.” Dying Breed, a clothing store located near the intersection where the shooting happened, was scheduled to celebrate its sixth anniversary Friday night with a block party, according to a post on the store’s Instagram account. Read:8 dead in German mass shooting: Police A person who answered the phone at the store declined to comment. The Mission District is one of San Francisco's oldest neighborhoods, named after the Mission Dolores — a Spanish mission that dates back to 1776. Historically Latino and increasingly gentrifying in recent years, the vibrant area is home to numerous restaurants and shops. Mayor London Breed said first responders were quick to react to the shooting and noted that “no lives were lost.” “I know there are a lot of questions and concerns in the community, and people want answers," Breed said. "We are still working to understand exactly what happened and why and we will share information as soon as we can.” Read more:US mass shooting linked to extremism spiked over last decade: Report

China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019, part of a global effort by Beijing to upgrade its intelligence-gathering capabilities, according to a Biden administration official. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S. intelligence community has been aware of China's spying from Cuba and a larger effort to set up intelligence-gathering operations around the globe for some time. The Biden administration has stepped up efforts to thwart the Chinese push to expand its spying operations and believes it has made some progress through diplomacy and other unspecified action, according to the official, who was familiar with U.S. intelligence on the matter. The existence of the Chinese spy base was confirmed after The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that China and Cuba had reached an agreement in principle to build an electronic eavesdropping station on the island. The Journal reported that China planned to pay a cash-strapped Cuba billions of dollars as part of the negotiations. The White House and Cuban officials, however, called the report inaccurate. Read: Top Biden aide tells Chinese diplomat that US wants to 'move beyond' spy balloon “I’ve seen that press report, it’s not accurate,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in an MSNBC interview on Thursday. “What I can tell you is that we have been concerned since day one of this administration about China’s influence activities around the world; certainly in this hemisphere and in this region, we’re watching this very, very closely.” The U.S. intelligence community had determined that Chinese spying from Cuba has been an “ongoing” matter and is “not a new development,” the administration official said. President Joe Biden's national security team was briefed by the intelligence community soon after he took office in January 2021 about a number of sensitive Chinese efforts around the globe where Beijing was weighing expanding logistics, basing and collection infrastructure as part of the People's Liberation Army's attempt to further its influence, the official said. Chinese officials looked at sites that spanned the Atlantic Ocean, Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and the Indo-Pacific. The effort included looking at existing collection facilities in Cuba, and China conducted an upgrade of its spying operation on the island in 2019, the official said. Tensions between the U.S. and China have been fraught throughout Biden's term. The relationship may have hit a nadir last year after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to democratically governed Taiwan. That visit, the first by a sitting House speaker since Newt Gingrich in 1997, led China, which claims the island as its territory, to launch military exercises around Taiwan. U.S.-China relations became further strained early this year after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had crossed the United States. Beijing also was angered by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s stopover in the U.S. last month that included an encounter with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The speaker hosted the Taiwanese leader at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in southern California. Read: China not a barrier to stronger US-Bangladesh ties: Ambassador Haas Still, the White House has been eager to resume high-level communications between the two sides. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning to travel to China next week, a trip that was canceled as the balloon was flying over the U.S. Blinken expects to be in Beijing on June 18 for meetings with senior Chinese officials, according to U.S. officials, who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because neither the State Department nor the Chinese foreign ministry has yet confirmed the trip. CIA Director William Burns met in Beijing with his counterpart last month. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with his Chinese counterpart in Vienna over two days in May and made clear that the administration wanted to improve high-level communications with the Chinese side. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently spoke briefly with Li Shangfu, China’s minister of national defense, at the opening dinner of a security forum in Singapore. China had earlier rejected Austin’s request for a meeting on the sidelines of the forum. Read moreG7 stance on China complicated by huge stakes in economic ties, cooperation on global issues 

Former President Donald Trump will make his first public appearances since his federal indictment, speaking on Saturday to friendly Republican audiences in Georgia and North Carolina as he seeks to rally supporters to his defense. Trump, who remains the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination despite his mounting legal woes, is expected to use his scheduled speeches at state party conventions in the two states to deliver a full-throated rebuke of the charges and amplify his assertions that he is the victim of a politically motivated "witch hunt" by Democratic President Joe Biden's Justice Department. Also Read: Trump indicted in classified documents case in a historic first for a former president His appearances will come a day after the unsealing of an indictment charging him with 37 felony counts in connection with his hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The indictment accuses the former president of willfully defying Justice Department demands to return classified documents, enlisting aides in his efforts to hide the records and even telling his lawyers that he wanted to defy a subpoena for the materials stored at his estate. The indictment includes allegations that he stored documents in a ballroom and bathroom at his resort, among other places. The most serious charges against him carry potential prison sentences of up to 20 years each, but first-time offenders rarely get anywhere near the maximum sentence and the decision would ultimately be up to the judge. For all that, Trump can expect a hero's welcome this weekend as he rallies his fiercest partisans and seeks to cement his status as Republicans' leading 2024 presidential candidate. Also read: Trump indicted: What to know about the documents case and what's next "Trump is a fighter, and the kinds of people that attend these conventions love a fighter," said Jack Kingston, a former Georgia congressman who supported Trump in 2016 and 2020. With former Vice President Mike Pence also slated to address North Carolina Republicans, Saturday will be the first time the former running mates have appeared at the same venue since Pence announced his campaign against his old boss. For his part, Trump has insisted he committed no wrongdoing, saying, "There was no crime, except for what the DOJ and FBI have been doing against me for years." The indictment arrives at a time when Trump is continuing to dominate the Republican presidential primary. Other GOP candidates have largely attacked the Justice Department — rather than Trump — for the investigation, although the indictment's breadth of allegations and scope could make it harder for Republicans to rail against than an earlier New York criminal case that many legal analysts had derided as weak. Also read: Trump and DeSantis' rivalry intensifies as Florida governor formally enters 2024 presidential race A Trump campaign official described the former president's mood as "defiant" Friday ahead of his trip. But aides were notably more reserved after the indictment's unsealing as they reckoned with the gravity of the legal charges and the threat they pose to Trump beyond the potential short-term political gain. The federal charging document alleges that Trump not only intentionally possessed classified documents but also boastfully showed them off to visitors and aides. The indictment is built on Trump's own words and actions as recounted to prosecutors by lawyers, close aides and other witnesses, including his professing to respect and know procedures related to the handling of classified information. The indictment includes 37 counts — 31 of which pertain to the willful retention of national defense information, with the balance relating to alleged conspiracy, obstruction and false statements — that, taken together, could result in a yearslong prison sentence. Trump is due to make his first federal court appearance Tuesday in Miami. He was charged alongside Walt Nauta, a personal aide whom prosecutors say moved boxes from a storage room to Trump's residence for him to review and later lied to investigators about the movement. A photograph included in the indictment shows several dozen file boxes stacked in a storage area. The case adds to deepening legal jeopardy for Trump, who has already been indicted in New York in a hush money scheme and faces additional investigations in Washington and Atlanta that also could lead to criminal charges. But among the various investigations he has faced, the Mar-a-Lago probe has long been considered the most perilous threat and the one most ripe for prosecution. Campaign aides had been bracing for the fallout since Trump's attorneys were notified that he was the target of the investigation, assuming it was not a matter of if charges would be brought, but when. Trump's continued popularity among Republican voters is evident in how gingerly his primary rivals have treated the federal indictment, which comes less than three months after he was charged in New York in a hush-money scheme stemming from payouts made to a porn actor during his 2016 campaign. Pence, campaigning in New Hampshire on Friday, said he was "deeply troubled" that Trump had been federally indicted because he believes it will further divide the nation. Pence urged his audience to pray for Trump, his family and all Americans, and promised to uphold the rule of law and "clean house at the highest level" of the Department of Justice, if elected. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump's leading GOP rival, unabashedly echoed the former president, decrying the "weaponization of federal law enforcement" and "an uneven application of the law." Without offering any specific allegation, DeSantis took aim at two favorite Republican targets — Hillary Clinton and Biden's son, Hunter — and suggested they have escaped federal accountability because of such "political bias." During his own remarks at the North Carolina GOP convention on Friday night, DeSantis didn't mention Trump by name but again made the comparison to Clinton. "Is there a different standard for a Democratic secretary of state versus a former Republican president?" DeSantis asked. "I think there needs to be one standard of justice in this country. ... At the end of the day, we will once and for all end the weaponization of government under my administration." Among the declared Republican contenders, only Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson had explicitly called for Trump to end his comeback bid.            

Marcus Harvin has two identification cards. One shows he is a fellow at Yale College, which is helping him on a track toward law school. The other shows he is a parolee, just released from the maximum security MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution after spending six years in prison for a highly publicized drunken driving accident that left his two young children injured. Harvin, who hopes to become a defense attorney someday, was back inside the prison Friday for a graduation ceremony at which he received his associate degree in general studies from the University of New Haven. He and six other men make up the first class to matriculate from a partnership between UNH’s Prison Education Program and the Yale Prison Education Initiative. “That name, Yale, means so much because I’m from New Haven and to be able to study at Yale and begin studying in prison is unheard of,” said Harvin. “People even think I’m lying sometimes, so I’ll show them my jail I.D. and my Yale I.D.” The Yale program was launched in 2016 by alum Zelda Roland. It was based on a similar program she was part of while working with Wesleyan University. Yale partnered with UNH in 2021, giving the student-inmates a path to two and four year college degrees. The program, which offers classes at McDougall-Walker and the federal women’s prison in Danbury, is now part of a consortium that includes 15 schools and prison systems across the country. “We believe that this is a transformative program, that it has the potential to make a generational impact,” said Roland, who serves as the director of the Yale-UNH partnership. “We believe that we’re transforming not just individual student’s lives, but also the institutions that we work in, both the universities and correctional system.” Gov. Ned Lamont served as the graduation speaker Friday, echoing that theme and expressing hope that the graduates will pave the way for others. “We define our own futures and today is the start of that,” he said. “You learn from the past, but you define your own future. And what happens in your future is going to be your legacy. And I want you to have a really important story to tell.” Just over 20% of inmates receive some form of higher education in prison, UNH officials said. And studies have shown that those who do are far less likely to have behavioral problems in prison, and far less likely to commit crimes once they are released. Harvin said it also gives inmates something that may be less tangible, but perhaps just as important — hope. “It literally is the light at the end of the tunnel that gives the day illumination,” Harvin said. “Because when you get to those classes, you don’t feel like you’re in prison. You actually go from being in a cell to being kind of, sort of on a campus. You literally feel like you’re not in the same place anymore.”