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White House: President Biden will visit East Palestine Friday

EAST PALESTINE — President Joe Biden will visit the village on Friday just a little over a year after the Feb. 3, 2023, train derailment.

It will be his first visit to East Palestine and he will discuss how the Administration is continuing to work with state and local officials to hold Norfolk Southern accountable and support the community as it moves forward. The President will discuss his commitment to ensuring the people of East Palestine are not defined by this single event, and that his administration is delivering on the needs of families, businesses, and affected residents, according to a news release from the White House.

The time of his visit has not yet been announced.

Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s press secretary, said earlier this month when his planned visit was first announced, that East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway and other community leaders asked the president to visit and “we felt the time was right.” Conaway has criticized Biden in the past for not visiting the village.

Biden administration officials have been to East Palestine a number of times. Biden has faced criticism and questions for not visiting East Palestine despite saying for months that he would come to the village. Some have said Biden ignored East Palestine because it is in Columbiana County, a Republican stronghold.

Michael Regan, administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has visited East Palestine a few times, and said his agency is “laser-focused on this community and our work is not yet done.”

Pete Buttigieg, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, who visited East Palestine on Feb. 23, said Wednesday the derailment “was not only a crisis for the community, but a wakeup call for the country.”

Biden issued an executive order in September directing that Norfolk Southern continue to be held accountable for the derailment and address any long-term effects to the community and ensure federal assistance is available should needs develop not that are not met by the railroad company. That includes having a federal disaster recovery coordinator in East Palestine working with others to address community concerns related to the derailment.

Gov. Mike DeWine has asked Biden for a federal emergency declaration for East Palestine but hasn’t received one.

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Ahead of South Florida visit, President Biden marking 15th anniversary of landmark pay equity law

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Ahead of his planned visit to Palm Beach County and Miami on Tuesday, President Joe Biden is marking the 15th anniversary of a landmark pay equity law with new steps to tackle persistent gaps in pay for federal government employees and those who work for federal contractors.

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Ahead of South Florida visit, President Biden marking 15th anniversary of landmark pay equity law

WASHINGTON — Ahead of his planned visit to Palm Beach County and Miami on Tuesday, President Joe Biden is marking the 15th anniversary of a landmark pay equity law with new steps to tackle persistent gaps in pay for federal government employees and those who work for federal contractors.

The Biden administration is finalizing regulations that will bar the federal government from using a person's private sector pay history to determine what they would earn working for the federal government or a federal contractor.

The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the first bill President Barack Obama signed into law after taking office in 2009. Biden was vice president.

Administration officials said the regulations are needed to address differences in federal pay for women and men.

According to the White House, Biden will travel to the Palm Beach and Miami areas on Tuesday to participate in two "campaign receptions."

In a short media release Friday, the White House said "additional details to follow."

The Federal Aviation Administration said flight restrictions will be in place Tuesday at Palm Beach International Airport from 11:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. within 10 nautical miles, and 11:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for 30 nautical miles among six airspace areas.

In addition, flight restrictions will be in place from 3:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Miami International Airport.

WPTV Capitol bureau reporter Forrest Saunders said state party officials didn't have additional details.

Palm Beach is the home of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

Biden was last in South Florida before the November 2022 midterm elections when he spoke at a rally for gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist and U.S. Senate candidate Val Demings in Miami-Dade County. He also spoke to about 100 seniors in Hallandale.

In 2016 as vice president, Biden campaigned in Palm Beach Gardens for Hillary Clinton for president.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is scheduled to be in Palm Beach on Wednesday for a donor fundraiser for her presidential campaign. The next primary will be in her home state of South Carolina, where she was governor.

Haley is the only rival to Trump for the Republican nomination after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out last week.

Palm Beach County is heavily Democrat with 326,387 registered voters compared with 268,943 Republicans and 263,064 other, according to the Supervisor of Elections.

Sign up for the South Florida Sports Headlines Newsletter and receive up to date information.

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October 17, 2023 - Israel-Hamas war news

By Tara Subramaniam , Christian Edwards, Aditi Sangal , Rosa Rahimi, Dakin Andone , Maureen Chowdhury , Elise Hammond , Tori Powell and Steve Almasy, CNN

IDF to release more evidence to prove Israel was not responsible for Gaza hospital blast, spokesperson says

From CNN's Heather Law in Atlanta

Israel will release additional evidence to prove they were not responsible for the hospital blast in Gaza that left hundreds dead, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, told CNN Tuesday evening. 

Israel has already released footage captured by a UAV to international media, Conricus said, and they plan to release additional intelligence of an intercepted conversation between Palestinian militants that they understand there was a rocket that had misfired. 

Conricus added that the IDF went through their own systems to confirm they did not fire at that location and that there was no misfire from Israel. 

Conricus said an investigation into the blast revealed that the Islamic Jihad had fired a barrage of rockets toward northern or central Israel, and at least one of them misfired, landed on the ground and exploded.

Conricus also refuted claims that the blast could have been the result of an iron dome interception that caused the rocket to explode and land, saying this "has also been categorically denied." 

"That is not the case, and we do not intercept rockets over Gaza," he stated. 

Israel has already briefed US military officials on this intelligence ahead of US President Joe Biden's visit to Israel on Wednesday, Conricus said.

Biden plans to ask Israel tough questions "as a friend" during Tel Aviv visit, White House says

From CNN's Betsy Klein

US President Joe Biden plans to ask “tough questions” as a “friend” to Israel when he spends his Wednesday in Tel Aviv — a trip meant as a forceful public show of support, but also a push for easing a growing humanitarian crisis. 

Biden will first meet with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a restricted bilateral meeting, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One in a preview of Wednesday’s trip. That meeting will later broaden to include other US officials and the Israeli War Cabinet.  

In those meetings, Kirby said the president is "going to get a sense from the Israelis about the situation on the ground, and, more critically, their objectives, their plans, their intentions in the days and weeks ahead.”

Biden “Will be asking some tough questions. He'll be asking them as a friend — as a true friend of Israel, but he’ll be asking some questions of them," Kirby said.

Pressed later on what those tough questions would be, Kirby said it would not be “adversarial” but rather, “in the spirit of a true, deep friend of Israel.”

The president will “make it clear that we continue to want to see this conflict not widen, not expand, not deepen,” Kirby said, pointing to a “strong signal” from the US with additional military capability. Biden is also expected to discuss Israel’s needs and “make it clear that we will do everything we can to meet those needs,” Kirby said. 

Hostages held by Hamas will also be a key topic of discussion, Kirby said, as Biden seeks to find out more from his Israeli counterparts about “where they are, what condition they are in, if they are being moved.” 

And he will make the case for a “sustained” humanitarian situation in Gaza, Kirby added. 

“We want to see humanitarian assistance flow in — and it's not just a one and done — we want to see it be able to be sustained: food, water, obviously electrical power, medicine, all the things that the people of Gaza are going to continue to need as this conflict continues to go on. So he'll make that case very, very clearly,” he said, adding that Special Envoy David Satterfield is “now on the ground” working with Israeli and Egyptian counterparts. 

Later Wednesday , Biden will meet with some families impacted by the violence of the past week, including some who have lost loved ones in Israel, and some who “still don’t know the fate of their loved ones.” Some of those family members have loved ones who are being held hostage, though it was not immediately clear whether they are Americans. 

After that, Biden will make public remarks in Tel Aviv, which will be covered by traveling press. And he is also expected to “speak directly” with Israel President Isaac Herzog. 

Though Biden’s trip to Amman, Jordan, was canceled, Biden is expected to speak with leaders in the region on Wednesday night as he returns to Washington.

“The President intends to speak with both (Palestinian Authority) President Mahmoud Abbas and (Egypt) President (Abdel Fattah el-) Sisi on the flight home,” Kirby said. 

German Chancellor's plane evacuated after air raid alert in Israel, Reuters video shows

From CNN's Mitchell McCluskey

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was evacuated from his plane shortly before takeoff in Israel due to an air raid alert late Tuesday night, a Reuters correspondent traveling with the chancellor reported.  

Video recorded by Reuters shows Scholz and his staff quickly entering a vehicle on the tarmac of Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv after disembarking the plane.  

Scholz arrived in Israel on Tuesday and met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express Germany’s solidarity with Israel. Scholz is set to travel to Egypt to meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Wednesday. 

CNN has reached out to the Chancellor's office for comment.  

Canadian officials: International negotiators seem to be closer to securing humanitarian corridor out of Gaza

From CNN’s Paula Newton in Ottawa

Canadian officials say that while the Rafah crossing remains extremely dangerous, they are encouraged that they and international negotiators seem to be getting closer to establishing a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza and into Egypt.  

“We know how dangerous the situation is inside Gaza, we know that the crossing point has also been damaged due to attacks and bombing, so creating an exit point that is relatively safe for people needs to negotiated and guarantees have to be put in place and that’s what the current diplomatic negotiations are all about,” Alexandre Lévêque, an assistant deputy minister with Global Affairs Canada said Tuesday. “We are somewhat encouraged by the fact that we seem to be getting a little bit closer to this but of course it’s not yet a done deal.”

Lévêque declined to provide any details of the negotiations but said they involved Egypt, the United Nation, the US and other nations.

Canadian officials cautioned that the window to leave will likely be short and they confirmed that they are in touch with about 370 Canadians or "Canadian entitled" people needing to leave Gaza. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reacted to the hospital blast in Gaza , again calling on all parties to respect international law.

“The news coming out of Gaza is horrific and absolutely unacceptable,” Trudeau told reporters, shortly after he received news of the hospital bombing Tuesday.

“International humanitarian and international law needs to be respected in this and in all cases,” he added. “There are rules around wars and it's not acceptable.”

The US and Israel continue efforts to locate impacted Americans in the Middle East, FBI director says

US and Israeli officials continue to work together to "locate and identify all Americans who've been impacted in the region including those who remain unaccounted for," FBI Director Christopher Wray told reporters Tuesday.

He said the FBI continues to partner with state and local law enforcement agencies to mitigate all threats they have identified within the US.

Asked what the FBI has been able to discern about the preparation and planning of Hamas' attack in Israel, Wray said "those are absolutely topics that we've been discussing as partners in our private meetings."

He didn't elaborate further.

Over the weekend,  Wray told reporters  the FBI has seen an increase in reported threats in the US amid the Israel-Hamas war. Most threats have been deemed not credible by the agency, a senior FBI official said during the call, but Jewish and Muslim institutions have been targeted.

UN Human Rights chief says deaths from Gaza hospital blast are "unacceptable"

From CNN’s Richard Roth 

UN Human Rights chief Volker Tur said the Gaza hospital blast that left at least hundreds of people dead was "unacceptable," according to a statement released on Tuesday from the Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. 

“Words fail me. Tonight, hundreds of people were killed –- horrifically -– in a massive strike ... including patients, healthcare workers and families that had been seeking refuge in and around the hospital. Once again the most vulnerable. This is totally unacceptable,” Turk said.  

Hospitals are sacrosanct and the killings and violence must stop, Turk said. He added those responsible for the hospital blast must be held accountable.

Turk urged all states with influence to do everything in their power to stop the current situation. 

“Civilians must be protected, and humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach those in need as a matter of urgency. Those found responsible must be held to account,” he said.

Airstrikes near northern Gaza heard by CNN crew

From CNN's Nic Robertson

Multiple airstrikes in the direction of northern Gaza were heard in Sderot, Israel, by CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have not yet commented on strikes. 

The US is analyzing Israeli intelligence about Gaza hospital blast

From CNN's Oren Liebermann

The US is analyzing intelligence provided by Israel on the explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza , according to an Israeli official and another source familiar with the matter.

“There have been conversations between the Israeli side and the American side,” said Mark Regev, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We have shared the knowledge that we have — the information we have — with the Americans.” 

US intelligence officials are working to understand the explosion at the hospital in Gaza that left hundreds of people dead. Palestinian officials have accused Israel of the attack while Israel has blamed Palestinian Islamic Jihad for a failed rocket launch.

The Israeli official said Israel provided the US with signals intelligence, which includes intercepted communications and other forms of data collected through various means.

The National Security Agency, which handles signals intelligence in the US, declined to comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a news conference Tuesday afternoon that international intelligence officials are closely monitoring the ongoing situation in Middle East "and we remain laser focused on protecting the citizens of all our countries." 

Gaza hospital blast leaves hundreds dead as Israeli blockade cripples medical response. Here's the latest 

From CNN's Jessie Yeung, Tara John and Zahid Mahmood,

Palestinian officials said hundreds were killed by a massive blast at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday, as humanitarian concerns mount over Israel’s deprivation of food, fuel and electricity to the enclave’s population.

Here are key things to know about today's developments:

The blast : Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was sheltering thousands of displaced people when it was bombed Tuesday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement. Many victims are still under the rubble, it added.

Hamas, which controls the enclave, said more than 500 people were killed by the bombing. The Palestinian Health Ministry earlier said preliminary estimates indicate that between 200 to 300 people died in the attack.

Palestinian officials blamed ongoing Israeli airstrikes for the lethal incident. But the Israel Defense Forces has “categorically” denied any involvement in the hospital attack, blaming instead a “failed rocket launch” by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, a rival Islamist militant group in Gaza.

Impacted hospitals: Gaza has been under siege by Israel  for more than a week , in response to the  deadly incursion by Hamas , the Islamist militant group that controls the coastal enclave, home to 2.2 million people. Hospitals meanwhile are struggling to tend to the wounded across the territory, operating with shortages of electricity and water.

Israeli bombardment has killed at least 3,000 people, including 1,032 girls and 940 boys, and wounded 12,500 in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said Tuesday. Casualties in Gaza over the past 10 days have now surpassed the number of those killed during the 51-day Gaza-Israel conflict in 2014.

While the IDF has said it does not target hospitals, the UN and Doctors Without Borders say Israeli airstrikes have struck medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances. 

Health services within Gaza are on the brink and food and water supplies are running low. Twenty out of 23 hospitals were offering partial services because fuel reserves are “almost totally depleted,” the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) warned on Tuesday.

Closed crossing : Urgent calls for help are growing on both sides of a closed crossing as aid amasses on the Egyptian side of the border. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said the the United States and Israel “have agreed to develop a plan that will enable humanitarian aid from donor nations and multilateral organizations to reach civilians in Gaza.” 

But on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, a miles long convoy of humanitarian assistance awaiting entry into Gaza, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told CNN that “until now, there is no safe passage that has been granted” as they do not “have any authorization or clear, secure routes for those convoys to be able to enter safely and without any possibility of their being targeted."

Read more about the conflict .

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Trump Visits a Construction Site in Manhattan Before His Trial Resumes

The early morning campaign stop exemplifies the balancing act required for a candidate who is also a criminal defendant.

• Share full article

By Michael Gold

• April 25, 2024, 9:21 a.m. ET

Hours before he was set to return to the courthouse for his criminal trial in Manhattan, former President Donald J. Trump started Thursday morning by visiting a construction site in a campaign stop that exemplified the balancing act required for a candidate who is also a criminal defendant.

In the shadow of what will eventually be the 70-story headquarters of one of the nation’s biggest banks, Mr. Trump shook hands with union workers in a visit meant to highlight his support from working-class voters and draw attention to his criticism of President Biden’s economic policies.

His warm reception — a cheering crowd of roughly 100 people gathered behind him, chanting “we want Trump” — marked a stark contrast from the sober environment of the courthouse where Mr. Trump has spent most weekdays since his trial began last week, and where his comments have largely been limited to addressing reporters in the hallway during breaks.

Mr. Trump has not held a rally since just before the trial began, in part because a planned event in North Carolina last weekend was canceled because of weather. But his visit to the construction site typifies how his campaign is using retail stops in New York, a left-leaning state not expected to be in play in November, to help broadcast his national message.

“I have a lot of support here,” Mr. Trump said, as roughly two dozen workers clambered up scaffolding and equipment to catch a glimpse of him. Among those in the crowd were members of the Teamsters union, whose endorsement Mr. Trump has been courting.

The trip to the construction site kicks off what will be a significant day in Mr. Trump’s legal battles. In Manhattan, where Mr. Trump is accused of falsifying business records, David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, is expected to return to the stand and detail the hush-money payment at the center of his case. Asked by reporters, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Pecker had been “very nice” and called him a “nice guy.”

In Washington, the Supreme Court will consider Mr. Trump’s argument that he is immune from prosecution on federal charges that he plotted to subvert the 2020 election. Mr. Trump, who will likely be in the Manhattan courtroom during the oral arguments before the Supreme Court, repeated an argument he has been making for months that “a president has to have immunity, otherwise you just have a ceremonial president.”

Mr. Trump’s appeal to working-class voters was key to his victory in 2016, and as he tries to return to the White House, he has been eager to win the support of rank-and-file union members and to drive a wedge between them and labor leaders who have long favored Democrats.

In January, Mr. Trump met with the Teamsters union’s executive board and said he believed he had a “good shot” at securing the influential union’s endorsement. The union endorsed Mr. Biden in 2020, and its leaders met with the president last month.

Mr. Biden has for years touted his allegiance to unions. On Wednesday he received the endorsement of the North America’s Building Trades Unions, an umbrella group whose leaders pointed to Mr. Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure package.

Jason Miller, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said that Thursday’s visit had been “on the books for some time” and was part of the campaign’s larger strategy to contend with the scheduling challenges posed by the Manhattan trial.

“Since the Biden Trials are an attempt to keep us off the campaign trail, we’ll bring the campaign trail to us,” he said. Mr. Trump has said without citing evidence that the charges are part of an “election interference” scheme orchestrated by Mr. Biden.

Michael Gold is a political correspondent for The Times covering the campaigns of Donald J. Trump and other candidates in the 2024 presidential elections. More about Michael Gold

Our Coverage of the Trump Hush-Money Trial

News and Analysis

Prosecutors accused Donald Trump of violating a gag order four additional times , saying that he continues to defy the judge’s directions  not to attack witnesses , prosecutors and jurors in his hush-money trial.

Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan is off to an ominous start for the former president, and it might not get any easier  in the days ahead. Here’s why.

The National Enquirer  was more than a friendly media outlet  for Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. It was a powerful, national political weapon that was thrust into the service of a single candidate , in violation of campaign finance law.

More on Trump’s Legal Troubles

Key Inquiries: Trump faces several investigations  at both the state and the federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers.

Case Tracker:  Keep track of the developments in the criminal cases  involving the former president.

What if Trump Is Convicted?: Could he go to prison ? And will any of the proceedings hinder Trump’s presidential campaign? Here is what we know , and what we don’t know .

Trump on Trial Newsletter: Sign up here  to get the latest news and analysis  on the cases in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk postpones planned trip to India

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that his planned visit to India, which was reportedly scheduled for April 21-22, 2024, has been canceled. The CEO cited his current workload at Tesla as a reason for the postponement of his India trip, though he also noted that he is still looking forward to visiting the country later this year. 

Reports of Musk’s postponed trip were initially posted on India’s  CNBC TV18 , though the CEO himself confirmed the update in a post on social media platform X. “Unfortunately, very heavy Tesla obligations require that the visit to India be delayed, but I do very much look forward to visiting later this year,” Musk wrote in his post . 

Unfortunately, very heavy Tesla obligations require that the visit to India be delayed, but I do very much look forward to visiting later this year. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 20, 2024

Prior to Musk’s announcement, it appeared that his trip to India was already fully planned . The CEO even noted on X that he was looking forward to meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The timing of Musk’s visit seemed fitting as India recently rolled out a new electric vehicle manufacturing policy  that seemed designed to attract investments from companies like Tesla. 

Previous reports suggested that Musk would be staying in the country for two days, from April 21-22, 2024. During his visit, Musk was expected to meet not only with Prime Minister Modi, but other key government officials as well. He was also reportedly expected to meet with industry representatives. Industry insiders further claimed that Musk would discuss Tesla and Starlink during his India visit. 

While India seems to be ever-elusive for Tesla, Musk himself has noted during a previous X Spaces session that the country is becoming increasingly important. Thus, it would be a natural progression for a company like Tesla to establish a presence in India. “India is now the most populous country in the world, based on population. India should have electric cars just like every other country has electric cars. It’s a natural progression to provide Tesla electric vehicles in India,” Musk said. 

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to  [email protected]  to give us a heads up.

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NY troopers to help grieving Syracuse police during President Biden’s visit

• Updated: Apr. 25, 2024, 6:05 p.m. |
• Published: Apr. 24, 2024, 8:31 a.m.

President Joe Biden highlights details of Micron’s promised $100 billion investment in a microchip plant in Clay during a visit to Onondaga Community College in October 2022. Dennis Nett | [email protected]

• Mark Weiner | [email protected]

New York state troopers are stepping up to fill in for grieving Syracuse police officers who don’t want to work a special security detail Thursday when President Joe Biden visits Central New York , 11 days after two officers were killed in an ambush .

“Other than specialty units and some command level leaders, all Syracuse police personnel working the detail for President Biden’s visit will be on a volunteer status,” Syracuse Police Chief Joseph Cecile said in a statement Tuesday.

He thanked the state police for offering personnel to reduce the number of Syracuse officers required to work.

Syracuse police are usually ordered to work the special security shifts for presidential visits, or are prevented from taking days off, which are called “red line” days, said Capt. Matthew Malinowski, a police spokesperson.

The decision to offer relief for the grieving officers follows days of phone calls and meetings between Biden administration and Syracuse officials about how to handle the president’s visit on the heels of the police shootings.

Cecile said he initially expressed concerns about the timing to Secret Service officials last week.

But Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh accepted an offer from Gov. Kathy Hochul to have state police cover for city police, as troopers did during the funerals for the officers Saturday and Monday.

Cecile and Walsh said in statements that they didn’t ask the White House to delay the visit and are confident the department can handle the extra security demands on Thursday.

“We did, however, in early conversations with the Secret Service, express our concern about SPD’s capacity to adequately cover this detail, as we were grieving the loss of two fallen officers…and planning their services,” Cecile said in the statement.

“Having said that, we are now fully engaged with Secret Service and all of our local law enforcement partners to ensure the president’s visit is seamless,” the statement said.

In his statement, Walsh also said the police will be able to handle Biden’s visit.

Onondaga County Sheriff Toby Shelley is also confident his department will have no problem performing its duties during the president’s visit.

“He obviously wished that it would have been postponed because of everything that’s going on,” said Tom Newton, speaking for Shelley. “But he understands the nature of presidential visits. It’s going to be a lot of people working together like we always do.”

The White House received criticism over the planned visit from the head of Syracuse’s police union, who wanted Biden to postpone the visit.

“There’s a lot of frustration among the membership about how insensitive the Biden administration appears to be,” Joe Moran, president of the Syracuse Police Benevolent Association, told syracuse.com | The Post-Standard.

“I cannot believe he’s moving forward with this visit, given all that has gone on here this past week,” Moran said hours after the funeral of Onondaga County Sheriff’s Lt. Michael Hoosock on Monday, and days after the funeral for Syracuse police officer Michael Jensen on Saturday.

Moran, who represents nearly 400 Syracuse police officers, said he did not formally communicate his union’s concerns to the White House or local elected officials, but he did inform Cecile.

When asked about the timing of the visit, a White House official said, “Our team has been working closely with state and local officials to ensure that the president’s visit this Thursday is carried out in the most respectful way for the families and the community.”

Local police from Cicero and North Syracuse also have agreed to help fill in for Syracuse police during the president’s visit.

Biden will visit Syracuse for an event tied to the CHIPS and Science Act that lured Micron Technology to Central New York.

He will talk about the historic deal to provide Micron with $6.1 billion in federal grants for the company’s planned $100 billion complex of computer chip plants in the town of Clay and a smaller project in Idaho .

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Mark Weiner anytime by: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751

More on President Biden's visit

• Update: I-81 reopens as President Biden leaves Syracuse
• Joe Biden celebrates historic Micron deal in Syracuse while mourning slain officers
• Update: Biden meets with families of slain Syracuse-area police officers
• Live updates from Biden’s return to Syracuse: President departs on AF1 after ‘big-deal day’
• Biden visits Syracuse to celebrate Micron receiving 2nd-largest CHIPS subsidy in nation

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Why was Pakistan’s PM in Russia amid the Ukraine invasion?

Prime Minister Imran Khan had little to gain and much to lose from backing out of his planned visit to Moscow.

Against a backdrop of rapidly rising tensions between Russia and the West, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s long-planned February 23-24 visit to Moscow, the first official state visit by a Pakistani head of government in two decades, was always going to be a risky gambit.

But no one fully predicted how controversial its timing would eventually prove to be.

On February 21, Russia recognised two breakaway regions in Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent entities and ordered Russian troops to “maintain peace” there. Classifying the move as “the beginning of an invasion”, the United States announced a first tranche of sanctions against Russia, including steps to starve the country of financing. Despite these developments placing the entire world on high alert, Prime Minister Khan chose not to cancel or postpone his Moscow visit. And when Russia’s President Vladimir Putin formally announced the invasion of Ukraine just before daybreak on February 24, eliciting swift global condemnation and sending international markets into a tailspin, Prime Minister Khan and his delegation were just settling in their hotel rooms in Moscow.

It is little surprise that the Pakistani visit to Moscow, primarily intended to boost energy and economic cooperation between the two sides and give impetus to the multibillion-dollar Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline, immediately came under fire for its precarious timing. But it is also true that any eleventh-hour manoeuvring on the Pakistani side would have been fraught with difficulties.

The bilateral relationship between Islamabad and Moscow is not without significant scar tissue, left over from Pakistan’s alignment with the US during the Cold War, the deployment of Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and Russia’s close defence ties with Pakistan’s nemesis India. And there is much reason – both political and economic – for Pakistan to want to capitalise on recent efforts to reset the relationship.

Today, the Pakistani leadership is looking to urgently stabilise the country’s inflation-hit economy by increasing domestic productivity and attracting foreign investment. To achieve its economic goals, Pakistan is aware that it needs to maintain regional peace and avoid getting entangled in the expanding mesh of global power politics.

This desire to maintain peaceful relations in the region has reinforced the Pakistani government’s expressed commitment to increasing regional connectivity and encouraged it to expedite work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a core component of which includes the upgrading and rebranding of the country’s maritime trade routes through the ports of Karachi and Gwadar. Both Pakistan and China have maintained that these projects and routes are and will remain regionally inclusive. Pakistan’s first-ever National Security Policy, unveiled earlier this year, reaffirmed the government’s aspiration for regional integration and even contained tentative provisions for better relations with its archrival India. The document also called for the “reimagining [the country’s] partnership with Russia in energy, defence cooperation, and investment”.

In this context, Prime Minister Khan’s decision to go forward with his scheduled meeting with Putin to demonstrate his desire for stronger ties and further collaboration with Russia could be seen as an inherently rational move. Russia has already agreed to invest in the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline between Karachi and the city of Kasur in Punjab – a project worth more than $2bn that would greatly help service Pakistan’s ever-increasing energy demands once completed. On the political and security front, Islamabad has reason to seek closer ties with Russia now, especially after the US’s catastrophically executed withdrawal from Afghanistan in August last year. In other words, while Prime Minister Khan had much to lose from backing out of his planned visit to Moscow due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he also had little to gain.

Furthermore, in line with their desire to focus on the economy and good regional relations, Pakistani officials have long expressed their country’s desire to steer clear of coalition-building exercises reminiscent of Cold War bloc politics. They have repeatedly made it clear, for example, that Pakistan’s relationship with neighbouring China, which has undergone significant deepening since 2016, should not be misconstrued by the West as a zero-sum choice amidst growing Sino-US competition. Prime Minister Khan’s decision to go forward with his Moscow visit despite the escalation in Ukraine – and the coalition-building activities it paved the way to – likely followed the same thinking.

Indeed, in a statement issued just before Putin and Khan’s one-to-one meeting on February 24, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said Prime Minister Khan “regrets” the “latest situation” between Russia and Ukraine and had hoped “diplomacy could avert a military conflict”. The statement expressed Pakistan’s opposition to the invasion but refrained from outrightly condemning Moscow, demonstrating Islamabad’s desire to maintain careful neutrality on the growing tensions between Russia and the West.

That Prime Minister Khan’s long-awaited visit to Moscow was overshadowed by the invasion of Ukraine, however, has likely only increased Pakistan’s wariness of the many geopolitical tradeoffs that strategic closeness with Moscow entails. Tensions with the West notwithstanding, Russia also currently happens to be the largest arms exporter to India. The Indian Air Force is in the process of deploying Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile defence system batteries on its western border with Pakistan as a means to ward off airborne threats, and Indian Air Force officers and personnel have been receiving Russian training on these new systems. India’s defence and security closeness to Russia dates back to the Soviet era, back when the Kremlin actively backed India in the 1971 war that cost Pakistan its eastern wing. Pakistan is thus wary of becoming too close or dependent on Russia but does not want to harm strengthening relations and push this global power further into the arms of India either.

While it values its growing ties with Russia for several intersecting reasons, Pakistan’s government is also not ready to give up on its tremulous but important relationship with the West.

Despite a recent dampening of relations, epitomised most notably by the absence of any direct communication thus far between Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Joe Biden, Pakistan’s leadership recognises the necessity of keeping the Pakistan-US relationship off the ventilator. After all, the US is Pakistan’s largest export market and a leading potential investor in regional connectivity projects such as the 1,300-megawatt CASA-1000 energy project that supplies electricity to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, the IMF recently approved a $1bn disbursement to Pakistan under a $6bn loan programme that is likely to be spent financing imports and servicing foreign debt to prevent the Pakistani rupee from depreciating further.

On the strategic front, much of Pakistan’s military equipment continues to benefit from American logistical and technical servicing. Furthermore, despite its disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistan continues to view the US as a necessary if reluctant regional security collaborator, as it recently demonstrated by inviting the US state department’s special representative on Afghanistan to a Pakistan-convened Organisation of Islamic Cooperation emergency meeting on Afghanistan.

It is, however, is also not lost on Pakistani leadership that US policies towards South Asia are shaped by strategic considerations that often run counter to Pakistan’s own. The US strategic framework for the Indo-Pacific, for example, has elevated India into a bulwark position against China, weakening Pakistan’s hand against its hostile neighbour and encouraging it to seek other avenues of support to protect the delicate strategic balance in the region.

All in all, despite receiving vocal criticism from some quarters in the West, by going forward with his visit to Russia amid the invasion of Ukraine, Prime Minister Khan seems to have taken a calculated risk in line with what Pakistan sees as its current strategic, economic and political interests.

It is still not clear whether President Putin will accept Prime Minister Khan’s invitation to visit Pakistan later this year. While five US presidents have visited Pakistan since 1947, a Russian head of state has yet to make the trip – so if Putin does agree to make the journey to Islamabad, he would be the first Russian leader to do so, and will send an important message about the future of Russo-Pak relations.

With an invasion of Ukraine under way and the US having now exited Afghanistan, Russia will undoubtedly also be paying closer attention to its southern flank than ever before, and will likely want to keep a close eye on the Taliban regime in Kabul. To this end, Moscow may well see closer contact with Islamabad as a means to shoring up contact with Afghanistan’s new leadership.

Pakistan’s own relationship with the Taliban is, of course, not uncomplicated, but thus far it has attempted to work in tandem with China, Russia and the US to help build a regional consensus that can undergird stability in Afghanistan’s neighbourhood. In the end, Islamabad appears willing and able to work with Moscow – despite some underlying geopolitical contradictions – to stabilise South Asia, promote regional integration, and avert a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, even as one, paradoxically, may be beginning in Eurasia.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

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Danish PM ‘surprised and disappointed’ over cancelled Trump visit

US president attacks comments as ‘nasty’ after calling off trip because Greenland not for sale

The Danish prime minister has said she is surprised and disappointed that Donald Trump has called off his planned visit to the country over Copenhagen’s refusal to sell Greenland to the US.

At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Mette Frederiksen reaffirmed that Greenland was not for sale. “A discussion about a potential sale of Greenland has been put forward. It has been rejected by Greenland premier Kim Kielsen, and I fully stand behind that rejection,” she said.

She had previously said Trump’s Greenland proposal was absurd.

Trump told reporters at the White House later: “I thought the prime minister’s statement that it was an absurd idea was nasty.

“It was not a nice way of doing it. She could have just said, ‘No, we’d rather not do it.’ She’s not talking to me, she’s talking to the United States of America. They can’t say: ‘How absurd.’”

Earlier, in damage limitation mode, Frederiksen insisted that the US president’s decision would not affect strategic, military or commercial cooperation between their two countries. “The cancellation of the visit doesn’t change the good relationship between Denmark and the United States,” she said.

Politicians from across the spectrum were united in their condemnation. “There are already many good reasons to think that the man is a fool, and now he has given another good reason,” Eva Flyvholm, the foreign policy chair for Denmark’s Red-Green Alliance, told Danish media.

The former prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt tweeted:

So the POTUS has cancelled his visit to Denmark because there was no interest in discussing selling Greenland @BBCRadio4 Is this some sort of joke? Deeply insulting to the people of Greenland and Denmark. — Helle Thorning S (@HelleThorning_S) August 21, 2019

Villy Søvndal, a former foreign minister, said the decision “confirms that Donald Trump is a narcissistic fool”.

The US president had been due to visit Denmark in early September but announced on Twitter late on Tuesday night that there was no longer any point in the visit. “Based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time,” Trump wrote. The White House later confirmed that the visit had been called off.

Søvndal told the Danish newspaper Berlingske that Trump’s decision showed he was unaware of the basic rules of diplomacy. “If he had been a clown in a circus, you could probably say that there is considerable entertainment value. The problem is that he is the president of the most powerful nation in the world,” he said.

Why might Donald Trump want to buy Greenland?

Greenland harbours some of the largest deposits of rare-earth metals, including neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, along with uranium and the byproducts of zinc.

US corporations once thought of China as a benign supplier of rare-earth metals for mobile phones, computers and more recently electric cars. And the US government was relaxed when Chinese companies began hoovering up mines across  central and southern Africa  to secure an even greater dominance of the global market.

But the arrival of  Xi Jinping  as China’s leader, and his more aggressive foreign policy stance, has spooked many US policymakers. Among Trump’s advisers, the need for greater economic independence has raced up the agenda.

A potential target for the US is  Greenland Minerals , an Australian company that has generated a good deal of excitement since it started operating  on Greenland’s south-west peninsula  in 2007 to develop the Kvanefjeld mine, which is home to many rare-earth metals.

More than 100m tonnes of ore are believed to be sitting below the surface and the project is expected to become one of the largest global producers outside China.

Phillip Inman

The awkwardness was compounded by the fact that the US ambassador to Denmark had tweeted her excitement about the upcoming visit a few hours before Trump made his announcement. “Denmark is ready for the POTUS @realDonaldTrump visit! Partner, ally, friend,” she wrote.

On Wednesday, she tried to repair the damage in a new tweet claiming Trump “values and respects” Denmark and plans a visit in the future.

“ @POTUS values & respects and looks forward to a visit in the future to discuss the many important issues in our strong bilateral relationship!” she wrote. “Great friends & Allies like and should be able to discuss all issues openly & candidly.” Twitter users responded with some scepticism towards her message.

A spokeswoman for the Danish royal household, which had formally invited Trump, said Queen Margrethe II was surprised by the cancellation.

Greenland, a vast island bordering the Arctic Ocean that is 85% covered in ice, was a Danish colony until 1953. It gained autonomous territory status in 1979, but the island’s economy depends heavily on Danish subsidies. It has 55,000 inhabitants, many of whom favour full independence from Denmark.

Many in Denmark had initially assumed the story of Trump’s desire to buy the large, sparsely populated island was either meant in jest or as a distraction tactic. Trump even tweeted a photograph of a small Greenland village with a large Trump tower Photoshopped in, but he appears to have been serious about the proposal, or at least offended by the firm rebuff it received.

The defence and security correspondent with Denmark’s Berlingske newspaper, Kristian Mouritzen, said the first reactions were of shock and amazement that the question of buying Greenland had been seriously raised. “In my long life I can never recall a friendly nation making a meeting dependent on a willingness to sell part of your territory. It’s like trying to buy Scotland. It’s out of the question.”

He said Trump’s move had led to a rare moment of unity among all major Danish political forces, but added that once the dust has settled, the government would look to salvage whatever was possible. “We have a lot of issues with the US: climate change, the Iran deal and now also Greenland, so I think now the government will look to play it safe and try to build some bridges via diplomatic channels.”

On Wednesday, Trump took another swipe at Denmark, this time over its defence spending. He tweeted: “For the record, Denmark is only at 1.35% of GDP for NATO spending. They are a wealthy country and should be at 2%. We protect Europe and yet, only 8 of the 28 NATO countries are at the 2% mark.”

Government officials in Greenland made it clear the island was not for sale but welcomed increased US interest. “The ridiculous idea of ​​building a Trump tower in a village in Greenland makes us laugh. At the same time, his interest in Greenland has sparked a new debate about Greenlandic independence from Denmark,” said Poul Krarup, the editor-in-chief of Sermitsiaq, one of Greenland’s two newspapers.

The US has an airbase and a radar station in Greenland, and Krarup said there was willingness to discuss further military cooperation with the US, including more airbases or submarine monitoring stations. He said it was baffling that China had so far shown more interest than the US in partnerships with Greenland.

“It is only now under Trump that the US understands Greenland’s importance to US security policy. If Trump is prepared to spend money on development in Greenland, he is most welcome. It will help Greenland achieve more economic independence from Denmark,” said Krarup. “But we are not for sale.”

• Donald Trump

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‘Elon Musk Read Writing On The Wall’: Congress Mocks 'Outgoing PM' Modi As Tesla CEO Postpones India Visit

Elon musk announced on saturday that his planned visit to india has been deferred due to pressing obligations with tesla..

New Delhi: Elon Musk's decision to postpone his visit to India, originally planned to meet with Prime Minister, has raised questions and speculation. Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Saturday took a dig at PM Modi. He said, "It was odd that Elon musk was coming all the way to India to meet an outgoing Prime Minister. He too has now read the writing on the wall and decided to put off his visit".

He futher added, "INDIA’s PM will welcome him soon, and the INDIA Government will promote electric vehicles even more aggressively - I myself am a user of one!".

It was odd that @elonmusk was coming all the way to India to meet an outgoing Prime Minister. He too has now read the writing on the wall and decided to put off his visit. INDIA’s PM will welcome him soon, and the INDIA Government will promote electric vehicles even more… — Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 20, 2024

Elon Musk's Visit Postponed 

American tech billionaire Elon Musk announced on Saturday that his planned visit to India has been postponed due to pressing obligations with Tesla. Originally scheduled to be in India on April 21 and 22, where he was expected to meet PM Modi, Musk expressed his anticipation for a visit later in the year.

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In June last year, Elon Musk met with PM Modi during the latter's US visit and expressed his intention to visit India in 2024, expressing optimism about Tesla's imminent entry into the Indian market. Musk's proposed visit had heightened expectations that he would unveil plans for Tesla to establish a presence in the country, alongside his satellite communication venture, Starlink.

It was anticipated that Musk would announce Tesla's plans to establish a manufacturing unit in India, potentially involving investments amounting to billions of dollars, and outline a roadmap for the introduction of Tesla electric cars in the Indian market.

Beyond electric vehicles, Musk also had his sights set on the Indian market for his satellite internet business, Starlink, pending regulatory approvals. Musk has previously advocated for a reduction in import duties in India to facilitate the sale of Tesla cars in the country. His planned visit coincided with the Indian government's announcement of a new electric vehicle policy, offering import duty concessions to companies investing a minimum of USD 500 million in manufacturing units in India, a move aimed at attracting major global players such as Tesla.

On Thursday, a representative from Tesla, represented by The Asia Group (TAG), participated in a stakeholders' meeting on India's new EV policy, alongside key players in the automotive industry such as Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata, Mahindra, and others, as well as Vietnam's EV maker VinFast. The consultation aimed to gather insights for framing guidelines for the new EV manufacturing policy.

According to the policy, companies establishing manufacturing facilities for EV passenger cars will be permitted to import a limited number of vehicles at a reduced customs/import duty of 15% for vehicles costing USD 35,000 and above for a duration of five years from the date of government approval.

Tesla's Stance On Manufacturing In India

Presently, completely built units (CBUs) attract customs duty ranging from 70% to 100% based on engine size and CIF value. The new EV policy aims to position India as a manufacturing hub for EVs and attract investments from global manufacturers. Tesla had previously engaged with the Indian government, advocating for duty cuts to import its vehicles into the country.

In 2022, Elon Musk reiterated Tesla's stance on manufacturing in India, stating that the company would only consider establishing manufacturing facilities if it were permitted to sell and service its cars in the country first. Prior to this, in August 2021, Musk had expressed the possibility of Tesla setting up a manufacturing unit in India contingent upon the success of imported vehicles in the market.

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However, he also highlighted the challenge posed by India's high import duties, which are among the highest globally for large countries. In addition to Tesla, Musk has been actively pursuing the launch of Starlink operations in India, aiming to provide internet connectivity to remote areas through a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites.

Starlink faced scrutiny in 2021 when it began accepting pre-orders without proper licensing, prompting the government to clarify that Starlink was not authorized to offer satellite-based internet services in India.

Subsequently, Starlink applied for a Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) license in November 2022. Currently, the license application is under review by the Department of Telecom, with the government examining security implications.

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Macron scraps Ukraine visit due to ‘security issues’ – media

French President Emmanuel Macron has postponed his planned visit to Ukraine due to security concerns, the French magazine Challenges reported on Sunday.

According to the report, the trip was scheduled for February 13-14. Macron was expected to visit Odessa – Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port – and later arrive in Kiev. The French government has not commented on the reported delay.

The exact dates of foreign leaders’ trips to Ukraine are typically not revealed in advance.

Macron last visited Kiev in June 2022, four months after Russia launched its military operation. The new French foreign minister, Stephane Sejourne, made a visit to the Ukrainian capital in January, where he met with President Vladimir Zelensky and promised more support.

Macron announced last month that France would provide 40 additional SALP-EG air-launched cruise missiles and “hundreds of bombs.” He said he would “finalize” the bilateral security agreement during an upcoming trip Ukraine.

A similar pact that Kiev previously signed with London stipulates that Ukraine will receive “swift and sustained security assistance, modern military equipment across all domains” in the event of a Russian attack in the future.

Russia summoned the French ambassador in January, protesting over  “the dozens of Frenchmen” fighting in the Ukrainian army. The French Foreign Ministry has denied Moscow’s claim that it had deployed  “mercenaries in Ukraine.”  At the same time, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Paris cannot stop “French civilians” from traveling to Ukraine and joining the fight on Kiev’s side.

In early February, France summoned the Russian ambassador over the deaths of two French aid workers in an airstrike in Ukraine.

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Donald Trump cancels visit to Arizona, cites scheduling conflict with a court hearing

F ormer President Donald Trump has canceled his Friday visit to Arizona, which was intended to help raise money for the state Republican Party, which is now in turmoil following the abrupt resignation on Wednesday of its chair, Jeff DeWit.

An Arizona GOP spokesperson confirmed the cancellation to The Arizona Republic on Thursday afternoon. The reason for the change in plans was not immediately clear.

Trump had been scheduled to hold a rally at Dream City Church in north Phoenix as part of the Arizona GOP's Freedom Fest event.

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"President Trump will be in NYC for court Friday and unable to make the event, but will be back to Arizona as soon as possible," Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said in a written statement provided to The Arizona Republic. "We look forward to winning Arizona for President Trump, electing (Senate candidate) Kari Lake and working with the AZGOP to do it."

The entire Freedom Fest event is canceled because Trump is not coming, according to Dajana Zlatičanin, an Arizona GOP spokesperson.

Closing arguments in writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation damages case against Trump are set for Friday in New York City. Trump gave brief testimony Thursday in the trial.

The cancellation comes one day after DeWit, the party's chair, resigned after the release of a March 2023 audio recording in which he offered Kari Lake a lucrative job to stay out of the U.S. Senate race. Lake rejected what she characterized as a bribe.

In his resignation, DeWit said "Lake's team" threatened to release another, more damaging recording. In the recording, DeWit cast doubt on Lake's election prospects and expressed doubt about Trump's chances. In comments to NBC News, DeWit said there was widespread doubt about Lake's elective viability.

'She’s walking a tightrope': How will Kari Lake's close ties to Trump play in Senate race?

Both DeWit and Lake are among the most prominent Trump loyalists in Arizona. Their falling out leaves the Arizona GOP suddenly searching for a new leader and comes as DeWit was trying to rebuild its financial footing, something a Trump visit could have helped.

Instead, the party faces new questions ahead of its annual meeting on Saturday.

DeWit made clear in his resignation that he had hoped to stay in his post until receiving what he viewed as a threat from Lake's team.

"I have decided not to take the risk," DeWit wrote. "I am resigning as Lake requested, in the hope that she will honor her commitment to cease her attacks."

Hours later, Lake told an online audience DeWit's efforts were "disgusting" but didn't address why she waited until this week to release the recording and her campaign maintained no one there tried to blackmail DeWit.

The cancellation also comes at a time when Trump was looking to build momentum for a general election campaign after his sweep of the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.

Trump briefly testified in New York on Thursday in a case to assess damages against him for continuing to defame E. Jean Carroll, the woman who successfully sued him for sexually assaulting her in the 1990s. Closing arguments in that case are scheduled for Friday.

Republic reporter Ray Stern contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Donald Trump cancels visit to Arizona, cites scheduling conflict with a court hearing

Trump cancels rally because of weather, proving the difficulty of balancing a trial and campaign

WILMINGTON, N.C. — Donald Trump had to cancel his first planned rally since the start of his criminal hush money trial because of a storm Saturday evening in North Carolina, an added complication that highlights the difficulty the former president faces in juggling his legal troubles with his rematch against President Joe Biden .

Trump called into the rally site near the Wilmington airport less than an hour before he was scheduled to take the stage and apologized to a few thousand supporters who had gathered throughout the afternoon under initially sunny skies that later darkened with storm clouds.

Speaking from his private plane, Trump cited lightning and the incoming storm in explaining that he would not be landing. He pledged to reschedule a “bigger and better” event at the same location “as quick as possible.”

The planned rally in the critical battleground of North Carolina was to cap a week in which Trump spent four days in a Manhattan courtroom sitting silent during jury selection while Biden was able to hold multiple campaign events in Pennsylvania , another key state in the November election.

The cancellation denied Trump a fresh chance to amplify claims that his multiple pending indictments are an establishment conspiracy to take him down — and, by extension, squelch the voters who first elected him eight years ago.

Now, instead of commanding attention on his own terms at one of his signature mass rallies, his next public appearance is almost certainly going to be Monday, back at the defendant's table for opening arguments in the first felony trial ever for an American president. And his campaign is left to decide when he next can be Trump the candidate instead of Trump the defendant.

“I’m devastated that this could happen but we want to keep everybody safe,” Trump said.

The assembled voters expressed frustrations with the turn of events but made clear they understood. Many of them had spent hours ahead of the rally holding prime seats, patronizing food trucks and perusing a row of tents selling Trump memorabilia, including T-shirts featuring the former president's mug shot taken in Atlanta after his indictment on charges that he led a criminal conspiracy to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory.

“I’ve been with Donald Trump and I’m still with Donald Trump, but I’m disappointed he didn’t show up,” said Cheryl Lynn Johnson, who drove about two hours from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to attend what would have been her fourth Trump rally. “I’m mad at Mother Nature, but I stand behind Trump.”

Indeed, the audience was primed to validate Trump’s strategy to use his mandated court time to his advantage by folding the proceedings into the same populist, anti-establishment arguments that first fueled his rise eight years ago.

“It’s political persecution, and if it were anybody else he wouldn’t have to be dealing with it,” said Christian Armstrong, a 28-year-old firefighter who lives in Wilmington and was attending his first Trump rally.

LeeAnn Coleman, a 42-year-old who is in a family restaurant business, said, “It’s ludicrous that he’s having to do this at all,” rather than spend time focusing on “all the problems he wants to fix.”

Those arguments could have come from Trump himself.

“They want to keep me off the campaign trail,” the candidate-turned-defendant insisted earlier this week in Harlem, where he visited a neighborhood convenience store and addressed a throng of media outside after spending the day at his own jury selection. Rather than pursue violent criminals, he alleged, “They go after Trump.”

It is not clear when Trump’s next campaign appearance will be. His New York trial could last more than a month, severely curtailing his freedom to see voters, fundraise and make calls, and additional court proceedings could follow later in the year. Trump aides have promised weekend rallies and events on Wednesdays, the one weekday that Trump’s hush money trial is expected to be in recess. The former president’s campaign also has promised additional weeknight appearances around New York, like his trip to Harlem.

But there is no accounting for weather. The closest Trump came to assigning responsibility for the cancellation was to mention “weather officials,” but he did not question the decision during his brief remarks.

Even with the cancellation, Trump’s choice of venue underscored the importance of North Carolina as a presidential battleground. Trump won here by less than 1.5 percentage points over Biden in 2020, the closest margin of any state Trump won. Saturday would have been the second time in as many months that Trump visited the state. Biden has traveled to North Carolina twice this year; Vice President Kamala Harris has been four times.

“The presidential race is going to run through North Carolina,” said Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, in a recent interview.

North Carolina is one of seven states that both the Trump and Biden campaigns have said they will dedicate significant campaign resources to winning. Trump has insisted he will widen the map, even into his native New York, which is heavily Democratic. Most Republicans, though, agree that Trump will have a difficult path to an Electoral College majority if Biden were to win North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes. Trump tacitly acknowledged North Carolina’s status by tapping then-state Republican Chairman Michael Whatley to lead his effective takeover of the Republican National Committee.

Biden’s campaign has hired statewide North Carolina leadership and field organizers for offices across the state. That’s on top of state party staff that began an organizing program last year ahead of municipal races and looking to this year’s statewide contests, which include an open governor’s race. Cooper is legally barred from seeking a third term.

“We needed to build energy on the ground early,” said state Democratic Chairwoman Anderson Clayton, noting that the last Democratic presidential nominee to win North Carolina — Barack Obama in 2008 — had organized the state in a hotly contested primary campaign that ramped up the previous year.

Matt Mercer, spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party, countered that Republicans have had veteran staffers on the ground since 2020, and now have a ticket with Trump and Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, that excites the GOP base. Trump has endorsed Robinson, the state’s first Black lieutenant governor, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

Robinson was set to be on stage with Trump in Wilmington.

Ahead of the scheduled rally, Democrats hammered the pairing for their opposition to abortion rights, calling them too extreme for North Carolina.

Cooper predicted Biden’s record — low unemployment, rising wages, stabilized inflation, infrastructure and green energy investments — and his support for abortion rights will resonate with a geographically and demographically diverse state.

“Joe Biden did more in his first two years than most presidents hope to do in two terms,” Cooper argued.

Mercer said Republicans will answer with a family-first message around the economy and public safety.

“Whether it’s with sky-high inflation, the open southern border or the migrant crime crisis,” he said, voters are “fed up” with Biden.

Trump lost an opportunity Saturday to make that case himself. But for voters like Matt Mazak, a 32-year-old who described himself as an independent, the verdict already is in.

“I want someone who is not going to go with the flow of D.C.,” Mazak said. “I’m not even saying Trump is the right answer. But he’s the best we’ve got.”

How Trump could win at the Supreme Court even if his broad immunity argument is rejected

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump might be able to declare victory in his upcoming Supreme Court case on presidential immunity even if the justices reject his most extreme arguments.

At issue in the high-stakes showdown Thursday is whether Trump's criminal charges over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results should be dismissed based on a broad claim of immunity.

Even if the court rejects that bold argument, it could still send the case back to Washington-based U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan for more proceedings on whether some of Trump's actions are insulated from prosecution.

With the case, initially scheduled for trial in March, already plagued by delays, such a ruling would further imperil the chances of any trial being concluded before November's election.

"Trump’s first preference would be a ruling that he is immune, but a second preference would be a ruling that there is some kind of complicated factual test for immunity so it has to be remanded," said Richard Bernstein, a lawyer who filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing Trump on behalf of former government officials .

In that scenario, "the case would get bogged down" on questions about to what extent each of the four counts in the indictment rest on official acts of the then-president, which might be protected, he added.

The case in Washington, separate from the ongoing criminal trial in New York, concerns Trump's involvement in a scheme to submit fake election certificates to Congress in the hope that it would nullify Joe Biden’s victory, a chain of events that led to the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

Prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith say those acts constituted a series of crimes. Trump says he was merely expressing his concerns, which were not based on any evidence, that the election was plagued with fraud.

The four charges he faces are: conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy to violate the right to vote and have one's vote counted.

The question of whether the obstruction charge can be used to prosecute people involved in the Jan. 6 riot is the subject of another Supreme Court case argued last week .

The legal issues in the election interference case have sometimes served as a sideshow to the issue of timing, with Trump opponents hoping that a trial could take place before the election in the belief that a guilty verdict could affect the 2024 general election, in which Trump once again faces off against Biden.

Some legal commentators say Trump has in many ways already won by persuading the Supreme Court not to intervene in the case at an earlier stage , making it less likely that a trial can take place before the election even if the immunity claim is outright rejected. The court also dithered when deciding how to frame the legal question when it ultimately took up Trump's appeal.

The Supreme Court's handling of the case so far might suggest it will fall short of a sweeping ruling against Trump as some have predicted, legal experts say.

The court might think that there are some official duties that do merit immunity but leave it to a trial court to figure out how that applies to Trump's case, according to Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at the George Washington University Law School.

"The reason they took the case is because they want to write something more nuanced that accepts there may be immunity in some circumstances," he added.

Smith has argued in court papers that Trump has no immunity and that the case should go immediately to trial.

But in his latest brief , Smith offered his views on what the court should do if it thinks that there is some form of immunity for official acts.

In that scenario, the trial should still go ahead, he argued, because the charges in the indictment also include "private conduct" that has nothing to do with Trump's official duties.

If there are concerns about actions that should be subject to immunity being used as evidence against Trump, the trial court could weigh whether that evidence should be excluded, Smith argued.

"The district court can make evidentiary rulings and craft appropriate jury instructions for trial clarifying that petitioner may be held criminally liable based only on the private conduct alleged in the indictment," Smith wrote.

The prosecution's theory of the case is that any use of official presidential power "was merely an additional means of achieving a private aim" — remaining in office after losing an election.

Smith cited, among other things, Trump's coordination with private lawyers in forming the scheme to submit false alternative election certifications to Congress in the hope that then-Vice President Mike Pence would refuse to certify Biden's victory.

Smith also argued that, at a minimum, some evidence arising from official duties could be used at trial in order to show Trump's "knowledge or notice of the falsity of his election-fraud claims."

Trump's own brief calls for sweeping immunity, seeking an extension of a 1982 Supreme Court ruling called Nixon v. Fitzgerald that said presidents cannot be sued for conduct within the "outer perimeter" of their official duties. That was a civil case and has never been applied in the criminal context.

The possibility of a remand is also addressed in Trump's brief, with his lawyers appearing to envisage a pretrial proceeding that would include detailed consideration of whether his conduct constituted protected official acts.

They cite an appeals court ruling that allowed civil claims to move ahead against Trump over his involvement in Jan. 6. That court rejected Trump's broad immunity argument but said he could raise the issue again later in the litigation.

Trump could also seek to appeal any adverse ruling in a pretrial proceeding, although, depending on how the process works, he might have to wait until after trial.

Opinions vary on how much more time, from days to weeks, additional litigation on immunity could add before a trial commences.

"How much delay that causes is a real open question," said Matthew Seligman, another lawyer who filed a brief backing prosecutors.

Chutkan, who put the case on hold while Trump appealed the immunity issue, has previously indicated that a trial could start three months after she gets the case back following a Supreme Court ruling.

If that ruling comes at the end of June, when the Supreme Court typically issues decisions in its most consequential cases before breaking for the summer, that would lead to a trial starting no earlier than the end of September. The trial could last up to 12 weeks.

A trial before the election is "still theoretically possible," Eliason said, but "the window is closing."

Lawrence Hurley covers the Supreme Court for NBC News.