MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s Democratic governor opposes keeping Republican Donald Trump off the ballot in the battleground state, saying that those who think he should be disqualified “can vote against him.”

Gov. Tony Evers also told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that in order for President Joe Biden to win Wisconsin, he must be a frequent visitor to the state and focus his message on his successes and issues that matter to the middle class, not just the argument that the fate of democracy is at stake.

Evers’ comments come ahead of a visit to Wisconsin later this month by Vice President Kamala Harris and ahead of the planned filing Friday of a lawsuit by a Democratic activist aimed at keeping Trump off the ballot, arguing that his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot amounted to unconstitutional insurrection.

Officials in Colorado and Maine have already banned Trump’s name from primary election ballots. Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court ruling from December that stripped his name from the state’s ballot.

WASHINGTON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - North Korea recently provided Russia with ballistic missiles and launchers for use in Moscow's war against Ukraine, some of which Russia has fired into Ukraine, the White House said on Thursday, citing newly declassified intelligence.

National security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the United States will raise the development with the United Nations Security Council.

Kirby called North Korea's arms transfer to Russia a "significant and concerning escalation" and said the United States would impose additional sanctions against those facilitating the arms deals.

"Our information indicates that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea recently provided Russia with ballistic missile launchers and several ballistic missiles," said Kirby, using the official name of North Korea.

A consumer action group is accusing Starbucks of exploiting customers via its gift card and app payments, forcing them to enter a spending cycle where they will never be able to fully spend the remaining balance of prepaid amounts.

The Washington Consumer Protection Coalition, a self-described “movement of everyday consumers advocating for corporate accountability,” is calling on the state attorney general to investigate whether the company’s policies violate consumer protection laws.

“Starbucks rigs its payment platform so consumers are encouraged to leave unspent money on their cards and apps,” said Chris Carter, campaign manager for the group, in a statement. “A few dollars here and there left on a payment platform may not sound like a lot but it adds up. Over the last five years Starbucks has claimed nearly $900 million in unspent gift card and app money as corporate revenue, boosting corporate profits and inflating executive bonuses.”

Recognizing the broad consensus as expressed by 44 countries around the world on December 19, 2023, as well as the statement by the UN Security Council on December 1, 2023, condemning Houthi attacks against commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea, and in light of ongoing attacks, including a significant escalation over the past week targeting commercial vessels, with missiles, small boats, and attempted hijackings,

We hereby reiterate the following and warn the Houthis against further attacks:

Ongoing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are illegal, unacceptable, and profoundly destabilizing. There is no lawful justification for intentionally targeting civilian shipping and naval vessels. Attacks on vessels, including commercial vessels, using unmanned aerial vehicles, small boats, and missiles, including the first use of anti-ship ballistic missiles against such vessels, are a direct threat to the freedom of navigation that serves as the bedrock of global trade in one of the world’s most critical waterways.

These attacks threaten innocent lives from all over the world and constitute a significant international problem that demands collective action. Nearly 15 percent of global seaborne trade passes through the Red Sea, including 8 percent of global grain trade, 12 percent of seaborne-traded oil and 8 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas trade. International shipping companies continue to reroute their vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding significant cost and weeks of delay to the delivery of goods, and ultimately jeopardizing the movement of critical food, fuel, and humanitarian assistance throughout the world.

Let our message now be clear: we call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews. The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways. We remain committed to the international rules-based order and are determined to hold malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks.

Alicia Menendez was filling in for Nicolle Wallace as host of “Deadline: White House” when the Department of Justice slapped the senator with the superseding indictment.

“We have to take a quick break,” the senator’s daughter said with about five minutes left in her two-hour guest stint. “And we’ll be back with some breaking news right after this.”

After the commercials ended, Menendez was no longer on camera and MSNBC host Ari Melber greeted viewers with the latest allegations against the senator.

New York federal court documents containing previously hidden names of people associated in some way with the late notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be unsealed Wednesday, an official said.

Many of the more than 150 people named in the civil court filings have previously been publicly disclosed as connected in some way with Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.

The soon-to-be unsealed documents were filed in connection with a Manhattan federal court lawsuit by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Epstein’s longtime accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

“Things should start getting unsealed today,” Edward Friedland, the district executive for that court, told CNBC.

The year ahead, from one perspective, will be the most successful democracy has ever seen. Never in history will so many people have the opportunity to put a mark on a ballot: More than half the world’s almost six billion adults will go to the polls in some sort of nationwide vote in 2024, according to an estimate by The Economist.

Those elections will include some of the world’s biggest and most populated countries – India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, the United States, and likely Britain and Canada, will have a major vote in 2024, as will the European Parliament. You could call it a high-water mark for democracy, if the success of democracy were measured only by people voting.

Most crucial will be the Nov. 5 presidential election in the U.S., whose outcome could set the temperature of democracy worldwide. But while Donald Trump’s sometimes violent assaults on democratic institutions and outspoken alliances with overseas autocrats, if returned to world politics in a second presidential term, have the ominous potential of cementing a worldwide far-right authoritarian bloc, he is far from the only democracy-threatening candidate on the ballot next year.

The Sweden-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, in its 2023 report, described 2022 as “the sixth consecutive year in which more countries have experienced net declines in democratic processes than net improvements.” And 2023 will almost certainly prove to have been a seventh – “democracy has continued to contract,” its analysis found, with declines of at least one major democratic measure in half the world’s countries.

Hundreds of sealed court filings pertaining to the late sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein are set to be made public this week, and several prominent names -- including Britain's Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton -- are expected to appear in the documents.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled earlier this month there was no legal justification for continuing to conceal the ex-president's name and more than 150 names other "John and Jane Does" mentioned in the records. Preska ordered the unsealing to begin after Jan. 1.

Giuffre made no allegations of wrongdoing by Clinton, and there is no indication the sealed records contain evidence of illegal conduct by Clinton. But Giuffre's claim that she met the ex-president on Epstein's private Caribbean island emerged as a contentious issue in the litigation, which was settled in 2017. Maxwell contended Clinton had never been to Little St. James -- as Epstein's island was known -- and assailed Giuffre's claim as a fabrication that shattered her credibility.

Personal flight logs kept by one of Epstein's pilots -- which surfaced in separate lawsuits against Epstein -- showed that Clinton and his entourage had flown extensively on Epstein's jumbo-jet to international destinations such as Paris, Bangkok and Brunei in 2002 and 2003. But none of the available records included the former president on a trip to Epstein's island.

Harvard President Claudine Gay recently requested corrections for two of her academic papers, but she did not address even clearer examples of plagiarism from earlier in her academic history at the school, according to a CNN analysis of her writings.

In response to accusations of plagiarism, the embattled Harvard president recently submitted corrections to two papers she wrote as a professional academic in 2001 and 2017. But a CNN examination of Gay’s published works documented that Gay committed other, clearer examples of plagiarism while she was studying for her PhD at Harvard in the 1990s.

Those include an instance in her dissertation where she copied lines verbatim from another source without citation.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military on Wednesday said it had uncovered a major Hamas command center in the heart of Gaza City, inflicting what it described as a serious blow to the Islamic militant group as pressure grows on Israel to scale back its devastating military offensive in the coastal enclave.

The army said it had exposed the center of a vast underground network used by Hamas to move weapons, militants and supplies throughout the Gaza Strip. Israel has said destroying the tunnels is a major objective of the offensive.

The announcement came as Hamas’ top leader arrived in Egypt for talks aimed at brokering a temporary cease-fire and a new deal for Hamas to swap Israeli hostages for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.