Former President Donald Trump has claimed that Judge Juan Merchan “is not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me" as the jury deliberates in the hush money trial against him.

Trump made the claim in a social media post on Wednesday in which he described Merchan’s supposed position as “RIDICULOUS, UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND UNAMERICAN.” He was echoing assertions that had been circulating among conservatives after Fox News anchor John Roberts wrote on social media earlier on Wednesday that “Judge Merchan just told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim inaccurately depicts what Merchan said.

Merchan told the jury in his instructions on Wednesday that their verdict “must be unanimous” on each of the 34 counts that Trump faces and that, to convict Trump of felony falsification of business records, they have to unanimously agree that he falsified business records with the intent to commit, aid or conceal another crime — that other crime being a violation of a New York election law.

But Merchan explained that while this New York election law prohibits people from conspiring to use “unlawful means” to promote a candidate’s election, jurors don’t have to unanimously agree on which particular “unlawful means” Trump may have used. They can find him guilty as long as they unanimously agree that Trump used some unlawful means. Prosecutors provided three theories of what unlawful means Trump used.

More than half of Americans (58%) say they are following news about candidates for the 2024 presidential election very or fairly closely. Another 28% say they aren’t following it too closely, and 13% aren’t following it closely at all.

The share of Americans who are closely following election news is slightly higher now than it was in April 2020 (52%). In October 2020, however, that share increased to 75%.

This year, Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party are slightly more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say they are closely following election news (64% vs. 58%).

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Although many Americans are following news about the 2024 presidential candidates, they are also experiencing fatigue over election coverage. About six-in-ten U.S. adults (62%) already say they are worn out by so much coverage of the campaign and candidates, while 35% say they like seeing a lot of this coverage.

TIMES SQUARE, Manhattan (WABC) -- A man was stabbed with a machete in Times Square on Thursday afternoon.

It happened on West 45th Street and Broadway around 1 p.m.

The unidentified victim was stabbed in both legs and was removed by EMS to Bellevue Hospital and is said to be stable.

Police say at least three suspects ran away in an unknown direction.

Young voters overwhelmingly believe that almost all politicians are corrupt and that the country will end up worse off than when they were born, according to new polling from Democratic firm Blueprint obtained exclusively by Semafor.

The sour mood points to potential trouble for Joe Biden, who is struggling with Gen Z and younger Millennials in polls compared with 2020, and needs to convince them he can be relied on to improve their lives.

As part of the online poll of 943 18-30-year-old registered voters, Blueprint asked participants to respond to a series of questions about the American political system: 49% agreed to some extent that elections in the country don’t represent people like them; 51% agreed to some extent that the political system in the US “doesn’t work for people like me;” and 64% backed the statement that “America is in decline.” A whopping 65% agreed either strongly or somewhat that “nearly all politicians are corrupt, and make money from their political power” — only 7% disagreed.

“I think these statements blow me away, the scale of these numbers with young voters,” Evan Roth Smith, Blueprint’s lead pollster, told Semafor. “Young voters do not look at our politics and see any good guys. They see a dying empire led by bad people.”

New York CNN —

Harvard University announced Tuesday it will no longer weigh in on public matters that don’t impact the Ivy League school’s core function, a shift that follows a historic period of turmoil at the storied university.

Harvard leaders announced the new policy after forming a working group in April to debate when the university should speak out.

That group concluded that Harvard has a “responsibility to speak out to protect and promote its core function,” including to “defend the university’s autonomy and academic freedom when threatened.”

“The university and its leaders should not, however, issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function,” the working group said in its report.

(Bloomberg) -- Many swing-state voters say they are worried that the growing presence of artificial intelligence could one day diminish privacy and hurt job prospects, according to a new Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll that also found majority support for efforts to ban TikTok.

More than half of respondents in seven battleground states predicted a negative impact from AI on privacy, with nearly half seeing a future negative impact on jobs, the poll found. At the same time, artificial intelligence was seen having positive impacts on health by 45% of respondents and on education by 41%.

In the survey, half of voters support banning TikTok in the US if its Beijing-based parent ByteDance Ltd. fails to divest the video-sharing platform under a new law signed by President Joe Biden last month. Two-thirds of those polled said they were worried that the app could be used by foreign adversaries to collect data and manipulate information in the US.

The poll results offer a window into how Americans view hot-button tech challenges in Washington, including AI’s rapid emergence, concentration of market power in a handful of big companies and security concerns raised by TikTok’s Chinese ownership. The survey of 4,962 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin has an overall statistical margin of error of 1 percentage point.

MSNBC

1) Ali Velshi
A lot / some: 55%
Not much / Not at all: 22%
Don’t know / no opinion: 23%

2) Andrea Mitchell
A lot / some: 53%
Not much / Not at all: 27%
Don’t know / no opinion: 21%

3) Katy Tur
A lot / some: 51%
Not much / Not at all: 23%
Don’t know / no opinion: 26%

4) Rachel Maddow
A lot / some: 51%
Not much / Not at all: 33%
Don’t know / no opinion: 17%

5) Chris Hayes
A lot / some: 49%
Not much / Not at all: 22%
Don’t know / no opinion: 30%

6) Stephanie Ruhle
A lot / some: 49%
Not much / Not at all: 23%
Don’t know / no opinion: 28%

7) Ari Melber
A lot / some: 48%
Not much / Not at all: 23%
Don’t know / no opinion: 28%

8) Mika Brzezinski
A lot / some: 47%
Not much / Not at all: 30%
Don’t know / no opinion: 23%

9) Lawrence O’Donnell
A lot / some: 46%
Not much / Not at all: 24%
Don’t know / no opinion: 29%

10) Joy Reid
A lot / some: 44%
Not much / Not at all: 35%
Don’t know / no opinion: 21%

11) Joe Scarborough
A lot / some: 43%
Not much / Not at all: 29%
Don’t know / no opinion: 29%

American Airlines blames 9-year-old girl for being filmed in plane bathroom: ‘Shocking and outrageous’

American Airlines, facing lawsuits after a flight attendant allegedly filmed girls using plane bathrooms, is blaming a 9-year-old girl for being secretly recorded.

The airline in a new court filing is arguing that the young girl should have known that the airplane toilet contained a recording device.

“Defendant would show that any injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained by Plaintiff, Mary Doe, were proximately caused by Plaintiff’s own fault and negligence,” American Airlines’ lawyers wrote in their defense filing.

The airline’s attorneys added about the 9-year-old girl using “the compromised lavatory” on the plane: “She knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device.”

The lawsuits against American Airlines started after a former flight attendant was arrested in connection with allegedly recording a 14-year-old girl in a plane’s bathroom on a Boston-bound flight.

The U.S. Department of Education is giving borrowers more time to meet a key student loan forgiveness deadline.

Those who request a so-called loan consolidation by June 30 — which will combine their federal student loans into one new federal loan — could get their debt canceled sooner than they would have otherwise. Some could even see their debt forgiven immediately.

Previously, the deadline to qualify for the Biden administration’s account adjustment was April 30.

“The Department is working swiftly to ensure borrowers get credit for every month they’ve rightfully earned toward forgiveness,” U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said in a statement Wednesday.