Shooting reported at Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin: Police

(NEW YORK) — A New York appeals judge has denied President-elect Donald Trump’s request to delay the Jan. 10 sentencing in his criminal hush money case.

Trump’s sentencing will proceed as planned on Friday, pending potential additional legal maneuvers by the president-elect’s lawyers.

Judge Ellen Gesmer rejected Trump’s claim that the case should be delayed because of presidential immunity, after his attorney argued before the court that Trump is covered by presidential immunity that extends to him while he waits to be sworn in.

The appellate court heard arguments Tuesday in Trump’s lawsuit against the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as part of Trump’s effort to halt his sentencing following his criminal conviction in May.

“We should get a stay so that no further action happens,” defense attorney Todd Blanche said during oral arguments at the Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department. “The imposition is extraordinary.”

Judge Ellen Gesmer questioned whether immunity granted to sitting presidents extends to presidents-elect.

“I’m curious about that,” she said. “Do you have any support for a notion that presidential immunity extends to Presidents-elect?”

Blanche replied that he did not. “There has never been a case like this before, so no,” Blanche said.

Prosecutors said there is no evidence “whatsoever” to back the claim that presidential immunity applies to Trump prior to his inauguration on Jan. 20.

“The claim is so baseless that there is no support for an automatic stay here,” said Steven Wu of the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “There is a compelling public interest in seeing this process come to an end.”

The prosecutor noted that Trump’s sentencing was originally scheduled for July 11 and every delay since has been done at Trump’s request.

“If sentencing is to happen at all, now is the best time for it to happen,” Wu said.

Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.

Merchan initially scheduled Trump’s sentencing for July 11 before pushing it back in order to weigh if Trump’s conviction was impacted by the Supreme Court’s July ruling prohibiting the prosecution of a president for official acts undertaken while in office. Merchan subsequently ruled that Trump’s conviction related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”

Trump’s lawyers asked the appeals court to stop the proceedings — including his Jan. 10 sentencing — and to dismiss his conviction outright based on presidential immunity grounds.

“Justice Merchan’s erroneous decisions threaten the institution of the Presidency and run squarely against established precedent disallowing any criminal process against a President-Elect, as well as prohibiting the use of evidence of a President’s official acts against him in a criminal proceeding,” they argued in their suit.

Blanche and fellow defense lawyer Emil Bove, both of whom Trump has picked for top Justice Department posts in his incoming administration, claimed in the suit that Trump’s “undisputed absolute immunity” extends to his time as president-elect — an argument that Judge Merchan roundly denied last week.

The lawyers also claimed that the jury’s verdict was “erroneous” because they saw evidence related to official acts.

“President Trump brings this Article 78 proceeding to redress the serious and continuing infringement on his Presidential immunity from criminal process that he holds as the 45th and soon-to-be 47th President of the United States of America,” the filing said.

The president-elected faces up to four years in prison, but Merchan last week indicated that he would sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge — effectively a blemish on Trump’s record, without prison, fines or probation — saying that would strike a balance between the duties of president and the sanctity of the jury’s verdict.

Merchan on Monday denied a separate request by Trump to halt the sentencing in the case.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Wednesday banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, senior administration officials told ABC News, fulfilling a promise that was at the center of his 2024 campaign.

The order will establish sweeping mandates on sex and sports policy and will direct federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, to interpret federal Title IX rules as prohibiting the participation of transgender girls and women in female sports categories, according to a White House document on the upcoming executive order obtained by ABC News.

The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” sources said, will mandate immediate enforcement, including against schools and athletic associations that “deny women single-sex sports and single-sex locker rooms,” according to the document, and will direct State attorneys general to identify best practices for enforcing the mandate.

The White House expects sports bodies like the NCAA to change their rules in accordance with the order once it is signed, according to a senior administration official.

“We’re a national governing body and we follow federal law,” NCAA President Charlie Baker told Republican senators at a hearing in December. “Clarity on this issue at the federal level would be very helpful.”

Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Wednesday afternoon at a signing ceremony featuring athletes, coaches and advocates who have campaigned against transgender participation in women’s sports, sources said. More than 60 attendees, including former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, will join the ceremony.

“We want to take actions to affirmatively protect women’s sports,” deputy assistant to the president and senior policy strategist May Mailman told ABC News, who said that the executive order is designed to further overturn Biden-era policies that required schools and athletic organizations to treat gender identity and sex as equivalent. She noted that a court ruling determined such requirements were not necessary, and that the president’s executive order would explicitly ban them.

Trump’s executive order will lead to increased discrimination and harassment, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said in a statement on Tuesday.

“This order could expose young people to harassment and discrimination, emboldening people to question the gender of kids who don’t fit a narrow view of how they’re supposed to dress or look,” Robinson said. “Participating in sports is about learning the values of teamwork, dedication, and perseverance. And for so many students, sports are about finding somewhere to belong. We should want that for all kids – not partisan policies that make life harder for them.”

Mailman said the executive order’s goal was “not to make sure that everybody conforms to their sex stereotype as they’re playing sports” but to “protect women’s sports,” adding that options like co-ed categories would still be available.

If universities don’t comply, the White House warned they could not only lose federal funding but also face legal action.

“If schools don’t comply, it’s not just that they’re at risk of DOJ-based actions,” Mailman said. “Title Nine has a private right of action component behind it, so if schools are violating the law, they’re at risk of lawsuits from their female students, that is going to actually be more than just taking away federal funding. These are multi-million dollar lawsuits.”

The executive order also directs the Secretary of State to push for changes within the International Olympic Committee to maintain single-sex competition and the Department of Homeland Security to review visa policies to prevent transgender women from identifying as female, which would allow them to compete in women’s sports, according to the document detailing the order.

The order is the most aggressive move yet by Trump to fulfill one of his central campaign promises regarding transgender athletes in women’s sports.

Trump signed an executive order last week seeking to restrict gender-affirming care for people under the age of 19.

The order would move to restrict medical institutions that receive federal funding from providing such care — including puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and surgeries — calling on the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to “take all appropriate actions to end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”

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(NEW YORK) — Luigi Mangione, a person of interest in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was taken into custody on Monday in Pennsylvania, nearly one week after the “brazen, targeted” shooting outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel on Wednesday, police said.

Here is a timeline of the suspect’s whereabouts before, during and after the shooting:

Nov. 24

The killer entered New York City by bus on Nov. 24, when a surveillance camera at Port Authority Bus Terminal caught his arrival at 9 p.m., law enforcement sources told ABC News.

The inbound bus originated in Atlanta but it was not immediately clear where the suspect boarded.

He likely checked into a hostel on New York City’s Upper West Side that day and later checked out, sources said.

Nov. 30

The suspect likely checked back into the HI New York City Hostel on the Upper West Side on Nov. 30, sources said.

Dec. 4 at 5 a.m.

At 5 a.m., nearly two hours before the shooting, the suspect was seen in surveillance footage outside the hostel on the Upper West Side, holding what appears to be an e-bike battery.

6:15 a.m.

At 6:15 a.m., surveillance footage reviewed by police shows someone who appears to be the suspect leaving a 57th Street subway station near the crime scene, police sources told ABC News.

6:19 a.m.

New cleared CCTV video shows a man who appears to be the suspect walking west on 55th Street at 6:19 a.m. The video shows him stoop down as he appears to momentarily drop an object on the garbage before continuing to walk.

Before the shooting

Sometime before the shooting, the suspect is spotted at a Starbucks. The exact time is not clear.

6:29 a.m.

The suspect appeared to walk past a parking lot on West 54th Street at 6:29 a.m. — across the street some 50 meters from the site of the shooting.

6:44 a.m.

At 6:44 a.m., the masked gunman fatally shot Brian Thompson in front of the north entrance to the New York Hilton Midtown.

“The shooter then walks toward the victim and continues to shoot,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. “It appears that the gun malfunctions, as he clears the jam and begins to fire again.”

The shooter fled on foot into an alley, where a phone believed to be linked to the suspect was later recovered, police sources said.

Time unknown

The suspect then fled north on a bike and rode into Central Park, police said.

Time unknown

After making his getaway on a bike, the suspect exited Central Park at 77th Street and Central Park West.

At 86th Street and Columbus Avenue, the suspect ditched the bike and took a taxi to the Port Authority bus facility at 178th Street.

Police believe he boarded a bus there and left New York City.

Dec. 9

On Dec. 9, the person of interest in the shooting — 26-year-old Luigi Mangione — was identified and taken into custody in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on unrelated gun charges, authorities said.

The man was on a Greyhound bus traveling through Altoona, sources said, when he got off and walked into a McDonald’s where a witness recognized him from the images of the suspect circulated by police.

Mangione, from Maryland, was in possession of a handwritten document “that speaks to his motivation and mindset,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

“It does seem that he had some ill will toward corporate America,” police said.

Mangione had a ghost gun capable of firing a 9 mm round and a suppressor, police said.

He was also in possession of a fake New Jersey driver’s license similar to the one the suspect used to check into a hostel in New York City before the shooting, she said.

Tisch praised the “good old fashioned detective work” of the NYPD and the “power of the public” that led to the arrest.

Police said they’re working to trace his movements from New York City to Pennsylvania.

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