Donald Trump has spent the night at his golf club in Doral just outside Miami ahead of his historic federal court appearance.
The former president will appear at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Court House at 3pm (8pm UK time) on charges he stole classified documents and lied to block efforts to get them back.
Trump touched down in his private plane on Monday afternoon.
A small group of supporters gathered outside the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, cheering as his motorcade drove past.
He faces 37 felony counts over documents found at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, as well as claims he obstructed justice and made false statements.
Pictures released by the Department of Justice as part of its unsealed indictment showed boxes of documents stacked inside his Mar-a-Lago estate, including in a bathroom.
Details on nuclear weapons programmes, potential vulnerabilities of the US and its allies, and plans for retaliatory military attacks were in some of the documents, according to prosecutors.
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Roughly 13,000 documents were seized in raids on the property nearly a year ago. One hundred of them were marked as classified.
Prosecutors say Trump’s hoarding of papers from his time as president jeopardised national security – and the Espionage Act charges carry the prospect of up to 20 years in jail.
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Writing on his Truth Social site before boarding his flight, he said: “I hope the entire country is watching what the radical left are doing to America.”
Image: Former President Donald Trump arrives at Trump National Doral resort in Doral, Florida Pic: AP
However some of Mr Trump’s Republican challengers for the presidential nomination appear to be shifting their tone.
Speaking to Fox News, Nikki Haley said: “If this indictment is true… President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security… This puts all of our military men and women in danger.”
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Donald Trump in federal court: What you need to know
It is the first federal indictment of a former president, but Mr Trump claims he is being persecuted in an attempt to stop him becoming president again in 2024.
Polls suggest his supporters overwhelmingly believe the charges are politically motivated.
In a weekend CBS News poll of Republican voters, just 12% said their biggest concern about the indictment was the fact that the documents posed a national security risk.
More than three-quarters (76%) said their biggest concern was that the indictment is politically motivated.
Image: Trump supporter Pete Crotty outside the former president’s golf club in Doral, Florida Pic; AP
Protesters in Miami raised allegations about President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, which remain under investigation, and the Hilary Clinton email scandal.
But speaking to Sky News, a former federal prosecutor who almost prosecuted Richard Nixon over Watergate, and declined to represent Donald Trump last year said there were distinct differences between the cases.
“The big difference is cooperation,” Jon Sale said.
“When President Trump was served a subpoena last spring, if he had told his lawyer, ‘Look, I want to turn over everything; I want to comply with the subpoena. Do a diligent search – everything we have, turn it over to the grand jury’, then you and I wouldn’t be here today.”
Miami police’s chief said he was expecting up to 50,000 people on the streets for today’s hearing and that downtown roads could be closed if necessary.
The former president will be fingerprinted. He will have a mugshot taken but it will not be released and there will be no cameras of any sort in the courtroom itself. He will have the charges read out to him and enter a plea. The case will then be adjourned.
Mr Trump, who turns 77 this week, is also due to go on trial next March over separate claims that he falsified business records to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity. And there’s another case against him in Georgia for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Scheduling for the three trials could mean that this case is not completed before the November 2024 presidential election.
Four people are in hospital as police deal with an active shooter on a university campus in Florida.
Videos showed people running through traffic, fleeing the scene, around the time of the shooting at the student union at Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee.
Local police were “on the scene or on the way”, according to an alert sent out by the school and students have been told to “shelter in place”.
The FBI is also said to be responding to the incident.
Image: Florida State University students wait for news amid an active shooter incident at the school.
Pic: AP/Kate Payne
In a statement, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare said it was “actively receiving and caring for patients” from the incident.
“At this time, details are still unfolding, and we do not yet have specific information to share. However, we want to assure the community that our teams are fully mobilised and prepared to provide the highest level of care and support to all those affected,” it added.
President Donald Trump said he was fully briefed on the incident and described it as “a shame”.
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He added: “It’s a horrible thing. Horrible that things like this take place.”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, in a statement posted on X, said: “Our prayers are with our FSU family and state law enforcement is actively responding.”
Ambulances, fire trucks and police vehicles raced to the campus around midday local time (5pm UK time) on Thursday.
As students streamed away from the area of the student union in their hundreds, some were visibly emotional and others were glued to their phones.
Dozens later gathered near the university’s music school, waiting for news.
Florida State University student Daniella Streety told NBC News of the chaos that unfolded at the scene.
She remained on lockdown in a campus building and said: “I did see them carry out one student in what looked like on a stretcher and kept them in the road until an ambulance was able to pick them up.”
Joshua Sirmans, 20, was in the university’s main library when he said alarms began going off warning of an active shooter.
Police escorted him and other students out of the library with their hands over their heads, he said.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
A US federal judge has warned that he could hold the Trump administration in contempt for violating his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador.
US District Judge James E. Boasberg said he had found “probable cause” to hold the administration in criminal contempt and warned he could refer the matter for prosecution if it does not “purge” its contempt.
If the government doesn’t purge the contempt, charges could be brought forward by the Justice Department, NBC News reported.
And if the executive-led Justice Department refused to prosecute the matter, Judge Boasberg said he would appoint another attorney to prosecute the contempt.
Mr Boasberg said the administration could “purge contempt by returning those who were sent to El Salvador prison, in violation of his order, to the US.
This, he said, “might avail themselves of their right to challenge their removability”.
“The Constitution does not tolerate wilful disobedience of judicial orders – especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it,” the judge wrote.
Executive vs judicial
This marks a notable escalation in the ongoing tensions between the judicial and executive branches of the US government during Donald Trump’s second term.
Parts of the US president’s legislative programme have been halted by judges, as the administration strains against the restraints of the separation of powers.
Mr Trump previously called for Judge Boasberg to be impeached while the Justice Department claimed he overstepped his authority – both reflecting the administration’s attempts to overcome perceived obstacles to the implementation of its agenda.
Mr Trump’s administration has also argued it did not violate any orders.
It claimed the judge didn’t include a turnaround directive in his written order and said the planes had already left the US by the time the order came down.
‘Administrative error’
At the heart of the legal wrangling is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.
Washington acknowledged that Mr Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error”.
The US Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return, upholding a court order by Judge Paula Xinis, but Trump officials have claimed that Mr Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang.
Image: Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Pic: CASA/AP
Mr Garcia’s lawyers have argued there is no evidence of this.
This all comes after El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele visited the White House earlier this week.
During his time with Mr Trump, Mr Bukele said that he would not return Mr Garcia, likening it to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.”
Image: The US and El Salvador presidents in the Oval Office.
Pic: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
Along with Mr Garcia, the Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, mostly Venezuelans, whom it claims are gang members without presenting evidence and without a trial.
Democrat senator travels to El Salvador
Meanwhile, Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen arrived in El Salvador on Wednesday, saying he would seek a meeting with the country’s officials to secure Mr Garcia’s release.
“I just arrived in San Salvador a little while ago and look forward to meeting with the US embassy team to discuss Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release,” Mr Van Hollen said on social media.
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Body camera footage of Gene Hackman’s home has been released by authorities investigating the deaths of the actor and his wife.
The video captured by Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office shows officers inside and outside the property in northern New Mexico, with a German shepherd barking at some points as they carry out their search.
Image: Hackman and Arakawa pictured in 2003. Pic: AP/ Mark J Terrill
The bodies of Hackman, 95, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 65, were found in separate rooms of their home on 26 February.
“He’s guarding her,” a male officer can be heard saying, about the dog found alive at the home. “He seems pretty friendly.”
There is another “10-7 dog” – meaning the pet is dead – “round the corner in the kennel”, the officer says.
Rat nests and dead rodents were also discovered in several outbuildings around the property, an environmental assessment by the New Mexico Department of Health revealed.
The inside of the home was clean and showed no evidence of rodent activity.
In March, a medical investigator concluded Arakawa died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare infectious disease that can be caused by exposure to rodents.
Image: Law enforcement officials pictured outside the property in Santa Fe the day after Hackman and Arakawa’s bodies were found. Pic: AP/Roberto Rosales
According to the records now released by the county sheriff’s office, Arakawa was researching medical conditions related to COVID-19 and flu between 8 February and the morning of 12 February.
In one email to a masseuse, she said Hackman had woken on 11 February with flu or cold-like symptoms and that she wanted to reschedule an appointment “out of an abundance of caution”.
Search history on the morning of 12 February showed she was looking into a medical concierge service in Santa Fe. Investigators said there was a call to the service which lasted under two minutes, and a follow-up call from them later that afternoon was missed.
The police footage shows officers checking the home and finding no signs of forced entry or other suspicious signs.
Image: Pic: Santa Fe County Sheriff via AP
What is hantavirus?
HPS, commonly known as hantavirus disease, is a respiratory disease caused by hantaviruses – which are carried by several types of rodents.
It is a rare condition in the US, with most cases concentrated in the western states of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. This was the first confirmed case in New Mexico this year.
There has so far been no confirmation about any potential link by authorities between the rodents and the hantavirus disease that claimed Arakawa’s life.
Who was Gene Hackman?
Image: Pic: AP 1993
Hackman was a former Marine whose work on screen began with an uncredited TV role in 1961.
Acting became his career for many years, and he went on to play villains, heroes and antiheroes in more than 80 films spanning a range of genres.
He was best known by many for playing evil genius Lex Luthor in the Superman films in the late 1970s and ’80s, and won Oscars for his performances in The French Connection and Unforgiven.
After roles in The Royal Tenenbaums, Behind Enemy Lines and Runaway Jury in the 2000s, he left acting behind after his final film, Welcome To Mooseport.
He and Arakawa, a pianist, had been together since the mid-1980s.