Former President Donald Trump on Thursday sought to stop all proceedings in his D.C. election subversion case after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected his presidential immunity claim.

Trump’s lawyers in a filing argued that Chutkan no longer has any power over the case while he appeals her ruling, a process that could take weeks or months, according to Politico. Trump’s lawyers argue that Chutkan must delay all deadlines because the former president is entitled to an “automatic stay.”

“The filing of President Trump’s notice of appeal has deprived this Court of jurisdiction over this case in its entirety pending resolution of the appeal,” Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro wrote. “Therefore, a stay of all further proceedings is mandatory and automatic.”

Trump’s lawyers also indicated that they plan to ask the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to grant a stay if Chutkan does not do so. Unless Chutkan rules otherwise, the lawyers wrote, they plan to ignore all upcoming pretrial deadlines in the case.

The Trump filing says that special counsel Jack Smith’s team has acknowledged that Trump can’t be forced to go to trial while the appeal is pending but plans to oppose the stay on proceedings such as pretrial motions, hearings and trial planning, according to Politico.

Trump’s lawyers rejected the special counsel’s argument, writing that Trump is entitled to avoid “the burdens of litigation” while his appeal is pending.

“Concerns regarding judicial resources and costs from continued litigation during the pendency of the appeal — including financial, reputational, and political costs to President Trump and this country — are significant,” Blanche and Lauro wrote.

Chutkan on Thursday ordered Smith’s team to file their response by Sunday.

Trump’s “goal is clear: prevent this case from making it to trial before the election,” tweeted national security attorney Bradley Moss.

“Trump knows his only way out is making sure the trials never happen,” agreed former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance.

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin explained on Thursday that it is "not just an appeal to the D.C. Circuit, but potentially an appeal to the Supreme Court."

"So when you talk about running out the clock, it's certainly possible that we could get through this appellate process and give Judge Chutkan time before the 2024 election to try this case," she said. "But Donald Trump is going to try every play in the book, both to stay the case pending appeal, and then to delegate that appeal and not expedite it so that he doesn't have to be tried before November, in the hopes that by January he can stop this case dead in its tracks."

Chutkan last week rejected Trump’s presidential immunity argument, writing that the office of the president "does not confer a lifelong 'get-out-of-jail-free' pass."

"Former Presidents enjoy no special conditions on their federal criminal liability," Chutkan wrote. "Defendant may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office."

Chutkan also rejected Trump’s claims that the indictment violates his free speech rights, writing that "it is well established that the First Amendment does not protect speech that is used as an instrument of a crime."

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"Defendant is not being prosecuted simply for making false statements ... but rather for knowingly making false statements in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy and obstructing the electoral process," she wrote.

Former federal prosecutor Denis Aftergut wrote on Monday that Chutkan’s opinion is “meticulously crafted with the Supreme Court in mind.”

“The decision deploys every methodology of constitutional interpretation, including textualism, each variety of so-called originalism, attention to constitutional structure and underlying premises, functional considerations, and history,” he wrote in Slate op-ed. “All point ineluctably to her conclusion.”

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida Sen. Rick Scott is asking federal regulators to crack down on imports of so-called “sewage garlic” from China.

In a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Scott invoked 1962’s Trade Expansion Act, which authorizes the agency to “initiate an investigation to ascertain the effect of specific imports on the national security of the United States.”

Scott said he has concerns with trade enforcement, citing over half a billion dollars in unpaid antidumping fees tied to the garlic industry. But his chief concern, according to the letter, is alleged unsanitary growing conditions in “Communist China.”

Sen. Scott joins DeSantis in calling for resignation of state GOP chair amid rape investigation

“But beyond these trade enforcement concerns, there is a severe public health
concern over the quality and safety of garlic grown in foreign countries—most notably,
garlic grown in Communist China,” Scott wrote in the letter.

Scott pointed to data from the United Nations indicating China represents the majority of the market share and is the top importer of garlic to the U.S.

Scott alleged that China’s garlic growth practices include “fertilizing garlic with human feces and forms of sewage, growing garlic in sewage, bleaching garlic to make it appear whiter and cleaner.” The senator claimed such practices “are well-documented in the public domain,” citing sources “from cooking blogs and home magazines to YouTube videos and documentaries.”

It is unclear if Scott’s claims pass the sniff test. For over a decade, stories of toxic garlic streaming into U.S. ports have circulated on social media, but scientific data on the issue is scarce.

A 2009 report compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that, from 2007-2008, “several of the largest food import categories,” including garlic, “had only a handful of FDA refusals.” “Filthy and unsafe additives,” like Scott described, accounted for 20% of violations.

According to a 2017 report from the McGill University Office for Science and Society, the risks of using fertilizers containing waste are likely overblown and the practice of recycling sewage into fertilizer is common across the world.

“It is possible that sewage is used as fertilizer, as it is in many parts of the world, although there is no evidence that garlic in China is fertilized in this fashion,” the report stated.

The skin on garlic bulbs “is effective at preventing penetration into the bulb,” according to McGill researchers. In the report, they reiterated the importance of washing produce, regardless of its country of origin.

The practice is not completely without risk, but it appears Chinese farmers and residents are most affected. A 2015 study of Chinese agricultural villages conducted by U.S. and Chinese researchers found a possible link between the use of “night soil” and Schistosomiasis, a disease caused by parasitic worms.

“Commerce, in its investigation, must consider the impacts of foreign competition on the domestic industry and the effects on the displacement of domestic products, including: unemployment, decreases in public revenue, loss of investment, and other relevant factors causing or that will cause a weakening in the national economy,” Scott wrote in his letter.

Scott also plans to introduce the “SEWAGE GARLIC Imports Act” and the “SEWAGE GARLIC Imports Tariff Act” in the coming days “to address the growth practices and safety of garlic produced in China for human consumption.”

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.

DUBAI/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The armed wing of Hamas said on Friday it had repelled an attempted hostage rescue by Israeli special forces in the Gaza Strip, inflicting several military casualties, and that a captive also died in the incident.

Israel declined comment, accusing the Palestinian Islamist faction of attempting psychological warfare against it.

In a statement on Telegram, Hamas's Al-Qassam Brigades said its fighters discovered a special forces unit mounting a rescue attempt and attacked it, killing and wounding several soldiers. It did specify the location of the incident.

It said a captive Israeli soldier was killed, naming him as Sa'ar Baruch, 25. Lists of the hostages published by Israel identify one of them as Sahar Baruch, a civilian student who was 24 when he was seized from his home during the Oct 7 cross-border Hamas killing and kidnapping spree that triggered the war.

Of some 240 people taken hostage that day, 137 remain in Gaza captivity after others were recovered during a truce. Some have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.

"We are not going to comment on psychological warfare that Hamas continues to wage against the people of Israel," Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesperson, said in a briefing when asked about the Hamas account of the botched raid.

"We hold Hamas fully responsible for the safety and wellbeing of those hostages," he said, reiterating an Israeli demand - so far unmet - for the Red Cross to visit them.

(Reporting by Ahmed Elimam and Dan Williams; Editing by Christina Fincher, Peter Graff and Angus MacSwan)

In the run-up to presidential elections in Russia, some journalists decided to analyse the state of Vladimir Putin's health as he prepares to run for a fifth term and rule Russia until at least 2030. They concluded that the Russian president is exhausted and behaving bizarrely.

Source: Proekt (The Project), a Russian news outlet engaged in investigative journalism

Quote from Proekt: "To cut a long story short, he's not a corpse from the refrigerator [as political analyst Valery Solovei claimed when he reported Putin's death in Valdai on 26 October on Telegram – ed.]. But he is very tired of his own people."

Details: The journalists analysed all the events involving the Russian dictator over the past year and concluded that Putin spent only 147 days in public (i.e. less than 5 months out of 12).

January was the month in which Putin spent the least amount of time in public: a mere seven days. For the rest of the time, Putin stayed in his residence, and no journalists – or anyone other than officials close to him and loyal politicians – were invited to meet him.

The journalists noticed that the president tends to alternate between bursts of intense public activity and long periods of absence. For example, Putin held four important public events on 28 September 2023, but over the previous six days, no one but his closest associates had seen him. Putin appeared in public on 29 September, but nobody saw him again for the next four days (until 3 October).

Meetings with Putin have recently been held remotely

PHOTO: THE KREMLIN WEBSITE

Proekt also points out that many of the reports of Putin's cabinet meetings that the Kremlin released during those 10 non-public days look "canned" [i.e. filmed in advance by the Russian president's personal cameraman and released by the Kremlin press service on Putin's days off – ed.].

The journalists also highlight several strange anomalies: at many meetings, Putin seems to keep his distance from other people, whereas on other occasions, he actually goes into the crowd.

Putin attended 43% of events remotely last year. Another 36% of meetings required all attendees to be quarantined.

521 public events involving Vladimir Putin from November 2022 to October 2023

43% involve distancing

36% involve quarantine

21% Putin interacts with people with no quarantine

INFOGRAPHICS: PROEKT. Putin’s interaction with people

"This distancing sometimes takes on quite astonishing forms. We found that at many forums, a fence is literally put up in front of the president on stage, separating the head of state from the audience. And outside, Putin's interlocutors are forced to stand behind a specially drawn red line over 10 metres away from him," Proekt reports.

A fence at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, June 2023

PHOTO: PROEKT'S WEBSITE

Putin making a speech to workers at the Zvezda shipyard. Putin is standing 10 metres away from the audience

INFOGRAPHIC: PROEKT'S WEBSITE

And yet a fifth (21%) of all events involving Putin took place without any distance or quarantine, for example, meetings with international visitors or following dramatic events.

The media outlet notes that Putin, who had not been seen in public since the start of the epidemic, first spoke about the importance of people just a few days after the failed June coup by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Putin interacting 'closely' with the public after Prigozhin's failed coup.

PHOTO: KREMLIN.RU

The story's authors noticed that this always happens so unexpectedly that many people, including some journalists in the Kremlin circle, have started to believe that the president has a body double.

"Proekt also recalls an incident that happened in the Kremlin on 5 April 2023. During a ceremony in which foreign ambassadors were presenting their credentials, Putin fell into a state of confusion as he was delivering his speech, and then failed to comprehend for some time whether the ambassadors were going to come up to him and present their credentials.

He was clearly at a loss as to what to do, and was looking over his papers in bewilderment. There was no one to help the president as he stood alone on one side of the Kremlin's vast Alexander Hall, with the ambassadors, along with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, on the other. The head of state asked Lavrov desperately for help. But he needed a microphone so that the minister could hear him. So everyone heard the president's question: 'Is that it?' When the minister nodded, the president announced an early end to the event." This is how Proekt describes the events of that day.

Reports suggest that the people who spend the most time with Putin are his bodyguards, doctors, and the "nuclear briefcase" carriers.

For example, during every major event, such as Putin's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, seven or eight people ensuring his security can be seen in the immediate vicinity of the Russian president. The journalists have managed to identify many of these people.

Several doctors at least accompanied the Russian president when he went to meet Kim Jong-un in April 2019. Some of them appear in a single photo, including ENT doctor Igor Yesakov, oncologist Yevgeny Selivanov and neurologist Roman Rotankov.

1. Igor Yesakov, ENT doctor. 2. Dmitry Shumeiko, "nuclear briefcase" holder; 3. Yevgeny Selivanov, oncologist; 4. Roman Rotankov, neurologist

PHOTO: PROEKT'S WEBSITE

Background:

• On 7 December, reports emerged that Russian presidential elections will take place on 17 March.

• Earlier, Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s press secretary, claimed that he had "no doubt that Putin will win" the election. The official also added that Russia's next leader would be "the same" as Vladimir Putin or "somebody different, but still the same as Putin".

• Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation has announced the launch of its Russia Without Putin campaign and urged Russians to use the time before the election to speak out against the dictator. [Navalny is considered to be the leader of the Russian opposition, although he is known for his remarks in favour of Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian Crimea – ed.]

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HOUSTON - A Houston woman says she was fired from HISD after taking too many days off to deal with her husband's terminal cancer diagnosis.

It’s been a challenging year for Consepcion Zapata, after losing her mom and husband of 42 years, just months of each other.

To pile on to her grief, Zapata learned this past Tuesday that she would now also lose her job.

Zapata had worked as a custodian at HISD’s Heights High School for the last 15 years.

"I lost my mom in March and my husband in September of this year. She had a stroke and my husband, he had cancer," Zapata said.

RELATED: Houston ISD staff who take more than 15 days of leave could get fired, policy says

Zapata said she took about 20 days off in September when her husband was hospitalized.

Two weeks later, her husband passed away.

"I was his wife. I had to be there to sign papers and everything," Zapata said.

Zapata says she returned to work the following Monday after her husband's funeral.

Two months later, Zapata was fired.

This past Tuesday, she was called to a meeting with two HISD custodial managers who informed her she violated the district’s high-absenteeism policy when she took more than 15 days off.

As a result, Zapata was getting fired just weeks shy of Christmas, and just a year shy of her retirement.

HOUSTON ISD: Houston ISD says 41% of schools would be D, F campus according to 2022-2023 data

"I never miss work. I'm always there. So, I think it’s not fair what they’re doing to me," Zapata said.

Zapata said she had accrued more than 400 hours of time off because of her tenure.

She says her supervisor had approved her off-day requests.

Zapata brought her daughter, Denise, with her to the meeting to help translate. "They started saying, I know this is wrong," Denise said.

"I decided to record (the meeting) because I knew she had done nothing wrong. She was at the hospital. She had requested those days off as they asked, and they were approved," Denise continued.

FOX 26 Houston is now on the FOX LOCAL app available through Apple TV, Amazon FireTV, Roku, Google Android TV, and Vizio!

In a cell phone recording of the meeting, an HISD official can be heard saying, "I'm no different than you. If God forbid something happened to me and you and I had to take the days, I'd be the one sitting in the chair, and they’d be doing it to me."

A day before, HISD’s Chief Human Resource Officer Jessica Neyman spent 40 minutes answering FOX 26's questions about the district’s absence policy.

On record, Neyman said, "We actually lawfully could engage in immediate termination of at-will employees, which includes the employee cohorts that you mentioned, such as bus drivers and nutrition service workers, and a myriad of support staff on campuses. We choose not to," Neyman said.

The family says they’re now in the process of filing an appeal and hiring an attorney.

FOX 26 reached out to HISD for an updated response. As of early evening Thursday, we have not heard back.

At the end of the fourth Republican debate, the four candidates were asked to name a president that would serve as an inspiration for their administration.

A potpourri of some of America’s most popular presidents were listed.

Chris Christie picked Ronald Reagan, whom he called “a slave to the truth.” Nikki Haley, unable to choose one, named George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. And Vivek Ramaswamy chose Thomas Jefferson — author of the Declaration of Independence and inventor of the swivel chair — for his “founding spirit.”

But when it was Ron DeSantis’ turn, he named a president who often goes overlooked.

“One of the guys I’ll take inspiration from is Calvin Coolidge,” DeSantis said to scattered applause.

“Now people don’t talk about him a lot,” DeSantis, who studied history at Yale University, said. “He’s one of the few presidents that got almost everything right.”

“Silent Cal” understood the federal government’s role, DeSantis added. “The country was in great shape when he was president of the United States. And we can learn an awful lot from Calvin Coolidge.”

Who was Calvin Coolidge?

Coolidge, America’s 30th president, was born in Vermont in 1872. The son of a shopkeeper, he climbed the political ladder to become the governor of Massachusetts.

He was elected vice president in 1920 alongside Republican President Warren Harding, who died unexpectedly in August 1923.

Coolidge, who was in Vermont at the time, had his father administer the oath of office early in the morning on Aug. 3 “by the light of a kerosene lamp,” according to the White House.

Throughout his presidency, he was “distinguished for character more than for heroic achievement,” Democrat Alfred Smith wrote.

A proponent of small government, Coolidge called on Congress to cut taxes and to avoid foreign entanglements.

During his six years in office, he balanced the budget every year. He notably detested constant government activity, once saying, “Don’t hurry to legislate,” according to his presidential foundation.

His “political genius,” according to reporter Walter Lippmann, was his penchant for “effectively doing nothing.”

“This active inactivity suits the mood and certain of the needs of the country admirably,” Lippmann wrote, according to the White House. “It suits all the business interests which want to be let alone … And it suits all those who have become convinced that government in this country has become dangerously complicated and top-heavy.”

Still, he signed into law several major pieces of legislation, including the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, which granted American citizenship to all Native Americans.

Coolidge left office in 1929, the year the Great Depression began ravaging the American economy and eroding his reputation, according to David Greenberg, a history professor at Rutgers University.

“Many linked the nation’s economic collapse to Coolidge’s policy decisions,” Greenberg wrote. “His failure to aid the depressed agricultural sector seems shortsighted, as nearly five thousand rural banks in the Midwest and South shut their doors in bankruptcy while many thousands of farmers lost their lands.”

Before he died in 1933, Coolidge told a friend, “I feel I no longer fit in with these times,” according to the White House.

In a 2021 ranking by historians, Coolidge placed 24th out of 44 presidents.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Two former students are suing Sarah Lawrence College, arguing the New York school failed to protect them from Lawrence Ray, who moved into his daughter's dorm after getting out of prison and then manipulated her friends and roommates into cult-like relationships.

Ray was convicted last year of charges including racketeering, conspiracy, forced labor and sex trafficking after weeks of testimony chronicling his manipulative relationship with young people in his daughter’s circle.

Some said they were coerced into prostitution or turned over earnings and savings to Ray over abusive relationships that lasted for years.

Ray was sentenced in January to 60 years in prison by a judge who called him an “evil genius” who used sadism and psychological torture to control his victims.

The plaintiffs, who also include the sister of one of the students, allege in a lawsuit filed late last month that Sarah Lawrence was partly to blame for their ordeal.

The lawsuit says Ray made little attempt to hide the fact that he had moved in with his daughter in 2010 after finishing a prison sentence for securities fraud, and was allowed to remain on the campus “while he committed acts of manipulation, grooming, sexual abuse, food deprivation and sleep deprivation.”

They say college officials ignored the presence of a then-50-year-old man who moved into his daughter’s dormitory and “immediately integrated himself into the lives of the young people who lived in it.”

A college spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that the school had “deep sympathy” for Ray’s victims, but that it wouldn’t comment on the litigation “beyond noting that we believe the facts will tell a different story than the unproven allegations made in the complaint that has been filed.”

Ray lived in the dorm for nearly an entire academic year, the lawsuit says, and during that time several students, community members and parents contacted the college to complain about Ray's abusive behavior, yet the college “did nothing to investigate or intervene to prevent harm to Plaintiffs.”

The plaintiffs say Ray made himself so thoroughly at home that he once set off a fire alarm by cooking a meal.

Ray was the only person in the dorm room when firefighters and college security arrived, the lawsuit says, and no one from the college asked Ray what he was doing there. Nor was he monitored after the fire “to ensure he was not residing at the dormitory with the college students,” according to the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs in the Nov. 21 civil lawsuit say they were abused and manipulated by Ray for years after leaving college in locations including a Manhattan condominium and a home in Piscataway, New Jersey.

The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages for their pain and suffering as well as health care costs and lost potential income.

Anthony Polito, the gunman authorities said killed three people Wednesday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, visited a post office in Henderson and mailed 22 letters to various university personnel across the country with no return address, according to Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill.

At least one contained a white, powdery substance, he said at a Thursday news conference.

McMahill said investigators are working with the postal inspector and federal partners to process the letters. McMahill indicated they are working to contact the recipients.

Detectives are continuing to process the envelopes and are asking “anyone in the education world” who receives a letter with no return address to “proceed with caution,” McMahill said.

The gunman, who died in a confrontation with police, was a 67-year-old career college professor whose online profile paints a picture of a man fascinated by Vegas, puzzles and conspiracy theories.

McMahill said police are still trying to understand the gunman’s motive behind the shooting, noting Polito applied and was denied “numerous times” for jobs at different Nevada higher education institutions, the sheriff said.

Authorities indicated Polito was struggling financially. When they executed a search warrant at his apartment, an eviction notice was found on the door, McMahill said, noting they found a document he described as similar to a “last will and testament.”

Anthony Polito, 67, was identified as the man who fatally shot three people at the University of Nevada Las Vegas on Wednesday, law enforcement sources told CNN. - From Tony Polito

Polito legally purchased the weapon used in the shooting, identified as a Taurus PT92 pistol, in Las Vegas about 18 months ago, a law enforcement source told CNN. Polito brought 11 magazines to the scene and had nine loaded magazines on his person at the time of the shooting, McMahill said. Police do not know how many rounds he fired, he added.

Authorities found several computers and hard drive components at Polito’s home, along with ammunition consistent with the same cartridges found at the scene and a Taurus box matching the handgun found at the scene, he said.

Professor Cha Jan Chang known as "Jerry, " 64, of Henderson, Nevada died of a gunshot wound to the head. - UNLV.edu

The Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner identified two of the victims as ChaJan Chang, known as “Jerry,” a 64-year-old professor from Henderson, Nevada; and Patricia Navarro Velez, a 39-year-old assistant professor from Las Vegas.

The manner of death for both is classified as homicide. The third victim has been identified and the office is working to identify their next of kin.

Assistant Professor Patricia Navarro Velez, 39, of Las Vegas died as the result of multiple gunshot wounds. - UNLV.edu

Three patients involved in the shooting have been released from the hospital, while one patient remains hospitalized in critical, but stable condition, according to an updated release from Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center spokesperson Marissa Mussi.

No other injuries were reported and the city’s resiliency center is providing support to people on campus affected by the shooting.

What we know about the gunman

Polito’s LinkedIn page listed him as a “semi-retired university professor” in Las Vegas.

Polito had worked for schools in Georgia and North Carolina, his now-removed LinkedIn page showed. His most recent full-time employment was as a business professor at East Carolina University in Greenville until 2017.

His personal website included syllabuses for his past courses but was largely a list of “Resources” with hundreds of links to sites related to his personal interests. While it included ordinary topics like “Travel” and “Shopping,” one section was devoted to “Powerful Organizations Bent on Global Domination!”

It included links to common conspiracy theory fodder like Freemasonry, the Trilateral Commission and “The Rothchild (sic) Family.” George Soros, a common target for antisemitic conspiracy theories, is listed as one of the “Great Minds of the Twentieth Century,” alongside Albert Einstein and others.

An ECU spokesperson told CNN Thursday Polito worked at their college of business from 2001 to 2017, holding the position of tenured associate professor when he resigned.

From October 2018 to June 2022, Polito worked as an adjunct faculty at Roseman University in Henderson, Nevada, Vice President of Communications Jason Roth told CNN. Polito was part of Roseman’s Master of Business Administration program and taught two courses, Roth said.

A University of Georgia spokesperson confirmed to CNN Polito received a PhD from the university’s business college in 2002.

His personal webpage provided dozens of links related to Las Vegas and said he had made “more than two dozen trips to Vegas over the last fifteen years,” although it was not clear when the statement was originally posted.

At least two comments previously posted at his RateMyProfessors page from his time at ECU noted his interest in Las Vegas. “He’s great, we spent over 2 months just talking about Vegas,” stated one comment from 2014. Students’ ratings were mostly positive, but also stated his teaching style was “unconventional” and “unorthodox,” with a heavy focus on personal anecdotes.

In his personal biography, last edited in September 2022, Polito claimed to be a member of the high IQ society Mensa.

As a professor, Polito had an unorthodox way of teaching and would usually start his classes with stories, frequently about Las Vegas, former student Jonathan Peralta told CNN in a telephone interview.

Peralta, a resident of Raleigh, North Carolina, took Polito’s operations class at East Carolina University in 2013 or 2014 and graduated from the university in 2015. He said Polito often talked about Vegas and described the professor as “rather chill.”

“This was surprising,” Peralta said of the UNLV shooting. “The Vegas connection is what makes it so crazy because he would talk about Vegas so much.”

Peralta said Polito “captivated and entertained students” with his stories, which were most often personal and entertaining and sometimes included life lessons. Polito’s teaching style earned him a reputation for having “easy classes,” Peralta said, though some students felt like it was too personal, and they didn’t learn much.

‘It looked like every single cop in Las Vegas was at UNLV’

Police evacuate students after a shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on Wednesday. - K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

Polito arrived at the university just before 11:30 a.m., and police began receiving reports at about 11:45 a.m. of a shooting at the university, prompting both on- and off-duty law enforcement to rush to the campus, the sheriff said.

When officers arrived at the scene, they entered the university’s Beam Hall business school building, where students and professors were preparing for next week’s final exams, the sheriff said.

Polito moved through multiple floors and left the building around 11:55 a.m. and confronted university police, where a gunfight ensured, he said.

Polito was struck multiple times and collapsed at the scene, where officers then arrested him, McMahill said. He was declared deceased at the scene, he said.

Officers immediately started searching the building for additional suspects and located two victims on the third floor and one victim on the fourth floor, McMahill said. The fourth victim was originally shot on the fifth floor but got himself out of the building, where officers were able to take him to an ambulance and he was taken to the hospital, he said.

Police do not know how the sequence of events played out in the shooting. McMahill said. There are no cameras in the interior of the building and authorities are working to piece together the details of how this occurred, he said.

“If it hadn’t been for the heroic actions of one of those police officers who responded, there could have been countless additional lives taken,” he said.

The shooting prompted a campuswide shelter-in-place order as authorities rushed to stop the gunman and then methodically worked to clear the buildings, McMahill said, noting they found groups of students huddled behind many of the doors.

“We all walked out of the building, hands up,” the student said. “They evacuated us out of the student union. We walked past one of the windows, the window was shot through, glass everywhere.”

The fear and panic on campus evoked memories of the Route 91 Harvest music festival massacre, which took place just miles from UNLV on October 1, 2017, and remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Wednesday’s tragedy marks the 80th school shooting in the US so far this year, 29 of which have been on university and college campuses, according to a CNN analysis.

Sheriff McMahill said the training Las Vegas authorities have undergone since Route 91 contributed to how quickly they were able to respond and stop the shooter at UNLV.

“After 1 October and all the time and effort and energy that we’ve put in together – in training with the men and women of law enforcement, the fire service and EMS – watching how seamlessly they worked together today made me very, very proud to be their sheriff,” he said.

A student was sitting outside and eating breakfast when the shots began, the student told CNN affiliate KVVU.

“I heard three loud booms and I was like, ‘Oh, what was that?’” the student said. “Police showed up, then I ran inside.

“After two minutes, more shots. I ran into the basements, and I was there for 20,” the student said. “I was just hearing a lot of shots.”

Inside Beam Hall, a professor stopped mid-lecture after a loud noise rang out in the building, said student Brett Johnsen, who was in a second-floor classroom. But the sound didn’t initially seem like gunfire, so the professor resumed teaching.

“Then an alarm came on,” Johnsen said. “I’ve never heard an alarm like that before, it didn’t sound like a fire alarm.”

The students in the class began packing things up, relatively calmly, Johnsen said.

“When we began to walk out of the class, that’s when things got real,” he said.

The look on his professor’s face turned into panic and he urged the students to get back, lock the door and get on the ground.

“If the shooter came into our classroom, we were all just basically sitting ducks,” Johnsen said.

A few moments later, the professor opened the door to check that it was clear and told the students to run. Johnsen said he ran as fast as he could down the stairs of the building and outside as far as he could go. Everyone on campus was urging each other to flee and evacuate, he said.

“It looked like every single cop in Las Vegas was at UNLV,” Johnsen added.

Parents Mabel Fontanilla and Raul Villalonga embrace after a shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus on Wednesday. - Ronda Churchill/AFP/Getty Images

The university has canceled all classes through Sunday but is still considering how the campus will operate next week, when final exams are set to begin, UNLV president Keith Whitfield wrote in a Wednesday post on the school’s website.

“Today is a tragic day for UNLV,” Whitfield wrote. “We’re all still in shock as we process the unfathomable event.”

“I’m grieving for the victims of today’s senseless shooting, and my heart breaks for the many students, faculty, staff, parents, loved ones and community members who suffered through hours of painful uncertainty while officers ensured that our campus was safe and secure again,” the university president added.

President Joe Biden expressed condolences for the families impacted by Wednesday’s Las Vegas shooting and a killing spree in Texas this week. He also called on Republicans in Congress to work with Democrats to pass a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

“Together, we must do more to prevent more families, and more communities like Austin, San Antonio, and Las Vegas, from being ripped apart by gun violence,” Biden said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

CNN’s Cheri Mossburg, Eric Levenson, Sarah Dewberry, Sara Smart, Steve Almasy, Gillian Roberts, DJ Judd and Cindy Von Quednow contributed to this report.

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A woman in China received an unexpected 430,000-yuan (approximately $60,300) restaurant bill after she inadvertently shared the ordering code online, leading others to place food orders using it.

What happened: The woman, surnamed Wang, mistakenly posted her table’s ordering QR code on her WeChat page while intending to share food photos of the hotpot restaurant she visited with her friend on Nov. 23, according to South China Morning Post.

Despite limiting the post’s visibility to only her contacts, many people had scanned the code and placed fake orders, later resulting in the $60,300 bill for 1,850 portions of fresh duck blood, 2,580 portions of squid and 9,990 portions of shrimp paste. After Wang promptly removed her post, individuals persisted in placing additional orders at her table. She suspected that someone had saved her photo and proceeded to make orders using the provided code.

Restaurant can’t help: Fortunately, the restaurant did not make the woman pay for the additional orders and instead moved her to a new table. However, the business was unable to trace the culprits nor prevent others from continuing to place orders.

Trending on NextShark: Georgia gets its first-ever Asian American mayor

Lesson learned: Wang considered the incident a valuable lesson and urged for heightened awareness of information security, emphasizing the importance of being cautious when sharing food pictures. Many others on social media agreed with Wang, with one person noting that while QR codes may be convenient, it can also carry some risks.

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Former President Donald Trump attended the trial Thursday in the $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against him and watched intently as an accounting expert for his defense said the case against him and his company did not have any merit, while a state appeals court halted a ruling that could be disastrous for his company from taking effect any time soon.

Speaking to reporters before entering the courtroom Thursday morning, Trump decried the trial as a “witch hunt” and “very corrupt” and insisted “We did nothing wrong. There were no victims. The bank loves us. The bank testified they love us. We did absolutely nothing wrong. We never even defaulted. We never had a default letter sent to us. The bank said we were perfect customers. The bank didn’t even know why they were here.”

The former president also called New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is suing the Trumps and their company for allegedly inflating financial statements by billions of dollars, a “lunatic.” “The attorney general sits here because she knows that she has a judge that no matter all the evidence, that judge is going to rule in her favor,” he said, referring to Judge Arthur Engoron. James, who'd been in court for all of Trump's other appearances, was not there Thursday morning.

On the witness stand for the defense was Eli Bartov, an accounting professor at New York University. Bartov, who has previously testified in court as an expert over a dozen times, including for the federal government, said there was nothing wrong with Trump's financial statements, and contended it was the AG's conclusions about the statements that were flawed.

"My main finding is that there is no evidence whatsoever for any accounting fraud," he said, adding that "my analysis shows the statements of financial condition for all the years were not materially misstated."

The judge asked him if his expert opinion from an accounting perspective was that the AG's claims had no merit. "Absolutely," he replied.

Trump lawyer Jesus Suarez asked Bartov about a glaring example of a material misstatement cited by the AG's office in its lawsuit: that the company claimed Trump's triplex apartment was three times more valuable than it was because they'd listed its size as over 30,000 square feet when it was 10,000 square feet.

Bartov acknowledged the valuation was wrong but said "it was an error" that was later corrected and could have been "inadvertent or accidental."

An angry Kevin Wallace of the AG's office later told the judge that Bartov's testimony was "pure speculation from someone they hired to say what they want." Bartov told Wallace, "Yu should be ashamed of yourself, talking to me like that. I’m here to tell the truth."

Trump listened intently to Bartov's testimony and seemed to be in a much better mood during the mid-morning break than when he arrived. He told reporters that Bartov is "a very strong witness, a very powerful witness and a highly respected person."

Trump also celebrated a decision Thursday from a panel of state Appellate Division judges pausing Engoron's pre-trial order dissolving some of Trump's businesses as a result of his finding that he and his company had engaged in "persistent fraud."

The ruling means the stay that had previously been put in place, and that was agreed to by the AG's office, will remain until the full court hears and rules on Trump's appeal, which likely won't be until sometime next year, after the fraud trial has concluded. Engoron has said he plans to issue his findings and verdict in the case by the end of January.

Trump called the appeals court decision "very powerful" and "a very good ruling. We appreciate it. I think the country appreciates it."

Trump attorney Chris Kise said in a statement, "The ruling helps pave the way for a much needed, and deliberative, review of the trial court’s many errors.”

Trump appeared to be in a good mood following the developments and joked around with one of the courtroom sketch artists. "That's me?" he said, looking at the artist's sketch. "I think I have to lose some weight."

The former president is expected to testify Monday as the defense’s last witness in the case. He also testified Nov. 6.

Eric Trump, the former president’s son, backed out of testifying Wednesday as one of the final witnesses. The reversal came because “everything Eric was going to cover was covered by other witnesses,” Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s executive vice president, told NBC News.

Eric Trump had previously testified as a witness during the AG's portion of the case. Two of the former president's other children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, have also testified.

In a post Tuesday night on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump said he'd directed his son not to testify. "Eric has already testified, PERFECTLY," Trump wrote, "so there is no reason to waste any more of this Crooked Court’s time on having him say the same thing, over and over again, as a witness for the defense (us!)."

Donald Trump’s own testimony last month quickly went off the rails as he hurled attacks against the judge and lawyers in the case, whom he decried as “unfair,” dodged questions and repeatedly went on tangents. Trump also got into heated exchanges with Engoron from the stand after the judge excoriated him for giving unresponsive answers. Engoron called on Trump’s lawyers to “control him” and warned that “this isn’t a political rally.”

Trump has repeatedly made disparaging remarks about the judge, his law clerk and the lack of a jury in the trial. Trump has accused James and Engoron of engaging in an election interference effort amid his presidential campaign and denied that he had inflated property values.

“He rambled, he hurled insults, but we expected that,” James said after Trump concluded his testimony last month. She alleges the evidence shows Trump inflated his financial statements to enrich himself and his family and predicted “justice will be served.”

After the conclusion of his testimony last month, Trump told reporters inside the courthouse that he thought "it went very well,” and that he showed what a “scam” the case was. “I think it’s a very sad day for America. But anyway, this is a case that should have never been brought and it’s a case that should be immediately dismissed,” he said.

Engoron issued a partial gag order on Trump in October after the former president made a series of negative public remarks about his law clerk, smearing her while repeatedly accusing her of being “biased” and improperly influencing the judge. Engoron has said he has the “absolute unfettered right” to consult with his clerk.

Trump was fined twice for violating the gag order, which Engoron later expanded to include Trump's lawyers after he said they made “on the record, repeated, inappropriate remarks” about his principal law clerk.

Trump’s lawyers have appealed the gag order, which applies only to remarks made about the judge's staff, arguing it is preventing Trump from being able to “talk about why he’s not getting a fair trial in New York.”

The ruling was initially paused by a state appeals court but was reinstated last week after court officials argued it was necessary because of the “deluge” of threats directed at the law clerk after the former president renewed his attacks on her on social media.

In a filing with the appeals court on Wednesday, a lawyer for Engoron maintained the order is necessary to keep his staff safe.

“It is undisputed that Mr. Trump has an inordinate ability to draw attention, fervor, and animosity to those he singles out for attention," the filing said. "Whether he seeks it or not, some of Mr. Trump’s followers are willing to engage in violence to show their support."

The filing said that Trump's team made "no argument" in support of his claim that the gag order violates the former president's First Amendment rights. "It is unclear, however, how his ability to talk about Justice Engoron’s court staff is necessary for his campaign when this country faces a number of issues more worthy of debate," the filing added.

In court Tuesday, Kise asked the judge if Trump’s testimony could be delayed until after his appeal on the gag order is decided. The judge denied the request. "Nice try," he told Kise.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com