By BEN FINELY and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — New York Attorney General Letitia James is set to make her first court appearance in a mortgage fraud case on Friday, the third adversary of President Donald Trump to face a judge on federal charges in recent weeks.

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James was indicted earlier this month on charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a 2020 home purchase in Norfolk, Virginia. The charges came shortly after the official who had been overseeing the investigation was pushed out by the Trump administration and the Republican president publicly called on the Justice Department to take action against James and other political foes.

James, a Democrat who has sued Trump and his administration dozens of times, has denied wrongdoing and decried the indictment as “nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system.”

The indictment stems from James’ purchase of a modest house in Norfolk, where she has family. During the sale, she signed a standard document called a “second home rider” in which she agreed to keep the property primarily for her “personal use and enjoyment for at least one year,” unless the lender agreed otherwise.

Rather than using the home as a second residence, the indictment alleges, James rented it out to a family of three. According to the indictment, the misrepresentation allowed James to obtain favorable loan terms not available for investment properties.

James drew Trump’s ire when she won a staggering judgment against the president and his companies in a lawsuit alleging he defrauded banks by overstating the value of his real estate holdings on financial statements. An appeals court overturned the fine, which had ballooned to more than $500 million with interest, but upheld a lower court’s finding that Trump had committed fraud.

James’ indictment followed the resignation of Erik Siebert as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after he resisted Trump administration pressure to bring charges. Siebert was replaced with Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide and former Trump lawyer who had never previously served as a federal prosecutor and presented James’ case to the grand jury herself.

On Thursday, lawyers for James asked for an order prohibiting prosecutors from disclosing to the news media information about the investigation, or materials from the case, outside of court.

The motion followed the revelation from earlier this week that Halligan contacted via an encrypted text messaging platform a reporter from Lawfare, a media organization that covers legal and national security issues, to discuss the James prosecution and complain about coverage of it. The reporter published the exchange that she and Halligan had.

“The exchange was a stunning disclosure of internal government information,” lawyers for James wrote.

They added: “It has been reported that Ms. Halligan has no prosecutorial experience whatsoever. But all federal prosecutors are required to know and follow the rules governing their conduct from their first day on the job, and so any lack of experience cannot excuse their violation.”

The motion also asks that the government be required to preserve all communications with representatives of the media as well as to prevent the deletion of any records or communications related to the investigation and the prosecution of the case.

Separately on Thursday, defense lawyers said they intended to challenge Halligan’s appointment, a step also taken this week by attorneys for former FBI Director James Comey in a different case filed by Halligan. Comey has been charged with lying to Congress in a criminal case filed days after Trump appeared to urge his attorney general to prosecute him, and he has pleaded not guilty.

A third Trump adversary, former national security adviser John Bolton, pleaded not guilty last week to charges against him of emailing classified information to family members and keeping top secret documents at his Maryland home.

The Justice Department has also been investigating mortgage fraud allegations against Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, whom Trump has called to be prosecuted over allegations related to a property in Maryland. In a separate mortgage investigation, authorities have been probing allegations against Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook, who is challenging a Trump administration effort to remove her from her job. Schiff and Cook have denied wrongdoing.

Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker in Washington contributed.

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said late Thursday that he was ending “all trade negotiations” with Canada because of a television ad opposing U.S. tariffs that he said misstated the facts and called “egregious behavior” aimed at influencing U.S. court decisions.

The post on Trump’s social media site came after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he aims to double his country’s exports to countries outside the U.S. because of the threat posed by Trump’s tariffs. Trump’s call for an abrupt end to negotiations could further inflame trade tensions that already have been building between the two neighboring countries for months.

Trump posted, “The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs.”

“The ad was for $75,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”

Carney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The prime minister was set to leave Friday morning for a summit in Asia, while Trump is set to do the same Friday evening.

Earlier Thursday night, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute posted on X that an ad created by the government of Ontario “misrepresents the ‘Presidential Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade’ dated April 25, 1987.” It added that Ontario did not receive foundation permission “to use and edit the remarks.”

The foundation said it is “reviewing legal options in this matter” and invited the public to watch the unedited video of Reagan’s address.

Carney met with Trump earlier this month to try to ease trade tensions, as the two countries and Mexico prepare for a review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement — a trade deal Trump negotiated in his first term, but has since soured on.

More than three-quarters of Canadian exports go to the U.S., and nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border daily.

Trump said earlier this week that he had seen the ad on television and said that it showed that his tariffs were having an impact.

“I saw an ad last night from Canada. If I was Canada, I’d take that same ad also,” he said then.

In his own post on X last week, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, posted a link to the ad and the message: “It’s official: Ontario’s new advertising campaign in the U.S. has launched.”

He continued, “Using every tool we have, we’ll never stop making the case against American tariffs on Canada. The way to prosperity is by working together.”

A spokesperson for Ford didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night. But Ford previously got Trump’s attention with an electricity surcharge to U.S. states. Trump responded by doubling steel and aluminum tariffs.

The president has moved to impose steep U.S. tariffs on many goods from Canada. In April, Canada’s government imposed retaliatory levies on certain U.S. goods — but it carved out exemptions for some automakers to bring specific numbers of vehicles into the country, known as remission quotas.

Trump’s tariffs have especially hurt Canada’s auto sector, much of which is based in Ontario. This month, Stellantis said it would move a production line from Ontario to Illinois

Associated Press Writer Rob Gillies in Toronto, Ontario, contributed to this report.

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It’s the end of the world and our auteurs are making movies about it. From “One Battle After Another” to “Eddington” to “A House of Dynamite,” existential annihilation and how to face it are on the brain. And our favorite Greek director of feel-weird cinema, Yorgos Lanthimos, has the starkest and darkest take, with his alien invasion conspiracy freakout picture “Bugonia.”

“Bugonia” marks the filmmaker’s fourth collaboration with star Emma Stone, who levied her Oscar clout post “La La Land” to start making daring cinematic experiments with Lanthimos. She earned her second Oscar for their film “Poor Things” and effectively established a mandate on their outré oeuvre. In the past few years, Stone and Lanthimos have created a troupe of players with whom they have collaborated frequently, including the actors Jesse Plemons and Margaret Qualley, writers Tony McNamara and Efthimis Filippou (who has been writing with Lanthimos from the start) and composer Jerskin Fendrix.

Lanthimos’ films written with Filippou are dark, odd and abrasive, but unpredictable and anarchic in a strangely enchanting way. McNamara’s screenplays are equally strange and enchanting, but also florid, absurd and randy. With “Bugonia,” they bring a new player into the company, writer Will Tracy (who co-wrote “The Menu”).

Tracy’s script for “Bugonia” blends humor, tragedy and absurdism in the way most Lanthimos films do, but this is more of a biting contemporary social critique, drenched in sorrow. Rather than worlds of fantasy, period settings or outrageous schemes, “Bugonia” hits close to home. It is, in a way, despairing, which is a new register for this master of tone.

It’s remarkable how far Stone is willing to push audiences with her characters, showcasing sharper, more unpleasant sides of range. This is perhaps her most unlikable character yet, and she spends the majority of the movie with a shaved head, covered in white grease paint.

Stone stars as Michelle, a self-optimization-obsessed girlboss CEO of a large biomedical company. We meet her through the eyes of her enemy, Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a lowly employee in the shipping division of Michelle’s company, who is convinced she’s an alien.

Specifically, Teddy believes Michelle to be an Andromedon, plotting to create a kind of “colony collapse disorder” (as in honeybees) among human beings on Earth; queen dead, worker bees blown to the wind, atomized, isolated, buzzing alone, without purpose. Teddy has been doing a lot of reading online, you see. He’s blasted through an array of political ideologies and now remains focused on his purpose of saving the planet by vanquishing—or at least negotiating with—the Andromedons. The first thing he has to do is kidnap Michelle.

It becomes immediately clear that Teddy is a man in crisis. He’s suffered traumas both recent and as a child, and his mother (Alicia Silverstone) is in a coma, the result of a drug trial orchestrated by Michelle’s company. His only companion is his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), a young innocent who just wants to help Teddy, who serves as a Greek chorus/audience surrogate (and a representative of Lanthimos’ interest in childlike adults). As Teddy explains his plans to Don, he explains them to us, the audience, while Don asks the obvious questions and offers sympathy to the tortured Teddy.

Once the pair have Michelle in their lair, the film becomes a chamber piece, confined to Teddy and Don’s claustrophobic home. It’s like a play, as two titans of acting, Stone and Plemons, go toe-to-toe in the basement. Michelle is more cunning, figuring out how to play these two to her whims, while Teddy struggles to prove her extraterrestrial origins. He is a paranoid lunatic, but to Stone’s credit, we waffle on if she is an Andromedon or not.

Locked in with these two, “Bugonia” is often uncomfortable and darkly funny, and the film plays an uneasy game of cat-and-mouse with its twists and turns. It shocks but it also proceeds the only way it can go, and somehow ends up in a profoundly goofy place. For the majority of the run time, “Bugonia” is the kind of film you respect more than you enjoy, as the archness and absurdity of Stone’s character is too dissonant with the sincerity of Teddy’s sadness at the core of this story.

But there is a bigger intelligence at play here, of course. It’s not until the final moments of the film, in a series of truly Lanthimos-ian tableaus, that everything snaps into crystal clear focus and it all makes sense. While the end he imagines is starkly shocking, it’s also weirdly kind, perhaps the best version of the end that anyone could possibly imagine. In Yorgos Lanthimos’ end of the world as we know it, it just might be fine.

‘Bugonia’

2 1/2 stars out of 4

Running time: 2 hours

Rated R for bloody violent content including a suicide, grisly images and language.

Where to watch: in theaters Friday, Oct. 24

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Packers at Steelers (+3½)
Estranged quarterback Aaron Rodgers is back at Lambeau Field to face his old team. Green Bay moving on from its QB in favor of young Jordan Love may be the greatest example of addition by subtraction since Jennifer Lopez dumped Alex Rodriguez.
Pick: Packers by 7

(L-R) Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez attend the 26th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on Jan. 19, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Titans at Colts (-14½)
Former Minnesota backup Daniel Jones has Indianapolis at an NFL-leading 6-1. It’s a stark reminder that the 2024 Vikings had two quarterbacks much better than J.J. McCarthy and Carson Wentz.
Pick: Colts by 17

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Daniel Jones (17) scores a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

49ers at Texans (+1½)
The Niners this week cut veteran receiver Marques Valdez-Scantling. If this is the end of the road for the former Packers wideout, he ends his career with 209 receptions and the NFL record for Scrabble name score.
Pick: 49ers by 10

Marquez Valdes-Scantling..#83 of the San Francisco 49ers reacts in front of Tykee Smith #23 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the second quarter in the game at Raymond James Stadium on Oct. 12, 2025 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Dolphins at Falcons (-7½)
Donald Trump reportedly is considering a pardon of Diddy after commuting the prison sentence of former GOP representative George Santos. Despite the president’s newfound affection for clemency, he has no plans to pardon Miami’s criminally bad coach, general manager or quarterback.
Pick: Falcons by 21

Head coach Mike McDaniel of the Miami Dolphins looks on prior to a game against the Cleveland Browns at Huntington Bank Field on Oct. 19, 2025 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Getty Images)

Buccaneers at Saints (+5½)
Tampa Bay is tied for the NFC lead despite losing in Detroit on Monday night. The Bucs’ schedule is so favorable the rest of the season that they might be able to clinch a playoff berth before Ghislaine Maxwell’s Christmas Eve pardon.
Pick: Buccaneers by 7

Baker Mayfield #6 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers throws a pass against the Seattle Seahawks during the first half at Lumen Field on Oct. 05, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Soobum Im/Getty Images)

Commanders at Chiefs (-10½)
Kansas City’s Andy Reid is coming off the first regular-season shutout of his NFL career. The Chiefs’ coach, though, is much more proud of never getting shut out at Pizza Ranch.
Pick: Chiefs by 9

Head coach Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs talks with an official during the second quarter against the Las Vegas Raiders in the game at Arrowhead Stadium on Oct. 19, 2025 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images)

Bills at Panthers (+7½)
Carolina is a surprising 4-3 thanks, in large part, to an easy early schedule. Tar Heel State fans will no doubt start paying more attention to the young Panthers once they get bored with making fun of Bill Belichick.
Pick: Bills by 11

Head coach Bill Belichick of the North Carolina Tar Heels and Jordon Hudson look on prior to the game against the Richmond Spiders at Kenan Memorial Stadium on Sept. 13, 2025 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo by Lance King/Getty Images)

Cowboys at Broncos (-3½)
Former Denver quarterback Russell Wilson called Sean Payton “classless” after his postgame comments last Sunday. While Wilson made his point, it had little effect on the Denver coach who, in the fourth quarter against Wilson’s Giants, made 33 points.
Pick: Broncos by 7

Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton talks with Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson (3) during a preseason NFL football game against the Los Angeles Rams Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023, in Denver. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey)

Giants at Eagles (-7½)
New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen is the subject of a new biopic opening this week. The film about the rock legend lasts about 120 minutes, which is enough time for the Meadowlands Giants to give up 264 points.
Pick: Eagles by 17

Jeremy Allen White and Bruce Springsteen attend the “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” Headline Gala at the 69th BFI London Film Festival at The Royal Festival Hall on Oct. 15, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for BFI)

Browns at Patriots (-7½)
Cleveland routed Miami last week thanks to another big game from rookie running back Quinshon Judkins. It’s looking increasingly likely that the Browns’ Most Valuable Player this season will be Judkins’ lawyer.
Pick: Patriots by 11

Quinshon Judkins #10 of the Cleveland Browns rushes for a touchdown against the Miami Dolphins during the fourth quarter of the game at Huntington Bank Field on Oct. 19, 2025 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)

Other games

Jets at Bengals (-6½)
Pick: Bengals by 7

Bears at Ravens (-6½)
Pick: Ravens by 3

Bye week

Cardinals, Lions, Jaguars, L.A. Rams, Raiders, Seahawks

Record

Week 7
11-4 straight up
10-5 vs. spread

Season
65-42-1 straight up (.607)
55-53 vs. spread (.509)

All-time (2003-25)
3884-2143-15 straight up (.644)
2965-2932-145 vs spread (.503)

You can hear Kevin Cusick on Thursdays on Bob Sansevere’s “BS Show” podcast on iTunes. You can follow Kevin on X– @theloopnow. He can be reached at kcusick@pioneerpress.com.

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