By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and ISABELLA VOLMERT, Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Before the abandoned federal attempt to prosecute Donald Trump for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, state and local prosecutors brought cases against his fake electors.

Related Articles

Over 40% of arrests in Trump’s DC law enforcement surge relate to immigration, AP analysis finds

Kilmar Abrego Garcia wants asylum. The US wants to deport him. What to know

3 fired FBI officials sue Patel, saying he bowed to Trump administration’s ‘campaign of retribution’

From slavery to pollution, National Park employees flagged material deemed ‘disparaging’ to US

Trump’s signature, a symbol of presidential power, is under new scrutiny thanks to the Epstein case

The term referred to the people who, in several of the swing states won by former President Joe Biden, declared themselves to be the rightful electors who would vote for Trump in the Electoral College. It was part of Trump’s long-shot bid to push Congress to reject Biden’s electors and throw the election to him.

Democratic prosecutors filed indictments against them before Trump himself was charged by a special prosecutor appointed by Biden’s Department of Justice, making the fake electors the most prominent example of how those who helped Trump faced consequences for their attempt to reverse the election results. Many of those cases have now hit a dead end or are just limping along.

The charges against Trump were dropped after he won the election, following last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling granting presidents immunity for much of their conduct in office. While the fake elector cases ground on, several have hit legal roadblocks — most dramatically on Tuesday when a Michigan judge dismissed charges against 15 Republicans who had been charged by that state’s Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel.

Judge Kristen Simmons said prosecutors had not shown that the defendants intended to defraud the public.

“Right, wrong or indifferent, it was these individuals and many other individuals in the state of Michigan who sincerely believed — for some reason — that there were some serious irregularities with the election,” said Simmons, who was originally appointed by the state’s Democratic governor and then won reelection to the bench.

President Donald Trump speaks at a hearing of the Religious Liberty Commission at the Museum of the Bible, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Fake electoral cases hit setbacks in other states

Simmons’ dismissal came after a judge in Arizona sent the fake electors case there back to the grand jury for fuller instructions about what federal law requires and a Nevada judge dismissed charges in that state, concluding they were filed in the wrong city.

Nevada’s attorney general, Democrat Aaron Ford, has refiled the charges, while Arizona’s, Democrat Kris Mayes, has appealed. In Georgia, the fake elector allegations are among the charges Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed against Trump and others in a case that has been put on hold as she appeals her removal for ethics reasons.

In a call with reporters on Tuesday, Nessel lamented that “it’s getting harder and harder” to get election cases across the finish line.

“And I think in large part that’s because of the fear of retaliation and the ongoing intimidation of threats our judges receive when presiding over cases in which the president has a stake,” she said.

Anthony Michael Kreis, a George State University law professor who’s followed the cases, noted that they all involved unprecedented acts that the legal system had never dealt with before.

“The bottom line is, these very 40,000-foot level cases that are brought to ‘protect democracy,’ the criminal justice system isn’t equipped to handle that,” he said.

Meshawn Maddock receives a hug after a Michigan judge dismissed the criminal cases against 15 people accused of acting falsely as electors for President Donald Trump in the 2020 election Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025 in Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Vague Electoral College wording provided an opening

Each state has a set number of electors it assigns to the winner of its popular vote in a presidential contest. Those electors then cast the actual ballots for president, which are later read in Congress.

After the 2020 election, Trump and his allies exploited vague wording in a 19th century law that, along with the Constitution, governs how presidential winners are certified. Congress closed many of the potential loopholes in 2022 legislation that included specifying that a state could put forward only one slate of electors and that it was the governor who would sign off.

Those who backed Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election praised the dismissal in Michigan as demonstrating that the fake elector cases have been vindictive.

“We all knew from day one that we had done nothing illegal or wrong,” Meshawn Maddock, a former state party chair and the most prominent of the Michigan Republicans charged, said in a written statement. “Yes, we volunteered to be an Alternate Elector in support of Donald J. Trump. That is not a crime, as much as Nessel wanted it to be one.”

“Great news from Michigan!” Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who advised Trump during his push to reverse the 2020 results, posted on the social platform X. “Now, time for AZ, WI and corrupt GA Fani Willis indictments to now be dismissed.”

The Arizona and Nevada attorneys general’s offices declined to comment, citing ongoing legal proceedings. Wisconsin’s case, filed by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, has been moving slowly but without setbacks. A judge there last month rejected the defendants’ request to dismiss the case.

One of the Michigan defendants had criminal charges dropped after he reached a deal to cooperate with the attorney general’s office. In Georgia, former Trump attorneys and advisers Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges before the case ran into ethics problems.

Defendants saw themselves as ‘alternate’ electors

Many of the defendants in the cases said they signed up for the scheme as a sort of procedural insurance in case Trump won any of the court challenges he had filed and a new slate of electors was needed urgently before Congress’ Jan. 6 deadline to tally the votes. None of the lawsuits were ultimately successful.

Marian Sheridan, one of the people charged in Michigan whose case was dismissed, said Tuesday that the group’s plan was to act as a “backup” or “lifeboat” in case the election results were overturned.

“We were not fake,” she said. “We were alternate.”

Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said such arguments were part of the reason he viewed the fake elector cases as some of the “weaker” criminal ones filed after the 2020 election.

But he said the combination of the failures of those prosecutions, coupled with Trump’s avoiding liability and his pardons of more than 1,500 people convicted of crimes in the cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, are a grim combination.

“All of it fits together to create really bad incentives for a system of free and fair election and peaceful transitions of power,” Hasen said.

By HANNA ARHIROVA

DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — With the Russian advance deeper into the Donetsk region, the air in Ukraine’s last strongholds is thick with dread and the future for civilians who remain grows ever more uncertain.

In Kostiantynivka, once home to 67,000 people, there is no steady supply of power, water or gas. Shelling intensifies, drones fill the skies and the city has become unbearable, driving out the last remaining civilians.

Kramatorsk, by contrast, still shows signs of life. Just 25 kilometers (15 miles) to the north, the prewar population of 147,000 has thinned, but restaurants and cafes remain open. The streets are mostly intact. Though the city has endured multiple strikes and is now dominated by the military, daily routines persist in ways that are no longer possible in nearby towns.

Once the industrial heart of Ukraine, Donetsk is being steadily reduced to rubble. Many residents fear its cities may never be rebuilt and, if the war drags on, Russia eventually will swallow what is left.

“(Donetsk) region has been trampled, torn apart, turned into dust,” said Natalia Ivanova, a woman in her 70s who fled Kostiantynivka in early September after a missile struck near her home. Russian President Vladimir Putin “will go all the way … I’m sure of it. I have no doubt more cities will be destroyed.”

Despair and destruction

Kostiantynivka now sits on a shrinking patch of Ukrainian-held territory, wedged just west of Russian-occupied Bakhmut and nearly encircled on three sides by Moscow’s forces.

“They was always shooting,” Ivanova said. “You’d be standing there … and all you’d hear was the whistle of shells.”

She had two apartments. One was destroyed and the other one damaged. For months, she watched buildings disappear in an instant, while swarms of buzzing drones “like beetles” filled the sky, she said.

“I never thought I’d leave,” she added. “I was a stolid soldier, holding on. I’m a pensioner and it (the home) was my comfort zone.”

Related Articles

UN nuclear chief says agreement provides for access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities

Hong Kong lawmakers reject a bill recognizing same-sex partnerships

Russia’s violation of Poland’s airspace is the most serious in a string of cross-border incidents

Qatar digs through the rubble of Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha

French police clash with ‘Block Everything’ protesters while Macron installs a new PM

For years now, Ivanova had watched the region’s cities fall: Bakhmut, then Avdiivka, and others. But the war, she said, still felt far away, even as it closed in on her doorstep.

“I felt for those people,” she said. “But it wasn’t enough to make me leave.”

A blast near her building finally forced her out. The explosion bent her windows so badly she couldn’t shut them before fleeing. Her apartment remained wide open. She left her whole life behind in Kostiantynivka, the city where she was born.

“Please, stop it,” she pleaded, directing her appeal to world leaders as she sat in an evacuation hub shortly after fleeing. “It’s the poorest people who suffer the most. This war is senseless and stupid. We’re dying like animals — by the dozens.”

Living through it together

Olena Voronkova decided to leave Kostiantynivka earlier, in May, when she could no longer run her two businesses: a beauty salon and a cafe.

She and her family relocated to nearby Kramatorsk, which is so close yet, in many ways, far away, as she is no longer able to enter her hometown. It wasn’t the first loss she had suffered since the war began. In 2023, a rocket strike from a multiple-launch system severely damaged their house.

The move to Kramatorsk wasn’t by choice, she added, but “because the circumstances left us no other option.”

First came the mandatory evacuation orders. Then a curfew so strict they could only move around the city for four hours a day. Then came the floods of remote-controlled drones.

“We’re used to life in Donetsk region. We feel good here. Kramatorsk is familiar. A lot of people from our city moved here — even local municipal workers,” Voronkova said.

Not long after arriving in Kramatorsk, she opened a cafe that is nearly identical to the one she left behind. She said the space just happened to look similar. It has high white walls and ornate mirrors she brought from her beauty salon, which is now in the combat zone.

The cafe has since become a refuge for others who also fled Kostiantynivka.

“At first there was hope that maybe some homes would survive — that people might go back,” she said. “Now we see it’s unlikely anyone has anything left. The city is turning into another Bakhmut, Toretsk or Avdiivka. Everything is being destroyed.”

She described the mood as “heavy” because “people are losing hope” and it felt easier in Kramatorsk because everyone shared the same loss, which created a sense of connection and mutual support.

“No one really knows where to go next. Everyone sees that Russia isn’t stopping. And that’s where the hopelessness begins. No one has a direction anymore. The uncertainty is everywhere,” she said.

Seizing the day

War is slowly draining the life out of Kramatorsk, as if warning that it may be the next city to be reduced to rubble.

Daria Horlova still remembers it as a bustling place where, at 9 p.m., life in the central square was just getting started. Now it’s deserted at all hours and 9 p.m. is when a strict curfew begins. The city is regularly bombed thanks to its proximity to the front line about 21 kilometers (13 miles) east.

“It’s still terrifying — when something’s flying overhead or strikes nearby, especially when it hits the city,” the 18-year-old said. “You want to cry, but there are no emotions left. No strength.”

Horlova studies remotely at a local university that relocated to another region and works as a nail artist. One day, she hopes to open her own salon. For now, she and her boyfriend are stuck in limbo, unsure of what to do next.

“It’s terrifying that most of the Donetsk region is occupied — and that it was Russia who attacked,” she said. “That’s why it feels like everything could change at any moment. Just look at Kostiantynivka — not long ago, life there was normal. And now …”

To distract herself from the anxiety, and the difficult decision she might soon have to make to leave, Horlova tries to focus on what brings her joy in the moment.

She already was evacuated from Kramatorsk once, earlier in the war, and doesn’t want to repeat it.

Instead of dwelling on what the future could hold, she asked her boyfriend, a tattoo artist, to ink a large tattoo of a goat skull on her right leg, something she has dreamed about for years.

“I think you just have to do things — and do them as soon as you can,” she said. “Being here, I know this tattoo will be a memory of Kramatorsk, if I end up leaving.”

Vasilisa Stepanenko and Yehor Konovalov contributed to this report.

By KANIS LEUNG, Associated Press

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong lawmakers on Wednesday voted down a bill that would have granted recognition to same-sex partnerships in the Chinese city, despite the rights offered being limited, in a major setback to the LGBTQ+ movement.

The Registration of Same-Sex Partnerships Bill, unveiled in July, stemmed from one of the legal victories that pushed the government to offer more equal rights to gays and lesbians. However, the bill met fierce opposition from lawmakers, even though it followed the top court’s 2023 ruling stating the government should provide a framework for recognizing such relationships.

Out of the lawmakers who attended the meeting, 71 voted against the bill, 14 approved it and one abstained.

The staunch opposition from lawmakers was a rare sight despite the Chinese government’s overhaul of the electoral rules of the territory that effectively filled the legislature with Beijing loyalists. It was the first government bill to be voted down since the overhaul.

Resistance in the legislature

The bill had proposed to allow residents who have already formed unions overseas to register their partnerships locally and to grant them rights in handling medical and after-death matters for their loved ones. That included the ability to access their partners’ medical information and participate in medical decisions with consent, and claim their deceased partners’ remains.

Some lawmakers suggested using individual policies or administrative measures to resolve the challenges facing same-sex couples, instead of through such legislation. Others insisted voting down would not amount to a constitutional crisis and would instead show the legislature is not a rubber stamp.

Related Articles

UK ambassador to US in the spotlight over his links to ‘best pal’ Epstein

Novo Nordisk, maker of obesity drug Wegovy, to cut 9,000 jobs to sharpen focus, meet competition

Israel launches strikes in Yemen as EU chief seeks sanctions on Israel over war in Gaza

Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in quiet Qatar shocks Gulf allies and tests US ties

EU chief says it’s time for Europe’s ‘independence moment’ faced with war and major power tensions

Lawmaker Holden Chow from the city’s biggest pro-establishment party said that the bill’s passage would mean opening “a Pandora’s box,” and “subverting Hong Kong’s marriage system between one man and one woman.”

Another legislator, Junius Ho, said the bill would cause the entire society to become restless for the sake of a small group of people.

Lawmaker Regina Ip, who supported the bill, likened it to a “minimum spending” requirement, given the rights offered were limited.

Outside government headquarters near the legislature, two women laid out a banner supporting the traditional marriage system.

Rights advocates left disappointed

Many gay rights advocates in Hong Kong were already unsatisfied with the draft bill as its proposed registration system was only available to those in registered overseas unions. Still, they expressed frustration over its rejection.

Activist Jimmy Sham, whose legal challenge led to the 2023 top court ruling on same-sex partnerships, told reporters after the vote he had expected the outcome. He said he hoped the government would in the future pass legislation that fulfills its constitutional duty toward the LGBTQ+ community.

“I hope today marks a beginning we haven’t yet stepped into, rather than an end,” he said, adding he would study how to follow up on the matter with his legal team.

Nick Infinger, who had won a separate legal challenge to seek equal rights for same-sex couples, was also let down by the results. “Just do not give up,” he said.

Hong Kong Marriage Equality, a nongovernmental organization that focuses on fair treatment for same-sex couples, said the rejection sent a troubling signal to local and international communities that “court rulings may be disregarded and the dignity of individuals overlooked.”

It earlier argued that the results of public opinion submissions — which the government previously reported as 80% opposing the bill — did not accurately reflect public sentiment. It noted that about half the publicly viewable submissions against the bill used standardized templates, which suggested “strong mobilization by specific groups.”

Next steps are uncertain

Hong Kong’s top court ruled in 2023 that the government should develop a framework for recognizing same-sex partnerships by October.

Erick Tsang, the secretary for constitutional affairs, told reporters that while the government felt disappointed with Wednesday’s outcome, it would respect the lawmakers’ decision.

Surveys showed 60% of respondents supported same-sex marriage in 2023, up from 38% in 2013, according to a report by researchers from three universities.

Tsang said the administration won’t ask the top court for an extension to the two-year deadline, but his team will further discuss with the Department of Justice how to move forward.

The growing acceptance came as multiple legal challenges won more equal rights for same-sex couples, ranging from dependent visas to subsidized housing benefits. On Tuesday, the Court of First Instance ruled in favor of a lesbian couple’s parental recognition of their son born through reciprocal in vitro fertilization.

Nadia Rahman, Amnesty International’s researcher on gender, urged authorities to introduce a revised bill to protect the rights of same-sex couples in full compliance with the court’s ruling.

On Wednesday night, performance artist Holok Chen gathered members of the queer community to embroider on a rainbow flag to reflect their grievances. Other LGBTQ+ groups also hosted similar activities, Chen said, and they plan to display the rainbow flags they embroidered in a show of unity later this month.

Chen pointed to the communal nature of embroidery, saying, “It’s a gentle yet powerful form of resistance.”

By STEPHEN McGRATH and ANDREEA ALEXANDRU

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Russia’s violation of Poland’s airspace with drones on Wednesday marks the most serious cross-border incident into a NATO member country since the war in Ukraine began.

Related Articles

UK ambassador to US in the spotlight over his links to ‘best pal’ Epstein

Novo Nordisk, maker of obesity drug Wegovy, to cut 9,000 jobs to sharpen focus, meet competition

Israel launches strikes in Yemen as EU chief seeks sanctions on Israel over war in Gaza

Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in quiet Qatar shocks Gulf allies and tests US ties

EU chief says it’s time for Europe’s ‘independence moment’ faced with war and major power tensions

But other alliance countries have reported similar incursions and drone crashes on their territory since 2022.

The overnight incident in Poland has been labelled an “act of aggression” and drew a military response by NATO in shooting down multiple drones, as several European leaders said they believed Moscow was intentionally escalating the war.

But since Russia fully invaded Ukraine in 2022, Croatia and Romania, and non-NATO member Moldova — the latter two of which share long borders with Ukraine — have reported multiple airspace violations and have found drone fragments on their territory.

Poland’s experience is not the first time NATO airspace has been violated.

String of airspace violations since war started

Romania found several drone crash sites on its territory in 2023, including one that caused a crater near a village across the Danube River from the Ukrainian port of Izmail. That crash site finding followed several other similar incidents that left many Romanians near the border nervous that the war could spill over.

In February 2024, Moldova destroyed explosives discovered in a part of a Shahed drone that crashed on its territory in the southern town of Etulia. Moldova’s Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi called it “a stark reminder of the violence and destruction sown by the Kremlin.”

Since 2023, numerous airspace incursions and drone fragment findings have been reported in both countries, and while no one has been hurt in any of the incidents and the origin not always determined, the proximity has often highlighted how easily the war could cross over the Ukrainian border.

Just weeks after the war in Ukraine started, a 6-ton Soviet-era military drone armed with explosives drifted uncontrolled from the Ukrainian war zone over NATO members Romania and Hungary, before entering Croatia and crashing in the capital, Zagreb. About 40 parked cars were damaged in a large explosion, but no one was injured. Croatian investigators never made public whether the aircraft belonged to Ukraine or Russia.

In early February this year, Russian drones crashed within a day in Moldova and Romania as the two eastern European neighbors reported aerial vehicles entered their airspace during Russia’s overnight attacks on neighboring Ukraine’s Danube port.

Both countries determined that the drones were Shahed unmanned aircraft that Moscow uses in its war on Ukraine. Moldovan President Maia Sandu said at the time that the violations put “Moldovan lives at risk,” and the head of the Russian diplomatic mission in Chisinau was summoned. Days later, two more drones entered Moldovan airspace near the border.

In March, Romania’s Ministry of National Defense said that fragments of a Russian drone carrying explosives were found in southeast Galati county, just 500 meters from a border crossing with Moldova. Investigators determined the fragments were “of Russian origin.” It was subject to a controlled detonation.

Romania adopts legislation to down errant drones

Airspace violations have become so commonplace in Romania in recent years that lawmakers adopted legislation in February allowing the army to shoot down drones that enter its airspace, as a last resort if other measures fail. Romania’s hard-right parties opposed the law.

Analysts have long viewed such incidents in Romania as potential tests by Russia to see how NATO would react. Romania is frequently scrambling fighter jets — as it did early Wednesday — to monitor its airspace for potentially encroaching drones.

Radu Tudor, a defense analyst in Bucharest, says “military provocations” from Russia have become commonplace on the eastern flank and that “Russia is behaving more and more aggressively.”

“Here is the threat: on air, on the land … in the Black Sea,” he told The Associated Press. “Also huge, huge cyber attacks and hybrid attacks, so it’s a multi-dimensional attack from Russia on the eastern flank of NATO.”

‘Russia must be stopped’

After the incident on Wednesday in Poland, Romanian President Nicusor Dan said Russia’s latest airspace violation of NATO-member Poland proved that Moscow is “constantly testing our limits” and shows it is not interested in peace in Ukraine.

“Russia must be stopped and pressured to come to the negotiation table,” Dan wrote on X. “We are united to make NATO and especially the eastern flank, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, more secure.”

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO bolstered its presence on Europe’s eastern flank by sending additional multinational battlegroups to Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia.

Stephen McGrath reported from Warwick, U.K; Dusan Stojanovic reported from Belgrade, Serbia.