US Domestic News Roundup: Trump to seek delay of classified documents case as judge weighs new timeline; Colorado judge to sentence paramedic for Elijah McClain killing and more

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Trump to seek delay of classified documents case as judge weighs new timeline

Lawyers for Donald Trump will be in court on Friday seeking to delay a trial on charges the former U.S. president illegally held onto classified documents, as a federal judge wrestles with whether Trump should face a jury before the November election. Trump's lawyers wrote in a court filing on Thursday that he cannot have a "fair trial" while he is running for president. Nevertheless, in response to a request from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, Trump's legal team proposed an Aug. 12 trial date, which would extend the case into the fall presidential campaign.

Colorado judge to sentence paramedic for Elijah McClain killing

A Colorado judge is scheduled on Friday to sentence a paramedic convicted in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a young Black man who died after police put him in a chokehold and medics injected him with a powerful sedative. Jurors in December found emergency medical worker Peter Cichuniec, 51, guilty of criminally negligent homicide in a rare trial of paramedics in such a case. He faces up to 16 years in prison.

Republican-controlled Alabama legislature passes bills to protect IVF

Alabama's Republican-led legislature on Thursday passed bills aimed at protecting the IVF industry after the state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children, prompting at least three Alabama providers to halt the fertility procedure. A bill passed the Senate 34-0, with one member abstaining, after the House measure passed 94-6.

Judge in Trump Georgia criminal case to hear arguments over bid to disqualify prosecutor

A judge overseeing Donald Trump’s election interference case in Georgia is set to hold a final hearing Friday on the former U.S. president’s bid to disqualify the prosecutor who brought the case over her undisclosed affair with a top deputy.

Trump and other co-defendants in the case have said Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade presents an improper conflict of interest.

Some Democrats turn toward Trump in Texas border city hit by immigration

Asalia Casares, 52, is a lifelong Democrat who voted for U.S. President Joe Biden in 2020 just like many in Maverick County near the U.S.-Mexico border, a rare Democratic stronghold in the majority Republican state of Texas. But Casares said she is concerned about the high levels of illegal immigration straining her hometown of Eagle Pass, Texas, which sits alongside the Rio Grande and where she was born and raised. While she sympathizes with the migrants, she worries about the safety of residents and migrant families, citing the dangers of crossing the Rio Grande and pointing to an incident where three people were found hiding behind an elderly neighbor's house.

Police reports, adultery claims: inside the tumult ripping Michigan Republicans apart

A threat of dueling party conventions to choose a presidential nominee this weekend. Accusations of adultery, corruption and incompetence. A barrage of social media attacks and a police investigation. The Michigan Republican Party is in turmoil, raising fears among some Republicans that support for former President Donald Trump's re-election bid could suffer in a battleground state that Democratic President Joe Biden won by 2.8 percentage points in 2020.

Biden pressures Trump to unblock migrant plan during dueling border visits

President Joe Biden on Thursday called on Donald Trump to help unblock a plan languishing in Congress to cut migrant crossings as the pair took part in dueling visits to the border over a top issue ahead of November's election. Biden was in the town of Brownsville, Texas, across the Rio Grande river from Mexico, where he criticized Republicans for rejecting a bipartisan effort to toughen immigration rules after Trump told them not to pass it and give the president a win. Biden and Trump, the Republican former president making his third bid for the White House, look set to face each other in what polls show will be a close election on Nov. 5 that looks set to be a deeply divisive rematch of the 2020 contest.

US Supreme Court's move to hear Trump's immunity claim gives him gift of delay

The U.S. Supreme Court appears likely to reject Donald Trump's claim of immunity from prosecution for trying to undo his 2020 election loss, according to legal experts, but its decision to spend months on the matter could aid his quest to regain the presidency by further delaying a monumental criminal trial. Trump's lawyers have argued that he should be shielded from prosecution for his effort to reverse President Joe Biden's election victory over him because he was president when he took those actions, a sweeping assertion of immunity firmly rejected by lower courts.

'Rust' assistant director praises armorer, takes blame for shooting

"Rust" first assistant director Dave Halls on Thursday testified that the movie's armorer was diligent in her work and he was ultimately to blame for the 2021 fatal shooting of the film's cinematographer as he did not do a final check on a gun. Halls was the first "Rust" crew member to praise armorer Hannah Gutierrez during her two-week involuntary manslaughter trial in which former colleagues have said she was less professional than other weapons handlers they had worked with.

US Senate approves bill to avert government shutdown, sends it to Biden

The Democratic-majority U.S. Senate on Thursday approved a short-term stopgap spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown, after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives backed it with less than 36 hours before funding would have begun to run out. The bill, which passed the Senate in a bipartisan 77-13 vote, will next go to President Joe Biden's desk for signing into law. It will set deadlines to fund one part of the government by March 8 and the other portion by March 22.

(With inputs from agencies.)