The Latest: Trio of crises loom over final the campaign’s final stretch

In a debate that evoked a calmer era in American politics, Tim Walz and JD Vance went after each other’s running mates Tuesday and sought to shore up their campaigns’ vulnerabilities at a time of renewed fears of a regional war in the Middle East and sadness over devastation from Hurricane Helene.

Meanwhile, those new trials — along with a dockworkers strike that threatens the U.S. economy — are looming over the final weeks of the presidential campaign and could help shape the public mood as voters decide between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

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Here’s the latest:

Prosecutors lay out new evidence in Trump election case, accuse him of having ‘resorted to crimes’

Donald Trump laid the groundwork to try to overturn the 2020 election even before he lost, knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and “resorted to crimes” in his failed bid to cling to power, according to a newly unsealed court filing from prosecutors that lays out fresh details from the landmark criminal case against the former president.

The filing from special counsel Jack Smith’s team offers the most comprehensive view to date of what prosecutors intend to prove if the case charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the election reaches trial. Though a months-long congressional investigation and the indictment itself have chronicled in stark detail Trump’s efforts to undo the election, the new filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump’s closest aides to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who while losing his grip on the White House “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process.”