The Supreme Court turned back a push by the state of Utah to wrest control of vast areas of public land from the federal government, marking a small victory for land conservation advocates who worry that similar efforts may escalate in a Republican-controlled Washington.

The high court on Monday refused to let the Republican-controlled state file a lawsuit seeking to bring the land and its resources under state control. The decision came in a brief order in which the court did not explain its reasoning, as is typical. It marks the latest roadblock for states in a running feud with the U.S. government over who should control huge swaths of the West and the enormous oil and gas, timber, and other resources they contain.

Utah’s top state leaders said they have not ruled out taking their lawsuit to a lower court.

In the Western state known for its rugged mountains popular with skiers and red-rock vistas that draw throngs of tourists, federal agencies control almost 70% of the land. Utah argues that local control would be more responsive and allow the state access to revenue from taxes and development projects.

The complaint sought control of about half of federal land, which still amounts to an area nearly as large as South Carolina. The parcels are used for things like energy production, grazing, mining and recreation. Utah’s world-famous national parks and national monuments would have stayed in federal hands.

Monday’s decision by the high court comes as the newly Republican-controlled Congress adopted a rules package that includes language allowing lawmakers to more easily transfer or sell off public lands managed by federal agencies. The rules consider public lands to have no monetary value, meaning lawmakers will no longer need to account for lost revenue if they decide to give parcels to states or extractive industries.

While conservationists applauded the court’s rejection of what they called a land-grab lawsuit, many remained worried that the efforts will continue.

Public lands under state control could be vulnerable to privatization, degradation and oil drilling, said Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

“If successful, Utah’s lawsuit would result in the sale of millions of acres of public lands in red-rock country to the highest bidder, an end to America’s system of federal public lands and the dismantling of the American West as we know it,” Bloch said.

Utah’s Republican Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis criticized the court’s decision and promised legislative action. Curtis, who campaigned on being a climate-conscious Republican, said the people of Utah should be entrusted to manage the land they have lived on for generations.

“Building roads, moving cattle and cleaning up campgrounds all require navigating a behemothic bureaucracy that’s stacked up against the average Utahn,” Curtis said.

In a joint statement with Utah’s Republican legislative leaders and attorney general, Gov. Spencer Cox said he was disappointed in the court’s decision to turn away the lawsuit.

“Utah remains able and willing to challenge any BLM land management decisions that harm Utah,” state leaders said. “We are also heartened to know the incoming administration shares our commitments to the principle of ‘multiple use’ for these federal lands and is committed to working with us to improve land management.”

While lawsuits typically start in federal district courts and eventually work their way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, disputes involving states can start at the nation’s highest court if the justices agree to hear them.

Utah leaders noted that the high court did not comment on the merits of their arguments or prevent them from filing the lawsuit in a federal district court. Conservation groups say they’ll remain ready to challenge any future lawsuits.

“This lawsuit is an assault on the country’s long-standing and successful history of safeguarding valuable and vulnerable landscapes in trust for all Americans,” said Chris Hill, who leads the Conservation Lands Foundation. “And while the Supreme Court’s decision to not hear the case is a reprieve, we fully expect this small group of anti-public lands politicians to continue to waste taxpayer dollars and shop their bad ideas.”

The federal Bureau of Land Management declined to comment.

The Ohio Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a long-running public records case pitting the state’s top law enforcement officer against a national watchdog group that is digging into his ties with the Republican Attorneys General Association.

At issue is whether GOP Attorney General Dave Yost should be required to provide records to an appeals court that had been requested by the Center for Media and Democracy, which pertain to the nonprofit Republican association as well as its fundraising arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund. Yost’s office also is fighting a magistrate’s order requiring the attorney general to be deposed in the now five-year-old case.

The center, an investigative group, is seeking records from a period when RAGA — a nonprofit that accepts corporate donations — organized a letter opposing clean air restrictions to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that was signed by Republican attorneys general. More recently, the association came under fire for soliciting thousands of supporters of Donald Trump to march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Ohio Solicitor General T. Elliot Gaiser told the court Wednesday that its decision could have ramifications for public records law in the state.

“Essentially, this is a question of if a precedent is set for a deposition of an attorney general in this case, it would be open season for lawfare and the weaponization of the public records act for witchhunts by every gadfly,” Gaiser said.

The center initially requested the documents in March 2020, including records associated with RAGA’s winter meeting of that year.

Yost responded at the time that his office had no pertinent records to turn over or that the information being sought wasn’t a record. As part of a legal challenge by the center, a Tenth District Court of Appeals magistrate ordered his office to answer a series of questions about the communications and subsequently directed him to produce certain documents for private, in-camera review.

The lower court said a review of the requested materials would help it determine whether they were public records or not — dependent on factors such as whether the communications were carried out on state time, were conducted by public employees or involved Yost’s official duties.

Yost appealed the magistrate’s orders to the state’s high court, arguing in part that searching for the requested records would potentially reach into the communications of Republican attorneys general in other states as well as his own staff’s personal and campaign email accounts.

He has also said that the discovery could potentially sweep in irrelevant information having nothing to do with RAGA or its fundraising arm, such as communications about multistate lawsuits his office might be involved in, say, against an e-cigarette maker or Google.

Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy asked Wednesday whether the lower court’s order might be asking too much of the state — for it to produce information, as opposed to records. Justice Jennifer Brunner, the panel’s lone Democrat, asked whether allowing the public official to determine on their own that records aren’t public would be a slippery slope.

“Depending on how this decision comes out, if an official decided to engage in illegal or unethical behavior, he would just simply do it on a private email and the public would probably not be able to find out,” she said.

Jeffrey Vardaro, the Center for Media and Democracy’s attorney, reminded the court that the outstanding order would merely allow the Tenth District magistrate — not the center or the public at large — to review certain documents. He said that undercuts the state’s argument that the lawsuit is intended to harass or embarrass Yost, who he reminded has the job of enforcing Ohio’s public records law.

Vardaro warned the court against making a decision that could allow a public official to unilaterally determine that “entire categories of what should be public records are not public,” prevent courts from weighing in, and empower the official to “refuse to testify about what the records were even about.”

“And so it would take the Sunshine Act and turn it into a black box,” he added.

An ex-cop fired from his job as an investigator at the U.S. Center for SafeSport for allegedly stealing money seized at a drug bust has been arrested again, this time charged with rape and sex trafficking.

Jason Krasley, a former police officer in Allentown, Pennsylvania, was arrested Friday and charged with felony rape and involuntary sexual servitude for crimes allegedly committed while he was on the force between 2011 and 2015, according to a news release from the district attorney’s office.

Krasley left the department in 2021 and went to work for the SafeSport Center, which fired him last year shortly after learning he’d been arrested for allegedly stealing $5,500 from a drug bust he helped conduct while on the force.

The new arrest resurfaces the question of how Krasley was able to maneuver through what officials at the center say is a robust vetting process it uses to hire people tasked with uncovering sensitive information regarding sex-abuse cases.

The Denver-based center was established in 2017 to deal with sex-abuse cases in Olympic sports from the elite level down to the grassroots. As of late last year, it had 36 people on its investigation team; it has tapped into police forces, where some detectives deal with similar cases, to fill some of those positions.

“I am appalled that a former staff member has been accused of such heinous acts in his previous role as a police officer,” SafeSport CEO Ju’Riese Colon said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press. “We hold all staff to the highest standard because safeguarding athletes is our utmost priority.”

The AP has learned of two cases Krasley handled — one of which was assigned to another investigator after his arrest on the theft charges. In the other, the claimant asked if her case could be reopened in the wake of the arrest and was told in an email from a SafeSport employee that “those matters are already being reviewed prior to the requests and media attention.”

Colon said the center has commissioned a third-party audit of cases Krasley handled.

“We are working with subject matter experts to determine what additional actions should be taken in light of the new allegations,” she said.

Krasley faces additional counts of felony kidnapping, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and intimidation of a witness, in addition to misdemeanor criminal coercion.

Krasley’s attorney, James Burke, told lehighvallleylive.com that Krasley “absolutely denies the allegations.” Burke did not return a voicemail left at his office by AP.

Krasley, 47, also is named in a whistleblower lawsuit filed last year by two Allentown officers who alleged widespread misconduct in the department.

Also arrested and charged with felony rape and involuntary sexual servitude Friday was a current Allentown officer, Kevin Weaver, who has been placed on administrative leave.

China’s exports in December grew at a faster pace than expected, as factories rushed to fill orders to beat higher tariffs that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose once he takes office.

Exports rose 10.7% from a year earlier, according to official customs data released Monday. Economists had forecast they would grow about 7%. Imports rose 1% year-on-year. Analysts had expected them to shrink about 1.5%. With exports outpacing imports, China’s trade surplus grew to $104.84 billion in December, and nearly $1 trillion for the year, at $992.2 billion.

Here are some highlights from the report.

Trump has pledged to raise tariffs on Chinese goods and close some loopholes that exporters now use to sell their products more cheaply in the U.S. If enacted, his plans would likely raise prices in America and squeeze sales and profit margins for Chinese exporters.

China’s exports are likely to remain strong in the near-term, said Zichun Huang of Capital Economics, as businesses try to “front-run” potentially higher tariffs.

“Outbound shipments are likely to stay resilient in the near-term, supported by further gains in global market share thanks to a weak real effective exchange rate,” she wrote in a note.

Chinese exports to the U.S. jumped 15.6% in December compared to the same time last year, while exports to the European Union jumped 8.8%. Outbound shipments to Southeast Asia grew almost 19%.

But exports will likely weaken later in the year if Trump follows through on his threat to impose tariffs, Huang said.

Officials who briefed reporters in Beijing said the total value of China’s imports and exports reached a record 43.85 trillion yuan (nearly $6 trillion), up 5% from a year earlier. China is the world’s largest exporter and the main trading partner of more than 150 countries and regions, said Wang Lingjun, the Customs Administration’s deputy director general.

China’s economy has slowed following the pandemic, partly because of job losses and a downturn in the housing industry, while exports have surged. Under leader Xi Jinping, the ruling Communist Party is promoting upgrading of factories and a shift to more high-tech manufacturing. The report Monday said China’s export of mechanical and electrical products increased by almost 9% last year from a year earlier, with growth in exports of “high-end equipment” jumping more than 40%.

Exports of electric vehicles rose 13%, exports of 3D printers jumped almost 33% and shipments of industrial robots surged 45%. E-commerce trade, including sales by companies including Temu, Shein and Alibaba, registered 2.6 trillion yuan ($350 billion), more than twice the level in 2020.

China does not pursue a trade surplus and wants to increase its imports, the officials said. But while imports edged higher last year, they still lagged exports, partly due to lower prices for key commodities such as oil and iron ore.

Lagging imports also reflect weak demand as consumers and businesses cut back on spending.

“Regarding this year’s imports, we believe that there is still a lot of room for growth. This is not only because my country’s market capacity is large, there are many levels, and it has huge potential,” said Lv Daliang, a Customs Administration spokesperson.

China also is blocked from exporting and importing some products due to trade restrictions, Lv said, alluding to controls by the U.S. and some other countries on strategically sensitive exports to China, such as sales of advanced semiconductors and items that can be used for military purposes.

“In addition, some countries politicize economic and trade issues, abuse export control measures, and unreasonably restrict the export of some products to China, otherwise we will import more,” he said.

The officials emphasized China’s efforts to expand trade with countries participating in its “Belt and Road” initiative to expand infrastructure construction and trade across much of the globe. Trade with those countries accounted for about half of China’s total trade last year.

They noted that China has completely eliminated tariffs on imports from the world’s poorest countries.

The Supreme Court seemed likely Friday to uphold the law that could ban TikTok, with most of the justices appearing to take seriously the national security risks posed by the wildly popular app whose parent company is based in China.

U.S. government says Chinese authorities could force the company to hand over sensitive data on its massive American user base or influence the spread of information on the platform through its proprietary algorithm.

TikTok says those concerns are overblown and the law should be struck down because it violates the First Amendment.

The law would ban TikTok in the U.S., unless it’s sold away from its Chinese parent company.

The measure is set to take effect Jan. 19, the day before a new term begins for President-elect Donald Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on the platform. The Republican says he wants to “save TikTok.”

Congress passed the measure with bipartisan support, and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed it into law in April.

TikTok’s lawyers challenged the law in court, joined by users and content creators who say a ban would upend their livelihoods. TikTok says the national security concerns are based on inaccurate and hypothetical information.

But a unanimous appeals court panel made up of judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents has upheld the law. The court normally takes months to decide cases, but the justices could take action on this case within days, lightning-fast movement by court standards.

TikTok lawyers want the justices to step in before the law takes effect on Jan. 19, saying even a monthlong shutdown would cause the app to lose about one-third of its daily American users and significant advertising revenue.

But during oral arguments, conservative and liberal justices seemed more receptive to the government’s arguments that the danger was real and the law’s biggest effect is on the parent company ByteDance, a foreign corporation without First Amendment guarantees.

The justices, most notably Neil Gorsuch, still had tough questions from the government about how the law might affect free speech of the people who post on the app, and whether the government should be in the business of preventing the spread of misinformation.

The law that could ban TikTok is coming before the Supreme Court on Friday, with the justices largely holding the app’s fate in their hands.

The popular social media platform says the law violates the First Amendment and should be struck down.

TikTok’s parent company is based in China, and the U.S. government says that means it is a potential national security threat. Chinese authorities could force it to hand over sensitive data on the huge number of Americans who use it or could influence the spread of information on the platform, they say.

An appeals court has upheld the law, which bans TikTok unless it’s sold.

The law is set to take effect Jan. 19, the day before a new term begins for President-elect Donald Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on the platform. The Republican says he wants to “save TikTok.”

The short-form video-sharing app could be shut down in less than two weeks if the Supreme Court upholds the law.

Congress passed the measure with bipartisan support, and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed it into law in April.

TikTok’s lawyers challenged the law in court, joined by users and content creators who say a ban would upend their livelihoods. TikTok says the national security concerns are based on inaccurate and hypothetical information.

But a unanimous appeals court panel made up of judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents has upheld the law.

The justices will issue a decision after arguments Friday, a lightning-fast movement by court standards.

The conservative-majority court could drop clues about how it’s leaning during oral arguments.

TikTok lawyers have urged the justices to step in before the law takes effect, saying even a monthlong shutdown would cause the app to lose about one-third of its daily American users and significant advertising revenue.

The court could quickly block the law from going into effect before issuing a final ruling, if at least five of the nine justices think it is unconstitutional.

Lawyers for two former Georgia election workers who are owed $148 million in damages after suing Rudy Giuliani for defamation said Tuesday that evidence proves their clients are entitled to three World Series rings that the former New York City mayor says he gave to his son.

The lawyers filed papers in Manhattan federal court asking a judge to find that their clients should be given the rings marking New York Yankees’ victories in 1996, 1999 and 2000.

They noted that Giuliani listed the rings among his assets at a bankruptcy proceeding in 2023 and said his son had provided no evidence beyond his testimony to support his claim to the rings.

A trial over the custody of the rings and Giuliani’s Palm Beach, Florida, condominium are scheduled for Jan. 16 before a judge who on Monday found Giuliani in contempt for his responses to orders to turn over evidence pertaining to his assets.

Giuliani, 80, testified in a Dec. 27 deposition that he told George Steinbrenner when the late Yankees owner gave him four rings in 2002 that “These are for Andrew,” meaning his then-teenage son, Andrew Giuliani, now 38.

He said he paid for them and gave one immediately to his son and kept three others, eventually giving him the rest at a birthday party in 2018. He estimated the rings are now worth about $27,000.

The rings and the Florida condominium, which Giuliani insists is his legal residence and is protected from the judgment, are the remaining contested assets after the one-time personal lawyer to President-elect Donald Trump gave up other valuable assets including his Manhattan apartment, a Mercedes once owned by actor Lauren Bacall and watches.

Giuliani has said he does not know what happened to a jersey signed by Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio or a photograph signed by another beloved Yankees slugger, Reggie Jackson.

Lawyers for the former election workers, mother and daughter Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, wrote in court papers that Giuliani’s son had failed to provide any direct evidence “other than his own self-serving testimony” to show that he accepted the ring from his father on May 26, 2018, or any time prior to this past October.

They said he has never appraised the rings, cleaned them or listed the rings on his renter’s insurance policy or taken out a separate policy to insure the rings. They also said he’d never undertaken any tax, estate or financial planning related to the rings.

The lawyers said that although Giuliani said he gave the rings to his son in 2018, his son testified that he received them no earlier than mid-year 2023, when Giuliani put his Manhattan apartment up for sale. They wrote that if the judge found the rings indeed were given away in 2023, then he should rule that the exchange was fraudulent.

Ted Goodman, a publicist for Giuliani, said the lawyers for the Georgia women “can celebrate over their fight to take Mayor Giuliani’s most cherished personal belongings including his signed baseball jersey of his childhood hero and his grandfather’s pocket watch, but they can never take away his extraordinary record of public service.”

An email seeking comment was sent to an attorney for Andrew Giuliani.

President-elect Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to call off Friday’s sentencing in his hush money case in New York.

Trump’s lawyers turned to the nation’s highest court on Wednesday after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump has denied wrongdoing.

The justices asked for a response from prosecutors by Thursday morning. Trump’s team sought an immediate stay of the scheduled sentencing, saying it would wrongly restrict him as he prepares to take office. While Merchan has indicated he will not impose jail time, fines or probation, Trump’s lawyers argued a felony conviction would still have intolerable side effects.

The sentencing should be delayed as he appeals the conviction to “prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government,” they argued.

The emergency motion is from lawyers John Sauer, Trump’s pick for solicitor general, who represents the government before the high court, and Todd Blanche, in line to be the second-ranking official at the Justice Department.

They also pointed to the Supreme Court ruling giving Trump and other presidents broad immunity from prosecutions over their actions in office, saying it supports their argument that his New York conviction should be overturned.

Their filing said the New York trial court “lacks authority to impose sentence and judgment on President Trump — or conduct any further criminal proceedings against him— until the resolution of his underlying appeal raising substantial claims of Presidential immunity, including by review in this Court if necessary.”

The Republican president-elect’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, called for the case to be dismissed in a statement. Trump simultaneously filed an emergency appeal in front of New York’s highest court.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, meanwhile, said it will respond in court papers. Trump’s convictions arose from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.

Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. He denies it.

The Supreme Court’s immunity opinion came in a separate election interference case against him, but Trump’s lawyers say it means some of the evidence used against him in his hush money trial should have been shielded by presidential immunity. That includes testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made while he was in office.

Merchan has disagreed, finding they would qualify as personal business. The Supreme Court’s immunity decision was largely about official acts of presidents while in office.

Rudy Giuliani was found in contempt of court Monday for failing to properly respond to requests for information as he turned over assets to satisfy a $148 million defamation judgment granted to two Georgia election workers.

Judge Lewis J. Liman ruled after hearing Giuliani testify for a second day at a contempt hearing called after lawyers for the election workers said the former New York City mayor had failed to properly comply with requests for evidence over the last few months.

Liman said Giuliani “willfully violated a clear and unambiguous order of this court” when he “blew past” a Dec. 20 deadline to turn over evidence that would help the judge decide at a trial later this month whether Giuliani can keep a Palm Beach, Florida, condominium as his residence or must turn it over because it is deemed a vacation home.

Because Giuliani failed to reveal the full names of his doctors, a complete list of them, or of his other professional services providers, the judge said he will conclude at trial that none of them were in Florida or had been changed after Jan. 1, 2024. That was the date Giuliani says he established Palm Beach as his permanent residence.

Liman also excluded Giuliani from offering testimony about emails or text messages to establish that his homestead was in Florida.

The judge said Giuliani produced only a dozen and a half “cherry picked” documents and no phone records, emails or texts related to his homestead. He said he can also make inferences during the trial about “gaps” in evidence that resulted from Giuliani’s failure to turn over materials.

Liman said he would withhold judgment on other possible sanctions.

On Friday, Giuliani testified for about three hours in Liman’s Manhattan courtroom, but the judge permitted him to finish testifying remotely on Monday for over two hours from his Palm Beach condominium. By the time the judge issued his oral ruling, Giuliani was no longer present at all.

Joseph Cammarata, Giuliani’s attorney, noted in an email afterward that the election workers were not in the courtroom either and he called the outcome “no surprise.”

“This case is about lawfare and the weaponization of the legal system in New York City,” he said.

Cammarata said the state criminal case against President-elect Donald Trump and the civil litigation against Giuliani were “very similar. It’s the left wing Democrats trying to use liberal Judges in New York to win when they should lose on the merits.”

At the start of the hearing, Giuliani appeared before an American flag backdrop, which he said he uses for a program he conducts over the internet, but the judge told him to change it to a plain background. He also at one point held up his grandfather’s heirloom pocket watch and said he was ready to relinquish.

Giuliani conceded that he sometimes did not turn over everything requested in the case because he believed what was being sought was overly broad, inappropriate or even a “trap” set by lawyers for the plaintiffs.

He also said he sometimes had trouble turning over information regarding his assets because of numerous criminal and civil court cases requiring him to produce factual information.

Liman labeled one of Giuliani’s claims “preposterous” and said that being suspicious of the intent of lawyers for the election workers was “not an excuse for violating court orders.”

Giuliani, 80, said the demands made it “impossible to function in an official way” about 30% to 40% of the time.

After the ruling, the former mayor issued a statement through his publicist saying it was “tragic to watch as our justice system has been turned into a total mockery, where we have charades instead of actual hearings and trials.”

The election workers’ lawyers say Giuliani has displayed a “consistent pattern of willful defiance” of Liman’s October order to give up assets after he was found liable in 2023 for defaming their clients by falsely accusing them of tampering with ballots during the 2020 presidential election.

South Korean cryptocurrency mogul Do Hyeong Kwon pleaded not guilty Thursday to a freshly unsealed indictment released in time for his first U.S. court appearance.

Kwon entered the plea in Manhattan federal court two days after his extradition from Montenegro.

The indictment alleges that the man dubbed by some as “the cryptocurrency king” lied to investors from 2018 to 2022 to fool them into pouring money into Terraform Labs, the Singapore crypto firm he cofounded.

Authorities say investors worldwide were harmed by the $40 billion crash of Terraform Labs’ cryptocurrency.

The May 2022 collapse came despite the company’s claim that TerraUSD was a “stablecoin” that could be relied upon.

Kwon did not speak during his court appearance, except to acknowledge that he understood English. His lawyer, Andrew Chesley, entered not guilty pleas to two separate versions of the indictment charging him with conspiracy, along with commodities, securities and wire fraud. A money laundering charge was added Thursday.

Chesley and another defense lawyer, David Patton, declined comment as they emerged from the courtroom. Their client was returned to a federal jail after the lawyers consented to his detention.

The superseding indictment accused Kwon of deceiving investors by telling them that Terraform had developed novel reliable financial technologies enabling it to turn blockchain technology into a self-contained decentralized financial world with its own money, payment system, stock market and savings bank.

“In fact,” the indictment said, “Kwon’s constructed financial world was built on lies and manipulative and deceptive techniques used to mislead investors, users, business partners, and government regulators” about Terraform’s business.

“Behind the scenes, core Terraform products did not work as Kwon advertised, and were manipulated to create the illusion of a functioning and decentralized financial system in order to lure investors,” it added.

Faced with the never-before-seen dilemma of how, when or even whether to sentence a former and future U.S. president, the judge in President-elect Donald Trump ‘s hush money case made a dramatic decision that could nevertheless bring the case to a muted end.

In a ruling Friday, Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan scheduled the sentencing for 10 days before Trump’s inauguration — but the judge indicated that he’s leaning toward a sentence that would amount to just closing the case without any real punishment. He said Trump could attend the Jan. 10 proceeding remotely because of his transition duties.

Still, that would leave Trump headed back to the White House with a felony conviction.

Will it come to that? Trump wants the conviction thrown out and the case dismissed, and communications director Steven Cheung said the president-elect will “keep fighting.” But it’s tough to predict just what will unfold in this unprecedented, unpredictable case. Here are some key questions and what we know about the answers:

Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying his business’ records. They pertained to a $130,000 payment, made through his former personal lawyer in 2016, to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from publicizing her story of having had sex with Trump a decade earlier. He denies her claim and says he’s done nothing wrong.

Trump’s sentencing was initially set for July 11. But at his lawyers’ request, the proceeding was postponed twice, eventually landing on a date in late November, after the presidential election. Then Trump won, and Merchan put everything on hold to consider what to do.

That won’t be final until the judge pronounces it, and he noted that by law, he has to give prosecutors and Trump an opportunity to weigh in. The charges carry potential penalties ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.

But the judge wrote that “the most viable option” appears to be what’s called an unconditional discharge. It wraps up a case without imprisonment, a fine or probation. But an unconditional discharge leaves a defendant’s conviction on the books.

And by law, every person convicted of a felony in New York must provide a DNA sample for the state’s crime databank, even in cases of an unconditional discharge.

Can Trump appeal to stop the sentencing from happening?

It’s murky. Appealing a conviction or sentence is one thing, but the ins and outs of challenging other types of decisions during a case are complicated.

Former Manhattan Judge Diane Kiesel said that under New York law, Friday’s ruling can’t be appealed, but that “doesn’t mean he’s not going to try.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers have been trying to get a federal court to take control of the case. Prosecutors are due to file a response with the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals by Jan. 13, three days after Trump now is to be sentenced.

The defense also has suggested it would seek the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervention if Merchan didn’t throw out the case. In a Nov. 25 letter to the judge, Trump’s attorneys contended that the U.S. Constitution permits an appeal to the high court because the defense is making arguments about presidential immunity.

Much of their argument concerns the Supreme Court’s July ruling on that topic, which afforded considerable legal protections to presidents. Trump’s attorneys might try to convince the Supreme Court that it needs to follow up by getting involved now in the hush money case.

A Trump spokesperson said no decision had been made on whether to challenge Merchan’s ruling.

In an extraordinary turn, a judge Friday set President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money criminal case for Jan. 10 — little over a week before he’s due to return to the White House — but indicated he wouldn’t be jailed.

The development nevertheless leaves Trump on course to be the first president to take office convicted of felony crimes.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, signaled in a written decision that he’d sentence the former and future president to what’s known as an unconditional discharge, in which a conviction stands but the case is closed without jail time, a fine or probation. Trump can appear virtually for sentencing, if he chooses.

Rejecting Trump’s push to dismiss the verdict and throw out the case on presidential immunity grounds and because of his impending second term, Merchan wrote that only “bringing finality to this matter” would serve the interests of justice.

He said he sought to balance Trump’s ability to govern, “unencumbered” by the case, against other interests: the U.S. Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity and the public’s expectation “that all are equal and no one is above the law,” and the importance of respecting a jury verdict.

“This court is simply not persuaded that the first factor outweighs the others at this stage of the proceeding,” Merchan wrote in an 18-page decision.

Trump lashed out at Merchan on his Truth Social platform Friday, writing that it “would be the end of the Presidency as we know it” if the judge’s ruling is allowed to stand.

He repeated his claims that the case was an “illegitimate political attack” and “nothing but a Rigged Charade” perpetuated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat. He didn’t elaborate on potential next legal moves.

Bragg’s office declined to comment on Merchan’s ruling. Former Manhattan Judge Diane Kiesel said the ruling can’t be appealed under New York law, but Trump nonetheless might try to appeal it. In any event, he can appeal his conviction — a step that can’t be taken until he is sentenced — but he won’t be able to pardon himself. Trump’s case was tried in state court, but presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes.

Trump takes office Jan. 20 as the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.

The Republican was found guilty in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

The charges involved an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s first campaign in 2016. The payout was made to keep her from publicizing claims she’d had sex with the married Trump years earlier. He says that her story is false and that he did nothing wrong.