A rookie federal prosecutor who brought a case accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening Donald Trump’s life by posting a photo of seashells on Instagram has stepped off the case.

Matthew Petracca, who had been recently hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina, is no longer on the Comey case, according to a court filing.

Petracca also dropped off of other criminal cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina in recent days, according to court filings. Petracca is a former Republican county committeeman in New Jersey whom U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina W. Ellis Boyle hired months ago, NBC News has reported. Boyle oversaw the highly criticized case, which will go to trial in October if it manages to survive legal challenges.

Trump rages in response, saying he now has ‘no interest’ in renovations and will instead work with Congress to oversee ‘failing institution’

A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump from renaming the Kennedy Center the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” nor can the president close it down for repairs.

District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C. won’t let the president name the iconic performing arts center after himself, noting that Congress made it “crystal clear” that the building is to be named after former President John F. Kennedy, “and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial” based on a “unilateral say-so” from a Trump-appointed board.

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote in Friday’s injunction.

Hours later, the president wrote a lengthy screed against the decision and the judge on his Truth Social account, saying it would be “impossible” to keep the institution open while construction is ongoing, and that he now has “no interest” in renovations and will instead be “working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it.”

The virtually indestructible Pfas waste puts largely low-income neighborhoods at risk, public health advocates say

The nation’s garbage incinerators are largely failing to eliminate Pfas “forever chemicals” air pollution, and are putting people in largely low-income neighborhoods at risk, public health advocates and independent experts warn.

The powerful waste management industry is increasingly pushing incinerators as a solution to virtually indestructible Pfas waste, and a new industry trade group report alleges Minnesota’s incinerators are reducing their forever chemical emissions by 99.6%. Other incinerator operators have made similar reduction claims.

The report also comes amid fights to shut down incinerators in Miami, Philadelphia and Baltimore, and a lawsuit filed against the Environmental Protection Agency over what it characterizes as a weak update to its emissions standards for the facilities, which do not include Pfas. Nearly 100 municipal or hazardous waste incinerators operate nationally, including seven in Minnesota.

Investigation to establish whether ‘anti-weaponization’ fund is ‘product of collusion and itself a fraud’

A federal judge has reopened Donald Trump’s $10bn case against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), after receiving a third-party motion asserting that the settlement, which lacks detail, “is a product of collusion and is itself a fraud on the court”.

The ruling, issued by the Miami judge Kathleen Williams, revives a lawsuit brought by the president and his sons against the IRS after their personal and business tax returns were leaked by a former contractor.

Trump dropped the lawsuit last week and Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general who was formerly Trump’s personal defense lawyer, announced that, in exchange, the US was “forever barred” from auditing the tax returns of Trump family members. The justice department also unveiled a controversial $1.8bn fund to compensate people who claim they are victims of the federal government.

At US’s largest immigration center, Texas’s Camp East Montana, plaintiffs allege ‘dangerous and abusive’ situation

The first lawsuit relating to the largest immigration detention facility in the US was filed early on Saturday against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), accusing the agency of “dire” conditions that severely violate the human and constitutional rights of those locked up at the camp in Texas.

A clutch of legal organizations is suing via a class-action complaint, listing four detainees as plaintiffs for themselves and on behalf of all those currently held as civil detainees at Camp East Montana or who will be held there in the future.

The facility is a sprawling tent camp in the desert on El Paso’s Fort Bliss military base, where the federal government has confined immigrants since last August, when it swiftly erected the tents.

It comes a day after Putin warned Armenia against seeking EU membership and alluded to the "Ukrainian scenario." Yerevan historically has strong ties to Moscow but has pivoted to the West in recent years.

China may also have provided Iran with a long-range early-warning radar that spots stealth aircraft meant to evade detection, people familiar with the matter tell NBC News

The F-15 fighter that was shot down over southwestern Iran last month and set off a dangerous rescue mission was probably struck by a Chinese-made shoulder-launched missile, three people with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.

In the early days of the conflict, China also may have provided Iran with a long-range early-warning radar that spots stealth aircraft that are meant to evade detection, according to one of the people and a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter.

U.S. officials are still investigating the circumstances around the shootdown of the American F-15E Strike Eagle in April, the sources said. It was the first time in decades that a U.S. fighter was downed by enemy fire.

An executive order signed by Donald Trump with little fanfare on Friday could have a huge impact on the health of US children, as it instructs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to cut the number of recommended childhood vaccines almost in half.

The vague language of the order, which refers to “a scientific assessment that compared United States childhood immunization recommendations with those of peer nations” published in January by anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy’s health and human services department, does not explicitly state that the new recommendation removes vaccines against seven diseases from the schedule.

The assessment, co-authored by the subsequently fired vaccine skeptic Dr Tracy Beth Høeg, concluded that the CDC director should update the childhood immunization schedule “to keep vaccines for 10 diseases – measles, mumps, rubella, polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), pneumococcal disease, and human papillomavirus (HPV) – for which peer, developed nations share international consensus, as well as varicella (chickenpox) … in the category of vaccines recommended for all children”.

Kenneth Law, who sold lethal chemicals online with instructions on how to use them, admits counselling or aiding suicide

A Canadian man who mailed “suicide packets” of poison to more than 100 people in dozens of countries – including Canada, the UK, the US, Italy, Australia and New Zealand – has pleaded guilty to 14 counts of assisting suicide.

Kenneth Law appeared in a packed courtroom in Newmarket, Ontario, on Friday to enter the plea after prosecutors agreed to withdraw 14 murder charges. Sentencing is expected to take place in September.

Law, 60, pleaded guilty to multiples charges of “counselling or aiding suicide”. He told Justice Michelle Fuerst he understood the scope of his crimes and was voluntarily entering a plea.

New poll results show 53 percent of those surveyed couldn't recall struggling harder to make ends meet

A majority of Americans now say the cost of living is the worst they can remember — and most of them blame President Donald Trump for their predicament.

Poll results published Friday by Politico showed 53 percent of those surveyed couldn't recall struggling harder to make ends meet, up from 46 percent in November.

The poll by Public First also found 46 percent felt Trump was fully or mostly responsible for the state of the economy, unchanged from six months ago.

A federal immigration officer wanted in the shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration’s Minnesota crackdown was arrested Friday in Texas, authorities said.

Christian Castro, of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was taken into custody 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.

Hennepin County, Minnesota prosecutors said the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension located Castro, 52, in Texas, and the Texas Rangers said they assisted in the arrest in Cameron County, which borders Mexico in the southernmost part of the state.

Judge rules that Washington DC performing arts venue cannot be renamed without an act of Congress

A judge on Friday ordered the removal of Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, ruling that the prestigious Washington DC venue cannot be renamed without an act of Congress.

US district judge Christopher Cooper in Washington directed the Trump administration to take down all physical signage bearing Trump’s name and to eliminate any references to a “Trump Kennedy Center” from official materials within 14 days.

“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote in a 94-page opinion. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”