A judge has rejected a bid by Mark Meadows, a former chief of staff to President Donald Trump, to move his charges in Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court, marking the second time he has failed in trying to get his charges out of state court.

In a decision Monday, U.S. District Judge John Tuchi said Meadows missed a deadline for asking for his charges to be moved to federal court, didn’t offer a good reason for doing so and failed to show that the allegations against him related to his official duties as chief of staff to the president.

Meadows faces charges in Arizona and Georgia in what authorities allege was an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor. He had unsuccessfully tried to move charges in the Georgia case last year. It’s unknown whether Meadows will appeal the decision. The Associated Press left phone and email messages for two of Meadows’ attorneys.

While not a fake elector in Arizona, prosecutors said Meadows, while chief of staff, worked with other Trump campaign members to submit names of fake electors from Arizona and other states to Congress in a bid to keep Trump in office despite his November 2020 defeat. Meadows has pleaded not guilty to the charges in Arizona and Georgia.

In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

‘Diddy’ arrested in N.Y. after assault allegations

Hip-hop music and fashion impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested late Monday in New York, where he faces a sealed criminal indictment, prosecutors announced late Monday.

Details of the charges weren’t announced by prosecutors, but the music mogul has faced a stream of allegations by women in recent months who accused him of sexual assault.

“We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Damian Williams, said in a statement.

Combs’ lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, issued a statement saying: “We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

He added that Combs had gone to New York last week in anticipation of the charges being brought.

“He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal,” Agnifilo said.

Combs was arrested in a Manhattan hotel lobby and is in federal custody, said a person familiar with the arrest who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Illegal Mexico border crossings rise sightly

Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico rose slightly in August, authorities said Monday, ending a stretch of five straight months of declines and signaling that flows may be leveling off.

The Border Patrol made 58,038 arrests on the Mexican border during the month, hovering near four-year lows but up 2.9% from 56,399 in July, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The total was in line with preliminary estimates.

Troy Miller, acting CBP commissioner, said restrictions introduced in June to suspend asylum when illegal crossings hit certain thresholds showed the government will “deliver strong consequences for illegal entry.”

A decline from an all-time high of 250,000 arrests in December also is partly a result of more enforcement by Mexican authorities within their borders.

Cheney backs Texas Democrat over Cruz

Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a conservative Republican, said Monday she’s backing Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred for U.S. Senate in Texas because GOP incumbent Ted Cruz can’t be trusted to do what’s right.

“We don’t agree on every issue, but I know that Colin is going to do what he thinks is right,” Cheney, in Dallas to help Allred raise campaign money, told The Dallas Morning News.

Cheney said her biggest problem with Cruz relates to his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when he objected to certifying results of the presidential election, showing Democrat Joe Biden had won, even after rioters favoring incumbent Donald Trump violently disrupted congressional proceedings.

In contrast, she said, Allred was prepared to physically defend members of the House from rioters.

A campaign spokesperson for Cruz said, “Liz Cheney is on a crusade against top Republicans” and “no one takes her endorsement of any candidate seriously.”

Cheney also has endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris for president, over Republican Trump.

U.S. troops complete Niger withdrawal

The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Niger is complete, an American official said Monday.

A small number of military personnel assigned to guard the U.S. Embassy remain, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters.

Earlier this year, Niger’s ruling junta ended an agreement that allowed U.S. troops to operate in the West African country. A few months later, officials from both countries said in a joint statement that U.S. troops would complete their withdrawal by the middle of September.

The U.S. handed over its last military bases in Niger to local authorities last month, but about two dozen American soldiers had remained in Niger, largely for administrative duties related to the withdrawal, Singh said.

NYFD chiefs arrested on bribery charges

Two high-ranking New York Fire Department chiefs were arrested early Monday and accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to speed up the fire-safety approval process for building projects across the city.

The chiefs, Brian E. Cordasco, 49, and Anthony M. Saccavino, 59, ran the Department’s Bureau of Fire Prevention and were responsible for overseeing fire safety approvals of large-scale building projects, which can often become mired in bureaucratic delays.

The six-count indictment accuses them of soliciting and receiving bribes in that role from 2021 to 2023 for projects underway in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.

A retired firefighter who expedited building projects, Henry J. Santiago Jr., was identified by federal prosecutors as a co-conspirator who solicited and accepted bribes, but he was not named or charged in the indictment.

Neither Saccavino nor Cordasco could be reached for comment Monday morning. Their lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.

Woman challenges pageants’ restriction

A New York woman is challenging the longstanding rules of Miss America and Miss World that disqualify mothers from their beauty pageants.

Danielle Hazel said Monday that she’s always dreamed of entering the competitions but was devastated to learn that she’s no longer eligible because she had a son when she was 19 years old.

“When I told Zion, who is now 6 years old, about these rules he had an immediate gut reaction: he said that these rules are stupid,” she said, speaking at the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in New York’s Central Park. “His sense of fairness at only 6 years old tells him that this is unjust and makes no sense.”

Hazel’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said a complaint sent Monday to the city’s Commission on Human Rights seeks an end to the requirements because they deny and exclude mothers from an “important business and cultural opportunity” simply because of their status as parents.

— From news services