STRIKE FOUR: Former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants were charged last night in Atlanta under an indictment accusing them of racketeering in an attempt to overturn the Georgia results of the 2020 presidential election. It is Trump’s fourth criminal indictment since April.

  Charged along with Trump are former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, constitutional legal expert John Eastman, and lawyer Sidney Powell. Three fake electors also face charges.

  Prosecutor Fani Willis said the 19 defendants were part of a criminal enterprise that tried to “accomplish the illegal goal of allowing Donald J. Trump to seize the president’s office.” The defendants have been given until Friday to surrender.

  A statement from the Trump campaign accused Willis of being a “rabid partisan” interfering with the 2024 election. 

  The racketeering law under which the defendants are charged, normally used against organized crime, carries a mandatory five year prison sentence. 

  Among the actions cited are phone calls Trump made to pressure state officials to overturn the result, harassment of local election workers, false claims of ballot fraud, a plan by Trump allies to create a slate of false electors, and the actual breach of voting machines in rural Coffee County.

  In New York yesterday, the judge presiding over the Manhattan criminal case against Trump issued a terse rejection to a defense motion to recuse himself because of conflict of interest.

  Trump is charged with 34 felonies involving the hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Among the Trump claims of conflict was that Judge Juan Merchan donated $15 to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.

PARADISE LOST: The number of deaths in the Maui wildfire has risen to 99 and authorities say it could double.

LEGAL CLIMATE: A Montana judge ruled yesterday that young people in that state have a constitutional right to a healthy environment and that the state must consider potential climate damage when approving energy projects. 

  In a summer of heat and wildfires caused in part by climate warming resulting from the burning of fossil fuels, the ruling means that Montana, which gets one-third of its energy by burning coal, must consider climate change when reviewing or renewing fossil fuel projects.

  The state attorney general’s office says they will appeal. “This ruling is absurd, but not surprising from a judge who let the plaintiffs’ attorneys put on a weeklong taxpayer-funded publicity stunt that was supposed to be a trial,” Emily Flower, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office said in a statement. “Montanans can’t be blamed for changing the climate.”

CHANNEL CHANGE: CNN is changing its nighttime lineup, still trying to find solid footing and restore viewership since the ouster of Chris Cuomo in late 2021.

  Abby Phillip, a senior political correspondent and anchor of “Inside Politics Sunday,” will host the 10 pm weekday hour. Laura Coates, an anchor and chief legal analyst, takes the 11 pm slot.

  Phil Mattingly, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, joins Poppy Harlow in the mornings. She’s been solo since the network ejected the obnoxious Don Lemon. 

  The first big move came in spring when CNN moved Kaitlan Collins from the White House, to mornings, then to the Cuomo’s old spot at 9 pm.

BLIND SIDED: Michael Oher, the former NFL offensive tackle whose life story about being adopted by a white couple was made into the sentimental movie “The Blind Side” starring Sandra Bullock, is suing Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, claiming they never officially adopted him and instead tricked him into signing away legal authority to use his name in business deals after he turned 18. 

  Oher played eight years in the NFL.

  The 14-page petition filed in Shelby County, Tennessee probate court further claims that the Tuohys used their conservatorship to make themselves and their birth children millions of dollars in royalties from the 2009 Warner Bros. movie. 

  “Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023,” the legal filing says, “when he learned that the Conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys.”

BABY IT’S HOT: Human-driven climate change made this past July the hottest on record since temperatures were first recorded in the 1800s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. 

  The month was a 0.4 °F warmer than the previous record set in 2019, and well over 2.1 °F hotter than the 20th century average of 60.4 °F.

THE SPIN RACK: Following Florida, the Arkansas Department of Education warned schools not to offer Advanced Placement African American Studies, saying that state law prohibits “teaching that would indoctrinate students with ideologies” such as critical race theory. — Four divers who went missing after plunging into the Atlantic Ocean 60 miles east of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at about noon on Sunday, were found alive yesterday by aircraft and a Navy destroyer. It’s yet to be explained why they became separated from their dive boat. — The Marion County Record, the small town newspaper raided by the police last Friday on the basis of a complaint from a restaurant owner who’d been arrested for drunk driving, was investigating the local police chief involving claims of sexual misconduct. The paper has demanded that the town’s Police Department not review any information it seized until a court hearing is scheduled.

BELOW THE FOLD: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democratic candidate for president, reversed his call for a federal ban on abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy. Kennedy’s campaign released a statement saying he had “misunderstood a question posed to him by an NBC reporter in a crowded, noisy exhibit hall at the Iowa State Fair,” although the video shows he confirmed his three-month answer three times. Denying what he clearly said on camera demonstrates that Kennedy has what it takes to run for national office.

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