HUNTER INDICTED: A federal grand jury in California has charged Hunter Biden with evading federal taxes on millions of dollars in income from foreign businesses in a major legal blow to the president’s son, and a political blow to President Joe Biden.

  The indictment goes out of its way to provide a damning description of the younger Biden saying, “Between 2016 and Oct. 15, 2020, the defendant spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes.” 

  The three felony charges and six misdemeanor charges brought by special counsel David Weiss accuse Hunter Biden of attempting to evade $1.4 million in taxes for the years 2016 through 2019. Those taxes have since been paid and the charges come after the collapse of a plea deal in Delaware that would have given the younger Biden immunity from prosecution involving his business dealings. None of the information in the latest indictment is new.

  In September Biden was indicted in Delaware on three charges involving his illegal purchase of a handgun in 2018. 

LONE STAR: A Texas judge has ruled that a woman 20 weeks pregnant can get an abortion despite the state’s six week abortion ban because her baby has a fatal genetic condition. Doctors have determined that Kate Cox’s baby would die within days of birth.

  Even after the order came down, the state attorney general threatened prosecution.   

  Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, a Democrat of Travis County district court, issued an order permitting a doctor to perform the abortion to protect Cox from a potentially dangerous birth that could harm her ability to have children in the future. “The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be pregnant, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability, is shocking, and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice,” the judge said at the end of a roughly 30-minute video hearing. 

  The decision is the first crack in the wall of the Texas abortion law, one of the strictest in the country. A separate lawsuit brought by a group of Texas women denied abortions asks the state to clarify the conditions in which medical exceptions would be allowed.

   Despite the court order, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a letter to top hospital officials in Houston, where Cox’s doctor practices, saying she and hospital staff could still be prosecuted if they perform the abortion. Paxton, one of the most rabid right wingers who was acquitted in September on 16 articles of impeachment regarding corruption, wrote in his letter to medical professionals that, “The T.R.O. will not insulate you, or anyone else.” 

AT WAR: The Hamas controlled health ministry in Gaza now says at least 17,000 Palestinians have died under Israeli bombing and ground attack. Israel says it has struck hundreds of targets in Gaza over the past 24 hours.

  Administrators at one hospital said most of the patients they are receiving are already dead.

  The Israeli military yesterday released video of dozens of men they said were surrendering militants. They were almost all stripped down to their underwear.

THE IVY WALLS: A House committee has opened an investigation into Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania regarding the tepid condemnations of antisemitism at the schools by their leadership. The war in Gaza has set off a wave of hate on campuses and administrators are under pressure to shut it down.

  University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill issued a groveling apology for her refusal to condemn calls for the genocide of the Jewish people during her testimony before Congress.

ORANGE ALERT: A professor of accounting at New York University testified for Donald Trump’s defense in his New York civil fraud trial that he saw no fraud in the financial statements the Trumps used to obtain favorable terms on loans and insurance policies.

  Eli Bartov said that accounting standards offer wide latitude for valuation methods on personal financial statements.

 Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that the Trumps engaged in “persistent and repeated fraud” by inflating the value of assets on the financial statements. But Bartov testified that, “My main finding is that there is no evidence whatsoever for any accounting fraud.” Bartov said, “On another end, my analysis shows that the statements of financial condition were not materially mistaken.”

  “So in your expert opinion, the AG’s claims have no merit?” Engoron asked.

  “That is absolutely my opinion. Absolutely.” Bartov said.

   Out in the hallway Trump touted Bartov’s brilliance declaring, “We did absolutely nothing wrong.” 

 THE SPIN RACK: The shooter who killed three people at the University of Las Vegas has been identified as Anthony Polito, 67, who had been turned down for a professorship at the school. The cops killed him. Polito was a mathematician and statistician who had served as an associate professor for 15½ years at East Carolina University, but his online shows that he was into conspiracy theories. — The Republican majority House yesterday censured New York Democrat Jamaal Bowman for setting off a fire alarm in a House office building to delay proceedings on a stopgap spending bill. — A North Dakota sheriff’s deputy died in a crash resulting from pursuit of 42-year-old Ian Cramer, the son of Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer. The senator said in a statement that his son suffers from “serious mental disorders which manifest in severe paranoia and hallucinations.” The younger Cramer had taken off in the car after his wife had driven him to the hospital —Job numbers will be released this morning, expected to show a cooling in hiring.

BELOW THE FOLD: An Ohio woman who angrily threw her burrito bowl in the face of a Chipotle counter clerk was found guilty of assault and given a harsh sentence … 30 days in jail and two months of working 20-hour weeks in a fast food restaurant.

-30-