North Carolina Republicans say they are closing in on a state budget deal, with top House and Senate leaders acknowledging on Monday an income tax agreement has been reached that would lower rates on individuals more deeply than current law directs.

House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger said that tax changes and many other differences have been worked out after fruitful negotiations late last week.

‘Legislative leaders have made significant progress on the state budget,’ Berger said in a tweet. Raises for state employees and teachers also had been agreed upon, they said.

While other points of dispute remain, Moore and Berger expressed hope that chamber votes on a final two-year spending plan that was supposed to start July 1 can occur by mid-August. A budget’s enactment usually also signals completion of the legislature’s chief annual work session.

Taxes and salaries historically ‘are the kinds of things that have kept general assemblies here late,’ Moore told reporters Monday. ‘So the fact that some of those tougher issues have been worked out bodes well for I would say a more robust schedule’ starting next week, he added.

In separate gatherings with reporters, Moore and Berger declined to provide many details on the tax changes, but said the incremental downward trajectory of the individual income tax rate in state law would fall below the end point of 3.99% currently set for 2027. This year’s rate is 4.75%.

The Senate version of the budget had sought to accelerate the rate reduction over time to 2.49% by 2030. The House proposal would have been more cautious on tax cuts. The legislative leaders said the agreed-upon income-tax cutting provisions would contain some language allowing deeper rate reductions only if the state reaches certain revenue thresholds.

Moore said ‘having appropriate safeguards in place through the form of triggers’ would ensure that lower tax rates don’t cause fiscal `shortfalls.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration has warned that deeper tax reductions beyond what is already in the books could siphon several billion dollars in additional revenues annually in the years ahead, threatening the state’s ability to adequately pay for education.

Cooper will be asked to sign any final budget into law. Republicans seat margins are large enough now that they could override any Cooper veto if all GOP lawmakers are present. And many Democrats also voted for the competing House and Senate versions of the budget approved in the spring.

Neither Berger nor Moore have released salary increase details. The Senate proposal in the spring offered less generous pay raises for state workers and teachers than what their House counterparts offered.

Moore said outstanding budget differences between the chambers include items such as the distribution of water and sewer grants and infrastructure funds to help with economic development projects.

Details still seem murky on what lawmakers want to do about funding a nonprofit organization that would seek to turn research produced at University of North Carolina system campuses into commercial successes, particularly in rural areas.

While Moore said the amount agreed to for the ‘NCInnovation’ initiative is less than the $1.4 billion the Senate sought, Berger said later Monday that no agreement on a spending level had been reached.

There is also currently no language in the consensus budget or in any other separately reached agreement that would authorize potentially up to four casinos and video lottery machines statewide, Moore said.

Legislators have been talking quietly for months about the casino expansion as a way to counter gambling centers opening just over North Carolina state lines, such as in southern Virginia. Berger said he believed a gambling agreement, if reached, would end up in the budget legislation. Moore said any casino or video lottery machine arrangement would need formal support from his chamber’s GOP caucus to advance.

Lawmakers have been largely away from the Legislative Building during July while budget negotiations slowed — giving Democrats fodder to blame the GOP for the delays.

Moore said that recorded floor votes were still expected next week and could include override attempts on several outstanding Cooper vetoes even if a final budget isn’t ready.

It’s possible budget votes may have to wait until later in August just because of the ‘sheer number of things we’ve got to work our way through’ on a spending plan, Berger said.

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A former Detroit-area prosecutor pleaded guilty Tuesday to three charges after an investigation found he embezzled more than $600,000 from drug and drunken driving forfeiture funds, which is money that defendants have forfeited.

A Michigan State Police investigation found former Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith used the funds to throw parties, buy gifts and install a personal home security system.

Smith, 56, accepted a plea bargain from Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office in which seven other counts against him were dropped. He pleaded guilty to official misconduct, tampering with evidence and conspiracy to commit forgery.

Under Smith’s plea deal, a $25,000 restitution order will be entered at sentencing to repay the funds he embezzled from, Nessel’s office said. He will be sentenced on Sept. 6.

This is not the first time Smith has gotten into legal trouble. In 2021, he pleaded guilty to federal charges of attempting to obstruct justice and is serving a 21-month sentence, Nessel said.

Smith, a Democrat, began working in the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office in 1993, was first elected prosecutor in 2004 and resigned as prosecutor in March 2020 after the attorney general filed criminal charges.

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Donald Trump’s rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination are weighing in on Tuesday’s blockbuster announcement that the former president’s been indicted in the probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

One of the first to release a statement was former CIA spy and former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, a long-shot for the nomination and a very vocal GOP Trump critic.

‘Let me be crystal clear: Trump’s presidential bid is driven by an attempt to stay out of prison and scam his supporters into footing his legal bills. Furthermore, his denial of the 2020 election results and actions on Jan. 6 show he’s unfit for office,’ Hurd wrote.

It was a very different reaction from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s a distant second to Trump in the latest GOP presidential nomination polls but ahead of the rest of the large field of Republican contenders.

‘As President, I will end the weaponization of government, replace the FBI Director, and ensure a single standard of justice for all Americans,’ DeSantis stated.

The former president was indicted on four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. Trump’s been ordered to appear on Thursday at 4 p.m. ET before a federal magistrate judge in the nation’s capital.

Trump was informed two weeks ago by the office of Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel in the case, that he was a target of their probe into his actions and state of mind on Jan. 6, 2021, and in the lead-up to that infamous day – when hundreds stormed the U.S. Capitol. The attack temporarily disrupted congressional certification of then-President-elect Biden’s 2020 Electoral College victory over Trump.

The indictment alleges that Trump pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the 2020 presidential election results through three criminal conspiracies, and it alleges that the then-president also corruptly obstructed and impeded the certification of the electoral vote.

Hurd, who drew plenty of boos from the crowd last weekend at the Iowa GOP’s annual Lincoln Dinner when he criticized Trump, emphasized in his statement on Tuesday that ‘the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, rigged, or fraudulent. It was lost by Donald Trump because he was incapable of uniting the country. Now, we’ve got to ask ourselves if we really want a president who’s willing to violate his oath to the Constitution just to cling to power?’

‘The Trump of 2016 is a far cry from the desperate figure we see in 2024,’ Hurd argued. ‘It’s about time our party, including the 2024 candidates, wake up to the fact that this guy only cares about himself, not our country’s future.’

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, another vocal Trump critic who’s challenging the former president for the nomination, called this ‘another sad day for America with a former President being charged criminally for obstructing the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next.’

‘I have always said that Donald Trump is morally responsible for the attack on our democracy,’ Hutchinson wrote. ‘Now, our system of Justice will determine whether he is criminally responsible. The latest indictment reaffirms my earlier call that Donald Trump should step away from the campaign for the good of the country. If not, the voters must choose a different path.’

DeSantis, in his statement, stressed that he believes ‘we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, DC to their home districts. Washington, DC is a ‘swamp’ and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality. One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicization of the rule of law. No more excuses—I will end the weaponization of the federal government.’

Vivek Ramaswamy, another rival for the nomination, charged in his statement that ‘the corrupt federal police just won’t stop until they’ve achieved their mission: eliminate Trump. This is un-American & I commit to pardoning Trump for this indictment.’

Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire entrepreneur, best-selling author and crusader in the culture wars, argued that ‘Donald Trump isn’t the cause of what happened on Jan 6. The real cause was systematic & pervasive censorship of citizens in the year leading up to it.’

Trump, who’s the commanding front-runner in the GOP nomination race as he makes his third straight White House run, earlier this year became the first sitting or former president in U.S. history to be charged with a crime.

Trump pleaded not guilty in early April in New York City to charges brought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The former president was indicted for allegedly giving hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 to keep her quiet ahead of that year’s presidential election over her claims she had sexual encounters years earlier with Trump.

The former president denies sleeping with Daniels and denies falsifying business records to keep the payment concealed.

Trump was indicted and arraigned in early June for his alleged improper retention of classified records. He pleaded not guilty in federal court in Miami to criminal charges that he illegally retained national security records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, following the end of his term as president and that he obstructed federal efforts to recover the documents. In total, Trump faces 37 felony charges in the documents case.

But the indictments have only strengthened Trump’s standing among his base of devoted supporters. And his lead over the rest of the field of GOP rivals has increased in the wake of the multiple indictments.

The Trump campaign, in a statement to Fox News, accused the Biden administration and the Justice Department of ‘election interference’ and charged that ‘the lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes.’

And the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. argued that the former president ‘is undeterred and his unprecedented America First movement will carry him back to the White House, where he will dismantle the Deep State and bring the Biden Crime Family to justice.’

This is a developing story. Check back for updates on FoxNews.com.

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Special Counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot was ‘fueled by lies’ from former President Donald Trump, who he charged today with ‘conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.’

Smith made a public statement shortly after the federal indictment against Trump was unsealed Tuesday afternoon and encouraged ‘everyone to read it in full.’

‘The attack on our nation’s Capitol on January 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,’ Smith said Tuesday. ‘Described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies — lies by the defendant — targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.’

Smith added, though, that the indictment ‘is only an allegation and that the defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.’

The indictment names only the former president but lists six unnamed co-conspirators. Smith said the investigation into ‘other individuals continues in this case.’

Smith said the ‘men and women of law enforcement who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6th are heroes.’

‘They are patriots, and they are the very best of us. They did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it,’ Smith said. ‘They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. They defended the very institutions and principles that defined the United States.’

Smith said that ‘since the attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day.’

‘This case is brought consistent with that commitment and our investigation of other individuals continues in this case,’ Smith said. ‘My office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens.’

Smith thanked members of the FBI working on the investigation with his office, as well as career prosecutors and law enforcement agents ‘from around the country who have worked on previous January 6th investigations.’

Smith’s comments came after Trump was indicted on four federal charges out of the probe, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Trump has been ordered to appear in federal court in Washington, D.C., for his arraignment on Thursday, Aug. 3, at 4 p.m.

This is the second federal indictment the former president faces out of Smith’s investigation. Trump, who leads the 2024 GOP presidential primary field, has already pleaded not guilty to 37 counts related to his alleged improper retention of classified records from his presidency.

A Trump campaign spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement that ‘this is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election, in which President Trump is the undisputed frontrunner, and leading by substantial margins.’

‘But why did they wait two and a half years to bring these fake charges, right in the middle of President Trump’s winning campaign for 2024? Why was it announced the day after the big Crooked Joe Biden scandal broke out from the Halls of Congress?’ the spokesperson wrote.

‘The answer is, election interference!’ the spokesperson continued. ‘The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes.’

‘President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys,’ the spokesperson said. ‘These un-American witch hunts will fail and President Trump will be re-elected to the White House so he can save our Country from the abuse, incompetence, and corruption that is running through the veins of our Country at levels never seen before.’

Indiana’s six remaining abortion clinics ceased performing the procedure as a law heavily restricting it went into effect Tuesday.The law bans all abortions, but leaves a 10-week window for rape and incest cases, and a 20-week window for threats to maternal health and grave fetal anomalies.One of the clinics called Tuesday ‘a dark day for Indiana,’ and regional Planned Parenthood CEO Rebecca Gibron castigated the outlined exceptions for being ‘really very, very limited.’

Indiana’s six abortion clinics have stopped providing abortions ahead of the state’s near-total abortion ban officially taking effect and as a petition is pending before the state’s high court asking it to keep the ban on hold while legal action continues, clinic officials said Tuesday.

Planned Parenthood’s four Indiana abortion clinics stopped performing abortions Monday in accordance with state guidance that providers received in July alerting them that on or around Tuesday abortion would become illegal in Indiana in clinic settings ‘with really very, very limited exceptions,’ said Rebecca Gibron, CEO of the Planned Parenthood division that includes Indiana.

Indiana’s two other abortion clinics have also stopped providing abortions, with one calling it ‘a dark day for Indiana.’

Indiana’s Republican-backed ban will end most abortions in the state, even in the earliest stages of a pregnancy. Indiana became the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court ended nearly a half-century of federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Although Planned Parenthood’s four Indiana abortion clinics have stopped providing abortions, Gibron said its 11 health centers across the state continue offering a wide range of services, including emergency contraception and birth control, even as the group works to help Hoosiers obtain out-of-state abortions.

‘Planned Parenthood will not be intimidated and bullied and we will not be silenced,’ she said at a news conference outside one of the group’s clinics that provided abortions in Indianapolis.

Indiana’s ban will eliminate the licenses for all seven abortion clinics in the state — one of which closed in June — and ban most abortions, even in the earliest stages of a pregnancy. It includes exceptions allowing abortions at hospitals in cases of rape or incest before 10 weeks post-fertilization. It also allows abortions up to 20 weeks to protect the life and physical health of the mother or if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.

Before Indiana’s ban was passed, the state’s laws generally prohibited abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and tightly restricted them after the 13th week.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, representing Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinic operators, challenged the ban’s constitutionality. But in a June 30 ruling, the Indiana Supreme Court found that the ban doesn’t violate the state constitution. Its ruling struck down a preliminary injunction that had kept the ban on hold, although that ruling has yet to be certified to officially take effect.

On Monday — the last day for it to do so — the ACLU of Indiana filed a petition for a rehearing with the high court asking it to keep the ban on hold while it pursues a narrower preliminary injunction in a trial court to address the scope of the ban’s exemption allowing women facing serious health risks to obtain abortions.

That filing delays the certification of the court’s ruling while it considers whether to grant or deny that petition, said court spokesperson Kathryn Dolan. It’s unclear how long it may take the high court to decide the matter, but after rehearing petitions are filed, the opposing party — in this case the state’s attorneys — have 15 days to file a response.

Gibron said Planned Parenthood ended abortion services Monday in light of the state’s guidance and the uncertainty over when the court will certify its abortion ban ruling.

‘The reality is that it can happen at any point. The Supreme Court could certify it this afternoon,’ she said.

Gibron said Indiana’s abortion ban will ‘target Hoosiers of color, indigenous communities and those already marginalized by our health care system.’

Indiana’s two other abortion clinics, which are not operated by Planned Parenthood and are both located in Indianapolis, have also stopped providing abortion care.

In a statement, Clinic for Women owner LaDonna Prince said the clinic ended abortions on Monday, calling it ‘a dark day for Indiana and for the country.’

Spokeswoman Katlyn Milligan of the Indiana Attorney Generals’ Office issued a statement Tuesday saying, ‘On the eve of Indiana’s pro-life law going into effect, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood made a desperate attempt to prevent Indiana from enforcing our own law.’

‘We responded to this filing immediately and are now waiting for the Court to rule. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood have made their intentions clear — this is just another grab for fundraising dollars,’ Milligan’s statement said.

The state’s other abortion clinic, Women’s Med, stopped providing abortions on Friday, a representative said Tuesday.

Although Planned Parenthood’s Indiana abortion clinics are no longer performing abortions, Gibron said a ‘patient navigation team’ is working to help patients get out-of-state abortions. That includes helping schedule appointments and finding ways to help them pay the costs of traveling out of state.

Adjacent Illinois and Michigan — states where abortion remains legal — will most likely become the destinations for many Indiana residents seeking out-of-state abortion care, said Gibron, who is CEO for Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois had prepared for years for the possibility of Roe v. Wade falling, and it opened clinics near the Indiana and Wisconsin borders in 2018 and 2020 in anticipation of those states restricting access to abortion, said Kristen Schultz, the affiliate’s chief strategy and operations officer.

She said patients from Indiana nearly doubled after the state’s ban briefly went into effect last September and that traffic is expected to rise again starting this week. Schultz said more doctors, advanced nurse practitioners and medical assistants have been hired to accommodate the expected surge.

‘The demand has increased, the challenges have increased when patients show up at our doors having traveled eight or ten or 12 hours. That’s an increased burden on the patient. And our staff really feel that,’ she said.

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The Biden administration appears to be scrambling for research on the conflict between wind turbines and a highly endangered whale species on the East Coast following reports of ‘unprecedented’ whale deaths.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), a regulatory body from the Department of Interior that leases offshore areas for energy development, posted a grant notice in May targeted at ‘addressing key information gaps in acoustic ecology of the North Atlantic Right Whales,’ one of the most endangered whale species in the world.

The problem is the government has already approved offshore wind projects, and some experts are saying the attention to the whales is too little too late.

Fisherman in the region are calling the government ‘hypocritical’ after the same federal agencies almost ‘regulated [them] completely out of business’ in an effort to protect the endangered species without any data showing fishermem bring any harm to the right whale.

BOEM’s grant notice states, ‘In support of the rapid development of offshore wind (OSW) on the Atlantic OCS, the Environmental Studies Program (ESP) has identified a priority need to address knowledge gaps in the acoustic behavior of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales (NARW).

‘The overall goal of this cooperative agreement is to observe and describe acoustic behavior of NARW where significant data gaps in call rates exist and convey information about the context in which the acoustic behaviors are observed.’ 

Acoustics are critical in tracking and monitoring movement and behaviors of the whales.

Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, which aims to improve compatibility of new offshore development with the fishing industry, said its ‘very late’ for the Biden administration to be soliciting such research. 

‘One of the problems is that, at least in the last few years, there’s been some conversations about what kind of research needs to be done. But, up till now, there’s been no funding. Congress hasn’t appropriated anything, nothing’s been getting done. And it’s a bit late, it’s very late to be starting to look at this stuff,’ Hawkins said.

Production on at least one major wind farm project is already underway. The first phase of Vineyard Wind 1, the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the United States, was completed at the end of last month.

The project consists of 62 turbines, each up to 850 feet high (taller than any building in Boston) with blades roughly 350 feet long, planted 15 miles off Martha’s Vineyard. Project benefactors boast that the wind farm will ultimately power 400,000 homes and businesses across Massachusetts while reducing carbon emissions by over 1.6 million tons per year.

Hawkins says that instead of analyzing the cumulative data on whale impacts from surveys for wind projects, the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) and BOEM assess possible impact project by project.

‘They really don’t assess the impacts to right whales and manage for it. Surveys are almost unregulated,’ Hawkins said.

‘I do believe that the reason the way the government approaches these projects overall is to minimize what the effects would be. 

‘I think it does absolutely mask real-world impacts and the cumulative effects scenario, which is the only credible way to do this. Because, obviously, you know, this is the ocean. Water moves, fish move, whales move. And, so, to look at them in isolation is pretty ridiculous.’

Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, testified in March before a House Committee on Capitol Hill that ‘[w]hile some offshore wind may hold promise, federal and state levels have moved forward without transparency, robust and sound science or good governance.’ 

Zipf testified that NMFS previously found that offshore wind can increase ocean noise, which can affect behaviors of whales; introduce electromagnetic fields that impact their navigation, predator detection and communication; and change species composition and survival rates, among other things.

‘The NMFS concludes with, ‘Offshore wind is the new use of our marine waters, requiring substation scientific and regulatory review,’’ Zipf testified. ‘So, where is the substantial review? Where is the commitment to the precautionary principle?’

Clean Ocean Action noted in February following the ninth whale death in the northeast that the ‘alarming number of [whale] deaths is unprecedented in the last half century.’ The only unique factor from previous years is the excessive scope, scale and magnitude of offshore wind power plant activity in the region, the group noted.

Zipf emphasized that ‘climate change is real’ and ‘living resources on the planet are in crisis.’ But offshore wind projects should only be approved after pilot scale projects are proven to be successful and that the science supports industrial scale plants.

‘In seems our government is, as best, putting the cart before the horse and wants to see offshore wind while wearing only ‘green-colored’ glasses,’ she said. 

Dustin Delano, chief operating officer of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) said the government cutting corners to cater to offshore wind is ‘incredibly hypocritical.’

‘One right whale death is too many. I don’t think you’d find any fishermen that would disagree … one is too many. And for the government to be holding offshore wind to a different standard is blasphemy, in my mind. Incredibly hypocritical.’

Dustin is a fourth-generation lobsterman from Maine. For years, he says, NMFS and other federal agencies mandated stringent rules that forced his industry to make major modifications and changes to avoid entanglements with a right whale. 

To date, no right whale deaths have been associated with his industry’s fishing gear. And the one entanglement that occurred over 20 years ago did not result in a right whale death.

When NMFS imposed a rule last year that would cut in half the number of traps that could be deployed and threatened to kill their livelihood, Maine lobstermen sued the Biden administration.

In June, the lobstermen won in court, with a judge calling the NMFS legal reasoning ‘egregiously wrong.’

But Delano says it’s still ‘really frustrating’ that his industry is ‘constantly held to a different standard than something else that the government might really want, such as offshore wind.’

‘There’s just a huge political-driven agenda right now to push it through as fast as possible,’ Delano said.