A federal judge has rejected former President Donald Trump’s effort to dismiss multiple lawsuits accusing him of bearing legal responsibility for the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

In a 112-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said the evidence suggests Trump assembled the crowd and then instructed the rally goers to march on the Capitol, despite knowing that the crowd likely included violent and destructive elements.

And Trump’s Twitter attack amid the violence on then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the counting of electoral votes that would finalize President Joe Biden’s victory, suggests a “tacit agreement” with those who stormed the Capitol and sent Pence and lawmakers fleeing for safety, Mehta wrote.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday formally recognized the independence of two Moscow-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine where Russia has been supporting armed separatists in an eight-year conflict.

The move by Putin was seen by the United States and its European allies as a dramatic provocation and possibly part of a pretext to invade Ukraine. The U.S. and European Union both swiftly announced sanctions.

Many experts believe that Moscow’s formal recognition will effectively scuttle a previous ceasefire agreement that some Western allies hoped could provide a route out of the crisis.

In a wide-ranging televised speech Monday evening, Putin described Ukraine as a historical part of Russia that was illegitimately taken from Moscow and is now run by a “puppet regime” controlled by the U.S. and the West.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin convened top officials Monday to consider recognizing the independence of separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, a move that would ratchet up tensions with the West amid fears that the Kremlin could launch an invasion of Ukraine imminently.

The meeting of the presidential Security Council comes amid a spike in skirmishes in eastern Ukraine that Western powers believe Russia could use as a pretext for an attack. Sustained shelling continued Monday in the long-running conflict between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Moscow separatists.

Leaders of the separatist regions released televised statements earlier Monday pleading with Putin to recognize them as independent states and sign friendship treaties envisaging military aid to protect them from what they described as an ongoing Ukrainian military offensive. Russia’s lower house of parliament made the same plea last week.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — World leaders are making another diplomatic push in hopes of preventing a Russian invasion of Ukraine, even as heavy shelling continues in Ukraine’s east.

The White House said President Joe Biden had agreed “in principle” to meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin if he refrains from launching an assault on his neighbor that U.S. officials say appears increasingly likely.

A Biden-Putin meeting would hold offer some new hope of averting a Russian invasion that U.S. officials said could begin any moment from the estimated 150,000 Russian troops that have amassed near Ukraine.

President Joe Biden is actively looking for Republican support for his Supreme Court nominee. But he’s doing it cautiously, wary of setting expectations that end in failure.

Neither party anticipates the type of rancorous, ugly battle that has defined recent high court picks, but White House officials are trying to handle conversations with GOP lawmakers delicately in a way that avoids unwanted attention. Aides have already had to push back on Republican criticism over the president’s pledge to choose a Black woman to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.

Outside of that, the substantive discussions between the two parties are unfolding entirely behind closed doors and mostly between staffers. Some Democrats close to the process described it as part of a deliberate strategy to avoid artificially raising expectations about a broad bipartisan vote for the eventual nominee.

Republican lawmakers are starting to choose sides in the fight to defeat Rep. Liz Cheney in Wyoming, placing high-stakes bets in a divisive primary that is widely seen as a referendum on Donald Trump and cementing deep rifts in the GOP over the direction of the party.

In an extraordinary move on Thursday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — who has been under pressure from his right flank to put his political muscle behind ousting Cheney — officially endorsed her primary foe Harriet Hageman, who is backed by Trump. Less than 24 hours later, House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 Republican who replaced Cheney in leadership, also threw her weight behind Hageman.

“House Republicans were ready for a change when I took over as Conference Chair, and it’s resoundingly clear that Wyoming families are too,” Stefanik said in a statement Friday. “Liz Cheney abandoned her constituents to become a Far-Left Pelosi puppet. Liz sadly belongs in an MSNBC or CNN news chair, not in Congress representing Wyoming — a state that voted for President Trump by over forty points.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees recognizing the independence of Moscow-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine on Monday, in a brazen repudiation of international diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis.

In a fiery speech on Monday night, Putin blasted Kyiv’s growing security ties with the West, and in lengthy remarks about the history of the USSR and the formation of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, appeared to cast doubt on Ukraine’s right to self-determination.

“Ukraine has never had traditions of its own statehood,” he said, calling the eastern part of the country “ancient Russian lands.”