President Joe Biden’s administration is again delaying a sweeping plan to ban menthol cigarettes. Anti-smoking advocates are upset about the delay, but the decision could avoid angering Black voters ahead of November elections. Biden’s top health official said Friday the administration would take more time to consider feedback on the ban, including from civil rights leaders. The announcement is another setback for the health officials at the Food and Drug Administration. They drafted the ban and predicted it would prevent hundreds of thousands of smoking-related deaths. But White House officials have delayed finalizing the ban several times.

Rooting for Donald Trump to fail has rarely been this profitable. Just ask a hardy band of mostly amateur investors who have collectively made tens of millions over the past month by betting that the stock price of his social media business – Truth Social – will keep dropping despite wild swings that appear to mirror the candidate’s latest polls, court trials and outbursts on Truth Social itself. Several of these investors interviewed by The Associated Press say their bearish gambles using “put” options are driven less by their personal feelings about the former president than by their enduring faith in the woeful underlying financials of the company.

Donald Trump’s defense team in his hush money case is seeking to undermine the testimony of the prosecution's first witness, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. Pecker returned to the witness stand Friday for a fourth day as defense attorneys tried to poke holes in his testimony about his tabloid’s efforts to protect his old friend from potentially damaging stories. Two other witnesses followed Pecker as prosecutors built the foundation of their case involving a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, who alleged a sexual encounter with Trump. Trump’s longtime executive assistant told jurors she recalled seeing Daniels in a reception area of Trump Tower, though the date of the visit wasn’t clear.

LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Caleb Williams seemed unfazed by it all.

Kansas will remain among the handful of states that haven’t legalized the medical use of marijuana or expanded their Medicaid programs for at least another year. Republicans state senators on Friday blocked efforts to force debates on both issues before the GOP-controlled Legislature’s scheduled adjournment for the year Tuesday. Supporters of each measure fell short of the required votes to pull a bill out of committee. Kansas doesn’t allow voters to put proposed laws on the ballot statewide. That path has led to approval in other states. During committee testimony earlier this year, opponents of the medical marijuana proposal pointed to Oklahoma officials’ frustration with legalization there in 2018.

The Pentagon has announced that the U.S. will provide Ukraine additional Patriot missiles for its air defense systems as part of a massive $6 billion additional aid package. The missiles will be used to replenish previously supplied Patriot air defense systems and are part of a package that also includes more munitions for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS. It also has additional gear to integrate Western air defense launchers, missiles and radars into Ukraine’s existing weaponry, much of which still dates back to previous Soviet-era systems. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the need for the Patriots on Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group and said at least seven Patriot systems are needed to protect Ukrainian cities.