CHICAGO (WLS) — In a significant ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to uphold state autonomy in determining rules for counting mail-in ballots. This comes after a challenge backed by former President Donald Trump was brought into question ahead of the midterm elections.

The court delivered its verdict through a narrow 5-4 decision. It supported a Mississippi law that allows election officials to count mail-in votes arriving post-Election Day, provided they conform to state prerequisites. The justices clarified that federal legislation does not specify a deadline for tabulating ballots.

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State policies on mail-in voting vary significantly. In Illinois, ballots are accepted as long as they bear a postmark by Election Day and are received within a 14-day timeframe. Conversely, Mississippi permits a five-day grace period. Notably, Mississippi’s policy was contested by Republicans, who argued that only ballots received by Election Day should be counted.

“The contention was that a federal statute set a hard deadline, but the court ruled that it establishes a deadline by which ballots must be cast, not counted,” explained Ed Yohnka from the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.

This decision underscores the continuing influence of state and local authorities in governing election procedures, reaffirming their significant role in election administration.

“The important thing here is elections according (to) our constitution are functions of state and local government, not of the White House,” Yohnka said.

The ruling marks a setback for Trump, who has repeatedly claimed mail-in voting leads to election fraud.

“The ruling that a lot of people were waiting for is detrimental to honest elections,” Trump said.

Despite those claims, millions of voters from both parties used mail-in ballots in the 2024 presidential election. Trump himself mailed a ballot in a recent Florida election.

Voting advocates say the method remains secure and expands access, particularly for certain groups. The League of Women Voters points to its benefits for military members, people with disabilities, elderly voters and those living in rural areas. The organization also says grace periods are necessary to account for potential postal service delays.

“It has become much, much more popular. I think it gives people the opportunity to vote when maybe other times they would not have been given the opportunity,” said Barbara Kwiatkowsky of the League of Women Voters of Illinois.

Trump is now calling on Congress to pass his proposed SAVE America Act. The measure would allow mail-in ballots for certain groups while requiring voters to provide photo identification and proof of citizenship. At this point, the proposal does not have enough support to pass in the Senate.

The New York Islanders decided not to offer qualifying contracts to their trio of NHL-level restricted free agents by Monday’s deadline, suggesting that Marc Gatcomb, Max Shabanov, and Adam Boqvist are likely parting ways with the team.

An insider shared with The Post that although the Islanders may still consider re-signing Gatcomb as an unrestricted free agent, the absence of a qualifying offer indicates he isn’t a top priority for the team.

Over the weekend, general manager Mathieu Darche confirmed that Adam Boqvist would not receive a qualifying offer after facing challenges in securing a spot in last season’s lineup.

Similarly, it comes as little surprise that Shabanov, who joined the Islanders last summer from Russia, is not being retained after spending much of the season as a healthy scratch.

In contrast, Gatcomb frequently found himself on the ice, making valuable contributions on the fourth line throughout the season.

The former undrafted free agent broke into the NHL with the Islanders two seasons ago and fought his way to a regular role with physical, straight-line play.

Alex Jeffries, Joey Larson and Henrik Tikkanen, all minor leaguers, were qualified and will become restricted free agents.

Also among the AHL contingent, Matt Maggio, Eetu Liukas, Tristan Lennox and Ruslan Iskhakov were not extended qualifying offers.

Sources indicate that Charlie Kirk’s parents, along with his widow, Erika Kirk, are set to be present at Tyler Robinson’s preliminary court hearing in Utah slated for next week.

This will be the first significant court appearance Kirk’s family plans to attend following Robinson’s capture shortly after his alleged involvement in Kirk’s assassination.

Despite their attendance, it is anticipated that the family will refrain from making public statements.

Robinson, aged 22, faces charges of shooting Kirk during an event organized by Turning Point USA at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025. He has yet to submit a plea.

The preliminary hearing is expected to take the full week of July 6. Prosecutors will call witnesses in a bid to establish probable cause for the case against Robinson, and if they succeed, the court will allow the case to go to trial.

There is a chance that the hearing gets pushed back, however, with the Utah Supreme Court weighing a defense appeal over Judge Tony Graf’s denial of Robinson’s motion to ban news cameras from the proceedings — a motion opposed by designated victims’ advocate Erika Kirk.

The state’s highest court could issue a decision before the end of the week.

“[The preliminary hearing] is expected to be a raw, difficult moment for the family,” the source told Fox News and News Media.

Several videos of Kirk’s murder circulated widely online minutes after the shooting, and similar images are expected to be shown in court. The sides have agreed to notify family members of sensitive evidence before they show it, giving them an opportunity to leave the courtroom in advance, the source said Monday.

Robinson could face the death penalty if convicted of the top charge of aggravated murder. He faces six lesser charges, including weapons offenses, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.

Unlike a trial, hearsay testimony will be allowed at the preliminary hearing. And prosecutors have successfully asked the court to allow them to play a video statement from Twiggs, rather than putting him on the witness stand to face cross-examination.

Prosecutors have argued that Twiggs is unavailable to testify in person, after he moved out of state and was briefly placed under the FBI’s protection due to the case’s high profile.

Robinson allegedly confessed to the assassination in conversations with Twiggs and in a note left behind at the pair’s shared apartment, according to court documents.

“I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I’m going to take it,” the alleged note reads, according to court filings.

“You weren’t the one who did it right????” Twiggs allegedly asked in a text message later.

“I am, I’m sorry,” Robinson allegedly responded, according to court filings.

Police recovered the suspected murder weapon, a Mauser rifle, wrapped in a blanket in a patch of woods near campus. Prosecutors have said that other text messages between Robinson and Twiggs allegedly discuss wanting to retrieve the rifle.

Twiggs is cooperating with investigators and has not been charged with a crime.

Kirk, a 31-year-old father of two, founded the campus-based conservative group Turning Point USA. He was participating in a question-and-answer speaking tour when a single bullet struck him fatally in the neck.

Last week, Graf ruled that the prosecution had violated a gag order but denied the defense team’s motion to strike the potential death penalty ahead of trial, finding instead that expanded jury selection procedures would be appropriate.

Cheryl Hines, the actress married to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is notably absent from comedian Larry David’s latest HBO series commemorating America’s 250th birthday. This omission, the Daily Mail has discovered, seems to be influenced by none other than former First Lady Michelle Obama.

Insiders from the seven-part series, titled “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America,” which made its debut on June 26, suggest that Michelle Obama, who serves as an executive producer on the project, insisted Hines be excluded due to her recent outspoken support for the MAGA movement.

Sources reveal that the very idea of Hines being part of the show was enough to provoke an intense reaction from Michelle, reportedly described as going “absolutely ballistic.”

Hines, now 60, appears to have drawn Michelle’s ire by distancing herself from the Democratic Party and developing a friendly rapport with former President Donald Trump and his Republican associates, according to those familiar with the situation.

Through their production company, Higher Ground, Michelle and Barack Obama are heavily involved in the creation of David’s show. Furthermore, Barack Obama makes an appearance in a guest-starring capacity, adding a unique touch to the series.

Hines appeared on David’s long-running sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm for more than two decades until 2024. So, when she learned that she wouldn’t be signed for his special new project, ‘she was devastated,’ according to an insider.

‘Cheryl felt terribly hurt and emotionally injured because she had worked so closely with Larry for the entire 12 seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm and they had become like bosom buddies,’ the insider said.

‘Cheryl’s dream was to work with Larry again and be part of the cast of the new show. She firmly believed that the staunch anti-Trumper could put aside his negative political views about MAGA and Kennedy.

‘But banning Cheryl was a command from Michelle that Larry could not go against, even if he had wanted to, for old time’s sake, and mend their past close ties.

‘He always respected her as an actress. But Michelle’s the boss. And you don’t cross the boss, especially a powerful anti-MAGA force like Michelle.’

Through her spokeswoman, Hines declined to comment on this report.

As David told a screening of the show last week at the American Legion theater in Hollywood, the Obamas’ production company asked him him to do a show honoring America for its 250th anniversary.

‘I liked the idea. I was a history major… because you never know when you’re going to get into a discussion about the Franco-Russian War,’ he told the crowd.

David’s personal and professional relationship with Hines, however, ‘completely faded’ after her husband dropped his longtime Democratic affiliation as a member of the Kennedy clan and briefly ran as an independent in 2024 against former President Joe Biden, who David once publicly supported. 

Kennedy, 72, then became a Trump acolyte and is now Secretary of Health and Human Services and the leader of the controversial Make America Healthy Again movement.

According to a well-placed insider, Michelle, 62, as an executive producer, didn’t have much to do with the script or other aspects of David’s series. She was, however, involved in the casting – who the cast members and guest stars would be – and signed off on all of them, making it known: ‘No Cheryl Hines!’

‘Michelle can be a b***h on wheels when she wants to,’ a source said. 

According to Variety, cast members of David’s new show include Curb Your Enthusiasm alumni Jeff Garlin, Susie Essman and JB Smoove, among others. 

Jerry Seinfeld, who created Seinfeld with David, will also feature, while other guest stars include Jane Krakowski, Rita Wilson and Gregg Kinnear. Meanwhile, former President Obama, 64, working his acting chops, appears as himself in at least one episode.

‘But when Cheryl’s name was brought up to join the cast by some of the production people who knew and liked her from Curb, Michelle went absolutely ballistic,’ a source said.

‘We cannot and will not have that woman on this show. She’s not one of us,’ Michelle was quoted by the source as saying.

Another insider, who like the others asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution from the powerful Obamas, told the Daily Mail: ‘Michelle felt that Cheryl wasn’t any great shakes as an actress, but mainly she felt she was disgustingly all MAGA because she was married to Bobby Kennedy Jr who she described as a turncoat to the Democratic party and a verifiable whack job as Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services.

‘Clearly, Michelle’s a victim of what they call Trump Derangement Syndrome, because her true feelings surfaced in her clear-cut rejection of Cheryl.

‘It had nothing to do with Cheryl as an award-winning actress, but rather her supposed politics because of her marriage to Kennedy and being part of Trump’s inner circle of supporters.’

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Michelle Obama for comment. 

David, sources noted, runs in the same circles of celebrity Democrats as the Obamas, and has been outspoken about his dislike of the current president.

At the premiere of his new series, David called Trump’s UFC Freedom 250 event on the South Lawn of the White House on his 80th birthday ‘a travesty,’ saying he was ’embarrassed to be an American.’

In response, a White House spokesperson called the event ‘one of the greatest and most historic sports events in history.’

‘Anyone who finds a problem with that clearly suffers from a severe and incurable disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ they added.

David, meanwhile, has previously called Trump a ‘sociopath,’ saying he is ‘insane’ and ‘a sick man.’

Michelle, too, has been a vocal critic. In discussing her attendance at Trump’s first inauguration, she said she felt ‘very emotional and felt out of place… To look around at a crowd that was not reflective of the country, and to sit in that audience as one of the handful of people of color… it was a lot, emotionally.’

Meanwhile, the early media reviews for the new series are not as positive as the raves that Curb generated.

Yahoo offered a scathing take, declaring that David ‘forgot to bring along any of the wit or sparkle’ that made Curb so fun, and described the show as a ‘lazy history lesson full of recycled jokes,’ ‘flimsy material’ and sketches that ‘miss far more often than hit.’

A critic for the New York Post was even harsher, leading his review with a take on David’s own iconic words from Curb, declaring the new show, ‘prettyyyy, prettyyyy, prettyyyy bad.’

He called the series ‘shaky,’ noting wryly that it was produced by ‘comedy icons Barack and Michelle Obama,’ and observed: ‘Larry’s bitter, picky antics don’t fit in everywhere. Really, I’m convinced 2024’s terrific finale of Curb should have marked the end of them.’

And the Hollywood Reporter reviewer noted that four or five of the sketches are ‘either bad or end without a conclusive sense of what the joke even was.’

‘Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness isn’t smooth or steady, but in another 250 years, give or take, I should be ready for another season,’ the critic wrote.

As one show insider told Daily Mail, Hines, for her part, would have played ‘a great Martha Washington.’

Jerry Oppenheimer is a best-selling biographer of 13 books, including RFK Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream.