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Three years of court battles came to a close today, when the supreme court allowed the Democratic-led House ways and means committee to receive Donald Trump’s tax returns over the former president’s opposition. Also ending today was Anthony Fauci’s streak of appearances at the White House. The top US public health official who became a household name during the Covid-19 pandemic made his last briefing to reporters before he steps down from the role, and implored Americans to get a booster shot to protect against the virus.

Here’s what else happened today:

• Joe Biden extended the pause on federal student loan repayments until 30 June in order to give his administration time to defend his debt forgiveness plan at the supreme court.

• A former top prosecutor on Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election has some thoughts for how newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith could approach the criminal investigations into Trump.

• Democrat Raphael Warnock has a narrow lead over GOP candidate Herschel Walker in the runoff election for Georgia’s Senate seat scheduled for 6 December.

• Florida’s legislature appears to be moving to change a law that would allow Governor Ron DeSantis make a much-expected run for president.

• Republican senator Lindsey Graham spoke to a special grand jury investigating meddling in Georgia’s 2020 election result, after months of trying to get out of it.

The NAACP civil rights group is among those cheering Biden’s decision to extent the pause on federal student loan repayments.

“In the face of extreme greed and hypocrisy by the far-right, President Biden today is standing up for all Americans – middle-class and low-income families – who carry the heavy burden of student loan debt,” the group’s president Derrick Johnson. “The impact this extension will have in the lives of those who have been targeted by predatory student loans cannot be overstated.”

Progressive House Democrat Ro Khanna joined in:

Here’s Joe Biden in his own words, explaining his decision to extend the pause on federal student loan repayment:

Biden first announced the plan in August, and said federal student loan payments would restart in January of next year, and no later. He’s now reversed that, and in the video above, cites recent court rulings putting his loan forgiveness program on hold as the reason.

The Biden administration will extend its pause on student loan repayments until 30 June, Bloomberg News reports:

The decision comes after Joe Biden’s plan to relieve as much as $20,000 of some borrowers’ federal student loan debt was blocked by a federal court. The White House is appealing that order before the supreme court.

Lindsey Graham’s office has released a brief statement after the Republican senator appeared today before a special grand jury investigating attempts by Donald Trump and his allies to meddle in the state’s election results.

“Today, Senator Graham appeared before the Fulton County Special Grand Jury for just over two hours and answered all questions. The Senator feels he was treated with respect, professionalism, and courtesy. Out of respect for the grand jury process he will not comment on the substance of the questions,” the statement read.

No supreme court justices recorded dissents to the order lifting a stay on an appeals court ruling that allows the House ways and means committee to access Donald Trump’s tax returns.

The Democratic-led committee in 2019 requested the then-president’s returns under federal law, saying they were part of their investigation into Trump’s compliance with Internal Revenue Service auditing. Trump has been fighting the matter in court ever since, and supreme court chief justice John Roberts had earlier this month put a stay on the most recent ruling from a federal appeals court in the committee’s favor.

The Treasury department is now cleared to hand the documents the ways and means committee. Democrats currently control the House, but will lose it at the start of 2023, when the new Republican majority takes their seats.

The supreme court will allow a congressional committee to receive Donald Trump’s tax returns, the Associated Press reports, ending a three-year battle by the Democratic-led body to see the documents the former president has famously refused to release since his first White House bid.

We’ll have more on this developing story as it happens.

Donald Trump is having his day in court as the justice department challenges the appointment of a special master in the Mar-a-Lago case.

Politico reports that the appeals panel hearing the matter is skeptical of why an official was appointed to filter out privileged documents from the trove seized by federal agents:

The special master review is seen as an attempt to frustrate and learn details of the investigation into alleged government secrets discovered at the former president’s south Florida resort.

On another note:

An interesting development from Florida, where the new leader of the Republican-controlled House appears ready to repeal the state’s “resign to run” law, currently an obstacle to Ron DeSantis’s expected campaign for the White House.

As things stand, DeSantis, who was re-elected this month in a landslide to a second term, would have to step down if he were to challenge for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination. His supporters acknowledged as much by chanting “two more years!” at his election night party. Governors in Florida serve four year terms.

It’s the same rule that required Charlie Crist, DeSantis’s beaten Democratic opponent, to resign his US House seat earlier this year to challenge him.

Politico’s reports that state House speaker Paul Renner says he’s willing to change the law next year, and allow DeSantis to fulfil his four-year term as governor at the same time as pursuing a presidential campaign in 2024.

And with a compliant, super-majority in both chambers of the state’s legislature, Republicans can pretty much do as they please.

The US relationship with Saudi Arabia is still under review despite a Biden administration ruling that the Saudi crown prince has immunity from a lawsuit over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said today.

Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist then living in the United States, was killed and dismembered in 2018 by Saudi agents in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, in an operation US intelligence believes was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Reuters writes.

The prince has denied ordering the killing, which has cast a pall over relations between the two countries.

Khashoggi’s fiancee has sued the prince in US court, but in a ruling last week, US justice department lawyers concluded that the prince had immunity as a result of having been named prime minister in the Saudi government in September.

The opinion that we provided does not in any way speak to the merits of the case or the status of the bilateral relationship.

Our review of that relationship is ongoing,” Blinken told reporters at a news conference in Qatar after an annual US-Qatar strategic dialogue.

Blinken also said there were no plans for the prince to visit the United States.

Donald Trump today asked a federal court in Florida to provide him and his lawyers with a complete version of the affidavit that federal investigators used to obtain a search warrant for his Florida property in August.

Prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into the retention of government records at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after his presidency ended, Reuters reports.

The request to unseal the search warrant affidavit was made to US District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida.

A redacted version of the affidavit was made public in August after media organizations sought its release, with sections blacked out that prosecutors said should remain secret.

The Justice Department said the redactions included information from “a broad range of civilian witnesses” as well as investigative techniques that, if disclosed, could reveal how to obstruct the probe.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland last Friday appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to preside over criminal investigations involving the former president after Trump announced he would run for president again.

A federal appeals court later today will hear arguments on whether an outside arbiter appointed by Cannon should be allowed to continue a review of documents seized in the search and determine whether any of the records should be kept from criminal investigators.

Juror are deliberating over whether to convict five Oath Keepers militia members of seditious conspiracy, in what would be a milestone for the government’s prosecution of alleged January 6 insurrectionists. Meanwhile, Anthony Fauci made what could be his last appearance at the White House podium and asked Americans to get the latest Covid-19 vaccine booster as the holiday travel season arrives.

Here’s what else has happened today so far:

• Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy plans a “major” announcement around 4:30 pm eastern time during his visit to El Paso, Texas. This could be the start of a GOP effort to impeach homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the surge in migrants to the US-Mexico border since Joe Biden took office.

• A former top prosecutor on Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election has some thoughts for how newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith could approach the criminal investigations into Donald Trump.

• Democrat Raphael Warnock has a narrow lead over GOP candidate Herschel Walker in the run-off election for Georgia’s Senate seat scheduled for 6 December.

Andrew Weissmann was one of the top members on special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s team looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election that brought Trump to power.

Now another special prosecutor has been appointed to decide on whether to bring charges against Trump over the January 6 insurrection and the alleged government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago. Writing in the New York Times, Weissmann shares some advice for Jack Smith, the veteran prosecutor appointed to the role.

Chief among these is the possibility of Smith bringing charges against Trump – an option Mueller didn’t have, Weissmann says. “Mr. Smith is stepping into a political context very different from the one that confronted Mr. Mueller. Most notably, because of Justice Department policy, Mr. Mueller was forbidden to charge a sitting president. Now that Mr. Trump is a former president, Mr. Smith is not subject to that limitation. (That policy does not apply to presidential candidates like Mr. Trump.),” Weissmann writes.

He also notes that Smith has the option of taking a more transparent approach to his investigation than Mueller, who was famously tight-lipped about what he was finding.

“Neither the current special counsel regulations nor Justice Department rules require Mr. Smith to take a vow of silence with the American public,” Weissmann writes. “His ability to explain and educate will be critical to the acceptance of the department’s mission by the American public. It will permit Mr. Smith to be heard directly and not through the gauze of pundits and TV anchors; it will allow the public to directly assess Mr. Smith, a heretofore little-known figure; and it will permit Mr. Smith to counteract those strong forces seeking to discredit or misleadingly shape the narrative about the investigations.”

Under Joe Biden, the United States passed the first significant piece of legislation to fight climate change and reversed decades of opposition to creating a fund for poor countries suffering the worst effects of global rising temperatures. Now, it’s trying to portray China as the world’s climate change villain – but as Oliver Milman reports, activists aren’t buying it:

The US, fresh from reversing its 30 years of opposition to a “loss and damage” fund for poorer countries suffering the worst impacts of the climate crisis, has signaled that its longstanding image as global climate villain should now be pinned on a new culprit: China.

Following years of tumult in which the US refused to provide anything resembling compensation for climate damages, followed by Donald Trump’s removal of the US from the Paris climate agreement, there was a profound shift at the Cop27 UN talks in Egypt, with Joe Biden’s administration agreeing to the new loss and damage fund.

The US also backed language in the new agreement, which finally concluded in the early hours of Sunday morning after an often fraught period of negotiations between governments, that would demand the phase-out of all unabated fossil fuels, only to be thwarted by major oil-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Despite these stances, the US continued to be the leading target of ire from climate activists who blame it for obstruction and for failing to reckon with its role as history’s largest ever emitter of planet-heating gases. On Friday, the US was given the unwanted title of “colossal fossil” by climate groups for supposedly failing to push through the loss and damage assistance at Cop27.

The US delegation in Sharm el-Sheikh chafed at this image, with John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, using his closing remarks to shift the focus on to China, now the world’s largest emitter. Kerry said that “all nations have a stake in the choices China makes in this critical decade. The United States and China should be able to accelerate progress together, not only for our sake, but for future generations – and we are all hopeful that China will live up to its global responsibility.”

Anthony Fauci is making his final appearance at the White House podium, ahead of his retirement next month as America’s top public health official:

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, Fauci became a household name as the public face of the US government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic beginning in early 2020.

Here’s where his parting words to reporters gathered at the White House:

Fauci is appearing alongside the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator Ashish Jha to announce the Biden’s administration’s new six-week campaign to encourage Americans to get Covid-19 boosters in anticipation of the holidays.

He’s in court, he’s on the campaign trail and he’s once again being investigated by a special prosecutor.

Like it or not, Donald Trump will frequently be in the news for the next two years – at least – and the Guardian’s community team would like to hear your thoughts on how reporters should cover the former president. Weigh in at the link below: