The attorney for a Northern California woman who was charged along with her husband in the killing of their son-in-law said Thursday that she plans to plead not guilty and focus her defense on the abuse allegedly perpetrated by the victim.

Shili Chen and her husband Shouyong Zhang, both 77, appeared in court briefly to ask the judge for more time before entering formal pleas. They were both charged Wednesday with murder after authorities say they both shot their son-in-law, Jonathan McKinsey, to death Saturday in a public park. The killing came days before he and the couple's daughter were set for a hearing in a bitter divorce and custody case.

Curtis Briggs, a court-appointed attorney assigned Thursday to Chen's defense, said the court documents he has reviewed raised concerns that McKinsey was rageful and could not control his temper.

"Court documents show Mr. McKinsey was extremely violent and dangerous to his family," he said.

Jennie Otis, a public defender representing Zhang, asked the judge on Thursday that he be medically evaluated, though she did not say for what. Otis declined to comment.

Both required Mandarin interpreters in the courtroom.

McKinsey, a 40-year-old gaming engineer for The New York Times, was killed in the parking lot of a sports complex in Dublin, a city east of San Francisco. A police sergeant was driving nearby and saw him on the ground as witnesses began calling 911 and pointing out the couple in their vehicle, who were still near the scene, Dublin Police Services said in a news release.

Police detained the couple as they were driving away in the parking lot and found a gun in Chen's possession. Prosecutors said Zhang admitted to shooting McKinsey during a later interview, and another firearm was found in the car that he admitted to using during the crime. Prosecutors also said surveillance video was recovered showing both Chen and Zhang shooting the victim.

Court records show McKinsey's killing came during a contentious divorce with his wife, Candice Jang, and a custody battle over the couple's three young children. In petitions for restraining orders filed last year, the couple accused each other of physical, emotional and psychological abuse going back more than a decade. McKinsey, who is transgender, alleged that both Jang and her parents were verbally and physically abusive regarding a gender transition he underwent years ago.

McKinsey was arrested last October and charged with misdemeanor child abuse for allegedly hitting their oldest son. Police said he acknowledged having slapped the child. Prosecutors also charged him with endangering their youngest child after deputies responded to the family's home to talk with him and found their 2-year-old had been left home alone, according to court documents.

McKinsey pleaded not guilty to the charges and alleged in court records that he had been set up by his wife, who had left the house without telling him the child was sleeping in a crib upstairs. He was released from jail on the condition that he complete 12 parenting classes. At the time of his killing, McKinsey was out on bail and had been trying to enter a mental health diversion program.

A former high-ranking Democratic legislator in New Mexico accused of diverting millions of dollars meant for vocational education in the state's largest school district to businesses and charities in which she had an interest has pleaded guilty to state charges that include fraud and money laundering.

Sheryl Williams Stapleton changed her plea during a hearing Friday, just three weeks after a federal jury convicted her of dozens of similar charges stemming from what prosecutors described as a yearslong scheme.

State prosecutors filed money laundering, racketeering and other charges against Williams Stapleton in 2021. She was set to go to trial in October. Under the plea agreement, all but four of the charges were dropped, and the agreement calls for a 10 1/2-year prison sentence and more than $1.8 million in restitution.

“Today's guilty plea holds Sheryl Williams Stapleton accountable for defrauding New Mexico taxpayers and abusing the public trust,” said Lauren Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Justice.

Rodriguez added that state prosecutors are pleased that the federal sentencing range “will provide a significant period of incarceration beyond what the state system could impose on its own.”

An attorney for Williams Stapleton did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday.

A former state House majority leader and an administrator with Albuquerque Public Schools, Williams Stapleton was first elected in 1994. She resigned from the House two days after search warrants were served at her home during summer 2021, and the school district fired her.

In the federal case, prosecutors said that the district paid more than $3 million to Robotics Management Learning Systems LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based company at the center of both the state and federal cases. Most of that money came from federal funds meant for vocational education programs.

As the school district's career and technical education director, Williams Stapleton made sure money for those programs went to Robotics, which was owned by her friend and federal co-defendant Joseph Johnson, prosecutors said. Williams Stapleton was accused of ushering the company's invoices through the procurement process. Johnson was accused of providing blank checks to Williams Stapleton.

During the federal trial, prosecutors also presented evidence that Williams Stapleton and Johnson failed to report thousands of dollars in payments from Robotics on their federal income tax returns.

Jurors also convicted Johnson in the federal case. He and Williams Stapleton have yet to be sentenced, and their attorneys previously indicated they would appeal the federal verdicts.

Bitcoin and gold shot higher this week, with both getting a boost from some frantic action surrounding the bond market, and the cryptocurrency also benefiting from activity in Washington.

Bitcoin had dropped from a January high of around $95,000 to below $60,000 at the end of June. Investors shied away from speculative assets earlier in the year and crypto supporters were concerned about the lack of movement on proposed regulation of the industry. On Friday, bitcoin rose above $77,000.

Gold hit a high above $5,300 in January but dropped to around $4,000 in June as rising rates made interest-bearing investments more attractive. Gold rose to $4,661 on Friday.

The first jolt arrived Wednesday when the Treasury Department announced plans to significantly increase its buybacks of long-term Treasurys, or government debt. On the same day, President Donald Trump, who made about $1.2 billion last year from various crypto holdings, urged Congress to move quickly on crypto legislation.

There was an almost immediate reaction, which included a dollar sell-off and a jump in the value of gold and bitcoin as investors moved toward alternative assets.

How these two investments caught fire can be understood in the context of several developments this week. In a surprise announcement Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department said that it would at least double the size of its planned purchases of longer-term government debt. The maneuver was intended to calm bond markets after a sustained sell-off, meaning investors were asking for higher yields to lend money to the U.S., which investors suddenly viewed as riskier.

That's because while the Treasury intervention worked, at least for a short period, it also raised questions about whether the government is trying to push borrowing costs lower despite inflationary pressures. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is attempting to lower long-term borrowing costs, a move that can put upward pressure on inflation at a time when inflation is already elevated. Bessent's maneuver could handcuff the Federal Reserve, which fights inflation by raising interest rates.

Then there's the national debt, which surpassed a record $40 trillion on the same day that the Treasury's actions unfolded. The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October.

There is already a lot of anxiety over inflation, particularly because of the conflict in Iran and soaring energy prices. If yields on U.S. bonds are not truly reflecting risk, you can often see that play out in the value of the U.S. currency, which took a significant downward swoop Wednesday. So where does the money that was invested in the dollar or Treasurys go? This week, it appears to have been funneled into what is known as the “debasement trade,” when investors flood into alternative assets such as gold, which rose more than 2% Wednesday. The debasement trade now includes bitcoin. Bitcoin jumped more than 20% this week.

A federal judge refused on Friday to block the Trump administration from taking steps to build 62 miles of international border wall along part of a Native American tribe’s reservation without its consent.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., denied the Tohono O’odham Nation’s request for a court-ordered halt to border wall construction on its 2.8-million-acre reservation. Leon ruled the tribe hasn’t established that a border wall will change its reservation boundaries without congressional authority.

The judge also rejected the tribe’s claim that the planned border wall would illegally trespass on its reservation.

“And in any event, I find that the Government’s interests in securing the border, enforcing immigration laws, and ensuring public safety outweigh any surviving irreparable harms at this juncture,” Leon wrote.

The tribe released a statement late Friday strongly disagreeing with the decision.

“Too many critical issues were not adequately addressed, such as inevitable impacts construction will have on the Nation’s land and the permanent destruction of sacred sites,” Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon M. Jose said. “The Nation will consider all possible options for moving forward, as this issue is simply too important to the O’odham.”

The O’odham reservation in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona abuts 62 miles of the Mexico border. The tribe has over 37,000 members, including thousands who live in Mexico.

Building the border wall would led to “significant devastation” on the reservation, including the destruction of mountain peaks that are sacred to the O’odham, tribe attorneys said.

“It would fray the ties between O’odham communities and families on opposite sides of the border, interfere significantly with O’odham religious rituals and practices, and destroy plant and animal resources sacred to the O’odham,” the lawyers wrote.

In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt issued a proclamation reserving a 60-foot strip of public land along the U.S.-Mexico border for a buffer zone called the “Roosevelt Reservation,” which was formed a decade before the reservation’s establishment.

Tribe attorneys say it is “fanciful at best” to suggest that border wall construction can be confined to a 60-foot-wide corridor. During a July 22 hearing, Leon appeared to be skeptical that U.S. laws tip in favor of the tribe’s bid for a preliminary injunction, calling it an “extraordinary” request. Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, said he couldn’t find a previous court ruling under comparable circumstances.

Twenty-five states sued the Trump administration Monday over its latest tariffs, calling them a pretext for replacing import taxes the Supreme Court struck down in February.

The United States last month imposed double-digit tariffs on 59 countries and the European Union, charging that they had not done enough to crack down on imports produced by forced labor. The new tariffs took effect just as the clock ran out on temporary tariffs President Donald Trump had turned to after the Supreme Court defeat.

“After losing at the Supreme Court, the administration is once again trying to illegally raise taxes on families and businesses with a new round of tariffs,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Joining New York in the lawsuit announced Monday are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Trump, who argues that high tariffs will revive American manufacturing, last year overturned decades of U.S. policy that favored lower tariffs and ever-freer trade. Invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, he imposed double-digit tariffs on imports from almost every country, saying America’s longstanding trade deficit amounted to a national emergency.

But the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA did not authorize tariffs. The decision forced the administration to send refunds to importers who’d paid the tariffs. Eager to make up the lost revenue, Trump turned to temporary 10% worldwide tariffs. But they expired at midnight July 24.

Now he’s tapping more durable tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the president to impose import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in unfair trade practices. Trump used Section 301 to impose big tariffs on China in his first term, and they survived court challenges.