NEW YORK — A New York City prosecutor fighting to get President Donald Trump's tax returns told a judge Monday he was justified in demanding them because of public reports of “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.”

Manhattan District Attorney District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. is seeking eight years of the Republican president's personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records, other than part of the investigation related to payoffs to two women to keep them quiet about alleged affairs with Trump.

In a court filing Monday, attorneys for Vance, a Democrat, said the president wasn't entitled to know the exact nature of the grand jury probe, which they called a “complex financial investigation.”

They noted, though, that at the time the subpoena for the tax filings was issued to Trump's accountants, “there were public allegations of possible criminal activity” at the president's company “dating back over a decade.”

They cited several newspaper articles, including one in which the Washington Post examined allegations that Trump had a practice of sending financial statements to potential business partners and banks that inflated the worth of his projects by claiming they were bigger or more potentially lucrative than they actually were.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump claimed Monday that he has the authority to issue an executive order on mail-in ballots, whose increasing use, he argues, could increase election fraud and uncertainty, though it is unclear what he could do to curtail the practice.“I have the right to do it,” Trump told reporters at a White House press conference. “We haven't gotten there yet, we'll see what happens.”Trump added that Republicans are planning to file suit as soon as Tuesday to try to block Nevada's expansion of mail-in voting.Nearly all election procedures are governed on a state-by-state basis, with the remainder set by Congress or enshrined in the Constitution. There is no precedent or apparent authority for Trump to try to curtail the use of mail-in ballots by executive order, though he could use a document to formalize his opposition to the practice.Trump's claimed authority comes days after he publicly floated a delay to the Nov. 3 presidential election, a notion was met with swift bipartisan blowback.Trump has increasingly sought to cast doubt on November's election and the expected pandemic-induced surge in mail-in and absentee voting. Trump has called remote voting options the “biggest risk” to his reelection.There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud through mail-in voting.

CHICAGO — Nearly 40 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend as the most violent month in 28 years came to a close.At least 107 people were killed in July, more than double the same month last year, according to data kept by the Chicago Tribune. That's the most homicides the city has seen since in a single month since September of 1992, when 109 were recorded.Most of the people died from gunshot wounds, but at least six people died from stabbings, three from strangulation, two from child abuse and two from assault, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.At least 570 people were shot during the month, about 250 more than July of last year, according to the Tribune's data.The youngest gun violence victims were 7-year-old Natalia Wallace, who was shot as her family celebrated the Fourth of July in the South Austin neighborhood, and 9-year-old Janari Andre Ricks, who was shot while playing with friends.From combined wire services