CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Cubs received a boost Friday morning ahead of a crucial homestand against divisional rivals when utilityman Matt Shaw was activated off the injured list.
Shaw last played for the Cubs on June 28 before landing on the IL with a sprained left hand. When he first was sidelined, Shaw and the Cubs weren’t expecting it to be a long-term issue.
“It was one of those things where I assumed it was going to be quicker,” Shaw said. “It ended up taking a really long time, so it tested my patience for sure. I’m glad to be back.”
Outfielder Kevin Alcántara was optioned to Triple-A Iowa in a corresponding move.
Shaw said this week has been crucial in his recovery. He played in back-to-back games Tuesday and Wednesday on a minor-league rehab assignment and said he could finally swing “full effort with no pain.”
He was not in the starting lineup Friday against the Cincinnati Reds, but will likely see regular playing time against left-handed pitchers while providing a key, versatile piece for the Cubs. He has already made starts at six different positions on the diamond this season.
“Matt does a bunch of things well,” manager Craig Counsell said. "He makes the roster better.”
Shaw could also see some time at second base, as Nico Hoerner has shifted over to play shortstop with Dansby Swanson on the IL. Rookie Pedro Ramírez has drawn most of the starts at second base in Swanson’s absence.
Swanson took ground balls and did some light defensive work Friday at Wrigley Field. He was placed on the IL on Aug. 17 with a left oblique strain and the Cubs said at the time they expected him to miss about four weeks.
“He’s doing good,” Counsell said. “We’re on the track that we originally forecasted, so all good.”
Right-handed pitcher Edward Cabrera (blister) threw a bullpen session Tuesday and is slated to throw another with hitters on Saturday. He will then head out on a rehab assignment and the Cubs plan to utilize him in “shorter stints” upon his return.
As for Ben Brown, the Cubs have no more clarity on the right-handed pitcher who experienced a setback with his neck injury earlier this week.
“We’re gathering opinions still,” Counsell said. "No path forward from that has been determined at all.”
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Chicago Cubs' Dansby Swanson, front left, bends over after injuring himself during an at-bat as manager Craig Counsell, back left, checks on him with a trainer, right, during the third inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Melissa Tamez)
Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell, right, argues with home plate umpire Alfonso Márquez during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Friday once again spurned Donald Trump’s effort to erase his hush money conviction, rejecting the president’s bid to move the state court case to federal court and have it dismissed on presidential immunity grounds.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein reiterated his earlier finding against Trump, saying that the reasons Trump cited for renewing his request were “neither new nor legally sufficient.”
The judge added: “He has failed to show good cause and diligence.”
It is the third time Hellerstein has blocked Trump from having the U.S. District Court in Manhattan seize control of the case from the New York court where he was tried and convicted.
And, like before, Trump will appeal, according to a spokesperson for his legal team who called Hellerstein's ruling “baseless and lawless.”
“The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be removed to federal court, and immediately overturned and dismissed,” a statement issued on behalf of the legal team said. "President Trump will be filing a powerful appeal, and will continue defeating Democrat weaponization at every turn.”
The guilty verdict, reached in May 2024 while Trump was between terms, made him the first former — and now current — U.S. president to be convicted of a crime. Trump is also challenging his conviction through the state court appellate process, which is pending.
Hellerstein’s decision came after a federal appeals court last year ordered him to reconsider his prior denial. The judge previewed his ruling during oral arguments in February, slamming Trump’s lawyers for legal maneuvers that amounted to taking “two bites at the apple.”
State prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose claim of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier had threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump was sentenced to an unconditional discharge, which left his conviction intact but spared him any punishment. He had long denied Daniels’ claim and said he did nothing wrong. He has sought to get the conviction overturned both by attempting to move the case to federal court and through the appeals process in state court, which is pending.
Hellerstein rejected Trump’s requests to move the case twice before. The first was after Trump’s March 2023 indictment. The second was after Trump’s trial, as his lawyers sought to nix his conviction in the wake of the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling that presidents and ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts and prosecutors can’t use official acts as evidence that unofficial actions were illegal.
Trump appealed Hellerstein’s post-trial ruling and, last November, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the judge to reconsider his decision, finding that he had failed to consider “important issues relevant” to the president’s request to move the case.
A three-judge appellate panel said it expressed no view on how he should rule but instructed Hellerstein to closely review evidence that Trump claimed was related to official acts and whether Trump could argue those actions were taken as part of his White House duties.
The judges also instructed Hellerstein to determine if Trump had “diligently sought” to have the case moved to federal court and whether the case can even be moved to federal court now that Trump has been convicted and sentenced in state court.
During oral arguments in February, Hellerstein took issue with the Trump legal team’s decision-making after the Supreme Court ruling.
Instead of immediately seeking to move the case to federal court, he noted, Trump’s lawyers first asked the trial judge in state court, Juan Merchan, to throw out the verdict on immunity grounds. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment, but a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. has ruled that exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown.
Trump, a Republican, did not attend the arguments.
Trump lawyer Jeffrey Wall argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision and that Trump’s legal team was crunched for time after the high court’s ruling because his sentencing was scheduled for just 10 days later.
Trump’s lawyers did not ask Hellerstein to intervene until nearly two months later, while their request to Merchan was still pending. The judge called that a “strategic decision” and suggested that by going to the state court first, Trump’s lawyers cost him the right to pursue remedies in federal court.
“No, your honor,” Wall replied. “It is what any sensible litigant would do” in that situation.
“Not so,” Hellerstein replied.
“That is a decision on your part,” the judge added. “You didn’t have to do that. You could have come right to the federal court. Just by filing a notice of removal, there would be no sentencing.”
Trump’s lawyers “made a choice,” Hellerstein said, “and you sought two bites at the apple.”
In his written ruling Friday, Hellerstein said Trump was asking for a “'second bite at the apple,' a result the law disfavors.”
The judge added that “Trump’s delay in filing for removal constitutes a ‘quintessential strategic decision,’ and the ‘fact that he later came to view that decision as a poor one is not sufficient, by itself, to establish cause.’”
President Donald Trump speaks during an event to present the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to Artemis II crew members, Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, at Johnson Space Center in Houston. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
