Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that his arrest is imminent and issued an extraordinary call for his supporters to protest as a New York grand jury investigates hush money payments to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president.

Even as Trump's lawyer and spokesperson said there had been no communication from prosecutors, Trump declared in a post on his social media platform that he expects to be taken into custody on Tuesday.

His message seemed designed to preempt a formal announcement from prosecutors and to galvanize outrage from his base of supporters in advance of widely anticipated charges.

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Within hours, his campaign was sending fundraising solicitations to his supporters, while influential Republicans in Congress and even some declared and potential rival candidates issued statements in his defence.

In a later post that went beyond simply exhorting loyalists to protest about his legal peril, the 2024 presidential candidate directed his overarching ire in all capital letters at the Biden administration and raised the prospect of civil unrest: "IT'S TIME!!!" he wrote. "WE JUST CAN'T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. THEY'RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!"

It all evoked, in foreboding ways, the rhetoric he used shortly before the insurrection at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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After hearing from the then-president at a Washington rally that morning, his supporters marched to the Capitol and tried to stop the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's White House victory, breaking through doors and windows of the building and leaving officers beaten and bloodied.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg is thought to be eyeing charges in the hush money investigation, and recently offered Trump a chance to testify before the grand jury.

Local law enforcement officials are bracing for the public safety ramifications of an unprecedented prosecution of a former American president.

In an internal email following Trump's statements, Bragg said law enforcement would ensure that the 1,600 people who work in his office would remain safe, and that "any specific or credible threats" would be investigated.

"We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York," he wrote, and added: "In the meantime, as with all of our investigations, we will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly, and speak publicly only when appropriate."

There has been no public announcement of any time frame for the grand jury's secret work in the case.

At least one additional witness is expected to testify, further indicating that no vote to indict has yet been taken, according to a person familiar with the investigation who was not authorised to publicly discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.

That did not stop Trump from taking to his social media platform to say "illegal leaks" from Bragg's office indicate that "THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK."

A Trump lawyer, Susan Necheles, said Trump's post was "based on the media reports," and a spokesperson said there had been "no notification" from Bragg's office, though the origin of Trump's Tuesday reference was unclear.

The district attorney's office declined to comment.

Trump's aides and legal team have been preparing for the possibility of an indictment.

Should that happen, he would be arrested only if he refused to surrender.

Trump's lawyers have previously said he would follow normal procedure, meaning he would likely agree to surrender at a New York Police Department precinct or directly to Bragg's office.

It is unclear whether Trump's supporters would heed his protest call or if he retains the same persuasive power he held as president.

Trump's posts on Truth Social generally receive far less attention than he used to get on Twitter, but he maintains a deeply loyal base.

The aftermath of the January 6 riot, in which hundreds of Trump loyalists were arrested and prosecuted in federal court, may also have dampened the passion among supporters for confrontation.

The indictment of Trump, 76, would be an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings.

Even as Trump pursues his latest White House campaign — his first rally is set for Waco, Texas, later this month and he shook hands and took selfies with fans during a public appearance Saturday evening at the NCAA Division I wrestling championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma — there is no question an indictment would be a distraction and give fodder to opponents and critics tired of the legal scandals that have long enveloped him.

Besides the hush money inquiry in New York, Trump faces separate criminal investigations in Atlanta and Washington over his efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election.

A Justice Department special counsel has also been presenting evidence before a grand jury investigating Trump's possession of hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate.

It is not clear when those investigations will end or whether they might result in criminal charges, but they will continue regardless of what happens in New York, underscoring the ongoing gravity – and broad geographic scope – of the legal challenges facing the former president.

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Trump's post Saturday echoes one made last summer when he broke the news on Truth Social that the FBI was searching his Florida home as part of an investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents.

News of that search sparked a flood of contributions to Trump's political operation, and on Saturday, Trump sent out a series of fundraising emails to his supporters, including one that claimed, "I'm not worried in the slightest."

After his post, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy decried any plans to prosecute Trump as an "outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA" whom he claimed was pursuing "political vengeance."

Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, issued a statement with a similar sentiment.

The grand jury has been hearing from witnesses, including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who says he orchestrated payments in 2016 to two women to silence them about sexual encounters they said they had with Trump a decade earlier.

Trump denies the encounters occurred, says he did nothing wrong and has cast the investigation as a "witch hunt" by a Democratic prosecutor bent on sabotaging the Republican's 2024 campaign.

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Trump also has labeled Bragg, who is Black, a "racist" and has accused the prosecutor of letting crime in the city run amok while he has focused on Trump. New York remains one of the safest cities in the country.

Bragg's office has apparently been examining whether any state laws were broken in connection with the payments or the way Trump's company compensated Cohen for his work to keep the women's allegations quiet.

Porn actor Stormy Daniels and at least two former Trump aides — onetime political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokesperson Hope Hicks — are among witnesses who have met with prosecutors in recent weeks.

Cohen has said that at Trump's direction, he arranged payments totaling $280,000 to Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.

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According to Cohen, the payouts were to buy their silence about Trump, who was then in the thick of his first presidential campaign.

Cohen and federal prosecutors said Trump's company paid him $420,000 as reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Daniels and to cover bonuses and other supposed expenses.

The company classified those payments internally as legal expenses.

The $150,000 payment to McDougal was made by the then-publisher of the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer, which kept her story from coming to light.

Federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute the Enquirer's corporate parent in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to charges against Cohen in 2018.

Prosecutors said the payments to Daniels and McDougal amounted to impermissible, unrecorded gifts to Trump's election effort.

Cohen pleaded guilty, served prison time and was disbarred. Federal prosecutors never charged Trump with any crime.

News that law enforcement agencies were preparing for a possible indictment was first reported by NBC News.

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The Māori Party is considering more novel partnership approaches ahead of the election.

A new advertising campaign has been rolled out across Australia aiming to recruit navy personnel as the country enters the age of nuclear-powered submarines.

The campaign showcases the large number of job opportunities in the Royal Australian Navy in coming decades as the service gears up for acquiring its new submarine fleet under the $368 billion AUKUS agreement.

It comes as the Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles said the vessels will be essential for protecting Australia's vital trade passages through the Indo-Pacific, a region where China is showing growing assertiveness.

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Speaking on the ABC Insiders show today he refused to comment on whether China's armed forces were a threat to those sea lanes in the South China Sea.

"A lot that have trade goes to China, but all of our trade to Japan, all of our trade to South Korea, two of our top five trading partners goes through the South China Sea," he said.

"The only point to make here is that the maintenance of the rules-based order, as we understand it, freedom of navigation, freedom of overflight, is completely in Australia's interests, and we need to make sure that we have a capability which can back up that interest, and that's why we have to walk down path that we are."

But Marles pointed to China's building of artificial islands in the South China Sea was not consistent with United Nations laws.

Australia will spend up to $368 billion by 2055 to build a new fleet of eight nuclear-propelled submarines in Adelaide, developed with the US and Britain, to enter service in the 2040s under the costliest defence project in the nation's history.

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Marles said the federal government made no promises to the US that Australia would support it in any future conflict over Taiwan in exchange for American nuclear submarines.

Under the AUKUS deal's first stage, Australia will gain three US Virginia-class nuclear vessels.

Marles said it was not linked to any Australian support for the US if it fought a war over Taiwan.

"The answer to that is of course not. Of course not. And nor was one sought," he said.

The $368 billion price tag is set to come under the microscope as parliament returns tomorrow for the final sitting fortnight before the May budget.

Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie said Australia will be a "force for good" by gaining nuclear submarines under the AUKUS pact.

"We'll be able to preserve our own sovereignty, and we'll also be able to contribute to the preservation of our neighbour's sovereignty as well," he told Sky News Australia.

But he said MPs should apply strong scrutiny to the project's huge cost.

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Juan Vera lost three relatives when a strong earthquake that shook parts of Ecuador and Peru on Saturday brought down his niece's home.

The government has offered to pay for the woman's funeral and those of her baby and her partner, but Vera wonders why local authorities allowed his relatives to live in such an old home to begin with.

"Because of its age, that building should have been demolished already," Vera said outside the morgue in Ecuador's community of Machala, where he was waiting for the three bodies to be released.

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"I'm sorry, the mayor's office is the entity that has to regulate these things through its planning departments so that the buildings are in good condition to be rented out or inhabited."

The earthquake with about 6.8 magnitude, as reported by the US Geological Survey, killed at least 15 people, injured hundreds and brought down homes and buildings in vastly different communities, from coastal areas to the highlands.

But in Ecuador, regardless of geography, many of the homes that crumbled had a lot in common: They housed the poor, were old and did not meet building standards in the earthquake-prone country.

The earthquake centered just off the Pacific Coast, about 80 kilometers south of Guayaquil, Ecuador's second-largest city.

One of the victims died in Peru, while 14 others died in Ecuador, where authorities also reported that at least 381 people were injured and dozens of homes, schools and health care centres were damaged.

The office of Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso reported that 12 of the victims died in the coastal state of El Oro and two in the highlands state of Azuay.

One of the victims in Azuay was a passenger in a vehicle crushed by rubble from a house in the Andean community of Cuenca, according to the Risk Management Secretariat, Ecuador's emergency response agency.

In El Oro, the agency also reported that several people were trapped under rubble. In the community of Machala, a two-story home collapsed before people could evacuate, a pier gave way and a building's walls cracked, trapping an unknown number of people.

Quito-based architect Germán Narváez said the houses most affected during earthquakes are those with deficient construction and that lack foundation, structure and technical design.

He added that the houses are also old and built with materials such as adobe, which was once frequently used in Andean communities.

"At critical moments of seismic movements, they tend to collapse," he said.

Ecuador is particularly prone to earthquakes.

In 2016, a quake centered farther north on the Pacific Coast in a more sparsely populated area of the country killed more than 600 people.

In Peru, the earthquake was felt from its northern border with Ecuador to the central Pacific coast.

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Peruvian Prime Minister Alberto Otárola said a four-year-old girl died from head trauma she suffered in the collapse of her home in the Tumbes region, on the border with Ecuador.

Peruvian authorities also reported that four homes were destroyed and the old walls of an Army barracks collapsed in Tumbes.

Saturday's earthquake destroyed the home of Dolores Vaca in Machala.

The moment she felt the first jolt, she said, she ran out into the street while her husband managed to drag their daughter out.

Then, "everything fell apart, the house flattened, everything was lost," she said.

Vaca's neighbors were not as lucky.

She said five died when the house next to hers collapsed.

In Guayaquil, about 270 kilometers southwest of the capital, Quito, authorities reported cracks in buildings and homes, as well as some collapsed walls.

Videos shared on social media show people gathered on the streets of Guayaquil, which anchors a metro area of over three million people, and nearby communities.

One video posted online showed three anchors of a show dart from their studio desk as the set shook.

They initially tried to shake it off as a minor quake but soon fled off camera.

One anchor indicated the show would go on a commercial break, while another repeated, "My God, my God."

A report from Ecuador's Adverse Events Monitoring Directorate ruled out a tsunami threat.

Machala student Katherine Cruz said her home shook so badly that she could not even get up to leave her room and flee to the street.

"It was horrible. I had never felt anything like this in my life," she said. ___

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