Four indictments in four months. And most of the alleged crimes happened two-plus years ago.

• Democrats want to know why it took so long.
• Republicans are suspicious: Why did prosecutors "wait" until the 2024 campaign was heating up, and former President Trump was the runaway (early) favorite for the Republican nomination?

Why it matters: These investigations were all happening in separate orbits, Axios' Zachary Basu reports.

• Now they've collided in the mind-blowing spectacle of a quadruply indicted former president — who'll spend the next year juggling constant court dates with a campaign to get his old job back.

Here's how (and why) it took so long, as pieced together from public reporting, court documents and the obvious sensitivities surrounding the historic prosecution of a former president.

Major criminal investigations — especially those involving powerful politicians — take serious time and resources, as the risk of botching a prosecution can undermine public faith in the justice system.

• In Manhattan, District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to seek a Trump indictment in spring 2022 after years of investigation by his predecessor — only to resurrect the probe and bring the hush-money charges this March. Republicans have assailed Bragg's indictment as overtly political, and polling suggests the public is also skeptical.
• In Florida, Trump engaged in a year-long feud with the National Archives over government documents he had taken and allegedly tried to conceal. He was indicted in June after his attorney Evan Corcoran was forced to testify to a grand jury in March, providing key evidence about Trump's alleged obstruction.
• In D.C., top DOJ and FBI officials resisted opening a probe into Trump's role in Jan. 6 for more than a year, weary of appearing partisan, the Washington Post reports. Even after Jack Smith took over as special counsel, legal battles involving the testimony of key figures, including former Vice President Pence, led to further delays.
• In Georgia — where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis just unveiled the sprawling racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 allies — the sheer scale and complexity of the 2½-year election interference probe helps explain the timing.

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If you've noticed a sudden rise in the number of people wearing masks while you're out and about lately, here's why: COVID is on the upswing again, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj report.

• Why it matters: Simply put, our guard is down.

🧮 By the numbers: The average COVID hospitalization rate nationwide rose about 17% between June and July, per the latest available CDC data.

• With so little testing happening these days compared to the height of the pandemic, hospitalization rates are now one of the best proxies for estimating broader viral spread.

Interactive version of this map, with state-by-state data.

Gun violence, which ranked as the top threat to public health when we asked the question in our May Axios-Ipsos American Health Index, has dropped to No. 3 behind opioids and obesity, Axios senior health care editor Adriel Bettelheim writes.

• Why it matters: Fears of gun violence appear to be tied to specific events, including mass shootings. Opioid misuse is more of a constant worry.

Where you live is a big factor: Substantially more people in rural areas rank opioids and fentanyl as a top concern than those in urban and suburban areas, who tend to rank firearms higher.

• Keep reading.

The rate on 30-year mortgages ticked up to 7.16% this week — back to the high last reached in October. Before that you'd have to go back to 2001 to find mortgage rates this high, Axios' Emily Peck writes.

Case in point: A calculation from ING's chief international economist, James Knightley, illustrates the consequences for housing affordability.

• With a 7.16% mortgage rate, the monthly payment on a $417,200 loan (the average mortgage amount taken out last week) works out to $2,820.
• But at the prevailing mortgage rate back in 2021, you'd pay that amount for a $670,000 loan.

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Some U.S. borrowers, enjoying the three-year COVID pause for student loan payments, took advantage of historically low mortgage rates to become homeowners.

• "Now, with the education bills set to restart next month, they'll pay more each month for their education debt than their housing costs," Bloomberg reports.

Case in point: Fikret Sabic, a 28-year-old physical therapist in Kentucky, told Bloomberg he'll be on the hook for payments of $1,130 a month for his student loans — almost $300 more than his mortgage.

In the past five years, the number of U.S. LinkedIn members in "Head of AI" roles has grown by 264%, and users across the board are reporting a rapid acceleration in acquiring AI skills, Axios global tech correspondent Ryan Heath writes from LinkedIn data.

• LinkedIn members are using the keywords "Prompt Engineering," "Prompt Crafting," "Generative," and "Generative Artificial Intelligence" 15 times more frequently in their profiles now than in January.

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Marion County (Kan.) Record editor and publisher Eric Meyer says the county sheriff's office — which had been storing computers seized by police in a raid on the weekly paper — returned the gear yesterday following a favorable ruling from the county prosecutor.

• Why it matters: Last week's police raid put the 4,000-circulation paper at the center of a national debate about press freedom. Meyer claims the raid was carried out because the newspaper was investigating why the police chief left his previous post as an officer in Kansas City, Mo.

Meyer says the sheriff released the equipment to a computer forensics firm hired by the newspaper's attorney, AP reports.

• The forensics firm is reviewing the files and programs to see whether they were copied.

"You cannot let bullies win," Meyer said. "We have a staff that's very experienced, including myself, and we're not going to take crap."

• Meyer has said that the stress from the ordeal caused the death of his 98-year-old mother, Joan — the paper's co-owner — on Saturday, the day after the raid.

Behind the scenes: Rewriting lost stories and reproducing ads from scratch, the four-person newsroom used old computers to put out yesterday's edition (photo above), with the defiant front-page headline: "SEIZED … but not silenced."

• "There were literally index cards going back and forth," said the newspaper's attorney, Bernie Rhodes of Kansas City. "They had all the classified ads, all the legal notices that they had to re-create."

The newspaper's press run is normally 4,000 papers. Since the raids, the paper has received more than 2,000 new subscriptions.

The Beyond the Light Exhibition, an immersive-art experience that includes overwhelming visuals from the James Webb Space Telescope, is open in Manhattan and will come to D.C. next month.

• ARTECHOUSE, a pioneer in experiential art, says it collaborated with NASA astrophysicists and used AI-aided visual production, with "an original musical score created from galactic data."

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