Donald Trump’s diehard supporters are often accused of living in fantasyland, but one court case recently launched to try to reinstall him as president has surprised even the most hardened observers of Trumpian strangeness by citing as evidence a mythological realm from The Lord of the Rings.

The case was launched in Texas, in the name of small conservative groups including Latinos for Trump and Blacks for Trump, and was filed by Paul Davis, an attorney who lost his job after posting Instagram videos of himself at the attack on the Capitol.

The case offers a baseless mix of allegations of electoral fraud common among the Trump base and calls for the voiding of every vote cast in the election – which was won handily by now-President Joe Biden, who was sworn in this week.

But – unusually for a legal strategy – the case cites as evidence to back up its pro-Trump claims the tragic fate of the kingdom of Gondor, one of the central realms of JRR Tolkien’s fantasy classic, whose exiled ruler, Aragorn, was played onscreen by Viggo Mortensen.

“Gondor has no king,” the lawsuit states, a footnote providing an explanation of the woeful fate of Tolkien’s entirely imaginary land populated by dragons, wizards, hobbits and elves, all threatened by a baleful Dark Lord backed up by an army of orcs and with famously little time for due democratic process.

The suit explains how Gondor’s throne was empty and its rightful kings in exile, presumably positing the idea that Trump is the true king of America – a land happily monarch-free since 1776.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will resign on Tuesday morning to avoid a damaging defeat in the Senate and maneuver to return at the head of a new government.

Conte will preside over a cabinet meeting at 9 a.m. in Rome and then head to President Sergio Mattarella’s office to formally step down, according to a government statement.

The idea is that by preemptively offering his resignation to Mattarella, who oversees the formation of ruling coalitions, Conte will then get asked to take another shot at putting together a government, according to officials who asked not to be named discussing confidential deliberations.

The Five Star Movement, the biggest force in the current parliament, and lawmakers of the center-left Democratic Party had both been urging the premier to resign after a junior ally ditched the alliance, officials said.

With new COVID-19 infections showing signs of potential abatement in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is reportedly planning to lift stay-at-home mandates on Monday, Politico reports.

This move will allow restaurants to open for outdoor dining options and salons to resume indoor appointments, sources told Politico. Reopening options will apply to regions including the San Francisco Bay Area, Central Valley and Southern California and marks the first reopening opportunity since December.

Prior to Newsom’s pending decision, some California restaurateurs have criticized and taken legal action against Newsom’s dining restrictions. In August 2020, the advocacy organization California Restaurant Association (CFA) released a grim statistic: 30 percent of California restaurants will permanently shut their doors.

The CFA largely blames Newsom’s lack of aid for the economic crunch.

Many other aides have left his side, eager to start anew far away from their former boss. White House aides and administration officials who once relished their West Wing perches have jetted off on remote getaways — cashing in on a mountain of unused vacation time. Others are frantically asking former colleagues for help finding work as they prioritize their own careers over whatever chapter Trump is planning for himself.

“There’s a lot of resumé passing and people just wanting to help people land on their feet,” said a former Trump White House official.

It’s not been easy. Tainted by Trump’s reputation, several Trump aides described an increasingly bleak job market with virtually no chance of landing jobs in corporate America and some even having seen promising leads disappear after the rampage at the U.S. Capitol. A second former White House official said they knew of “people who got jobs rescinded because of Jan. 6.” A Republican strategist was blunter.

“They are really f---ed,” the strategist said, pointing to some top officials who stuck with Trump until the bitter end. “The Hill scramble, one of the few places where they’d be welcomed, already happened a month or so ago… They were told over and over to take their hand off the hot stove, and they didn’t want to listen.”