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News From NBC News Biden announces new rule to protect consumers who purchase short-term health insurance plansThursday March 28th, 2024 05:27:08 AM Darlene Superville | Associated PressPresident Joe Biden on Thursday announced new steps to protect consumers who buy short-term health insurance plans that critics say amount to junk. A new rule finalized by the Democratic president’s administration will limit these plans to just three months. And the plans can only be renewed for a maximum of four months, instead of up to the three years that were allowed under Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump. The Biden administration is also requiring short-term plans to provide consumers with clear explanations of the limits of their benefits. The White House said the rule is part of Biden’s efforts to reduce costs for consumers, which he has been promoting extensively as he seeks reelection in November. “The president really believes the American people do not want to be taken for suckers and junk insurance takes them for suckers,” Neera Tanden, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, said during a call the White House arranged to discuss the rule with reporters. Short-term insurance is meant to be temporary, providing a safety net for consumers as they transition between jobs, for example, or retire before they are eligible for Medicare. But short-terms plans — critics call them “junk insurance” — too often mislead consumers into thinking they were buying comprehensive health coverage, Tanden said. Consumers would later be surprised to learn when they tried to use the insurance that their benefits were capped or certain coverages were not provided. Tanden said Trump and other Republican-elected officials undermined the Affordable Care Act by allowing insurance companies to exploit loopholes and sell short-term plans that often leave consumers surprised when confronted by thousands of dollars in medical bills. The ACA was signed into law in 2010 by President Barack Obama. Biden and his administration have spent this week marking the 14th anniversary of the landmark law’s enactment. Short-term plans were expanded in 2018 during the Trump administration as a cheaper alternative to the Affordable Care Act’s costlier comprehensive insurance. Trump, who had promised to repeal and replace the law, has praised short-term plans as “much less expensive health care at a much lower price.” In 2020, a divided federal appeals court upheld the Trump administration’s expansion of short-term health insurance plans. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the Trump administration had the legal authority to increase the duration of the health plans from three to 12 months, with the option of renewing them for 36 months. The plans do not have to cover people with preexisting conditions or provide basic benefits like prescription drugs. TikTok makes $2.1 million TV ad buy as Senate reviews bill that could ban appWednesday March 27th, 2024 07:06:38 PM Brian Schwartz,CNBC
TikTok has launched a $2.1 million advertising campaign with a clear message for senators in tough reelection fights this year: Block the House bill that could effectively ban the app in the United States. “Think about the 5 million small business owners that rely on TikTok to provide for their families,” one purported TikTok user says in the ad. “To see all of that disappear would be so sad,” says another apparent user. The company has reserved television ad space in the battleground states of Nevada, Montana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, according to previously unreported data from AdImpact. All five states are represented by vulnerable Senate Democrats, each of whom is running for another six-year term. Other states that will see the new TikTok ads include New York, Massachusetts and Minnesota, according to the ad buy data. The Big Apple and Beantown are key ad markets for reaching young people and journalists. Minnesota is the home state of Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, one of TikTok’s fiercest critics in Congress. Klobuchar is also up for reelection this year. The ads started running on Wednesday, with the buy set to end end either April 14 or April 28, depending on where the spots are airing, according to the data. One of the new ads obtained by CNBC purports to show TikTok users warning their target audiences of how much would be lost if TikTok were banned. “It’s gonna affect a lot of people’s livelihoods,” says a sad-looking woman. Senate pathDespite the hyperbole from TikTok, the legislation passed the House wasn’t an outright ban. Instead, it requires TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to divest the app from its holdings within about six months of the bill being signed into law. If ByteDance fails to do so, then TikTok would not be available to download on the Apple App store and the Google Play store, all but ensuring a slow death for the app among U.S. users. Yet despite having passed the House by a vote of 352 to 65, the TikTok bill still faces an uncertain path through the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., recently said senators would need time to “review the legislation” before he could share any timelines for potential passage. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the bill if if passes the Senate. Intelligence community officials recently delivered a classified briefing on TikTok to senators. Following the briefing, Commerce Committee chair Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said her panel might need to hold a public hearing on the bill. High-pressure lobbyingA spokesman for TikTok said the ads are a way to show how the federal government could hurt small businesses if the bill passes the Senate. “We think the public at-large should know that the government is attempting to trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans and devastate 7 million small businesses nationwide,” a TikTok spokesman explained. The company said the buy will be larger than the $2.1 million AdImpact originally tracked, and that a majority of the investment will focus on national, as well as local, television advertisements. The ads represent the latest effort by TikTok to make a dent in the Washington debate over whether ByteDance could protect U.S. TikTok users’ personal data from China’s autocratic Communist government. TikTok users have swamped congressional offices with calls demanding that members vote against the ban. The number of these calls soared after TikTok encouraged their users through the app to demand lawmakers not pass the House bill. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. shared a threatening voicemail at his office in relation to a possible TikTok ban. Tillis’ office has said it’s received at least 1,000 calls about the app since the House passed their bill. Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, Democrats' VP pick in 2000, dead at 82Wednesday March 27th, 2024 05:49:38 PMFormer Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who served in the Senate for more than two decades and was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000, has died. He was 82. The former U.S. senator’s family said he died in New York City due to complications from a fall Wednesday afternoon. “His beloved wife, Hadassah, and members of his family were with him as he passed. Senator Lieberman’s love of God, his family, and America endured throughout his life of service in the public interest,” his family said in a statement. Lieberman nearly won the vice presidency on the Democratic ticket with Al Gore in the disputed 2000 election, and he almost became Republican John McCain’s running mate eight years later. The Democrat-turned-independent was never shy about veering from the party line. Lieberman’s independent streak and especially his needling of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential contest rankled many Democrats, the party he aligned with in the Senate. Yet his support for gay rights, civil rights, abortion rights and environmental causes at times won him the praise of many liberals over the years. Lieberman came very close to winning the vice presidency in the contentious 2000 presidential contest that was decided by a 537-vote margin victory for George W. Bush in Florida after a drawn-out recount, legal challenges and a Supreme Court decision. He was the first Jewish candidate on a major party’s presidential ticket and would have been the first Jewish vice president. He was also the first national Democrat to publicly criticize President Bill Clinton for his extramarital affair with a White House intern. Lieberman sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 but dropped out after a weak showing in the early primaries. Four years later, he was an independent who was nearly chosen to be McCain’s running mate. He and McCain were close pals who shared hawkish views on military and national security matters. McCain was leaning strongly toward choosing Lieberman for the ticket as the 2008 GOP convention neared, but he chose Sarah Palin at the last minute after “ferocious” blowback from conservatives over Lieberman’s liberal record, according to Steve Schmidt, who managed McCain’s campaign. Lieberman generated controversy in 1998 when he scolded Clinton, his friend of many years, for “disgraceful behavior” in an explosive speech on the Senate floor during the height of the scandal over his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Yet Lieberman later voted against the impeachment of Clinton. He defended his partisan switches as a matter of conscience, saying he always had the best interests of Connecticut voters at heart. Critics accused him of pursuing narrow self-interest and political expediency. In announcing his retirement from the Senate in 2013, Lieberman acknowledged that he did “not always fit comfortably into conventional political boxes” and felt his first responsibility was to serve his constituents, state and country, not his political party. He had a tortured relationship with Democrats. During his final Senate speech, Lieberman urged Congress to look beyond party lines and partisan rancor to break Washington gridlock. “It requires reaching across the aisle and finding partners from the opposite party,” Lieberman said. “That is what is desperately needed in Washington now.” Privately, some Democrats were often less charitable about Lieberman’s forays across party lines, which they saw as disloyal. He bolted his party and turned independent after a 2006 Senate primary loss in Connecticut. Lieberman’s strong support of the Iraq War hurt his statewide popularity. Democrats rejected Lieberman and handed the 2006 primary to a political newcomer and an anti-war candidate, Ned Lamont. Defying Democratic leaders and friends, Lieberman ran successfully for reelection as an independent and drew support from some Republican allies. Lieberman won praise from the White House and fundraising help from prominent Republicans, such as then-New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who himself later ran as an independent. Lieberman made his Senate experience and congressional clout a strong selling point, saying he’d fight hard for the state’s defense jobs and its fair share of federal largesse. The strategy paid off. Lieberman won reelection to a fourth term, even though many of his Democratic allies and longtime friends, including former Sen. Chris Dodd, supported Lamont. Lieberman was candid about what he considered a betrayal by old pals such as Dodd, but the two men later reconciled. After his rebound reelection in 2006, Lieberman decided to caucus with Democrats in the Senate, who let him head a committee in return because they needed his vote to help keep control of the closely divided chamber. But it wasn’t long until Lieberman was showing his independent streak and ruffling his Democratic caucus colleagues. Despite the decision of Democrats to let him join their caucus as an independent, Lieberman was an enthusiastic backer of McCain in the 2008 presidential contest. Lieberman’s speech at the 2008 GOP presidential nominating convention criticizing Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, struck a deep nerve with many Democrats. Lieberman cast Obama as a political show horse, a lightweight with a thin record of accomplishment in the Senate despite his soaring eloquence as a speaker. “In the Senate, during the 3 1/2 years that Sen. Obama has been a member, he has not reached across party lines to … accomplish anything significant, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party to get something done,” Lieberman said at the convention. “Eloquence is no substitute for a record,” he said. Lieberman campaigned heartily across the country for McCain. Many Democrats considered it a betrayal to Obama and his former party colleagues. “Joe Lieberman has said things that are totally irresponsible when it comes to Barack Obama,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said in a radio interview during the 2008 race. After the election, there was speculation Senate Democrats might strip Lieberman of his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as payback. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chair of the Judiciary Committee, was among those who said Lieberman should lose his chairmanship. Leahy branded Lieberman’s attacks on Obama as “beyond the pale.” But at Obama’s urging, Senate Democrats decided not to punish Lieberman for supporting McCain and the GOP ticket. Obama was eager to strike a bipartisan tone for his presidency and giving Lieberman a pass helped reinforce that message. Yet Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent and staunch liberal, called it a “slap in the face” for millions of Americans who backed Obama. Lieberman was known in the Senate for his hawkish foreign policy views, his pro-defense bent and his strong support for environmental causes. Five weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he became one of the first politicians to call for the ouster of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and later voted in favor of the military invasion of Iraq. His vocal support for the war would later help doom his candidacy in the 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary. Lieberman tended to vote with Democrats on most issues and was a longtime supporter of abortion rights, a stance that would have proved problematic with conservatives had McCain chosen him as his running mate in 2008. He played a key role in the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security. Lieberman grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, where his father ran a liquor store. Lieberman graduated from Yale University and Yale Law School in New Haven As Connecticut’s attorney general from 1983 to 1988, he was a strong consumer and environmental advocate. Lieberman vaulted into the Senate by defeating moderate Republican incumbent Lowell Weicker in 1988. After leaving the Senate in 2013, Lieberman joined a New York City law firm. Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, have four children. Trump targets hush money trial judge's daughter one day after gag orderWednesday March 27th, 2024 01:19:12 PM Kevin Breuninger,CNBC
Donald Trump on Wednesday again targeted on social media the daughter of the judge in his upcoming criminal hush money trial — one day after that judge imposed a gag order limiting what Trump can say about the case. Trump, in a Truth Social screed, slammed New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan as a “hater” and repeated his call for the judge to recuse himself from the case. Trump pointed to Merchan’s daughter’s work in progressive politics, and a social media account that he claims is hers, as evidence that it is “completely impossible” for him to get a “fair trial.” Merchan’s daughter “represents Crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, and other Radical Liberals, [and] has just posted a picture of me behind bars, her obvious goal,” Trump claimed. The posts marked Trump’s second day in a row highlighting Merchan’s daughter’s role as a president at Authentic Campaigns, a Democratic political consulting firm. The firm touts its work for clients including President Joe Biden, whom Trump is campaigning against, and for other Democratic groups and politicians. “Maybe the Judge is such a hater because his daughter makes money by working to ‘Get Trump,’ and when he rules against me over and over again, he is making her company, and her, richer and richer,” Trump wrote. “How can this be allowed?” Trump attorney Todd Blanche declined to comment on Trump’s posts in light of the gag order, which restricts him from making certain statements about “family members of any counsel or staff member.” The posts extended Trump’s stream of attacks against Merchan that began after the judge set an April 15 trial date in the hush money case. Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump’s latest attacks on Merchan’s daughter went further than his past comments by claiming she “just posted” a picture of him behind bars. Trump appeared to be referencing a social media account on X, which Authentic had previously associated with Merchan’s daughter. As recently as Wednesday, that X account featured as its profile photo an edited headshot of Trump behind metal bars. As of Wednesday afternoon, that profile photo had been changed to a childhood photo of Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris had shared that photo on social media during a 2019 Democratic primary debate, shortly after she attacked then-rival Biden over his record on busing. It is unclear if the account handle currently belongs to Merchan’s daughter. X indicates that the account “joined in April 2023,” months after Authentic most recently referenced it on social media. Trump was arraigned in the hush money case that month. Around the same time, multiple right-wing news outlets published reports about Merchan’s daughter’s political activities. The X account’s posts are protected, meaning that they can only be viewed by approved followers. A spokesman for the New York courts did not immediately respond when asked by CNBC to confirm or deny that the account currently belongs to Merchan’s daughter. Trump nevertheless asserted Wednesday that the account is hers, while he railed against his newest gag order. “So, let me get this straight, the Judge’s daughter is allowed to post pictures of her ‘dream’ of putting me in jail, the Manhattan D.A. is able to say whatever lies about me he wants, the Judge can violate our Laws and Constitution at every turn, but I am not allowed to talk about the attacks against me, and the Lunatics trying to destroy my life, and prevent me from winning the 2024 Presidential Election, which I am dominating?” he wrote. The gag order imposed Tuesday does not completely limit Trump from talking about his critics. He can still criticize the prosecutor in his case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and he is not explicitly barred from speaking about Merchan himself. Trump is, however, barred from making public statements about likely witnesses and jurors in the case. And he cannot speak about lawyers in the case, court staff, employees in the D.A.’s office and their family members if those statements are made with the “intent to materially interfere” with the proceedings. Merchan in the order wrote that Trump’s prior statements about various figures involved in the case “were threatening, inflammatory [and] denigrating.” “Such inflammatory statements undoubtedly risk impeding the orderly administration of this Court,” wrote the judge, who also noted “the nature and impact of the statements made against this Court and a family member thereof.” “Given that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” he wrote. Trump had referenced Merchan’s daughter on Truth Social around the time of his arraignment in the hush money case. Trump’s attorneys in a court filing last May referenced Merchan’s daughter’s work as they urged the judge to recuse himself from the case. Merchan, in August, declined to do so.
Settlement reached in lawsuit between Florida Gov. DeSantis' allies and DisneyWednesday March 27th, 2024 10:41:11 AM Michael Schneider and NBC6Allies of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney reached a settlement agreement Wednesday in a state court fight over how Walt Disney World is developed in the future following the takeover of the theme park resort’s government by the Florida governor. In a meeting, the members of the board of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District approved the settlement agreement, ending almost two years of litigation that was sparked by DeSantis’ takeover of the district from Disney supporters following the company’s opposition to Florida’s “parental Rights in Education” law, dubbed by activists “Don’t Say Gay.” The 2022 law bans classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades and was championed by the Republican governor, who used Disney as a punching bag in speeches until he suspended his presidential campaign this year. The district provides municipal services such as firefighting, planning and mosquito control, among other things, and was controlled by Disney supporters for most of its five decades. “Everything we’ve done has been in the best interests of the state of Florida and we have been vindicated on all those actions. Going forward we’re going to continue to govern with the best interests of the state of Florida,” DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday. Jeff Vahle, president of Walt Disney World Resort, said in a statement Wednesday that the company was pleased a settlement had been reached. “This agreement opens a new chapter of constructive engagement with the new leadership of the district and serves the interests of all parties by enabling significant continued investment and the creation of thousands of direct and indirect jobs and economic opportunity in the state,” Vahle said. Following Disney’s opposition to the law, DeSantis took over the governing district through legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature and appointed a new board of supervisors. Disney sued DeSantis and his appointees, claiming the company’s free speech rights were violated for speaking out against the legislation. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in January. Before control of the district changed hands from Disney allies to DeSantis appointees early last year, the Disney supporters on its board signed agreements with Disney shifting control over design and construction at Disney World to the company. The new DeSantis appointees claimed the “eleventh-hour deals” neutered their powers and the district sued the company in state court in Orlando to have the contracts voided. “I’m glad that they were able to do that settlement, those eleventh hour covenants and restrictions were never gonna be valid, we knew that. The challenge to the state oversight board to replace Reedy Creek, that’s not going anywhere, obviously that was dismissed in district court,” DeSantis said. Disney filed counterclaims that include asking the state court to declare the agreements valid and enforceable. Under the terms of Wednesday’s settlement agreement, Disney lets stand a determination by the board of DeSantis-appointees that the comprehensive plan approved by the Disney supporters before the takeover are null and void. Disney also agrees that a development agreement and restrictive covenants passed before the takeover are also not valid, according to the settlement terms. Instead, a comprehensive plan from 2020 will be used with the new board able to make changes to it, and the agreement suggests Disney and the new board will negotiate a new development agreement in the near future. “We have an interest as a state in moving forward to make this region very strong, this oversight, tourism oversight board in that district is a big part of that and I think that there’s gonna be ways where we can do things that are in the best interests of the state of Florida and I think Disney can be a part of that,” DeSantis said. “A year ago, people were trying to act like that all these legal maneuverings were all going to succeed against the state of Florida and the reality is here we are a year later and not one of them has succeeded, every action that we’ve taken has been upheld in full and the state’s better off for that.” Texas's controversial immigration law remains on hold after latest pass through appeals courtWednesday March 27th, 2024 06:13:29 AM Ben Russell and The Associated PressA federal appeals court issued a ruling late Tuesday night that will prevent Texas from enforcing its controversial immigration policy known as Senate Bill 4. The Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to deny a motion from the State of Texas for a stay on the decision of whether it can enforce SB4. Under SB 4, state and local police have the right to question, arrest, and charge undocumented immigrants suspected of crossing the border illegally. Furthermore, the law would require that state judges deport people back to Mexico upon conviction, regardless of their nationality. The Biden Administration sued the State of Texas shortly after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB4 into law back in December. It argues that the law is an overreach, and conflicts with the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration laws. In its decision Tuesday, the court noted that: “Allowing Texas to detain noncitizens without any input from the Federal Government about whether an arrest is warranted in a particular case…would allow the State to achieve its own immigration policy.” The ruling goes on to note that: “The Texas removal provisions will significantly conflict with the United States’ authority to select the country to which noncitizens will be removed. A large number of noncitizens who crossed into Texas from Mexico are not citizens or residents of Mexico. Nevertheless, under Texas law they would be removed to Mexico. The United States would have no voice in the matter.” Earlier this month, Texas’ plans were again put on hold after setting off uncertainty along the border and anger from Mexico flared during a brief few hours that the law was allowed to take effect. A late-night order on March 19 from an Appeals Court panel temporarily put SB4 on hold — again. Earlier in the day, the U.S. Supreme Court had cleared the way for the strict immigration law, dealing a victory to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and encouraging GOP lawmakers in other states that are pushing for similar measures. But later in a 2-1 order, an appeals court panel continued the legal seesaw surrounding the Texas law, again putting it on pause ahead of oral arguments that were scheduled for March 20. During the short time the law was in effect Tuesday, Texas authorities did not announce that any arrests had been made or say whether it was being actively enforced. Along the border in Kinney County, Sheriff Brad Coe embraced the arrest powers but said deputies would need probable cause. “It is unlikely that observers will see an overnight change,” said Coe, whose county covers a stretch of border near Del Rio that until recently had been the busiest corridor for illegal crossings but has quieted considerably. Arrests for illegal crossings fell by half in January from a record-high of 250,000 in December, with sharp declines in Texas. Arrests in the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, the focus of Abbott’s enforcement, fell 76% from December. Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings for much of the last decade, recorded its fewest arrests since June 2020. Tucson, Arizona, has been the busiest corridor in recent months, followed by San Diego in January, but reasons for sudden shifts are often complicated and are dictated by smuggling organizations. When President Joe Biden visited the Rio Grande Valley for his second trip to the border as president last month, administration officials credited Mexico for heightened enforcement on that part of the border for the drop in arrests. They said conditions were more challenging for Mexican law enforcement in Sonora, the state that lies south of Arizona. NBC News cuts ties with former RNC Chair Ronna McDanielTuesday March 26th, 2024 07:05:08 PM Elizabeth Chuck | NBC NewsNBC News has reversed its decision to hire former Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst after network executives faced a chorus of fierce on-air criticism. “There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group. After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” Cesar Conde, NBCUniversal Group chairman, said in an email to staff Tuesday. “I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down. While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it,” Conde wrote. The decision to cut ties with McDaniel comes less than a week after NBC News announced her hiring, prompting an extraordinary public protest from the former host of its flagship Sunday morning political show as well as from many of the most popular hosts of the network’s cable channel. Rachel Maddow opened her show on MSNBC on Monday night by urging NBC News to change its mind about hiring McDaniel. “I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable, and I hope they will reconsider that decision,” Maddow said. MSNBC and NBC News are both part of the NBCUniversal News Group. McDaniel did not immediately respond to a voicemail and emails requesting comment. McDaniel’s hiring came two weeks after she left her post as head of the RNC, where she had voiced support for baseless claims by former President Donald Trump about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. In Conde’s memo, he said the decision to bring McDaniel on board was made “because of our deep commitment to presenting our audiences with a widely diverse set of viewpoints and experiences, particularly during these consequential times. We continue to be committed to the principle that we must have diverse viewpoints on our programs, and to that end, we will redouble our efforts to seek voices that represent different parts of the political spectrum.” The on-air journalists at NBC News and MSNBC argued that McDaniel lacked credibility after The Detroit News reported she joined Trump on a phone call as he reportedly pressured Republican canvassers in her home state of Michigan not to certify the 2020 presidential election results. In an interview Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” which host Kristen Welker said had been scheduled before it was announced that McDaniel was going to become a paid contributor, McDaniel addressed the phone call with the canvassers, saying, “I was not telling them to do anything.” “The pressure was being put on them from the hours and hours of threats and abuse they were receiving that coerced them to change their vote,” McDaniel said Sunday, adding that she told them, “I support you voting your conscience.” Following her appearance, NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd said on the broadcast that “she has credibility issues that she still has to deal with.” The criticism over her hiring continued Monday from early in the morning to late at night on MSNBC, with “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski saying that while NBC News should include conservative Republican voices to balance election coverage, it shouldn’t be someone “who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier.” Television networks frequently add politicians and political operatives to their rosters to serve as analysts and commentators: MSNBC host Jen Psaki was a former press secretary to President Joe Biden, and Michael Steele, who served as chairman of the RNC from 2009 to 2011, is an MSNBC political analyst and co-host. But the hiring of McDaniel immediately prompted internal concern. Nicolle Wallace, a former White House communications director for President George W. Bush who is now a host on MSNBC, said on her show Monday that having McDaniel on the network would embolden “election deniers.” “NBC News, either wittingly or unwittingly, is teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air and interviews to peddle lies about the sanctity and integrity of our elections,” she said. This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: Trump hit with gag order in New York hush money case after slamming judgeTuesday March 26th, 2024 02:54:17 PM Kevin Breuninger,CNBC
A judge on Tuesday imposed a limited gag order on Donald Trump ahead of his criminal hush money trial in New York. Trump’s statements about various figures involved in the case “were threatening, inflammatory [and] denigrating,” Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan said in a court order. “Such inflammatory statements undoubtedly risk impeding the orderly administration of this Court,” Merchan ruled. The gag order bars Trump from making public statements about likely witnesses and jurors in the case. He must also refrain from speaking about lawyers in the case, court staff, employees in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and their family members if those statements are made with the “intent to materially interfere” with the case. Merchan’s order still allows Trump to speak out about Alvin Bragg, the district attorney prosecuting the former president on charges of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. The gag order does not specifically bar Trump from criticizing the judge. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung in a statement to NBC News said the gag order prevents the presumptive Republican presidential nominee “from engaging in core political speech, which is entitled to the highest level of protection under the First Amendment.” Merchan’s decision, which granted a Feb. 22 request by Bragg to restrict Trump’s speech about the case, came hours after Trump tore into the judge as a “Trump Hater” on social media. Trump in multiple Truth Social posts called on Merchan to recuse himself from the case, and roped the judge’s daughter into his attacks by pointing to her work for a Democratic consulting firm. The fusillade against Merchan came one day after the judge scheduled the trial to start April 15, rejecting a bid by Trump’s attorneys to delay it further. Trump, who was in court when Merchan delivered that decision, said at a press conference afterward that he would be willing to testify in the trial. Merchan’s gag order ruling Tuesday afternoon appeared to reference Trump’s remarks about his daughter. He noted “the nature and impact of the statements made against this Court and a family member thereof,” along with Trump’s remarks about witnesses such as Michael Cohen, his former attorney who is set to testify in the trial. “Given that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” the judge wrote. Merchan also noted in a footnote that Trump targeted a prosecutor in the case “within hours” of the April 15 trial date being set. Trump attorney Todd Blanche declined a request for comment. Trump is already bound by a gag order in a separate criminal case in Washington, D.C., federal court, where he is charged with illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. A federal appeals court in December upheld Trump’s challenge of that gag order, but narrowed it to allow him to speak about his prosecutor, special counsel Jack Smith. Trump also was under a gag order in his civil fraud case, in which he was found liable for fraudulently inflating his asset values on business records for financial gain. Bragg, in his own gag order request in late February, noted that Trump has a “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and court staff.” Trump’s attorneys argued in response that it would be “unconstitutional and unlawful to impose a prior restraint” on the First Amendment-protected speech of the leading presidential candidate. They instead said they would continue to comply with a judge’s admonition at the start of the case, cautioning Trump not to make statements that would prejudice the trial process. But Merchan in Tuesday’s order said he was “unpersuaded” by that proposal.
NYC legislators, COVID families rally in Albany for ‘baby bonds' to assist nearly 18K childrenTuesday March 26th, 2024 12:03:28 PM Linda GaudinoWhat to Know
New York legislators and families are speaking at the state’s capital on Tuesday, in support of “baby bonds” for those children who lost a parent or caregiver during the COVID-19 pandemic, marking four years since it ravaged the country. State Senator Jamaal Bailey (D-NY) and Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz (D-NY) introduced a bill in May 2023 called the New York Covid-19 Children’s Fund, a program that would establish savings accounts for those grieving children. The proposed legislation, currently sitting in committee in both houses of the state legislature, would set trust funds starting with $1,000 deposits for New York children who lost a guardian to COVID. The account would gain an additional $1,000 per year until the child turns 18. Bailey represents New York’s 36th district, which includes parts of the Bronx and Westchester. He says the grief these children face is everlasting, but if the bill passes, the assistance given will also act as a commitment from the state toward their well-being. “Though nothing can fill the void left by a parent, grandparent, or caregiver during the pivotal moments of a child’s life, this legislation is a way to show our young people that despite their unimaginable loss, we stand by them, we believe in them, and we’re committed to investing in their future,” Bailey told NBC New York. Once age 18, those eligible can access these publicly-funded savings accounts to afford qualified life expenses, such as college or starting a small business. In New York State alone, nearly 18,000 children have lost a primary or secondary caregiver to COVID, and in the tri-state area, the estimate is over 28,000 impacted, according to data by the Global Reference Group on Children Affected by COVID-19. Queens Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz represents one of the most diverse areas in the nation. She believes this potential financial investment would provide a safety net for an eligible child and plans to continue to push for the cause whether or not the bill passes this or next week given the upcoming state budget. “When you’re looking at what investments to make in the state budget, I think you really have to look at what are the principles. What are our core beliefs as a state and as legislators? I can’t find a more noble reason to be in Albany than to support children who lost a parent or caregiver during this pandemic,” Cruz told News 4 before the rally. Based on data from the National Institutes of Health, an estimated 216,000 children lost a co-residing caregiver to COVID-19 in the United States, while 77,000 lost a parent and 17,000 lost the only caregiver in the household. Black and Latino children were more than twice as likely to lose a caregiver over white children. Based on the NIH data, 70% of caregivers lost were those children of color under 14 years old. Veronica Fletcher, 49, is a Brooklyn widow whose husband, Joseph Trevor Fletcher, died from COVID-19 on the evening of April 11, 2020. Joseph Fletcher, an immigrant from Grenada, worked for the Metropolitan Transit Authority for over 17 years and left behind three children, Joshua, Zachary, and Madison. In February, State Senator Steve Rhoads (R-NY) and Assemblyman Michael Durso (R-NY) announced a separate COVID-related bill named after the late Brooklyn father, the “Joseph Fletcher Act.” This proposed legislation would amend the workers’ compensation law for essential workers relating to certain claims for benefits based on death due to COVID-19. “As we memorialize and heal, let us also take action and care for who remains, by supporting and passing ‘Baby Bonds,’ along with scholarships, a New York State memorial and the ‘Joseph Trevor Act’ for Workmans’ Compensation for our heroic fallen essential workers,” said Fletcher to News 4. The day of advocacy is led by the community group COVID Survivors for Change, founded by Queens resident Christopher Kocher, who noted a full schedule of over a dozen meetings with legislators, including with the chair of Government Operations. Other organizations like Elmhurst Hospital and the New York Immigration Coalition have supported the New York baby bonds for COVID orphans. Kocher foresees some obstacles to the bill’s passage, including an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality now toward the pandemic and securing the necessary budget to implement plans. According to Kocher, the anticipated funding amount, which ranges from $50 million to $150 million, depends on the actual number of eligible families. If the baby bonds are approved, New York would come second in the U.S. to California, which allocated $100 million in the state budget for the Hope, Opportunity, Perseverance, and Empowerment for Children Trust Account Fund. Check out NBC New York’s documentary, A Hidden Pandemic: More than a Number This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. picks Nicole Shanahan as his running mate for his independent White House bidTuesday March 26th, 2024 11:14:25 AM Jonathan J. Cooper | Associated PressRobert F. Kennedy Jr. chose Nicole Shanahan on Tuesday to be his vice presidential pick, adding a wealthy but nationally unknown figure to his independent White House bid that’s trying to appeal to voters disaffected by a rematch of the 2020 election. Shanahan, 38, is a California lawyer and philanthropist who’s never held elected office. She leads Bia-Echo Foundation, an organization she founded to direct money toward issues including women’s reproductive science, criminal justice reform and environmental causes. Kennedy, a former Democrat, made the announcement in Oakland, California, where Shanahan was raised in an impoverished family. “Nicole and I both left the Democratic Party,” he said. “Our values didn’t change. The Democratic Party did.” Kennedy’s campaign has spooked Democrats, who are fighting third-party options that could draw support from President Joe Biden and help former President Donald Trump. But allies for both Biden and Trump attacked Kennedy and Shanahan on Tuesday, reflecting the uncertainty about how Americans might respond to an independent ticket that has little chance of winning Electoral College votes but could draw votes across the spectrum. Without the backing of a party, Kennedy faces an arduous task to get on the ballot, with varying rules across the 50 states. He’s picking a running mate now because about half of the states require him to designate one before he can apply for ballot access. Kennedy has secured access to the ballot in Utah. He and an allied super PAC, American Values 2024, say they’ve collected enough signatures to qualify in several other states, including swing states Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, but election officials there have not yet signed off. In Nevada, Democratic Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said in a March 7 letter to independent candidates that they must nominate a vice presidential candidate before collecting signatures. The letter came days after Kennedy’s campaign announced he’d collected enough signatures in the state. Kennedy acknowledged the hurdles he faces and urged Americans to “take a risk” and vote for him, saying the biggest obstacle to his campaign is the belief that he can’t win. US & World“If Nicole and I can get Americans to refuse to vote from fear, we’re going to be in the White House in November,” he said. In a nearly 30-minute speech introducing herself to Kennedy supporters, Shanahan echoed the critique at the heart of Kennedy’s campaign — that both major parties, the media and the U.S. government are beholden to greedy profiteers. She also embraced his discredited anti-vaccine message. “It wasn’t until I met Bobby and people supporting him that I felt any hope in the outcome of this election,” Shanahan said. Formerly married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Shanahan is deeply enmeshed in the Silicon Valley technology culture that Kennedy frequently critiques. But he said her connections would help her confront the tech industry’s power and influence, and her knowledge of artificial intelligence could steer the government to nurture transformative technologies. Outside the performing arts venue where Kennedy announced his pick, broken-down cars, discarded bicycles, tents and all manner of household goods took up the sidewalk and a park, a visual reminder of the housing crisis that has plagued California. Dawn Mitchell, a 52-year-old retired Army reservist and U.S. Postal Service worker from Chesapeake, Virginia, said she was vacationing in Los Angeles when she heard Kennedy would be appearing in Oakland and decided to make the six-hour drive to hear him and Shanahan. “I didn’t really know her before, but just listening to her and listening to her passion about helping children and the chronic disease epidemic and regenerative farming, I’m pretty impressed by her,” she said. Speakers who entertained the crowd before Kennedy took the stage included Angela Stanton-King, a woman pardoned by then-President Donald Trump for her role in a car theft ring that led to a 2004 federal conspiracy conviction and two years in prison; Metta World Peace, the NBA all-star player formerly known as Ron Artest; and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford Medical School professor who questioned the efficacy of lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and was part of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential launch event last year. The Democratic National Committee is gearing up to take on Kennedy and other third-party options, including No Labels, a well-funded group working to recruit a centrist ticket. The effort is overseen by veteran strategist Mary Beth Cahill, whose resume includes chief of staff to the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, another of RFK Jr.’s uncles. Some members of his family have publicly criticized his views. Dozens of Kennedy family members sent a message when they posed with Biden at a St. Patrick’s Day reception at the White House in a photo his sister Kerry Kennedy posted to social media. “He’s a spoiler. He’s tried to coast on his family legacy and the goodwill they have in the African American community,” Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis said of Kennedy on a conference call with reporters organized by the DNC. “But the Kennedy family has denounced this lame attempt and they’ve quite frankly stood with President Biden.” Republicans, likewise, worry Kennedy’s anti-establishment bent and skepticism about the response to COVID-19 could entice voters who might otherwise vote for Trump. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a far-left radical that supports reparations, backs the Green New Deal, and wants to ban fracking,” said Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. “It’s no surprise he would pick a Biden donor leftist as his running mate.” Kennedy is a descendant of a storied Democratic family that includes his father, Robert F. Kennedy, who was a U.S. senator, attorney general and presidential candidate, and his uncle former President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was a teenager when his father, known as RFK, was assassinated during his own presidential campaign in 1968. RFK Jr. built a reputation of his own as an activist, author and lawyer who fought for environmental causes such as clean water. Along the way, his activism has veered into conspiracies and contradicted scientific consensus, most infamously on vaccines. An anti-vaccine group Kennedy led has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit. . UK court says Assange can't be extradited on espionage charges until US rules out death penaltyTuesday March 26th, 2024 10:33:05 AM Sylvia Hui and Jill Lawless | Associated PressA British court ruled Tuesday that Julian Assange can’t be extradited to the United States on espionage charges unless U.S. authorities guarantee he won’t get the death penalty, giving the WikiLeaks founder a partial victory in his long legal battle over the site’s publication of classified American documents. Two High Court judges said they would grant Assange a new appeal unless U.S. authorities give further assurances within three weeks about what will happen to him. The ruling means the legal saga, which has dragged on for more than a decade, will continue — and Assange will remain inside London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he has spent the last five years. Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson said the U.S. must guarantee that Assange, who is Australian, “is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed.” The judges said that if the U.S. files new assurances, “we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal.” The judges said a hearing will be held May 20 if the U.S. makes those submissions. US & WorldAssange’s supporters say he is a journalist protected by the First Amendment who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan that was in the public interest. They have argued his prosecution is politically motivated and he can’t get a fair trial in the U.S. Assange’s wife Stella Assange said the WikiLeaks founder “is being persecuted because he exposed the true cost of war in human lives.” “The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case, which should never have been brought,” she said outside the High Court in London. The ruling follows a two-day hearing in the High Court in February, where Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said American authorities were seeking to punish him for WikiLeaks’ “exposure of criminality on the part of the U.S. government on an unprecedented scale,” including torture and killings. The U.S. government said Assange’s actions went beyond journalism by soliciting, stealing and indiscriminately publishing classified government documents that endangered innocent lives. The judges rejected six of Assange’s nine grounds of appeal, including the allegation that his prosecution is political. They said that while Assange “acted out of political conviction … it does not follow however that the request for his extradition is made on account of his political views.” They accepted three grounds or appeal: the threat to Assange’s freedom of speech, Assange’s claim that he faces disadvantage because he is not a U.S. citizen, and the risk he could receive the death penalty. U.S. authorities have promised Assange would not receive capital punishment, but the judges said that “nothing in the existing assurance explicitly prevents the imposition of the death penalty.” Assange, 52, an Australian computer expert, has been indicted in the U.S. on charges over Wikileaks’ publication in 2010 of hundreds of thousands of classified documents. U.S. prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the NewsAssange faces 17 espionage counts and one charge of computer misuse. If convicted, his lawyers say he could receive a prison term of up to 175 years, though American authorities have said any sentence is likely to be much lower. Assange’s wife and supporters say his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles, including seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and the last five years in prison. Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. In 2012, Assange jumped bail and sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police immediately arrested and imprisoned him for breaching bail in 2012. Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed. A U.K. district court judge rejected the U.S. extradition requestin 2021 on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. Higher courts overturned that decision after getting assurances from the U.S. about his treatment. The British government signed an extradition order in June 2022. Associated Press writer Brian Melley contributed to this report. Some Republicans who supported Nikki Haley are still refusing to back Donald TrumpTuesday March 26th, 2024 09:28:16 AM Thomas Beaumont and Meg Kinnard | The Associated PressNow that Nikki Haley has shuttered her presidential campaign, one person who voted for her refuses to back former President Donald Trump and plans to reluctantly vote for President Joe Biden. Another Haley primary supporter acknowledges that he was probably always a “closet Trump fan” and will vote for the former president again in November. The former U.N. ambassador’s base was never big enough to seriously challenge Trump before he clinched a third straight Republican nomination. But in what’s shaping up to be a tight rematch between Trump and Biden, the apparent splintering of Haley’s voters and donors could hurt Trump’s general election chances, particularly in battleground states full of suburban voters who remain dubious of a Trump return to the White House. For now, interviews with Haley’s supporters suggest they could go in a variety of directions — some backing Trump, some going to Biden and others seeking third-party options or avoiding making a decision about the presidential race yet. Haley has not spoken publicly since leaving the race and urging Trump to reach out to all Republicans. She has not endorsed Trump and suggested she may not at all. “She said it’s up to him to earn the support of those who supported her, and he’s got to earn it,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a longtime GOP donor who was Haley’s Georgia campaign’s co-chairman. “Right now, I’m definitely not there. It tells me there are things that are still up in the air among other key Haley donors waiting for a sign.” The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Glenn Swanson caucused for Haley after seeing her campaign in his hometown of Cedar Falls, Iowa. At the time, the retired architect said he was open to a Trump alternative. Now, he’s coming back to the candidate he supported in both 2016 and 2020, despite his concerns about the four felony indictments and other civil cases facing Trump. “For sure I’m going to vote for Trump,” Swanson said in an interview. “In a sense I was kind of a closet Trump fan all along, but I really wanted to see if somebody else would emerge to get away from some of the drama.” John Wynstra, a database administrator who attended that same event, had been deciding between Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before choosing to caucus for her. Wynstra said he’s strategically supporting Trump and the party’s platform — as a stance primarily against Biden — although he seemingly left the door open to possibly supporting a third-party candidate like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I will vote against Joe Biden and the Democrats,” Wynstra said this week. “If Kennedy were viable and if his positions were palatable, I would consider him.” In Haley’s home state of South Carolina, high school teacher Michael Burgess said that save an unlikely independent run by Haley or a moderate like former Rep. Liz Cheney, he would be supporting Biden and criticized Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. “I will reluctantly vote Biden,” Burgess said. “We can survive bad policy, but we cannot survive the destruction of the Constitution at the hands of a morally bankrupt dictator lover in Trump who, supported by his congressional MAGA minions, would do just that.” Like many who were drawn to Haley, Tanenblatt, who was her Georgia campaign’s co-chairman, became disenchanted with Trump for what he called “inflammatory rhetoric,” chiefly in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the Capitol. But he also says Trump’s opposition to military aid to Ukraine is a fundamental policy difference. Tanenblatt has talked individually with former Haley supporters weighing a role with No Labels, the third-party group that is moving forward with attempting a unity ticket of opposing party presidential and vice-presidential nominees. By and large, Haley’s donors have paused, with key bundlers noting they have not heard from Trump’s team as well as their reluctance to make any decisions. “I really think there’s a period of recalibrating for a number of us who were very involved in Nikki’s campaign. This was a calling, something bigger than any one of us,” said Simone Levinson, a Florida-based Haley fundraiser who hosted events for her in New York and Florida. Those donors could be helpful to Trump were they to come to the former president’s side. For now, Trump and national Republicans are lagging far behind Biden and national Democrats in fundraising, with Trump’s campaign and allied groups holding $37 million cash on hand at the end of February compared to the $155 million in Democratic coffers. In one sign of her influence going forward, Haley ended last month with $11.5 million, just days before she suspended her campaign. That’s slightly more than the Republican National Committee at $11.3 million. Tennessee Republican sued over post falsely identifying Kansas man as Chiefs parade shooter and ‘illegal alien'Tuesday March 26th, 2024 12:37:12 AM Zoë Richards | NBC NewsA Kansas man is suing Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., over social media posts that falsely identified him as an undocumented immigrant and one of the shooters in the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade that turned deadly last month, according to NBC News. The lawsuit, filed by attorneys for Denton Loudermill Jr. in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, alleges that Loudermill sustained damages in excess of $75,000 as a result of a “false representation” of him appearing on the Tennessee Republican’s personal X account. “At no time was Plaintiff an ‘alien,’ an ‘illegal alien,’ nor a ‘shooter’ and the assertions to the contrary were false and were circulated widely among Defendant’s followers,” the lawsuit states. Burchett in February posted an image of Loudermill on X, identifying him as “one of the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade shooters” and “an illegal Alien.” According to the lawsuit, that post was live on Feb. 15 and reposted more than 21,000 times and had 7.2 million views by the morning of Feb. 18. Burchett then removed the post, indicating in a new one that he had misidentified Loudermill as an undocumented immigrant, while still suggesting that Loudermill was “one of the shooters.” Citing Loudermill’s mental distress and death threats he has received following the posts, the lawsuit seeks a trial by jury and damages for spreading falsehoods under a Kansas privacy law. A spokesperson for Burchett did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night. An attorney for Loudermill declined to comment when asked whether they were seeking a specific dollar amount in damages. Federal courts require cases seeking damages between people in different states, such as this one, to exceed $75,000. Loudermill is a resident of Olathe, Kansas, according to the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, Loudermill had attended the Chiefs’ victory parade in Kansas City on Feb. 14 and was photographed by bystanders in handcuffs after he got caught in the fray as police began closing off the area after gunshots were fired. Although he was released and not cited or charged with a crime, the lawsuit states, his image began circulating on social media, eventually landing on Burchett’s page. Two men identified by prosecutors as Dominic M. Miller of Kansas City and Lyndell Mays of Raytown were charged last month with second-degree murder, armed criminal action, and unlawful use of a weapon in the shooting last month that killed one woman and injured more than 20 others. A third person, Terry J. Young, was charged in connection with the shooting on Friday. No pleas have been entered yet. Three juveniles as of Thursday afternoon faced charges in family court, according to prosecutors. Burchett is among the Republicans who have targeted immigration ahead of this year’s election, with former President Donald Trump making claims of a migrant-driven crime wave in the United States that is not backed by evidence. Burchett represents Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes Knoxville. He took office in January 2019 after an eight-year stint as Knox County mayor and working as a state legislator. He is seeking re-election this year after winning in 2022 with 67.9% of the vote. This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: The DOJ is investigating dozens of threats against election workersMonday March 25th, 2024 08:52:24 PM Jane C. Timm | NBC NewsThe Department of Justice is investigating dozens of threats made to election workers, federal officials said Monday, and has charged 20 individuals so far. “These are the first responders of democracy and we will continue to investigate and prosecute those who would threaten to do them harm,” said Gary Restaino, U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, at a press conference highlighting the recent convictions. Thirteen of the 20 charged individuals have been convicted. Of the ten who have been sentenced already, seven have received prison sentences of more than 18 months, “signaling how serious federal courts are taking this conduct,” said John Keller, a DOJ official who leads day-to-day operations of the agency’s Election Threats Task Force. “This new era in which the election community is scapegoated, targeted, and attacked, is unconscionable and in addition to the obvious toll taken on individual victims, risks depleting the ranks of experienced election officials vital to the effective administration of our elections,” said Keller, whose task force helps local officials proactively search for, investigate and prosecute threats to election workers. Two of the convicted individuals were sentenced in March for making threats against former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who is now the state’s governor. Joshua Russell, an Ohio man, was sentenced Monday to 2.5 years in prison for leaving threatening voicemails with Hobbs office. According to federal authorities, Russell said in a 2022 voicemail to Hobbs that “you have a few short months to see yourself behind bars, or we will see you to the grave. You are a traitor to this nation, and you will suffer the [expletive] consequences.” James Clark, a Massachusetts man, was convicted for making a bomb threat against Hobbs in 2021 that triggered a partial evacuation. Clark later conducted online searches about the Boston Marathon bombing, Restaino said. He was sentenced earlier this month to 42 months in prison. Arizona was the epicenter of the stolen election claims in 2020, which were fueled by Donald Trump’s narrow loss in the state. Trump has claimed for years he won the election, though dozens of lawsuits, investigations, and reviews have found no evidence supporting his claim. Most threats reviewed by the FBI are not criminally actionable, officials said Monday, though they noted that every single reported communication is reviewed. To reach the level of a crime, Restaino said, a communication must include a “serious expression that a speaker means to commit an act of violence.” This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here: Trump's social media company to start trading on the Nasdaq on TuesdayMonday March 25th, 2024 04:21:05 PM The Associated PressTrump Media & Technology Group, whose flagship product is social networking site Truth Social, will begin trading on the Nasdaq stock market on Tuesday. Shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded shell company, approved a deal to merge with the Trump’s media business in a Friday vote. Shares of Digital World have been volatile. On Friday the stock slumped 13.7% after the merger was approved. In afternoon trading Monday soared 22% to $45.40. Former President Donald Trump is set to own most of the combined company — or nearly 79 million shares. Multiply that by Digital World’s closing stock price Friday of $36.94, and the total value of his stake could be nearly $3 billion. Trump won’t be able to cash out his stake in the Palm Beach, Florida-based company immediately, unless the company’s board makes changes to a “lock-up” provision that prevents company insiders from selling newly issued shares for six months. The former president was in New York Monday attending a hearing on his criminal hush money case. Elsewhere, a New York appeals court reduced his $454 million civil fraud judgment to $175 million if he puts up that amount within 10 days. Truth Social launched in February 2022, one year after Trump was banned from major social platforms including Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He’s since been reinstated to both but has stuck with Truth Social. Trump has promoted Truth Social on the platform itself — on Friday he posted “I love Truth Social.” Trump Media hasn’t so far disclosed Truth Social’s user numbers but now that the company is publicly traded, more information will be disclosed. Research firm Similarweb estimates that it had roughly 5 million active mobile and web users in February. That’s far below TikTok’s more than 2 billion and Facebook’s 3 billion — but still higher than other “alt-tech” rivals like Parler, which has been offline for nearly a year but is planning a comeback, or Gettr, which had less than 2 million visitors in February. Trump Media lost $49 million in the first nine months of last year, when it brought in just $3.4 million in revenue and had to pay $37.7 million in interest expenses. The common stock of Trump Media & Technology Group will trade under the ticker symbol “DJT.” Florida's DeSantis signs one of the country's most restrictive social media bans for minorsMonday March 25th, 2024 04:03:16 PM Brendan Farrington | Associated PressFlorida will have one of the country’s most restrictive social media bans for minors — if it withstands expected legal challenges — under a bill signed by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday. The bill will ban social media accounts for children under 14 and require parental permission for 15- and 16-year-olds. It was slightly watered down from a proposal DeSantis vetoed earlier this month, a week before the annual legislative session ended. The new law was Republican Speaker Paul Renner’s top legislative priority. It takes effect Jan. 1. “A child in their brain development doesn’t have the ability to know that they’re being sucked into these addictive technologies and to see the harm and step away from it, and because of that we have to step in for them,” Renner said at the bill-signing ceremony held at a Jacksonville school. The bill DeSantis vetoed would have banned minors under 16 from popular social media platforms regardless of parental consent. But before the veto, he worked out compromise language with Renner to alleviate the governor’s concerns and the Legislature sent DeSantis a second bill. Several states have considered similar legislation. In Arkansas, a federal judge blocked enforcement of a law in August that required parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts. Supporters in Florida hope the bill will withstand legal challenges because it would ban social media formats based on addictive features such as notification alerts and auto-play videos, rather than on their content. Renner said he expects social media companies to “sue the second after this is signed. But you know what? We’re going to beat them. We’re going to beat them and we’re never, ever going to stop.” More:DeSantis also acknowledged the law will be challenged on First Amendment issues, and bemoaned the fact the “Stop Woke Act” he signed into law two years ago was recently struck down by an appeals court with a majority of Republican-appointed judges. They ruled it violated free speech rights by banning private business from including discussions about racial inequality in employee training. “Any time I see a bill, if I don’t think it’s constitutional, I veto it,” said DeSantis, a lawyer, expressing confidence that the social media ban will be upheld. “We not only satisfied me, but we also satisfied, I think, a fair application of the law and Constitution.” The bill overwhelmingly passed both chambers, with some Democrats joining a majority of Republicans who supported the measure. Opponents argued it is unconstitutional and government shouldn’t interfere with decisions parents make with their children. “This bill goes too far in taking away parents’ rights,” Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani said in a news release. “Instead of banning social media access, it would be better to ensure improved parental oversight tools, improved access to data to stop bad actors, alongside major investments in Florida’s mental health systems and programs.” New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy suspends her Senate campaign to replace indicted Sen. MenendezSunday March 24th, 2024 04:17:16 PM The Associated PressNew Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy has suspended her U.S. Senate campaign to replace Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez as he faces federal corruption charges. Murphy announced her decision in a video posted to her social media on Sunday. “New Jersey’s next senator must focus on the issues of our time and not be mired in tearing others down while dividing the people of our party and state,” she said. Her decision to drop out likely clears the way for U.S. Rep. Andy Kim in the Democratic primary on June 4. Menendez announced that he would not run in that primary but did not rule out seeking reelection as an independent as he faces federal corruption charges. Murphy, a first-time candidate, was running with the backing of influential Democratic figures. Kim, a three-term congressman, has centered his campaign in part on upending the state’s unique ballot design, widely viewed as favoring candidates preferred by county party insiders. The stakes are high, with Democrats competing to hold on to their narrow control of the Senate. Republicans have their own primary unfolding, featuring businessman Curtis Bashaw, Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner and former TV news reporter Alex Zdan. Menendez vehemently denies allegations that he and his wife accepted bribes of gold bars, cash and a luxury car from three favor-seeking New Jersey businessmen. The couple is scheduled to go on trial in May. This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. This Gen Z Democrat quit his job protecting elections to run against a fake electorSaturday March 23rd, 2024 03:36:10 PM Jane C. Timm and Sakshi Venkatraman | NBC NewsAshwin Ramaswami spent the last three years working for the federal government to protect elections from hackers. Now, he says to NBC News he is targeting what he says is a greater threat to democracy: his state senator. Ramaswami, a 24-year-old Democrat, is challenging Georgia state Sen. Shawn Still, a Republican who was indicted last year alongside former President Donald Trump for allegedly trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. That same year, Ramaswami started an internship with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), where he worked to build a program that helped local election officials protect their websites from malicious attacks. Ramaswami, who was a student at Stanford University at the time but had moved home to Johns Creek, Georgia, because of the pandemic, continued his work as a paid, part-time employee with CISA while continuing his undergraduate studies and later attending law school at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. After Still was indicted, Ramaswami said he decided to quit that job and run for office. “What I realized is cybersecurity is really important, and we need to continue doing it, but the biggest threat to our election security — it’s not just hackers hacking into our systems. It’s politicians falsely claiming that the election is rigged when it’s not,” Ramaswami said in an interview. Two years before being elected to the state Senate, Still signed a certificate claiming to be a “duly elected and qualified” presidential elector in Georgia on behalf of then-President Trump, even though Trump had lost the state in the 2020 election. Still, who also reportedly served as the secretary for the meeting of fake electors, was indicted last year on seven charges, including a racketeering charge. He has pleaded not guilty. Democrats are hopeful the suburban Atlanta district is competitive in part due to its fast-growing Asian community, though Still won it by 13 points in 2022. Ramaswami, who will be the legally required age of 25 by November’s general election, said he believes he’d be the youngest Indian American legislator in the U.S. and the youngest senator in Georgia’s Legislature next year if elected. He lives with his parents in Johns Creek and is still finishing up his law school studies while running his campaign. He plans to delay the bar a year until after the race is over. “It’s what Chuck Schumer did,” Ramaswami wrote in a text, referring to the U.S. Senate majority leader and including a 26-year-old New York Times article as proof. Ramaswami’s campaign has raised $185,000 so far, including $50,000 from his own pocket. He is touting his youth and computer science background as assets that would make him a unique member of the Legislature. His age also helped him earn the endorsement of Leaders We Deserve, a PAC backing young progressive candidates that was co-founded by Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg and Kevin Lata, the campaign manager for the first Gen Z member of Congress, Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla. “We thought it was just that he was a great candidate with an amazing story,” Hogg told NBC News. As the only Democratic candidate on the primary ballot, Ramaswami is already turning his focus to the general election. He launched a digital video on Wednesday introducing himself as a Gen Z engineer and accusing Still of trying to steal Georgians’ votes. “We have too much work to do to be distracted by these election deniers and partisan extremists standing in the way of all the progress we could be making,” he said in the video. In an email, Still disagreed that he is extreme and touted his efforts to lower taxes and enact school choice in his first term. “Every bill I have sponsored or co-authored has had bi-partisan support. I do not have a divisive platform, and I have served the people of north Fulton, south Forsyth and NW Gwinnett by promoting a pro-business, pro-family, pro-education platform that earned recognition as the Georgia Chamber Freshman Legislator of the Year,” Still wrote. He continued: “My message to voters is this: Experience matters. I’ve signed the front and back of paychecks, I know what it is to grow businesses, to be a parent, to be a leader in my community and industry, and I have given back tirelessly to my community [for] 25 years.” Ramaswami said he believes he can better represent his district’s growing Asian population. He is a second-generation immigrant who grew up in a South Indian Tamil family and spent time in his town’s Indian community centers, temples and Hindu Sunday schools. Still did not respond to questions about how his policies cater to the Asian community in his district, the largest ethnic group there after white people. Between 2010 and 2022, the population of Asians in the 48th Senate District jumped from 16% to 28%. “I was born and grew up here, and I know how the policies of the past few years and decades have not served people like me,” Ramaswami said. “Shawn Still shows up to a lot of Indian American events. On his website, he has a big picture of him with a bunch of Indian aunties and uncles saying, ‘Hey, I support the Indian community.’ … But in terms of the actual policies, he’s not serving our priorities at all.” This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:
Missouri and Louisiana will hold presidential primaries on Saturday. Their outcome is not in doubtSaturday March 23rd, 2024 02:18:18 PM Associated PressMissouri and Louisiana will hold presidential primaries Saturday, offering President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump more chances to collect delegates. Biden will appear in the Democratic primary in both states. Republicans will vote only in Louisiana as the Missouri GOP already held caucuses on March 2. None of the races will offer suspense. Biden and Trump have already clinched their party nominations and beaten their major competitors. But the primary races are still closely watched by insiders for turnout and signs of protest voters. For Biden, some liberals are registering their anger with Israel’s war against Hamas following the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack. More than 30,000 people, two-thirds of them women and children, have been reported killed by Gaza authorities since Israel launched its offensive. A protest movement launched by Arab American communities in Michigan has spread to several other states. Trump is his party’s dominant figure and has locked up a third straight Republican nomination. But he faces dissent from people worried about the immense legal jeopardy he faces or critical of his White House term, which ended shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection mounted by his supporters and fueled by his false theories of election fraud. Saturday’s primary will be the Missouri Democratic Party’s first party-run presidential contest since a new law took effect in August 2022. Louisiana’s primaries, meanwhile, come almost four years after the state was the first to postpone its primaries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden signs $1.2 trillion funding package after Senate's early-morning passage ended shutdown threatSaturday March 23rd, 2024 01:21:04 PM Colleen Long, Kevin Freking, Mary Clare Jalonick | Associated PressPresident Joe Biden on Saturday signed a $1.2 trillion package of spending bills after Congress had passed the long overdue legislation just hours earlier, ending the threat of a partial government shutdown. The White House said Biden signed the legislation at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was spending the weekend. It had cleared the Senate by a 74-24 vote shortly after funding had expired for the agencies at midnight. But the White House had sent out a notice shortly after the deadline announcing that the Office of Management and Budget had ceased shutdown preparations because there was a high degree of confidence that Congress would pass the legislation and the president would sign it Saturday. It took lawmakers six months into the current budget year to get near the finish line on government funding, the process slowed by conservatives who pushed for more policy mandates and steeper spending cuts than a Democratic-led Senate or White House would consider. The impasse required several short-term spending bills to keep agencies funded. The first package of full-year spending bills, which funded the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and the Interior, among others, cleared Congress two weeks ago with just hours to spare before funding expired for those agencies. The second covered the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and State, as well as other aspects of general government. When combining the two packages, discretionary spending for the budget year will come to about $1.66 trillion. That does not include programs such as Social Security and Medicare, or financing the country’s rising debt. On Ukraine aid, which Biden and his administration have argued was critical and necessary to help stop Russia’s invasion, the package provided $300 million under the defense spending umbrella. That funding is separate from a large assistance package for Ukraine and Israel that is bogged down on Capitol Hill. To win over support from Republicans, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pointed to some of the spending increases secured for about 8,000 more detention beds for migrants awaiting their immigration proceedings or removal from the country. That’s about a 24% increase from current levels. Also, GOP leadership highlighted more money to hire about 2,000 Border Patrol agents. Democrats are boasting of a $1 billion increase for Head Start programs and new child care centers for military families. They also played up a $120 million increase in funding for cancer research and a $100 million increase for Alzheimer’s research. The spending package largely tracks with an agreement that then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California worked out with the White House in May 2023, which restricted spending for two years and suspended the debt ceiling into January 2025 so the federal government could continue paying its bills. Prospects for a short-term government shutdown had appeared to grow Friday evening after Republicans and Democrats battled over proposed amendments to the bill. But shortly before midnight, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced a breakthrough. “It is good for the country that we have reached this bipartisan deal. It wasn’t easy, but tonight our persistence has been worth it,” Schumer said. The House passed the legislation Friday morning by a vote of 286-134, narrowly gaining the two-thirds majority needed for approval. The vote tally in the House reflected anger among Republicans over the content of the package and the speed with which it was brought to a vote. Johnson brought the measure to the floor even though a majority of Republicans ended up voting against it. He said afterward that the bill “represents the best achievable outcome in a divided government.” In sign of the conservative frustration, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., initiated an effort to oust Johnson as the House began the vote but held off on further action until the House returns in two weeks. It’s the same tool that was used last year to remove McCarthy. The vote breakdown showed 101 Republicans voting for the bill and 112 voting against it. Meanwhile, 185 Democrats voted for the bill and 22 against. ___ Freking and Jalonick reported from Washington. AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report. Senate passes $1.2 trillion government funding bill, sending it to BidenSaturday March 23rd, 2024 12:13:11 AM Sahil Kapur, Frank Thorp V and Kate Santaliz | NBC NewsThe Senate voted 74-24 early Saturday morning to pass a sweeping $1.2 trillion government funding bill after heated last-minute negotiations caused senators to breach the midnight deadline to avert a shutdown. But the funding lapse was brief and technical, having no meaningful impact as the White House said it has “ceased shutdown preparations” due to a Senate agreement, which came after Republicans demanded votes on a series of amendments. The legislation, which passed the House on Friday morning by a vote of 268-134, now goes to President Joe Biden, who has said he’ll sign it into law. It completes a turbulent government funding process during the divided government, featuring a year of haggling, six months of stopgap bills and intense partisan clashes over money and policy along the way. Once Biden signs the package into law, the full government will be funded through the end of September, after Congress passed a previous $459 billion tranche of money earlier this month. The total spending level for the fiscal year is $1.659 trillion. “Nothing’s easy these days,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told NBC News after midnight while the Senate was voting, but said it was significant for Congress to pass all 12 appropriations bills in a year. “Given the dysfunction of the House and slim majorities here you know, there’s something to be said for the fact that we finally got this done,” Murphy said. The new tranche will fund the departments of State, Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, among other parts of the government that had not yet been fully funded. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said it was “typical” and “juvenile” for the Senate to wait until the 11th hour to act on the bill. Earlier on Friday, the Senate indicated it has sufficient support to get the bill across the finish line following a 78-18 procedural vote that advanced the measure. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced just before the deadline that both parties had reached an agreement to vote on multiple amendments and then final passage of the bill early Saturday morning. “It’s been a very long and difficult day, but we have just reached an agreement to complete the job of funding the government,” Schumer announced on the Senate floor just before midnight. “It is good for the country that we have reached this bipartisan deal.” The divided Congress has narrowly averted multiple shutdowns this session, passing four stopgap bills that kept extending the deadline. And at nearly six months into the fiscal year, it’s unusually late in the game to be haggling over the funding measures. The latest bill was released Thursday and passed by the House on Friday morning, leaving little time for the Senate to act. For a while, those talks appeared to fall apart mid-day Friday, with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., arguing the agreement was scuttled by vulnerable Democrats in key Senate races, claiming they don’t want to have to vote on amendments that could be used against them in their re-election campaigns. “The bottom line is Democratic senators running for re-election are scared to vote on amendments,” Cotton told reporters, adding without providing evidence: “Jon Tester has said that he would rather have the government shutdown and vote on Sunday night then vote on these amendments for you.” But Tester, a Democrat who is in a tight re-election race in the red state of Montana that could determine the Senate majority, fired back, telling NBC News, “That’s bulls—.” The back and forth came to a head when the two senators were talking to different groups of reporters just feet away from each other off the Senate floor. “Did Cotton say that they’re holding amendments because of Jon Tester?” Tester yelled at Cotton during the exchange. “Because if he did, he might be full of something that comes off the back of a cow.” Senators were frustrated by the fact that Congress was able to repeatedly avert funding lapses during this fiscal year alone, but struggled to do so on the final one of this fiscal year. “It makes me ill,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in an interview, adding that she felt “like I’ve had too much sugar and bad pizza” after Senate Republicans were served those items for lunch. “If we had had salmon, we would have been thinking because it’s like we’ve all those fine omega 3s,” she said. “We’re just like — we’re a mess of a candy pizza muddle, we’re operating like teenage boys.” This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here: Trump says he has nearly $500M in cash but doesn't want to use it to pay NY fraud judgmentFriday March 22nd, 2024 04:12:44 PM Michael R. SisakDonald Trump claimed on Friday to have almost a half-billion dollars in cash but said he’d rather spend it on his presidential run than on the $454 million civil fraud judgment against him in New York. The former president vowed to fight the verdict “all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary” as the state gears up to potentially seize some of his assets if he doesn’t pay the hefty tab. Trump has been trying to get a state appeals court to excuse him from a requirement that he provide financial guarantees showing he’s good for the money while he appeals the staggering verdict. He didn’t provide any documentation for his cash claim, and his lawyers have suggested it’s not feasible to tie up so much cash on a bond while also keeping his businesses running and meeting other obligations. A Manhattan judge in February found that Trump repeatedly lied about his wealth on financial statements given to banks and others to secure loans and make deals. The judge ordered him to give up profits from certain real estate deals and money he saved by obtaining lower interest rates on loans. Trump denies that he tried to deceive anyone. As recently as Thursday, Trump’s lawyers reiterated in court filings that they were having difficulty obtaining a bond covering the judgment because underwriters insisted on cash, stocks or other liquid assets instead of real estate as collateral. More than 30 bonding companies rejected their entreaties, they said. Trump’s lawyers asked the state’s intermediate appeals court to reverse a prior ruling requiring that he post a bond covering the full amount to halt enforcement. New York Attorney General Letitia James has fought Trump’s request, urging the appeals court to require the full amount to ensure the state can easily access the money if the verdict is upheld. To obtain a bond, Trump’s lawyers said he would likely have to put up 120% of the judgment, or more than $557 million. The appeals court has yet to rule. “I’ll fight this all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary,” Trump told Fox News Channel on Friday. Mischaracterizing the law, he added: “They can’t take away your property before you’ve had a chance to appeal.” Because the fraud case was tried in state court, Trump would likely have to exhaust the state appeals process first or ask a federal court to take up the case, which is rare, to even have a chance bring his fight to the U.S. Supreme Court. A litigant who loses in a federal appeals court or in a state’s high court — in New York, called the Court of Appeals — may then file a petition for a writ of certiorari, which is a document asking the Supreme Court to review the case. Contrary to Trump’s claim, seizing assets is a common legal tactic when someone can’t access enough cash to cover a civil penalty, even while an appeal is pending. Appealing doesn’t, in itself, halt collection. Barring court intervention, James would be well within her legal rights to initiate seizure of Trump’s property if he doesn’t pay. In a post Friday on his Truth Social platform, Trump suggested he had enough cash to at least cover the judgment in full — but didn’t think he should have to spend it that way. “Through hard work, talent, and luck, I currently have almost five hundred million dollars in cash,” he wrote in all caps, adding that he had planned to use “a substantial amount” on his presidential campaign. Trump, a Republican, has never before suggested that he would contribute to his own 2024 campaign and has been soliciting contributions from outside donors since before he left the White House. When he ran in 2016, Trump repeatedly claimed that he was self-funding his campaign, even though he relied on donor funds. “I don’t need anybody’s money,” he said in his announcement speech in 2015. “I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists, I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.” In the end, Trump ended up spending about $66 million of his own cash in loans and contributions on that race — far less than the $100 million he frequently promised. Whether Trump actually has nearly $500 million in cash, as he claimed, could become the subject of a future court battle over his assets. James, a Democrat, could start efforts to collect on the legal judgment she won against Trump as soon as Monday unless an appeals court intervenes. James has said she is prepared to seek to seize some of Trump’s assets, though it wasn’t clear how quickly that might unfold. Her office has declined to comment on its plans. Last April, Trump testified in a deposition in the civil fraud case that he had “substantially in excess of 400 million in cash,” but that was before he sold his rights to manage a New York City golf course to casino operator Bally’s for $60 million. Prior to that, on a June 30, 2021, financial statement, Trump reported having $293.8 million in cash and cash equivalents and an overall net worth of $4.5 billion. Trump’s substantial personal wealth likely grew even more Friday when shareholders of a publicly traded shell company approved a deal to merge with his media business, which operates the social networking site Truth Social. Based on Thursday’s stock price, Trump’s stake in the company could be worth more than $3 billion, though rules could potentially prevent him from selling newly issued shares for at least six months. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene files motion to oust Speaker Mike JohnsonFriday March 22nd, 2024 01:07:42 PM Lisa Mascaro, Farnoush Amiri and Stephen Groves | Associated PressSpeaker Mike Johnson is at risk of being ousted after hard-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate Friday, his leadership abruptly challenged in the middle of a House vote on a $1.2 trillion package to keep the government open. It’s the same political dynamic that removed the last Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, just five months ago when far-right conservatives revolted over his compromise with Democrats to prevent a federal shutdown. But this one faces steeper odds, with less public GOP support, at the moment. As the House left town for a two-week spring recess, with no imminent vote scheduled on removing the speaker, the punishing threat hangs over Johnson, of Louisiana, as the far-right flank once again seizes on the tactic, a disruptive tool used to make demands and leverage their own priorities. “We’ve started the clock to start the process to elect a new speaker,” the Georgia congresswoman said on the Capitol steps. Greene, a leading ally of the Republicans’ presumed 2024 presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, declined to put a timetable on her next move, but said she was issuing a “warning” to Johnson for the weeks ahead. Whether the Republicans march forward with plans to be rid of another House speaker, the upshot is clear: The House GOP is operating as a majority in name only, the speaker unable to deliver Republican votes, particularly on the core issue of government funding, and forced into what used to be acceptable compromises with Democrats. Time and again, it is Democrats in this session of Congress who have delivered the tally needed to carry on with the basics of governing — as seen in Friday’s 286-134 vote to prevent a midnight shutdown. More than half the House Republicans voted no. While conservative Republicans routinely demand steep spending cuts, willing to shut down government to make changes, their own colleagues reject that approach, and the big reductions in government programs and services that are important to constituents back home. In fact, the $1.2 trillion package approved Friday was the final component of the deal McCarthy negotiated with President Joe Biden a year ago in a compromise with Democrats, and that ultimately led to his downfall as speaker — and now threatens Johnson. The day’s turn of events leaves Johnson’s leadership teetering — particularly as he moves next to a Ukraine funding package that far-right Republicans oppose. Johnson brushed off the threat of removal heading into Friday’s vote. “I don’t operate from fear,” he said. No speaker had been removed this way until McCarthy’s dramatic ouster last fall, a swift, stunning and chaotic episode that essentially shuttered the House chamber for weeks as Republicans searched for a new speaker. Many Republicans in Congress were embarrassed by the spectacle of McCarthy’s removal as speaker, which exposed deep party divisions and infighting that left their new majority, in office since January, unable to fully function on priorities. Others showed little interest in signing on to Greene’s motion against Johnson. Rep. Clay Higgins, an ultraconservative Republican from Louisiana, posted a video calling Greene a friend but saying, “Marjorie has made a big mistake.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday she was not going to address what’s happening with the House leadership. “Get your popcorn, sit tight and watch what’s happening” she said. With the most narrow majority in modern times, Johnson has a weak grasp on his Republicans in the House. He can risk only a few defectors on any vote, meaning he could be easily ousted unless Democrats jump in with their votes to help him. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, the Trump ally who engineered the ouster of McCarthy by a similar contingent of far-right Republicans, warned against trying to oust Johnson for fear of ending up with a Democratic speaker. Gaetz was among eight Republicans who voted last October to remove McCarthy of California, with the help of all Democrats who were not willing to cast votes to save the embattled speaker. That may be different this time, and Republican lawmakers fed up with the process would cross the aisle and vote for the Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Or Democrats could cast their own votes to save Johnson. “If we vacated this speaker, we’d end up with a Democrat,” Gaetz predicted late Thursday. “When I vacated the last one, I made a promise to the country that we would not end up with a Democrat speaker. … I couldn’t make that promise again today.” The idea of a Republican House majority casting votes to make a Democrat the House speaker would be an unheard-of political situation. But with Republicans at war among themselves it is also one that could potentially transpire as they try to return Congress to a sense of normalcy. The House Republican majority shrank further Friday, as Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, who had already announced his retirement, said he would leave next month, following a wave of GOP lawmakers heading for the exits. Another key Republican, Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, announced she would leave her perch as chair of powerful Appropriations Committee but remain in Congress, after having led the funding package to House passage. Before filing her motion to remove the speaker, Greene spoke vehemently against House passage of the government funding bill, and she has warned she would try to remove the speaker if he pushes ahead with a package to support Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion. Johnson has refused to put a $95 billion Senate-passed national security package with Ukraine funds to a House vote, but nevertheless he promised to fund Ukraine as a next priority. The removal threat against him now puts any votes to help Ukraine in potential jeopardy. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., a top McCarthy lieutenant who helped negotiate the budget deal now on its way to becoming law, said he believes over time it will show that compromise on budget matters is how it’s done. “It shows that the McCarthy debt ceiling agreement is durable,” he said. Democrats wanted more spending, Republicans wanted less, and they landed in the middle. “In time, this will be viewed as a legislative success,” he said, “and the high point of a very broken and divided Congress.” Truth Social may merge with public shell company, potentially giving Trump stock worth billionsFriday March 22nd, 2024 12:23:13 AM The Associated PressDonald Trump‘s return to the stock market could be right around the corner. All eyes are on a vote scheduled for Friday by shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded shell company that is looking to merge with the former president’s media business. The deal’s approval would open the door for Trump Media & Technology Group, whose flagship product is the social networking site Truth Social, to soon begin trading on the Nasdaq stock market in Digital World’s place. If the merger is greenlit, which is likely, Trump stands to receive a sizeable payout. He would own most of the combined company — or nearly 79 million shares. Multiply that by Digital World’s current stock price of more $42, and the total value of Trump’s stake could surpass $3 billion. The prospect of the deal arrives at a time the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is facing his most costly legal battle to date: a $454 million judgment in a fraud lawsuit. But even if the Digital World merger is approved Friday, Trump wouldn’t be able to immediately cash out his windfall, unless some things change, due to a “lock-up” provision that prevents company insiders from selling newly issued shares for six months. Trump’s earlier foray into the stock market didn’t end well. Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts went public in 1995 under the symbol DJT — the same symbol Trump Media will trade under. By 2004, Trump’s casino company had filed for bankruptcy protection and was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Digital World listed many of the risks its investors face, as well as those of the Truth Social owner, if Trump Media also goes public. One risk, the company said, is that Trump would be entitled to vote in his own interest as a controlling stockholder — which may not always be in the interests of all shareholders. Digital World also cited the high rate of failure for new social media platforms, as well as Trump Media’s expectation that it would lose money on its operations “for the foreseeable future.” Trump Media lost $49 million in the first nine months of last year, when it brought in just $3.4 million in revenue and had to pay $37.7 million in interest expenses. Trump Media and Digital World first announced their merger plans in October 2021. In addition to a federal probe, the deal has faced a series of lawsuits leading up to Friday’s vote. Truth Social launched in February 2022, one year after Trump was banned from major social platforms including Facebook and Twitter, the platform now known as X, following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He’s since been reinstated to both but has stuck with Truth Social as a megaphone for his message. Trump promoted Truth Social in a post on the social media network Thursday evening, saying: “TRUTH SOCIAL IS MY VOICE, AND THE REAL VOICE OF AMERICA!!! MAGA2024!!!” Trump Media doesn’t disclose Truth Social’s user numbers. But research firm Similarweb estimates that it had roughly 5 million active mobile and web users in February. That’s far below TikTok‘s more than 2 billion and Facebook’s 3 billion — but still higher than rivals like Parler, which has been offline for nearly a year but is planning a comeback, or Gettr, which had less than 2 million visitors in February. ‘Morally dubious': 4 House Republicans protest Biden's IVF expansion for veteransThursday March 21st, 2024 08:39:25 PM Sahil Kapur and Zoë Richards | NBC NewsA group of four House Republicans sent a letter to the Biden administration Wednesday protesting a policy to expand access to in vitro fertilization, or IVF, for veterans. The letter, obtained by NBC News, addressed to Denis McDonough, the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, was signed by Reps. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., Mary Miller, R-Ill., Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., and Bob Good, R-Va., who said they had “a plethora of ethical concerns and questions” with the policy. “IVF is morally dubious and should not be subsidized by the American taxpayer. It is well known that IVF treatments result in a surplus of embryos after the best ones are tested and selected. These embryos are then frozen — at significant cost to the parents — abandoned, or cruelly discarded,” the lawmakers wrote. The Republicans argued the VA’s policy expanding IVF access for veterans would be harmful to the embryos, which they said have “inherent humanity.” “Parents’ uncertainty of what to do with the additional embryos and inclination to leave them frozen for many years rather than discarding them points to their inherent humanity. The new VA policy is shocking not only on a moral level, but on a political and legal level as well,” the four Republicans added. They went on to ask McDonough a series of questions, including what the VA plans “to do with the surplus embryos,” where it will store embryos, “who will pay for the storage,” how much it will cost and where the VA gets the legal authority for its decision. The department explains the changes it is pursuing on its website: “VA is soon expanding access to IVF services. Before today’s expansion of care, VA was only allowed to provide IVF services to Veterans who were legally married and — within that relationship — able to produce their own gametes (both eggs and sperm). Under this expansion of care, VA will offer IVF benefits to qualifying Veterans regardless of marital status and — for the first time — allow the use of donor eggs, sperm, and embryos.” The VA said in a press release that the expansion of access was “a critical step toward helping Veterans who are not able to produce their own sperm or eggs due to service-connected injuries and health conditions.” “Raising a family is a wonderful thing, and I’m proud that VA will soon help more Veterans have that opportunity,” McDonough said in the press release. “This expansion of care has long been a priority for us, and we are working urgently to make sure that eligible unmarried Veterans, Veterans in same-sex marriages, and Veterans who need donors will have access to IVF in every part of the country as soon as possible.” The Republicans’ letter comes amid a heated national debate about IVF after an Alabama ruling that found that embryos are people threatened access to the procedure within the state. In the aftermath of the ruling, Republicans were divided, with some enacting legislation at the state level to protect IVF and others blocking measures that would provide federal protections for the practice. President Joe Biden and Democrats have rushed to present themselves as defenders of keeping IVF legal. They’ve introduced measures in the House and Senate aimed at protecting the practice, and some lawmakers even invited guests affected by Alabama’s ruling to attend the president’s State of the Union address earlier this month. This story first appeared on NBCNews.com More from NBC News: Indicted Sen. Bob Menendez teases independent re-election run if exoneratedThursday March 21st, 2024 05:50:16 PM Bridget Bowman | NBC NewsDemocratic Sen. Bob Menendez announced Thursday that he is “hopeful” he will run for a fourth term in New Jersey as an independent, as he faces federal bribery charges and hopes to be exonerated before the general election. Menendez said in a nine-minute video announcement, which was posted and then quickly taken down Thursday afternoon, that he will not be running for re-election as a Democrat ahead of Monday’s primary filing deadline. “Unfortunately the present accusations I am facing, of which I am innocent and will prove so, will not allow me to have that type of dialogue and debate with political opponents that have already made it the cornerstone of their campaign. New Jerseyans deserve better than that,” Menendez said. “I am hopeful that my exoneration will take place this summer and allow me to pursue my candidacy as an independent Democrat in the general election,” he later added. Menendez, who was first elected in 2006, has denied any wrongdoing in the case, which has him facing 18 charges for allegedly obstructing justice and taking bribes in the form of cash, gold bars, a luxury car and more, and that he used his power to benefit Egypt. Menendez and his wife were first indicted in September and have since faced additional charges, including obstruction of justice. After he was indicted in September, Menendez stepped down as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. More than 30 of his Senate Democratic colleagues, including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, have called on Menendez to resign. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, however, has consistently declined to call on Menendez to resign, though he has said the senator’s conduct fell “way, way below” the standard of the office. Menendez had been considering running as an independent ahead of Monday’s filing deadline to run in the Democratic primary. Menendez has until June 4, the same day as the primary, to gather the 800 signatures necessary to file for re-election an independent. Menendez’s Senate bid allows him to continue to raise money, and his campaign funds can be used to cover legal fees. Menendez’s campaign had spent $2.3 million on legal fees in the final three months of 2023, the most recent period covered by campaign finance reports, but his fundraising plummeted over that period. His campaign ended the year with $6.2 million on hand. Menendez also formed a separate legal defense fund in July, which raised nearly $470,000 over the last six months 2023, per a filing with the Internal Revenue Service. Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who launched a Senate run shortly after Menendez was indicted last year, said last week that the senator’s potential independent run was “really alarming.” This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: Arizona lawmaker says she announced plans to get an abortion to underscore out-of-touch lawsThursday March 21st, 2024 03:41:13 PM Jacques Billeaud | The Associated PressA pregnant Arizona lawmaker who revealed in a speech at the state Senate that she was planning to get an abortion says she wanted to share with her colleagues and the public the practical effects of abortion restrictions passed over the years. Democratic Sen. Eva Burch of Mesa told fellow lawmakers in a floor speech Monday that she was going to get an abortion because her pregnancy is no longer viable. The first-term lawmaker, who previously worked as a nurse practitioner at a women’s health clinic, described a “rough journey” with fertility and recounted a miscarriage she had suffered. Burch, 43, also criticized restrictions in Arizona as being out of touch, saying the state law requires an ultrasound that her doctor didn’t order and that she was given what she regards as disinformation about alternatives to abortion. “It was an opportunity for me to highlight what we’re experiencing here in Arizona and how the laws that we pass in Arizona actually do impact people in practice and not just in theory,” Burch said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press in her legislative office. The abortion that Burch is planning wouldn’t be her first. While running for office in 2022, Burch said she had an abortion because that pregnancy wasn’t viable and even mentioned on the campaign trail that she had undergone the procedure. Burch, who previously gave birth to two sons, said she understands why women who have abortions keep that information private. But she said she wants the public to know that the struggles she has experienced are common. Burch, who is running for re-election this year, also acknowledged that she wanted to shine light on a proposed ballot measure that would create a constitutional right to abortion. “If the Arizona Legislature is not going to operate in reality, then the people of Arizona need to have an opportunity to be able to take control of some of those decisions for themselves,” Burch said. Two abortion bills proposed this year by Democrats haven’t received committee hearings, including one that would repeal a pre-statehood law that criminalizes nearly all abortions. The Arizona Supreme Court is considering the fate of the 1864 law. In a 2022 ruling, a lower court concluded doctors can’t be charged for performing an abortion in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy because other Arizona laws over the years have allowed them to provide abortions. Apart from their efforts at the Arizona Legislature, abortion rights advocates began a push last summer to ask voters to create a constitutional right to abortion. If proponents collect enough signatures, Arizona would become the latest state to put the question directly to voters. The proposed constitutional amendment would guarantee abortion rights until a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks of pregnancy. It also would allow later abortions to save the mother’s life or to protect her physical or mental health. Organizers of the effort will have to collect 384,000 signatures from registered voters by July to put the question on the November ballot. House Republican budget calls for raising the retirement age for Social SecurityThursday March 21st, 2024 09:16:12 AM Sahil Kapur | NBC NewsA new budget by a large and influential group of House Republicans calls for raising the Social Security retirement age for future retirees and restructuring Medicare, NBC News reports. The proposals, which are unlikely to become law this year, reflect how many Republicans will seek to govern if they win the 2024 elections. And they play into a fight President Joe Biden is seeking to have with former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party as he runs for re-election. The budget was released Wednesday by the Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 170 House GOP lawmakers, including many allies of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Apart from fiscal policy, the budget endorses a series of bills “designed to advance the cause of life,” including the Life at Conception Act, which would aggressively restrict abortion and potentially threaten in vitro fertilization, or IVF, by establishing legal protections for human beings at “the moment of fertilization.” It has recently caused consternation within the GOP following backlash to an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that threatened IVF. The RSC, which is chaired by Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., counts among its members Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and his top three deputies in leadership. Johnson chaired the RSC from 2019 to 2021; his office did not immediately respond when asked about the new budget. For Social Security, the budget endorses “modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy.” It calls for lowering benefits for the highest-earning beneficiaries. And it emphasizes that those ideas are not designed to take effect immediately: “The RSC Budget does not cut or delay retirement benefits for any senior in or near retirement.” The new budget also calls for converting Medicare to a “premium support model,” echoing a proposal that Republican former Speaker Paul Ryan had rallied support for. Under the new RSC plan, traditional Medicare would compete with private plans and beneficiaries would be given subsidies to shop for the policies of their choice. The size of the subsidies could be pegged to the “average premium” or “second lowest price” in a particular market, the budget says. The plan became a flashpoint in the 2012 election, when Ryan was GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate, and President Barack Obama charged that it would “end Medicare as we know it.” Ryan defended it as a way to put Medicare on better financial footing, and most of his party stood by him. Medicare is projected to become insolvent in 2028, and Social Security will follow in 2033. After that, benefits will be forcibly cut unless more revenues are added. Biden has blasted Republican proposals for the retirement programs, promising that he will not cut benefits and instead proposing in his recent White House budget to cover the future shortfall by raising taxes on upper earners. The RSC budget also presents a conundrum for Trump, who has offered shifting rhetoric on Social Security and Medicare without proposing a clear vision for the future of the programs. Notably, the RSC budget presents three possible options to address the projected insolvency of the retirement programs: raise taxes, transfer money from the general fund or reduce spending to cover the shortfall. It rejects the first two options. “Raising taxes on people will further punish them and burden the broader economy–something that the spend and print regime has proven to be disastrous and regressive,” the budget says, adding that the committee also opposes “a multi-trillion-dollar general fund transfer that worsens our fiscal situation.” That leaves spending cuts. The RSC budget launches blistering criticism at “Obamacare,” or the Affordable Care Act, and calls for rolling back its subsidies and regulations that were aimed at extending insurance coverage. This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: Texas's strict new immigration law remains on hold after facing skeptical appeals court panelWednesday March 20th, 2024 03:52:38 PM Valerie Gonzalez and Lindsay Whitehurst | The Associated PressTexas faced skeptical questioning at an appeals court hearing Wednesday as the state pushed to enforce a strict new immigration law that would allow it to arrest and deport people who enter the U.S. illegally. The one-hour hearing before a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ended without a ruling, leaving Texas’ new law on hold for now. A flurry of court activity, including a decision Tuesday from the U.S. Supreme Court that allowed the law to take effect for several hours, has caused uncertainty at the border. Chief Judge Priscilla Richman raised a series of questions about how the state law would be carried out, including how Texas would respond if federal authorities don’t cooperate with a state judge’s order to deport someone. No arrests were reported during the hours the law was in effect Tuesday. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said it would not have authority to deport under the state law. “This is uncharted because we don’t have any cases on it,” said Texas Solicitor General Aaron Nielson. The Justice Department has argued that Texas’ law is a clear violation of federal authority and will create chaos at the border. Lawyers for the department faced a grilling from Judge Andrew Oldham, who was appointed by Republican President Donald Trump. The third judge on the panel, Judge Irma Ramirez, did not ask questions during the hearing but has previously voted to keep the law on hold. TEXAS SB4 IMMIGRATION LAWRichman challenged Texas’ assertion that it is exercising a “core police power,” getting Nielsen to acknowledge that deporting people has been a federal responsibility. But Nielsen denied that Texas is “trying to take over the field” on border enforcement and said the state wants to cooperate with the federal government on what is widely acknowledged to be a crisis. Nielsen also said he did not know how the law would affect someone who entered the country illegally but came to Texas from another state. Regardless of how this three-judge panel rules, the legal fight will hardly be over. The 5th Circuit has been considering the state’s appeal of a scathing injunction from a lower-court judge that put the law on hold. The 5th Circuit issued a decision earlier this month that would have allowed the law to take effect, and the Supreme Court essentially declined to intervene Tuesday. But hours after the law took effect, the 5th Circuit reinstated the lower court injunction, pausing the law again. The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the law. It instead kicked back to the lower appeals court a challenge led by the Justice Department. Under Texas law, once defendants are in custody on illegal entry charges, they can agree to a judge’s order to leave the U.S. or face prosecution. However, Mexico has said it would refuse to take anyone back who is ordered to cross the border. The impact extends far beyond the Texas border. Republican legislators wrote the law so that it applies in all of the state’s 254 counties, although Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has said he expects it will mostly be enforced near the border. Other GOP-led states are already looking to follow Texas’ path. In Iowa, the state House gave final approval Tuesday to a bill that would also give its state law enforcement the power to arrest people who are in the U.S. illegally and have previously been denied entry into the country. It now goes to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. If signed, it would take effect in July. “The federal government has abdicated its responsibilities and states can and must act,” Republican Iowa state Rep. Steven Holt said. In Texas, El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, the top county executive, said immigration enforcement should remain a federal, not state, responsibility, echoing the Biden administration’s view. He said heightened law enforcement presence in the city of El Paso during a previous migrant surge brought high-speed chases and traffic stops based on assumptions that passengers were in the country illegally. “We had accidents, we had injuries, we got a little glimpse of what would happen if the state begins to control what happens in respect to immigration,” Samaniego said. Arrests for illegal crossings fell by half in January from a record-high of 250,000 in December, with sharp declines in Texas. Arrests in the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, the focus of Abbott’s enforcement, fell 76% from December. Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings for much of the past decade, recorded its fewest arrests since June 2020. Tucson, Arizona, has been the busiest corridor in recent months, followed by San Diego in January, but reasons for sudden shifts are often complicated and are dictated by smuggling organizations. When Biden visited the Rio Grande Valley for his second trip to the border as president last month, administration officials credited Mexico for heightened enforcement on that part of the border for the drop in arrests. They said conditions were more challenging for Mexican law enforcement in Sonora, the state that lies south of Arizona. What is the Texas immigration law ‘SB4' and why is it so controversial?Wednesday March 20th, 2024 01:25:42 PM Valerie Gonzalez | The Associated PressA law that would allow Texas law enforcement to arrest migrants suspected of illegally entering the U.S. is back on hold. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Tuesday issued an order preventing its enforcement, just hours after the Supreme Court allowed the strict new immigration law to take effect. The Justice Department is challenging the law, saying Texas is overstepping the federal government’s immigration authority. Texas argues it has a right to take action over what the governor has described as an “invasion” of migrants on the border. Here’s what to know: What does the law say about who can be arrested?The law would allow any Texas law enforcement officer to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally. Once in custody, migrants could either agree to a Texas judge’s order to leave the U.S. or be prosecuted on misdemeanor charges of illegal entry. Migrants who don’t leave could face arrest again under more serious felony charges. Arresting officers must have probable cause, which could include witnessing the illegal entry or seeing it on video. The law cannot be enforced against people lawfully present in the U.S., including those who were granted asylum or who are enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Critics, including Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, fear the law could lead to racial profiling and family separation. American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in Texas and some neighboring states issued a travel advisory a day after Gov. Greg Abbott signed the law. The advisory warns of a possible threat to civil and constitutional rights when passing through Texas. Abbott has rejected concerns over profiling. While signing the bill, he said troopers and National Guard members at the border can see migrants crossing illegally “with their own eyes.” Where would the law be enforced?The law can be enforced in any of Texas’ 254 counties, including those hundreds of miles from the border. But Republican state Rep. David Spiller, the law’s author, has said he expects the vast majority of arrests would occur within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the U.S.-Mexico border. Texas’ state police chief has expressed similar expectations. Some places are off-limits. Arrests cannot be made in public and private schools; places of worship; or hospitals and other health care facilities, including those where sexual assault forensic examinations are conducted. It is unclear where migrants ordered to leave might go. The law says they are to be sent to ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border, even if they are not Mexican citizens. However, Mexico’s government said Tuesday it would not accept the return of any migrants to its territory from the state of Texas. Is SB4 constitutional?The Supreme Court’s decision did not address the constitutionality of the law. The Justice Department, legal experts and immigrant rights groups have said it is a clear conflict with the U.S. government’s authority to regulate immigration. U.S. District Judge David Ezra, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, agreed in a 114-page order. He added that the law could hamper U.S. foreign relations and treaty obligations. Opponents have called the measure the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since a 2010 Arizona law — denounced by critics as the “Show Me Your Papers” bill — that was largely struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Ezra cited the Supreme Court’s 2012 Arizona ruling in his decision. Texas has argued that the law mirrors federal law instead of conflicting with it. What is happening on the U.S.-Mexico border?Arrests for illegal crossings along the southern border fell by half in January from record highs in December. Border Patrol officials attributed the shift to seasonal declines and heightened enforcement by the U.S. and its allies. The federal government has not yet released numbers for February. Texas has charged thousands of migrants with trespassing on private property under a more limited operation that began in 2021. Tensions remain between Texas and the Biden administration. In the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, National Guard members have prevented Border Patrol agents from accessing a riverfront park. Other Republican governors have expressed support for Abbott, who has said the federal government is not doing enough to enforce immigration laws. Other measures implemented by Texas include a floating barrier in the Rio Grande and razor wire along the border. ___ Associated Press writers Acacia Coronado and Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report. Trump suggests he'd support a national ban on abortions around 15 weeks of pregnancyWednesday March 20th, 2024 07:38:10 AM Michelle L. Price | The Associated PressDonald Trump suggested Tuesday that he’d support a national ban on abortions around 15 weeks of pregnancy, voicing for the first time support for a specific limit on the procedure. The Republican former president has taken credit for striking down a federally guaranteed right to abortion by appointing three U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. As he seeks the White House a third time, Trump has refrained from embracing any specific limit on the procedure, warning it could backfire politically and instead suggesting he would “negotiate” a policy on abortion that would include exceptions for cases of rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother. But in a radio interview Tuesday, Trump criticized Democrats for not endorsing a ban that would limit abortions in states that still allow the procedure. “We’re going to come up with a time — and maybe we could bring the country together on that issue,” Trump said while calling into the “Sid & Friends in the Morning” show on WABC. Trump went on to say: “The number of weeks now, people are agreeing on 15. And I’m thinking in terms of that. And it’ll come out to something that’s very reasonable. But people are really, even hard-liners are agreeing, seems to be, 15 weeks seems to be a number that people are agreeing at.” At the same time, Trump seemed to suggest reluctance to a federal ban. “Everybody agrees — you’ve heard this for years — all the legal scholars on both sides agree: It’s a state issue. It shouldn’t be a federal issue, it’s a state issue,” he said. Last month, Trump’s campaign dismissed reports that he privately had expressed for a ban on abortion after 16 weeks of pregnancy, calling the report “fake news.” The campaign did not offer details on Trump’s plans, only saying he planned to “negotiate a deal” on abortion. Later Tuesday, after casting his ballot in Florida’s Republican presidential primary, Trump was asked by a reporter about a ban on abortions at 16 weeks and said, “We’ll be talking about that soon.” Abortion rights have been a galvanizing issue for voters in recent years, and Democrats and President Joe Biden’s campaign are preparing to spotlight the issue as a clear split from Trump in the 2024 election. Polling has consistently shown that most Americans believe abortion should be legal through the initial stages of pregnancy. About half of U.S. adults said abortions should be permitted at the 15-week mark, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted last June. ___ Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report. From ‘highly offensive' to ‘he's not wrong,' GOP senators respond to Trump's remarks about Jewish votersWednesday March 20th, 2024 01:04:16 AM Frank Thorp V, Kate Santaliz and Zoë Richards | NBC NewsSenate Republicans offered a variety of responses Tuesday to their party’s presumptive presidential nominee’s saying this week that Jewish voters who back Democrats hate Israel. A handful of senators criticized former President Donald Trump‘s comments, some appeared to agree with him, and at least two insisted they hadn’t seen the remarks, which invoked a trope that American Jews have divided loyalties between the U.S. and Israel. Other senators responded with what became a common refrain while Trump was in office — saying it was a poor choice of words without directly condemning him. “I wouldn’t say any of that,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said of Trump’s comments. “It’s not what I would say,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., similarly suggested that Trump could use “more artful language” but contended that he is “not wrong about, I think, Democratic leaders’ failing the Israeli state and, and second-guessing them.” Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., said he hadn’t closely followed Trump’s remarks but added that he “speaks his mind.” Asked whether Trump should back off the kind of rhetoric he used this week, Thune said he’d “prefer to keep people’s religious faith out of these discussions.” The firestorm started when Trump said in an interview with Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump administration official, that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion.” “They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves, because Israel will be destroyed,” Trump continued, before he discussed Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, a frequent Trump critic, offered some of the most pointed criticism of Trump’s remarks. “That’s highly offensive,” he said. “We do not in this country attack people based upon their religious beliefs or their political views.” “Conflating religion to politics is an enormous error and violates some of the founding principles of our, of our government and our American history. It’s a terrible mistake on his part, for which he really ought to apologize but won’t,” Romney added. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., meanwhile, appeared to echo Trump’s position that Jewish voters are wrong to back Democrats. “I don’t know why any Jewish person would support Democrats,” he said. “The Biden administration is not holding Hamas accountable.” A Pew Research Center poll conducted last month found that 62% of Jewish Americans held a favorable view of President Joe Biden, while 21% of Jewish Americans rated Trump favorably. Biden’s re-election campaign has condemned the comments, with a campaign spokesperson saying Monday that “Donald Trump openly demeans Jewish Americans.” Visiting Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, blasted Trump’s remarks as “a disgusting, toxic, antisemitic thing to say by anyone, let alone a former president.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is also Jewish and recently called for new elections in Israel, condemned the remarks, calling them “utterly disgusting and a textbook example of the kind of antisemitism facing Jews, pushing the dangerous antisemitism trope of dual loyalty.” Trump accused “liberal Jews” in a social media post last year of voting to “destroy” the U.S. and Israel. On Tuesday, Trump appeared to double down on his recent remarks as he left a polling location in Palm Beach, Florida. Asked about his comments in the Gorka interview, he said, “Democrats have been very, very opposed to Jewish people.” This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News: Federal judge puts Texas law allowing police to arrest migrants who cross illegally back on holdWednesday March 20th, 2024 12:40:08 AM Valerie Gonzalez | Associated PressTexas’ plans to arrest migrants suspected of entering the U.S. illegally were again on hold Wednesday after setting off uncertainty along the border and anger from Mexico flared during a brief few hours that the law was allowed to take effect. A late-night order Tuesday from a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel temporarily put on hold — again — Texas’ dramatic state expansion into border enforcement. Earlier in the day, the U.S. Supreme Court had cleared the way for the strict immigration law, dealing a victory to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and encouraging GOP lawmakers in other states that are pushing for similar measures. But later in a 2-1 order, an appeals court panel continued the legal seesaw surrounding the Texas law, again putting it on pause ahead of oral arguments that were scheduled for Wednesday. It was not clear how quickly the next decision might come. During the short time the law was in effect Tuesday, Texas authorities did not announce that any arrests had been made or say whether it was being actively enforced. Along the border in Kinney County, Sheriff Brad Coe embraced the arrest powers but said deputies would need probable cause. “It is unlikely that observers will see an overnight change,” said Coe, whose county covers a stretch of border near Del Rio that until recently had been the busiest corridor for illegal crossings but has quieted considerably. The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the law. It instead kicked back to the lower appeals court a challenge led by the Justice Department, which has argued that Texas is overstepping the federal government’s immigration authority. The latest appeals court order included no explanation from the panel. But it had the effect of restoring an injunction issued in February by U.S. District Judge David Ezra, who rebuked the law on multiple fronts. His 114-page opinion brushed off Republicans’ claims of an “invasion” along the southern border due to record-high illegal crossings. Ezra, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, also warned that the law could hamper U.S. foreign relations. Under the Texas law, once defendants are in custody on illegal entry charges, they can agree to a judge’s order to leave the U.S. or face prosecution. On Tuesday, Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary said in a sharply worded statement that it would refuse to take anyone back who is ordered to cross the border. “Mexico reiterates the legitimate right to protect the rights of its nationals in the United States and to determine its own policies regarding entry into its territory,” the government said. The impact extends far beyond the Texas border. Republican legislators wrote the law so that it applies in all of the state’s 254 counties, although Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, has said he expects it will mostly be enforced near the border. Other GOP-led states are already looking to follow Texas’ path. In Iowa, the state House on Tuesday gave final approval to a bill that would also give its state law enforcement the power to arrest people who are in the U.S. illegally and have previously been denied entry into the country. It now goes to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. If signed, it would take effect in July. “The federal government has abdicated its responsibilities and states can and must act,” Republican Iowa state Rep. Steven Holt said. In Texas, El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, the top county executive, said immigration enforcement should remain a federal, not state, responsibility, echoing the Biden administration’s view. He said heightened law enforcement presence in the city of El Paso during a previous migrant surge brought high-speed chases and traffic stops based on assumptions that passengers were in the country illegally. “We had accidents, we had injuries, we got a little glimpse of what would happen if the state begins to control what happens in respect to immigration,” Samaniego said. Skylor Hearn, executive director of the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas, said sheriffs’ offices have been training since last year. “If a county chooses to take it on themselves, they are choosing for their taxpayers to take it on themselves as well,” Hearn said. “As long as the federal government is willing to do its part that it is supposed to be doing, it is ideal for them to take possession and custody of these people.” Daniel Morales, an associate professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center, said the Texas law “will be a mess, very clearly, to enforce.” “It’s very clear that Greg Abbott wants to enforce the law so he can get lots of photo ops and opportunities, but it’s gonna take a lot of state resources to implement. And I don’t know, in fact, how much appetite and capacity for that the state government actually has,” Morales said. Texas will find enforcement is “difficult and taxing,” he said. Arrests for illegal crossings fell by half in January from a record-high of 250,000 in December, with sharp declines in Texas. Arrests in the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, the focus of Abbott’s enforcement, fell 76% from December. Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings for much of the last decade, recorded its fewest arrests since June 2020. Tucson, Arizona, has been the busiest corridor in recent months, followed by San Diego in January, but reasons for sudden shifts are often complicated and are dictated by smuggling organizations. When President Joe Biden visited the Rio Grande Valley for his second trip to the border as president last month, administration officials credited Mexico for heightened enforcement on that part of the border for the drop in arrests. They said conditions were more challenging for Mexican law enforcement in Sonora, the state that lies south of Arizona. ___ Associated Press writers Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas, Juan Al. Lozano in Houston, Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report. Trump-backed Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno beats two rivals to win Ohio's GOP Senate primaryTuesday March 19th, 2024 09:14:13 PM Julie Carr SmythCleveland businessman Bernie Moreno won Ohio’s Republican Senate primary on Tuesday, just days after former President Donald Trump visited the state to boost his endorsed candidate in a three-way race that remained competitive to the end. Moreno prevailed after a contentious and expensive fight against Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Cleveland-area state Sen. Matt Dolan, whose relentless attacks may yet damage him headed into this fall. That’s when he’ll face off against three-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a staple of Ohio politics who’s among the year’s most vulnerable Democrats. NBC News projected Moreno as the primary winner shortly before 9 p.m. ET. Brown responded to the news on X: “The choice ahead of Ohio is clear: Bernie Moreno has spent his career and campaign putting himself first, and would do the same if elected. I’ll always work for Ohio.” The general election fight is expected to be at least as fierce in a state that has trended Republican in recent years. With Democrats holding a tenuous 51-49 voting majority in the Senate but defending more seats than Republicans, Brown’s seat is expected to be a top GOP target. He is the lone Democrat holding a non-judicial statewide office in Ohio, a state that has moved steadily to the right during the Trump era. In a move that drew bipartisan rebukes, Senate Majority PAC, an independent group aligned with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, spent $2.7 million to elevate Moreno’s primary bid, with the idea that he would be the weakest against Brown this fall. Brown is expected to make abortion rights a cornerstone of his campaign. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, Ohioans strongly supported a state constitutional amendment last year to protect access to the procedure. Moreno, a former luxury car dealer and blockchain entrepreneur, weathered controversy late in the campaign. The Associated Press reported last week that in 2008, someone with access to Moreno’s work email account created a profile on an adult website seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex.” The AP could not definitively confirm that it was created by Moreno himself. Moreno’s lawyer said a former intern created the account and provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.” Questions about the profile have circulated in GOP circles for the past month, sparking frustration among senior Republican operatives about Moreno’s potential vulnerability in a general election, according to seven people who are directly familiar with conversations about how to address the matter. They requested anonymity to avoid running afoul of Trump and his allies. Moreno, a native of Bogota, Colombia, who partially funded his own campaign, rode to victory after casting himself as a political outsider, who — like Trump — would go to Washington to shake things up. He and allied political action committees pilloried Dolan and LaRose as “career politicians.” He built his fortune in Cleveland in luxury auto sales and blockchain technology. As LaRose struggled for a lane after failing to win Trump’s endorsement, Dolan worked to consolidate the party’s non-Trump faction in his corner in the runup to Election Day. He was helped in that effort with endorsements from Gov. Mike DeWine and former U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, two of Ohio’s most prominent establishment Republicans. LaRose, a former state senator and Green Beret elected twice statewide, raised more in grassroots donations of $200 or less than either of his rivals. He loaned himself $250,000, compared to $4.2 million Moreno loaned his own campaign and a whopping $9 million Dolan loaned to his. Both Moreno and Dolan also competed in the 2022 Senate race, a messy and crowded contest won by Trump-backed memoirist and venture capitalist JD Vance. Moreno dropped out of the primary at Trump’s behest; Dolan finished third. Vance went on to win the general election that year against Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan. Republicans are also watching a GOP matchup in the 9th Congressional District held by Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in Congress. Trump issued a last-minute endorsement of state Rep. Derek Merrin on Monday in the Toledo-area congressional primary, the latest twist for a months-long roller coaster ride of a primary that’s included swift entries and exits, candidate gaffes and bouncing endorsements. At one point, Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Jim Jordan, a vocal Trump ally, were aligned with three competing campaigns. Things settled down when Trump-aligned candidate J.R. Majewski, who lost badly to Kaptur in 2022, abruptly left the race earlier this month amid pushback for remarks he made disparaging Special Olympics athletes. That left three candidates in the race: Merrin, backed by Johnson — and, as of Monday, Trump; former state Rep. Craig Riedel, backed by Jordan; and former Napoleon Mayor Steve Lankenau. Trump’s endorsement came as Riedel was airing searing attack ads against Merrin, referencing the legislator’s ties to convicted former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder. Merrin, 37, is a term-limited four-term state representative who led an intraparty rebellion in the Ohio House last year after losing a bitter battle for speaker. He joined the congressional race on the filing deadline after audio that surfaced of Riedel criticizing Trump began raising concerns inside the party about Riedel’s electability. Riedel, 57, was among candidates who lost the nomination to Majewski in 2022. He raised more than $1.1 million headed into primary day, the highest of any candidate and some 10 times more than Merrin. But Merrin has benefited from help from national Republicans, with the Congressional Leadership Fund spending more than $750,000 on his behalf. ___ Associated Press writer Brian Slodysko in Washington contributed to this report. What happens if Trump can't pay $454 million fraud penalty? What to knowTuesday March 19th, 2024 07:24:17 PM Michael R. Sisak | Associated PressDonald Trump is hurtling toward a critical deadline in his most costly legal battle to date. If the former president doesn’t come up with a financial guarantee by Monday, New York’s attorney general can start the process of collecting on the more than $454 million Trump owes the state in a civil fraud lawsuit. Trump’s lawyers are trying to stop that from happening. They have asked a court to put collection efforts on hold while he appeals the verdict. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee tried getting a bond for the full amount, which would have stopped the clock on collection during his appeal and ensured the state got its money if he were to lose. But more than 30 underwriters said no, Trump’s lawyers told the court. They said getting a bond for such a large sum is “a practical impossibility.” That’s raised the possibility that New York Attorney General Letitia James could start trying to enforce the judgment as soon as Monday. Here’s a look at what that might look like, and what it would mean for Trump’s business empire. Could New York really seize Trump’s assets?Yes. If Trump isn’t able to pay, the state “could levy and sell his assets, lien his real property and garnish anyone who owes him money,” Syracuse University Law Professor Gregory Germain said. Potential targets could include properties such as his Trump Tower penthouse, Wall Street office building and golf courses. James’ office could also seek court permission to drain Trump’s bank accounts and investment portfolios, or sell off other assets like his planes, helicopters — or even his golf carts. Seizing assets is a common legal tactic when someone can’t access enough cash to pay a civil penalty. In a famous example, O.J. Simpson’s Heisman Trophy was seized and sold at auction to cover part of a $33.5 million wrongful death judgment. More recently, a city commissioner in Miami, Florida, fought to keep his home after a federal judge ordered it seized and auctioned off to help pay a $63.5 million judgment in a political retaliation case. New York state seized three large moving trucks in 1999 to help satisfy a $250,000 judgment against a moving company that ripped off customers. In 2006, the state seized a $342,000 investment account to cover part of a $2 million judgment against operators of illegal tire and solid waste dumps. How soon could it happen?Not quickly. Any attempt to collect would be done through the courts, including through liens and foreclosure actions. State officials can’t just show up on Monday and padlock Trump Tower, but they can lay the groundwork by issuing subpoenas requiring Trump to provide information about his assets. “If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James, a Democrat, said in a recent interview with ABC News. Why does Trump owe this money?The state, through James’ office, sued Trump in 2022, alleging he had committed fraud for years by inflating his wealth on financial statements given to banks and insurance companies in connection with various business deals. In February, after a 2½-month trial, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay $355 million plus interest, saying, “The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience.” Trump denies any attempt to deceive banks or anyone else about his wealth. He has said the judge’s decision and the lawsuit itself were politically motivated attempts to keep him from reclaiming the White House in 2024. He has also argued that it is unfair to make him sell off assets or spend huge amounts buying a bond when the case is still being appealed, though a court requiring an appeal bond is fairly common in New York and other jurisdictions. Asked Tuesday if he’s confident he can pay, Trump lashed out at what he deemed “a rigged trial by a crooked judge and a crooked attorney general.” “We have a lot of cash and we have a great company, but they want to take it away or at least take the cash element away. Billions of dollars in value, billions of dollars in properties. But they’d like to take the cash away so I can’t use it on the campaign,” Trump told reporters after voting in Florida’s Republican primary. “We’ll see how the courts rule on it,” he said. Could Trump pay if he wanted?Trump says he is worth several billion dollars, but much of his wealth is tied up in skyscrapers, golf courses and other properties. He reported having about $294 million in cash or cash equivalents on his most recent publicly available financial statement, but that document is outdated, covering the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021. It’s also one of the documents that Engoron deemed fraudulent for exaggerating Trump’s wealth. Since then, Trump has netted nearly $187 million from selling the lease on his Washington, D.C., hotel and the rights to manage a New York City golf course. His current cash position is unclear. During his civil fraud trial, he said he had more than $400 million in cash, but that figure is unverified. Trump also has other legal bills. In January, a jury ordered him to pay $83.3 million for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexual assault. Earlier this month, Trump secured a $91.6 million bond to guarantee that judgment while he appeals. Trump’s lawyers said freeing up cash by offloading some of Trump’s properties in a “fire sale” would result in massive, irrecoverable losses. Are there other ways Trump could raise the money?Trump could receive a financial windfall from a looming deal to put his social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, on the stock market under the ticker symbol DJT. A shareholder meeting is scheduled for Friday. If the deal is approved, Trump would own at least 58% of the shares in the company, which runs his Truth Social platform. Depending on share price, that could be worth several billion dollars, though he might not be able to turn those stocks into cash immediately. In the meantime, the amount Trump owes is increasing by nearly $112,000 each day due to interest. As of Tuesday, he owed the state nearly $457 million. To obtain a bond, Trump’s lawyers said they would be required to post collateral covering 120% of the judgment. Last month, Trump’s lawyers proposed posting a $100 million bond, but a judge in the state’s mid-level appeals court said he had to pay the full amount. Trump has appealed that decision. Could Trump declare bankruptcy?Under federal bankruptcy law, enforcement of the judgment would be paused if he personally declared bankruptcy. However, he would still be personally liable if just his company, the Trump Organization, or other entities were to declare bankruptcy. Trump has repeatedly bragged that he has never, personally, declared bankruptcy, although several of his previous companies have. “If he can’t post a bond or meet the appellate division’s bonding requirements, then I would expect him to file bankruptcy to take advantage of the automatic stay on collection,” law professor Germain said. “But that’s a couple of chess moves away, so we will just have to see what happens.” Biden and Trump notch wins in Tuesday's primaries. Other races will offer hints on national politicsTuesday March 19th, 2024 03:43:18 PM Patrick Orsagos, Cody Jackson, Michelle L. Price and Bill Barrow | The Associated PressAs Joe Biden and Donald Trump moved closer to a November rematch, primary voters around the country on Tuesday urged their favored candidate to keep up the fight and worried about what might happen if their side loses this fall. There was little suspense about Tuesday’s results as both candidates are already their parties’ presumptive nominees. Trump easily won Republican primaries in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio. Biden did the same except in Florida, where Democrats had canceled their primary and opted to award all 224 of their delegates to Biden. Instead, the primaries and key downballot races became a reflection of the national political mood. With many Americans unenthusiastic about 2024’s choice for the White House, both Biden and Trump’s campaigns are working to fire up their bases by tearing into each other and warning of the perils of the opponent. Those who did turn out to vote Tuesday seemed to hear that. Pat Shackleford, an 84-year-old caregiver in Mesa, Arizona, said she voted for Trump in Arizona’s primary to send the former president a message. “I wanted to encourage him that the fight has been worthwhile, that more of us are behind him than maybe the media tells you,” Shackleford said. Jamie and Cassandra Neal, sisters who both live in Phoenix, said they were unenthusiastic Biden supporters until they saw the vigor the president brought to his State of the Union speech. It fired them up for the coming election. “Beforehand it was like, ‘Well, he’s the only decent one there,’” said Cassandra Neal, 42. “After his address it was like, ‘OK, let’s do it!’” Jamie Neal, 45, said Biden had been “way too nice” before and needed to match Trump, whom she described as “vicious.” “I hate to say it, sometimes you need to equal the lowness to get the person out,” she said. “Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.” In Ohio’s Republican Senate primary, Trump-backed businessman Bernie Moreno defeated two challengers, Ohio Secretary of State Frank Frank LaRose and Matt Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team. Moreno and Trump appeared together Saturday at a rally where Trump praised his endorsed candidate as a “warrior” and ramped up his dark rhetoric, saying that were he not to be elected, “it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” His campaign insists he was referring to the auto industry and not the country as a whole. In the final days of the campaign, The Associated Press reported on Thursday that in 2008, someone with access to Moreno’s work email account created a profile on an adult website seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex.” The AP could not definitively confirm that it was created by Moreno himself. Moreno’s lawyer said a former intern created the account and provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.” Questions about the profile have circulated in GOP circles for the past month, sparking frustration among senior Republican operatives about Moreno’s potential vulnerability in a general election, according to seven people who are directly familiar with conversations about how to address the matter. They requested anonymity to avoid running afoul of Trump and his allies. Trump and Biden have for weeks been focused on the general election, aiming their campaigns lately on states that could be competitive in November rather than merely those holding primaries. Trump, a Florida voter, cast his ballot at a recreation center in Palm Beach on Tuesday and told reporters, “I voted for Donald Trump.” Trump and Biden are running on their records in office and casting the other as a threat to America. Trump, 77, portrays the 81-year-old Biden as mentally unfit. The president has described his Republican rival as a threat to democracy after his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and his praise of foreign strongmen. Those themes were evident Tuesday at some polling locations. “President Biden, I don’t think he knows how to tie his shoes anymore,” said Trump supporter Linda Bennet, a resident of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, not far from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Even as she echoed Trump’s arguments about Biden, she criticized Trump’s rhetoric and “the way he composes himself” as “not presidential at all.” But she said the former president is “a man of his word,” and she said the country, especially the economy, felt stronger to her under Trump’s leadership. In Columbus, Ohio, Democrat Brenda Woodfolk voted for Biden and shared the president’s framing of the choice this fall. “It’s scary,” she said of the prospect that Trump could be in the Oval Office again. “Trump wants to be a dictator, talking about making America white again and all this kind of crap. There’s too much hate going on.” Bennet and Woodfolk agreed that immigration is one of their top concerns, though they offered different takes on why. “This border thing is out of control,” said Bennet, the Republican voter. “I think it’s the government’s plot or plan to bring these people in to change the whole dynamic for their benefit, so I’m pretty peeved.” Woodfolk, the Democrat, said she doesn’t mind immigrants “sharing” opportunities in the U.S. but worried it comes at the expense of “people who’ve been here all their lives.” Trump and Republicans have hammered Biden on the influx of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, seeking to capitalize on the issue well beyond border states. Biden has ratcheted up a counteroffensive in recent weeks after Senate Republicans killed a migration compromise they had negotiated with the White House, withholding their support only after Trump said he opposed the deal. Biden has used the circumstances to argue that Trump and Republicans have no interest in solving the issue but instead want to inflame voters in an election year. For the last year, Trump has coupled his campaign with his legal challenges, including dozens of criminal counts and civil cases in which he faces more than $500 million in fines. His first criminal trial was scheduled to start Monday in New York on allegations he falsified business records to cover up hush money payments. But a judge delayed the trial for 30 days after the recent disclosure of new evidence that Trump’s lawyers said they needed time to review. Speaking outside his polling place with a voter’s sticker affixed to his lapel, Trump insisted the cases against him were political and defended himself against criticism of his attacks a day earlier on Jewish Democrats, in which he alleged they hate Israel and their own religion. Democratic leaders on Tuesday criticized his comments as promoting antisemitic tropes about having divided loyalties. Standing next to him was former first lady Melania Trump, who didn’t have on a sticker. She has rarely appeared in public with Trump since he launched his third bid for the White House. Asked if she would campaign with him, she replied: “Stay tuned.” __ Price reported from New York and Orsagos from Columbus, Ohio. Associated Press videojournalist Cody Jackson in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Jill Colvin in New York and Brian Slodysko in Washington contributed to this report. Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce immigration lawTuesday March 19th, 2024 02:24:21 PM Lawrence Hurley | NBC NewsThe Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that it will allow Texas to enforce for now a contentious new law that gives local police the power to arrest migrants. The conservative-majority court, with three liberal justices dissenting, rejected an emergency request by the Biden administration, which said states have no authority to legislate on immigration, an issue the federal government has sole authority over. That means the law can go into effect while litigation continues in lower courts. It could still be blocked at a later date. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, hailed the court order, calling it “clearly a positive development,” though he acknowledged that the legal battle is not over. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the law “will not only make communities in Texas less safe, it will also burden law enforcement and sow chaos and confusion at our southern border.” “The court gives a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos,” liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson also objected to the decision. The majority did not explain its reasoning, but one of the conservative justices, Amy Coney Barrett, wrote separately to note that an appeals court has yet to weigh in on the issue. “If a decision does not issue soon, the applicants may return to this court,” she wrote. Her opinion was joined by fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. In response to the Supreme Court order, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals fast-tracked oral arguments on the Biden administration’s effort to block the law. Arguments are now due to take place Wednesday morning, meaning a decision could come quickly. The law in question, known as SB4, allows police to arrest migrants who illegally cross the border from Mexico and imposes criminal penalties. It would also empower state judges to order people to be deported to Mexico. The dispute is the latest clash between the Biden administration and Texas over immigration enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border. In a separate opinion, Kagan wrote that the Texas law appears to conflict with federal law, noting that “the subject of immigration generally, and the entry and removal of noncitizens particularly, are matters long thought the special province of the federal government.” A federal judge blocked the law after the Biden administration sued, but the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a brief order that it could go into effect March 10 if the Supreme Court declined to intervene. The appeals court has not yet decided whether to grant the federal government’s request to block the law. On March 4, Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary freeze on the law to give the Supreme Court time to consider the federal government’s request. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court papers that the law is “flatly inconsistent” with Supreme Court precedent dating back 100 years. “Those decisions recognize that the authority to admit and remove noncitizens is a core responsibility of the national government, and that where Congress has enacted a law addressing those issues, state law is preempted,” she wrote. The appeals court, Prelogar added, did not explain its reasoning for allowing the law to go into effect. She dismissed Texas’ argument that its law can be defended on the basis that the state is effectively battling an invasion at the border under the State War Clause of the Constitution. The provision says states cannot “engage in war, unless actually invaded” or in imminent danger. “A surge of unauthorized immigration plainly is not an invasion within the meaning of the State War Clause,” Prelogar wrote. Defending the law, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in court papers that the measure complements federal law and the state should be allowed to enforce it. The Constitution “recognizes that Texas has the sovereign right to defend itself from violent transnational cartels that flood the state with fentanyl, weapons, and all manner of brutality,” he added. Texas is “the nation’s first-line defense against transnational violence and has been forced to deal with the deadly consequences of the federal government’s inability or unwillingness to protect the border,” Paxton said. The city of El Paso and two immigrant rights groups, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and American Gateways, have also challenged the law and filed their own emergency request at the Supreme Court. In 2012, the Supreme Court invalidated provisions of a tough immigration law enacted in Arizona. Only two of the justices who were in the majority in that case are still on the court: Chief Justice John Roberts and Sotomayor. This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News: ‘It did not happen': Eric Adams again denies sex assault allegations as filing reveals 1st detailsTuesday March 19th, 2024 01:24:25 PMNew York City Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday staunchly denied sex assault allegations against him by a former colleague of his in the transit department back in 1993, a day after a legal filing offered the first public details. “It did not happen. I don’t recall ever meeting this person during my time in the department,” Adams, a Democrat, said at his weekly media availability. “This did not happen. It’s not who I am,” he continued when asked by another reporter. “I know my character and I believe in my life’s work, which has shown how I have protected New Yorkers of all types.” The mayor’s responses Tuesday echoed comments he made last fall when he told reporters a sexual assault “absolutely did not happen.” According to the suit, the woman was seeking a promotion in the city’s Transit Police Department when she sought help from Adams, then a police officer and high-ranking member of the Guardians Association, a fraternal organization that advocates for Black members of law enforcement. The lawsuit alleges that he offered to drive her home from work and then drove to a vacant lot, where he offered to help her, but said he “also needed some help.” She said that while sitting in the parked car, Adams demanded oral sex. After she refused, she said he exposed himself and masturbated, according to the lawsuit. Adams then said he had to get back to work, and dropped her at a Manhattan subway station, according to the suit. Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix, the city’s corporation counsel, described the allegations as “ludicrous,” and said Adams’ team expects to be fully vindicated in a court of law. The case was brought under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that extended the time limit to bring sexual assault lawsuits. The woman first entered her claim this past November, just ahead of the law’s expiration, but did not provide any details about the alleged assault at the time. Subscribe to NBC New York on YouTube for headlines you don’t want to missThe woman did not file a formal report at the time, but told “numerous people” over the years, including current and former NYPD officials, friends, and her daughters, according to the lawsuit. A spokesperson for the NYPD, which also was named in the lawsuit, didn’t respond to an emailed request from the Associated Press for comment. The case adds to growing legal trouble for Adams, who is currently facing a federal campaign fundraising investigation that prompted FBI agents to seize his phones and raid the home of his top fundraiser in November. Earlier this month, FBI agents raided two properties owned by another Adams fundraiser, who also served as one of his top advisors. The mayor has stood by his aide. The House primaries with national implications to watch TuesdayTuesday March 19th, 2024 08:56:17 AM Bridget Bowman and Ben Kamisar | NBC NewsJoe Biden and Donald Trump may have secured their parties’ presidential nominations, but there is plenty of intrigue further down the ballot heading into the next primary day Tuesday. While much of the focus will be on Ohio’s Senate race, where Republicans are competing to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, Tuesday’s results will set the stage this fall for pivotal House battleground races in the Buckeye State and in Illinois. Two incumbents in Illinois are also facing competitive primary challenges in safe seats. And in California, voters will decide whether Republicans’ narrow House majority will receive an immediate jolt. Here are four dynamics to watch in Tuesday’s House primaries. A test for Trump’s endorsementTrump’s endorsement will be put to the test in Illinois’ 12th District, where his preferred candidate, GOP Rep. Mike Bost, is facing a primary challenge from former state Sen. Darren Bailey. Bailey had Trump’s endorsement in the 2022 gubernatorial race, when he lost to incumbent Democrat J.B. Pritzker by 13 percentage points. But last month, Trump instead backed Bost, who leads the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, writing on his Truth Social platform, “While I like and respect Darren Bailey, and was proud to campaign for him in 2022, Mike Bost was one of the first House Committee Chairmen to endorse my Campaign, and Mike was a stalwart supporter of our America First agenda during my record-setting Administration.” Bost has outspent Bailey in the race as he’s touted Trump’s endorsement on the airwaves, launching one TV ad featuring footage of the former president praising the five-term congressman. Bailey, meanwhile, has argued that Bost is not sufficiently conservative. Bailey aired one ad focused on the congressman’s votes on immigration and support for aid to Ukraine, suggesting that Bost did not support funding for Trump’s proposed wall at the southern border. Bailey also rallied with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., last month. Longtime Democrat faces primary rematchLongtime Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., is once again facing a primary challenge, including from one candidate who nearly defeated him in 2022. Community organizer Kina Collins lost to Davis by just 6 points in 2022 in the Democratic primary for Illinois’ 7th District. But this year she’s drawn the ire of United Democracy Project, a super PAC tied to the pro-Israel group AIPAC. United Democracy Project has spent $210,000 on ads against Collins, who supports a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, although the group’s ads focus on crime and police funding, not the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. The anti-Davis vote could be split this year between Collins and three other Democrats, including Chicago city Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin. She has outraised Davis in the race, although the 14-term congressman had more money left in his campaign account as of Feb. 28. Battleground matchups for Democrats on defenseAny close race could determine which party controls the House after November’s elections, given the GOP’s narrow majority. And there are three races across Ohio and Illinois that are expected to be serious battlegrounds this fall. The most contentious has been the GOP primary for Ohio’s 9th District, a race to decide who will take on longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Trump won the Toledo-area district in 2020, according to data compiled by Daily Kos, but Kaptur has long overperformed. Republicans had been worried that Kaptur’s last opponent, J.R. Majewski, could repeat his poor performance if he won the nomination. But Majewski dropped out of the primary this month, after publicly wavering for days, leaving two major candidates in the race: state Rep. Derek Merrin and former state Rep. Craig Riedel. Riedel faced criticism from key conservative lawmakers after audio surfaced of him criticizing Trump, and Merrin’s allies have linked Merrin to the former president on issues like immigration. Merrin’s tied himself to Trump, and the former president endorsed him on the eve of the primary. But Riedel is pushing back by casting Merrin as a “never Trumper” for not answering a question about who he’d vote for in the presidential primary. Riedel is also trying to tie Merrin, a prominent state lawmaker and committee chairman, to the scandal that brought down the state’s former House speaker and other major Republicans. Then there’s Ohio’s 13th District, where former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin and Hudson City Councilman Chris Banweg are vying for the Republican nomination to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes. Republicans are eying this Akron-area seat, which Sykes won by 5 points in 2022 and Biden won by 3 points in 2020 (according to Daily Kos’ data). Sykes is expected to lean on her experience in the area as the former top Democrat in the state House, as well as on reproductive rights in a state where voters just codified a right to abortion into the state constitution. Illinois’ 17th District, a sprawling district across the northwestern portion of the state along the border with Iowa, may be safer ground for Democrats. Unlike the two Ohio races, which The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter, a nonpartisan election forecaster, rates as “toss-ups,” Democratic Rep. Eric Sorensen’s seat is considered “lean Democrat.” But while Biden won the seat by 8 points in 2020, per Daily Kos, Sorensen, a longtime meteorologist in the area, won the seat by 4 points in a tough midterm, open-seat fight. The top Republican in the primary is Joe McGraw, a former prosecutor and judge who’s heavily emphasizing criticism about Democratic border policies, following the strategy that Republicans are ready to deploy across the country this cycle. His top opponent is farmer Scott Crowl. The winner will start at a significant cash disadvantage, as Sorensen had more than $1.7 million banked away through the end of February to McGraw’s $226,000 and Crowl’s just $7,000. Who will join Congress this year, and when?It seems likely that Republicans will ultimately win the special election for California’s 20th District, which was vacated following former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s resignation. But the margin will be important, particularly for Republicans in Washington struggling with a razor-thin majority. The top candidates for the seat faced off in a regularly scheduled primary just weeks ago, but Tuesday’s special primary election will decide who will serve out the rest of McCarthy’s vacated term this year. Candidates from all parties compete on the same ballot, and if one of them wins a majority, they’ll win the seat outright. That means they’d be able to join Congress almost immediately, instead of having to wait until the results of a late May special election. Republican state Assemblyman Vince Fong, who won 41% of the vote in the normal primary, is the favorite here. If he can improve on that vote share and win a majority of an electorate that’s expected to be much smaller, he can head to Washington within days or weeks. But if not, he’d head to that May 21 runoff, likely against either Republican Sheriff Mike Boudreaux or Democratic teacher Marisa Wood, the only other candidates to finish with double digits in this month’s primary. In Ohio’s 6th District, there’s also a special primary election Tuesday, after former Rep. Bill Johnson left Congress at the beginning of the year to run Youngstown State University. State Sen. Michael Rulli, backed by U.S. Rep. David Joyce of Ohio and former state GOP Chair Jane Timken, and state Rep. Reggie Stoltzfus, who has been backed by former House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania as well as far-right former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, are running. So is Rick Tsai, a chiropractor from East Palestine who says he’s running because of his frustration with the handling of the train derailment. This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: Could Aaron Rodgers really be a VP nominee? Here's a look at athletes who became politiciansMonday March 18th, 2024 07:30:03 PM Mike GavinThe 2024 Aaron Rodgers political campaign seems to have been quite similar to his first season with the New York Jets in that it never really began. It was reported last that Rodgers, a future Hall of Fame quarterback who suffered a season-ending injury on his first possession with the Jets in September, was being considered as a potential running mate for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Just days later it was reported that another – perhaps more qualified? – vice presidential candidate had emerged as Kennedy’s top choice. But professional athletes transitioning into politics is not unprecedented. Former Major League Baseball MVP and World Series champion Steve Garvey, a 10-time All-Star who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, is running in the California Senate race. No athlete has ever made the jump directly to veep, though, let alone begun a political career while still the starting quarterback for an NFL team. The day after news broke about Rodgers, Steph Curry, the superstar guard for the Golden State Warriors, was asked if he would one day consider running for president, and he didn’t rule it out. So, we might soon be voting for athletes in more than just All-Star games! And they might have some stiff competition on the ballot from another athlete. Cue the music… “IF YA SMELLLL WHAT THE ROCK IS COOKIN!” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – a football player turned wrestler turned actor turned potential presidential candidate – has also expressed interest in a political career. Here’s a look back at other notable athletes in the United States who have gone from running on a field of play to running for office. Dave BingDave Bing, the No. 2 pick in the 1966 draft out of Syracuse University, spent nine of his 12 seasons in the NBA with the Detroit Pistons. The Basketball Hall of Famer went on to become the mayor of Detroit from 2008 to 2013. Bill BradleyBill Bradley, the No. 2 pick in the 1965 NBA Draft, won championships with the New York Knicks in 1970 and 1973 during his Hall of Fame career. He represented New Jersey for 18 years in the United States Senate and ran in the 2000 presidential primaries for the Democratic party but lost to Al Gore. Jim BunningJim Bunning, a pitcher who spent the prime of his 17-year Hall of Fame career with the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies, won 224 career games, including a perfect game tossed in 1964. He later became a member of the Kentucky Senate and House of Representatives. Gerald FordThe only president on the list, Gerald Ford won two national titles with the University of Michigan football team in 1932 and 1933 while playing center, linebacker and long snapper. He received offers to play professionally but elected to coach at Yale while attending law school there. He began serving in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1949 until he became vice president of the United States in 1973 following the resignation of Spiro Agnew. Ford then became president the following year when Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Anthony GonzalezAnthony Gonzalez was drafted in the first round of the 2007 NFL Draft by the Indianapolis Colts and produced 1,307 receiving yards and seven touchdowns in his five-year career as a wide receiver. He was elected into the Ohio House of Representatives in 2018. Napoleon HarrisNapoleon Harris was drafted in the first round of the 2002 NFL Draft and went on to play seven seasons as a linebacker for the Oakland Raiders, Minnesota Vikings and Kansas City Chiefs. He has served as an Illinois senator since 2013. Glenn JacobsGlenn Jacobs, a WWE Hall of Fame wrestler known as “Kane,” was elected mayor of Knox County in Tennessee in 2018. Caitlyn JennerCaitlyn Jenner, an Olympic gold-medal winning decathlete in 1976, ran for governor in the 2021 California Recall Election. Jenner, a transgender rights activist, received just one percent of votes. Kevin JohnsonKevin Johnson, a three-time NBA All-Star with the Phoenix Suns during his 13-year playing career, was the mayor of Sacramento from 2008 to 2016. Walter JohnsonWalter Johnson – who as a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Washington Senators between 1907 and 1927 won 417 games, second most in MLB history – won a seat on the Montgomery County Commission in 1938 and campaigned for Congress in 1940. Jack KempJack Kemp spent the first season of his professional football career with the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers in 1957 before becoming a star with the AFL’s Buffalo Bills. The seven-time AFL Pro Bowl quarterback led the Bills to championships in 1964 and 1965 and earned Player of the Year honors. He went on to serve as a member of the New York House of Representatives from 1971 to 89, during which he ran in the 1988 presidential primaries for the Republican party. Kemp was the vice presidential nominee as running mate to Bob Dole in the 1996 election, but the duo fell to incumbents Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Steve LargentSteve Largent had 13,089 receiving yards and made seven Pro Bowls during his 14-year NFL career with the Seattle Seahawks. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Oklahoma’s first district in 1994 and was reelected for three additional terms. He ran for Oklahoma governor in 2002 but lost narrowly. Wayne MessamWayne Messam was a wide receiver on Florida State University’s national championship team in 1993 and later signed with the Cincinnati Bengals as an undrafted free agent, although he never went on to play in the NFL. Elected in Miramar, Florida as city commission and then as mayor, Messam announced a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 but later suspended his campaign. Burgess OwensBurgess Owens, a defensive back selected in the first round of the 1973 NFL Draft by the New York Jets, won a Super Bowl with the Oakland Raiders in 1980. He was elected to Congress in 2020. Jon RunyanJon Runyan was a Pro Bowl offensive lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles during his 14-year NFL career. He represented New Jersey in the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Schwarzenegger is best known for his acting career and lines like “I’ll be back.” Prior to that he was a bodybuilder, winning seven Mr. Olympia competitions. Later in life he went on to serve as governor of California from 2003 to 2011. Heath ShulerHeath Shuler was a Heisman Trophy runner-up who was selected with the No. 3 overall pick in the 1994 NFL Draft by Washionton. He spent four seasons in the NFL and went on to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina in 2007. Lynn SwannLynn Swann won four Super Bowls as a wide receiver with the Pittsburgh Steelers during his Hall of Fame career, being named MVP of the big game in 1976. President George W. Bush named Swann the chairman of the United States President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports in 2002. Swann ran for Pennsylvania governor in 2006 but fell in the election. Jesse VenturaJesse Ventura served as a U.S. Navy SEAL before going on to have a Hall of Fame wrestling career in the WWE as Jesse “The Body” Ventura. His political career began in 1990 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park in Minnesota, and he went on to serve as governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. Ventura, like Aaron Rodgers, is a candidate to be running mate for presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. Herschel WalkerHerschel Walker was a National Champion and Heisman Trophy winning running back at the University of Georgia. He went on to win an MVP award in the USFL before spending 12 seasons in the NFL, becoming a two-time Pro Bowler for the Dallas Cowboys before being dealt to the Minnesota Vikings in one of the biggest trades in league history. The College Football Hall of Famer also competed in the 1992 Olympics as a member of the U.S. bobsled team. Walker unsuccessfully ran in Georgia’s 2022 Senate race. Social media influencer is charged with joining the Jan. 6 attack on the US CapitolMonday March 18th, 2024 07:11:16 PM Michael Kunzelman | The Associated PressA conservative social media influencer has been charged with storming the U.S. Capitol and passing a stolen table out of a broken window, allowing other rioters to use it as a weapon against police, according to court records unsealed on Monday. Isabella Maria DeLuca was arrested last Friday in Irvine, California, on misdemeanor charges, including theft of government property, disorderly conduct and entering a restricted area. DeLuca, who has more than 333,000 followers on the platform formerly known as Twitter, is a former congressional intern who works as a media associate for The Gold Institute for International Strategy. DeLuca’s profile on the institute’s website says she served as an ambassador for the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA. DeLuca also interned for former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York and Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, both of whom are Republicans who have supported former President Donald Trump. DeLuca, 24, of Setauket, New York, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Online court records don’t list an attorney representing her. A spokesperson for the Gold Institute for International Strategy said it learned Monday that DeLuca — who was hired in an unpaid position to update the organization’s social media presence — was facing criminal charges and said, “following further internal investigation, we felt it necessary to sever our relationship.” During the Jan. 6 riot, DeLuca replied to a Twitter post by writing, “Fight back or let politicians steal and election? Fight back!” Videos captured her entering a suite of conference rooms inside the Capitol through a broken window on the Lower West Terrace. She passed a table out of the window and then climbed back outside through the same window. A table that another rioter threw at police resembled the one that DeLuca passed out the window, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit. DeLuca posted about the riot for days after the Jan. 6 attack. When an Instagram user asked her why she supported breaking into the Capitol, she responded, “According to the constitution it’s our house.” Several days later, she posted on social media that she was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and had “mixed feelings.” “People went to the Capitol building because that’s Our House and that’s where we go to take our grievances. People feel, as do I that an election was stolen from them and it was allowed,” she wrote. When the FBI questioned her roughly two weeks after the Capitol attack, DeLuca denied entering the building on Jan. 6, the agent’s affidavit says. More than 1,300 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. Over 800 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds getting a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years. Supreme Court extends block on Texas law that would allow police to arrest migrantsMonday March 18th, 2024 05:27:16 PM Lindsay Whitehurst | Associated PressThe Supreme Court on Monday continued to block, for now, a Texas law that would give police broad powers to arrest migrants suspected of illegally entering the U.S. while the legal battle it sparked over immigration authority plays out. A one-page order signed by Justice Samuel Alito indefinitely prevents Texas from enforcing a sweeping state immigration enforcement law that had been set to take effect this month. The language of the order strongly suggests the court will take additional action, but it is unclear when. It marks the second time Alito has extended a pause on the law, known as Senate Bill 4, which the Justice Department has argued would step on the federal government’s immigration powers. Monday’s order extending the stay came a few minutes after a 5 p.m. deadline the court had set for itself, creating momentary confusion about the measure’s status. Opponents have called the law the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since an Arizona law more than a decade ago, portions of which were struck down by the Supreme Court. The court battle is unfolding as immigration emerges as a key issue in the 2024 presidential race. The office of Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said the state’s law mirrored federal law and “was adopted to address the ongoing crisis at the southern border, which hurts Texans more than anyone else.” Hours after the ruling, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott responded with a post on X saying that Texas is still arresting undocumented immigrants for “other violations of the law.” “SCOTUS temporarily halted enforcement of SB 4 but Texas is still using its authority to arrest illegal immigrants for criminal trespass and other violations of law,” Abbott wrote. “We continue building the wall, use NG to erect razor wire barriers to repel migrants & buoys remain in river.” Arrests for illegal crossings along the southern border hit record highs in December but fell by half in January, a shift attributed to seasonal declines and heightened enforcement by the U.S. and its allies. The federal government has not yet released numbers for February. The Biden administration sued to strike down the Texas measure in January, arguing it’s a clear violation of federal authority on immigration that would hurt international relations and create chaos in administering immigration law. Critics have also said the law could lead to civil rights violations and racial profiling. A federal judge in Texas struck down the law in late February, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals quickly stayed that ruling, leading the federal government to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court in 2012 struck down key parts of an Arizona law that would have allowed police to arrest people for federal immigration violations, often referred to by opponents as the “show me your papers” bill. The divided high court found then that the impasse in Washington over immigration reform did not justify state intrusion. The battle over the Texas immigration law is one of multiple legal disputes between Texas officials and the Biden administration over how far the state can go to patrol the Texas-Mexico border and prevent illegal border crossings. Several Republican governors have backed Abbott’s efforts, saying the federal government is not doing enough to enforce existing immigration laws. This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. Netanyahu agrees to send Israeli officials to Washington to discuss prospective Rafah operationMonday March 18th, 2024 05:04:06 PM Aamer Madhani, Zeke Miller and Julia Frankel | The Associated PressIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss with Biden administration officials a prospective Rafah operation as each side is looking to make “clear to the other its perspective,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. The agreement to hold talks about Rafah came as Biden and Netanyahu spoke on Monday, their first interaction in more than a month, as the divide has grown between allies over the food crisis in Gaza and Israel’s conduct during the war, according to the White House. The White House has been skeptical of Netanyahu’s plan to carry out an operation in the southern city of Rafah, where about 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, as Israel looks to eliminate Hamas following Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack. Sullivan said Biden in the call once again urged Netanyahu not to carry out a Rafah operation and questioned the Israeli leader about establishing a “coherent and sustainable strategy’ to defeat Hamas. “The president has rejected, and did again today, the straw man that raising questions about Rafah is the same as raising questions about defeating Hamas,” Sullivan said. “That’s just nonsense. Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else, but a major ground operation there would be a mistake. It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza and further isolate Israel internationally.” The call comes after Republicans in Washington and Israeli officials were quick to express outrage after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sharply criticizedNetanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza and called for Israel to hold new elections. They accused the Democratic leader of breaking the unwritten rule against interfering in a close ally’s electoral politics. Biden hasn’t endorsed Schumer’s call for election but said he thought he gave a “good speech” that reflected the concerns of many Americans. Netanyahu raised concerns about the calls by Schumer for new elections, Sullivan said. Biden administration officials have warned that they would not support an operation in Rafah without the Israelis presenting a credible plan to ensure the safety of innocent Palestinian civilians. Israel has yet to present such a plan, according to White House officials. Netanyahu in a statement after the call made no direct mention of the tension. “We discussed the latest developments in the war, including Israel’s commitment to achieving all of the war’s goals: Eliminating Hamas, freeing all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza never (again) constitutes a threat to Israel — while providing the necessary humanitarian aid that will assist in achieving these goals,” Netanyahu said. The Biden-Netanyahu call also came as a new report warned that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, where 70% of the remaining population is experiencing catastrophic hunger, and that a further escalation of the war could push around half of Gaza’s population to the brink of starvation. The report came from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a partnership of more than a dozen governments, U.N. aid and other agencies that determines the severity of food crises. Netanyahu lashed out against the American criticism on Sunday, describing calls for a new election as “wholly inappropriate.” Netanyahu told Fox News Channel that Israel never would have called for a new U.S. election after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and he denounced Schumer’s comments as inappropriate. “We’re not a banana republic,” he said. “The people of Israel will choose when they will have elections, and who they’ll elect, and it’s not something that will be foisted on us.” Even as they express frustration about aspects of the Israeli operations, the White House acknowledges that Israel has made significant progress in degrading Hamas. And Sullivan revealed on Monday that an Israeli operation last week killed Hamas’ third in commander, Marwan Issa. Biden after his State of the Union address earlier this month was caught on a hot mic telling a Democratic ally that he has told Netanyahu they would have a “come to Jesus” meeting over the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. His frustration with Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war was also on display in a recent MSNBC interview, in which he asserted Netanyahu was “hurting Israel.” “He has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas,” Biden said of Netanyahu in the MSNBC interview. “But he must, he must, he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken. He’s hurting … in my view, he’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel.” The president announced during his State of the Union address that the U.S. military would help establish a temporary pier aimed at boosting the amount of aid getting into the territory. The U.S. military has also been air-dropping aid into Gaza. The Biden administration resorted to the unusual workarounds after months of appealing to Israel, a top recipient of military aid, to step up access and protection for trucks bearing humanitarian goods for Gaza. The five-month war was triggered after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack, rampaging through communities, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and taking around 250 hostages. Israel responded with one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history. The war has killed over 31,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes, and a quarter of the population faces starvation. Putin hails election victory after harshest crackdown on opposition since Soviet eraMonday March 18th, 2024 03:18:25 AM Emma Burrows, Dasha Litvinova and Jim Heintz | Associated PressElection commission results on Monday showed that President Vladimir Putin has secured a fifth term with an overwhelming number of votes, in an election that held little suspense after the harshest crackdown on the opposition and free speech since Soviet times. After facing only token challengers and harshly suppressing opposition voices, Putin was set to extend his nearly quarter-century rule for six more years. Even with little margin for protest, Russians crowded outside polling stations at noon on Sunday, the last day of the election, apparently heeding an opposition call to express their displeasure with the president. Putin has led Russia as president or prime minister since December 1999, a tenure marked by international military aggression and an increasing intolerance for dissent. Early Monday, Putin hailed overwhelming preliminary results as an indication of “trust” and “hope” in him — while critics saw them as another reflection of the preordained nature of the election. “Of course, we have lots of tasks ahead. But I want to make it clear for everyone: When we were consolidated, no one has ever managed to frighten us, to suppress our will and our self-conscience. They failed in the past and they will fail in the future,” Putin said at a meeting with volunteers after polls closed. Any public criticism of Putin or his war in Ukraine has been stifled. Independent media have been crippled. His fiercest political foe, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison last month, and other critics are either in jail or in exile. Beyond the fact that voters had virtually no choice, independent monitoring of the election was extremely limited. According to Russia’s Central Election Commission, Putin had some 87% of the vote with over 99% of precincts counted. Putin has led Russia as president or prime minister since December 1999, a tenure marked by international military aggression and an increasing intolerance for dissent. Early Monday, Putin hailed overwhelming preliminary results as an indication of “trust” and “hope” in him — while critics saw them as another reflection of the preordained nature of the election. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the presidents of Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela quickly congratulated Putin on his victory, as did the leaders of ex-Soviet nations Belarus, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, the West dismissed the vote as a sham. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “This is not what free and fair elections look like.” In the tightly controlled environment, Navalny’s associates urged those unhappy with Putin or the war to go to the polls at noon on Sunday — and lines outside a number of polling stations both inside Russia and at its embassies around the world appeared to swell at that time. Among those heeding call was Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, who spent more than five hours in the line at the Russian Embassy in Berlin. She told reporters that she wrote her late husband’s name on her ballot. Asked whether she had a message for Putin, Navalnaya replied: “Please stop asking for messages from me or from somebody for Mr. Putin. There could be no negotiations and nothing with Mr. Putin, because he’s a killer, he’s a gangster.” But Putin brushed off the effectiveness of the apparent protest. “There were calls to come vote at noon. And this was supposed to be a manifestation of opposition. Well, if there were calls to come vote, then … I praise this,” he said at a news conference after polls closed. Putin referenced Navalny by name for the first time ever at the news conference, declaring that he was ready to release him in a swap for unidentified inmates in Western custody just days before the opposition leader’s death. He rejected Western criticism of the vote and tried to turn the tables at the West, charging that the four criminal cases against Republican candidate Donald Trump were a use of the judiciary for political aims and describing denigrating democracy in the U.S. as a “catastrophe.” “The whole world is laughing at it,” he said. Some Russians waiting to vote in Moscow and St. Petersburg told The Associated Press that they were taking part in the protest, but it wasn’t possible to confirm whether all of those in line were doing so. A voter in Moscow, who identified himself only as Vadim, said he hoped for change, but added that “unfortunately, it’s unlikely.” Like others, he didn’t give his full name because of security concerns. Meanwhile, supporters of Navalny streamed to his grave in Moscow, some bringing ballots with his name written on them. Meduza, Russia’s biggest independent news outlet, published photos of ballots it received from their readers, with “killer” inscribed on one and “The Hague awaits you” on another. The latter refers to an arrest warrant for Putin on war crimes charges from the International Criminal Court. Some people told the AP that they were happy to vote for Putin — unsurprising in a country where state TV airs a drumbeat of praise for the Russian leader and voicing any other opinion is risky. Dmitry Sergienko, who cast his ballot in Moscow, said, “I am happy with everything and want everything to continue as it is now.” Voting took place over three days at polling stations across the vast country, in illegally annexed regions of Ukraine and online. Several people were arrested, including in Moscow and St. Petersburg, after they tried to start fires or set off explosives at polling stations while others were detained for throwing green antiseptic or ink into ballot boxes. Stanislav Andreychuk, co-chair of the Golos independent election watchdog, said Russians were searched when entering polling stations, there were attempts to check filled-out ballots before they were cast, and one report said police demanded a ballot box be opened to remove a ballot. That left little room for people to express themselves. Still, huge lines formed around noon outside diplomatic missions in London, Berlin, Paris and other cities with large Russian communities, many of whom left home after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “If we have some option to protest I think it’s important to utilize any opportunity,” said 23-year-old Tatiana, who was voting in the Estonian capital of Tallinn and said she came to take part in the protest. ___ What makes people happy? California lawmakers want to find outSaturday March 16th, 2024 03:39:05 PM Sophie Austin | The Associated PressCalifornia Assemblyman Anthony Rendon likes to spend his spare time away from the Capitol in Sacramento with his 4-year-old daughter back home near Los Angeles. Last weekend, he took her ice skating and to an indoor playground, then let her get a donut after she agreed to ride her scooter on the way there. “Those are the types of things that make me happy,” he said this week in an interview outside the state Assembly chambers, where he’s served as a lawmaker for a dozen years. Now Rendon, a Democrat who was one of the longest-serving Assembly speakers in California history, is spending his last year in office trying to make happiness more central to policymaking. He created a first-in-the-nation group to study the issue, called the Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes, which held its first public hearing this week. It would be “silly” for lawmakers to not study how they can make people happier, Rendon said. “Because if we have everybody clothed, everybody housed, everybody has a job and they’re miserable, then we’ve failed at what we’re trying to do,” he said, adding that lawmakers should think about happiness as a priority in policymaking. In California, three-quarters of adults say they are “very happy” or “pretty happy,” while 26% say they are “not too happy,” according to a September 2023 survey from the Public Policy Institute of California. Adults age 18 to 34, people who are renters, those without a post-high school degree, and Californians with an annual household income of $40,000 or lower tend to be less happy than others. California is breaking new ground in the United States. At least 12 state legislatures in the nation have committees focused on mental health and substance abuse issues, but no other state legislature has a committee devoted to happiness, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But the idea to consider happiness in public policy isn’t unprecedented: The landlocked country of Bhutan in South Asia prioritizes happiness as a goal of public policy, measuring it through something written into its constitution called the Gross National Happiness Index. The country surveys residents on their level of happiness, and officials work to increase happiness by providing residents with free health care and education, protecting cultural traditions, and preserving forests, said Phuntsho Norbu, consul general of the Kingdom of Bhutan to the United States. The government cannot make every person happy, but it should “create the right conditions that will allow people to pursue happiness,” Norbu said. Lawmakers on California’s new committee heard this week from experts about the things that make people happy, what public officials can do to help and what role state and local government can play. The committee isn’t set on any solutions yet but plans to release a report with its findings after lawmakers adjourn for the year at the end of August, said Katie Talbot, Rendon’s spokesperson. Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, a Democrat representing part of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, hopes the committee’s work can address poor mental health among youth in California, which her 11-year-old daughter has told her is a big issue in her class at school. “It’s a true crisis that we have on our hands right now,” Schiavo said. “This is really getting to the heart of what that crisis is about.” Research demonstrates that leisure activities, social relationships and life circumstances contribute to a person’s happiness, said Meliksah Demir, a professor of happiness at California State University, Sacramento. Public officials can work toward improving happiness by investing in mental health resources, making green spaces more accessible and teaching about the value of happiness early on in schools, Demir said. Happiness has wide-ranging benefits that include making people more likely to vote, more creative and healthier, he said. The Public Policy Institute of California’s September survey found that 33% of adults overall say they are very satisfied with their job, 31% say they are very satisfied with their leisure activities and 44% are very satisfied with their housing. Californians’ level of happiness decreased during the pandemic, but experts are still researching the decline, said Mark Baldassare, the group’s survey director. California, which is often ahead of other states on issues such as climate policy and civil rights, is behind many parts of the world in prioritizing happiness in policymaking, Rendon said. He was inspired to create the happiness committee in part by a report on happiness released annually by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Last year’s report said that how people view the effectiveness of government — including how well it raises money, delivers services and avoids civil war — can influence their happiness. The United States was 15th in a world happiness ranking based on a three-year average from 2020 to 2022, according to the report. Scandinavian countries, including Finland and Iceland, ranked the highest. Rendon’s decision to create the happiness committee aligns with his approach to making state policy that focuses on “bigger picture” social issues, longtime labor lobbyist Kristina Bas Hamilton said. People have different perspectives on government involvement in their lives, but the creation of the committee evokes the ultimate purpose of government, she said. “Government’s role is to provide for its people,” Bas Hamilton said. “The goal is to have happy citizens. That’s the goal of all public policy.” Judge delays Trump's hush-money criminal trial 30 days due to last-minute evidence dumpFriday March 15th, 2024 05:43:42 PM Michael R. Sisak | Associated PressA judge on Friday delayed former President Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial until at least mid-April after his lawyers said they needed more time to sift through a profusion of evidence they only recently obtained from a previous federal investigation into the matter. Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to a 30-day postponement and scheduled a hearing for March 25 to address questions about the evidence dump. The trial had been slated to start on March 25. It is among four criminal indictments against Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee. Trump’s lawyers wanted a 90-day delay, which would’ve pushed the start of the trial into the early summer. Prosecutors said they were OK with a 30-day adjournment “in an abundance of caution and to ensure that defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials.” Trump’s lawyers said they have received tens of thousands of pages of evidence in the last two weeks from the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which investigated the hush money arrangement while Trump was president. The evidence includes records about former Trump lawyer-turned-prosecution witness Michael Cohen that are “exculpatory and favorable to the defense,” Trump’s lawyers said. Prosecutors said most of the newly turned over material is “largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case,” though some records are pertinent. The hush money case centers on allegations that Trump falsified his company’s records to hide the true nature of payments to Cohen, who paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 during the 2016 presidential campaign to suppress her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels. His lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses and were not part of any cover-up. Prosecutors contend Trump’s lawyers caused the evidence problem by waiting until Jan. 18 — a mere nine weeks before the scheduled start of jury selection — to subpoena the U.S. attorney’s office for the full case file. District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said it requested the full file last year but the U.S. attorney’s office only turned over a subset of records. Trump’s lawyers received that material last June and had ample time to seek additional evidence from the federal probe, the district attorney’s office said. Short trial delays because of issues with evidence aren’t unusual, but any delay in a case involving Trump would be significant, with trial dates in his other criminal cases up in the air and Election Day less than eight months away. The defense has also sought to delay the trial until after the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s presidential immunity claims, which his lawyers say could apply to some of the allegations and evidence in the hush money case. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments April 25. Trump has repeatedly sought to postpone his criminal trials while he campaigns to retake the White House. “We want delays,” Trump told reporters as he headed into a Feb. 15 hearing in New York. “Obviously I’m running for election. How can you run for election if you’re sitting in a courthouse in Manhattan all day long?” Prosecutor leaves Georgia election case against Trump after relationship with district attorneyFriday March 15th, 2024 03:31:08 PM Kate Brumback and Alanna Durkin Richer | Associated PressA special prosecutor who had a romantic relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis formally withdrew Friday from the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump after a judge ruled he had to leave or Willis couldn’t continue to pursue the charges. Attorney Nathan Wade’s resignation allows Willis to remain on the most sprawling of four criminal cases against the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election. But the long-term damage to the public perception of the prosecution remains unclear, particularly in light of Trump’s relentless barrage of attacks on the pair who pledged to hold Trump accountable but found their own actions under a public microscope. Wade offered his resignation in a letter to Willis, saying he was doing so “in the interest of democracy, in dedication to the American public and to move this case forward as quickly as possible.” “I am sure that the case, and the team, will be in good hands moving forward and justice will be served,” Wade wrote. Willis complimented Wade’s “professionalism and dignity” in a letter accepting his resignation, effective immediately. She said he had endured threats against himself and his family, as well as “unjustified attacks” in the media and in court on his reputation as a lawyer. “I will always remember — and will remind everyone — that you were brave enough to step forward and take on the investigation and prosecution of the allegations that the defendants in this case engaged in a conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 Presidential Election,” Willis wrote. Trump’s team felt differently. An attorney for the former president said they respected the court’s decision but believe the judge “did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade.” “We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place,” Trump attorney Steve Sadow said. Defense attorneys could try to appeal the ruling, but they would need the judge’s permission to do so. The resignation came hours after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said Wade had to be removed or Willis must step aside from the case. McAfee did not find that Willis’ relationship with Wade amounted to a conflict of interest but said the allegations created an “appearance of impropriety” that infected the prosecution team. “As the case moves forward, reasonable members of the public could easily be left to wonder whether the financial exchanges have continued resulting in some form of benefit to the District Attorney, or even whether the romantic relationship has resumed,” the judge wrote. “Put differently, an outsider could reasonably think that the District Attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences. As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist.” Friday’s extraordinary developments underscored the extent to which the case that began with allegations that a former president tried to undermine the will of the people who voted him out of the White House had become consumed by talk of the love lives of its top prosecutors. In accepting Wade’s resignation, Willis made clear her determination to turn the page from weeks of embarrassing headlines about romantic getaways, sex and stashes of cash that have dominated the coverage of the case. Willis hired Wade in 2021 to lead the team to investigate and ultimately prosecute Trump and 18 others on charges that they illegally tried to overturn his narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia in 2020. The case uses a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power. Trump, the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee for 2024, has denied doing anything wrong and pleaded not guilty. Willis and Wade testified at a hearing last month that they had engaged in a romantic relationship, but they rejected the idea that Willis improperly benefited from it, as lawyers for Trump and some of his co-defendants alleged. Willis and Wade insisted they didn’t begin dating until after he became special prosecutor, though a former friend and employee of Willis’ testified that she saw the pair hugging and kissing before he was hired. Willis and Wade said the relationship ended in the summer of 2023. They both said that Willis either paid for things herself or used cash to reimburse Wade for travel expenses. McAfee wrote that there was insufficient evidence that Willis had a personal stake in the prosecution. And he said he was unable to “conclusively establish by a preponderance of the evidence” whether Willis and Wade began dating before or after he was hired as special prosecutor. “However, an odor of mendacity remains,” the judge wrote. He said “reasonable questions” about whether Willis and Wade testified truthfully about the timing of their relationship “further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.” Even so, he said, dismissal of the case was not the appropriate remedy to “adequately dissipate the financial cloud of impropriety and potential untruthfulness found here.” An attorney for co-defendant Michael Roman was the first to ask McAfee to dismiss the indictment and prevent Willis and Wade and their offices from continuing to prosecute the case. The attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, alleged that Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then improperly benefited from the prosecution of the case when Wade used his earnings to pay for vacations for the two of them. Merchant said in a statement Friday that while Roman’s team maintains that the judge should have disqualified Willis’ office entirely, the judge clearly agreed with the defense that there is a “risk to the future of this case” if Willis “doesn’t quickly work to cure her conflict.” The ruling comes days after the judge dismissed three of 13 counts against Trump in the indictment and an additional three counts against other people. The judge said prosecutors failed to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of the allegations related to soliciting public officers to violate their oaths. However, the bulk of the 41-count indictment remains intact, and the judge said prosecutors could seek a new indictment to try to reinstate the charges he dismissed. One dismissed count stemmed from a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” for him to win the election in the state. Of the 19 people originally charged in the indictment, four have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors. They include prominent Trump allies and attorneys Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro. This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. Kansas GOP leaders close to banning gender-affirming care for minorsFriday March 15th, 2024 03:54:09 AM John Hanna | Associated PressRepublican legislators in Kansas are close to banning gender-affirming care for minors over the Democratic governor’s expected veto after winning over previously skeptical GOP colleagues, fueling fears that success will encourage further attempts to roll back transgender rights. Supporters were confident Thursday that the Republican-controlled Senate would approve a bill that would bar health care providers from treating a child’s gender dysphoria with puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgery and strip doctors who violate the ban of their licenses. But GOP leaders wanted to send the bill to Gov. Laura Kelly with the two-thirds majority necessary to override her veto later, and so after planning a final vote for Thursday, they canceled it in hopes of rewriting some of its language to lock in the last vote. “It’s close enough,” said Senate President Ty Masterson, a Wichita-area Republican, predicting final passage next week. The bill already passed the GOP-controlled House on Wednesday, so the Senate’s approval would send it to Kelly. At least 23 other states with Republican legislatures have restricted or banned gender-affirming care for minors. Kansas lawmakers attempted to pass a ban last year, but GOP supporters in the Senate failed to override Kelly’s veto of a bill last year by a single vote — and three Republicans voted “no” then. Republicans said the issue is making sure that minors receiving hormone treatment now can phase out those treatments, rather than stopping them immediately, in part to avoid legal problems. Senators would have to get the House to vote to agree on any change. That decision to try to lock in a two-thirds majority in the Senate before a veto after supporters had a net gain of 12 votes in favor of a ban Wednesday compared with the vote on it last year. Including supporters who were absent Wednesday, backers appeared to have a two-thirds majority in the House. “When I was out and about last summer and last fall, and the number of emails and the number of calls that I had, I didn’t have a single one tell me to vote the same as I did last year,” state Rep. Susan Concannon, a Republican from western Kansas, said Thursday. While supporters say they’re concerned about protecting children, the Kansas bill has stoked fears among transgender adults and LGBTQ+ advocates that GOP lawmakers will follow other GOP-led states and seek more restrictions next year. While Ohio’s state government last month backed off limiting care for adults, a 2023 Florida law aimed at care for children also restricted care for adults — as did a short-lived Missouri rule. “The goalposts are not firm,” said Iridescent Riffel, a 27-year-old transgender Lawrence resident and LGBTQ+ rights activist who’s worked against the bill. “They will always continue to be moved further and further right.” Opponents of such restrictions in Kansas already have promised a legal challenge if they are enacted. Courts elsewhere have blocked enforcement of bans in Arkansas, Idaho and Montana but allowed their enforcement in Alabama and Georgia. Laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care are out of step with the recommendations of major U.S. medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. And providers of the care say it saves lives by lessening depression and anxiety that can lead to suicide. Young transgender adults and parents of transgender or non-binary children from Kansas further told lawmakers that gender-affirming is vital to their health, adding that providers didn’t rush their decisions and were clear about potential side effects. Anthony Alvarez, a 20-year-old transgender University of Kansas student, said he had to wait several months after a doctor was willing to prescribe his testosterone treatments to undergo an additional evaluation to confirm he was sure about wanting them. He had looked forward to his voice deepening and growing facial hair and hopes to have the double mastectomy known as “top surgery” in December. He said he’s much happier since his transition because the depression and anxiety that marked his life before have waned. “Those aren’t things that are causing the gender dysphoria. They’re being caused by the gender dysphoria — the reaction to a world that is kind of hostile towards you,” he said in an interview. Yet Republican lawmakers portray puberty blockers and hormone treatments as too risky for children. Top Republican House leaders in Kansas said in a statement Wednesday that they were preventing irreversible harm from “experimental” treatments. The bill’s backers cited a statement this week from the National Health Service in England, saying “there is not enough evidence” that puberty blockers are safe and effective to “make the treatment routinely available,” something U.S. care providers dispute. The NHS statement followed a temporary policy the NHS set last year. In a meeting of GOP senators early Thursday, Senate Health Committee Chair Beverly Gossage, a Kansas City-area Republican, led a short briefing on the bill with, “It’s talking about children.” Iowa Republicans block personhood bill that could have threatened IVF from advancingThursday March 14th, 2024 05:03:08 PM Adam Edelman | NBC NewsIowa Republicans have blocked a personhood bill from advancing in the Legislature that would have made it a felony offense to “cause the death” of an “unborn person” — language that prompted concerns that the measure would criminalize in vitro fertilization. The bill had passed the GOP-controlled state House last week, but the Republican-led Senate declined to take up the bill after the chairman of the state Senate committee that would have initially debated it refused to do so. State Sen. Brad Zaun, the chair of the chamber’s Judiciary Committee, told the Associated Press that he didn’t advance the bill during the committee’s meeting on Wednesday, its last before a Friday legislative deadline, due to concerns over “unintended consequences” the measure could end up creating for IVF care in the state. Zaun didn’t immediately respond to questions from NBC News. The bill criminalizing the death of an “unborn person” did not provide any protections for embryos created via IVF. Democrats and reproductive rights advocates said that meant the measure could easily be interpreted to criminalize IFV care and services. The state House’s passage of the bill quickly inserted the conservative midwestern state directly into the national battle over protections for IVF. The vote in Iowa last Thursday came just hours after Republican lawmakers in Alabama — trying to curtail the severe fallout over a state Supreme Court ruling that equated embryos with children — enacted a bill intended to protect IVF. The Alabama court’s ruling prompted broader concerns that conservative measures targeting abortion elsewhere would also go after the fertility procedure. The Iowa bill stated that “a person who causes the death of an unborn person without the consent of the pregnant person” is “guilty of a class ‘A’ felony” and that “a person who unintentionally causes the death of an unborn person” is “guilty of a class ‘B’ felony.” In Iowa, a class ‘A’ felony is the most serious criminal offense under the law and is punishable by up to a mandatory prison life sentence — without the possibility of parole. A class ‘B’ felony, under Iowa law, is punishable by up to 25 years in prison. The bill defined an “unborn person” as a human “individual organism” from “fertilization to live birth.” It did not include any protections that would specifically or broadly apply to IVF. For example, the bill did not include clarifying language that many reproductive rights advocates have said serve as protections for IVF, like clarifying the term “unborn person” as having to be “in utero” or “carried in the womb.” Reproductive rights advocates say those phrases serve to make the statues enforceable only in situations where the embryo or fetus is being carried in the womb — not outside the womb as is the case in the early phases of IVF. The Associated Press contributed. This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: Bernie Sanders pushes bill to establish a four-day workweekThursday March 14th, 2024 12:21:08 PM Summer Concepcion | NBC NewsSen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., will hold a hearing Thursday on a bill he introduced to reduce the standard U.S. workweek to four days without loss of pay. The bill, titled the “Thirty-Two Hour Work Week Act,” would reduce the standard workweek from 40 to 32 hours over the span of four years, including lowering the maximum hours required for overtime compensation for nonexempt employees. It would also require overtime pay at time and a half for workdays that last more than eight hours and overtime pay that would pay workers double their regular pay if their workday is longer than 12 hours. A press release on the bill described it as an “important step toward ensuring workers share in increasing productivity and economic growth driven by technological advancements.” “Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea,” Sanders said in a statement. “Today, American workers are over 400 percent more productive than they were in the 1940s. And yet, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were decades ago. That has got to change.” “The financial gains from the major advancements in artificial intelligence, automation and new technology must benefit the working class, not just corporate CEOs and wealthy stockholders on Wall Street,” he said. “It is time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life. It is time for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay. I look forward to the discussion this week.” Sanders introduced the legislation with Sen. Laphonza Butler, D-Calif.; Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., introduced companion legislation in the House. Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has asked United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, Boston College sociology professor Juliet Schor and Jon Leland, chief strategy officer of Kickstarter and cofounder of the Four Day Workweek Campaign, to testify at the hearing on the proposal. In a news release on the bill, Sanders cites studies that say that although weekly wages for average American workers are lower than they were 50 years ago after adjusting for inflation, CEOs make hundreds of times more than what their workers earn. “It’s time that working families— not just CEOs and wealthy shareholders — are able to benefit from increased productivity so that they can enjoy more leisure time, family time, education and cultural opportunities, and less stress,” the fact sheet says. Sanders also pointed to other countries that have reduced their workweeks, such as France, Norway and Denmark, as well as four-day workweek pilot programs that found increased productivity and satisfaction among workers. This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: Feed aggregation powered by Syndicate Press. Processed request in 1.62484 seconds. |
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Sports From ESPN Curry shows fire, lifts Dubs after Green's ejectionThursday March 28th, 2024 06:30:32 AM Kendra Andrews
Stephen Curry kicked a few chairs after a late 3-pointer sealed the Warriors' win over the Magic on Wednesday, "letting out a little steam" in a game that began with Draymond Green being ejected in the first quarter.
76ers riled over final play; refs admit missed foulThursday March 28th, 2024 07:10:37 AM Tim Bontemps
A chaotic end to Wednesday night's game saw the Clippers celebrating a needed win and Philadelphia's Nick Nurse and Kelly Oubre Jr. confronting the officials over a missed foul that crew chief Kevin Scott said should have been called.
LeBron: 'Got to be smart' with health over seedingThursday March 28th, 2024 07:56:23 AM Dave McMenamin
LeBron James says he will prioritize his health over the chase for the Lakers' playoff seeding down the stretch of the regular season.
MPJ defends brother amid betting investigationThursday March 28th, 2024 09:24:35 AM
Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. said he's sure younger brother Jontay would never do anything to jeopardize his budding NBA career.
Dodgers keep spending, extend Smith for $140MThursday March 28th, 2024 11:03:42 AM Jeff Passan
The Dodgers and All-Star catcher Will Smith agreed to a 10-year, $140 million contract extension.
Sources: SMU targeting USC's Enfield as coachThursday March 28th, 2024 03:50:03 AM Pete Thamel and Jeff Borzello
SMU is targeting Andy Enfield for the school's basketball job, sources told ESPN.
Chimaev-Whittaker tops UFC's first Saudi eventThursday March 28th, 2024 09:19:39 AM
Khamzat Chimaev and Robert Whittaker will headline the UFC's first card in Saudi Arabia on June 22.
Boone to Soto: Don't defer to Yankees veteransWednesday March 27th, 2024 11:47:33 PM David Schoenfield
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he has encouraged Juan Soto to "feel empowered to say and do whatever you feel like you need to do" ahead of his debut with the team.
2024 MLB predictions: From playoffs and World Series to MVPs and Cy YoungsWednesday March 27th, 2024 11:54:42 AM ESPN
Can the Dodgers go all the way? Who will win MVP? Our experts make their predictions for the 2024 baseball season.
Shohei Ohtani stands alone in spotlight amid gambling scandalWednesday March 27th, 2024 07:00:31 PM Tim Keown
The Japanese superstar debuts in L.A. after accusing his interpreter and friend of stealing millions.
Are sports betting scandals proving cynics right?Wednesday March 27th, 2024 04:17:11 PM Xuan Thai
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for legalized sports betting in 2018, doomsayers have warned that the proliferation of wagering options would bring an inevitable wave of scandal to sports. Were they right?
What do the first two rounds of a perfect draft look like?Friday March 15th, 2024 05:52:51 PM Tristan H. Cockcroft and Eric Karabell
Tristan H. Cockcroft and Eric Karabell reveal their ideal outcomes for the first two rounds of a 10-team draft from the point of view of any of the starting draft positions.
Sean Payton has never drafted a first-round quarterback(!) -- is this the year?Wednesday March 27th, 2024 11:00:11 AM Jeff Legwold
Will the Broncos trade up to draft a quarterback, take one at No. 12 or pass on the rookie class altogether?
NBA Power Rankings: Bucks look to bounce back for postseason clinch after Lakers lossWednesday March 27th, 2024 12:52:51 PM ESPN
The 2023-24 NBA regular season is close to concluding, and the postseason picture is still up in the air. Here's where are 30 teams stack up this week.
How Keenan Allen went from the best year of his career to blindsided by a tradeWednesday March 27th, 2024 06:23:08 PM Kris Rhim
The Chargers traded Allen to the Chicago Bears on March 14 in exchange for a fourth-round draft pick.
Everything you need to know about the NFL's new hybrid kickoff rule changeTuesday March 26th, 2024 11:16:09 PM Kevin Seifert
To generate more kickoff returns and maintain safety, the NFL's changes will be "brand new to everybody."
PGA Tour Power Rankings: Top 25 with two weeks until the MastersWednesday March 27th, 2024 02:23:20 PM Mark Schlabach
With only a few weeks until golf's biggest tournament, it's a good time to see where Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and others stand in our PGA Tour rankings.
Comebacks, close calls, South Carolina routs: How the women's Sweet 16 was builtTuesday March 26th, 2024 03:50:04 PM Charlie Creme
Sixteen teams are headed to the regional semifinals in Albany and Portland. How did they advance, how have they performed and what obstacles await?
Breaking down the Premier League title race, and why Arsenal could edge Man CityWednesday March 27th, 2024 03:44:32 PM Ian Darke
Who will win the 2023-24 Premier League title? Ian Darke breaks down Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal's chances ahead of an intense final run-in.
Euro 2024 hosts Germany, freed from weight of expectation, are ready to flyWednesday March 27th, 2024 05:47:12 PM Gab Marcotti
Euro 2024 hosts Germany have not won a knockout game in eight years. But wins over France and Netherlands show they are ready to enjoy the ride.
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NYT Most Shared Who Is Blowing Up Russia?Tuesday March 26th, 2024 11:57:55 PM Bret Stephens
There are two plausible theories for who’s behind the terrorist attack in Russia. Both are terrifying.
Jordan Klepper Teases Trump for Shilling BiblesWednesday March 27th, 2024 06:37:53 AM Trish Bendix
“How does that thing not burst into flames immediately?” Klepper joked of Donald Trump’s “latest very classy business venture” on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.’
Victims of Bridge Collapse Were Workers Supporting Families, Co-Worker SaysWednesday March 27th, 2024 10:08:58 AM Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
The six men worked for a company that often maintains bridges operated by the state. They were repairing the bridge’s roadway when it was struck by the ship.
Russian Group Spread Disinformation About Kate Middleton, Experts SayThursday March 28th, 2024 04:30:04 AM Mark Landler and Adam Satariano
A Kremlin-linked group known for online campaigns to sow falsehoods and distrust among Russia’s foes helped fuel the frenzy of conspiracy theories about Catherine and her health.
What Birds’ Dreams Can Tell Us About Our OwnTuesday March 26th, 2024 07:00:08 AM Maria Popova
What new research on the avian brain and REM sleep in birds might reveal about our own dream lives.
Margaret Atwood on Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’ at 50Monday March 25th, 2024 09:01:59 AM Margaret Atwood
“Carrie” was published in 1974. Margaret Atwood explains its enduring appeal.
Ronna McDaniel Is Out at NBC News After FurorWednesday March 27th, 2024 12:36:01 AM Michael M. Grynbaum and John Koblin
A string of top stars had denounced the hiring of Ms. McDaniel, the former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, on their own airwaves.
The Race to Reinvent CPRWednesday March 27th, 2024 09:01:07 PM Helen Ouyang
A new, high-tech approach called ECPR can restart more hearts and save more lives. Why aren’t more hospitals embracing it?
Alabama Democrat Wins Special Election Running on Abortion and IVF AccessWednesday March 27th, 2024 01:43:38 PM Maggie Astor
Marilyn Lands flipped a State House seat in the deep-red state by 25 percentage points, underscoring the continued political potency of reproductive rights.
Happy-Go-Lucky Australia Is Feeling Neither Happy, Nor LuckyWednesday March 27th, 2024 12:35:04 PM Natasha Frost
After enjoying decades of prosperity, the country has hit stubborn economic turbulence.
Saving Seals From a Sea of Plastic and Marine GarbageTuesday March 26th, 2024 01:18:00 PM Cara Buckley
Ocean Conservation Namibia is disentangling a record number of seals, while broadcasting the perils of marine debris in a largely feel good way.
Bird Flu Spreads to Dairy CowsThursday March 28th, 2024 03:52:26 AM Emily Anthes
U.S. regulators confirmed that sick cattle in Texas, Kansas and possibly in New Mexico contracted avian influenza. They stressed that the nation’s milk supply is safe.
No One Is Above the Law, Except, Apparently, Donald TrumpTuesday March 26th, 2024 01:53:42 PM Jamelle Bouie
If there seems to be a different set of rules for the former president, that’s because, for all intents and purposes, there is.
Daniel Kahneman, Who Plumbed the Psychology of Economics, Dies at 90Wednesday March 27th, 2024 06:08:36 PM Robert D. Hershey Jr.
He helped pioneer a branch of the field that exposed hard-wired mental biases in people’s economic behavior. The work led to a Nobel.
One Purple State Is ‘Testing the Outer Limits of MAGAism’Wednesday March 27th, 2024 10:34:59 PM Thomas B. Edsall
North Carolina Republicans are “in the running for the most MAGA party in the nation.”
Jane Goodall Is More of a Dog Person, ActuallyWednesday March 27th, 2024 07:11:36 PM Darren Incorvaia
Dr. Goodall, who is best known for her work with chimpanzees, recently celebrated her forthcoming 90th birthday with as many dogs and explained why she isn’t slowing down.
The SAT Gave Me HopeWednesday March 27th, 2024 08:11:20 PM Emi Nietfeld
For a disadvantaged kid like me, the SAT was the one shot I had to prove my potential.
Amnon Weinstein, Who Restored Violins From the Holocaust, Dies at 84Wednesday March 27th, 2024 03:04:27 AM Michael S. Rosenwald
Many were left behind by victims of the gas chambers. He let the instruments be heard again in musical tributes through his organization, Violins of Hope.
How Ronna McDaniel Backed Trump’s Early Bid to Hold PowerThursday March 28th, 2024 03:15:44 AM Jim Rutenberg and Alexandra Berzon
During a very brief tenure at NBC News, the former Republican Party leader downplayed her role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. A review of the record showed she was involved in some key episodes.
Richard Serra, Who Recast Sculpture on a Massive Scale, Dies at 85Wednesday March 27th, 2024 04:35:36 PM Roberta Smith
His tilted walls of rusting steel, monumental blocks and other immense and inscrutable forms created environments that had to be walked through, or around, to be fully experienced.
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Last Updated on December 26, 2020 by admin