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US Monthly Headline News April 2023 - Page 1
By Tierney Sneed, CNN

CNN — Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, have gone on several luxury trips involving travel subsidized by and stays at properties owned by a GOP megadonor, according to a new bombshell ProPublica report published Thursday.

The hospitality was not disclosed on Thomas’ public financial filings with the Supreme Court, ProPublica said.  The report of the connection between Thomas and conservative businessman Harlan Crow is already adding to calls that Congress investigate potential ethical lapses. Key Senate Democrats were previously mulling using this year’s funding legislation for the Supreme Court to pressure the justices to adopt some sort of ethics code.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said in a statement that the ProPublica report was “a call to action” and that “the Senate Judiciary Committee will act.”

The ProPublica report describes Thomas accepting travel hospitality from Crow that included lavish trips to Indonesia, New Zealand, California, Texas and Georgia. Some of these trips reportedly included travel on Crow’s super yacht or stays at properties owned by Crow or his company. ProPublica also identified what appear to be several trips taken by Thomas on Crow’s private jet that went undisclosed on his public ethics filings, though one Thomas trip on Crow’s jet was disclosed in 1997.
Tennessee GOP lawmakers expelled the two Black Democrats but not the White Democrat

By Kerry Breen

Republican lawmakers in Tennessee voted on Thursday to expel two Democratic legislators who joined a protest on the House floor last week after a deadly school shooting in Nashville. On March 30, protesters gathered at the State Capitol, and Democratic Reps. Justin Jones, Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson led a chant of "power to the people" from the House floor.

On Thursday, lawmakers first voted 72-25 to expel Jones, 27, one of the youngest members of the legislature. The resolution to expel Johnson failed by one vote, 65 to 30. But Pearson, 28, was also expelled, in a 69-26 vote. The GOP supermajority had accused the representatives of breaking house rules on conduct and decorum. "A state in which the Ku Klux Klan was founded is now attempting another power grab by silencing the two youngest Black representatives," Jones said after the votes.
Michael Collins, Josh Meyer | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Anita Hill’s riveting testimony alleging sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas was still fresh on Joe Biden’s mind when he gaveled the Senate Judiciary Committee back to order. “Tough day – tough night for you,” Biden told the Supreme Court nominee. “Do you have anything you’d like to say?” Over the next few minutes on that evening of Oct. 11, 1991, Thomas would denounce Hill’s allegations as “sleaze,” “gossip” and “lies” and characterize the committee’s confirmation hearing helmed by Biden as “a circus” and “a national disgrace.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Thomas concluded of the televised hearing, “it’s a high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks.” Thomas’ confirmation hearing would set the stage for the decades-long, complicated relationship between the two men – one who would eventually become president, the other who would go on to win confirmation to the Supreme Court but would face multiple ethics controversies, including his wife’s involvement in a campaign to overturn the 2020 election that sent Biden to the White House.
Story by Lisa Rein

A nearly two-year investigation into allegations of misconduct by the Department of Homeland Security’s chief watchdog expanded this week to include his role in missing Secret Service text messages from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

On Monday, investigators demanded records related to the deleted texts from the Office of Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, an appointee of President Donald Trump whose office shut down an inquiry into the Secret Service messages last year amid the House’s probe of the insurrection.
Story by Sky Palma

White supremacist groups like Atomwaffen, which also goes by the name "National Socialist Order," are looking to recruit U.S. military members to help carry out terrorist attacks against minorities, according to experts speaking to Military.com.

In its annual 2023 threat assessment released in March, the U.S. intelligence declared that racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism is the "most lethal threat to Americans." It highlighted groups that believe "recruiting military members will help them organize cells for attacks against minorities or institutions that oppose their ideology."

"New extremist organizations such as Atomwaffen, the Boogaloo movement and the Base, a neo-Nazi group, have picked up where the anti-government militias of the '80s and '90s left off," the report said.
By Clare Foran and Simone McCarthy, CNN

CNN — Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are meeting in California on Wednesday, a highly anticipated event that marks a show of democratic solidarity in defiance of threats from China.

Tsai is gathering with McCarthy and a bipartisan group of US lawmakers at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California’s Simi Valley. The landmark meeting is the second time Tsai has met with an American lawmaker of that rank in the space of a year, following a visit from then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August. Tsai is also the first president of Taiwan to meet with a US House speaker on American soil.

“I am honored to welcome Taiwan’s president to the Reagan Library,” McCarthy said. “I’m very grateful to hear her perspective as we move forward.” “I’m optimistic that we will continue to find ways for the people of America and Taiwan to work together and promote economic freedom, democracy, peace and stability,” McCarthy said.
Story by Zachary Cohen

Former top national security officials have testified to a federal grand jury that they repeatedly told former President Donald Trump and his allies that the government didn’t have the authority to seize voting machines after the 2020 election, CNN has learned.
Story by HHV Editor

Substitute teacher gets manhandled by cop for breaking up fight. When Nia King tried to break up a fight between two students, she thought she was doing her job. After all, King was a substitute teacher in Henry County, Georgia. The last thing King expected to happen was for one of the school’s resource officers to grab her throat and drag her down the hallway. While the twenty-two year old didn’t expect it, that’s what happened. As a result, Nia King shared her story with the news.
Story by Connor Surmonte

Donald Trump called on the Republican-controlled Congress to defund the police shortly after his historic arrest in New York this week, RadarOnline.com has learned.

On Wednesday morning, just hours after the embattled ex-president was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, Trump took to his social media platform to lash out about his indictment and subsequent arraignment.

“Almost every legal and political analyst has said that the unfair and morally disgusting Indictment filed against me yesterday has NO MERIT, and is not even a case,” he wrote on Truth Social at 7:14 AM. “There was no crime and, anyway, the Statute of Limitations has been violated by many years,” he added.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Award-winning children's book author Judy Blume tore into Gov. Ron DeSantis for his legislation censoring books in schools across Florida, reported The Daily Beast on Tuesday.

"'A governor who wants to control everything,' she told the crowd at a New York City luncheon hosted by Variety, 'starting with what kids can think, what they can know, what they can question, what they can learn, and now even what they can talk about,'" reported A.J. McDougall. "Blume recalled how she faced backlash from the religious right after publishing 1970’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, warning that 'this time' the threat of censorship is coming directly from the government."

“Lawmakers, drunk with power, with a need to control everything,” she continued in the speech. “Sure it’s still sexuality, but it’s gender, it’s LGBTQ+, it’s racism, it’s history itself that’s under fire.”
Story by Matthew Chapman

Former President Donald Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday evening for a speech trashing the criminal case against him in New York. But at the beginning of the speech, during a rant about Democrats, Trump did something unusual — he admitted that he actually lost the 2020 presidential election, while alleging that Democrats kept information away from voters that would have changed the result.
Ex-president spoke to crowded ballroom for approximately 20 minutes on return to Mar-a-Lago
Oliver O'Connell, Maroosha Muzaffar, Joe Sommerlad

Former president Donald Trump assailed Judge Merchan’s family as well as district attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday after returning from his court appearance in New York earlier in the day. On a historic and unprecedented day for America, former president Donald Trump was arrested and arraigned at a Lower Manhattan courthouse on criminal charges relating to a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Opinion by Dennis Aftergut & Austin Sarat

Sometimes legal cases provide windows into the most important political, economic, and cultural issues of our time. Dominion Voting Systems' billion-dollar defamation suit against Fox is one such case. On Friday, the Delaware judge who is hearing the case gave the green light for the suit to move forward, rejecting Fox's summary judgment motion seeking to toss it out. That marked a turning point in what is already an historic case.

"The evidence [makes it] CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true," Superior Court Judge Eric Davis wrote in his opinion. To establish Fox's liability under the landmark 1964 Supreme Court case of New York Times v. Sullivan, Dominion must convince a jury that those statements were false, and also that Fox either knew they were false or was reckless in avoiding the truth.
Story by Sara Dorn, Forbes Staff

Manhattan criminal court Judge Juan Merchan reportedly warned former President Donald Trump not to engage in rhetoric that could “jeopardize the rule of law” during his historic Tuesday arraignment—a reference to a string of incendiary statements Trump has made in the lead-up to his indictment.

Key Facts
Merchan urged Trump to “refrain” from “comments that have potential to incite violence, create civil unrest [or] jeopardize the state or well-being of any individuals,” according to multiple reports. The judge also reportedly asked prosecutors to control their rhetoric, and those of witnesses, in the case.

Merchan said he would not have granted a gag order against Trump had prosecutors requested one prior to his Tuesday arraignment, but said he would consider them in the future, if necessary, the Washington Post reported.

Merchan did did not make a ruling on a protective order prosecutors requested for witnesses, citing Trump’s incendiary social media posts, including his prediction that there would be “death and destruction” if he were indicted.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

Hours before Donald Trump walked into court for his arraignment, his son Donald Trump Jr. posted photos of the presiding judge's daughter. It comes after Trump has made attacks on the judge, the prosecutor, and the prosecutor's wife.

While in the trial, the District Attorney's Office specifically made comments about the social media posts, asking the judge to address them going forward. "The prosecutor went on to say that Mr. Trump has made recent threatening emails and speeches, both directed at New York City, and courts here in New York, and the justice system, and the district attorney's office," recounted NBC News producer Adam Reiss.
Story by Dylan Wells, Shayna Jacobs, David Nakamura, Jacqueline Alemany

NEW YORK — In the city that made him famous, under extraordinary courtroom security, Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 34 felony counts related to payments to silence an adult film actress during his 2016 presidential campaign. He is the first former or sitting U.S. president to be criminally charged.

The charges — falsifying business records in the first degree — were announced at an arraignment hearing Tuesday afternoon. The indictment has not yet been released, so the precise details of the charges have not been made public, but that should happen later Tuesday.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was investigating reimbursement payments Trump made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, who in 2016 paid $130,000 to actress Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, to prevent her from disclosing an alleged sexual encounter years earlier with then-candidate Trump.
It’s not immediately clear which aides were covered by the appeals court order.
By KYLE CHENEY

A federal appeals court in Washington rejected an emergency bid by former President Donald Trump to block several top aides from testifying in the special counsel investigation of his effort to subvert the 2020 election.

In a sealed order, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s urgent demand to block his aides from being required to appear before special counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury. Trump’s emergency motion triggered a frenzied set of overnight filings ahead of the Tuesday morning ruling.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will charge Trump with falsification of business records, a source told Yahoo News.
Michael Isikoff·Chief Investigative Correspondent

Donald Trump will be placed under arrest on Tuesday and informed that he has been charged with 34 felony counts for falsification of business records, according to a source who has been briefed on the procedures for the arraignment of the former president.

A New York City police arrest report summarizing the charges against Trump will then be prepared and entered into the court system before he is led into a courtroom to be formally arraigned on the charges, none of which are misdemeanors.

But, the source said, Trump will not be put in handcuffs, placed in a jail cell or subjected to a mug shot — typical procedures even for white-collar defendants until a judge has weighed in on pretrial conditions. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which has been consulting with the Secret Service and New York City court officials, concluded there was no reason to subject the former president to handcuffs or a mug shot.
Story by Gideon Rubin

AFlorida law enforcement official has issued a stern rebuke to Gov. Ron DeSantis over a new state law that will allow permitless carry in the Sunshine State.

The likely 2024 presidential candidate on Monday quietly signed into law a measure that will allow the firearms to be carried without owners having to get permits. Orange County Sheriff John Mina described the measure as “political” and said it wouldn’t enhance public safety.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Florida Democrats are attempting a new stunt, reported The Daily Beast this week: using Gov. Ron DeSantis' landmark law allowing parents to remove books from schools to ban the governor's own publication.

"In a clever bit of trolling, Florida Democrats are subjecting DeSantis’ new tome — 'The Courage To Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival' — to the rules that he and GOP lawmakers established to weed out books with allegedly inappropriate content on race, sexuality, and gender from school libraries," reported Jake Lahut.

"Fentrice Driskell, the minority leader in the Florida House, is leading an effort across 50 counties to see if any of them might review or ban DeSantis’ book based on his law’s vague and unwieldy criteria." “The very trap that he set for others is the one that he set for himself,” said Driskell in a statement to The Daily Beast.

Story by LGBTQNation

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has demanded an investigation into Disney after the company pulled a fast one on him in the midst of a seemingly unending feud fueled by a battle over LGBTQ+ rights. DeSantis’s demand comes after Disney made a stealthy move to prevent him from stripping the company of its long-held power over its own tax district. The company’s feud with anti-LGBTQ+ DeSantis continues, and it seems the House of Mouse isn’t going down without a fight.
Story by Matthew Chapman

The House GOP's efforts to find wrongdoing by President Joe Biden aren't yielding the results that some Republican lawmakers thought they would — and there is growing frustration within the caucus and their hardest-right constituents, reported Politico on Tuesday.

"According to interviews with more than a dozen House Republicans, a sizable chunk of the conference is focused on preventing a banking crisis and a looming debt fight instead of on Biden family oversight or a politicized government panel," reported Politico.

"At the same time, the party base is chafing at the lack of big bombshells and concrete steps against administration officials to back up all of lawmakers’ talk." "Republicans have fired off scores of letters, issued subpoenas and initial reports and held a handful of hearings. But part of the problem is the lofty expectations they set coming in," said the report.
Story by Sarah Rumpf

Right Sign Broadcasting Network announced that YouTube had slapped a 7-day ban on its channel, the day before former President Donald Trump is set to be arraigned in New York City. The rabidly pro-Trump media company complained about YouTube’s “Orwellian censorship practices” in a statement on their website, writing that the video platform had sent RSBN a notice of a violation of their “elections misinformation” policies and removed RSBN videos of Trump’s rally last month in Waco, Texas, his speech at CPAC, and an RSBN interview with the former president at Mar-a-Lago.
Story by Candice Ortiz

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was swarmed by counter-protesters as she arrived in New York City Tuesday morning with the intent to hold a pro-Trump rally, hours before the 45th president is set to go before a judge. Greene was met with large groups of protesters as she made her way through the crowds to the rally site to give a small speech that was drowned out by whistles, cheers, and jeers from the crowd.
Story by Ken Meyer

On the eve of former President Donald Trump’s arraignment, Dan Abrams tore into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision-making and the political hyperventilating surrounding the indictment.

The NewsNation host and Mediaite founder dove into the indictment on Monday night by rebuking those who’ve attempted to politicize it for and against Trump. Since the indictment focuses on Trump’s falsification of business records in connection with the Stormy Daniels hush money scandal, Abrams reaffirmed his view that “this is a case that should not be brought.”

Not because Donald Trump did nothing wrong, as he claims, but because it’s an old case that both the previous local DA and the feds passed on prosecuting. It would be bringing what is basically a souped-up misdemeanor seven years after the fact. ‘Souped-up,’ meaning using a novel legal theory to try to get it to a felony. There will probably be a lot of counts of it, it’s against the former president of the United States. And to be clear, to those who say he was president for four of those years, so that explains why couldn’t be prosecuted during that time — it’s not true. The local DA absolutely could have brought a case under New York law, but didn’t.
Story by Navdeep Yadav

Multiple U.S. Secret Service agents are reportedly set to testify as part of a federal inquiry into Former President Donald Trump‘s improper handling of classified documents. What Happened: Fox News’s Bret Baier on Monday said on Twitter that “multiple” Secret Service agents connected to Trump have been subpoenaed and are “expected to testify before the D.C. grand jury likely on Friday.” “The grand jury appearances are related to the Special Counsel Jack Smith probe into the handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago,” Baier tweeted.
Story by Ken Meyer

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) drew a great deal of ridicule for sounding the alarm over counterprotests while she’s in New York to condemn the indictment of former President Donald Trump. Greene followed through on her promise to rail against Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan, sparring with New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg along the way. On Tuesday, Greene tweeted about demonstrators who plan on making loud noises to drown her out, as well as others who have gathered in the city to support Trump.

“I’m here in NY to protest with my voice against the weaponization of the justice system on innocent President Trump, but the counter protestors are coming to commit assault that can cause audible damage to everyone’s ears including NYPD,” Greene exclaimed. “But Mayor Adams warns me by name! If counter protestors are violating freedom of speech and committing assault, they should be arrested.”
Story by Darragh Roche

Members of the U.S. Supreme Court privately criticized Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, because of her political "schemes," according to a new book. In her new book, Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court's Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences, CNN Senior Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic claims that Thomas' Supreme Court colleagues displayed loyalty to him while criticizing his wife.

Ginni Thomas has been the focus of scrutiny for months because of conversations she had with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the weeks following the 2020 election in which she encouraged him to continue efforts to overturn the results.

In a copy of the book seen by Newsweek, Biskupic writes that Ginni Thomas' "unyielding activism on behalf of Trump, even after he was voted out of office, and her communications with the legal team that tried to overturn the 2020 election, raised ethics questions regarding Justice Thomas' decisions on related issues.
Story by Ken Meyer

CNN’s Jim Acosta countered Ken Buck’s (R-CO) condemnation for the indictment of Donald Trump by reminding the congressman he wanted to see Hillary Clinton indicted.

Acosta interviewed Buck on Sunday, wherein the representative accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of overstepping his legal boundaries, and of bringing a politically-charged case against Trump. The former president is about to be arraigned for a multitude of reported charges for falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.

Acosta met Buck’s gripes by noting that “when the focus was on Hillary Clinton back in 2016, you and other prominent Republicans were taking it to the Democratic nominee.” The CNN anchor then brought up rally comments Buck gave in 2016 where he proclaimed “Lady Justice doesn’t see black or white. She doesn’t see male or female. She doesn’t see rich or poo. But soon, Lady Justice will see Hillary Clinton.”

“Setting aside the fact that Hillary Clinton was never charged with any wrongdoing,” Acosta said, “why not demand accountability in this Trump case, no matter who the prosecutor is?
Opinion by Alex Henderson

On Friday, March 31, Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis rejected a motion for summary judgment from attorneys for Fox News — who were hoping to avoid going to trial in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the right-wing cable news outlet. Davis' ruling, much to Fox News' disappointment, means that the civil case will be going to trial.

It remains to be seen how jurors will ultimately rule. Defamation, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1964 ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan, is very difficult to prove. Dominion has an uphill climb in the case, as the company has to prove "actual malice" on Fox News' part. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's.

Nonetheless, Dominion has a mountain of evidence in its case. Lawyers for Dominion are arguing that Fox News defamed the company after the 2020 presidential election by promoting the false, thoroughly debunked, and discredited claim that Dominion's voting equipment was used to help now-President Joe Biden steal the election from then-President Donald Trump. And Dominion has presented, as evidence, actual texts and e-mails from Fox News hosts admitting that Trump attorneys' election fraud claims were total nonsense.
Donald Trump's lawyers opposed videography, photography and radio coverage, saying it would "exacerbate an already almost circus-like atmosphere around this case", detracting from dignity and decorum.

New York: Donald Trump, the ex-president and frontrunner to be Republican nominee in 2024, will appear in court on Tuesday and is set to be formally charged, finger-printed and have a mug shot taken in a watershed moment ahead of next year's presidential election.

Trump was indicted last week, becoming the first sitting or former president to face criminal charges, over a case involving a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. He has said he is innocent and is due to plead not guilty.

Trump will turn himself in on Tuesday amid tight security as demonstrations were expected for and against a man who has riled liberals and some global allies but is lauded by many white blue-collar and conservative Christian voters.
Story by Alex Henderson

It remains to be seen how a civil jury will ultimately rule in Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Defamation, under the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark New York Times v. Sullivan ruling of 1964, is extremely difficult to prove. But Dominion has presented, as evidence, an abundance of e-mails and text messages from Fox employees in the hope of convincing jurors that it suffered defamation.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

Bombshell revelations claiming former President Donald Trump was showing classified documents to donors at his Mar-a-Lago home could be what brings him down, former FBI agent and Donald Trump foe Peter Strzok said Monday. Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, he cited a Sunday Washington Post article that claimed the Justice Department had obtained new evidence that proves obstructions of justice in the classified case.

Before that report, Trump could reasonably claim that he knew nothing about the documents, the report said. He could say his staff had packed them into boxes when he moved from the White House, without Trump's knowledge. But if he was showing them off to visitors, that argument would be killed. Former Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, who joined Strzok on Wallace's panel, explained that these facts remove Trump's ability to use that excuse. It ties Trump directly to obstruction.
Story by Steve Thompson, Ovetta Wiggins, Perry Stein, Martin Weil

Roy C. McGrath, a fugitive who had been a top aide to Larry Hogan when he was Maryland’s governor, died Monday as the result of a confrontation with the FBI in the area of Knoxville, Tenn., his lawyer said. He had been the subject of a 21-day manhunt launched after he failed to show up to federal court in Baltimore. “The loss of Roy’s life is an absolute tragedy, and I think it’s important for me to say that Roy never wavered about his innocence,” Joseph Murtha said.

In a statement Monday night, the FBI said that it was “reviewing an agent-involved shooting” that occurred at approximately 6:30 p.m. “During the arrest the subject, Roy McGrath, sustained injury and was transported to the hospital. The FBI takes all shooting incidents involving our agents or task force members seriously.”

Murtha said he wasn’t sure how McGrath was killed. “That’s unclear to me at this time,” he said. “I haven’t gotten any information on whether Roy died from gunfire from an agent or whether it was a self-inflicted wound.”
Story by Travis Gettys

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough mocked Donald Trump for serving up damning evidence during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. The former president insisted during an interview Tuesday night that he had every right to stash classified documents at his home at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House. The "Morning Joe" host noted with astonishment Monday that Trump blundered through Hannity's efforts to run cover.
Story by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

Many journalists and political commentators have been leveling strong criticism at “60 Minutes,” CBS News, and Lesley Stahl over their decision to air a “softball” interview with U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Sunday night, normalizing and mainstreaming the far-right Georgia Republican, but perhaps few have done so as expressively as retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Moe Davis.

During her conversation with Stahl, an Emmy-Award-winning journalist who has been at CBS News for more than 50 years, the conspiracy theorist Congresswoman baselessly defended calling Democrats the “party of pedophiles,” by saying, “they support grooming children.” When Stahl objected, Greene weaved a false, illogical comparison with gender-affirming treatment for transgender children – supported by every major medical organization – by saying, “sexualizing children is what pedophiles do.”

That was just one small part of their discussion, parts of which were filmed inside the U.S. Capitol, further serving to normalize the far-right wing Republican who even Stahl reminded has been called “Crazy, Q-clown, Looney Tune, unhinged, moron.”
By Karen Freifeld and Rich Mckay

NEW YORK/PALM BEACH, Florida, April 3 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump is set to fly from Florida to New York City on Monday, ahead of his scheduled arraignment related to hush money paid to a porn star before the 2016 election, as security tightens in Manhattan.
Story by Thomas Kika

Online photos have surfaced showing a messy situation unfolding after a train derailed in Western Montana. According to NBC Montana, the train derailed around 9:20 a.m. local time on a track operated by the Montana Rail Link company. The incident occurred near the town of Quinns, located roughly 70 miles northwest of Missoula near the western Idaho border.

Dominic Vitiello, a reporter for NBC Montana, shared photos from the scene on Monday, showing a frenzied tangle of rail cars stuck at various angles along the banks of a river, with some appearing to be partially submerged.

"Around 9:20 a.m. calls came into... the Sanders County Sheriffs Office of a 25 car train derailment," Vitiello wrote in a series of tweets. "According to the Sanders County Sheriff's Office, the fire department is on scene and there is no current threat to the public. This happened on a Montana Rail Link line who have been notified of the derailment but no known company is identified yet."
Story by Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee

The Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites, despite the Biden administration’s efforts to block it from doing so, according to two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official.

China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time, the three officials said. The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images, the officials said.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

The Washington Post reported Sunday afternoon that more evidence might have become available to prove obstructions of justice for the theft of the government documents taken back to Mar-a-Lago. Trump refused to turn the documents over for nearly a year when the Justice Department and FBI got involved. The FBI was then given an envelope with additional documents, but that still wasn't everything. Ultimately, the DOJ got a search warrant and went to Mar-a-Lago to get the documents.

According to the fresh evidence, there is more that has been discovered pointing to former President Donald Trump's obstructions of justice, those familiar told the Post. "The additional evidence comes as investigators have used emails and text messages from a former Trump aide to help understand key moments last year," the report explained, citing the sources. Special counsel Jack Smith is at work on the documents case as well as anything around the Jan. 6 attack.
By Nouran Salahieh and Dakin Andone, CNN

CNN — At least 29 people are confirmed dead after ferocious storms and tornadoes devastated communities across the American South and Midwest this weekend, while parts of the Southern Plains brace for the possibility of their own round of severe weather Sunday afternoon.

The outbreak that walloped the country Friday spawned more than 50 tornado reports in at least seven states, where tornadoes crushed homes and businesses, ripped roofs off buildings, splintered trees and sent vehicles flying.

Wynne, Arkansas – where at least four people are dead – was cleaved in half by one such tornado, leaving a line of destruction from the city’s western limit to its eastern, according to Mayor Jennifer Hobbs, who told CNN Sunday, “We’re just gonna need all the help that we can (get) to help these families recover.”

Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, tells "Face the Nation" that "it's a little bit rich" for former President Donald Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr to call the investigation "political."
Story by Maya Boddie

Republican House members want to defund the police over former President Donald Trump's Manhattan indictment. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is also House Judiciary Committee Chair, during a Sunday Fox News interview with Maria Bartiromo, said he and his congressional colleagues are considering cutting funds for agencies "engaging in egregious behavior."

More specifically, Axios reports the Ohio congressman and other "top House conservatives are targeting the budgets of federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) as part of their scrutiny of the 'weaponization' of the federal government," and in response to the 2024 hopeful's upcoming arrest.
Story by Joe DePaolo

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is now joining what has become a growing movement among the far-right in Congress: Defund the FBI. Speaking with Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures, the Ohio congressman and head of the subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, denounced the indictment of former President Donald Trump and threaten to withhold funds from the DOJ and FBI as a result.

“We control the power of the purse” Jordan said. “And we’re gonna have to look at the appropriations process and limit funds going to some of these agencies, particularly the ones who are engaged in the most egregious behavior.” Bartiromo confirmed that Jordan was, in fact, talking about the Justice Department. “So the DOJ and the FBI?” Bartiromo said.
Story by Tom Boggioni

Speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang on Sunday, Jeremy Peters of the New York Times stated that lawyers for Fox will enter the courtroom where the Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit will be heard with their key defense points already made unavailable.

Reacting to a ruling on Friday that the case will be heard by a jury over Fox's protestations, host Phang stated, "Judge Eric Davis on Friday decimated much of Fox's potential trail defenses, ruling that Fox cannot invoke the neutral report privilege because the evidence does not support that Fox conducted good faith reporting. The judge also blocking Fox from using the fair reporting privilege because the statements made by Fox and its guests were not related to official proceedings."

Asked to explain what the l means for the Fox lawyers, Peters replied, "When the jury gets the case several of Fox's key arguments will not be available for its lawyers to make."
By Ewan Palmer

Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been criticized for requesting federal aid in the wake of the tornadoes that ripped through the state despite previously speaking out against the "meddling hand of big government." Sanders' plea for help has led to accusations of hypocrisy. During her gubernatorial campaign, she said she was running to defend the "right to be free of socialism and tyranny."

A spokesperson for the governor hit back at her critics, telling Newsweek they were using "a time of tragedy to score political points." On Saturday, Sanders' office said the governor had spoken with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell to discuss the state and federal response to the tornadoes. FEMA has since confirmed that Criswell will be traveling to Arkansas on Sunday to survey the tornado damage.

CNN's Daniel Dale debunks claims that Donald Trump and his allies have been making about New York's crime rate, and their attempts to tie the former president's indictment to liberal billionaire George Soros.
Trump's indictment came after a grand jury probe into payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal during the 2016 presidential campaign
By Michael R Sisak, Associated Press

Former US President Donald Trump is facing multiple charges of falsifying business records, including at least one felony offense, in the indictment handed down by a Manhattan grand jury. He will be formally arrested and arraigned Tuesday in his hush money case, setting the scene for the historic, shocking moment when a former president is forced to stand before a judge to hear the criminal charges against him.
Story by 24/7 Wall St. Staff

The LAPD has killed more people than any other police department in the country, according to Mapping Police Violence, a research collaborative that collects data on police killings from the nation’s three largest comprehensive and impartial crowdsourced databases.

The department has a long history of excessive force and violence. In 2015, the department was responsible for 23 documented killings, the most of any police department in the country that year. During the period studied by MPV, 2013 and 2022, the total number of those killed by the LAPD was 167. Of those victims, 19.5% were Black, a disproportionate percentage since only 9% of L.A.’s population is African-American.

Additionally, 54.4% of those killed did not have a gun, so could conceivably have been subdued without the use of deadly force. Nevertheless, in only two cases of police killing was the officer responsible disciplined or charged with a crime.
Story by Alice Cattley

The inside story of Donald Trump's father
Donald Trump famously revealed that he kick-started his career with a "very small" million-dollar loan from his father, the real estate tycoon Fred Trump.

By the time Fred passed away in 1999, he’d amassed a fortune of around $300 million and gained a reputation as "the Henry Ford of the home-building industry." So how did the son of a German barber lay the foundations for the Trump Organization?

Read on to discover the secrets of Fred Trump – the man who watered down paint, was arrested at a KKK rally, and made "The Donald" an eight-year-old millionaire. All dollar values in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
Opinion by Anthony DiMaggio

Efforts by Republicans and their allies to roll back abortion rights continue, with a looming federal ban on the abortion pill mifepristone, which accounts for more than half of all pregnancy terminations each year. That case is being decided by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, and was litigated by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian advocacy group that was also involved in the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision last year, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to abortion. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, has adopted various terms used by anti-abortion advocates in his comments from the case, referring to "chemical abortion" and "mail-in abortion," for example, phrases that are widely rejected in medical professional settings. His language has led to concerns that the judge is tipping his hand to the anti-abortion movement, and will likely declare a national ban on mifepristone.
Story by Alaa Elassar

Afederal judge in Texas ruled that at least 12 books removed from public libraries by Llano County officials, many because of their LGBTQ and racial content, must be placed back onto shelves within 24 hours, according to an order filed Thursday. Seven residents sued county officials in April 2022, claiming their First and 14th Amendment rights were violated when books deemed inappropriate by some people in the community and Republican lawmakers were removed from public libraries or access was restricted.

The lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio claimed county officials removed books from the shelves of the three-branch public library system “because they disagree with the ideas within them” and terminated access to thousands of digital books because they could not ban two specific titles. Books ordered to return to shelves include “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson, “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti and “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings.

The library system also is required to reflect these books as available in their catalog and cannot remove any books for any reason while the case is ongoing, US District Judge Robert Pitman said in his order. “Although libraries are afforded great discretion for their selection and acquisition decisions, the First Amendment prohibits the removal of books from libraries based on either viewpoint or content discrimination,” Pitman said.
Story by Matthew Chapman

As much as former President Donald Trump is trying to claim he is a victim of political persecution following his indictment in New York, it was his own Justice Department officials, under his own administration — along with the politically evenly divided Federal Election Commission at the time — who first helped lay out the evidence his $130,000 payoff to Stormy Daniels was a crime, argued former Solicitor General Neal Katyal on MSNBC's "The ReidOut" on Friday.

"Pecker entered a nonprosecution agreement in which he admitted the payment had been made in order to help Trump's campaign — that's David Pecker," said anchor Joy Reid. "He testified twice before this grand jury. Does that say to you that [Trump attorney Joe] Tacopina might be trying to make it seem innocuous when it's really part of that kind of scheme?"

"Well, before getting, Joy, to Tacopina, I want to say my bottom line on this is, we should be absolutely celebrating the fact that we have a functioning judicial system that treats all of its citizens equally, but I don't think we should be celebrating the fact we have a former president who has been indicted," said Katyal. "This is an incredibly important event for our country and an incredibly solemn one."
Story by kniemeyer@insider.com (Kenneth Niemeyer)

A jury convicted a far-right influencer known as "Ricky Vaughn" in a federal court in New York on Friday for a plot to deprive Hillary Clinton supporters of their ability to vote in the 2016 presidential election. Vaugh — whose real name is Douglass Mackey — was convicted on one count of "conspiracy against rights," according to court documents. He faces up to 10 years in prison.

Prosecutors accused Mackey of conspiring with other people to post "disinformation relevant to the impending 2016 presidential election" on social media, often in the form of "memes," according to a criminal complaint seen by Insider.

As the 2016 presidential election approached, Mackey and his co-conspirators created posts on various social media sites that encouraged people to vote for their preferred candidate by posting a specific hashtag on Twitter or Facebook or by texting the candidate's first name to a specific phone number, the document states.

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), in November 2016, Mackey — who had tweeted about limiting the amount of "black turnout" in the election — posted a photo of a Black woman in front of an "African Americans for Hillary" sign that read "Avoid the Line. Vote from Home," "Text 'Hillary' to 59925." On or around election day in 2016, at least 4,900 telephone numbers texted "Hillary" to the 59925 text number, the DOJ said.
Story by Erik Larson and Jef Feeley

(Bloomberg) -- Ever since Fox News was hit with a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit over reports falsely accusing a voting-machine company of rigging the 2020 presidential election, the conservative network has invoked the broad protections of the First Amendment in its defense.

But the constitutional right to free speech doesn’t automatically protect the spreading of false facts, especially bogus allegations of criminal conduct, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis said Friday in a ruling denying a bid by Fox News to avoid a trial in the suit by Dominion Voting Systems Inc.

“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote, using capital letters as well as bold and italic fonts for emphasis.
Story by The Badger Project

BY PETER CAMERON, The Badger Project
At least 12 law enforcement officers currently working in La Crosse County and the surrounding areas have been fired or forced out from previous jobs in law enforcement, according to an investigation by The Badger Project.

One major study found that these “wandering officers” who were fired or forced out from one law enforcement agency and hired at another were more likely to commit violations and be fired again. Most of these officers in western Wisconsin were young and failed to pass their new-hire probation, a period that can last up to 18-24 months when the bar to fire an officer can be very low.

But some were forced out for more serious conduct. Christopher R. Larson, currently employed by the Norwalk Police Department in Monroe County and by the Army as a police officer at Fort McCoy, resigned prior to completion of an internal investigation from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in 2019, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
Veteran pollster tells Andrew Feinberg that prosecutors need to start fighting their battle against the former president in the arena of public relations
Independent

A top political messaging expert says Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is already giving up significant ground to former president Donald Trump by not adequately explaining the decision to seek charges against the former president and letting Mr Trump’s message of persecution go unanswered before the ex-president makes his first appearance in a New York City courtroom on Tuesday.

Frank Luntz, the veteran pollster who rose to prominence in the 1990s after helping the Newt Gingrich-led House Republican Conference regain control of the House of Representatives for the first time in decades, says Mr Bragg’s decision to abide by longstanding legal norms which call for prosecutors to not speak publicly about cases before they are unveiled in open court could be a huge mistake that will advantage the ex-president.
Story by Tommy Christopher

Trump attorney Tim Parlatore threw Trump attorney Joe Tacopina under the bus when CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins asked if Tacopina “is the right person” to defend President Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels case.

Tacopina is the lawyer defending Trump in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s grand jury investigation of the circumstances around hush money payments, which resulted Thursday afternoon in a several-dozen-count indictment of Trump.

Parlatore, who is representing Trump in the investigation, of efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the January 6 attack, was a guest on Friday night’s CNN primetime coverage, during which Collins asked him about Tacopina.

Collins was visibly stunned when Parlatore raised Tacopina’s potential conflict of interests over prior dealings with Daniels and said it was up to Trump. Parlatore retreated when Collins noted the under-bus-throwing and said he wasn’t going to comment on Tacopina — after he’d commented on Tacopina like a lot:
Story by Jose Pagliery

Anton Lazzaro, a wannabe playboy on Instagram who used his riches to pump up the Minnesota Republican Party and recruit teenage girls for sex, was convicted by a Minnesota jury Friday of sex trafficking minors. At trial, prosecutors laid out how Lazzaro preyed on “broken” girls—to which his defense lawyer countered were simply girls he was trying to “fix.” The victims testified that Lazzaro would take them to his swanky Minneapolis condo, where he’d ply them with Everclear, the strongest liquor on the market.

Lazzaro paid tens of thousands of dollars to have sex with high school students, and even used one as a recruiter. Days after his arrest in August 2021, the feds caught up with that associate, Gisela Castro Medina, and eventually turned her into a witness against him. Lazzaro remained defiant from jail, borrowing a lame conservative talking point and chalking up the case to a political prosecution for his ties to the GOP.
Story by Tom Boggioni

During an appearance on MSNBC early Saturday morning, attorney Lanny Davis, who is representing former Donald Trump "fixer" Michael Cohen, targeted House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) for attempting to run interference for the former president. Speaking with host Katie Phang, Davis claimed Jordan's so-called "weaponization" hearings should be looking into the actions of Trump's Department of Justice.

"This is probably the ultimate hypocrisy and that is to have Congressman Jordan, of all people, talking about the weaponization of the Justice Department when he was silent when Trump's Justice Department, according to the U.S. attorney that he appointed, Jeffrey Berman, was intervening in Michael Cohen's case in order to erase the record of Donald Trump being accused by his own prosecutors of directing Michael Cohen to pay the hush money," he told the MSNBC host.
by Nathaniel Weixel

An ObamaCare requirement that health insurance must cover preventive services for free is at risk of ending, after a federal judge in Texas — who previously held that the entire Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional —  invalidated it.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor wasn’t entirely unexpected, but his decision to impose a nationwide injunction still sent shockwaves through the health system. The preventive services mandate is extremely popular and ending it could impact more than100 million Americans. Here are five things to know about the ruling.

The immediate impacts are unclear
The ruling is effective immediately, but it’s not likely to have an immediate impact. “I think this will play out over time. I don’t think it will result in precipitous changes in coverage in most cases,” said Larry Levitt, vice president of health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Health insurers price their plans on a yearly basis and are required to notify beneficiaries when there’s a coverage change. If the ruling is upheld, plans likely won’t change until next calendar year.
Evan Gershkovich, 31, understood that his assignment for The Wall Street Journal could garner attention from Russia’s Federal Security Service, a fellow journalist told NBC News.
By Matthew Bodner

The American journalist detained in Russia on spying allegations may have been attempting to report on the Wagner mercenary group and speak to employees at one of the country’s largest tank production facilities, a Russian reporter familiar with his plans told NBC News on Friday.   

Evan Gershkovich, 31, understood that his assignment for The Wall Street Journal in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg could attract the attention of Russia’s Federal Security Service — the domestic intelligence service that succeeded the Soviet-era KGB — said Dmitry Kolezev, an independent Russian journalist.

Kolezev added that he had warned Gershkovich that agents from the spy agency would follow him, but the American knew this was par for the course for foreign journalists operating on Russian soil.

“He said that he understands this very well, and he had the same kind of chase when he was traveling to Perm,” Kolezev said, referring to one of Gershkovich’s previous reporting trips to another Russian city.  
Ron Elving at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C.

America's latest mass shooting, this time at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tenn., has recalled nightmarish memories and raised one of the most vexing of political questions. Before the funerals had even begun for the three children and three adults slain on Monday, the well-practiced roaring and debate had resumed in Congress. And so had the usual expressions of exasperation, because those who have followed the issue in recent decades have had an education in frustration and futility.

Democrats this week were once again asking how a person disturbed enough to use military-style weaponry on children could have such easy access to such weaponry. They want more legal restraints on guns. President Biden this week called for the reinstatement of a ban on military-style assault weapons, a ban first instituted in 1994 but allowed to lapse a decade later. Bills that would restore the ban had already been introduced in both the Senate (S. 25) and House (H.R. 698) this year, following the Chinese New Year mass shootings in Southern California.
By WFLA Web Staff  

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — St. Petersburg police announced that Taylen Mosley’s body was found in an alligator’s mouth and his father has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder. “It is my condolences going out to the family and to his loved ones,” said St. Pete Police Chief Anthony Holloway.
By Tami Luhby, CNN

CNN — Millions of Americans are at risk of losing their Medicaid coverage in coming months, but residents in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, New Hampshire and South Dakota will be the first to bear the brunt of the terminations.

States have been barred by Congress from winnowing their Medicaid rolls since the Covid-19 pandemic began. That prohibition ends on Saturday, and some states are moving much more swiftly than others to kick off those deemed ineligible for the public health insurance program for low-income Americans. That worries advocates, who say speed will result in eligible residents being incorrectly terminated. Also, it could hamper shifting those who no longer qualify to other types of coverage.

“This is the fable of the tortoise and the hare,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. “Taking time is absolutely going to result in a better outcome for eligible children and families to remain covered. So speed is a big concern.”

The five states will start cutting off coverage in April, followed by 14 more states in May and 20 additional states plus the District of Columbia in June. All states must complete their redeterminations over the next 14 months.
By Andi Babineau and David J. Lopez, CNN

CNN — The city of Minneapolis on Friday agreed to reorganize the city’s police department nearly three years after the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a White police officer sparked protests and scrutiny of law enforcement biases across the country.

The deal with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights calls for the city and police to “make changes to their organizational culture” and address “race-based policing,” the state agency said in a release.

“Minneapolis community members deserve to be treated with humanity,” MDHR Commissioner Rebecca Lucero said. “This court enforceable agreement provides the framework for lawful, non-discriminatory policing, reduces unnecessary dangers for officers, and results in better public safety for Minneapolis.”
By Devan Cole, CNN

CNN — Former President Donald Trump’s indictment by a New York grand jury has thrust the nation into uncharted political, legal and historical waters, and raised a slew of questions about how the criminal case will unfold.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating Trump in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election.

Though the indictment – which has been filed under seal – has yet to be unveiled, Trump and his allies have already torn into Bragg and the grand jury’s decision, blasting it as “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”Here’s what we know about Trump’s indictment so far.

What’s the indictment for?
Trump faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud in the indictment, CNN has reported. It remains under seal. The former president is expected to be arraigned in Manhattan criminal court next Tuesday, but the timing of the appearance remains fluid.

The investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office began when Trump was still in the White House and relates to a $130,000 payment made by Trump’s then-personal attorney Michael Cohen to Daniels in late October 2016, days before the 2016 presidential election, to silence her from going public about an alleged affair with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the affair.
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