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US Monthly Headline News March 2024 - Page 3
Story by Aaron Parnas

Former top Trump advisor Peter Navarro has been ordered to surrender to prison on March 19th to begin serving his 4 month prison sentence after he was convicted by a D.C. federal jury of two counts of contempt of congress. Previously, Navarro asked a federal judge in D.C. to delay his surrender pending an appeal of his conviction for defying a lawful Congressional subpoena.

The trial court judge denied his request, noting that there was a substantial likelihood that Navarro's claims on appeal would fail. Now, the Bureau of Prisons has set Navarro's surrender date for March 19th and he has been asked to surrender at a facility in Miami, Florida. Navarro has asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow him to remain out of prison pending an appeal, similar to the ask made by former Trump advisor Steve Bannon who is currently appealing a six month prison sentence and conviction on similar charges.

The appellate court decision in Bannon's case is expected to come down any day.
Story by Martin Pengelly in Washington

Kansas Republicans were condemned as “vile and wrong” after attendees at a fundraising event beat and kicked a martial arts dummy wearing a Joe Biden mask.

Dinah Sykes, the Democratic minority leader in the state Senate, told the Kansas Reflector, a nonprofit news site: “Political violence of any kind is vile and wrong, and we cannot afford to brush it under the rug when others encourage it.”

Footage posted to social media showed attendees at the Johnson county Republican event kicking and beating the dummy, which was wearing a Biden mask and a T-shirt displaying the slogan “Let’s Go Brandon”, a rightwing meme mean to disparage Biden.

Sykes called for state Republican leaders to take action against those responsible.

Mike Brown, the Kansas Republican party chair, told the Kansas City Star he was not at the event, which was not organised by the state party, though he sent emails to promote it.
Story by Steve Benen

About a month after the Jan. 6 attack, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson scoffed at those alarmed by the riot. “This didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me,” the Wisconsin senator said. “I mean ‘armed,’ when you hear ‘armed,’ don’t you think of firearms?”

In the months and years that followed, GOP lawmakers such as Arizona’s Paul Gosar and Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene also questioned whether the insurrectionists had guns.

As recently as last week, Donald Trump himself used his social media platform to insist, while responding to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, “The so-called ‘Insurrectionists’ that he talks about had no guns. They only had a Rigged Election.”

Such rhetoric has long been foolish, but the GOP voices who’ve questioned whether the rioters were armed looked quite a bit worse late last week. NBC News reported on John Emanuel Banuelos, who allegedly fired two gunshots at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and who was arrested by federal authorities on Friday.

NBC News’ report added, “While numerous rioters were armed with guns on Jan. 6, none were known to have actually fired their weapons; Banuelos is the first to be charged with doing so.”
By Mike McRae

An ingredient once commonly used in citrus-flavored sodas to keep the tangy taste mixed thoroughly through the beverage could finally be banned for good across the US.

The FDA proposed in November to revoke the registration of a modified vegetable oil known as BVO in the wake of recent toxicology studies that make it difficult to support its ongoing use.

"The proposed action is an example of how the agency monitors emerging evidence and, as needed, conducts scientific research to investigate safety related questions, and takes regulatory action when the science does not support the continued safe use of additives in foods," James Jones, FDA deputy commissioner for human foods, explained when announcing the proposal.

BVO, or brominated vegetable oil, has been used as an emulsifying agent since the 1930s to ensure citrus flavoring agents don't float to the top of sodas. Sticking a dozen bromine atoms to a triglyceride creates a dense oil that floats evenly throughout water when mixed with less dense fats.
Karla Jacinto Romero said it isn’t fair to distort her experience for political purposes.
Dan Ladden-Hall

A sex trafficking survivor slammed Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) after the lawmaker inaccurately used her story in a response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address as part of an attack on his border policies.

Britt’s communications director confirmed that Britt was talking about Karla Jacinto Romero, a woman who has previously testified before Congress about being forced to work in brothels in Mexico 20 years ago. Speaking to CNN, Romero said no one from Britt’s camp or anywhere else contacted her asking for permission to use her story in the GOP’s SOTU response, and she also confirmed allegations from a viral TikTok video that Britt’s telling of that story was, at best, completely misleading.

In an interview Sunday, CNN’s Rafael Romo asked Romero if she felt her story had been used for “political purposes” in the U.S. “Yes,” Romero, speaking from Mexico City, said in response. “In fact I hardly ever cooperate with politicians because it seems to me that they only want an image. They only want a photo, and that to me is not fair.”
Story by Zeleb.es

Former President Donald Trump forgot the name of his wife and possibly confused her with one of his former staffers during a recent speech according to some media reports. What happened and what it means may surprise you.

The Conservative Political Action Conference
While speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24th, the former president appeared to forget the name of his wife Melania while introducing her and then moments later called her Mercedes.

The comments everyone is arguing over
"Well look, my wife, our great first lady, she was great... people love her," Trump told the crowd before later going on to say: "Oh look at that, wow. Mercedes, that's pretty good!" It was a gaffe that quickly went viral online.

Is Trump suffering cognitive decline?
Newsweek noted that people clipped the speech and published a version of the gaffe on Twitter. Political analysts like Luke Beasley used Trump’s comment to accuse the former president of suffering from cognitive decline.
Story by Juliet Potrykus

Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former Chief Financial Officer, entered a guilty plea for perjury charges in New York. This plea is connected to his testimony in a civil fraud case involving former President Donald Trump. Weisselberg is set to serve five months in jail as a result of his plea.

The Charges and Sentence
On a recent Monday in state court in Manhattan, 76-year-old Weisselberg admitted to two counts of perjury. This admission will result in his imprisonment in April, marking his second jail term after a previous 100-day sentence for tax evasion related to unreported company benefits.

Between Loyalty and the Law
Weisselberg’s guilty plea highlights his struggle between adhering to legal obligations and remaining loyal to Trump. Despite nearly five decades of service to the Trump family, his decision not to provide truthful testimony that could potentially harm Trump indicates a choice to sacrifice personal freedom.

Statement from the Manhattan DA
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office emphasized the seriousness of lying under oath, stating plainly, “It is a crime to lie in depositions and at trial.”
Story by Anna Skinner

Several Republican senators on Thursday voted against a bill that would extend compensatory benefits for nuclear radiation victims.

Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, sponsored the legislation to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act's (RECA) expiration date and claims filing deadline while also allowing residents in four new states to become eligible for compensation if they developed specific health conditions from living in communities affected by waste from the Manhattan Project. In the 1940s, that government program produced the first atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On Thursday, the bill passed the Senate, with 69 senators voting in favor and 30 voting against. One senator refrained from voting.

Currently, RECA covers 12 states, and eligibility changes based on location. The states covered by RECA are Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Utah, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas and Nevada. The bill says that parts of Missouri (including St. Louis), Tennessee, Alaska and Kentucky will be included in RECA.
Bucks County Beacon

Approximately 100 right-wing organizations have signed onto Project 2025 , an expansive plan for controlling (and in some cases dismantling) federal agencies in the event that Trump or another Republican wins the presidential election this year. Many of these organizations are led by Christian fundamentalist political operatives, suggesting that they may use the plan to force all Americans to submit to their extreme religious beliefs.

The Bucks County Beacon has just found explosive new evidence that seems to validate this concern.

The Beacon’s discovery follows an earlier report by Politico journalist Heidi Przybyla, which tied the Center for Renewing America (CFRA), an official Project 2025 partner, to an internal memo expressly listing “Christian Nationalism” as a priority for a second Trump term.

Przybyla further reported that CFRA founder Russ Vought, a Project 2025 co-author, had stated last year on X (formerly Twitter) that he’s “proud” to work with William Wolfe, a former Trump official and Visiting Fellow with CFRA, “on scoping out a sound Christian Nationalism.” In a social media post , Wolfe had called for an end to no-fault divorce and abortion and for reduced access to contraception. (Link to archived tweet .) Wolfe, who has attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary , has also called himself a “Christian Nationalist.”
Story by Tom Boggioni

According to conservative pollster Sarah Longwell, voters are less concerned with Donald Trump's age than they are worried about his mental fitness as they look at the presidential choices in 2024.

Appearing on MSNBC's "The Weekend," Longwell — founder of Republican Voters Against Trump — was asked about voter worries about both Trump and President Joe Biden and she replied the public seem to hold them to two different standards.
Story by Jacob Miller

In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Arizona has emerged as a focal point of scrutiny regarding attempts to overturn the election results. Arizona’s Attorney General, Democrat Kris Mayes, has issued grand jury subpoenas to individuals associated with Donald Trump’s campaign as part of a criminal investigation into these efforts. The looming question now is whether key figures tied to the former president, including some who posed as fake electors, will face criminal charges.

The investigation extends beyond Arizona’s borders; similar probes in Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada have already led to charges against individuals for their roles in the fake elector scheme. Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and attorneys John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro have been mentioned in connection with the Arizona inquiry. Chesebro, in particular, has been highlighted in a recent document release from a lawsuit settlement, showcasing the lengths he went to in search of ways to undermine the 2020 election results.
Story by Margaret Hartmann

During his State of the Union address on Thursday night, President Joe Biden laced into Donald Trump, criticizing him directly more than a dozen times (though he referred to Trump as “my predecessor” rather than using his name). At one point, Biden accused Trump of responding to a deadly school shooting this year by saying people should just “get over it.” It’s such an appalling comment that Biden’s quote seems almost unbelievable — but it was mostly accurate.

While laying out his agenda on curbing gun violence, Biden accused Trump of bragging about his inaction on the issue and even shrugging off another shooting.

“My predecessor told the NRA he’s proud he did nothing on guns when he was president. Oof,” Biden said. “After another shooting in Iowa recently, he said, when asked what to do about it, he said ‘just get over it.’ There’s his quote, ‘just get over it.’ I say, stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it.”
Daily Mail

An investigation has revealed suspicious communications devices inside Chinese-made cargo cranes used widely at US ports, supporting fears that the equipment could be part of an espionage plot. Cranes made by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC), a state-owned Chinese company, in some cases carry cellular modems, according to a congressional investigation reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

The modems offer a potential backdoor for remote access, and do not appear to support the normal operations of the equipment, the investigation found. The discovery of the modems, which had not been previously disclosed, supports growing fears in US intelligence circles that Chinese cranes could be used to covertly monitor US ports, or even sabotage their operations.

Chinese firms make nearly 80 percent of the cranes used in US ports, after years of undercutting domestic suppliers on price. House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican, told the Journal that the Chinese government 'is looking for every opportunity to collect valuable intelligence and position themselves to exploit vulnerabilities by systematically burrowing into America's critical infrastructure. The United States has clearly overlooked this threat for far too long,' he added.

A spokesman for China's embassy in DC said any fears over Chinese cranes are 'entirely paranoia' and amount to 'abusing national power to obstruct normal economic and trade cooperation.' Last month, President Joe Biden's administration announced a $20 billion investment to build more ship-to-shore cranes in America over spying concerns.
Story by Gustaf Kilander

Donald Trump allegedly held onto 70 boxes of classified documents while telling one of his staffers to claim that they were all returned.

In a Thursday filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida in West Palm Beach, the Department of Justice opposed Trump staffer Walt Nauta’s motion to “suppress evidence”.

The prosecutors noted that Mr Nauta “had been a valet in the White House during Trump’s administration” and that he “previously held a high-level security clearance and received training in handling classified documents”.

“During his presidency, Trump used dozens of boxes to accumulate and store records in an informal filing system,” they added. “At the end of his presidency in January 2021, around 85 to 95 of these boxes were removed from the White House and transported to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida, where they were later placed in a storage room.”
David McAfee

Donald Trump's mental stability is being used against him more and more in the run-up to the 2024 election, including by his own fellow Republican rivals, according to a report.

Trump, who appeared to confuse Barack Obama for Joe Biden at a rally on Saturday in New Hampshire, is taking fire from all angles on the issue of whether he's mentally fit to take the president's office again. President Joe Biden has already been hammering Trump on this issue, despite Biden himself getting his own criticisms for purported age-related decline.

Now, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are similarly striking out against Trump, according to the Washington Post's report.
Story by Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor

An Arizona grand jury has sent out subpoenas to alleged participants in a version of the 'fake electors scheme' in the state –the latest iteration of a multi-state conspiracy probe springing from the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

The subpoenas ask the Republican 'electors' to testify before a grand jury about their involvement in a plan that would have substituted them for the 11 electors determined by the vote of the people in the state, the Washington Post reported.

State prosecutors have subpoenaed 'multiple people' linked to Donald Trump's 2020 campaign, Politico reported Wednesday, calling it an indication that state Attorney General Kris Mayes is wrapping up her probe.

Trump on Wednesday became the de facto Republican presidential nominee for 2024 after rival Nikki Haley announced she was dropping out of the race.
Story by Tom Boggioni

Without endorsing President Joe Biden, the editorial board of the St. Louis Post Dispatch warned Republican voters — particularly so-called "Reagan Republicans" — that Donald Trump should be kept as far away from the corridors of power as possible.

In an editorial published on Thursday, the board of the influential midwestern newspaper declared Reagan Republicanism "dead" — and added the former president is the culprit who killed it, with party members fingered as accomplices.

The editors wrote, "Even among the many Republicans out there who recognize Trump’s obvious unfitness for office, there will be a strong temptation to fall back on partisan muscle-memory and vote for him anyway," before adding, "Republicans and conservatives of good conscience who can’t bring themselves to vote for President Joe Biden — fine — should at least consider any alternative that doesn’t give a vote to this unstable, malicious man and his dangerous movement."
By The Associated Press

NEW YORK — The federal judge who oversaw a New York defamation trial that resulted in an $83.3 million award to a longtime magazine columnist who says Donald Trump raped her in the 1990s refused Thursday to relieve the ex-president from the verdict's financial pinch.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told Trump's attorney in a written order that he won't delay deadlines for posting a bond that would ensure 80-year-old writer E. Jean Carroll can be paid the award if the judgment survives appeals.

The judge said any financial harm to the Republican front-runner for the presidency results from his slow response to the late-January verdict in the defamation case resulting from statements Trump made about Carroll while he was president in 2019 after she revealed her claims against him in a memoir.
Story by Alison Durkee, Forbes Staff

Topline
Former President Donald Trump was ordered to pay more than $300,000 Thursday for his failed lawsuit against former British spy Christopher Steele—adding a modest amount to the more than $540 million the ex-president has been forced to pay in legal fees and court judgments in recent months as he’s faced a series of court losses.

Timeline
March 7, 2024$382,000: Trump was ordered to pay £300,000 in legal fines after losing a lawsuit brought against Steele and his company Orbis Business Intelligence in the U.K. over the controversial dossier alleging Trump conspired with Russia to win the 2016 election.

Feb. 16, 2024$454.2 million: New York Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump and companies he controls to pay nearly a half-billion in penalties and pre-judgment interest for fraudulently misstating the value of assets on financial statements—an amount that will continue to accrue significant interest—part of a broader $465 million judgment that also includes fines for his sons Eric and Donald Trump, Jr., and ex-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.

Jan. 26, 2024$83.3 million: A jury ordered Trump to pay damages to writer E. Jean Carroll for defamation, after he attacked her and said she wasn’t “my type” when she accused him of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s.

Jan. 12, 2024$392,638: Trump was ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to The New York Times after a court tossed his lawsuit taking issue with the newspaper acquiring and publishing his tax records, which the Times said in February Trump has now paid.
Story by Charlie Nash

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) rolled his eyes and shook his head on Thursday after President Joe Biden attacked Republicans in the audience over the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

“We will not bow down! I will not bow down!” declared Biden during his State of the Union address. “In a literal sense, history is watching. History is watching. Just like history watched three years ago on January 6 when insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger to the throat of American democracy.”

Johnson, who was sat prominently behind Biden, could be seen rolling his eyes and shaking his head.
By Jamie Frevele
Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

The New York Times reported on Thursday that several sites disguising themselves as local news outlets are actually spreading “Kremlin propaganda.”

Reporter Steven Lee Myers wrote about sites with names like “D.C. Weekly, the New York News Daily, the Chicago Chronicle and a newer sister publication, the Miami Chronicle” that had the appearance of being connected to “an online network primed to surface disinformation ahead of the American presidential election in November.” Myers spoke to researchers and unnamed government officials for his report about the handful of “fake news organizations” — about five — that “represent a technological leap in [Russia’s] efforts to find new platforms to dupe unsuspecting American readers.”
By Jennifer Bowers Bahney

The U.S. Navy demoted Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) from “retired rear admiral” to “retired Navy captain” due to “inappropriate behavior” when he served as White House physician under former President Donald Trump , a new report revealed.
Story by BRUCE SCHREINER, Associated Press

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Democratic lawmakers walked out of a Kentucky committee hearing Thursday when the GOP-led panel took up a bill to expand access to prebirth and newborn services for pregnant women carrying nonviable fetuses that are expected to die before or soon after birth, in a state that bans abortion in such cases.

The three Democrats didn't return to the committee room until after Republicans on the House Health Services Committee approved the bill dealing with perinatal palliative care.

“This is not about comforting bereaved parents, as it should be,” Democratic state Rep. Lindsey Burke said afterward. “It’s about making a political statement, and they’re not going to do that on my back.”

Supporters of the bill said it would increase access to compassionate, comprehensive care and support services for families dealing with the devastation of a life-limiting diagnosis for their unborn child. When an infant is expected to live only a short time after birth, it gives parents precious moments to spend time with the child, said Addia Wuchner, executive director of Kentucky Right to Life.

“No matter how extreme an anomaly can be, sometimes just to say hello by holding your child means everything,” she said. “And families should have that opportunity to make those choices.”
Story by Athena Hallet

Tennessee is sending a clear message, if you don't have the right to own a gun, then you don't have the right to vote. A recent rule came through banning people with felony charges from voting, it's obvious that Tennessee is changing the way they handle voting rights.

Rights For Voting Being Violated
This change in voting rights is set to affect 475,000 Tennessee residents, and has been denounced by rights groups claiming it is violating Americans' right to vote. They claim it has affected black Americans and Latinos specifically.

Claims Of Suppression
There have also been claims made that these changes were made specifically to "suppress the black vote." Local media reports that these are the allegations being made.

Prioritizing The Restoration Of Gun Rights
Voting rights policies in Tennessee have gotten more strict over the last year requiring that anyone convicted of a crime must first have their gun rights reinstated before they are allowed to vote in ballots, that includes this year's presidential election. If a person has been convicted with a felony crime they are prohibited from buying or carrying a firearm, obviously restricting their rights to vote.
Story by Amelia Neath

Seth Meyers did not waste any breath while reading out Donald Trump’s entire rap sheet after news broke he had become the presumptive GOP nominee after his rival, Nikki Haley, dropped out of the presidential race.

The host said that the Republican establishment has now “raced to line up behind four-time criminal indictee and insurrectionist Donald Trump” after Ms Haley’s departure, but that was not the only thing he had to say about the former president, who is hoping to take office in the White House for a second time.

In an almost minute-and-a-half monologue, Meyers reeled off a continuous list of things Mr Trump has done, has been accused of and has coming up for him, all the while still coming out on top as the presumptive Republican nominee.

“Presumptive GOP nominee for president, again, for a third time, despite the fact he is a twice-impeached, four-time criminal indictee and racist who’s been found liable for fraud and sexual abuse. Banned from doing business in the state of New York for three years. Owes over half a billion dollars in fines. Took millions from foreign governments while he was president. Tried to extort a foreign country to interfere in an election in 2020 and encouraged another to help him win in 2016,” Mr Meyers started, however, he did not stop there.
Did he forget Trump interfered in the 2020 election, attempted a coup and broke the law?

Story by Nick Robertson

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) filed a complaint with the Department of Justice inspector general on Wednesday, accusing special counsel Jack Smith of election interference by resisting attempts to delay his criminal prosecution of former President Trump.

Smith has pushed federal judges not to delay his case against Trump, which alleges that the former president attempted to overturn the 2020 election. Trump’s attorneys have invoked the Supreme Court over whether Trump can be prosecuted at all, possibly pushing back trial past the 2024 general election.

Gaetz claims Smith’s work is intended to influence the election, violating DOJ policy.

“The witch hunt against President Trump by Attorney General Garland and Special Counsel Smith is a partisan exercise, and the American people know it,” Gaetz said in a statement. “The actions of the Special Counsel Smith to speed up the trial against President Trump violate the DOJ’s rules and the law.”
Isabel Rosales
By Lauren Mascarenhas and Isabel Rosales, CNN

Montgomery, Alabama CNN — Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill into law aimed at protecting in vitro fertilization patients and providers from legal liability late Wednesday, with some clinics poised to lift a hold on certain IVF services as early as this week after an unprecedented state Supreme Court ruling threw the future of fertility care into turmoil.

The new law does not address the issue of personhood at the heart of last month’s ruling in a case stemming from the accidental destruction of frozen embryos at a fertility clinic, and experts say it’s going to take more work to protect fertility services in the state. The fertility clinic at the center of that case has halted services and told CNN the new legislation falls short of providing the legal protection it needs to resume care.

The state court ruled frozen embryos are human beings and those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful death, spurring a national reckoning with reproductive health freedom and IVF access.
Story by bmetzger@insider.com (Bryan Metzger)

On Wednesday, 83 House Republicans voted against a roughly $460 billion package of bills to fund large swaths of the federal government.

Forty of them did so despite requesting — and securing — millions of dollars in federal funding for a variety of projects in their districts.

Take Rep. Lauren Boebert for example. The Colorado Republican announced on Wednesday that she would vote against what she dubbed the "Swamp Omnibus," slamming the bill as a "monstrosity" that "funds the Green New Deal."

That's despite the bill including more than $20 million that she herself had requested for projects across the state's 3rd congressional district, which she recently abandoned to seek reelection in a safer district on the other side of the state.

That included $5 million to develop a water reservoir in Wolf Creek, $2.2 million for water infrastructure in Craig, and millions more for highway improvements in the district that she jointly requested with Democratic Sens. Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper.
Story by Lee Moran

Fox News personality Bill Hemmer told rival networks to “take news out of your name” if they don’t carry every spit and cough of Donald Trump’s Republican presidential primary victory speeches.

On Tuesday’s broadcast of “Outnumbered,” Hemmer said the conservative network would always take a speech by President Joe Biden (even though they haven’t previously) and “be fair” with him.

“One of our competitors took four minutes, another took ten,” Hemmer said of the Trump coverage.

“If that’s what you’re going to do, take news out of your name because we should all be listening to these ideas and thoughts,” he added. “And if Biden came out, we would take him and be fair to his message.”
Story by ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press

SAN DIEGO (AP) — In his Super Tuesday victory speech, former President Donald Trump elevated false information that had gone viral on social media, claiming the Biden administration secretly flew hundreds of thousands of migrants into the United States.

Many posts sharing the claim referred to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for immigration restrictions. It said the administration refused to list individual airports where people arrived under a Biden “parole” program that allows Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to stay in the U.S. for two years.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection each month publishes the number of migrants admitted under the program by nationality. This information is available on its website and in press releases. It does not list arriving airports.

Trump said during his speech, “Today it was announced that 325,000 people were flown in from parts unknown - migrants were flown in airplane, not going through borders ... It was unbelievable. I said that must be a mistake. They flew 325,000 migrants. Flew them in over the borders and into our country."

But migrants are not being flown into the U.S. randomly. Under a Biden policy in effect since January 2023, up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela can enter the country monthly if they apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at a specified airport, paying their own way. Biden exercised his “parole” authority, which, under a 1952 law, allows him to admit people “only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”
The New Mexico jury deliberated for about 2.5 hours, she faces up to three years in prison.
By Chloe Melas, Dana Griffin and Sumiko Moots

SANTA FE, N.M. — A New Mexico jury found "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed guilty of involuntary manslaughter and not guilty of tampering with evidence on Wednesday after deliberating for about two and a half hours.

The 26-year-old faces up to three years in state prison and will be sentenced at a later date. A judge ordered that Gutierrez-Reed be taken into custody and held until her sentencing.

Gutierrez-Reed showed little emotion as the jury foreperson read the verdicts. She took off a necklace before a deputy took her into custody. Her mother, seated behind her, put her hands on her head and bent forward as the judge ordered her remanded into custody pending sentencing.
Mira Cheng, CNN

One German man has redefined “man on a mission.” A 62-year-old from Magdeburg deliberately got 217 Covid-19 vaccine shots in the span of 29 months, according to a new study, going against national vaccine recommendations. That’s an average of one jab every four days.

In the process, he became a walking experiment for what happens to the immune system when it is vaccinated against the same pathogen repeatedly. A correspondence published Monday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases outlined his case and concluded that while his “hypervaccination” did not result in any adverse health effects, it also did not significantly improve or worsen his immune response.

The man, who is not named in the correspondence in compliance with German privacy rules, reported receiving 217 Covid shots between June 2021 and November 2023. Of those, 134 were confirmed by a prosecutor and through vaccination center documentation; the remaining 83 were self-reported, according to the study.
Story by Robert Legare

Washington — Federal prosecutors in New York have accused Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and his wife, Nadine Menendez, of obstructing the investigation into a years-long bribery scheme in which the senator allegedly traded his political influence for money, according to a superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday.

The pair and three New Jersey businessmen were charged last year for conspiring to use Menendez's power as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the benefit of Egyptian and Qatari government officials, and to assist the businessmen overcome various business and legal issues. In exchange, prosecutors said, the senator and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands in cash, gold bars and a luxury car.

Menendez was indicted by a grand jury with about a dozen additional counts on Tuesday that accuse him of working as an unregistered foreign agent of Egypt to secure military financing for that country, accepting bribes to assist one of his co-defendant's Halal company, and trying to disrupt various criminal investigations. Many of the newly unsealed charges do not allege new conduct, but accuse the defendants of the underlying crimes as part of broader conspiracies.
Story by Brandi Buchman

A plethora of newly released text messages and emails flowing between a lawyer who pleaded guilty to conspiring to file fake elector slates for Donald Trump in Georgia and a campaign lawyer for the former president offers a startling look into a fast-moving world where Trump’s allies steadily discussed ways to create a “cloud of confusion” in the 2020 election aftermath.

The texts and emails are contained in a more than 1,400-page document. That document surfaced publicly this week after a lawsuit filed by Wisconsin voters and electors against Kenneth Chesebro — the conservative attorney turned Trump co-conspirator in the fake electors case in Georgia — and campaign lawyer Jim Troupis, along with other alleged fake electors in the state, was finally settled.

Chesebro pleaded guilty last November to charges in the pending Georgia election racketeering case. He is not alone; Trump campaign lawyer and co-conspirator Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty a month earlier after Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges after cutting a deal with federal prosecutors. Co-conspirator Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman charged with breaching election system equipment, also pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges, including conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.
Story by Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY

During his 19 overseas trips as president, Donald Trump made headlines by muscling his way through a crowd of fellow leaders to the front of a group photo and siding with Russia's Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman over his own intelligence agencies, called North Korea's murderous dictator "very honorable" and threatened to pull the U.S. from the NATO military alliance.

He also reportedly refused to attend a memorial to fallen World War One soldiers in France over concern the rain would mess with his hairdo.

Now, with Trump pulling slightly ahead of President Joe Biden in some national polls, U.S. allies are steeling themselves for a possible MAGA restoration with equal measures of dread and pragmatism.
By STEVE PEOPLES and MEG KINNARD

NEW YORK (AP) — Nikki Haley suspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday after being soundly defeated across the country on Super Tuesday, leaving Donald Trump as the last remaining major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination.

Haley didn’t endorse the former president in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina. Instead, she encouraged him to earn the support of the coalition of moderate Republicans and independent voters who supported her.

“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that,” she said. “At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.”

Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former U.N. ambassador, was Trump’s first significant rival when she jumped into the race in February 2023. She spent the final phase of her campaign aggressively warning the GOP against embracing Trump, whom she argued was too consumed by chaos and personal grievance to defeat President Joe Biden in the general election.
Story by Carl Gibson

The impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is likely to begin in the US Senate this week. It is expected to be quickly tabled or dismissed by Democrats, who hold the majority and have criticized House Republicans for bringing the case to trial despite a lack of "high crimes and misdemeanors" the Constitution requires to necessitate impeachment.

Both Senate Democrats and Republicans have criticized the Mayorkas impeachment as a political stunt. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) said his Republican counterparts in the House of Representatives were engaging in the "worst, dumbest exercise and use of time" for an impeachment that was "obviously dead on arrival." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) dismissed it as "political theater from a Republican Party that can't do any real legislative work."

And as if to underscore that point, one journalist has exposed the staffers who authored the articles of impeachment as seasoned veterans of far-right, Christian nationalist groups.

Luke Broadwater, New York Times Congressional joins Nicolle Wallace to discuss new text messages and emails uncovered showing the fake elector scheme concocted by Team Trump which set into a motion a plan to overturn the will of the voters in 2020 and throw the election to the House of Representatives.
Story by A.L. Lee

A law clerk hired recently by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas amid allegations of bigotry cleaned up her public image by recasting the narrative surrounding the 2015 incident in which she was accused of sending a racist text message to a former colleague, the New Yorker reports.

Crystal Clanton, who graduated from George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School in Virginia in 2022, was hired by Justice Thomas in late February following her meteoric rise to the highly coveted position with the nation’s highest court as a new theory portrays her as the victim of a vengeful co-worker.

The racial controversy arose in 2015 when Clanton served as the national field director for the conservative student organization Turning Point USA, a Republican advocacy group closely tied to former President Donald Trump, also known for its divisive rhetoric.

Two years later, an investigative report by The New Yorker exposed Clanton’s text message in which she told a co-worker: “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE … Like f- – – them all …  I hate blacks. End of story.”

Screenshots of the string of messages marked with Clanton’s phone number were shared with the magazine in 2017, and multiple employees at the time confirmed Clanton as the sender.
Story by Gabriella Ferrigine

Former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, one of the architects in the former president’s fake elector plot, may have a "perjury" problem over his testimony to a Nevada grand jury.

The Washington Post on Monday reported on a cache of documents in the Nevada grand jury probe of the fake elector scheme, including Chesebro's statements to the panel.

Chesebro told the grand jury that he saw "pending litigation" as pivotal to the plot to overturn Trump's 2020 loss.

“The whole point of the alternate elector plan that we arrived at in Wisconsin is the idea is we make sure that we have the extra three weeks to try to win the lawsuit," the right-wing lawyer said, according to a transcript. "If there isn't any lawsuit then there's no need for this to be done because there's no lawsuit that would be won before January 6th."
By Mark Joseph Stern

On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed a Colorado Supreme Court decision removing Donald Trump from the ballot because of his engagement in an insurrection on Jan. 6. But that top-line holding is where the unanimity ended because five conservative justices just couldn’t help themselves: They went much further than the case required, announcing an entirely new rule that Congress alone, through “a particular kind of legislation,” may enforce the constitutional bar on insurrectionists holding office. As the three liberal justices pointed out, in a separate opinion that glows white-hot with indignation, the majority’s overreach “attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office.” They are, of course, correct. After this decision, it is impossible to imagine a federal candidate, up to and including the president, ever being disqualified from assuming office because of their participation in an insurrection.

Monday’s case, Trump v. Anderson, is proof positive that the Supreme Court can act at rapid speed to resolve a dispute of national importance—at least when Trump’s own interests are under threat. The Colorado Supreme Court disqualified Trump on Dec. 19. SCOTUS took up the case on Jan. 5 and heard arguments on Feb. 8. Now, less than a month later, the justices have resolved the case in Trump’s favor. The court’s ultra-accelerated consideration of Anderson sits in sharp contrast with its treatment of Trump’s claim of absolute immunity in his criminal trial over Jan. 6, which the justices have, by comparison, slow-walked to the point that it appears unlikely the former president could face trial before November. This disparity alone may provide a clue that there is something other than law afoot in these cases.

Former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Sue Gordon joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with a look at the threat that a second Donald Trump presidency could have on America’s national security, and whether allies would trust the United States to handle classified information.
Story by SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press

Two attorneys for then-President Donald Trump orchestrated a plan for fake electors to file paperwork falsely saying the Republican won Wisconsin in a strategy to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory there and in other swing states, according to a lawsuit settlement reached Monday that makes public months of texts and emails.

Under their agreements, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over more than 1,400 pages of documents, emails and text messages, along with photos and video, offering a detailed account of the scheme’s origins in Wisconsin. The communications show how they, with coordination from Trump campaign officials, replicated the strategy in six other states including Georgia, where Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 2020 election.

he agreements settle a civil lawsuit brought by Democrats in 2022 against the two attorneys and 10 Republicans in Wisconsin who posed as fake electors. The Republicans settled in December.
Story by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

Republican Sen. Rick Scott said Friday that he is "seriously considering" a bid to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell as leader of the Senate GOP caucus, an announcement that brought renewed attention to his previous support for sunsetting all federal programs every five years—including Social Security and Medicare.

Scott (R-Fla.), who lost a challenge to McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2022, said in an appearance on "The Charlie Kirk Show" that McConnell's decision to step down as Republican leader at the end of the year represents "a big opportunity."

"We could actually have somebody that actually believes in this country and believes in solving the problems of this country running the Senate when we get a majority in November," said Scott, who is up for reelection this year. "We could make big change."

Two years ago, Scott—then serving as head of the Senate GOP's campaign committee—released an agenda under which "all federal legislation" would lapse and require reauthorization by Congress every five years. Critics were quick to note that Scott's plan would entail sunsetting Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and other key laws.
Story by Jacob Miller

Former President Donald Trump allegedly attempted to persuade his own attorney to conceal classified documents. When the attorney declined, Trump reportedly enlisted two of his assistants to hide the documents from the attorney and suppress the CCTV video evidence, as per the most recent filing in Trump’s case involving classified documents in Florida.

The latest filing goes into details of Trump’s alleged hiding of classified documents to show that the case is not vindictive or based on political bias. It states that Trump only pretended to cooperate with a National Archive demand that he return classified documents that he stored in his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving the White House in 2021.

“When presented with a grand jury subpoena demanding the return of the remaining documents bearing classification markings, Trump attempted to enlist his own attorney in the corrupt endeavor, suggesting that he falsely tell the FBI and grand jury that Trump did not have any documents, and suggesting that his attorney hide or destroy documents rather than produce them to the government,” the document states.

After the attorney refused to cooperate, Trump then tried to deceive him, the prosecutors added.

“Failing in his effort to corrupt the attorney, Trump enlisted his trusted body man, codefendant Waltine Nauta, in a scheme to deceive the attorney by moving boxes to conceal his [Trump’s] continued possession of classified documents. As a result, Trump, through his attorney, again returned only a portion of the classified documents in his possession while falsely claiming that his production was complete,” the document states.
Story by Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday overturned a Colorado court ruling that said former President Donald Trump was ineligible to run for office again because of his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — bringing a swift end to a case with huge implications for the 2024 election.

The court reversed the Colorado Supreme Court, which determined that Trump could not serve again as president under a provision of the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

The decision comes just a day before the Colorado primary.

In addition to ensuring that Trump remains on the ballot in Colorado, the decision is likely to affect similar cases that have arisen. So far only two other states, Maine and Illinois, have followed Colorado's path. Like the Colorado ruling, both those decisions were put on hold.

The Supreme Court decision removes one avenue to holding Trump accountable for his role in challenging the 2020 election results, including his exhortation that his supporters should march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, when Congress was about to formalize President Joe Biden's win.

Trump is facing criminal charges for the same conduct. The Supreme Court in April will hear oral arguments on Trump's broad claim of presidential immunity.
Donald Trump has been criticized for making a string of gaffes during two weekend campaign speeches.
Newsweek

The Republican presidential candidate addressed crowds on Saturday in Richmond, Virginia, and Greensboro, North Carolina, ahead of Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states will vote in Republican primaries.

Ron Filipkowski, a Trump critic and the editor-in-chief of the independent news network MeidasTouch, posted a video on X, formerly Twitter, that compiled 32 incidents in both speeches in which, Filipkowski said, the Republican "mispronounced words, got confused, mixed up names, forgot names, and babbled insane nonsense."
Ana Faguy Forbes Staff

Former President Donald Trump appeared to confuse former President Barack Obama with President Joe Biden during a rally Saturday night, the latest in a series of gaffes from Trump as the age and mental well-being of both top presidential candidates remains a concern for voters.

The gaffe came when Trump was discussing Vladimir Putin and said the Russian president “has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word.”

Video of the event shows the crowd going silent after Trump’s reference to Obama, before Trump then names Biden, and calls him “a fool.”

In at least seven other instances, Trump has seemed to confuse Obama with Biden.

Last week, when referencing Putin at the Conservative Political Action Conference Trump made another Putin-related gaffe, saying he agreed with the Russian President that he’d rather see Biden as president.
MSNBC

While on the campaign trail over the weekend in North Carolina and Virginia, Donald Trump made several public gaffes. The Morning Joe panel discusses.
MSNBC

Former President Trump on the campaign trail over the weekend, again took credit for signing a veterans bill that passed under his predecessor, President Obama.
‘Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word,’ Trump says
Gustaf Kilander Washington, DC

The crowd of Trump supporters gathered in Richmond, Virginia to hear Donald Trump speak on Saturday night went silent as the former president appeared to mix up Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama yet again.

“Shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Mr Trump said on Saturday.

“I know them both very well and we will restore peace through strength. Get that war settled. It’s a bad war. And Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word,” Mr Trump added, seemingly in the false belief that Mr Biden’s former boss remains in charge.

There were plenty of moments during Mr Trump’s campaign events in Greensboro, North Carolina and later in Richmond when he appeared to struggle to deliver his speech or seemed to be confused.
Allen H. Weisselberg, the former Trump Organization finance chief, has already spent time at the Rikers Island jail complex. A perjury plea could send him back.
By Ben Protess, William K. Rashbaum, Jesse McKinley and Kate Christobek

Allen H. Weisselberg, a longtime lieutenant to former President Donald J. Trump, has reached an agreement with Manhattan prosecutors to plead guilty to perjury charges on Monday, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Yet Mr. Weisselberg, who for years has remained steadfastly loyal to Mr. Trump in the face of intense prosecutorial pressure, is not expected to implicate his former boss. That unbroken streak of loyalty has frustrated prosecutors and already once cost him his freedom.

Mr. Weisselberg, 76, is now expected to concede that he lied to investigators from the New York attorney general’s office when they were investigating Mr. Trump for fraud. The attorney general, Letitia James, had accused Mr. Trump of wildly inflating his net worth to obtain favorable loans and other benefits.

That civil case recently ended with a judge imposing a huge financial penalty on the former president — more than $450 million with interest. Mr. Weisselberg, who was also a defendant, was penalized $1 million plus interest and permanently banned from serving in a financial position of any New York company.
Story by Andrew Rodriguez

A New York judge ordered Donald Trump to pay a penalty of $355 million for fraudulently inflating his wealth, totaling over $450 million with interest. Trump’s legal team requested a delay and offered to post a bond of $100 million instead.

“In the absence of a stay on the terms herein outlined, properties would likely need to be sold to raise capital under exigent circumstances,” the filing states, “and there would be no way to recover any property sold following a successful appeal and no means to recover the resulting financial losses from the Attorney General.”

Despite claims of having substantial cash, Trump’s team argues that producing the full amount is impractical. An appeals judge ruled that Trump must post the full amount but can obtain loans.
Story by Carl Gibson

Voters shouldn't be so distracted by former President Donald Trump's mountain of legal issues that they overlook his pattern of racist behavior, according to a Washington Post columnist.

The Post's Jennifer Rubin — a traditional conservative who describes herself as "NeverTrump" — wrote in a recent column that the media's assumption that the former president will win over more voters of color in this election than in his two previous bids for the White House unfairly glosses over his "casual racism." As evidence, she pointed to Trump's recent statements saying Black voters liked him because of his multiple criminal indictments and mug shots, and his echoing of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler when he accused immigrants of "poisoning the blood of our country."

"Likewise, he left no doubt about his noxious bigotry toward immigrants at his unhinged rant at the Conservative Political Action Conference," Rubin wrote, referencing Trump saying immigrants from "Africa," Asia" and "the Middle East" were "destroying our country."

"His plan to round up and deport millions of undocumented immigrants goes hand in hand with his effort to dehumanize them," she added.
Story by Natalie Venegas

A petition created by Faithful America on Wednesday is condemning U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito amid "corruption" claims.

Thomas, who joined the Court in 1991 and is its most senior member, and his wife, Ginni Thomas, have been scrutinized for questionable relationships with influential Republicans in addition to Ginni allegedly trying to help former President Donald Trump win the 2020 presidential election after he lost to Joe Biden.

The relationships include ties to billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow and conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo, the co-chairman and former executive vice president of the conservative Federalist Society. The ties were further under fire as ProPublica released a report last year that found Thomas and his wife had taken undisclosed trips, and received other benefits, paid for by Crow. Thomas has defended the relationship as he previously said in a statement, describing Crow and his wife as "among our dearest friends." In addition, in reference to a 2019 trip, which involved flying to Indonesia on Crow's private jet and touring the islands on Crow's 162-foot yacht, Thomas said that he was "advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable."
Michelle Fox

The debt load of the U.S. is growing at a quicker clip in recent months, increasing about $1 trillion nearly every 100 days.

The nation’s debt permanently crossed over to $34 trillion on Jan. 4, after briefly crossing the mark on Dec. 29, according to data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. It reached $33 trillion on Sept. 15, 2023, and $32 trillion on June 15, 2023, hitting this accelerated pace. Before that, the $1 trillion move higher from $31 trillion took about eight months.

U.S. debt, which is the amount of money the federal government borrows to cover operating expenses, now stands at nearly $34.4 billion, as of Wednesday. Bank of America investment strategist Michael Hartnett believes the 100-day pattern will remain intact with the move from $34 trillion to $35 trillion.
The president reiterated that the U.S. is trying to push for an immediate cease-fire between Hamas and Israel in order to allow more aid into Gaza.
By Rebecca Shabad

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Friday that the U.S. will drop food aid into the Gaza Strip, noting that the humanitarian aid flowing into the region for Palestinians is insufficient.

“Aid flowing into Gaza is nowhere nearly enough… lives are on the line,” Biden said as he announced the decision about the airdrops during an Oval Office meeting he was holding with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

“We should be getting hundreds of trucks in, not just several,” he continued. “We’re going to pull out every stop we can.”

The president reiterated that the U.S. is trying to push for an immediate cease-fire between Hamas and Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, where he said “innocent people” have died.
Kara Scannell Lauren del Valle Jeanne Sahadi
By Kara Scannell, Lauren del Valle and Jeanne Sahadi, CNN

New York CNN —  Donald Trump is facing a cash crunch as deadlines are quickly approaching to find over half a billion dollars he owes in judgments.

On Wednesday, a New York appeals court judge refused to give the former president additional time to satisfy a $454 million judgment from a civil fraud case. A federal judge is poised to decide whether to grant Trump’s last-ditch legal effort to delay or post a fraction of an $83.3 million judgment he owes E. Jean Carroll from a defamation case.

The scramble over the past week reveals challenges Trump is facing in raising the combined judgments totaling $537 million. In pleading for relief, Trump’s lawyers told judges it could cost him an additional $104 million to post the bonds – their estimate of fees he would need to pay. Trump’s lawyers said he may have to dump some of his properties under “exigent circumstances” to raise cash quickly, tap the capital markets, or find another source of cash. Last month Trump began hawking $399 gold sneakers.

“It is a really substantial problem. He’s really between a rock and a hard place,” said Adam Kaufmann, a criminal defense lawyer.

The cash crunch challenges Trump’s long-projected image of a successful businessman with deep pockets and a maverick’s ability to outmaneuver legal and financial troubles. He rode that reputation to the White House in 2016.

Now, the leading Republican presidential candidate in 2024 could end up heavily indebted to a bank, donor, or some other source of capital. Adding to the uncertainty over Trump’s future earnings are the four criminal indictments he is facing.
Story by Benjamin Lynch

Over 100 Republican lawmakers voted against a short-term funding bill that passed Congress on February 29, avoiding a partial government shutdown.

A total of 13 Republican Senators and 97 members of the House voted against the deal, but it passed both chambers with bipartisan support. Two Democrats in the House, Massachusetts Rep. Jake Auchincloss and Illinois Rep, Mike Quigley, voted against the resolution as well. President Joe Biden has said he will sign the legislation.
The Republican presidential candidate's comments came in an interview with NBC News’ "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker in Virginia.
By Megan Lebowitz

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said that all of former President Donald Trump's legal cases should be "dealt with" before the presidential election.

"I think all of the cases should be dealt with before November," she said Thursday in an interview with NBC News’ "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker in Falls Church, Virginia, where voters will cast their primary ballots Tuesday.

"We need to know what's going to happen before it, before the presidency happens, because after that, should he become president, I don't think any of it's going to get heard," she continued.

Haley spoke a day after the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether Trump could claim presidential immunity in response to criminal charges. It could take months for the high court to reach a decision, pushing back the potential timeline for his election interference trial.
Judge Aileen Cannon could set new trial date and allow ex-president to make public identities of government investigators
Hugo Lowell in Palm Beach, Florida

Donald Trump is expected to attend a major court hearing on Friday in the criminal case over his retention of classified documents, during which a federal judge could set a new trial date and decide whether to allow the former president to make public the identity of government investigators.

The hearing – scheduled to start at 10am and split into two sessions in federal district court in Fort Pierce, Florida – could see the US district judge Aileen Cannon make a series of rulings that could alter the trajectory of the case.

Cannon’s main priority is expected to be setting a new trial date, after extended legal battles between Trump and prosecutors over issues related to classified discovery caused proceedings to run roughly four months behind schedule and made the original May trial date untenable.

Whether the judge will set a trial date in a ruling from the bench, or write an order later, remains unclear. Also uncertain is whether the judge decides to adopt a schedule suggested by Trump that culminates in an August trial, or a schedule suggested by prosecutors that culminates in a July trial.
By SEAN MURPHY and JIM VERTUNO

STINNETT, Texas (AP) — As the largest wildfire in Texas history engulfed his town, Danny Phillips was left helpless.

“We had to watch from a few miles away as our neighborhood burned,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion.

In his hard-hit town of Stinnett, population roughly 1,600, families like his who evacuated from the Smokehouse Creek fire returned Thursday to devastating scenes: melted street signs and charred frames of cars and trucks. Homes reduced to piles of ash and rubble. An American flag propped up outside a destroyed house.

Stinnett’s destruction was a reminder that, even as snow fell Thursday and helped firefighters, crews are racing to stamp out the blaze ahead of higher temperatures and winds forecast in the coming days.

Already, the Smokehouse Creek fire has killed two people and left behind a desolate landscape of scorched prairie, dead cattle and burned-out homes in the Texas Panhandle.
The Independence Police Department has confirmed that a suspect is in custody following the shooting that also injured two other officers
KMBC

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Independence Police Department has confirmed that one of its officers and a Jackson County Process server have been killed — and two more officers are injured — after a shooting that began during an eviction in northeast Independence.

Police have identified the deceased victims as 35-year-old officer Cody Allen and Drexel Mack, a Civil Process server in his early 40s.

An unidentified male suspect is in custody following the deadly incident and is believed to have suffered minor injuries during the fatal exchange, which began around 1:09 p.m. on Thursday at a home located at 1111 N. Elsea Smith Road.

Officer Allen, who had been with the Independence police department for two years
and a member of law enforcement for much longer, is survived by his wife, two kids and his parents. Mack, an employee of the Jackson County courts for 12 years, is survived by his fiancée.
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