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President Biden delivers State of the Union address

President Joe Biden delivered his third State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress Thursday evening and took the opportunity to make his case to voters to elect him for a second term, listing his achievements and outlining his future agenda. The president’s speech seemingly served as the kickoff for his presidential re-election campaign against the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.

Biden began by promising Ukrainians that the U.S. would not back away from defending them in the face of the ongoing oppression and war by Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying: “we have to stand up to Putin. We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down. In a literal sense, history is watching.”

Referencing the January 6th, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Biden did not name Donald Trump directly, but said: “my predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth of January 6th. I will not do that. This is a moment to speak the truth and bury the lies. And here’s the simplest truth. You can’t love your country only when you win.”

Speaking on the decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, Biden vowed: “in its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court majority wrote ‘women are not without electoral or political power’. No kidding. Clearly those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women in America. But they found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot and won in 2022, 2023, and they will find out again in 2024. If Americans send me a Congress that supports the right to choose I promise you: I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.”

President Biden also officially announced the construction of a temporary port along the coast of Gaza to allow more humanitarian aid into the region as the war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza continues, saying: “no U.S. boots will be on the ground. This temporary pier would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day. But Israel must also do its part. Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and ensure that humanitarian workers aren’t caught in the crossfire.”

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6 arrested in connection with death of Arizona teen beaten outside Halloween Party

Six people have been arrested months after the death of a 16-year-old who was beaten outside a Halloween party in Arizona on October 28, 2023, and died two days later in the hospital.

A Maricopa County grand jury indicated two more suspects on charges stemming from the gang-style, fatal beating of Preston Lord:  Taylor Sherman, 19, was booked late Wednesday by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office on one count of first-degree murder and one count of kidnapping; and Jacob Meisner, 17, was charged Thursday with first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery, according to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. He was in custody on other charges when he was served with the charges connected to Lord’s death.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said at a news conference on Wednesday that four others have been charged so far in Lord’s death — Dominic Turner, 20, William Owen Hines, 18, and Talan Renner and Talyn Vigil, both 17, were indicted on first- and second-degree murder charges, as well as kidnapping. Renner and Vigil are juveniles but will be charged as adults.  Turner also was charged with aggravated robbery.

All six defendants are being held on $1 million bonds, according to the county attorney’s office. In a statement obtained by NBC News through their attorney, Lord’s parents, Nick Lord and Autumn Curiel, thanked community members “who stepped up to provide information to secure these arrests … But for law enforcement’s collective efforts and community members’ invaluable cooperation, these arrests would not have happened. Each arrest represents a step towards accountability and justice for our son Preston.”

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Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell endorses Donald Trump for president

On Wednesday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell endorsed Donald Trump for president in a drastic turnaround. McConnell declared his support in a short statement after Trump’s Super Tuesday victories, which pushed the GOP front-runner closer to the party nomination. McConnell’s statement read: “It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States. It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support.”

McConnell, Trump’s onetime critic who criticized his as “morally responsible” for the “disgraceful” acts in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, has not spoken to the former president since 2020 – after he declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner of the that year’s presidential election.

The endorsement from McConnell comes after he announced last week he would step down after this term as leader, a position he has held longer than any other senator. Despite his concerns about Trump, McConnell seems to be in favor of the outcomes the former president was able to accomplish during his term, saying that he and Trump “worked together to accomplish great things for the American people.”  With McConnell leading the Senate, Trump signed a GOP tax cuts package into law, and was able to have the Senate confirm three justices to the Supreme Court while fulfilling conservatives’ long-term goal of overturning Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion.

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Democrat Adam Schiff, Republican Steve Garvey advance to general election for California’s Senate seat

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Republican Steve Garvey will face each other in California’s November Senate race. seeking to fill late Sen. Diane Feinstein’s Senate seat. Feinstein, D-Calif., died last September, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler to serve out the remainder of her term.

Schiff and Garvey defeated progressive Democrats Katie Porter and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and will face-off in the general election. Under California’s primary election system, the two candidates with the most votes advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation.  Porter and Lee will also vacate their House seats at the end of the term.  The results mean that for the first time in 30 years, California will not be represented by a woman in the U.S. Senate. Either Schiff or Garvey will be the first White male U.S. senator representing California in 32 years. Democrats are favored to win the general election in the solidly blue state.

Schff said in a recent interview that if elected senator, his top priorities will be to “make the economy work for people. For millions of people, they’re working harder than ever and they’re still struggling to get by. We need to bring down the cost of housing first and foremost here in California … But the other two big existential threats are to our democracy and to our planet. And these are the issues I’ve been talking about throughout the state. The need to fight for an economy that, you know, that rewards folks who are working hard with a good quality of life and, but also save our democracy from a would-be dictator.”

Garvey, a political newcomer who played for Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, hailed his performance as a “California comeback” and said at an election night celebration that “what you’re all feeling tonight is what it’s like to hit a walk-off home run … but keep in mind this is the first game of a doubleheader. So keep the evening of November 5 open.”

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Nikki Haley to suspend her presidential campaign after Super Tuesday results

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday morning that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is ending her campaign, ceding the nomination to Donald Trump and setting up a rematch of the 2020 election against President Joe Biden.

The move comes after Haley’s disappointing results in Super Tuesday’s primary contests, after former President Donald Trump won across nearly all the states holding Republican nominating contests. Haley was victorious in Vermont’s Republican primary, just her second win of the primary season.  Trump is on track to reach the necessary 1,215 delegates to clinch the Republican nomination.

Sources close to Haley say she will officially announce to the press she’s ending her campaign in remarks at 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning in Charleston, in her home state of South Carolina.. She is not expected to announce an endorsement Wednesday.

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Meta resolves Tuesday’s outages across Facebook and Instagram platforms

Meta restored access to Facebook and Instagram early Tuesday afternoon after more than half a million users reported widespread issues beginning @10 a.m. ET, with many saying they were booted out of the social media platforms and unable to log back in. WhatsApp, another Meta product, seemed to be largely unaffected by the outage, while users of Threads reported a lesser degrees of users issues. There were also reports that some Meta Quest headset users were also experiencing issues logging in.

NetBlocks, a global internet monitor, posted on X : “Meta platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads are currently experiencing outages related to login sessions in multiple countries; incident not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering.”

A Meta Spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday: “Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience.” The specific cause of the outage is not publicly known, though Meta said it was a “technical issue.”

According to crowdsourced data collected by DownDetector (a site that monitors internet service outages) more than 500,000 reports of problems by U.S. Facebook users and more than 70,000 reported problems with Instagram as of about 10:30 a.m. ET. The most frequently reported problems were with logging into the Facebook app and issues with the Instagram app.  Facebook Messenger also received thousands of reports, according to Downdetector. Some users on social media expressed concern that their accounts had been hacked because they had been booted out of the service and were unable to get back in with their passwords.

The outage occurred the same day as Super Tuesday, when voters in 15 states and one territory are set to head to the polls for GOP primary contests.

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Supreme Court overturns Colorado ruling, says Donald Trump is eligible to appear on 2024 ballot

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of former President Donald Trump in a historic case challenging his eligibility to seek the Republican presidential nomination under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment due to his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The High Court reversed the unprecedented decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that would remove Trump from the ballot under the provision after a state trial court found he participated in “insurrection” on Jan. 6 through incitement. The majority opinion is that the role of disqualifying a presidential candidate belongs to Congress:  “Permitting state enforcement of Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates would raise serious questions about the scope of that power,” it stated.

The unsigned Supreme Court opinion read: “For the reasons given, responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States.  The judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court therefore cannot stand. All nine Members of the Court agree with that result.”

In holding that only Congress had the power to enforce the provisions under Section 5 of the amendment, the court said its decision would apply to federal offices nationwide: “This case raises the question whether the States, in addition to Congress, may also enforce Section 3. We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.”

The decision came one day before voters in Colorado go to the polls on Super Tuesday, where Trump is on the GOP primary ballot. The decision also ensures that Trump will remain on the ballot as Republican presidential nominee in all 50 states.  Trump quickly celebrated the ruling, writing on his social media platform it was a “BIG WIN” for the country.

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Former Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty to perjury in civil fraud trial

Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg has pleaded guilty to two counts of perjury Monday in connection with testimony he gave during former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial.

The charges accuse Weisselberg of committing perjury in a deposition as well as in testimony in Trump’s civil fraud trial. Bragg’s office alleged Weisselberg lied in July of 2020 in claiming he only learned Trump’s triplex apartment had been dramatically overvalued after Forbes published an article detailing the issue, when in fact he had known about the overvaluation before then.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg recommended Weisselberg, 76, be sentenced to five months in jail after entering the plea, and agreed to his release before sentencing, scheduled for April 10. Bragg’s office also said that as part of the plea, Weisselberg admitted that he committed conduct underlying other instances of perjury.

In a statement Monday, a spokesperson for the district attorney said, “It is a crime to lie in depositions and at trial — plain and simple. Allen Weisselberg took an oath to be truthful, and then committed perjury both at depositions during the New York State Attorney General’s Investigation and Proceeding, as well as at their recent trial  Today, Allen Weisselberg is pleading guilty to this felony and being held responsible for his conduct.”

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung slammed Bragg in response to Weisselberg’s plea, alleging the Manhattan district attorney “committed repeated prosecutorial misconduct in his illegal, desperate pursuit of Mr. Trump that violated federal and state constitutions and Bragg’s ethical obligations.”  Cheung added that Bragg “has been on a crusade of vindictive and oppressive pressure leading, today, to a forced plea by Allen H. Weisselberg. These are corrupt, election interference persecution tactics ripped from the playbook of Joseph Stalin, which cannot be allowed in America.”

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Blizzard conditions in Northern California shuts down roads, ski resorts

Blizzard conditions have continued to slam the Northern California region throughout the weekend with damaging winds and heavy snow, shutting down roads and ski resorts across the area.  Around 6.5 million people were under winter weather alerts across the Mountain West, with blizzard warnings still in effect for the Sierra Nevada, who have experienced the most extreme weather including whiteout conditions and hurricane-force winds.

The blizzard closed a 70-mile stretch of Interstate 80 near the Nevada state line for more than a day, with the Weather Center adding that “extremely heavy snowfall rates of 2-6 inches an hour combined with very strong winds exceeding 100 mph at times will maintain impossible travel conditions in the Sierra Nevada” and warned of “high to extreme” avalanche danger in the Central Sierra and Greater Lake Tahoe area. About 5-12 feet of snow was forecast to fall along the crest of the Sierra with damaging wind gusts “possibly in excess of 75 mph” expected across the Intermountain West.

Numerous ski areas were closed over the weekend including at Palisades Tahoe, Sierra at Tahoe and Mammoth. The National Weather Service said on Sunday that “winds will wane in intensity, though some additional heavy snowfall is expected through the day, particularly for the southern Cascades/Sierra, Wasatch, and central Rockies.”  Extreme snowfall and roaring winds in the Sierra and parts of the northern ranges mean blowing snow and whiteout conditions making travel “impossible.”

While the storm was expected to wind down on Sunday, it will be followed by a new system on Monday, the National Weather Service said.

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University of Florida terminates all DEI positions to comply with state law

According to an administrative memo that was released, the University of Florida has terminated all of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) related positions to comply with a new state law that bars state colleges from using state or federal money to fund the programs. The Florida Board of Education implemented the law January, saying that strict regulations would be put on the Florida College System about the use of tax dollars to support DEI. The board said DEI programs are “programs that categorize individuals based on race or sex for the purpose of differential or preferential treatment.” The rule will affect 28 of Florida’s state schools.

Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr. said at the time of the rule’s announcement that the actions will ensure taxpayer money won’t be spent on DEI and “radical indoctrination that promotes division in our society,” adding that higher education needs to return to its “essential foundations of academic integrity” instead of “being corrupted by destructive ideologies.

The University of Florida memo states that they have closed the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, “eliminated DEI positions and administrative appointments, and halted DEI-focused contracts with outside vendors.”  University employees who lost their positions will receive the standard twelve weeks of severance pay and are encouraged to apply for “expedited consideration for different positions currently posted by the university.” The school’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer will reallocate about $5 million formerly funding DEI expenses like salaries and expenditures to now go to a faculty retirement fund.

The memo said: “Finally, the University of Florida is — and will always be —unwavering in our commitment to universal human dignity. As we educate students by thoughtfully engaging a wide range of ideas and views, we will continue to foster a community of trust and respect for every member of Gator Nation.”

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