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Texas 'preemption' bills escalate war between liberal cities, conservative legislature

AUSTIN, Texas – New legislation is heating up the long-running cold war between Texas’ relatively progressive cities and its GOP-dominated legislature.

Local officials across Texas are worried that far-reaching state bills could roll back their attempts to ensure construction workers get rest breaks in Texas’ searing heat, to run no-kill animal shelters and to maintain local water quality.

GOP sponsors and conservative groups say companion bills HB2127 and SB814, which would prevent local governments from passing or enforcing local rules in several critical areas “unless explicitly authorized by statute,” would protect Texas business owners from an unprecedented and aggressive overreach by the state’s booming, blue-tinged cities.

But local officials and urban advocacy groups contend the legislation would strip cities of their ability to regulate a broad range of environmental, labor and health and safety concerns.

The bills are part of a broader push by conservative groups to take their conflicts with progressive cities up with state legislators, rather than cities themselves, said Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League, a trade group for the state’s cities.

“It’s coming out of national think tanks in the last years,” he said. “You go straight to the state government and don’t have to go city by city.”

Last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) vetoed a far-reaching preemption bill passed by the GOP-led legislature in his state, which would have exposed local governments to lawsuits over any ordinance that cut a local business’s profits.

The Texas bills are broader yet: If passed, they would nullify any local ordinances that could fall under the rubric of the state’s labor, natural resources, agriculture, insurance or occupations codes — unless the legislature writes specific legislation directly permitting a rule.

The two bills would also allow any citizen to sue their county — or a neighboring county — over a local law that they felt violated the state’s new powers, opening blue- or purple-leaning counties to a flood of lawsuits from their more conservative peripheries.

Most bills never pass the legislature, and these ones have a tough road out of committee. When the bills debuted last week, a bipartisan group of legislators had hard questions for one of their authors, state Rep. Dustin Burrows (R), about the broadly worded legislation’s potential for unintended consequences.

Those concerns have caused similar (if less-sweeping) bills to fail the last two times they were introduced in the state legislature.

But Burrows is a committee chair and powerful legislator backed by a lobby of business and conservative groups determined to curb what they describe as an unprecedented power grab by cities.

Burrows did not respond to The Hill’s repeated request for comment on the measures.

In the cities — in contrast to the suburbs and exurbs that ring them — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) “can feel Republican control slipping,” said Harvey Kronberg, founder and editor of the Quorum Report, a venerable Austin-based nonpartisan political newspaper.

The two bills — like a flurry of other state legislation this session aimed at staving off other potential city ordinances — “are more an effort to staunch the authority of Democrats as to have anything to do with diminishing friction in business,” Kronberg said.

But unlike proposed bills that seek to outlaw bans on gas stoves or gas-powered lawnmowers, or to block Austin from using local bonds to finance light rail — which opponents say at least clarify what they are opposing — these bills are far broader, said Sandlin.

At a committee hearing last week, “two-thirds of the back and forth was legislators testifying — does it ban regulations on short term rentals? Well, it’s not clear. Does it ban payday lending regulations? It’s not clear,” Sandlin said.

Cities are used to states preempting local authority, Sandlin said. “That happens all the time. But we don’t know how to lose when we don’t know even know what is being discussed.”

The bills’ supporters argue that they are a necessary measure to defend small business.

Over the past five years, Texas cities have embarked on a “completely new” series of ordinances that have involved “stepping out of their traditional jurisdiction,” said Annie Spilman, state director of the nonpartisan National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a sponsor and drafter of the bill.

The two bills are “not some sort of aggressor-type move. This was completely a reaction to the aggression against small businesses,” Spilman said. 

NFIB membership is concerned about city legislation increasing potential costs to business owners — including the costs of staying in compliance with what Spilman described as “whack-a-mole” local regulation.

She warned that the group’s membership — the majority of whom have fewer than ten employees — was particularly vulnerable to the “patchwork” of local regulations as they traverse job sites across Texas’ sprawling cities, which are often composites of dozens of smaller cities.

“The Walmarts, the Amazons, these people — they can handle this kind of stuff. Small businesses can’t.”

Spilman’s group, the NFIB, was galvanized by the passage of a series of short-lived regulations in Austin, San Antonio and Dallas in 2018 which required business owners to let employees accrue sick time — measures many business groups staunchly opposed.

They were particularly concerned about provisions of the sick-leave laws that would have let cities subpoena the employment records of businesses accused of violating them.

Those laws never went into effect. State and federal courts struck the measures down in 2019 — arguing that sick time counted as income, and that the rules therefore violated a state ban on Texas cities raising the minimum wage above the federal level. But in the attempt, the NFIB saw a threat.

The group is also concerned about rules ranging from those requiring workers to receive schedules two weeks in advance to “weirdo” ordinances like Austin’s move to ban the declawing of cats.

NFIB wants legislators to cut such rules off “before these get out of hand and we’re trying to fight these all one by one,” she said, adding that the organization was also “trying to stop the panic before it happens with our small business owners.”

Spilman described the legislation as common-sense measures aimed at creating consistent state rules to replace a patchwork of local ordinances that she argued create undue pressure on the small business owners that make up a majority of the organization’s membership.

Local officials and urban advocacy groups, by contrast, argue that this checkerboard of regulation is a necessary and unobjectionable part of having diverse local issues addressed in different ways by local authorities.

They also worry about the method of enforcement. Like the state’s notorious abortion ban, the means for carrying out the preemption law would be private citizens filing lawsuits — in this case against local governments for laws that plaintiffs felt entered into territories where the state had asserted supremacy.

Local governments warn that could open them up to a flood of frivolous lawsuits, creating exactly the fog of regulatory uncertainty that business groups say they want to avoid.

The gulf between how NFIB and the cities understand the bills gives the debate a surreal quality, because the two sides can’t agree on what powers the legislation would reserve for the state — a question that city governments say carries life-or-death consequences.

One example of a local ordinance that the bill would cast into doubt is protections for workers laboring in the state’s often-extreme heat. Regulations in Austin and Dallas require construction workers to get a rest break of at least 10 minutes every four hours — a measure Austin officials linked to a rash of workplace heat injuries and deaths.

Under the new bills — which reserve authority over anything potentially regulated under the labor code for the state — city officials worry they would lose the ability to regulate workers’ exposure to heat. Such exposure results in 43 deaths per year nationwide. 

Spilman downplayed these concerns. “There are only two cities that have rest break ordinances,” she told The Hill. “If there were such a big issue of people not getting rest breaks, I feel like there would be some sort of state law.”

She also said that the bills would still allow the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) “to issue fines at any workplace.” (OSHA announced an upcoming national heat safety standard last year, but no such rule has yet been passed, as The Hill reported.)

Finally, she argued that if cities felt that heat regulations were a necessary health and safety measure, they could argue that case in court.

“If I were a good lawyer I could probably argue that for health and safety you could probably file some sort of ordinance requiring heat and water breaks or keep that ordinance in place,” Spilman wrote The Hill in a subsequent email.

That reliance on legal interpretation to sort out broad laws is exactly the problem, opponents argue. 

If cities believe they are preempted — or are wary of fending off lawsuits from local interest groups — then they will be deterred from touching broad aspects of local governance, regardless of whether those are technically allowed, Luis Figueroa of advocacy group Every Texan told The Hill.

“We’re gonna be interpreting this in the courts for decades, as people and the courts try to figure out what’s allowed and not allowed,” he predicted.

Austin city council member Jose “Chito” Vela was more pointed in laying out what he sees as potential consequences of the bill.

Texas’ growing cities, with their diverse and urgent infrastructure and public safety needs, are  stuck “in a catch-22, where the state doesn’t want to govern — and it doesn’t want to let cities govern,” he said.

Vela expressed concern that the bill would expose Texas cities to “the floodgates of just a bunch of harassing lawsuits against a local government, which cost us money and time to defend.”

That prospect “has the potential to disrupt municipal services,” Vela added. And while he noted that Austin has the resources to adopt a “wait and see” approach and fight challenges under the bill, other cities have fewer resources. 

“This goes beyond Austin, you know?” Vela said. “This applies to every little one-stoplight town in the state.”

But Spilman urged caution: she emphasized that the bill would get more targeted as the session went on, and pushed back on what she characterized as unfair attacks on the businesses supporting it.

Those groups “are always being tagged the people that don’t want to help their employees or protect them,” she said.

“And that couldn’t be further from the truth. These are their family,” she added.

— Updated at 12:49 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

The Hill's Morning Report — Biden veto threat infuriates some Dems on DC crime measure

Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.

President Biden on Thursday weighed the risks of looking soft on crime or angering members of his party and informed Democrats that the first potential veto of his term would not be to battle the GOP over easing punishments for violent offenses in the nation’s capital.

The president told Democratic senators during a closed-door lunch in the Capitol that he would sign D.C. legislation that Republicans want to undo. The local law, which D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) vetoed, had been approved unanimously by the D.C. City Council. It voted 12-1 to override her disapproval and the mayor then defended the law as a matter of District home rule (The Hill).

▪ The Hill’s Brett Samuels and Alex Gangitano unpack how the White House handled the politically charged issue of crime.

▪ The Washington Post: Biden says he would sign a GOP-led resolution blocking a D.C. crime bill.

▪ Politico: What Biden said and what Senate Democrats heard during Thursday’s private lunch. “He’ll run again. And he’ll get full support from the caucus,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told reporters afterward. “It’s a good feel overall.”

In the House, perhaps a different story: Anger among some Democrats aimed at Biden and the White House was immediate, report The Hill’s Al Weaver and Mychael Schnell. Members of the president’s party in the House felt blindsided. Most had voted against the GOP measure, which would undo parts of a District bill to ease punishments for crimes. They believed Biden would veto the conservative measure, which second guesses the city’s decision making. Others saw the turn of events as a stinging rebuke of a democratically elected City Council and to decades of advocacy for home rule, which the president says he supports.

The crime bill Biden and Republicans want to block would eliminate most mandatory sentences, lower penalties for some violent offenses, including carjackings and robberies, and expand the requirement for jury trials in most misdemeanor cases. What looked like reform to the City Council was seen as politically incendiary inside the West Wing.

“It’s smart politics. He was running into a buzzsaw,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters on Thursday. “You don’t want to get left of the D.C. mayor.”

Some Democrats groaned that the city’s measure was a self-inflicted and poorly timed mistake, further compounded by a White House that failed to communicate Biden’s intent before House Democrats cast their votes this week. Democratic candidates are seen as vulnerable among voters who want leaders to crack down on violent crime in their communities.

“I support D.C. Statehood and home-rule — but I don’t support some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the Mayor’s objections — such as lowering penalties for carjackings,” Biden tweeted. “If the Senate votes to overturn what D.C. Council did — I’ll sign it.”

Biden has entered a phase of his term when his veto threats may increase along with GOP determination to test his sway ahead of the 2024 elections. Former President Obama used his veto pen to reject a dozen measures during two terms. Congress overrode him 8 percent of the time. Former President George W. Bush, who enjoyed a consistent Republican majority until the 2006 elections and waited to use his veto authority, eventually issued 12 vetoes, 33 percent of which were overridden. Political scientists debate whether vetoes and their outcome are signs of party cohesion and presidential strength (chart HERE).

Related Articles

▪ ABC News: How Biden leaves wiggle room to opt against a reelection bid.

▪ The Hill: Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb rips Biden over his crime bill decision.  

▪ The Hill: A federal immigration detention facility in New Mexico is in the headlines because of the high number of reported suicides and suicide attempts. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Internal Investigations called for the facility’s closure.  

▪ The Hill: What Biden might try next if the Supreme Court strikes down the administration’s student loan forgiveness program.

▪ Bloomberg Businessweek: How one member of the Fugees hip hop group got entangled in a U.S.-China scandal featuring the FBI: “They can’t kill me in the Four Seasons.”

LEADING THE DAY

➤ STATE WATCH

Biden said Thursday that he will visit East Palestine, Ohio, “at some point” as the area recovers from a train derailment that released toxic chemicals, though he didn’t specify when.

“I’ve spoken with every official in Ohio, Democrat and Republican, on a continuing basis, as in Pennsylvania,” Biden told reporters at the Capitol. “I laid out a little bit in there what I think the answers are … and we will be implementing an awful lot to the legislation here.”

Since a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed on Feb. 3, prompting environmental and health concerns, the president has been under political pressure from both Republicans and some Democrats to visit the site (ABC News). One lawmaker calling for Biden to visit East Palestine is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), who said he has spoken with Biden a number of times but added the president has offered no explanation for why he has not yet visited the town (The Hill).

“I just think now is the time, the president needs to come,” DeWine said. “It’s just important.”

Scientists from Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon University this week said that the levels of nine chemicals are higher than they usually would be in the area. If the levels remain high, they could pose health risks, according to the researchers. While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state officials have said that the air quality of the area is safe and that the chemicals should subside with time, residents have reported health reactions, including rashes and respiratory issues. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) wants the EPA to expand a one-mile radius around the East Palestine derailment site and asked EPA Administrator Michael Regan to respond to specific questions by March 15 (WFMJ). 

Frustrations boiled over on Thursday night in the largest public confrontation yet between the people of East Palestine and Norfolk Southern, with angry residents in an emotional town hall lashing out at the only representative from the company who took questions at the meeting. Residents interrupted and shouted over Darrell Wilson, a top government relations official for Norfolk Southern as he tried to apologize, demanding that he commit to getting them out of the area, and that the company “do the right thing” (The New York Times).

“We are sorry,” Wilson said. “We’re very sorry for what happened. We feel horrible about it.”

“Evacuate us!” one attendee yelled, over Wilson’s apologies. “Get my grandchildren out of here!” another man yelled. “If you care about us, get our grandkids out.”

Meanwhile, as cleanup gets underway, officials in other states have questioned the waste disposal plans. A number of hazardous chemicals were spilled in the East Palestine derailment, most notably vinyl chloride, a carcinogenic compound used in production of plastics, and their shipment to states such as Michigan, Texas and Indiana is raising questions among environmentalists and local officials, reports The Hill’s Zack Budryk. Lisa Wosniak, executive director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, called the delivery of waste to her state “a terrible idea for a number of reasons.” 

“First and foremost, Michigan decision makers were completely taken off guard by this plan,” she told The Hill, and while Wosniak said she “certainly want[s] to” trust the EPA, “I think they’re in a really tough spot where now they have to find an answer to a problem… nobody wants this waste in their backyard, whether it’s contained in East Palestine or it’s shipped to Romulus or Texas or wherever.”

▪ WKBN: Air quality study after East Palestine train derailment raises concerns about health effects.

▪ The Hill: A bipartisan bill would tighten federal oversight of trains carrying hazardous materials. Biden, in a Thursday statement, said he would sign the legislation if he gets the chance. “This legislation provides us with tools to hold companies accountable to prevent terrible tragedies like the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine and to make those communities whole,” he said.

➤ CONGRESS 

🤥 Truth & Consequences? Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is back in the headlines. 

The House Ethics Committee has established an investigative subcommittee to look into issues surrounding Santos, who has admitted to numerous fabrications about his background and has faced scrutiny over his campaign and personal finances. The committee said the panel will look into whether Santos “engaged in unlawful activity with respect to his 2022 congressional campaign; failed to properly disclose required information on statements filed with the House; violated federal conflict of interest laws in connection with his role in a firm providing fiduciary services; and/or engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual seeking employment in his congressional office.”

In a brief statement, Santos’s office said that the congressman is “fully cooperating” with the Ethics Committee’s investigation (The Hill).

Amid the controversies, the embattled freshman lawmaker has introduced his first piece of legislation. Santos on Tuesday proposed The SALT Relief Act, which would increase the deduction limit for State and Local Taxes (SALT). Trump’s tax cut law imposed a $10,000 annual limit on the SALT deduction, but both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the New Jersey and New York suburbs have chafed at the limit, arguing it hurts constituents in their areas, given high housing prices. If enacted, Santos’s legislation would raise the cap to $50,000 (The Hill).

▪ The New York Times: Santos tries a new tack in Washington: He introduces a bill.

▪ New York magazine: Santos, MAGA’s new “It Girl.”

▪ CNN: “Have not heard of him”: Santos has a new campaign treasurer but questions persist.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Thursday said she is hospitalized in San Francisco for treatment of shingles and hopes to return to Washington “later this month.” At 89, she is the longest serving senator and has announced her retirement at the end of her term (Politico).

Politico: House Democrats strategize how to achieve a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke briefly on Thursday during a meeting of top diplomats from the Group of 20 nations in India.

The roughly 10-minute conversation marks the first time the two counterparts have come face-to-face since Russia launched its war on Ukraine. According to a U.S. official, Blinken used the conversation in New Delhi to make three points to Lavrov: that the U.S. would continue to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia for as long as it takes to end the war; that Russia should rejoin the New START nuclear treaty; and that Russia should release imprisoned American Paul Whelan (Politico and Reuters).

In The Memo, The Hill’s Niall Stanage breaks down why the meeting between Blinken and Lavrov was so important.

▪ BBC: India G20: Bitter divisions over Ukraine war mar talks.

▪ The Guardian: Russia accuses west at the G20 of blackmail and claims it has China’s support.

The Kremlin funded at least 20 torture centers to harm Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in Kherson, which Russian forces occupied for many months before the city was freed during a Ukrainian counteroffensive late last year, according to a new report (The Hill). The study by Mobile Justice Team, a group created as part of multilateral initiative of the State Department, European Union and United Kingdom to provide advice to Ukraine’s investigators, revealed Thursday that Ukrainian war crime inspectors found a direct link between torture chambers in Kherson and the Russian government. More torture centers exist in other occupied parts of Ukraine, all funded by the Kremlin. 

“The mass torture chambers, financed by the Russian State are not random but rather part of a carefully thought out and financed blueprint with a clear objective to eliminate Ukrainian national and cultural identity,” said Wayne Jordash, the managing partner of the nonprofit international legal practice Global Rights Compliance. “The torture centers are the tip of the iceberg in Russia’s inherently criminal plan to subjugate or destroy Ukrainians.” 

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials are signaling a potential retreat from the embattled town of Bakhmut, which would give Russia a symbolic victory and deliver Moscow its largest advance in months, but wouldn’t significantly change the dynamic of the war, The Hill’s Brad Dress reports. A top Ukrainian presidential adviser hinted at a potential withdrawal on Tuesday, telling CNN that Kyiv was weighing the costs and benefits of holding the city. The warning came after Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky said the battle for Bakhmut was becoming increasingly difficult amid a new Russian offensive and that Ukraine wouldn’t pay “any price” to hold the city in the eastern Donetsk region. 

Bakhmut has become a major focal point in the war for the last few months as Russia threw waves of troops at Ukrainian defenses, losing countless soldiers for incremental gains. Moscow was able to seize the salt mining town of Soledar through sheer force in January and has applied the same pummeling tactic to nearby Bakhmut. 

▪ The New York Times: ”Unjustifiable delays”: Rail safety upgrade in Greece had stalled for years.

▪ Politico EU: EU tightens ethics rules for staff as Qatar controversy grows.

▪ The Atlantic: How do you stop lawmakers from destroying the law? Mexico’s president is destroying democracy from the inside.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: North Korea suffers one of its worst food shortages in decades.

➤ WHERE & WHEN IN POLITICS

Author Marianne Williamson, 70, who brought spiritual eccentricities and positive thinking to the 2020 presidential race, announced this week that she’s again a national candidate, becoming the first major Democrat to challenge Biden for his party’s nomination in 2024 (ABC News).

The campaign by the self-help provocateur is being greeted with eye rolls among political strategists and radio silence within the White House and Democratic National Committee ahead of her Saturday launch in Washington (The Hill).

Biden’s party has largely come together behind his expected race for reelection while taking into account a stronger-than-imagined midterm showing, anxieties about House conservatives now in the majority, an uncertain economy and former President Trump’s candidacy. 

▪ Slate: [Williamson] “has said, over and over again, that politics and policy are not the answer to America’s problems, even as she (purportedly in all earnestness) has sought the nomination of a major political party to run the U.S. government.”

▪ FiveThirtyEight: Democrats are open to ditching Biden in 2024. But that won’t help Williamson.

▪ The Hill: Fox News and its parent company face financial and reputational jeopardy as a result of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.

▪ Puck News: Will Rupert make a blood sacrifice?  

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley boasts of a busy speaking schedule, telling conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt during an interview, “You can’t outwork me.”  She’ll be in Iowa Wednesday through Friday next week, appearing at two town halls and with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in Des Moines.

Trump will be in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday to discuss education policy at a ticketed campaign event at the Adler Theater in the evening.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who says he’s mulling his options about a presidential bid, will speak on Sunday at a sold-out event at the Reagan Library in California. He’s on a book tour. He’s also on a tear along with the Republican-led Florida legislature, where a proposed bill would require bloggers who are paid for their work to register details with the state while writing about DeSantis, his Cabinet officers or members of the legislature (The Hill).

OPINION

■ The Ukraine divide threatens the GOP’s unwavering legacy on defense, by former Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3ZB4D60

■ The excellence of Kamala Harris is hiding in plain sight, by Donna Brazile, guest essayist, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3Zfvftc

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will convene for a pro forma session at 9 a.m. and resume work on Tuesday.

The Senate meets at 3 p.m. on Monday and resumes consideration of the nomination of Robert Ballou to be a U.S. District Court judge for the Western District of Virginia.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9:30 a.m. Biden at 11:30 a.m. will award the Medal of Honor to 83-year-old Ret. U.S. Army Col. Paris Davis for heroism during the Vietnam War. Biden will welcome German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the White House for discussions at 2 p.m. The president will depart the White House for Wilmington, Del., at 3:45 p.m. to spend the weekend. 

Vice President Harris will fly this morning to San Francisco to speak at a fundraiser at 12:30 p.m. PT in Hillsborough, Calif., accompanied by second gentleman Doug Emhoff. The vice president will hold a roundtable at 1:50 p.m. PT to discuss federal support for small businesses. Separately, Emhoff at 4 p.m. PT will visit East Oakland Development Center to talk to students about pursuing studies and careers in STEM fields, accompanied by NASA astronaut Yvonne Cagle and NASA Ames Center Director Eugene Tu. Harris and Emhoff will depart San Francisco tonight and fly to Los Angeles, arriving at 8:45 p.m. PT.

The secretary of State is in New Delhi. He participated in a morning breakfast meeting of Indo-Pacific quad foreign ministers from the United States, Australia, Japan and India. Blinken took part in a morning Raisina Dialogue conference panel about geopolitics among quad foreign ministers. He meets employees and families of the U.S. Mission in New Delhi at 10:30 a.m. local time, then meets with a group of female leaders from India before departing India today. 

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 12:45 p.m.

ELSEWHERE

➤ HEALTH & PANDEMIC

A new study published this week in the journal Nature Human Behavior, showed that across a group of mostly high-income countries — such as the United States, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark and Switzerland — there were about 4 percent fewer preterm births than expected in spring 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study’s authors estimated that at a global level, the change most likely added up to nearly 50,000 premature births averted in the first month of lockdown alone, findings that could help researchers better understand the causes of preterm birth, which remain frustratingly elusive to medical science (The New York Times).

▪ The Hill: Bipartisan senators introduce bill to close pharma competition loophole.

▪ The Washington Post: Almost 200 rights groups call on the United Nations to intervene over U.S. abortion access.

▪ Forbes: COVID-19’s enormous death toll: Worldwide life expectancy has experienced a steep decline.

Information about the availability of COVID-19 vaccine and booster shots can be found at Vaccines.gov. 

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,121,667. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,290 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

THE CLOSER

And finally … 👏🧚👏🧚👏 Congratulations to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! With the luck of March and the magic of spring in mind, we asked for some smart guesses about mythical imps and petite fancies flitting through headlines, past and present. 

Here are the mighty puzzlers who went 4/4: Amanda Fisher, Patrick Kavanagh, Jaina Mehta, Peter Sprofera, Jeremy Serwer, Stan Wasser, Paul Harris, Richard Baznik, Steve James, Pam Manges, Joe Atchue, Robert Bradley, Luther Berg and Harry Stulovici. 

They knew that former President Reagan, blending fiscal policy with Irish whimsy, said during a 1988 speech (foreshadowing this month’s Congress): “The great economic expansion our country has enjoyed has had more to do with low tax rates, deregulation and responsible federal policies than with leprechauns. In fact, the only people who still seem to believe in … leprechauns are those who’ve tried to tell us that if we only raise taxes, the budget deficit will disappear.”

In Mexico this week, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed to have photographic “proof” of an alux, a mythical Mayan creature.

The European League of Football, or ELF, appeared in recent reporting about the Paris Musketeers.

“PIXY” in headlines referred to a popular K-pop girl group, plus a stock symbol for a human resources platform, as well as a drone. Thus, the best answer was “all of the above.”

Stay Engaged

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch. Follow us on Twitter (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!

Why Thursday’s US-Russia diplomatic meeting was so important

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held their first in-person meeting since the invasion of Ukraine on Thursday.

Blinken and his opposite number were both attending the G-20 summit in New Delhi, India.

The conversation was unexpected but brief — it reportedly lasted around 10 minutes — and there was no significant breakthrough.

But the meeting was still important. Here are four reasons why.

It happened at all

The mere fact that the confab between the two foreign ministers happened may be the most significant thing about it.

It shows, at a minimum, that both sides are at least willing to engage in some level of dialogue.

The Russians contended afterward that Blinken, not Lavrov, had asked for the meeting. But even if that is so, Lavrov could have rebuffed the request and didn’t.

Back in February 2022, it was Blinken who cancelled a scheduled meeting with Lavrov as Russia sent troops into eastern Ukraine. 

“Now that we see the invasion is beginning, and Russia has made clear its wholesale rejection of diplomacy, it does not make sense to go forward with that meeting at this time,” Blinken said in remarks from the State Department then.

Since then, Blinken and Lavrov have only spoken on the phone, notably last summer during the lead-up to the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner from a Russian prison.

A face-to-face conversation doesn’t resolve anything, but in the carefully choreographed world of diplomacy it is still significant.

Blinken again called for the release of Paul Whelan

The fate of Paul Whelan has been a political point of vulnerability for the Biden administration.

Whelan, a former Marine, was arrested in Russia in late 2018, accused of spying and subsequently convicted. He protests his innocence and the U.S. government agrees.

The fact that Griner was released in early December last year, but Whelan was not, led to charges that the White House had made a bad deal. 

The de facto price of Griner’s release was a concession by the United States to let Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer nicknamed “the Merchant of Death” out of prison in this country. Bout had not been due for release until 2029.

Critics argued that the Biden administration had given up its leverage by allowing Bout out without demanding Whelan also be released. 

After the Thursday meeting with Lavrov, Blinken said that the United States had “put forward a serious proposal” for Whelan’s release and that “Russia should take it.”

Blinken, predictably, didn’t go into detail about the nature of the proposal. But it was at least an affirmation for Whelan’s family and supporters that efforts to free him are continuing.

Pressure for the Kremlin to re-engage with nuclear treaty

The war in Ukraine has had ripple effects in other areas where Russia and the U.S. had previously managed some level of cooperation.

One of the most dramatic instances came late last month, when Russian President Vladimir Putin abruptly announced he was withdrawing his nation’s participation from the New START treaty, a nuclear arms reduction agreement.

Putin did split some hairs in the announcement. As the New York Times noted, Putin “made clear that he was not pulling out of the treaty which expires in February 2026. And hours after the speech, Russia’s Foreign Ministry declared the country had no intention to deploy more strategic nuclear arms.”

All the same, the move increased anxiety between the two nations from an already-febrile point. 

There is still speculation in some quarters that Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, especially if Putin was facing a humiliating defeat.

Blinken on Thursday called the move on New START “irresponsible” and said that Russia should “return to” a stance of participation.

Russia downplayed the meeting

The degree to which the Russian side sought to minimize the meeting was notable.

A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman acknowledged that the two men had spoken but categorized the encounter as “neither talks nor a meeting,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

Thus attempt to downplay the episode was in addition to the insistence that the conversation had been sought out by Blinken.

Those remarks could betray a defensiveness on the Kremlin’s part about any suggestion that it is taking even tiny, halting steps toward peace talks or concessions.

That, in turn, reveals something about the nature of a war that has now entered its second year, — defying early predictions that Russian forces would easily sweep to victory.

Laura Kelly contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

Why Biden decided to side with GOP and not veto a DC crime bill

President Biden on Thursday said he would not veto legislation Republicans have championed that would undo parts of a District of Columbia crime bill, reflecting how the White House is trying to navigate the politically charged issue of crime.

And that decision has put Biden in a bind.

If he were to veto it, he would have faced a barrage of GOP attacks that he was soft on crime. But instead, the decision to sign the resolution unleashed a barrage of vitriol from his own party, with some House Democrats accusing him of betrayal after they opposed it to align with what they thought the White House wanted.

“And now we are being hung out to dry,” one House Democratic lawmaker told The Hill via text message.

The bill, which passed the GOP-controlled House with 31 Democrats backing it, is likely to pass the Senate with bipartisan support in a vote as early as next week, despite the Democratic majority in the upper chamber. The Democratic Party’s usual support for D.C. home rule drove opposition in the House.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not offer up many specifics within the D.C. bill that Biden opposed, but she said he was broadly concerned it would make District residents less safe.

“One thing that the President believes in is making sure that the streets in America and communities across the country are safe, that includes in D.C. That does not change,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.

“When it comes to what this proposal brings forth, which is really lowering penalties for car-jacking, he doesn’t believe that’s going to keep our communities safe,” she added.

Ultimately, the president expressed concern about the ramifications of leaving the crime bill in place. The decision is in line with how the White House has tried to present Biden: as a Democrat who is supportive of law enforcement and interested in lowering crime and community violence.

Jean-Pierre would not weigh in on any 2024 considerations that played into Biden’s decision. But the choice will be viewed through a political lens as the president prepares a re-election bid.

Republicans elevated crime throughout the 2022 midterms, accusing the White House and Democrats of being too lenient. And the White House has for years sought to bolster Biden’s image as a pro-law enforcement Democrat who is also supportive of reforms in police accountability.

Biden had told Senate Democrats about his intention to sign the bill when he went up to the Capitol on Thursday to meet with the caucus. He confirmed the decision in a tweet.

“I support D.C. Statehood and home-rule — but I don’t support some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the Mayor’s objections — such as lowering penalties for carjackings,” Biden tweeted. “If the Senate votes to overturn what D.C. Council did – I’ll sign it.”

The bill would eliminate most mandatory sentences, lower penalties for a number of violent offenses, including carjackings and robberies, and expand the requirement for jury trials in most misdemeanor cases.

Some House Dems were irate

The president’s decision received a chilly reception among House Democrats. While 31 Democratic lawmakers — many from moderate districts — voted to approve the bill, the majority opposed it, believing it was an infringement on local rule led by a Republican Party that typically champions less federal intervention.

Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s congressional delegate, said she was surprised and disappointed by Biden’s decision.

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), a member of House Democratic leadership, called the president’s move “disappointing for those of us who believe in home rule.”

“Democrats believe in strong public safety,” he said at a Punchbowl News event. “That’s what we’re demonstrating in our bills and demonstrated time and time again.”

Other Democrats took particular issue with what they viewed as an about face from the White House. A Statement of Administration Policy issued Feb. 6 said the White House opposed the House resolution to overrule the D.C. crime law, though it did not explicitly state that Biden would veto the measure if it came to his desk.

When pressed Thursday afternoon on the statement of administration policy issued last month and whether Biden had a change of heart, Jean-Pierre said this particular bill was different because the D.C. council passed it over objections from the mayor, “and the president wants to make sure communities, even in D.C., feel safe.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment late Thursday.

But is the decision ‘smart politics’?

But Biden could be looking ahead to 2024, although he hasn’t officially announced his plans to seek reelection. A veto would undoubtedly be used by the GOP in campaign ads and arguments for the rest of the cycle as Republicans push out the rhetoric that Democrats are too soft on crime. 

“It’s smart politics. He was running into a buzzsaw,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters on Thursday. “You don’t want to get left of the D.C. mayor.”

Biden could also be looking out for centrist Democrats who face tough reelection bids in 2024 and viewed deciding not to veto the GOP resolution as a way to give political cover to those lawmakers, like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Manchin had opposed the D.C. law and told reporters Biden seemed to think it was a “bridge too far.”

Biden’s positions on crime

Biden and his aides have consistently tried to push back on the narrative that the president is soft on crime or aligned with the left-wing “defund the police” movement that gained momentum during nationwide protests in 2020.

As a candidate, Biden said he did not agree with calls to defund the police. In the White House, Biden has tried to bolster his pro-law enforcement bona fides while speaking out against examples of police violence and brutality.

In 2021, Biden signed bipartisan bills providing additional resources to law enforcement. His fiscal year 2023 budget called for $37 billion in funding for police and crime prevention efforts. And Biden on the campaign trail in 2022 frequently chastised Republicans who claimed to be pro-police but downplayed the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, or who criticized the FBI over its search of former President Donald Trump’s estate looking for classified materials.

Still, Democrats were largely on defense on the issue of crime in last fall’s midterms, with some experts citing the issue as a key reason Republicans gained House seats in New York state and why that state’s gubernatorial race was closer than expected.

Biden walks tightrope on home rule

Jean-Pierre, when asked why Biden opposed D.C. home rule in this particular instance, repeatedly pointed to the District council overruling the mayor’s objections to the bill.

“The Revised Criminal Code Act is supported by a supermajority (83%) of District registered voters,” Terrance Woodbury, a Democratic strategist, tweeted in response to Biden’s announcement. “A majority white Senate is trying overturn the will of a majority-minority city.”

Karl Racine, the District’s attorney general, said Biden’s decision “degrades the right of its nearly 700,000 residents and elected officials to self-govern.”

The White House on Thursday argued that Biden was still supportive of granting Washington, D.C., statehood, but on this particular issue, he was concerned about the ramifications of leaving the crime bill in place.

“Both things can exist at the same time,” Jean-Pierre said when asked if Biden is putting safer communities ahead of his belief in DC statehood.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the bill, citing concerns that the legislation would reduce penalties for crime and overburden the court system. The White House wouldn’t say if Biden talked to Bowser ahead of saying he would not veto the legislation.

And, Jean-Pierre on Thursday added that the situation is unique “because the D.C. council took these changes forward over the mayor’s objections.”

Al Weaver contributed to this report.

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats brush off Marianne Williamson's 2024 primary challenge

Marianne Williamson’s run for president is being greeted with an eye roll among political strategists and met with radio silence within the White House and Democratic National Committee.

Williamson is set to become the first Democrat to challenge President Biden when she launches her 2024 campaign on Saturday in Washington, D.C. While a primary challenge to Biden was viewed as a possibility at certain low points for the White House last year, Democrats have largely fallen in line behind the president following a strong midterm showing. 

That has made it unclear whether the party is really clamoring for someone to take on the incumbent despite polls that show voters aren’t that enthusiastic for a second Biden term. 

The White House and Democratic National Committee separately declined to comment on Williamson’s planned primary campaign and have not weighed in on her candidacy publicly. There does not appear to be much concern about it either among Democrats and Biden allies, many of whom do not view Williamson as a serious threat.

“I hope and expect they will completely ignore it. She is not a credible candidate in any respect.  She certainly isn’t going to be challenging to win the nomination,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of centrist think tank Third Way and veteran of past Democratic campaigns.

“If that’s the only primary challenge he faces, Joe Biden can rest very easy until the general election,” Bennett added.

The specter of Biden facing a primary challenge, especially from someone to his left, has loomed since he first won the presidency in 2020 as a 78-year-old who’d pitched himself as a bridge to the next generation of party leaders.

A stronger than expected midterm showing by Democrats, declining fears of a recession and a strong legislative track record have all contributed to the party accepting if not enthusiastically rallying behind a Biden re-election bid.

The president continues to reiterate his intentions to run but hasn’t yet officially launched a 2024 campaign. First lady Jill Biden said last week it was essentially a matter of deciding when and where to make the announcement.

Nonetheless, recent surveys don’t always appear to be in  Biden’s favor.

An Associated Press poll released in early February found just 37 percent of Democrats said they wanted Biden to seek a second term, down from 52 percent last fall. 

But an Emerson College survey released this week found 71 percent Democratic voters believe Biden should be the party’s nominee in 2024, up from 58 percent last month.

That uncertainty among voters, paired with persistent concerns about Biden’s age – he would be 82 at the start of a second term – has left the window open for someone to launch a primary challenge built around the idea of passing the torch to the next generation of Democrats.

Few believe that candidate is Williamson, however.

“hi @ap marianne williamson is not a ‘major democrat,’ thank you for your attention in this matter,” Aaron Fritschner, an aide to Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), tweeted in response to an Associated Press post calling Williamson the first “major Democrat” to challenge Biden.

Williamson, 70, is a spiritual adviser and author who made appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She ran for president in 2016 and polled in the single digits, dropping out of the Democratic primary before any votes were cast. Among her proposals was to form a Department of Peace.

In a Facebook post announcing her plans, Williamson argued she was well equipped to “transform” the country’s entrenched system of governance.

“Some have already said of course, Well obviously she can’t win. Or Well that’s good; she’ll add to the conversation,” Williamson wrote. “But since the election of 2016 it’s odd for anyone to think they can know who can win the presidency. And I’m not putting myself through this again just to add to the conversation. I’m running for president to help bring an aberrational chapter of our history to a close, and to help bring forth a new beginning.”

The Democrats who have long been viewed as perhaps the most formidable primary challengers to Biden have overwhelmingly lined up to voice support for the president should he seek re-election.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has said he will back Biden if he runs in 2024. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), once viewed as a possible primary challenger, said last November he does not plan to run for president even if Biden opts against seeking another term. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) declined to endorse Biden in advance of any possible primary out of respect for the process, though she has not indicated she would challenge him.

Strategists said there is still a chance another progressive like former House candidate Nina Turner could mount a primary challenge, but such a campaign would more likely be designed to criticize Biden than to actually win the party’s nomination.

The only scenario where additional Democrats seem likely to jump into the fray is if Biden doesn’t announce, strategists said.

“The only kind of question there is does somebody declare from the far left who has a real presence,” former Republican National Committee (RNC) spokesperson Doug Heye said, arguing that Williamson does not. 

“But otherwise there’s not going to be anybody major stepping up. They’re all looking at him,” he added. “If he said tomorrow, ‘I’m out,’ then all of a sudden you’d see a lot of tire-spinning as campaigns are trying to get started overnight.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Legal experts say Fox News on shaky legal ground in Dominion lawsuit  

Fox News and its parent company face serious threats to their financial and reputational health from a blockbuster defamation lawsuit tied to coverage of the 2020 election that legal experts believe has a solid chance of succeeding. 

Dominion Voting Systems, which brought the $1.6 billion suit, is a voting technology provider that argues Fox News defamed it by knowingly repeating falsehoods from former President Trump and his aides and allies that Dominion’s services were used to fraudulently elect Joe Biden to the White House.  

A slew of internal communications and depositions taken by Dominion as part of its discovery process has left many legal experts warning that Fox could be on shaky legal footing.  

Dominion argues the vignettes contained in its court filings demonstrate how top hosts and executives at Fox knew the claims being pushed by Trump’s associates about Dominion were false but aired them anyway.  

“One just doesn’t see cases like this in defamation,” said Catherine Ross, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University who specializes in First Amendment issues.  

“Fox does not appear to have any plausible defense particularly in light of what Dominion uncovered in discovery of real-time knowledge of falsity,” she said.  

Dominion has deposed top talent at Fox and senior executives, including Rupert Murdoch the owner and co-chairman of Fox Corp.  

Depositions and texts show many hosts and executives had severe doubts about the claims made by Trump, but that they were also worried about how their audience would react to fact-checks of those claims.  

“Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Tucker Carlson wrote to fellow prime-time host Laura Ingraham on Nov. 18, according to a recent court filing. 

Powell was an attorney and former aide to Trump following the 2020 election who was promoting conspiracy theories about Dominion, including wild claims that the company had used software “at the direction” of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to swing the election against Trump. 

According to the filing, after Murdoch watched Powell and Rudy Giuliani  make false claims of electoral fraud during a press conference on Nov. 19, 2020, he told Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott: “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear,” according to the filing. 

Weeks later, Murdoch wrote to Scott saying “it’s been suggested our prime time three should independently or together say something like ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won,’” and that such a statement “would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen.” 

Fox lawyers say Dominion has yet to sufficiently demonstrate it defamed the company and clear a threshold many plaintiffs suing leading media companies for large sums of money have had limited success doing in recent years.  

It argues it had a journalistic duty to cover the claims made by Trump and his allies, and separately accuses Dominion of “cherry-picking” quotes and strategically rolling out portions of what it obtained in discovery in order to drum up press coverage as it builds its case.  

“Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny, as illustrated by them now being forced to slash their fanciful damages demand by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert debunked its implausible claims,” the network said in a statement this week.  

“Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear Fox for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment,” it said. 

Outside observers say the internal communications revealed through the discovery process, however, are a real problem for Fox.  

“You can cover this without giving a platform to people like Sidney Powell because when you invite her on her show, you’re responsible for her lies if you don’t correct them in real time,” Ross, the legal expert said. “There are many, many ways of framing and covering that do not involve actually giving a platform or labeling something as actual news or a fact.” 

Neither Dominion nor Fox have signaled any public interest in a settlement. That’s unusual given the nature of the case. 

“Most of these kinds of cases ultimately settle, mainly because the media defendants don’t want to take the risk in the bad publicity,” said Carl Tobais, the chair in the law at the University of Richmond.  

“And the plaintiffs may be afraid they won’t win anything just because of the really high standard that the Supreme Court set in the New York Times v. Sullivan decision,” Tobais said. “It does seem in this particular case that Dominion may be making a pretty strong argument, so it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.”  

Times v. Sullivan was a landmark Supreme Court decision in 1964 that reversed libel judgement against the Times after it ran a full-page civil rights fundraising ad protesting the treatment of Martin Luther King Jr. by police. The decision has been cited in a number of cases by media companies looking to protect itself from claims of libel and defamation. 

Fox’s lawyers this week declined to comment on any potential settlement in the case as did a representative for Dominion.  

Some of the headlines generated by Dominion’s recent filing may be embarrassing for the company, but do not meet the legal standard for defamation, Fox’s lawyers argue.  

Among the explosive revelations made in the recent filings was a never-before-published acknowledgement from Murdoch that some of his hosts endorsed Trump’s election lies because they were, as he allegedly wrote of Sean Hannity in particular, “scared to lose viewers,” according to the filing.  

Lee Levine, a private first amendment attorney who has represented a number of major media companies, in an appearance on CNN this week said the remarks are newsworthy, but do not necessarily cement Dominion’s case. 

“From a legal perspective, it is certainly helpful to Dominion’s case, but it is not a smoking gun,” he said.  

One thing most media and legal observers agree on is that the case is shining a spotlight on how the world’s largest news organizations cover dubious claims being promoted by prominent people and how failure to vet them can lead to drastic consequences. 

“When you know that something is false or … if you are reckless in taking the steps to make sure that it is true and accurate then you may be held accountable,” said Joseph Russomanno, a journalism professor and expert in the First Amendment and media law at Arizona State University’ Walter Cronkite School. “What it will do is drive home that point that being careless or frivolous about facts and the truth will not stand.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Five things to know about the Murdaugh trial ahead of sentencing

Disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of killing his wife and son after a multi-week double murder trial culminated in just a few hours of jury deliberations. 

Prosecutors argued that Murdaugh, 54, killed his wife Maggie, 52, and their son Paul, 22, on their rural Colleton County property back in June 2021 to distract from his financial woes after he stole millions from legal clients.

He pleaded not guilty in 2022, and his defense countered that the investigation was poorly conducted and evidence was misrepresented amid eagerness to convict him for the murders. 

Found guilty of the two murders and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, Murdaugh now faces 30 years to life in prison for each of the murder charges. He’s set to be sentenced Friday morning.

Here’s what to know about the trial ahead of sentencing:

What happened at the kennels

Murdaugh told authorities he returned to his Colleton County home in June 2021 after a visit with his ailing mother to find his wife and son dead outside dog kennels on the property.

Investigators said Maggie Murdaugh was shot four or five times with a rifle, and Paul Murdaugh was shot twice with a shotgun.

Murdaugh has consistently denied that he committed the murders, but admitted during the trial to lying initially to investigators about when he last saw his family alive, conceding that he was with his wife and son at the kennels shortly before he left to visit his mother.

He reportedly blamed the lie, which he kept up for nearly two years, on opioid addiction.

Jurors made a rare visit on Wednesday to the Murdaugh estate where the two murders took place to get a three-dimensional picture of the crime scene. 

Murdaugh’s shifting stories are key

Murdaugh’s shifting narrative of the fateful June 2021 night was central to the prosecution’s argument.

In the wake of the killings, Murdaugh told investigators that he had not been near the kennels prior to discovering the bodies of his wife and son that night.

However, a video recovered from Paul Murdaugh’s phone appeared to place Alex Murdaugh at the kennels with his wife and son shortly before 9 p.m. Several minutes later, both victims’ phones stopped being used.

While he admitted to lying to investigators about his whereabouts shortly after taking the stand last week, he has maintained that he did not kill his family members.

Prosecutors pointed to Murdaugh’s inconsistency in stories in their closing argument, claiming that they “corroborated that he’s a liar.”

“He corroborated the fact that he doesn’t tell the truth,” prosecutor John Meadors said, per CNN. “You don’t lie and misremember being at the scene of a murder when you said you weren’t even there, or being at the scene where your family was brutally murdered. You don’t lie about that.”

“That’s not a mistake,” Meadors added.

Murdaugh testifies in his own defense

Alex Murdaugh took the witness stand during trial to testify in his own defense, a move legal experts noted as risky.

He admitted in court to lying to police and confessed to stealing funds from his legal clients — but continued to assert he had nothing to do with the deaths of his wife and son. 

On top of the murder and weapons charges in the current case, Alex Murdaugh faces some 100 charges of financial and other crimes, most of which were brought beforehand, including tax evasion and money laundering. 

Lack of physical evidence

Physical evidence brought forth in the Alex Murdaugh case and trial was lacking. Notably, the shotgun and rifle allegedly used in the killings were not found. 

Defense attorneys drew attention to what they said was a shoddy investigation, arguing that investigators didn’t properly collect blood and fingerprint evidence. 

Prosecutors, on the other hand, pieced together their case with witness testimony, telephone calls and other evidence.

Jurors replaced; trial briefly interrupted

The judge overseeing the case, Clifton Newman, excused a juror from the 12-person panel just before closing arguments on Thursday over allegations that she’d talked about the trial with people outside of the courtroom. 

Asked if she’d left anything behind in the jury room, the juror responded that she’d need to retrieve a purse, a bottle of water and a dozen eggs.

Five jurors had to be replaced throughout the six-week trial.

NBC News also reported that the trial was put on pause temporarily and the courtroom was evacuated after a bomb threat was called into the Colleton County Courthouse early last month. 

The jury began deliberations on Thursday and reached a guilty verdict on all counts just hours later, by 8 p.m. that evening. 

Julia Shapero contributed reporting.

Source: TEST FEED1

House Democrats blindsided as Biden changes tune on DC crime bill

House Democrats were infuriated and taken aback by President Biden’s announcement on Thursday that he will sign a resolution to nix the District of Columbia’s crime bill.

The crime bill has come under heavy criticism from Republicans and centrist Democrats. But last month, 173 House Democrats voted along with what they thought was the White House’s stance that Biden would veto the resolution in an attempt to stand up for the District’s “home rule.”

Instead, Biden made the revelation to Senate Democrats during lunch on Thursday and, in the process, angered their colleagues across the Capitol complex. 

“The White House f***** this up royally,” one House Democrat told The Hill via text message, noting the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing the resolution and backing D.C., and that House Democratic leadership told lawmakers that Biden was prepared to veto the measure.

The declaration from the Office of Management and Budget called on Congress to “respect the District of Columbia’s autonomy to govern its own local affairs.”

“So a lot of us who are allies voted no in order to support what the White House wanted. And now we are being hung out to dry,” the lawmaker continued. “F****** AMATEUR HOUR. HEADS SHOULD ROLL OVER AT THE WHITE HOUSE OVER THIS.”

The House Democrat added multiple other lawmakers were “EXTREMELY pissed” about the situation.

Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), the No. 3 House Democrat, issued a rare rebuke of the White House during a Punchbowl News event at the caucus’s retreat in Baltimore, saying that Biden’s move was “disappointing.” 

“It’s disappointing for me and anybody who believes in home rule, honestly. I’m a former mayor of a city of 70,000 and I wouldn’t want the federal government coming in and telling me what city ordinances to pass. … So I think it’s disappointing in that context,” Aguilar said.  

“I voted against it, but I understand and respect the president’s position here,” Aguilar, the former mayor of Redlands, Calif., continued. “We’ll see, the Senate has to pass that, and I know that they’ve said they have the votes but all of those things have to happen. But it’s disappointing for those of us who believe in home rule.”

An aide to a House Democrat who opposed the measure texted that the caucus is “a little shocked” by the move.

The crime bill passed the D.C. City Council unanimously in January. After Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) vetoed it, the city council overrode it 12-1. Among other things, the bill would eliminate most mandatory sentences and lower penalties for a number of violent offenses, including carjackings and robberies. It would also expand the requirement for jury trials in most misdemeanor cases. 

In a tweet, Biden specifically mentioned the issue of carjackings. As of Thursday, there have been 94 carjackings in D.C. in 2023 alone. 

“One thing that the president believes in is making sure that the streets in America and communities across the country are safe, that includes in D.C. That does not change,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday.

“When it comes to what this proposal brings forth, which is really lowering penalties for car-jacking, he doesn’t believe that’s going to keep our communities safe,” she added.

Nevertheless, the move still left Democrats with a sour taste in their mouths. 

“Today has been a sad day for D.C. home rule and D.C. residents’ right to self-governance,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said in a statement. “We had hoped that with more Senate support, we would have been able to ensure that neither disapproval resolution pending before the Senate would reach the president’s desk, but with the nationwide increase in crime, most senators do not want to be seen as supporting criminal justice reform.” 

Holmes Norton added that she will still try to convince Biden that absent a veto, the resolution “would empower the paternalistic, anti-democratic Republican opposition to the principle of local control over local affairs.”

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), both of whom are up for reelection in 2024, have said in recent days they plan to side with Republicans on the resolution, giving those backing it enough daylight to put it over the finish line even with the hospitalizations of Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). 

The news is also expected to push more Democrats to side with Biden and the centrists. 

“I’m reviewing the actual provisions of the D.C. crime bill, talking to colleagues. And the president obviously said he will not veto the measure, which I think may weigh with my colleagues,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told reporters. 

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who is also up for reelection in 2024, told reporters following Biden’s news that he still is undecided on the resolution and has not been briefed on it yet. 

From a political standpoint, Biden’s decision to block the D.C. crime bill could come back to haunt the House Democrats who opposed the disapproval resolution. Some Republicans are already characterizing the revised code as soft-on-crime, which they could eventually extend to those 173 liberal lawmakers.

“By rejecting D.C.‘s law, President Biden acknowledged the basic fact that soft-on-crime policies endanger the public,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) wrote on Twitter.

Democrats are already worrying that they played into the GOP’s hands.

“Frankly, it’s a clear signal to those criticizing POTUS on being soft on crime amid the increased focus on the issue going into 2024 — and on the heels of Lightfoot’s ouster,” the aide said, referring to the Chicago mayor’s re-election defeat this week.

Aguilar, for his part, brushed off that notion on Thursday, pointing to legislation the caucus has passed and efforts it backed that support public safety.

“Democrats believe in strong public safety,” he said. “That’s what we’re demonstrating in our bills and demonstrated time and time again.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden backs bipartisan railway safety bill in aftermath of East Palestine derailment

President Biden on Thursday threw his support behind a bipartisan bill that would tighten federal oversight of trains carrying hazardous materials in the aftermath of a derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that spilled toxic chemicals.

“I applaud the bipartisan group of senators for proposing rail safety legislation that provides many of the solutions that my administration has been calling for,” Biden said in a statement.

“This legislation provides us with tools to hold companies accountable to prevent terrible tragedies like the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine and to make those communities whole.”

The Railway Safety Act of 2023 was cosponsored by Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown (D) and J.D. Vance (R) and Pennsylvania Sens. John Fetterman (D) and Bob Casey (D). Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) also cosponsored the measure.

It’s still unclear if the bill would have enough support to overcome the 60 vote filibuster in the Senate, or if Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) would bring it up for a vote in the House.

The bill would introduce new safety requirements for trains carrying hazardous materials, such as the vinyl chloride carried by the derailed Norfolk Southern train. Going forward, trains would be required to submit a “gas discharge” plan for all such materials. Citing fear of an explosion, first responders in East Palestine conducted a controlled burn of the materials shortly after locals were evacuated.

The measure would also transfer oversight of railroads’ heat sensors from railways to the federal government, and it would add a requirement of at least a two-person crew per train, something unions have pushed for.

“I encourage Republicans and Democrats alike to move quickly to advance these commonsense rail safety measures and send me a bill to sign into law,” Biden said.

The president, who met with Senate Democrats earlier on Thursday, was asked after the meeting about any plans to visit East Palestine. He said he would “at some point,” and in the meantime argued the solutions to preventing future incidents would require bipartisan cooperation.

Source: TEST FEED1

Bakhmut on the brink as Ukraine signals retreat

Ukrainian officials are signaling a potential retreat from the embattled town of Bakhmut, which would give Russia a symbolic victory and deliver Moscow its largest advance in months but wouldn’t significantly change the dynamic of the wider war, experts told The Hill. 

A top Ukrainian presidential adviser hinted at a potential withdrawal on Tuesday, telling CNN that Kyiv was weighing the costs and benefits of holding the city.

“So far they’ve held the city, but if need be, they will strategically pull back because we’re not going to sacrifice all of our people just for nothing,” said Alexander Rodnyansky.

That followed Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky saying in mid-February that the battle for Bakhmut was becoming increasingly difficult amid a new Russian offensive and that Ukraine wouldn’t pay “any price” to hold the city in the eastern Donetsk region.

Russia has shown a seemingly endless willingness to sacrifice waves of soldiers in a months-long push to seize Bakhmut, losing hundreds of soldiers per day during some of the worst fighting, many from the Wagner mercenary group led by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.

There are no indications of a Ukrainian withdrawal yet, and it’s possible the public hints of a retreat are a strategic headfake from Kyiv, which is preparing for a counteroffensive. 

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar announced this week reinforcements were being sent to Bakhmut but didn’t say whether they would be used to provide cover for a retreat or bolster defenses.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, told reporters Thursday the U.S. continues to see “intense fighting near Bakhmut.”

“Russian forces and Wagner [Group] mercenaries continue to press their attacks around Bakhmut, and Ukrainian forces continue to hold the line,” Ryder said. “It remains a very fluid situation.”

Bakhmut has become a major focal point in the war for the last few months, with Russia making incremental gains despite paying a mounting human cost. 

Moscow was able to seize the salt mining town of Soledar through sheer force in January and has applied the same pummeling tactic to nearby Bakhmut. Signs now indicate that Russia is slowly encircling the Ukrainians holed up in the center of the city.

Alexander Downes, the co-director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University, said Ukraine may need to pull troops out “before it’s too late.”

“The Ukrainians want to bloody the Russians as much as they can. And this is a good place to do it because the Russians are losing a lot of people trying to do this,” Downes said. 

“But it only makes sense as long as you don’t risk losing a large force, either through getting overrun or getting encircled, which is looking increasingly likely given that the Russians are making gains to the northwest.”

In a Wednesday assessment, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Russia has made gains not just to the north and west of Bakhmut but also in the southern outskirts of the city.

Russian military bloggers this week have also reported on advances in the city. Vladimir Romanov posted on Telegram that Wagner Group itself “create[d] a threat to the encirclement of the city.”

Russian diplomat Konstantin Gavrilov similarly told a Russian TV channel that forces are advancing in squares and the “encirclement is closing.”

“Bakhmut will certainly be taken in the near future,” Gavrilov said, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

Victory in Bakhmut would give Russia its largest advance since last summer and control over a key transport hub in Donetsk, one of two regions that make up the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow is hoping to assert its control over in its fresh offensive.

In taking Bakhmut, Russia would be able to launch a push into the western Donetsk toward the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, but they would face long highways and heavily fortified Ukrainian lines in the effort.

Igor Girkin, a prominent Russian military blogger who has criticized the Kremlin’s struggles in Ukraine, said taking Bakhmut would give Russia “absolutely nothing.”

“The enemy front will not be broken through and [Ukraine] will have reserves to restore the front line in new (also pre-prepared) positions,” Girkin wrote in a Telegram post this week, also noting that ammunition stocks could soon be exhausted after the months-long assault on Bakhmut.

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow and director of foreign policy at Brookings Institution, said Russia “should not feel overly encouraged by taking one town,” as it was not operationally significant.

But he said Russian President Vladimir Putin would be able to seize on the capture of Bakhmut to “spin his broader storyline” to continue the war effort after months of setbacks and signs the Russian army is on the verge of collapse.

“Putin is probably anxious to change the narrative,” O’Hanlon said.  

“He would love to have some real, accurate information around which to build his mythology,” he added. “The accurate information being that now he’s got a city back that he didn’t before.”

A changing of the narrative could also hurt Ukraine, which relies heavily on western support for the war. 

It’s possible Kyiv has held back on retreating from Bakhmut thus far out of concern it could hamper international support, but one town in Donetsk is unlikely to change many minds, according to analysts.

The ISW also assessed this week that holding Bakhmut was a sound strategy and allowed Ukraine to inflict heavy losses as Russia spent significant resources, adding that Ukraine’s indication of a possible retreat could just serve as a signal to western allies that Kyiv could conduct a strategic withdrawal if needed.

The person likely to emerge most victorious from the battle for Bakhmut in the event of a Ukrainian withdrawal may be Prigozhin, whose fighters have led the assault on the town.

Prigozhin — who did not even acknowledge himself as the founder of Wagner Group until last year — has taken a more public role in recent months and is becoming more and more critical of Russian generals and the Ministry of Defense.

Sergey Radchenko, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, said Prigozhin would come out on top if he is able to seize the city — even if it was at a “horrendous cost.”

“He can say we have delivered the city for Russia and we have succeeded where the Russian military has failed,” Radchenko said. “It will certainly be a card in his hand as he continues to play this game against the Ministry.”

Source: TEST FEED1