For the second year in a row, Covid was the third-leading cause of death in the U.S., according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Friday.

Covid was the underlying cause of more than 415,000 deaths in 2021, or 13 percent of the national total, the report found. That’s an increase from 10 percent in 2020. Per capita, Covid death rates increased among every age group in 2021 except those 85 and older.

In both 2020 and 2021, the only conditions that killed more people than Covid were heart disease, which caused 693,000 deaths last year, and cancer, at 605,000 deaths in 2021. The data is provisional, though, so the numbers could change as the CDC collects more information. The Covid tally also doesn’t include 45,000 deaths for which the coronavirus was a contributing factor rather than an underlying cause.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A former White House official warned Mark Meadows, who served as former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, that the events of Jan. 6, 2021, could turn violent, according to a court filing from the House panel investigating the Capitol riot.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a special assistant in the Trump White House, said Meadows received information before the day of the attack that “indicated that there could be violence,” according to transcripts contained in the 248-page filing late Friday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Philadelphia is ending its indoor mask mandate, city health officials said Thursday night, abruptly reversing course just days after city residents had to start wearing masks again amid a sharp increase in infections.

The Board of Health voted Thursday to rescind the mandate, according to the Philadelphia health department, which released a statement that cited “decreasing hospitalizations and a leveling of case counts.”

The mandate went into effect Monday. Philadelphia had ended its earlier indoor mask mandate March 2.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden said Thursday that the U.S. would give another $1.3 billion in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine but that additional funding will soon be needed from Congress to maintain the flow of weapons.

Biden said the latest aid would include $800 million in heavy artillery weapons, including 72 howitzers and 144,000 rounds of ammunition, along with 121 tactical “ghost” drones. The U.S. also plans to provide another $500 million in humanitarian and economic assistance.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A pregame performance at a Washington Nationals baseball game featuring the Army’s Golden Knights prompted a brief evacuation of the U.S. Capitol.

Capitol Police evacuated the building Wednesday but then said there was no threat in a series of messages to staff members and journalists who work there.

“The Capitol was evacuated out of an abundance of caution this evening. There is no threat at the Capitol. More details to come,” police said in a statement.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

An audio recording obtained by NBC News appears to show that former President Donald Trump’s highly publicized interview with Piers Morgan did not end with Trump storming off the set, as edited promotional video clips suggest.

Instead, according to the recording, which was provided by Trump’s spokesman, the two men thanked each other and laughed at the conclusion of the interview for Talk TV, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

An attorney for Donald Trump hit back Tuesday at an effort by New York Attorney General Letitia James to have the former president held in contempt, claiming he doesn’t have documents demanded by James.

James’ office asked a state judge on April 7 to issue an order of contempt against Trump, saying he failed to comply with a previous ruling requiring him to turn over documents by March 31 as part of an investigation into his company’s financial practices.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Tuesday appealed a ruling by a federal judge in Georgia who said a lawsuit challenging her qualifications to run for re-election can move forward.

U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg denied Greene’s request for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to block the suit Monday. Free Speech for People, an election and campaign finance reform organization, filed the lawsuit last month on behalf of a group of Georgia voters, alleging that Greene facilitated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

Russian forces have since retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. The United States and many European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes after graphic images emerged of dead civilians in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. Moscow is now said to be refocusing its offensive on the eastern Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the besieged port city of Mariupol.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Former MSNBC contributor Malcolm Nance revealed Monday he is fighting alongside Ukrainian soldiers as part of the country’s foreign legion.

The network’s former national security analyst has been absent from MSNBC’s coverage of the war in recent weeks. On Monday’s The ReidOut, he revealed why.

Nance, who spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy, told host Joy Reid he left the U.S. just a few weeks into Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine after he had seen enough carnage.

Read the rest of the story and see the video at Mediaite

On any given night, Donald J. Trump will stroll onto the patio at Mar-a-Lago and say a few words from a translucent lectern, welcoming whatever favored candidate is paying him for the privilege of fund-raising there.

“This is a special place,” Mr. Trump said on one such evening in February at his private club. “I used to say ‘ground zero’ but after the World Trade Center we don’t use that term anymore. This is the place where everybody wants to be.”

For 15 months, a parade of supplicants — senators, governors, congressional leaders and Republican strivers of all stripes — have made the trek to pledge their loyalty and pitch their candidacies. Some have hired Mr. Trump’s advisers, hoping to gain an edge in seeking his endorsement. Some have bought ads that ran only on Fox News in South Florida. Some bear gifts; others dish dirt. Almost everyone parrots his lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

The former president wound up sending another statement out, this one wishing “Happy Easter to all including the Radical Left Maniacs who are doing everything possible to destroy our Country. May they not succeed, but let them, nevertheless, be happy, healthy, wealthy, and well!”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

The Covid-19 pandemic, having shaken the world for the past two years, has entered a new phase, one driven by a combination of fear, apathy and uncertainty. In some parts of the country, masks have become rare sights, and the assumption is the pandemic is over. But in other places, masking is back as concerns rise about a new variant and the potential for another spike in cases.

Last week, Philadelphia announced it was reinstating an indoor mask mandate until rates drop again. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed course and said masks will continue to be required on commercial flights until at least May 3. That mandate had originally been set to expire Monday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The man accused of opening fire on a rush-hour New York subway car did so with “premeditated” intentions and had access to a “stockpile” of weapons, prosecutors said Thursday.

Frank James, 62, made his initial appearance in a federal courtroom accused of committing a terrorist attack on mass transit, a federal charge that could bring a life sentence if he is convicted, prosecutors said.

James picked up a U-Haul van Monday in Philadelphia and went to New York City with violent plans, according to a memo filed by the government.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Biden administration is extending the mask mandate for travelers on airplanes, trains and other transit systems into May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday.

The current requirement that all travelers wear face coverings had been set to expire next Monday, but the Transportation Security Administration will now extend the requirement for an additional 15 days, through May 3, the CDC announced.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Ukrainian officials said their forces launched a successful missile attack on the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, forcing the crew to evacuate the vessel.

The Russian defense ministry said the Moskva warship had been “seriously damaged,” but blamed the incident on a fire.

NBC News has been unable to verify what happened on the ship, but its loss could prove a significant setback in Russian forces’ efforts in Ukraine’s south and east, where a fierce battle for Mariupol is ongoing.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been removed from North Carolina’s voter rolls by the State Board of Elections “after documentation indicated he lived in Virginia” and voted in Virginia last year, WRAL first reported.

The Board of Elections notes that if North Carolina residents move to the metro Washington, D.C., area to work for the government, they aren’t considered to have lost their residence — unless they also cast a vote there.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Tens of thousands of civilians could be dead in Mariupol, the city’s mayor said, as analysts warn that Russia is regrouping for a renewed assault on eastern Ukraine.

The streets in Mariupol are “carpeted” with bodies, Vadym Boychenko, the mayor of Mariupol, said Monday.

While there is no confirmed number of casualties, the mayor suggested the number of dead could be well over 10,000 in the coastal town, the site of some of the worst bombardment since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

An attorney for a man who took a coat rack and a bottle of liquor during the U.S. Capitol attack argued to a jury Tuesday that former President Donald Trump “authorized” the assault on the building on Jan. 6, 2021, by convincing “vulnerable” people like his client that the election had been stolen.

Dustin Thompson, 38, of Ohio, is the third Jan. 6 defendant to face a trial by jury after the convictions of Guy Reffitt and former police officer Thomas Robertson. Thompson faces six charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding and theft of government property. His co-defendant, Robert Lyon, pleaded guilty last month, admitting that he and Thompson traveled to Washington together and saying stole the coat rack and fled from police when they were confronted on the grounds of the Capitol.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden on Tuesday said the atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine amounted to “genocide,” marking the first time he has leveled the accusation against President Vladimir Putin.

“More evidence is coming out about literally the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine,” Biden told reporters during a trip to Iowa. “And we’re going to only learn more and more about the devastation. We’ll let the lawyers decide, internationally, whether or not it qualifies [as genocide] but it sure seems that way to me.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

With fighting in eastern Ukraine expected to intensify, the fate of Mariupol is once again in the spotlight.

Ukrainian forces have held out for weeks in the besieged port city, but fears are growing for the civilians trapped without basic supplies as Russian troops appear poised to mount a major new offensive. The strategic city’s beleaguered defenders have raised the prospect that Russian forces had used chemical weapons, an escalation the West has long feared but which remains unconfirmed.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Biden administration is bracing for Tuesday’s key consumer inflation report to show that the prices Americans pay soared in March, as Russia’s assault on Ukraine caused energy prices to jump.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that the Labor Department’s previous report — which showed prices rising at a dramatic ratein February — failed to include the majority of the jump in oil and gas costs caused by the Kremlin’s unprovoked invasion.

“We expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s price hike,” Psaki told reporters.

Read the rest of the story at CNBC

Russia’s reported appointment of Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, a man with a history of targeting civilians, to take over operations in Ukraine marks what some military analysts see as an indication that Russia intends to terrorize civilians as the war progresses.

Dvornikov, who most recently oversaw Russian troops in Syria, was chosen as the new ground commander in Ukraine, a U.S. official and a Western official confirmed.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Seventy-two people have tested positive for Covid-19 after having attended the Gridiron Dinner in Washington last weekend, including members of the Biden administration and reporters.

Gridiron Club President Tom DeFrank said Sunday that the group had reported 72 cases out of the hundreds of people who attended. New York Mayor Eric Adams, who was also at the dinner, tested positive Sunday. It was the first Gridiron Dinner since 2019, before the pandemic, and guests were required to show proof of vaccination, DeFrank said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Amid growing concern about gun violence and untraceable “ghost guns” that can be 3D-printed at home, President Joe Biden was scheduled Monday to introduce new policy measures on firearms.

Biden’s announcement will most likely rely on executive orders on gun control, ghost guns and other facets of firearms regulation as part of an approach to rein in the pandemic wave of firearms-related attacks, two people with knowledge of his remarks said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Russian forces in northern Ukraine have now fully withdrawn to neighboring Belarus and Russia, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Friday in an intelligence update.

“At least some of these forces will be transferred to East Ukraine to fight in the Donbas,” the ministry added. “Many of these forces will require significant replenishment before being ready to deploy further east with any mass redeployment from the north likely to take at least a week minimum.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A fresh wave of Covid-19 cases swept through the nation’s capital this week, striking officials at the highest levels of government and disrupting business just as President Joe Biden and other political leaders are urging a return to normalcy.

“Well, I think the tendency is that Covid-19 is totally behind us, but it isn’t,” said a maskless Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who represents the San Francisco Bay Area with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who tested positive Thursday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Democratic-controlled Senate is poised to make history on Thursday by confirming Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

She is all but guaranteed to win confirmation, with 53 senators having indicated their support in a procedural vote this week. The total included all 50 Democratic-voting senators, along with Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Eric Boehlert, a media critic devoted to calling out right-wing misinformation through his writing at Media Matters for America, Salon, Daily Kos and most recently as the founder of the Press Run website, died Monday in a bike accident. He was 57.

His death was announced on Twitter today by journalist and friend Soledad O’Brien, who called Boehlert “a fierce and fearless defender of the truth.” Boehlert was struck by a train while biking in Montclair, New Jersey; Montclair police reported yesterday that a man riding a bicycle was struck and killed by a New Jersey Transit train in Montclair on Monday evening.

Read the rest of the story at Deadline

Sparks were flying between Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at Tuesday’s House Armed Services hearing where the Florida Republican accused Austin of overseeing a military force that is being overrun by “wokeism.”

Gaetz kicked off his time at the hearing by asking Austin about a speaker invited to the National Defense University named Thomas Piketty. The event was called “Responding to China: The Case for Global Justice and Democratic Socialism” and was held last month. Gaetz claimed the talk promoted “socialism as a strategy to combat China.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

During music’s biggest night, John Legend and the Recording Academy took time to honor victims of the current war in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to crowd in a pre-recorded message from Ukraine, where he told the crowd the importance of music and ongoing support for Ukraine. 

“The war doesn’t let us choose who survives and who stays in eternal silence,” Zelenskyy said in the pre-taped message “Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals. Even to those who can’t hear them. But the music will break through anyway.”

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

President Biden said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be “self-isolated” and “there appears to be some indication he has fired or put under house arrest some of his advisers” amid the war in Ukraine. But, Mr. Biden added, “I don’t want to put too much stock in that at this time because we don’t have that much hard evidence.”

A U.S. official said Wednesday that U.S. intelligence officials had determined that Putin was being misinformed by his advisers about the poor performance of Kremlin troops in Ukraine. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that recently declassified intelligence indicated that Putin is aware of the situation on information coming to him, and there is now persistent tension between him and senior Russian military officials. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

A bill to limit the cost of insulin to $35 a month for most Americans who depend on it passed the House on Thursday, raising Democrats’ hopes that the party could take at least one step toward fulfilling its promise of lowering drug costs.

The bill attracted unanimous support from Democrats who voted, as well as from 12 Republicans, making it a rare piece of bipartisan policy legislation.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Top Senate negotiators have said they are close to striking a deal to approve $10 billion in additional COVID relief funding with just a handful of days remaining before Congress heads off for a two-week recess.

The Senate is expected to consider the legislation as soon as next week.

The renewed effort to pass additional funding to address the coronavirus pandemic comes after negotiators were forced to strip $15.6 billion in aid from a government spending package earlier in March over disagreements about how the bill would be paid for.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act on Tuesday, making lynching a federal hate crimeafter more than a century of failed efforts in Congress to pass similar legislation.

The bill is named after Till, a 14-year-old Black teenager from Chicago who was abducted, tortured and shot in the head in 1955 after a white woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, said he whistled at her and touched her in a Mississippi store.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Amid widespread criticism of his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, former President Donald Trump publicly called on Putin on Tuesday to release any dirt he might have on Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

Trump, in an interview with Just the News, seized on an unsubstantiated claim about Biden’s obtaining a hefty payment from Elena Baturina, the former wife of the late former mayor of Moscow, and asked Putin to provide details.

“She gave him $3.5 million, so now I would think Putin would know the answer to that. I think he should release it,” Trump said. “I think we should know that answer.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A federal judge presiding over a civil suit involving the House committee investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol found Monday that then-President Donald Trump “likely attempted to obstruct the joint session of Congress” on Jan. 6, 2021, which would be a crime.

“The illegality of the plan was obvious,” U.S. District Judge David Carter wrote of Trump and lawyer John Eastman’s plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence determine the results of the 2020 election.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Biden arrived at NATO Headquarters on Thursday to begin a day of back-to-back summits in an effort to keep America’s allies united against Russia’s war in Ukraine. The president smiled as he was greeted by Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO. But he faces steep challenges as the allies seek new measures to punish President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for the war.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Madeleine K. Albright, a child of Czech refugees who fled from Nazi invaders and Communist oppressors and then landed in the United States, where she flourished as a diplomat and the first woman to serve as secretary of state, died on Wednesday in Washington. She was 84.

The cause was cancer, her daughter Anne said.

Enveloped by a veil of family secrets hidden from her for most of her life, Ms. Albright rose to power and fame as a brilliant analyst of world affairs and a White House counselor on national security. Under President Bill Clinton, she became the country’s representative to the United Nations (1993-97) and secretary of state (1997-2001), making her the highest-ranking woman in the history of American government at the time.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

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White House press secretary Jen Psaki said she tested positive for Covid on Tuesday and will not accompany the president on his coming trip to Europe.

Psaki disclosed her infection in a series of tweets, saying she had two socially distanced meetings with President Joe Biden and adding that “he is not considered a close contact as defined by CDC guidance.”

Biden tested negative by PCR test Tuesday, Psaki added.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Biden will announce sanctions this week on hundreds of members of Russia’s lower house of Parliament, according to a White House official familiar with the announcement, as the United States and its allies reach for even stronger measures to punish President Vladimir V. Putin for his monthlong invasion of Ukraine.

The announcement is scheduled to be made during a series of global summits in Europe on Thursday, when Mr. Biden will press Western leaders for even more aggressive economic actions against Russia as its forces continue to rain destruction on cities in Ukraine.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

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Ukraine has rejected an ultimatum to surrender its besieged port city of Mariupol to Russian forces. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Eurovision News that ultimatums won’t work as trapped Ukrainians will “fight till the end.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said Ukrainian forces — including civilians — have put up a strong resistance against Russian forces, and the Kremlin is struggling to achieve its goals in Ukraine. “I think what we’re seeing here is the Russians have been flummoxed, they’ve been frustrated,” said Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby.

Read the rest of the story at CNBC

President Joe Biden urged U.S. businesses Monday to take added precautions amid “evolving” intelligence that Russia could target American companies with cyberattacks.

“The magnitude of Russia’s cyber capacity is fairly consequential, and it’s coming. The federal government is doing its part to get ready,” Biden said while speaking to the Business Roundtable CEO quarterly meeting in Washington.

He called on companies to invest “as much as you can” in beefing up technological capacity to guard against potential attacks.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been hospitalized with flu-like symptoms, the court said in a statement Sunday.

Thomas, 73, was admitted to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, part of the Johns Hopkins Health System, on Friday night, court officials said.

Tests showed he had an infection, and he has been receiving intravenous antibiotics, according to the court’s statement.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Senate hearings are set to take place this week in a historic confirmation battle over the first Black woman ever nominated to serve on the Supreme Court.

President Joe Biden’s pick, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, goes before the Democratic-led Judiciary Committee on Monday for a high-stakes showdown to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer and win a lifetime appointment to the country’s highest court.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Drugmaker Moderna asked the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday to authorize a fourth shot of its Covid-19vaccine as a booster dose for all adults.

The request is broader than rival pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s request earlier this week for the regulator to approve a booster shot for all seniors.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Ukrainian cities remained under siege Friday as Russian attackscontinued for the fourth week, pushing farther west in Ukraine. Local officials said that several missiles destroyed buildings at an aircraft repair facility near the airport in Lviv, which is about around 40 miles from the border with Poland.

President Joe Biden is expected to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday morning amid ongoing efforts to distance China from Russia. U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed concern that China could come to the aid of Russia, which is increasingly isolated from global markets amid harsh sanctions from the West.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin learned he had tested positive for COVID-19 Wednesday evening while attending an event with U.S. leaders, including President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to a senior administration official.

Martin — also referred to as Ireland’s taoiseach — was attending the Ireland Funds 30th National Gala at the National Building Museum in Washington when he tested positive, ahead of planned St. Patrick’s Day celebrations Thursday with U.S. leaders.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

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The Senate approved legislation Tuesday that would make daylight saving time permanent in the U.S. starting next year.

The bill, called The Sunshine Protection Act, was passed by unanimous consent, meaning no senators opposed it. If it is enacted, Americans would no longer need to change their clocks twice a year.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff tested positive for Covid on Tuesday, prompting Vice President Kamala Harris to skip an evening event “out of an abundance of caution,” her office said.

Harris tested negative Tuesday, her office said.

“Earlier today, the Second Gentleman tested positive for COVID-19,” Sabrina Singh, Harris’ deputy press secretary, said in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, the Vice President will not participate in tonight’s event. The Vice President tested negative for COVID-19 today and will continue to test.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Coronavirus cases are once again surging in several European countries, potentially signaling that the U.S. will soon experience another spike as well.

Between the lines: Several factors are likely at play, including relaxed mitigation measures, the spread of the B.A.2 variant and waning vaccine protection, tweeted Scripps Research’s Eric Topol.

Read the rest of the story at Axios

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Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Russian forces are “broadening their target sets” after rockets hit a Ukrainian military base near the Polish border overnight.

“Look, this is the third now military facility or airfield that the Russians had struck in western Ukraine in just the last couple of days,” Kirby told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, on Sunday. “So, clearly, at least from an airstrike perspective, they’re broadening their target sets.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Former President Barack Obama said Sunday that he has tested positive for COVID-19 and is “feeling fine” other than a scratchy throat. 

Both the 60-year-old Obama and his wife Michelle Obama are fully vaccinated and boosted, the former president said. Michelle Obama has tested negative. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

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As Russia was ramping up its invasion of Ukraine, former president Donald Trump chose the moment to hail President Vladimir Putin’s moves as “savvy” and “genius.” Now the military strategist former president has weighed in with his own idea for what the United States could do next. And it’s … something.

American Express, Netflix, and TikTok have joined a long and comprehensive list of companies who have suspended their business operations in Russia in response to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

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A top Justice Department official has a stern warning for Russian oligarchs who attempt to evade U.S. sanctions: Nobody is out of the DOJ’s reach.

“The point of going after Putin’s cronies and Russian oligarchs who seek to violate our laws and shield their assets is to say that nobody is beyond the reach of our system of justice, beyond the reach of our work and cooperation with our allies, and that these cronies and oligarchs who seek to support and bolster the Russian regime shouldn’t be able to get away with that while people are dying,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told ABC News’ Byron Pitts.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will face Democrat Beto O’Rourke this fall in his bid for a third term in November after the two won their respective primaries, NBC News projects.

Abbott, a Republican, faced several challengers on his right but was able to easily secure the nomination, thanks in part to the support of former President Donald Trump. O’Rourke, a former presidential candidate who lost a close Senate race in 2018, easily won his primary.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that almost 6,000 members of Russia’s invading force had been killed as Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked war against Ukraine hit the one-week mark. Zelensky vowed that Russia would not topple his government by pummeling Ukraine’s cities and civilians with missiles, but with pressure from unprecedented international sanctions against Moscow swelling by the day, that appeared to be Putin’s strategy.

Russia’s invading forces continue to push slowly deeper into Ukrainian territory, claiming “full control” on Wednesday of the city of Kherson on the southern coast, about 100 miles east of the key port of Odesa. U.S. officials say a mammoth column of Russian troops and weapons currently about 20 miles north of Kyiv could encircle the capital city within a week and then seize it within a month.

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Days after GOP Reps. Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared at an event organized by a white nationalist, Republican party leaders are condemning them for attending.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell released a statement Monday criticizing white supremacist hate.

“There’s no place in the Republican Party for white supremacists or anti-Semitism,” McConnell said in a statement first reported by Politico.

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It was one of the most consequential weeks of President Joe Biden’s presidency, and it came right before his first State of the Union address to Congress.

Biden’s 9 p.m. ET speech, to be carried live on national television and seen around the world, will be delivered just days after Russia invaded Ukraine – and days after he nominated the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court.

But he’ll also be speaking to Americans suffering from historic inflation as the nation continues to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic.

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Face coverings are now optional for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday, as Congress is lifting its mask requirement on the House floor after federal regulators eased guidelines last week in a rethinking of the nation’s strategy to adapt to living with a more manageable COVID-19.

Congress’ Office of the Attending Physician announced the policy change Sunday, lifting a requirement that has been in place for much of the past two years and had become a partisan flashpoint on Capitol Hill. The change ahead of the speech will avoid a potential disruptive display of national tensions and frustration as Biden tries to nudge the country to move beyond the pandemic.

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President Joe Biden announced Friday that he will nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court.

“For too long our government, our courts, haven’t looked like America,” Biden said in an event at the White House. “I believe it’s time that we have a court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation.”

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President Joe Biden on Thursday announced what he characterized as harsh new round of sanctions against Russia, just hours after Moscow launched an attack against Ukraine, plunging Europe into one of its gravest security crises since World War II.

Speaking from the White House, Biden criticized President Vladimir Putin for his “naked aggression against Ukraine” and vowed to make the Russian leader a “pariah on the international stage.”

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The Pentagon has approved the deployment of 700 unarmed National Guard troops to the nation’s capital as it prepares for trucker convoys that are planning protests against pandemic restrictions beginning next week.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved the request Tuesday from the District of Columbia government and the U.S. Capitol Police, the Pentagon said in a statement Tuesday night.

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Two top prosecutors involved in a criminal investigation of former President Donald Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, have resigned from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, a spokesperson for the office said Wednesday.

Carey Dunne, who championed the legal fight to get the former president’s tax returns and tax related documents all the way to the Supreme Court, twice, and won, has left the office along with Mark Pomerantz, a former mafia prosecutor who was recruited from private practice to help lead the investigation.

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President Joe Biden condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine Wednesday and vowed to impose “severe” new sanctions on Moscow in response.

Biden said in a statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering.”

He called the military operation, which Putin announced in a televised speech just before dawn on Thursday in Moscow, an “unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces.”

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President Joe Biden has interviewed three finalists for the Supreme Court vacancy that will open up when Justice Stephen Breyer retires later this year, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Biden spoke with two federal judges — Ketanji Brown Jackson and J. Michelle Childs — and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, the sources said.

The Washington Post and CNN both reported details of Biden’s interviews with the contenders earlier Tuesday.

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The three white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, a young Black man, were found guilty of hate crimes and other charges by a federal jury in Georgia on Tuesday.

After a day of deliberation, U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood said Tuesday morning that the jury — made up of eight white people, three Black people and one Hispanic person — had come to a conclusion and would read its verdict shortly.

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As congressional Republican leaders push President Joe Biden to act more forcefully to punish Vladimir Putinfor sending troops into Ukraine, former GOP President Donald Trump and some of his prominent allies have been praising the Russian leader’s style of power.

The fissures point to a growing divide in the Republican Party, between traditional foreign policy hawks who have advocated for a more confrontational U.S. posture to the Russian strongman and a Trump-aligned “MAGA” faction that has expressed some sympathy for Putin’s tactics or described them as effective.

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President Biden has begun interviewing candidates to succeed Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, according to a source familiar with the process.

During his presidential campaign, Mr. Biden vowed to select an African American woman to serve on the high court, arguing such a nomination is long overdue. Top names said to be under consideration include Ketanji Brown Jackson, who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia; California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger; Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, who sits on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago; and J. Michelle Childs, a federal district court judge based in Columbia, South Carolina.

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The daily average of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. fell below 2,000 for the first time in nearly a month over the weekend.

In the last week, the average has declined by about 15.3% to approximately 1,920 virus-related deaths every day.

Although the average remains high, experts say deaths are a lagging indicator and the country may finally see sharp drops after several weeks of increases.

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President Joe Biden on Monday reacted swiftly to Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring he would recognize the independence of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, possibly using the move as a pretext for an invasion the U.S. has warned was likely coming at any hour.

The White House said Biden would soon issue an executive order “that will prohibit new investment, trade, and financing by U.S. persons to, from, or in” the two Ukrainian regions under the control of Russian-backed separatists, Donetsk and Luhansk.

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Donald Trump’s new social media app started a gradual rollout late Sunday and should be “fully operational” by late March, potentially raising the former president’s profile more than a year after he was banned by major platforms.

“This week, we will begin to roll out to people on the Apple App store,” said Devin Nunes, CEO of the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), parent company of the new app Truth Social.

The former Republican congressman was speaking Sunday on Fox News.

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Hundreds of truckers clogging Canada’s capital stood their ground and defiantly blasted their horns Thursday, even as police arrested two protest leaders and threatened to break up the nearly three-week protest against the country’s Covid-19 restrictions.

Busloads of police arrived near Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, and workers put up extra fences around government buildings. Police also essentially began sealing off much of the downtown area to outsiders to prevent them from coming to the aid of the protesters.

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Shells struck by the hundreds along the tense front lines in eastern Ukraine, drones monitoring a fragile cease-fire lost their way when the GPS signal they rely on was jammed, and then the cellphone network went dark.

In a sliver of land where pro-Russian separatists have battled for years against Ukrainian government forces, a group of international monitors tasked with keeping the peace reported more than 500 explosions in the the 24 hours ending Thursday midday, around four times as many as an average day over the past month.

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A group of Republican senators sent a letter to the Justice Department on Tuesday to express “strong opposition” to creating a federal no-fly list for unruly passengers, claiming “the majority of recent infractions on airplanes has been in relation to the mask mandate.”

Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas were among those who signed a letter opposing Delta Airlines’ CEO Ed Bastian’s, request earlier this month that the DOJ create a “no-fly” list for passengers convicted of federal offenses relating to on-board disruptions.

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A federal judge on Wednesday expressed skepticism about releasing the founder of the right-wing Oath Keepers organization ahead of his trial on seditious conspiracy charges in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, as prosecutors revealed new evidence about the plot and how it extended beyond the U.S. Capitol attack.

Elmer Stewart Rhodes III was arrested in January, charged along with several other Oath Keepers in a seditious conspiracy case that alleges they “planned to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power” and keep former President Donald Trump in office.

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President Joe Biden has directed the National Archives to send White House visitor logs from the Trump administration to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Former President Donald Trump was trying to block the release of the records, but White House counsel Dana Remus said in a letter to National Archivist David Ferriero on Tuesday that the president rejects Trump’s claim that the visitor logs from his time in office are subject to executive privilege.

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Relatives of nine victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre have reached a $73 million settlement with Remington, concluding a lawsuit that saw a gun manufacturer for the first time face potential liability following a mass shooting in the United States.

The landmark victory comes after a protracted legal battle over how Remington marketed its Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, which was used in the December 2012 killings of 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut. The gunman fatally shot his mother before the elementary school rampage, then killed himself.

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Racicot notes in the letter “that confronting you and the Committee with the thoughts and observations contained herein is not something, for me, easily done.”

“I would never have imagined that the day would come when the chair of the Republican National Committee and its members would rebuke and desert two GOP members of the United States House of Representatives, who, consistent with the Constitution, their oath of office and their conscience, have been performing their assigned Congressional duties with honor and integrity pursuant to the lawful passage of a House Resolution,” Racicot wrote, condemning the recent RNC vote censure Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) for participating on the House committee investigation Jan. 6.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers Monday to quell the protests by truck drivers and others who have paralyzed Ottawa and blocked border crossings in anger over the country’s Covid-19 restrictions.

In invoking Canada’s Emergencies Act, which gives the federal government broad powers to restore order, Trudeau ruled out using the military.

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Russia said Tuesday that some of its troops gathered near Ukrainewere returning to their bases, although Kyiv said it was too early to tell whether this signaled any de-escalation in a crisis that the West has warned could see Moscow invade its neighbor any day.

The Russian defense ministry said some units of its southern and western military districts were pulling back after completing their exercises near Ukraine.

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The Los Angeles Rams won Super Bowl LVI 23-20 in front of a home crowd Sunday in a heartbreaker for a Cincinnati Bengals team brimming with young talent.

It was the Rams’ first Super Bowl championship as an L.A. team and its second in franchise history. Including the pre-Super Bowl era, the franchise has won four NFL championships.

The Rams, looking right at home in the $5 billion Inglewood stadium built by team owner Stan Kroenke, scored within seven minutes of kickoff. The Bengals answered with a rapid march downfield that ended in a field goal.

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The Ambassador Bridge, a crucial roadway for U.S.-Canadian trade, reopened late Sunday after authorities cleared a weekend blockade mounted by protesters unhappy about vaccine mandates.

The Detroit International Bridge Company, the owner and operator of the structure, said in a statement that the bridge was again “allowing the free flow of commerce between the Canada and US economies.”

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens had proclaimed the end of the demonstration earlier in the day.

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A federal judge on Thursday directly rebuked the Republican National Committee’s resolution that declared the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol “legitimate political discourse” as she sentenced a man convicted of punching two officers during the assault to six months in prison.

“It is not ‘legitimate political discourse,’ and it is not justified to descend on the nation’s Capitol at the direction of a disappointed candidate and disrupt the electoral process,” said D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson before she sentenced Mark Leffingwell, a disabled former Marine from Washington state. “Cancelling out the votes of other people with a show force is the opposite of what America stands for.”

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President Joe Biden issued a warning Thursday to any Americans who remain in Ukraine as Russia continues to threaten an invasion: Leave.

“American citizens should leave now,” Biden said in an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt.

“It’s not like we’re dealing with a terrorist organization. We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation, and things could go crazy quickly,” he said.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who has become known for her love of conspiracy theories and angry outbursts at Democratic leaders, apparently meant to accuse House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Gestapo police tactics in an interview Tuesday.

But it didn’t quite come out that way, and the mistake she made immediately set off a chorus of delighted ridicule from her critics on social media.

Rather than compare Pelosi’s tactics to the Nazi secret police, she instead compared them to a bowl of chilled soup.

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Officials are warning that a trucker convoy could disrupt the Super Bowl this weekend near Los Angeles and make its way to Washington, D.C., for the State of the Union, according to a Department of Homeland Security bulletin obtained by NBC News.

The bulletin, which described the possible protest as “aspirational,” said the convoy could cause havoc on transportation routes to other U.S. cities.

A possible destination is Washington, where President Joe Biden is set to deliver the State of the Union address March 1, the bulletin says.

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Canadian lawmakers expressed increasing worry Tuesday about the economic effects of disruptive demonstrations after the busiest border crossing between the U.S. and Canada became partially blocked by truckers protesting vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions.

The blockade at the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, prevented traffic from entering Canada while some U.S.-bound traffic was still moving, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said, calling the bridge “one of the most important border crossings in the world.” It carries 25% of all trade between Canada and the United States.

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