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Biden campaign sees abortion rights, independent voters as key in Arizona and Nevada

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(WASHINGTON) -- Ahead of President Joe Biden making campaign stops on Tuesday in Arizona and Nevada, advisers are laying out why they still place him in a better position than former President Donald Trump to win those two key battlegrounds, despite Biden’s mediocre polling in the early lead-up to the long general election fight.

On a call with reporters on Monday, aides to the president’s reelection bid previewed key areas where, they say, they see Biden having the advantage -- including on abortion and in wooing more moderate and independent voters, some of whom rejected Trump during his Republican primary fight with Nikki Haley.

"Nevada and Arizona are states that President Biden and Democrats won in 2020 and again in 2022. And this year, we have the message and the infrastructure to win yet again," one Biden campaign aide told reporters.

"These are states where voters overwhelmingly support a woman's right to choose and where abortion rights will likely be on the ballot [as well in November] -- and they are benefiting tremendously from the president's policies with tens of thousands of new good-paying jobs in clean energy and chips manufacturing,” the aide argued.

Echoing what is likely to be a key campaign message from Biden throughout the year, another adviser drew a “stark contrast” with the president and “what you see the Trump campaign not doing" in Arizona.

This aide went on to ding the Trump team for, they suggested, failing to connect with non-white voters, though Trump has made specific appeals to Black and Hispanic Americans, including as recently as his Ohio rally on Saturday.

Exit polls from the 2020 race against Biden also show Trump did marginally better with those groups than previous Republican candidates.

Knowing both states have a large population of independent voters, the Biden campaign said it continues to seek out former Haley supporters and moderates and independents not on board with Trump.

"Our campaign is paying attention to that and will be engaging voters very intentionally, to draw that contrast and invite them in,” one of the advisers said.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to hammer Biden over high inflation and immigration as well as a variety of foreign policy issues.

Seizing on what polling shows is broader feeling of economic discontent around the country, despite low unemployment and a strong stock market, among other factors, Trump has also cast himself as the candidate who can bring more prosperity back to everyday voters.

He assailed Biden at Saturday’s rally as the “worst president we’ve ever had.”

When asked if the campaign has reached out ahead of Tuesday's primary to organizers of a planned protest vote in Arizona -- spurred by Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza -- and whether Biden planned to address it while in the state, an aide offered what's now a canned response to ultimately say they won't take any vote for granted.

"The conflict between Israel and Hamas is painful. It's a difficult situation, and [President Biden] believes and this campaign believes that people have every right to make their voices heard,” the aide said. “And in many respects, the president shares the goal of the many who remain ‘uncommitted,’ which is working toward the end of the violence and working towards a just and lasting peace. That's his focus and the campaign supports that."

The protest movement, focused on urging voters to cast “uncommitted” or similar ballots instead of choosing Biden in the Democratic nominating contests, has gained some traction in a few states, including Minnesota and Michigan.

Uncommitted is also estimated to have won some delegates to the Democrats’ national convention this summer, giving them more of a voice.

Organizers of the protest vote in Arizona are urging Democrats to vote for Marianne Williamson instead of Biden since there isn't an uncommitted or write-in option on the ballot.

The Biden campaign said on Monday that he plans to spend time this week in the battleground counties of Washoe in Nevada and Maricopa in Arizona.

One of the advisers also defended the president so far mixing smaller events with a few larger-scale gatherings, unlike Trump, who favors massive and often headline-making rallies.

"These are strategic events. They allow us to break through a fragmented media environment. We do a lot of digital-first content to reach the voters who they know are sort of deeply disengaged from politics," the aide said. "Smaller retail events support that digital-first content. But I would also flag that we are continuing to do larger events as well. We can do both."

The campaign pitches their electoral path

In a new memo, also released on Monday, campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote that the center of the campaign's "multiple pathways" to 270 electoral votes are three key regions of the country.

Chavez Rodriguez highlighted "the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, western battlegrounds like Nevada and Arizona, and southern states like Georgia and North Carolina," adding they're also focusing on "Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia, while expanding the map in places like Florida and Texas."

Five of the states that Biden's campaign manager singled out -- Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia -- have all become reliably Democratic in past presidential years, suggesting the campaign will be somewhat on the defensive in 2024 in some parts of the country.

Regarding the Southwest, Chavez Rodriguez wrote that the campaign will focus its messaging in the region on abortion rights, job creation and its support from organized labor groups, while Trump allies such as Senate candidate Kari Lake "remain fixated on election denialism."

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Judge rules ‘Access Hollywood’ tape admissible in Trump hush money trial

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(NEW YORK) -- The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s criminal prosecution in New York has denied Trump’s attempts to exclude the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape and testimony from key witnesses from his upcoming criminal trial.

The defense argued Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, should not be allowed to testify because he has a history of lying, arguing that calling him to the witness stand would amount to suborning perjury.

Judge Juan Merchan rejected the argument.

“This Court has been unable to locate any treatise, statute or holding from courts in this jurisdiction or others that support defendant’s rational that a particular witness should be kept off the witness stand because his credibility has been previously called into question,” Merchan said.

He also will allow Stormy Daniels to testify since she is the recipient of the $130,000 hush payment at the center of the case, writing, “The probative value of the evidence is evident.“

Merchan declined to omit the "Access Hollywood" tape in which Trump is overheard bragging about how he approaches women.

Trump’s criminal trial in New York has been delayed until at least mid-April.

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SCOTUS denies stay of sentence for ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro

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(WASHINGTON) -- Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro must report to prison on Tuesday as scheduled, after the Supreme Court on Monday denied the stay of his sentence.

Navarro was ordered on March 11 to report to prison in Miami on Tuesday, to serve a four-month sentence.

He was convicted in September of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide testimony and documents to the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Navarro on Friday filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to remain out of prison as he works to overturn his conviction.

In his filing to the Supreme Court, Navarro's attorney Stanley Woodward argued Navarro "is indisputably neither a flight risk nor a danger to public safety should he be released pending appeal."

In testimony during Navarro's trial, former Jan. 6 committee staff director David Buckley said the House panel had been seeking to question Navarro about efforts to delay Congress' certification of the 2020 election, a plan Navarro dubbed the "Green Bay Sweep" in his book "In Trump Time."

Navarro unsuccessfully argued that former President Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege over his testimony and document production.

"For the first time in our nation's history, a senior presidential advisor has been convicted of contempt of Congress after asserting executive privilege over a congressional subpoena," Woodward's filing said. "Dr. Navarro has appealed and will raise a number of issues on appeal that he contends are likely to result in the reversal of his conviction, or a new trial."

Navarro would become the first former Trump adviser to report to prison for actions related to the Jan. 6 attack.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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What to know about President Biden’s executive order on women’s health research

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(WASHINGTON) -- President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order Monday promoting women's health research as the country continues to celebrate Women's History Month.

The White House described it as the "most comprehensive set of actions" taken by a president to advance women's health research, which will focus on diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect women.

Biden has previously hinted to the initiative during his State of the Union address earlier this month, describing women's health as chronically underfunded and calling on Congress to approve $12 billion to support a women's health fund for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Here are some of the women's health issues Biden said he wants to tackle in his executive order:

Research focusing on women's health after menopause

Biden's executive order will support research into women's midlife health and diseases that are prevalent after menopause, including heart disease and osteoporosis.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be directed to increase data collection about women's midlife health and find ways to improve management of menopause-related issues.

After someone goes through menopause, their ovaries produce less estrogen, which increases the risk of developing certain health problems.

Heart disease is one of the most common health problems women face after menopause. Women have a lower risk of heart disease than men before age 55 because estrogen protects blood vessels and helps the body balance cholesterol levels.

Once a woman produces less estrogen, arteries can become thicker and stiffen, and "bad" cholesterol may build up on the walls of the arteries leading to heart disease.

By age 70, women have the same risk for heart disease as men of similar age, according to the HHS. They are also at increased risk of stroke.

Osteoporosis -- a bone disease caused by a loss of bone density and bone mass as well as structural changes to the bone -- is another risk facing postmenopausal women. Lower estrogen levels after menopause can speed up the loss of bone mass, increasing the risk of fractures.

It's unknown how many older women have osteoporosis in the U.S. but, using criteria from the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated about 30% of caucasian postmenopausal women have osteoporosis, according to the Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center.

Under the executive order, Biden also stated the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs will evaluate the needs of women service members and veterans for midlife health issues, including menopausal symptoms.

More women in clinical trials

In the executive order, the president said members of the initiative would work to "improve the recruitment, enrollment, and retention of women in clinical trials, including, as appropriate, by reducing barriers through technological and data sciences advances."

As recently as the 1970s, few women were enrolled in clinical trials, and it was believed women's health needs were a low priority.

In 1986, the NIH establish a policy that encouraged the inclusion of women in studies, but the policy was poorly communicated and inconsistently applied. Eventually, Congress passed a law in 1993 that established guidelines for the inclusion of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups in clinical research.

However, women are still underrepresented, particularly in the early stages of clinical trials. One 2022 study found women account for between 29% and 34% of early-stage clinical trials due to concerns about fertility. This can often lead to a lack of understanding about how women may respond to a new drug compared to men.

Another 2022 study from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital found females make up 60% of all patients with psychiatric disorders, but just 42% of participants in clinical trials investigating drugs and devices to treat those disorders. Similar findings were seen with examined data from clinical trials for cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Conditions with different symptoms for men and women

During a press call on Sunday afternoon, Dr. Carolyn Mazure, chairperson of the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research, said the order will also focus on conditions that affect women disproportionately including Alzheimer's disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Women have a greater lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than men, one reason being that women live longer than men, according to an article published in Harvard Health Publishing from Harvard Medical School.

However, it's not understood if there are any biomarkers or other unknown factors that make women more susceptible.

In the case of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), women are up to three times more likely than men to be diagnosed with the condition. It is believed that several factors, including sex hormones, play a role, but researchers say more work needs to be done in understanding why women are more predisposed to developing RA and also why different joints are affected in women compared to men.

ABC News' Frtiz Farrow and Selina Wang contributed to this report.

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Famine is ‘imminent’ in northern Gaza, with many facing ‘catastrophic’ levels of hunger: Report

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(NEW YORK) -- Famine is "imminent" in northern Gaza, as the entire population of the strip experiences high levels of food insecurity amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, according to a report released Monday.

The report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative said a famine in the north of the strip may occur between mid-March and the end of May unless an immediate cease-fire occurs so that essential food and supplies can be delivered consistently to Gazans.

"The conditions necessary to prevent famine have not been met and the latest evidence confirms that famine is imminent in the northern governorates," the report said.

The report projects that northern Gaza will be classified as Phase 5, the highest stage of food insecurity equivalent to famine levels of starvation, in the next month and a half. Additionally, 70% of the remaining population in the north, or about 210,000 Gazans, will experience "catastrophic" levels of hunger, according to the report.

"Continued conflict and the near-complete lack of access to the northern governorates for humanitarian organizations and commercial trucks will likely compound heightened vulnerabilities and extremely limited food availability, access and utilization, as well as access to health care, water and sanitation," according to the report.

Currently, the IPC classifies governorates in the south of Gaza, including Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah, in its Phase 4 category, meaning very high levels of malnutrition and only able to mitigate a lack of food through emergency strategies or a liquidation of assets.

However, the IPC says that in a worst-case scenario, the three governorates face a risk of famine through July 2024.

The report also found that the entire population of the Gaza Strip, about 2.23 million people, is facing high levels of food insecurity and, in the most likely scenario, an estimated 1.11 million people -- half of the population -- will be experiencing famine levels of hunger by mid-July. This is an increase from the 530,000 people who were predicted to experience this level of food insecurity in a previous IPC analysis, according to the report.

Multiple United Nations organizations have warned since January that more than half the population in Gaza faces "catastrophic hunger" -- especially northern Gaza, which the U.N. says has been largely cut off for months now. Some people in the north of the strip said they have been forced to eat bird feed in place of flour to stave off starvation.

The IPC report comes on the heels of a statement from the nonprofit organization CARE released Friday stating babies and toddlers in northern Gaza are dying from starvation.

At least 27 individuals have died from severe acute malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza, according to CARE. Of those individuals, 23 were children and the youngest was just a few days old, the organization said.

An analysis from CARE and its partner organization Juzoor looking at data from 1,329 children aged 2 and younger in northern Gaza showed children categorized as having moderate or severe malnutrition nearly doubled in February compared to January, from 16% to 29%.

"No one is suffering more in this war than those who have yet to utter their first word," Hiba Tibi, country director for CARE in the West Bank and Gaza, said in a press release.

"This war is causing an entire generation of children to lose their childhood and future. Imagine watching your baby perish in front of your eyes, simply because you cannot get her the food she needs? Imagine hearing your children's cries for bread, but there is nothing you can give them? The situation is simply unbearable, unjustifiable and needs to stop immediately," Tibi said.

Israel, with the support of Egypt, has restricted the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza since the terrorist group Hamas came to power in 2007.

Those restrictions tightened following Hamas' surprise attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented incursion from Gaza into southern Israel by air, land and sea. More than 1,200 people in Israel were killed and 253 others were taken hostage by Hamas, according to Israeli authorities.

The Israeli government, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has said it's determined to destroy Hamas and plans to invade Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where it says Hamas leaders are hiding and where Israeli officials believe some of the hostages are being kept in tunnels.

More than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 72,000 others have been injured in Gaza since Oct. 7, amid Israel's ongoing ground operations and aerial bombardment of the strip, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has previously said Israel doesn't provide enough authorization to deliver sufficient aid and, even when it does give authorization, the fighting makes it difficult to deliver that aid.

Israeli officials have said Hamas steals aid once it enters Gaza and claim looting is also a problem. Israel continues to deny all accusations that it isn't letting enough aid into Gaza, and encourages other countries to send in aid, with Israeli officials saying the U.N., its partners and other aid agencies have created logistical challenges, resulting in a bottleneck. The U.N. disputes these claims.

The head of the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs said last week there is "no limit on the amount of aid that can enter into Gaza."

According to local media outlets, aid trucks reached areas of northern Gaza, including Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, over the weekend -- the first time in four months.

However, several U.N. agencies, including UNRWA and UNICEF, have called for a cease-fire so more aid can be delivered.

"Children's malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in #Gaza. Famine is looming. There is no time to waste," the UNRWA wrote in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday.

ABC News' Nasser Atta contributed to this report.

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EPA bans remaining uses of cancer-causing asbestos in the US

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(WASHINGTON) -- The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a United States ban on the ongoing use of chrysotile asbestos -- a carcinogen that the agency estimates is linked to more than 40,000 U.S. deaths each year.

The announcement comes as part of President Joe Biden's Cancer Moonshot initiative, which is using federal resources to make progress on cancer research and treatment.

"While the use of asbestos in the United States has been declining for decades, the use of chrysotile asbestos has continued to this day. Because of its resistance to heat, fire and electrical conduction, it has remained in use for a variety of construction and industrial products," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a Monday press call.

"But the science is clear and settled," Regan added. "There is simply no safe level of exposure to asbestos."

Chrysotile asbestos is the only known form of asbestos currently used in or imported to the U.S. Exposure to asbestos can cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, ovarian cancer and other health issues, Regan said. It is also linked to more than 40,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to the EPA.

"Asbestos has harmed people across the country for decades, and under President Biden's leadership, we are taking decisive action to ban its use and advance this administration's historic environmental justice agenda," White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory said in a news release. "This action marks a major step to improve chemical safety after decades of inadequate protections, helping advance President Biden's Cancer Moonshot goal to end cancer as we know it."

The EPA previously tried to ban asbestos in most products under the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1989, but the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the ban could apply only to products that would use asbestos for the first time. Continued use of asbestos in existing products was permitted.

Asbestos is currently used in the U.S. in products such as brake linings and gaskets in cars and in the production of chlorine.

Monday's ban is the first the EPA has issued for existing chemical use since Congress updated the Toxic Substances Control Act in 2016, which changed the process for evaluating and addressing safety concerns.

"The failed asbestos ban from over 30 years ago was the reason why we needed to rewrite TSCA. And why Congress did so with almost unanimous support in 2016," said Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. "Today's rule is important for public health, but it's also a symbol of how the new law can and must be used to protect people."

Regan called the ban a "sign of what's to come."

"The Biden administration is transforming the way EPA is using the new chemical safety law to do what it was meant to do -- protect people from toxic chemicals," he said.

The EPA has set compliance deadlines for the ban to transition away from different uses of chrysotile asbestos, attempting to provide a reasonable transition period while discontinuing the use of asbestos in each product as soon as possible, the agency said.

"At EPA, protecting public health and the environment is our privilege and our greatest responsibility," Regan said. "And today's rule is a major step forward in helping us to achieve our goals."

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Capitol Police wearing body cameras in pilot program to build public trust

(WASHINGTON) -- The U.S. Capitol Police on Monday started wearing body-worn cameras as part of its pilot program to protect its officers and members of Congress as well as enhance public trust, its chief said.

Seventy Capitol Police officers will wear the body cameras during the 180-day program. Eleven Capitol Police cruisers will be outfitted with dashboard cameras that will automatically record if a cruiser's emergency lights are triggered.

"I was confident that the cameras would do two things. First, they would remind the public just how challenging the law enforcement profession can be," Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in a news release. "Second, the cameras would also showcase the great work our cops do day in and day out. This is a great accountability tool for everyone."

Body cameras will not be used inside buildings on the Capitol or during interactions with members of Congress, Capitol Police said, as a measure to "protect the constitutional duties of members of Congress."

"The cameras will record public interactions requiring a police response," Capitol Police said in the release.

Officers will inform people if they are being recorded at the beginning of an interaction, and the cameras will record video and audio when officers use firearms or tasers, Capitol Police said.

The program comes after a review of Capitol security released following the Jan. 6 attack recommended Capitol Police use body-worn cameras to improve police accountability and protect officers from false accusations.

Once the pilot program is completed, a task force including sworn and civilian supervisors in the department will use feedback to analyze the program, and Manger will send a recommendation regarding a permanent body worn camera program to congressional stakeholders.

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Biden gets Netanyahu to send delegation to Washington to resolve standoff over Rafah invasion

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(WASHINGTON) -- Israel's expected military invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza was the focus of President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call Monday -- their first in more than a month -- with the White House saying Biden is still not satisfied that Israel will do enough to prevent civilian casualties as it goes after Hamas fighters in the city.

In the latest development in a standoff between Biden and Netanyahu that's gone on for weeks -- with the U.S. demanding a satisfactory "plan" from Israel -- national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Netanyahu, at Biden's request, would be sending a delegation to Washington to try to work out what he called "an alternative approach."

Speaking at a White House briefing, Sullivan had some of the administration's strongest words yet for how Israel has conducted itself in Gaza and how the U.S. would view an invasion of Rafah, where over a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

"A humanitarian crisis has descended across Gaza. And anarchy reigns in areas that Israel's military has cleared, but not stabilized," Sullivan said.

"A major ground operation there would be a mistake; it would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worse than the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepening the anarchy in Gaza, and further isolate Israel internationally," he told reporters. "More importantly, the key goals Israel wants to achieve in Rafah can be done by other means."

Sullivan said during the call Monday, Biden "rejected" that "raising questions about Rafah is the same as raising questions about defeating Hamas."

"That's just nonsense. Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else," he said.

Sullivan also highlighted that Rafah is also a "key entry point" for humanitarian assistance that could shut down or face a "great risk" if an invasion occurs, and that Egypt has also expressed concern for a military operation there.

He announced that Israel "in the coming days" will be sending a team of officials from across many areas of government to hear the administration's concerns about the Rafah operation and to work on an alternative.

"On the call today, President Biden asked the Prime Minister to send a senior interagency team, composed of military, intelligence, and humanitarian officials, to Washington in the coming days to hear U.S. concerns about Israel's current Rafah planning and to lay out an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in Rafah and secure the Egypt Gaza border without a major ground invasion," Sullivan said.

Sullivan said that while Netanyahu agreed to send a team to the meeting, he "has his own point of view" on a Rafah operation.

"Send your team to Washington," Sullivan said. "Let's talk about it. We'll lay out for you what we believe is a better way."

Sullivan stressed several times that Israel needs a "coherent and sustainable strategy" for its military operations that are connected to a "clear strategic end game." He repeated the administration's public view that the White House has "every expectation" that no major military operation will happen in Rafah until the two sides meet.

At the same time, though, when pressed by ABC News' Karen Travers, Sullivan declined to say whether the Biden's call was the "come to Jesus" meeting with Netanyahu that Biden mentioned in a hot-mic moment on the House floor just minutes after his State of the Union address.

"I'm not going to characterize that on behalf of the president. I will just describe what happened in the conversation as I've done here today, and I'll let you all draw your own conclusions."

Sullivan said the leaders would stay in "close touch" in the coming days and weeks.

ABC News' Karen Travers contributed to this report.

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Trump, some co-defendants in Fulton County begin appeals process of disqualification ruling

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(WASHINGTON) -- Former President Donald Trump and some of his co-defendants in the Fulton County election interference case on Monday kicked off the process to appeal the judge's disqualification ruling that ultimately kept District Attorney Fani Willis on the case, asking the court in a new motion to grant a certificate of immediate review.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
 

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Key GOP impeachment witness won’t attend open committee hearing, citing ‘short notice’

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(WASHINGTON) -- Devon Archer, a key witness in House Republicans' impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, will not attend a high-profile open hearing this week, citing what his attorney characterized as a "patently unreasonable" amount of time to prepare.

Matthew Schwartz, an attorney for Archer -- a former Hunter Biden business associate, revealed Monday in a letter to a top Oversight Committee investigator that the panel only contacted him on Friday in an "end-of-day email" to inquire about whether his client would attend the hearing on Wednesday, which Schwartz says "is sure to be a closely-watched public hearing that the committee has provocatively entitled 'Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden's Abuse of Public Office.'"

"The answer is no," Schwartz wrote to the committee, according to a copy of the letter obtained by ABC News. "Providing such short notice for a witness's public appearance before the Committee on a matter of national importance is patently unreasonable."

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer publicly invited Archer to appear alongside Hunter Biden and two other witnesses in their probe -- Jason Galanis and Tony Bobulinski -- at the public hearing on March 7 and has frequently promoted the hearing in public statements since then.

"This is an opportunity for Hunter [Biden] to have the hearing he wanted," Comer said on Fox News over the weekend. “We want the public hearing. We actually need the public hearing because of the discrepancies" between Hunter Biden’s closed-door testimony and what other witnesses in the probe have told the committee, he said.

But according to Schwartz's letter, Archer first received word from the committee late Friday. Schwartz alluded to an invitation attached to the Friday email dated March 6 and transmitted to Devon Archer "via counsel," but he claimed "that latter was never sent to me."

Schwartz suggested the letter dated March 6 was mistakenly sent to a different attorney.

"As you well know (and as the lawyer to whom you sent the letter has confirmed), I have been the only lawyer to represent Mr. Archer in the Committee's work, including representing him at the July interview," Schwartz said.

Archer's testimony last year was promoted by House Republicans as some of the most damning evidence of the Biden family's alleged influence peddling. Comer hoped to air some of Archer's closed-door testimony -- including a claim that Hunter Biden frequently put his father on speakerphone in the presence of business associates -- in a public setting.

But in his letter Monday, Schwartz wrote that "it is not remotely reasonable to ask an important witness in what is sure to be a closely-watched public hearing ... to prepare witness testimony in one business day, and to prepare to give public testimony in less than three business days."

Schwartz reiterated his client's willingness to cooperate in the investigation and asked them to suggest other dates in the future for Archer to testify publicly. Archer is currently preparing to report to prison for defrauding a Native American tribe.

Hunter Biden last week also declined the panel's invitation to testify publicly, despite previously expressing an interest in doing so, calling the hearing a "carnival sideshow" and a "blatant planned-for-media event."

Archer and the two other witnesses invited to participate in the hearing -- Galanis and Bobulinski -- are former business associates of Hunter Biden who have since become critics of the Biden family.

Bobulinski released a statement last week signaling his intention to appear for the hearing.

Mark Paoletta, an attorney for Galanis -- who is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence in Alabama for securities fraud -- said his client "is willing to testify at this hearing to provide his firsthand knowledge of then-Vice President Joe Biden helping his son Hunter Biden in his business dealings."

A spokesperson for the Oversight Committee did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

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Putin extends rule in state-managed election victory

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(LONDON) -- President Vladimir Putin was handed a fifth term in Russia’s heavily stage-managed presidential election on Sunday in a vote where no real competition was permitted and with virtually all leading opposition figures jailed, in exile or dead.

The election, held over three days, gave Putin over 87% of the vote, extending his already 24-year rule until at least 2030 – a stratospheric result that recalled the illusionary elections of the Soviet Union or those of other dictatorships, such as North Korea or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

It was the highest result ever for Putin and underlined the extent that dissent is no longer acceptable to the Kremlin, amid Russia’s rapid turn deeper into dictatorship since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago. Election officials also claimed the turnout was 77%, the highest in modern Russian history.

Putin on Monday evening led a victory rally in Red Square timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. A crowd of several thousand cheered Putin as he walked on stage, waving Russian flags and chanting “Russia.” Putin congratulated them on the annexation and expressed satisfaction that Donbas and other areas of southeastern Ukraine were also now under Russian control.

“Hail Russia!” Putin shouted to the crowd.

Many who were present at similar previous rallies have described being bussed in and pressured by their state employers to attend. Parts of central Moscow were choked with lines of buses on Monday ahead of the rally, according to ABC reporters there.

Western countries denounced the election as neither free nor fair, with the European Union saying it had violated the basic rights of Russians.

“The result was clearly set beforehand,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s deputy spokeswoman, Christiane Hoffmann, reportedly told journalists in Berlin. “Russia is a dictatorship and is ruled by Putin in an authoritarian way.”

Similarly, a White House National Security Council spokesperson said “the elections are obviously not free nor fair, given how Mr. Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him.”

However, the leaders of several key non-Western countries and Russian allies, including India and China, quickly congratulated Putin.

The three candidates permitted to run against Putin, each of whom received less than 5% of the vote, were vetted by the Kremlin. Anti-war candidates were blocked from the ballot and the election was held amid a worsening crackdown that has seen even minor public expressions of dissent punished with fines and prison sentences.

Despite the Kremlin’s orchestrated efforts to present the appearance of near-total support for Putin, thousands of Russians appeared to heed a call from the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny to demonstrate around the elections. Navalny before his death in prison last month urged people to gather at the same time outside polling stations at midday on Sunday.

The protest action, called “High Noon Against Putin,” was intended to show that significant numbers of Russians still oppose Putin, regardless of the official result. People were told to vote for any candidate other than Putin, or to spoil their ballots.

Thousands of people did come out at noon, forming long lines in cities across Russia, as well as at embassies in foreign capitals where overseas voting was held.

Some of the longest lines formed in capitals where large numbers of Russians have emigrated since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In London, a line stretched roughly a mile from the Russian embassy, with some people holding placards condemning Putin and the war, and blasting protest songs at the embassy building.

In Berlin, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, joined the line outside the embassy, waiting approximately six hours to vote, meeting with and embracing supporters there. Afterward, she told reporters she had written her husband’s name on her ballot.

In Russia, authorities had warned people they could face arrest for taking part in the demonstrations. Russia’s government on Monday dismissed them, claiming implausibly that the unusually long lines were due to people waiting to vote for Putin. Appearing at a press conference on Sunday night after declaring victory, Putin himself appeared to troll the protestors, praising the opposition for telling people to vote.

“Well done,” Putin said. “But as far as I understand it didn’t have any effect.”

Golos, an independent Russian NGO that for years has sought to monitor elections and that has been banned for its efforts, denounced the election as an “imitation,” saying every basic element of a free vote had been violated.

“We have never seen a presidential campaign that so much didn’t correspondent to constitutional standards,” the group said in a statement. “In essence the basic articles of Russia’s constitution guaranteeing political rights and freedoms were not operating.”

Authorities made it impossible to monitor voting, Golos wrote, and also had full control over ballot counting. Even to run again, Putin had changed Russia’s constitution in 2020 to circumvent a two-term limit, it noted.

Golos’ chairman, Grigory Melkonyants, remains in jail in Russia after being arrested last August for allegedly associating with what the government calls an “undesirable” organization.

The head of Russia’s elections commission, Ella Pamfilova, claimed Sunday there had been virtually no irregularities in Sunday’s polling and that none of the total results from 90,000 polling stations had been disqualified, which she called “unprecedented.”

Voting was also held in occupied areas of Ukraine, in violation of international law, with videos showing voting taking place in the presence of armed Russian troops.

Putin has hailed the election as demonstrating a clear mandate for his war in Ukraine. In his victory speech on Sunday, he said that he did not exclude that Russia would need to create a “sanitary cordon” on Ukrainian territory, perhaps even including the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, that borders Russia.

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With eye on 2024 election, Biden touts executive order on women’s health research

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(WASHINGTON) -- President Joe Biden signed an executive order Monday that he said marks the launch of "the first-ever White House initiative of women's health research to pioneer the next generation of scientific research and discovery of women's health."

The order, he said, will direct the "most comprehensive set of executive actions ever taken" to address women's health by prioritizing it across the federal government.

"Because it really matters. Because we are focused on supporting women together," Biden said in remarks from the East Room, where he was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden and Maria Shriver, the founder of Women's Alzheimer's Movement.

Women helped deliver Biden the White House in the 2020 election, and as the campaign season heats up, he's again focusing on female voters.

During the speech, Biden touted what he said was his administration's record of prioritizing women to improve the economy through shoring up women's participation in the workforce and prioritizing access to child care and the child tax credit.

He vowed to continue his efforts to renew the now expired program in the face of GOP opposition.

"Through my American Rescue Plan and the child tax credit, we cut child poverty nearly in half. That is a fact," Biden said. "Which I might add, and my Republican friends tell me we spent a lot of money, it's saving billions of dollars. Saving billions of dollars. We're actually cutting the deficit, too. Republicans voted against to let it expire but I'm fighting to bring the child tax credit back."

He also focused heavily on reproductive health, promising, as he has many times before, to codify the abortion rights access in Roe v. Wade if voters send a Congress willing to do so in November.

Biden tried to draw a contrast with his 2024 election rival -- former President Donald Trump -- referring to him as his "predecessor."

"Democracy is literally at stake here at home and abroad. Our basic freedoms are under assault. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and so much more. My predecessor and his allies in Congress make no apologies for it. But here's the deal. It's the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court wrote, quote, 'women are not without electoral and or political power.' No kidding," Biden said.

"You send me a Democratic Congress that supports reproductive freedom, I promise you, I promise you -- we will restore Roe v. Wade, again as the law of the land," he said.

Vice President Harris also stressed the importance of the upcoming election as she spoke about her historic visit Planned Parenthood clinic in Minneapolis last week. She commended the "courageous" medical professionals caring for patients as clinics across the country close due to state-level restrictions imposed after the fall of Roe.

"There is so much at stake in this moment and we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in? Do we want to live in a country of liberty, freedom and rule of law or a country of disorder, fear and hate?" Harris said. "Each of us has the power to answer that question with our feet, with our voice and with our vote."

Biden’s executive order will direct federal agencies to strengthen research and data standards on women’s health, prioritize investments in women’s health research and galvanize research on new topics, according to the White House.

The new action will also drive research into women’s midlife health and diseases and conditions that are prevalent after menopause, including rheumatoid arthritis, heart attack, and osteoporosis. To do so, Health and Human Services will be directed to increase data collection about women’s midlife health and find ways to improve management of menopause-related issues.

The Food and Drug Administration plans to narrow the gap of product availability for diseases affecting women and issue industry guidance to include women in clinical trials; the Environmental Protection Agency plans to rework its grants process to ensure applicants consider women’s exposure and establish a Women’s Health Community of Practice to coordinate research; and the USDA plans to fund research into early warning signs of maternal mortality.

"I'm not even a betting woman but I'll bet today is the first time a president of the United States has ever signed an executive order that mentions the words menopause and women's midlife health in it," Shriver, the former first lady of California, said to applause. "With the stroke of his pen, women will get the answers and care they have long sought and they so rightly deserve."

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Monolith mystery reemerges in Wales, prompting speculation of space aliens

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(NEW YORK) -- A newly discovered 10-foot-tall silver monolith on a muddy bluff in Wales has reignited wild speculation on its origin after similar obelisks appeared in Utah, California, England and Romania.

The shiny spear impaled in the ground near Hay-on-Wye in Powys, Wales, was discovered this month by construction worker Craig Muir while he was out for his regular hike.

Muir posted a video of the bizarre find on TikTok, saying, "I come up here most days, and I've never seen this before. Almost looks like a UFO just put it on the ground."

He said that when he first discovered the object atop the roadless 2,221-foot Hay Bluff, he found no tire tracks or footprints around it that could explain a human connection.

Since word of the anomalous monolith spread through Wales and England, tourists and news crews have flocked to the bluff to get a look. Muir noted in a March 15 social media video that someone appeared to have hammer dents into what he said had initially been a polished silver facade.

Like others that have been discovered, the monolith harkens to those in the plot of moviemaker Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science fiction classic ,"2001: A Space Odyssey."

Muir described the statue as appearing to be made of steel, roughly 10-foot-tall by a foot-and-a-half wide, and hollow inside. He also noted it appears quite hefty, adding to the riddle of how it got there.

While some observers of the monolith chalked it up as an elaborate prank, others found the extraterrestrial angle plausible.

After posting his videos on the Hay-on-Wye Community Notice Board Facebook page, one person quipped, "I quite like the monolith, hope the aliens don't come and get it too soon."

No one has claimed responsibility for placing the monolith on the bluff.

The discovery was one of several that have occurred since 2016 around the world.

In November 2020, one was found in Utah's remote Red Rock desert, attracting spectators before a group of unidentified men removed it to parts unknown, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which denied any involvement in taking down the beam.

"We recognize the incredible interest the ‘monolith’ has generated worldwide. Many people have been enjoying the mystery and view it as a welcome distraction from the 2020 news cycle," the Bureau of Land Management said in a Nov. 29, 2020, statement. "Even so, it was installed without authorization on public lands and the site is in a remote area without services for the large number of people who now want to see it."

An artist collective calling itself "The Most Famous Artist" claimed responsibility for planting the Utah monolith and a replica beam that appeared around the same time near Atascadero, California.

The group, however, did not claim it was behind a monolith that appeared in northeastern Romania, whose origins remain unsolved.

A British designer claimed responsibility for a monolith that appeared on a beach in the Isle of Wight on the south coast of England in December 2020. Tom Dunford told the BBC he designed the piece "purely for fun.”

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Georgia’s Geoff Duncan says he won’t run with No Labels against Trump

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(WASHINGTON) -- Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan now says that he will not join No Labels' potential third-party "unity" ticket in the 2024 presidential race.

"After careful deliberation, I have withdrawn my name from consideration for the No Labels presidential ticket," Duncan said in a statement to ABC News on Monday. "It was an honor to be approached, and I am grateful to all those who are engaged in good-faith efforts to offer Americans a better choice than the Trump vs. Biden re-match."

"In addition to my private sector career and earning a living for my family of five, I am focused on healing and improving the Republican Party with a GOP 2.0 so we can elect more common-sense conservative candidates in the future," Duncan said.

ABC News reported earlier this month that, according to sources familiar with the group's efforts, No Labels representatives have had meetings with Duncan about running as their presidential candidate.

Duncan served as Georgia's lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2023. While he is a conservative Republican, he has been sharply critical of former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which were focused, in part, on Georgia.

In January, Duncan wrote an op-ed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution explaining why he would not support Trump for president in November.

"So now the uncomfortable part: admitting to your neighbors the ends don't justify the means any longer," he wrote. "Trump has become incapable of leading in a respectable or mature way. Until more of us are willing to acknowledge that hard truth, we will be on the outside looking in."

On March 8, No Labels voted to move forward with its effort to field a bipartisan challenge to the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees, President Joe Biden and Trump, with the group repeatedly citing polls that had suggested many people didn't watch a rematch of the two.

With that decision in early March, No Labels entered a second phase of their process, nominating a "Country Over Party Committee" that is tasked to find their candidates. Once those people are chosen, No Labels will reconvene at a future date to present the ticket to their delegates for approval.

No Labels leadership has rejected criticism that they will spoil the 2024 election by running a third-party option.

"We will never fuel a spoiler candidate," No Labels' chief strategist, Ryan Clancy, previously said. "We don't want to fuel any sort of candidacy that's pulling more votes from one side."

There is also a chance No Labels could decide to scrap all of its plans. While the group suggests that they have been talking to "exceptional leaders," that list of potential contenders has dwindled as Election Day nears.

The group is on the ballot in 17 states -- including three swing states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah.

No Labels previously claimed that it would be on the ballot in 34 states by the end of 2023.

Now, the group says it will attempt to get on the ballot in 33 states by the time a candidate is announced. The ticket would be responsible for the remainder of the states.

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Congress kicks off week without deal to avert partial government shutdown

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(WASHINGTON) -- Congress is beginning the week without a deal to avert a partial government shutdown by Friday's deadline -- as funding for the Department of Homeland Security trips up negotiations.

The Friday deadline is for the remaining six of 12 spending bills after Congress passed the first six earlier this month -- averting a partial government shutdown in the process.

This funding package will need to clear both chambers by Friday at midnight.

It was widely expected that negotiators would release legislative text for a government funding package by Sunday, but they blew through that deadline, raising questions about the prospects of a shutdown. Lawmakers are in crunch time to prevent a shutdown: the House has a rule requiring 72 hours for members to review legislation before voting; the Senate also can take a few days to process House-passed bills.

If there's no bill text Monday, that potentially pushes votes off until the end of the week or weekend -- increasing the chances of shutdown -- unless House Speaker Mike Johnson speeds up the process

The hang-up, according to GOP leadership sources, is funding for DHS, which would keep the agency funded at current levels. That would essentially be a cut – a strong signal given the surge of migrants at the southern border and that immigration is a key wedge issue in an election year.

A major sticking point is funding for border enforcement -- something Republicans want more money allocated to after a record number of migrant encounters at the southern border late last year.

Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing for more money for pay equity in the Transportation Security Administration.

Talks on funding for DHS were already in bad shape last week and congressional leaders ended up proposing a full-year continuing resolution to fund the department. The White House threatened to reject the CR over the weekend, according to a GOP leadership source.

The White House told ABC News that it didn't have a comment on the matter.

"House Republicans will continue to work in good faith to reach consensus on the appropriations bills that reprioritizes DHS funding towards enforcing border and immigration laws," Raj Shah, a spokesman for Johnson, said in a statement.

Sources says the other five funding bills are complete and agreed upon. The other bills include funding agencies such as the departments of Defense, State and Education.

This debacle is the latest challenge for Johnson, who has worked to come up plans to avert several shutdowns with his party's razor-thin majority. He has had to rely on House Democrats' votes to prevent shutdowns -- something that landed his predecessor Kevin McCarthy in hot water with the party and contributed to his ouster last year.

Many House Republicans have not aligned with Johnson on his plans to fund the government, with many pushing back on his plans to use continuing resolutions.

At the Republican retreat in West Virginia last week, Johnson said he was confident they'd be able to avert a shutdown.

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Biden campaign sees abortion rights, independent voters as key in Arizona and Nevada

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 9:42 pm
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(WASHINGTON) -- Ahead of President Joe Biden making campaign stops on Tuesday in Arizona and Nevada, advisers are laying out why they still place him in a better position than former President Donald Trump to win those two key battlegrounds, despite Biden’s mediocre polling in the early lead-up to the long general election fight.

On a call with reporters on Monday, aides to the president’s reelection bid previewed key areas where, they say, they see Biden having the advantage -- including on abortion and in wooing more moderate and independent voters, some of whom rejected Trump during his Republican primary fight with Nikki Haley.

"Nevada and Arizona are states that President Biden and Democrats won in 2020 and again in 2022. And this year, we have the message and the infrastructure to win yet again," one Biden campaign aide told reporters.

"These are states where voters overwhelmingly support a woman's right to choose and where abortion rights will likely be on the ballot [as well in November] -- and they are benefiting tremendously from the president's policies with tens of thousands of new good-paying jobs in clean energy and chips manufacturing,” the aide argued.

Echoing what is likely to be a key campaign message from Biden throughout the year, another adviser drew a “stark contrast” with the president and “what you see the Trump campaign not doing" in Arizona.

This aide went on to ding the Trump team for, they suggested, failing to connect with non-white voters, though Trump has made specific appeals to Black and Hispanic Americans, including as recently as his Ohio rally on Saturday.

Exit polls from the 2020 race against Biden also show Trump did marginally better with those groups than previous Republican candidates.

Knowing both states have a large population of independent voters, the Biden campaign said it continues to seek out former Haley supporters and moderates and independents not on board with Trump.

"Our campaign is paying attention to that and will be engaging voters very intentionally, to draw that contrast and invite them in,” one of the advisers said.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to hammer Biden over high inflation and immigration as well as a variety of foreign policy issues.

Seizing on what polling shows is broader feeling of economic discontent around the country, despite low unemployment and a strong stock market, among other factors, Trump has also cast himself as the candidate who can bring more prosperity back to everyday voters.

He assailed Biden at Saturday’s rally as the “worst president we’ve ever had.”

When asked if the campaign has reached out ahead of Tuesday's primary to organizers of a planned protest vote in Arizona -- spurred by Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza -- and whether Biden planned to address it while in the state, an aide offered what's now a canned response to ultimately say they won't take any vote for granted.

"The conflict between Israel and Hamas is painful. It's a difficult situation, and [President Biden] believes and this campaign believes that people have every right to make their voices heard,” the aide said. “And in many respects, the president shares the goal of the many who remain ‘uncommitted,’ which is working toward the end of the violence and working towards a just and lasting peace. That's his focus and the campaign supports that."

The protest movement, focused on urging voters to cast “uncommitted” or similar ballots instead of choosing Biden in the Democratic nominating contests, has gained some traction in a few states, including Minnesota and Michigan.

Uncommitted is also estimated to have won some delegates to the Democrats’ national convention this summer, giving them more of a voice.

Organizers of the protest vote in Arizona are urging Democrats to vote for Marianne Williamson instead of Biden since there isn't an uncommitted or write-in option on the ballot.

The Biden campaign said on Monday that he plans to spend time this week in the battleground counties of Washoe in Nevada and Maricopa in Arizona.

One of the advisers also defended the president so far mixing smaller events with a few larger-scale gatherings, unlike Trump, who favors massive and often headline-making rallies.

"These are strategic events. They allow us to break through a fragmented media environment. We do a lot of digital-first content to reach the voters who they know are sort of deeply disengaged from politics," the aide said. "Smaller retail events support that digital-first content. But I would also flag that we are continuing to do larger events as well. We can do both."

The campaign pitches their electoral path

In a new memo, also released on Monday, campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote that the center of the campaign's "multiple pathways" to 270 electoral votes are three key regions of the country.

Chavez Rodriguez highlighted "the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, western battlegrounds like Nevada and Arizona, and southern states like Georgia and North Carolina," adding they're also focusing on "Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia, while expanding the map in places like Florida and Texas."

Five of the states that Biden's campaign manager singled out -- Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia -- have all become reliably Democratic in past presidential years, suggesting the campaign will be somewhat on the defensive in 2024 in some parts of the country.

Regarding the Southwest, Chavez Rodriguez wrote that the campaign will focus its messaging in the region on abortion rights, job creation and its support from organized labor groups, while Trump allies such as Senate candidate Kari Lake "remain fixated on election denialism."

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Judge rules ‘Access Hollywood’ tape admissible in Trump hush money trial

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 4:50 pm
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(NEW YORK) -- The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s criminal prosecution in New York has denied Trump’s attempts to exclude the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape and testimony from key witnesses from his upcoming criminal trial.

The defense argued Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, should not be allowed to testify because he has a history of lying, arguing that calling him to the witness stand would amount to suborning perjury.

Judge Juan Merchan rejected the argument.

“This Court has been unable to locate any treatise, statute or holding from courts in this jurisdiction or others that support defendant’s rational that a particular witness should be kept off the witness stand because his credibility has been previously called into question,” Merchan said.

He also will allow Stormy Daniels to testify since she is the recipient of the $130,000 hush payment at the center of the case, writing, “The probative value of the evidence is evident.“

Merchan declined to omit the "Access Hollywood" tape in which Trump is overheard bragging about how he approaches women.

Trump’s criminal trial in New York has been delayed until at least mid-April.

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SCOTUS denies stay of sentence for ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 4:41 pm
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(WASHINGTON) -- Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro must report to prison on Tuesday as scheduled, after the Supreme Court on Monday denied the stay of his sentence.

Navarro was ordered on March 11 to report to prison in Miami on Tuesday, to serve a four-month sentence.

He was convicted in September of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide testimony and documents to the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Navarro on Friday filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to remain out of prison as he works to overturn his conviction.

In his filing to the Supreme Court, Navarro's attorney Stanley Woodward argued Navarro "is indisputably neither a flight risk nor a danger to public safety should he be released pending appeal."

In testimony during Navarro's trial, former Jan. 6 committee staff director David Buckley said the House panel had been seeking to question Navarro about efforts to delay Congress' certification of the 2020 election, a plan Navarro dubbed the "Green Bay Sweep" in his book "In Trump Time."

Navarro unsuccessfully argued that former President Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege over his testimony and document production.

"For the first time in our nation's history, a senior presidential advisor has been convicted of contempt of Congress after asserting executive privilege over a congressional subpoena," Woodward's filing said. "Dr. Navarro has appealed and will raise a number of issues on appeal that he contends are likely to result in the reversal of his conviction, or a new trial."

Navarro would become the first former Trump adviser to report to prison for actions related to the Jan. 6 attack.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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What to know about President Biden’s executive order on women’s health research

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 4:41 pm
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) -- President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order Monday promoting women's health research as the country continues to celebrate Women's History Month.

The White House described it as the "most comprehensive set of actions" taken by a president to advance women's health research, which will focus on diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect women.

Biden has previously hinted to the initiative during his State of the Union address earlier this month, describing women's health as chronically underfunded and calling on Congress to approve $12 billion to support a women's health fund for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Here are some of the women's health issues Biden said he wants to tackle in his executive order:

Research focusing on women's health after menopause

Biden's executive order will support research into women's midlife health and diseases that are prevalent after menopause, including heart disease and osteoporosis.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be directed to increase data collection about women's midlife health and find ways to improve management of menopause-related issues.

After someone goes through menopause, their ovaries produce less estrogen, which increases the risk of developing certain health problems.

Heart disease is one of the most common health problems women face after menopause. Women have a lower risk of heart disease than men before age 55 because estrogen protects blood vessels and helps the body balance cholesterol levels.

Once a woman produces less estrogen, arteries can become thicker and stiffen, and "bad" cholesterol may build up on the walls of the arteries leading to heart disease.

By age 70, women have the same risk for heart disease as men of similar age, according to the HHS. They are also at increased risk of stroke.

Osteoporosis -- a bone disease caused by a loss of bone density and bone mass as well as structural changes to the bone -- is another risk facing postmenopausal women. Lower estrogen levels after menopause can speed up the loss of bone mass, increasing the risk of fractures.

It's unknown how many older women have osteoporosis in the U.S. but, using criteria from the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated about 30% of caucasian postmenopausal women have osteoporosis, according to the Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center.

Under the executive order, Biden also stated the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs will evaluate the needs of women service members and veterans for midlife health issues, including menopausal symptoms.

More women in clinical trials

In the executive order, the president said members of the initiative would work to "improve the recruitment, enrollment, and retention of women in clinical trials, including, as appropriate, by reducing barriers through technological and data sciences advances."

As recently as the 1970s, few women were enrolled in clinical trials, and it was believed women's health needs were a low priority.

In 1986, the NIH establish a policy that encouraged the inclusion of women in studies, but the policy was poorly communicated and inconsistently applied. Eventually, Congress passed a law in 1993 that established guidelines for the inclusion of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups in clinical research.

However, women are still underrepresented, particularly in the early stages of clinical trials. One 2022 study found women account for between 29% and 34% of early-stage clinical trials due to concerns about fertility. This can often lead to a lack of understanding about how women may respond to a new drug compared to men.

Another 2022 study from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital found females make up 60% of all patients with psychiatric disorders, but just 42% of participants in clinical trials investigating drugs and devices to treat those disorders. Similar findings were seen with examined data from clinical trials for cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Conditions with different symptoms for men and women

During a press call on Sunday afternoon, Dr. Carolyn Mazure, chairperson of the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research, said the order will also focus on conditions that affect women disproportionately including Alzheimer's disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Women have a greater lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than men, one reason being that women live longer than men, according to an article published in Harvard Health Publishing from Harvard Medical School.

However, it's not understood if there are any biomarkers or other unknown factors that make women more susceptible.

In the case of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), women are up to three times more likely than men to be diagnosed with the condition. It is believed that several factors, including sex hormones, play a role, but researchers say more work needs to be done in understanding why women are more predisposed to developing RA and also why different joints are affected in women compared to men.

ABC News' Frtiz Farrow and Selina Wang contributed to this report.

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Famine is ‘imminent’ in northern Gaza, with many facing ‘catastrophic’ levels of hunger: Report

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 4:30 pm
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(NEW YORK) -- Famine is "imminent" in northern Gaza, as the entire population of the strip experiences high levels of food insecurity amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, according to a report released Monday.

The report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative said a famine in the north of the strip may occur between mid-March and the end of May unless an immediate cease-fire occurs so that essential food and supplies can be delivered consistently to Gazans.

"The conditions necessary to prevent famine have not been met and the latest evidence confirms that famine is imminent in the northern governorates," the report said.

The report projects that northern Gaza will be classified as Phase 5, the highest stage of food insecurity equivalent to famine levels of starvation, in the next month and a half. Additionally, 70% of the remaining population in the north, or about 210,000 Gazans, will experience "catastrophic" levels of hunger, according to the report.

"Continued conflict and the near-complete lack of access to the northern governorates for humanitarian organizations and commercial trucks will likely compound heightened vulnerabilities and extremely limited food availability, access and utilization, as well as access to health care, water and sanitation," according to the report.

Currently, the IPC classifies governorates in the south of Gaza, including Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah, in its Phase 4 category, meaning very high levels of malnutrition and only able to mitigate a lack of food through emergency strategies or a liquidation of assets.

However, the IPC says that in a worst-case scenario, the three governorates face a risk of famine through July 2024.

The report also found that the entire population of the Gaza Strip, about 2.23 million people, is facing high levels of food insecurity and, in the most likely scenario, an estimated 1.11 million people -- half of the population -- will be experiencing famine levels of hunger by mid-July. This is an increase from the 530,000 people who were predicted to experience this level of food insecurity in a previous IPC analysis, according to the report.

Multiple United Nations organizations have warned since January that more than half the population in Gaza faces "catastrophic hunger" -- especially northern Gaza, which the U.N. says has been largely cut off for months now. Some people in the north of the strip said they have been forced to eat bird feed in place of flour to stave off starvation.

The IPC report comes on the heels of a statement from the nonprofit organization CARE released Friday stating babies and toddlers in northern Gaza are dying from starvation.

At least 27 individuals have died from severe acute malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza, according to CARE. Of those individuals, 23 were children and the youngest was just a few days old, the organization said.

An analysis from CARE and its partner organization Juzoor looking at data from 1,329 children aged 2 and younger in northern Gaza showed children categorized as having moderate or severe malnutrition nearly doubled in February compared to January, from 16% to 29%.

"No one is suffering more in this war than those who have yet to utter their first word," Hiba Tibi, country director for CARE in the West Bank and Gaza, said in a press release.

"This war is causing an entire generation of children to lose their childhood and future. Imagine watching your baby perish in front of your eyes, simply because you cannot get her the food she needs? Imagine hearing your children's cries for bread, but there is nothing you can give them? The situation is simply unbearable, unjustifiable and needs to stop immediately," Tibi said.

Israel, with the support of Egypt, has restricted the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza since the terrorist group Hamas came to power in 2007.

Those restrictions tightened following Hamas' surprise attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented incursion from Gaza into southern Israel by air, land and sea. More than 1,200 people in Israel were killed and 253 others were taken hostage by Hamas, according to Israeli authorities.

The Israeli government, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has said it's determined to destroy Hamas and plans to invade Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where it says Hamas leaders are hiding and where Israeli officials believe some of the hostages are being kept in tunnels.

More than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 72,000 others have been injured in Gaza since Oct. 7, amid Israel's ongoing ground operations and aerial bombardment of the strip, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has previously said Israel doesn't provide enough authorization to deliver sufficient aid and, even when it does give authorization, the fighting makes it difficult to deliver that aid.

Israeli officials have said Hamas steals aid once it enters Gaza and claim looting is also a problem. Israel continues to deny all accusations that it isn't letting enough aid into Gaza, and encourages other countries to send in aid, with Israeli officials saying the U.N., its partners and other aid agencies have created logistical challenges, resulting in a bottleneck. The U.N. disputes these claims.

The head of the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs said last week there is "no limit on the amount of aid that can enter into Gaza."

According to local media outlets, aid trucks reached areas of northern Gaza, including Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, over the weekend -- the first time in four months.

However, several U.N. agencies, including UNRWA and UNICEF, have called for a cease-fire so more aid can be delivered.

"Children's malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in #Gaza. Famine is looming. There is no time to waste," the UNRWA wrote in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday.

ABC News' Nasser Atta contributed to this report.

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EPA bans remaining uses of cancer-causing asbestos in the US

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 4:30 pm
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call

(WASHINGTON) -- The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a United States ban on the ongoing use of chrysotile asbestos -- a carcinogen that the agency estimates is linked to more than 40,000 U.S. deaths each year.

The announcement comes as part of President Joe Biden's Cancer Moonshot initiative, which is using federal resources to make progress on cancer research and treatment.

"While the use of asbestos in the United States has been declining for decades, the use of chrysotile asbestos has continued to this day. Because of its resistance to heat, fire and electrical conduction, it has remained in use for a variety of construction and industrial products," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a Monday press call.

"But the science is clear and settled," Regan added. "There is simply no safe level of exposure to asbestos."

Chrysotile asbestos is the only known form of asbestos currently used in or imported to the U.S. Exposure to asbestos can cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, ovarian cancer and other health issues, Regan said. It is also linked to more than 40,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to the EPA.

"Asbestos has harmed people across the country for decades, and under President Biden's leadership, we are taking decisive action to ban its use and advance this administration's historic environmental justice agenda," White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory said in a news release. "This action marks a major step to improve chemical safety after decades of inadequate protections, helping advance President Biden's Cancer Moonshot goal to end cancer as we know it."

The EPA previously tried to ban asbestos in most products under the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1989, but the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the ban could apply only to products that would use asbestos for the first time. Continued use of asbestos in existing products was permitted.

Asbestos is currently used in the U.S. in products such as brake linings and gaskets in cars and in the production of chlorine.

Monday's ban is the first the EPA has issued for existing chemical use since Congress updated the Toxic Substances Control Act in 2016, which changed the process for evaluating and addressing safety concerns.

"The failed asbestos ban from over 30 years ago was the reason why we needed to rewrite TSCA. And why Congress did so with almost unanimous support in 2016," said Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. "Today's rule is important for public health, but it's also a symbol of how the new law can and must be used to protect people."

Regan called the ban a "sign of what's to come."

"The Biden administration is transforming the way EPA is using the new chemical safety law to do what it was meant to do -- protect people from toxic chemicals," he said.

The EPA has set compliance deadlines for the ban to transition away from different uses of chrysotile asbestos, attempting to provide a reasonable transition period while discontinuing the use of asbestos in each product as soon as possible, the agency said.

"At EPA, protecting public health and the environment is our privilege and our greatest responsibility," Regan said. "And today's rule is a major step forward in helping us to achieve our goals."

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Capitol Police wearing body cameras in pilot program to build public trust

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 4:19 pm

(WASHINGTON) -- The U.S. Capitol Police on Monday started wearing body-worn cameras as part of its pilot program to protect its officers and members of Congress as well as enhance public trust, its chief said.

Seventy Capitol Police officers will wear the body cameras during the 180-day program. Eleven Capitol Police cruisers will be outfitted with dashboard cameras that will automatically record if a cruiser's emergency lights are triggered.

"I was confident that the cameras would do two things. First, they would remind the public just how challenging the law enforcement profession can be," Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in a news release. "Second, the cameras would also showcase the great work our cops do day in and day out. This is a great accountability tool for everyone."

Body cameras will not be used inside buildings on the Capitol or during interactions with members of Congress, Capitol Police said, as a measure to "protect the constitutional duties of members of Congress."

"The cameras will record public interactions requiring a police response," Capitol Police said in the release.

Officers will inform people if they are being recorded at the beginning of an interaction, and the cameras will record video and audio when officers use firearms or tasers, Capitol Police said.

The program comes after a review of Capitol security released following the Jan. 6 attack recommended Capitol Police use body-worn cameras to improve police accountability and protect officers from false accusations.

Once the pilot program is completed, a task force including sworn and civilian supervisors in the department will use feedback to analyze the program, and Manger will send a recommendation regarding a permanent body worn camera program to congressional stakeholders.

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Biden gets Netanyahu to send delegation to Washington to resolve standoff over Rafah invasion

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 4:20 pm
Caroline Purser/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) -- Israel's expected military invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza was the focus of President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call Monday -- their first in more than a month -- with the White House saying Biden is still not satisfied that Israel will do enough to prevent civilian casualties as it goes after Hamas fighters in the city.

In the latest development in a standoff between Biden and Netanyahu that's gone on for weeks -- with the U.S. demanding a satisfactory "plan" from Israel -- national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Netanyahu, at Biden's request, would be sending a delegation to Washington to try to work out what he called "an alternative approach."

Speaking at a White House briefing, Sullivan had some of the administration's strongest words yet for how Israel has conducted itself in Gaza and how the U.S. would view an invasion of Rafah, where over a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

"A humanitarian crisis has descended across Gaza. And anarchy reigns in areas that Israel's military has cleared, but not stabilized," Sullivan said.

"A major ground operation there would be a mistake; it would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worse than the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepening the anarchy in Gaza, and further isolate Israel internationally," he told reporters. "More importantly, the key goals Israel wants to achieve in Rafah can be done by other means."

Sullivan said during the call Monday, Biden "rejected" that "raising questions about Rafah is the same as raising questions about defeating Hamas."

"That's just nonsense. Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else," he said.

Sullivan also highlighted that Rafah is also a "key entry point" for humanitarian assistance that could shut down or face a "great risk" if an invasion occurs, and that Egypt has also expressed concern for a military operation there.

He announced that Israel "in the coming days" will be sending a team of officials from across many areas of government to hear the administration's concerns about the Rafah operation and to work on an alternative.

"On the call today, President Biden asked the Prime Minister to send a senior interagency team, composed of military, intelligence, and humanitarian officials, to Washington in the coming days to hear U.S. concerns about Israel's current Rafah planning and to lay out an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in Rafah and secure the Egypt Gaza border without a major ground invasion," Sullivan said.

Sullivan said that while Netanyahu agreed to send a team to the meeting, he "has his own point of view" on a Rafah operation.

"Send your team to Washington," Sullivan said. "Let's talk about it. We'll lay out for you what we believe is a better way."

Sullivan stressed several times that Israel needs a "coherent and sustainable strategy" for its military operations that are connected to a "clear strategic end game." He repeated the administration's public view that the White House has "every expectation" that no major military operation will happen in Rafah until the two sides meet.

At the same time, though, when pressed by ABC News' Karen Travers, Sullivan declined to say whether the Biden's call was the "come to Jesus" meeting with Netanyahu that Biden mentioned in a hot-mic moment on the House floor just minutes after his State of the Union address.

"I'm not going to characterize that on behalf of the president. I will just describe what happened in the conversation as I've done here today, and I'll let you all draw your own conclusions."

Sullivan said the leaders would stay in "close touch" in the coming days and weeks.

ABC News' Karen Travers contributed to this report.

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Trump, some co-defendants in Fulton County begin appeals process of disqualification ruling

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 4:00 pm
Jason Marz/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) -- Former President Donald Trump and some of his co-defendants in the Fulton County election interference case on Monday kicked off the process to appeal the judge's disqualification ruling that ultimately kept District Attorney Fani Willis on the case, asking the court in a new motion to grant a certificate of immediate review.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
 

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Key GOP impeachment witness won’t attend open committee hearing, citing ‘short notice’

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 3:50 pm
Phil Roeder/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) -- Devon Archer, a key witness in House Republicans' impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, will not attend a high-profile open hearing this week, citing what his attorney characterized as a "patently unreasonable" amount of time to prepare.

Matthew Schwartz, an attorney for Archer -- a former Hunter Biden business associate, revealed Monday in a letter to a top Oversight Committee investigator that the panel only contacted him on Friday in an "end-of-day email" to inquire about whether his client would attend the hearing on Wednesday, which Schwartz says "is sure to be a closely-watched public hearing that the committee has provocatively entitled 'Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden's Abuse of Public Office.'"

"The answer is no," Schwartz wrote to the committee, according to a copy of the letter obtained by ABC News. "Providing such short notice for a witness's public appearance before the Committee on a matter of national importance is patently unreasonable."

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer publicly invited Archer to appear alongside Hunter Biden and two other witnesses in their probe -- Jason Galanis and Tony Bobulinski -- at the public hearing on March 7 and has frequently promoted the hearing in public statements since then.

"This is an opportunity for Hunter [Biden] to have the hearing he wanted," Comer said on Fox News over the weekend. “We want the public hearing. We actually need the public hearing because of the discrepancies" between Hunter Biden’s closed-door testimony and what other witnesses in the probe have told the committee, he said.

But according to Schwartz's letter, Archer first received word from the committee late Friday. Schwartz alluded to an invitation attached to the Friday email dated March 6 and transmitted to Devon Archer "via counsel," but he claimed "that latter was never sent to me."

Schwartz suggested the letter dated March 6 was mistakenly sent to a different attorney.

"As you well know (and as the lawyer to whom you sent the letter has confirmed), I have been the only lawyer to represent Mr. Archer in the Committee's work, including representing him at the July interview," Schwartz said.

Archer's testimony last year was promoted by House Republicans as some of the most damning evidence of the Biden family's alleged influence peddling. Comer hoped to air some of Archer's closed-door testimony -- including a claim that Hunter Biden frequently put his father on speakerphone in the presence of business associates -- in a public setting.

But in his letter Monday, Schwartz wrote that "it is not remotely reasonable to ask an important witness in what is sure to be a closely-watched public hearing ... to prepare witness testimony in one business day, and to prepare to give public testimony in less than three business days."

Schwartz reiterated his client's willingness to cooperate in the investigation and asked them to suggest other dates in the future for Archer to testify publicly. Archer is currently preparing to report to prison for defrauding a Native American tribe.

Hunter Biden last week also declined the panel's invitation to testify publicly, despite previously expressing an interest in doing so, calling the hearing a "carnival sideshow" and a "blatant planned-for-media event."

Archer and the two other witnesses invited to participate in the hearing -- Galanis and Bobulinski -- are former business associates of Hunter Biden who have since become critics of the Biden family.

Bobulinski released a statement last week signaling his intention to appear for the hearing.

Mark Paoletta, an attorney for Galanis -- who is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence in Alabama for securities fraud -- said his client "is willing to testify at this hearing to provide his firsthand knowledge of then-Vice President Joe Biden helping his son Hunter Biden in his business dealings."

A spokesperson for the Oversight Committee did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

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Putin extends rule in state-managed election victory

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 3:10 pm
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(LONDON) -- President Vladimir Putin was handed a fifth term in Russia’s heavily stage-managed presidential election on Sunday in a vote where no real competition was permitted and with virtually all leading opposition figures jailed, in exile or dead.

The election, held over three days, gave Putin over 87% of the vote, extending his already 24-year rule until at least 2030 – a stratospheric result that recalled the illusionary elections of the Soviet Union or those of other dictatorships, such as North Korea or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

It was the highest result ever for Putin and underlined the extent that dissent is no longer acceptable to the Kremlin, amid Russia’s rapid turn deeper into dictatorship since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago. Election officials also claimed the turnout was 77%, the highest in modern Russian history.

Putin on Monday evening led a victory rally in Red Square timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. A crowd of several thousand cheered Putin as he walked on stage, waving Russian flags and chanting “Russia.” Putin congratulated them on the annexation and expressed satisfaction that Donbas and other areas of southeastern Ukraine were also now under Russian control.

“Hail Russia!” Putin shouted to the crowd.

Many who were present at similar previous rallies have described being bussed in and pressured by their state employers to attend. Parts of central Moscow were choked with lines of buses on Monday ahead of the rally, according to ABC reporters there.

Western countries denounced the election as neither free nor fair, with the European Union saying it had violated the basic rights of Russians.

“The result was clearly set beforehand,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s deputy spokeswoman, Christiane Hoffmann, reportedly told journalists in Berlin. “Russia is a dictatorship and is ruled by Putin in an authoritarian way.”

Similarly, a White House National Security Council spokesperson said “the elections are obviously not free nor fair, given how Mr. Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him.”

However, the leaders of several key non-Western countries and Russian allies, including India and China, quickly congratulated Putin.

The three candidates permitted to run against Putin, each of whom received less than 5% of the vote, were vetted by the Kremlin. Anti-war candidates were blocked from the ballot and the election was held amid a worsening crackdown that has seen even minor public expressions of dissent punished with fines and prison sentences.

Despite the Kremlin’s orchestrated efforts to present the appearance of near-total support for Putin, thousands of Russians appeared to heed a call from the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny to demonstrate around the elections. Navalny before his death in prison last month urged people to gather at the same time outside polling stations at midday on Sunday.

The protest action, called “High Noon Against Putin,” was intended to show that significant numbers of Russians still oppose Putin, regardless of the official result. People were told to vote for any candidate other than Putin, or to spoil their ballots.

Thousands of people did come out at noon, forming long lines in cities across Russia, as well as at embassies in foreign capitals where overseas voting was held.

Some of the longest lines formed in capitals where large numbers of Russians have emigrated since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In London, a line stretched roughly a mile from the Russian embassy, with some people holding placards condemning Putin and the war, and blasting protest songs at the embassy building.

In Berlin, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, joined the line outside the embassy, waiting approximately six hours to vote, meeting with and embracing supporters there. Afterward, she told reporters she had written her husband’s name on her ballot.

In Russia, authorities had warned people they could face arrest for taking part in the demonstrations. Russia’s government on Monday dismissed them, claiming implausibly that the unusually long lines were due to people waiting to vote for Putin. Appearing at a press conference on Sunday night after declaring victory, Putin himself appeared to troll the protestors, praising the opposition for telling people to vote.

“Well done,” Putin said. “But as far as I understand it didn’t have any effect.”

Golos, an independent Russian NGO that for years has sought to monitor elections and that has been banned for its efforts, denounced the election as an “imitation,” saying every basic element of a free vote had been violated.

“We have never seen a presidential campaign that so much didn’t correspondent to constitutional standards,” the group said in a statement. “In essence the basic articles of Russia’s constitution guaranteeing political rights and freedoms were not operating.”

Authorities made it impossible to monitor voting, Golos wrote, and also had full control over ballot counting. Even to run again, Putin had changed Russia’s constitution in 2020 to circumvent a two-term limit, it noted.

Golos’ chairman, Grigory Melkonyants, remains in jail in Russia after being arrested last August for allegedly associating with what the government calls an “undesirable” organization.

The head of Russia’s elections commission, Ella Pamfilova, claimed Sunday there had been virtually no irregularities in Sunday’s polling and that none of the total results from 90,000 polling stations had been disqualified, which she called “unprecedented.”

Voting was also held in occupied areas of Ukraine, in violation of international law, with videos showing voting taking place in the presence of armed Russian troops.

Putin has hailed the election as demonstrating a clear mandate for his war in Ukraine. In his victory speech on Sunday, he said that he did not exclude that Russia would need to create a “sanitary cordon” on Ukrainian territory, perhaps even including the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, that borders Russia.

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With eye on 2024 election, Biden touts executive order on women’s health research

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 2:30 pm
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) -- President Joe Biden signed an executive order Monday that he said marks the launch of "the first-ever White House initiative of women's health research to pioneer the next generation of scientific research and discovery of women's health."

The order, he said, will direct the "most comprehensive set of executive actions ever taken" to address women's health by prioritizing it across the federal government.

"Because it really matters. Because we are focused on supporting women together," Biden said in remarks from the East Room, where he was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden and Maria Shriver, the founder of Women's Alzheimer's Movement.

Women helped deliver Biden the White House in the 2020 election, and as the campaign season heats up, he's again focusing on female voters.

During the speech, Biden touted what he said was his administration's record of prioritizing women to improve the economy through shoring up women's participation in the workforce and prioritizing access to child care and the child tax credit.

He vowed to continue his efforts to renew the now expired program in the face of GOP opposition.

"Through my American Rescue Plan and the child tax credit, we cut child poverty nearly in half. That is a fact," Biden said. "Which I might add, and my Republican friends tell me we spent a lot of money, it's saving billions of dollars. Saving billions of dollars. We're actually cutting the deficit, too. Republicans voted against to let it expire but I'm fighting to bring the child tax credit back."

He also focused heavily on reproductive health, promising, as he has many times before, to codify the abortion rights access in Roe v. Wade if voters send a Congress willing to do so in November.

Biden tried to draw a contrast with his 2024 election rival -- former President Donald Trump -- referring to him as his "predecessor."

"Democracy is literally at stake here at home and abroad. Our basic freedoms are under assault. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and so much more. My predecessor and his allies in Congress make no apologies for it. But here's the deal. It's the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court wrote, quote, 'women are not without electoral and or political power.' No kidding," Biden said.

"You send me a Democratic Congress that supports reproductive freedom, I promise you, I promise you -- we will restore Roe v. Wade, again as the law of the land," he said.

Vice President Harris also stressed the importance of the upcoming election as she spoke about her historic visit Planned Parenthood clinic in Minneapolis last week. She commended the "courageous" medical professionals caring for patients as clinics across the country close due to state-level restrictions imposed after the fall of Roe.

"There is so much at stake in this moment and we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in? Do we want to live in a country of liberty, freedom and rule of law or a country of disorder, fear and hate?" Harris said. "Each of us has the power to answer that question with our feet, with our voice and with our vote."

Biden’s executive order will direct federal agencies to strengthen research and data standards on women’s health, prioritize investments in women’s health research and galvanize research on new topics, according to the White House.

The new action will also drive research into women’s midlife health and diseases and conditions that are prevalent after menopause, including rheumatoid arthritis, heart attack, and osteoporosis. To do so, Health and Human Services will be directed to increase data collection about women’s midlife health and find ways to improve management of menopause-related issues.

The Food and Drug Administration plans to narrow the gap of product availability for diseases affecting women and issue industry guidance to include women in clinical trials; the Environmental Protection Agency plans to rework its grants process to ensure applicants consider women’s exposure and establish a Women’s Health Community of Practice to coordinate research; and the USDA plans to fund research into early warning signs of maternal mortality.

"I'm not even a betting woman but I'll bet today is the first time a president of the United States has ever signed an executive order that mentions the words menopause and women's midlife health in it," Shriver, the former first lady of California, said to applause. "With the stroke of his pen, women will get the answers and care they have long sought and they so rightly deserve."

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Monolith mystery reemerges in Wales, prompting speculation of space aliens

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 2:30 pm
Geraint Rowland Photography/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) -- A newly discovered 10-foot-tall silver monolith on a muddy bluff in Wales has reignited wild speculation on its origin after similar obelisks appeared in Utah, California, England and Romania.

The shiny spear impaled in the ground near Hay-on-Wye in Powys, Wales, was discovered this month by construction worker Craig Muir while he was out for his regular hike.

Muir posted a video of the bizarre find on TikTok, saying, "I come up here most days, and I've never seen this before. Almost looks like a UFO just put it on the ground."

He said that when he first discovered the object atop the roadless 2,221-foot Hay Bluff, he found no tire tracks or footprints around it that could explain a human connection.

Since word of the anomalous monolith spread through Wales and England, tourists and news crews have flocked to the bluff to get a look. Muir noted in a March 15 social media video that someone appeared to have hammer dents into what he said had initially been a polished silver facade.

Like others that have been discovered, the monolith harkens to those in the plot of moviemaker Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science fiction classic ,"2001: A Space Odyssey."

Muir described the statue as appearing to be made of steel, roughly 10-foot-tall by a foot-and-a-half wide, and hollow inside. He also noted it appears quite hefty, adding to the riddle of how it got there.

While some observers of the monolith chalked it up as an elaborate prank, others found the extraterrestrial angle plausible.

After posting his videos on the Hay-on-Wye Community Notice Board Facebook page, one person quipped, "I quite like the monolith, hope the aliens don't come and get it too soon."

No one has claimed responsibility for placing the monolith on the bluff.

The discovery was one of several that have occurred since 2016 around the world.

In November 2020, one was found in Utah's remote Red Rock desert, attracting spectators before a group of unidentified men removed it to parts unknown, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which denied any involvement in taking down the beam.

"We recognize the incredible interest the ‘monolith’ has generated worldwide. Many people have been enjoying the mystery and view it as a welcome distraction from the 2020 news cycle," the Bureau of Land Management said in a Nov. 29, 2020, statement. "Even so, it was installed without authorization on public lands and the site is in a remote area without services for the large number of people who now want to see it."

An artist collective calling itself "The Most Famous Artist" claimed responsibility for planting the Utah monolith and a replica beam that appeared around the same time near Atascadero, California.

The group, however, did not claim it was behind a monolith that appeared in northeastern Romania, whose origins remain unsolved.

A British designer claimed responsibility for a monolith that appeared on a beach in the Isle of Wight on the south coast of England in December 2020. Tom Dunford told the BBC he designed the piece "purely for fun.”

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Georgia’s Geoff Duncan says he won’t run with No Labels against Trump

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 12:49 pm
Ben Hendren/Bloomberg via Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) -- Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan now says that he will not join No Labels' potential third-party "unity" ticket in the 2024 presidential race.

"After careful deliberation, I have withdrawn my name from consideration for the No Labels presidential ticket," Duncan said in a statement to ABC News on Monday. "It was an honor to be approached, and I am grateful to all those who are engaged in good-faith efforts to offer Americans a better choice than the Trump vs. Biden re-match."

"In addition to my private sector career and earning a living for my family of five, I am focused on healing and improving the Republican Party with a GOP 2.0 so we can elect more common-sense conservative candidates in the future," Duncan said.

ABC News reported earlier this month that, according to sources familiar with the group's efforts, No Labels representatives have had meetings with Duncan about running as their presidential candidate.

Duncan served as Georgia's lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2023. While he is a conservative Republican, he has been sharply critical of former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which were focused, in part, on Georgia.

In January, Duncan wrote an op-ed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution explaining why he would not support Trump for president in November.

"So now the uncomfortable part: admitting to your neighbors the ends don't justify the means any longer," he wrote. "Trump has become incapable of leading in a respectable or mature way. Until more of us are willing to acknowledge that hard truth, we will be on the outside looking in."

On March 8, No Labels voted to move forward with its effort to field a bipartisan challenge to the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees, President Joe Biden and Trump, with the group repeatedly citing polls that had suggested many people didn't watch a rematch of the two.

With that decision in early March, No Labels entered a second phase of their process, nominating a "Country Over Party Committee" that is tasked to find their candidates. Once those people are chosen, No Labels will reconvene at a future date to present the ticket to their delegates for approval.

No Labels leadership has rejected criticism that they will spoil the 2024 election by running a third-party option.

"We will never fuel a spoiler candidate," No Labels' chief strategist, Ryan Clancy, previously said. "We don't want to fuel any sort of candidacy that's pulling more votes from one side."

There is also a chance No Labels could decide to scrap all of its plans. While the group suggests that they have been talking to "exceptional leaders," that list of potential contenders has dwindled as Election Day nears.

The group is on the ballot in 17 states -- including three swing states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah.

No Labels previously claimed that it would be on the ballot in 34 states by the end of 2023.

Now, the group says it will attempt to get on the ballot in 33 states by the time a candidate is announced. The ticket would be responsible for the remainder of the states.

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Congress kicks off week without deal to avert partial government shutdown

Posted/updated on: March 18, 2024 at 2:40 pm
Phil Roeder/ Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) -- Congress is beginning the week without a deal to avert a partial government shutdown by Friday's deadline -- as funding for the Department of Homeland Security trips up negotiations.

The Friday deadline is for the remaining six of 12 spending bills after Congress passed the first six earlier this month -- averting a partial government shutdown in the process.

This funding package will need to clear both chambers by Friday at midnight.

It was widely expected that negotiators would release legislative text for a government funding package by Sunday, but they blew through that deadline, raising questions about the prospects of a shutdown. Lawmakers are in crunch time to prevent a shutdown: the House has a rule requiring 72 hours for members to review legislation before voting; the Senate also can take a few days to process House-passed bills.

If there's no bill text Monday, that potentially pushes votes off until the end of the week or weekend -- increasing the chances of shutdown -- unless House Speaker Mike Johnson speeds up the process

The hang-up, according to GOP leadership sources, is funding for DHS, which would keep the agency funded at current levels. That would essentially be a cut – a strong signal given the surge of migrants at the southern border and that immigration is a key wedge issue in an election year.

A major sticking point is funding for border enforcement -- something Republicans want more money allocated to after a record number of migrant encounters at the southern border late last year.

Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing for more money for pay equity in the Transportation Security Administration.

Talks on funding for DHS were already in bad shape last week and congressional leaders ended up proposing a full-year continuing resolution to fund the department. The White House threatened to reject the CR over the weekend, according to a GOP leadership source.

The White House told ABC News that it didn't have a comment on the matter.

"House Republicans will continue to work in good faith to reach consensus on the appropriations bills that reprioritizes DHS funding towards enforcing border and immigration laws," Raj Shah, a spokesman for Johnson, said in a statement.

Sources says the other five funding bills are complete and agreed upon. The other bills include funding agencies such as the departments of Defense, State and Education.

This debacle is the latest challenge for Johnson, who has worked to come up plans to avert several shutdowns with his party's razor-thin majority. He has had to rely on House Democrats' votes to prevent shutdowns -- something that landed his predecessor Kevin McCarthy in hot water with the party and contributed to his ouster last year.

Many House Republicans have not aligned with Johnson on his plans to fund the government, with many pushing back on his plans to use continuing resolutions.

At the Republican retreat in West Virginia last week, Johnson said he was confident they'd be able to avert a shutdown.

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