Biden campaign raises $25m ‘money bomb’ at event with Obama and Clinton

Chuck Schumer and Lizzo made appearances before the presidents talked onstage in event that widens fundraising lead over Trump

Joe Biden and his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, headlined a star-studded fundraiser with Bill Clinton on Thursday that organizers said raised more than $25m for the US president’s re-election campaign.

Such a haul, which Politico called an “NYC money bomb”, will widen Biden’s lead over Donald Trump in fundraising for the November election.

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Joe Lieberman, former US senator and vice-presidential nominee, dies at 82

Lieberman, Connecticut senator for four terms, was Al Gore’s Democratic running mate in 2000

The former US senator Joe Lieberman, who ran as the Democratic nominee for vice-president in the 2000 election and became the first Jewish candidate on a major-party ticket for the White House, alongside presidential candidate Al Gore, has died at the age of 82.

Lieberman died in New York due to complications from a fall, according to a statement from his family. He was a Connecticut senator for four terms.

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New Jersey’s first lady suspends Senate run: ‘It’s time to unify, not divide’

Tammy Murphy was campaigning for Bob Menendez’s seat and her exit leaves Andy Kim as clear winner for Democratic nomination

New Jersey’s first lady Tammy Murphy has announced the suspension of her Senate campaign.

In a video message posted to Twitter/X on Sunday, Murphy said: “After many busy, invigorating, and yet challenging months, I am suspending my Senate campaign today. I’ve been genuine and factual throughout. But it is clear to me that continuing in this race will involve waging a very divisive and negative campaign, which I am not willing to do.”

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Democrat becomes first state lawmaker to speak while pregnant about fight to get abortion post-Roe

Eva Burch, a Democrat, gave 10-minute speech on floor of state senate on Monday about state’s ‘coercive’ maze of restrictions

When Eva Burch learned that her pregnancy was not progressing and decided to have an abortion, Burch and her husband quickly made another decision: Burch, who is a Democratic state senator in Arizona, was going to speak up about it – from the floor of the state senate.

On Monday, as her voice shook and a group of women surrounded her, Burch gave a 10-minute-long speech about her decision and the struggle to navigate Arizona’s “coercive” maze of abortion restrictions. With her speech, Burch joined the ranks of women who have spoken out since the fall of Roe v Wade about their battles to get abortions even for nonviable pregnancies.

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Texas woman denied abortion decries ‘cruelty’ of Trump 15-week ban proposal

Amanda Zurawski, who nearly died waiting for procedure, says Trump will inflict ‘chaos’ in remarks released by Biden camp

After Donald Trump voiced support for a 15-week national abortion ban, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign released an angry response from a Texas woman who nearly died due to that state’s anti-abortion measures, enduring a “nightmare” she said Trump created.

“My family has been forever altered by the nightmare that Donald Trump created by overturning Roe,” Amanda Zurawski said.

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‘I need you back’: Biden visits western states in effort to firm up Latino vote

The president headed to Nevada, Arizona and Texas to appeal to voters, saying that Donald Trump ‘despises Latinos’

Joe Biden is on a three-day western US election campaign swing through Nevada, Arizona and Texas with a focus on personally appealing to Latino voters, saying they are the reason he defeated Donald Trump in 2020 and urging them to help him do it again in November.

“I need you back,” he told several dozen supporters packed into a local Mexican restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona. And in an interview with the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision he blasted Trump as someone whose hardline policies and biased rhetoric are hostile to Hispanic voters.

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US election 2024 primaries: follow live results

Primaries are being held in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio – get up to speed with all the live results as they happen

Five states – Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio – are holding their presidential nominating contests on Tuesday, with Florida holding only a Republican primary. Donald Trump and Joe Biden expect to sail to victory in their respective parties, growing their delegate counts in a march toward this summer’s conventions, where they will officially secure their parties’ nomination.

Here are the live results from the five presidential primaries.

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How the uncommitted movement rocked Biden over Gaza

The success of this agile grassroots group underlines the discontent over the war – and represents a warning for Democrats

People in Michigan, and across the country, had been protesting for months over the Gaza war and the US government’s role in it, marching in the streets, showing up at the president’s public events, and pressuring their elected officials to support a ceasefire.

But it didn’t seem as though Joe Biden was listening to a groundswell of Democrats who opposed the war and US media coverage of the protests, and of the war itself, seems to be waning, too.

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Top senator calls on Biden to ‘use all levers’ to pressure Israel over Gaza

Democrat Chris Van Hollen says Biden must cease giving arms to Israel until it lifts restrictions on aid and does more to protect lives

Joe Biden should use his leverage and the law to pressure Israel to change how it is prosecuting the war in Gaza, the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is among a group of senators urging Biden to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons until it lifts restrictions on the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza, where children are now dying of hunger and famine looms.

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Trump hush-money trial delayed for 30 days as lawyers review new evidence

Judge agrees to month-long postponement after Trump lawyers say they need more time to sift through newly released documents

A judge on Friday delayed Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial until at least mid-April after the former president’s lawyers said they needed more time to sift through a profusion of evidence they only recently obtained from a previous federal investigation into the matter.

Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to a 30-day postponement and scheduled a hearing for 25 March to address questions about the evidence dump. The trial had been slated to start on 25 March. It is among four criminal indictments against Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee.

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Biden’s ‘bear-hugging’ of Netanyahu a strategic mistake, key Democrat says

Ro Khanna, Biden campaign surrogate, believes US president should take tougher line with ‘insufferably arrogant’ Israeli PM

Joe Biden has committed a “strategic mistake” by “bear-hugging” the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he prosecutes war with Hamas, a leading congressional progressive Democrat and Biden campaign surrogate said.

“The bear-hugging of Netanyahu has been a strategic mistake,” Ro Khanna said, accusing the Israeli leader of conducting “a callous war” in Gaza, in defiance of the United States.

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Special counsel says he was doing his job when he criticized Biden’s memory

Robert Hur, who investigated president over classified files, says at hearing before Congress ‘I had to consider the president’s memory’

Robert Hur, the justice department special counsel assigned to report on Joe Biden’s possession of classified documents, told Congress he was just doing his job when he shook up the US election campaign by criticizing the president’s apparent inability to recall certain events.

In his report released in February, Hur, a former US attorney under Donald Trump, recommended Biden not be charged for possessing classified documents. But he infuriated the president’s Democratic allies by making repeated references to Biden’s age and memory as one reason for not indicting him, saying jurors would see him “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

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Divided Washington state to choose Biden or Trump: ‘Everything seems a mess right now’

A recent poll puts Biden leading Trump 54-38, but the ex-president has committed supporters ahead of state’s primary

Had he heard it, Joe Biden would surely have been delighted by Bianca Siegl’s comment – and the fact she barely paused before making it.

“Of course I will be voting on Tuesday,” says the 47-year-old, speaking at a farmers’ market in Seattle’s University district. “If Trump were to get elected, it would be incredibly dangerous for the world and for my family.”

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Next stop for Democratic ‘uncommitted’ vote campaign for Gaza: Washington

After successes in Michigan, Minnesota and Hawaii, local organizers urge voters to keep pressure on Biden for ceasefire

The movement among Democrats to cast a Gaza protest vote against President Joe Biden in the primary election moves to Washington state on Tuesday.

Organizers with Vote Uncommitted WA have been working for two weeks to ramp up outreach to voters via phone, text, online and in-person connections to explain how they can use their primary ballots to check “uncommitted delegates” to send a message to Biden in support of a permanent ceasefire.

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State of the Union guest list shows reproductive rights in spotlight after Alabama IVF bill signed into law – live

Guests at Biden address to include Alabama woman whose IVF was cancelled, and Texas women who went through abortion ordeals

More than a quarter of Black female voters describe abortion has their top issue in this year’s presidential election, according to a new poll.

The findings by health policy research firm KFF reveal a significant shift from previous election years, when white, conservative evangelicals were more likely to put abortion as their biggest priority when voting, AP reported. Those voters were highly motivated in recent presidential elections to cast ballots for Donald Trump.

Abortion voters are young, Black women – and not white evangelicals.

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Biden’s State of the Union guests include mother whose IVF was canceled and Kate Cox

White House says Cox and Latorya Beasley’s stories show ‘how the overturning of Roe v Wade has disrupted access to healthcare’

An Alabama mother who saw a second round of IVF canceled after the state supreme court ruled that embryos were children and a Texas mother forced to travel outside her state for a doctor-recommended abortion were due to attend Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, as guests of the first lady, Jill Biden.

The White House said the cases of Latorya Beasley of Birmingham, Alabama, and Kate Cox, from Dallas, Texas, showed “how the overturning of Roe v Wade has disrupted access to reproductive healthcare for women and families across the country”.

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California election results: Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey advance to November Senate race

Congressman and ex-Dodgers player emerge as top two contenders, boxing out progressives Katie Porter and Barbara Lee

Adam Schiff, the centrist Democratic congressman, is poised to be the next US senator from California after securing enough votes to advance to the November election. He will face off with Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, who also performed well in the non-partisan primary on Tuesday.

Schiff, a pro-Israel Democrat, was quickly called a winner by the Associated Press, and Garvey secured his spot in the general election about an hour after polls closed.

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Nikki Haley suspends presidential campaign; Biden calls Trump ‘wounded, dangerous’ candidate – live

Republican candidate pulls out of race; Biden campaign says Trump running ‘on an extreme agenda’ in fresh warning after Super Tuesday

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nikki Haley is to pull out of the 2024 presidential election race. It says the candidate is expected to make a brief appearance at 10am ET (3pm GMT).

Haley has won only two primaries – the District of Columbia and Vermont – during her campaign.

Haley won’t announce an endorsement Wednesday, the people said. She will encourage Donald Trump, who is close to having the delegates needed to win the GOP nomination, to earn the support of Republican and independent voters who backed her.

She is expected to emphasize that she will continue to advocate for the conservative domestic and foreign policies she supports and caution against some of the dangers, such as isolationism and a lack of fiscal discipline, that she sees coming from Washington.

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Super Tuesday 2024 live: millions of voters head to polls in the US as Haley suggests she could stay in the race

Donald Trump looks all but certain of Republican presidential nomination as Nikki Haley rejects suggestions of third-party bid and says she may keep fighting

Over at CNN, Ronald Brownstein has an analysis piece which looks a little at the potential weakness of Donald Trump support away from his core base. Brownstein writes:

[Trump’s] performance so far reflects his success at transforming the Republican Party in his image. He’s reshaped the Republicans into a more blue-collar, populist and pugnacious party, focused more on his volatile blend of resentments against elites and cultural and racial change than the Ronald Reagan-era priorities of smaller government and active global leadership that former South Carolina Gov Nikki Haley has stressed.

But while the primaries have underscored Trump’s grip on the GOP, they have also demonstrated continued vulnerability for him in the areas where he has labored since he first announced his candidacy in 2015 – particularly among the white-collar suburban voters who mostly leaned toward the GOP before his emergence. The early 2024 nominating contests have shown that a substantial minority of Republican-leaning voters remain resistant to Trump’s vision.

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Cookie Monster and Ohio senator make odd allies in shrinkflation complaint

Democratic senator Sherrod Brown endorsed the Sesame Street star’s complaint on products getting smaller as prices remain same

The Ohio Democratic senator Sherrod Brown endorsed a key voice in the American public square – Cookie Monster – in a complaint about shrinkflation.

“Me hate shrinkflation!” the Sesame Street character posted on social media on Monday, referring to an economic phenomenon Merriam-Webster defines as “the practice of reducing a product’s amount or volume per unit while continuing to offer it at the same price”.

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