US victim wrongly locked up for years vindicated as identity thief pleads guilty

William Woods was sent to a mental institution because Matthew Keirans – who faces 32 years in prison – stole his name for decades

William Woods was homeless and living in Los Angeles when he learned that someone was racking up debt using his name.

But when he reported his concerns to the branch manager of a bank, he wound up spending nearly two years locked up, accused of identity theft himself. As he continued to insist he was Woods in a desperate effort to clear his name, he was even sent to a state mental hospital and drugged, court records show.

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Quite the leap: Iowa man born on 29 February has a son on same day

Dillon and his newborn son Archer Glass each had a one in 1,461 chance of being born on a leap day

After being born on a leap day in 1996, Dillon Glass faced thin odds of having his own child be born on the same day.

But that is exactly what happened on Thursday, when his baby boy Archer was born at 7.47am at Iowa Methodist medical center in Des Moines, Iowa, according to what the hospital’s parent corporation said to news outlets as well as on social media.

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Iowa caucuses: Asa Hutchinson suspends campaign; Haley says she’s ‘better choice for America’ – US politics live

Hutchinson, who came sixth in caucuses, congratulates Trump on win; Haley tries to regain momentum with attack ad on Biden and Trump

Nikki Haley has said in a new campaign advert attacking Donald Trump and Joe Biden that she is the “better choice” for America, as the former South Carolina governor tries to regain momentum after narrowly losing to Ron DeSantis in the Iowa caucuses.

Haley puts herself forward as the better choice than Biden and Trump, whom the narrator in the ad suggests “are the two most-disliked politicians in America”.

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Democrats seize on Iowa results to campaign on threats posed by Trump

Kamala Harris reminds voters of Trump’s role in overturning Roe v Wade as unstated core of campaign is Biden can beat him again

Top Democrats did not react to Donald Trump’s crushing win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday with the dismay that might have been expected. Instead, the victory of the twice-impeached, 91-times criminally charged former president was heralded as an early beginning to the battle for the White House itself.

Called early, Trump’s victory came by 30 points over the hard-right Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who edged the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for second. Only one of 99 Iowa counties did not go for Trump: Johnson county, which includes the University of Iowa, was won by Haley, the relative moderate left in the race – by a single vote.

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Iowa caucuses 2024 live: Trump wins state as Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis vie for second and third place

Former US president beats Republican rivals in first state to choose their Republican candidate

Florida senator Marco Rubio formally endorsed Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign on Sunday, effectively snubbing his state’s own governor Ron DeSantis.

In a social media post, Rubio cited his work with Trump to expand child tax credit as well as sanctions placed on Cuba and Venezuela as reasons for throwing his support behind the former president. Rubio added:

I support Trump because that kind of leadership is the ONLY way we will get the extraordinary actions needed to fix the disaster Biden has created.

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Donald Trump wins in Iowa as first contest kicks off 2024 presidential race

AP called race for Trump rapidly, while caucusgoers in much of the state were still casting ballots, a sign of his wide lead in the race

Donald Trump won the US’s first election contest of 2024, easily fending off a winnowed field of Republicans who failed to gain as much traction as the cult of personality surrounding the former president.

The Associated Press called the race for Trump rapidly, while caucusgoers in much of the state were still casting ballots, a sign of the wide lead the former president has in the race.

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Vivek Ramaswamy urges supporters not to believe polls in final Iowa pitch

Republican presidential candidate makes final appearance in Iowa hours ahead of caucuses

Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who has gone all in on Iowa to jumpstart his presidential bid, urged supporters not to believe the polls during a final appearance at a Cedar Rapids brewery hours ahead of Monday night’s caucuses.

Ramaswamy has visited all 99 counties in Iowa twice and even rented an apartment in Des Moines during the final stretch of the campaign. He said on Monday he had done nearly 400 events in the state.

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US election season begins as Iowa Republicans brave cold in first caucuses

Latest polls place Donald Trump as clear frontrunner for party’s nomination in first round of voting in 2024 primary

Iowa Republicans braved brutally cold temperatures on Monday evening to participate in the state’s presidential caucuses, as Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in the race for his party’s nomination.

The caucuses began at 7pm CT and marked the first round of voting in the 2024 presidential primary. They will offer the most tangible insight yet into whether any of Trump’s primary opponents, particularly the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, have managed to diminish his significant polling advantage in the race. Trump has maintained that advantage for months, even as he has been charged with 91 felony counts across four criminal cases.

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‘Ready to rumble’: Trump holds Iowa campaign rally more akin to victory lap

Event, briefly interrupted by young climate protesters, overshadows those of former president’s Republican rivals

It was a melancholy farewell. Three years ago this week, Donald Trump departed on Air Force One for the last time as Frank Sinatra’s My Way blared from loudspeakers. The outgoing US president was defeated, disgraced and seemingly down and out.

Amid the snowy plains of Iowa, however, Trump is set to pull off one of the most improbable of all political comebacks. On Sunday, he held a campaign rally more akin to a victory lap in a state where Republican caucus-goers look certain to back him for a swift return to the White House.

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‘Selfless and heroic’: Iowa principal who was wounded in school shooting dies

Dan Marburger was injured in shooting at Perry high school on 4 January, during which an 11-year-old student was killed

An Iowa high school principal who was wounded in a school shooting has died, the state’s governor said.

Dan Marburger was injured during a mass shooting at Perry high school on 4 January. One person, an 11-year-old student, was killed, and six others injured. The suspect, a 17-year-old pupil at the school, was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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Freezing US winter storms threaten to break low-temperature records

From New Mexico to Portland, Maine, temperatures dropped and snow fell, closing campaigns, football games and roads

Icy winter weather blanketed the US on Saturday as a wave of Arctic storms threatened to break low-temperature records in the heartland, spread cold and snow from coast to coast and cast a chill over everything from football playoffs to presidential campaigns.

As the three-day Martin Luther King Jr Day holiday weekend began, the weather forecast was a quilt of color-coded advisories, from an ice storm warning in Oregon to a blizzard warning in the northern plains to high wind warnings in New Mexico.

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Extreme cold and snow blanket Iowa ahead of Monday’s Republican caucuses

Candidates were forced to cancel campaign events as snow closed rural highways and temperatures are expected to plummet

Wild and dangerous winter storm weather continued to wreak havoc on Saturday in Iowa just two days before the Republican caucuses kick off the official nominating process for the 2024 presidential election.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in the state capital of Des Moines said on Saturday morning that more snow was expected, in combination with lingering gusty winds causing “blowing snow and whiteout conditions at times” and warned that “travel is expected to remain treacherous, so consider altering plans”.

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Who benefits as Christie ends presidential bid before Iowa caucus? – podcast

Hours before Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis took to the debate stage in Iowa on Wednesday night, more than 1,000 miles away in New Hampshire Chris Christie shocked his supporters by announcing he was dropping out of the race. The former New Jersey governor was the only candidate to consistently attack Donald Trump, in a field of Republicans trying to beat the former president, all the while keeping his base sweet.

With only three days until the Iowa caucus, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Elaine Kamarck about who is most likely to come out on top

Archive: CBS, CNN, MSNBC, CSPAN

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Nikki Haley emerges from TV debate as Trump’s nearest rival as Iowa vote looms

Former South Carolina governor, boosted by Chris Christie’s exit, has hopes of seizing second in Iowa caucuses from Ron DeSantis

The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley emerged from the last televised debate before the Iowa caucuses clearly Donald Trump’s strongest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, boosted by the withdrawal of Chris Christie, the only explicitly anti-Trump candidate to register significantly with voters.

Voting begins in Iowa on Monday, before New Hampshire stages its primary a week on Tuesday. Haley has closed on Trump in New Hampshire and has hopes of seizing second place in Iowa at the expense of the rightwing Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.

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Trump avoids mention of US Capitol attack on 6 January anniversary

Three years after insurrection, Trump was in Newton, Iowa, currying support before the 15 January Republican caucus

Donald Trump largely ducked speaking about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol during a campaign speech Saturday, which he delivered on the third anniversary of the insurrection, reflecting the degree to which Republican voters have absolved the former president of responsibility for that day’s deadly consequences.

Trump’s remarks came a day after Joe Biden appeared in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, and spoke about how his presidential predecessor had urged his supporters to “fight like hell” shortly before they staged the Capitol attack.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

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Trump tells Iowans to ‘get over’ school shooting at campaign event

Former president made the comment 36 hours after one student was killed and seven people wounded during the first day of school

Donald Trump told an audience at a campaign event on Friday in Iowa to “get over” a deadly shooting at a high school in the state a day earlier.

After offering sympathy and emotional support for the victims of the shooting in Perry, Iowa, and their families, Trump said at the event in Sioux Center: “It’s just horrible – so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it. We have to move forward.”

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Sixth-grader killed and five people wounded in Iowa high school shooting

Investigators believe suspect died of self-inflicted gunshot wound, and at least one of the victims is a school administrator

Police said that a 17-year-old suspect killed a sixth grader and wounded five others in a shooting early Thursday at a high school in the small town of Perry, Iowa.

The suspect was identified as Dylan Butler, a 17-year-old student at Perry high school, officials said at a news briefing on Thursday afternoon. He was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound by responding officers.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

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Satanic Temple condemns vandalism of its statue by Christian military veteran

Michael Cassidy arrested over tearing down of satanic altar – symbol of humanism and anti-authoritarianism – at Iowa capitol

The leader of an organization whose satanic altar at Iowa’s state capitol was torn down by a Christian military veteran Thursday has dismissed the vandalism as “a real act of cowardice”.

“There’s a certain point at which we need some adults in the room to tell people what … liberal, democratic values are; what they’re value is; why we uphold them; what they’re good for; and they need to stand up for these values or we are going to further degenerate in our polarism towards autocracy,” the co-founder of the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, told CNN’s NewsNight on Thursday.

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Casey DeSantis encourages Republicans nationwide to vote in Iowa caucus

On Fox News, wife of Ron DeSantis mistakenly invites ‘moms and grandmoms’ to cross state lines and illegally vote in caucus

Casey DeSantis, the wife of Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis, has upset party officials in Iowa by urging her husband’s supporters from around the US to “descend” on the state and illegally take part in next month’s caucuses.

The former television news reporter, who has become the Florida governor’s chief supporter on the campaign trail, made the faux-pas during an appearance with him on Fox News on Friday, in which she wrongly stated it was legal for out-of-state residents to participate.

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‘Moderate’ or Roe v Wade killer: can Trump have it both ways on abortion?

The former president is proud of appointing the supreme court justices who overturned the right to abortion – now the issue is a vote loser for Republicans

A few months ago, the former president Donald Trump accused the Republican party of speaking “very inarticulately” on abortion. And yet, for the GOP presidential frontrunner, inarticulateness seems to be a feature, not a bug, of his own approach to abortion.

Trump thinks he can run in 2024 as a “moderate” on abortion, Rolling Stone reported this week – even though he’s currently running ads in Iowa, a crucial state in the Republican primary, proclaiming himself “the most pro-life president ever”. It’s a title to which Trump has a legitimate claim: his three nominees to the supreme court not only handed the nation’s highest court a definitive conservative majority, but all three voted to overturn Roe v Wade in summer 2022.

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