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Graham: How will Biden handle N.H. with RFK Jr. at his heels?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:51 GMT

An incumbent Democratic president with a successful legislative record but lagging in the polls. He’s forced to run as a write-in candidate in the New Hampshire primary, a state he hadn’t planned to campaign in. He’s facing a Democrat who’s embraced populist themes like opposing America’s role in a bloody, foreign war.President Lyndon Johnson in 1968? Or President Joe Biden six months from now?It’s true: LBJ was so confident he would be re-nominated in 1968 that he never bothered to qualify for ballot access in the New Hampshire primary, the “first in the nation.” When Minnesota Sen. Eugene “Clean Gene” McCarthy’s campaign, focused on opposition to America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, began to take off, the White House political team had to scramble to get voters to write in the president’s name.Did it work? LBJ won a plurality of the vote, 48% to 42%. But such a poor performance by an incumbent president inspired Robert F. Kennedy to enter the primary, and Johnson soon headed ...

Dear Abby: Husband ignores wife when mom’s in picture

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:51 GMT

Dear Abby: My husband is in another state with his elderly (but still active) mother. He went to help her get her house ready for sale so she can move near us. Before he left, he was having severe panic attacks. He kept telling me he is scared of losing me (he’s been out of work for months) and that he was going to need me while he was with her.Since he has been gone, he has barely called, rarely texts and even suggested taking a break from me. This was after finding out I had to go to the ER and had been diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune disorder. He’s blaming me for having to ask his mother for money to cover our bills.This woman has been single for 30 years, worked full time and has essentially no real expenses. She spoils the heck out of him — her only child. She treats him like her partner or a 12-year-old boy. She dislikes that I’m at home taking care of my 1-year-old grandchild and not working. I have always contributed, but this is the choice m...

Man suspected of shooting SDPD officer arraigned

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:51 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- JC Blake Sartor, 30, appeared in court Friday through a video arraignment. The judge ordered the media to not show Sartor’s face.Sartor pleaded not guilty to five charges, which are attempted pre-meditated murder on a peace officer, assault on peace officer with a firearm, shooting at an inhabited dwelling, vehicle theft and felony possession of a firearm.“There is no place for this type of senseless violence in this community, and anytime someone tries to kill a cop, that person will be found, they'll be charged and they'll be prosecuted according to the law,” Deputy District Attorney Clay Biddle said. Last week on Thursday, a San Diego police officer attempted to pull over a driver in a stolen truck in the Chollas Creek area.Police say the driver jumped out and ran off into an apartment complex. The officer chased after the man who pulled a gun and fired multiple times, hitting the officer in the arm. Suspect surrenders after SWAT standoff at Hillcrest donut shop Pr...

House fire displaces family, dog in North County

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:51 GMT

CARLSBAD, Calif. -- A fire damaged a home Friday in the Carlsbad area, authorities said.The blaze occurred at 6:41 p.m. in the 3000 block of Jefferson Street, according to Carlsbad police. Firefighters were able to contain the blaze with no injuries reported. However, the fire displaced a family of four and dog, per first responders. Suspect surrenders after SWAT standoff at Hillcrest donut shop Authorities advise the public to avoid the 3000 block of Jefferson Street due to the fire investigation.The cause of the fire is not yet known at this time.Carlsbad Village Drive was closed but has since reopened, police said.

US imposes visa restrictions for some Ugandans following adoption of anti-gay law

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:51 GMT

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Washington on Friday announced it is imposing visa restrictions for Ugandans accused of “undermining the democratic process” in Uganda after the enactment of an anti-gay law in the East African country.A statement from the State Department did not name any targeted individuals.It said the U.S. will consider other possible actions “to promote accountability for Ugandan officials and other individuals responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic process in Uganda, abusing human rights, including those of LGBTQI+ persons, or engaging in corrupt practices.” Uganda’s new law adopted last month punishes homosexuality, including with the death penalty in some cases. The legislation has been widely condemned by rights activists and others abroad, but it has wide support in Uganda, including among religious leaders and lawmakers. LGBTQ rights campaigners note homosexuality already was illegal in Uganda under a colonial-era law criminalizing ...

Trump’s legal travails anger some GOP voters, but that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll vote for him

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:51 GMT

PELLA, Iowa (AP) — Kathleen Evenhouse took a break from her work in the corner of a small-town Iowa coffee shop to slam the federal criminal indictment of Donald Trump as patently political, the work of a U.S. Justice Department she says is awash in hypocrisy. “I think we’re playing a game as a country,” the 72-year-old author from Pella, Iowa, said in an interview, expressing a sentiment widely shared among conservatives since the former president was charged. “I think that damages any sense of justice or any sense of — should I even bother to vote? Why should I listen to the news? Or why should I care?”Evenhouse does plan to vote in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation Republican presidential caucuses next year. And yet, despite her anger on Trump’s behalf, he will not win her support. As Trump mounts a full-throated political defense to the legal challenges he faces, many voters in early states who will play an outsize role in deciding his electoral fate agree that ...

Supermajorities in state capitols push controversial policies to the edge

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:51 GMT

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Lawmakers in state capitols this year have been flexing their superpowers.In North Carolina, a new supermajority of Republicans enacted abortion restrictions. In Vermont, a new supermajority of Democrats imposed a climate-sensitive home heating law. And in Montana, a GOP supermajority booted a transgender lawmaker from the House floor. In each case, the views of their political opponents ultimately were irrelevant.By at least one measure, political power is at its highest mark in decades. That’s because Republicans or Democrats hold majorities so large in 28 states that they could override gubernatorial vetoes without any help from the minority party. “Supermajorities give one party a lot of power to do what they want to do,” said Steven Rogers, a political scientist at Saint Louis University who focuses on elections and state legislatures. There is no single standard for a supermajority, though the term generally is equated with whatever threshold i...

Biden returns to Philadelphia to rally with union workers in first big event of his 2024 campaign

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:51 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will tout his pro-labor bona fides on Saturday at his first major political rally since he formalized his reelection campaign, appearing alongside union members to make his case that his economic agenda is boosting the middle class. His campaign says Biden, who will appear at the Philadelphia Convention Center, will “lay out the core principles of his economic message” in his remarks. Biden also plans to talk about how a sweeping climate, tax and health care package he signed into law last year has cut the cost of prescription drugs and lowered insurance premiums, as his administration focuses on his achievements his first two years the centerpiece argument for his reelection. Ahead of the event, several of the nation’s most powerful unions — including the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — officially endorsed Biden’s campaign. The first-of-its-kind jo...

A beginner’s guide to Juneteenth: How can all Americans celebrate?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:51 GMT

For more than one-and-a-half centuries, the Juneteenth holiday has been sacred to many Black communities. It marks the day in 1865 enslaved people in Galveston, Texas found out they had been freed — after the end of the Civil war, and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Since it was designated a federal holiday in 2021, Juneteenth has become more universally recognized beyond Black America. Many people get the day off work or school, and there are a plethora of street festivals, fairs, concerts and other events. People who never gave the holiday on June 19 more than a passing thought may be asking themselves, is there a “right” way to celebrate Juneteenth? For beginners and those brushing up history, here are some answers:IS JUNETEENTH A SOLEMN DAY OF REMEMBRANCE OR MORE OF A PARTY?It just depends on what you want. Juneteenth festivities are rooted in cookouts and barbecues. In the beginnings of the holiday celebrated as Black Americans’ true...

Vegas Golden Knights championship parade expected to rival New Year’s Eve on Strip, planners say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:51 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Tens of thousands of Vegas Golden Knights fans, maybe more, are expected at the heart of the Las Vegas Strip on Saturday for a Stanley Cup victory parade and a rally to mark the team’s first-ever NHL championship.Las Vegas police prepared Friday for upwards of 100,000 people to cram viewing areas along Las Vegas Boulevard for a celebration that planners were comparing to annual New Year’s Eve fireworks shows that in past years have drawn estimates of 400,000 people. Unlike a winter midnight, evening temperatures are expected to be in the 90s.The Strip will be closed for the motorcade, which is set to begin at 7 p.m. near Flamingo Road and proceed about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) to Tropicana Avenue before a fan rally at Toshiba Plaza and the Park District in front of T-Mobile Arena.The team played its first game at the arena as an expansion franchise in October 2017 — just days after a gunman unleashed the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, killing 58 in o...