• The Florida legislature approved a congressional map approved by governor Ron DeSantis that will severely curtail Black voting power in the state – and also passed a bill dissolving the self-governance status of Disney World. This all took place despite Democrats staging a sit-in on the legislature floor in protest of the new congressional map.
• Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks momentarily in Portland, Oregon on infrastructure. He is then staying in Portland to participate in a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee, before flying to Seattle to participate in yet another fundraiser for the DNC.
• A federal judge temporarily blocked an anti-abortion law in Kentucky that was so restrictive that the two remaining abortion clinics had to halt procedures.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of a sweeping new anti-abortion law in Kentucky that banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and called for a combination birth-death or stillbirth certificate for each abortion.

The restrictive law forced Kentucky’s two remaining abortion clinics to halt procedures.

Despite the efforts of Florida Democrats, the Florida legislature approved a congressional map approved by governor Ron DeSantis that will severely curtail Black voting power in the state.

Earlier today, Florida Democrats staged a sit-in on the floor of the state legislature to interrupt the special legislative session.

“What we see today is an overreach, and it’s something we see as unacceptable,” Democratic representative Kamia Brown, who chairs the legislative Black caucus, told the Associated Press after the session adjourned. “Today was one thing we could not just take and stand. We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

The congressional map passed today favors the GOP in 20 of the state’s 28 congressional districts in an increase of four seats for the party, by eliminating two congressional districts where Black voters have the ability to elect the candidate of their choosing. One of those, the fifth congressional district, which stretches from Jacksonville to Tallahassee and has a voting population that is 46% Black, will be chopped up into four districts where Black voters comprise a much smaller share of the population.

Donald Trump is in the news again, this time for…not being on the news?

Trump is denying that he stormed out of a televised interview with Piers Morgan, claiming instead that the clip released yesterday promoting “the most explosive interview of the year” was misleadingly edited to give the impression that he shouted “turn the camera off” while rising from his chair in anger.

Trump’s team provided audio to US media outlets that suggested that he had said “turn the camera off” after he and Morgan exchanged pleasantries at the end of the interview.

“This is a pathetic attempt to use President Trump as a way to revive the career of a failed television host,” said Taylor Budowich, Trump’s spokesperson.

“He says it’s a rigged election, and he now says I have a rigged promo,” Morgan said. “What I would say is watch the interview. It will all be there. We won’t be doing any duplicitous editing.”

Read more here:

It’s been quite a day in Florida. First Florida Democrats staged a sit in on the floor of the state legislature, halting a special legislative session in which Republicans are poised to pass new congressional districts that would severely curtail Black voting power in the state.

All while this was happening, the Florida legislature passed a bill dissolving the self-governance status of Disney World.

This bill dissolving Disney World’s self-governance came after Disney’s opposition to what critics call the state’s “don’t say gay” law that bars instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

If Florida governor Ron DeSantis signs the bill into law, it could have huge tax implications for Disney – but Democrats also warned that the move could cause local homeowners to get hit with big tax bills if they have to absorb bond debt from Disney.

ABC News is reporting that in the coming days, Donald Trump Jr is expected to meet with the House select committee tasked with investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Sources tell ABC News that the meeting is voluntary and the committee did not have to subpoena the eldest son of Donald Trump.

Trump Jr joins his sister Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, as the most recent Trump family members to speak to the panel.

An auction of artwork, including pieces by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, and other personal items owned by the late supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is expected to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars next week.

Much of her collection of paintings and ceramics forms a 115-lot modern art auction hosted by the Potomack company of Alexandria, Virginia, in an online catalog. An additional collection entitled “chambers and home” features 145 more lots of miscellaneous curios, including pewter bowls, crystal vases and numerous other personal items.

Ginsburg, the iconic human and civil rights pioneer who died in 2020 aged 87 from complications of pancreatic cancer, owned a multitude of artefacts spanning the last two centuries, by artists including Picasso and Warhol.

One of the most valuable items is a 1953 oil painting, Presagio-Premonition, by the Mexican artist Gunther Gerzso, which is expected to raise up to $100,000.

Among the most personal is a “Gartenhaus natural black mink coat” with Ginsburg’s name embroidered in a pocket. By Thursday morning, bidding for that was already above $2,000, more than twice its original estimate.

Ceramics by Picasso, and a Warhol painting of a can of tomato soup, are among the other highlights.

“These items are truly tangible pieces of her life and times as one of America’s greatest supreme court justices,’’ Elizabeth Haynie Wainstein, owner of the Potomack Company, told the New York Times.

Read more:

The much vaunted and heavily promoted CNN+ subscription streaming service, which the network intended to be a value-added supplement to its regular news programming, has folded, less than a month after it was launched.

The decision to halt the service on 30 April will be seen as a massive humiliation for CNN, which was relying on its big-name presenters to draw in customers at $5.99 a month.

Take up was slow, however, and the new corporate owners of CNN+, Warner Bros Discovery, decided to pull the plug on Thursday.

The company’s hopes of 2m subscribers in the first year appeared hugely optimistic, with reports saying it had attracted barely 150,000 in the three weeks since its launch.

In a statement to staff attempting to paint the abrupt closure as a reshuffle of resources, CNN’s incoming president Chris Licht said:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}While today’s decision is incredibly difficult, it is the right one for the long-term success of CNN. It allows us to refocus resources on the core products that drive our singular focus: further enhancing CNN’s journalism and its reputation as a global news leader.

Black Democrats have staged a sit-in protest in the Florida legislature to disrupt approval of Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s congressional redistricting plans, which they say seeks to eliminate representation for Black voters.

According to the Miami Herald, the special legislative session called by DeSantis was adjourned just before lunchtime Thursday as the Black lawmakers began chanting, and were joined in the protest by White colleagues.

The Herald reports: “The House was halfway through a three-hour debate on the map when Rep Yvonne Hinson, a Gainesville Democrat, was cut off because she had exceeded the five-minute time limit set for member debate.

“As her microphone was silenced, Rep Angie Nixon, a Jacksonville Democrat, walked on the floor with a T-shirt under her suit jacket that read ‘Stop the Black Attack’ and held a sign in protest.

“As Black Democrats started chanting and white Democrats joined the protest, House Speaker Chris Sprowls ordered the House in recess and stunned Republicans slowly walked off the floor.”

DeSantis has proposed his own redrawn map for Florida’s congressional districts, which the Republican-controlled legislature has said it will pass without change, despite it being lawmakers’ responsibility to draw up boundaries.

The governor’s proposal would chop up the fifth congressional district into four new ones where Black voters would comprise a much smaller share of the vote. Critics say his “racist” plan would eliminate the seats of two Black congress members.

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Joe Biden must act to reduce mounting economic pressure by ditching “woke advisers”, Mitt Romney said.

The Utah senator and former Republican presidential nominee made the demand in a column for the Wall Street Journal.

“A new set of priorities requires a new set of principals,” Romney wrote. “President Biden needs to ditch his woke advisers and surround himself with people who want to get the economy working again.”

Romney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about what a “woke adviser” was or who might qualify for the title. The White House did not comment.

As midterm elections approach, the Biden administration faces strong economic headwinds. Inflation is at long-term highs, adding to a cost-of-living crisis fueled by the coronavirus pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Biden’s favourability rating has plummeted as polling shows disapproval of his handling of economic affairs.

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• Joe Biden announced that the US would be providing another $800m military assistance package to Ukraine, in addition to $500m in economic assistance. He acknowledged that he had nearly exhausted the drawdown authority authorized by Congress in a bipartisan spending bill last month, and that he would be making a supplemental budget request in order to continue funding Ukraine as it defends itself from Russia.
• In this same address, Biden announced the creation of Unite for Ukraine, a humanitarian parole program to expedite the migration of Ukrainian refugees from Europe to the US through sponsorship.
• In addition to more sanctions announced yesterday, Biden announced that Russian-affiliated ships are now banned from American ports.
• Ukraine prime minister Denys Shmyhal is in Washington, and met briefly with Biden and some of his cabinet members before Biden gave his remarks. Shmyhal then went on to Capitol Hill, where he met with House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

A new book by reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns has new details of the days following the 6 January attack on the US Capitol in which Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, the two top Republican leaders in Congress, privately told associates that they believed Donald Trump should be held responsible for the insurrection.

McCarthy has come out strongly against the New York Times report on the book’s findings, calling it “totally false and wrong”.

Read more here:

Delta Airlines will restore flight privileges to the 2,000 customers who were barred from flights for failing to comply with the federal mask mandate, Reuters is reporting.

Now that a federal judge has ruled the mandate unlawful and the Biden administration will no longer enforce it on public transit – though the justice department appealed the ruling yesterday at the request of public health officials – Delta said it will restore passengers “only after each case is reviewed and each customer demonstrates an understanding of their expected behavior when flying with us.”

“Any further disregard for the policies that keep us all safe will result in placement on Delta’s permanent no-fly list,” Delta said.

This will not affect the 1,000 or so passengers “who demonstrated egregious behavior and are already on the permanent no-fly list.”

Delta joins United Airlines in overturning a ban on passengers who had been banned for not wearing masks on a “case by case basis.”

Here’s the White House readout of the meeting between Joe Biden and Ukraine prime minister Denys Shmyhal:

Now Ukraine prime minister Denys Shmyhal is on Capitol Hill with House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Earlier, Shmyhal spoke with Joe Biden, which delayed his remarks.

After providing an update on Ukraine, Joe Biden is now off to Portland, Oregon to talk about infrastructure and attend a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.