Elections

The judge, a Democrat, stayed her ruling until Friday, leaving Donald J. Trump’s team time to appeal the decision.A state judge in Illinois ruled on Wednesday that former President Donald J. Trump had engaged in insurrection and was ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot. The decision creates uncertainty for the state’s March election, in which early voting is already underway.It also adds urgency for the U.S. Supreme Court to provide a national answer to the questions that have been raised about Mr. Trump’s eligibility to appear on ballots in more than 30 states.The judge, Tracie R. Porter of the State Circuit Court in Cook County, said the State Board of Elections had erred in rejecting an attempt to remove Mr. Trump and said the board “shall remove Donald J. Trump from the ballot for the general primary election on March 19, 2024, or cause any votes cast for him to be suppressed.”But the decision by Judge Porter, a Democrat, was stayed until Friday, which means Mr. Trump can remain on the Illinois ballot at least until then. A spokesman for the Trump campaign said the ruling was unconstitutional and vowed to appeal.Tracking Efforts to Remove Trump From the 2024 BallotSee which states have challenges seeking to bar Donald J. Trump from the presidential primary ballot.“Today, an activist Democrat judge in Illinois summarily overruled the state’s Board of Elections and contradicted earlier decisions from dozens of other state and federal jurisdictions,” the spokesman, Steven Cheung, said in a statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

TikTok rallied around the singer, who revealed during her cancer treatment that she had transferred the rights to her final song to her son, as an inheritance of sorts.Cat Janice, a singer and songwriter who released a buoyant pop track from hospice that galvanized her thousands of supporters online to sway, and even groove, in the face of tragedy, died on Wednesday at her family home in Annandale, Va. She was 31.The cause was sarcoma, according to William Ipsan, her brother.The singer and multi-instrumentalist, whose legal name was Catherine Ipsan, started writing music as a teenager and released it throughout her 20s. But “Dance You Outta My Head,” which she shared on social media alongside candid discussion of her grueling cancer treatments, quickly became the biggest hit of her career. Over disco-inflected guitar and exuberant strings, she sang about “dancing on the edge of disaster.”Ms. Ipsan released the song on Jan. 19, a few days after entering hospice care. The song caught fire as her health outlook darkened, with social media users — including celebrities like Jason Derulo — leaving messages of support.It became a common soundtrack on TikTok after Ms. Ipsan encouraged her followers to stream the song as a way of supporting her 7-year-old son, Loren, after her death. “I am leaving this song behind for my son,” she wrote on TikTok. In another post, she said she had “changed all the rights from my songs so every presave and every stream goes to Loren.”The song has been used in more than two million TikTok videos and became the singer’s first song to enter the Billboard charts.“I’m praying my story isn’t over yet,” she wrote in a post on her birthday, the day after the song’s release. “But if it is, this is a pretty incredible way to say goodbye.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

We know we should get a physical exam every year; we have annual reviews at work; some couples even do periodic relationship audits. And yet many of us don’t regularly check in with our emotional health — though it is arguably the most important contributor to overall well-being. The New York Times talked to experts […] More

Xaviar Michael Babudar, a popular Kansas City Chiefs fan who dressed as a wolf at games, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a series of robberies in 2022 and 2023, prosecutors said.A Kansas City Chiefs superfan known as the Chiefsaholic pleaded guilty on Wednesday in federal court on charges related to a string of bank robberies across seven states in 2022 and 2023, prosecutors said, adding that he had used some of the money to gamble on his favorite team.The man, Xaviar Michael Babudar, 29, pleaded guilty before Judge Howard F. Sachs of U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., to one count of money laundering and one count of transporting stolen property across state lines, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Missouri said in a statement. Mr. Babudar also pleaded guilty to one count of bank robbery in a federal case in Oklahoma, prosecutors said.Mr. Babudar was well known among Kansas City Chiefs fans for regularly attending games dressed as a wolf in the team’s apparel, and he had developed a “robust social media presence” on X, where he went by Chiefsaholic, prosecutors said.He boasted about bets that would earn him tens of thousands of dollars if he won and had an opulent lifestyle as a fan: a good seat to see his team win the Super Bowl in Miami Gardens, Fla., in 2020, a ticket that would have fetched about $8,500. He took a selfie with the club’s general manager on the confetti-strewn field. He attended quarterback Patrick Mahomes’s annual fund-raising gala in late 2022 in Kansas City and apparently won the painting that was featured onstage throughout the event.In 2022, prosecutors said, Mr. Babudar began stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from banks across several states. He was arrested in December 2022 after he robbed a bank in Tulsa, Okla., prosecutors said.Mr. Babudar was released on bond in February 2023, and he later cut off his ankle monitor and fled Oklahoma, prosecutors said. After he missed a court hearing the following month, many began to wonder where Mr. Babudar was and how he was able to sustain himself as a fugitive.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The department is looking into whether the blowout of a door panel in January violated a 2021 settlement after two fatal plane crashes.The Justice Department is reviewing whether an early January incident in which a part of a Boeing plane blew out in midflight violated a 2021 agreement to settle a criminal charge against the company, according to a person familiar with the review.Boeing agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion to settle the charge, which stemmed from two fatal crashes of its 737 Max 8 planes. The deal, reached in the final weeks of the Trump administration, was criticized at the time as being too lenient on the company.Under the terms, Boeing agreed to compensate the families of the crash victims as well as the airlines affected by the grounding of the planes. The Justice Department agreed to drop a criminal charge that was based on the actions of two employees who had withheld information from the F.A.A.Last month, a panel in the fuselage of a larger Max 9 blew out at an altitude of 16,000 feet shortly after takeoff from Portland, Ore., exposing passengers to deafening wind. There were no serious injuries, but the incident could have been catastrophic had it occurred minutes later, at a higher altitude. The panel is known as a “door plug,” which is used to cover a gap left by an unneeded exit door.The Justice Department review was reported earlier by Bloomberg.The episode in January reignited the intense scrutiny and criticism that Boeing faced after crashes in Indonesia in late 2018 and Ethiopia in early 2019 killed a combined 346 people. The Max 8 and Max 9 were banned from flying globally days after the second crash. Since the jetliners started flying again in late 2020, they have carried out several million flights worldwide.The weight of the crisis appeared to be lifting before the January incident. A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board suggested that the plane in that episode may have left Boeing’s factory without bolts needed to secure the panel. The Federal Aviation Administration immediately grounded nearly 200 Max 9 jets in the United States, pending inspections. Flights using the plane have since resumed.The F.A.A. also increased inspections of the Washington State factory where Boeing makes the Max. On Wednesday, the agency gave the company 90 days to put together a plan to improve quality control.“Boeing must commit to real and profound improvements,” the F.A.A.’s administrator, Mike Whitaker, said in a statement announcing the deadline. “Making foundational change will require a sustained effort from Boeing’s leadership, and we are going to hold them accountable every step of the way, with mutually understood milestones and expectations.”Earlier in the week, a group of F.A.A. experts released a long-awaited report stemming from the Max crashes, and it found that Boeing’s safety culture was still lacking, despite improvements in recent years. More

John Patrick Shanley’s new play, starring Cecily Strong and David Zayas, is a romantic comedy with a penchant for the resolutely dismal.Fran and Owen have been chatting for only a few minutes, not all that companionably, when he asks her out. It’s a risky thing to do, since she’s a customer at the drop-off laundry he owns. To Owen, though, Fran resembles his ex-fiancée: “Smart, one inch from terrific, but gloomy,” he says.So bone-tired of being single that a casual insult from a guy she’s just met isn’t a deal breaker, Fran warily agrees to dinner.“But I don’t get why you want to, really,” she adds. “I’m not your old gloomy girlfriend. I’m somebody else.”Owen counters: “Well, whoever you think I am, I’m somebody else, too.”This is truer than he comprehends. Starring Cecily Strong as Fran and David Zayas as Owen, John Patrick Shanley’s enticingly cast, rather lumpy new play, “Brooklyn Laundry,” can get you thinking about warning labels — those heads-ups that we all ought to come with, so people know what they’re in for when they encounter us.Fran’s warning label would be long and convoluted, Owen’s even more so. Each of them would be surprised if they read their own. They realize that they’re a little bit broken, in need of repair. They just don’t understand quite how.Side note to Fran: While Owen seems potentially quite sweet (gruff adorability is Zayas’s bailiwick), he is way more hidebound and a whole lot more self-pitying than he lets on. Run, maybe?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Amendment, examining the meanings of the words “office,’ “officers,”27 “insurrection,”28

·“engaged”29 and “oath”³0 and, thereby, concludes that the plain language and plain meanings of Section 3, applies to the former president now seeking to hold office again as the President of the United States. See Anderson v. Griswold, 2023 CO at 79, ¶143; 84, ¶152; 87, ¶158.

In U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that the U.S. Constitution’s “provisions governing elections reveal the Framers’ understanding that powers over the election of federal officers had to be delegated to, rather than reserved by, the states.”.514 U.S. at 804. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized that federal elections is one of the few areas in which the constitution expressly requires actions by the states, with respect to federal elections. Id. As previously identified, qualifications of candidates for federal offices are conducted by the states, not Congress, based on the U.S. constitution, and application of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment should not be an exception.

9926

Based on the comparable rationale for interpreting Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment and finding that it applies to Respondent-Candidate, as made by the Colorado Supreme Court, this

26 The Colorado Supreme Court found that the U.S. Constitution refers to the Presidency as an “office” twenty-five times. Anderson v. Griswold, 2023 CO at 72, ¶133; U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, 514 U.S. at 861 (“qualifications for the office of President” is stated twice by the High Court.

27 See U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779, 803 (1995) (recognized that “Representatives and Senators are as much officers of the entire union as the President.”

28 Justice Boatright, dissenting, drew the conclusion that a conviction was necessary for an insurrection, but this Court notes that there no such language in Section 3. Anderson v. Griswold, 2023 CO at 11 (dissent). 29 Respondent-Candidate cites to an “overt, voluntary act’ being required. 12 Op. Att’y Gen. 141, 164 (1867). He then provides a dictionary meaning of “to be involved, or have contact, with someone or something.” (EB Record, C-6691 V12). He does not refuted that he gave a speech on January 6 at the Ellipse Rally, that he sent out tweets entitled, “Stop the Steal”, Storm or Invade or Take the Capital, and to disburse or be peaceful (but only after violence had occurred almost 3 hours prior). These facts alone created by a preponderance of the evidence using the Respondent-Candidate’s own definition that by his conduct he engaged with the crowd, deemed to be engaging in insurrection. (EB Record C-6691 V12, C-6694 V12); Colorado Trial Exhibit Nos. 49, 68 and 148.

30 Oath of the President of the United States effectively is language that can be interpreted as supporting the U.S. Constitution and the peaceful transfer of power. Art. II, Sec. 1, cl. 8 (“preserve, protect and defend”)

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Legal retailers are struggling to get their footing in the face of a much larger illicit market.Gov. Kathy Hochul visited New York City on Wednesday to drum up support for her latest proposals for shutting down the unlicensed marijuana shops that have exploded in number in the wake of the legalization of recreational cannabis.There are more than 400 illicit weed shops in Manhattan alone — outnumbering Starbucks stores in the borough and far surpassing the few dozen licensed cannabis retailers in the entire state.At a news conference at the governor’s office in Midtown Manhattan attended by several owners of licensed dispensaries, Ms. Hochul sought to allay concerns about a return to the heavy-handed enforcement tactics of the war on drugs while pushing for measures that she said would give “some teeth” to the so far ineffective efforts to wipe out the unlicensed shops.Her appearance came as state lawmakers were considering her proposal to strengthen the hand of local agencies by giving them the power to padlock stores. She was joined by licensed dispensary owners who said that the legal market could not compete with the cut-rate prices in illicit shops. The governor and business owners also called on search engines and social media companies like Google and Yelp to remove content about unlicensed shops, which they said added to the confusion among consumers about what weed shops were licensed and which were not.The governor said that the illicit shops posed a public health hazard and undermined the state’s effort to build a cannabis industry that could provide opportunities for people harmed by the war on drugs. She said that efforts to deter the stores with raids and fines over the last year had been concentrated in the hands of too few agencies and had not been effective. Her proposal would make it easier for the state’s Office of Cannabis Management to obtain court orders to padlock stores and would allow for the orders to be executed by local agencies that had more personnel.“More and more cash keeps going in their doors and not the doors of our legitimate operators — and that’s what needs to change,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More