WASHINGTON (AP) — The longstanding concerns about President Joe Biden's age and memory intensified on Thursday after the release of a&nbsp;special counsel's report investigating his possession of classified documents.

(click below to watch Biden's exchange with reporters)

The report described the 81-year-old Democrat's memory as “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor" and having “significant limitations.” It noted that Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life such as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president.

“My memory is fine,” Biden responded Thursday night from the White House, where he grew visibly angry as he denied forgetting when his son died. Beau Biden&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/general-news-d8f69eb645d74b7886387f713981b739">died of brain cancer in 2015</a>&nbsp;at the age of 46.

While Biden will not face charges for mishandling classified documents, the report’s assertions about his memory could undermine Biden’s message to voters that he can manage the government and safeguard the country. Voters are already going into this year’s election with&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-donald-trump-government-and-politics-ede57ce56fdf7958addec2cf9ef5e0de">severe misgivings about Biden’s age</a>, having scrutinized his gaffes, his coughing, his slow walking and even a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-us-secret-service-jill-delaware-government-and-politics-d039291d372a38982b533d05d18d7a6f">tumble off his bicycle</a>.

Yet even as Biden defended himself, he committed another gaffe while discussing the Israel-Hamas War and mistakenly referred to Egypt’s leader Abdel Fattah El-Sissi as “the president of Mexico."

In ruling out prosecution of Biden over his retention of highly classified materials as a private citizen, the report from special counsel Robert Hur suggested he would seem too feeble to prosecute: “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

Biden said the report's descriptions of his memory and his son's death were “extraneous commentary” that “had no place in this report.” About his son's death, Biden said, “How in the hell dare he raise that?”

“Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business,” he said. “Every Memorial Day we hold a service remembering him, attended by friends and family and the people who loved him. I don’t need anyone, I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”

In response to reporters' questions about his memory, Biden disputed the report's statements and said he's “the most qualified person in this country to be president.”

The White House also pushed back on the characterizations of Biden's memory in a Feb. 5 letter from the president's lawyers that was published in Hur's report. The letter argues that Biden's “inability to recall dates or details of events that happened years ago is neither surprising nor unusual,” particularly about when certain documents were packed or moved.

“We do not believe that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate,” the letter said. “The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events. Such comments have no place in a Department of Justice report.”

It is not unusual for the subjects of government investigations to say they don't recall an event or a conversation in order to avoid issues such as perjury. The special counsel did not release the transcript of the interviews with Biden, so some context is unclear. Former President Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner, has boasted of his own vast memory but has also at times said in legal proceedings that he does not recall certain events.

Biden noted in a statement issued Thursday that he had sat for five hours of interviews with Hur's team over two days on Oct. 8 and 9, “even though Israel had just been attacked on October 7th and I was in the middle of handling an international crisis.”

In&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-age-poll-trump-2024-620e0a5cfa0039a6448f607c17c7f23e">an August poll</a>&nbsp;by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs, 77% of U.S. adults said Biden is too old to be effective for four more years. It was one of the rare sources of bipartisan agreement during a politically polarized era, with 89% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats saying Biden’s age is a problem.

The release of the report overlapped with recent Biden speeches in which he mistakenly claimed to talk with European leaders — France’s Francois Mitterrand and Germany’s Helmut Kohl — who had, in fact, not held office since the 1990s and had died several years ago.

The 77-year-old Trump also faces questions about recent memory lapses. In a January speech, Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nikki-haley-trump-mental-fitness-pelosi-522c3cddcaf7b85df5a64658c5041e96">mistakenly and repeatedly</a>&nbsp;confused former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, his major opponent for the GOP nomination, with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Pelosi was the House speaker during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by Trump’s supporters who were seeking to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. Trump said it was Haley who led the House and alleged she should have done more to secure it.

But Republican critics were quick to pile on Thursday as the special counsel's report became public.

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said on X, formerly Twitter, that the report was “alarming” and it's clear that Biden “does not have the cognitive ability to be President.”

“If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president. Joe Biden is unfit to lead this nation,” said Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for Make America Great Again Inc., the main super PAC backing Trump's candidacy.

Shortly before the special counsel's report was publicly released, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was playing down Biden's gaffes at the daily news briefing. Jean-Pierre said the slip-ups are “common” for most public figures, including those younger than Biden.

“It happens to all of us,” said Jean-Pierre, who noted she herself has misspoken, as has House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

Jean-Pierre tried to say that the public's attention should be focused more on the substance of what Biden was saying about how world leaders are worried about Trump's possible return to the White House.

And Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Steven Horsford, D-Nev., on Thursday dismissed concerns about Biden’s mental acuity after the president’s mix-ups earlier this week.

“I was with the president on Sunday,” Horsford said, referring to Biden’s Nevada visit. “The president is very well suited to be our commander-in-chief and we’re going to continue to focus on the issues that the American people are focused on.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The longstanding concerns about President Joe Biden's age and memory intensified on Thursday after the release of a&nbsp;special counsel's report investigating his possession of classified documents.(click below to watch Biden's exchange with reporters)<div><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FWhiteHouse%2Fvideos%2F690627529895091%2F&show_text=false&width=560&t=243" width="560" height="314" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe></div>The report described the 81-year-old Democrat's memory as “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor" and having “significant limitations.” It noted that Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life such as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/2/1707478982378.png" alt="Page from the special counsel's report that highlight's Biden's memory challenges.- U.S. Department of Justice" />
 <figcaption>Page from the special counsel's report that highlight's Biden's memory challenges.- U.S. Department of Justice</figcaption>
 </figure>“My memory is fine,” Biden responded Thursday night from the White House, where he grew visibly angry as he denied forgetting when his son died. Beau Biden&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/general-news-d8f69eb645d74b7886387f713981b739">died of brain cancer in 2015</a>&nbsp;at the age of 46.While Biden will not face charges for mishandling classified documents, the report’s assertions about his memory could undermine Biden’s message to voters that he can manage the government and safeguard the country. Voters are already going into this year’s election with&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-donald-trump-government-and-politics-ede57ce56fdf7958addec2cf9ef5e0de">severe misgivings about Biden’s age</a>, having scrutinized his gaffes, his coughing, his slow walking and even a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-us-secret-service-jill-delaware-government-and-politics-d039291d372a38982b533d05d18d7a6f">tumble off his bicycle</a>.Yet even as Biden defended himself, he committed another gaffe while discussing the Israel-Hamas War and mistakenly referred to Egypt’s leader Abdel Fattah El-Sissi as “the president of Mexico."In ruling out prosecution of Biden over his retention of highly classified materials as a private citizen, the report from special counsel Robert Hur suggested he would seem too feeble to prosecute: “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”Biden said the report's descriptions of his memory and his son's death were “extraneous commentary” that “had no place in this report.” About his son's death, Biden said, “How in the hell dare he raise that?”“Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business,” he said. “Every Memorial Day we hold a service remembering him, attended by friends and family and the people who loved him. I don’t need anyone, I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”In response to reporters' questions about his memory, Biden disputed the report's statements and said he's “the most qualified person in this country to be president.”The White House also pushed back on the characterizations of Biden's memory in a Feb. 5 letter from the president's lawyers that was published in Hur's report. The letter argues that Biden's “inability to recall dates or details of events that happened years ago is neither surprising nor unusual,” particularly about when certain documents were packed or moved.“We do not believe that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate,” the letter said. “The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events. Such comments have no place in a Department of Justice report.”It is not unusual for the subjects of government investigations to say they don't recall an event or a conversation in order to avoid issues such as perjury. The special counsel did not release the transcript of the interviews with Biden, so some context is unclear. Former President Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner, has boasted of his own vast memory but has also at times said in legal proceedings that he does not recall certain events.Biden noted in a statement issued Thursday that he had sat for five hours of interviews with Hur's team over two days on Oct. 8 and 9, “even though Israel had just been attacked on October 7th and I was in the middle of handling an international crisis.”In&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-age-poll-trump-2024-620e0a5cfa0039a6448f607c17c7f23e">an August poll</a>&nbsp;by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs, 77% of U.S. adults said Biden is too old to be effective for four more years. It was one of the rare sources of bipartisan agreement during a politically polarized era, with 89% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats saying Biden’s age is a problem.The release of the report overlapped with recent Biden speeches in which he mistakenly claimed to talk with European leaders — France’s Francois Mitterrand and Germany’s Helmut Kohl — who had, in fact, not held office since the 1990s and had died several years ago.The 77-year-old Trump also faces questions about recent memory lapses. In a January speech, Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nikki-haley-trump-mental-fitness-pelosi-522c3cddcaf7b85df5a64658c5041e96">mistakenly and repeatedly</a>&nbsp;confused former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, his major opponent for the GOP nomination, with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.Pelosi was the House speaker during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by Trump’s supporters who were seeking to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. Trump said it was Haley who led the House and alleged she should have done more to secure it.But Republican critics were quick to pile on Thursday as the special counsel's report became public.Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said on X, formerly Twitter, that the report was “alarming” and it's clear that Biden “does not have the cognitive ability to be President.”“If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president. Joe Biden is unfit to lead this nation,” said Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for Make America Great Again Inc., the main super PAC backing Trump's candidacy.Shortly before the special counsel's report was publicly released, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was playing down Biden's gaffes at the daily news briefing. Jean-Pierre said the slip-ups are “common” for most public figures, including those younger than Biden.“It happens to all of us,” said Jean-Pierre, who noted she herself has misspoken, as has House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.Jean-Pierre tried to say that the public's attention should be focused more on the substance of what Biden was saying about how world leaders are worried about Trump's possible return to the White House.And Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Steven Horsford, D-Nev., on Thursday dismissed concerns about Biden’s mental acuity after the president’s mix-ups earlier this week.“I was with the president on Sunday,” Horsford said, referring to Biden’s Nevada visit. “The president is very well suited to be our commander-in-chief and we’re going to continue to focus on the issues that the American people are focused on.”

🎥 President Biden answers questions on his age, memory

LAS VEGAS (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">Former President Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;won Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses Thursday after he was the only major candidate to compete, winning his third straight state as he tries to secure his party's nomination.

<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nevada-donald-trump-nikki-haley-none-candidates-d5ce36684eb7e41d7d2e74c6957e9196">Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley</a>, his last major rival still in the race, skipped the caucuses even though they are the only contest in Nevada that counts toward the GOP nomination. Haley cited what she considered an unfair process favoring Trump and instead ran in Nevada’s symbolic state-run presidential primary on Tuesday, when she finished behind the “none of these candidates” option.

Trump will win most, if not&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nevada-caucuses-trump-delegates-race-call-winner-4cd8b5b299b89fec69c2185269f7ff12">all, of the state’s 26 delegates</a>. He needs to accrue 1,215 delegates to formally clinch the party’s nomination and could reach that number in March.

From Nevada, the GOP contest pivots to the South Carolina primary in Haley's home state on Feb. 24. Trump remains popular in the deeply conservative state but Haley, who won two elections as South Carolina’s governor, is hoping her local roots give her an edge. Trump is eyeing a massive delegate haul during the March 5 Super Tuesday contests, which would move him closer to becoming the GOP’s presumptive nominee.

Trump, delivering a brief victory speech in Las Vegas, basked in reports of long lines in the Western state and told his supporters he was eager to declare victory in the upcoming South Carolina primary.

“We're leading everybody," he said. "Is there any way we can call the election for next Tuesday? That's all I want.”

Though Trump has been the front-runner, Nevada’s caucuses were seen as especially skewed in his favor due to the intense grassroots support caucuses require candidates to harness around a state in order to win. Nevada’s state party gave him a greater edge last year when it barred candidates from running both in the primary and caucuses and also restricted the role of super PACs like the groups that were key to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign before he dropped out.

Caucuses typically require voters to show up for an in-person meeting at a certain day or time, while elections can offer more flexibility to participate, with polls open for most of the day on Election Day along with absentee or early voting. Nevada Republicans said they wanted certain rules in place like a requirement that participants show a government-issued ID.

Trump's supporters waited in long lines Thursday. At one caucus site at a Reno-area elementary school, a line of nearly 1,000 people stretched around the corner and down the street 20 minutes after the caucuses opened.

Voters in line, some of whom were wearing Trump hats and shirts, said they came out to back the former president in a contest that would give him a third straight win in the Republican presidential race.

“I think it’s about backing Trump up and giving him the support that he needs. And to let people know that we’re supporting him,” said Heather Kirkwood, 47.

Trump has long been immensely popular among Nevada Republicans, but he had other perceived advantages among the party’s key figures. Nevada GOP Party Chair Michael McDonald and the state’s Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid were among six Republicans in the state&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fake-electors-nevada-indictment-ba84be72465e635dbaadc312a9632fc8">indicted</a>&nbsp;on felony charges that they were so-called fake electors who sent certificates to Congress falsely claiming Trump won Nevada in 2020. The chairman of the Republican Party in Clark County — the largest county, which is home to Las Vegas — was another of the six so-called fake electors.

Republicans are increasingly converging behind Trump while he&nbsp;<a href="https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/trump-investigations-civil-criminal-tracker/index.html">faces a deluge of legal problems</a>, including 91 criminal charges in four separate cases. Trump is flexing his influence both in Congress — where&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/congress-border-security-bill-ukraine-b386eae0c4947497da931870dbcb28a0">Republicans rejected a border security deal</a>&nbsp;after he pushed against it — and at the Republican National Committee, as chairwoman Ronna McDaniel&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ronna-mcdaniel-rnc-chair-trump-979f357db73ca5505f12f91977f55b3b">could resign in the coming weeks</a>&nbsp;after he publicly questioned whether she should stay in the job.

Trump still faces unprecedented jeopardy for a major candidate. A&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-capitol-riot-presidential-immunity-appeal-46c2d7fc7807cd3262764d35e47f390e">federal appeals panel ruled this week</a>&nbsp;that Trump can face trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, rejecting his claims that he is immune from prosecution. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-trump-insurrection-2024-election-0baac5ba0c1868e437e365af17eeab24">heard arguments</a>&nbsp;in a case trying to keep Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. The justices sounded broadly skeptical of the effort.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/2/1707480079314.png" alt="Trump, delivered a brief victory speech in Las Vegas-image courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>Trump, delivered a brief victory speech in Las Vegas-image courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>LAS VEGAS (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">Former President Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;won Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses Thursday after he was the only major candidate to compete, winning his third straight state as he tries to secure his party's nomination.<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nevada-donald-trump-nikki-haley-none-candidates-d5ce36684eb7e41d7d2e74c6957e9196">Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley</a>, his last major rival still in the race, skipped the caucuses even though they are the only contest in Nevada that counts toward the GOP nomination. Haley cited what she considered an unfair process favoring Trump and instead ran in Nevada’s symbolic state-run presidential primary on Tuesday, when she finished behind the “none of these candidates” option.Trump will win most, if not&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nevada-caucuses-trump-delegates-race-call-winner-4cd8b5b299b89fec69c2185269f7ff12">all, of the state’s 26 delegates</a>. He needs to accrue 1,215 delegates to formally clinch the party’s nomination and could reach that number in March.From Nevada, the GOP contest pivots to the South Carolina primary in Haley's home state on Feb. 24. Trump remains popular in the deeply conservative state but Haley, who won two elections as South Carolina’s governor, is hoping her local roots give her an edge. Trump is eyeing a massive delegate haul during the March 5 Super Tuesday contests, which would move him closer to becoming the GOP’s presumptive nominee.Trump, delivering a brief victory speech in Las Vegas, basked in reports of long lines in the Western state and told his supporters he was eager to declare victory in the upcoming South Carolina primary.“We're leading everybody," he said. "Is there any way we can call the election for next Tuesday? That's all I want.”Though Trump has been the front-runner, Nevada’s caucuses were seen as especially skewed in his favor due to the intense grassroots support caucuses require candidates to harness around a state in order to win. Nevada’s state party gave him a greater edge last year when it barred candidates from running both in the primary and caucuses and also restricted the role of super PACs like the groups that were key to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign before he dropped out.Caucuses typically require voters to show up for an in-person meeting at a certain day or time, while elections can offer more flexibility to participate, with polls open for most of the day on Election Day along with absentee or early voting. Nevada Republicans said they wanted certain rules in place like a requirement that participants show a government-issued ID.Trump's supporters waited in long lines Thursday. At one caucus site at a Reno-area elementary school, a line of nearly 1,000 people stretched around the corner and down the street 20 minutes after the caucuses opened.Voters in line, some of whom were wearing Trump hats and shirts, said they came out to back the former president in a contest that would give him a third straight win in the Republican presidential race.“I think it’s about backing Trump up and giving him the support that he needs. And to let people know that we’re supporting him,” said Heather Kirkwood, 47.Trump has long been immensely popular among Nevada Republicans, but he had other perceived advantages among the party’s key figures. Nevada GOP Party Chair Michael McDonald and the state’s Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid were among six Republicans in the state&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fake-electors-nevada-indictment-ba84be72465e635dbaadc312a9632fc8">indicted</a>&nbsp;on felony charges that they were so-called fake electors who sent certificates to Congress falsely claiming Trump won Nevada in 2020. The chairman of the Republican Party in Clark County — the largest county, which is home to Las Vegas — was another of the six so-called fake electors.Republicans are increasingly converging behind Trump while he&nbsp;<a href="https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/trump-investigations-civil-criminal-tracker/index.html">faces a deluge of legal problems</a>, including 91 criminal charges in four separate cases. Trump is flexing his influence both in Congress — where&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/congress-border-security-bill-ukraine-b386eae0c4947497da931870dbcb28a0">Republicans rejected a border security deal</a>&nbsp;after he pushed against it — and at the Republican National Committee, as chairwoman Ronna McDaniel&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ronna-mcdaniel-rnc-chair-trump-979f357db73ca5505f12f91977f55b3b">could resign in the coming weeks</a>&nbsp;after he publicly questioned whether she should stay in the job.Trump still faces unprecedented jeopardy for a major candidate. A&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-capitol-riot-presidential-immunity-appeal-46c2d7fc7807cd3262764d35e47f390e">federal appeals panel ruled this week</a>&nbsp;that Trump can face trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, rejecting his claims that he is immune from prosecution. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-trump-insurrection-2024-election-0baac5ba0c1868e437e365af17eeab24">heard arguments</a>&nbsp;in a case trying to keep Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. The justices sounded broadly skeptical of the effort.

Trump wins Nevada’s Republican caucuses

JERUSALEM —A tensions continue to escalate in the Middle East, U.S. warships are busy responding to threats.

Between 5 a.m. – 9 p.m. (Sanaa time) Thursday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted seven self-defense strikes against four Houthi unmanned surface vessels (USV) and seven mobile anti-ship cruise missiles that were prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea.

CENTCOM identified these missiles and USVs in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined they presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region.

Meanwhile, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi rebels said his forces will keep up their monthslong campaign of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea over Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas.

"Food, medicine and humanitarian air should reach all different parts of Gaza. If not, we will carry on our operations,” said Abdel Malek al-Houthi, a Yemeni politician who serves as the leader of the Iran-backed rebel movement, in a televised speech Thursday.

The war in Gaza has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, and northern areas remain largely cut off from humanitarian aid.

Al-Houthi said the U.S. and British militaries had launched a total of 86 air and naval strikes on Yemen this week.

However, al-Houthi said the retaliatory strikes would not achieve their intended goal of disabling the group's abilities, and said the attacks were Washington's attempt to save face.

“Carrying on with strikes won’t do the U.S., Britain or Israel any good,” al-Houthi said.

In recent weeks, the U.S. and the U.K., backed by other allies, have launched airstrikes targeting Houthi missile arsenals and launch sites for its attacks.

The barrage of U.S., coalition and militant attacks in the Middle East are compounding fears that Israel’s war in Gaza could escalate into a wider regional conflict.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/2/1707179984034.png" alt="File image from the U.S. attack Feb. 2- U.S. Central Command" />
 <figcaption>File image from the U.S. attack Feb. 2- U.S. Central Command</figcaption>
 </figure>JERUSALEM —A tensions continue to escalate in the Middle East, U.S. warships are busy responding to threats.Between 5 a.m. – 9 p.m. (Sanaa time) Thursday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted seven self-defense strikes against four Houthi unmanned surface vessels (USV) and seven mobile anti-ship cruise missiles that were prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea.CENTCOM identified these missiles and USVs in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined they presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region.Meanwhile, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi rebels said his forces will keep up their monthslong campaign of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea over Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas."Food, medicine and humanitarian air should reach all different parts of Gaza. If not, we will carry on our operations,” said Abdel Malek al-Houthi, a Yemeni politician who serves as the leader of the Iran-backed rebel movement, in a televised speech Thursday.The war in Gaza has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, and northern areas remain largely cut off from humanitarian aid.Al-Houthi said the U.S. and British militaries had launched a total of 86 air and naval strikes on Yemen this week.However, al-Houthi said the retaliatory strikes would not achieve their intended goal of disabling the group's abilities, and said the attacks were Washington's attempt to save face.“Carrying on with strikes won’t do the U.S., Britain or Israel any good,” al-Houthi said.In recent weeks, the U.S. and the U.K., backed by other allies, have launched airstrikes targeting Houthi missile arsenals and launch sites for its attacks.The barrage of U.S., coalition and militant attacks in the Middle East are compounding fears that Israel’s war in Gaza could escalate into a wider regional conflict.

U.S. warships conduct self defense strikes in Red Sea

<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/02/07/pushback-meets-governors-plan-to-streamline-approval-of-nebraska-livestock-operations/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — A prominent pork producer’s plan to streamline and “take the emotion out” of approvals of new livestock operations generated a lot of negative emotions Wednesday.

That hog farmer, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, requested the introduction of a bill in the State Legislature to, as written, eliminate public hearings during county zoning board consideration of permits to allow large hog confinement operations, chicken farms and feedlots.

Those public hearings often get emotional, the governor said, forcing zoning board members to make decisions out of “subjective fears” instead of whether an operation meets all the county, state and federal rules.

“The goal is simple: to smooth out the process of obtaining the proper permits and do business at the county level,” Pillen told members of the Legislature’s Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.

Todd Tulls, who operates dairies in Nebraska, Kansas and Wisconsin, said that requiring only written comments on zoning requests would “take out some of the emotional neighbor bias” that can sway the members of a zoning board against a permit.

A wave of opponents, including several members of county board and county zoning commissions, testified against Legislative Bill 1375, calling it unnecessary, undemocratic and aimed at easing the addition of more confined animal feeding operations to Nebraska.

“This will restrict the opportunity of the public to voice their opinions,” said Mark Schoenrock, a Jefferson County Board member.

He and others pointed out the inscription above the main entrance to the State Capitol is “The Salvation of the State is the Watchfulness of the Citizen.” Written comments, as the bill appeared to require, could be misinterpreted or disregarded, they said.

Ken Winston, a lobbyist for the Bold Alliance, said&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/108/PDF/Intro/LB1375.pdf">the plain language of LB 1375 eliminates the words “hold public hearings”</a>&nbsp;before a zoning board submits its recommendation to a county board. He said it was hard to see how planning commissions could hold such hearings absent that language.

Supporters of LB 1375 said that was a misunderstanding and said the bill’s intent wasn’t to eliminate a public hearing at the zoning board level but to make it optional and allow written comments instead.

The sponsor of the bill, Kearney Sen. John Lowe, said he would amend the bill to ensure that public hearings at the zoning board level are still allowed.

“I’m sorry we scared the daylights out of you,” he told opponents of the bill who came to the State Capitol.

Some critics of LB 1375 were skeptical about whether it was an honest mistake and said the measure wasn’t needed. Making public hearings optional, they maintained, would probably lead to that being the practice.

While supporters of LB 1375 said public hearings would still be required at the county board level, Korby Gilbertson, a lobbyist for Media of Nebraska, said that some counties — she named Lancaster — require public hearings only at the zoning board level. So if those went away, she said, there would be no opportunity for public input.

Winston added that public hearings are often “very educational” and can help air concerns and work out differences.

Al Juhnke of the Nebraska Pork Producers Association said LB 1375 is needed because of “needless zoning roadblocks” in some Nebraska counties.

He pointed to the recent denial of a hog confinement operation in north-central Rock County. The farmer involved, according to Juhnke, met all the county zoning regulations, but a conditional use permit for the operation was denied for “unsubstantiated, unproven” reasons, including that it would lower property values in the vicinity.

That denial, he said, is now under appeal in court.

Juhnke and others supporters of LB 1375 said they just wanted more clarity in zoning regulations so that if a facility met the requirements, it would be approved.

“This is an effort to make Nebraska a more business-friendly state,” Lowe said.

Opponents of the bill said local zoning boards and county boards are best able to determine whether a livestock facility is right for their area. That included Faye Smith, a Rock County Board member, who defended the denial of the permit there.

Opponents of LB 1375 also objected to language in the bill that made approval of a conditional use permit automatic if an application took more than 90 days to decide.

Misty Ahmic, a member of the Seward County Board and former member of the zoning commission there, said even a routine application can take more than 90 days.

Others said putting a “shot clock” on approvals could lead to rushed judgments, or decisions without getting adequate information.

Still other critics of the bill objected to removing “water quality” as a consideration in granting a conditional use permit. They said preserving or improving water quality is a top concern in many areas of the state.

The committee took no action on LB 1375 following the public hearing, though Lowe pledged to keep working on the bill.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/2/1707421189781.jpeg" alt="Pork producers who own a processing plant in Fremont include Gov. Jim Pillen, the plant received a $25 million federal grant. (Keith Weller/USDA Agricultural Research Service)" />
 <figcaption>Pork producers who own a processing plant in Fremont include Gov. Jim Pillen, the plant received a $25 million federal grant. (Keith Weller/USDA Agricultural Research Service)</figcaption>
 </figure>Paul Hammel<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/02/07/pushback-meets-governors-plan-to-streamline-approval-of-nebraska-livestock-operations/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — A prominent pork producer’s plan to streamline and “take the emotion out” of approvals of new livestock operations generated a lot of negative emotions Wednesday.That hog farmer, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, requested the introduction of a bill in the State Legislature to, as written, eliminate public hearings during county zoning board consideration of permits to allow large hog confinement operations, chicken farms and feedlots.Those public hearings often get emotional, the governor said, forcing zoning board members to make decisions out of “subjective fears” instead of whether an operation meets all the county, state and federal rules.“The goal is simple: to smooth out the process of obtaining the proper permits and do business at the county level,” Pillen told members of the Legislature’s Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.<h2>‘Neighbor bias’</h2>Todd Tulls, who operates dairies in Nebraska, Kansas and Wisconsin, said that requiring only written comments on zoning requests would “take out some of the emotional neighbor bias” that can sway the members of a zoning board against a permit.A wave of opponents, including several members of county board and county zoning commissions, testified against Legislative Bill 1375, calling it unnecessary, undemocratic and aimed at easing the addition of more confined animal feeding operations to Nebraska.“This will restrict the opportunity of the public to voice their opinions,” said Mark Schoenrock, a Jefferson County Board member.He and others pointed out the inscription above the main entrance to the State Capitol is “The Salvation of the State is the Watchfulness of the Citizen.” Written comments, as the bill appeared to require, could be misinterpreted or disregarded, they said.Ken Winston, a lobbyist for the Bold Alliance, said&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/108/PDF/Intro/LB1375.pdf">the plain language of LB 1375 eliminates the words “hold public hearings”</a>&nbsp;before a zoning board submits its recommendation to a county board. He said it was hard to see how planning commissions could hold such hearings absent that language.<h2>‘Misunderstanding’</h2>Supporters of LB 1375 said that was a misunderstanding and said the bill’s intent wasn’t to eliminate a public hearing at the zoning board level but to make it optional and allow written comments instead.The sponsor of the bill, Kearney Sen. John Lowe, said he would amend the bill to ensure that public hearings at the zoning board level are still allowed.“I’m sorry we scared the daylights out of you,” he told opponents of the bill who came to the State Capitol.Some critics of LB 1375 were skeptical about whether it was an honest mistake and said the measure wasn’t needed. Making public hearings optional, they maintained, would probably lead to that being the practice.<h2>Hearings educational</h2>While supporters of LB 1375 said public hearings would still be required at the county board level, Korby Gilbertson, a lobbyist for Media of Nebraska, said that some counties — she named Lancaster — require public hearings only at the zoning board level. So if those went away, she said, there would be no opportunity for public input.Winston added that public hearings are often “very educational” and can help air concerns and work out differences.Al Juhnke of the Nebraska Pork Producers Association said LB 1375 is needed because of “needless zoning roadblocks” in some Nebraska counties.He pointed to the recent denial of a hog confinement operation in north-central Rock County. The farmer involved, according to Juhnke, met all the county zoning regulations, but a conditional use permit for the operation was denied for “unsubstantiated, unproven” reasons, including that it would lower property values in the vicinity.<h2>One denial in court</h2>That denial, he said, is now under appeal in court.Juhnke and others supporters of LB 1375 said they just wanted more clarity in zoning regulations so that if a facility met the requirements, it would be approved.“This is an effort to make Nebraska a more business-friendly state,” Lowe said.Opponents of the bill said local zoning boards and county boards are best able to determine whether a livestock facility is right for their area. That included Faye Smith, a Rock County Board member, who defended the denial of the permit there.Opponents of LB 1375 also objected to language in the bill that made approval of a conditional use permit automatic if an application took more than 90 days to decide.Misty Ahmic, a member of the Seward County Board and former member of the zoning commission there, said even a routine application can take more than 90 days.Others said putting a “shot clock” on approvals could lead to rushed judgments, or decisions without getting adequate information.Still other critics of the bill objected to removing “water quality” as a consideration in granting a conditional use permit. They said preserving or improving water quality is a top concern in many areas of the state.The committee took no action on LB 1375 following the public hearing, though Lowe pledged to keep working on the bill.

Pushback meets governor’s plan to ‘streamline’ approval of Nebraska livestock operations

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden “willfully” retained and disclosed highly classified materials when he was a private citizen, including documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other sensitive national security matters, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf">Justice Department report</a>&nbsp;that nonetheless says no criminal charges are warranted for him or anyone else.

<a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf">Click here to read </a>the special council report

The report from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justice.gov/sco-hur">special counsel Robert Hur</a>, released Thursday, represents a harshly critical assessment of Biden’s handling of sensitive government materials, but also details the reasons why he should not be charged with the crime.

The findings will likely blunt his ability to forcefully condemn Donald Trump, Biden's likely opponent in November's presidential election, over a criminal indictment charging the former president with illegally hoarding classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen," Hur wrote.

Hur’s report says evidence suggests that many of the classified documents recovered by investigators at the Penn Biden Center, in parts of Biden’s Delaware home, and in his Senate papers at the University of Delaware were retained by “mistake.”

Biden said in a statement that he was “pleased” the special counsel had “reached the conclusion I believed all along they would reach — that there would be no charges brought in this case and the matter is now closed.”

He made a point of saying that he sat for five hours of in-person interviews over two days on Oct. 8 and 9, “even though Israel had just been attacked on October 7th and I was in the middle of handling an international crisis."

“I just believed that’s what I owed the American people so they could know no charges would be brought and the matter closed,” Biden said.

The report comes after a yearlong investigation into the improper retention of classified documents by Biden, from his time as a senator and as vice president, that were found at his Delaware home, as well as at a private office that he used in between his service in the Obama administration and becoming president.

The investigation into Biden is separate from special counsel Jack Smith’s inquiry into the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-classified-documents-37a360519244eb3c211a56cd9355adc8">handling of classified documents by Trump</a>&nbsp;after Trump left the White House. Smith’s team has charged Trump with illegally retaining top secret records at Mar-a-Lago home and then obstructing government efforts to get them back. Trump has said he did nothing wrong.

After Biden's lawyers uncovered classified documents at his former office, Biden's representatives promptly contacted the National Archives to arrange their return to the government. The National Archives notified the FBI, which opened an investigation. Biden made his homes available to agents to conduct thorough searches, and that is how the most sensitive documents came to the attention of the Justice Department.

Hur assessed that the evidence did not support that Biden willfully retained some of the classified documents that were recovered — including the ones at the Penn Biden Center that sparked the probe.

Biden could not have been prosecuted as a sitting president, but Hur’s report states that he would not recommend charges against Biden regardless.

“We would reach the same conclusion even if Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president,” the report said.

Part of the report centers on Biden’s handling of classified documents about Afghanistan — specifically, the Obama administration’s decision to send additional troops there — that he retained after he left office as vice president in his Delaware home. Biden preserved materials documenting his opposition to the troop surge, including a 2009 classified handwritten memo to then-President Barack Obama.

“These materials were proof of the stand Mr. Biden took in what he regarded as among the most important decisions of his vice presidency,” the report said.

The documents have classification markings up to the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information Level and were found in a box in Biden’s Delaware garage “that contained other materials of great significance to him and that he appears to have personally used and accessed.”

Photographs included in the report showed some of the classified Afghanistan documents stored in a worn cardboard box stored in his garage, apparently in a loose collection with other household items, including a ladder and a wicker basket.

Classified documents from the Obama administration were also found in Biden’s basement den, according to the report. Classified documents from his time in the Senate in the 1970s and 1980s were also found in his garage.

Despite signs that Biden knowingly retained and disclosed classified materials, Hur’s report said criminal charges were not merited for multiple reasons. Those include the fact that as vice president, and during his subsequent presidency when the Afghanistan records were found, “he had the authority to keep classified documents at his home.”

As part of the probe, investigators reviewed a recording of a February 2017 conversation between Biden and his ghostwriter in which, referring to the 2009 memo to Obama, Biden said that he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” Biden was renting a home in Virginia at the time and consolidated his belongings in Delaware when he moved out in 2019. Prosecutors believe that Biden’s comment was a reference to the same classified records that FBI agents later found in his Delaware home.

Though the best case for charges could involve his possession of the Afghanistan documents as a private citizen, prosecutors said, it was possible that Biden could have found those records at his Virginia home in 2017 and then forgotten about them soon after.

“This could convince some reasonable jurors that he did not retain them willfully,” the report.

The report said there was some evidence to suggest that Biden knew he could not keep classified handwritten notes at home after leaving office, citing his deep familiarity “with the measures taken to safeguard classified information and the need for those measures to prevent harm to national security.” Yet his kept notebooks containing classified information in unlocked drawers at home.

“He had strong motivations to do so and to ignore the rules for properly handing the classified information in his notebooks,” the report said. “He consulted the notebooks liberally during hours of discussions with his ghostwriter and viewed them as highly private and valued possessions with which he was unwilling to part.”

While the report removes legal jeopardy for the president, it is nonetheless is an embarrassment for Biden, who placed competency and experience at the core of his rationale to voters to send him to the Oval Office.

“Mr. Biden was known to remove and keep classified material from his briefing books for future use, and his staff struggled — and sometimes failed — to retrieve those materials,” the report states. “And there was no procedure at all for tracking some of the classified material Mr. Biden received outside of his briefing books”

In declining to prosecute Biden, Hur’s office also cited what it said was Biden’s “limited memory” both during his 2017 recorded conversations with the ghostwriter and in an interview with investigators last year.

“Given Mr. Biden’s limited precision and recall during his interviews with his ghostwriter and with our office, jurors may hesitate to place too much evidentiary weight on a single eight-word utterance to his ghostwriter about finding classified documents in Virginia, in the absence of other, more direct evidence.”

“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” investigators wrote.

There is recent Justice Department precedence for criminal charges against individuals accused of sharing classified information with biographers or ghostwriters. Gen. David Petraeus pleaded guilty to doing exactly that in 2015 and was sentenced to probation.

Yet in this instance, prosecutors say, Biden could have plausibly believed that the notebooks were his personal property and belonged to him, even if they contained classified information.

In an interview with prosecutors, the report said, Biden was emphatic with investigators that the notebooks were “my property” and that “every president before me has done the exact same thing.”

White House lawyer Richard Sauber said Biden takes classified information seriously and “strives to protect it,” but making mistakes when packing documents at the end of an administration can be a common occurrence, as the report noted.

“We disagree with a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments in the special counsel’s report. Nonetheless, the most important decision the special counsel made — that no charges are warranted — is firmly based on the facts and evidence,” Sauber said.

Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer accused the special counsel of violating “well-established’ norms and “trashing” the president.

“The special counsel could not refrain from investigative excess, perhaps unsurprising given the intense pressures of the current political environment. Whatever the impact of those pressures on the final report, it flouts department regulations and norms,” he said in a statement.

Trump responded to the report in a statement as he traveled to Nevada for Thursday evening’s Republican caucuses. “THIS IS A TWO-TIERED SYSTEM OF JUSTICE!” he said in a statement, claiming the Biden case was “100 times different and more severe than mine.”

“I did nothing wrong, and I cooperated far more. What Biden did is outrageously criminal - He had 50 years of documents, 50 times more than I had, and “WILLFULLY RETAINED” them,” Trump added, once again claiming “ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”

White House lawyers and Biden’s personal attorney were given the opportunity to review and comment on the report. Biden chose not to assert executive privilege over any portion of the report, White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/2/1707437029020.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden “willfully” retained and disclosed highly classified materials when he was a private citizen, including documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other sensitive national security matters, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf">Justice Department report</a>&nbsp;that nonetheless says no criminal charges are warranted for him or anyone else.<a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf">Click here to read </a>the special council reportThe report from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justice.gov/sco-hur">special counsel Robert Hur</a>, released Thursday, represents a harshly critical assessment of Biden’s handling of sensitive government materials, but also details the reasons why he should not be charged with the crime.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/1/1673546739694.png" alt="Biden backing his Corvette into the garage next to stacks of boxes where classified documents were found-image from a 2020 Biden for President campaign ad&nbsp;" />
 <figcaption>Biden backing his Corvette into the garage next to stacks of boxes where classified documents were found-image from a 2020 Biden for President campaign ad&nbsp;</figcaption>
 </figure>The findings will likely blunt his ability to forcefully condemn Donald Trump, Biden's likely opponent in November's presidential election, over a criminal indictment charging the former president with illegally hoarding classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen," Hur wrote.Hur’s report says evidence suggests that many of the classified documents recovered by investigators at the Penn Biden Center, in parts of Biden’s Delaware home, and in his Senate papers at the University of Delaware were retained by “mistake.”Biden said in a statement that he was “pleased” the special counsel had “reached the conclusion I believed all along they would reach — that there would be no charges brought in this case and the matter is now closed.”He made a point of saying that he sat for five hours of in-person interviews over two days on Oct. 8 and 9, “even though Israel had just been attacked on October 7th and I was in the middle of handling an international crisis."“I just believed that’s what I owed the American people so they could know no charges would be brought and the matter closed,” Biden said.The report comes after a yearlong investigation into the improper retention of classified documents by Biden, from his time as a senator and as vice president, that were found at his Delaware home, as well as at a private office that he used in between his service in the Obama administration and becoming president.The investigation into Biden is separate from special counsel Jack Smith’s inquiry into the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-classified-documents-37a360519244eb3c211a56cd9355adc8">handling of classified documents by Trump</a>&nbsp;after Trump left the White House. Smith’s team has charged Trump with illegally retaining top secret records at Mar-a-Lago home and then obstructing government efforts to get them back. Trump has said he did nothing wrong.After Biden's lawyers uncovered classified documents at his former office, Biden's representatives promptly contacted the National Archives to arrange their return to the government. The National Archives notified the FBI, which opened an investigation. Biden made his homes available to agents to conduct thorough searches, and that is how the most sensitive documents came to the attention of the Justice Department.Hur assessed that the evidence did not support that Biden willfully retained some of the classified documents that were recovered — including the ones at the Penn Biden Center that sparked the probe.Biden could not have been prosecuted as a sitting president, but Hur’s report states that he would not recommend charges against Biden regardless.“We would reach the same conclusion even if Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president,” the report said.Part of the report centers on Biden’s handling of classified documents about Afghanistan — specifically, the Obama administration’s decision to send additional troops there — that he retained after he left office as vice president in his Delaware home. Biden preserved materials documenting his opposition to the troop surge, including a 2009 classified handwritten memo to then-President Barack Obama.“These materials were proof of the stand Mr. Biden took in what he regarded as among the most important decisions of his vice presidency,” the report said.The documents have classification markings up to the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information Level and were found in a box in Biden’s Delaware garage “that contained other materials of great significance to him and that he appears to have personally used and accessed.”Photographs included in the report showed some of the classified Afghanistan documents stored in a worn cardboard box stored in his garage, apparently in a loose collection with other household items, including a ladder and a wicker basket.Classified documents from the Obama administration were also found in Biden’s basement den, according to the report. Classified documents from his time in the Senate in the 1970s and 1980s were also found in his garage.Despite signs that Biden knowingly retained and disclosed classified materials, Hur’s report said criminal charges were not merited for multiple reasons. Those include the fact that as vice president, and during his subsequent presidency when the Afghanistan records were found, “he had the authority to keep classified documents at his home.”As part of the probe, investigators reviewed a recording of a February 2017 conversation between Biden and his ghostwriter in which, referring to the 2009 memo to Obama, Biden said that he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” Biden was renting a home in Virginia at the time and consolidated his belongings in Delaware when he moved out in 2019. Prosecutors believe that Biden’s comment was a reference to the same classified records that FBI agents later found in his Delaware home.Though the best case for charges could involve his possession of the Afghanistan documents as a private citizen, prosecutors said, it was possible that Biden could have found those records at his Virginia home in 2017 and then forgotten about them soon after.“This could convince some reasonable jurors that he did not retain them willfully,” the report.The report said there was some evidence to suggest that Biden knew he could not keep classified handwritten notes at home after leaving office, citing his deep familiarity “with the measures taken to safeguard classified information and the need for those measures to prevent harm to national security.” Yet his kept notebooks containing classified information in unlocked drawers at home.“He had strong motivations to do so and to ignore the rules for properly handing the classified information in his notebooks,” the report said. “He consulted the notebooks liberally during hours of discussions with his ghostwriter and viewed them as highly private and valued possessions with which he was unwilling to part.”While the report removes legal jeopardy for the president, it is nonetheless is an embarrassment for Biden, who placed competency and experience at the core of his rationale to voters to send him to the Oval Office.“Mr. Biden was known to remove and keep classified material from his briefing books for future use, and his staff struggled — and sometimes failed — to retrieve those materials,” the report states. “And there was no procedure at all for tracking some of the classified material Mr. Biden received outside of his briefing books”In declining to prosecute Biden, Hur’s office also cited what it said was Biden’s “limited memory” both during his 2017 recorded conversations with the ghostwriter and in an interview with investigators last year.“Given Mr. Biden’s limited precision and recall during his interviews with his ghostwriter and with our office, jurors may hesitate to place too much evidentiary weight on a single eight-word utterance to his ghostwriter about finding classified documents in Virginia, in the absence of other, more direct evidence.”“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” investigators wrote.There is recent Justice Department precedence for criminal charges against individuals accused of sharing classified information with biographers or ghostwriters. Gen. David Petraeus pleaded guilty to doing exactly that in 2015 and was sentenced to probation.Yet in this instance, prosecutors say, Biden could have plausibly believed that the notebooks were his personal property and belonged to him, even if they contained classified information.In an interview with prosecutors, the report said, Biden was emphatic with investigators that the notebooks were “my property” and that “every president before me has done the exact same thing.”White House lawyer Richard Sauber said Biden takes classified information seriously and “strives to protect it,” but making mistakes when packing documents at the end of an administration can be a common occurrence, as the report noted.“We disagree with a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments in the special counsel’s report. Nonetheless, the most important decision the special counsel made — that no charges are warranted — is firmly based on the facts and evidence,” Sauber said.Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer accused the special counsel of violating “well-established’ norms and “trashing” the president.“The special counsel could not refrain from investigative excess, perhaps unsurprising given the intense pressures of the current political environment. Whatever the impact of those pressures on the final report, it flouts department regulations and norms,” he said in a statement.Trump responded to the report in a statement as he traveled to Nevada for Thursday evening’s Republican caucuses. “THIS IS A TWO-TIERED SYSTEM OF JUSTICE!” he said in a statement, claiming the Biden case was “100 times different and more severe than mine.”“I did nothing wrong, and I cooperated far more. What Biden did is outrageously criminal - He had 50 years of documents, 50 times more than I had, and “WILLFULLY RETAINED” them,” Trump added, once again claiming “ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”White House lawyers and Biden’s personal attorney were given the opportunity to review and comment on the report. Biden chose not to assert executive privilege over any portion of the report, White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams said.

No charges: Read the special counsel report on Biden, classified  documents

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday heard two hours of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-insurrection-trump-2024-election-397a481d2886b64bba06b24ff3d03f37">historic arguments</a>&nbsp;in a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-14th-amendment-insurrection-supreme-court-colorado-7703a30566ce2588fb92bf22dd20c84d">Colorado case</a>&nbsp;to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot. The justices sounded highly skeptical of the effort.

<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2023/23-719">Click here to listen </a>to a replay of the oral argument

It's the first time that voters have tried to block a candidate from the presidency under a once-obscure post-Civil War constitutional provision barring those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.

In tone and tenor, the justices' questions challenged the notion that a state court can order a presidential contender off the ballot for violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That section bars those who engage in insurrection from holding office.

The case was brought by a group of Republican and independent voters, and the state of Colorado. Their argument was rooted in the idea that states have the ability to police their own ballots and bar Trump for his role in the violent insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The riot stemmed from Trump's refusal to accept the results of the presidential election that the Republican lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

From across the court's ideological divide, there was near consensus that the Colorado arguments were flawed.

Justice Elena Kagan called the issue of determining whether someone engaged in insurrection “just more complicated and more contested and more political.” Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanagh and Chief Justice John Roberts questioned Jason Murray, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, about what would stop other states from citing Section 3 in taking aim at politicians they didn't like.

Murray gave well-rehearsed arguments that won the day in the Colorado Supreme Court, whose 4-3 ruling that Trump was ineligible got the case to Washington. Murray contended that the Capitol riot was a once-in-history sort of event and that courts would ensure that the provision isn't abused. But that line did not not seem to persuade the justices.

Section 3 presents a quandary for judges, who are reluctant to make decisions that reorder democratic elections, especially without a precedent. The provision doesn't spell out any procedures or even the meaning of “insurrection.” It just says anyone who engaged in one can't hold office.

The court's best way out may be a lookback to an 1869 case known as Griffin's case. That involved a Virginia man who argued he couldn't have been convicted of a crime because the judge who heard his case was, as a former Confederate, disqualified from office under Section 3.

Salmon Chase, who was then the chief justice of the Supreme Court, heard the case while acting as an appellate judge. He ruled that Congress had to create a mechanism for Section 3 to take effect. Congress did, but the measure expired in the 1940s.

The justices repeatedly asked about Griffin's case. Trump's lawyers have argued it is still the only rational way for Section 3 to be applied. Chase had argued previously that Section 3 took effect automatically so the plaintiffs seeking to disqualify Trump contended his ruling was not good law. But that line of argument clearly didn’t carry the day.

The plaintiffs wanted this case to be about Jan. 6, not Griffin’s case. That sums up their problem.

They hoped for a Supreme Court affirmation that the former president did engage in insurrection and threaten the Constitution with his campaign to stay in office after his 2020 loss. But the justices weren’t going there.

Instead, they focused on the potential legal chaos of allowing state courts to decide who can be president. Kavanagh noted there is a federal law against insurrection and it bars those convicted from holding office. Trump has not been charged with violating that law.

Trump would like the high court to declare him not responsible for the violence on Jan. 6. There was little indication that would happen because the matter barely came up.

One thing that has distinguished the case is the extent of historical argument about the origins of Section 3, which has largely laid dormant since a congressional amnesty to most Confederates in 1872. Trump's main argument is that the provision isn't meant to apply to the presidency because that office isn't specifically mentioned, while senator, member of Congress and even presidential and vice presidential electors are.

The argument largely revolved around obscure issues, but Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson, seemed curious. The plaintiffs have argued it would be absurd to bar people from all sorts of lower offices while leaving the most powerful one open. But Jackson, the first Black female justice, contended that the 14th Amendment was mainly about making sure “the South will not rise again” — meaning the states.

Perhaps, she continued, the provision's authors presumed that keeping insurrectionists from serving as electors would be a sufficient safeguard against an insurrectionist president. Murray noted that in the congressional debate on the provision, a senator asked why the section didn't apply to the presidency and one of its authors pointed at language intended to include that office. But it's unclear that convinced Jackson or the court.

Going into the case, the prevailing view of legal experts was the Supreme Court would keep Trump on the ballot. That sense has grown now.

What else the court decides will have major implications for both Section 3 and potentially other constitutional provisions. The justices all sounded skeptical of letting states decide Section 3.

Murray acknowledged under questioning that there's no way to bring a federal lawsuit challenging a president's qualifications, so if the court bars state action, that would end efforts to challenge Trump's place on the ballot.

If the court rules the provision doesn't apply to presidents, it could open up other sections of the Constitution such as the emoluments clause, which prohibits officials from accepting gifts from foreign countries, to new interpretation. Lawyers had attempted to apply this to Trump during his presidency but the case was rendered moot after he left office.

If the court takes the Griffin's case route, the justices could say it's up to Congress to draw up new procedures to implement Section 3. That would likely kill all Section 3 challenges for the foreseeable future because a divided Congress is unlikely to accomplish that anytime soon.

But Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised an unsettling possibility in her questioning of Trump's lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell.

What if, she asked, Trump is elected and a new Congress writes rules applying Section 3 to him. Would that conflict with the impeachment clause? Would it mean a reelected President Trump suddenly becomes ineligible?

Mitchell said he thought that would be legal, implying Congress could potentially remove Trump, or another president, from office.

It may be a remote possibility, but it's the sort of hypothetical that underscored another point: However much the court may want to do away with Section 3, it could come back to haunt them in a sequel.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday heard two hours of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-insurrection-trump-2024-election-397a481d2886b64bba06b24ff3d03f37">historic arguments</a>&nbsp;in a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-14th-amendment-insurrection-supreme-court-colorado-7703a30566ce2588fb92bf22dd20c84d">Colorado case</a>&nbsp;to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot. The justices sounded highly skeptical of the effort.<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2023/23-719">Click here to listen </a>to a replay of the oral argument<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Fmr Pres. Trump: &quot;In watching the Supreme Court today I thought it was a very beautiful process. I hope that democracy in this country will continue because right now we have a very, very tough situation with all of the radical left ideas with the weaponization of politics...&quot; <a href="https://t.co/cFn0Lh7TKk">pic.twitter.com/cFn0Lh7TKk</a>&mdash; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1755650525855420441?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>It's the first time that voters have tried to block a candidate from the presidency under a once-obscure post-Civil War constitutional provision barring those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.Some takeaways from the arguments:TRUMP SEEMS LIKELY STAY ON THE BALLOTIn tone and tenor, the justices' questions challenged the notion that a state court can order a presidential contender off the ballot for violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That section bars those who engage in insurrection from holding office.The case was brought by a group of Republican and independent voters, and the state of Colorado. Their argument was rooted in the idea that states have the ability to police their own ballots and bar Trump for his role in the violent insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The riot stemmed from Trump's refusal to accept the results of the presidential election that the Republican lost to Democrat Joe Biden.From across the court's ideological divide, there was near consensus that the Colorado arguments were flawed.Justice Elena Kagan called the issue of determining whether someone engaged in insurrection “just more complicated and more contested and more political.” Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanagh and Chief Justice John Roberts questioned Jason Murray, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, about what would stop other states from citing Section 3 in taking aim at politicians they didn't like.Murray gave well-rehearsed arguments that won the day in the Colorado Supreme Court, whose 4-3 ruling that Trump was ineligible got the case to Washington. Murray contended that the Capitol riot was a once-in-history sort of event and that courts would ensure that the provision isn't abused. But that line did not not seem to persuade the justices.A WAY OUT?Section 3 presents a quandary for judges, who are reluctant to make decisions that reorder democratic elections, especially without a precedent. The provision doesn't spell out any procedures or even the meaning of “insurrection.” It just says anyone who engaged in one can't hold office.The court's best way out may be a lookback to an 1869 case known as Griffin's case. That involved a Virginia man who argued he couldn't have been convicted of a crime because the judge who heard his case was, as a former Confederate, disqualified from office under Section 3.Salmon Chase, who was then the chief justice of the Supreme Court, heard the case while acting as an appellate judge. He ruled that Congress had to create a mechanism for Section 3 to take effect. Congress did, but the measure expired in the 1940s.The justices repeatedly asked about Griffin's case. Trump's lawyers have argued it is still the only rational way for Section 3 to be applied. Chase had argued previously that Section 3 took effect automatically so the plaintiffs seeking to disqualify Trump contended his ruling was not good law. But that line of argument clearly didn’t carry the day.JAN. 6 GETS LITTLE MENTIONThe plaintiffs wanted this case to be about Jan. 6, not Griffin’s case. That sums up their problem.They hoped for a Supreme Court affirmation that the former president did engage in insurrection and threaten the Constitution with his campaign to stay in office after his 2020 loss. But the justices weren’t going there.Instead, they focused on the potential legal chaos of allowing state courts to decide who can be president. Kavanagh noted there is a federal law against insurrection and it bars those convicted from holding office. Trump has not been charged with violating that law.Trump would like the high court to declare him not responsible for the violence on Jan. 6. There was little indication that would happen because the matter barely came up.A DIFFERENT HISTORYOne thing that has distinguished the case is the extent of historical argument about the origins of Section 3, which has largely laid dormant since a congressional amnesty to most Confederates in 1872. Trump's main argument is that the provision isn't meant to apply to the presidency because that office isn't specifically mentioned, while senator, member of Congress and even presidential and vice presidential electors are.The argument largely revolved around obscure issues, but Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson, seemed curious. The plaintiffs have argued it would be absurd to bar people from all sorts of lower offices while leaving the most powerful one open. But Jackson, the first Black female justice, contended that the 14th Amendment was mainly about making sure “the South will not rise again” — meaning the states.Perhaps, she continued, the provision's authors presumed that keeping insurrectionists from serving as electors would be a sufficient safeguard against an insurrectionist president. Murray noted that in the congressional debate on the provision, a senator asked why the section didn't apply to the presidency and one of its authors pointed at language intended to include that office. But it's unclear that convinced Jackson or the court.WHAT'S NEXT?Going into the case, the prevailing view of legal experts was the Supreme Court would keep Trump on the ballot. That sense has grown now.What else the court decides will have major implications for both Section 3 and potentially other constitutional provisions. The justices all sounded skeptical of letting states decide Section 3.Murray acknowledged under questioning that there's no way to bring a federal lawsuit challenging a president's qualifications, so if the court bars state action, that would end efforts to challenge Trump's place on the ballot.If the court rules the provision doesn't apply to presidents, it could open up other sections of the Constitution such as the emoluments clause, which prohibits officials from accepting gifts from foreign countries, to new interpretation. Lawyers had attempted to apply this to Trump during his presidency but the case was rendered moot after he left office.If the court takes the Griffin's case route, the justices could say it's up to Congress to draw up new procedures to implement Section 3. That would likely kill all Section 3 challenges for the foreseeable future because a divided Congress is unlikely to accomplish that anytime soon.But Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised an unsettling possibility in her questioning of Trump's lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell.What if, she asked, Trump is elected and a new Congress writes rules applying Section 3 to him. Would that conflict with the impeachment clause? Would it mean a reelected President Trump suddenly becomes ineligible?Mitchell said he thought that would be legal, implying Congress could potentially remove Trump, or another president, from office.It may be a remote possibility, but it's the sort of hypothetical that underscored another point: However much the court may want to do away with Section 3, it could come back to haunt them in a sequel.

🎥 Trump responds to historic Supreme Court ballot ban hearing 

BLAIR, Neb. (AP) — A man accused of killing a priest in a small Nebraska town pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges on Thursday.

Kierre Williams, 43, of Sioux City, Iowa, also is accused of using a deadly weapon to commit a felony, burglary and possession of a weapon by a prohibited person. His next court date is March 5,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ketv.com/article/nebraska-priest-killed-man-charged-pleads-not-guilty/46684987">KETV-TV</a>&nbsp;reported.

Prosecutors have said there doesn’t appear to be&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nebraska-catholic-priest-killed-gutgsell-e634b68f496074893b58eb45229805ed">any connection</a>&nbsp;between Williams and the Rev. Stephen Gutgsell, who was fatally stabbed on Dec. 10 inside the rectory for St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska.

Williams' attorney has declined to discuss the case.

The priest’s death came four months after another seemingly random home invasion killing in the town of 1,100 and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nebraska-priest-woman-killed-community-reacts-896ccd64f049303fb79bc36e08b92d01">shook residents’ confidence</a>&nbsp;in their safety.

At a hearing last month, Washington County Deputy Brady Tucker testified that he found Williams lying crossways on top of Gutgsell, whose face was covered with blood. Williams didn’t have a weapon, but investigators later found a broken knife with a serrated blade lying in a blood stain on the floor of Gutgsell’s bedroom, authorities said.

Williams has several felony convictions in other states.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/2/1707420437890.jpeg" alt="FILE - Kierre Williams, right, sits with his attorneys in court, Jan. 3, 2024, in Blair, Neb. Williams of Sioux City, Iowa, pleaded not guilty Thursday, Feb. 8, in the attack that killed the Rev. Stephen Gutgsell, who was fatally stabbed on Dec. 10, 2023, inside the rectory for St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in tiny Fort Calhoun, Neb. (AP Photo/Josh Funk, File)" />
 <figcaption>FILE - Kierre Williams, right, sits with his attorneys in court, Jan. 3, 2024, in Blair, Neb. Williams of Sioux City, Iowa, pleaded not guilty Thursday, Feb. 8, in the attack that killed the Rev. Stephen Gutgsell, who was fatally stabbed on Dec. 10, 2023, inside the rectory for St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in tiny Fort Calhoun, Neb. (AP Photo/Josh Funk, File)</figcaption>
 </figure>Associated PressBLAIR, Neb. (AP) — A man accused of killing a priest in a small Nebraska town pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges on Thursday.Kierre Williams, 43, of Sioux City, Iowa, also is accused of using a deadly weapon to commit a felony, burglary and possession of a weapon by a prohibited person. His next court date is March 5,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ketv.com/article/nebraska-priest-killed-man-charged-pleads-not-guilty/46684987">KETV-TV</a>&nbsp;reported.Prosecutors have said there doesn’t appear to be&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nebraska-catholic-priest-killed-gutgsell-e634b68f496074893b58eb45229805ed">any connection</a>&nbsp;between Williams and the Rev. Stephen Gutgsell, who was fatally stabbed on Dec. 10 inside the rectory for St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska.Williams' attorney has declined to discuss the case.The priest’s death came four months after another seemingly random home invasion killing in the town of 1,100 and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/nebraska-priest-woman-killed-community-reacts-896ccd64f049303fb79bc36e08b92d01">shook residents’ confidence</a>&nbsp;in their safety.At a hearing last month, Washington County Deputy Brady Tucker testified that he found Williams lying crossways on top of Gutgsell, whose face was covered with blood. Williams didn’t have a weapon, but investigators later found a broken knife with a serrated blade lying in a blood stain on the floor of Gutgsell’s bedroom, authorities said.Williams has several felony convictions in other states.

Man accused of killing a priest in Nebraska pleads not guilty

FEBRUARY 8, 2024 (LINCOLN, NEB.)&nbsp;&nbsp;— Troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol have arrested a Beatrice man following a crash in Gage County.

At approximately 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, a trooper was on patrol in Cortland when he observed a Jeep Cherokee traveling at a high rate of speed on southbound Highway 77. The trooper turned around to attempt a traffic stop.

As the trooper was attempting a traffic stop approximately one mile south of Cortland, he observed the Jeep attempt a U-turn on Highway 77. As the vehicle entered the northbound lanes, it struck a Cadillac DTS that was turning northbound from a private driveway.

The trooper arrived on scene seconds later. The drivers of both vehicles, as well as a passenger in the Jeep, all suffered minor injuries. All were transported to Bryan Health West Campus in Lincoln where they were treated and released.

Following the crash, NSP received information that the Lincoln 911 center had received a report that the Jeep had been driving recklessly north of Cortland as well.

The driver of the Jeep, Michael Flowers, 23, of Beatrice, was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol – 2nd&nbsp;offense, willful reckless driving, driving under revocation, flight to avoid arrest, open alcohol container, and several traffic violations. He was lodged in Gage County Jail.

Cody ThomasNebraska State PatrolFEBRUARY 8, 2024 (LINCOLN, NEB.)&nbsp;&nbsp;— Troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol have arrested a Beatrice man following a crash in Gage County.At approximately 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, a trooper was on patrol in Cortland when he observed a Jeep Cherokee traveling at a high rate of speed on southbound Highway 77. The trooper turned around to attempt a traffic stop.As the trooper was attempting a traffic stop approximately one mile south of Cortland, he observed the Jeep attempt a U-turn on Highway 77. As the vehicle entered the northbound lanes, it struck a Cadillac DTS that was turning northbound from a private driveway.The trooper arrived on scene seconds later. The drivers of both vehicles, as well as a passenger in the Jeep, all suffered minor injuries. All were transported to Bryan Health West Campus in Lincoln where they were treated and released.Following the crash, NSP received information that the Lincoln 911 center had received a report that the Jeep had been driving recklessly north of Cortland as well.The driver of the Jeep, Michael Flowers, 23, of Beatrice, was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol – 2nd&nbsp;offense, willful reckless driving, driving under revocation, flight to avoid arrest, open alcohol container, and several traffic violations. He was lodged in Gage County Jail.The investigation remains ongoing.

Beatrice Man Arrested for DUI after Crash in Gage County

United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Royce Love, 45, of Kearney, Nebraska, was sentenced on February 2, 2024, in federal court in Lincoln, Nebraska, for receipt of child pornography.&nbsp; 

Senior United States District Judge John M. Gerrard sentenced Love to 84 months’ imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system. After Love is released from prison, he will begin an 8-year term of supervised release.

Love was contacted online by a vigilante group who posed as a minor female. A conversation ensued in which the group attempted to get Love to agree to meet with the minor female for a sex act. Ultimately, Love stopped communicating with the account and blocked it without ever agreeing to meet. The group then confronted Love in person at his residence and called police.

Love agreed to allow to law enforcement to search his phone. When the search was performed, police discovered multiple images of child pornography involving minor females. Police contacted Love again about a week later when the search was complete. After being advised of the&nbsp;Miranda&nbsp;warnings, Love was asked about the images. Love said he could not remember exactly where he had obtained the images, but he did acknowledge receiving them over the internet.

Additional electronic devices were seized after the second interview. When those devices were searched, police located additional images depicting children engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

This case was investigated by the Kearney Police Department and brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit&nbsp;<a href="http://www.justice.gov/psc" target="_blank">www.justice.gov/psc</a>.

Department of JusticeUnited States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Royce Love, 45, of Kearney, Nebraska, was sentenced on February 2, 2024, in federal court in Lincoln, Nebraska, for receipt of child pornography.&nbsp; Senior United States District Judge John M. Gerrard sentenced Love to 84 months’ imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system. After Love is released from prison, he will begin an 8-year term of supervised release.Love was contacted online by a vigilante group who posed as a minor female. A conversation ensued in which the group attempted to get Love to agree to meet with the minor female for a sex act. Ultimately, Love stopped communicating with the account and blocked it without ever agreeing to meet. The group then confronted Love in person at his residence and called police.Love agreed to allow to law enforcement to search his phone. When the search was performed, police discovered multiple images of child pornography involving minor females. Police contacted Love again about a week later when the search was complete. After being advised of the&nbsp;Miranda&nbsp;warnings, Love was asked about the images. Love said he could not remember exactly where he had obtained the images, but he did acknowledge receiving them over the internet.Additional electronic devices were seized after the second interview. When those devices were searched, police located additional images depicting children engaging in sexually explicit conduct.This case was investigated by the Kearney Police Department and brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit&nbsp;<a href="http://www.justice.gov/psc" target="_blank">www.justice.gov/psc</a>.

Kearney Man Sentenced for Receiving and Possessing Child Pornography

In the&nbsp;2024 Best Online Programs rankings from U.S. News &amp; World Report, the UNMC College of Nursing’s online master’s in nursing program ranked 70th out of 186 ranked schools. This places it in the top half of the rankings, which U.S. News &amp; World Report&nbsp;released Feb. 7.&nbsp;

The UNMC College of Nursing has shown steady increases in its ranking, said Lepaine Sharp-McHenry, DNP dean of the UNMC College of Nursing.

“We expect our ranking to continue to climb as we continually assess our online master’s programs to ensure quality and relevance to the needs of our state and beyond,” Dr. Sharp-McHenry said.

Five categories were used to rank the programs: Engagement, faculty credentials and training, services and technology, student excellence and&nbsp;opinions of experts.

The UNMC College of Nursing offers a variety of master’s and Doctor&nbsp;of Nursing Practice degree specialties that use online and other teaching formats. The programs prepare nurse practitioners in specialty tracks for women’s health, adult gerontology, pediatric, acute care, family health, psychiatric mental health,&nbsp;and executives in nursing administration.

<a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/nursing/rankings" target="_blank">See the full rankings</a>.

As Nebraska’s only public academic health science center, the University of Nebraska Medical Center enrolls more than 4,500 students across six colleges, two institutes and a graduate studies program. Its mission is to create a healthier future for Nebraskans through premier education, research&nbsp;and clinical care, but its impact -- rooted in a culture of collaboration,&nbsp;big ideas&nbsp;and public-private partnerships – goes far beyond, in areas that include infectious diseases, rural health, cancer research and treatments, global health security, and&nbsp;simulation and experiential learning technologies.&nbsp;

<a href="https://twitter.com/unmc" target="_blank">Twitter</a>  |  <a href="https://www.facebook.com/unmcedu" target="_blank">Facebook</a>  |  <a href="https://instagram.com/iamunmc" target="_blank">Instagram</a>  |  <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/UNMCEDU" target="_blank">YouTube</a>  |  <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/unmc/" target="_blank">Flickr</a>&nbsp;

UNMCIn the&nbsp;2024 Best Online Programs rankings from U.S. News &amp; World Report, the UNMC College of Nursing’s online master’s in nursing program ranked 70th out of 186 ranked schools. This places it in the top half of the rankings, which U.S. News &amp; World Report&nbsp;released Feb. 7.&nbsp;The UNMC College of Nursing has shown steady increases in its ranking, said Lepaine Sharp-McHenry, DNP dean of the UNMC College of Nursing.“We expect our ranking to continue to climb as we continually assess our online master’s programs to ensure quality and relevance to the needs of our state and beyond,” Dr. Sharp-McHenry said.Five categories were used to rank the programs: Engagement, faculty credentials and training, services and technology, student excellence and&nbsp;opinions of experts.The UNMC College of Nursing offers a variety of master’s and Doctor&nbsp;of Nursing Practice degree specialties that use online and other teaching formats. The programs prepare nurse practitioners in specialty tracks for women’s health, adult gerontology, pediatric, acute care, family health, psychiatric mental health,&nbsp;and executives in nursing administration.<a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/nursing/rankings" target="_blank">See the full rankings</a>.About UNMC&nbsp;As Nebraska’s only public academic health science center, the University of Nebraska Medical Center enrolls more than 4,500 students across six colleges, two institutes and a graduate studies program. Its mission is to create a healthier future for Nebraskans through premier education, research&nbsp;and clinical care, but its impact -- rooted in a culture of collaboration,&nbsp;big ideas&nbsp;and public-private partnerships – goes far beyond, in areas that include infectious diseases, rural health, cancer research and treatments, global health security, and&nbsp;simulation and experiential learning technologies.&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/unmc" target="_blank">Twitter</a>  |  <a href="https://www.facebook.com/unmcedu" target="_blank">Facebook</a>  |  <a href="https://instagram.com/iamunmc" target="_blank">Instagram</a>  |  <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/UNMCEDU" target="_blank">YouTube</a>  |  <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/unmc/" target="_blank">Flickr</a>&nbsp;

UNMC College of Nursing online master’s program ranks among best

On February 2, 2024, at approximately 11:00pm, an on-duty Buffalo County Sheriff's Office deputy sheriff was involved in a two-motor vehicle crash at the intersection of 56th Street and Ave N, in Kearney. 

The preliminary investigation revealed the 61-year-old male deputy sheriff, while operating a marked Sheriff's Office vehicle, was traveling eastbound on 56th Street and the other vehicle, driven by a 29-year-old female, was northbound on Avenue N, turning westbound onto 56th Street at the time of the collision. The deputy sheriff is a 33-year veteran deputy with the Buffalo County Sheriff's Office.&nbsp;

Both drivers were transported to CHI Good Samaritan Hospital for medical treatment. The deputy was treated and released for minor injuries sustained during the crash. We expect a full recovery and return to duty. On behalf of the Buffalo County Sheriff's Office, our thoughts and concern remain with the other driver and her continued recovery.&nbsp;

The Nebraska State Patrol is investigating the collision. Please refer all media inquiries related to this collision to the Nebraska State Patrol.&nbsp;

The Buffalo County Sheriff's Office would like to thank the responding agencies for their quick response and efforts in treating for both drivers, Nebraska State Patrol, Kearney Police Department, Kearney Volunteer Fire Department, and CHI Good Samaritan paramedics. 

Buffalo County Sheriff's OfficeOn February 2, 2024, at approximately 11:00pm, an on-duty Buffalo County Sheriff's Office deputy sheriff was involved in a two-motor vehicle crash at the intersection of 56th Street and Ave N, in Kearney. The preliminary investigation revealed the 61-year-old male deputy sheriff, while operating a marked Sheriff's Office vehicle, was traveling eastbound on 56th Street and the other vehicle, driven by a 29-year-old female, was northbound on Avenue N, turning westbound onto 56th Street at the time of the collision. The deputy sheriff is a 33-year veteran deputy with the Buffalo County Sheriff's Office.&nbsp;Both drivers were transported to CHI Good Samaritan Hospital for medical treatment. The deputy was treated and released for minor injuries sustained during the crash. We expect a full recovery and return to duty. On behalf of the Buffalo County Sheriff's Office, our thoughts and concern remain with the other driver and her continued recovery.&nbsp;The Nebraska State Patrol is investigating the collision. Please refer all media inquiries related to this collision to the Nebraska State Patrol.&nbsp;The Buffalo County Sheriff's Office would like to thank the responding agencies for their quick response and efforts in treating for both drivers, Nebraska State Patrol, Kearney Police Department, Kearney Volunteer Fire Department, and CHI Good Samaritan paramedics.