NBC News reports: A new initiative backed by a coalition of right-wing organizations is courting lawmakers and parents in an effort to stop the passage of the Equality Act — a federal LGBTQ rights bill — and promote policies targeting transgender Americans at the federal and state levels. Backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Policy Alliance, Heritage Foundation and …

The Guardian reports: The WNBA and the NBA’s board of governors unanimously approved the sale of the Atlanta Dream on Friday, ending defeated Republican senator Kelly Loeffler’s tumultuous stint as a WNBA owner. “With the unanimous WNBA and NBA votes, today marks a new beginning for the Atlanta Dream organization and we are very pleased to welcome Larry Gottesdiener and …

Vice News reports: Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman approved the operation that led to the 2018 murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a declassified US intelligence report says. “We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” the report, from …

The New York Post reports: Sen. Ted Cruz joked about his trip to Cancun amid a crisis-level storm in Texas last week, which brought frigid temperatures, widespread power outages and burst pipes that flooded homes. Speaking Friday morning at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Cruz (R-Texas) made the remarks while kicking off his speech. “God bless CPAC,” the Texas …

The Hill reports: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rallied a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to fight the “failed Republican establishment,” highlighting the ongoing battle over the direction of the GOP in the wake of former President Trump’s electoral defeat. In opening remarks on the second day of CPAC, DeSantis cast himself as an acolyte of Trump and …

Politico reports: Former President Donald Trump told political advisers Thursday that he’s chosen longtime ally Corey Lewandowski to run a yet-to-be-formed super PAC as part of his expanding post-presidential political apparatus, according to multiple people familiar with the discussion. The decision was made in a multi-hour meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Thursday. Trump gathered his top political lieutenants, including …

The Washington Post reports: An audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference heckled its hosts for urging them to wear masks after a series of speakers bashed the lockdowns in other states and criticized “authoritarian” coronavirus restrictions. “I know this might sound like a little bit of a downer, but we also believe in property rights and this is a …

Law & Crime reports: Of the footage that impeachment managers unspooled during former President Donald Trump’s Senate trial, one of the most brutal scenes showed rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with authorities inside the tunnel leading to the U.S. Capitol. On Feb. 11, just one day after footage of the melee inside the tunnel became public, the FBI Newark Field …

Media Matters reports: Fox has yet to air live a single second of the Biden administration’s eight COVID-19 response briefings. This is a stark change from the network’s practices during the Trump administration, when it showed nearly all of the COVID-19 task force briefings — which frequently featured coronavirus misinformation and then-President Donald Trump’s meltdowns. During the Trump administration, Fox …

The Daily Beast reports: A pickup truck parked at the United States Capitol and bearing a Three Percenter militia sticker on the day of the Jan. 6 riot belongs to the husband of freshman U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois, who approvingly quoted Adolf Hitler a day earlier. Researchers on Twitter first noticed the Ford pickup truck with the far-right …

Via press release from the FDA: Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it is allowing undiluted frozen vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to be transported and stored at conventional temperatures commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers for a period of up to two weeks. This reflects an alternative to the preferred storage of the undiluted vials in …

USA Today reports: North Dakota investigators were skeptical that South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg didn’t know he fatally struck a pedestrian on the night of Sept. 12, 2020. According to video footage from two separate interviews between investigators and Ravnsborg, made public Tuesday by the South Dakota Department of Public Safety, authorities found the reading glasses of Joe Boever …

CNN reports: A federal judge in Texas on Thursday ruled that the federal moratorium on evictions is unconstitutional, according to court documents. US District Judge John Barker, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump to the court in the Eastern District of Texas, stopped short of issuing a preliminary injunction, but said he expected the US Centers for Disease Control …

The Independent reports: Bloomberg reporter William Turton captured the video — featuring a squat statue of a golden Trump garbed in a business suit and Rocky Balboa’s boxing shorts and red flip-flops, brandishing what appears to be a magic wand and a non-disclosure agreement, being wheeled through the event as attendees can be seen taking snapshots and cooing things like …

Mediaite reports: Donny Deutsch believes it is too early to consider former President Donald Trump as a favorite to become the Republican nominee in the 2024 election. Why? Because of a raft of legal problems that will keep him otherwise occupied. And incarcerated. “Donald Trump is going to go to jail,” the MSNBC contributor told Joe Scarborough. “I really believe …

The Associated Press reports: Last week, Idaho’s Kootenai County Republican Central Committee Chairman Brent Regan posted on Facebook: “People who DON’T own a gun should register and pay a fee. Per the Idaho Constitution Article 14 Section 1, all able bodied males between the ages of 18 and 45 are part of the militia and should arm themselves … That …

The BBC reports: The Queen has urged the public to “think about other people” and get a Covid jab when they are offered one. The monarch, 94, and the Duke of Edinburgh, 99, received their first doses of the vaccine in January. In a video call with health leaders delivering the Covid vaccine across the UK, the Queen was asked …

“We oppose hurting people on the basis of their race no matter who is doing it, no matter how they are justifying it. So, again, we’re always against racism. But five people out of 199 arrested? How is that a white supremacist insurrection? “If it is, then we have other questions, such as how many Black supremacists are there at …

The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration conducted an airstrike in Syria on Thursday that officials believe killed a number of alleged Iranian-linked fighters, signaling its intent to use targeted military action to push back against violence tied to Tehran. The attack on a border-crossing station in eastern Syria, the first lethal operation ordered by the Biden administration against Iran’s …

Media Matters reports: DR. HARVEY RISCH (GUEST): Honestly, I don’t know how he could say the masks are a lifesaving measure when there’s no evidence to suggest that. Whether there’s benefit or not scientists argue about, that’s fine. But to call them a lifesaving measure is totally beyond the pale of anything that is scientific and knowable. I think they’re …