Author:

Two women wearing hijabs denied entry to Democratic campaign event

NewsFeed Two women wearing hijabs say they were barred from entering a campaign event with US Vice President Kamala Harris in Las Vegas. Published On 31 Jan 202431 Jan 2024 Adblock test (Why?)

ICJ rejects most of Ukraine’s ‘terrorism’ case against Russia

Kyiv had accused Moscow of being a ‘terrorist’ state and claimed it funded separatists in eastern Ukraine. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has rejected much of a case filed by Ukraine that accused Russia of funding separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine a decade ago, saying only that Moscow had failed to investigate alleged breaches. Kyiv had accused Moscow of being a “terrorist state” whose support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine was a harbinger of the full-fledged 2022 invasion. Ukraine also wanted Russia to compensate all civilians caught up in the conflict, as well as victims from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. The top United Nations court declined to rule specifically on alleged Russian responsibility for the shooting down of the plane. The ICJ tossed out most of Ukraine’s pleas, ruling only that Russia was “failing to take measures to investigate facts … regarding persons who have allegedly committed an offence”. The court added that only cash transfers could be considered as support for alleged “terrorist” groups under the terms of the international convention on terrorism financing. This “does not include the means used to commit acts of terrorism, including weapons or training camps”, the court ruled on Wednesday. “Consequently, the alleged supply of weapons to various armed groups operating in Ukraine … fall outside the material scope of the ICSFT” convention, the ICJ said. The 16-judge panel once again ordered Russia to investigate any plausible allegations of “terrorism” financing. ‘Russia trying to wipe us off the map’ Russia was also in the dock for alleged breaches of an international convention on racial discrimination due to its treatment of the Tatar minority and Ukrainian speakers in occupied Crimea. Here the court found that Russia had not taken sufficient measures to enable education in Ukrainian. During hearings on the case, Alexander Shulgin, Russia’s ambassador to the Netherlands, accused Ukraine of “blatant lies and false accusations … even to this court”. Top Ukrainian diplomat Anton Korynevych retorted that Russia was trying to “wipe us off the map”. “Beginning in 2014, Russia illegally occupied Crimea and then engaged in a campaign of cultural erasure, taking aim at ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars,” said Korynevych. On Friday, the ICJ will rule in another case in which Kyiv has accused Moscow of falsely applying the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention to justify its February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine. The court’s judgements are final and without appeal but it has no way to enforce its rulings. [embedded content] Adblock test (Why?)

Haley targets Biden and Trump in ‘Grumpy Old Men’ spoof

Question: What does a box office hit from three decades ago about two curmudgeonly neighbors have to do with the 2024 presidential campaign? Answer: The movie “Grumpy Old Men” shares its title with a new digital and video effort by Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley to take aim at 77-year-old former President Trump and 81-year-old President Biden. In a news release Wednesday, Haley’s campaign pointed to a slew of public opinion polling over the past year which indicates that a majority of Americans are anything but enthused about a Biden-Trump presidential election rematch in November. Haley’s campaign calls it the “rematch no one wants.” HALEY HAULS IN BIG BUCKS FROM BOTH WALL STREET AND MAIN STREET “Nearly 50% of Republicans and 70% of Americans don’t want to watch ‘Grumpy Old Men’ stumble across America when our country is on the brink and the world is on fire,” Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas argued. “Sadly, this version of ‘Grumpy Old Men’ offers no comic relief — just chaos, confusion, and a bad sense of déjà vu for the American people.”  Haley, a former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration, turned 52 a week and a half ago. She is the last remaining major candidate challenging the former president, who is the commanding frontrunner for the Republican nomination as he makes his third straight White House run. RNC AVERTS FOOD FIGHT OVER TRUMP-HALEY PRIMARY BATTLE The new series jabs at Biden and Trump over potential signs of cognitive decline, their anything but robust campaign schedules, and blames them for the high inflation Americans have been dealing with in recent years. Haley made headlines when she jumped into the White House race a year ago by calling for mental competency tests for candidates who are 75 or older, which would apply to both the incumbent president and former president. For months, Haley has promoted herself as a “new generational leader” that can steer the GOP into the future and that America is “ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past,” which is a none too subtle knock at Biden and Trump. Starting last month, Haley started more overtly focusing on the president’s age. “I’ll just say it, Biden’s too old,” she said in a campaign commercial. In her stump speeches, Haley has repeatedly said “we all know 75-year-olds that can run circles around us. And then we know Joe Biden.” Haley has upped her criticisms of Trump in recent days, after the former president made some well publicized verbal gaffes. She has argued that Trump has appeared “confused” and charged that his attacks on her after she won 43% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary last week were “totally unhinged.” Additionally, she has spotlighted Trump’s age in recent fundraising emails to supporters. The former president, responding to the questioning of his cognitive abilities, said this past weekend at a rally in Nevada that he feels “sharper now than I did 20 years ago.” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt argued in a statement to Fox News on Wednesday that “the only people who will be grumpy this election are Nikki Haley who has no pathway to victory, Joe Biden who is losing to President Trump in every single battleground state, and all of their Democrat donors when they are defeated by President Trump.” Fox News reached out to the president’s re-election campaign, but did not receive a response at the time this story was posted. Thanks to his double-digit wins this month in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary — the first two contests on the GOP presidential nominating calendar, Trump is in the driver’s seat to win the nomination. Haley, who is vowing to stay in the race at least through Super Tuesday in early March, is aiming to slow Trump’s momentum in her home state, which on Feb. 24 holds the next major contest in the GOP schedule. However, she faces a steep uphill climb. A Haley aligned super PAC is blasting a new ad on South Carolina airwaves that takes aim at Trump. It includes a line Haley uses in her stump speeches, that “the first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election.” Longtime Republican strategist David Kochel noted that “most voters don’t want this rematch, so Haley’s playing into a message that has a lot of popular sentiment in the country.”  However, Haley’s spotlight on Biden and especially Trump’s age and mental abilities could backfire among a GOP primary electorate that trends older than the overall voting population. “Whether it is an effective tool inside the Republican primary electorate remains to be seen. None of this stuff has worked yet in terms of beating Trump,” noted Kochel, a veteran of numerous GOP presidential campaigns who remains neutral this cycle. “It’s much better in a general election context.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

American Arabs, Muslims refuse to meet with Biden campaign director in key battleground state

President Biden is facing an electoral revolt among Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan who are outraged by his ongoing support for Israel, with top community leaders refusing to meet with Biden’s campaign manager this weekend. Arab Americans living in Michigan have traditionally been reliable Democrats, with Biden carrying over 75% of the vote in the Arab-majority city of Dearborn in 2020. That voting block is now under threat, however, with some members of the community launching an “abandon Biden” campaign in protest of his handling of Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud says the war in Gaza is issue “number one, two and three” for his voters, according to The Washington Post. Hammoud was among a group of roughly a dozen leaders in Michigan’s Arab and Muslim communities to refuse a meeting with Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez when she visited the state this weekend. State Rep. Alabas Farhat said they will continue to refuse to meet with Biden until he calls on Israel to accept a cease-fire agreement, the Post reported. DEAN PHILLIPS SAYS HE HAD A ‘VERY DIFFICULT EPISODE’ WITH FRIEND RASHIDA TLAIB OVER ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO EXIST “When elected officials view the atrocities in Gaza only as an electoral problem, they reduce our indescribable pain into a political calculation,” Hammoud wrote on X about his decision to skip the meeting. RASHIDA TLAIB MEMBER OF SECRET FACEBOOK GROUP WHERE HAMAS TERRORISTS GLORIFIED Michigan is essentially a must-win state for Biden come Election Day in November. He carried the state by just over 150,000 votes against former President Trump in 2020. The Arab and Muslim communities in the state number roughly 300,000, meaning significant defections could swing the pendulum toward Republicans in November. RASHIDA TLAIB CALLS ISRAELI PM NETANYAHU ‘GENOCIDAL MANIAC,’ TAKES SHOT AT FELLOW DEMS WHO BACK HIM Amer Zahr, a Michigan resident and former campaign surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., rejected arguments that Arab voters were effectively supporting Trump, the leading GOP nominee, by rejecting Biden. “We’re not going to respond to the lesser of two evils argument, we are going to reject that,” Zahr told the AFP. “We’re not going to be held responsible for the alternative.” “We’re not supporting Joe Biden under any circumstances – or any politician frankly – that is not willing to simply call for a cease-fire,” he added. Biden is set to visit Michigan in person on Thursday ahead of the state’s Democratic primary in February.

Georgia bill to facilitate return of marshlands to private citizens advances

A proposal to reduce the legal burden for proving private ownership of coastal marshlands first granted to Georgia settlers centuries ago was advanced Tuesday by a state House committee. The House Judiciary Committee voted 6-5 to approve House Bill 370 during a meeting streamed online from the state Capitol in Atlanta, sending it to the full House. Prior versions of the proposal in 2022 and last year failed to get a vote on the House floor. Conservation groups are opposing the measure, saying it would put thousands of acres of salt marsh currently considered public land at risk of being seized by people who don’t rightly own it. IN GEORGIA, EFFORTS TO FEDERALLY PROTECT SECTION OF OCMULGEE RIVER TAKE A STEP FORWARD Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, and several coastal lawmakers sponsoring the bill say it will encourage restoration of salt marsh that was long ago drained or damaged by farming and other uses. “For 200 years, these rice farms and other manmade alterations in Georgia’s marshlands have not repaired themselves,” said Reeves, the Judiciary Committee’s vice chair. “Mother nature needs help to restore those marshlands. And this is the vehicle to do it.” The vast majority of Georgia’s 400,000 acres of coastal marshland is owned by the state and protected from development. State officials estimate about 36,000 acres are privately owned through titles granted by England’s king or Georgia’s post-American Revolution governors during the 1700s and early 1800s. Critics say the legal process for a landholder to trace ownership to one of these so-called “crown grants” is too cumbersome and can take a decade or longer. The state attorney general’s office handles those cases now and requires evidence of continuous ownership from the original centuries-old grant to the present. The measure before House lawmakers would establish a streamlined alternative for those who, if granted their claim of ownership, agree to keep their marsh in conservation. Owners would be allowed to sell mitigation credits to private developers looking to offset damage to wetlands elsewhere. “We’re taking something the state has protected for centuries, and we’re putting it into private hands,” said Megan Desrosiers, president and CEO of the coastal Georgia conservation group One Hundred Miles. “And then that person gets paid to protect something that the state has been protecting for centuries.” Desrosiers and other opponents say the proposed changes also place an unfair burden on the state to disprove claims of private marsh ownership. Cases taking the streamlined path would go to the State Properties Commission rather than the attorney general’s office. The commission would have a deadline of nine months to resolve the case. If it takes longer, the person making the claim gets ownership of the marsh. “The state has an obligation not to give away resources to private citizens,” Kevin Lang, an Athens attorney and opponent of the marshlands bill, told the committee at a Jan. 11 hearing. He said the proposal would “result in people getting title to saltmarsh who never had a valid claim.” Jerry Williams, whose family was granted marshland along the Ogeechee River in Savannah in the 1800s, told committee members at the prior hearing that state officials have abused the existing process for proving ownership. “They throw everything at the wall that they can to try to delay, to muddy the waters and make it cost prohibitive for the private landowners to defend their title,” Williams said.

Speaker Johnson endorses bipartisan tax bill as ‘conservative,’ ‘pro-growth’ reform

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is coming out in support of a bipartisan tax deal scheduled for a vote later on Wednesday. “The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act is important bipartisan legislation to revive conservative pro-growth tax reform,” Johnson said in a statement. “Crucially, the bill also ends a wasteful COVID-era program, saving taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.” “Chairman Smith deserves great credit for bringing this bipartisan bill through committee with a strong vote of confidence, and for marking up related bills under regular order earlier in this Congress. This bottom-up process is a good example of how Congress is supposed to make law.” HOUSE, SENATE RELEASE BIPARTISAN AGREEMENT ON GOVERNMENT FUNDING AS SHUTDOWN DEADLINES LOOM The bill is a result of negotiations between House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore. It is aimed at temporarily expanding the child tax credit while also reviving key tax deductions for small businesses, including for research and development conducted inside the U.S. However, it has faced pushback from an unusual coalition of conservative and moderate Republicans, albeit for different reasons. GOP hardliners have claimed the bill’s child tax credit would be available to illegal immigrants, something Smith had vehemently denied. HOUSE GOP ERUPTS IN DIVISION OVER CALL TO PUSH JOHNSON OUT OF SPEAKERSHIP: ‘WORKING FOR JOE BIDEN’ Meanwhile, moderates, specifically from the suburbs outside of major cities like New York City and Los Angeles, were frustrated the bill does not touch state and local tax (SALT) deduction caps. They have argued it is a critical issue for their swing district constituents and could make or break House Republicans’ chances of holding onto their razor-thin majority in November. Both groups were also angry at House GOP leaders’ decision to put the tax bill up for a vote under suspension of the rules, a maneuver that allows legislation to bypass a committee vote and a procedural “rule” vote in exchange for lifting the threshold needed for passage from a simple majority to two-thirds. HOUSE VOTES TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN AFTER SPEAKER JOHNSON BUCKS GOP REBELS That decision came after Freedom Caucus members weaponized rule votes several times during this Congress to shoot down GOP priorities in protest of Republican leadership’s decisions. The tax bill is expected to pass along comfortable bipartisan lines. In addition to GOP criticism, it’s also faced some scrutiny from progressives who say the child tax credit provisions don’t go far enough. A group of four New York Republicans threatened to tank a procedural vote for an unrelated GOP-led measure over the SALT exclusion, but two sources told Fox News Digital that they later secured a commitment from Johnson to bring a separate, targeted SALT bill to the floor at some point soon.

Wisconsin Gov. Evers addresses dental care shortages with new legislative package

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed a package of bipartisan legislation aimed at expanding access to dental care and addressing dental workforce shortages across the state into law Wednesday. U.S. Health Resources Administration data released this month found shortages of dental care in 160 areas of Wisconsin, defined as geographic areas, facilities or populations experiencing a shortage of care providers. The package Evers signed includes five bills, including one that authorizes licenses for dental therapists who practice in areas experiencing shortages in care. WISCONSIN GOV. EVERS SECURES FEDERAL FUNDING FOR HISTORIC LAND CONSERVATION DEAL DESPITE GOP OPPOSITION Dental therapists are positions between a dentist and a hygienist — they can fill cavities but can’t perform more complex operations like root canals. Other bills in the package create guidelines for distributing $20 million in state aid for technical colleges’ dental training programs, create scholarships for Marquette University dental students who agree to practice in underserved areas, allow dental workers from out of state to practice in Wisconsin, and allow insurers to send reimbursements directly to a provider rather than the patient if the patient requests it. GOV. EVERS SUES WISCONSIN LEGISLATURE FOR OBSTRUCTING BASIC GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS Evers signed the bills at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau.

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta warns China may use Michigan EV plant for espionage

Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told lawmakers that a proposed electric vehicle battery plant in Michigan could be used for Chinese espionage. Panetta made the comments during a House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party hearing on Tuesday afternoon which focused on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) support for America’s adversaries. The former CIA director answered in the affirmative when Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., asked if China could use the plant, which is being developed by a subsidiary of Hefei, China-based firm Gotion High-Tech, for espionage. “I don’t think there’s any question that they’re going to take advantage of that situation,” Panetta remarked. “And I think we have to be very vigilant about what the hell is going on. That’s just the way they operate. They’ll establish a manufacturing unit, they’ll establish whatever they can, and then they will use that for their own intelligence purposes. They will use that for their own economic purposes.” “They’ll use it to be able to gain the kind of advantages that are counter, frankly, to the interests of the United States,” he continued. “I think it is very important in those situations to make sure that the United States, and that our intelligence capabilities, are being used to make sure that we know what they are doing that could hurt the United States.” FORD PLANS TO HIRE CHINESE MILITARY SOFTWARE SUPPLIER FOR EV FACTORY IN US: GOP INVESTIGATORS In addition to Panetta, former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo similarly testified during the hearing that the Gotion facility in Michigan presented national security risks and shouldn’t be built. “I think it is worse than the fact that they will engage in espionage. I think that’s just top of the list,” Pompeo told the panel. “They will use this in ways that will leverage Chinese advantage. These plants are deeply dangerous to our national security and ought not be built.” 120 REPUBLICANS JOIN EFFORT OPPOSING BIDEN’S ‘DE FACTO EV MANDATE’ In October 2022, Gotion and Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the company agreed to invest $2.4 billion in two 550,000-square-foot production plants and other supporting facilities spanning 260 acres in Mecosta County, Michigan. Months later, a top Michigan Senate panel controlled by Democrats voted 10-9 to award $175 million in taxpayer funding for the project. As part of the deal, Gotion purchased hundreds of acres of land, including portions zoned for industrial, residential and agricultural use, in August. In addition, according to Moolenaar, the company is expected to import at least 20 Chinese nationals to work at the plant. Then, in September, Gotion announced a second plant set for Illinois and slated to cost $2 billion. The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity said Gotion’s total incentive package funded by state taxpayers is valued at $536 million. However, the projects have faced significant pushback from locals, former State Department officials and Republicans who say Gotion High-Tech operating in the U.S. poses a national security risk.  17 RETIRED MILITARY OFFICIALS RAISE ALARM ON BIDEN’S ELECTRIC VEHICLE PUSH Gotion High-Tech’s corporate bylaws say the company is required to “carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China.” Further, the company’s 2022 ESG report states Gotion High-Tech “carried out thematic education activities such as the study of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, red theme education, and love for students.”  And in April, a firm representing Gotion High-Tech subsidiary Gotion Inc. submitted a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing with the Department of Justice, saying it would perform real estate acquisitions, file applications for land rezoning and attend public rezoning hearings on behalf of Gotion. “President Obama’s Defense Secretary and President Trump’s Secretary of State just testified under oath that Gotion and its plans in Michigan are a national security risk,” Moolenaar said in a statement. “They know how the Chinese Communist Party operates and how it uses resources in America to hurt our country.” “They also said that it undermines our national security for states and communities to give tax subsidies to those companies. State and local economic development officials in Michigan need to listen to these experts and end the Gotion project,” the Michigan Republican added.

Chinese cyber attacks are intended to ‘induce societal panic’ across America, security directors tell Congress

China’s strategic plan to infiltrate the U.S. cyber infrastructure includes attempts to induce panic and unsettle everyday American life, a witness testified to Congress on Wednesday. Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that ransomware attacks on U.S. businesses or critical systems are intended to “induce societal panic.” “It is Chinese military doctrine to attempt to induce societal panic in their adversary. And arguably, the Chinese government got a little bit of a taste of this in the aftermath of the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline May of 2021 that shut down gas to the Eastern seaboard for several days,” she said, noting Americans “couldn’t get to work. They couldn’t take their kids to school, get folks to the hospital. It caused a bit of panic.” “Now imagine that on a massive scale. Imagine not one pipeline, but many pipelines disrupted and telecommunications going down so people can’t use their cell phone. People start getting sick from polluted water. Trains get derailed. Air traffic control system, Port control systems are malfunctioning,” Easterly continued. “This is truly an everything, everywhere all at once scenario.” NEW GROUP LAUNCHES TO COMBAT CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY INFLUENCE ACROSS US: ‘POSES A MAJOR THREAT’ Easterly was one of four witnesses at “The CCP Cyber Threat to the American Homeland and National Security” hearing, joining General Paul Nakasone, Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command; FBI Director Christopher Wray; and Harry Coker, Jr., director of the White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director. During the same hearing, the FBI director echoed these sentiments, saying there is much more Congress and the rest of the federal government needs to do to ensure Americans are safe from potential cyber threats posed by the Chinese government. Wray also announced that his bureau effectively eliminated a Chinese malware attack on small businesses located in the U.S. “Just this morning, we [the FBI] announced an operation where we and our partners identified hundreds of routers that had been taken over by the PRC state-sponsored hacking group known as Volt Typhoon. The Volt Typhoon malware enabled China to hide, among other things, pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation against critical infrastructure like our communications, energy, transportation and water sectors,” he said. Wray specified that the hacking group intended to “find and prepare to destroy or degrade the civilian critical infrastructure that keeps us safe and prosperous.” He continued: “And let’s be clear, cyber threats to our critical infrastructure represent real-world threats to our physical safety. So working with our partners, the FBI shut down Volt Typhoon and the access that enabled this operation was an important step, but there’s a whole lot more to do and we need your help to do it.” Putting the cyber disparity between China and the U.S. into context, Wray said China, formally the People’s Republic of China (PRC), has a much larger cyber force that remains dedicated and funded to dominate the cyber realm. He said the U.S., even if it were to dedicate all of its cyber personnel to China, then it would still be outnumbered “by at least 50-to-1.” CHINESE HACKERS PREPARING TO ‘WREAK HAVOC’ ON AMERICAN CITIZENS, COMMUNITIES, FBI DIRECTOR WARNS “To quantify what we’re up against, the PRC has a bigger hacking program than that of every major nation combined. In fact, if you took every one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intelligence analysts and focused them exclusively heavily on the China threat, China’s hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50-to-1,” the director said. Wray said any continued cyber defense should include the American public, noting only the government and the private sector could effectively protect against the potential Chinese threat. Gen. Nakasone also answered a question about how to protect from the potential threat, emphasizing the need to renew Section 702, a provision of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. “Section 702 is the most important authority that the National Security Agency uses every single day to keep Americans safe and to secure our nation,” he said. “As someone who was at the Pentagon on 9/11 to consider that we would return to the days before Section 702 where we couldn’t connect the dots is almost inexplicable to me,” Nakasone  continued. “The other piece that I would add to your question is [Section] 702 is so agile that it provides us an ability to see the Chinese chemicals that are being used to feed fentanyl, which is the scourge of our nation. More than 100,000 Americans lost their lives in 2022. [Section] 702 allows us to identify those precursor issues that saves lives.” The general also described the surveillance authority enumerated in Section 702 as “the most transparent, the effective, the most important authority.”  “It balances civil liberties and privacy and the requirements of our national security,” he said.

Suspect fleeing police crashed into vehicle carrying Joe Manchin’s wife

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s wife was hospitalized Tuesday after her car was hit by a suspect fleeing police, authorities said.  Police say the accident happened while Gayle Manchin was traveling from the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport to an area hotel with her colleague, Guy Land. Manchin was injured in the wreck but is in “stable condition,” according to a statement released by her husband on Tuesday.  That afternoon, officers initiated a pursuit involving a suspect wanted on felony charges, according to the Homewood Police Department.  Police units pursued the vehicle through North Birmingham onto 18th Street North but lost contact with the suspected vehicle in the 1300 block of the street, authorities said.  SEN. JOE MANCHIN’S WIFE HOSPITALIZED AFTER CAR CRASH IN ALABAMA, IN ‘STABLE CONDITION’ Homeland Police continued on 18th Street North and found that the suspect vehicle had collided with another vehicle at the intersection of 18th Street North and 15th Avenue North.  Land was the driver in the other vehicle, and Gayle Manchin was the passenger. Birmingham Fire and Rescue Services were called to the scene to attend to their injuries. Both were transported to the UAB Gardendale Hospital.   The suspect was apprehended without incident.  “The Homewood Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division is currently investigating this case and is in the process of obtaining multiple felony warrants against the suspect,” Homeland Police said.  MANCHIN HINTS AT POTENTIAL THIRD PARTY RUN AFTER SUPER TUESDAY The suspect is currently being held at Homewood City Jail pending arrest warrants.  Gayle Manchin had traveled to Alabama for an Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) event. She is the federal co-chair of ARC, which describes itself as an “economic development partnership entity of the federal government and 13 state governments focusing on 423 counties across the Appalachian Region.” Land, the organization says, is an ARC congressional liaison. “While they were driving from the airport to their hotel, another vehicle struck their car,” ARC said in a statement.  MANCHIN ‘ABSOLUTELY’ CAN SEE HIMSELF AS PRESIDENT, THINKS BIDEN HEALTH OR TRUMP CONVICTION COULD GIVE OPENING Sen. Manchin, meanwhile, has been teasing a potential third-party presidential bid after Super Tuesday on March 5. “Super Tuesday pretty much confirms whatever is going to happen, what we believe will happen, and we’ll see where we go from there,” Manchin told reporters last week. “But people are looking for options, and we’re going to be looking at that, too,” he added. Whether it’s me or whoever it may be, I think there’s going to be options available if it goes down the way it’s going down.” Manchin announced he would not seek re-election for his Senate seat last year, creating speculation about whether he’d make a bid in the 2024 presidential race. Manchin started a nationwide campaign called “Americans Together,” aiming to unite the country’s moderate voters away from the “extremes” of the left and right.  Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman, Jamie Joseph and Tyler Olson contributed to this report.