Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump -- CNN "In the short term, Christie's move put a halt to Rubio's victory lap after his stunning prosecution of Trump's character, background and business career in Thursday night's GOP debate, the most effective takedown of the billionaire so far in this campaign. "In the longer term, Christie's support equips Trump with a powerful and outspoken surrogate who can match the former reality star's tart tongue and, like him, can inflame a media narrative critical of his opponents. "Trump accompanied his rollout of Christie with a stream of invective against Rubio, reflecting the raised stakes ahead of Super Tuesday and the scorched-earth duel now raging between them. "As the campaign headed further toward the gutter, Trump branded Rubio a 'low life,' 'a nasty little guy,' a 'basket case' and 'a choker' who sweated so much he had to put makeup on with a trowel." [...

Jim Lo Scalzo / European Pressphoto Agency White House allows young immigrants to extend deportation waivers -- Los Angeles Times "More than half a million young immigrants who were granted temporary deportation waivers can apply for a two-year extension, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Thursday, in what may be a template for more sweeping White House action before the midterm election. "Under a program that President Obama announced in 2012, about 560,000 people who were brought to the country illegally as children have been granted temporary work permits and two-year deportation deferrals. The first permits will expire in September." AP Photo Obama Plans Steps to Ease Student Debt -- New York Times "Mr. Obama's main action will be to expand on a 2010 law that capped borrowers' repayments at 10 percent of their monthly income. The intent is to extend such relief to an estimated five million people with older loans who are current...

Scott Olson / Getty Images The NSA Could Actually Spy on More Phone Calls Under Reform Bill -- National Journal "Last month, the House passed the USA Freedom Act, which would force the NSA to give up its massive database of phone records, which contains phone numbers and timestamps of millions of landline calls. Under the bill, the NSA would have to receive court approval for each search of a phone company's records. "But the legislation includes a provision that would require the phone companies to provide 'technical assistance' to help the NSA collect the data in a readable format. "That provision could allow the NSA to more easily access millions of cell-phone records, according to Mark Jaycox, a legislative analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy-advocacy group." KING-TV Officials Hail Hero Students in Seattle Pacific University Shooting -- NBC News "The gunman walked into the lobby and fired multiple gunshots,...

Win McNamee / Getty Images Senators Reach Framework To Pay For Veterans' Care Outside System -- NPR "Senators from both parties have reached an agreement on legislation that would expand the ability of veterans to seek government-paid medical care outside the network of the VA medical system. "Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who is chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, was joined by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in making the announcement Thursday on the Senate floor." Paolo Pellegrin / Magnum Bergdahl swap could spell the end of Guantanamo -- MSNBC "Ever since President Obama signed an executive order, on his second day in office, to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Republicans have blocked the effort with a steady stream of obstacles, including cutting funding for prisoner transfers to the U.S. and calling for impossible guarantees that released detainees would never pose a threat to America. As the White House...

AP Photo VA moves Bernie Sanders from stage left to center stage -- Politico "With Eric Shinseki out at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the focus now shifts to Capitol Hill, placing the two-term Vermont independent and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman at the center of the growing VA health care controversy. Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, is assembling a legislative package to help address the issue in the hopes that he can consolidate support within the veterans community and assuage concerns of vulnerable Democrats. "In the process, he’ll have to win over enough Republicans to push the bill through the narrowly divided Senate — or maneuver deftly so it appears that Democrats aren’t blamed for its failure. "It’s a tall task for anyone in a gridlocked Congress — let alone a fiery partisan in the middle of an intense election year. And he’s already engaged in a fierce back-and-forth with Republicans on the issue, after the GOP rejected his $2...

Jeff Swensen / Getty Images A guide to Obama's new rules to cut carbon emissions from power plants -- Vox "How can Obama do this without Congress? He'll be working through the Environmental Protection Agency, which already has the legal authority to regulate US greenhouse gases. "Since 2009, the EPA has used that authority to ratchet up fuel-economy standards for cars and light trucks. Then, last year, the agency imposed strict carbon standards on anyone who wants to build a new coal or gas plant in the future. "Now the agency is going even further. The EPA's newest proposal will require the nation's power plants to cut their carbon-dioxide emissions 25 percent in the 2020s and 30 percent by 2030 — compared to 2005 levels." U.S. Marshalls Service via Associated Press / Reuters N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images -- New York Times "The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly...

Lawmaker claims Pentagon using new diagnosis to drive out sex assault accusers -- Fox News "Lawmakers have expressed fears that the Defense Department is using a new disorder diagnosis to remove accusers in sexual assault cases from the military. "Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., has accused the Pentagon of diagnosing troops who report that they were sexually assaulted with adjustment disorder and having them discharged. Speier told The Washington Times that the practice is a new tactic for the military, which previously diagnosed service members tied to sexual assault cases with personality disorder. "'It’s like a "Whac-A-Mole,"' Speier told the paper. 'Every time we shut them down on something, they'll find a way around it.'" Michael Nelson/EPA Senate Democrats propose more spending on mentally ill criminals -- Los Angeles Times "State Senate Democrats on Wednesday offered a $165-million package of proposals aimed at ...

Getty Images President Obama reveals plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by 2016 -- The Independent "In an attempt to turn the page on the occupation which started within a month of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Obama said 9,800 American troops of the 32,000-strong current force would be kept in Afghanistan after the US combat mission formally ends later this year. ... "But the move is likely to garner criticism at home. Before the address, Tony Blinken, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said that the US had allocated about $20 billion (£11.8 billion) on the continued military presence. Asked if such a cost was worth it, Blinken replied: 'We want to complete the job that we started." At the same time, he said "we can't be in an endless war posture.'" Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images Obama delays DHS deportation review -- Associated Press "President Barack Obama has asked his Homeland Security chief to hold off on complet...

AFP 'We know where missing girls are' says Nigeria's top military officer -- Telegraph "'The good news for the parents of the girls is that we know where they are, but we cannot tell you,' Badeh was quoted as saying. 'But where they are held, can we go there with force? We can't kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back.' "Most officials think any raid to rescue them would be fraught with danger and probably not worth the risk that the girls would be killed by their captors - an Islamist group that has shown a degree of ruthlessness in killing civilians." Tony Gutierrez/AP Photo New safety requirements set for Keystone pipeline -- Associated Press "Safety regulators have quietly placed two extra conditions on construction of TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL oil pipeline after learning of potentially dangerous construction defects involving the southern leg of the Canada-to-Texas project. "The defec...

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta Obama: 80 US Troops in Chad Seeking Abducted Girls -- Associated Press "The United States has deployed 80 military personnel to Chad to help locate the nearly 300 girls kidnapped in Nigeria last month, President Barack Obama said Wednesday. "Obama, in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and the Senate, notified lawmakers about the latest steps underway to assist in the return of the abducted girls. "Obama said the service members will help with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the nearby region. He says the force will stay in Chad until its support is no longer necessary." AFP/Getty Images Google, Facebook Warn NSA Bill Wouldn't Stop Mass Surveillance -- National Journal "The Reform Government Surveillance coalition—whose members include Google, Facebook, Microsoft, AOL, Apple, Twitter, LinkedIn, DropBox, and Yahoo—issued a statement Wednesday annou...

photo via:  Drone Wars UK U.S. to disclose legal justification for drone strikes on Americans -- Chicago Tribune "In a case pitting executive power against the public's right to know what its government does, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month reversed a lower-court ruling preserving the secrecy of the legal rationale for the killings, such as the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen. "Ruling for the New York Times in the case, a unanimous three-judge panel said the government waived its right to secrecy by making repeated public statements justifying targeted killings." First lady: Arts education good for good schools -- Associated Press "The talent show was a vehicle to showcase the 'Turnaround Arts' program. It was created as an experiment in 2012 by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in collaboration with the White House and the Education Department to test whethe...

Dialing with Dollars: How County Jails Profit From Immigrant Detainees -- The Nation "Arali and Milton are just two of thousands of undocumented immigrants across the United States who are charged exorbitant rates for calls from county jails that contract with ICE to hold immigrant detainees. About 50 percent of all immigrant detainees are held in county jails, according to ICE, and many of these cash-strapped jails, like Plymouth County Detention Center, have sought to raise revenue through contracts with phone companies that charge excessive rates and kick back part of the profits. Immigrant detainees end up paying the same inflated telephone rates charged to their citizen inmate counterparts, but unlike jail inmates charged with a crime, immigration detainees don’t have access to court-appointed attorneys. This means they are responsible for finding an attorney or representing themselves, both tasks that require affordable phone access." ***learn more about how your o...

NSA Spying Has a Disproportionate Effect on Immigrants -- The Atlantic "... the government contends that Americans who make phone calls or send emails to people abroad have a diminished expectation of privacy because the people with whom they are communicating—non-Americans abroad, that is—are not protected by the Constitution. The government also argues that Americans' privacy rights are further diminished in this context because the NSA has a "paramount" interest in examining information that crosses international borders. "... the government even argues that Americans can't reasonably expect that their international communications will be private from the NSA when the intelligence services of so many other countries ... might be monitoring those communications, too. The government's argument is not simply that the NSA has broad authority to monitor Americans' international communications. The US government is arguing that the NSA's author...

What Does U.S. Look Like With 10 Feet of Sea Level Rise? -- Climate Central "More than half of the area of 40 large cities (population over 50,000) is less than 10 feet above the high tide line, from Virginia Beach and Miami (the largest affected), down to Hoboken, N.J. (smallest). Twenty-seven of the cities are in Florida, where one-third of all current housing sits below the critical line — including 85 percent in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Each of these counties is more threatened than any whole state outside of Florida – and each sits on bedrock filled with holes, rendering defense by seawalls or levees almost impossible. "By the metric of most people living on land less than 10 ft above the high tide line, New York City is most threatened in the long run, with a low-lying population count of more than 700,000. Sixteen other cities, including New Orleans, La.; Norfolk, Va.; Stockton, Calif.; Boston, Mass.; St. Petersburg, Fla.; and Jacksonville, Fla.; are on ...