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Northern Star

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The Student News Site of Northern Illinois University

Northern Star

The Student News Site of Northern Illinois University

Northern Star

New video shows details from fatal shootout at kosher deli

By MIKE CATALINI | February 20, 2020

Newly released video from a fatal shootout at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City shows the moment one of the shooters exited the van he drove there, took three steps and raised a long gun before entering the market, sending passersby scattering away...

Trump ally Roger Stone sentenced to over 3 years in prison

By ASHRAF KHALIL, MARK SHERMAN, and MICHAEL BALSAMO | February 20, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, was sentenced to more than three years in prison Thursday for obstructing a congressional investigation in a case that has sparked fears about presidential interference in...

TV analyst? Spokesman? Freed ex-governor goes job hunting

By MICHAEL TARM | February 20, 2020

CHICAGO (AP) — Job wanted: Ex-governor and ex-con with strong speaking skills and good hair seeking employment.Fresh out of prison thanks to a commutation this week from President Donald Trump, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is in the hunt for...

Lawmakers target slavery clause in Minnesota Constitution

By STEVE KARNOWSKI | February 20, 2020

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Spurred by a police chief, Minnesota lawmakers launched a drive Thursday to remove from the state constitution a clause allowing slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes.St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell, who...

Ukraine happy impeachment is over, wants to advance US ties

By EDITH M. LEDERER | February 20, 2020

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Ukraine is happy that impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, which the country got dragged into, are over and it now wants to “advance" relations with the United States, Ukraine's foreign minister said Thursday.Vadym...

Fired Chicago Police superintendent getting $190K pension

February 20, 2020

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago's former police chief has been receiving a pension of more than $15,800 a month since the mayor fired him for allegedly lying about a night he was found asleep in his city-issued SUV, according to a newspaper report.Eddie Johnson...

Conflict of interest fears cast shadow over EU budget talks

By LORNE COOK | February 20, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — As European Union leaders deliberated over their 1 trillion-euro ($1.1 trillion) budget Thursday, lawmakers were deeply concerned about potential conflicts of interest that could see hundreds of millions of euros in funds granted to...

Justices return for season of big decisions, amid campaign

By MARK SHERMAN | February 20, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — For a Supreme Court that says it has an allergy to politics, the next few months might require a lot of tissues.The court is poised to issue campaign-season decisions in the full bloom of spring in cases dealing with President Donald...

Trump taps loyalist Grenell as nation’s top intel official

By ZEKE MILLER and MATTHEW LEE | February 20, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced that Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, will become acting director of national intelligence, a move that puts a staunch Trump ally in charge of the nation's 17 spy agencies, which the...

Climate activist’s award money used to create foundation

February 20, 2020

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A Swedish organization that gave Greta Thunberg an award that is often described as an alternative Nobel Prize says the teenage climate activist is using her prize money to establish an eponymous foundation.The purpose of...

Debate night brawl: Bloomberg, Sanders attacked by rivals

By STEVE PEOPLES, ALEXANDRA JAFFE, and MICHELLE L. PRICE | February 20, 2020

LAS VEGAS (AP) — From the opening bell, Democrats savaged New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg and raised pointed questions about Bernie Sanders' take-no-prisoners politics during a contentious debate Wednesday night that threatened to further muddy the party's urgent quest to defeat President Donald Trump.

Bloomberg, the former New York mayor who was once a Republican, was forced to defend his record and past comments related to race, gender and his personal wealth in an occasionally rocky debate stage debut. Sanders, meanwhile, tried to beat back pointed questions about his embrace of democratic socialism and his health following a heart attack last year.

The ninth debate of this cycle featured the most aggressive sustained period of infighting in the Democrats’ yearlong search for a presidential nominee. The tension reflected growing anxiety among candidates and party leaders that the nomination fight could yield a candidate who will struggle to build a winning coalition in November to beat Trump.

The campaign is about to quickly intensify. Nevada votes on Saturday and South Carolina follows on February 29. More than a dozen states host Super Tuesday contests in less than two weeks with about one-third of the delegates needed to win the nomination at stake.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was in a fight for survival and stood out with repeated attacks on Bloomberg. She sought to undermine him with core Democratic voters who are uncomfortable with his vast wealth, his offensive remarks about policing of minorities and demeaning comments about women, including those who worked at his company.

Warren labeled Bloomberg "a billionaire who calls people fat broads and horse-faced lesbians."

She wasn’t alone.

Sanders lashed out at Bloomberg's policing policies as New York City mayor that he said targeted “African-American and Latinos in an outrageous way."

And former Vice President Joe Biden charged that Bloomberg’s “stop-and-frisk” policy ended up “throwing 5 million black men up against the wall.”

Watching from afar, Trump joined the Bloomberg pile on.

“I hear he's getting pounded tonight, you know he's in a debate,” Trump said at a rally in Phoenix.

After the debate, Warren told reporters: "I have no doubt that Michael Bloomberg is reaching in his pocket right now, and spending another hundred million dollars to try to erase every American's memory about what happened on the debate stage."

On a night that threatened to tarnish the shine of his carefully constructed TV-ad image, Bloomberg faltered when attacked on issues related to race and gender. But he was firm and unapologetic about his wealth and how he has used it to effect change important to Democrats. He took particular aim at Sanders and his self-description as a democratic socialist.

“I don’t think there's any chance of the senator beating Donald Trump," Bloomberg declared before noting Sanders' rising wealth. "The best known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses!"

Sanders defended owning multiple houses, noting he has one in Washington, where he works, and two in Vermont, the state he represents in the Senate.

While Bloomberg was the shiny new object Wednesday, the debate also marked a major test for Sanders, who is emerging as the front-runner in the Democrats’ nomination fight, whether his party’s establishment likes it or not. A growing group of donors, elected officials and political operatives fear that Sanders’ uncompromising progressive politics could be a disaster in the general election against Trump, yet they’ve struggled to coalesce behind a single moderate alternative.

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, went after both Bloomberg and Sanders, warning that one threatened to “burn down” the Democratic Party and the other was trying to buy it.

He called them “the two most polarizing figures on this stage," with little chance of defeating Trump or helping congressional Democrats in contests with Republicans.

Bloomberg and Sanders were prime targets, but the stakes were no less dire for the other four candidates on stage.

Longtime establishment favorite Biden, a two-term vice president, desperately needed to breathe new life into his flailing campaign, which entered the night at the bottom of a moderate muddle behind Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. And after a bad finish last week in New Hampshire, Warren was fighting to resurrect her stalled White House bid.

A Warren campaign aide said on Twitter that her fiery first hour of debate was her best hour of fundraising "to date."

The other leading progressive in the race, Sanders came under attack from Biden and Bloomberg for his embrace of democratic socialism.

Sanders, as he has repeatedly over the last year, defended the cost of his signature “Medicare for All” healthcare plan, which would eliminate the private insurance industry in favor of a government-backed healthcare system that would cover all Americans.

"When you asked Bernie how much it cost last time he said...'We'll find out,’” Biden quipped. “It costs over $35 trillion, let's get real."

And ongoing animosity flared between Buttigieg and Klobuchar when the former Indiana mayor slammed the three-term Minnesota senator for failing to answer questions in a recent interview about Mexican policy and forgetting the name of the Mexican president.

Buttigieg noted that she's on a committee that oversees trade issues in Mexico and she “was not able to speak to literally the first thing about the politics of the country.”

She shot back: "Are you trying to say I'm dumb? Are you mocking me here?"

Later in the night she lashed out at Buttigieg again: “I wish everyone else was as perfect as you, Pete.”

The debate closed with a question about the possibility that Democrats remain divided deep into the primary season with a final resolution coming during a contested national convention in July.

Asked if the candidate with the most delegates should be the nominee -- even if he or she is short of a delegate majority, almost every candidate suggested that the convention process should "work its way out," as Biden put it.

Sanders, who helped force changes to the nomination process this year and hopes to take a significant delegate lead in the coming weeks, was the only exception.

“The person who has the most votes should become the nominee,” he said.

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Peoples and Jaffe reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.

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Catch up on the 2020 election campaign with AP experts on our weekly politics podcast, “Ground Game.”

Bolton: Testimony wouldn’t have changed impeachment outcome

By JONATHAN MATTISE | February 19, 2020

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Former national security adviser John Bolton on Wednesday denounced the House's impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump as ”grossly partisan” and said his testimony would not have changed Trump's acquittal...