But on that September day in 2020, after Littlejohn picked her teen up from school, she was struck by an offhand comment the 13-year-old made: The teen said “it was funny” when school staffers asked what gender restroom they preferred to use in response to their new name.
This conversation proved to be a tipping point for the Littlejohns, who sued Leon County Schools in 2021 claiming that school officials helped their child transition to a different gender without informing them. The lawsuit was filed by the Child & Parental Rights Campaign, a public interest law firm that was founded in 2019, in its words, “to respond to a radical new ideology overtaking families.”
The lawsuit and the issues it touched on galvanized Republican lawmakers to introduce and eventually pass one of the most contentious pieces of legislation to come from Florida, according to interviews with a dozen state lawmakers, advocates, parents, school officials and others involved in crafting the measure. Lawyers with the Child & Parental Rights Campaign say they helped Florida Republicans shape the legislation, a connection that has received little attention.
“I didn’t see it coming, which is why I try to warn parents,” January Littlejohn said in an interview.
POLITICO is using “they/them” pronouns to refer to the teen so as to not reveal identifying information about them. The teen could not be reached for comment.
Titled “Parental Rights in Education,” the legislation sparked uproar among supporters of the LGBTQ community, officials from both parties and some of the largest corporations in America, including Walt Disney Co. Opponents, including President Joe Biden, maintain it could further marginalize some students and lead to bullying and even suicide. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came to be a loud and vocal defender of the measure, which was routinely mocked by late night comedians and was even highlighted during this year’s Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday.
“This is another stain on Florida’s history,” said Sen. Shev Jones, a Democrat from the Miami area who is the state’s first openly gay senator. “Classrooms should be places of inclusion, where every Florida child can learn safely and ask questions. But not in Ron DeSantis’ Florida.”
DeSantis held a bill signing ceremony at a Pasco County charter school on Monday where he lauded Littlejohn for “standing up” to the school district.
“When you listen to January tell her story about what they did with her child, without her knowledge or consent, I don’t think there’s very many parents in the state of Florida that think that’s OK,” DeSantis said before signing the measure into law. “I can tell you I don’t think that’s OK.”
Origins of the bill
The most contentious element of the “Parental Rights in Education” bill prohibits teachers from leading classroom discussions on gender identity or sexual orientation for students in kindergarten through third grade. It also bans such lessons for older students unless they are “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate.”
The legislation additionally requires schools to notify parents if there is a change in services for a student or any additional monitoring for their “mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.” It builds on the state’s “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which is meant to spur parental involvement in education and has been used by DeSantis as a means to thwart local mask mandates for students.
The push for the bill began with behind-the-scenes discussions among Florida House Republicans as they learned last year about a series of LGBTQ student “support guides” used in some school districts, according to interviews with five lawmakers. The Littlejohn lawsuit, for one, takes aim at a guide used by school officials in Leon County.
The guides are meant to serve as a resource for schools and families to help support LGTBQ students and offer guidance to teachers for how to handle issues on campus. But the Littlejohns — and Republican lawmakers — contend that the plans can go too far to keep parents in the dark about their children.
The Leon guide that the Littlejohns objected to, in one example, specifies that school employees should not “out” a student to their parents if they believe the student may be LGBTQ, warning that it “can literally make them homeless,” meaning their parents will kick them out of the house. Another support guide that caught the attention of lawmakers in Martin County says that “it is never appropriate to divulge the sexual orientation of a student to a parent” barring the “the very limited exception involving the imminent fear of physical harm,” which could include physical abuse. The Martin guide is under review due to the new legislation, according to school officials.
State Rep. Chris Latvala, a St. Petersburg Republican and chair of the main education committee in the state House, saw the guide put out by Martin County at the end of the 2021 legislative session and asked legislative staff about it. “Can you look to see if this is really going on in our schools?” Latvala recalls telling his aides.
Around the same time, Latvala said, he also became aware of the lawsuit against Leon County, which increased interest in approving a bill that would guarantee that information be shared with parents. Latvala turned to Rep. Joe Harding, a first-term Republican from the small North Central Florida town of Williston, to help carry the bill forward.
“It wasn’t something he had to be sold on,” Latvala said about Harding, a father of four young children, including two who are in school.
Both Harding and Latvala maintain the push for the legislation did not come from outside groups, including the Child & Parental Rights Campaign. Vernadette Broyles, president and general counsel of the Child & Parental Rights Campaign, however, said the group gave suggestions to lawmakers for ways to “tighten the language,” especially with regard to aspects touching on parental rights.
Florida GOP lawmakers frequently cited the Littlejohns’ lawsuit as they debated the bill during the recent legislative session, and January Littlejohn, who has also appeared on Fox News to denounce schools withholding information from parents, testified during each hearing.
“In this case, it’s 100 percent a legislative-driven bill,” Harding said.
But it became apparent after the Virginia governor’s race, where Republican Glenn Youngkin beat Terry McAuliffe in large part by pushing parental rights in education, that Florida Republicans had tapped into a growing sense of frustration from parents, Harding said. He recalled hearing from parents in his own district after he filed the bill and it started to draw attention.
“It became an issue that is a rallying cry for our caucus because, in my opinion, this is a fault-line issue that we Republicans are on the right side of,” Harding said. One House Democrat, Rep. James Bush from Miami, did vote in favor of the bill, while eight GOP legislators in the House and Senate voted “no.”
Broyles of the Child & Parental Rights Campaign, which also brought a similar parental rights lawsuit in Clay County and is pursuing additional cases across the country, says the school LGBTQ guides at the center of their lawsuit are being “surreptitiously” introduced at schools in Florida and elsewhere without parents being in the know.
“It should be obvious to anyone that schools are not competent, qualified or authorized to make that kind of decision,” Broyles said in an interview. “The parents have to be notified.”
Broyles has spoken in very stark terms about issues of transgender students and school. During a conference in 2020 hosted by the Eagle Forum, a group founded by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, Broyles gave a presentation titled “The Transgender Threat To Our Kids and Our Culture” in which she called rules allowing transgender bathroom laws “tools of indoctrination” that “compel kids to normalize a radical new belief system.”
Near the end of her 20-minute presentation, which is posted online, Broyles displayed a projected slide with the title: “The transgender movement is a vehicle for censorship and state power,” calling the consequences of the “agenda” an “existential threat to our culture.”
National impact
Opponents of Florida’s legislation group it as one of the dozens of anti-LGBTQ proposals gaining traction in statehouses across the U.S., ranging from bills focused on bathroom use to rules banning transgender athletes from playing girls’ sports.
The Human Rights Campaign, for one, says it’s tracking at least 583 LGBTQ bills introduced in 33 states this year. Among those, the LGBTQ advocacy group describes 313 proposals as “harmful” and 137 as “anti-trans.”
While the Florida bill has been coined “Don’t Say Gay,” Cathryn Oakley, the Human Rights Campaign’s state legislative director and senior legislative counsel, says the measure is “very much about trans youth.”
This legislation and similar proposals fuel a false sense, according to Oakley, that students will stray from their LGBTQ identities if they never learn the proper words to express themselves or see role models in books or elsewhere.
“This is about trying to erase the entirety of the LGBTQ community,” Oakley told reporters last week.
In the Littlejohn case, which is currently awaiting a 2023 jury trial, the parents say their child’s comment about which bathroom to use led them to dig deeper about what was happening at school. Eventually, they learned that school officials had been meeting with the teen for weeks about their gender identity, asking questions like whether the 13-year-old was more comfortable rooming with boys or girls on overnight trips.
All the while, the Littlejohns say, the school kept them in the dark.
Attorneys for Leon County Schools attempted to have the lawsuit thrown out, arguing that the local LGBTQ guide “strives to ‘ensure that students are healthy, present, and positive members of a safe learning community.’” They contend that no employee “coerced, encouraged, or forced” the teen to meet about their gender orientation or keep anything from their parents.
Leon school officials took the unusual step of addressing ongoing litigation to contradict claims made in the Littlejohn lawsuit.
“From the moment Mrs. Littlejohn first emailed her child’s teacher to inform our staff of the situation, this has been handled together in partnership with clear communication,” said a Leon County Schools spokesperson. “We understand that outside entities have now become involved, but the family clearly instructed the school staff via email to allow their child to ‘take the lead on this’ and to do ‘whatever you think is the best.’ Additionally, our superintendent met with the family and committed to amend any vague or unclear policy language—of which we have created a committee and are working on currently.”
The Littlejohns claim in their lawsuit, however, that school leaders in Leon County are “unjustifiably” assuming all parents will disapprove of their children’s gender identity.
“It paints all parents as dangerous to their children,” Littlejohn said. “Not only is it a lie, it’s a wedge — it’s pushing a narrative to separate children from their families.”
The higher rates apply to married couples filing together with taxable income over $450,000, heads of household above $425,000, single filers making more than $400,000 and $225,000 for married taxpayers filing separately, according to the Treasury Department. You calculate taxable income by subtracting the greater of the standard or itemized deductions from adjusted gross income.
If enacted, the change may hit higher earners beginning after Dec. 31, 2022, and income thresholds may adjust for inflation after 2023.
However, increases to income tax rates may be difficult to pass, with previous pushbacks from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.
Moreover, Democrats have a short window to reach an agreement before midterm election campaigns begin ramping up.
“There weren’t enough lawmakers in favor of raising the rate to 39.6% last year for it to make the cut in the House-passed reconciliation bill,” said Erica York, senior economist and research manager at the Tax Foundation. “And I don’t see anything that has changed to make it easier in an election year.”
Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center agrees the individual tax proposals, including an increase on the highest marginal income tax bracket, may not be politically viable.
“It’s been years since the presidential budget actually went anywhere,” he said. “And this seems like another one that’s kind of dead on arrival.”
With the Congressional Budget Office scoring already complete for many of Biden’s past proposals, there’s the potential for Democrats to move quickly on an agreement.
However, a lot depends on Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who blocked the House version of Biden’s Build Back Better, and his willingness to restart negotiations, Gleckman said.
Former President Donald Trump’s signature 2017 tax overhaul temporarily reduced the top marginal rate to 37% through Dec. 31, 2025. However, it will automatically revert to 39.6% when the provision sunsets in January 2026 unless extended by Congress.
Biden’s 2023 federal budget also asks for a “billionaire minimum tax,” a 20% income tax rate for the top 0.01% of earners and families with wealth exceeding $100 million, among other revenue raisers, which policy experts say may be a tough sell.
Ukrainian delegation member Mykhailo Podolyak makes a press statement after the talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine at Dolmabahce Presidential Office in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 29. (Emrah Yorulmaz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Senior members of the Ukrainian delegation who spoke with Russian officials today said there was progress after a day of talks in Turkey — and provided more detail on what security guarantees Ukraine would expect after a ceasefire.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, referred to talks about the status of Crimea, which annexed by Russia in 2014.
“I want to emphasize as regards the territories of Crimea and Sevastopol, it was agreed in bilateral format to take a pause for 15 years and conduct bilateral talks on the status of these territories,” he said.
Ukraine and the West have refused to recognize the Russian annexation of the peninsula, and the pause could be a formula for taking the issue off the table for now.
He also referred to one of the toughest elements in the talks: security guarantees for Ukraine if and when a ceasefire and peace settlement are agreed upon.
“Undoubtedly, this treaty on security guarantees may only be signed after a ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Russian troops to their positions on the 23rd of February 2022,” he said.
“We are simply bringing our proposals as negotiators to Russia about the system of security guarantees of Ukraine,” he continued.
Podolyak said the Russian negotiators have “taken the treaty that outlines ways to end the war” and will work out their counter-proposals.
He added that both sides are still “discussing a humanitarian ceasefire,” stressing there are “many places where humanitarian corridors are needed.”
Another member of the Ukrainian team, David Arakhamia, also spoke about security guarantees. “We insist that this be an international treaty, signing all the guarantors of security, which will be ratified.”
He said this would be comparable to NATO’s Article 5, which enshrines the principle of collective defense. The arrangement, he said, would be similar to Article 5, “but even with a stricter activation mechanism.”
Arakhamia named the guarantors as “the [permanent] countries of the UN Security Council” as well as Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland and Israel.
“We have stipulated in this agreement that the guarantor countries must not only not deny Ukraine’s accession to the EU, but also help with it,” he said.
Arakhamia added: “Of course, we have unresolved issues with the occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, with Crimea and Sevastopol. And international security guarantees will not work temporarily in these territories.”
A third member of the Ukrainian delegation, Oleksandr Chalyi, also stressed the three-day deadline for consultations in the event of “any aggression, military attack or military operation.”
Speaking to Ukrainian television, he said: “Doing everything possible to restore Ukraine’s security is a key requirement. If we manage to consolidate these key provisions, which is the most fundamental requirement for us, Ukraine will in fact be in a position to fix its current status as a non-aligned and non-nuclear state in the form of permanent neutrality.”
“Accordingly, these guarantees, which are in fact in line with NATO Article 5, as required by our country’s Constitution. [We] will not deploy foreign military bases or military contingents on our territory, and we will not enter into military-political alliances. Military trainings in our country will be conducted with the consent of our guarantor countries,” Chalyi said.
“However, it is fundamental for us that nothing in these provisions will deny our accession to the EU. The guarantor countries are also committed to facilitating these processes,” he added.
This is CNBC’s live blog tracking Tuesday’s developments on the war in Ukraine. See below for the latest updates.
Face-to-face talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegates are continuing in Istanbul today.
Ukrainian officials are hoping to secure a resolution to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in their country, as well as a cease-fire agreement.
Meanwhile, the U.K. has said that Russian troops still pose a “significant threat” to Kyiv, and noted that Moscow is currently reorganizing and resetting its forces.
Ukraine International Airlines extends flight suspension through May 31
Ukraine’s largest airline tells customers that flights will be suspended through at least May 31 as Russia’s attacks on the country continue. Ukraine International Airlines had previously scrapped all flights through April 15.
“Given the difficult situation under martial law, the air carrier draws attention to the possibility of forced delays and feedback complications on the service channels of communication with passengers and counts on understanding,” the carrier said.
The war has closed the airspace over Ukraine. Reciprocal sanctions with Russia have meant longer flights as airlines avoid Russian airspace and vice versa and roiled the aviation market with hundreds of foreign-owned planes stuck in the country.
— Leslie Josephs
Ukrainian troops battle Russian forces in Zaporizhzhia region
Members of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps fight against Russian troops in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.
— Reuters
Ukraine opens 3 humanitarian corridors
Three humanitarian corridors have been opened in Ukraine on Tuesday, according to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
The corridors will allow civilians to evacuate from the cities of Melitopol and Mariupol, with two separate routes operating in the latter to allow evacuations via government-run buses or private transport.
It comes after no humanitarian corridors were opened on Monday, with Ukrainian officials saying they feared a Russian attack on evacuation routes was looming.
— Chloe Taylor
3 missiles shot down near Lviv, official says
Maksym Kozytskiy, governor of Ukraine’s Lviv region, said Tuesday that Ukraine’s air defense systems had shot down three missiles over the district of Zolochiv — around 65 kilometers (40 miles) east of the city of Lviv.
Kozytskiy said there was no threat to residents of the Zolochiv district and that no one was hurt in the incident.
Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, had until recently avoided being the scene of active hostilities, with many Ukrainians settling there after fleeing conflict zones elsewhere in the country. According to Kozytskiy, more than 257,000 Ukrainians have resettled in the Lviv region since the beginning of the war.
— Chloe Taylor
Russia continuing to attack residential areas, Ukrainian officials say
“The Russian enemy continues to insidiously launch missile and bomb strikes, trying to completely destroy the infrastructure and residential areas of Ukrainian cities,” Ukraine’s armed forces said in an update on Tuesday.
“It concentrates on fuel storage, in order to complicate logistics and create conditions for a humanitarian crisis.”
The update accused Moscow’s forces of violating international humanitarian law in “temporarily occupied” settlements in the regions of Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, Kherson and Kharkiv. According to the Ukrainian armed forces, Russian troops were continuing to shell residential buildings, and were taking hostages and engaging in looting across Ukraine.
A spokesperson for the Russian government was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Officials said Ukrainian forces had held off several Russian attacks on Monday, noting that Russian forces were continuing their attempt to gain ground from the east, southeast and northeast.
— Chloe Taylor
Roman Abramovich is at Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul, Russian state media says
Russian state-controlled news agency RIA has reported that billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich is in attendance at the talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul.
Abramovich, who has been subjected to Western sanctions since Russia invaded Ukraine, reportedly spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of the talks.
— Chloe Taylor
UN nuclear agency working to avert nuclear disaster in Ukraine
Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of U.N. nuclear agency the IAEA, has traveled to Ukraine to meet with senior government officials in a bid “to ensure the safety and security of the country’s nuclear facilities.”
Grossi will hold talks with Ukrainian officials about the delivery of urgent technical assistance, the IAEA said Tuesday, aimed at helping to avert the risk of an accident that could endanger people and the environment.
IAEA experts will be sent to “prioritized facilities,” the organization also said in its statement Tuesday, and the agency would send vital safety and security supplies to Ukraine.
“The military conflict is putting Ukraine’s nuclear power plants and other facilities with radioactive material in unprecedented danger,” Grossi said in a statement. “We must take urgent action to make sure that they can continue to operate safely and securely and reduce the risk of a nuclear accident.”
During his visit to Ukraine, Grossi will visit one of the country’s nuclear power plants, the IAEA said.
Earlier this month, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — the largest in Europe — caught fire after coming under attack by Russian troops.
— Chloe Taylor
144 children have died in war so far, Ukraine says
Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Liudmyla Denisova said Tuesday that 144 children have died so far in the war.
A further 220 children have been injured in the conflict, Denisova said in a post on the messenger app Telegram.
— Chloe Taylor
Ukraine war could cause a recession in Germany, thinktank says
The German economy will grow by 2.1% in 2022 and 3.2% in 2023, thinktank IMK said in an updated forecast on Tuesday.
But it also said a slight recession is also possible in its 2022 risk scenario, the organization added.
In its previous forecast, IMK had predicted Germany’s economy would grow by 4.5% this year, and had not made any forecasts for next year.
“The war in Ukraine is … making recovery after the corona pandemic considerably more difficult,” researchers said.
The forecast of 2.1% GDP growth this year was what IMK expected in its baseline scenario — but if a “more unfavorable risk scenario with much higher energy prices occurs,” analysts predicted that German GDP could shrink by 0.3% in 2022.
In the risk-on environment, GDP growth could fall to 1.4% in 2023, the forecast added.
In the baseline scenario, German inflation was predicted to hit 6.2% this year — but that figure could rise to 8.2% in the risk scenario, IMK said.
An abrupt interruption of energy supplies from Russia, either due to a German embargo or a Russian supply freeze, would cause a deep recession in Germany this year, IMK also warned. This situation would see German GDP shrink “significantly more than in the risk scenario,” researchers said.
— Chloe Taylor
Russia-Ukraine talks set to begin in Istanbul
A spokesperson for the Turkish Foreign Ministry has told NBC News that talks between Russia and Ukraine will begin at 10:30 a.m. Istanbul time (3:30 a.m. ET). He added that it was possible there may be some delays.
— Chloe Taylor
Japan to ban export of luxury items to Russia
Japan has announced it will ban the export of luxury goods to Russia from April 5.
Goods in the export ban will include luxury cars, cosmetics and art.
— Chloe Taylor
Face-to-face talks to resume in Turkey
Face-to-face talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegates are set to resume in Istanbul today.
Delegations from both countries touched down in Turkey on Monday.
But both sides have suggested officials are not yet close to securing an agreement.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Ukrainian television yesterday that “nothing is agreed upon unless everything is agreed upon.”
He said the minimum Ukraine was hoping to secure was a solution to the humanitarian crises arising from the war, while the maximum the country’s officials were hoping to achieve was a cease-fire.
“Everything can change at any moment,” he said. “At the moment the principal points do not have solid agreements. There is an exchange of thoughts, positions, creative ideas, but there are no decisions yet. Moreover, agreeing on one point does not mean the agreement as a whole will work in integral format.”
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a televised interview on Monday that the delegations “still don’t have a clear understanding on our main points.”
— Chloe Taylor
Ukraine foreign minister calls for Russian Z symbol to be criminalized
— Chloe Taylor
Russia reorganizing and resetting its forces, UK says
Ukrainian forces are continuing to carry out localized counterattacks to Kyiv’s northwest, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Tuesday.
“These attacks have had some success and the Russians have been pushed back from a number of positions,” the ministry said in an intelligence update. “However, Russia still poses a significant threat to the city through their strike capability.”
The ministry added that the besieged port city of Mariupol remains under Ukrainian control, despite continuous Russian shelling.
“Elsewhere, Russian Forces are maintaining blocking positions while attempting to reorganize and reset their forces,” British officials said.
— Chloe Taylor
Read CNBC’s previous live coverage here:
You can read Monday’s live coverage on the war in Ukraine here:
UN agency estimates nearly 3,000 civilians have been injured or killed
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exacted a heavy toll with a total 2,975 civilian casualties recorded since the conflict began more than a month ago, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Among those 1,151 were killed, including 103 children, between Feb. 24 and March 27, the UN agency said in its Monday update.
The agency said most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the “use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.”
UNHCR cautioned, however, the actual figures are considerably higher since the information from “some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.”
Biden’s remark came as U.S.-Russia relations reach a breaking point over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its second month. The administration has been delicately navigating the conflict without risking escalation by the nuclear power, but some Republicans said Biden’s off-the-cuff remark may have done just that.
The White House on Saturday immediately attempted to clean up Biden’s comment about Putin not remaining in power, saying that the president meant to convey that Putin “cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”
But that sparked even more confusion, leading Biden himself to answer questions Sunday and Monday about what exactly he meant after reporting emerged that indicated he had ad-libbed the end of his pivotal speech.
Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he wished the president would “stay on script.”
Republicans argued that the remark was the latest example of Biden creating confusion about the administration’s stance on foreign policy in light of the Russian invasion.
Biden on Monday insisted that his remark was not a change in U.S. policy regarding regime change in Russia but rather that he was expressing a “moral outrage” after visiting refugees in Poland over the weekend. He insisted that he wasn’t walking it back.
“I was expressing moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it,” Biden told reporters.
Still, Republicans were left fuming at what some saw as another example of why Biden’s competency as president should be questioned.
Biden’s comment and the White House’s backpedaling also frustrated Republicans who have been pushing the Biden administration to be more active in providing assistance to Ukraine.
McCaul also said that he had expected Biden’s trip to end with an announcement on an agreement to provide Ukraine even further support than the hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry and humanitarian aid the U.S. has already sent to help. McCaul mentioned Slovakia’s offer to provide anti-aircraft S-300 missile systems as long as NATO replenishes their systems.
“We need to give David the slingshot,” McCaul said, referencing the biblical story of David and Goliath.
“I’ve been saying this from the beginning: the West needs to be clear that the only way this ends is with Putin out of power. If you ask me, the only ‘gaffe’ is Joe Biden trying to walk back his comments. He finally said something right and showed an ounce of fortitude, and then he immediately backpedaled,” Mast said in a statement. “This tells our adversaries that Biden won’t even bark, let alone bite.’”
A worst-case scenario, some Republicans fear, is that Biden’s verbal slips and his administration’s cleanup could be a prelude to a failing foreign policy.
March 28 (Reuters) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a Republican-backed bill that bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for many young students, drawing swift criticism from companies, Democrats and advocacy groups.
The legislation, referred to by its opponents as the “don’t say gay” bill, has stirred national controversy and got attention during Sunday’s Oscars telecast amid an increasingly partisan debate over what schools should teach children about race and gender.
Formally called the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, the Florida measure bars classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for children in kindergarten through third grade, or from about ages 5-9, in public schools.
It also prohibits such teaching that “is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate” for students in other grades.
Under the law, which takes effect on July 1, parents will be allowed to sue school districts they believe to be in violation.
“We will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, healthcare and well being of their children,” DeSantis told reporters on Monday. “I don’t care what big corporations say, here I stand. I’m not backing down.”
DeSantis, who is seeking re-election this year and is widely considered to be running for president in 2024, has joined other Republicans nationwide in calling for parents to have more control of what young children learn in school.
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U.S. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, U.S. February 24, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo
The Republican governor signed the bill into law at a charter school in Spring Hill, north of Tampa, surrounded by young school children and parents who shared personal stories they said showed the new law is needed.
Students across Florida have protested the measure, and President Joe Biden previously called it “hateful.”
The hosts of the Oscars ceremony referenced the bill, while best actress winner Jessica Chastain in her acceptance speech denounced “discriminatory and bigoted” legislation sweeping the country.
After DeSantis signed the bill on Monday, a Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) spokesperson said the legislation “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law. Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.”
Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, is the company’s largest theme park. Its sprawling businesses also include movie studios, broadcast and cable television networks, streaming services, cruise lines and retail products.
Civil rights group Lambda Legal said it would challenge the law in court. “Our young people are not political pawns,” Chief Executive Kevin Jennings said in a statement.
The legislation has been criticized for the vagueness and complexity of some of its language. For example, it says that even discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation is prohibited “in certain grade levels or in a specified manner.”
The Florida Education Association, a teachers union, called the law a “political stunt” vulnerable to legal challenges.
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian peace negotiators suffered symptoms of suspected poisoning after a meeting in Kyiv earlier this month, people familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Abramovich, Ukrainian lawmaker Rustem Umerov and another negotiator developed symptoms following the March 3 meeting in Kyiv that included red eyes, constant and painful tearing, and peeling skin on their faces and hands, the people said. Mr. Abramovich has shuttled between Moscow, Belarus and other negotiating venues since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The White House’s budget also calls for other tax increases on the rich. It would raise the top individual income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 37 percent, reversing the 2017 tax cut ushered in by President Donald J. Trump. A White House official noted that it was the same top rate that was in place during the Obama administration. The rate would apply to unmarried individual taxpayers with income of $400,000 or more and married individuals with income of $450,000 or more, a Treasury official said.
Mr. Biden also proposed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent, a partial rollback of the corporate tax cut in the 2017 law.
The call to increase in the corporate tax rate drew criticism from the retail industry on Monday.
“Leading retailers are extremely disappointed to see a tax plan from the president that revives earlier failed plans to raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent,” said Hana Greenberg, vice president of tax at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. “Practically, this tax increase would disproportionally punish retailers who already pay their full freight in corporate taxes.”
All told, the tax proposals amount to a $2.5 trillion tax increase over a decade.
It is unclear whether any of the proposals will be able to gain enough support in Congress to become law. Previous efforts to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations have run into resistance from moderate Democrats, including Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces claimed to have retaken a Kyiv suburb and an eastern town from the Russians in what is becoming a back-and-forth stalemate on the ground, while negotiators began assembling for another round of talks Tuesday aimed at stopping the fighting.
Ahead of the talks, to be held in Istanbul, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country is prepared to declare its neutrality, as Moscow has demanded, and is open to compromise on the fate of the Donbas, the contested region in the country’s east.
The mayor of Irpin, a northwestern Kyiv suburb that has been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting near the capital, said Monday that the city has been “liberated” from Russian troops.
Irpin gained wide attention after photos circulated of a mother and her two children who were killed by shelling as they tried to flee, their bodies lying on the pavement with luggage and a pet carrier nearby.
And a senior U.S. defense official said the U.S. believes the Ukrainians have retaken the town of Trostyanets, south of Sumy, in the east.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. intelligence assessments, said Russian forces largely remained in defensive positions near the capital, Kyiv, and were making little forward progress elsewhere in the country.
The official said Russia appeared to be de-emphasizing ground operations near Kyiv and concentrating more on the Donbas, the predominantly Russian-speaking region where Moscow-backed rebels have been waging a separatist war for the past eight years.
Late last week, with its forces bogged down in parts of the country, Russia seemed to scale back its war aims, saying its main goal was gaining control of the Donbas.
While that suggested a possible face-saving exit strategy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, it also raised Ukrainian fears that the Kremlin intends to split the country in two and force it to surrender a swath of its territory.
Meanwhile, a cyberattack knocked Ukraine’s national telecommunications provider Ukrtelecom almost completely offline. The chief of Ukraine’s state service for special communication, Yurii Shchyhol, blamed “the enemy” without specifically naming Russia and said most customers were cut off from telephone, internet and mobile service so that coverage could continue for Ukraine’s military.
Also Monday, an oil depot in western Ukraine’s Rivne region was hit by a missile attack, the governor said. It was the second attack on oil facilities in the region near the Polish border.
In recent days, Ukrainian troops have pushed the Russians back in other sectors.
In the city of Makariv, near a strategic highway west of the capital, Associated Press reporters saw the carcass of a Russian rocket launcher, a burned Russian truck, the body of a Russian soldier and a destroyed Ukrainian tank after fighting there a few days ago. In the nearby village of Yasnohorodka, the AP witnessed positions abandoned by Ukrainian soldiers who had moved farther west, but no sign of Russian troops.
And on Friday, the U.S. defense official said the Russians were no longer in full control of Kherson, the first major city to fall to Moscow’s forces. The Kremlin denied it had lost full control of the southern city.
Russia has long demanded that Ukraine drop any hope of joining NATO, which Moscow sees as a threat. Zelenskyy, for his part, has stressed that Ukraine needs security guarantees of its own as part of any deal.
Over the weekend, Zelenskyy said he is ready to agree to neutrality. He also said that “Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are beyond doubt,” while suggesting at the same time that compromise might be possible over “the complex issue of Donbas.”
The Ukrainian leader has suggested as much before but rarely commented so extensively. That could create momentum for the talks, for which the Russian delegates arrived in Istanbul on Monday, Turkish media reported.
Still, it was not clear how a compromise on the Donbas would square with maintaining Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
In other developments:
— President Joe Biden made no apologies for calling for Putin’s ouster, saying he was expressing his “moral outrage,” not a new U.S. policy. Over the weekend, Biden said, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” On Monday, the president said: “I’m not walking anything back.”
— U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he has launched an effort to achieve a humanitarian cease-fire that would allow aid to be brought in and people to move around safely.
— Russia’s invasion has most Americans at least somewhat worried that the U.S. will be drawn directly into the conflict and could be targeted with nuclear weapons, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
— T he Group of Seven major economies rejected a Kremlin demand that some countries pay in rubles for Russia’s natural gas. That demand appeared designed to support the Russian currency, which is under pressure from Western sanctions.
Earlier talks, both by video and in person, have failed to make progress on ending the more than month-old war that has killed thousands and driven more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes. That includes almost 4 million who have fled the country.
In the besieged southern port of Mariupol, the mayor said half the pre-war population of more than 400,000 has fled, often under fire, during weeks of shooting and shelling.
Alina Beskrovna, who escaped the city in a convoy of cars and made it to Poland, said desperate people are melting snow for water and cooking on open fires despite the risk of bombardment, “because if you don’t, you will have nothing to eat.”
“A lot of people are just, I think, starving to death in their apartments right now with no help,” she said. “It’s a mass murder that’s happening at the hands of the Russians.”
Putin’s ground forces have become bogged down because of stronger-than-expected Ukrainian resistance, combined with what Western officials say are Russian tactical missteps, poor morale, shortages of food, fuel and cold weather gear, and other problems. Moscow has resorted to pummeling Ukrainian cities with artillery and airstrikes.
In Stoyanka village near Kyiv, Ukrainian soldier Serhiy Udod said Russian troops had taken up defensive positions and suffered heavy losses.
The Russians probably “thought it would be like Crimea,” which the Kremlin annexed in 2014. “But here it’s not like in Crimea. We are not happy to see them. Here they suffer and get killed.”
___
Andrea Rosa in Kharkiv, Nebi Qena in Kyiv, Cara Anna in Lviv and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES — As questions swirled about why the actor Will Smith had faced no repercussions for slapping the comedian Chris Rock during Sunday night’s Oscars telecast, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which administers the awards, said Monday that it had condemned his actions and was starting a formal review.
“The academy condemns the actions of Mr. Smith at last night’s show,” the organization said in a statement. “We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our bylaws, standards of conduct and California law.”
The statement came after a meeting Monday.
The incident unfolded Sunday night after Mr. Rock had made a joke about the closely cropped hair of Mr. Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who has alopecia, a condition that leads to hair loss. Mr. Smith responded by walking onto the stage of the Dolby Theater and slapping Mr. Rock, leaving stunned viewers wondering at first if the blow might have been scripted until Mr. Smith returned to his seat and warned him to stop talking about his wife, using expletives.
Behind the scenes at the Oscars, there were serious discussions about removing Smith from the theater, according to two industry officials with knowledge of the situation who were granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations. But time was short, because the best actor award, which Mr. Smith was heavily favored to win, was fast approaching, one noted — and stakeholders had varying opinions on how to proceed. There was also concern about further disrupting the live broadcast, the other said.
LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Monday that U.S. President Joe Biden’s remark that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” was a cause for alarm, a guarded response to the first public call from the United States for an end to Putin’s 22-year rule.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said on Saturday at the end of a speech to a crowd in Warsaw. He cast Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a battle in a much broader conflict between democracy and autocracy.
The White House tried to clarify Biden’s remarks and the U.S. president said on Sunday he had not been publicly calling for regime change in Russia, which has more nuclear warheads than any other power.
Asked about Biden’s comment, which received little coverage on Russian state television, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “This is a statement that is certainly alarming.”
“We will continue to track the statements of the U.S. president in the most attentive way,” Peskov told reporters.
Putin has not commented publicly on Biden’s remark – which comes amid Moscow’s biggest confrontation with the West since the end of the Cold War.
In his first live appearance since the remark, Putin was shown on state television on Monday being briefed by Alexander Sergeev, president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, on the accumulation of carbon in molluscs and the use of artifical intelligence to decipher ancient Tibetan manuscripts.
Biden last year cast Putin as “a killer”. After that comment, Biden phoned Putin who then said he was satisfied with the U.S. leader’s explanation for the remark.
‘REGIME CHANGE’?
Such a blunt remark from Biden on the need to end Putin’s power, however, appeared to breach the norms of U.S-Russian relations and also, bizarrely, align with the narrative of the former KGB spies who form Putin’s closest circle in the Kremlin.
“It is unusual for the president to talk about regime change so bluntly,” William Wohlforth, professor of government at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, told Reuters.
“But it wouldn’t seem that unusual from the perspective of Putin’s propaganda as he often describes that as the goal of U.S. foreign policy,” Wohlforth said.
Putin’s inner circle, including Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev, previously head of the powerful Federal Security Service spy agency, has long argued that the United States is plotting a revolution in Russia.
Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012, said on March 23 the world could spiral towards a nuclear dystopia if Washington pressed on with what the Kremlin casts as a long-term plot to destroy Russia. read more
Medvedev painted a grim picture of a post-Putin Russia, saying it could lead to an unstable leadership in Moscow “with a maximum number of nuclear weapons aimed at targets in the United States and Europe”.
IDEOLOGICAL WAR
Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since Boris Yeltsin resigned on the last day of 1999, casts the war in Ukraine as necessary to protect his country’s vital interests in the face of a United States he says is bent on world hegemony. He is particularly keen to quash Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO.
Ukraine says it is fighting for its very survival against a Russian imperial-style land grab that has divided the two biggest Eastern Slav peoples.
Biden’s remark on ending Putin’s rule overshadowed a speech which had a much broader theme: the battle between democracy and autocracy.
That indicates a much longer war, according to Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska. read more
“Now some sort of hellish ideological mobilisation is underway from all sides,” he said on Sunday.
“It appears all sides are recklessly gearing up for a long-term war that will have tragic consequences for the entire world,” said Deripaska, who has been sanctioned by the United States and Britain.
Under constitutional changes approved in 2020, Putin, who turns 70 this year, could seek election for two more 6-year terms as president, allowing him to stay in power until 2036.
The Kremlin says Putin is a democratically elected leader and that it is for the Russian people, not Washington, to decide who leads their country.
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine is prepared to declare its neutrality and consider a compromise on contested areas in the country’s east, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of another round of talks set for Tuesday on stopping the fighting. But he said only a face-to-face meeting with Russia’s leader can end the war.
While hinting at possible concessions, Zelenskyy also stressed that Ukraine’s priority is ensuring its sovereignty and its “territorial integrity” — preventing Russia from carving up the country, something Ukraine and the West say could now be Moscow’s goal.
Russia has long demanded that Ukraine drop any hope of joining the Western NATO alliance, which Moscow sees as a threat. Zelenskyy has also repeatedly stressed that Ukraine needs security guarantees of its own as part of any deal.
“Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state — we are ready to go for it,” Zelenskyy said in an interview Sunday with independent Russian media outlets.
The Ukrainian leader has suggested as much before, but rarely so forcefully, and the latest remarks could create momentum for the talks scheduled to take place in Istanbul.
“We must come to an agreement with the president of the Russian Federation, and in order to reach an agreement, he needs to get out of there on his own feet … and come to meet me,” Zelenskyy said in an interview that Russia barred its media from publishing.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that the two presidents could meet, but only after the key elements of a potential deal are negotiated.
“The meeting is necessary once we have clarity regarding solutions on all key issues,” Lavrov said in an interview with Serbian media. He accused Ukraine of only wanting to “imitate talks,” and said Russia needs concrete results.
In an overnight video address to his nation, Zelenskyy said Ukraine is seeking peace “without delay” in the talks.
While saying “Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are beyond doubt,” Zelenskyy also suggested compromise might be possible over Donbas, the predominantly Russian-speaking eastern region of Ukraine where Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting a separatist war for the past eight years. With its forces bogged down elsewhere, Moscow recently said its focus is now on securing the Donbas.
Zelenskyy also said that a peace agreement would have to be put to a referendum of Ukrainian voters, but that Russian troops would have to withdraw from the country first.
“A referendum is impossible in the presence of troops. No one will consider the referendum results legitimate if there are foreign troops on the country’s territory,” he said.
Zelenskyy said that a possible compromise could see Russia pull back its troops to areas where they had been before the invasion started on Feb. 24.
“I realize that it’s impossible to force Russia to fully leave the territory, it could lead to World War III. I understand completely. I’m fully aware of it,” he said. “That is why I’m saying, yes, this is a compromise: Go back to where it all started and then we’ll try to resolve the issue of Donbas, the complex issue of Donbas.”
It was not clear how a compromise on the Donbas would square with maintaining Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and Russia and Ukraine also remain far apart on other issues.
In other developments:
— Russia’s invasion has most Americans at least somewhat worried that the U.S. will be drawn directly into the conflict and could be targeted with nuclear weapons, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
— Germany’s energy minister said Monday that the Group of Seven major economies rejected a Russian demand that some countries pay in rubles for its natural gas exports. That demand appeared designed to try to support the Russian currency, which is under pressure from Western sanctions.
— Ukraine has banned reporting on troop and equipment movements not announced or approved by the military. Journalists who violate the law could face three to eight years in prison. In one case, a Kyiv resident was accused by the security services of posting images on TikTok showing Ukrainian military vehicles near a shopping mall that was later destroyed by a Russian missile strike.
Russian delegates to the Istanbul talks arrived Monday, Turkish media reported.
Earlier talks, both by video and in person, have failed to make progress on ending a more than month-old war that has killed thousands and driven more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes — including almost 4 million from their country.
In the besieged southern port of Mariupol, the mayor said half the pre-war population of more than 400,000 has fled, often under fire, during weeks of shooting and shelling.
Alina Beskrovna, who escaped the city in a convoy of cars and made it across the border to Poland, said desperate people were melting snow for water and cooking on open fires “under shelling and bombs just because if you don’t, you will have nothing to eat.”
“There is no medicine. A lot of people are just, I think, starving to death in their apartments right now with no help,” she said. “It’s a mass murder that’s happening at the hands of the Russians.”
A fiercer than expected Ukrainian resistance — bolstered by weapons from the U.S. and other Western allies — has bogged Russian forces down. Russia has resorted to pummeling Ukrainian towns and cities with artillery and airstrikes.
In Stoyanka village near Kyiv, Ukrainian soldier Serhiy Udod said Russian troops had taken up defensive positions and suffered heavy losses.
He said “probably they thought it would be like Crimea,” which Russia annexed in 2014. “But here it’s not like in Crimea. We are not happy to see them. Here they suffer and get killed.”
___
Andrea Rosa in Kharkiv, Nebi Qena in Kyiv, Cara Anna in Lviv and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
The proposal also aims to cut federal deficits by a total of more than $1 trillion over the next decade, according to a White House document released on Saturday.
As part of that plan, the budget will outline a minimum tax on billionaires, which would require that American households worth more than $100 million pay a rate of at least 20 percent on their income as well as unrealized gains in the value of their liquid assets, such as stocks and bonds, which can accumulate value for years but are taxed only when they are sold. That revenue could also be directed toward the president’s broader agenda.
Cecilia Rouse, the chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, said last week that Mr. Biden still wanted to invest in improving access to child care, prescription drugs and health care as well as combating climate change, without adding to the federal deficit.
“The president isn’t just looking to make these kinds of investments as stimulus, meaning that they’re deficit financed, he is committed to deficit reduction along the way as well,” Ms. Rouse said at the National Association for Business Economics conference. “And that’s what will be reflected in his budget.”
Economists will also be monitoring the White House’s projections for economic growth and inflation, which is at its highest level in 40 years. The forecasts could also come with political implications.
“Too low an inflation estimate and it won’t be believable, but too high and it will become political ammunition for Republicans,” analysts at Beacon Policy Advisors wrote in a note to clients.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen acknowledged on Friday that the global economy is facing headwinds and that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could amplify inflationary pressure around the world on energy and food prices. But she predicted that the U.S. economy remains well situated despite those concerns.
“Growth over the last year has been extraordinary; job creation remains very high,” Ms. Yellen told CNBC. “When you look at the balance sheet of the typical American family, it is in very good shape.”
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