National News

The Boss is hitting the road again. Bruce Springsteen announced Monday that he and the E Street Band will begin a tour in February in the United States, followed by stadium shows beginning in April in Europe. Details on the US cities the rockers will visit will be announced later. It'll be the first time the group has toured since wrapping their The River Tour in Australia in February 2017. The European concerts will begin April 28th in Barcelona. Other stops will include Dublin, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Springsteen and the E Street Band's last album was 2020's “Letter to You.”

Party nominations for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby will be the top draw on Tuesday's primary ballot. U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, former Shelby aide Katie Boyd Britt, veteran Mike Durant, Lillie Boddie, Karla M. Dupriest and Jake Schafer are seeking the GOP nomination. Former President Donald Trump had initially endorsed Brooks in the race but rescinded that backing in March, citing unhappiness with Brooks’ performance and accusing the conservative congressman of going “woke” for suggesting it was time to move on from Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims. The winner will face the Democratic nominee in November.

Republican Senate hopefuls in Alabama are making last-minute pitches to primary voters in the tight race for the GOP nomination for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Richard Shelby. The three leading candidates in Tuesday’s primary are U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, former Shelby aide Katie Britt and veteran Mike Durant. All concentrated their efforts in Republican strongholds in north Alabama, where they're attempting to sway undecided primary voters and combat a flurry of negative attack ads in the race. The fractured field increases the chances the primary will go to a June 21 runoff.

The Republican-dominated Indiana Legislature is poised on Tuesday to override the GOP governor’s veto of a bill banning transgender students from competing in girls sports. That would mean Indiana would join more than a dozen states that have adopted similar laws in the past two years. The Indiana proposal won approval by wide margins before Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb in March unexpectedly vetoed the measure. He said it did not provide a consistent policy for what he called “fairness in K-12 sports.” The veto override needs only simple majorities in the House and Senate. The American Civil Liberties Union plans to file a lawsuit to try to block the ban.

Republican Sen. John Boozman is trying to fend off three challengers in Arkansas' primary who are trying to paint him as not conservative enough. Boozman hopes to win the Republican nomination outright in Tuesday's primary, but he'll need to garner a majority of the votes to avoid a runoff. He faces challenges from three rivals, including a former NFL player who has the backing of a super PAC running ads. Boozman is a soft-spoken eye doctor who has served two terms. Three Democrats are also seeking their party's nomination Tuesday to challenge him.

A private Christian university has drafted a policy that would strictly limit what students can say about gender and sexuality on campus. A leaked draft says students at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, would not be allowed to identify as anything other than their biological sex and could not say anything about sexual acts, behaviors or lifestyles that are contrary to the policy. While it has sparked criticism from some former students, a Lee University spokesperson said faculty and staff had been working on this statement of belief about human sexuality for years, with plans to go public before the fall semester. She says the policy reflects long-standing theological beliefs.

Georgia Republican candidate David Perdue is accusing Stacey Abrams of “demeaning her own race” in Abrams’ recent criticism of Georgia’s quality of life for its residents. Abrams is bidding to be the first Black woman to be a governor of an American state. Perdue is trying to defeat incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp in the Republican primary on Tuesday. In a Monday interview, Perdue made the remarks while criticizing Abrams for calling “the worst state in the country to live” in criticizing the state's performance on mental health and care for mothers.

Michigan’s elections bureau says five Republican candidates for governor, including two leading contenders, failed to file enough valid nominating signatures and shouldn't qualify for the August primary. The reports issued late Monday by staff are a major blow to former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, who has led in polling, and businessman Perry Johnson, who has spent millions of his own money to campaign. Democrats had challenged their petitions, alleging forgery and other issues. Another GOP candidate, Tudor Dixon, also had contested Craig’s signatures. The bipartisan Board of State Canvassers will meet Thursday to consider the elections bureau’s recommendations.

The United States and Britain are accusing Russia of spreading disinformation online and manipulating public opinion about the war in Ukraine. The two countries vehemently rejecting Russian claims that the West is aiming to control all information flows and define what is true or untrue. Britain’s deputy ambassador James Roscoe told a U.N. Security Council meeting on the use of digital technologies in maintaining peace that Russia has conducted cyber-attacks and used “an online troll factory to spread disinformation and manipulate public opinion about their war.”  U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield says the Russian government continues to “censor content” and "intimidate and arrest journalists for reporting the truth about its invasion.”

A congressional watchdog has determined that Rep. Alex Mooney likely broke House rules when the West Virginia Republican accepted a trip to Aruba allegedly paid for by a campaign client and family friend. The latest allegations are included in a statement released Monday by the House Ethics Committee. The committee says it's extending the review of an Office of Congressional Ethics report sent in December. The report says HSP Direct allegedly paid for a trip for Mooney's family to Aruba in March 2021. Mooney's office issued a statement saying he's fully reimbursed the company. Mooney will face Democrat Barry Wendell in November’s general election.

Authorities say four people fell off a Southern California ocean cliff in the early morning darkness. A man was killed Monday and two women were critically injured. Police in Palos Verdes Estates say the fourth person was a man who suffered  minor injuries, climbed back up from the beach below and alerted a passing police officer at about 4:30 a.m. The man told the officer he and his friends had fallen down the cliff. A 25-year-old man died at the scene. Police are investigating the event as an accident. A trail runs along the bluff top about 300 feet above the Pacific Ocean.

The Boss is hitting the road again. Bruce Springsteen announced Monday that he and the E Street Band will begin a tour in February in the United States, followed by stadium shows beginning in April in Europe. Few details about cities the rockers will visit were announced, but it’ll be the first time the group has toured since wrapping their The River Tour in Australia in February 2017. The European concerts will begin April 28th in Barcelona. Other stops will include Dublin, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. No announcement was made about which U.S. cities would be visited. Springsteen and the E Street Band's last album was 2020's “Letter to You.”

The New York attorney general’s office says it subpoenaed Donald Trump’s longtime executive assistant and plans to question her under oath next week. It's as part of the attorney general's civil investigation into the former president's business dealings. The subpoena for Rhona Graff was disclosed in court papers opposing Trump’s latest bid to rid himself of a contempt of court order for being slow to respond to a subpoena for documents and other evidence. A message seeking comment was left with a lawyer who has represented Graff in past legal matters.