Closing summary
The supreme court will decide whether Donald Trump can be prosecuted on election interference charges. The court set an expedited schedule to hear the immunity issue, with oral arguments during the week of 22 April.
With government funding partially expiring on Friday, House and Senate negotiators have reached an agreement to prevent a shutdown. Congressional leaders of both parties said that negotiators have already reached a deal on six full-year spending bills for agriculture, and the remaining six bills are expected to be finalized before 22 March.
Mitch McConnell will step down as Republican leader in the Senate at the end of this year. The 82-year-old is the longest-serving Senate leader in history, a highly divisive figure in a bitterly divided country and the subject of fierce speculation, after recent public health scares.
Senate Republicans have blocked legislation that would protect Americans’ access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment after an Alabama supreme court ruling that frozen embryos are children led to the closure of a number of infertility clinics in the state.
Joe Biden continues to be “fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations”, his physician has said after the president’s annual physical exam.
A New York appeals judge has denied Donald Trump’s request to pay just $100m of the $454m judgment for his New York fraud trial.
Updated
The supreme court’s decision to take up the case of whether Donald Trump can be prosecuted on election interference charges marks a significant victory for the former president.
As my colleague Hugo Lowell writes, Trump might be the luckiest criminal defendant in the history of criminal defendants.
Trump might be the luckiest criminal defendant in the history of criminal defendants. And of course if he wins the election — the particularly perilous Special Counsel cases go away
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) February 28, 2024
