Iowa entrance polls show MAGA fans turned out for caucus: Live updates

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, DC:

Senator Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving party leader in the upper chamber’s history, will stand aside from his leadership post after the November general election.

Stay tuned for reactions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that negotiators in both chambers of Congress working on the government funding package have made “very good progress on an agreement and we are very close to getting it done”.

The debate around whether or not the federal government can ban “bump stocks” – devices that can be added to a semi-automatic firearm to make a gun fire faster – has now headed to the nation’s highest court.

On Wednesday 28 February, the Supreme Court justices are hearing oral arguments in the case of Garland v Cargill.

The case concerns a ban on bump stocks that the Trump administration imposed after the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, where a gunman used a bump stock to fire more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition into a music festival crowd, killing 58 people initially (two other injured individuals died years later) in just 11 minutes.

Ariana Baio reports:

Per the Associated Press:

Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history who maintained his power in the face of dramatic convulsions in the Republican Party for almost two decades, will step down from that position in November.

McConnell, who turned 82 last week, was set to announce his decision Wednesday in the well of the Senate, a place where he looked in awe from its back benches in 1985 when he arrived and where he grew increasingly comfortable in the front row seat afforded the party leaders.

“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” he said in prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press. “So I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”

His decision punctuates a powerful ideological transition underway in the Republican Party, from Ronald Reagan’s brand of traditional conservatism and strong international alliances, to the fiery, often isolationist populism of former President Donald Trump.

McConnell said he plans to serve out his Senate term, which ends in January 2027, “albeit from a different seat in the chamber.” Aides said McConnell’s announcement about the leadership post was unrelated to his health. The Kentucky senator had a concussion from a fall last year and two public episodes where his face briefly froze while he was speaking.

“As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work,” McConnell said in his prepared remarks. “A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today.”

Stay tuned for reaction and further developments from Capitol Hill...

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will step down as the Senate’s Republican leader in November, ending a record run in the powerful post.

This is a developing story...

President Joe Biden has departed Walter Reed National National Military Medical Center following his annual physical.

According to calculations by Danny Kemp of the AFP, he was inside for approximately two hours and thirty minutes.