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Democratic Party officials have a clear message to their voters: Don't skip Saturday's presidential primary in South Carolina, and instead cast a ballot for Nikki Haley three weeks later in the Palmetto State's Republican nominating contest. "Nikki, just understand that South Carolina Democrats are not going to vote for you. I want you to get that message loud and clear this morning," Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison told reporters as the polls opened in his home state. On Saturday morning, as polls opened in South Carolina, there were reports that some Democrats received text messages urging them to forgo voting on Saturday and instead cast a ballot in three weeks. Both the Haley campaign and SFA Fund, an aligned super PAC, denied having any involvement with the text messages. Haley, a former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as U.N. ambassador in former President Donald Trump's administration, scored plenty of support f...

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google : A changelog for Bard shows Google plans to rename Bard as Gemini, with an Advanced tier and an Android app   —  Google Bard is in for a big shakeup in the next few days, as an early changelog reveals that the “Gemini” rebrand is coming next week with a new Android app and more.

Kansas is poised to expand an income tax credit for goods and services purchased from companies and nonprofits employing disabled workers, a year after a debate over how much the state should buck a national trend against paying those workers below the minimum wage. A bill approved by the Legislature this week with broad bipartisan support would increase the total tax credits available from $5 million a year to $8 million. It also would create a new, $1 million program for nonprofit groups running vocational programs known as sheltered workshops to help them start paying workers at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. KANSAS WOMAN SUSPECTED IN DEATH 14-YEAR-OLD SON IS WOUNDED BY POLICE The tax credit had previously only covered purchases from employers paying at least the minimum wage, and lawmakers reviewed it last year because it was set to expire at the start of this year. It's the Legislature's latest attempt to expand the tax credit. Their first proposal...

House Republicans are aiming to tee up debate and a floor vote next week to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas . As of this Friday, the House Rules Committee has not officially put impeachment on its schedule for Monday. But Fox is told that that could happen over the weekend if Republicans are satisfied with the whip count on impeachment. At this stage, the Rules Committee is only slated to prep a health care bill for the floor at its meeting Monday. The two impeachment articles must go to the Rules Committee before heading to the floor. If the Rules Committee prepares the articles of impeachment on Monday, the full House could debate and vote on impeaching Mayorkas as early as Tuesday. If the Rules Committee meeting slips to Tuesday, then floor action on Mayorkas will likely shift to Wednesday.  And even if the Rules Committee convenes on Mayorkas, the House won’t necessarily need to bring those articles of impeachment to the floor right away if the GOP br...

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg : Apple starts selling the Vision Pro in the US; Tim Cook compares Vision Pro debut to the birth of Mac, iPod, and iPhone in a memo to employees   —  Apple Inc. faithful lined up at its US stores on Friday to pick up the first Vision Pro headsets, ushering in what the company calls “the era of spatial computing.”

Financial Times : China-based advertisers now account for 10% of the Meta's annual revenue and contributed 5 percentage points to its total worldwide revenue growth   —  The US group has benefited from huge but unsustainable outlays from Chinese advertisers  —  Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp may be banned in China.

Kentucky’s juvenile justice system has lingering problems with the use of force and isolation techniques and has done little to implement a 2017 state audit’s suggestions for improvement, according to a report released Wednesday. The new report from Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball says the state's juvenile detention centers lack clear policies concerning the use of isolation cells, Tasers and pepper spray, and have significant staffing problems. It also found that Department of Juvenile Justice staffers were using pepper spray at a rate nearly 74 times higher than it is used in adult federal prisons. A federal lawsuit filed earlier this month alleges that two teen girls were kept in isolation cells for weeks in unsanitary conditions at a youth facility in Adair County in 2022. That same year, the detention center was the site of a riot that began when a juvenile assaulted a staff member. Another federal lawsuit was filed this week by a woman who said that as a 17-year-old, she spe...

James Hunt / The Block : The US EIA plans to begin surveying crypto miners' electricity use next week; the EIA cited bitcoin rising 50% in recent months as an emergency justification   —  - The Energy Information Administration will begin surveying the electricity use of U.S. crypto miners next week, following approval of its …

President Biden is facing an electoral revolt among Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan who are outraged by his ongoing support for Israel, with top community leaders refusing to meet with Biden's campaign manager this weekend. Arab Americans living in Michigan have traditionally been reliable Democrats, with Biden carrying over 75% of the vote in the Arab-majority city of Dearborn in 2020. That voting block is now under threat, however, with some members of the community launching an "abandon Biden" campaign in protest of his handling of Israel's retaliatory war in Gaza. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud says the war in Gaza is issue "number one, two and three" for his voters, according to The Washington Post. Hammoud was among a group of roughly a dozen leaders in Michigan's Arab and Muslim communities to refuse a meeting with Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez when she visited the state this weekend. State Rep. Alabas Farhat said they wil...

Angela Yang / NBC News : Mark Zuckerberg apologizes to parents in the audience of a US Senate hearing who say that Meta's apps contributed to their children's suicide or exploitation   —  “I'm sorry for everything you've all gone through,” the Meta CEO said at a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing called …

Todd Bishop / GeekWire : A Microsoft engineer tells WA's AG he found ways to exploit DALL-E 3 to make explicit images, reported it, but was then told to take down a public post about it   —  A Microsoft AI engineering leader says he discovered vulnerabilities in OpenAI's DALL-E 3 image generator in early December allowing users …

A woman whose name is listed on the Minnesota presidential primary ballot as third-party candidate says she did not agree to run. Krystal Gabel told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that she learned her name is on the March 5 ballot for Minnesota’s Legal Marijuana Now Party from a Google alert. Party leaders told the newspaper in an email that they had been "talking and posting about this in our leadership group on Facebook, which Krystal is a part of," and "Krystal is a party leader and all indications were that she was ready to be in the MN primary." MINNESOTA LAWMAKERS INITIATE DEBATE ON PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE BILL They said her name has been withdrawn, though the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office says it remains on the ballot. Early voting has begun. Gabel is encouraging people not to vote for her. "I did not give consent to be on the Minnesota ballot for this race," Gabel, who lives in Colorado, said in an email to the newspaper. "I wa...

A potato farmer and former state senator has announced his campaign for North Dakota's sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, after initially eyeing a run for governor. Tom Campbell, of Grafton, is the second Republican in the House race. He served in the North Dakota Senate from 2012 to 2018. Campbell previously ran for the at-large seat in 2018 after switching from the state's U.S. Senate race, but he withdrew before the crowded GOP primary election that year. "North Dakota needs a Congressman who can be effective and can work with President Trump," Campbell said in a Facebook announcement Friday. "We have to be pro-oil, pro-farmer, pro-business, and pro-people." NORTH DAKOTA GOV. DOUG BURGUM, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, WON'T SEEK THIRD TERM Republican Rep. Kelly Armstrong, an attorney, is running for governor, opening up the House seat. Republican Gov. Doug Burgum is not seeking a third term. In an interview, Campbell said he met wi...

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac : Zoom announces an app for the Apple Vision Pro, featuring digital personas, 3D file sharing, “real-world pinning” of meeting participants, and more   —  As promised, Zoom will be available on Apple Vision Pro from day one.  Ahead of Vision Pro's launch on Friday …

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., cited the "presidential election year" in explaining on Sunday why Republicans are backing away from the border bill he is negotiating with Senate Democrats, arguing that the supplemental package, contrary to the assertion by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is "not about letting 5,000 people in a day."  Lankford, under fire from the Oklahoma GOP as well over the border bill, appeared on "Fox News Sunday," where he defended the package said to have something akin to a Title 42 power that would allow everyone at the border to be turned away. Last week, Cruz blasted the Republican compromise, however, saying it still afforded about 6 million people – or two-thirds of the 9.6 million illegal border crossings under President Biden – to illegally enter and stay. He further argued the actual text language of the legislation was being kept a secret.  "The challenge that Sen. Cruz has and a bunch of other folks is they're still wa...

In response to accusations that staffers of a United Nations agency were allegedly involved in the October 7 terror attacks in Israel , Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul reminded Americans that former President Donald Trump cut funding to the UN during his administration.  "The United Nations Relief Agency, the previous Trump administration, cut all funding for a reason, just for this reason. The idea that UNRWA was actually supplying, you know, harboring weapons to assist with Hamas's invasion of Israel," McCaul told Fox News’ Shannon Bream on "Fox News Sunday."  "Now, those are the allegations that have come out of Israel, we're investigating, but if true, think how outrageous that is," he continued.  As of Saturday, the U.S., United Kingdom and other key Western powers cut funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency , which is intended to provide relief and humanitarian services to refugees in Palestine, following accusations tha...