Hello, OnPolitics readers!
It’s St. Patrick’s Day. ☘️ Irish Taoiseach (or Prime Minister) Micheál Martin began celebrations a day early with President Joe Biden at a gala in Washington, D.C., but the good times were unfortunately cut short when Martin tested positive for COVID-19.
The Irish leader was in Washington attending the Ireland Funds, an annual dinner promoting diplomacy between the U.S. and Ireland, when he received his positive test result.
Biden and Martin were set to discuss the deepening relationship between their two countries and their united response to the Russia-Ukraine War. Biden is Irish-American.
The president spoke at the event but did not have close contact with Martin, according to White House spokesperson Chris Meagher. It is unclear how Martin’s diagnosis will affect the White House’s plans for the holiday.
It’s Amy and Chelsey with today’s top stories out of Washington.
Ukrainian men say goodbye to families, brace for war
Millions of women and children who have fled Ukraine to escape the relentless shelling from Russian troops have been forced to separate from male family members left behind to defend the country.
“I have accepted that I may not ever see my wife and kids again,” said Igor, 37, husband to Iryna Kotz. Igor’s wife and children have already escaped to a village in neighboring Poland.
Many Ukrainian men like Igor feel it is their duty to defend their country, despite the pain of being separated from loved ones.
Stanislav, 34, left his wife and crying 8-year-old daughter at a bus station in Lviv to join a territorial defense unit in Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukraine. Stanislav asked that his last name not be used.
“They will return, 200%. It’s a temporary measure. We will come back to Dnipro together,” Stanislav insisted Saturday. “What can I say? It’s very hard. She’s my little teddy bear,” he said of his daughter.
More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled their nation since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, though there are no official estimates for how many Ukrainian men aged 18-60, who are mandated by the government to remain in the country, have been separated from their families.
Live Updates on Ukraine: Russia could continue to be a threat for years and may target Baltic countries after Ukraine, legislative leaders in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania told the Helsinki Commission, a group of U.S. lawmakers and executive branch officials. The leaders said their nations haven’t yet been attacked because they belong to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but they urged the U.S. to provide more defense tools for protection against Russia.
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Real quick: stories you’ll want to read
- Intimidation from China: Federal authorities unsealed charges against five people Wednesday, accusing them of acting on behalf of the Chinese government to intimidate U.S. dissidents in three separate cases, including an effort to derail a New York congressional campaign.
- DST’s clock is running out: Daylight saving time is a practice with a 100-year history, but the Senate passed a bill Tuesday that may change all that.
- What has John Durham found? Special counsel John Durham drew the spotlight recently with a hotly contested court filing that sparked allegations of spying on former President Donald Trump, but it also revived questions about what he’s been doing during his nearly three-year investigation.
- Potential ‘profound’ impact on sentencing: Given her resume, experts predict Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has the potential to influence the Supreme Court’s approach to criminal sentencing.
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After delays in the redistricting process, can Ohio even pull off an election?
Ohio is still in the throes of a redistricting battle that has been raging for months. It is one of just a handful of states yet to finish its maps, which have been mired in legal challenges and partisan fighting.
“There is a lot of confusion out there on what’s being done,” Ohio congressional candidate Jeff Sites said.
Questions about whether Ohio’s primary could go on as scheduled only grew louder on Wednesday night as the Ohio Supreme Court again rejected state legislative maps. The court had yet to rule on the latest version of Ohio’s congressional maps.
Earlier in the day Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose warned a court ruling against the latest maps would make it impossible to hold elections for congress or the Ohio General Assembly on May 3.
What’s at stake: The national stakes around Ohio’s maps grow each day: Among the states that haven’t approved maps yet, only Florida controls more seats in Congress than Ohio’s 15 districts.
Already, the GOP-controlled state supreme court has struck down one congressional map approved on a party-line vote by Republican mapmakers in the state legislature, and it is deliberating over a second set of boundaries drawn by a GOP-led commission. Wednesday marked the third time it also has thrown out state legislative maps.
Throwing a St. Patrick’s Day party? Celebrate with a pint of Guinness and these classic Irish recipes. — Amy and Chelsey
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