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--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Wednesday, January 17th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: This episode is brought to you by Balance of Nature. Go to balanceofnature.com and use promo code WIRE for 35% off, plus a free fiber and spice in your first order as a preferred customer. That's balanceofnature.com, promo code WIRE.
--:-- John Bickley: A judge in Maine paused the Secretary of State's decision to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot today to allow time for the Supreme Court to rule on a similar case in Colorado. This comes after Trump's lawyers asked the judge to pause the proceedings to allow the nation's highest court to weigh in. The Supreme Court's decision could render the entire lawsuit moot.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Following Trump's easy win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, the focus now shifts to New Hampshire, where his lead in the polls is less commanding. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips breaks down the latest polling.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The Granite State appears to be a considerably tighter race than Iowa, though Donald Trump maintains a strong lead. The latest polling from the Boston Globe and Suffolk shows the former president at 50 percent with Haley trailing at 34 percent and Ron DeSantis in a distant third at just 5 percent. Other polling last week from CNN, though, showed Trump leading in the single digits, 39 percent compared to Haley's 32 percent. Haley and Trump are now fighting to secure the roughly 10 percent of voters who'd previously supported Governor Chris Christie, who dropped out last week.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Many analysts have long projected New Hampshire to be the closest early Republican primary contest.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Biden administration has relisted the Houthi rebels of Yemen as a global terrorist group following weeks of the Iran-backed militias' attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce reports.
--:-- Tim Pierce: According to the State Department, the designation won't officially take effect until February 16. The Houthis were designated as a terrorist organization back in 2021, but some within the administration were concerned that the designation would slow down humanitarian aid to civilians in Yemen. President Biden delisted them shortly after he took office to hurry an end to Yemen's civil war. The Biden administration considered the redesignation for weeks over the humanitarian concerns. Officials are still trying to find a way to continue support of Yemen's impoverished civilians.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Meanwhile, the Houthis are reportedly planning to expand their attacks to target U.S. bases in the region.
--:-- Georgia Howe: A new investigation shows that the Department of Homeland Security paid an activist group approximately $700,000 to discredit conservatives, including Donald Trump, through a grant program intended to combat terrorism. The grant for the program stated, quote, propaganda can be used for socially beneficial purposes. And, quote, the United States has long made use of beneficial propaganda during World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. The findings indicate that the University of Rhode Island Media Education Lab and a closely linked activist group Media Literacy Now are at the center of a sprawling government campaign to run propaganda on Americans to create a mandate for increased censorship.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Federal Aviation Administration is expanding its probe into aerospace giant Boeing. It's now focused on the work of a subcontractor, Spirit Aerosystem, which makes and installs door plugs on Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes. The investigation comes after a January 5th incident in which Alaska Airlines was forced to make an emergency landing after a door plug fell off midair. Boeing's CEO says it's not necessarily Spirit Aerosystem's fault. We're not going to point fingers there because, yes, it escaped their factory, but then it escaped ours too.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Former Boeing whistleblower Ed Pearson, who testified before Congress in the past regarding the MAX 8, says Boeing still hasn't addressed their core issues. Even if a supplier makes a mistake, does something wrong, Boeing is supposed to catch it. It's supposed to make sure that that doesn't happen.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is stranded overseas due to a problem with his Boeing plane. After flying by helicopter from Davos to Zurich, he and his team boarded a 737, but were then told the plane was unsafe to fly.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments today regarding an issue that could restrict the reach of executive agencies and shrink their power to interpret and enforce federal laws. Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacomo has more.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: This is being portrayed as a fight between what one group claims is government overreach and what the other views as a necessary protection of a number of areas such as health environment workplace safety and consumer laws. The justices will hear two separate appeals regarding the same issue: whether Atlantic herring fishermen should have to pay for federal officials to board their vessels to monitor their catches and gather data. This comes after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mandated such a program in 2020 despite never getting congressional approval. Herring fishermen say these fees often exceed $700 a day and go beyond the money earned in a day catching low-priced herring. While NOAA has waived the rule temporarily, saying it ran short of funding, the Supreme Court is expected to make a ruling by late June.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Scientists in China are reportedly experimenting with a highly lethal strain of COVID-19 that is said to have killed all the mice in the study. According to a Beijing study, the strain known as GXP2V attacked the brains of mice genetically engineered to be more similar to people. The virus infected the lungs, bones, eyes, tracheas, and brains of the dead mice. Researchers also noted that the day before all the mice died, their eyes turned completely white.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And new DOJ court filings released Tuesday reveal that cocaine residue was found on the holster of Hunter Biden's illegally obtained firearm. The evidence was discovered when FBI agents pulled sealed evidence from state police custody in 2023 to take photographs and observed white powder on the brown leather pouch holding the defendant's gun. Later testing confirmed that the substance was cocaine.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right, those are your drive home updates this afternoon. To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire.com. And for more in-depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to our latest full episode of Morning Wire every morning.
