Prominent Republicans have slammed critics of Florida's new sex education bill that critics call "Don't Say Gay" as "groomers" and "pedophiles."

But some Florida Republicans are meanwhile accepting financial contributions from the old campaign committee of an ex-congressman who sent sexually explicit messages to underage boys working as congressional pages.

Former Republican Rep. Mark Foley, who resigned his West Palm Beach district seat over the 2006 messaging scandal, has made $118,250 in donations and sponsorship to the Republican Party of Palm Beach County since 2010 through his ex-campaign committee Friends of Mark Foley for Congress.

Foley's most recent donation to the Republican Party of Palm Beach County came in January, when his campaign committee gave $15,000, according to an Insider analysis of filings from the Federal Elections Commission.

Voters are digesting a newly hostile Democratic primary race in Pennsylvania’s premier contest for U.S. Senate, as the leading candidates came together in a room Saturday, face to face, for the first time since Conor Lamb first attacked rival John Fetterman.

Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, has been on the defensive, after a week of attacks by Lamb and a third candidate, Malcolm Kenyatta, as well as a super PAC supporting Lamb that is running a TV ad statewide accusing Fetterman of being extreme.

Neither Lamb nor Kenyatta made any reference to Fetterman in their remarks to a crowd of about 200 Penn State-area Democrats in a hotel ballroom just outside State College. But Fetterman did, telling the crowd that he would only run a “positive campaign.”

“My commitment to you is that if you’ve entrusted any of your resources to our campaign, not one dollar of that will ever be weaponized against a fellow Democrat,” Fetterman told the crowd.

Chris Murphy has tried to be patient with the White House.

But the Democratic senator from Connecticut, who has dedicated much of his career since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre to fighting for passage of gun control laws, has had enough.

“It’s time for more urgency from the administration as the gun violence epidemic gets worse by the day,” Murphy said in an interview this week. “A lot of us know that the president’s heart is in the right place and we’ve been really patient with his team.”

Murphy is leading a brigade of lawmakers and advocates pressing Biden to take unilateral action on guns. In a March 25 letter, previously unreported, Murphy and 127 other Democratic lawmakers demanded that Biden move expeditiously on three fronts:
— Issue new executive orders on federal gun licensing requirements and create a centralized task force to address gun violence.
— And name a new nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
— Finalize a regulation to crack down on so-called ghost guns before Democrats potentially lose control of Congress.

US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who is fully vaccinated and boosted, said Saturday he has tested positive for Covid-19 and has “mild” symptoms.

“I tested positive for COVID. I’m both vaccinated and boosted and thankfully my symptoms are mild,” he wrote on Twitter.

Vilsack joins other high-profile politicians in Washington who have tested positive for the virus recently, including fellow Cabinet members Attorney General Merrick Garland and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Vilsack recently traveled to Mexico to discuss trade policies between the US and Mexico.

The Idaho Supreme Court has temporarily blocked the state's law banning abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood sued to block the abortion ban, which was inspired by a Texas law that allows private citizens to sue providers who perform the procedure after cardiac activity is detected in an embryo, a week after Republican Gov. Brad Little signed the bill into law last month.

Due to the ruling, the law won't take effect as planned on April 22.

“We are thrilled that abortion will remain accessible in the state for now,” Rebecca Gibron, interim CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, said in a statement to NBC News. “But our fight to ensure that Idahoans can fully access their constitutionally protected rights is far from over.”

The Federal Election Commission fined the companies of a Canadian billionaire nearly a million dollars for a contribution to a super PAC supporting then-President Donald Trump, after the agency found “reason to believe” that the donations violated a federal law on foreign nationals contributing to American political committees or campaigns.

Companies controlled by Barry Zekelman — a Canadian billionaire and the CEO, chair and owner of Zekelman Industries — agreed to pay $975,000 to close an investigation by the FEC into $1.75 million worth of donations made to America First Action, the pro-Trump super PAC, throughout 2018.

The fine is the third-largest in FEC history, according to the Campaign Legal Center, the nonprofit group that filed the original complaint about the donations in 2019.

“We applaud the FEC for doing its job. Imposing this serious penalty helps protect the voices of voters from being drowned out by foreign corporations and other special interests,” Adav Noti, the vice president and legal director of Campaign Legal Center, said in a statement. “Super PACs should now be on notice that there are major consequences for breaking the ban on foreign contributions.”

The all-civilian Ax-1 mission crew docked at the International Space Station early Saturday morning, marking the first time private citizens visited the spacecraft.

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The Ax-1 crew is led by Michael López-Alegría, a retired NASA astronaut who now serves as the vice president of business development for Axiom Space. He's joined by three paying customers: American real estate investor Larry Connor, Canadian businessman Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe, a former fighter pilot from Israel. Connor, Pathy and Stibbe paid $55 million apiece for the experience, as The Associated Press reported this year.

While on the space station, they will participate in science experiments and philanthropic projects, including health-related research for the Mayo Clinic and the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

Axiom Space said the mission is a “precursor” to commercializing low-Earth orbit, and said it intends to fly at least three other commercial flights to the space station. It is also planning to construct its own privately-funded space station in orbit.

BELLEVIEW, Fla. — A teenager is dead and two teenagers have been arrested after police in Florida said the boys took turns shooting at each other while wearing body armor.

Police responded to a call of a shooting Sunday and found Christopher Leroy Broad Jr., 16, shot inside of a home. He was transported to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.

A police investigation found that Joshua Vining, 17, and Broad were taking turns shooting at each other while wearing a vest that contained a form of body armor. Broad Jr., 16, died after he was hit by a bullet fired by Vining, WFTV reported.