WASHINGTON, D. C. -- President Joe Biden on Friday endorsed U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown’s bid for re-election in her hotly contested primary rematch with former Ohio Sen. Nina Turner.

“Shontel Brown has been an ardent advocate for the people of Ohio and a true partner in Congress,” the president said in a statement. “We need leaders like Shontel to help continue the fight to respond to this pandemic, lower costs for working families, and rebuild the middle class. Shontel is committed to building a better America. I am proud to endorse Shontel Brown for Ohio’s 11th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Brown issued a statement thanking Biden for his support.

“From day one, I promised to work with the President and his administration to deliver for the people of Northeast Ohio and bring economic relief and quality health care to all Americans,” she said. “That is why I have helped advance key parts of the President’s agenda like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, bringing good-paying jobs to our state, and repairing our roads, bridges, and rails. I will continue to be a unifying leader in Congress as I work with President Biden to deliver for the people of the 11th Congressional District.”

WASHINGTON, D. C. -- President Joe Biden on Friday endorsed U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown’s bid for re-election in her hotly contested primary rematch with former Ohio Sen. Nina Turner.

“Shontel Brown has been an ardent advocate for the people of Ohio and a true partner in Congress,” the president said in a statement. “We need leaders like Shontel to help continue the fight to respond to this pandemic, lower costs for working families, and rebuild the middle class. Shontel is committed to building a better America. I am proud to endorse Shontel Brown for Ohio’s 11th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Brown issued a statement thanking Biden for his support.

“From day one, I promised to work with the President and his administration to deliver for the people of Northeast Ohio and bring economic relief and quality health care to all Americans,” she said. “That is why I have helped advance key parts of the President’s agenda like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, bringing good-paying jobs to our state, and repairing our roads, bridges, and rails. I will continue to be a unifying leader in Congress as I work with President Biden to deliver for the people of the 11th Congressional District.”

One of the nation’s leading bond rating agencies warned Thursday that if the state of Florida doesn’t resolve a conflict over its decision to repeal Walt Disney World’s Reedy Creek Improvement District and its obligation to investors, the move could harm the financial standing of other Florida governments.

Fitch Ratings posted the alert late Thursday on its Fitch Wire web site, nearly a week after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the measure dissolving the special taxing district that governs Disney property by June 1, 2023. Reedy Creek Improvement District holds nearly $1 billion in bond debt and last week Fitch issued a “negative watch” because of the uncertainty around how that debt will be paid and by whom......

A 1967 state law that established the Reedy Creek Improvement District on 39 square miles of Disney property gave the district the power to issue bonds and tax itself to build roads, sewers and utilities, establish its police and fire departments, and regulate its construction. In exchange, the state pledged “it will not limit or alter the rights of the District...until all such bonds together with interest thereon...are fully met and discharged.”

The law dissolving the district does not address how the bonds will be paid, but on Friday when he signed the measure, DeSantis said: “We’re going to take care of all that. Don’t worry. We have everything thought out. Don’t let anyone tell you that somehow Disney is going to get a tax cut out of this. They’re going to pay more taxes as a result of that.”

Former president Donald Trump said he feared protesters would hit him with tomatoes, pineapples and other “very dangerous” fruit at his campaign rallies, declaring in a sworn deposition that “you can be killed if that happens.”

Trump’s comments about the potentially lethal effects of projectile produce were made public Tuesday with the release of excerpts of 4½ hours of videotaped testimony in a lawsuit filed by a group of protesters who allege that Trump’s security guards assaulted them in 2015.

“I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit,” Trump said in the October 2021 deposition, according to a transcript of the proceedings.

He added that “tomatoes are bad” and that “some fruit is a lot worse.”

“But it’s very dangerous. … I remember that specific event, because everybody was on alert. They were going to hit — they were going to hit hard,” he said.

Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ratcheted up pressure on President Joe Biden’s administration by expanding the state’s sweeping border crackdown, announcing that he would bus immigrants to Washington, D.C., after they were apprehended for illegally crossing the border, as well as search commercial trucks entering Texas from Mexico.

During an April 6 press conference launching the additional efforts, Abbott did not explain that the busing is voluntary for immigrants. Texas cities and counties where migrants seeking to stay in the country are dropped off by the federal government must also request such a transport out of state before it occurs.

Then, about a week after his directive for vehicle safety inspections drew criticism for hampering border commerce, Abbott rescinded it, saying he’d reached agreements with four Mexican governors to strengthen security south of the border. The agreements mostly included measures already in place, but the governor claimed on social media last week that they demonstrated Texas had accomplished more to secure the border in two days than Biden had done during his time in office.

The measures are the latest examples of how Abbott and other state officials have used incomplete and sometimes misleading statements when promoting the purpose and effectiveness of Operation Lone Star. Abbott launched the initiative in March 2021, stating that it would help stop drug and migrant smuggling. In the past year, the governor has deployed more than 10,000 National Guard members, along with state Department of Public Safety troopers, to patrol the border, build barriers and arrest some migrant men on state criminal trespassing charges for crossing into the U.S. through private land.