| | |  | BY ADAM WREN | With additional reporting from Ari Hawkins
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Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg visits with Department of Transportation Investigators at the site of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. | Pool photo by Brooke LaValley | LETTER FROM OHIO — A wide-ranging cast of unlikely political characters descended on this Ohio village of 4,700 this week amid public uproar over the toxic train wreck, from former President Donald Trump to environmental activist Erin Brockovich to Rudy Giuliani. All had something to say about the Feb. 3 derailment of a 150-car Norfolk Southern train that lead to a flaming crash and spewed apocalyptic plumes of black smoke. But it was the presence of two Midwestern politicians — a Democrat and a Republican — with big ambitions and a lot to say about Trump Country whose remarks stood out, in part, because they echoed one another about ways to prevent a similar event from happening again. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio couldn’t be more different in their politics: The former is a progressive Democrat with moderate messaging, and the latter is a new kind of Republican who doesn’t necessarily hew to the interests of the industry. But both of the Ivy League-educated comers shared an interest in returning to their home states to get involved in public service, and both politically benefitted from Trump’s rise, launching their careers with memoirs about forgotten parts of rural America: Vance with the book Hillbilly Elegy, and Buttigieg, who first drew notice with a 2016 Medium post called “A Letter from Flyover Country ,” and then later his memoir Shortest Way Home — which the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne called “a kind of antidote ” to Vance’s book. Both Buttigieg, 41, and Vance, 38, have been tested in interesting ways in responding to this crisis. Amid those trials, they had similar things to say about rail safety overhaul, too. On Tuesday, in a raft of policy changes he proposed in response to the derailment, Buttigieg — who has come under fire for his initial response to the incident — said he would advance the department’s two-person crew minimum rule in trains, in addition to tougher regulation of high-hazard flammable trains and stiffer penalties for violations. Vance, for his part, also expressed disbelief that only two people operate a train that spans more than a mile — some 9,300 feet in this case, and wrote Buttigieg a letter along with Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida arguing that “it is not unreasonable to ask whether a crew of two rail workers, plus one trainee, is able to effectively monitor 150 cars.” (The rule was already being finalized when the letter came). Buttigieg is trying to triangulate with Republicans against the rail industry, firing back at Rubio after Rubio called him to resign: “Now: will you vote to help us toughen rail safety accountability and fines, or not?” If Republicans like Vance and Rubio don’t ultimately support some kind of reform that would threaten the railroads, Buttigieg would win a political talking point at their expense. "If people are going to find religion about rail regulation, sometimes for the first time, I welcome that,” said Buttigieg. "And what I’m trying to do with this process, and this push that we’re releasing tomorrow is to call everybody in to be part of the solution. And the rest really is just politics." Yet the whole episode could also result in a serious breakup between Republicans and the rail industry — the same kind of breakup the increasingly populist-oriented party has had with big business over the culture wars. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at awren@politico.com or on Twitter at @adamwren .
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| | JOIN POLITICO ON 3/1 TO DISCUSS AMERICAN PRIVACY LAWS: Americans have fewer privacy rights than Europeans, and companies continue to face a minefield of competing state and foreign legislation. There is strong bipartisan support for a federal privacy bill, but it has yet to materialize. Join POLITICO on 3/1 to discuss what it will take to get a federal privacy law on the books, potential designs for how this type of legislation could protect consumers and innovators, and more. REGISTER HERE . | | | | | | | — Biden immigration policy aides to depart amid criticism of new migration policy: Two White House officials involved in crafting immigration policy are preparing to depart as the Biden administration rolls out new asylum restrictions that critics say mirror those from the Trump era . Lise Clavel, deputy assistant to the president and senior adviser for migration, and Leidy Perez-Davis, special assistant to the president for immigration, are set to leave the White House, according to two sources familiar with the plans. — White House announces new sanctions against Russia on invasion anniversary: The White House today announced a slate of new sanctions against Russia to mark the one-year anniversary of the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The Treasury and State departments will implement sweeping additional sanctions aimed at further degrading the Russian economy, the White House said in a news release. The new sanctions will target more than 200 individuals and entities — including both Russians and third-party actors across Europe — as well as Russian officials, proxy authorities illegitimately operating in Ukraine and a dozen Russian financial institutions. — Two major crypto exchanges failed to block sanctioned Russians: Two of the world’s largest crypto exchanges failed to take steps to prevent sanctioned Russian banks from using their platforms , according to a report from the blockchain analytics firm Inca Digital provided to POLITICO. Huobi and KuCoin, both based in Seychelles, still allow traders to transact with debit cards issued by sanctioned Russian banks, including Sberbank, on their peer-to-peer platforms, according to the report.
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Campaign posters from Nigeria’s upcoming presidential election | Sunday Alamba/AP Photo | NIGERIA’S DEMOCRATIC TEST — Millions of Nigerians will head to the polls tomorrow to elect the country’s next president in a fiercely contested, three-man race. The election has underscored mounting frustrations in response to a myriad of economic and security issues exacerbated by the ruling government, Ari Hawkins reports for Nightly. On Saturday, 93 million registered voters — more than the country has ever recorded and representing nearly half of its population of 220 million — are eligible to cast their ballots to replace 80-year-old ruler Muhammadu Buhari, who is term limited. Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy, is nearing the end of Buhari’s brutal eight-year reign. The dictator, who came to power in a military coup, served as the head of state between 1983 and 1985. After the country’s electoral reforms in 1999, he was democratically elected in 2015. But Buhari is widely blamed for exacerbating the country’s economic insecurity, as well as for a rise in kidnappings, terrorism and military violence which exploded during his rule. Earlier this week, a senate candidate from an opposition party, Oyibo Chukwu, was gunned down alongside his personal aide , part of a series of attacks that targeted members of his party, according to a statement from Nigerian police. And this afternoon, armed soldiers accompanied Nigerian authorities as they began moving voting materials to polling units across the country. Nigeria’s economic problems have worsened — more than 60 percent of the country’s population lives in poverty. And the government’s currency redesign — which some African analysts say was introduced to prevent vote buying ahead of this weekend’s election — spurred a cash shortage when commercial banks were unable to provide new money to consumers. “There’s no real difference between the two main parties. And Nigerians — young Nigerians especially — decided after the challenges the country has recently faced, that they want another choice,” said Patience Ndidi Key, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2023 as one of the only female candidates on the People’s Redemption Party ticket. While 18 candidates remain in the presidential race, three frontrunners have emerged. Two are veteran Nigerian politicians from major parties — Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a former governor from the All Progressives Congress and Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party. An outlier candidate — Peter Obi — who pivoted to Nigeria’s Labour Party, is another contender, having garnered support from younger Nigerian voters. Nigerians under 30, who represent more than 70 percent of the country’s population, have propelled Obi to the top of some polls . If he were to clinch the presidency, his victory would mark an unprecedented departure from the country’s two main political parties, which have alternated power since the official end of military rule in 1999. “With the security conditions we face, things become complicated. We’re hoping that the government … will secure the votes and make sure that the election is peaceful, free, and fair,” added Key, who also served as chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organization Americas, which works with the Nigerian government on policy development. “Nigeria is now on life support, but God and some few good people have helped to keep the country surviving. Whatever happens in this election, matters for democracy not only in Nigeria, but also in other African countries, and the rest of the world.” THE ROOMS WHERE IT HAPPENED — Exactly a year ago today, Russia invaded Ukraine after months of escalating tensions in the region. The merciless bombardment of Ukrainian cities, the hundreds of thousands of troops and scores of tanks that rumbled across the border over the last year have provided perhaps the biggest foreign policy test yet for the Biden administration. On the one-year anniversary of the invasion, POLITICO Magazine has gathered voices at the center of the U.S. response who take us behind the scenes of the months leading up to Russia’s incursion and the moment it happened. Hear from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and more in an extensive and fascinating oral history .
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0.6 percent The percentage that the personal consumption expenditures price index, excluding food and energy, increased in the last month, according to new data from the Commerce Department . The PCE index was up 4.7 percent from a year ago. The numbers — the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation — were higher than Wall Street’s predictions, meaning that inflation might be under less control than previously predicted, in turn raising the likelihood of continued rate hikes from the Fed. |
| | | EGG ECONOMICS — As inflation in other sectors cools down a bit, egg prices continue to shoot up. In September, the average price around the U.S. of a dozen eggs was $2.90. As of Feb. 14, it’s $4.82. So what’s behind the massive increase ? It’s not just a bird flu that’s making it harder to find healthy chickens to hatch eggs (if even one chicken in a herd is discovered to have avian flu, the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that all the chickens be killed to prevent the spread of the disease). It’s also an increased monopolization of the industry that regulators have done little to prevent. Read Amie Rivers in Iowa Starting Line about the problem and some potential solutions.
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| ‘I AM AN ASPIRING POLITICIAN’ — It turns out George Santos wasn’t just lying to voters. In audio obtained by POLITICO that you can listen to above, Santos — identified then as George Anthony Devolder Santos — tells a Seattle judge that he worked for Goldman Sachs in New York while at a bail hearing for a “family friend” named Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha who later pleaded guilty to fraud based on an ATM skimming scheme. “I am an aspiring politician and I work for Goldman Sachs,” Santos told Judge Sean O’Donnell. Except that he didn’t. We now know that Goldman Sachs, where Santos claimed to work during his two campaigns for Congress, has no record of his employment there. At the bail hearing, Santos promised he would help secure Trelha a long-term rental if he was released on bail. Santos’ parents knew Trelha’s, Santos claimed. But Trelha, who was ultimately deported to Brazil in 2018, said in an interview with POLITICO that was a lie as well. He claimed that he and Santos met through a Facebook group for Brazilians living in Orlando, Fla. and that his mother died in 2012. Still, there is one thing that Santos told Judge O’Donnell that appears to be true — that he was staying near the Space Needle while he was in Seattle. A Google account under the name George Devolder, with reviews of Brazilian restaurants in Queens and rental car companies in Miami, left a negative review of a Seattle Domino’s Pizza location in 2017, two miles from King County Jail and close to the Space Needle. Apparently he had some trouble with his grammar and spelling. “1 hour viewing the tracker not move! very very very slow giving the time ordered (late night) called the store was on hold for 35mins with no answer!!!! NEVER order from this store, not worth the agrevation!!!” Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here . | |
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