florida governor, ron desantis abruptly removed a twice elected prosecutor just last year, why? because he refused to go after people who seek and provide abortions or provide gender affirming care to transgender people. andrew warren sued desantis and now a federal judge dismissed that lawsuit saying his action of the governor did violate the first amendment and florida s constitution, but, as a federal judge he couldn t rule against a state official based only on the violation of state law. and the wake of that ruling today, andrew warren joins me now. andrew, thank you for coming, i know that we talked when this first happened so i ve been curiously following this particular suit, and the federal judge did take governor desantis word for the suspension, but, he upheld it, why do you think that was in your opinion? thank you for having me back. as you said, the judge took the governor s to task. the governor violated federal and state law in suspending me. he said that t
6:00 eastern. > . tonight a critical moment in the war in ukraine and a crucial one for country supporting it with russia potentially just a couple months away from a spring offensive defense contact group led by america top military leaders met at the base failed to get german sign-off on the allies foremidible tanks, president biden was asked about it today. poland s goal to send the tanks by germany s other countries to ukraine, and ukraine needs all the help they need. as for ukraine s president, he says he needs more than western gratitude to hold off the russian hundreds of thank yous are not hundreds of tanks. also today, the white house told reporters the treasure department will designate the russian bogner group, mercenary fighters made up in part of russian convicts a trans national criminal organization comes day after we learned that c.i.a. director burns briefed president zelenskyy on how the spring russian offensive martin play out. lots to start o
hello. live in atlanta, 3:00 a.m. in florida. we continue to follow the path of hurricane ian. now, weaker, but still a major worry. that hurricane has finally been downgraded to a category-1 storm, but it s still moving menacingly right above the state of florida and heading northeast winds, approximately 75 miles or 125 kilometers per hour, still lashing large sections of the state.just 12 hours after it crashed in southwest florida as an almost category-5 hurricane. as you can imagine, there have been power outages with more than 2 million homes and businesses in the dark. that s about 20% of customers throughout the state the mayor of fort myers, meantime, saying, 96% of his entire city has lapsed with electricity. meanwhile, charlotte county, florida, telling cnn, rescuers can only do so much during the height of the storm. unfortunately, our dispatch continues to receive calls from the 911 center, and just like every other county, the emergency response, they get up a
first confirmed hurricane related death in osceola count. 14 million people right now under a flood advisory. the scale of destruction is hard to comprehend. we are learning more by the minute. any minute from now, president biden gets a briefing on the scope and devastation of this storm. millions of floridians right now without electricity. lee and charlotte counties in southwestern florida knocked entirely off the power grid, that according to florida s governor. emergency responders working through a backlog of calls for help. for some, that help won t get there in time. in naples, scenes of desperation, first responders wading through shoulder-high water to carry, drag people to safety. in orlando, regret for not following orders to get out. i heard the evacuation going off on my phone, but i was, like, we re going to be all right. i kept saying, we re going to be all right, you know what i m saying? but, boy, was i wrong. i was wrong. if i would have known it was goin
with devastating winds, storm surge and flooding. our correspondents are in the heart of some parts of florida right now. we re tracking ian in the weather center as we bring you live special coverage of this hurricane disaster. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer and you re in the situation room. this is cnn breaking news. this hour ian s brutal assault is still very much underway. hurricane force winds. brian todd is on the scene for us in naples, florida. brian, we re just beginning to understand the scope of the damage from ian. reporter: absolutely, wolf. people in this town just beginning to come to grips with this devastation. we are on a gulf shore boulevard here in naples, within 150 feet of the beach. a 12 foot storm surge pushed the water up underneath these apartments. now people are tossing their biggest positions on to the street like this. debris hazards are all over the place. and this comes as rescue