Alabama Democrat Marilyn Lands says voters ready for 'change' after surprise win - as it happened

Here's more on the end of the long-running squabble:

Jeffrey Clark, the former justice department official who was indicted in Georgia alongside Donald Trump for allegedly trying to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 election victory in the state, repeatedly declined to answer questions today at a hearing that could see him lose his law license in Washington DC, Politico reports.

Clark repeatedly invoked the fifth amendment's protecting against self incrimination in response to questions from DC Bar panel investigators, who rested their case after today's hearing.

Here's more on that, from Politico:

Clark's decision to invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination underscores the criminal jeopardy he faces in other ongoing legal proceedings. In Atlanta, he's charged alongside Trump in an alleged racketeering conspiracy to corrupt the 2020 election, and in Washington DC, federal prosecutors identified him - but have not charged him - as one of Trump's alleged co-conspirators in a scheme to seize power.

"I will invoke the Fifth," Clark said in response to a question about when he first met Trump. Clark also said the question was covered by attorney-client, law enforcement and executive privileges. "A veritable phalanx of privileges," Clark added wryly as the exercise wore on.

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution protects Americans from being forced to provide testimony that may incriminate themselves in legal proceedings. For Clark, that's particularly important as he faces a potential criminal trial in Georgia. His attorneys worried that forcing Clark to take the stand simply to invoke his Fifth Amendment right would drive headlines or embarrass Clark, but the DC Bar panel presiding over the hearing permitted investigators to pose several dozen questions to Clark.

Clark himself grew combative as the questioning wore on, accusing the lead investigator, Hamilton Fox, of seeking to humiliate him on the stand by forcing him to repeatedly invoke the Fifth Amendment. His bristling prompted Merrill Hirsh, the chair of the panel presiding over the hearing, to admonish Clark not to argue with Fox or risk potentially waiving the privileges he invoked.

Democrats nationwide are taking heart from Marilyn Lands's victory in Alabama, seeing it as a validation of their strategy to make concerns over reproductive care access a centerpiece of their pitch to voters.

But Lands's election does not change the fundamental balance of power in Alabama, where the Republican party firmly controls the levers of power. All elected officials are members of the GOP, which has supermajorities in the state house and senate.

Republican lawmakers in Alabama have lately spent their time passing laws restricting diversity and inclusion programs from being established at public schools and state agencies, and barring trans people from using public bathrooms that align with their gender identity at colleges and universities.

They also moved quickly to pass legislation allowing in vitro fertilization care to continue after the state supreme court issued a ruling that forced fertility clinics to cancel appointments. Democrats supported that effort:

Marilyn Lands's victory yesterday in the special election for Alabama's state house is probably the most exciting thing to happen for Democrats in the state since Doug Jones won a Senate seat in 2018.

His victory came after multiple women alleged sexual assault or other inappropriate behavior by the Republican candidate, Roy Moore. In an interview last night with CNN, Jones, who was ousted from the Senate by the Republican Tommy Tuberville in the 2020 elections, described Lands's win as "a huge deal":

"This is a huge win for Alabama, not just for Democrats. It's a huge win for women," @DougJones says after Marilyn Lands, who made reproductive rights her campaign focus, won in Alabama's special election last night. pic.twitter.com/Ii2NjzSHWA

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 27, 2024

After shock win in Alabama, the Democrat Marilyn Lands says voters are ready for 'change'

In an interview with Huntsville, Alabama broadcaster WHNT, the Democrat Marilyn Lands predicted better days ahead for the beleaguered party:

Marilyn Lands on winning a special election Tuesday for a state House seat as a Democrat in deep-red Alabama:

"It's a victory tonight for women, for families, for Alabama in general. ... It feels like it's the start of a change here. And I think we'll see more change in 2026." pic.twitter.com/QSF5j1z8e0

— The Recount (@therecount) March 27, 2024

Lands yesterday was elected to Alabama's state house in a special election to fill a vacant seat previously held by the GOP, in a rare instance of Democrats making inroads in one of the most thoroughly Republican states in the country.

The recovery operation in Baltimore continues amid reports that a truck has been found amid the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key bridge.

For more on the disaster, and the effort to get the economically vital port of Baltimore back up and running, follow our live blog:

Joanna Walters

The White House media briefing is under way in the west wing now, with the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, just introducing the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, who's appearing as the guest today to talk about the bridge disaster in Baltimore.

Buttigieg paid tribute to the six workers who are missing and presumed dead after the bridge collapse, and the two workers who survived, one badly injured, who were all repairing the bridge's road surface "while we all slept", he said.

Buttigieg said that the port will be reopened as soon as possible.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the bridge's collapse, with Buttigieg saying that the bridge, which was completed in the 1970s, was not build to withstand an impact from the size of container ship that operates these days and which hit the bridge strut in the early hours of Tuesday morning, leading to the entire bridge's collapse, closing the port for all traffic.

Guardian US has a dedicated live blog covering all the developments in the Baltimore bridge disaster and you can follow that news here.

Joanna Walters

Israel has asked to reschedule a meeting with US officials to discuss its military plans in Gaza's southern city of Rafah, a US official said on Wednesday, days after the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, abruptly scrapped the planned talks, Reuters reports.

Netanyahu called off a planned visit to Washington by a senior Israeli delegation after the US allowed passage of a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the United Nations on Monday, in a move that appeared to reflect growing US frustration with the Israeli premier.

US officials said the Biden administration was perplexed by the Israeli cancellation and considered it an overreaction to the security council resolution, insisting there had been no change in policy.

On Wednesday, a US official said Netanyahu's office "has said they'd like to reschedule the meeting dedicated to Rafah. We are now working with them to set a convenient date."

Netanyahu is considering sending a delegation for a White House meeting on Rafah as early as next week but the scheduling is still being worked out, an Israeli official in Washington told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli prime minister's office. The planned talks are expected to focus on Israel's threatened offensive in Rafah, the last relatively safe haven for Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The White House said last week it intended to share with Israeli officials alternatives for eliminating the Palestinian militant group Hamas without a ground offensive in Rafah that Washington says would be a "disaster".

Joanna Walters

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will travel to France and Belgium next week, a state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, told reporters on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Blinken will meet with the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, and the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, while in Brussels for a Nato meeting, Miller said at a regular news briefing.

Meanwhile, the state department does not think hostage talks with Israel and Hamas are over, Miller said, adding that Washington thinks there is an ability to continue to pursue the release of hostages.

He also said "we do" when asked if the department believed a limited military campaign in Rafah, in the south of Gaza, can take out remaining commanders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Hamas controls the territory and led the attack on southern Israel on 7 October last year in which more than 1,200 people were massacred and more than 240 people were taken hostage into Gaza, with more than 100 remaining captive at this time.

The day so far

Democrats are cheering Marilyn Lands, who managed to seize a state house seat from Republicans in deep-red Alabama, fueled by her promises to protect IVF access and repeal the state's abortion ban. To be clear: the party does not have the numbers to make either of those promises happen in a state thoroughly dominated by the GOP, but it's nonetheless the latest instance of Joe Biden's allies using concerns about reproductive rights to win elections in hostile territory. Meanwhile, in Texas, a federal appeals court maintained the block on a Republican-backed law that would allow state police to arrest suspected illegal border crossers. The legislation will probably remain on hold until either appeals judges or the US supreme court rules on its merits.

Here's what else has happened today so far:

• Disney ended its feud with allies of Republican governor Ron DeSantis, which erupted after the entertainment giant criticized the state's so-called "don't say gay" law.

• Kansas Republicans moved to force abortion providers to ask patients the reason they are seeking the procedure, and probably have the votes to get around an expected veto by the Democratic governor, Laura Kelly.

• Donald Trump is under a new gag order in his hush-money case. But it does not apply to the presiding judge Juan Merchan, so the former president attacked him on his social media network this morning.

Apparently in some kind of foul mood, Donald Trump also insulted his one-time ally Ronna McDaniel following her hiring from NBC yesterday, the Guardian's Martin Pengelly reports:

Donald Trump mocked the former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ronna McDaniel, for her firing by NBC days after being hired as a political analyst.

"Wow!" the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, who ejected McDaniel from the RNC in favour of his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, wrote on his Truth Social platform.

"Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC. She only lasted two days, and this after McDaniel went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear. It leaves her in a very strange place, it's called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it's not a place you want to be."

McDaniel's hiring was announced by NBC last Friday. Interviewed on Meet the Press on Sunday, she disavowed Trump's lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election but also claimed there were electoral "problems" in battleground states.

Protests from on-air talent and an NBC union group also concerned McDaniel's combative relations with the press in seven years as RNC chair, a period coinciding with Trump's takeover of the Republican party. On Tuesday evening McDaniel was gone - giving her a four-day NBC career, not the two claimed by Trump.