Morning Wire - Thursday Afternoon Update | 2.16.23

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

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This is Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howl. It's Thursday, February 16th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update. During an address Thursday, President Biden told Americans that there was no evidence three unidentified objects shot down this past weekend had nefarious intentions. The president also specified that currently nothing suggests that they were related to China's spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from another country. The intelligence community's current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions

studying weather or conducting other scientific research. When I came in office, I instructed our intelligence community to take a broad look at the phenomenon of unidentified aerial objects. We know that a range of entities, including countries, companies, and research organizations operate objects at altitudes for purposes that are not nefarious, including legitimate scientific research. Ohio governor Mike DeWine says FEMA continues to tell him that his state is not eligible for assistance at this time, despite the disaster caused by the train derailment in East Palestine. Residents of the town were outraged last night after representatives of Norfolk Southern

bailed on a town hall that the company said would serve as a question answer session Wednesday night. Here's one resident from the town. We just want answers and they're not giving them. And they can sit there all day and say that, Yes, we're giving you as it comes out. This is a different scenario. It is a different scenario, but we're back in town now. You lifted the evacuation order. We're drinking the water, which our own governor said he wouldn't drink.

He wants to drink bottled water. It's a frustrating experience. Norfolk Southern also took criticism Thursday from Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. The senator said Norfolk Southern's priorities aren't cleanup of the village, but getting trains back up and running. He said the following, press conference this morning. The one issue that we have to be careful about is we don't let Norfolk Southern off the hook. There's some tension between declaring a federal disaster and having

FEMA come in and then shifting the liability of this accident to the federal government as opposed to the train company that actually caused the problems. One person is dead and three more were injured on Wednesday following a shooting at an El Paso shopping mall. Police say two suspects have been taken into custody, but details about the events leading up to the shooting remain unclear. The shooting happened in a busy shopping area and across a large parking lot from a Walmart. The interim police chief said that the mall was still considered a crime scene and that it would remain locked down until authorities had completed their investigation. At approximately 505 p.m., calls came into the 911 Center on shots fired at Selivista Mall.

We had off-duty officers working at a local establishment within the mall, and were on scene at 508 p.m. in three minutes. that officer immediately took one individual into custody. Emergency personnel responded to a gigantic warehouse fire that started on Thursday in Kissimmee, Florida, that caused massive plumes of black smoke to rise into the sky that could be seen for miles. Fire crews from several fire departments worked to subdue the blaze, which started after five acres of plastic planters caught fire at a nursery supply company. We are not planning evacuations in the area, and we have seven,

70% of the smoke plum. It's in control. And for us, the most important thing is right now keeping the good work that they're doing right now and our firefighters also safe. A grand jury in Georgia released its report on Thursday that found that there was no evidence of voter fraud in the Peach State during the 2020 election

despite the former president's claims. The report says that a majority of the grand jury believes that perjury may have been committed by at least one witness. According to a new report, the FBI conducted two searches of the University of Delaware as part of an investigation into President Biden's handling of classified documents. A source told CNN the searches were conducted in recent weeks with the cooperation of Biden's legal team. Materials taken in the searches did not appear to have classified markings, but they are now under review by the FBI.

The Kentucky Supreme Court rejected a petition from the ACLU to block the Bluegrass States near total abortion ban from going into. to effect as the Kentucky Supreme Court rejected a petition from the ACLU to block the Bluegrass State's near-total abortion ban from going into effect as other lawsuits challenged the new law. The Commonwealth changed its laws following the overturning of Roe v. Wade last June. And Pennsylvania Senator John Federman's chief of staff revealed last night that Federman checked into a hospital last night to receive treatment for clinical depression. The senator suffered a stroke during his campaign last year and checked into a hospital last week after feeling lightheaded.

Well, those are your drive-home updates this afternoon. To learn more about these stories, go to Dailywire.com, and for more in-depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to our latest full episode of Morningwire every morning.