Biden says he regrets using term ‘illegal’ to describe suspected killer
President Joe Biden said Saturday that he regrets using the term “illegal” during his State of the Union address to describe the suspected killer of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
Facing frustration from some in his party for the use of the term to describe people who arrived or are living in the U.S. illegally, Mr. Biden expressed remorse, saying he didn’t want to demean any group, and sought to differentiate himself from former President Donald Trump.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart on Saturday, Mr. Biden said, “I shouldn’t have used illegal, it’s undocumented.” The term was once common but is far less so today, particularly among Democrats who more fully embraced immigrant rights’ issues during Mr. Trump’s presidency.
The moment occurred Thursday night during an exchange in which Mr. Biden pressed Republicans in his address to pass a bipartisan border security deal that fell apart after Mr. Trump opposed it. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a stalwart Trump ally, then shouted at the president to say the name of Laken Riley, the Georgia woman killed last month, adding she was killed “by an illegal.”
“By an illegal, that’s right,” Mr. Biden responded immediately, before appearing to ask how many people are being killed by “legals.”
Murdoch, 92, announces plans to marry for 5th time
Media magnate Rupert Murdoch, who turns 93 next week, has been married four times — and is engaged again, his representative said Saturday.
He plans to marry Elena Zhukova, 67, a Russian-born retired scientist he met last year. Her ex-husband Alexander
Zhukov is a billionaire energy investor and Russian politician. Their daughter Dasha was previously married to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who used to own the Premier League football club Chelsea.
Mr. Murdoch’s latest marriage, to model and actor Jerry Hall, ended in divorce after six years in 2022. They had no children together.
15 children abducted during another siege in Nigeria
Armed men broke into a boarding school in northwestern Nigeria early Saturday and seized 15 children as they slept, police told The Associated Press, about 48 hours after nearly 300 students were taken hostage in the conflict-hit region.
School abductions are common in Nigeria’s northern region, especially since the 2014 kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls by Islamic extremists in Borno state’s Chibok village shocked the world. Armed gangs have since targeted schools for kidnap ransoms, resulting in at least 1,400 abducted since then.
Saturday’s attack was the third mass kidnapping in northern Nigeria since late last week, when more than 200 people, mostly women and children, were abducted by suspected extremists in Borno state. On Thursday, 287 students were also taken hostage from a government primary and secondary school in Kaduna state.