16 states file lawsuit

Sixteen states on Monday evening filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's national emergency declaration to fund the border wall. The group of states, led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Becerra said, “We're going to try to halt the President from violating the Constitution, the separation of powers, from stealing money from Americans and states that has been allocated by Congress, lawfully.” The attorneys general from Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Virginia joined California in the lawsuit. It's the latest challenge to hit the Trump administration, which already faces a litany of lawsuits over the national emergency declaration. At the core of each lawsuit is the argument that Trump is circumventing Congress to fund the wall along the US-Mexico border by declaring an emergency. The National Emergencies Act allows the President to declare a national emergency and unlock a collection of funds by invoking certain statutory authority. Under the declaration, the administration will tap $2.5 billion of military narcotics funding and $3.6 billion in military construction funding. Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said he will start studying which projects to pull from and determine whether border barriers are necessary to support the use of the armed forces.

In Other News George Mendonsa, who was the sailor in an iconic 1945 Times Square photo, dubbed "The Kiss," that came to symbolize the end of World War II, has died. He was 95. It was taken August 14, 1945, shortly after news of Japan's surrender -- aka Victory Over Japan Day or V-J Day -- spread through New York's streets, a prelude to World War II's imminent end. Greta Friedman (the woman in the photo) passed away in 2016 in Richmond, Virginia. She was 92. Gone, too, is Alfred Eisenstaedt, the photographer, who died in 1995 at age 96. A Florida school district said that an 11 year old student who refused to take part in the Pledge of Allegiance was arrested for becoming disruptive, not for refusing to say the pledge. On February 4, the student at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland refused to take part in the Pledge of Allegiance. A substitute teacher in charge of the class was unaware the district student code of conduct doesn't mandate students' participation, the district said. The teacher exchanged words with the student and called the school administration, according to the district. A school resource officer also responded. The district has said, “We respect our students' right to freedom of expression and we are committed to protecting that critical right while ensuring peaceful classrooms so all students can learn.” A school administrator and the officer asked the student to leave the class, but the 6th grader refused. Lakeland police said the student, who left the classroom, created another disturbance, and made threats as he was escorted to the office. He was arrested for disrupting a school function and resisting an officer without violence and transported to the Juvenile Assessment Center.