Good morning. It is Sunday, February the 25th. I'm Ali Valshi. It was another decisive victory for Donald Trump last night in the South Carolina primary. The twice impeached four times indicted ex-president easily defeated Nikki Haley, his last remaining opponent for the Republican presidential nomination, on her home turf, where she was previously elected as governor

twice. Trump received nearly 60% of the vote yesterday, while Haley was just shy of breaking

the 40% mark. It's a big margin of victory for the former president, but perhaps not quite the blowout that he was expecting.

And as Haley emphasized during her speech last night, quote, 40% is not 50%, but I also know 40% is not some tiny group.

It's a better than expected showing for Haley, though it doesn't change the dynamics of the race.

However, it does offer more insights about

the electorate ahead of the November election. NBC's exit polls indicate that Haley continues to

receive the support of Republican primary voters who identify as independence or moderates,

which has been the case in other states as well, it may also be a sign of Trump's

inability to expand his base. That may have been on his mind this week when he expressed support

for in vitro fertilization or IVF treatments following a divisive ruling from the Alabama Supreme

Court that led to some fertility clinics in the state suspending their IVF services.

At the core of Alabama's ruling is the concept of fetal personhood, which has been a central

tenet of the anti-abortion movement that tries to legally define that life begins at conception

or fertilization, thereby giving frozen embryos legal rights. The opinion also included references

to God and other Christian beliefs in a country in which the separation of church and state

is written into the First Amendment of the Constitution. And it furthers, the controversy was further

exacerbated when journalists uncovered that Tom Parker, the chief justice of the

Alabama Supreme Court, has expressed the belief that American law should be rooted in the Bible.

On the same day that Alabama handed down the ruling, Parker gave an interview during which he,

quote, suggested America was found it explicitly as a Christian nation and discussed his embrace of the Seven Mountains

mandate, the belief that conservative Christians are meant to rule over seven key areas of

...