Midday Roundup: Romney calls out Trump as a phony, fraud

Romney’s rage. Conservatives have called on former Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney to denounce Donald Trump, whom Romney called a phony and a fraud in a speech at the University of Utah this morning. Romney said Trump is “playing the American public for suckers. He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.” Trump fired back via Twitter, calling Romney a loser and asking, “Why did Mitt Romney BEG me for my endorsement four years ago?” The feud underscores the growing rift between the Republican establishment and Trump, who says he’s expanding the party and making it stronger.

Ready to dish. The Justice Department has granted immunity to the employee who set up Hillary Clinton’s private email server when she was secretary of state, The Washington Post reported. The FBI is investigating whether Clinton broke the law by using personal email to handle potentially classified information. Agents are interviewing Brian Pagliano, who worked for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and set up the server. Pagliano invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself when testifying before Congress in September.

Questionable motives. Russian investigators are skeptical of a nanny who claims jihad as her motive for committing gruesome violence against the family she worked for. Gulchekhra Bobokulova is accused of beheading a toddler, setting the family’s apartment on fire, and taking the head to a subway station where she yelled, “I am a terrorist!” Though Bobokulova said she killed the child in retaliation for Russian airstrikes on Islamic State in Syria, a Kremlin spokesperson said she was schizophrenic. “The motive of a person with … schizophrenia at the time of a crime does not usually coincide with the explanation that he gives after the crime," investigator Vladimir Markin said told Sputnik News, a state-run news agency.

Hero complex. The FBI has arrested a flight attendant who allegedly set fire to an airplane restroom and took credit for putting out the blaze. Johnathan Tafoya-Montano admitted to the FBI he used a cigarette lighter to ignite paper towels in the lavatory on a Feb. 1 flight from Dallas to Detroit. He then pretended to discover the fire and put it out. He’s charged with destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities and making false statements to investigators.

Down to Earth. Astronaut Scott Kelly is undergoing extensive observation and reconditioning after returning to the United States after spending 340 days in space. Kelly landed in Kazakhstan late Tuesday evening and almost immediately began a battery of physical, psychological, and medical tests to measure the impact of living in weightlessness for so long. He arrived in Houston overnight where NASA medical staff will monitor him over the next couple of months. Kelly’s mission was designed as a stepping-stone to NASA sending astronauts to Mars within the next 20 years. “A year is a long time,” Kelly said. “I felt like I had been up there my whole life after about the first six months, but I’m definitely encouraged on our ability to go even longer.”