THE BIG STORY

Joe Biden gets some big endorsements

Millions of Democrats in 15 states and territories will vote in the Super Tuesday primaries today, but there will be a few less candidates to choose from. Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have all announced the end of their campaigns in the last couple of days; both Klobuchar and Buttigieg are endorsing Biden.

It’s not just the former candidates getting in line behind Biden. A number of prominent Democrats said they’re backing Biden on Monday, including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

“Let me tell you something,” Sanders said at a rally in Utah yesterday. “The establishment is getting very, very nervous.”

Elizabeth Warren, the main competitor to Sanders on the left, says she isn’t going anywhere. And neither, it seems, is Michael Bloomberg, Biden’s main competitor for centrist and conservative Democratic votes. But what happens today could change all that; we’ll know a lot more about where all the candidates stand by the end of the night.

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

An Oscar-winning actor is accused of rape

Sera Johnston, a Canadian ex-model, says the Oscar-winning actor Timothy Hutton raped her in a Vancouver hotel room when she was 14 years old in 1983.

BuzzFeed News spoke with Johnston, as well as five people who she told about the incident at different points over the years. Each of them confirmed she had told them Hutton raped her in his hotel room.

Hutton, who recently starred in the Fox drama series Almost Family, “completely and unequivocally denies” the allegations. He says he has never met Johnston and “will not spend one more minute dignifying these allegations as they are patently false and designed only to extort money from him.”

You can read the full investigation from Kate Aurthur and Adam B. Vary here.

Sera Johnston. Jen Osborne for BuzzFeed News

SNAPSHOTS

Republican lawmakers in Oregon have a new strategy to stall voting on climate change legislation: Run away!

MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews is retiring, effective immediately. He made a string of on-air blunders in recent weeks, and apologized for sexist comments made in the past.

The husband of LA’s top prosecutor was filmed pointing a gun at Black Lives Matter organizers. They’d knocked on the door of the couple’s home; he threatened to shoot them.

The Supreme Court will allow a ban on so-called bump stocks that turn semi-automatic weapons into full automatics. It declined to hear a case challenging the federal ban.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

We’re trying something new: a daily update on what’s going on with the coronavirus, and what you need to know. What would you like me to focus on here? Let us know.

At least six people have died in an outbreak of the virus in the suburbs of Seattle. New coronavirus cases were diagnosed in New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Florida.

Monday’s big story: Azar in the crosshairs for delays in virus tests (Politico)

The economic impact is just beginning. Here are the conferences and events that have already been canceled, and here’s an explainer of why the stock market tanked last week. And here are the supermarkets being emptied by panic shopping across the country.

Today’s tip: Don’t stock up on face masks — they don’t really work the way you think they do. “The fact is, your typical surgical mask is not going to protect or prevent infection," one health expert told us.

For important information and updates, check the CDC’s dedicated coronavirus site.

Handout / Reuters

A $25 MILKSHAKE???

Salt Bae has a new burger place, and it’s a grim scene

The man who went extremely viral for sensuously salting slabs of beef and wearing aviators indoors has a new burger joint called, of course, #SaltBae. And it’s really bad, reports Scaachi Koul.

I came close to throwing my laptop out of the window upon reading “The Saltbae Baklava Shake ($24.95)” but there are also bros in peacoats, an insipid veggie burger tasting like peas and eggs, and the gloriously named “Wet Burger,” which lives up to its brand by being moist AF.

“This is how the world works now, and turning your nose up at the poor quality of the latest money grab from viral stars won’t stop it from being the new norm,” Koul says. “The burgers are bad, but that’s not really the point.”

The burgers are always the point,

Tom