Politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — The woman who says Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker paid for a 2009 abortion claims he encouraged her to have another abortion two years later, according to a new report. She declined to have the second abortion, according to the report, and the relationship ended.

The New York Times, which published the report late Friday, said it withheld the name of the woman, who insisted on anonymity to protect her son. Walker’s campaign declined to comment to the Times.

The report was one of several new revelations that surfaced late Friday, capping a dramatic week in a campaign that could determine control of the U.S. Senate. Walker is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in one of the most closely watched races heading into next month’s midterm elections.

In a brief interview with NBC News, Walker said he didn’t know about an abortion.

“The first I knew about any of this was when some reporter asked me about an abortion. And I’m like, ‘No, that’s a lie.’ And then I was asked if I paid for an abortion, and I said: ‘No. I did not pay for an abortion,’” Walker told the network. “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one (an abortion). I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.”

The Walker campaign provided NBC with text messages of the unnamed woman texting Walker’s wife about the abortion on Friday morning. That, Walker told NBC, was the first time he confirmed the woman’s identity. NBC, like the Times, withheld the woman’s name.

“Did you know Herschel paid for my abortion the first time? Or that he told me it wasn’t the ‘right time’ to have (their current child)?” the woman wrote in a 9:54 a.m. text message to Julie Walker, the candidate’s wife.

“This message makes me incredibly sad. You know I have continually tried to bridge a better relationship between you and Herschel putting (the child) first,” Julie Walker responded.

Meanwhile, the Daily Beast, which first reported earlier this week that Walker paid for the 2009 abortion, published details provided by the woman about the candidate’s involvement with their child. Walker, according to the Daily Beast, has not seen the child in person for more than six and a half years. He has met the child a total of three times, according to the report, which the outlet said it corroborated with photographs provided by the woman. Two of those instances, the report said, were related to child support proceedings.

The woman also provided the Daily Beast with screenshots of text messages Walker has sent to the child, including one from July in which the candidate didn’t tell the child about the existence of a third half-sibling.

“You have the brother and sister I told you about. Love you,” Walker wrote, according to the Daily Beast.

Walker later texted the child a picture of the other half-sibling, according to the report, saying “This picture never went.”

Walker frequently texted the child messages that read “love you.” The pace of the messages, the report said, increased as Walker prepared to announce his Senate campaign.

Walker’s campaign declined to comment to the Daily Beast.

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WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — When Michael Franken won the Democratic nomination for the Senate in June, many in Iowa’s disillusioned party thought they landed on a candidate who could maybe — possibly — reverse their humbling slide in the state.

After all, the retired Navy admiral won 76 of 99 counties, in every region of the state, notably conservative northern and western Iowa. His hesitancy during the primary campaign to back weapons bans and college loan forgiveness were signs he aimed to appeal to moderate Democrats and even some Republicans tired of incumbent Chuck Grassley after four decades in office.

But those ambitions are beginning to fade as Election Day, Nov. 8, approaches. Franken’s quest to unseat the most senior Republican in the Senate has been wounded by allegations that the Democrat kissed a former campaign aide without permission. Franken’s campaign has denied the claim.

He’s defied skeptics before, beating the better known and better funded former Rep. Abby Finkenauer in primary. Nonetheless, many Democrats acknowledge that a race always considered a long shot is at risk of slipping firmly out of reach.

To Democrat Marcia Nichols, the former longtime political director for Iowa’s largest public employees union, the allegation, “whatever it is, it’s made it tougher now.” But she noted that Franken took on Finkenauer, “who was pretty popular, and beat her by a lot. I’m not writing him off.”

The obstacles seemed distant during a recent campaign stop as Franken, in his standard Navy ball cap, urged hundreds of supporters on a warm early autumn afternoon in suburban Des Moines to rally Republicans who might want a change after 42 years of Grassley in the Senate.

“Iowans wake up every day doing hard things,” Franken said. “That takes, in today’s environment, a lot of guts.”

To win, Franken would have to have to share voters with Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, a devout social conservative and fervent Donald Trump supporter who is favored in her reelection campaign. He would have to defy a decadelong Republican ascendency in Iowa, made harder in an election year when majority Democrats in Congress are facing economic headwinds and tepid approval of Democratic President Joe Biden.

Franken’s challenges are part of a broader reversal of fortunes for Democrats.

A decade ago, Grassley and five-term progressive Democrat Tom Harkin were Iowa’s senators. Democrats held three of five U.S. House seats and a thin majority in the state Senate. Today, Rep. Cindy Axne of West Des Moines is Iowa’s lone Democrat in Congress and she is considered among the most vulnerable in her party this fall. The GOP hold on the statehouse is the party’s longest in more than six decades.

Franken’s resounding primary victory offered a glimmer of a chance for Democrats.

A month after the primary, Franken trailed Grassley by just 8 percentage points among likely voters in a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll. That pointed to a potentially closer race than Grassley has faced since he defeated Democratic Sen. John Culver in 1980.

With no help from the Democrats’ national Senate campaign arm, Franken has raised a noteworthy $8.3 million this year, including $3.6 million in the third quarter. Grassley had reported raising $7.5 million through the end of July but had not released his total for July-September period. That report is due by Oct. 15.

The majority job approval that Grassley had owned for roughly two decades of Des Moines Register polling has recently fallen: It has hovered in unfamiliar territory and was at 46% in the July poll.

Also telling of the shift, 64% of likely voters said in a June 2021 Des Moines Register poll they did not want him to run again, given the choice of seeing someone else hold office or reelecting the senator for another term.

The change in mood comes as Grassley, who entered the Senate as a Ronald Reagan-era fiscal conservative, has tried to adapt to the hyper-partisan politics of the Trump era.

Facing pointed questions from voters last year about why he had declined to say Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Grassley parsed his language to obliquely suggest Biden is president as the result of the Electoral College vote count.

About two-thirds of Republicans nationally said they do not think Biden was legitimately elected, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in July 2021.

A year ago, Grassley beamed when Trump endorsed him at a Des Moines rally that drew 10,000 to the Iowa state fairgrounds, where the former president argued falsely that he had won the 2020 election. “I’m smart enough to accept that endorsement,” Grassley told the audience, noting Trump’s comfortable victory in Iowa in that race.

Grassley has campaigned little in public. He has relied more on television advertising, much of it critical of Franken for comments he made about the direction of the state under Republican leadership.

Grassley turned 89 last month and says he has no concerns about being able to finish another six-year term — he would be 95 at the end of an eighth term. “Absolutely not,” he said during a Wednesday news conference.

He ticked through his daily schedule, which he said includes rising at 4 a.m., running 2 miles six days a week and arriving at his office by 6 a.m.

“Unless God intervenes, I’m going to be in the Senate for six years,” he added.

Franken has steered clear of Grassley’s age and instead has cast Grassley’s time in office as his chief liability. “We deserve better than a senator for life,” the Democrat said.

Franken has characterized Grassley’s praise of the Supreme Court decision stripping women of their constitutional right to an abortion as out of step with Iowa, where polls show a majority of voters support keeping abortion legal.

Franken, who supports enacting legislation making abortion a federal right, held a modest advantage with women likely voters in the July Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll.

But the publication of a police report detailing the unwanted kiss with the former campaign staffer has prompted questions from some would-be Franken supporters. The campaign manager issued a public statement that the allegation in the report was untrue and the police called it unfounded.

Elizabeth Sibers, a 22-year-old Iowa State University student from Waukee who attended Franken’s rally, said she would like him, at a minimum, to speak out against harassment.

“It does trouble me. He needs to take the time to address it,” she said. Sibers remains open to voting for him and said she wants to “give Franken the chance to grow from this, and not just look past it.”

Grassley said he does not plan to raise it as a campaign issue. But when Franken called him “anti-woman,” for supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Grassley replied quickly and curtly.

“You’re in no position to lecture me about women,” he said. “You’re in no position to do that.”

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For more information on the midterm elections, go to: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

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EMERSON, Ga. (AP) — Herschel Walker pitches himself as a politician who can bridge America’s racial and cultural divides because he loves everyone and overlooks differences.

“I don’t care what color you are,” Georgia’s Republican Senate nominee, who is Black, told an overwhelmingly white crowd recently in Bartow County, north of Atlanta. “This is a good place,” Walker said of the United States, “and a way we make it better is by coming together.”

Yet the former University of Georgia football star who calls all Georgians “my family” has staked out familiar conservative ground on the nation’s most glaring societal fissures, seemingly contradicting his promises of unity. Walker says those who do not share his vision of the country can leave and he blasts his opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock, and the Democratic Party as the real purveyors of division.

Their “wokeness” on race, transgender rights and other issues, Walker insists, threatens U.S. power and identity.

“Sen. Warnock believes America is a bad country full of racist people,” Walker says in one ad. It’s a claim based on the fact that Warnock, who is also Black, has acknowledged institutional racism during his sermons as a Baptist minister. “I believe we’re a great country full of generous people,” Walker concludes.

That approach is not surprising in a state controlled for most of its history by white cultural conservatives and it aligns Walker with many high-profile Republicans, including former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Walker’s arguments make for a striking contrast in a Senate contest featuring two Black men born in the Deep South during or immediately following the civil rights movement.

The strategy will face its fiercest test in the closing weeks of the campaign as Walker vehemently denies reports from The Daily Beast that he encouraged and paid for a woman’s 2009 abortion and later fathered a child with her. The New York Times reported Friday that he urged her to have a second abortion, a request she refused. The Daily Beast also published new details provided by the woman about Walker’s lack of involvement with their child.

Such developments would typically sink a Republican candidate, but Walker is betting the conservative ground he has staked out throughout the campaign will ultimately win over voters who are singularly interested in flipping a Democratic seat and retaking the Senate majority.

His advisers believe Walker’s rhetoric reflects the views of many Georgians, at least most who will vote this fall. Most specifically, it is an appeal to whites, including moderates who may be wary of the first-time candidate yet believe Democrats push too much social change. The outcome could turn on how Walker’s pitch lands in an electorate that’s gotten younger, more urban, less white and less native to Georgia since Walker, 60, and Warnock, 53, grew up in the state.

Mark Rountree, a Republican pollster, said a narrow but solid majority of Georgia voters “responds favorably to Republican messaging broadly,” including socially conservative rhetoric.

“I don’t know that they all use that ‘wokeness’ terminology but they’re not completely happy with all the cultural changes that have gone on in America,” he said, stressing that group includes metro Atlanta white voters who helped President Joe Biden win Georgia in 2020.

Warnock, as minister of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, has long linked the civil rights leader’s vision of a “beloved community” to 21st century discussions of diversity and justice, including religious pluralism, LGBTQ rights, ballot access, racial equity, law enforcement and other issues.

But in Warnock’s paid advertising, where most of the state’s 7 million-plus registered voters encounter the candidates, the pastor-politician casts himself mostly as a hardworking senator who has delivered results and federal money for Georgia.

Walker saves his hottest rhetoric for campaign events, where crowds are measured in dozens or hundreds, rather than the thousands and millions watching carefully cultivated ads.

In one such ad, a smiling Walker talks of unity after a string of Democrats — Warnock, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams — are heard discussing racism.

Addressing fellow Republicans, Walker maintains the smile but goes harder at the left, especially on transgender rights.

“They’re bringing wokeness in our military,” Walker said during a stop in Cumming, part of the critical northern suburbs of metro Atlanta. It was an apparent reference to the Pentagon allowing transgender people to serve and have access to medical care.

“The greatest fighting force ever assembled before God (and) they’re talking about pronouns,” Walker said. “Are you serious? How do you identify? I can promise you right now China ain’t talking about how you can identify. They’re talking about war.”

Walker sometimes presents his mores as humor.

“Y’all see it. They telling you what is a woman. Think about it,” he said in Bartow County, drawing laughter from voters. “That’s right,” he continued with a broad smile. “They’re telling you a man can get pregnant. Hey, I’m gone tell you right now, a man can’t get pregnant.”

Warnock, Walker says, “wants men in women’s sports.” Walker’s campaign aides point separately to a Senate vote on a Republican amendment that would have limited federal money for any educational institutions “that permit any student whose biological sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity designated for women or girls.” The amendment failed on a party-line vote.

“That’s sort of like saying you want Herschel Walker to compete against your daughters,” Walker said in Norcross, eliciting more laughs.

Children, Walker argued in Emerson, are especially vulnerable: “Our kids are behind because they want to be woke. What about teaching them how to write? … How to read? … How to spell?”

Walker rarely identifies the policies he opposes or explains counterproposals. He sticks instead with broader cultural branding, and in perhaps the most direct contradiction of his unity messaging, recommends that those with a different vision for America consider moving. “If you don’t like the rules under our roof, you can go somewhere else,” he said in Bartow County, after recalling a similar message his father once delivered to him.

Warnock seems reluctant to answer Walker’s broadsides directly. “My job is to represent all the people of Georgia across racial and ethnic and religious line, and all corner of this state,” he told reporters last week.

Asked specifically about Walker’s emphasis on transgender politics, Warnock said: “People love their children and they want to make sure that their children are safe from hatred and bigotry. So, you know, I will remain focused on all our young people and, at the same time, creating opportunities for young people.”

Geoff Wetrosky, campaign director at the Human Rights Campaign, a national organization that advocates for LGBTQ rights, said Walker is recycling the well-worn political strategy of scaring voters using a marginalized minority.

“He is spreading propaganda and creating more stigma, discrimination and violence against LGBTQ people,” Wetrosky said. “Their rhetoric is not about keeping kids safe, it’s about riling up a small number of base voters while interfering with the rights of parents of LGBT kids to provide stable, happy and healthy homes for the kids.”

Walker does not link every cultural complaint to Warnock but comes at the incumbent aggressively on race and racism, even invoking King to suggest Georgia’s first Black U.S. senator is subservient to a white president.

“Martin Luther King, he said when your back is bent, people can ride your back. Straighten up and quit letting people ride your back,” Walker said in Cumming, loosely quoting Warnock’s iconic predecessor at Ebenezer. “That’s what (Warnock) been doing all the time, 96% of the time he voted with Joe Biden.”

After a recent campaign stop in suburban Atlanta, Walker told reporters “institutional racism still exists because you continue to talk about it.” He added, “It always exists (but) things have changed from years ago.”

Pressed on whether government should combat racism and other discrimination, Walker insisted the Constitution already does. “If you do what it says on the paper, that means every man would be treated fair,” he said without elaborating. “Do we need to get better? Yes,” he allowed. “But right now we’re talking about separation. … You have to bring together.”

Walker’s methods, especially trying to use King against Warnock, rankle the senator’s aides and allies. Campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Warnock has “brought people together from the pulpit and in the U.S. Senate to get things done,” adding that Walker has “no vision” for Georgians. That’s a twist on a line from Warnock’s standard campaign speech: “People who have no vision traffic in division.”

At the Human Rights Campaign, Wetrovsky argues that sweeping attacks on “wokeness” will not sway the middle of the electorate and could ultimately backfire.

“We see this as a desperate attempt by politicians to either hold on to the power that they have or gain power by trying to rile up extremists in their base,” he said.

Nonetheless, Walker’s rhetoric solidifies strong support from voters such as Roy Taylor, a Canton resident who came to hear the GOP nominee speak in Cumming. Taylor said his opposition to “huge, massive government” drives his support for Walker. But his loyalties are intensified because he is “tired of Democrats trying to make Republicans out … like we’re all bigots.

“That,” Taylor said, “is just not true.”

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For more information on the midterm elections, go to: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

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The Russian government on Friday designated a chart-topping rapper as a “foreign agent,”a label that has been widely seen as part of authorities’ efforts to muzzle critical voices.

Oxxxymiron, whose real name is Miron Fyodorov, was added to the justice ministry’s “foreign agent” list alongside Dmitry Glukhovsky, a veteran science-fiction writer, and Alyona Popova, a prominent feminist and one-time face of Russia’s campaign for a domestic violence law.

Oxxxymiron, a dual Russian-British national, has called the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine “a catastrophe,” and publicly called for the creation of an anti-war movement. He cancelled a sold-out Russian tour shortly after Moscow’s troops rolled into Ukraine on Feb. 24, and organized benefit concerts in Western Europe and Turkey, with proceeds going to Ukrainian refugees.

In August, authorities said they were investigating the rapper’s work under Russia’s anti-extremism laws, which have been expanded several times to cover a broadening spectrum of dissenting speech.

Russian law allows organizations and individuals deemed to be involved in political activity that receive funding from abroad to be declared foreign agents. The term carries a strong pejorative sense and implies additional government scrutiny.

The rapper, whose lyrics are often political, has previously attended rallies in support of jailed Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny.

Glukhovsky, the author of the 2002 post-apocalyptic novel “Metro 2033″ who is believed to be abroad, has also hit out at Russia’s war in Ukraine. He was put on a wanted list in connection with critical social media posts and columns in Western media.

In June, a Moscow court ordered his arrest in absentia on the charge of “discrediting the Russian army,” amid an unprecedented crackdown on dissenters. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

One of Russia’s most ardent rights campaigners, Popova has fought for years to lobby Russian lawmakers to adopt legislation to protect women from domestic violence. Her social-media campaign at one point encouraged Russian women to post images of themselves with make-up resembling bloody cuts or bruises, along with the hashtag “I didn’t want to die.” The viral response prompted a surge in discussions around attitudes towards abuse survivors.

In 2021, Popova made countering domestic violence the central plank of her ultimately unsuccessful bid to join the State Duma. She has repeatedly voiced her support for women running for political office in order to address social issues in Russia.

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Dane County judge refused Friday to issue a temporary order that would allow local election clerks to accept partial witness addresses on absentee ballots.

A group called Rise Inc. filed a lawsuit in September seeking a judicial order requiring the Wisconsin Elections Commission to tell local clerks that they must accept ballots as long as the witness address includes enough information that clerks can reasonably discern where the witness can be contacted. The day after the group filed the lawsuit its attorneys asked Judge Juan Colas to issue a temporary injunction mandating the commission issue that guidance to clerks.

Colas refused to issue the order during a hearing Friday morning, online court records indicate. The case will continue with a scheduling conference set for Oct. 17.

Rise Inc., which encourages students to vote, sued after a Waukesha County judge last month sided with Republicans and said clerks are barred from filling in missing witness information on ballot envelopes. The judge struck down guidance the elections commission put in place six years ago, saying nothing in state law allows clerks to do that.

The practice was unchallenged until Donald Trump lost Wisconsin to Joe Biden in 2020. About 1.4 million voters cast absentee ballots in that election, held before COVID-19 vaccines were available.

The League of Women Voters has filed a similar lawsuit in Dane County last month seeking an order saying absentee ballots with partial witness addresses should be accepted. That case remains pending.

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By Dmitry Zhdannikov, Steve Holland and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON/LONDON(Reuters) – The OPEC+ organization’s decision this week to cut oil production despite stiff U.S. opposition has further strained already tense relations between President Joe Biden’s White House and Saudi Arabia’s royal family, once one of Washington’s staunchest Middle East allies, according to interviews with about a dozen government officials and experts in Washington and the Gulf.

The White House pushed hard to prevent the OPEC output cut, these sources said. Biden hopes to keep U.S. gasoline prices from spiking again ahead of midterm elections in which his Democratic party is struggling to maintain control of the U.S. Congress. Washington also wants to limit Russia’s energy revenue during the Ukraine war.

The U.S. administration lobbied OPEC+ for weeks. In recent days, senior U.S. officials from energy, foreign policy and economic teams urged their foreign counterparts to vote against an output cut, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

Amos Hochstein, Biden’s top energy envoy, along with national security official Brett McGurk and the administration’s special envoy to Yemen Tim Lenderking, traveled to Saudi Arabia last month to discuss energy issues, including the OPEC+ decision.

They failed to prevent an output cut, just as Biden did after his own July visit.

US officials “tried to position it as ‘us versus Russia,’” said one source briefed on the discussions, telling Saudi officials they needed to make a choice.

That argument failed, the source said, adding that the Saudis said that if the United States wanted more oil on the markets, it should start producing more of its own.

The United States is the world’s No. 1 oil producer and also its top consumer, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The Saudi government media office CIC did not respond to Reuters emailed requests for comment about the discussions.

“We are concerned first and foremost with the interests of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and then the interests of the countries that trusted us and are members of OPEC and the OPEC + alliance,” Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz told Saudi TV Wednesday.

OPEC weighs its interests with “those of the world because we have an interest in supporting the growth of the global economy and providing energy supplies in the best way,” he said.

Washington’s handling of the Iran nuclear deal and withdrawal of support for a Saudi-led coalition’s offensive military operations in Yemen have upset Saudi officials, as have actions against Russia after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

A U.S. push for a price cap on Russian oil is causing uncertainty, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told Bloomberg TV after the OPEC cut, noting the “lack of details and the lack of clarity” about how it will be implemented.

A source briefed by Saudi officials said the kingdom views it as “a non-market price-control mechanism, that could be used by a cartel of consumers against producers.”

A Biden-directed sale of 180 million barrels of oil in March from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve put downward pressure on oil prices. In March, OPEC+ said it would stop using data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), a Western oil watchdog, due to Saudi-led concerns the United States had too much influence.

On Thursday, Biden called the Saudi decision “a disappointment”, adding Washington could take further action in the oil market.

“Look it’s clear that OPEC Plus is aligning with Russia,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday. She would not elaborate on how the output cut would affect U.S.-Saudi relations. In the U.S. Congress, Biden’s Democrats called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia and spoke about taking back weapons.

“I thought the whole point of selling arms to the Gulf States despite their human rights abuses, nonsensical Yemen War, working against US interests in Libya, Sudan etc, was that when an international crisis came, the Gulf could choose America over Russia/China,” Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, said on Twitter.

CROWN PRINCE AND BIDEN

Weeks after Biden took office as president, Washington released a report tying the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The prince, son of King Salman, 86, has denied ordering the killing but acknowledged it took place “under my watch”.

The prince became prime minister last month and his lawyers have been arguing in a U.S. court that this makes him immune from prosecution in the Khashoggi death.

Biden’s trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in July for a Gulf summit was aimed at patching up relations, but he also levied harsh criticism of bin Salman over Khashoggi’s murder.

Ben Cahill, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Saudis hope the production cuts will give OPEC+ control over oil prices and ensure enough oil revenue to protect their country from a recession.

“The macroeconomic risk is getting worse all the time, so they have to respond,” Cahill said. “They are aware that a cut will irritate Washington, but they are managing the market.”

(Reporting By Steve Holland, Timothy Gardner and Jarrett Renshaw in Washington; Dmitry Zhdannikov in London, Aziz El Yaakoubi in Riyadh and Ghaida Ghantous in Dubai. Editing by Heather Timmons and David Gregorio)

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By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) -New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency on Friday in response to thousands of migrants bused to the city in recent months from the U.S. southern border in a political dispute over border security.

The city expects to spend $1 billion to manage the influx of the migrants, Adams said in a speech at City Hall. More than 17,000 have arrived in New York since April; an average of five or six buses each day since early September, with nine buses pulling into the city on Thursday, said Adams, a Democrat, straining the city’s homeless shelter system.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican who is seeking a third term in November’s U.S. midterm elections has bused more than 3,000 migrants to New York. Adams criticized Abbott for failing to alert city officials when sending migrants to the city, calling it a “manufactured crisis.”

Abbott’s moves are part of a high-profile campaign by him and the Republican governors of Florida and Arizona to put a spotlight on record crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border in the run-up to the midterm elections. They argue U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has failed to adequately secure the border.

Abbott has also bused more than 900 people to Chicago, while Texas and Arizona combined have bused over 10,000 migrants to Washington, D.C.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican who is seen as a possible presidential contender in 2024, recently flew a group of about 50 migrants to the wealthy enclave of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Those aboard the plane have said they were misled.

Democrats have called the moves political stunts and accuse the governors of using people as pawns.

Many of the migrants sent to New York are Venezuelans, whom the U.S. cannot expel to Mexico under a COVID-19 related policy as it can other migrants.

The Democratic-controlled city of El Paso has bused roughly 7,000 migrants to New York since late August, though city leaders say they are coordinating with New York officials.

The increase in arrivals has set a record for the number of people in shelters across New York.

“Although our compassion is limitless, our resources are not,” Adams said, calling on the federal and state governments to provide support. “We are at the edge of a precipice.”

The state of emergency will make it easier for city agencies to coordinate their response more quickly, Adams said.

Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C., declared a state of emergency in that city last month, creating a new office to handle incoming migrants.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax, additional reporting by Kristina Cooke.Editing by Alistair Bell)

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By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden has said he would pardon people convicted in federal court of simple marijuana possession, and that his administration is reconsidering the classification of cannabis, which has been in the most dangerous category of drugs.

The move has been welcomed by some as a long-overdue reform, but the effects of reclassifying marijuana are not clear, and could end up meaning more regulation rather than less.

HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL BE AFFECTED BY THE PARDON?

Relatively few people in the United States are convicted of simple possession in federal court. Most are convicted of more serious trafficking offenses, which are not covered by the pardon. A senior administration official said more than 6,500 people with prior federal convictions could be affected by the pardons. While none of them is currently in prison, clearing their convictions could remove barriers to finding jobs or housing.

The vast majority of marijuana prosecutions take place at the state level, where each state has its own laws ranging from criminalization to full legalization, and will not be affected.

HOW COULD MARIJUANA BE RECLASSIFIED?

Marijuana is currently classified as a so-called Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act, meaning its possession is almost entirely banned except for certain research purposes. The classification is the same as that of heroin used for drugs deemed to have no legitimate medical uses.

Moving marijuana to a lower tier on the Controlled Substances Act schedule would allow it to be prescribed by doctors. If it became a Schedule II drug, like most opioids used for pain management, those prescriptions would still be tightly controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration. If it were moved to Schedule V – the lowest tier – it would be minimally controlled, like cough syrups containing small amounts of codeine.

Biden has not expressed a view about where marijuana should fall. The decision is ultimately made by the DEA, with input from the Food and Drug Administration.

HAVEN’T MANY STATES ALREADY LEGALIZED MEDICAL MARIJUANA?

Yes. Thirty-seven states regulate cannabis for medical use, and 19 also allow recreational use.

However, existing state medical marijuana programs would still conflict with federal law if marijuana were rescheduled, according to Alex Kreit of the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University.

Doctors in some states are currently permitted to recommend, rather than prescribe, marijuana for certain medical conditions, since only the FDA can approve prescription drugs. The agency has not approved, and does not regulate, the products dispensed under state law.

Rescheduling marijuana as a prescription drug would mean marijuana products sold as medicine would be subject to FDA regulation, and doctors would have to follow the same regulations that apply to other drugs in their state. Though once approved by the FDA for any medical use, doctors can prescribe a drug for other conditions, so-called off-label use.

“Big pharma might be the big exciting player here, because they have the most to gain if we were to reschedule but it was still something that was very highly regulated,” said Douglas Berman, a professor at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.

WHAT ABOUT STATES THAT HAVE LEGALIZED RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA?

Selling marijuana for recreational use would still be prohibited by federal law unless it were removed from the schedule entirely. Kreit said that was unlikely, since the Controlled Substances Act requires all drugs with potential for abuse to be scheduled, except alcohol and tobacco.

In recent years, federal authorities have declined to enforce marijuana prohibition within states where it is legal.

Even if marijuana were descheduled, Congress would likely intervene to impose some control, as it has for tobacco, Kreit said.

States could still ban marijuana even if the federal ban were lifted.

HOW COULD RESCHEDULING AFFECT HOW MARIJUANA BUSINESSES OPERATE?

Marijuana businesses have been in limbo for years. Despite the lack of federal enforcement, financial institutions have continued to shy away from them even in states that have fully legalized the drug for fear of running afoul of federal laws.

Jim Thorburn, a lawyer who represents marijuana businesses, said that would not necessarily change if marijuana were rescheduled.

“Recreational use would still be problematic because that could still be considered unlawful drug trafficking,” he said. Still, Thorburn said a regulatory regime that created more avenues for legal marijuana might ease access to the financial system.

Kreit also said that rescheduling the drug “could give more banks and financial operators more confidence and comfort” in dealing with marijuana businesses.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; editing by Amy Stevens and Bill Berkrot)

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By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – Voters in five states will decide whether to legalize adult-use marijuana in November’s midterm elections, as 19 other states and the District of Columbia have done.

Public support for legalizing the drug has risen in recent years, and President Joe Biden on Thursday announced he was pardoning thousands of people who had been convicted of federal marijuana possession charges.

Here’s a summary of where things stand ahead of the Nov. 8 vote:

WEED ON THE BALLOT

Voters in Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota will cast ballots on whether to allow adults to use marijuana recreationally.

South Dakota’s initiative is something of a do-over. Residents approved a prior marijuana referendum in 2020, but Governor Kristi Noem, a Republican, challenged the result in court. The state Supreme Court invalidated the amendment last year, ruling that it violated the constitution on technical grounds. This year’s initiative was more narrowly tailored to avoid a similar outcome.

An Oklahoma group also collected enough signatures for a referendum. After protracted legal challenges, the state Supreme Court ruled that there was too little time to put the question on November’s ballot. The initiative will likely go to voters in 2024.

Ballot referendum efforts for 2023 or 2024 are also underway in Florida, Nebraska, Wyoming and Ohio.

In addition to the statewide referendums, voters in some cities around the country will decide whether to decriminalize marijuana possession laws and whether to allow licensed cannabis retailers in their areas.

PUBLIC SUPPORT

Residents in New Jersey, Arizona and Montana voted to legalize marijuana in 2020. All told, 19 states and the District of Columbia allow recreational use of marijuana, and 37 states regulate cannabis for medical use.

Polls show a majority of Americans favor legalization. A Morning Consult/Politico survey released this week found 60% of respondents believe the drug should be legal, compared with 27% who disagreed.

Democrats are more likely to support legalization. The poll found 71% of Democrats in favor and 16% opposed, versus 47% in favor and 41% opposed among Republicans.

Efforts to pass federal legislation have stalled in the Senate, largely due to Republican opposition.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Bill Berkrot)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors will present fresh evidence as they bring forward new witnesses on Friday in the trial of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and four associates for their alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol.

Prosecutors, in the first week of testimony, have so far called to the stand an FBI agent and three former members of the Oath Keepers as they focus on the group’s planning for Jan. 6.

Rhodes and his four co-defendants – Thomas Caldwell, Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs and Jessica Watkins – are accused of conspiring to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory in a failed bid to keep Donald Trump, a Republican, in power.

The five defendants are charged with several felonies, including seditious conspiracy, a rarely prosecuted Civil War-era statute defined as attempting “to overthrow, put down or to destroy by force the government of the United States.” It carries a possible prison sentence of 20 years.

In a separate case involving another far-right group, Proud Boys member Jeremy Bertino pleaded guilty on Thursday to seditious conspiracy over his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, making him the first member of that group to do so.

Prosecutors say some of the Oath Keepers defendants were among the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol building after the then-president falsely claimed the election had been stolen from him through widespread fraud.

Attorneys for the defendants have said the evidence will show that the defendants did nothing illegal and that the Oath Keepers are a peacekeeping group that has done security work at events around the country.

Text messages and audio recordings this week have shown the defendants vowing to reject Biden’s election victory, planning to go to Washington and discussing what weapons they could bring, with Rhodes talking of possible “civil war.”

One witness on Thursday, former Florida Oath Keepers leader Michael Adams, said he had decided to quit in December 2020 when he became uncomfortable with the “rhetoric” coming from the group, in particular open letters that Rhodes had sent to Trump vowing to take action if the former president did not do so.

“If you fail to do your duty, you will leave We the People no choice but to walk in the Founders footsteps, by declaring the regime illegitimate,” Rhodes wrote to Trump, according to a copy of a letter submitted to the FBI.

“We will take to arms in defense” of our liberty, the letter read.

(Reporting by Chris Gallagher, editing by Deepa Babington)

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