Politics

By Ted Hesson, Dave Graham and Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – As border crossings have soared to record highs, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is quietly pressing Mexico to accept more migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela under a COVID-19 expulsion order that the White House has publicly sought to end, seven U.S. and three Mexican officials said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised concerns about an escalating number of crossings by migrants from the three countries during a visit on Monday to Mexico City, two U.S. and two Mexican officials told Reuters, but Mexico did not promise any specific actions.

One U.S. official said trying to convince Mexico to agree is “an uphill battle.”

All sources requested anonymity to discuss internal government matters.

Mexico already accepts U.S. returns of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. So far, this fiscal year about 299,000 people from those nations have been expelled at the border, compared to about 9,000 returns from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The U.S. effort to pressure Mexico on these three particular nationalities illustrates the depth of concern within the Biden’s Democratic administration about their border crossings. Most migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela who cross into the United States are allowed to stay to pursue asylum claims, since they are difficult to deport due to frosty diplomatic relations with their governments.

Mexico’s foreign ministry declined to comment and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

U.S. border agents have made a record 1.8 million migrant arrests so far in fiscal year 2022, with many attempting to cross multiple times, creating humanitarian challenges and political liabilities for Biden ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election.

Of those arrests at the southwest border, nearly a quarter of the migrants were from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, up from 8% in 2021 and 3% in 2020. Most were let into the United States to pursue immigration cases.

The Biden administration has publicly sought to end the COVID health order, known as Title 42. Issued in early 2020 under former Republican President Donald Trump, it allows U.S. border authorities to rapidly expel migrants to Mexico or other countries without the chance to seek U.S. asylum. A federal Trump-appointed judge in Louisiana blocked the administration from ending the order earlier this year, even as U.S. health officials said it was no longer needed to protect against COVID spread.

But behind closed doors, some Biden officials still view expanding expulsions as a way to deter crossers, one of the U.S. officials said, even if it contradicts the Democratic Party’s more welcoming message toward migrants.

Advocates and many Democrats fiercely oppose Title 42, saying it has exposed migrants to dangerous conditions in Mexico, including kidnapping and extortion.

“I think this really betrays their commitments to refugee protection,” said Robyn Barnard, associate director for refugee advocacy with the New York City-based non-profit organization Human Rights First.

MEXICO HESITANT

Two Mexican officials told Reuters that Mexico does not want to take Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans expelled from the United States because those countries resist accepting deportation flights from Mexico as well.

Instead, Mexico aims to step up internal flights of migrants from its northern border to its southern border to relieve pressure on the shared frontier, one of the officials said.

Mexico would like Washington to relax economic sanctions against Venezuela to help curb the exodus from the country and make it easier for migrants to work in the United States legally, two Mexican officials said.

Meanwhile, U.S. border officials in El Paso, Texas, say they have been forced to release hundreds of migrants on city streets near shelters and bus stations to ease overcrowding at their facilities.

Many of the Venezuelans arriving have no family members or sponsors, further straining charity and government agencies that assist them, said Mario D’Agostino, El Paso’s deputy city manager.

The Democrat-controlled city has contracted charter buses to carry migrants north to New York City, an effort that comes after the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona drew national attention by busing thousands of migrants to Democrat-led northern cities.

PRESSURING OTHER NATIONS

Biden officials are also exploring ways to push responsibility to other nations beyond Mexico, sources said.

For example, the White House wants Panama to accept deported Venezuelans if they passed through the Central American nation en route to the United States, two of the U.S. officials said.

Nearly 70,000 Venezuelans entered Panama from its Colombian border this year through August, compared with 1,150 in the same period last year, according to official data.

Panamanian government officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Separately, the Biden administration had been sending a small number of Venezuelans to the Dominican Republic on commercial flights, two of the U.S. officials said, a continuation of a Trump-era practice.

But the program was halted after pushback earlier this year from the office of Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, according to one of the U.S. officials and a person familiar with the matter. In February, Menendez called deporting migrants fleeing Venezuela’s “cruel regime” to third countries “extremely disturbing.”

(Reporting by Ted Hesson, Matt Spetalnick and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and Dave Graham and Daina Solomon in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Jose Luis Gonzalez in Ciudad Juarez and Elida Moreno in Panama City; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Aurora Ellis)

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By Patricia Zengerle and Michael Martina

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would significantly enhance U.S. military support for Taiwan, including provisions for billions of dollars in additional security assistance, amid increased pressure from China toward the democratically governed island.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee backed the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 by 17-5. The strong bipartisan vote was a clear indication of support from both Republicans and President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats for changes in U.S. policy toward Taiwan, such as treating Taiwan as a major non-NATO ally.

The act also includes extensive language on sanctions toward China in the event of hostilities across the strait separating it from the mainland.

“We need to be clear-eyed about what we are facing,” said Senator Bob Menendez, the committee’s Democratic chairman, while stressing that the United States does not seek war or any increase in tensions with Beijing.

The committee’s approval paved the way for a vote in the full Senate, but there has been no word on when that might take place. To become law, it must also pass the House of Representatives and be signed by President Joe Biden, whose administration has expressed concerns about portions of the legislation.

The White House said on Tuesday it was in talks with members of Congress on how to change the bill to ensure that it does not change long-standing U.S. policy toward Taiwan that it considers effective.

The Taiwan bill is likely to be folded into a larger piece of legislation expected to pass late this year, such as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual bill setting policy for the Department of Defense.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Michael Martina; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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By David Shepardson and Lisa Baertlein

DETROIT/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Biden administration officials, keen to avert a potential rail shutdown that could disrupt cargo shipments and impede food and fuel supplies, hosted labor contract talks on Wednesday as one of the smaller unions involved in the dispute rejected a deal and Amtrak canceled long-distance passenger trips.

Railroads including Union Pacific, Berkshire Hathaway’s BNSF and Norfolk Southern have until a minute after midnight on Friday to reach deals with three holdout unions representing about 60,000 workers before a work stoppage affecting freight and Amtrak could begin.

A union representing about 4,900 machinists, mechanics and maintenance personnel said on Wednesday its members voted to reject its tentative deal, as other unions could choose to do.

Railroads have offered significant pay increases. Three of 12 unions, representing about half of the 115,000 workers affected by the negotiations, are holding out for better working conditions. Two of those 12 unions, representing more than 11,000 workers, have ratified deals, the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC), which is bargaining on behalf of railroads, said on Wednesday.

Unions are enjoying a surge of public and worker support in the wake of the pandemic – when “essential” employees risked COVID-19 exposure to keep goods moving and employers reaped hefty profits, labor and corporate experts say.

A shutdown could freeze almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoke inflation, cost the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion per day and unleash a cascade of transportation woes affecting the U.S. energy, agriculture, manufacturing and retail sectors.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One that a shutdown of the freight rail system would be an “unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people and all parties must work to avoid just that.”

The Labor Department in a statement said “the parties are negotiating in good faith and have committed to staying at the table” on Wednesday in a meeting hosted by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.

President Joe Biden’s administration has begun making contingency plans to ensure deliveries of critical goods in the event of a shutdown. The stakes are high for Biden, who has vowed to rein in soaring consumer costs ahead of November elections that will determine whether his fellow Democrats maintain control of Congress.

“Unless they reach a breakthrough soon, rail workers will go on strike this Friday. If you don’t think that will have a negative impact on our economy … think again,” U.S. Senator John Cornyn, a Republican and Biden critic, said.

If agreements are not reached, employers could also lock out workers. Railroads and unions may agree to stay at the bargaining table, or the Democratic-led U.S. Congress could intervene by extending talks or establishing settlement terms.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was not clear whether Congress would step in, noting that the main issue is a lack of sick leave for workers.

“We’d rather see negotiations prevail so there’s no need for any actions from Congress,” Pelosi added.

Amtrak, which uses tracks maintained by freight railways, said it would cancel all long-distance trips on Thursday.

Industry groups are calling on Congress to help, saying a rail shutdown would hit as grain farmers prepare for harvest and consumers gear up for winter weather and Christmas holiday shopping.

Railroad customers have long complained that rail service is expensive and unreliable, with the industry’s decision to halt shipments of hazardous materials, refrigerated food and general merchandise ahead of a potential shutdown making matters worse.

Rail hubs in Chicago and Dallas were already clogged and suffering from equipment shortages before the contract showdown. Those bottlenecks are backing up cargo at U.S. seaports by as much as a month. And, once cargo gets to rail hubs in locations such as Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City and Memphis, Tennessee, it can sit another month or longer.

Package delivery giant United Parcel Service, one of the largest U.S. rail customers, and U.S. seaports said they are working on contingency plans. Automakers worry that a shutdown could extend vehicle buyer wait times, and food and energy companies are warning that additional service disruptions could create even sharper price hikes.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Lisa Baertlein; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason aboard Air Force One; Joe White in Detroit; Chris Walljasper in Chicago and Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bengaluru; Editing by Will Dunham, Mark Porter and Jonathan Oatis)

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DETROIT/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Biden administration officials, racing to avert a potential rail shutdown that could disrupt cargo shipments and impede food and fuel supplies, hosted labor contract talks on Wednesday as one of the smaller unions involved in the dispute rejected a deal.

Railroads including Union Pacific, Berkshire Hathaway’s BNSF and Norfolk Southern have until a minute after midnight on Friday to reach tentative deals with three holdout unions representing about 60,000 workers before a work stoppage affecting freight and Amtrak passenger rail service could begin.

A union representing about 4,900 machinists, mechanics and maintenance personnel said on Wednesday its members voted to reject a tentative deal.

Railroads have offered significant pay increases. Three of 12 unions, representing about half of the 115,000 workers affected by the negotiations, are holding out for better working conditions.

Unions are enjoying a surge of public support and worker interest in the wake of the pandemic – when employees risked COVID-19 exposure to keep goods moving and employers reaped hefty profits, labor and corporate experts say.

A shutdown could freeze almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoke inflation, cost the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion per day and unleash a cascade of transportation woes affecting the U.S. energy, agriculture, manufacturing and retail sectors.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One that a shutdown of the freight rail system would be an “unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people and all parties must work to avoid just that.”

The Labor Department in a statement said “the parties are negotiating in good faith and have committed to staying at the table” on Wednesday in a meeting hosted by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.

President Joe Biden’s administration has begun making contingency plans to ensure deliveries of critical goods in the event of a shutdown. The stakes are high for Biden, who has vowed to rein in soaring consumer costs ahead of November elections that will determine whether his fellow Democrats maintain control of Congress.

If agreements are not reached, there could be union strikes or employer lockouts. But the railroads and unions also could agree to stay at the bargaining table, or the Democratic-led U.S. Congress could intervene by extending talks or establishing settlement terms.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was not clear whether Congress would step in, noting that the main issue “is that there’s no sick leave for the workers and that’s a problem.”

“We’d rather see negotiations prevail so there’s no need for any actions from Congress,” Pelosi added.

Amtrak, which uses tracks maintained by freight railways, began cutting long-distance trains on Tuesday. Some commuter rail systems like Chicago’s Metra said they will begin halting some service on Thursday.

Industry groups are calling on Congress to help, saying a rail shutdown would hit as grain farmers prepare for harvest and consumers gear up for winter weather and Christmas holiday shopping.

Railroad customers have long complained that rail service is expensive and unreliable, with the industry’s decision to halt shipments of hazardous materials, refrigerated food and general merchandise ahead of a potential shutdown making matters worse.

Rail hubs in Chicago and Dallas were already clogged and suffering from equipment shortages before the contract showdown. Those bottlenecks are backing up cargo at U.S. seaports by as much as a month. And, once cargo gets to rail hubs in locations such as Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City and Memphis, Tennessee, it can sit another month or longer.

Package delivery giant United Parcel Service, one of the largest U.S. rail customers, said it is working on contingency plans. Automakers worry that a shutdown could extend vehicle buyer wait times, and food and energy companies are warning that additional service disruptions could create even sharper price hikes.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Lisa Baertlein; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason aboard Air Force One; Joe White in Detroit; Chris Walljasper in Chicago and Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bengaluru; Editing by Will Dunham, Mark Porter and Jonathan Oatis)

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By Nate Raymond and Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s legitimacy could be imperiled if Americans come to view its members as trying to impose personal preferences on society, liberal Justice Elena Kagan said on Wednesday in the wake of rulings powered by her conservative colleagues curtailing abortion access and widening gun rights.

At an event at Northwestern University in Chicago, Kagan differed from conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who during a public appearance on Friday in Colorado Springs, Colorado, said the court’s legitimacy should not be questioned “simply because people disagree with an opinion.”

Kagan said that on the question of legitimacy, the popularity of the court’s rulings is not the issue. Instead, she added, a “court is legitimate when it’s acting like a court,” by respecting past precedents and not asserting authority to make political or policy decisions.

“When courts become extensions of the political process, when people see them as extensions of the political process, once people see them as trying just to impose personal preferences on a society, irrespective of the law, that’s when there’s a problem,” Kagan said.

Kagan did not mention any specific rulings in her comments about the court’s legitimacy.

The court’s 6-3 conservative majority during its most recent term, which ended in June, illustrated how it was willing to assert its power with blockbuster rulings on abortion, guns and other matters.

Kagan, who has served on the court since 2010, dissented in its June decisions that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade landmark that had legalized abortion nationwide and recognized for the first time that the U.S. Constitution protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.

Kagan said it is important that courts respect precedents to provide stability over time and overturn past rulings only in “highly unusual cases.”

“If there’s new members of the court, and all of a sudden everything is up for grabs, all of a sudden very fundamental principles of law are being overthrown or are being, you know, replaced, then people have a right to say, ‘What’s going on there? That doesn’t seem very law-like,’” Kagan said.

The Supreme Court includes three conservative justices appointed by former President Donald Trump: Neil Gorsuch in 2017, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and Amy Coney Barrett in 2020.

Kagan also criticized a way of interpreting the Constitution favored by some conservatives known as originalism, which focuses upon how the text was understood when it was written. The Constitution was ratified in the 18th century, with amendments in the 19th and 20th centuries.

“I’m not sure what it means, given that it seems to be sort of fluctuating over time and over cases in ways that again makes you concerned that the rules change as the desired outcomes change,” Kagan said of originalism.

Kagan said that originalism “does not work so well” in part because it is difficult for judges to find definitive legal answers from historical evidence that may support either side. Kagan cited as examples the disputes that led to the court’s rulings in 2008 and last June expanding the right for people to possess handguns both at home and in public.

In addition, Kagan said originalism is “inconsistent” with the way the Constitution was written.

Its framers wrote broad, even vague, statements of protection such as “due process of law” or “equal protection of the laws” in order to account for a changing world, Kagan said.

“They knew the country would change,” Kagan said. “They knew a Constitution was meant to survive for the ages.”

The court’s next term begins in October and includes more major cases including conservative challenges to affirmative action policies used by colleges and universities to increase the number of Black and Hispanic students on their campuses. President Joe Biden’s recent appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson has joined Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in the court’s liberal bloc.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

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RENO, Nev. (AP) — Robert Bigelow, a Las Vegas-based hotel magnate, has always had a cause.

For decades, he invested his hotel profits into UFO research, creating his own aerospace company while lobbying senators to fund additional research. More recently, he offered nearly $1 million in prizes for a contest to show consciousness after death, part of his newer interest in the afterlife.

Now Bigelow, 78, has become the largest donor this cycle in Nevada’s midterm gubernatorial race, donating $5.7 million through his companies to the campaign for Nevada GOP gubernatorial nominee Joe Lombardo and to political action committees supporting him. The race has implications for inflation policy, reproductive rights and the Democrats’ hold on the Legislature.

Bigelow’s donations give a lifeline to a Republican challenger who is spending more and fundraising less than the Democratic incumbent. As of the latest filings, Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak leads Lombardo, the Clark County sheriff, in cash-on-hand $10.78 million to $1.2 million, which includes direct contributions to their campaigns but does not account for donations to political action committees, which make up the bulk of Bigelow’s donations in support of Lombardo.

PACs are required to operate independently from candidates, meaning they can raise money for candidates but aren’t allowed to coordinate with the their campaigns.

Bigelow has made his wealth through his extended-stay apartment chain Budget Suites of America, which he has used to fund his UFO research. He was also a vocal critic of the federal eviction moratorium, calling it “legalized theft” as some tenants didn’t pay rent, and he filed 46 eviction actions at the height of the pandemic. He lamented Sisolak’s statewide closure of nonessential businesses early in the pandemic, which he said sank his aerospace company.

Bigelow’s political and social influence in Nevada has long been pronounced, most notably in his UFO research that is now shifting toward afterlife research. In an interview with The Associated Press, he said that UFOs are “under our noses” and wondered why news organizations have not extensively covered UFO sightings.

But Bigelow, a staunch Republican, said his interest in UFOs and the afterlife is not related to his current political donations.

“Number one, honesty in government. That’s the foundation,” Bigelow said of his priorities. “Liberalism, that’s a cancer. And we have U.S. senators and representatives that need to go. And the second would be a philosophy of freedom — a philosophy of free enterprise and freedom for everybody.”

He called Sisolak a “puppet” to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is a frequent target of Republican politicians. And he likened Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to a young Ronald Reagan, saying that he hopes the Republican runs for president in the future after he bucked other states’ approach of issuing COVID-19 emergency protective orders during the pandemic. Earlier this summer, Bigelow donated $10 million to DeSantis-backed political action committees, making him the largest individual donor to DeSantis’ reelection race as well.

For decades, Bigelow has invested millions in UFO research with money he has made from his hotel and real estate business. He has also pushed it in politics. He once convinced his friend and then-U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat, to allocate $22 million to a secretive program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification program, which investigated reports of UFOs from 2007 through 2012. Much of the money went to Bigelow’s company to investigate and the allocation was not made public until a 2017 New York Times investigation. The Pentagon said the program shut down in 2012, though Reid later said he had no regrets about the funding.

Bigelow said he considered Reid a good friend, though toward the end of Reid’s tenure in the Senate, they maintained that friendship by not talking politics.

Since shifting his focus toward the afterlife, he has founded the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies and offered nearly $1 million in prizes last year for a contest that shows “the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death.”

Bigelow donated $5.5 million to PACs supporting Lombardo this cycle — $3.5 million to Better Nevada PAC, which has financed pro-Lombardo ads, and $2 million to Stronger Nevada PAC, which transferred money to Better Nevada PAC. Through 39 donations of $5,000 each through his companies, he donated $195,000 directly to the Clark County sheriff.

The Nevada contributions have provided a talking point for Sisolak, who has tied Bigelow’s support for Lombardo to the housing crisis in Nevada, referencing Bigelow’s pandemic evictions.

“While the governor is fighting for housing affordability, creating good paying jobs and making historic investments to support hardworking families, Joe Lombardo is siding with the Ultra Wealthy, standing with his campaign’s single largest donor — a billionaire who got rich off of evicting families during the pandemic,” spokesperson Reeves Oyster said in a statement last month.

Lombardo’s campaign did not respond to email requests for comment.

Lombardo has been vastly outraised by Sisolak in direct contributions, which is common for a challenger facing an incumbent. Sisolak has raised the second-highest amount in direct contributions for a Nevada gubernatorial campaign since 2000 and he’s on pace to break his own 2018 record, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks political spending.

“Overall, challengers do need to spend in order to overcome the incumbency advantage,” said Christina Ladam, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nevada-Reno, in an email. “While Joe Lombardo was a familiar name in the Vegas area, he was less well known in northern Nevada. Sisolak does not need to spend as much in terms of getting name recognition.”

Still, Lombardo has outspent Sisolak this year — $3.1 million to about $727,000 as of the latest filing date — after facing a crowded primary field.

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Stern is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercover issues. Follow Stern on Twitter https://twitter.com/gabestern326

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By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Tom Barrack, the investor and onetime fundraiser for former U.S. President Donald Trump, will go on trial next week in a case that will provide a rare test of a century-old law requiring agents for other countries to notify the government.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn say Barrack worked for the United Arab Emirates to influence Trump’s campaign and administration between 2016 and 2018 to advance the Middle Eastern country’s interests.

According to a July 2021 indictment, prosecutors have emails and text messages that show UAE officials gave Barrack input about what to say in television interviews, what then-candidate Trump should say in a 2016 energy policy speech, and who should be appointed ambassador to Abu Dhabi.

Prosecutors said neither Barrack, nor his former assistant Matthew Grimes, nor Rashid Al Malik – the person prosecutors identified as an intermediary with UAE officials – told the U.S. Attorney General they were acting as UAE agents as required under federal law.

Barrack, who chaired Trump’s inauguration committee when he took office in January 2017, and Grimes pleaded not guilty. Jury selection in their trial begins on Sept. 19. Al Malik is at large.

The federal law in question was passed as part of the 1917 Espionage Act to combat resistance to the World War I draft.

Known as the 951 law based on its section of the U.S. Code, it requires anyone who “agrees to operate within the United States subject to the direction or control of a foreign government” to notify the Attorney General.

The law was once mainly used against traditional espionage, but more 951 cases in recent years have – like Barrack’s – targeted lobbying and influence operations.

But the use of the law in those types of cases has rarely been tested at trial, because most have ended in guilty pleas or remain open because the defendants are overseas.

KNOWLEDGE AND INTENT

Barrack’s lawyers have said the U.S. State Department, and Trump himself, knew of his contacts with Middle East officials, showing Barrack did not have the intent to be a foreign agent.

The lawyers also said Barrack never agreed to represent UAE interests and that his interactions with UAE officials were part of his role running Colony Capital, a private equity firm now known as DigitalBridge Group Inc.

But prosecutors have said an agreement to act as an agent “need not be contractual or formalized” to violate section 951.

The results of recent 951 trials have been mixed. In August, a California jury convicted former Twitter Inc employee Ahmad Abouammo of spying for the Saudi government. In 2019, a Virginia jury convicted Bijan Rafiekian, a former director at the U.S. Export-Import Bank, of acting as a Turkish agent. A judge later overturned that verdict and granted Rafiekian a new trial, saying the evidence suggested he did not intend to be an agent. Prosecutors are appealing that ruling.

“What it comes down to is the person’s knowledge and intent,” said Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor who handled foreign agent cases as Detroit’s top federal prosecutor from 2010 to 2017. “That’s the tricky part.”

Barrack resigned as DigitalBridge’s chief executive in 2020 and as its executive chairman in April 2021. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

If convicted of the charge in the 951 law, Barrack and Grimes could face up to 10 years in prison, though any sentence would be determined by a judge based on a range of factors. Convictions on a related conspiracy charge could add five years to their sentences.

Barrack potentially faces additional time if convicted on other charges against him.

‘SERIOUS SECURITY RISKS’

Barrack’s trial will focus on allegations that during Trump’s presidential transition and the early days of his administration, the UAE and its close ally Saudi Arabia tried to win U.S. support for their blockade of Gulf rival Qatar and to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

Prosecutors said Barrack also gave UAE officials nonpublic information about potential appointees to Trump administration posts, and made false statements to investigators.

Barrack’s conduct “presented serious security risks,” prosecutors said.

A UAE official said in a statement the country “respects the sovereignty of states and their laws” and has “enduring ties” with the United States.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Middle East fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute in Houston, said that while the UAE and Saudi Arabia are U.S. security partners, Trump’s perceived disregard for traditional government processes may have enticed them to establish back channels to advance their interests.

“It was in violation of the norms of international diplomacy,” Coates Ulrichsen said. “If it’s proven, it was also a case of actual foreign intervention in U.S. politics.”

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Ghaida Ghantous and Alexander Cornwell in Dubai; Editing by Amy Stevens and Grant McCool)

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(Reuters) – California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday he had signed a bill into law requiring transparency of social media companies, a move that could draw criticism from tech firms and industry groups.

The law, AB-587, will require social media companies to publicly post their policies regarding hate speech, disinformation, harassment and extremism on their platforms, and report data on their enforcement of the policies.

Last year, the governor of Texas signed a bill prohibiting social media firms from restricting users or their posts based on their viewpoint. The Supreme Court in May blocked the law, after technology industry groups sued.

“California will not stand by as social media is weaponized to spread hate and disinformation that threaten our communities and foundational values as a country,” Newsom said in a statement.

The latest measure is expected to bring transparency and accountability to the policies that shape social media content, Newsom added.

(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; editing by Jason Neely)

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By Joseph Ax and Jason Lange

(Reuters) – Moderate members of the U.S. House of Representatives are leaving office at twice the rate of their more partisan peers this year, a Reuters analysis found, likely deepening Washington gridlock during President Joe Biden’s next two years in office.

The number of incumbent House members retiring or who lost a party nomination contest is at a three-decade high after a once-a-decade redistricting process that eliminated more than a dozen of the country’s dwindling number of competitive districts.

    Now all 50 states have finished their nominating contests, 13 of Congress’s 50 most centrist members – about one in four – did not seek reelection or lost their primary, ensuring they will leave office at year’s end. By comparison, only one-eighth of other incumbents will not appear on the Nov. 8 ballot, with the majority running in politically safe districts.

The candidates who take their place won’t be known until after the midterm election, when Republicans are favored to win a majority in the House, but in many cases their potential successors show signs of being further from the middle.

One driving factor is gerrymandering, the practice by which lawmakers in states controlled by a single party manipulate redistricting to create politically safe House districts. Another is former President Donald Trump, who worked to push from office Republicans who voted to impeach him following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“The lack of competitive seats has helped accentuate that trend,” said Peter Meijer, a Michigan Republican who voted to impeach Trump and lost his primary to a far-right challenger. “It’s really easy from the safety of a deep red or a deep blue seat to cast stones.”

‘MORE GRIDLOCKED’

The Reuters analysis employed a measure developed by political scientists known as DW-Nominate, which scores every representative’s voting record to determine the most moderate members.

The share of moderates heading for the door this year is unusually high. For elections held between 2012 and 2020, only about one in eight moderate incumbents opted not to seek reelection or lost their primaries.

The result could accelerate a decades-long trend that has seen the House grow increasingly polarized, lengthening the odds of bipartisan efforts to address thorny challenges such as shoring up Social Security and Medicare, the welfare programs for seniors that face severe fiscal challenges.

“Politics is going to be more gridlocked,” said Doug Spencer, an expert on elections and redistricting at the University of Colorado.

The narrowly Democratic-controlled Congress over the past two years passed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and its first gun control bill in decades in bipartisan votes. But Democrats also passed a $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill in March 2021 and $430 billion climate and drug pricing bill using a parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation that let them bypass Republican objections in the Senate.

Whichever party is in control, the Congress that convenes on Jan. 3 will need to make prompt decisions on fiscal matters, including raising the U.S. government’s borrowing authority beyond its current $31.4 trillion limit, which it is expected to reach early next year.

Without a debt limit increase, Washington would face a potential default that would shake the global economy.

GERRYMANDERING

In interviews, several moderates leaving office said their decisions were motivated by factors including gerrymandering, which has made it less politically valuable to appeal to voters from both major parties.

More than four-fifths of the House’s 435 districts as they now stand were won by Biden or Trump by more than 10 percentage points in 2020, making it harder for a lawmaker from the other party to mount a viable campaign. That drove some members of Congress, such as Tennessee Democrat Jim Cooper, to choose not to seek reelection at all.

Tom Suozzi, a moderate Democrat from New York who opted to run for governor rather than seek re-election, said gerrymandering was producing more ideologically radical caucuses.

“The only way to lose the safe seat is to lose the primary,” he said. “Republicans pander to the far right, Democrats pander to the far left. And that’s why there’s very little moderation or compromise available.”

Suozzi has been a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of moderate lawmakers. The progressive Democrat running in the race to replace him, Robert Zimmerman, has criticized the group for being too close to Republicans.

Stephanie Murphy, a Florida Democrat and a leading centrist, is retiring from the House at age 43, saying she wants to spend more time with her young children. She said she believes both parties have become less tolerant of dissent.

“The reason, I think, you see more attrition among moderate members is they take incoming from both sides,” she said, adding that she faced attacks from both liberal and conservative groups in previous campaigns.

Republican control of the House would create divided government, with Biden’s Democrats having a harder time advancing legislation.

The push by Trump-backed candidates echoes the 2010 midterms, when small-government Tea Party activists drove massive Republican gains in Congress while moving the party further to the right.

With Democrat Barack Obama in the White House, the two parties courted fiscal disaster when they nearly allowed the federal government to default on its debt payments, prompting the first-ever downgrade to U.S. sovereign debt and shaking financial markets.

Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Democrat and a leading centrist who is retiring this year, said the Jan. 6 attack only deepened distrust between the parties, with many Democrats unwilling to work with Republicans who voted against certifying Biden’s victory based on Trump’s false claims of fraud.

“We’ve got to get something done, and that requires us to work with people who you don’t always agree with their votes,” she said.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York and by Jason Lange and Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)

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By Jason Lange and Tim Reid

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The unexpected rise in inflation reported on Tuesday was an unwelcome blow for President Joe Biden’s Democrats, but a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Democratic voters just as enthusiastic as their Republican counterparts, pointing to a potentially close contest in November’s elections.

Republicans remain favored to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives – with the Senate on a knife-edge – amid widespread dissatisfaction with Biden’s presidency and months of sharp price increases that the poll showed remain the top concern for Republican and Democratic voters alike.

Labor Department data showed consumer prices rose a tenth of a point in August, confounding analysts’ expectations for a decrease. The rise was fueled by higher prices for food, rent and healthcare.

The results of a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, however, show Democrats appear just as eager to vote as Republicans, running counter to expectations that a weak economy would depress enthusiasm in the president’s party, said Daron Shaw, an expert on polling and elections at the University of Texas at Austin.

Some 63% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans say they are completely certain they will vote in November, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Sept. 7-12. In a Jan 31-Feb 7 poll, 55% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans said they were certain. The similar levels of certainty in the latest poll suggest neither side may have an edge in voter turnout.

“Basically this points to a really close race,” Shaw said.

The poll, which gathered responses from 4,411 U.S. adults, had a credibility interval of between 2 and 5 percentage points, meaning that the enthusiasm gap between the two parties is too small to tell who has the edge.

Democrats will be defending an 11-seat advantage in the House, while the 100-member Senate is split 50-50 between the two parties.

Of respondents in the new poll, 37% said they planned to vote for a Democrat in their congressional district, compared to 34% for Republicans. Fifteen percent were undecided.

Political experts still see Republicans as having the better odds of controlling the House next year, in part because decades of elections have shown that the party in the White House typically loses seats during midterm elections.

`A DRAMATIC CONTRAST`

Democrats are struggling against major headwinds this year – Biden’s poor popularity and the Ukraine war, which has helped to push inflation to 40-year highs. Republicans have seized on inflation to hammer Democrats on the campaign trail and in television ads, blaming it on higher federal spending by Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress.

“No issue defines the terms of this election as clearly as high prices for energy, groceries and other staple goods,” said Republican strategist John Ashbrook.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said inflation was America’s biggest problem, with 20% of Democrats and 37% of Republicans selecting it from a list of issues in the poll. Respondents picked Republicans over Democrats – 37% to 26% – as the party with a better plan to fight inflation.

Most respondents said the root cause of inflation was related to economic disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic or Ukraine war, a view shared by many economists, while only a third said federal government spending was the driver.

One factor behind Democratic enthusiasm appears to be outrage over a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that ended the right to an abortion. Another is angst over Donald Trump’s influence over U.S. politics, including his endorsement of Republican candidates who deny that Biden won the 2020 election.

One in five Democrats in the poll said America’s biggest problem was political extremism or changes to abortion laws.

Democrats believe the advantage Republicans enjoyed for most of the year because of inflation has been blunted by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling restricting abortion rights, Trump’s continued false claims about the 2020 election and his deepening legal problems, and recent legislative wins for Biden on drug costs and climate change.

Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist, also pointed to Biden’s recent speech slamming Trump and his followers as extremists.

“It’s such a dramatic contrast,” Finney said. “That is mobilizing voters.”

(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington and Tim Reid in Los Angeles, editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)

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