Tag: P

PGA Tour is sending 2 executives to a Senate hearing as LIV cites conflicts

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Two leading figures for the PGA Tour have agreed to testify next week before a Senate panel reviewing the tour’s surprise agreement with the Saudi backers of LIV Golf.

The panel will have to wait to hear from LIV CEO Greg Norman and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi Arabian national wealth fund behind the rival circuit.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said Ron Price, the PGA Tour’s chief operating officer, and board member Jimmy Dunne have agreed to appear July 11.

Now that the PGA Tour and European tour have a deal with the Saudis, one step is deciding how players can return from LIV Golf if they so choose.

A Senate subcommittee is asking executives from the PGA Tour, Saudi golf interests and LIV Golf to testify as Congress investigates the shocking business deal that upended the sport.

The leader of a Senate subcommittee wants the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf to present records about negotiations that led to their new agreement and plans for what golf will look like under the arrangement.

$FILE - Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., speaks during a news conference on Feb. 16, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Sen. Blumenthal is expected to be discharged from a hospital following surgery on a minor leg fracture he suffered during a victory parade for the national champion University of Connecticut men’s basketball team over the weekend. A spokesperson for the 77-year-old Connecticut Democrat says he will be released from Stamford Hospital on Monday, April 10 after having surgery on his upper femur Sunday. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)$

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal was expected to be discharged from a hospital Monday following what he called successful surgery on a minor leg fracture he suffered during a victory parade for the national champion University of Connecticut men’s basketball team over the weekend.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who chairs the panel, and ranking member Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Norman and Al-Rumayyan cited scheduling conflicts as to why they would not be able to appear.

LIV Golf is playing outside London this week. Its next tournament is not until early August.

“We appreciate the PGA Tour working with us and look forward to a robust, thoughtful exchange with both Ron Price and Jimmy Dunne on July 11, focusing on the details and background of this deal and what it means for this cherished American institution,” Blumenthal and Johnson said in a joint statement.

They said they regret Al-Rumayyan and Norman’s schedules will keep them from the hearing because “they have valuable information to share about the operations of the Public Investment Fund, the future of LIV Golf, and Saudi Arabia’s plans to invest in golf and other sports.”

“Consistent with our subcommittee’s practice, we look forward to working with both witnesses to find a mutually agreeable date for them to appear in the very near future,” they said.

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan stepped away with a “medical situation” on June 13 and turned over day-to-day operations to Price and Tyler Dennis, the president of the PGA Tour.

The New York Times said LIV instead offered Gary Davidson, who is acting chief operating officer of LIV. It cited a person familiar with LIV’s thinking as saying Davidson was more involved in the league’s day-to-day operations and the ramifications of the deal.

Norman was not involved in the seven weeks of negotiations that led to the framework agreement, in which the PIF, PGA Tour and European tour would pool commercial businesses and rights in a separate for-profit company.

Neither was Price. The only people involved in the deal were Al-Rumayyan, Monahan and PGA Tour board members Dunne and Ed Herlihy.

The title of the hearing is, “The PGA-LIV Deal: Implications for the Future of Golf and Saudi Arabia’s Influence in the United States.”

Blumenthal had said the panel wants to find out what went into the agreement.

“Americans deserve to know what the structure and governance of this new entity will be,” Blumenthal said last week in asking for the hearing. “Major actors in the deal are best positioned to provide this information, and they owe Congress — and the American people — answers in a public setting.”

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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July 3, 2023
New Jersey’s other wind farm developer wants government breaks, too; says project ‘at risk’

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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — A company approved to build New Jersey’s third offshore wind farm says it, too, wants government financial incentives, saying its project and the jobs it would create are “at risk” without the additional help.

Atlantic Shores issued a statement Friday, shortly after New Jersey lawmakers approved a tax break for Danish wind developer Orsted, which has approval to build two wind farms off the state’s coast.

Elaborating on Monday, the Atlantic City-based Atlantic Shores said it has contacted the offices of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, and leaders of the state Senate and Assembly, saying it seeks a “solution that stabilizes all awarded projects.”

The federal government has given the go-ahead for New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm to begin construction.

The CEO of United Airlines is apologizing for jumping on a private plane this week while thousands of his airline’s customers were stranded because their flights got canceled.

A bill to extend internet gambling in New Jersey for another five years is in the hands of Gov. Phil Murphy following its approval by the state Legislature.

A bill to let Danish offshore wind energy developer Orsted keep tax credits that it otherwise would have to return to New Jersey ratepayers was approved by the slimmest of margins in the state Legislature Friday afternoon.

It remains to be seen how the request will be received by lawmakers. The tax bill passed by a single vote Friday.

Atlantic Shores did not say precisely what sort of assistance it wants, and refused to publicly clarify its request, or discuss the likelihood of being able to complete the project with its current financing.

The tax break approved by lawmakers on Friday only applies to Ocean Wind I, the first of Orsted’s two New Jersey projects. It also does not apply to Atlantic Shores.

“To establish a durable, thriving, full-scale offshore wind industry in New Jersey, we need an industry-wide solution, one that stabilizes all current projects including Atlantic Shores Project 1, the largest offshore wind project in the state of New Jersey and third largest project awarded in the United States,” the company said in its Friday statement.

The company did not explicitly say it cannot build and operate its project without further financial aid. But it did hint that outcome is possible without “immediate action.”

“Tens of thousands of real, well-paid and unionized jobs are at risk,” it said. “Hundreds of millions in infrastructure investments will be forgone without a path forward.”

Atlantic Shores is a joint partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF-RE Offshore Development, LLC.

The company said that while the bill approved Friday — which awaits action by the governor — will help its manufacturing partner EEW American Offshore Structures build the large monopiles that will support Atlantic Shores’ wind turbines, “we need immediate action that also supports the Atlantic Shores Project 1 to keep these commitments within reach.”

The governor’s office declined to comment, and state Senate and Assembly political leadership did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

Lawmakers said the Orsted bill was necessary to help offshore wind projects deal with what they called lingering effects of inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The vote went largely along party lines, with Democrats, who hold the governorship and control both houses of the Legislature, supporting it as necessary to ensure that a source of green energy gets built. Republicans panned it as a wasteful gift to companies whose projects are not economically viable without further costs to ratepayers.

Atlantic Shores said it is competing against “other states and major economies” all vying to build offshore wind projects.

New Jersey energy regulators approved Atlantic Shores’ 1,510 megawatt project in 2021. It would generate enough electricity to power 637,000 homes.

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Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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July 3, 2023
Wider than websites? LGBTQ+ advocates fear broader discrimination after Supreme Court ruling

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A new U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing a Colorado Christian graphic artist to refuse to work with same-sex couples has LGBTQIA+ people across the country worried about just how far the consequences will reach.

The high court’s conservative majority sided with Lorie Smith, a designer of wedding websites for heterosexual couples who argued that a ruling against her would force writers, painters, musicians and other artists to do work that is against their beliefs. Opponents warned that a win for Smith would allow a range of businesses to discriminate, refusing to serve Black, Jewish or Muslim customers, interracial or interfaith couples or immigrants.

“We’re treading into some weird territory as people. We’re starting to become the ‘Morality Police,’ and that’s not freedom as far as I am concerned,” Dallas Lyn Miller-Downes, a queer visual artist and activist based in Portland, Oregon, said Friday, hours after the court’s 6-3 ruling. “What I am scared of is that this goes beyond the art. Where do we stop with this?”

One of the court’s liberal justices wrote in a dissent that the decision’s effect is to “mark gays and lesbians for second-class status” and that it opens the door to other discrimination.

In Topeka, Kansas, where several dozen people gathered Friday for a transgender rights rally, Kirby Evers, a 31-year-old bisexual Lawrence resident, said the ruling will make people more comfortable being openly rude or using slurs, particularly to trans people.

He called the Supreme Court “compromised by fascists,” adding, “They’re going to do as much destruction to our Constitution as possible.”

Raiden Gonzalez, a 22-year-old gay Salina, Kansas, resident participating in the rally, said he’s regularly gotten looks over how he walks and talks — and brusque treatment in stores and school, even occasionally from teachers.

“People in the LGBTQ community should be scared of this,” he said.

Miller-Downes said the ruling feels like just another way art is being used as a weapon against the queer community — with drag artists banned in some parts of the country and LGBTQ+ customers at risk of being banned from artistic businesses in others.

“Art should inspire people, heal people and start conversations. We should be known for how we love, not who we exclude — that’s a morality I can stand behind as a Christian and an artist,” Miller-Downes said. “We need to, as a society, celebrate businesses owned by marginalized people so other marginalized people, queer people, know where to get help.”

Legal analysts on both sides of the issue have said the decision is narrow and won’t apply to most businesses. Jennifer C. Pizer, the chief legal officer for Lambda Legal, said in a statement that the ruling applies specifically to businesses that create original artwork and pure speech, and then offer that work as limited commissions.

Still, she said, the ruling continued the court majority’s “dangerous siren call to those trying to return the country to the social and legal norms of the Nineteenth Century.”

Sarah Warbelow, legal director at Human Rights Campaign, said Friday’s ruling does not dismantle the public accommodations laws that protect people based on sexual orientation and gender identity in 22 states.

Those states can still enforce their nondiscrimination laws for employment, housing and buying goods that are not highly customizable with speech, she said. For instance, someone preparing for a same-sex marriage could still buy a wedding gown customized with colors.

But Warbelow said the ruling also opens the door to businesses being allowed to discriminate against people for reasons other than sexual orientation, like religion.

Many conservative religious leaders welcomed the ruling, including Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy wing.

“If the government can compel an individual to speak a certain way or create certain things, that’s not freedom — it’s subjugation. And that is precisely what the state of Colorado wanted,” said Leatherwood.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for greater LGBTQ+ acceptance in the Catholic Church, said the decision “dangerously allows religious beliefs to be weaponized for discrimination.”

“Religion should be a tool to help unite people across ideological lines, not cause greater isolation into camps that oppose one another,” he said.

Christine Zuba, a transgender woman from Blackwood, New Jersey, has been active in seeking to increase acceptance of trans people in the Catholic Church. She said the justices who made the “extremely disappointing and concerning” ruling were “naïve” to think the decision wouldn’t lead to discrimination against other groups as well.

While some small businesses could use the ruling to stop serving some customers, they should be aware that there will be repercussions, said Gene Marks, owner of The Marks Group, a small business consulting firm in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

“If you’re a business and you’re going to turn down customers just because they’re different or your religion doesn’t support their style of life, fair enough, but it’s going to be a loss of revenue to you not only from that customer, but also from their friends, their family, their community,” he said. “And it can also be potentially bad press regardless of how the Supreme Court rules.”

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AP journalists Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; David Crary and Mae Anderson in New York; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; and Jessica Gresko in Washington contributed to this story. Boone reported from Boise, Idaho.

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July 2, 2023
An anti-Trump video shared by the DeSantis campaign is ‘homophobic,’ says a conservative LGBT group

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NEW YORK (AP) — A prominent group that represents LGBT conservatives says a video shared by Ron DeSantis ′ presidential campaign that slams rival Donald Trump for his past support of gay and transgender people “ventured into homophobic territory.”

The “DeSantis War Room” Twitter account shared the video on Friday — the last day of June’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month — that features footage of Trump at the Republican National Convention in 2016 saying he would “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.” Trump had been pledging protection from terrorist attacks weeks after the shootings at the Pulse Nightclub, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at that time.

The video also highlights “LGBTQ for Trump” T-shirts sold by the former president’s campaign and his past comments saying he would be comfortable with Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic decathlete who came out as a transgender woman in 2015, using any bathroom at Trump Tower and OK with transgender women competing one day in the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at the time of those remarks.

South Carolina’s heavily Republican Upstate is a popular stop for presidential candidates trying to attract support for the first-in-the-South primary in 2024.

The two leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination have courted conservative women at the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia .

A federal judge has rejected former President Donald Trump’s request that he dismiss a New York columnist’s defamation claims against him on grounds that he is entitled to absolute presidential immunity.

Three Florida men have been charged with making $22 million through illegal insider trading before the public announcement that an acquisition firm was going to take former President Donald Trump’s media company public.

The video then suddenly veers in a different direction, accompanied by dark, thumping music and images of DeSantis, the Florida governor who is trailing Trump by wide margins in the polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

It promotes headlines that DeSantis signed “the most extreme slate of anti-trans laws in modern history” and a “draconian anti-trans bathroom bill.” The images are spliced together with footage of muscular, shirtless men and several Hollywood actors, including Brad Pitt, seen wearing a leather mask from the movie “Troy.”

“To wrap up ‘Pride Month,’ let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it,” the DeSantis campaign tweeted.

The video drew immediate criticism from prominent LGBTQ+ Republicans, including the Log Cabin Republicans, which bills itself as the nation’s “largest Republican organization dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives.”

“Today’s message from the DeSantis campaign War Room is divisive and desperate. Republicans and other commonsense conservatives know Ron Desantis has alienated swing-state and younger voters,” the group said in a tweet, adding that DeSantis’ “extreme rhetoric goes has just ventured into homophobic territory.”

The group said his “rhetoric will lose hard-fought gains in critical races across the nation. This old playbook has been tried in the past and has failed — repeatedly.” The post said DeSantis’ “naive policy positions are dangerous and politically stupid.”

Jenner accused DeSantis’ campaign of using “horribly divisive tactics!”

“DeSantis has hit a new low,” Jenner wrote on Twitter.

Representatives of the DeSantis campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.

But Christina Pushaw, the campaign’s rapid response director, said in a tweet Friday night that, “Opposing the federal recognition of ‘Pride Month’ isn’t ‘homophobic.’ We wouldn’t support a month to celebrate straight people for sexual orientation, either… It’s unnecessary, divisive, pandering.“

The video comes as Republicans have been wading into increasingly hostile anti-LGBTQ+ territory, attacking Pride month celebrations, trying to ban displays of rainbow Pride flags and passing legislation to limit drag shows, along with broad attacks on transgender rights.

That rhetoric has seeped into the GOP presidential campaign, taking a prominent role that had been absent during recent past competitive primaries, including in 2016, when Trump, a New York reality TV star, generally presented himself as a supporter of LGBT rights.

DeSantis leaned in on anti-LGBTQ+ legislation as he prepared to jump into the 2024 White House race. He signed legislation banning classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades, banned gender-affirming care for minors, targeted drag shows, restricted discussion of personal pronouns in schools and forced people to use bathrooms that align with the sex assigned at birth. DeSantis also went after President Joe Biden for prominently displaying the Pride flag at the White House last month.

Trump himself pledged in a speech Friday that if elected, he would sign executive orders on his first day in office to cut federal money for any school pushing “transgender insanity” and to instruct federal agencies “to cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age.” Hospitals and health care providers offering gender-affirming care for minors should be deemed in violation of federal health and safety standards and lose federal funding, he said.

Both Trump and DeSantis have also railed against transgender women participating in women’s sports and have referred to gender-affirming care for minors as “mutilation.”

At Trump’s rally in Pickens, South Carolina, on Saturday, the crowd booed when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., referenced to Pride month.

“The rainbow belongs to God,” she said.

While such rhetoric appeals to the party’s conservative base, it risks alienating the more moderate and swing voters who generally decide the outcomes of general elections.

The video, originally posted by the pro-DeSantis “@ProudElephantUS” account, was shared hours after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that a Christian graphic artist who wants to design wedding websites can refuse to work with same-sex couples.

The decision marked a major defeat for gay rights, with one of the court’s liberal justices writing in a dissent that the decision’s effect would be to “mark gays and lesbians for second-class status.”

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July 2, 2023
R.I.P tootsie.

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Just lost my oldest cat tootsie today bros. Some people say they’re just animals ,but they come into your life and bring you love and happiness that they become apart of your family. She was a great cat and i just wanted to show you guys a picture of her. She will be missed. Thanks.

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June 30, 2023
Non-US citizens would be eligible to teach in Pennsylvania under a bill passed by the state House

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Non-U.S. citizens would be able to teach in Pennsylvania classrooms in a measure passed by the state House of Representatives on Monday.

The bill passed 110-93. It now goes on to the state Senate, which is considering its own version of the measure.

The legislation would allow teachers with a valid immigrant visa, work visa or employment authorization documentation to be eligible for certification to teach in Pennsylvania schools.

The International African American Museum will soon open in Charleston, South Carolina, at one of the country’s most historically significant slave-trading ports.

Russian forces have destroyed or damaged thousands of Ukrainian schools. But the disruption to education goes far beyond devastated buildings.

The first-grade teacher who was shot by her 6-year-old student in Virginia no longer works for the school system that employed her.

Exiting from the pandemic, the assumption might be students who returned quickly to in-person learning might be the least scathed academically.

Currently, the state prohibits non-U.S. citizens from teaching unless they are applying to teach a foreign language or have a green card and have documented their intent to become a citizen. Additionally, young immigrants, who are living in the country undocumented and are protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and can legally work, are not eligible for teacher certification in the state.

Sponsors for the bill say it will help offset the decline in teachers — with fewer new teachers certifying and higher teacher attrition in the state. It also would help chip away at the gap between the percentage of students of color and teachers of color, sponsors said.

“Let’s as a collective tackle this growing problem and let’s continue to eliminate some of these barriers that don’t apply to most careers in the Commonwealth, let alone in the United States,” said the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz, a Democrat from Berks County. “We have so many people that are qualified.”

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June 27, 2023
Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting law is upheld again, as court rules against Republican challenge

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania state court on Tuesday rejected the latest Republican effort to throw out the presidential battleground state’s broad mail-in voting law that has become a GOP target following former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about election fraud.

It is the latest of several refusals by a state court to invalidate Pennsylvania’s 2019 mail-in voting law, enacted barely months before the COVID-19 pandemic began and Trump began attacking mail-in voting.

In the lawsuit filed last year, 14 current and former Republican state lawmakers said the court must invalidate the law because two earlier court decisions triggered a provision written that says the law is “void” if any of its requirements are struck down in court.

Gov. Josh Shapiro is trying to wrap up his first budget by Saturday’s start of the new fiscal year, as the Democrat works to balance Pennsylvania’s politically divided Legislature.

A Pennsylvania state trooper who was shot and killed earlier this month when he went to work on his day off after learning his barracks had been attacked by an armed man was lauded during his funeral as a hero who only wanted to serve his community.

Spurred on by train derailments, some states crisscrossed by busy freight railroads aren’t waiting for federal action to improve safety.

Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride says she’s running for the U.S. House of Representatives. Already the first openly transgender state senator elected in the country, she’d be the first trans member of Congress if she wins in November.

The law has a requirement that voters must hand-write a date on the outer envelope of their mail-in ballot in order for the ballot to be counted. The Republicans argued that the two earlier court decisions refused to enforce the hand-written date requirement — meaning the law should be thrown out.

But the Commonwealth Court, in a 24-page opinion, unanimously found that the court decisions did not invalidate “the dating provision” of the law. It dismissed the lawsuit, in favor of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration and the national and state Democratic parties.

Democrats hailed the ruling for protecting the opportunity to vote by mail. Shapiro’s administration said over the past three years, more than 7.5 million Pennsylvanians have voted by mail.

“We are pleased that today’s court ruling allows all eligible voters to continue exercising their fundamental right to vote using this secure, accessible method,” Shapiro’s administration said in a statement.

Greg Teufel, the lawyer for the 14 Republican lawmakers, said he expects to appeal to the state Supreme Court, which has twice upheld the mail-in voting law against previous Republican-backed challenges.

In an interview, Teufel said he disagreed with the court’s rationale, saying that the court is ignoring the plain language of the law.

“They’re sidestepping a critical issue, just pretending they don’t see it,” Teufel said.

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On Twitter, follow Marc Levy at @timelywriter.

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June 27, 2023
Reappointment vote ends in partisan deadlock for battleground Wisconsin’s top elections official

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A vote on the future of Wisconsin’s top elections official ended in partisan deadlock Tuesday amid Republican calls for the nonpartisan administrator of the statewide elections commission to resign over how she ran the 2020 presidential contest.

A stalemate between elections commissioners on whether to reappoint Meagan Wolfe creates uncertainty over who will be in charge of elections in a battleground state so narrowly divided that four of the past six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a percentage point. Wolfe has staunchly defended the decisions she’s made and fought back against false claims of election fraud, including those made by former President Donald Trump.

“When your constituents challenge you about the integrity of Wisconsin elections, tell them the truth,” she wrote to lawmakers just days before the vote on her reappointment. “When people perpetuate false claims about our election systems, push back publicly. Election officials cannot carry the burden of educating the public on elections alone.”

Republican legislative leaders say there will be no substantive changes to the state budget, meaning that a cut in funding to the University of Wisconsin that puts the entire spending plan in jeopardy of being vetoed will remain.

The Republican-authored Wisconsin state budget includes a $3.5 billion income tax cut covering all income levels, a cut to the University of Wisconsin System and more money for public K-12 and private voucher schools.

Income taxes would be cut across the board by $3.5 billion under a plan passed by Republicans who control the Wisconsin Legislature’s budget-writing committee.

Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has signed a bipartisan bill that sends more money to Milwaukee and gives both the city and county the ability to raise the local sales tax in an effort to avoid bankruptcy.

The six members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission are evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Republican commissioners voted to reappoint Wolfe, but Democrats abstained from Tuesday’s vote for fear that reappointing her would allow the Republican-controlled state Senate to reject her confirmation. Commission actions require at least a four-vote majority.

“Meagan Wolfe is the best person to run our agency, and that’s why I’m abstaining. I will take my shots with the court rather than at the Senate,” Democratic Commissioner Mark Thomsen said.

The impasse means it could be months before commissioners or lawmakers choose someone to lead the elections agency through the 2024 presidential race and beyond, if they do so at all.

A recent Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling appears to allow Wolfe to continue as administrator, even after her term ends on Saturday. But relying on that decision, which has allowed Republican appointees to stay on state boards, raises unanswered legal questions.

“We are in unprecedented territory,” Wolfe said at a news conference after the vote. “I have a very clear intent here, and that is to make sure that our commission, our agency, our local election officials, that they have the stability they need as we move forward.”

Commission Chair Don Millis, a Republican, warned that having a holdover administrator would only decrease stability by encouraging conspiracy theorists and drawing questions about Wolfe’s authority during the 2024 election.

“It’s more than a bad look. It’s going to create problems for us and for elections officials across the state,” he said.

Wolfe has served as the state’s elections administrator since 2018 and has become one of the most respected elections leaders in the nation. Before defending her record in a letter to state lawmakers, she called on commissioners to vote for the option they believe offers the most stability for Wisconsin elections even if that’s not her.

If the commission eventually appoints Wolfe or someone else to replace her, they will need to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled state Senate.

Some Republican state senators have vowed to vote against reappointing Wolfe, who has sparred with them over election conspiracy theories on numerous occasions. If a commission appointee is rejected by the Senate, then commissioners would need to make a new appointment within 45 days or else a legislative committee controlled by Republicans could choose the next administrator.

Relatively few people meet the legal requirements or hold the experience necessary to serve as Wisconsin’s top elections official. An appointee for elections administrator cannot have ever worked in a partisan office or donated to a partisan campaign in the past year, and the state’s elections system is one of the most decentralized in the country.

The commission’s vote comes as a divided GOP struggles to move past election lies that Trump and his followers have promoted since his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020. Republican state lawmakers across the country have sought to expand their control over elections in recent years, and far-right candidates have won seats in local government with platforms built on election skepticism.

But by and large, election denialism has hurt the GOP. Most candidates in 2022 in swing states including Wisconsin who supported overturning Trump’s defeat lost. A draft Republican National Committee report obtained by The Associated Press earlier this year reviewing the party’s performance in recent elections called for candidates to stop “ relitigating previous elections.”

In Wisconsin, the outcome of the 2020 election has withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review, numerous state and federal lawsuits, and a Republican-ordered review that found no evidence of widespread fraud before the investigator was fired. The GOP-controlled Legislature has rejected attempts to decertify the results.

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Associated Press writer Scott Bauer contributed to this report.

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Harm Venhuizen 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 undercovered issues. Follow Harm on Twitter.

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June 27, 2023
NYC gets $25M for e-bike charging stations, seeking to prevent deadly battery fires

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NEW YORK (AP) — After a series of fires involving faulty e-bike batteries including a recent blaze that claimed four lives, New York City officials announced Sunday that they are receiving a $25 million emergency grant from the federal government to fund scores of charging stations citywide.

Mayor Eric Adams hopes the stations will provide a safer way for delivery workers, who rely on e-bikes to efficiently do their jobs, to recharge lithium batteries used to power their bicycles.

“This means that residents will no longer need to charge the e-bikes in their apartments — what we find to be extremely dangerous, particularly when you charge them overnight,” Adams said at a news conference Sunday. He was flanked by the state’s two U.S. senators who helped secure the funding from the US. Department of Transportation.

Washington next month will become the first U.S. state to deduct taxes from workers’ paychecks to finance a new long-term care benefit for residents who can’t live independently due to illness, injury or aging-related conditions like dementia.

Drivers in New York City will be charged extra in tolls to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street as part of a long-stalled congestion pricing plan.

New York’s former lieutenant governor and longtime civic leader Richard Ravitch has died at the age of 89.

New York City will add the festival of Diwali to the list of public school holidays in recognition of the growth of the city’s South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities.

The announcement comes after a lithium ion battery caught fire and engulfed an e-bike shop in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The fire and thick smoke spread to apartments above the shop, killing four people and injuring three others, including a responding firefighter.

In the days since, New York City officials sought the public’s help in cracking down on unsafe e-bike shops and fire officials issued at least 10 citations to shops for improper handling of the batteries.

City officials said they’d previously fined the shop for its e-bike charging practices, though inspectors reportedly did not check to see if the store was selling reconditioned batteries on a recent visit.

Under new guidelines, fire officials will be directed to respond to complaints about e-bike batteries within 12 hours, rather than the previous policy of three days.

New York City has seen over 100 fires and 13 deaths this year linked to e-bikes, more than double the total number of fatalities from last year, officials said.

The city has issued nearly 500 summonses related to e-bikes, which can result in fines between $1,000 and $5,000.

The batteries can overheat if defective or improperly charged.

Adams had announced in March that the city was working to establish charging stations. The grant would fund an initial 170 charging units in about 50 locations.

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, said the charging stations proved “new hope” to prevent “these fires that start from shoddy China-made lithium ion batteries and chargers,” he said during the press conference.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said she and Schumer were working on legislation to establish safety standards for batteries.

“If passed,” she said, “it would take improperly manufactured batteries off the market.”

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June 26, 2023
Saudi Arabia exits World Cup with newfound confidence

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LUSAIL, Qatar — From a generational-defining win over Lionel Messi and Argentina to the recent reports that Cristiano Ronaldo could soon be on his way to play soccer in the kingdom, Saudi Arabia has caused a sensation at the World Cup.

The Green Falcons have nothing to be ashamed about after being eliminated following a 2-1 loss to Mexico on Wednesday.

The second-lowest ranked team in the tournament at No. 51 — one spot behind host Qatar — and ahead of only 61st-ranked Ghana, Saudi Arabia was competitive from start to finish at the first World Cup in the Middle East.

“We did our best. Today it was more difficult for us,” said Hervé Renard, Saudi Arabia’s French coach. “But we don’t have to forget what we did together.”

The Saudis opened with a surprising 2-1 victory over Argentina and also played solidly in a 2-0 loss to Poland before conceding two second-half goals to Mexico to finish last in Group C.

Salem Al-Dawsari, the team’s star No. 10, pulled a goal back in added time, before the Saudi players bent over on the field at the final whistle in prayer and then stood up to applaud their fans.

Strong goalkeeping from Mohammed Al-Owais prevented Mexico from scoring another goal — which could have sent the South Americans through to the round of 16. Instead, it was Argentina and Poland who advanced in the most wide-open group of the tournament.

With Renard motivating the team in his emblematic white shirt on the sidelines, Saudi Arabia proved tough to beat with a team featuring all 26 players based at home.

The fact that none of the Saudis play abroad may have been a surprise factor but the reality is that the country’s best players don’t need to go to Europe for rich contracts when they are paid handsomely in the lucrative Saudi league.

A high-paying contract is exactly what could lure Ronaldo to join six members of the Saudi national team at Al Nassr, one of the country’s leading clubs.

The reports linking Ronaldo with Al Nassr come after the five-time Ballon d’Or winner had his contract terminated by Manchester United.

Saudi-controlled Newcastle is also reportedly in the market for Ronaldo.

But whether Ronaldo goes to a Saudi or Saudi-owned club or not, the country’s national team leaves Qatar with plenty of newfound confidence.

The performance could also help promote a possible joint bid by Saudi Arabia with Egypt and Greece to host the 2030 World Cup.

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Andrew Dampf is at https://twitter.com/AndrewDampf

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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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December 1, 2022