Second woman says Herschel Walker pressured her to have abortion

Lawyer Gloria Allred introduces woman as Jane Doe who alleges anti-abortion candidate drove her to a clinic in the 1990s

Another woman has claimed that Herschel Walker pressured her into having an abortion and drove her to a clinic to obtain one.

On Wednesday, lawyer Gloria Allred – who has represented numerous alleged victims of sexual misconduct and assault – introduced to reporters a woman who alleges Walker, the anti-abortion Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, took her to an abortion clinic to have an abortion in the 1990s.

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Fetterman’s performance in high-stakes Pennsylvania debate splits Democrats – live

Joe Biden is the oldest president ever inaugurated, and will turn 80 this year – but still plans to run for re-election, according to a reporter who recently interviewed the president, Martin Pengelly reports:

Joe Biden is “totally running” for a second term, the MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart has said, just days after interviewing the US president.

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Florida governor debate: DeSantis defends abortion ban with false claims

Charlie Crist, former Republican who switched parties, puts governor on defensive during Florida’s sole gubernatorial debate

In the sole debate of the Florida governor’s race, the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis, was put on the defensive by his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, on subjects including abortion and DeSantis’s presidential ambitions.

Crist called Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for rape or incest, “callous and barbaric”.

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Trump aides reportedly face pressure to testify in Mar-a-Lago case – live

Prosecutors urging two aides for more information about how documents were handled at the resort

Good morning, US politics blog readers. The steady drip of details about the investigation into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort continues, with the New York Times reporting yesterday that prosecutors are pressuring two aides to the former president for more information about how documents were handled at the south Florida property. There’s no saying yet what the revelation means, but it makes clear how many avenues investigators are pursuing as they look for answers about sensitive documents Trump took with him when he left the White House.

Here’s what’s happening in politics today:

Joe Biden will speak about America’s fight against Covid-19 at 2.05pm eastern time.

There’s a slew of debates between candidates standing in the 8 November midterm elections, including Pennsylvania’s Senate candidates Mehmet Oz, a Republican, and John Fetterman, a Democrat, who face off at 8pm eastern time.

Progressive Democrats appear to be walking back a letter sent to Biden yesterday urging more diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine.

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Arizona to vote on introducing more voter ID requirements

Opponents fear the measure might result in increased ballot counting time and identity fraud

A measure on Arizona’s ballot in November could require more stringent voter identification, both at the polls and via mail-in ballots – the primary way people in the state vote.

Opponents of Proposition 309 warn it could disenfranchise voters, making them susceptible to identity fraud and taking longer to count ballots. But the measure has the backing of Arizona GOP heavyweights and the state party itself, and it comes on the heels of nonstop, unfounded claims of 2020 election fraud by Republicans here.

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US midterm elections: early voting on track to match 2018 record

Voters take advantage of in-person and mail-in voting as more than 5.8 million people already cast their vote by Friday

Early voting in the midterm elections is on track to match records set in 2018, according to researchers, as voters take advantage of both in-person and mail-in voting in states across the country.

More than 5.8 million people had already cast their vote by Friday evening, CNN reported, a similar total to this stage in the 2018 elections, which had the highest turnout of any midterm vote in a generation.

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‘I just care about change’: Nevada’s Latinos on their cost-of-living fears

Nevada has an acute shortage of affordable housing – but do Republicans or Democrats have practical answers to curb one of America’s most pressing issues?

Claudia Lopez, 39, is worried for her children.

As her curly haired seven-year-old daughter bounced around a play area inside El Mercado, a shopping center within the Boulevard Mall in Las Vegas where the smell of arepas and tacos hovers over the shops, Lopez soaked in her day off from knocking on doors and talking to residents about the upcoming election.

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Early voters in Georgia face obstacles under state’s new election law

Unlimited challenges to eligibility and poorly trained poll workers cause frustration in key gubernatorial and US Senate contests

Jennifer Jones, a Morehouse School of Medicine PhD student, showed up to her precinct in Fulton county, Georgia, on the second day of early voting for the midterm elections. She was excited to cast her ballot for her chosen candidates in the gubernatorial and Senate races, Stacey Abrams and Senator Raphael Warnock. However, when she reached the check-in station at the polling site, she was informed that she would be unable to cast a regular ballot because her validity as a voter was challenged.

“When I handed in my ID, the poll worker said I was being challenged,” said Jones. “They said I had to complete a provisional ballot, but I wasn’t really comfortable doing that, so I didn’t get to cast my ballot that day.”

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Steve Bannon vows ‘very vigorous appeal’ to four-month prison sentence – as it happened

Steve Bannon has just spoken with reporters outside the courthouse in Washington DC, telling them he “respects” the judge’s sentence, and veering off quickly into an attack on Joe Biden’s administration.

In a brief, and chaotic appearance at the microphone, Bannon said of judge Carl Nichol’s four-month sentence:

The sentence he came down with today is his decision. I fully respect it, I’ve been totally respectful this entire process on the legal side.

I testified before the Mueller commission for more hours. I testified in front of [congressman Adam] Schiff in the House intelligence committee more than any other person in the Trump administration. I testified in front of the senate intelligence [committee], I think more than anybody, about the issues related to Russiagate, to all of that. The same process every time.

I had lawyers that were engaged, they worked through the issues of privilege. At that time, I went and testified. And this thing about I’m above the law is an absolute and total lie.

Today was my judgment day by the judge. And we’ll have a very vigorous appeals process. I’ve got a great legal team, and there’ll be multiple areas of appeal.

But as that sign says right there, vote. On November 8, there’s gonna have [sic] judgment on the illegitimate Biden regime and, quite frankly, Nancy Pelosi and the entire [January 6] committee. And we know which way that’s going.

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Early voters in Arizona midterms report harassment by poll watchers

Complaints detail ballot drop box monitors filming, following and calling voters ‘mules’ in reference to conspiracy film

A voter in Maricopa county, Arizona, claims a group of people watching a ballot drop box photographed and followed the voter and their wife after they deposited their ballots at the box, accusing them of being “mules”.

The voter filed a complaint with the Arizona secretary of state, who forwarded it to the US Department of Justice and the Arizona attorney general’s office for investigation, according to Sophia Solis, a spokesperson with the secretary of state’s office.

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Biden to release 15m barrels from strategic reserve in effort to tamp down gas prices – as it happened

Move is president’s attempt to mitigate concerns over the economy as midterms approach

Donald Trump in 2021 asked a group of people whether a Jewish documentary filmmaker was “a good Jewish character”, according to a video of the former president that was released as part of footage that was subpoenaed by the House special committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, the New York Times reports.

The interaction was recorded by documentary filmmaker Alex Holder at an event at Trump’s New Jersey golf club in May 2021. Trump, speaking to several people, was responding to a woman’s comment about “Jews who didn’t vote for you”.

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Biden implores US oil companies to pass on record profits to consumers

President announces release of 15m barrels of oil from strategic reserve as he fights to keep gas prices in check before midterms

Joe Biden has called on oil companies to pass on their massive profits to consumers as he announced the release of 15m barrels of oil from the US strategic petroleum reserve.

Biden is fighting to keep gas prices in check ahead of November’s midterms. He blamed Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for the global spike in oil prices and said his administration was doing all it could to keep prices in check.

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‘Cold war narratives’: why Miami’s Cuban Americans remain staunch Republicans

Republican politics centering on opposition to Cuba’s late dictator Fidel Castro continue to resonate in Florida, even as they have faded in the rest of the US

It was a rainy Tuesday morning in South Florida, and two men in their 80s were deep into conversation and cafecito at the iconic Versailles Cuban Bakery in Miami.

Born in Cuba and now retired, the pair – who would only give their first names Manuel and Juan – have lived in the area for more than 60 and 20 years, respectively. And when asked about their political stance, they shy away from the Republican label many of their neighbors proudly embrace and instead simply describe themselves as deeply anti-communist.

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Georgia Senate contender Herschel Walker fails to show for key debate – live

Major retailers will begin selling hearing aids over the counter without a prescription and at a much lower cost, as part of a new Biden administration rule that take effect today.

“Starting today, hearings aids are now on store shelves across the country — for thousands of dollars less than they previously cost,” the White House said in a fact sheet on Monday.

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Arizona governor candidate refuses to say if she will accept midterms result

Kari Lake, who has echoed Trump’s claims the 2020 election was stolen, refuses three times to answer when pressed on CNN

The Republican gubernatorial nominee in Arizona, Kari Lake, refused to say whether she would accept the results of the election if she loses in November.

Lake, a former Phoenix-area news anchor, has made denying the 2020 election results that her preferred candidate Donald Trump lost a pillar of her campaign. She has said she wouldn’t have certified the 2020 vote that the former president lost – and which the Democratic victor Joe Biden won in Arizona by just over 10,000 votes, saying the election was “corrupt, rotten”.

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Paul LePage: is Maine ready to welcome back the ‘Trump before Trump’?

The Republican ex-governor was known for his offensive, belligerent attitude – but this time, he says he’s reformed

In the late summer of 2016, Drew Gattine received a surprising voicemail. The sender was Paul LePage, then the governor of Maine, and he called Gattine “a little son-of-a-bitch socialist cocksucker”.

Amid the inevitable media frenzy that followed, LePage lamented not having the opportunity to engage Gattine, a Democrat in the Maine house of representatives, in a duel. Rather than follow in the footsteps of Alexander Hamilton, who pointed his gun in the air when he dueled Aaron Burr in 1804, LePage told reporters, “I would point it right between his eyes, because he is a snot-nosed little runt.”.

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Barack Obama to campaign for Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin Senate race

Barnes, who would be the first Black senator from Wisconsin, is looking to unseat Republican Ron Johnson

Barack Obama, who twice won Wisconsin by large margins, will travel to the battleground state in the final weeks of the current midterm elections, seeking to boost Mandela Barnes, the young lieutenant governor looking to unseat the Republican Ron Johnson in a key US Senate contest.

Barnes would be the first Black senator from Wisconsin. He held early leads over Johnson but the Republican, a prominent figure on the GOP hard right, has surged back. This week, a Marquette University Law School poll showed Johnson in the lead.

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FBI was reportedly warned agents were ‘sympathetic’ to Capitol rioters – as it happened

The Oath Keepers were mentioned repeatedly at yesterday’s January 6 hearing, and Politico reports their lawyers have attempted to make that an issue as they stand trial for seditious conspiracy – without success:

Investigators with the January 6 committee are looking into communications between a Secret Service agent and the Oath Keepers militia group, one of the most violent actors during the attack on the Capitol, NBC News reports:

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US-Saudi rift grows over decision to cut oil production

Washington has accused Saudi Arabia of coercing other Opec+ members into 2m-barrel-a-day reduction

The relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia continued to worsen on Thursday as the two countries traded barbs over the decision to cut oil production, with Washington accusing Riyadh of coercing other members of the Opec+ cartel, and Riyadh suggesting the Biden administration tried to get the decision delayed by a month.

In reaction to Joe Biden’s declared intention to reevaluate the US relationship with Riyadh, the Saudi foreign ministry issued an unusually long statement rejecting “attempts to distort the facts” about the kingdom’s motives for pushing for a 2m-barrel-a-day cut to Opec+ production.

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For the love of cars: will steep gas prices stall Democrats’ midterm hopes?

Economy in focus: America has a love affair with cars – but soaring prices are causing a rift. In the midwest, Adam Gabbatt asks voters what they think

The Henry Ford museum, in Dearborn, Michigan, is a tribute to America’s obsession with the motor vehicle.

The sprawling complex, set across 12 acres, is home to early examples of the Ford Model T, the mass-produced, affordable vehicle that set the US on the path of a car-dominant culture, as well as other era-defining vehicles right up to today.

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