NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed Lindsey Boylan — the first woman to publicly accuse former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment — in a City Council race on Friday, his latest attempt to wield his political clout to influence Democratic contests.

Boylan “represents the kind of fearless leadership this moment demands,” Mamdani said in a statement.

“She has shown a willingness to tell hard truths, to challenge entrenched power, and to stand up for working people even when it isn’t easy. That courage matters,” he said.

Mamdani ran against Cuomo for mayor last year, beating him once in the Democratic primary, then again in the general election after the former governor ran as a third-party candidate. During that race, Boylan occasionally demonstrated outside Cuomo campaign events to draw attention to the harassment scandal that drove him from power.

The endorsement came as Mamdani, who vaulted from relative obscurity to become a national progressive star last year, has wasted little time testing whether his potent brand can bring about a leftward shift in New York politics.

Just after winning the mayoral election, Mamdani endorsed Brad Lander, a former City Hall challenger, in a race against U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, who has the support of many moderate Democrats, including one of the mayor’s biggest allies, Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Days after Mamdani took office, he waded into another race when he backed Claire Valdez, a democratic socialist state lawmaker, to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez. The incumbent has favored a different heir for her seat in Brooklyn and Queens, putting her at odds with Mamdani after she supported him in the mayor’s race.

In Boylan’s contest, Mamdani’s endorsement is counter to Council Speaker Julie Menin, who has endorsed another candidate for the open seat in Manhattan, as the pair of leaders duel over the city’s budget woes.

Mamdani, in his endorsement, acknowledged a wider objective: building support in the City Council.

“As we work to usher in a new era in our city’s politics, and advance our affordability agenda, I need partners in the work like Lindsey and that’s why I am proud to endorse her campaign for City Council,” he said.

Boylan, who previously had unsuccessful runs for Congress and Manhattan borough president, said she was honored to get the mayor’s endorsement.

“I was proud to support the Mayor in his campaign to bring affordability and change to New York City,” she said. Her City Council special election is on April 28.

In 2020, Boylan accused Cuomo of sexually harassing her when she was an economic development adviser his administration. She said he subjected her to an unwanted kiss and inappropriate comments.

Cuomo has denied the allegations. He resigned in 2021 after a report released by the state attorney general concluded that he had sexually harassed 11 women, including Boylan.

Asked about Mamdani’s endorsement Friday, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said the former governor “never harassed anyone.” He also assailed Boylan as “a perennial candidate” unworthy of support.

“Mamdani endorsing her tells you everything you need to know about him and his new era,” Azzopardi said.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge has sentenced a former Wisconsin man to 20 months in prison for funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into domestic political campaigns after moving to another country and renouncing his U.S. citizenship.

Court records show U.S. District Judge James Peterson sentenced Roger Hoffman on Wednesday. He also ordered Hoffman to pay a $150,000 fine. Hoffman’s attorney, Mark Maciolek, didn’t immediately return a message Friday seeking comment.

Hoffman, a 70-year-old self-employed investor originally from Madison, became a citizen of the Caribbean nation Saint Kitts and Nevis in January 2009, according to a grand jury indictment handed down in 2021. He renounced his U.S. citizenship in July of that year.

But he still moved more than $400,000 to state and federal elections in the U.S. over more than a decade, using an assistant identified in court documents only as M.W. as a conduit to circumvent laws prohibiting foreign nationals from making donations in U.S. elections.

He pleaded guilty in September to a single count of making illegal donations in a deal with prosecutors, agreeing that they would be able to prove he made about $345,000 in illegal federal campaign contributions between 2010 and 2020, according to court records.

Court documents state that Hoffman made donations to federal and Wisconsin candidates and political parties, with most of the dollars directed toward the federal side, but does not list specific recipients. It’s not clear which candidates or political parties received money from him.

A message left at the U.S. attorney’s office in Madison seeking those details was not immediately returned.

The office said in a news release Friday that Peterson admonished Hoffman during the sentencing hearing for demonstrating “a resolute pattern of dishonesty.”

By Jonathan Stempel

April 17 (Reuters) – Lawyers for Donald Trump and the Internal Revenue Service are in talks to settle the U.S. president’s $10 billion lawsuit against the tax collection agency for leaking his tax returns to the media in 2019 and 2020.

In a Friday filing in Miami federal court, the lawyers asked a judge to put the case on hold for 90 days “while the parties engage in discussions designed to resolve this matter and to avoid protracted litigation.” A pause “could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently,” they added.

The White House declined to comment. The Department of Justice, which represents the IRS, declined to comment.

A delay would give Justice Department lawyers more time to address conflicts of interest posed by the case, given that Trump is suing his own government.

Justice Department lawyers report ultimately to the president, while the IRS and the Treasury Department, which is also a defendant, are part of the executive branch.

Trump’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization are also plaintiffs.

IRS CONTRACTOR LEAKED RETURNS

The case arose from former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn’s leak of Trump’s tax returns to media outlets, including the New York Times and ProPublica.

These returns showed that Trump paid little or no income taxes in many years, the Times reported in 2020.

Trump and the other plaintiffs said the leaks caused them financial harm and public embarrassment, and tarnished their reputations and public standing.

Prosecutors charged Littlejohn in 2023 with leaking tax records of Trump and thousands of other wealthy Americans to the media, saying he was motivated by a political agenda. Littlejohn later pleaded guilty to improper disclosures, and a judge sentenced him to five years in prison.

Any payout in Trump’s lawsuit would likely involve taxpayer dollars. Trump has said he would donate money collected from the case to charity.

“The IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated employee to leak private and confidential information” to the Times, ProPublica and other “left-wing news outlets,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement. “President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable.”

TRUMP HAS FILED OTHER LARGE LAWSUITS

Trump has filed many lawsuits in his personal capacity, often for large sums and as a result of reporting by various media, since winning a second White House term in 2024.

He is suing the New York Times and Penguin Random House for $15 billion over articles and a book he said were intended to undermine his reelection prospects, and suing the BBC for $10 billion over its editing of its broadcast of his speech preceding the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.

On Monday, a judge threw out Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over an article discussing a lewd birthday greeting for the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The judge said Trump can refile his lawsuit by April 27, and Trump said he would do so.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

PHOENIX (AP) — The top election official in Arizona’s most populous county will get more authority in running elections after a judge sided with his office in a prolonged legal fight with the local board that shares responsibility for overseeing the vote.

The decision could have broad implications in one of the nation’s most prominent battleground states, which will have several high-profile races this fall. Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, has been roiled by election conspiracy theorists ever since President Donald Trump lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden during his bid for reelection in 2020.

Justin Heap, the Republican recorder in Maricopa County, sued the predominantly Republican county board of supervisors last summer alleging it had illegally taken control of certain aspects of election administration. Heap claimed the board transferred funding, IT staff and some key functions — including management of ballot drop boxes and establishing early voting sites — away from his office through an agreement negotiated with his predecessor, whom he had recently defeated in a GOP primary.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney mostly sided with Heap’s office in his ruling, which was filed Thursday but appeared on the public docket Friday. The board of supervisors “acted unlawfully and exceeded its statutory authority by seizing the Recorder’s personnel, systems and equipment and refusing to return them” to the recorder, he wrote.

Blaney also ruled that the recorder’s office is responsible for overseeing in-person early voting, among other duties, while the board is responsible for other operations, such as selecting Election Day voting locations, supplying polling locations and hiring poll workers.

“The Board’s assertion of plenary authority over election administration through its general supervisory powers is inconsistent with Arizona law,” the judge wrote.

Board Chairwoman Kate Brophy McGee said the board will consider an appeal.

“I disagree with other portions of the ruling, and I will explore all options with the Board of Supervisors, including an expeditious appeal,” McGee, a Republican, said in a statement. “From day one, the Board of Supervisors has provided Recorder Heap the resources and staffing needed to fulfill his statutory duties. We will continue to do so because voters always come first.”

In a statement, Heap praised the ruling as a “clear and decisive victory for the rule of law and for the voters of Maricopa County.”

“The court confirmed that the Board cannot override state law, use funding as leverage, or take control of election duties assigned to the Recorder,” Heap said. “This ruling restores both the authority and the resources necessary for my office to do its job.”

Heap, a former Republican state lawmaker, was elected in 2024 after unseating incumbent Stephen Richer in the GOP primary and defeating a Democratic candidate in the general election. In the past, Heap has stopped short of repeating false claims that the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen, but has said voters don’t trust the state’s voting system and that it’s poorly run.

False claims of fraud since the 2020 presidential election led to threats of violence against Richer and others in the Maricopa County elections office. Richer blamed Heap for contributing to an atmosphere of distrust and vitriol directed toward the office.

“He catered to the really ugly stuff that the people in that office had to live through,” Richer said of Heap, in an interview last month. “And he allied with people who were very much in the eye of the storm in terms of creating it.”

Once he took office, Heap terminated a previous agreement that was reached between Richer and the board that had revised how election operations were divided between the two offices. Heap filed his lawsuit with the backing of America First Legal, a conservative public interest group founded by Stephen Miller, now a deputy chief of staff in the White House.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit demanding detailed voter data from Rhode Island, a decision that follows similar rulings in a handful of other states.

U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy sided with Rhode Island’s top election officials and civil rights advocates, writing that federal law does not permit the U.S. Department of Justice “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here.”

In an emailed response, the Justice Department said it would not comment on ongoing litigation.

McElroy’s decision is similar to other rejections by federal judges across country since the Justice Department began seeking detailed voter data from the states. The information includes dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

Federal officials say they need the voter data to ensure election security, but Democratic and some Republican officials have objected to the requests and said such a demand violates state and federal privacy laws.

“The executive branch seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states,” Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg M. Amore said in a statement. “But the power of our democratic republic, built on three, coequal branches of government, is clearer than ever before.”

Some election officials have raised concerns that federal officials will use the sensitive data for other purposes, such as searching for potential noncitizens. Those concerns were raised again after the DOJ’s attorneys acknowledged in the Rhode Island case that the department was seeking unredacted voter roll information so it could be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to check citizenship status.

At least 12 states have either provided or promised to provide their detailed voter registration lists to the department, according to the Brennan Center: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

Meanwhile, the DOJ has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking to force release of the data. In addition to Rhode Island, judges have rejected those attempts in California, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon. In Georgia, a judge dismissed a DOJ lawsuit because it had been filed in the wrong city, prompting the government to refile elsewhere.

In Rhode Island, McElroy sided with the federal judge’s decision in Oregon. That ruling said the federal government was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists containing sensitive data and said the Justice Department had failed to identify a basis or a purpose for requesting the voter records.

“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” McElroy wrote.

By Nate Raymond

April 17 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s bid to force Rhode Island to turn over non-public data on nearly 750,000 registered voters so the Trump administration could probe “election integrity” in the Democratic-led state.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Providence marked the latest in a series of legal setbacks for the Justice Department’s efforts after judges ruled against its similar requests in California, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon.

The Justice Department under President Donald Trump had sued 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking unredacted voter files that contain their driver’s license numbers and last four digits of their Social Security numbers, saying such data is needed to probe their compliance with federal election laws.

McElroy called the request to Rhode Island “unprecedented” and concluded the department lacked authority under the National Voter Registration Act or the Help America Vote Act “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here.”

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump, a Republican, has long pushed the false claim that his 2020 election defeat to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread voter fraud.

The Justice Department says it aims to ensure states maintain accurate voter lists and is already identifying duplicate and deceased voters using nonpublic voter registration data in its possession.

It filed the case before McElroy in December, after Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore, a Democrat, offered to provide a copy of the state’s publicly available voter registration list but declined to provide unredacted data.

Eric Neff, the acting chief of the Justice Department’s voting section, during a March 26 hearing said the Trump administration wanted that information to ensure Rhode Island’s voter list is “clean” and flag anyone who should be purged.

That process, he said, would include sharing data with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to have it confirm if registered voters are citizens.

The Justice Department relied on a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to demand the voting-related records, a legal authority that McElroy said was intended to allow the government to detect voting-related racial discrimination. 

She said that while the law does not limit its application to examining discrimination, the department must provide a factual basis for why it needs voting records, which it did not give in Rhode Island’s case.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Nia Williams)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House early Friday approved a short-term renewal until April 30 of a controversial surveillance program used by U.S. spy agencies in a post-midnight vote after Republicans revolted and refused President Donald Trump’s push for a longer extension.

GOP leaders rushed lawmakers back into session late Thursday with a series of back-to-back votes that collapsed in dramatic failure, before they quickly pushed ahead the stopgap measure as they race to keep the surveillance program running past Monday’s expiration date.

First they unveiled a new plan that would have extended the program for five years, with revisions. Then they tried to salvage a shorter 18-month renewal that Trump had demanded and Speaker Mike Johnson had previously backed. Some 20 Republicans joined most Democrats in blocking its advance.

Shortly after 2 a.m. they quickly agreed to the 10-day extension, which was agreed to on a voice vote without a formal roll call. It next goes to the Senate, which is gaveling for a rare Friday session, as Congress races to keep the surveillance program running.

“We were very close tonight,” said Johnson after the late-night action.

But Democrats blasted the middle-of-the-night voting as amateur hour. “Are you kidding me? Who the hell is running this place?” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., during a fiery floor debate.

At the center of the standoff that has stretched throughout the week is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI and other agencies to collect and analyze vast amounts of overseas communications without a warrant. In doing so, they can incidentally sweep up communications involving Americans who interact with foreign targets.

U.S. officials say the authority is critical to disrupting terrorist plots, cyber intrusions and foreign espionage.

Its path to passage has teetered all week in a familiar fight, as lawmakers weigh civil liberties concerns against intelligence officials’ warnings about national security risks.

Opponents of the surveillance tool point to past misuses. FBI officials repeatedly violated their own standards when searching intelligence related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and racial justice protests in 2020, according to a 2024 court order.

Trump and his allies had lobbied aggressively all week for a clean renewal of the program, without changes.

A group of Republicans traveled to the White House on Tuesday, and on Wednesday CIA Director John Ratcliffe spoke directly with GOP lawmakers. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Thursday there had “been negotiations late into the night with the White House and some of our members.”

“I am asking Republicans to UNIFY, and vote together on the test vote to bring a clean Bill to the floor,” Trump wrote on Truth Social this week. “We need to stick together.”

Thursday’s proceedings came to a standstill as lawmakers retreated behind closed doors and Johnson reached for an agreement to resolve the standoff.

Shortly before midnight GOP leaders announced a new proposal, a five-year extension, with revisions. The changes were designed to win over skeptics of the surveillance program who have demanded greater oversight to protect Americans’ privacy.

Among the changes are new provisions to ensure that only FBI attorneys can authorize queries on U.S. persons, and to require the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to review such cases, said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., during the debate.

But the final product, a 14-page amendment, did not go far enough for some holdouts in either party.

With Johnson controlling a slim majority, he has little room for dissent. As the Republicans fell short on both efforts before the short extension, a handful of Democrats stepped in to try to help them advance the longer extensions, but most Democrats were opposed.

“We just defeated Johnson’s efforts to sneak through a 5-year FISA authorization tonight,” said Democratic Rep, Ro Khanna of California. “Now, they will have to fight in daylight.”

By Nathan Layne

EASTLAKE, Ohio, April 17 (Reuters) – When Keith Czika learned the brass-instrument factory where he had worked for nearly 18 years was closing and his job was headed to China, the 62-year-old Ohioan focused on what he saw as a source of leverage: the plant’s ultimate owner, billionaire investor John Paulson, a close ally of President Donald Trump.

A three-time Trump voter, Czika raised the idea in early January with union colleagues of publicly calling out Paulson to try to save the Conn Selmer plant. The strategy was to pressure Paulson by linking the closure to Trump’s pledge to revive American manufacturing. During the 2024 campaign, Paulson had criticized U.S. companies for offshoring jobs.

But the United Auto Workers’ public campaign — including a rally at which local officials assailed Paulson, social‑media videos and an online petition to the White House seeking Trump’s intervention — failed to avert the closure. The Eastlake, Ohio, factory is set to shut at the end of June, costing 150 jobs.

Conn Selmer, the largest U.S. band-instrument maker, will shift to China production of tubas, sousaphones and some French horns, Chief Executive John Fulton told workers in January, according to a video reviewed by Reuters. That accounts for nearly all of the Eastlake factory’s output.

The failed effort underscores the limited political power of blue‑collar workers who form a core part of Trump’s base, even when their demands echo his populist “America First” agenda.

It also highlights the electoral risks to Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections. Trump and his allies are struggling to hold together the coalition of voters who powered him to victory in 2024. The president’s approval ratings have sunk amid high prices, an unpopular war in Iran, and verbal broadsides against Pope Leo, who counts many of Trump’s Catholic supporters as his followers.

“Why Paulson would make the decision to go to China is beyond me at this point. China, for one, is an economic enemy of the United States,” Czika said.

Czika’s anger toward Paulson reflects wider unease among working-class voters about the direction of the economy and their place in it. U.S. manufacturing employment has fallen by about 100,000 jobs since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

POLITICAL RISK FOR REPUBLICANS

In interviews with Reuters, a dozen Conn Selmer workers spoke of a sense of loss over jobs they took pride in, assembling and polishing instruments used by everyone from high school bands to professional musicians, and worried they would struggle to find work as fulfilling or as well paid.

Conn Selmer, which declined to comment for this article, said in a January statement it would move professional French horn production from Eastlake to an existing Indiana factory and remained “deeply committed to U.S. manufacturing.” While the statement mentioned moving the rest of the instrument production “offshore”, it made no mention of China.

John Plecnik, a Republican commissioner in Lake County, which includes Eastlake, warned that his party risked losing support from union workers ahead of November.

“MAGA equals put American jobs first,” Plecnik said. “If we don’t keep the promise of protecting jobs, I wouldn’t blame them for going right back and voting Democrat.”

Of the six workers interviewed by Reuters who said they backed Trump in 2024, five said they still planned to vote for Republican candidates in November. Only one said her anger over the plant closure would likely lead her to sit out the next election.

TRUMP’S VOW TO REVIVE MANUFACTURING HAS NOT MATERIALIZED

Paulson played a pivotal role in Trump’s 2024 campaign, hosting a fundraiser at his Palm Beach home in April that raised about $50.5 million. A few months later, he publicly echoed a core theme of Trump’s populist campaign.

“We can’t have American producers closing American factories and offshoring. We need to protect American jobs and protect American manufacturing,” Paulson told CNBC in September 2024.

Paulson, whose investment firm owns Conn Selmer’s parent, Steinway Musical Instruments, did not respond to requests for comment.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed that a manufacturing revival would “happen fast and beautifully,” and when he imposed sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners last April he predicted they would make factories “come roaring back.”

But a tariff on Chinese-made brass instruments — currently at 20.4% — has not deterred Conn Selmer, which is following rivals that shifted production to China years ago to cut labor costs.

At the January meeting, Fulton, Conn Selmer’s CEO, told workers they would need to find $13 million in savings to save the plant.

By mid-March, workers assembled in a dimly lit American Legion hall, where they were briefed on the severance packages they would receive.

For Annette Dombrowski, who had married in that same hall 43 years earlier, the plant closure felt deeply personal. After the severance meeting, she fought back tears as she described her anxiety about finding work to supplement a Social Security check stretched thin by persistent inflation.

“I think all of America is crap right now,” said the 64-year-old janitor. “I’m starting to regret my vote for Trump,” she said, adding that she would likely skip voting in November.

Czika believes tariffs could, over time, help revive American manufacturing, arguing that U.S. firms can compete on quality even if they cannot match China on labor costs. In the meantime, his support for Trump is strong but not unconditional.

“If you keep your promises, that’ll be fine,” he said. “If you don’t, that’ll be a problem. America First. Bring manufacturing back.”

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Eastlake, Ohio; additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)

ATLANTA (AP) — Four years ago, Democrat Stacey Abrams commanded the spotlight with her campaign for Georgia governor, dumping millions of dollars into the race as the media followed her every move.

But there is little of that energy so far in 2026. Even though Democrats may have a better shot at winning, there is far less attention and money as their candidates compete for the nomination in next month’s primary.

Their struggles raise the possibility that the Democrats could miss another chance to win the Georgia governor’s office for the first time since 1998.

National Democrats say they are not going to let that happen. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who leads the Democratic Governors Association, said Georgia is “in play” and the money will be there for the party’s eventual nominee.

“We’re going to make sure the Democratic candidate in Georgia has the funding they need to compete,” Beshear told The Associated Press on Saturday as he visited Atlanta to keynote a party dinner.

While Republicans have flooded the state with nearly $100 million in advertising, Democrats have spent only $1.24 million. Most observers believe no Democrat will win a majority in the rapidly approaching May 19 primary, prolonging the party’s uncertainty.

Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms could be headed toward a June 16 runoff, thanks to superior name identification and being the only Black woman running in a party that has historically relied on support from Black women. But the scramble for a second spot appears wide-open, with likely contenders including former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, former state Sen. Jason Esteves and former state labor commissioner and CEO of suburban DeKalb County Mike Thurmond.

On the Republican side, health care billionaire Rick Jackson has already spent or pledged $50 million toward his bid, twice as much as any previous primary candidate for Georgia governor. There is also Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump; Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; and Attorney General Chris Carr.

It is a contrast to 2022, when Abrams outraised Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. She ended up losing the race, her second defeat to Kemp.

But Democrats say they are not worried this year even if they are outspent.

“I’ll still win,” Bottoms said after a campaign event Monday, echoing other Democrats who say money can’t paper over voter discontent with Republicans.

She argues that she is a “battle-tested leader” who gained national experience in President Joe Biden’s administration. Like other Democrats, she cites expanding health care, affordable housing and better education as among her top issues.

“When given the opportunity to lead, I led on behalf of not just the city of Atlanta, but people across the state, and I am ready to go and fight for all of our communities to make Georgia a better place for our children,” Bottoms said Wednesday.

The Democratic race doesn’t feature notable policy splits along the lines of the progressive-moderate fissures that have opened around the country. It is not even a clear-cut contrast on style like in the Texas Senate primary that James Talarico won over Jasmine Crockett. Only Esteves, who started nearly unknown statewide, has been willing to attack the other candidates.

The noncombative nature of the other candidates was on display Wednesday night in a televised debate that included only Bottoms, Duncan and Thurmond. Duncan made only the most oblique criticisms of Bottoms’ record as mayor. After Thurmond blamed Duncan for supporting a bill allowing people to carry guns more widely, he said in a postdebate interview that the criticism wasn’t aimed at Duncan directly.

Esteves is banking on a late surge to propel him to the runoff. He has spent about $1 million on a burst of advertising, the only significant spending by any Democrat thus far. The 42-year-old, who is Black and Puerto Rican, argues he can build the “multiracial, multigenerational coalition” needed to win the young and diverse electorate in Georgia.

He often references his experience as a middle school teacher and small business owner in addition to his time as a lawyer, school board member and state senator.

“A lot of the challenges that Georgians are facing, I am facing in real time,” Esteves said in a Wednesday interview. “They’re looking for someone who not only wants to solve their issues, but can identify personally with their issues.”

Esteves is the only Democrat attacking Bottoms on how she managed crime, disorder and the COVID pandemic as mayor before her surprise decision not to seek a second term.

“The fact that she did not run for reelection confirmed people’s belief that when the going gets tough, she stepped out on the city,” Esteves said.

Bottoms defends her stewardship and says she declined to run again “based on what was best for me personally and my family.”

Esteves has also repeatedly taken aim at Duncan, saying Duncan “oversaw some of the passage of the worst bills” while lieutenant governor, including Georgia’s ban on abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected. Although dozens of state lawmakers are backing Esteves, his top surrogate has been Shanette Williams, the mother of Amber Nicole Thurman, a woman who died in a suburban Atlanta hospital in 2022 after taking abortion pills and developing an infection.

Duncan is best known for opposing Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. He has spent the past year apologizing for his Republican past and argues he is the only Democrat who can win over enough moderate voters to give his new party a win. In recent weeks, Duncan has begun to pick up some endorsements from moderate Democrats and unions.

“I don’t want to only earn your vote, I want to earn your trust,” Duncan said in Wednesday night’s debate.

Thurmond calls himself a “throwback” and says his experience in state and local government, including leading the state child welfare agency, serving as labor commissioner and helping to bail out the DeKalb County school district as superintendent, would let him move quickly to enact Democratic priorities.

“I have a track record of service to the people of Georgia, and I believe this election would turn not on promises, but on performance,” Thurmond said in an interview after Wednesday’s debate.

He has been trying to knit together a coalition of rural voters and older Democrats. Among those backing him are Roy Barnes, the last Democratic governor, and Andrew Young, the former mayor of Atlanta and one of the last surviving leaders of the 1960s Civil Rights movement. ___ A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Jason Esteves’ father is Puerto Rican and his mother was Black. His father is Puerto Rican and Black, while his mother was Puerto Rican.

By David Morgan and Raphael Satter

April 17 (Reuters) – Congress passed a short extension to a high-profile surveillance law on Friday after failing to secure the long-term reauthorization pushed by President Donald Trump.

The brief pause comes after a late-night attempt to reauthorize the law for five years failed in the House. It sets up another round of wrangling over whether and how to reform what is  known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the National Security Agency to surveil foreigners ​using data drawn from U.S. digital infrastructure. The provision has long been a magnet for anxieties over domestic surveillance from both political conservatives and progressives because it can allow the NSA’s law enforcement counterparts to mine the massive data trove without a warrant.

The law had been due to expire on Monday, but the House voted by unanimous consent to extend it through April 30 – effectively kicking the can down the road for 10 days to give more breathing room for negotiations. Senators voted unanimously to pass the House’s short-term fix shortly before 11 a.m. EDT on Friday. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there is some openness to reforms to the surveillance law but he said doing so would depend on details.

“We’ve got to pivot and figure out what can pass, and we’re in the process of figuring out how to do that here,” he told reporters ahead of the Senate vote. After the vote, Thune added a three-year extension to the Senate calendar, something that could help the chamber pass any eventual compromise.

“I don’t know what the House is going to be able to do, and so we’ll be preparing accordingly,” Thune said.

REFORMERS WANT WARRANT REQUIREMENT

A core demand of reformers on both sides of the aisle has long been to forbid drawing Americans’ data from U.S. intercepts without a warrant – a process sometimes described as a “backdoor search.” Speaking ahead of the Senate’s vote, one advocate said the 10-day reprieve provided a window to do just that.

“It’s time to put a bill on the floor that will close the backdoor search loophole and protect Americans from surveillance abuse,” said Jake Laperruque, a deputy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Whether there will be enough momentum for such reforms is not clear. Senator Ron Wyden – the reformers’ top champion – told reporters that a growing number of lawmakers “are not going to accept straight extension here, period.”

But several longtime Republican critics of Section 702, most notably Trump, have now flipped and are putting their weight behind the law. Speaking on Tuesday, Trump called upon Republican lawmakers to extend it without reforms, saying the military “desperately” needs it.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Raphael Satter in Washington; Additional reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus and Matthew Lewis)