DETROIT (AP) — On the eve of a vote on union representation at Volkswagen’s Tennessee factory, Gov. Bill Lee and five other southern governors are telling workers that voting for a union will put jobs in jeopardy.

About 4,300 workers at VW’s plant in Chattanooga will start voting Wednesday on representation by the United Auto Workers union. Vote totals are expected to be tabulated Friday night by the National Labor Relations Board.

The union election is the first test of the UAW’s efforts to organize nonunion auto factories nationwide following its success winning big raises last fall after going on strike against Detroit automakers Ford, General Motors and Jeep maker Stellantis.

The governors said in a statement Tuesday that they have worked to bring good-paying jobs to their states.

“We are seeing in the fallout of the Detroit Three strike with those automakers rethinking investments and cutting jobs,” the statement said. “Putting businesses in our states in that position is the last thing we want to do.”

Lee said in a statement that Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have signed on to the statement. The offices of Abbott, Ivey, Kemp and Reeves confirmed their involvement, and McMaster posted the statement on his website.

The governors said they want to continue to grow manufacturing in their states, but a successful union drive will “stop this growth in its tracks, to the detriment of American workers.”

The UAW declined comment.

After a series of strikes against Detroit automakers last year, UAW President Shawn Fain said it would simultaneously target more than a dozen nonunion auto plants including those run by Tesla, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda, and others.

The drive covers nearly 150,000 workers at factories largely in the South, where the union thus far has had little success in recruiting new members.

Earlier this month a majority of workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, filed papers with the NLRB to vote on UAW representation.

The UAW pacts with Detroit automakers include 25% pay raises by the time the contracts end in April of 2028. With cost-of-living increases, workers will see about 33% in raises for a top assembly wage of $42 per hour, or more than $87,000 per year, plus thousands in annual profit sharing.

VW said Tuesday that its workers can make over $60,000 per year not including an 8% attendance bonus. The company says it pays above the median household income in the area.

Volkswagen has said it respects the workers’ right to a democratic process and to determine who should represent their interests. “We will fully support an NLRB vote so every team member has a chance to vote in privacy in this important decision,” the company said.

Some workers at the VW plant, who make Atlas SUVs and ID.4 electric vehicles, said they want more of a say in schedules, benefits, pay and more.

The union has come close to representing workers at the VW plant in two previous elections. In 2014 and 2019, workers narrowly rejected a factorywide union under the UAW.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned whether federal prosecutors went too far in bringing obstruction charges against hundreds of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. But it wasn’t clear how the justices would rule in a case that also could affect the prosecution of former President Donald Trump, who faces the same charge for his efforts to overturn his election loss in 2020.

The justices heard arguments over the charge of obstruction of an official proceeding in the case of Joseph Fischer, a former Pennsylvania police officer who has been indicted for his role in disrupting Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump. Fischer is one of 330 people facing that charge, which stems from a law passed in the aftermath of the Enron financial scandal more than two decades ago to deal with the destruction of documents.

Trump is facing two charges in a separate case brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington that could be knocked out with a favorable ruling from the nation’s highest court. Next week, the justices will hear arguments over whether the former president and presumptive nominee for the 2024 Republican nomination has “absolute immunity” from prosecution in that case, a proposition that has so far been rejected by two lower courts.

Smith has argued separately in the immunity case that the obstruction charges against Trump are valid no matter how the court decides Fischer’s case. The first former U.S. president under indictment, Trump is on trial on hush money charges in New York and also has been charged with election interference in Georgia and with mishandling classified documents in Florida.

It was not clear after more than 90 minutes of arguments precisely where the court would land in Fischer’s case. Conservative justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch appeared most likely to side with Fischer, while liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor seemed more favorable to the Justice Department’s position.

Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former federal public defender, expressed interest in more of a middle-ground outcome that might make it harder, but not impossible, for prosecutors to use the obstruction charge.

Some of the conservative justices said the law was so broad that it could be used against even peaceful protests and also questioned why the Justice Department has not brought charges under the provision in other violent protests.

“There have been many violent protests that have interfered with proceedings,” Justice Clarence Thomas said. He was back on the bench Tuesday after an unexplained one-day absence.

Gorsuch appeared to be drawing on actual events when he asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar whether people could be charged with obstructing an official proceeding if they rose in protest inside the courtroom, heckled the president at the State of the Union or pulled a fire alarm in the Capitol complex to delay a vote in Congress.

Alito, suggesting the government’s reading of the law is too broad, asked whether the charge could be applied to people who disrupted the day’s court session by shouting “Keep the January 6 insurrectionists in jail or ”Free the January 6 patriots.”

He hastened to add, “What happened on Jan. 6 was very, very serious and I’m not equating this with that.”

The high court case focuses on whether the anti-obstruction provision of a law that was enacted in 2002 in response to the financial scandal that brought down Enron Corp. can be used against Jan. 6 defendants.

Lawyers for Fischer, the former North Cornwall Township police officer, argue that the provision was meant to close a loophole in criminal law and discourage the destruction of records in response to an investigation. Until the Capitol riot, lawyer Jeffrey Green told the court on Fischer’s behalf, the provision “had never been used to prosecute anything other than evidence tampering.”

Fischer “was not part of the mob” that forced lawmakers to flee the House and Senate chambers, Green wrote in court papers, noting that he entered the Capitol after Congress had recessed. The weight of the crowd pushed Fischer into a line of police inside, Green wrote.

But Prelogar, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, said the other side is reading the law too narrowly, arguing it serves as a “classic catchall” designed to deal with the obstruction of an official proceeding. She said Fischer’s actions before, during and after Jan. 6 demonstrated that he intended to keep Congress from doing its job of certifying the election results.

“He had said in advance of Jan. 6 that he was prepared to storm the Capitol, prepared to use violence, he wanted to intimidate Congress,” Prelogar said. “He said they can’t vote if they can’t breathe. And then he went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 with that intent in mind and took action, including assaulting a law enforcement officer.

The obstruction charge is among the most widely used felony charges brought in the massive federal prosecution following the violent insurrection. It carries a maximum prison term of 20 years, but Prelogar said the average term imposed so far is about two years.

Roughly 170 Jan. 6 defendants have been convicted of obstructing or conspiring to obstruct the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, including the leaders of two far-right extremist groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. A number of defendants have had their sentencings delayed until after the justices rule on the matter.

Some rioters have even won early release from prison while the appeal is pending over concerns that they might end up serving longer than they should have if the Supreme Court rules against the Justice Department. They include Kevin Seefried, a Delaware man who threatened a Black police officer with a pole attached to a Confederate battle flag as he stormed the Capitol. Seefried was sentenced last year to three years behind bars, but a judge recently ordered that he be released one year into his prison term while awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Most lower court judges who have weighed in have allowed the charge to stand. Among them, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, wrote that “statutes often reach beyond the principal evil that animated them.”

But U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, another Trump appointee, dismissed the charge against Fischer and two other defendants, writing that prosecutors went too far. A divided panel of the federal appeals court in Washington reinstated the charge before the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case.

More than 1,350 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Approximately 1,000 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury or judge after a trial.

A decision is expected by late June.

___

Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington and Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers on Tuesday that President Joe Biden has shown no signs of cognitive impairment while defending Biden’s ability to serve as commander in chief.

Garland, appearing before a House committee overseeing funding for the Justice Department, was answering questions on the report from special counsel Robert Hur about Biden’s handling of classified material. Hur’s report concluded in no criminal charges yet made some observations about Biden’s mental state that infuriated the Democratic president and his aides.

The attorney general, while stressing that he was not commenting on the specifics of Hur’s analysis, said that based on his own observations while interacting with Biden, he has “complete confidence in the president” when it comes to questions about his mental fitness.

“I have seen the president effectively guide the members of the department, of his Cabinet, and his military,” Garland said in response to questions from Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va. The attorney general added: “The president has no impairment.”

As Cline prodded him further, Garland stressed again: “I have complete confidence in the president, and I reject your characterization.”

Hur said in his report, released in February, that prosecutors would likely not be able to prove a criminal case against Biden beyond a reasonable doubt when it came to the president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. In one line from the report, Hur found that Biden would “likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Biden angrily insisted in response that his memory is fine, and he was especially infuriated about Hur’s mention of him apparently being confused over the timing of the death of his son Beau in 2015.

Garland was appearing before the House committee to testify on the Justice Department’s budget request.

By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. voters view Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as better for the economy than President Joe Biden , as the incumbent’s approval rating ticked lower in April from the previous month, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Some 41% of respondents in the three-day poll, which closed on Sunday, said Trump, who is expected to face Biden in the Nov. 5 presidential election, has the better approach to the economy, compared to 34% who picked Biden. 

The rest gave answers that included not being sure or that neither candidate was better.

Trump’s advantage on the economy, which at seven percentage points was well outside the poll’s margin of error, compared to advantages of three points in March and six in February.

Biden, however, had a nine-point advantage over Trump – 38% to 29% – when respondents were asked who had the better approach to political extremism and protecting democracy, up from eight points in March. 

Political extremism narrowly edged out the economy as the top concern for respondents in the poll.

The state of the U.S. economy looms as one of the larger factors weighing on Biden’s hopes of re-election.

Voters have been stung by several years of fast-rising consumer prices, though inflation has slowed considerably in recent months and the jobless rate has been below 4% for more than two years. Biden’s age, at 81, is also a concern for voters.

In the new Reuters/Ipsos poll, the share of respondents approving of Biden’s performance as president fell marginally to 38% from 40% in March. The online poll, which surveyed 1,016 U.S. adults nationwide, had a margin of error of three percentage points. 

Looming over Trump, 77, are four planned criminal trials, including one that started this week on charges he falsified business records and two others tied to his efforts to overturn his loss to Biden in the 2020 presidential election. 

Trump falsely claims his 2020 election defeat resulted from fraud, including in a fiery speech shortly before hundreds of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Five people died.

The two candidates have been close in public opinion polls this year, with Biden leading Trump by four points earlier this month in a separate Reuters/Ipsos survey.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)

The Biden administration is enlisting the help of officials in 15 states to enforce consumer-protection laws covering airline travelers, a power that by law is limited to the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said Tuesday that the states, which include California, New York and Illinois, will help ensure that government enforcement activities keep up with a current boom in air travel.

Under an agreement announced by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, state attorney general offices will be able to investigate complaints about airline service. If they believe an airline violated the law or is refusing to cooperate with investigators, the states could refer cases to the Transportation Department for enforcement.

In return, the Transportation Department, or DOT, will give the states access to its consumer-complaint system and train state employees about federal consumer laws covering airlines.

“This is a partnership that will greatly improve DOT’s capacity to hold airlines accountable and to protect passengers,” Buttigieg told reporters.

Buttigieg pointed to travelers whose flights are canceled and then must wait days for another flight or pay more to fly home on another airline. “Things like that are a violation of passenger rights, and we are seeing far too many cases of that,” he said.

Other states whose officials signed the “memorandum of understanding” with the Transportation Department are: Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, plus the District of Columbia, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Buttigieg, a Democrat, repeatedly cast the agreement as bipartisan, but only two of the state officials who signed on are Republicans. Buttigieg indicated his department hopes to recruit more states.

Under U.S. law, the federal government alone regulates consumer-protection laws covering airlines. The carriers are not legally required to respond to state investigations.

Consumer advocates have pushed to expand enforcement power to the states. However, both the full House and a key Senate committee declined to include that proposal in pending legislation that covers the Federal Aviation Administration, part of the Transportation Department.

“During the pandemic, we actually got more complaints about airline traffic than any other topic, and it was frustrating” because the state had no authority to investigate the complaints, Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser said.

Weiser argued that Congress should give states power to enforce airline consumer-protection laws, “but I have to say, we didn’t wait for Congress to act.”

Consumer groups praised the agreement while saying they would rather see Congress write into law the power of states to regulate consumer-protection rules.

“This is the next best thing,” said William McGee, an aviation expert at the American Economic Liberties Project, which opposes industry consolidation. “We don’t look at this as a threat to DOT’s authority. We look at it as the states assisting DOT, which doesn’t have the staffing to handle all the complaints they get.”

Airlines for America, a trade group representing the largest U.S. carriers, said it works with state and national groups “to constantly improve the customer experience for all passengers. We appreciate the role of state attorneys general and their work on behalf of consumers, and we look forward to continue working with them.”

HOUSTON (AP) — A judge has recommended that the conviction and death sentence of Melissa Lucio, a Texas woman whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid growing doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter, should be overturned amid findings that evidence in her murder trial was suppressed.

Senior State District Judge Arturo Nelson on Friday approved an agreement between prosecutors and Lucio’s attorneys that found the suppressed evidence, including witness statements from Lucio’s children and a report by Child Protective Services, would have corroborated Lucio’s defense that her daughter Mariah died of a head injury sustained in an accidental fall down a steep staircase two days before her death.

“She would not have been convicted in light of the suppressed evidence,” according to the 33-page agreement between the office of Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz and Lucio’s attorneys.

Nelson’s recommendation has been sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which will make the final decision on whether Lucio’s conviction and death sentence are overturned. There was no timetable for a ruling by the appeals court. Lucio’s case has become a cause célèbre among people, including Kim Kardashian.

“We hope and pray the Court of Criminal Appeals will agree with the District Attorney, the defense, and Judge Nelson and our mother can come home to her family. It’s been 17 years that we have been without her. We love her and miss her and can’t wait to hug her,” Lucio’s children said in a statement Monday.

The agreement on findings in Lucio’s case had remained in limbo for 16 months before another judge, Gabriela Garcia. On April 5, Lucio’s lawyers and Saenz had issued a joint public statement in which they discussed that the findings were still under review by Garcia.

On April 10, Missy Medary, the presiding judge for the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region in South Texas, assigned Nelson to address the pending findings in the case. Nelson, who is a retired judge and had presided over Lucio’s 2008 trial, approved the findings two days later.

It was not immediately known why Nelson was assigned to review the findings. Court administrators for Garcia and Medary did not immediately return calls and emails seeking comment.

Lucio, 55, had been set for lethal injection in April 2022 for the 2007 death of her daughter in Harlingen, a city of about 71,000 in Texas’ southern tip. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted her lethal injection two days before her scheduled execution so Lucio’s claims that new evidence would exonerate her could be reviewed.

Before the agreed findings approved by Nelson, prosecutors had long maintained Mariah was the victim of abuse and noted her body was covered in bruises.

Lucio’s case has garnered support from Kardashian and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody.

“Melissa Lucio has been in jail for more than a decade and a half, which is an unimaginable injustice, but one that can at least be undone,” Moody said in a post Tuesday on the social platform X.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition by MyPillow founder and election denier Mike Lindell to consider his challenge to the legality of the FBI’s seizure of his cellphone at a restaurant drive-through.

The high court, without comment Monday, declined to reconsider three lower court rulings that went against Lindell, a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the 2020 presidential election from President Donald Trump.

FBI agents seized the cellphone from him at a Hardee’s fast-food restaurant in the southern Minnesota city of Mankato in 2022 as part of an investigation into an alleged scheme to breach voting system technology in Mesa County, Colorado. Lindell alleged the confiscation violated his constitutional rights against unlawful search and seizure and was an attempt by the government to chill his freedom of speech.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.

“While he has at times attempted to assert otherwise, Lindell’s objective in this action is apparent — this litigation is a tactic to, at a minimum, interfere with and, at most, enjoin a criminal investigation and ultimately hamper any potential federal prosecution,” a three-judge appeals panel wrote last September.

In February, when Lindell turned to the Supreme Court, his attorneys said Lindell had still not gotten his phone back.

Monday’s decision was the latest in a run of legal and financial setbacks for Lindell, who is being sued for defamation by two voting machine companies. Lawyers who were originally defending him in those cases quit over unpaid bills.

A credit crunch last year disrupted cash flow at MyPillow after it lost Fox News as one of its major advertising platforms and was dropped by several national retailers. A judge in February affirmed a $5 million arbitration award to a software engineer who challenged data Lindell said proves China interfered in the 2020 election.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Prosecutors charged the former leader of the Michigan House and his wife with financial crimes Tuesday, alleging they milked political accounts for personal travel, housing and other benefits while the Republican lawmaker held the powerful post.

Lee Chatfield misused his multimillion-dollar Peninsula Fund, which was not required to report the names of donors and served as an “unregulated slush fund,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said.

“The misuse of social welfare funds is not a new practice in Lansing,” Nessel, a Democrat, told reporters. “No one political party has abused it.”

Chatfield faces 13 charges, including conducting a criminal enterprise, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

The investigation began in 2022 when Chatfield’s sister-in-law publicly said he had sexually assaulted her. He has denied the allegations and said they had a consensual affair. Investigators eventually expanded the case beyond those claims.

Nessel said there was insufficient evidence to charge Chatfield based on Rebekah Chatfield’s allegations, though she praised her courage in stepping forward.

“Were it not for her we likely wouldn’t be here today,” the attorney general said.

Chatfield’s attorney, Mary Chartier, said she’ll fight the charges “each and every step of the way.”

“It took almost 2 1/2 years for the AG’s office to come up with charges. It’s going to be pretty flimsy if it took that long,” she said.

Chatfield’s wife, Stephanie Chatfield, also faces charges. The identity of her lawyer was not immediately known.

Two people who were top aides to Chatfield when he ran the House were charged last year with crimes, including embezzlement from nonprofit funds created for political purposes. Rob and Anne Minard have pleaded not guilty.

___

White reported from Detroit.

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – A former U.S. Army financial counselor pleaded guilty on Tuesday to defrauding grieving military families out of life insurance payments, in a scheme whose alleged victims included widows and a 13-year-old girl whose father had died.

Caz Craffy, 41, of Colts Neck, New Jersey, could face about eight to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to all 10 charges he faced, including wire fraud, securities fraud and making false statements.

“Those who target and steal from the families of fallen American servicemembers will be held accountable for their crimes,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Prosecutors said Craffy, also known as Carz Craffey, from May 2018 to November 2022 manipulated members of at least two dozen Gold Star families into transferring $9.9 million of survivor benefits into private brokerage accounts he controlled.

Craffy then allegedly made more than 1,000 unauthorized trades, generating over $3.4 million of losses and more than $1.4 million of commissions for himself.

The defendant was a civilian employee of the Army, but victims believed the Army authorized his conduct.

He has also been a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, and enlisted since 2003.

Gold Star families include people whose immediate family members die in active duty.

Survivors can receive a $100,000 death benefit and the fallen soldier’s life insurance up to $400,000.

According to court papers, Craffy lost 60% of a widow’s $400,000 investment meant to fund her children’s college expenses and care for her mother, and looted $50,000 from the 13-year-old girl’s retirement account.

Mark Berman, a lawyer for Craffy, was not immediately available for comment.

Craffy entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Georgette Castner in Trenton, New Jersey. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 21.

He could spend 97 months to 121 months in prison under recommended federal guidelines, and agreed not to appeal a sentence up to that range. Craffy also agreed to make full restitution, including proceeds from selling his home.

A spokeswoman for the Army Reserve declined specific comment on Craffy’s case, citing privacy laws, but said it “remains committed to holding personnel accountable for conduct that does not align with Department of Defense and Army policies.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft is investing $1.5 billion in a technology firm based in the United Arab Emirates and overseen by the country’s powerful national security adviser.

Microsoft and the technology holding company G42 announced the deal Tuesday. As part of the agreement, Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, will join G42’s board of directors.

The deal “was developed in close consultation with both the UAE and U.S. governments,” Microsoft said.

Based in Abu Dhabi, G42 runs data centers in the Middle East and elsewhere and has increasingly identified itself as an AI firm. It has built what’s considered the world’s leading Arabic-language AI model, known as Jais.

Microsoft said G42 will run its AI applications and services on the U.S. tech giant’s cloud computing platform, and the two companies will work to bring digital infrastructure to countries where G42 has established a presence in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.

G42 has previously said it would cut ties to Chinese hardware suppliers over American concerns it was too close to the Chinese government.

The company has faced spying allegations for its ties to a mobile phone app identified as spyware. It has also faced claims it could have gathered genetic material secretly from Americans for the Chinese government.

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser, is chairman of the company’s board.