NEW YORK (AP) — A veteran tabloid publisher was expected to return to the witness stand Tuesday in Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys in opening statements Monday painted competing portraits of the former president — one depicting him as someone who sought to corrupt the 2016 presidential election for his own benefit and another describing him as an innocent, everyday man who was being subjected to a case the government “should never have brought.”

David Pecker, the National Enquirer’s former publisher and a longtime friend of Trump’s, was the only witness Monday. He is expected to tell jurors Tuesday about his efforts to help Trump stifle unflattering stories during the 2016 campaign.

Prosecutors say Pecker worked with Trump and Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, on a “catch-and-kill” strategy to buy up and then spike negative stories. At the heart of the case are allegations that Trump orchestrated a scheme to bury unflattering stories about his personal life that might torpedo his campaign.

Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of those payments in internal business documents.

He has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Though he faces up to four years in prison if convicted, it’s unclear if the judge would decide to put him behind bars.

Before testimony resumes Tuesday, the judge will hold a hearing on prosecutors’ request to sanction and fine Trump over social media posts they say violate a gag order prohibiting him from attacking key witnesses.

The case is the first criminal trial of a former American president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury.

Currently:

— Key takeaways from the opening statements in Donald Trump’s hush money trial

— Key players: Who’s who at Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial

— The hush money case is just one of Trump’s legal cases. See the others here

— Trump’s $175 million bond in New York civil fraud judgment case is settled with cash promise

— Without cameras to go live, the Trump trial is proving the potency of live blogs as news tools

Here’s the latest:

Donald Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. But prosecutors made clear they do not want jurors to view this as a routine paper case.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said Monday the heart of the case is a scheme to “corrupt” the 2016 election by silencing people who were about to come forward with embarrassing stories Trump feared would hurt his campaign.

“No politician wants bad press,” Colangelo said. “But the evidence at trial will show that this was not spin or communication strategy. This was a planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior.”

Two journalists covering Donald Trump’s hush money trial were removed and expelled on Monday for breaking rules prohibiting recording and photography in the overflow room, where reporters who can’t get into the main courtroom watch the proceedings on large screens, according to court officials.

One of the banned journalists had previously been warned for violating the rules during jury selection.

Uniformed court officers have been making daily announcements reminding reporters of the rules. Signs posted in the overflow room and around the courthouse make clear that photography and recording are not allowed.

Donald Trump’s hush money trial will adjourn early on Tuesday in observance of Passover. Judge Juan M. Merchan plans to end court proceedings at 2 p.m. for the holiday.

Prosecutors on Monday made history as they presented their opening statements to a jury in the first criminal trial against a former U.S. president, accusing Donald Trump of a hush money scheme aimed at preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public.

The dueling statements painted very different portraits of the man who, before serving in the White House, was best known for being a major real estate developer and his reality TV show, “The Apprentice.”

One depicted him as someone who sought to illegally corrupt the 2016 presidential election for his own benefit and the other described him as an innocent, everyday man who was being subjected to a case the government “should never have brought.”

Faced with falling global sales and a diving stock price, Tesla has slashed prices again on some of its electric vehicles and its “Full Self Driving” system in an apparent effort to boost the company’s earnings growth.

But Wall Street was unimpressed and will be looking for other answers from CEO Elon Musk when Tesla releases a report on its first-quarter finances after the U.S. stock market’s closing bell Tuesday. Many industry analysts say a nearly 9% sales decline in the opening three months of 2024 raises questions about demand for Teslas and other electric vehicles.

For Musk, the answer appears to be the long-elusive robotaxi, which he has been touting as a growth catalyst for Tesla since the hardware for it went on sale late in 2015. Musk has called the system “Full Self Driving,” even though the company says on its website that it can’t drive itself and humans must be ready to take control at all times.

In 2019, Musk promised a fleet of autonomous robotaxis by 2020 that would bring income to Tesla owners and make their car values appreciate. Instead, they’ve declined with price cuts, as the autonomous robotaxis have been delayed year after year while being tested by owners as the company gathers road data for its computers.

Now, Musk appears to be betting that the unveiling of a new robotaxi model on Aug. 8 will be the catalyst that his company needs to return to wild annual sales growth.

Industry analysts are skeptical, and fear that Musk has canceled or delayed plans for the Model 2, a new small Tesla for the mass market that would cost around $25,000. Analysts polled by FactSet see the company’s first-quarter net income falling 42% from a year ago to $1.46 billion.

Over the weekend, though, Tesla lopped $2,000 off the price of the Models Y, S and X in the U.S. and reportedly made cuts in other countries including China. It also slashed the cost of “Full Self Driving” by one third to $8,000.

On Monday, as investors digested the price cuts, shares in Tesla Inc., which is based in Austin, Texas, fell another 3.4%, pushing the year-to-date decline to just under 43%. Since the start of the year, though, the S&P 500 index is up about 5%.

In a note to investors Monday, Bank of America Global Research analyst John Murphy wrote that Tesla’s shares have been under pressure since the start of the year due to weaker EV sales, and production that exceeds demand.

“We retain some level of skepticism on Tesla’s growth prospects, but also see opportunities as the company will unveil future growth drivers (robotaxi and Model 2) in the coming months,” Murphy wrote, adding that he maintains a neutral rating on the stock.

On Sunday, Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns, that like other automakers, Tesla prices change frequently “in order to match production with demand.”

From January through March, Tesla manufactured 433,371 vehicles and delivered 386,810, making over 46,000 more than it sold. This even after it cut prices last year on some of its more expensive models by up to $20,000.

Last week Tesla announced it would cut 10% of its 140,000 employees, and key executive Andrew Baglino, senior vice president of powertrain and energy engineering, announced he was leaving after 18 years. The company also announced that it would ask shareholders to restore a $56 billion pay package for Musk that was rejected by a Delaware court.

Murphy wrote that on Tuesday, he expects Musk and the company to give some hints about the robotaxi, and also could reiterate an intent to start making the Model 2 in 2025 or 2026.

For years, Musk has told owners and investors that Teslas with “Full Self Driving” software and hardware will be able to drive themselves and could earn money carrying passengers when they normally would have been parked.

But “Full Self Driving” thus far has not been anything other than a partially automated driver assist system that can’t drive itself.

Early last year the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made Tesla recall its “Full Self-Driving” system because it can misbehave around intersections and doesn’t always follow speed limits. Tesla’s less-sophisticated Autopilot system also was recalled to bolster its driver monitoring system.

Some experts, though, don’t think any system that relies solely on cameras like Tesla’s can ever reach full autonomy.

Sterling Anderson, chief product officer and co-founder of Aurora Innovation, a company that makes autonomous driving systems for semis, said his company uses laser and radar sensors in addition to cameras.

Anderson, a former Tesla director of Autopilot, said recently that Aurora’s laser sensor, also called lidar, was able to spot a pedestrian along a Texas freeway more than 300 meters (984 feet) ahead in the darkness. The truck’s cameras couldn’t see the person until it was about 50 meters (164 feet) away, making the situation more dangerous.

“There’s no ambient lighting to illuminate that pedestrian,” Anderson said. “So any optical system including cameras or human eyes dependent on other light to reflect off an object will fail at that kind of job.”

Laser and radar sensors can see far beyond the truck’s headlights, he said. “The question really is one of safety, robustness and reliability,” Anderson said.

Raj Rajkumar, a professor of computer and electrical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, said Tesla relies on cameras that are trained on huge data sets. But computers can’t foresee every scenario encountered on the roads, and even if they could “tomorrow there will be new scenarios that are not in the data set,” he said.

Musk has said before that lidar isn’t necessary because humans can drive with just their eyes. “Humans don’t shoot lasers out of their eyes to drive,” he wrote Sunday on X.

By John Kruzel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The idea of a doctor in the United States having to consider the risk of imprisonment before performing an emergency abortion might have been difficult to imagine just two years ago.

But after the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide, such dilemmas are a reality in several states that have since adopted Republican-backed near-total bans that include the threat of criminal penalties and loss of medical licensure.

The court on Wednesday is set to hear arguments in a case pitting Idaho’s strict abortion ban against a federal law that ensures that patients can receive emergency care. It forces the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to revisit the fraught legal landscape that it created with its 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that scuttled Roe.

Idaho is appealing a judge’s decision, made in a 2022 lawsuit by President Joe Biden’s administration, that found that the 1986 federal law at issue, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), takes precedence over the state’s law.

EMTALA requires hospitals that receive funding under the federal Medicare program to “stabilize” patients with emergency medical conditions. At issue now is whether Idaho’s ban must yield to EMTALA when a doctor determines an abortion is the necessary “stabilizing care.”

“The Supreme Court is having to reckon with, yet again, litigating abortion rights in an era that the majority opinion in Dobbs suggested would return it to the states and out of the courts,” said Rachel Rebouché, dean of the law school at Temple University in Philadelphia.

“In the cross-hairs here are providers,” Rebouché added, “many of whom just want to deliver care and know it’s legal.”

In Idaho, a so-called abortion “trigger” law automatically took effect upon Roe’s reversal. Passed by the Republican-led state legislature and signed by Republican Governor Brad Little in 2020, Idaho’s law bans all abortions unless needed to prevent a mother’s death.

Idaho is one of seven states with no exception to protect the health of pregnant patients, according to a U.S. Justice Department filing.

Among the critics of Idaho’s near-total abortion ban are some of the state’s doctors, who would face two to five years in prison and suspension or revocation of their medical license if convicted of performing what the law calls a “criminal abortion.”

“Criminalization of doctors providing healthcare is dangerous for patients, for doctors and for our communities,” Amelia Huntsberger, an obstetrician-gynecologist who practiced medicine in Idaho for a decade before relocating to Oregon due to Idaho’s abortion law, wrote this month in an open letter to Idaho’s legislature.

The number of obstetricians in Idaho dropped from 268 to 210 in the first 15 months after its abortion ban took effect, according to the Idaho Physician Well-Being Action Collaborative, a group founded by doctors in the state.

National groups representing obstetricians, gynecologists and emergency physicians have told the Supreme Court that many emergency conditions that could threaten the woman’s life and health – from gestational hypertension to excessive bleeding – could require an abortion to stabilize her or avoid seizures, vital organ damage and failure, or the loss of the uterus.

But Idaho’s law allows for abortion only to prevent the woman’s death, which makes it impossible to comply with both EMTALA and Idaho law, the providers said.

Clinicians are expected to make high-stakes judgments under the threat of criminal penalty, they added.

“At what point,” they asked in their filing, “does the condition of a pregnant woman with a uterine hemorrhage deteriorate from health-threatening to the point that an abortion is ‘necessary’ to prevent death? When is it certain she will die but for medical intervention? How many blood units does she have to lose?”

WHEN TWO LAWS COLLIDE

Following Roe’s demise, Biden’s administration issued federal guidance stating that EMTALA takes precedence over state abortion bans when the two conflict.

Idaho’s Republican attorney general and top Republican state lawmakers in court papers told the Supreme Court that the state’s law and EMTALA are not actually at odds.

“Whatever emergency medical treatment EMTALA could require is consistent with the balance struck in Idaho law,” the state officials wrote.

Boise-based U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in 2022 blocked enforcement of Idaho’s law in cases of abortions that are needed to avoid putting the woman’s health in “serious jeopardy” or risking “serious impairment to bodily functions.”

“Where federal law requires the provision of care and state law criminalizes that very care, it is impossible to comply with both laws,” the judge wrote.

The Supreme Court in January let Idaho enforce its law while also agreeing to decide its legality. A ruling is expected by the end of June.

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A $8 billion defense package approved by the U.S. House of Representatives over the weekend will “strengthen the deterrence against authoritarianism in the West Pacific ally chain,” Taiwan’s President-elect Lai Ching-te said Tuesday, in a reference to key rival China.

The funding will also “help ensure peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and also boost confidence in the region” Lai, currently Taiwan’s vice president, told visiting Michigan Representatives Lisa McClain, a Republican, and Democrat Dan Kildee at a meeting at the Presidential Office Building in the capital Taipei.

In the face of “authoritarian expansionism,” Taiwan is “determined to safeguard democracy and also safeguard our homeland,” Lai said.

Also known as William Lai, U.S.-educated former medical researcher is despised by Beijing for his opposition to political unification with the mainland. In recent elections, the pro-unification Nationalists won a narrow majority in the legislature, but their influence on foreign policy and other national issues remains limited.

The Senate will vote Tuesday on $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

The package covers a wide range of parts and services aimed at maintaining and and upgrading Taiwan’s military hardware. Separately, Taiwan has signed billions in contracts with the U.S. for latest-generation F-16V fighter jets, M1 Abrams main battle tanks and the HIMARS rocket system, which the U.S. has also supplied to Ukraine.

Taiwan has also been expanding its own defense industry, building submarines and trainer jets. Next month it plans to commission its third and fourth domestically designed and built stealth corvettes to counter the Chinese navy. as part of a strategy of asymmetrical warfare in which a smaller force counters its larger opponent by using cutting edge or nonconventional tactics and weaponry.

Lai, of the pro-independence ruling Democratic Progressive Party, won the January election handily and takes over next month from President Tsai Ing-wen, whom Beijing has sought to isolate for the past eight years.

China is determined to annex the island, which it considers its own territory, by force if necessary and has been advertising that threat with daily incursions into waters and air space around Taiwan by navy ships and warplanes. It has also sought to pick away Taiwan’s few remaining formal diplomatic partners.

While Washington and Taipei have no formal diplomatic ties in deference to Beijing, McClain emphasized the need for the entire world to observe the strength of the relationship.

“Peace is our goal. But to do that, we have to have relationships and we value your relationship. Not only militarily, but economically,” she said.

Kildee said the timing of the visit was especially significant given the recent passage of the funding bill to “provide very important support to insure security in this region.”

“It’s important for the people of Taiwan, it’s important for the people in the United States, it’s important for the entire world,” Kildee said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration on Tuesday set a new goal to protect vast U.S. water sources, from rivers to wetlands, as part of a series of announcements marking Earth Week.

The administration plans to announce a new goal of protecting, restoring and reconnecting 8 million acres (3.2 million hectares) of threatened wetlands and 100,000 miles (161,000 km) of rivers and streams, according to White House documents.

The White House, which is hosting a water summit on Tuesday, also plans to pledge $1 billion to deliver clean water to households on Native American land.

Half of Tribal households do not have access to clean drinking water or adequate sanitation, the administration said. Meanwhile, much of the country’s west has been plagued by drought for decades, driven by climate change.

The Biden administration last year weakened a rule regulating waterway pollution after a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that limited the regulatory reach of the Environmental Protection Agency.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden visits Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday to tie opponent Donald Trump to new abortion restrictions, hoping to boost his own chances in a state that has drifted out of Democrats’ reach in recent elections.

Earlier this month, Florida’s Supreme Court cleared the way for a six-week abortion ban starting May 1, a time-frame before many women realize they are pregnant.

Biden’s re-election campaign quickly declared battle, saying he would win the state in November because of the ban. U.S. voters overwhelmingly reject strict abortion bans, polls and state ballot initiatives show.

Abortion is a top issue in the 2024 election, and Democrats believe harsh restrictions like in Florida and Arizona, which earlier this month upheld a 160-year-old abortion ban, will push voters to back Biden.

Biden will tell Americans in Florida and nearby states their freedoms are at risk, campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.

“When Florida’s ban takes effect, it will severely restrict reproductive health care access across the entire Southeastern United States, including neighboring battlegrounds of Georgia and North Carolina,” she added.

Abortion access is now almost nonexistent in Southern states due to new laws, nearly all of them backed by Republicans, forcing women to cross state lines.

Trump’s stance on the issue has been muddied in recent weeks. The Republican distanced himself from the Arizona ruling even as he took credit for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and made state restrictions possible.

UPHILL BATTLE

Florida has a hefty 30 Electoral College votes and for a long time was a highly coveted battleground state, but Republicans have pulled away from Democrats there in recent years.

Some Biden aides think that Democrats’ optimism in the state could be misplaced.

Trump won Florida in 2020 with 51.2% of the vote compared with Biden’s 47.9%. In 2022, Republican Ron DeSantis won the governors race in a landslide, with 59.4% of the vote.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried told Reuters she has seen more investments in advertising, staffing and opening new offices in the state from the Biden campaign. Biden, she said, understands the fight to win Florida “is an uphill battle, but it’s one worth taking.”

A compilation of opinion polls by FiveThirtyEight, the election data website, shows Trump with a substantial lead in Florida.

“The idea that Donald Trump has Florida in the bag could not be further from the truth. He owns not only the state of abortion rights across the country, he owns the restrictions that will play out in Florida,” Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director told reporters on a call.

Along with the six-week ban, the Florida Supreme Court also approved an initiative to let voters decide whether to amend the state’s constitution to establish a right to an abortion. That initiative will be on the Nov. 5 ballot alongside the presidential race.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Trevor Hunnicutt, Heather Timmons and Stephen Coates)

HONG KONG (AP) — Global markets were mostly higher Tuesday after U.S. stocks clawed back a chunk of their losses from the week before, with roughly 150 companies in the S&P 500 set to report earnings this week.

The futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were 0.1% higher.

Oil prices rose as the Israeli military signaled it plans an offensive targeting the Gazan city of Rafah. The latest satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press appear to show a new compound of tents being built near Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, in an area targeted by repeated Israeli military operations over recent weeks.

London’s FTSE 100 hit a record high early Tuesday as the index surged 0.5% to 8,061.61, surpassing its previous peak in February 2023. Germany’s DAX was 0.7% higher at 17,985.96 and the CAC 40 in Paris added 0.2% to 8,057.58.

In Asian trading, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.3% to 37,552.16, despite the country’s manufacturing activity contracting for 11 straight months while approaching the break-even point in April.

A purchasing managers survey showed sentiment at 49.9, on a scale of up to 100 where 50 marks the break between expansion and contraction. The yen weakened further, hitting a fresh 34-year low of 154.85 early Tuesday.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 1.9% to 16,820.51 while the Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.7% to 3,021.98.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.5% to 7,683.50. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.2% to 2,623.02.

On Monday, the S&P 500 gained 0.5%, recovering more than a quarter of last week’s rout. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7% and the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.1%.

Tesla dropped 3.4% after announcing price cuts over the weekend. Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company’s stock has dropped more than 40% already this year. It was due to release its first quarter earnings later Tuesday.

About a third of the companies in the S&P 500 are scheduled to say how much they made during the year’s first three months. That includes companies that have come to be known as part of the “Magnificent Seven,” beyond Tesla and Alphabet.

Even more pressure than usual is on companies broadly to deliver fatter profits and revenue. That’s because the other big factor that sets stock prices, interest rates, looks unlikely to offer much help in the near term.

Top officials at the Federal Reserve warned last week that they may need to keep interest rates high for a while in order to ensure inflation is heading down to their 2% target. That was a big letdown for financial markets, dousing hopes that had built after the Fed signaled earlier that three interest-rate cuts may come this year.

Lower rates had appeared to be on the horizon after inflation cooled sharply last year. But a string of reports this year showing inflation has remained hotter than expected has raised worries about stalled progress.

In oil trading, U.S. benchmark crude picked up 80 cents to $82.70 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 79 cents to $87.79 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar slipped to 154.83 Japanese yen from 154.84 yen. The euro rose to $1.0677 from $1.0653.

An independent panel that reviewed the neutrality of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, after Israel alleged that a dozen of its employees in Gaza had participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, released its report on Monday.

Here are some of its key recommendations to strengthen the neutrality of the agency, known as UNRWA.

— UNRWA, established by the U.N. General Assembly in 1949, does not have an executive board but it does have an advisory body, which must put neutrality on its agenda at all meetings and create a working group on neutrality and integrity issues.

— UNRWA faces challenges due to increased politicization of its staff and must announce procedures to deal with future allegations of neutrality breaches, and identify and implement additional ways to screen staff early in the recruitment process.

— UNRWA should reinforce its regular sharing of digital staff lists with host countries and Israel by ensuring the inclusion of additional information, including ID numbers and jobs. In response, host countries and Israel must provide UNRWA with results of their screening and “any red flags.”

— UNRWA’s international staff in Gaza is less than 1% of its total staff and there needs to be more senior international staff in the field to provide oversight on neutrality issues.

— UNRWA’s management and internal oversight reform efforts “are commendable and should be expanded,” including by creating a centralized neutrality investigation unit.

— UNRWA must implement “a zero-tolerance policy” on school textbooks used in its schools spreading antisemitic views or promoting discrimination and incitement to hatred.

— The politicization of UNRWA staff unions is “one of the most sensitive neutrality issues” and the agency should request an independent body to vet every staff union representative on their neutrality.

— It is “imperative” for UNRWA to enhance its engagement with donor nations to promote trust and strengthen their partnership.

— The international community has a responsibility to help and support UNRWA in addressing neutrality issues.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primaries will cement the lineup for a high-stakes U.S. Senate race between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick, a contest that is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars and could help decide control of the Senate next year.

Casey, seeking his fourth term, is perhaps Pennsylvania’s best-known politician and a stalwart of the presidential swing state’s Democratic Party — the son of a former two-term governor and Pennsylvania’s longest-ever serving Democrat in the Senate.

McCormick is a two-time Senate challenger, a former hedge fund CEO and Pennsylvania native who spent $14 million of his own money only to lose narrowly to celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz in 2022’s seven-way GOP primary. Oz then lost to Democratic Sen. John Fetterman in a pivotal Senate contest.

This time around, McCormick has consolidated the party around his candidacy and is backed by a super PAC that’s already reported raising more than $20 million, much of it from securities-trading billionaires.

McCormick’s candidacy is shaping up as the strongest challenge to Casey in his three reelection bids. McCormick, intent on shoring up support in the GOP base, told an audience of conservatives in suburban Harrisburg earlier this month that he tells people “you’re going to agree with about 80% of what I say … but we disagree 90% of the time with the crazy progressive left that’s destroying our country.”

The Senate candidates will share a ticket with candidates for president in a state that is critical to whether Democrats can maintain control of the White House and the Senate. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are expected to win their party nominations easily now that all major rivals have dropped out.

Of note, however, could be the number of “ uncommitted ” write-in votes cast in the Democratic primary to protest Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

In the Senate contest, Democrats have attacked McCormick’s opposition to abortion rights, his frequent trips to Connecticut’s ritzy “Gold Coast ” where he keeps a family home, and the focus on investing in China during his dozen years as an executive at the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, including as CEO.

Casey has been a key player for Democrats trying to reframe the election-year narrative about the economy by attacking “greedflation” — a blunt term for corporations that jack up prices and rip off shoppers to maximize profits — as fast-rising prices over the past three years have opened a big soft spot in 2024 for Democrats. Recent indications that the U.S. economy avoided a recession amid efforts to manage inflation have yet to translate into voter enthusiasm for giving Biden a second term.

McCormick, meanwhile, has accused Casey of rubber-stamping harmful immigration, economic, energy and national security policies of Biden, and made a bid for Jewish voters by traveling to the Israel-Gaza border and arguing that Biden hasn’t backed Israel strongly enough in the Israel-Hamas war.

Casey is one of Biden’s strongest allies in Congress.

The two men share a hometown of Scranton and their political stories are intertwined. Biden — who represented neighboring Delaware in the Senate and roots for Philadelphia sports teams — has effectively made Pennsylvania his political home as a presidential candidate. Long before that, Biden was nicknamed “Pennsylvania’s third senator” by Democrats because he campaigned there so often.

McCormick and Trump have endorsed each other, but are an awkward duo atop the GOP’s ticket. Trump savaged McCormick in 2022’s primary in a successful bid to lift Oz to his primary win. And McCormick, for his part, has told of a private meeting in which he refused Trump’s urging to say that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, a disproven claim the former president has never abandoned.

Democrats currently hold a Senate majority by the narrowest of margins, but face a difficult 2024 Senate map that requires them to defend incumbents in the red states of Montana and Ohio and fight for open seats with new candidates in Michigan and West Virginia.

A Casey loss could guarantee Republican control of the Senate.

Elsewhere on the ballot Tuesday, Pennsylvanians will decide nominees for an open attorney general’s office and two other statewide offices — treasurer and auditor general — plus all 17 of the state’s U.S. House seats and 228 of the state’s 253 legislative seats.

For attorney general, Republicans have a two-way race while Democrats have a five-person primary field. Democrats also will decide on challengers to incumbent Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity and state Auditor General Tim DeFoor.

For Congress, 44 candidates are on ballots, including all 17 incumbents, just three of whom are facing primary challengers: Democratic Reps. Summer Lee in a Pittsburgh-based district and Dwight Evans in Philadelphia and Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in suburban Philadelphia.

Lee’s primary against challenger Bhavini Patel has shaped up as an early test of whether Israel’s war with Gaza poses political threats to progressive Democrats in Congress who have criticized how it has been handled.

Voters will decide from among three would-be Republican challengers to Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, whose Allentown-based district is politically divided, and six Democratic candidates hoping to challenge Republican Rep. Scott Perry of southern Pennsylvania.

Perry has become a national figure for heading up the ultra-right House Freedom Caucus during a speakership battle and his efforts to help Trump stay in power after losing 2020’s presidential election.

___

Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/timelywriter.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken is starting three days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing this week with U.S.-China ties at a critical point over numerous global disputes.

The mere fact that Blinken is making the trip — shortly after a conversation between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, a similar visit to China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and a call between the U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs — might be seen by some as encouraging, but ties between Washington and Beijing are tense and the rifts are growing wider.

From Russia and Ukraine to Israel, Iran and the broader Middle East as well as Indo-Pacific and trade issues, the U.S. and China are on a series of collision courses that have sparked fears about military and strategic security as well as international economic stability.

Blinken “will raise clearly and candidly our concerns” during the talks starting Wednesday, a senior State Department official said.

Here’s a look at some of the key issues Blinken is expected to bring up on the trip:

The Biden administration has grown increasingly concerned in recent months about Chinese support for Russia’s defense industrial base, which U.S. officials say is allowing Moscow to overcome Western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine and resupply its military. U.S. officials say this will be a primary topic of conversation during Blinken’s visit.

While the U.S. says it has no evidence China actually is arming Russia, officials say other activities are potentially equally problematic.

“If China purports on the one hand to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it can’t on the other hand be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War,” Blinken said last week.

A senior State Department official said Friday that “through Chinese support, Russia has largely reconstituted its defense industrial base, which has an impact not just on the battlefield in Ukraine but poses a larger threat, we believe, to broader European security.”

U.S. officials, from Biden on down, have repeatedly appealed to China to use any leverage it may have with Iran to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza from spiraling into a wider regional conflict.

While China appears to have been generally receptive to such calls — particularly because it depends heavily on oil imports from Iran and other Mideast nations — tensions have steadily increased since the beginning of the Gaza war in October and more recent direct strikes and counterstrikes between Israel and Iran.

Blinken has pushed for China to take a more active stance in pressing Iran not to escalate tensions in the Middle East. He has spoken to his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, several times over the past six months and urged China to tell Iran to restrain the proxy groups it has supported in the region, including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.

Blinken told Wang in a phone call this month that “escalation is not in anyone’s interest and that countries should urge Iran not to escalate,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said of their last conversation.

The senior State Department official said Blinken would reiterate the U.S. interest in China using “whatever channels or influence it has to try to convey the need for restraint to all parties, including Iran.”

In the Indo-Pacific region, China and the United States are the major players, but Beijing has become increasingly aggressive in recent years toward Taiwan and its smaller Southeast Asian neighbors with which it has significant territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea.

The U.S. has strongly condemned Chinese military exercises threatening Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province and has vowed to reunify with the mainland by force if necessary. Successive U.S. administrations have steadily boosted military support and sales for Taipei, much to Chinese anger.

The senior State Department official said Blinken would “underscore, both in private and public, America’s abiding interest in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. We think that is vitally important for the region and the world.”

In the South China Sea, the U.S. and others have become increasingly concerned by provocative Chinese actions in and around disputed areas.

In particular, the U.S. has voiced objections to what it says are Chinese attempts to thwart legitimate maritime activities by others in the sea, notably the Philippines and Vietnam. That was a major topic of concern this month when Biden held a three-way summit with the prime minister of Japan and the president of the Philippines.

The U.S. and China are at deep odds over human rights in China’s western Xinjiang region, Tibet and Hong Kong as well as the fate of several American citizens that the State Department says have been “wrongfully detained” by Chinese authorities.

China has repeatedly rejected the American criticism as improper interference in its internal affairs. Yet, Blinken will again raise these issues, according to the senior State Department official, who added that China’s self-described efforts to rein in the export of materials that traffickers use to make fentanyl have yet to yield significant results.

The two sides agreed last year to set up a working group to look into ways to combat the surge of production of fentanyl precursors in China and their export abroad. U.S. officials say they believe they had made some limited progress on cracking down on the illicit industry but many producers had found ways to get around new restrictions.