HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — When Nikki Haley suspended her presidential campaign, she refused to endorse Donald Trump as the last remaining major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination — and apparently so did some of her supporters in Pennsylvania.

Haley won almost 17% of Pennsylvania’s primary vote Tuesday, or 1 in 6 votes, to Trump’s 83%, despite not campaigning for president since she ended her bid in early March.

Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes up for grabs in the presidential election make it a premier battleground state. So should those Haley GOP voters refuse to support Trump in November, it could prove a damaging blow to his prospects for victory in the state and, possibly, reelection.

Haley’s base was never big enough to seriously challenge Trump before he clinched a third straight Republican presidential nomination.

But with nearly all ballots counted in Pennsylvania’s primary, the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor tallied more than 156,000 votes, or about twice the 80,500-vote margin by which Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania in 2020. Pennsylvania’s election was even closer in 2016, when Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by 44,000 votes.

A larger proportion of votes for Haley tended to come from urban and suburban areas where Trump suffered massive losses in his two previous presidential campaigns.

On the Democratic side, U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota won 7% against Biden, or nearly 70,000 votes as of Wednesday morning. Counties had reported nearly 60,000 for write-in candidates. A handful of counties had not yet reported write-in totals, and the breakdown of write-in votes for “uncommitted” was not immediately available.

Phillips and Haley qualified for Pennsylvania’s primary ballot before they dropped out of the presidential race, and Biden and Trump are on track to win their parties’ presidential nominations and face each other in November’s general election. Phillips has endorsed Biden.

All told, about 1 million ballots have been counted apiece in Tuesday’s GOP and Democratic presidential primaries in Pennsylvania, out of 3.5 million registered Republican voters and 3.9 million registered Democratic voters.

Pennsylvania holds closed primary elections, meaning that someone must have been registered as a Republican or a Democrat by April 8 to have voted in the primary for that party.

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AP Director of Public Opinion Research Emily Swanson contributed to this report. Follow Marc Levy at twitter.com/timelywriter.

By Jonathan Allen and Brendan O’Brien

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Columbia University students agreed to take down “a significant number” of the dozens of tents set up on the school’s main campus as part of a protest against Israel’s incursion into Gaza, the New York school said on Wednesday.

The concession by protesters was part of a deal under which Columbia agreed to extend by 48 hours a midnight deadline for the entire encampment to come down, it said in a statement, pointing to “significant progress” in the talks.

A representative of the protesters, who have occupied a lawn at the center of the upper Manhattan campus for days, could not be reached immediately for comment.

The university on Tuesday threatened to invite law enforcement to dismantle the encampment if students had not done so by midnight. On Friday, New York police arrested more than 100 protesters at the encampment at the behest of administrators.

“The encampment raises serious safety concerns, disrupts campus life, and has created a tense and at times hostile environment for many members of our community,” Columbia President Minouche Shafik said late on Tuesday, before the agreement to extend the negotiating deadline. “It is essential that we move forward with a plan to dismantle it.”

The protesters had vowed to keep the protest going until the university agreed to disclose and divest any financial holdings that might support the war in Gaza and granted amnesty to students suspended from school during the demonstrations.

In addition to removing a significant number of tents, the university said student leaders had agreed to make sure that anyone unaffiliated with Columbia leaves the campus, that any activity complies with fire safety rules and that protesters refrain from any discriminatory or harassing language.

Columbia is one of many campuses across the United States where debate over Gaza has grown heated. Some Jewish and Israeli students have complained of a hostile environment and antisemitic remarks that have made them feel unsafe on campus.

Demonstrators contend the protests have been peaceful and that a few outsiders not connected with their movement are responsible for hateful confrontations.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, was set to visit the campus on Wednesday afternoon to meet Jewish students, deliver remarks and take media questions. The visit follows harsh criticism by Republican lawmakers who say that Columbia’s president has allowed antisemitism and harassment to fester.

Since protests over Israel’s actions in Gaza began last autumn, the presidents of Harvard and University of Pennsylvania have resigned after a storm of similar criticism.

On Tuesday, 25 U.S. Senate Republicans urged the Biden administration to “restore order” on campuses where Jewish students feel threatened.

“I also want to be clear that we will not tolerate intimidating, harassing, or discriminatory behavior,” added Shafik.

“The right to protest is essential and protected at Columbia, but harassment and discrimination is antithetical to our values and an affront to our commitment to be a community of mutual respect and kindness.”

Shafik has raised concerns that extended protests could disrupt graduation ceremonies set for May 15.

The New York Police Department has said it needs to be invited by university authorities to tackle trespassing or camping violations because the campus is private property, but it would act on its own in the event of violent crime.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta and Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Andrea Ricci)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden secured the backing of another union on Wednesday as the organization representing American construction workers lined up behind the Democratic incumbent and called Donald Trump a dangerous threat to the nation.

The head of the North America’s Building Trade Union, which will host Biden at its legislative conference in Washington later on Wednesday, in an ad said the Republican presidential nominee “was not a good man” and was only focused on returning to the White House “to exert revenge on people.”

“His dark side is very, very dark and very, very dangerous for this country,” said NABTU President Sean McGarvey, who said he has known Trump, a real estate developer who served in the White House from 2017-2021, for decades. “We can’t let our democracy that we’ve worked for and we’ve cherished just disintegrate with the wrong leader at the wrong time.”

McGarvey also cited what he characterized as Trump’s failure to fix workers’ pensions and inaction on long-promised infrastructure fixes as other factors in the group’s support for his Democratic rival, who signed a landmark 2021 infrastructure law and whose 2022 Inflation Reduction Act included billions of dollars in infrastructure spending.

Biden created “the biggest infrastructure boom this country has ever seen,” he told MSNBC in a separate interview, calling him “the most pro-union … pro-worker president that this country has ever seen… we see the results.”

Biden and Trump will face each other again in the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5 in what looks set to be a divisive, closely fought contest.

Representatives for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest union to announce its endorsement.

In January, Biden secured the United Auto Workers union’s support. A number of other unions have not announced their choice in November’s contest, including the Teamsters and the Fraternal Order of Police.

Asked about members who are strident Trump supporters, NABTU’s McGarvey acknowledged they may not be persuadable.

“What matter is the 15% of people that are persuadable, that are open to hearing the facts and making up their own mind,” he told MSNBC. “A lot of our members are patriots and they do not like the way that this ex-president is talking about what he’s going to do if he’s elected to another term.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Nandita Bose)

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business lobby, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to strike down a federal agency’s near-total ban on employers requiring workers to sign agreements not to join rivals or launch competing businesses.

The Chamber’s lawsuit in federal court in Tyler, Texas, alleges that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission lacks the power to adopt sweeping rules such as the ban on so-called noncompete agreements released on Tuesday, which is set to take effect in August.

The FTC is empowered by federal law to enforce existing antitrust laws passed by Congress, but not to enact rules determining what other type of conduct by businesses is anticompetitive, the Chamber said in the lawsuit.

“Companies will face substantial legal costs as they are forced to resort to other tools to attempt to protect their investments,” the Chamber said. “And the economy as a whole will suffer as start-ups and small businesses are unable to prevent dominant firms from hiring their best employees and gaining access to their confidential information.”

The lawsuit comes after tax service firm Ryan LLC on Tuesday filed the first legal challenge to the FTC rule in a different federal court in Texas.

The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The commission and Democrats and worker advocates who support the rule say it is necessary to rein in the increasingly common practice of requiring workers to sign noncompete agreements, even in lower-paying service industries such as fast food and retail. The agreements suppress workers’ wages by making it difficult for them to switch jobs, they say.

The FTC on Tuesday said that banning noncompete agreements will increase worker earnings by up to $488 billion over the next decade and will lead to the creation of more than 8,500 new businesses each year.

But business groups and many Republicans have said that noncompete agreements are a vital tool for companies to protect confidential information and investments in their workforce.

Legal challenges to the commission’s rule will almost certainly delay its implementation, regardless of the ultimate outcome, according to Matt Durham, a labor lawyer at the firm Dorsey & Whitney in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Chamber could move for an injunction temporarily blocking the rule from taking effect as the case proceeds, but did not say whether it would do so in Wednesday’s complaint.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Michael Erman)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday pardoned 11 people and commuted the sentences of five others who had been convicted of non-violent drug offenses, the White House said, the latest in a series of such actions.

“Many of these individuals received disproportionately longer sentences than they would have under current law, policy, and practice,” Biden said in a statement.

The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population but a fifth of its prisoners. Last year the White House unveiled a plan to reduce “unnecessary” incarcerations, support rehabilitation for imprisoned people and help those getting out of prison re-enter society more successfully.

The White House said one of those pardoned by Biden is Dr. Katrina Polk, 54, of Washington, who pleaded guilty to a non-violent drug offense at the age of 18. Polk served her sentence, completed the terms of her supervised release and went on to earn a PhD in public policy and administration.

Last December Biden reduced the prison terms of 11 people serving decades-long sentences for non-violent drug charges and pardoned potentially thousands of others with federal or Washington, D.C. marijuana possession offenses.

(Reporting by Paul Grant, editing by David Ljunggren)

NEW YORK (AP) — Relentlessly rising auto insurance rates are squeezing car owners and stoking inflation.

Auto insurance rates rose 2.6% in March and are up 22% from a year ago. Premium costs have been marching steadily higher since 2022, even as inflation at the consumer level steadily cooled from its 9.1% peak in the middle of that year. Consumers have had some relief as the rate of cost increases for food and energy, two key components of most budgets, has eased greatly.

But auto insurance and car ownership costs have become a sticking point for consumers and the Federal Reserve in its battle to rein inflation back to its goal of 2%.

Typically, individuals would see a noticeable increase in their premiums because of speeding tickets and other moving violations. Adding new drivers or a general increase in claims in the area were other reasons.

But the persistent rise in rates over the last two years has been far more sweeping. New vehicle prices starting spiking during the pandemic, mainly because of a worldwide shortage of computer chips amid production cuts and supply chain bottlenecks. Dealers spent much of 2021 with few or no cars in stock.

Car price increases eased heading into 2024, with the average at $47,338 in January, down from a peak of $48,516 in late 2022, according to Edmunds.com.

Higher value for cars, along with more advanced technology and intricate parts, has raised the overall cost of repairs. Overall maintenance and repair costs jumped 8.2% in March from a year ago, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s eased a bit over the last year. The rate of increase was as high as 14.2% in early 2023.

“The severity is really the thing that has influenced rates more over the last two years than anything,” said Greg Smolan, vice president of insurance operations at AAA Northeast. “A fender bender in the past didn’t have all the sensors and cameras.”

Higher overall auto prices and auto repair costs prompted insurers to start raising premiums as overall car values jumped. Price increases for insurance rates, like many other increases from food to clothing, have been sticky and are less likely to drop at the same rate as broader inflation, if at all.

That has been beneficial for insurers who have seen profits surge. Wall Street is expecting bigger leaps in 2024.

“Our sole concentration last year was to get the right rate,” said Progressive CEO Tricia Griffith, during a fourth-quarter earnings conference call. “We feel like we’re in a really great position now.”

Progressive’s profit jumped 50% and its revenue surged nearly 18% to $62.1 billion in 2023. Wall Street expects its profit to skyrocket nearly 80% in 2024 on a 14% jump in revenue.

Allstate reported a modest profit in 2023 after reporting a loss a year earlier. Wall Street expects its profit to surge 13-fold as revenue rises 10% to $62.9 billion in 2024.

“Companies are getting a lot closer to rate adequacy now,” Smolan said. “I think you’ll see some flattening out of the real large increases.”

The process of obtaining auto insurance can be confusing and overwhelming, considering the differing mix of requirements in each state, extra options and the confusing industry and legal jargon used by insurers. The first step for many should be gaining a better understanding about auto insurance, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

Consumers should shop around by getting at least three different quotes and from different types of insurance companies. Also, comparing costs before buying a car could help give consumers a better sense of the true cost of owning a specific car. Premiums are based in part on a car’s price, along with prospective repair costs and safety data.

Deductibles could be a major factor in determining monthly premium costs. That’s the amount of money that a driver is responsible for paying toward a claim. Higher deductibles usually mean lower premiums.

Bundling multiple policies under one insurer could come with a discount. This is common for homeowners using the same company for their home and auto policies. There may also be discounts for insuring more than one vehicle under the same company.

Defensive driving courses also help give drivers discounts on insurance. The timing and standards vary by state, but courses are usually offered in-person and online. Companies including Progressive and Geico often offer multi-year discounts for taking such a course. They can usually steer policy holders toward reputable companies offering the course and certificate.

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -New orders for key U.S.-manufactured capital goods increased moderately in March and data for the prior month was revised lower, suggesting that business spending on equipment likely remained weak in the first quarter.

The report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday was published ahead of the release on Thursday of the government’s advance estimate of gross domestic product for the January-March quarter. The economy is expected to have delivered another quarter of strong performance, thanks to a resilient labor market that is driving consumer spending.

“From a narrow GDP accounting perspective, there should be no material impact on estimates for tomorrow’s first-quarter GDP growth,” said Conrad DeQuadros, senior economic advisor at Brean Capital. “The positive takeaway from this is that the report suggests that weakness in manufacturing does not appear to be intensifying, but neither are there signs of recovery.”

Non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, rose 0.2% last month, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said. Data for February was revised lower to show these so-called core capital goods orders advancing 0.4% instead of 0.7% as previously reported.

March’s increase was in line with economists’ expectations. Core capital goods orders gained 0.6% year-on-year in March.

Business spending on equipment has struggled in the aftermath of 525 basis points worth of interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve since March 2022 to tame inflation. Though the U.S. central bank is expected to start lowering rates this year, the timing of the first cut is uncertain as inflation remains elevated amid the economy’s resilience. The Fed has kept its policy rate in the 5.25%-5.50% range since July.

WEAK SHIPMENTS

Core capital goods shipments rebounded 0.2% after falling 0.6% in February. These shipments likely were unchanged when adjusted for inflation. Non-defense capital goods orders surged 5.4% after rising 2.7% in February. Shipments of these goods slumped 1.5% after increasing by a downwardly revised 2.4% in February.

Non-defense capital goods shipments, which go into the calculation of the business spending on equipment component in the gross domestic product report, were previously reported to have risen 2.6% in February.

“While underlying capital goods shipments rose last quarter, they were probably little changed in real terms and the plunge in non-defense aircraft shipments suggests that overall business equipment investment declined,” said Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at Capital Economics.

Economists polled by Reuters estimated that GDP increased at a 2.4% annualized rate in the first quarter. The economy grew at a 3.4% pace in the October-December quarter. Business spending on equipment likely contracted for a third straight quarter.

But manufacturing, which accounts for 10.4% of the economy, is stabilizing. Orders for durable goods, items ranging from toasters to aircraft meant to last three years or more, rose 2.6% in March after a downwardly revised 0.7% advance in February.

Durable goods orders were previously reported to have risen 1.3% in February. They climbed 0.3% year-on-year in March.

An Institute for Supply Management survey this month showed manufacturing grew for the first time in 1-1/2 years in March.

Transportation dominated the rise in orders last month, with bookings shooting up 7.7% after rising 1.8% in February. They were lifted by a 30.6% jump in civilian aircraft orders after increasing 15.6% in the prior month.

Boeing reported on its website that it had received 113 orders for commercial aircraft, a surge from just 15 in February. Orders for motor vehicles and parts rose 2.1%.

Orders for computers and electronic products increased 0.8% last month, while those for electrical equipment, appliances and components gained 0.1%. Machinery orders edged up 0.1%.

Orders for fabricated metals rose 0.2%. But orders for primary metals fell 0.5%.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Puerto Rico will hold a Democratic presidential primary on Sunday, which will be the only opportunity most registered voters on the island will have to officially weigh in on the race for the White House.

Like other U.S. territories, voters in Puerto Rico can’t cast ballots in the general election but may participate in presidential primaries and send delegates to both the Democratic and Republican national conventions this summer.

President Joe Biden has already won enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination and faces minimal opposition on the ballot Sunday. The Democratic primary was originally scheduled for March 17, but party officials moved the event and implemented cost-saving measures like reducing the number of polling places once it became clear Biden had locked up the nomination. The party estimates the scaled-back primary will cost less than $60,000, down from the approximately $1 million the State Elections Commission had originally budgeted. Puerto Rico Republicans scrapped their traditional primary and instead awarded their 23 delegates to former President Donald Trump on Sunday in a caucus-style vote at which approximately 77% of 1,340 eligible party officials participated. Trump was the only candidate on the ballot.

Although residents of Puerto Rico can’t vote for president in November, they could potentially still influence Electoral College calculations. In the 2020 general election, both the Biden and Trump campaigns had outreach efforts in Puerto Rico with the hopes that voters there would in turn influence their friends and relatives on the U.S. mainland.

Last month, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Puerto Rico to tout the Biden administration’s record on disaster relief and to attend a fundraiser. The trip came days after Biden launched a new effort to target Latino voters.

According to a 2023 Pew Research Center analysis of Census data, about 5.8 million Puerto Ricans live in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. About 21% of stateside Puerto Ricans reside in Florida, followed by 17% in New York and 8% each in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Trump carried Florida by a margin of 3 percentage points in 2020 and 1 percentage point in 2016. The races were even closer in Pennsylvania, which Biden won by 1 percentage point in 2020 and Trump won by less than a percentage point in 2016.

Biden won the 2020 Puerto Rico primary, which was postponed twice to the very end of the Democratic primary calendar in mid-July because of the coronavirus pandemic. He received 62% of the vote over Bernie Sanders, who received 15% of the vote, and Michael Bloomberg, who received 14%. Hillary Clinton had a similar showing in 2016 with 61% of the vote to 38% for Sanders. Clinton also won Puerto Rico in 2008, when the territory was one of the last places to vote in the marathon nomination fight between the former U.S. secretary of state and then-Sen. Barack Obama.

Here’s a look at what to expect on Sunday:

The Puerto Rico Democratic presidential primary will be held Sunday. Polls are open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET.

The Associated Press will provide coverage for the Democratic presidential primary. It is the only contest on the ballot. Appearing on the ballot are Biden, self-help author Marianne Williamson and U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, who suspended his campaign after Super Tuesday and endorsed Biden.

Puerto Rico does not register voters by party, so all voters who registered by March 29 are eligible to participate in the primary, provided they are willing to sign a document at the polls declaring themselves as Democrats. Those unwilling to sign the document will not be permitted to vote.

Puerto Rico’s 55 pledged Democratic delegates are allocated according to the national party’s standard rules. Twelve at-large delegates are allocated in proportion to the statewide vote, as are seven PLEO delegates, or “party leaders and elected officials.” The state’s eight state Senate districts have at stake a combined 36 delegates, which are allocated in proportion to the vote results in each district. Candidates must receive at least 15% of the statewide vote to qualify for any statewide delegates, and 15% of the vote in a congressional district to qualify for delegates in that district.

Biden is the overwhelming favorite in the primary. The first indications that he is winning statewide on a level consistent with the overwhelming margins seen in most other contests held this year may be sufficient to determine the statewide winner.

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Turnout in past Democratic Puerto Rico primaries has varied greatly depending on the competitiveness of the race and other factors.

Only 6,302 votes were cast in the 2020 primary. In 2016, Democrats in Puerto Rico cast 89,188 votes in the June 5 contest, held on the second-to-last day of the primary calendar. Nearly 387,000 votes were cast in the 2008 primary between Obama and Clinton.

Voters had until March 14 to request a mail-in absentee ballot. According to party officials, a limited amount of early voting was available to those who qualified and requested it by March 9. Early voting will also be offered to inmates at correctional facilities on Friday.

Polls close at 3 p.m. ET. Party officials expect to have final results by about 5 p.m. ET.

As of Sunday, there will be 113 days until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and 191 until the November general election.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Biden administration is preparing to announce plans for a new five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts for wind energy production, with up to a dozen lease sales anticipated beginning this year and continuing through 2028.

The plan was to be announced Wednesday in New Orleans by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. Three of the anticipated sales would be for Gulf of Mexico tracts to be offered this year, in 2025 and in 2027. Central Atlantic area leases would be sold in 2024 and 2026.

Other anticipated sale areas include the Gulf of Maine (2024 and 2028); Oregon waters (2024); an area of the Atlantic known as New York Bight (2027); and California, Hawaii, and an as-yet unspecified U.S. territory (2028).

The sales will be coordinated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“As we look toward the future, this new leasing schedule will support the types of renewable energy projects needed to lower consumer costs, combat climate change, create jobs to support families, and ensure economic opportunities are accessible to all communities,” Haaland said in a news release ahead of remarks to a conference in New Orleans.

(Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled plans on Wednesday to hold up to a dozen auctions of offshore wind development rights through 2028, including four before the end of this year.

The schedule will help companies, states and others plan for projects that require massive amounts of investment and infrastructure, the Interior Department said in a statement.

“Our offshore wind leasing schedule will provide predictability to help developers and communities plan ahead and will provide the confidence needed to continue building on the tremendous offshore wind supply chain and manufacturing investments that we’ve already seen,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

The administration is determined to support the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry at a time when projects have been plagued by rising costs tied to inflation, interest rates and supply chain constraints.

Just this week, New York state stalled three major planned offshore wind farms.

According to Interior’s schedule, this year the agency will hold lease sales for areas in the Central Atlantic, Gulf of Maine, Gulf of Mexico and Oregon.

In 2025, it will hold a single sale in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2026, it will hold an auction in the Central Atlantic. In 2027, two sales are scheduled — the Gulf of Mexico and New York Bight. In 2028, Interior aims to hold four auctions — in California, an undetermined U.S. territory, the Gulf of Maine and Hawaii.

The timing of the sales is linked to the administration’s five-year schedule to offer acreage to oil and gas companies for offshore development. A provision in Biden’s landmark climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act, requires that Interior must offer at least 60 million acres for oil and gas leasing a year before issuing an offshore wind lease.

The U.S. last held an oil and gas auction in December of last year and will not hold another one until 2025 under a scaled back five-year drilling plan finalized last year.

Interior has held just four offshore wind auctions since Biden took office in 2021. The last one, in the Gulf of Mexico last August, attracted lackluster industry interest.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by David Gregorio)