Politics

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — They warned about him. Now they’ll have to work with him.

A handful of prominent Democratic governors are quickly adjusting their approach to President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office, hoping to avoid antagonizing him to ensure they’ll have a working relationship with his new administration.

They’re in a precarious position: adopting caution while also weighing their party’s desires to stake out early, and often combative, positions against Trump’s agenda.

“It’s a combination of fighting like hell if your values are attacked or if your innocent communities or innocent people are attacked. And then on the other hand, you’re trying like heck also to find common ground on things that we could agree on,” New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is walking a similar tightrope, vowing to push back against Trump on potential policies against reproductive rights, while also appearing hopeful that she and the Republican can work together.

Hochul, who slammed Trump during a speech at the Democratic National Convention and was a prominent campaign surrogate for Democrats this year, has said she and Trump spoke at length after his election victory and were able to find common ground.

“There are areas where we can work together, like infrastructure where we rely on federal money, and he seems to share my priorities, but also I’m going to stand up for protecting rights, reproductive rights and other rights,” she said at a news conference.

Asked this week whether as governor she would consider pardoning Trump in his New York hush money criminal conviction, Hochul notably didn’t shut down the question. “There is a pardoning process in the state of New York. It is lengthy. It requires a couple of elements. One is remorse,” she said, letting out a quick laugh.

A New York jury convicted Trump earlier this year on all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

Other Democrats have taken decidedly more combative stances.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fierce Trump critic, summoned lawmakers back to work this month to allocate more money to the state attorney general’s office so it can launch anticipated legal battles against the Trump administration. Newsom’s goal, as he put it, is to “Trump-proof” California’s progressive state laws.

Shortly after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polisformed a group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy to “fortify democratic institutions in the states and ensure the rule of law serves all people,” according to the group’s website.

Still, Polis has put on a balancing act in his relationship with Trump. He’s expressed excitement for Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, saying he was hopeful Kennedy would take on “big pharma and corporate ag.”

In Massachusetts, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey has taken a somewhat less confrontational attitude toward Trump than she did four years ago when she was the state’s attorney general. Back then, Healey initiated or joined dozens of lawsuits targeting Trump on everything from immigration policy to health care and environmental issues.

Now as governor of a state that Harris easily won but where Trump got more than 35% of the vote, Healey has sounded more muted in her criticism.

“I think I’ve spoken quite a bit about Donald Trump and my feelings about him,” Healey told reporters after Trump’s win. “We have to see whether he makes good on what he promised and ran on in terms of Project 2025 or other things,” she said, referring a hard-right policy plan.

Healey has indicated that state police won’t help enforce violations of federal immigration law — a key Trump priority — but has been less clear about whether she would bar the state National Guard from helping detain those in the country illegally.

As co-chair of Harris’ presidential campaign, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer frequently warned about the dangers of a second Trump presidency, describing him as “deranged” and declaring that his reelection would signify that “we failed as a country.”

But after Trump’s victory, the second-term governor has largely stayed out of the spotlight and said little about how she will address some of his policy proposals, such as mass deportations.

“I know that some of my colleagues have staked out some pretty aggressive strategies,” Whitmer told reporters days after the election. “As I’m thinking about what a Trump administration will mean for our work, I’m trying to focus on where we can find some shared priorities.”

Those close to Whitmer describe her approach as a wait-and-see strategy, with hopes of working with the president-elect on areas of shared interest, such as economic development.

“We have worked with the Trump administration before and we will figure out how to work with a Trump administration going into this last two years of my term,” said Whitmer.

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Associated Press writers Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; Jesse Bedayn in Denver; Steve LeBlanc in Boston and Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan contributed to this report.

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(Reuters) – The Biden administration on Friday canceled another $4.28 billion in student debt for nearly 55,000 public service workers, the U.S. Department of Education said in a statement.

Friday’s action brings the total public service student loans forgiven to about $78 billion for nearly 1.1 million workers, the department said.

The White House said separately that this brings the total number of all individuals who have been approved for student debt relief under President Joe Biden to nearly 5 million people.

The actions are a part of Biden’s effort to fulfil his 2020 campaign pledge to deliver debt relief to millions of Americans before he leaves office in January.

(Reporting by Angela Christy in Bengaluru; Editing by Ros Russell)

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(Reuters) -Ingrid Lewis-Martin, a former top aide to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, has been indicted on bribery charges, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said on Thursday.

Lewis-Martin took bribes from two real estate investors in exchange for expediting construction permits for businesses they owned, according to Bragg’s office.

“We allege that Ingrid Lewis-Martin engaged in a long-running bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy scheme by using her position and authority as the Chief Advisor to the Mayor of the City of New York,” Bragg said in a statement.

Lewis-Martin resigned from her post last weekend.

Adams himself was hit with an unrelated five-count federal corruption indictment in September. The mayor allegedly accepted illegal campaign contributions and luxury travel from Turkish nationals seeking to influence him. Adams has denied wrongdoing and says he will fight the charges in court.

According to prosecutors, the real estate investors gave $100,000 in checks in August 2023 to Lewis-Martin’s son, who deposited them in a bank account he shared with Lewis-Martin and used the funds to buy a Porsche.

Lewis-Martin asked the investors to use the encrypted messaging app Signal to conceal the scheme, Bragg’s office said.

“To think that a high-ranking city official would take a bribe in the form of a check deposited into their own bank account defies common sense,” Arthur Aidala, Lewis-Martin’s attorney, said in an email. “We look forward to the citizens of the city of New York, who Ingrid has served so admirably for decades, clearing her name after a trial.”

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson, Costas Pitas and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Franklin Paul, Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of the Transportation Security Administration on Thursday warned that an extended partial U.S. government shutdown could lead to longer wait times at airports.

TSA, which handles airport security screening, said about 59,000 of its 62,000 employees are considered essential and would continue working without pay in the event of a shutdown that would begin on Saturday unless the government reaches a funding deal.

Air traffic controllers and TSA officers are among the government workers who would be required to keep working but would not be paid.

“While our personnel are prepared to handle high volumes of travelers and ensure safe travel, please be aware that an extended shutdown could mean longer wait times at airports,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said on social media.

The agency expects to screen a record 40 million passengers over the holidays after setting records over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Without a deal, the Federal Aviation Administration estimates it would have to furlough more than 17,000 employees and halt training of air traffic controllers.

In 2019 during a 35-day shutdown, the number of absences by controllers and TSA officers rose as workers missed paychecks, extending checkpoint wait times at some airports. The FAA was forced to slow air traffic, putting pressure on lawmakers to end the standoff.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said he would “of course” attend Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration next month, personally confirming his presence and rejecting what he called the Republican’s “childish game.”

“Of course I am,” Biden said in an interview broadcast on Thursday on the Meidas Touch network, when asked if he was planning to attend the Jan. 20 transfer of power.

“The only president ever to avoid an inauguration is the guy that’s about to be inaugurated.”

The White House had said Biden would attend, but Biden had not previously addressed the matter personally.

Trump did not attend the swearing-in of Democrat Biden as the 46th U.S. president on Jan. 20, 2021, becoming the first president in 150 years to break with a political tradition that is seen as affirming the peaceful transfer of power in the U.S.

Trump never conceded his defeat to Biden in the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election and has continued to make unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

His refusal to concede led to a chaotic transition of government operations to the Biden administration, delaying funding and access to federal agencies.

For his handover, Biden invited Trump to the White House after his Nov. 5 victory and the two had a meeting described by the White House as “very cordial.” His administration has been instructed to follow traditional transition procedures.

“The fact that he doesn’t abide by the rules of the democracy we’ve established is not my concern,” Biden said in the interview, conducted on Monday. “My job is to make a transition workable and available.”

“The bottom line is that we can’t keep this up. We can’t keep up this childish game of walking away when you don’t agree and not cooperating.”

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Heather Timmons and Frances Kerry)

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ATLANTA (AP) — A state appeals court on Thursday removed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and others, the latest legal victory for the president-elect in criminal cases that once threatened his career and freedom.

The case against Trump and more than a dozen others had already been stalled for months over an appeal related to a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to lead the case.

Citing an “appearance of impropriety” that might not typically warrant such a removal, a Georgia Court of Appeals panel said in a 2-1 ruling that “this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.” Willis’ office immediately filed a notice of intent to ask the Georgia Supreme Court to review the decision.

But pursuing a criminal case against a sitting president is a virtual impossibility. And Trump will return to the White House having overcome efforts to prosecute him and empowered by a Supreme Court ruling granting him presumptive immunity for any “official acts” he takes in office.

The development comes weeks after Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith abandoned two federal prosecutions against the incoming president, and as sentencing in a separate hush money case in New York is indefinitely on hold as a result of Trump’s victory in November over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

A grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to accuse them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia. The alleged scheme included Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to help find enough votes to beat Biden. Four people have pleaded guilty.

Trump told Fox News Digital that the case “should not be allowed to go any further.” The president-elect added: “Everybody should receive an apology, including those wonderful patriots who have been caught up in this for years.”

Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, said the ruling was “well-reasoned and just.” He said the appeals court “highlighted that Willis’ misconduct created an ‘odor of mendacity’ and an appearance of impropriety that could only be cured by the disqualification of her and her entire office.”

“This decision puts an end to a politically motivated persecution of the next President of the United States,” Sadow wrote in an emailed statement.

Representatives for Willis did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment on the ruling.

The allegations that Willis had improperly benefited from her romance with Wade resulted in a tumultuous couple of months in the case as intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal lives were aired in court in mid-February. A defendant’s motion alleged that Willis and Wade were involved in an inappropriate romantic relationship and that Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then benefited when he paid for lavish vacations.

Willis and Wade acknowledged the relationship but said they didn’t begin dating until the spring of 2022. Wade was hired in November 2021, and their romance ended in the summer of 2023, they said. They also testified that they split travel and other costs roughly evenly, with Willis often paying expenses or reimbursing Wade in cash.

Speaking at a historically Black church in Atlanta soon after the relationship allegations surfaced, Willis defended Wade’s qualifications and her own leadership of her office. Defense lawyers said that speech included a series of improper and prejudicial comments against the defendants and their legal team, poisoning any potential jurors against them.

The appeals court majority opinion, written by Judge Trenton Brown and joined by Judge Todd Markle, said “the remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring.”

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Benjamin Land wrote that “the law does not support the result reached by the majority.” Trial court judges, he said, have broad discretion to to impose a remedy to fit a situation and the appeals court should respect that.

“We are here to ensure the law has been applied correctly and to correct harmful legal errors when we see them. It is not our job to second-guess trial judges or to substitute our judgment for theirs,” he wrote.

“Where, as here, a prosecutor has no actual conflict of interest and the trial court, based on the evidence presented to it, rejects the allegations of actual impropriety, we have no authority to reverse the trial court’s denial of a motion to disqualify,” he said, arguing that the majority opinion goes against decades of precedent in Georgia.

The ruling by the appeals court panel means it will be up to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to find another prosecutor to take over the case, though that could be delayed if the state Supreme Court takes the case. It could be difficult to find another prosecutor willing to take it on given the extensive resources needed to prosecute the sprawling and complex case. That person could continue on the track that Willis has taken, decide to pursue only some charges or dismiss the case altogether.

Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, the trial court judge, had ruled in March that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case. Trump and the others appealed that ruling.

McAfee wrote that the prosecution was “encumbered by an appearance of impropriety.” He said Willis could remain on the case only if Wade left; the special prosecutor submitted his resignation hours later.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The House rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s  new plan Thursday to fund federal operations and suspend the debt ceiling a day before a government shutdown, as Democrats refused to accommodate the quick fix cobbled together by Republican leaders.

In a hastily convened evening vote, the lawmakers failed to reach the two-thirds threshold needed for passage — but House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared determined to try again before Friday’s midnight deadline.

“We’re going to do the right thing here,” Johnson said ahead of the vote. But he didn’t even get a majority, with the bill failing 174-235.

The outcome proved a massive setback for Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, who rampaged against Johnson’s bipartisan but controverisal compromise, which Republicans and Democrats had reached earlier to prevent a Christmastime government shutdown.

Hours earlier, Trump announced “SUCCESS in Washington!” in coming up with the new package which would keep government running for three more months, add $100.4 billion in disaster assistance including for hurricane-hit states, and allow more borrowing through Jan. 30, 2027.

“Speaker Mike Johnson and the House have come to a very good Deal,” Trump posted.

But Republicans, who had spent 24 hours largely negotiating with themselves to come up with the new plan, ran into a wall of resistance from Democrats, who were were in no hurry to appease demands from Trump — or his billionaire ally Musk.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats were sticking with the original deal with Johnson and called the new one “laughable.”

All day, Johnson had been fighting to figure out how to meet Trump’s sudden demands — and keep his own job — while federal offices are being told to prepare to shutter operations.

The new proposal whittled the 1,500-page bill to 116 pages and drops a number of add-ons — notably a pay raise for lawmakers, which could have allowed as much as a 3.8% bump. That drew particular scorn as Musk turned his social media army against the bill.

Trump said early Thursday that Johnson will “easily remain speaker” for the next Congress if he “acts decisively and tough” in coming up with a new plan to also raise the debt limit, a stunning request just before the Christmas holidays that has put the beleaguered speaker in a bind.

And if not, the president-elect warned of trouble ahead for Johnson and Republicans in Congress.

“Anybody that supports a bill that doesn’t take care of the Democrat quicksand known as the debt ceiling should be primaried and disposed of as quickly as possible,” Trump told Fox News Digital.

The tumultuous turn of events, coming as lawmakers were preparing to head home for the holidays. 

Federal funding is scheduled to expire at midnight Friday as a current temporary government funding bill runs out.

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By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON – Large swaths of the U.S. government could temporarily close at midnight on Friday if Congress does not approve a stopgap spending bill due to pressure from Donald Trump.

The president-elect is also urging lawmakers to approve more government borrowing by addressing the nation’s debt ceiling before he takes office on Jan. 20.

WHY WOULD THE GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN?

Congress is supposed to allocate funding to 438 government agencies before Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year. But lawmakers rarely meet this deadline and routinely pass temporary spending bills to keep the government operating while they finish their work. The current temporary spending bill expires on Saturday. Republicans and Democrats have prepared legislation that would push the deadline back to March 14, but Trump has urged his Republicans to vote against it.

If lawmakers don’t work out a deal that can make it through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democratic-majority Senate and pass it before midnight on Friday, funding for much of the government will lapse.

WHAT IS THE DEBT CEILING?

A debt limit is a cap set by Congress on how much money the U.S. government can borrow. Because the government spends more money than it collects in tax revenue, lawmakers need to periodically tackle the issue — a politically difficult task, as many are reluctant to vote for more debt. 

Trump wants Congress to tackle the debt ceiling now so he will not have to deal with it when he is in the White House. One of his first priorities on returning to office will be extending tax cuts passed during his first term. Doing so will add about $4 trillion over the next decade to the U.S. federal government’s current $36 trillion in debt, tax experts say.

Congress set the first debt limit of $45 billion in 1939, and has had to raise that limit 103 times since, as spending has consistently outrun tax revenue. Publicly held debt was 98% of U.S. gross domestic product as of October, compared with 32% in October 2001.

Under a 2023 budget deal, Congress suspended the debt ceiling until Jan. 1, 2025. As a practical matter, the U.S. Treasury will be able to pay its bills for several more months, but Congress will have to address the issue at some point next year.

Failure to act could prevent the Treasury from paying its debts. A U.S. debt default would likely have severe consequences, roiling global financial markets and plunging the country into a recession.

Sometimes Congress raises the debt ceiling quietly, and sometimes lawmakers use the occasion to engage in a noisy debate over fiscal policy before raising the cap at the last possible moment.

Republicans unsuccessfully tried to pair a debt-ceiling hike with spending cuts in 1995 and 1996, leading to two partial government shutdowns. They won significant spending restraints in a 2011 confrontation that pushed the United States to the brink of default and prompted a first-ever downgrade of its top-notch credit rating.

Republicans also won some spending restraints in the 2023 debt-ceiling deal, but many in the party were left frustrated that they did not get more.

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN?

There have been 14 shutdowns since 1981, according to the Congressional Research Service, many lasting only a day or two. The most recent one was also the longest, lasting 35 days between December 2018 and January 2019 due to a dispute between then-President Trump and Congress over border security.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers would be furloughed without pay and a wide range of services could be disrupted, from financial oversight to trash pickup at national parks.

Other workers deemed essential would remain on the job, though they also would not get paid. Services like mail delivery and tax collection would continue.

Shutdowns that last only a few days have little practical impact, particularly if they occur over a weekend, but the broader economy could suffer if federal employees begin missing paychecks after two weeks.

A shutdown would directly reduce GDP growth by around 0.15 percentage point for each week it lasts, according to Goldman Sachs, but growth would rise by the same amount after the shutdown was resolved.

The 2018-2019 shutdown cost the economy about $3 billion, equal to 0.02% of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

WHAT FUNCTIONS ARE CONSIDERED ESSENTIAL?

Each department and agency has a contingency plan to determine which employees must keep working without pay.

The 2018-2019 shutdown furloughed roughly 800,000 of the federal government’s 2.2 million employees.

The Department of Homeland Security’s 2022 shutdown plan calls for keeping 227,000 of its 253,000 workers on the job, including border security agents and the Coast Guard.

The Department of Justice said in its 2021 contingency plan that 85% of its 116,000 employees would be considered essential, including prison staff and prosecutors. Criminal litigation would continue, although most civil litigation cases would be paused.

Air travel would remain relatively unimpeded, but in previous shutdowns the Transportation Security Administration has warned that airport-security screeners could call in sick at an increased rate.

It is not clear whether the United States’ 63 national parks would remain open. During a shutdown in 2013, the Obama administration shuttered parks due in part to safety concerns, losing an estimated $500 million. In the 2018-19 shutdown the Trump administration kept them open with public restrooms and information desks closed and waste disposal halted. Some states, such as New York and Utah, paid for their sites to stay open and staffed during the 2018-2019 shutdown.

The Internal Revenue Service has furloughed up to 90% of its staff in the past but all of its employees are considered essential under its current contingency plan.

All military personnel would remain working, but roughly 429,000 civilian Pentagon employees would be furloughed.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

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NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Rudy Giuliani to appear in court in early January to face claims that he should be held in contempt for failing to turn over assets including a New York apartment lease and a signed Joe DiMaggio shirt to two Georgia election poll workers who won a libel case against him.

Judge Lewis J. Liman in Manhattan signed the order calling for the former New York City mayor and onetime personal lawyer to President-elect Donald Trump to appear before him on Jan. 3.

Lawyers for the election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment said in court papers that Giuliani has failed to turn over the lease to the apartment, a Mercedes, various watches and jewelry, a signed Joe DiMaggio shirt and other baseball mementos, among other items.

Giuliani also faces a trial Jan. 16 before Liman over the disposition of his Florida residence and World Series rings.

In October, Liman ordered Giuliani to turn over many of his prized possessions to the poll workers. Giuliani’s lawyers have predicted that Giuliani will eventually win custody of the items on appeal.

One of the attorneys, Joseph Cammarata, said he was confident that Giuliani would prevail at the contempt hearing, which he described as “another act of lawfare” imposed by the election workers’ counsel.

“Their mission is to destroy Mayor Giuliani,” the emailed statement continued. “We look forward to deposing the Plaintiffs and prevailing at trial.”

The contempt hearing follows a contentious November hearing in which Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, became angry at the judge and said Liman was treating him unfairly.

“The implication I’ve been not diligent about it is totally incorrect,” Giuliani said in a scolding tone as he described his efforts to obtain a replacement of the title to the car. “The implication you make is against me and every implication against me is wrong.”

At the hearing, Liman warned Giuliani’s lawyers that Giuliani would not be allowed to interrupt a hearing again.

“He’s not going to be permitted to speak and the court will take action,” the judge said.

Giuliani was found liable last year for defaming the two Georgia poll workers by falsely accusing them of tampering with ballots during the 2020 presidential election.

The women said they faced death threats after Giuliani falsely claimed they sneaked in ballots in suitcases, counted ballots multiple times and tampered with voting machines.

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By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration has set a new U.S. target under the Paris climate agreement to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 61%-66% below 2005 levels by 2035, a goal officials called achievable by states even if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on vows to reverse federal policies.

The new “nationally determined contribution” reflects ongoing impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act and infrastructure bill on decarbonizing the economy and policies by states that tackle climate change, U.S. officials said.

“Our investments under this administration are durable and will continue to pay dividends for our economy and our climate for years to come, allowing us to set an ambitious and achievable 2035 target,” said John Podesta, Senior Advisor to Biden for international climate policy.

“We’re confident in America’s ability to rally around this new climate goal,” he said, adding that while Trump “may put climate action on the backburner, the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States.”

Under the Paris agreement, nations must deliver new and stronger national climate action plans to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change before a deadline in February next year. The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) must align with the target to limit global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment but the president-elect has said he may once again withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement.

Trump’s transition team is recommending sweeping changes to cut off support for electric vehicles and charging stations and impose tariffs on all battery materials globally, Reuters reported this week. Trump campaigned on pledges to achieve U.S. energy dominance through more fossil fuel production, not renewable energy.

An alliance of two dozen U.S. states and territories including New York, California and New Mexico that have pledged to continue aligning policies with Paris agreement goals set a collective, complementary goal on Thursday to meet the 61%-66% target.

The U.S. is not yet on pace to meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50%-52% by 2030, according to the Rhodium Group, which found other major emitters including the EU, South Korea, South Africa and the UK also are not on target.

Research group Energy Innovation found that under current policies, the U.S. can achieve a 46% reduction by 2035.

So far, only the UAE and Brazil have announced new NDCs ahead of the February deadline.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by David Gregorio)

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