Politics

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — When a naked man in southwestern Florida recently raised a ruckus outside his house and threatened a deputy with a kitchen knife, the SWAT team swooped in and apprehended him.

Soon afterward, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno stood on the man’s driveway in combat gear for a news conference while the suspect went to the jailhouse that the sheriff likes to call the “Marceno Motel.”

“He’s an oxygen-stealer and a scumbag, and I’m glad he’s outta here,” Marceno told reporters. “I’m proud to say that in this county, if you present deadly physical force … we meet you with deadly force every time, and we win. It’s pretty clean, pretty quick.”

The Sunshine State has become internationally notorious for the oddball miscreants who populate its police blotters and local news reports — known collectively as Florida Man. There are murders and mayhem, like anyplace else, and then there are the only-in-Florida incidents like the man charged with assault with a deadly weapon for throwing an alligator through a Wendy’s drive-thru window in Palm Beach County in 2015.

But an equally eccentric cast of hard-boiled sheriffs make a career of going after these guys. Florida Man, meet Florida Sheriff.

All but one of Florida’s 67 counties have an elected sheriff, and they wield enormous influence in part because they’re often the only countywide elected official. They head agencies that typically patrol unincorporated portions of their county but also provide backup to city police departments and sometimes patrol small cities that lack their own force. Many, like Marceno, hold made-for-YouTube news conferences and use TikTok and other social media — frequently going just as viral as the perpetrators.

Take Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson, in Florida’s Panhandle.

During a recent news conference about a burglary, Johnson, elected in 2016, said a homeowner had fired shots but didn’t hit the suspect. Johnson encouraged that homeowner to take a gun safety course offered every other Saturday at the sheriff’s office so he could better take matters into his own hands.

“Learn to shoot a lot better,” Johnson said. “Save the taxpayers’ money.”

On the Atlantic Coast, near Cape Canaveral, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey makes a game of crime — literally. His weekly “ Wheel of Fugitive ” videos feature the sheriff spinning a wheel with photos of 10 of the county’s most wanted.

“Everybody watches it. Even the fugitives watch it” to see who becomes “fugitive of the week,” Ivey said.

The lucky winner of one recent episode was a 32-year-old white male accused of petit theft and failure to appear. The sheriff, first elected in 2012, looked into the camera as if speaking directly to the man and urged him to surrender: “Stop messing up and stop breaking the law. Get all of it behind you.”

The Twitter account of Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco — who has starred in A&E Network’s “Live PD” show — made a splash with local “Sad Criminal of the Day” posts. His agency also copyrighted the now-viral hashtag, #9pmroutine, a reminder to lock car doors and homes every night.

In January, the department cut off social media comments because the accounts fell victim to their success. With over 300,000 Facebook followers — more than double that of much larger Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in nearby Tampa — Nocco said people were too often reporting crimes online rather than calling 911.

Over in central Florida is, perhaps, the highest-profile enemy of Florida Man (and Florida Woman).

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who constantly targets gangs, drug dealers and prostitution rings in his folksy Southern drawl, has been a frequent hit on TV since he was first elected with no party affiliation in 2005. Judd says of school shooters: “We’re going to shoot you graveyard dead.”

He also has praised homeowners for firing on intruders, including one last December: “He gave him an early Christmas present. Only Santa Claus gets to come in your house,” Judd told a news conference.

Judd often refers to the Polk County Jail as the “Polk Pokey,” and last holiday season, his office sold their version of the popular Elf on the Shelf doll, dubbed Sheriff on a Shelf, and he personally autographed Sheriff Judd bobbleheads.

One of Judd’s latest targets was not exactly the crime of the century. But Judd had plenty to say about a woman accused of assaulting workers at a McDonald’s because her order was wrong.

“She’s a pretty lady. But she was McMad,” Judd said on May 20. “I don’t know if she was two fries short of a Happy Meal, but she created a McMess and acted like a McNut. … This is Polk County. We don’t put up with that McJunk.”

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Anderson reported from St. Petersburg, Florida.

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ALTO, Georgia (AP) — Republican U.S. Senate nominee Herschel Walker commiserated as north Georgia farmers bemoaned environmental regulations and rising costs of doing business. Minutes before, the former football star and political newcomer volleyed with journalists on issues ranging from gas prices to abortion.

In both audiences, Walker tried every way he could to steer the conversation back to Sen. Raphael Warnock and a Democratic administration whose popularity lags in this battleground state that President Joe Biden won by the narrowest of margins.

“We need to be talking about what people are concerned about, that my opponent seems to be voting with Joe Biden rather than the people of Georgia,” Walker said at a north Georgia produce market. “That’s what we need to be putting headlines about what Herschel Walker is saying … because the people of Georgia are hurting.”

With generationally high inflation and Biden’s low popularity, Republican candidates across the U.S. are spending this election year similarly trying to keep the focus on Democrats. But for Walker, the sweeping partisan jabs on display at multiple campaign stops this week offered a chance to steady an otherwise haphazard campaign.

Some Republicans quietly acknowledge that such deflection may be the only way Walker can win this midterm contest that will help determine control of a Senate now split 50-50 between the two major parties.

“Look, it’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up,” said state Sen. Butch Miller, as he campaigned with Walker in north Georgia.

Walker, 60, cruised to the GOP nomination in May, mostly on his celebrity status as the star running back on the University of Georgia’s national championship football team in 1980 and his personal friendship with former President Donald Trump.

But along the way, Walker has faced new disclosures on past violent threats against his first wife. He’s exaggerated his academic and business records, and alternately denied ever making such statements. He acknowledged fathering multiple children he hadn’t publicly mentioned previously despite spending decades blasting absent fathers. And Walker recently was captured on video at a closed campaign event offering a nonsensical explanation of the climate crisis as China sending its “bad air” to the U.S. while stealing “our good air.”

Warnock’s campaign and allied Democratic campaign arms reacted with an advertising onslaught casting Walker as unqualified.

“Every one of Walker’s lies, scandals and bizarre statements proves that he isn’t ready to represent to represent the people of Georgia and can’t be trusted to serve in the U.S. Senate,” said Dan Gottlieb, a spokesman for the Georgia Democratic Party.

All of that played out as Warnock has raked in campaign cash — more than $17 million in the second quarter of 2020 and $70 million-plus for the cycle. That has allowed the senator to develop a personal brand that positions him well ahead of Biden among Georgia voters and mutes any Republican contention that 2020 was an aberration in the state.

Just a few cycles ago, any Republican nominee would have been a prohibitive favorite in a midterm Senate election here, regardless of economic conditions or who occupied the White House. Instead, decades of growth, concentrated in metro Atlanta, have yielded a politically, racially and ethnically diverse population more open to electing Democrats. Trump’s underperformance among college-educated whites accelerated the shift, as did Democrats’ organizing efforts.

That led to Biden outpolling Trump by about 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast — a record November turnout for Georgia. Warnock followed with a wider margin in a January special election runoff: 94,000 votes out of almost 4.5 million cast, a record runoff turnout.

Republicans have answered Walker’s stumbles with an influx of experienced aides for the first-time candidate and visits to the state by national Republican operatives. Walker aides said the coming weeks will be built around various policy themes, with targeted attacks on Warnock.

It’s not so much a campaign reset, the aides said, since mid- to late summer is nearly always when general election campaigns ratchet up. But it’s an effort clearly aimed at changing the narrative around the matchup. The opening salvo was agriculture. Public safety and crime come next. The economy will follow.

Walker himself talked this week of “listening sessions” built around policy topics. He showed some evidence of those sessions in turning most any topic back to Warnock, Biden and the economy.

“Terrible, terrible leadership,” he called it, adding that working-class Georgians “know it’s not right.”

He demonstrated an increasing familiarity with the details of Warnock’s record when he blasted the idea of suspending the federal gas tax, something the senator proposed. Walker called that “the hero effect … I cause the problem and then you call me to come put it out.”

Yet there were flashes of the tangents and falsehoods that have drawn negative attention already.

At a livestock auction outside Athens, Walker again denied he ever said he’d graduated from the University of Georgia, accusing his questioner of being a “Raphael Warnock guy.” Walker has made such claims on video; he never graduated. Later, Walker essentially committed to debate Warnock in October, only to have his campaign follow up with a series of conditions.

In a discussion about immigration, Walker offered bromides about the U.S. needing “legal immigration,” only to have Miller step in to talk about specific visa programs. In a roundtable on agriculture, Miller and Terry Rogers, a former state representative, again filled in many details.

When farmers complained about the Biden administration’s advocacy of electric farming vehicles, Walker didn’t just focus on cost but questioned the technology itself. “It’s only gonna run for a certain amount of time,” he said. “You gotta charge it for eight hours. You’ll never get any work done.”

Miller downplayed any cumulative damage to Walker’s prospects but said it’s critical for the Republican nominee to crystallize his case against Warnock and weave in his own biography more effectively.

“One of his strongest virtues is his relatability to people, and he’s getting out and doing that,” Miller said. As for broader attacks about inflation and the economy, Miller added, Walker has a convenient ally: “It’s all true.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden likely contracted a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly through the United States, and now has body aches and a sore throat since his positive test, according to an update from his doctor on Saturday.

The variant, known as BA.5, is an offshoot of the omicron strain that emerged late last year, and it’s believed to be responsible for the vast majority of coronavirus cases in the country.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, wrote in his latest update on Biden’s condition that Biden’s earlier symptoms, including a runny nose and a cough, have become “less troublesome.” O’Connor’s earlier notes did not mention the sore throat or body aches.

Biden’s vital signs, such as blood pressure and respiratory rate, “remain entirely normal,” and his oxygen saturation levels are “excellent” with “no shortness of breath at all,” the doctor wrote.

O’Connor said the results of the preliminary sequencing that indicated the BA.5 variant do not affect Biden’s treatment plan “in any way.”

Biden tested positive for the virus on Thursday morning. He has been isolating in the White House residence since then. Administration officials have emphasized that his symptoms are mild because he has received four vaccine doses, and he started taking the antiviral drug Paxlovid after becoming infected.

During a virtual meeting with economic advisers on Friday, Biden was hoarse but insisted, “I feel much better than I sound.”

In his previous update on Biden’s health, O’Connor said the president had an elevated temperature of 99.4 F on Thursday evening, but it returned to normal after taking Tylenol.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After losing the 2020 election, Donald Trump ignored close allies who told him that his claims of widespread election fraud were untrue, and when the followers who believed his false accusations stormed the U.S. Capitol, he sat back and watched.

That was the narrative the U.S. House of Representatives’ select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack laid out in eight hearings over six weeks, which wrapped up with a study of the former president’s actions during the 187-minute assault on Congress by thousands of his supporters.

“President Trump sat at his dining table and watched the attack on television while his senior-most staff, closest advisors and family members begged him to do what is expected of any American president,” U.S. Representative Elaine Luria said. “President Trump refused to act because of his selfish desire to stay in power.”

Some 18 months after the deadly assault, the hearings replayed video of rioters smashing their way into the Capitol, screaming “Hang Mike Pence” as they hunted the vice president who Trump had called on to overturn his election defeat.

They featured hours of testimony, some live and some recorded, from close Trump allies including former Attorney General Bill Barr, who dismissed Trump’s fraud claims as “bullshit,” and former White House staff including one who recalled an enraged president hurling plates, leaving ketchup running down a wall.

The hearings were intended to lay out a case that the Republican Trump violated the law as he tried, for the first time in U.S. history, to stop the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next.

It is not yet clear if the Justice Department will bring charges against Trump, but the hearings appear to have somewhat hurt his standing with Republican voters. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Thursday found that 32% of Republicans say Trump should not run for president in 2024 — a possibility he continues to flirt with publicly — up from 26% who said that at the start of the hearings.

Attorney General Merrick Garland this week declined to say whether the Justice Department would charge Trump. But he did not rule it out.

“No person is above the law in this country. I can’t say it any more clearly than that,” Garland told reporters on Wednesday.

Trump and his allies — including some Republicans in Congress — deny he did anything wrong and dismiss the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans as politically motivated.

Congressional Republicans last year blocked a proposal by Democrats for a bipartisan commission on Jan. 6, similar to the one convened after the 9/11 attacks, leaving the power to pick members in the hands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Republican Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger joined the panel, which presented a scripted case without the verbal combat common in congressional hearings.

RIOT TRIALS CONTINUE

More than 850 people have been charged with joining in the riot, on a wide range of charges ranging from illegally entering restricted federal property to seditious conspiracy. More than 325 have pleaded guilty so far and the Justice Department has also scored multiple guilty verdicts in the cases of defendants who chose trial by jury.

In another high-profile case, prosecutors have charged Trump adviser Steve Bannon with contempt of Congress for refusing to answer a subpoena from the committee. Closing arguments in that case are expected on Friday.

The leaders and more than a dozen members of the right-wing Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their alleged role in organizing the attack, charges that carry sentences of up to 20 years in prison.

Still, critics have accused the Justice Department of not doing enough to investigate Trump or his inner circle for their efforts to overturn his election defeat.

But there are signs that the investigation appears to be broadening beyond the riot itself.

Under the leadership of the Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney in D.C. who was sworn in last fall, the department has started issuing grand jury subpoenas to electors in key battleground states, including some electors who signed bogus certificates certifying the election for Trump.

According to one May 5 subpoena seen by Reuters, prosecutors are seeking communications between electors and federal employees, “any member, employee or agent of Donald J. Trump.”

Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor now with the non-profit group Protect Democracy, said she believes there is enough evidence to warrant a criminal probe into Trump’s conduct.

“If DOJ ultimately decides that it isn’t going to pursue charges against Trump, someone is going to have to explain to the public,” Parker said in an interview. “Too much has come out now.”

Kinzinger said the committee would urge changes to laws and policies intended to head off future attempts to overturn election results. A bipartisan Senate group this week introduced new legislation that would make clear that the vice president does not have the authority to throw out election results.

Such reforms were vital to guard against a repeat of the chaos and bloodshed of Jan. 6, Kinzinger said.

“The forces Donald Trump ignited that day have not gone away. The militant, intolerant ideologies. The militias. The alienation and the disaffection. The weird fantasies and disinformation,” Kinzinger added. “They’re all still out there, ready to go. That’s the elephant in the room.”

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Doina Chiacu, Moira Warburton and Rose Horowitch; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — COVID-19 symptoms left President Joe Biden with a deep, raspy voice and persistent cough as he met Friday via videoconference with his top economic team. But the president tried to strike a reassuring tone, declaring at the top, “I feel much better than I sound.”

Biden took off a mask and sipped water from a cup as he opened the meeting to discuss the decline in gas prices in recent weeks. Reporters were allowed into a White House auditorium where advisers were sitting to view a few minutes of the proceedings. When they asked how Biden was feeling, he flashed a thumb’s up.

The president’s doctors said his mild COVID symptoms were improving and he was responding well to treatment, as the White House worked to portray the image of a president still on the job despite his illness. He received his presidential daily security briefing via video call while, separately, Chinese President Xi Jinping wished Biden a “speedy recovery.”

The president completed his first full day of Paxlovid, the antiviral therapy treatment meant to reduce the severity of COVID, and Biden’s primary symptoms were a runny noise, fatigue and a loose cough, O’Connor said. Biden’s voice was also deeper Friday morning.

But O’Connor emphasized that the president — who is fully vaccinated and twice boosted — continued to have a good prognosis.

“There has been nothing in the course of his illness thus far which gives me cause to alter that initial expectation,” he wrote.

Those efforts continued Friday, when the White House released a photo of Biden, masked and tieless, in the Treaty Room of the president’s residence, on the phone with his national security advisers. He was also scheduled to meet remotely with his economic team in a meeting focused on gas prices and then, separately, senior White House advisers to discuss legislative priorities.

It was part of an administration effort to shift the narrative from a health scare to a display of Biden as the personification of the idea that most Americans can get COVID and recover without too much suffering and disruption if they’ve gotten their shots and taken other important steps to protect themselves.

Conveying that sentiment on Day 1 of Biden’s coronavirus experience virus wasn’t always easy, though.

Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said it’s important for Americans to know they must remain careful about the virus, which continues to kill hundreds of people daily.

“That’s the balance that we have to strike,” Osterholm said. “The president of the United States will do very well. But that may not be true for everyone.”

A White House official confirmed that Vice President Kamala Harris was also in close contact with Biden, and chief of staff Ron Klain said he was too. Klain said the White House wasn’t aware of any positive COVID results linked to the president’s case.

“I wholeheartedly disagree,” Jean-Pierre said of comparison. “We are doing this very differently — very differently — than the last administration.”

Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University, said it was good for the White House to send the message that Biden can keep working even after testing positive.

“That shows that it’s business as usual,” Wen said.

Jean-Pierre’s predecessor, Jen Psaki, noted that White House officials have “been preparing for this probably for several months now, given the percentage of people in the country who have tested positive.”

Biden will isolate until he tests negative, the White House said.

Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute, said that could mean he’s “out of commission from interacting with people for at least eight to 10 days.”

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By Susan Heavey and Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden appeared virtually at a White House meeting of economic advisers on Friday to highlight his good health a day after testing positive for COVID-19.

Speaking remotely at the meeting to discuss White House efforts to lower gas prices, Biden appeared vigorous and in good spirits but with a noticeably deeper voice, hours after his doctor released a statement saying his symptoms had improved.

“I’m feeling much better than I sound,” he said, apologizing for intermittent coughs as he described recent efforts to lower gasoline prices. “Gas prices are coming down. In fact, gas prices have fallen every day,” he said.

Seated as a desk in the White House residence and flanked by a bag of Halls cough drops and a box of tissues that was quickly removed before his remarks began, Biden gave a thumbs-up when asked by reporters how he felt.

Biden, 79, tested positive for COVID on Thursday, when the White House said he was experiencing mild symptoms and would continue working but in isolation. His diagnosis comes as a highly contagious subvariant of the coronavirus drives a new wave of cases in the United States.

A letter released from the White House physician, Kevin O’Connor, said Biden reached 99.4 F (37.4 C) on Thursday night but he responded favorably to Tylenol and was breathing normally.

“His voice is deeper this morning. His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation remain normal, on room air,” O’Connor said. Biden has a runny nose, fatigue and occasional dry cough, the doctor said.

At the Friday afternoon briefing, White House COVID-19 Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha stressed that the 99.4 F reading was the highest Biden had experienced during his illness. Jha noted that Biden’s vitals had remained in the normal range but admitted the president had used an inhaler a couple of times since testing positive.

Overall, Jha said Biden was doing better, noting that he had slept well and ate his breakfast and lunch. “He joked that his one regret was that his appetite had not changed,” Jha said, adding that the president “was, and is, in a very good mood.”

On Friday, as the White House sought to convey a sense of normalcy, it also released another photo of Biden signing legislation a day earlier wearing a black mask.

“The president said he is still putting in eight-plus hours of work a day,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a daily briefing.

O’Connor said two medicines that Biden takes, Eliquis for atrial fibrillation and cholesterol drug Crestor, are being held back temporarily to avoid interfering with his treatment course of the antiviral drug Paxlovid. He said low-dose aspirin is being added to Biden’s treatment as an alternative blood thinner.

“The president is tolerating treatment well,” he said.

Biden, who is the oldest person ever to serve as president of the United States, is due to hold a total of three virtual meetings with his staff on Friday, including his economic, legislative and national security aides, according to his public schedule released by the White House.

He began experiencing typical COVID symptoms and, once diagnosed with the virus, was immediately put on Paxlovid.

Fully vaccinated and twice boosted, Biden said he was “doing well” in a video posted on his Twitter account on Thursday. In the 21-second clip, he also said he was “getting a lot of work done” and would continue with his duties.

Jha said it was still unclear where exactly Biden, who recently returned from a trip to the Middle East, contracted the coronavirus.

Speaking at the briefing on Friday afternoon, Jha also said the White House’s medical unit had identified and informed 17 close contacts of Biden’s, including senior staff, and said so far none of the staff had tested positive.

U.S. COVID cases have jumped more than 25% in the last month, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as the new BA.5 subvariant takes hold there and across the world.

‘THE BEST CARE THERE IS’

Biden had been planning to travel to his home state of Delaware this weekend but instead first lady Jill Biden, who has so far tested negative, will stay there while the president isolates in the White House.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has also tested negative.

Paxlovid, the Pfizer Inc antiviral drug the president is taking, has been shown to reduce the risk of severe disease by nearly 90% in high-risk patients if given within the first five days of infection, but has also been associated with rebound infections in some cases.

Even with the powerful antiviral drug and vaccines, a small percentage of older people do wind up in the hospital.

However, health experts have noted that Biden appears to be in relatively good health for his age, echoed by the president’s physical in late 2021.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Trevor Hunnicutt and Katharine Jackson and Steve Holland; Writing by Susan Heavey and Alexandra Alper; editing by Trevor Hunnicutt, John Stonestreet and Jonathan Oatis)

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By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The prosecution asked jurors on Friday to convict Steve Bannon on charges of contempt of Congress for rebuffing a subpoena by the committee investigating last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying Donald Trump’s former presidential adviser must be held accountable for his unlawful defiance.

The prosecution began delivering its closing arguments to the 12-member jury in the trial, with the defense going next. Jurors were due to start their deliberations after that. The defense rested its case on Thursday without calling any witnesses after the prosecution rested on Wednesday, having called just two witnesses over two days.

Bannon, 68, has pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor counts after rebuffing the House of Representative select committee’s subpoena requesting testimony and documents as part of its inquiry into the Jan. 6, 2021, rampage by Trump supporters trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

Prosecutor Molly Gaston told jurors the attack represented a “dark day” for America.

“This is a simple case about a man – that man, Steve Bannon – who didn’t show up,” Gaston told jurors. “Why didn’t he show up? He did not want to provide the Jan 6 committee with documents. He did not want to answer its questions. And when it really comes down to it, he did not want to recognize Congress’s authority or play by the government’s rules.”

    “Our government only works if people show up. It only works if people play by the rules. And it only works if people are held accountable when they do not,” Gaston told jurors.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols placed limits on the kinds of arguments the defense could make during the trial.

Bannon was barred from arguing that he believed his communications with Trump were subject to a legal doctrine called executive privilege that can keep certain presidential communications confidential. The judge also prohibited Bannon from arguing that he relied on legal advice from an attorney in refusing to comply.

Bannon’s primary defense in the trial was that he believed the subpoena’s deadline dates were flexible and subject to negotiation between his attorney and the committee.

“This document is not hard to understand,” Gaston told jurors of the subpoena. “It tells him what he is required to do, and when he is required to do it.”

The main prosecution witness was Kristin Amerling, a senior committee staff member. She testified on Wednesday that Bannon disregarded the subpoena’s two deadlines, sought no extensions and offered an invalid rationale for his defiance – a claim by Trump involving a legal doctrine called executive privilege that can keep certain presidential communications confidential.

Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol and attacked police in a failed effort to block formal congressional certification of his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, which Trump falsely claims was the result of widespread voting fraud. Bannon was a key adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, then served in 2017 as his chief White House strategist.

The defense has made motions to the judge asking him to acquit Bannon, arguing the prosecution failed to prove its case, or dismiss the charges because his lawyers were blocked from calling as witnesses lawmakers who are members of the committee. Such motions seeking acquittals and dismissals at the end of a trial are common and rarely granted. Nichols said he intends to rule on both motions after the jury reaches a verdict.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Will Dunham)

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NEW YORK (AP) — A man brandishing a sharp object who attacked U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin as the Republican candidate for New York governor delivered a speech in western New York has been charged with attempted assault.

“I’m OK,” Zeldin said in a statement after the incident Thursday. “Fortunately, I was able to grab his wrist and stop him for a few moments until others tackled him.”

David Jakubonis, 43, was arraigned and released, a Monroe County sheriff’s spokesperson said. It’s not clear whether Jakubonis has an attorney who can speak for him. A message seeking comment was left at a number listed for Jakubonis.

Jakubonis is an Army veteran who was deployed to Iraq in 2009 as a medical laboratory technician.

The incident happened as Zeldin, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul this November, was addressing a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in the town of Perinton, outside Rochester.

The attacker climbed onto a low stage where the congressman spoke to a crowd of dozens, flanked by bales of hay and American flags.

Videos taken by people in the audience showed Jakubonis walk up to Zeldin saying, “You’re done,” and then try to grab him, bringing a pointed object shaped like a cat’s head toward Zeldin’s neck as he reached for the congressman. Photos of the object suggested it was a keychain meant to be worn on the knuckles for self defense.

Jacob Murphy, a spokesperson for Zeldin’s congressional office, said Friday that Zeldin had a minor scrape from the incident. He said Zeldin had not received any specific threats recently.

In response to a question about what security was at the event, Murphy said: “Congressman Zeldin had private security at the event and law enforcement arrived on the scene within a few minutes. Security will be increased starting with our first event this morning.”

Among those who helped to subdue the attacker was Zeldin’s running mate, former New York Police Department Deputy Inspector Alison Esposito.

In a statement, Hochul condemned the attack and said she was “relieved to hear that Congressman Zeldin was not injured and that the suspect is in custody.”

New York Republican State Committee Chairman Nick Langworthy called on Hochul to issue a security detail for Zeldin to protect him on the campaign trail.

“This could have gone a lot worse. This could have really ended in a horrible way tonight and this is unacceptable,” he said.

Hochul’s press secretary Avi Small referred questions about providing Zeldin with a security detail to New York state police.

Zeldin, an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who has represented eastern Long Island in Congress since 2015, is a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and was among the Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.

He has focused his campaign on fighting crime but faces an uphill battle against Hochul. He’ll need to persuade independent voters — which outnumber Republicans in the state — as well as Democrats in order to win the general election.

Democrats are expected to focus on Zeldin’s vocal defense of Trump during both of his impeachments and objection to the election results.

___

Associated Press reporter Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden continues to have mild symptoms of COVID-19, the White House said on Friday, one day after he tested positive for the virus and as a highly contagious subvariant drives a new wave of cases in the United States.

“He was doing just fine” as of Thursday night, White House COVID Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told CNN.

“The symptoms were basically the same,” Jha said, adding that he would check the president’s condition again on Friday morning. “As of 10 p.m. …. he said he was feeling just fine.”

The White House on Thursday announced that Biden had tested positive for COVID-19, was experiencing mild symptoms and would continue working but in isolation.

Biden, who at 79 is the oldest person ever to serve as president of the United States, is due to hold three virtual meetings on Friday, his public schedule released by the White House showed.

He began experiencing a runny nose, fatigue and an occasional dry cough late on Wednesday and is taking the antiviral treatment Paxlovid, White House physician Kevin O’Connor said on Thursday.

Fully vaccinated and twice boosted, Biden said he was “doing well” in a video posted on his Twitter account on Thursday. In the 21-second clip, he also said he was “getting a lot of work done” and would continue with his duties.

Jha said it was still unclear where exactly Biden, who recently returned from a trip to the Middle East, contracted the novel coronavirus. He told CNN he was unaware of any linked cases among Biden’s recent close contacts but that the White House was continuing to conduct contract tracing.

Jha said he and O’Connor would provide ongoing updates of Biden’s condition but that he did not know whether the White House would release any more videos or pictures of the president.

The White House has scheduled a briefing for an update on Biden’s health at 3 p.m. (1900 GMT).

U.S. COVID cases have jumped more than 25% in the last month, according to CDC data, as the new BA.5 subvariant takes hold there and across the world.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Katharine Jackson; editing by John Stonestreet)

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By Richard Cowan, Patricia Zengerle and Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Thursday’s congressional committee hearing into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot by supporters of Donald Trump featured minute-by-minute accountings of the then-president’s actions — and inaction — as his supporters launched a violent attack.

Here are four takeaways from the hearing:

HAWLEY RAISES FIST, THEN RUNS

The committee showed a well-known image of conservative Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who is thought to be eyeing a run for president, outside the Capitol raising his arm, hand balled into a fist, to encourage the gathering angry crowds still being held behind security lines.

While that image was familiar, indeed one that Hawley has used to raise money, the committee followed up with new images: Multiple video clips of Hawley running from the rioters, first fleeing across a hallway and later down a flight of steps.

The hearing room, packed with reporters, congressional aides, security staff and visitors broke into laughter as the footage was played.

SAYING GOODBYE TO FAMILIES

Vice President Mike Pence hid in his ceremonial office on the second floor of the Senate as rioters pushed closer and closer, as seen in videos shown at the hearing.

There was smoke in a nearby hallway as U.S. Capitol Police tried to corral a group of attackers, and Secret Service agents desperately tried to figure out whether they could safely evacuate Pence to another location on the Capitol grounds.

“The security detail of the vice president was starting to fear for their own lives,” one anonymous White House security official testified on video played at the hearing.

Rioters were just feet away, the official testified, adding that agents were “screaming and saying goodbye to family.”

Pence ultimately was hurried to a Capitol loading dock.

TRUMP ‘CHOSE’ NOT TO STOP THE RIOT

Representative Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the House’s select committee, portrayed a president who was satisfied with the violence he watched unfolding at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“The mob was accomplishing President Trump’s purpose, so of course he didn’t intervene” to stop the violence until more than three hours after it had begun, Kinzinger said.

“President Trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes between leaving the Ellipse and telling the mob to go home. He chose not to act.”

TRUMP MADE NO CALLS TO TOP OFFICIALS

High-ranking officials, including then-White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, testified on pre-recorded videotape that the president watched television for hours during the Capitol riot in the White House dining room.

They said that they were not aware of Trump making phone calls to Cabinet heads, including the secretaries of defense and homeland security, the attorney general or the National Guard, all of whom could have aided in stopping the violence on Capitol Hill.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Moira Warburton, Doina Chiacu and Rose Horowitch; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)

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