Republicans’ quest to resume executions in South Carolina overcame another hurdle Thursday.

The state Senate Corrections and Penology Committee approved a bill that would shield the identities of the companies that dispense the drug cocktail used to execute people on death row. The full Senate must now take up the latest effort in the state’s search for a method of capital punishment.

South Carolina has gone nearly 12 years without an execution. Recent sessions have seen futile attempts to begin executing the state’s death row prisoners — who now total 35 condemned people, including one man whose sentence dates back to 1983, according to a Feb. 2 South Carolina Department of Corrections list.

South Carolina’s last batch of lethal injection drugs have not been replenished since the supply expired in 2013. In lieu of that method, Gov. Henry McMaster in 2021 signed a law giving condemned prisoners the choice between death by a newly created firing squad or the electric chair.

But that law has been placed on hold amid a challenge from death row prisoners who have argued both methods are unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishments.

The availability of lethal injection drugs has loomed large in that case. The state Supreme Court recently compelled a judge to collect more information on the state Department of Corrections’ attempts to obtain them. The justices said state lawyers failed to answer how or when officials had sought the drugs during oral arguments last month.

Republican leaders have said drugmakers fearing public pressure from opposing activists are unwilling to sell to the state because South Carolina lacks a statute concealing their identities.

Fourteen states have carried out nearly 90 lethal injection executions in the past five years, including Texas, Alabama and Florida. Many have shield laws. Some do not.

States across the country have adopted such secrecy laws over the past decade. Similar measures have been passed in Virginia, Georgia, Ohio, Missouri and Arkansas.

The debate in South Carolina adds to the near constant scrutiny over the death penalty around the country. A Tennessee report issued late last year found the state had failed to property test lethal injection drugs before their usage.

As part of its vote Thursday, the Senate Corrections and Penology Committee stripped the proposal of language that Sen. Greg Hembree of Horry said has still given pharmaceutical companies’ cold feet in other states with similar laws.

The original draft allowed courts to compel identifying information upon ‘good cause.’ By removing that clause, Hembree’s amendment seeks to protect that information from disclosure during any legal processes.

‘The effort is to provide that very, very strong defense or shield for those persons on the execution team or providing those substances needed for lethal injection,’ he said.

Democratic and Republican senators raised concerns that such sweeping protections would prevent courts from acquiring key details in critical situations like botched executions. Hembree said the shield could still be pierced in such ‘exceptional circumstances.’

Those concerns were shared by Joshua Malkin, a lobbyist for the ACLU of South Carolina. Malkin said the amendment’s passage was a loss for accountability.

‘This isn’t even about the death penalty. This is about government transparency,’ Malkin said. ‘Even folks that the state has determined are condemned to die deserve some standard of decency.’

Virginia Democrats in the state Senate killed two measures supported by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin aimed at combatting antisemitism just two days before Holocaust Remembrance Day last week.

Senate bill 1252 would’ve had Virginia recognize a commonly used ‘working definition of antisemitism’ adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental organization that unites governments (including the U.S.) and experts to combat antisemitism and promote Holocaust remembrance.

Six Republicans and one Democrat — Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, who’s Jewish – voted for the bill in committee. However, seven Democrats, led by Senate President Pro tempore Louise Lucas, voted against it and an eighth, state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, abstained from the vote, killing the measure before it could get to the floor. 

McClellan is currently running for Congress in a special election in Virginia’s 4th Congressional District to succeed the late Rep. Donald McEachin.

As of December, a total of 1,116 global entities — from countries to companies — have adopted and endorsed IHRA’s non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism, according to the Combat Antisemitism Movement. In the U.S., this includes 30 states and 56 cities and counties. The State and Education departments did the same under the Trump administration.

Even though Virginia’s legislature hasn’t adopted the definition, Youngkin issued an executive order recognizing it last year.

According to the definition, antisemitism ‘is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.’

IHRA provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel — such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.

Experts have argued the definition is important for a range of practical uses such as adjudicating legal cases, monitoring bigotry on campuses, and training law enforcement.

Critics have argued the newer examples of antisemitism cited in the definition don’t allow for what they describe as legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies. It’s unclear whether this is why some Virginia state senators didn’t support the bill. Fox News Digital reached out to McClellan and Sen. Jennifer Boysko, who opposed the measure, for comment, but they did not immediately respond.

The second measure, Senate bill 1375, would prohibit state institutions from contracting with entities that boycott Israel as part of an effort to combat the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) against the Jewish state.

Six Republicans voted to pass the measure, and nine Democrats voted against it.

The stated goal of BDS is to abolish Israel as a Jewish state.

‘Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine,’ Omar Barghouti, a prominent spokesman for BDS, said in 2014.

Barghouti has also said the return of all Palestinian refugees to Israel, a stated goal of BDS, ‘would end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.’ He previously explained, ‘If the refugees were to return, you would not have a two-state solution; you’d have a Palestine next to a Palestine.’

The United Nations uniquely classifies Palestinians, and no other people, as refugees at birth — even if they never fled persecution. The so-called right of Palestinian refugees to return, therefore, would mean that not only all the Arabs who were displaced following Israel’s founding could settle in Israel but also all their descendants. 

Norman Finkelstein, one of the West’s fiercest critics of Israel, has called BDS a ‘cult,’ while also agreeing that the movement’s goal is to abolish the Jewish state.

In response, As’ad AbuKhalil, a professor of political science and prominent supporter of BDS, said: ‘Finkelstein rightly asks whether the real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel. Here, I agree with him that it is. That should be stated as an unambiguous goal.’

As with IHRA’s definition of antisemitism, critics argue that anti-BDS measures such as Senate bill 1375 are designed to silence criticism of Israel. 

Fox News Digital also reached out to Boysko’s office for comment on why she opposed the anti-BDS measure.

Both bills failed in committee on Wednesday, two days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the victims of the Holocaust in which the Nazis killed six million Jews in an attempted genocide.

Youngkin backed both bills, which were recommended by the Commission to Combat Antisemitism in its final report. Youngkin established the commission on his first day in office.

A former leader of the Michigan House had his phone seized as part of a federal investigation that involved grand jury subpoenas, search warrants and bank records, according to court documents.

The details were disclosed in a lawsuit against Rick Johnson and his wife, Janice, over fees charged by the Grand Rapids law firm Secrest Wardle.

The firm sued the Johnsons in 2021, saying they had failed to pay $7,500 for legal work performed in the fall of 2020 in connection with the case ‘United States v. Johnson.’

Johnson, a Republican from Osceola County, served six years in the state Legislature, including four as House speaker. His term ended in 2005 and he subsequently became a lobbyist. He was chairman of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Licensing Board for two years ending in spring 2019. The board reviewed and approved applications to grow and sell marijuana. The federal investigation was first reported by The Detroit News, which said the probe is related to Johnson’s time at the marijuana board.

Rick Johnson has not been charged with a crime. He didn’t immediately return a phone message seeking comment Thursday.

The lawsuit filed by Secrest Wardle included detailed billings by the firm. They referred to ‘receipt and review of substantial documents produced by Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in response to grand jury subpoena.’

Others entries referred to the ‘government’s retention’ of a phone and computer equipment and how they could be returned to the Johnsons. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher O’Connor was mentioned as ‘Mr. O’Connor.’

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Grand Rapids declined to comment.

The lawsuit over legal fees was settled, according to court records. The Johnsons’ former attorney, Christopher Cooke, declined to comment.

A panel of voting experts and political party appointees will help the Wisconsin Election Commission rework its rules for poll watchers ahead of the 2024 presidential race, the commission said Thursday.

Poll watchers, called election observers in Wisconsin, have complained that existing rules on how they can monitor voting sites are unclear and applied inconsistently across the state. Wisconsin has one of the most decentralized election systems in the nation, with more than 1,800 municipal clerks who count votes.

The new advisory committee will include voting rights advocates, poll watchers, municipal clerks and political party representatives. The panel will offer perspectives on how to balance the needs of election workers and poll watchers before the commission drafts new guidelines. The bipartisan election commission voted unanimously to establish the committee.

Poll watchers were a top concern nationally in the midterms, as political parties led unprecedented efforts to recruit and train volunteers to ensure election workers adhered to the law. Reports of partisan observers intimidating poll workers fueled election officials’ worries about safety.

Election commissioners began the process of reviewing Wisconsin’s rules for poll watchers in September. A commission attorney estimated it could take up to two years to enact new rules.

The Nov. 8 election passed with few of the incidents election officials feared. In the weeks that followed, however, poll watchers began reporting grievances to the election commission. They alleged some polling locations didn’t offer them chairs and others limited their access to on-site bathrooms. Many poll watchers were dissatisfied with how far they had to stand from scanners and voting booths.

‘We need an observer bill of rights,’ said Kathy Burgert, a citizen who spoke Thursday during a public comment period ahead of the commission’s vote.

On the other side of the issue were concerns about voter privacy and the safety of workers who have been threatened.

‘Election workers need to know they are supported by a clear set of rules and will not have to endure the threat of intimidation or attack by observers who do not follow those rules,’ Jay Heck, executive director of watchdog group Common Cause Wisconsin, said in a statement sent to the commission.

Commissioners asked Common Cause Wisconsin to appoint a member to the new committee, as well as voting advocacy groups including Souls to the Polls, Forward Latino and the Wisconsin Election Integrity Network. As the four parties with ballot access in Wisconsin, the Democratic, Republican, Constitutional and Libertarian Parties were each also asked to appoint a member.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to President Biden this week, asking him to add the Office of National Drug Control Policy back to the cabinet amid record drug overdoses. 

‘When meeting with our constituents, drug trafficking and the overdose epidemic are routinely among their top concerns,’ Rep. David Trone, D-Md., and 54 other lawmakers wrote in the letter to Biden. 

‘Reinstatement of the ONDCP Director to the Cabinet would be a meaningful step in improving interagency collaboration and the effectiveness of drug control programs across the federal government.’ 

The United States recorded a record 106,699 drug overdose deaths in 2021, a 16% increase over 2020, according to the CDC. 

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin, has been driving the latest phase of the opioid epidemic. Drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl jumped 22% in 2021, while heroin overdoses decreased 32%. 

The ONDCP Director was demoted from the cabinet level in 2009, but restoring it would ‘address the drug crisis with the full force of this Administration,’ lawmakers wrote in the letter to Biden this week. 

More than 13,000 pounds of fentanyl and 172,000 pounds of methamphetamine were seized at the border between September 2021 and August 2022, according to Customs and Border Protection. 

Lawmakers noted that then-Sen. Biden expressed support for keeping a drug czar at the cabinet level in 2001. 

‘Having a Cabinet-level ONDCP would also help ensure that drug policy is considered and prioritized across all policy discussions, accountability for performance is standardized across agencies involved in drug control activities, and the Administration is prepared to zealously respond to trends in drug use and overdose,’ lawmakers wrote. 

President Biden, who on Thursday spoke on the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA, said more than half the women in his administration are women, video shows.

Once again, the president got his words mixed up, this time as he spoke about the evolution of the FMLA and his accomplishments when it comes to helping low-income families with working moms.

‘More than half the women of my cabinet, more than half the people of my cabinet, more than half the women in my administration are women,’ Biden said.

Joining the president were Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Bill Clinton, who signed the FMLA into law in 1993.

Clinton talked Thursday about why the FMLA was so important then, just as it is now.

He explained that when he ran for president in 1992, working moms were much more common than when he grew up.

When President Biden took to the podium, he said Medicaid was extended for new moms to be able to take a year for things like postpartum depression. In December, he noted, his administration passed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, giving moms simple, basic support and time to recover after having a baby.

The president also said funds from the American Rescue Plan have helped increase pay for childcare workers, who are mostly women, and recently signed legislation increases the childcare development block grant by 30% to help low-income families afford childcare.

The FBI is expected to search the home and office of former Vice President Mike Pence in the coming days for any potential classified documents, Fox News has learned. 

The FBI and a representative for Pence would not confirm a potential search, which is believed to be consensual. However, Fox News is told by a source familiar that the FBI will conduct a search, although the timing is unclear.

In recent months, classified materials have turned up one after the other, beginning in August when documents were found in former President Donald Trump’s possession during a raid on his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Trump denies the documents in his possession were classified, however, arguing that as president he had the authority to declassify them. 

There is also currently an investigation underway into documents found in President Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home, as well as his Penn Biden Center office in Washington, D.C.

Most recently, Pence found classified documents at his home and reported it to the FBI, pledging full cooperation with any future investigation.

A councilman in Washington D.C., is calling for an increase in police presence after a tragic shooting in the city’s Metro transit system, despite touting a reduction to the city’s police department in 2020.

Charles Allen, Ward 6 councilman in Washington, D.C. made the call for an increased police presence while standing outside the Potomac Avenue Metrobus station on Wednesday after a transit employee was shot and killed while attempting to stop a gunman who already shot three other people on Wednesday.

‘I spent a couple of hours back at Potomac Ave Metro this morning with neighbors, MPD leaders, ANCs, & riders working collectively thru responses to yesterday’s violence, including increased police presence, gun violence prevention, Safe Passages, & more community engagement,’ Allen said.

However, in 2020, Allen touted the largest cut to the Metropolitan Police Department that ‘we’ve ever seen.’

‘I know not everyone agrees with where we landed. I hear you & now that we’ve gotten through committee & to the full Council, I’m happy to keep the work going. This is the biggest reduction to MPD I’ve ever seen – but I know racial justice won’t be achieved in a single budget,’ Allen wrote in a tweet on June 28, 2020.

Allen was referring to a vote by the Washington, D.C. Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, in June 2020 to cut the Metropolitan Police Department’s budget by over $15 million, according to FOX 5.

Protesters showed up at Allen’s home in Capitol Hill at the time to demand more budget cuts to the police department.

The full city council voted to pass the budget cut in July 2020, according to WUSA.

Funding stripped from the police department was diverted to social programs including a Washington, D.C. director for gun violence prevention, affordable housing, and a domestic violence shelter.

In January, Allen voted in favor of a bill vetoed by Mayor Muriel Bowser that would soften some penalties for violent crime.

‘It is a long overdue overhaul of our criminal code, which was first handed down to us from Congress back in 1901, a Congress that, if you can believe it, is even more dysfunctional and unrepresentative the District Columbia than what we have today,’ Allen said.

The bill, which overhauls the city’s criminal code, reduces maximum sentences, eliminates almost all mandatory minimum sentences, and also expands rights to jury trials for those accused of misdemeanors.

Congress has 60 days to review the bill.

Fox News Digital reached out to Allen for comment but did not immediately receive a response. 

Fox News’ Timothy Nerozzi and Pilar Arias contributed to this report.

Minnesota utilities would be obligated to transition to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 to step up the fight against climate change under a bill speeding through the Legislature.

The bill was slated for a final vote on the Senate floor Thursday night after passing the House 70-60 last week. It’s a top priority for Democrats, who control both chambers, and for Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who has made it an important part of his climate agenda.

‘Climate change is coming and has been here, and it affects everything we do,’ the lead author, Democratic Sen. Nick Frentz, of North Mankato, said at the start of a debate that was expected to last well into the night.

The Senate’s two meteorologists — Democratic Sens. Nicole Mitchell, of Woodbury, and Robert Kupec, of Moorhead — detailed for their colleagues how climate change is accelerating across Minnesota. They said it’s leading to more extreme weather events, as well as hotter summers with more droughts and warmer winters with shorter ice-fishing seasons.

Senate Republicans said they planned to offer a long list of amendments that they said would reduce the costs to consumers and risks to the power grid, but the one-seat Democratic majority held firm on the first several votes.

According to the Clean Energy States Alliance, 21 other states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have already established some kind of 100% clean-energy standards or goals, most with target dates between 2040 and 2050.

Minnesota’s previous standard, set in 2007 by a Democratic-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, set a goal of reducing overall statewide greenhouse emissions to at least 15% below 2005 levels by 2015, 30% by 2025 and 80% by 2050.

State regulators reported Tuesday that Minnesota’s greenhouse gas emissions declined by 23% between 2005 and 2020 and said the state was on track to achieve 30% by 2025. The biggest drop was in power generation, where emissions fell 54% amid the switch from coal to renewable energy.

This year’s bill aims to further shift utilities away from fossil fuels to wind and solar, but it also allows them to use hydropower, biomass, hydrogen and existing nuclear plants to go carbon-free. Utilities that can’t quit coal or gas on their own could ask regulators to let them use ‘off ramps’ to delay compliance, or they could use renewable energy credits to make up the difference.

Minnesota’s biggest utility, Xcel Energy, supports the legislation, saying it fits with its own goals, even though company officials say they’re not exactly sure yet how they’ll get all the way to carbon-free by 2040. But the state’s smaller rural electric cooperatives and municipal power systems say it would be a lot harder for them and that the costs to their customers will be high.

Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and other top officials in his state threatened last week to sue Minnesota if the bill is enacted, saying it would prevent North Dakota utilities from continuing to export power generated from coal and gas to Minnesota.

GOP critics in Minnesota have dubbed it a ‘blackout bill,’ saying that it will undermine the reliability of the state’s power grid — especially on the coldest winter nights and hottest summer days — in addition to forcing consumers to pay higher energy costs.

They held a news conference before the debate to propose a different approach, which would repeal the state’s moratorium on new nuclear power plants and allow utilities to continue to use gas and coal to ensure reliable baseload power supplies.

‘Democrats are pushing for strict mandates to force utilities and our energy producers to use carbon-free energy at a pace that current technology does not support,’ GOP Sen. Andrew Matthews, of Princeton, told reporters. ‘Hoping that cleaner technology becomes available along the way up to the goals is not a plan.’

An Arizona state lawmaker proposed a bill this session that could allow expecting mothers to drive in the HOV lane during restricted hours, according to reports.

Currently the law requires at least two people to be in a vehicle rolling down the HOV lane, including the driver, during restricted times.

Republican representative Matt Gress of the Phoenix area introduced House Bill 2417, which would qualify a pregnant woman as two people when it comes to driving in the HOV lane.

If pulled over, the pregnant woman or her health care professional would need to provide documentation to prove she is carrying a baby.

Also permitted to drive in the HOV lane under Arizona state law, currently, are tow truck operators performing their duties, motorcycles, public transportation vehicles and emergency vehicles used by first responders in the line of duty.

Gress could not immediately be reached for comment.

Texas State Rep. Briscoe Caine, also a Republican, filed a bill allowing pregnant women to drive in the HOV lane after Brandy Bottone of Plano, Texas made headlines.

Bottone was 34-weeks pregnant and rushing to pick up her son when she was stopped for driving in the HOV lane on U.S. HWY 75, which requires at least two people to occupy the vehicle.

When the officer pulled Bottone over, he asked if anyone else was in the vehicle, and she pointed to her stomach. The case was ultimately dismissed.

Virginia is another state considering a similar bill.