Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer said the Biden administration stonewalled Republicans investigating the Biden family’s business ties – and ‘unintentionally helped’ the probe.

‘In a way, I’m kind of glad that the Biden attorney, Abbe Lowell, and [the] Biden administration has been stonewalling us,’ Comer told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on ‘Sunday Morning Futures.’

‘Because when I requested that information two weeks ago versus today, because of what we have in hand now, we have a lot stronger case in court for why we need these documents that the Biden family’s withholding and the government’s withholding,’ he said.

‘So, they have unintentionally helped our case in our quest to get these documents, to where we can give the American people the proof and the transparency that they deserve,’ Comer added. 

The Kentucky congressman serves as the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the Biden family’s domestic and international business ties.

Comer said that Republicans were stonewalled by various government leaders in their efforts to obtain the documents, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the Biden administration.

‘But fortunately, since we’ve last spoken, we actually have bank records in hand. We have individuals who are working with our committee. In the last two weeks, we’ve met with either these individuals personally or with their attorneys,’ Comer said.

‘Now, we have in hand documents that show just exactly how the Biden family was getting money from the Chinese Communist Party, and I will tell you, it’s as bad as we thought, Maria, it’s very concerning,’ he added.

Comer told Bartiromo that the committee has bank records of people tied to various businesses the Biden family was involved with and found ‘a lot of transfers from account to account to account.’ Comer said he believes there were frequent transfers of cash to help conceal the origin of the funds.

‘The banks would look at this like they must be laundering money or something. I don’t necessarily think they were laundering money, Maria. It looks to me like they were trying to hide the source of that money and the source was the Chinese Communist Party,’ Comer said.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s reelection loss should serve as a ‘wake-up call’ for other mayors – or those considering a run for office – who are also failing to address the issue of crime in their communities, according to some political insiders.

Lightfoot’s tenure in the Windy City office – which will end later this year after she failed to make it into the city-wide runoff election – has been marked with immense criticism from individuals in her own party and from those across the political aisle.

Crime was seen as the central theme of the race and the city’s soaring crime rate served as the backdrop to Lightfoot’s dismal approval rating, according to one poll. 

‘Mayor Lightfoot was an astoundingly incompetent, left-wing mayor of a big city. Her incompetence was breathtaking to the point where she had become a meme-darling for conservatives all across social media,’ Kristin Tate, a GOP strategist and columnist for The Hill, told Fox News Digital. ‘But other left-wing mayors across the country are likely going to see their political futures at risk as well. We saw this happen in the ’80s when one of the most liberal cities in America, New York City, elected Rudy Giuliani.’

During Lightfoot’s time in office, homicides in Chicago rose to their highest number in 25 years in 2021, according to police department records, outpacing New York City and Los Angeles. She also faced sharp criticism for her less-than-cordial relationship with law enforcement throughout her tenure, which saw a drastic reduction in police officer headcount to coincide with the rise in crime.

‘Liberals love to vote for other liberals, but once the safety and quality of life of their own environment and neighborhoods starts to fall apart, they start to hire other less radical Democrats or even Republicans to clean up the mess,’ Tate said. ‘The mayors of other big cities like Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and possibly even Austin, Texas, have definitely been watching Mayor Lightfoot’s demise and are surely contemplating their own political survival as well.’

Similarly, Colin Reed, a founding member of South & Hill Strategies who served as campaign manager for former Massachusetts GOP Sen. Scott Brown, said Lightfoot’s loss, which largely hinged on her policies and priorities, should serve as a warning to others who may be considering running for mayoral positions around the country.

‘The sense of lawlessness and decay in America’s major metropolitan areas threaten any entrenched incumbent trying to justify their term in office,’ Reed told Fox. ‘Soft-on-crime policies are coming home to roost and creating widespread unease about public safety. It should be a wake-up call to anyone preparing to put their name on a ballot.’

But not everyone agrees on the reasoning behind Lightfoot’s reelection loss, and some Democrats believe her handling of issues are not to be compared to that of other mayoral hopefuls who may be left of center.

‘Every city, campaign and candidate is different, so I hesitate to try and compare Mayor Lightfoot’s primary election defeat to any other Democrat – especially to her big-city mayoral colleagues,’ Kevin Walling, a Democratic campaign strategist, told Fox. ‘Clearly, crime was a hugely important issue, and the mayor’s inability to stem the tide of violence over the past four years sealed her fate last week.’

Admittedly, Walling suggested he believes Democrats could be more effective and have better election odds if they were to focus more on public safety.

‘At the basic level, we all want to feel safe in our communities — rural, suburban and urban,’ Walling said. ‘I think Democrats often focus so much on statistics when we need to do a better job meeting people where they’re at, making them not only feel safer but also improving public safety.’

Lightfoot – who frequently touted Chicago as a ‘safe’ city and defended her record handling the issue, touting a ‘multi-tiered strategy’ to curb gang and gun crimes last August – became Chicago’s first mayor in 40 years to serve just one term and was beaten out of a runoff election by former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson.

Sarah Norman, a Democratic strategist, rejected the premise that Lightfoot’s election loss could be a trend among other left-wing mayors who hold office around the country, telling Fox that Lightfoot ‘managed to alienate effectively every constituency in Chicago.’

‘If the left pole of the Chicago establishment are the teachers union and right pole is the police unions, the fact both groups ran candidates against her in the primary suggests she had lost nearly everyone,’ Norman said. ‘And, in fact, what happened was that both her challengers to the right and to the left beat her; Chicago didn’t reject progressive governance, it just rejected Lori Lightfoot.’

Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Lightfoot’s election defeat should serve as a ‘warning sign for the country,’ rejecting criticism that he is feeding into the Republican narrative on crime in addressing public safety concerns in the Big Apple.

‘Public safety is a prerequisite to prosperity – same as Chicago, like New York, and many of our big cities across America,’ Adams said during an appearance on CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’ 

‘That is why we zero focus double-digit decrease in shootings, double-digit decrease in homicides, which we have witnessed this year, particularly the month of February,’ he added. ‘All of our index crimes are low, low for the entire year. We are focused on public safety because people want to be safe. They don’t feel safe. And they actually say then you’re going to lose control of your city.’

Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie, Danielle Wallace, and Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this story.

The Biden administration announced Sunday evening that it is indefinitely blocking 16 million acres of federal land and water in Alaska from future fossil fuel drilling.

The Department of Interior (DOI) said it had initiated a rulemaking process to ‘establish maximum protection’ for 13 million acres of land across the National Petroleum Reserve (NPR), an area in North Slope Borough, Alaska, set aside by Congress for resource development. In addition, President Biden ordered an additional 2.8 million of acres to be withdrawn from oil and gas leasing in the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska.

‘With these actions, President Biden continues to deliver on the most aggressive climate agenda in American history,’ the DOI said in a statement. ‘He has made the United States a magnet for clean energy manufacturing and jobs. He secured record investments in climate resilience and environmental justice.’

‘And his economic agenda has put the United States back on track to reach its climate goals for 2030 and 2050, all while reducing America’s reliance on oil and protecting American families from the impact of Putin’s war on global energy markets,’ the statement added.

The announcement means that the entire section of the Arctic Ocean owned by the federal government is blocked from any fossil fuel production in the foreseeable future. However, an offshore lease sale hasn’t been held in the region since 2007 and the administration had already ruled out future auctions through at least 2028.

Additionally, the DOI said Biden intends to limit future fossil fuel production in the Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon and Peard Bay ‘special areas’ known for their rich wildlife populations. Biden’s sweeping actions also prevent the development of certain fossil fuel pipeline infrastructure in the northern Alaska region.

‘It’s a totally political decision, it’s not based on science, it’s not based on climate change, it’s not based on biological resources,’ a former senior Bureau of Land Management official said in an interview with Fox News Digital on Sunday evening.

‘They’re pandering solely for political purposes and not paying attention to the science.’

The DOI announcement, meanwhile, is an apparent attempt for the administration to soften the blow for climate activists ahead of an expected decision on a massive 30-year oil drilling project in the NPR. 

The Biden administration is expected to announce Monday that is approving three of the five drilling sites for the Willow Project, an oil project proposed years ago by energy company ConocoPhillips, a congressional aide with knowledge of the situation told Fox News Digital.

ConocoPhillips has projected that Willow would produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day, create more than 2,500 construction jobs and 300 long-term jobs, and deliver as much as $17 billion in revenue for the federal government, Alaska and local communities, many of which are Indigenous. Overall, it could have a total output of 600 million barrels of oil over its three-decade lifespan.

While the DOI will publish the final decision on the project, Biden and senior White House officials have been actively involved in overseeing the approval process.

‘We cannot allow the Willow Project to move forward. We must build a clean energy future — not return to a dark, fossil-fueled past,’ Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., wrote in a tweet. ‘It doesn’t matter which way this oil flows, it’s the wrong direction.’

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., added that the administration’s expected approval of the project was a ‘complete betrayal.’

Alaska’s congressional delegation — Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski and Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola — have supported Willow alongside the state’s entire legislature, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Alaska Native communities, labor unions, leaders of the North Slope Borough and the Alaska Federation of Natives.

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday spoke to Iranian anti-regime activists in Washington, D.C., and warned that the Biden administration’s efforts to re-enter the embattled 2015 nuclear deal would pave a path ‘in gold’ to a nuclear weapon.

Pence spoke at an event held in the nation’s capital by the Organization of Iranian-American Communities, which calls for a democratic, secular, non-nuclear Iranian republic, and hailed the Trump administration’s maximum pressure policy toward the regime in Tehran. 

That administration abandoned the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and re-imposed sanctions that had been lifted as part of the accord and also took out top General Qasem Soleimani in an air strike.

The Biden administration has changed course and has sought to re-enter the deal with Iran, and talks were revived in Vienna in 2021. However, those talks faltered last year amid what the U.S. blamed on intransigence from the regime — now led by hardline President Ebrahim Raisi. However, the administration has not abandoned the intent to re-enter the deal.

‘On the day we left office, the Iranian regime was more isolated than ever before,’ Pence recounted, but he said that the Biden administration is ‘threatening to unravel all of the progress we made in marginalizing the tyrannical regime in Tehran.’

Pence called the push to re-engage on the deal, including waiving sanctions, ‘ill-advised and unwise’ and said that a new deal would not solve the instability in the Middle East or stop the regime’s ambitions for a nuke.

‘A renewed nuclear deal won’t lead to peace and stability. It will lead to more terrorism, death and destruction, and destabilize the region,’ he said. ‘A renewed deal won’t block Iran’s path to a nuclear bomb, it will pave it in gold.’

The regime has been rocked by months of protests across the country in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by morality police for not covering her head. Pence said the regime was weaker than it ever had been and that the resistance movement is stronger than it ever had been, describing it as ‘an engine for change from within during the uprisings and continued protests.’

Pence also called for the prosecution of Raisi, who has been tied to human rights abuses, including the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988.

‘He must be removed from office by the people of Iran and prosecuted for crimes against humanity and genocide,’ he said.

Pence’s speech marks the latest sign of support from Washington, D.C., for the resistance movement. Pence has previously visited the base of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Albania, and this week lawmakers announced that a majority in the House now back a resolution backing the movement’s goals.

Ahead of Pence, NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi said that the situation in Iran would never return to how it was before the uprising.

‘The regime has become weaker and faces more defections,’ she said. ‘It cannot prevent the explosive situation, because that needs fundamental reforms, which will in turn lead to the regime’s overthrow.’

Two of the United States’ top health agencies have sent a letter to the surgeon general of Florida, accusing him of misleading the public on COVID-19 vaccine side effects. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the joint letter to Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Friday.

‘Focusing on adverse events in the absence of causal association and without the perspective of countervailing benefits is a great disservice to both individuals and public health,’ the agencies wrote. 

The letter continued, ‘Like every other medical intervention, there are adverse effects from vaccination. Serious adverse events from COVID-19 vaccines are rare and are far outweighed by the benefits of these vaccines for every age group.’

In March 2022, Ladapo recommended that certain segments of the population forgo the COVID-19 vaccine due to possible side effects that he believed could outweigh health benefits.

Analysis conducted by the Department of Health in Florida showed an ‘84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males, 18 to 39 years old within 28 days following the mRNA vaccination.’

READ THE CDC/FDA LETTER – APP USERS, CLICK HERE:

In their Friday letter, the CDC and FDA rejected this assertion.

‘The claim that the increase of VAERS reports of life-threatening conditions reported from Florida and elsewhere represents an increase of risk caused by the COVID-19 vaccines is incorrect, misleading and could be harmful to the American public,’ the letter read.

The health agencies insisted that Ladapo was conflating unrelated health issues with negative effects of the vaccine, muddying the data.

They wrote, ‘Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination do not mean that a vaccine caused the event. Since December 2020, almost 270 million people have received more than 670 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S., with over 50 million people having received the updated bivalent vaccine.’

The CDC and FDA went on to claim that studies had found a lower rate of strokes and heart attack among vaccinated individuals.

‘Despite increased reports of these events, when the concern was examined in detail by cardiovascular experts, the risk of stroke and heart attack was actually lower in people who had been vaccinated, not higher,’ the letter asserted.

A federal judge shouted down by protesters at Stanford Law School ripped the behavior of the student body and administrators, saying they were treating their peers like ‘dogs**t.’ 

Judge Kyle Duncan, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, was invited to speak at Stanford University Thursday by the school’s Federalist Society chapter. However, he was heckled by hundreds of students, who made it impossible for him to deliver his speech.

‘If enough of these kids get into the legal profession, the rule of law will descend into barbarism,’ Duncan told the Washington Free Beacon.

Video footage widely shared on social media shows that the school’s associate dean of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), Tirien Steinbach, did nothing to quell the disruption as protesters hurled verbal abuse at the judge, which appeared to violate Stanford’s free speech policies.

Instead, Steinbach gave a minutes-long and emotional speech at the event, accusing Duncan of causing ‘harm’ through his work on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The students were particularly angry at Duncan for a 2020 opinion in which he refused to use a transgender sex offender’s preferred pronouns. In comments to the Free Beacon, the judge described the incident as a ‘bizarre therapy session from hell.’ 

Steinbach repeatedly said she was ‘uncomfortable’ by the anger caused by Duncan’s presence, though she sided with the students, telling Duncan while she ‘wholeheartedly’ welcomed him because she believes in free speech, his speech was ‘abhorrent’ and ‘harmful’ and ‘literally denies the humanity of people.’ 

She went on to question whether the University’s stated commitment to free speech was worth ‘the pain that this causes and the division that this causes.’ 

‘You have something so incredibly important to say about Twitter and guns and COVID, then that is worth this impact and the division.  . . . When I say is the juice worth the squeeze, that’s what I’m asking. Is this worth it?’ she challenged Duncan. 

Duncan was never given the chance to read his prepared remarks. After a hostile Q&A session, he was escorted out the back door by federal marshals, who were there to ‘protect’ him, the Free Beacon reported. 

‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ he told the outlet. ‘I’m a life-tenured federal judge. What outrages me is that these kids are being treated like dogs**t by fellow students and administrators.’

Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., on Friday introduced legislation that would allow congressional employees to carry legally possessed weapons in self-defense to and from Capitol Hill and safely store them while at work.

The Safe Storage Lockers for House Office Buildings Act would require Capitol Police to install and operate lockers at the entrances of House office buildings where workers could store their weapons.

In Washington, D.C., individuals are allowed by law to carry and use certain weapons for self-defense, including self-defense sprays, stun guns and concealed firearms. However, both D.C. and federal law prohibit individuals from carrying these weapons inside a federal building.

As a practical matter, therefore, people who work in federal buildings generally can’t carry concealed weapons with them on the way to and from work.

Steube’s bill would solve this dilemma. The real impetus for the legislation, however, is rising crime in D.C., which he blames on Democratic governance.

‘Violent crime has skyrocketed across the country, enabled by disastrous soft-on-crime Democrat policies,’ Steube said in a statement. ‘Sadly, our nation’s capital is regressing to total lawlessness and violent chaos. Today, I’m introducing legislation to ensure congressional employees have the right to defend themselves in crime-ridden D.C.’

‘My bill is simple,’ Steube said. ‘Any employee who is lawfully permitted to carry a firearm, stun gun, or self-defense spray will be able to bring those weapons on their commute to a House Office Building and safely store the weapon until they are ready to depart the building.’

Steube introduced his bill two days after the Senate voted overwhelmingly, in bipartisan fashion, to block the Washington, D.C., city council’s dramatic overhaul of its criminal code. Republicans and many Democrats complained that the proposal would ease criminal penalties in a city that is already suffering from rising crime rates. The House had previously voted to nullify the D.C. law.

Once the resolution is signed by President Biden, as is expected, it will mark the first time Congress has acted to roll back D.C.’s own self-imposed regulations in more than three decades, exercising a power that Congress has under the Constitution.

The proposed D.C. law would have lowered the maximum penalties for crimes such as carjackings, robberies and burglaries, while raising them for murders. Nearly all misdemeanor cases would also have included the right to a jury trial, and minimum sentences for most crimes would have been abolished.

Last year, D.C. hit 200 murders in consecutive years for the first time since 2003, and the nation’s capital is currently on pace for a third straight year of 200 or more killings.

The press release from Steube’s office noted that many employees who work in the House office buildings in D.C. commute to and from their offices by walking.

Reports the Biden administration is considering reinstating migrant family detention at the southern border sparked outrage from immigration activists, but former Trump administration officials are skeptical about how useful such policy initiatives from the Biden administration would be if implemented.

‘It’s just 180 degrees from what their strategy has been. Since day one, their strategy has been the antithesis of detention,’ former acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan told Fox News Digital. ‘They view that as inhumane and not something that they support. So the fact that there’s talk about detaining families again, I’m very skeptical.’

Multiple outlets reported Monday that the administration is considering reviving the detention of migrant families who cross the border illegally. 

Such a move would mark a significant reversal for the administration, which ended the practice in 2021 and instead released migrant family units into the U.S. interior with notices to appear in court or report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement that ‘no decisions have been made as we prepare for the Title 42 public health order to lift.’

The spokesperson was referring to the May 11 halt to Title 42, a Trump-era order enacted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that allows for the rapid expulsion of migrants at the southern border for public health reasons. Officials have predicted an additional surge at the border when the order is lifted, and the administration has unveiled a number of measures to counteract such a shift.

The report sparked fury from immigration activists and some Democrats who were appalled at the idea of a potential return to the practice they see as cruel and inhumane.

But Stephen Miller, who served as a senior adviser in the Trump White House and advocated for tougher policies on illegal immigration, was dismissive of the reports.

‘Every decision the administration has made has been for the singular purpose of bringing more illegal immigrants into the United States as quickly as possible,’ he said. ‘If the administration had any actual desire to reduce illegal immigration, rather than continually increasing it, they would reimplement every Trump policy, beginning with Safe Thirds and Remain in Mexico.’

Thomas Homan, who served at the top levels of ICE in both the Obama and Trump administrations, told Fox News Digital he thinks the move is for show. Homan added that unless changes are made to court-imposed restrictions that now limit family detention to just 20 days, meaning families are unlikely to have their asylum cases heard in that time, it was unlikely to make a major difference.

‘I think the election’s coming up. I think it’s all for election purposes. I think it’s all politics,’ he said. ‘Unless we can hold them long enough to see a judge, it impacts border security minimally.’

Homan said that during the Obama administration and before the 20-day limit was imposed, border numbers declined as officials were able to expedite cases and quickly deport migrants. Without a new tighter time frame being changed, cases are unlikely to be able to be heard in that time.

Homan did add that the time in the family residential centers will allow migrants to get medical care, and officials can verify whether a child is part of a family unit or is being trafficked.

‘It gives us time to verify their addresses, verify where they’re going, verify who they’re going to live with. We can make sure we send the notices [to appear] to the right house, give us time to verify their family groups. It gives us time to make sure they’re healthy, that they’re not carrying diseases into the communities,’ Homan said. ‘But unless they have judges to expedite the hearings, it’s not going to have a tremendous impact on border security.’

He also pushed back against claims by activists that detention was cruel, noting that centers had features like Zumba classes and movie screenings, as well as medical care that migrants had sometimes been missing.

‘Many of the childhood vaccinations these children received, they received from us. Many of them saw a dentist for the first time in their life at these facilities. Or a doctor,’ he said. ‘These families go through a very rough journey to this country, and we can take care of the medical needs … and having child psychologists there to talk about some of the things these children might have seen during this journey or, you know, leaving the country and coming to a new country. It was very expensive, but it served a great purpose, I thought.’

Morgan was similarly doubtful asylum hearings would be expedited by a judge at the border, although he suggested a new asylum rule that allows asylum officers to hear cases rather than judges would be used to move them through via what he said would be a ‘rubber stamp.’

‘If that’s not the goal, their goal is then just to alleviate the bad political optics of local NGOs and the border being overwhelmed, and they’re going to push them to these family residential centers that are located in other areas of the border, where they will give them a transition period before they process and release them,’ Morgan said.

He also suggested the new reports could be a sign of the political pressure the Biden administration is facing over a border crisis that is now deep into its third year and has been a constant thorn in its side. Although, the administration has been claiming recent measures it has introduced are working.

‘I think it’s also an indication of how they too can no longer pretend that what is happening under their leadership isn’t a complete colossal failure, period,’ Morgan said.

Five Senate Democrats could retire ahead of the 2024 elections in America, relinquishing their seats to fresh faces as Republicans seek to gain control of the upper chamber.

Following the retirement announcements of two prominent Senate Democrats earlier this year, the question remains over which other senators will step aside and forgo what could be a potentially bruising round of elections for the party as Democrats seeks to defend a majority of the seats up for grabs next cycle.

Last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., became the latest senator to announce she would not seek re-election in 2024, following in the footsteps on Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who announced last month that she would relinquish her seat in the upper chamber when her term expires in 2025.

A total of 34 Senate seats — 20 currently held by Democrats, 11 currently held by Republicans, and 3 currently held by independents — will be up for grabs next cycle. The three independent senators currently caucus with Democrats in the Senate, meaning Democrats will be tasked with defending 23 of the 34 seats in 2024 if they wish to maintain their majority in the legislative body.

Of the 20 Democrat-held seats up for election, seven are in states won by former President Trump in either 2016 or 2020. Republicans, however, will not be defending any seat in a state won by President Biden, unlike the 2022 midterms where the most competitive races were in states Biden won: Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin

Sen. Joe Manchin, perhaps the most vulnerable senator in 2024, has not yet announced his re-election intentions. Trump won West Virginia by a whopping 39 percentage points in the 2020 election, making the seat a key target for a Republicans.

Manchin played an instrumental role in getting the Inflation Reduction Act across the finish line and may face a political price for his perceived capitulation in a predominantly working-class state with the second-largest leading coal industry in the nation.

Rep. Alex Mooney, the five-term West Virginia congressman, announced his intent to run for the Senate seat just a week after the November 2022 midterm elections.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has also been eyeing Manchin’s seat for some time and hinted he was considering running again. After a narrow loss to Manchin in the state’s 2018 Senate race by just 3 percentage points, Morrisey said in November he is ‘seriously evaluating’ a gubernatorial run or launching a second bid for the Senate in 2024.

Current West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, also told Fox News in January that he is ‘very interested’ in pursuing a 2024 Senate bid for the seat, adding extra fuel to Manchin’s contemplation on whether to seek re-election.

Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who has served as the junior senator from Wisconsin since 2013, has not declared whether she will seek re-election in the state won by Trump in 2016 by less than a percentage point.

Baldwin, according to Bloomberg, said last month that she is ‘planning an announcement later in the spring, and working very hard.’

Following the state’s 2022 Senate election, in which Sen. Ron Johnson defeated Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes by a little more than 25,000 votes, Baldwin, should she seek re-election, would be faced with a number of concerns from conservative voters in the state.

Baldwin, the first openly gay senator in the United States, has garnered respect from members of her own party in a variety of ways, most notably from her work on the Affordable Care Act. In her last two Senate elections, Baldwin won by unexpected margins. In 2012, she won by nearly six percentage points. In 2018, she won by a little more than 10 points.

Johnson’s win over Barnes has boosted momentum in the state for both major political parties, and now the GOP is seeking to build on that momentum in an effort to oust Baldwin, who formerly served in the U.S. House for six years.

Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey

Sen. Bob Casey announced in January that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in December, casting doubt on whether he will seek re-election in 2024 — though he has not yet announced his official decision.

Despite the diagnoses and concern over how it could have an impact on his congressional career, Casey, who has served in the Senate since 2007, underwent surgery for his prostate cancer last month and his office said that no further treatment is needed.

Casey, the son of former Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey Sr., defeated his GOP challenger, Lou Barletta, in the 2018 Senate election by 13 points.

Following Republican nominee Mehmet Oz’s loss in the state’s 2022 Senate election to Democrat John Fetterman, Republicans are seeking redemption. David McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO who narrowly lost the GOP primary to Oz, is considering another run, according to a November report from Bloomberg.

Former Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano is also weighing whether to enter the Keystone State’s Senate race, telling Politico this week that he is ‘praying’ about a potential Senate run in 2024. Mastriano’s political ambitions, however, were dismissed by Montana GOP Sen. Steve Daines, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

‘We need somebody who can win a primary and a general election. His last race demonstrated he can’t win a general,’ Daines said of Mastriano, according to one reporter.

Delaware Democratic Sen. Tom Carper

Sen. Tom Carper, the senior senator from Delaware, currently holds a seat that is viewed by many as a safe seat for Democrats to maintain control of in the 2024 elections.

But that safety net does not mean retirement is out of the question for Carper, a former military officer who has represented Delaware in the Senate since 2001.

While Carper, 76, has not officially declared whether he will seek re-election next cycle, he said recently that he is focused on doing ‘what I need to so I can run for re-election and be successful,’ according to Bloomberg.

Carper, according to the outlet, did not give a clear date as to when he would make a decision, but said he will announce his intention ‘sometime this year.’

Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin

Sen. Ben Cardin, who has represented Maryland in the Senate since 2007, is undecided on whether to seek re-election in 2024.

Cardin’s seat, like that of Carper’s, is viewed as another safe seat for Democrats in the next cycle. But whether Carper will hold onto it or pass it to another aspiring candidate remains unclear.

A spokesperson for the senator told Fox News Digital late last month that Cardin, 79, has ‘indicated that the decision likely will be announced’ this month.

2024 Senate race ratings from the Cook Political Report, which were released in late January, listed eight seats currently held by Democrats or independents as leaning Democratic or toss-ups.

The three seats rated as a ‘toss up’ between Democrats and Republicans in the 2024 elections, according to the report, include those currently held by Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Ohio Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, and West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin.

Sophia Slacik contributed to this article.

Oregon lawmakers are aiming to make the state the second in the nation to mandate climate change lessons for K-12 public school students, further fueling U.S. culture wars in education.

Dozens of Oregon high schoolers submitted support of the bill, saying they care about climate change deeply. Some teachers and parents say teaching climate change could help the next generation better confront it, but others want schools to focus on reading, writing and math after test scores plummeted post-pandemic.

Schools across the U.S. have found themselves at the center of a politically charged battle over curriculum and how matters such as gender, sex education and race should be taught — or whether they should be taught at all.

One of the bill’s chief sponsors, Democratic Sen. James Manning, said even elementary students have told him climate change is important to them.

‘We’re talking about third and fourth graders having a vision to understand how this world is changing rapidly,’ he said at a Thursday state Capitol hearing in Salem.

Connecticut has the only U.S. state law requiring climate change instruction, and it’s possibly the first time such a bill has been introduced in Oregon, according to legislative researchers. Lawmakers in California and New York are considering similar bills.

Manning’s bill requires every Oregon school district to develop climate change curriculum within three years, addressing ecological, societal, cultural, political and mental health aspects of climate change.

It’s unclear how Oregon would enforce the law. Manning told The Associated Press that he is going to scrap an unpopular proposal for financial penalties against districts that don’t comply, but didn’t say whether another plan was coming.

For now, the bill doesn’t say how many hours of instruction are needed for the state’s education department to approve a district’s curriculum.

Most states have learning standards — largely set by state education boards — that include climate change, although their extent varies by state. Twenty states and Washington, D.C., have specifically adopted what are known as the Next Generation Science Standards, which call for middle schoolers to learn about climate science and high schoolers to receive lessons on how human activity affects the climate.

New Jersey’s education standards are believed to be the most wide-ranging. For the first time this school year, climate change is not just part of science instruction, but all subjects, like art, English and even PE.

Several teens testified at the state Capitol in favor of the bill. No students have submitted opposition testimony.

‘In 100 years are we going to have to teach our children what trees are because there aren’t any left? It’s a thought that horrifies me,’ said high school sophomore Gabriel Burke. ‘My generation needs to learn about climate change from a young age for our survival.’

Some teachers testified in support of the bill. But others say they’re already struggling to address pandemic learning losses. Adding climate change on top of reading, writing, math, science and social studies is ‘a heavy lift that will end up coming down on the backs of teachers,’ said Kyler Pace, a grade school teacher in Sherwood, Oregon.

Recent surveys conducted by Columbia University’s Teachers College and the Yale Program on Climate Communication suggest that a majority of Americans think that climate change and global warming should be taught in school. But climate change is still seen by some as a politically divisive issue, and Pace said that mandating its instruction could inject more tension into schools.

Nicole De Graff, a self-described parents’ rights advocate and former GOP legislative candidate, testified that her children, ages 9, 15, and 16, are ‘done being overwhelmed with things that are fear-based, like COVID.’

In Pennington, New Jersey, wellness teacher Suzanne Horsley aims for age-appropriate lessons on what can be a daunting topic. In her K-2 physical education classes at Toll Gate Grammar School, she plays a game with pretend trees, using bean bags representing carbon to show students that fewer trees leads to higher levels of atmospheric carbon.

In Horsley’s lesson plan for teens, students learn how climate change disproportionately impacts low-income communities. They look at air quality maps in areas with higher industrial activity or car traffic.

There is a push for students to feel as though they have some ability to influence their world, Horsley said. ‘Whether it’s conserving water or finding ways to plant more trees or take care of the trees that already exist … they want to feel empowered.’