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Trump-backed candidate aims to pad GOP’s fragile House majority battle in showdown for MTG’s seat
ROME, GA — Republican congressional candidate Clay Fuller says that Tuesday’s special election runoff in Georgia is “extremely crucial.”
Fuller is facing off against Democrat Shawn Harris in the race to fill the seat in Georgia’s solidly red 14th Congressional District — in the northwest part of the state — left vacant when MAGA firebrand Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stepped down at the beginning of January. Greene quit Congress with a year left in her term, after a bitter falling out with President Donald Trump.
The special election, held on the same day as a state Supreme Court contest in battleground Wisconsin, comes as Republicans cling to a razor-thin 218–214 majority in the House. The GOP cannot afford any surprises and allow the Democrats to pull an upset in the special election, in a district Trump carried by a whopping 37 points in his 2024 presidential victory.
“We need the reinforcements,” Fuller, a local district attorney and a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard who’s served in the Air Force since 2009, emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview on the eve of the runoff election, as he pointed to the GOP’s fragile majority. “I think the voters in Georgia 14 understand that, and they’re looking forward to sending a MAGA America first fighter up on Capitol Hill to support that agenda.”
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Asked if he was concerned that MAGA supporters would sit out what may be a low turnout election since the president is not on the ballot, Fuller said voters “would crawl through glass to make sure they have a representative up there that fight for them and fight for President Trump, and that’s why we’re going to have the votes pouring out on April 7.”
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Harris, a cattle farmer who spent four decades in the military and retired as an Army brigadier general, needs the support of crossover Republicans in order to pull off an upset.
“I am a Democrat, but I’m not tied to the party,” Harris highlighted as he spoke with Fox News Digital. And Harris argued, “My opponent, Clay, cannot say that. He actually sold his soul to President Trump.”
Harris, pointing to surging gas prices fueled by Trump’s military attack on Iran, said when voters “go to the polls, they will have to stop at the pump, and that’ll be the last thing they think about before they go and vote. And they’re going to say, ‘You know what, Shawn Harris is the only one that’s talking about bringing down costs, Shawn Harris is the only one is saying, ‘I’m going to stand up for the people here in Northwest Georgia, period.”
“We will win this war militarily. However, if we don’t watch it and be clear with the American people, based on these gas prices and diesel prices, we could actually lose this war politically.”
Harris said he “will support President Trump on things like the…southern border.” But he added “when it comes to things like…a forever war. Send me. I will push back.”
Fuller said that “the voters in Georgia-14 support the president in this endeavor. They understand that the Iranian regime was a long term threat to our national security…they understand that President Trump is making the world safer, and they understand that there may be short term pain at the gas pump, and they’ll expect those prices to drop as soon as this conflict is over.”
Harris grabbed 37% of the vote, with Fuller at 35% amid a field of 17 candidates, including 12 Republicans, in the first round of voting in early March. Since no candidate topped 50%, Harris and Fuller advanced to Tuesday’s runoff.
The congressional seat — which stretches from Atlanta’s outer suburbs to the state’s northwest borders with Alabama and Tennessee — was left vacant when Greene quit Congress with a year left in her term, after a very public falling out with Trump mostly over her push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
While Greene remains popular among Republicans in the district, Fuller said the voters he’s talked with on the campaign trail “are focused on the fights of the future, not anything that had happened in the past.”
Asked if he’s talked with Greene, Fuller said he “reached out to Rep. Greene, had conversations with her and got advice on the district, and I’ll keep those conversations confidential.”
Harris, who as a first-time candidate lost to Greene by nearly 29 points in her 2024 re-election, emphasized that “I’m not running against Marjorie Taylor Greene anymore,” and that his name “carries more weight than any other name in this district.”
If Harris loses but holds Fuller’s margin to the mid-teens or less, national Democrats will argue the election is the latest in nearly 15 months since Trump returned to the White House in which they’ve overperformed.
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The ballot box brawl in Northwest Georgia isn’t the only electoral showdown on Tuesday. There’s also a state Supreme Court election in battleground Wisconsin.
While officially a non-partisan contest, state Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin have become extremely partisan in recent years.
With the court’s majority on the line in last year’s contest, outside money poured in and out-of-state door knockers blanketed Wisconsin. One of the biggest spenders was Trump ally Elon Musk, who headlined a rally days before the election and donned a cheesehead hat worn by fans of the Green Bay Packers.
Democrats won that election by a larger-than-expected margin and currently hold a 4-3 majority on Wisconsin’s highest court.
With a conservative justice retiring, the majority isn’t at stake in this year’s election, although if state Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, a former democratic state representative, wins, liberals would expand their majority on the high court to 5-2.
If Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, a conservative, wins or keeps the margins close, the GOP may claim a moral victory.
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Dinghy route taken by missing American woman and jailed husband recreated as details of disappearance emerge
GREAT ABACO ISLAND, Bahamas — As more details emerge about Brian Hooker’s final moments with his wife before she disappeared into the sea, Fox News Digital recreated the route Brian and his wife Lynette took moments before disaster struck.
Mo Monestime, who has spent 15 years chartering boats in the Great Abaco Island area, guided the excursion through the tropical Bahamian waters. He first exited a small harbor across from the Abaco Inn, where the Hookers had drinks before attempting to return to their boat.
The route calls for a turn southwest after clearing the harbor, and followed by a short ride between the western coastline of Elbow Cay and the eastern coastline of Lubbers Quarters. That was the route the Hookers attempted to take at around 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 4.
LYNETTE HOOKER MISSING IN BAHAMAS: TIMELINE OF MICHIGAN WOMAN’S DISAPPEARANCE, HUSBAND’S ARREST
According to digital maps reportedly drawn by Brian and sent to his friends, the Hookers’ return trip ended abruptly near the southwestern turn, about halfway through the ride to their anchored yacht, which sat in a popular channel used by tourists and locals alike.
The water surrounding the cays is clear enough to see to the bottom and sometimes as shallow as only four feet, Monestime said. At high tide, he estimated the water rises to about 10 feet.
The small channel between the two cays is rife with activity, as boaters motor through, anchor, and maneuver their dinghies in and out of shallow waters. Nearby is Tahiti Beach, along with a large sandbar that features a floating bar when weather conditions allow.
The ride from the harbor to the popular anchoring spot took only about four minutes.
But wind gusts may have created choppy waters before Brian said his wife fell overboard, separating the pair.
In a recording of a phone call Brian made to a friend on April 7 obtained by CBS, Brian gave the most detailed account yet about what he says is an accident that led to Lynette’s disappearance.
“She basically just bounced off the dinghy in the middle of a little blow, like 20-something knot winds that popped up,” he said on the call, adding that he and his wife were not wearing life jackets.
“It was sun down, and the sun set like basically 10 minutes after she fell over,” he said. “The dinghy key went over with he because it wasn’t clipped to anything or anybody, and she had the spare dinghy key in her dry bag, which was with her.”
Brian continued, saying the wind rapidly blew the couple apart and that he thinks Lynette tried to swim back to the yacht, which he said was about 1,000 yards or so from where the incident occurred.
“I yelled to her that I lost an oar, and then I threw the anchor out, anchored the dinghy, and just, yeah, I yelled. I couldn’t see her anymore because the moon had not risen yet,” he said.
Later, he said he threw a flotation cushion toward Lynette right after she went into the water, but he couldn’t tell whether she was able to grab it. He said he yelled for her for about an hour.
“By the time I got the anchor set, I was probably a quarter to a half a mile away from her, and I decided that I had to go get help,” he said, “but I could not get to the island, so I paddled.”
“And it was a cascade of failures, and it’s something I’m never going to forgive myself for,” he said. “We stayed to long, we left too dark, all kinds of s—. No life jackets. I f—ing threw the dinghy out last— the anchor out last — instead of first. Can’t really explain it, you know?”
Eventually, Brian claims, he washed ashore about four miles northeast of where the incident reportedly occurred, on a beach covered with jagged rocks, adjacent to a boat repair and storage facility called Marsh Harbor Boatyard. There, he was met by a security guard who eventually called the police.
Brian was arrested at around 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, four days after the incident.
He is currently being held in jail in Freeport, a separate Bahamian island, while police continue to investigate Lynette’s disappearance. Bahamian law allows a 48-hour initial hold time before filing charges against a suspect, which can be extended under certain circumstances. The first deadline for his release was Friday night, but his detention was extended by 72 hours. He is expected to be released or charged with a crime by Monday night.
Lynette’s fate remains uncertain, but local authorities have announced that their investigation has shifted to a recovery effort.
Butler said Brian has been cooperating with authorities and “categorically and unequivocally denies any wrongdoing.”
Brian has maintained throughout the investigation that he is innocent of any criminal wrongdoing, and issued a statement on Wednesday mourning his wife’s disappearance.
“I am heartbroken over the recent boat accident in unpredictable seas and high winds that caused my beloved Lynette to fall from our small dinghy near Elbow Cay in the Bahamas. Despite desperate attempts to reach her, the winds and currents drove us further apart. We continue to search for her and that is my sole focus,” he said on Facebook.
“Not being found, that’s the mystery,” Monestime told Fox News Digital.
“It is very hard to disappear, because, again, we’re so close to land,” Monestime told Fox News Digital. “So if you do fall overboard [and] drown, somebody will see you the next day. Again, we can see bottom, you know? I’ll be driving the boat, I will see stingrays, I will see turtles, so I would see a human body. Somebody would see something. Somebody would say something, like, ‘Hey, we just saw something strange in the water.'”
Monestime said drownings happen occasionally near Elbow Cay, but then reiterated that victims are recovered quickly.
“Again, you could see land all the way, the whole time,” he said. “Even if you fall overboard in pitch dark, you still could see the lights from the shore.”
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NYC mayor touts ‘socialist’ wins in first 100 days alongside Bernie Sanders
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked his first 100 days in office Sunday alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, touting what he described as sweeping achievements driven by government intervention.
Mamdani cited key wins, including securing $1.2 billion for universal child care, advancing plans for five publicly owned grocery stores, pursuing legal action against landlords, and boosting investment in services such as sanitation and infrastructure.
In a reference to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her critique that socialists “eventually run out of other people’s money,” Mamdani defended his administration’s approach.
“I have thought often of the Margaret Thatcher’s quote, the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money,” he said. “If anything, my friends, it seems that you eventually need a socialist to clean up the mess,”
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Sanders also praised the mayor’s agenda, calling it an inspiration for strengthening communities.
“This is the first time I was ever introduced by someone who talked proudly about democratic socialism,” Sanders said. “And it feels great.”
Mamdani highlighted additional policy priorities during his first three months in office.
To address rising food costs, he proposed opening five publicly owned, affordable grocery stores — one in each borough — by the end of his first term, a proposal critics say represents a departure from free-market principles. Critics say the plan departs from free-market principles. He added that the first location is expected to open next year.
MAMDANI CLARIFIES NYC WON’T CHECK IMMIGRATION STATUS FOR UNIVERSAL CHILDCARE ENROLLEES
The mayor also pointed to universal child care as a major early win, though critics say the program relies on heavy taxation and could disrupt existing private daycare providers. Mamdani noted the initiative was fulfilled by his eighth day in office through a $1.2 billion partnership with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The administration has intensified enforcement in the housing sector, with Mamdani saying it issued more than 195,000 violations against landlords and secured more than $34 million in settlements, judgments , and repairs for tenants.
With murders at record lows, officials said the city has removed more than 1,000 guns from the streets and established its first Office of Community Safety to address gun violence and mental health.
In addition, city workers also have filled more than 102,000 potholes in 100 days and are on track to repave more than 1,000 lane miles of streets by the end of the fiscal year.
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Heidi Klum unrecognizable in dramatic Coachella disguise as ‘Techno Hexen’
Heidi Klum loves a theme.
The supermodel looked barely recognizable as she frolicked around the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival over the weekend in Indio, Calif.
Klum, 52, smiled widely as she raised arms while walking the grounds at the Empire Polo Field wearing a jet black wig with mirrored sunglasses over her eyes.
“Coachella day 2 ‘Techno Hexen,'” the “Germany’s Next Topmodel” host wrote with a social media clip shared Saturday.
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Klum sported a sheer white gown with layers of fabric cascading down her chest and tucked into the back of a lacy pair of bottoms.
She slung a black leather bag across her shoulder and trekked through the dusty venue wearing fishnets with black-and-white leather cowboy boots.
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The mother-of-four made an equally impressive fashion statement the night before to kick off the festival.
JUSTIN BIEBER’S $10M COACHELLA COMEBACK DRAWS BACKLASH AFTER HE PLAYS YOUTUBE VIDEOS DURING HIS SET
Dressed in a white cut-out bodysuit with oversized jeans and a white beanie to match, Klum danced to a Disclosure song on social media before catching the DJ’s closing set on the Outdoor stage.
The Victoria’s Secret angel was in good company throughout the star-studded weekend.
Katy Perry and boyfriend Justin Trudeau are quite literally heating things up in the desert.
KATY PERRY SHARES PDA-FILLED COACHELLA PHOTOS WITH BOYFRIEND JUSTIN TRUDEAU DURING WEEKEND FESTIVAL
In a series of photos posted on the pop star’s Instagram, Perry and Trudeau put their budding romance on full display at Coachella.
In one snapshot, the duo walked hand-in-hand throughout the fairgrounds, and in another, Perry cozied up to Trudeau as the pair enjoyed a snack break.
They later caught Justin Bieber‘s return after a years-long hiatus.
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The 32-year-old singer — who was reportedly paid $10 million for his return — took the stage for a headlining performance, only to be met with a wave of criticism from online trolls.
For the first half of the set, Bieber focused on his latest tracks from “Swag” and “Swag ll” before diving into a YouTube-heavy track list.
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“Tonight is such a special night,” Bieber told the crowd while sitting on a stool behind a table that held his laptop. “I feel like we gotta take you guys on a bit of a journey. Do you guys remember this song?”
Bieber played hit songs like “Baby,” “Never Say Never” and “Beauty and the Beat” on YouTube, while singing along to the music videos playing in the background.
At one point, Katy Perry poked fun at the moments in between YouTube searches. “Thank God he has Premium,” the Grammy nominee, 41, said in a video posted to her Instagram. “I don’t want to see no ads.”
Fox News Digital’s Christina Dugan Ramirez contributed to this report.
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