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Tag: Election 2024

  • AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Alabama on Election Day

    AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Alabama on Election Day

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Alabama voters head to the polls on Nov. 5 with a newly drawn congressional district and a long history of Republican dominance in the state on the line.

    The Democratic candidate for president hasn’t carried Alabama since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Since then, the state has become reliably red. Both U.S. senators, six of the state’s seven members of the U.S. House and the governor are Republicans. Former President Donald Trump won the state by 28 percentage points in 2016 and 26 points four years later.

    Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and three independent candidates round out the field on the presidential ballot. Alabama has nine electoral votes.

    Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District was redrawn this year after the Supreme Court ruled that the state had illegally diluted the influence of Black voters. The district stretches across the lower third of the state and includes the cities of Mobile and Montgomery. Democrat Shomari Figures and Republican Caroleene Dobson are both seeking the open seat. Its voting-age population is 49% Black, up from 30% from when the district was reliably Republican.

    The current representative, Barry Moore, opted to run in the neighboring 1st District where he beat incumbent Jerry Carl in the primary. The other five incumbent representatives are running for reelection in their current seats.

    Neither senator nor the governor is on the ballot this year, and the state’s lone ballot measure would affect only Franklin County.

    Alabama doesn’t offer early in-person voting. It also is one of the few states that still requires an excuse to vote by mail. As a result, nearly all Alabama voters cast their ballots in person on Election Day. In recent elections, the state has reported more than 80% of its votes between poll close and midnight on Election Day.

    Here’s a look at what to expect in the 2024 election in Alabama:

    Election Day

    Nov. 5.

    Poll closing time

    8 p.m. ET (portions of some counties that operate in Eastern Time have the option to close at 7 p.m. Eastern).

    Presidential electoral votes

    9 awarded to statewide winner.

    Key race and candidates

    President: Harris (D) vs. Trump (R) vs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Independent) vs. Jill Stein (Independent) vs. Chase Oliver (Independent).

    Other races of interest

    U.S. House, state Supreme Court, Civil Appeals, Criminal Appeals, Public Service Commission, state Board of Education and a ballot measure.

    Past presidential results

    2020: Trump (R) 62%, Biden (D) 37%, AP race call: Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, 8 p.m. ET.

    Voter registration and turnout

    Registered voters: 3,776,498 (as of September 2024).

    Voter turnout in 2020 presidential election: 62% of registered voters.

    Pre-Election Day voting

    Votes cast before Election Day 2020: about 13% of the total vote.

    Votes cast before Election Day 2022: about 3% of the total vote.

    Votes cast before Election Day 2024: See AP Advance Vote tracker.

    How long does vote-counting take?

    First votes reported, Nov. 3, 2020: 8:11 p.m. ET.

    By midnight ET: about 84% of total votes cast were reported.

    ___

    AP writer Hannah Fingerhut contributed to this report.

    ___

    Read more about how U.S. elections work at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Oregon on Election Day

    AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Oregon on Election Day

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The presidential election and the race for control of the closely divided U.S. House are expected to dominate attention in Oregon on election night on Nov. 5. Voters will also decide a ballot measure to establish ranked-choice voting.

    At the top of the ballot, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump will compete for Oregon’s eight electoral votes. The state had one of the closest vote margins in the 2000 presidential election but was overshadowed by the Florida recount. Since then, Oregon has moved sharply towards Democratic candidates in presidential elections, so much so that neither ticket has stepped foot in the state since becoming their parties’ nominees.

    In the U.S. House, Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer faces a tough reelection bid for a second term in a district where voters preferred President Joe Biden over Trump by almost 10 percentage points in 2020. The Democratic nominee is Janelle Bynum, a state representative. Three third-party or independent candidates are also on the ballot. Chavez-DeRemer was first elected in 2022 by a 51%-49% margin.

    Republicans are targeting two first-term incumbents in Democratic-leaning districts covering the Salem and Eugene areas. Both Reps. Val Hoyle and Andrea Salinas won their seats in 2022 with a fraction more than 50% of the vote, although Hoyle enjoyed an 8-point margin of victory over her Republican opponent. Biden carried both Hoyle’s 4th District and Salinas’ 6th District with 55% of the vote.

    Voters will also consider Measure 117, which would establish ranked-choice voting. If passed, the measure would represent a significant shift in Oregon’s voting system. It’s one of five statewide questions on the ballot.

    Voters are also casting ballots for Portland mayor and the city’s new 12-member City Council.

    Oregon’s first reports typically focus on votes cast before Election Day, as the state primarily uses mail-in ballots. Oregon allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive up to seven days later. This means initial results can shift as later ballots are processed. Key areas to watch include Clackamas and Deschutes counties, which are often pivotal in close races. Ballots were mailed out starting Oct. 16.

    Here’s a look at what to expect in the 2024 election in Oregon:

    Election Day

    Nov. 5.

    Poll closing time

    11 p.m. ET.

    Presidential electoral votes

    8 awarded to statewide winner.

    Key races and candidates

    President: Harris (D) vs. Trump (R) vs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (We the People) vs. Cornel West (Progressive) vs. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) vs. Randall Terry (Constitution) vs. Jill Stein (Green).

    5th Congressional District: Chavez-DeRemer (R) vs. Janelle Bynum (D) and three others.

    Ballot measures: Measure 117 (establish ranked-choice voting).

    Other races of interest

    U.S. House, state Senate, state House, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, Portland mayor and other ballot measures.

    Past presidential results

    2020: Biden (D) 56%, Trump (R) 40%, AP race call: Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, 11 p.m. ET.

    Voter registration and turnout

    Registered voters: 3,051,923 (as of Oct. 2, 2024). About 33% Democrats, 24% Republicans and 36% nonaffiliated.

    Voter turnout in 2020 presidential election: 80% of registered voters.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Pre-Election Day voting

    Votes cast before Election Day 2020 and 2022: Almost all votes cast by mail.

    Votes cast before Election Day 2024: See AP Advance Vote tracker.

    How long does vote-counting take?

    First votes reported, Nov. 3, 2020: 11 p.m. ET.

    By midnight ET: about 80% of total votes cast were reported.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Maya Sweedler contributed to this report.

    ___

    Read more about how U.S. elections work at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Takeaways from AP’s report on the past and present of two historic Philadelphia churches

    Takeaways from AP’s report on the past and present of two historic Philadelphia churches

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    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The two historic churches are less than a mile apart in Philadelphia. Christ Church is where some of the Founding Fathers worshipped, and where colonial America made its break with the Church of England. Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church is located on the oldest parcel of land continuously owned by Black Americans.

    Generations after their birth in this nation first envisioned in Philadelphia, both churches continue to serve as the spiritual home for hundreds in the city.

    Church members see the role of their congregation as crucial, a beacon ahead of a contentious presidential election in Pennsylvania — the most pivotal of swing states. But they also express concerns about political division that the Founding Fathers once feared could tear the nation apart.

    Christ Church congregation included foes and supporters of independence

    Christ Church was founded in 1695 by a group of Philadelphia colonists as the first parish of the Church of England in Pennsylvania. Congregants later included slaves and their owners, loyalists and patriots. They listened to sermons favoring and opposing independence.

    Anglican clergy loyal to the British king led weekly prayers for the monarch. But on July 4, 1776, Christ Church’s vestry crossed out the king’s name from the Book of Common Prayer — a defiant act of potential treason. The book is preserved today in an underground museum, a testament of the church’s revolutionary spirit on Independence Day.

    During the 1780s, debate raged about how to apply revolutionary-era principles such as liberty or freedom to all Americans. From the pulpit, the Rev. Jacob Duché, the church’s rector, was seen as a moderate and led prayers as the first chaplain of the Continental Congress. But then he sided with the loyalists.

    When the British occupied Philadelphia in 1777, the rector wrote a letter to Washington urging him to surrender and reach a deal with the British. After the letter became public, Duché traveled to England. Pennsylvania officials later labeled him a traitor and banned his reentry. His successor, the Rev. William White, became the first presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. He’s praised for keeping the unity of his congregation during times of turmoil.

    Christ Church’s current senior pastor is the Rev. Samantha Vincent-Alexander, the first woman to serve as rector in its more than 300-year history.

    The church’s complex history in regard to slavery

    Congregants remain proud of Christ Church’s crucial role in America’s freedom. But they also grapple with contradictions. Some church members traded slaves and are buried in the church yard near signers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin’s tomb is in the nearby Christ Church burial ground.

    One church member, Absalom Jones, attended services at a sister congregation while enslaved to a man serving in the church leadership. Jones bought his freedom and eventually became ordained by the Christ Church rector as the first Black priest of the Episcopal Church. He also went on to co-create the Free African Society of Philadelphia, which Fea says “sought to apply the rights secured from the American Revolution to the 2,000 or so free Black men and women living in the city at the time.”

    Methodism was the fastest growing denomination in America in the 1790s. But some Methodist Episcopal Churches still segregated Black worshippers during services to the upstairs galleries. This prompted free Black Americans to start their own congregation.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Mother Bethel AME fought for freedom from the start

    The African Methodist Episcopal Church has been involved in the struggle for freedom and equality from its roots.

    Its founder, the Rev. Richard Allen, was born into slavery in Philadelphia in 1760 before buying his freedom in Delaware before he was 20. He returned to the city in the 1780s and became a minister.

    After white leaders at a Methodist church segregated Allen, Jones and other Black worshippers to the upstairs galleries for a prayer service, the group left the church and formed what would eventually become Mother Bethel AME. The church became a place of refuge for Black people fleeing slavery along the Underground Railroad and later a major gathering point for the Civil Rights Movement.

    What lies ahead for Mother Bethel and the AME?

    Today, the AME Church has more than 2.5 million members and thousands of congregations in dozens of nations worldwide.

    “Certainly, we’ve made progress,” says its pastor, the Rev. Mark Tyler, citing Kamala Harris’ campaign to become the country’s first Black female president. But he also believes that much more needs to be done to bridge America’s racial inequality and he worries about the potential of another Trump presidency. The AME Church, he says, has not “outlived its usefulness.”

    “The fact that we have a person who openly embraces white supremacists, who has been president once and potentially could be president again in the 21st century, is all the evidence that you need to know that we still need places for Black people to come together and organize like the Black Church,” he says.

    During a recent Sunday service, Tyler encouraged his congregation to vote. Some members later reflected on America’s beginnings and its progress and shortcomings.

    At the end of the service, parishioner Tayza Hill, 25, led groups on a tour of the church’s museum. It preserves an original wooden pulpit used by the Rev. Allen and Black leaders including abolitionist Frederick Douglass and civil rights pioneer W.E.B. Du Bois when they addressed the congregation.

    “Seeing that there’s still a building that has the history and is continuously being told is important because it’s refusing to be erased from history,” Hill says. “As a nation and as a church, it’s really up to us to defend the rights and the respectability of those who are withheld the full opportunity of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”

    ___

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • Pennsylvania county says 2,500 voter registrations being investigated for possible fraud

    Pennsylvania county says 2,500 voter registrations being investigated for possible fraud

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A criminal investigation is underway in the crucial presidential battleground of Pennsylvania after election workers in one county flagged about 2,500 voter registration forms for potential fraud. Two other counties were alerted to look for similar problems.

    The forms arrived at the Lancaster County elections office shortly before the state’s deadline to register this past Monday and were apparently part of a larger effort to sign people up, officials said Friday. Some had false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses or other problematic details.

    Two other unnamed counties received similar applications and were notified to check into them, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said at a news conference. She said election workers “noticed that numerous applications” had similarities, but officials did not indicate the volume of suspicious applications or say how many applications had already been fully investigated.

    “It appears to be an organized effort at this point,” said Adams, an elected Republican. “But of course, it’s an ongoing investigation. And we’ll be looking into who exactly participated in it and how far up it goes.”

    The set of applications has been segregated during the investigation, preventing ballots from being sent to or cast by people until they are deemed valid. Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes are being fought over as polls indicate the presidential contest in the state is a close race.

    “The fact of the matter is, we’ve contained this,” Lancaster Commissioner Ray D’Agostino, a Republican who chairs the election board, said at the news conference. “This is not right. It’s illegal. It’s immoral. And we found it, and we’re going to take care of it.”

    Adams and the county election board members did not say who dropped off the forms or whom they may have been working with.

    D’Agostino said the applications were not limited to a single party and had been collected at various spots in Republican-majority Lancaster.

    The Pennsylvania Department of State issued a statement Friday praising the elections workers “for their diligent work in spotting this potential fraud and bringing it to the attention of law enforcement.” The state attorney general’s office, which was also contacted by Lancaster officials, declined to comment.

    About 3 in 5 of the applications that have so far been fully investigated have had problems, Adams said. Other applications among the 2,500 have been verified as accurate and are being processed as normal, she said.

    Most of the applications were dated since Aug. 15, and a majority of them were from Lancaster City. Adams said the applications were collected as part of a “large-scale canvassing operation.”

    “In some cases, applications contained correct personal identification information, such as the correct address, correct phone number, date of birth, driver’s license number and Social Security number — but the individuals listed on the applications informed detectives that they did not request the form,” Adams said. “They did not complete the form and verified that the signature on the form was not theirs.”

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  • DC Council member, former Mayor Vincent Gray has dementia, won’t vote on legislation for rest of term – WTOP News

    DC Council member, former Mayor Vincent Gray has dementia, won’t vote on legislation for rest of term – WTOP News

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    D.C. Council member Vincent Gray announced Thursday he has dementia, and will no longer vote on legislation or other matters before the Council.

    A file photo of former D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

    D.C. Council member Vincent Gray announced Thursday he has dementia and will no longer vote on legislation or other matters before the Council.

    “This is not an easy decision, but it is the right decision,” Gray said in a statement.

    Gray, who represents Ward 7, has 68 days remaining on his current term. He announced in December 2023 that he wouldn’t run for reelection after suffering a stroke two years before. In May of this year, Gray had another stroke.

    “Every person in a position of responsibility who has cognitive decline must make their own decision about how and when to adjust. It is my duty to represent the best interests of District residents, often on complex matters. I do not want to cast a vote on an issue which I may not be able to fully consider,” Gray’s statement said.

    His announcement comes after his children petitioned a D.C. court to appoint a guardian and conservator over him. The Washington Post, which first reported the petition, also reported a judge has ruled to appoint Gray a guardian and conservator due to his inability to handle his personal and financial affairs.

    The chairman of the D.C. Council, Phil Mendelson, applauded Gray’s transparency about his health in a statement to WTOP, a sentiment echoed by Mayor Muriel Bowser.

    “After a long and distinguished career in DC Government, this is a selfless decision to put our city and the residents of Ward 7 first. I join DC residents in wishing Councilmember Gray well and thanking him for all that he has done for our city,” Bowser said in a post on the social media platform X.

    Wendell Felder, who has previously worked in D.C.’s executive office of the mayor, won the Democratic primary crowded with candidates hoping to replace Gray. He’ll be the heavy favorite in the general election against Republican candidate Noah Montgomery.

    The 81-year-old Gray first joined the D.C. Council in 2005 before serving as mayor from 2011 to 2015. He returned to the Council in 2017.

    “I have complete confidence in the collective judgment of my Council peers. My mind is at ease regarding all matters slated to come before the Council between now and the New Year,” Gray said.

    This story is developing. Stay with WTOP for updates.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Thomas Robertson

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  • With election nearly here, dozens of ANC seats in DC still have no candidate – WTOP News

    With election nearly here, dozens of ANC seats in DC still have no candidate – WTOP News

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    Election Day is just about here, but a notable number of Advisory Neighborhood Commission seats have no candidate running on the ballot, raising questions about political engagement and local representation in D.C.

    Election Day is just about here, but a notable number of Advisory Neighborhood Commission seats have no candidate running on the ballot, raising questions about political engagement and local representation in D.C.

    ANC members, called Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, represent small, neighborhood-specific districts across the city. They play a role in advising the D.C. government on a range of issues, including zoning, public safety and transportation.

    While the role is unpaid, commissioners often serve as the voice for their communities, helping to shape policy decisions and advocate for their neighborhoods.

    There are 345 ANC seats, but according to D.C. elections officials, 54 have no candidate running on the ballot. That amounts to nearly 16% of ANC seats not having a listed candidate.

    “I would hate to see parts of different neighborhoods just not have anyone represent them, because that’s a huge disservice to them,” said Zach Israel, former ANC commissioner and an expert on D.C. law.

    Israel said commissioners can use “soft power” to get things done for their constituents.

    “If commissioners … are persistent enough in trying to achieve something for their neighborhood — be it traffic safety fixes or something regarding how businesses conduct their business or the cleanliness of the neighborhood — you can actually see positive change occur,” he said.

    There may be a lack of ANC candidates because being a commissioner can be time-consuming, according to Israel.

    They have monthly meetings where votes are taken, there is a lot of time spent corresponding with neighbors and various D.C. agencies and sometime, they testify at D.C. Council committee hearings.

    “If you take the role seriously, then it does take up a significant amount of time in your daily life,” said Israel. “Some commissioners can get burned out.”

    Commissioners serve two-year terms and are elected in November in even-numbered years.

    Prospective candidates who want to be on the ballot must fill out paperwork several months before the election and collect 25 signatures.

    “Many people aren’t aware of the process,” said Salim Adofo, an ANC chairman in Ward 8. “They find out very late, so what winds up happening is that a lot of seats are vacant during the election.”

    According to Adofo, many of the seats without a name on the ballot will be filled by write-in candidates. Some people might end up winning with just three or four votes.

    Adofo said he wished that didn’t happen as frequently as it does.

    “It means that people who are currently in the seat often don’t motivate people to want to be a part of the electoral process,” Adofo said. “We need to do a better job at showing people how important these roles are and that this is something that you can aspire to be a part of.”

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    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Nick Iannelli

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  • Hate the Electoral College? It doesn’t work how the Founding Fathers intended – WTOP News

    Hate the Electoral College? It doesn’t work how the Founding Fathers intended – WTOP News

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    If you don’t like the way the Electoral College works, well a University of Maryland professor said it’s unlikely many of the Founding Fathers would, either.

    Sign up for WTOP’s Election Desk weekly newsletter to stay up-to-date through Election Day 2024 with the latest developments in this historic presidential election cycle.

    The Electoral College means presidential campaigns remain focused on just a handful of states that could swing the election in either direction. The states that make up the D.C. region aren’t on that list, meaning the area isn’t really hosting presidential candidates for campaign stops.

    If you don’t like the way the Electoral College works, well, it’s unlikely many of the Founding Fathers would, either.

    The concept itself is a centuries old practice that started in Europe. But it’s not used anywhere else, and the way it’s used in the U.S. has evolved in a lot of ways it wasn’t intended to.

    “It’s hard to justify today based on what they wanted, because it doesn’t work the way they wanted,” said David Karol, associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland.

    He said the original intent was, in layman’s terms, to elect a bunch of smart people who would then vote for the best candidate. It was a time without political parties, and faith in the independence of electors.

    “But no one voting, for the most part, knows who these people are. They’re not exercising any judgment,” said Karol. “That’s not what the founders thought.”

    The concept itself was also a bit of a compromise. Some of those involved in the constitutional convention were pushing for a popular vote winner. Others wanted Congress to pick the president, according to Karol. But more wanted some sort of representative-based system, though without letting women, or slaves, have any actual say in the matter.

    “The slaves were certainly not going to be given the vote,” Karol said. “The Electoral College gave more influence to states where there were large numbers of enslaved people, because they were counted partially for representation, but then that only meant that the white men with property from those states — their votes had more weight than votes of men in states where there weren’t slaves. So the Electoral College is tied up with slavery, historically.”

    That coupled with the emergence of political parties around the time George Washington was serving, quickly eradicated any independence the electors might have.

    “They were generally not happy about the rise of political parties, although they participated in it,” Karol said. “In many cases, they tended to say, ‘Well, this is, we’re just doing this because our opponents are doing it and they’re organized, so we have to organize.’”

    Is the Electoral College here to stay?

    It wasn’t until the early 20th century that every state directly elected U.S. Senators. But Karol thinks bringing that to presidential elections might be too difficult.

    “We are so divided on a partisan basis,” he said. “People’s first question is always, ‘Who will this help? Who will this hurt?’”

    He said the closest chance for that to happen was more recent than you might think, though.

    “It would have to be a case that it wasn’t clear that it helped one party or the other. In 2004, John Kerry, the Democrat, came pretty close to winning the Electoral College while losing the popular vote,” Karol said. “I think, had that happened, had it hurt both parties in a short period of time, there might have been support for abolishing it. But absent that, I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”

    According to a September study from the PEW Research Center, 63% of Americans would prefer to decide the presidency by popular vote over the Electoral College. That same study found that 63% of conservative Republicans prefer the current system.

    Proponents of the Electoral College, such as The Heritage Foundation, a D.C.-based conservative think tank, have said it gives a voice to America’s rural population, which has different needs than those who live in densely populated cities.

    “The Electoral College prevents presidential candidates from winning an election by focusing solely on high-population urban centers and dense media markets, forcing them to seek the support of a larger cross-section of the American electorate. This addresses the Founders’ fears of a ‘tyranny of the majority,’ which has the potential to marginalize sizeable portions of the population, particularly in rural and more remote areas of the country,” the foundation said on its website.

    Since 1992, only one Republican presidential candidate has won the popular vote: George W. Bush in 2004.

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    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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  • Why college campuses are pressure cookers this election season – WTOP News

    Why college campuses are pressure cookers this election season – WTOP News

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    As election season gets more intense, college campuses around the country are becoming pressure cookers with heightened political tension.

    As election season gets more intense, college campuses around the country are becoming pressure cookers with heightened political tension.

    Some students are really feeling the stress.

    “This time of year is already stressful for students with midterms and then upcoming finals and projects,” said Nicole Ruzek, chief mental health officer at the University of Virginia. “They’re already in a moment of stress trying to get to the finish line … in addition to this.”

    College campuses have become more polarized with students expressing concerns about how political views can strain friendships and even lead to confrontations.

    Polls are tight and no one knows what will happen in the election between former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris, adding another factor — uncertainty.

    “With uncertainty comes a lot of anxiety and just wondering what’s going to happen,” Ruzek said. “That’s what I’m noticing, with folks anxiously anticipating what’s next.”

    Ruzek and her team are putting additional mental health resources in place at the university, including workshops on stress management.

    “They can come because they’re worried about finals or because they’re worried about the election or something else,” Ruzek said. “It really (provides) them with strategies for how to manage their stress … how to have productive conversations that don’t leave them spiraling.”

    She said there will be extra counselors on hand in the days following the election who can “meet with students just (to) talk about why they’re feeling stressed, what’s going on and how things are impacting them.”

    “Hopefully they can leave, having those tools, and (are) able to go back into the academic context and focus on the many things that are in front of them right now,” Ruzek said.

    Ruzek recommends that students limit their social media use, get enough sleep, exercise and engage with friends in activities that don’t involve heated political conversations: “Just be together in a way that feels positive and supportive.”

    On top of everything else, the shadow of the Israel-Hamas war continues to hang over campuses.

    “This idea that I might say the wrong thing kind of scares me,” Ty Lindia, who studies political science at George Washington University in D.C., told The Associated Press.

    A year after Hamas’ attack in southern Israel, some students say they are reluctant to speak out because it could pit them against their peers, professors or even potential employers.

    “You have to tiptoe around politics until one person says something that signifies they lean a certain way on the issue,” Lindia said.

    Tensions over the conflict burst wide-open last year amid emotional demonstrations in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack. In the spring of this year, a wave of pro-Palestinian tent encampments led to some 3,200 arrests nationwide.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Nick Iannelli

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  • Voting in Yuba County: Here’s what’s on the 2024 general election ballot

    Voting in Yuba County: Here’s what’s on the 2024 general election ballot

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    (FOX40.COM) — The 2024 general election is on Nov. 5 and although the next president of the United States may be the most popular race, there are several other important decisions for California voters to make.

    This year, there are 10 statewide propositions concerning topics such as gay marriage, indentured servitude in state prisons, California minimum wage, healthcare, and housing. Tap here for information on those propositions.

    In addition, Yuba County voters will also decide on statewide and local races and measures. Here is what will appear on the ballot:

    Congress

    U.S. Senate – Full Term

    • Adam Schiff (D)
    • Steve Garvey (R)

    U.S. Senate – Partial/unexpired term (until Jan. 2025)

    • Adam Schiff (D)
    • Steve Garvey (R)

    United States Representative District 1

    • Doug La Malfa: Farmer, Member of the U.S/ House of Representatives
    • Rose Penelope Yee: Businesswoman, Nonprofit Leader

    United States Representative District 3

    • Jessica Morse: Former Deputy Secretary for Forest and Wildland Resilience
    • Kevin Kiley: United States Representative

    California State Senate District 1

    • David Fennell: Entrepreneur
    • Megan Dahle: Farmer, Businesswoman, Mother

    Marysville Mayor

    • Chris Branscum: Mayor, City of Marysville

    Marysville City Council

    • Stuart Gilchrist: Small business owner
    • Marjorie M. Rollins: Commissioner on the Planning and Historic Preservation Commission
    • Codi Lynn Walker: Corporate Manager/Marysville Planning Commissioner

    Wheatland City Council

    • John Abe: Property Manager
    • Brian Abe: Farmer, Veteran

    MJUSD Governing Board Member, Trustee Area 2

    • Gary Criddle: Educator

    MJUSD Governing Board Member, Trustee Area 3

    • Alison Hastey: Teacher

    MJUSD Governing Board Member, Trustee Area 4

    • Doug Criddle: High School Site Administrator

    • Trish Vega: Volunteer, X-ray technologist

    Plumas Lake Elementary School District, Governing Board Member

    • Code Hess: Public Outreach Specialist
    • Israel Camacho: 340B Consulting Manager, Komplete 340B Solutions
    • John Barnes: Financial Examiner
    • David Villanueva: Executive Manager

    Yuba County Water Agency – Director, North Division

    • Charlie Mathews: Incumbent

    Measures

    *Measure titles and descriptions below are from the briefing section of the county election guide.

    Wheatland Union High School District Bond Measures:

    • Measure A: Wheatland Union High School District – SFID 2

    “To improve the quality of education at Wheatland High; modernize/ renovate/ construct classrooms, restrooms, and school facilities; repair/ replace leaky roofs; make health, safety, and security improvements; shall the Wheatland Union High School District (SFID No. 2) measure authorizing $9,000,000 of bonds at legal interest rates be adopted, generating approximately $555,800 annually, at average rates of $28.50 per $100,000 assessed value, while bonds are outstanding, with annual audits, independent citizens’ oversight committee, NO money for salaries and all money staying local?“

    • Measure B: Wheatland Union High School District – SFID 1

    To continue construction on a new high school for Plumas Lake students, shall the Wheatland Union High School District (Plumas Lake SFID No.1) measure authorizing $19,700,000 of bonds at legal interest rates be adopted, generating on average $1,100,000 annually at average rates of approximately $26.70 per $100,000 assessed value, with annual audits, independent citizens’ oversight committee, NO money for salaries and all money staying local?

    • Measure C: Wheatland Union High School District – SFID 1

    “To construct classrooms, restrooms and other necessary high school facilities, shall the Wheatland Union High School District (Plumas Lake SFID No.1) measure authorizing $20,300,000 of bonds at legal interest rates be adopted, generating on average $1,200,000 annually at average rates of approximately $27.25 per $100,000 assessed value, with annual audits, independent citizens’ oversight committee, NO money for salaries and all money staying local?“

    Plumas Lake Elementary School District Bond Measures

    • Measure D: Plumas Lake Elementary School District

    “Core Academic Classrooms Measure. To insure safe facilities and quality education for District students and qualify for State matching funds by constructing and equipping core curriculum classrooms, bathrooms and other essential school facilities, shall Plumas Lake Elementary School District’s measure issuing $18,000,000 of bonds at legal rates, by levying approximately $30 per $100,000 of assessed value (raising $970,000 annually while bonds are outstanding) be approved, with independent oversight, annual audits, and all funds staying local?“

    • Measure E: Plumas Lake Elementary School District

    “STEAM and High School Readiness Measure. To insure quality education for District students and qualify for State matching funds by constructing and equipping facilities for science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) classrooms and labs, shall Plumas Lake Elementary School District’s measure issuing $18,000,000 of bonds at legal rates, by levying approximately $30 per $100,000 of assessed value (raising $970,000 annually while bonds are outstanding) be approved, with independent oversight, annual audits, and all funds staying local?“

    • Measure F: Plumas Lake Elementary School District

    “Student Health and Physical Education Measure. To insure safe facilities and quality education for District students and qualify for State matching funds by constructing, equipping required physical education facilities including a gymnasium, athletic fields and playgrounds, shall Plumas Lake Elementary School District’s measure issuing $18,000,000 of bonds at legal rates, by levying approximately $30 per $100,000 of assessed value (raising $970,000 annually while bonds are outstanding) be approved, with independent oversight, annual audits, and all funds staying local?“

    City of Marysville Transactions and Use Tax Renewal

    • Measure G: City of Marysville Transactions & Use Tax Renewal

    “Shall the measure, without raising taxes, to protect and maintain City of Marysville’s services, including Police and Fire Departments, neighborhood police patrols, 911 emergency response times, street repaving and pothole repairs, emergency preparedness and for general government use, to continue an existing voter-approved one-cent sales tax, until ended by voters, providing an estimated $3.9 million a year, within dependent audits, an oversight committee and all money locally controlled, be adopted?”

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    Veronica Catlin

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  • Fox’s Bret Baier acknowledges ‘mistake’ in Harris interview over airing of Trump clip

    Fox’s Bret Baier acknowledges ‘mistake’ in Harris interview over airing of Trump clip

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    Fox News anchor Bret Baier says he “made a mistake” during his interview with Kamala Harris in not airing video of a Donald Trump comment, something Harris pointed out to him in real time.

    Baier made that admission on Thursday roughly 24 hours after his interview with the Democratic presidential candidate was aired. Just under 8 million people watched the session, Harris’ first sit-down with a Fox News Channel journalist during the campaign.

    It wasn’t immediately clear, however, what Baier meant by saying he made a mistake.

    Their exchange over the Trump video, one of the most contentious of the interview, came after Harris criticized her Republican opponent for saying that he might have to call out the National Guard or military to deal with “the enemy within,” whom he defined as “radical left lunatics.”

    Baier then said his colleague, Harris Faulkner, had asked Trump about his “enemy within” comment earlier in the day, “and this is how he responded.” The clip showed Trump saying he wasn’t threatening anybody, and criticized “phony investigations” of him, cracking a joke his audience laughed at.

    “Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within … that’s not what you just showed,” Harris said.

    Speaking a day later, Baier said that when he asked his staff for video to play during the interview, he was expecting to get two clips — one that showed Trump making the “enemy within” comment to Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, and the one from Faulkner’s town hall that was played during the Harris interview.

    “Take a listen to what I meant to roll,” Baier said on Thursday. He then aired both clips back to back.

    Yet during the interview, Baier had given no indication that he meant to air the “enemy within” comment at all, even after Harris had pointed it out. For that reason, his explanation of a mistake met with some skepticism online.

    “Newsflash: When wrong clips run (which happens) hosts can easily say `Sorry that was the wrong clip,’” former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson wrote on “X.” “He or his producers would have know it was the wrong one right then.”

    There was no immediate comment from a Fox representative on Friday to clarify what Baier meant.

    ___

    David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.

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  • Arnold Palmer’s daughter reacts to Donald Trump’s references to her father

    Arnold Palmer’s daughter reacts to Donald Trump’s references to her father

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    One of the late golf legend Arnold Palmer’s daughters calls Donald Trump’s references to her father’s genitalia “a poor choice of approaches” to honoring his memory, adding that she wasn’t upset by the remarks.

    “There’s nothing much to say. I’m not really upset,” Peg Palmer Wears, 68, told The Associated Press in an interview on Sunday. “I think it was a poor choice of approaches to remembering my father, but what are you going to do?”

    On Saturday in Latrobe, Pennsylvania — the city where Palmer was born in 1929 and learned to golf from his father — Trump kicked off his rally in the campaign’s closing weeks with a detailed, 12-minute story about Palmer that included an anecdote about what Palmer looked like in the showers.

    “When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable,’” Trump said with a laugh. “I had to say. We have women that are highly sophisticated here, but they used to look at Arnold as a man.”

    In an AP interview, Arnold Palmer’s daughter Peg Palmer Wears, who will be casting her ballot in North Carolina, says she believes in privacy at the ballot box.

    Wears said that she had only had passing encounters with Trump at functions decades ago but that her father and the GOP presidential nominee, an avid golfer who owns courses around the world, primarily shared a kinship over “an interest in golf and a love of golf.”

    Emotional at times as she recalled conversations with her father, who died in 2016 at 87, Wears said her father “believed in the Republican Party.”

    “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about what my father would say about something or what’s happening,” Wears said. “We didn’t always agree on things, but he was a quintessential American who believed fervently in this country, even when he questioned its direction.”

    Asked three times Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” about what he thought of Trump’s remarks, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., refused to answer.

    “I’ll address it, let me answer it,” Johnson said, without ever answering the question. “Don’t say it again. We don’t have to say it. I get it.”

    Gov. Chris Sununu, R-N.H., told ABC’s “This Week” that he didn’t like Trump’s comments, including one in which he used a profanity to refer to Vice President Kamala Harris, but that the former president’s remarks would not sway voters one way or the other.

    “I mean it’s just par for the course. He speaks in hyperbole. He gets his crowds riled up,” Sununu said.

    But Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who backs Harris, argued the comments show how little Trump is focusing on important issues, which will turn off voters.

    “I think you have a lot of Americans, whether you are conservative, whether you’re progressive or moderate, who say, ‘Really?’” Sanders said on CNN. “We have major issues facing this country. Is this the kind of human being that we want as president of the United States?

    Wears, who declined to say for whom she would vote in the Nov. 5 election, said she would be casting her ballot in North Carolina, a pivotal state, and described herself as an “unaffiliated” voter.

    “The people of western Pennsylvania are very smart people, and they’re very hard working, and they’ll make their own decisions, as I will make my own decision, using all the history and awareness I have,” Wears said of the upcoming election. “And that’s what I hope people go vote with.”

    ___

    Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP. Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • As women seek open congressional seats in Maryland, reproductive rights are front and center

    As women seek open congressional seats in Maryland, reproductive rights are front and center

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    FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — In an election where the future of reproductive rights is on the ballot in Maryland and elsewhere across the country, the state’s all-male congressional delegation stands to gain an influx of women.

    It could happen in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, where Democrat April McClain Delaney is running against conservative Republican Neil Parrott, a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates. They’re competing to represent a wide swath of rural Maryland and more affluent liberal suburbs of Washington, D.C.

    In a year when voters also could elect the nation’s first female president, women are vying for two other open seats in Maryland’s 10-member congressional delegation. The delegation has been all-male since former Sen. Barbara Mikulski retired in 2016, but the state has a long history of female officeholders from both parties.

    McClain Delaney, a mother of four daughters whose husband previously represented the district, says she wants to protect the reproductive rights of her children and other young people in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to end the constitutional right to an abortion and leave those decisions to the states. She previously worked in the Biden administration’s Department of Commerce and has focused much of her career on protecting children’s online safety.

    “I can’t believe that my mother, my daughters’ grandmother, had more reproductive freedoms than they currently do,” she said in a recent interview. She said she once experienced an ectopic pregnancy that could have been fatal if restrictive abortion laws had limited her access to life-saving medical care.

    Parrott, meanwhile, has deflected questions about reproductive rights on the campaign trail. He made his anti-abortion stance clear during 12 years in the Maryland State House. But now, he says, it’s “really a non-issue” because he doesn’t believe either political party can get enough congressional votes to regulate abortion nationally — a position similar to that of former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee.

    That approach also echoes recent efforts by other conservatives and leaders of the anti-abortion movement now struggling to appeal to voters in blue-leaning Maryland. The state’s voters will also consider a constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

    Parrott, 54, has worked to move the conversation to friendlier terrain, emphasizing his commitment to lowering inflation, creating a stronger economy for middle-class families and stopping illegal immigration. He says his opponent — who lives several miles outside the district in an affluent suburb of Washington — is out of touch with the struggles of everyday Americans, including people in the 6th Congressional District.

    U.S. House members are only required to live in the state they represent.

    McClain Delaney has used personal funds to bolster her campaign and received endorsements from big-name Democrats, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin.

    She’s also outspent Parrott by a wide margin, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign spending. Just since the May 14 primaries, Democrats have spent more than $600,000 on advertising in the 6th District race, compared to slightly more than $30,000 spent by Republicans.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Those figures are not expected to change much between now and Nov. 5, with McClain-Delaney having a nearly 20-1 advantage in ad spending reserved the rest of the way. Neither candidate has received much support from the national parties or outside groups, a possible indicator that both sides view the seat as safely Democratic.

    Parrot is a longtime resident of Hagerstown, a small city in western Maryland surrounded by farmland. A traffic engineer by trade, he said he can relate to people dealing with high grocery bills and unaffordable housing.

    “I have a history here,” he said. “I’ve served in the community here.”

    But McClain Delaney, 60, argues she’s more ideologically in line with most 6th District voters. She calls herself a “common sense, common ground” candidate. The daughter of an Idaho potato farmer, she says she can get Washington politicians to address the needs of working families.

    McClain Delaney has attacked Parrott’s record in the Maryland House of Delegates, particularly on issues impacting women.

    Parrott, in turn, has accused McClain Delaney of lying and taking things out of context. In an interview last week, Parrott said he supports the right to abortion in cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s life is at risk.

    Tensions between the candidates erupted into a heated exchange during the last few minutes of a recent public forum.

    “Shame on her,” Parrott said, pointing a finger at McClain Delaney, who denied putting out false information as members of the audience chanted and jeered.

    The House seat was vacated by David Trone, who ran for Senate and lost to Angela Alsobrooks in the Democratic primary earlier this year.

    The 6th District hasn’t always favored Democrats. It was represented by Republican Roscoe Bartlett for 20 years before McClain Delaney’s husband, John Delaney, won the seat in 2012 following a redistricting that helped Democrats.

    Seven of Maryland’s eight House members are Democrats, as are the state’s two senators. Three women are vying for open seats this election cycle.

    In Maryland’s deep blue 3rd Congressional District, state Sen. Sarah Elfreth won a crowded Democratic primary. Her main rival was former U.S. Capitol police officer Harry Dunn, who defended the U.S. Capitol against Jan. 6 rioters. In 2018, Elfreth became the youngest woman elected to the state Senate. She’s pledged to prioritize reproductive health and affordable child care.

    Reproductive freedom is also at the forefront of the U.S. Senate race between former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan and Alsobrooks, a Democrat who argues women have too much at stake to risk losing Democrats’ thin Senate majority. She said having more women at the table is a big deal.

    “I believe it makes our policies more complete,” she said in a recent interview. “And so this is a moment that gives us the opportunity to make sure that we are adding women — mothers and daughters and sisters — to the Senate to ensure that the variety of lived experiences are represented in that body.”

    ___

    This story has been corrected to reflect that Maryland’s delegation has 10 members, not nine, and that there are nine Democrats, not eight, in the delegation

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  • Harris campaign calls plagiarism claims a partisan attack. Expert says it was ‘sloppy writing’

    Harris campaign calls plagiarism claims a partisan attack. Expert says it was ‘sloppy writing’

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ campaign is dismissing accusations that she and a co-author plagiarized parts of a 2009 book on the U.S. criminal justice system as a desperate attempt by “rightwing operatives” to distract voters.

    Plagiarism experts and academics who reviewed the claims said several were benign or could not be proven, and others were more due to careless writing than malicious intent.

    The allegations surrounding the book, “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer,” surfaced Monday when conservative activist Christopher Rufo posted an article on his Substack platform that listed a handful of passages he said were copied from other sources without any or adequate attribution.

    “Taken in total, there is certainly a breach of standards here,” Rufo wrote. “Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism.”

    James Singer, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, said in an emailed statement that the plagiarism allegations represent a partisan attack on a book Harris co-authored more than a decade ago.

    “Rightwing operatives are getting desperate as they see the bipartisan coalition of support Vice President Harris is building to win this election, as (former president Donald) Trump retreats to a conservative echo chamber refusing to face questions about his lies,” Singer wrote. “This is a book that’s been out for 15 years, and the vice president clearly cited sources and statistics in footnotes and endnotes throughout.”

    Rufo’s article cited a new study of Harris’ 248-page book by Stefan Weber, an Austrian academic known in Europe as a “plagiarism hunter.” Among the findings, the book plagiarized a section from a Wikipedia article and made up a childhood anecdote that originated with Martin Luther King Jr., according to Weber.

    Trump’s running mate, Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, seized on the allegations to needle Harris.

    “Hi, I’m JD Vance. I wrote my own book, unlike Kamala Harris, who copied hers from Wikipedia,” he wrote on X. Vance’s 2016 memoir, “ Hillbilly Elegy ” recounts his blue-collar upbringing in Kentucky and Ohio.

    The allegation involving King centers on a story Harris said her mother told her about a time when she was fussing as a toddler. Her mother, according to the book, asked her what was wrong and what she wanted. “I wailed back, ‘Fweedom,’” Harris wrote. Weber said Harris appropriated the anecdote, without attribution, from an interview King gave in 1965.

    But other plagiarism experts questioned the severity of the claims. Jonathan Bailey, a consultant and publisher of the website Plagiarism Today, said in a Tuesday post that the King story allegation first arose in early 2021 and couldn’t be proven based on available evidence. But several other plagiarism accusations are more troublesome, he said, including Weber’s allegation that Harris’ book copied and pasted, without citation, a section of a Wikipedia article.

    But the patterns in the book point to “sloppy writing habits, not a malicious intent to defraud,” he said.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    “Though some of the passages, such as the Wikipedia one, are sloppy to the point of negligence, when you look at the portion of the book involved, the nature of the issues, and the citations provided, negligence remains more likely than malice in my eyes,” Bailey wrote.

    Miguel Roig, a psychology professor at St. John’s University in New York who studies plagiarism in the sciences, said the lapses described by Weber meet the definition of plagiarism. But, he added, context is important. The problematic passages amount to a small total of the overall book and “hardly seems like an attempt to defraud,” he said.

    “Any time minor issues like these occur, the offending authors should simply acknowledge the obvious errors, apologize, and make corrections where feasible, and just move on,” Roig said.

    Harris wrote “Smart on Crime” when she was the district attorney for San Francisco. The book spelled out her ideas for improving public safety and making the criminal justice system more effective. In 2010, a year after the book was published, she was elected attorney general of California.

    Harris’ co-author, Joan O’C. Hamilton, works as a book collaborator and ghostwriter, according to her website.

    Weber, the plagiarism researcher in Austria, said in an email that much of the work to check Harris’s book was done by an associate whom he did not identify. But he said the associate was “driven by personal choice and interest, not by political motivations.” This was Weber’s first “international case,” he said.

    He also said he was unaware until the Harris review had been released that Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, had published books.

    “Every scientist can feel free to check the books of Donald Trump or whomsoever as we did it with Kamala Harris,” Weber said.

    Debora Weber-Wulff, a professor of media and computing at Berlin University of Applied Sciences in Germany and no relation to Weber, sided with Bailey’s assessment and said the book’s publisher would have to decide whether any problems justify removing it from sales. Any legal action is unlikely because the original author of the plagiarized content would have to pursue a potentially costly lawsuit.

    “No one in their right mind would invite a suit like this,” Weber-Wulff said. “Only the lawyers profit.”

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  • Golden small business owner challenges U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen for suburban seat in Congress

    Golden small business owner challenges U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen for suburban seat in Congress

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    Colorado’s 7th Congressional District, centered on suburban Jefferson County, hasn’t had a Republican in the seat since Bob Beauprez left Congress nearly 20 years ago.

    But Sergei Matveyuk, an antiques repairman from Golden and the GOP contender for the seat in the Nov. 5 election, urges voters not to count him out in his battle with incumbent Brittany Pettersen. The first-term Democratic congresswoman is seeking reelection.

    “People are hurting economically,” Matveyuk, 57, told The Denver Post. “They want someone who feels the pain.”

    He’s running in a once-battleground district that has turned decidedly blue in the last decade or so, with Democratic former Rep. Ed Perlmutter winning election eight times running, until his retirement announcement in 2022 ushered in an open race.

    Pettersen, 42, a former state lawmaker from Lakewood, won the 2022 election by 16 percentage points over Republican Army veteran Erik Aadland. The bulk of the district’s electorate calls left-leaning Jefferson and Broomfield counties home, while redder areas in the district — such as Teller, Custer and Fremont counties — simply don’t have the populations to give Matveyuk a sizable boost.

    As of Sept. 30, Pettersen had raised more than $2.2 million this cycle, compared to about $35,000 collected by Matveyuk, according to campaign finance filings. There are two minor party candidates on the ballot this time: Former state lawmaker Ron Tupa is running on the Unity Party of Colorado ticket, while Patrick Bohan is running as the Libertarian candidate.

    Matveyuk, a political neophyte, said that as a small business owner, the historically high inflation of the last two years has hurt those like him who are particularly sensitive to escalating prices. But it’s his personal story that he thinks will resonate with voters in the current political climate, in which border policy has taken center stage. Matveyuk, who is of Polish descent, and his family left the Soviet Bloc in the late 1980s after experiencing life under communist rule and immigrated to the United States.

    “As an immigrant myself, I know how hard it is to start a new life — but it has to be legal,” he said.

    Matveyuk doesn’t echo former President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations but says migrants who “are hurting our people and committing crimes need to be deported, for sure.”

    “We need immigration reform — 40 years ago we had a regulated border and now we have a porous border,” he said.

    According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data through August, there have been more than 8.6 million migrant “encounters” at the southern U.S. border since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. That influx has prompted many big city mayors across the country, including Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, to cut city services to pay for migrant housing and plead for help from the federal government.

    Pettersen acknowledged that the U.S. asylum system is “absolutely outdated.” But many of the arriving migrants are filling jobs that businesses in the district, like nursing homes, are desperate to staff, she said.

    Making people wait years before getting work permits is an unworkable policy, Pettersen said.

    “We don’t have the people in the U.S. to meet our economic needs,” she said. “We need legal pathways based on economic need.”

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    John Aguilar

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  • Michelle Obama will headline an Atlanta rally aimed at boosting voter turnout

    Michelle Obama will headline an Atlanta rally aimed at boosting voter turnout

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Former first lady Michelle Obama will headline a rally in Atlanta a week before the Nov. 5 election alongside celebrities and civic leaders focusing on engaging younger and first-time voters, as well as voters of color.

    The Oct. 29 event will be hosted by When We All Vote, a nonpartisan civic engagement group that Obama founded in 2018 to “change the culture around voting” and reach out to people who are less likely to engage in politics and elections.

    The rally is likely to help the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, in a closely contested state. Obama is one of the party’s best-known figures and gave a speech boosting Harris’ candidacy at the national convention in August.

    It is unclear which celebrities will attend the rally but organizers noted that the group’s co-chairs include professional basketball players Stephen Curry and Chris Paul; musical artists Becky G, H.E.R., Selena Gomez, Jennifer Lopez and Janelle Monáe; beauty influencer Bretman Rock; and actors Tom Hanks, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Kerry Washington.

    The group has hosted more than 500 “Party at the Polls” events across the country focused on increasing voter registration and turnout. The events have ranged from pop-up block parties in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Philadelphia to voter registration partnerships with professional sports leagues and music festivals over the past year.

    “The goal is to take the energy and momentum at the rally to the ballot box,” said Beth Lynk, executive director of When We All Vote. “We want to bring the culture, the energy and the momentum together in one big space.”

    Lynk said the group chose Atlanta because of the state’s diversity and the impact that only a handful of voters can make in Georgia. About one-third of Georgia’s electorate is Black alongside rapidly growing Asian American and Latino communities. When We All Vote is focused on engaging college students on campuses in the metropolitan Atlanta area, Lynk said.

    “Something that we have been hearing from young voters is that a lot of people don’t believe that their votes have power. But they do, plain and simple,” Lynk said. “We know that democracy has to work for all of us and that’s what we will be stressing at this rally.”

    The rally will take place just before early voting ends in Georgia on Nov. 1, less than a week before Election Day.

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  • Republicans want voters to think Walz lied about his dog. False GOP claims could cause real damage

    Republicans want voters to think Walz lied about his dog. False GOP claims could cause real damage

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    Republicans turned Tim Walz’s outing at a dog park nearly three years ago into an attack on the Democratic vice presidential nominee this week, working on a false online narrative to paint Walz as a liar.

    The intended takeaway was that Walz somehow lied about the identity of his dog, Scout, by describing two different dogs as his beloved pet in separate X posts. Social media users shared screenshots of the posts as alleged proof that the Minnesota governor exhibits a pattern of deceit, garnering thousands of likes, shares and reactions across platforms.

    In one post, from June 2022, Walz is pictured hugging a black dog. The caption reads, “Sending a special birthday shoutout to our favorite pup, Scout.” The other, posted in October 2022, showed Walz beside a brown and white dog with the caption: “Couldn’t think of a better way to spend a beautiful fall day than at the dog park. I know Scout enjoyed it.”

    In response, Walz supporters shared posts on social media showing that Walz was simply playing with someone else’s dog while mentioning Scout in the caption.

    The seemingly innocuous post was not the only fodder that has been used against Walz in recent days. A joke he cracked in a campaign video with Vice President Kamala Harris about eating “white guy tacos” was used to accuse him of lying about how much he seasons his food. Opponents have also taken issue with Walz describing himself as a former high school football coach, pointing out that he was the defensive coordinator.

    False and misleading claims of such a trivial nature might not seem particularly harmful, but a deluge of them could easily add up to real damage at the polls, according to experts. This is especially true when they go after a figure such as Walz, who is still relatively unknown on the national stage, though the fact that he is not at the top of the ticket could lessen the impact on the Harris-Walz campaign.

    “It might seem trivial, and in some cases they really truly are, but they’re trying to make a larger attack about character that fits in a bigger narrative that is being created around this persona,” Emily Vraga, a professor at the University of Minnesota who studies political misinformation, said of the recent attacks on Walz. “This becomes kind of a piece of the puzzle they’re trying to assemble.”

    She added that “the sheer amount” of false claims can create the perception that there is some truth to them, even if voters don’t believe every single one.

    Nathan Walter, an associate professor at Northwestern University who also studies misinformation, agreed that any one piece of misinformation doesn’t have to be significant in order to be damaging.

    “The idea is to attack someone’s personality, and then these attacks become really almost like the canary in the coal mine, right?” he said. “So if he lies about his dog, if he lies about his illustrious career as a coach, he probably lies about many other things.”

    Democrats have recently deployed a similarly shallow line of attack on the Republican ticket, Ohio Sen. JD Vance and former President Donald Trump, branding the pair as “weird.”

    Mixed in with the frivolous attacks on Walz is criticism about other inconsistencies. For example, earlier this month Walz went after Vance by saying, “If it was up to him, I wouldn’t have a family because of IVF.” But his wife Gwen Walz issued a statement last week that disclosed they had relied on a different fertility treatment known as intrauterine insemination, or IUI.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Walz’s military record has also faced intense scrutiny from the right. One such concern is that he portrayed himself as someone who spent time in a combat zone when speaking out about gun violence in 2018. “We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at,” he said at the time.

    Walz never served in a combat zone during 24 years in the Army National Guard, but held many other roles. They included work as an infantryman and field artillery cannoneer, as well as a deployment to Italy in a support position of active military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Vraga described the more superficial attacks as a “spaghetti approach,” in which Republicans are throwing out a lot of claims to see if they stick in place of a meatier narrative, dominating online discourse in the meantime. Plus, the idea that Walz is a liar “plays into this established worldview that we have about politicians as untrustworthy,” according to Walter.

    Even in the polarized political climate of 2024, where many people on all sides hold strong beliefs unlikely to be changed by online name-calling, negative campaigning has the potential to repel potential voters altogether.

    Such attacks could be used to demobilize voters, especially those who are not deeply engaged. “You might just start feeling like, why bother with politics at all?” Vraga said. “It’s just nasty.”

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  • FACT FOCUS: A look at false and misleading claims made during Trump and Harris’ debate

    FACT FOCUS: A look at false and misleading claims made during Trump and Harris’ debate

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    In their first and perhaps only debate, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris described the state of the country in distinctly different ways. As the two traded jabs, some old false and misleading claims emerged along with some new ones.

    Here’s a look.

    Trump overstates his economic record

    TRUMP: “I created one of the greatest economies in the history of our country. … They’ve destroyed the economy.”

    THE FACTS: This is an exaggeration. The economy grew much faster under Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan than it did under Trump. The broadest measure of economic growth, gross domestic product, rose 4% a year for four straight years under Clinton. The fastest growth under Trump was 3% in 2018. The economy shrank 2.2% in 2020, at the end of Trump’s presidency. And a higher proportion of American adults had jobs under Clinton than under Trump. During the Biden-Harris administration, the economy expanded 5.8% in 2021, though much of that reflected a bounce-back from COVID.

    Trump’s record on manufacturing jobs examined

    HARRIS: “We have created over 800,000 manufacturing jobs. … Donald Trump said he was going to create manufacturing jobs. He lost manufacturing jobs.”

    THE FACTS: Those statements are missing context.

    There were 12,188,000 manufacturing employees in the U.S. when Biden took office in January 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Preliminary numbers for August 2024 put that number at 12,927,000. That’s a difference of 739,000 — close to the 800,000 number Harris has cited.

    Also of note is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of manufacturing employees dropped steeply in April 2020, by more than 1.3 million. Discounting that decline, there were only 206,000 more manufacturing employees in August than there were in March 2020, prior to the pandemic.

    Inflation has gone down

    TRUMP: “They had the highest inflation perhaps in the history of our country, because I’ve never seen a worse period of time.”

    THE FACTS: While praising the strength of the economy under his presidency, Donald Trump misstated the inflation rate under Biden. Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 after rising steadily in the first 17 months of Biden’s presidency from a low of 0.1% in May 2020. It’s now seeing a downward trend. The most recent data shows that as of July it had fallen to 2.9%. Other historical periods have seen higher inflation, which hit more than 14% in 1980, according to the Federal Reserve.

    Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025

    HARRIS: “What you’re going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected again.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    THE FACTS: Trump has said he doesn’t know about Project 2025, a controversial blueprint for another Republican presidential administration.

    The plan was written up by many of his former aides and allies, but Trump has never said he’ll implement the roughly 900-page guide if he’s elected again. He has said it’s not related to his campaign.

    Trump on abortions ‘after birth’

    TRUMP: “Her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth, it’s execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is okay.”

    THE FACTS: Walz has said no such thing. Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.

    Abortion rights advocates say terms like “late-term abortions” attempt to stigmatize abortions later in pregnancy. Abortions later in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Trump’s taxing and spending plan examined

    HARRIS: “What the Wharton School has said is Donald Trump’s plan would actually explode the deficit.”

    THE TRUTH: The Penn-Wharton Budget Model did find that Trump’s tax and spending plans would significantly expand the deficit by $5.8 trillion over ten years. But it also found that Harris’ plans would increase the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the same period.

    Harris’ record on fracking examined

    TRUMP: “If she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on Day 1.”

    THE FACTS: Trump’s statement ignores the fact that without a law approved by Congress, a president can only ban fracking on federal lands.

    The federal government owns about 2% of Pennsylvania’s total land, and it is not clear how much of that is suitable for oil or gas drilling.

    Republicans have criticized Harris for “flip-flopping” on the issue, noting that Harris said in the 2020 campaign that she opposed fracking, a drilling technique that is widely used in Pennsylvania and other states.

    Harris has since said repeatedly that she won’t ban fracking if elected, and she reiterated that in Tuesday’s debate.

    Trump shares inflated numbers around migrants and crime

    TRUMP: “When you look at these millions and millions of people that are pouring into our country monthly — whereas, I believe, 21 million people, not the 15 people say, and I think it’s a lot higher than the 21 — that’s bigger than New York State … and just look at what they’re doing to our country. They’re criminals, many of these people are criminals, and that’s bad for our economy too.”

    FACTS: Trump’s figures are wildly inflated. The Border Patrol made 56,408 arrests of people crossing the border illegally from Mexico in July, the latest monthly figure available. Since Biden took office, the Border Patrol made about 7.1 million border arrests, though the number of people is considerably lower because many of those arrests were repeat crossers.

    The Biden administration also permitted legal entry for about 765,000 people on an online app called CBP One at land crossings in Mexico through July. It allowed another 520,000 from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to come by air with financial sponsors. Additionally, an unknown number of people crossed the border illegally and eluded capture.

    That doesn’t come close to “millions and millions of people” monthly. …. It is also unproven that “many of these people are criminals.”

    There have been high-profile, heinous crimes committed by immigrants. But FBI statistics do not separate out crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, nor is there any evidence of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants. In 1931, the Wickersham Commission did not find any evidence supporting a connection between immigration and increased crime, and many studies since then have reached similar conclusions.

    Trump repeats false claims that noncitizens are being sought to vote

    TRUMP: “A lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote. They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in practically and these people are trying to get them to vote, and that’s why they’re allowing them to come into our country.”

    THE FACTS: In recent months, Trump and other Republicans have been repeating the baseless claim that Democrats want migrants to come into the country illegally so they will vote.

    There’s no evidence for this, nor is there any evidence that noncitizens illegally vote in significant numbers in this country.

    Voting by people who are not U.S. citizens already is illegal in federal elections. It can be punishable by fines, prison time and even deportation. While noncitizens have cast ballots, studies show it’s incredibly rare, and states regularly audit their voter lists to remove ineligible voters from the rolls.

    Trump’s comments suggest that not speaking English is somehow prohibitive for voting in the U.S. — and that’s also not the case. In fact, the Voting Rights Act requires certain states to provide election materials in other languages depending on the voting-age population’s needs.

    Trump misrepresents crime statistics

    TRUMP, criticizing the Biden administration: “Crime is through the roof.”

    THE FACTS: In fact, FBI data has shown a downward trend in violent crime since a coronavirus pandemic spike. Violent crime surged during the pandemic, with homicides increasing nearly 30% in 2020 over the previous year — the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records

    Violent crime was down 6% in the last three months of 2023 compared with the same period the year before, according to FBI data released in March. Murders were down 13%. New FBI statistics released in June show the overall violent crime rate declined 15% in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period last year. One expert has cautioned, however, that those 2024 figures are preliminary and may overstate the actual reduction in crime.

    Trump endorses false rumor about immigrants eating pets

    TRUMP: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats… They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

    THE FACTS: There’s no evidence to support the claim, which Trump and his campaign have used to argue immigrants are committing crimes at a higher rate than others.

    Authorities in Ohio have said there are no credible or detailed reports to support Trump’s claim.

    Jobs created under the Biden administration

    “TRUMP: “Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud.”

    THE FACTS: This is a mischaracterization of the government’s process of counting jobs. Every year the Labor Department issues a revision of the number of jobs added in a 12-month period from April through March in the previous year. The adjustment is made because the government’s initial job counts are based on surveys of businesses. The revision is then based on actual job counts from unemployment insurance files that are compiled later. The revision is compiled by career government employees with little involvement by politically appointed officials.

    National Guard soldiers on Jan. 6

    TRUMP, speaking about the Jan. 6 insurrection: “I said I’d like to give you 10,000 National Guard or soldiers. They rejected me. Nancy Pelosi rejected me.”

    THE FACTS: That’s false. Pelosi does not direct the National Guard.

    Further, as the Capitol came under attack, she and then-Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell called for military assistance, including from the National Guard.

    The Capitol Police Board makes the decision on whether to call National Guard troops to the Capitol. It is made up of the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Architect of the Capitol.

    The board decided not to call the guard ahead of the insurrection but did eventually request assistance after the rioting had already begun, and the troops arrived several hours later.

    There is no evidence that either Pelosi or McConnell directed the security officials not to call the guard beforehand.

    Trump falsely claims China is building ‘massive’ auto plants in Mexico

    TRUMP: “They’re building big auto plants in Mexico, in many cases owned by China.”

    THE FACTS: It’s not the first time Trump has claimed the Biden administration is allowing Chinese automakers to build factories just across the border in Mexico.

    At present, though, industry experts say they know of no such plants under construction, and there’s only one small Chinese auto assembly factory operating in Mexico. It’s run by a company called JAC that builds inexpensive vehicles from kits for sale in that country.

    Trump falsely claims evidence shows he won in 2020

    TRUMP: “There’s so much proof. All you have to do is look at it.”

    THE FACTS: The election was not stolen. The authorities who have reviewed the election — including Trump’s own attorney general — have concluded the election was fair.

    Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020 was not particularly close. He won the Electoral College with 306 votes to Trump’s 232, and the popular vote by more than 7 million ballots. Recounts in key states affirmed Biden’s victory, and lawsuits challenging the results were unsuccessful.

    Trump claims Putin endorsed Harris

    TRUMP: “Putin endorsed her last week, said ‘I hope she wins.’”

    THE FACTS: Russian President Vladimir Putin did wryly claim last week that Harris was his preferred candidate, but intelligence officials have dismissed the comment as not serious.

    U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia favors Trump, who has openly praised Putin, suggested cutting funds to Ukraine and repeatedly criticized the NATO military alliance.

    Harris takes Trump’s ‘bloodbath’ comment out of context

    HARRIS: “Donald Trump, the candidate, has said in this election there will be a bloodbath if this and the outcome of this election is not to his liking. Let’s turn the page on that.”

    THE FACTS: Trump delivered the line at a speech in March in Ohio in which he was talking about the impact of offshoring on the American auto industry and his plans to increase tariffs on foreign-made cars. It was in reference to the auto industry that he warned of a “bloodbath” if his proposals aren’t enacted.

    “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” Trump said.

    Trump inflates numbers around new military equipment left in Afghanistan

    TRUMP, on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan: “We wouldn’t have left $85 billion worth of brand new, beautiful military equipment behind.”

    THE FACTS: That number is significantly inflated, according to reports from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, which oversees American taxpayer money spent on the conflict.

    The $85 billion figure resembles a number from a July 30 quarterly report from SIGAR, which outlined that the U.S. has invested about $83 billion to build, train and equip Afghan security forces since 2001. That funding included troop pay, training, operations and infrastructure along with equipment and transportation over two decades, according to SIGAR reports and Dan Grazier, a defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight.

    Only about $18 billion of that sum went toward equipping Afghan forces between 2002 and 2018, a June 2019 SIGAR report showed.

    No one knows the exact value of the U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment the Taliban have secured, defense officials have confirmed it is significant.

    Trump misrepresents key facts of the Central Park Five case

    TRUMP: “They admitted, they said they pled guilty and I said, ’well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately … And they pled guilty, then they pled not guilty.”

    THE FACTS: Trump misstated key details of the case while defending a newspaper ad he placed about two weeks after the April 1989 attack in which he called for bringing back the death penalty. Trump wrongly stated that the victim was killed and that the wrongly accused suspects had pleaded guilty.

    Trump appeared to be confusing guilty pleas with confessions that the men — teenagers at the time — said they made to police under duress. They later recanted, pleaded not guilty in court and were convicted after jury trials. Their convictions were vacated in 2002 after another person confessed to the crime.

    The victim, Trisha Meili, was in a coma for 12 days after the attack but ultimately survived. She testified in court against the wrongly accused suspects, who are now known as the Exonerated Five. In 2002, Matias Reyes confessed to the crime and said he was the lone assailant. DNA testing matched Reyes to the attack, but because of the statute of limitations he could not be charged in connection with it.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin, David Klepper, Ali Swenson, Matthew Daly, Chris Rugaber and Tom Krisher contributed to this story.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • Trump falsely accuses immigrants in Ohio of abducting and eating pets

    Trump falsely accuses immigrants in Ohio of abducting and eating pets

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating pets, repeating during a televised debate the type of inflammatory and anti-immigrant rhetoric he has promoted throughout his campaigns.

    There is no evidence that Haitian immigrants in an Ohio community are doing that, officials say. But during the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump specifically mentioned Springfield, Ohio, the town at the center of the claims, saying that immigrants were taking over the city.

    “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said.

    Harris called Trump “extreme” and laughed after his comment. Debate moderators pointed out that city officials have said the claims are not true.

    Trump’s comments echoed claims made by his campaign, including his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and other Republicans. The claims attracted attention this week when Vance posted on social media that his office has “received many inquiries” about Haitian migrants abducting pets. Vance acknowledged Tuesday it was possible “all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”

    Officials have said there have been no credible or detailed reports about the claims, even as Trump and his allies use them to amplify racist stereotypes about Black and brown immigrants.

    While president, Trump questioned why the U.S. would accept people from “s—-hole” countries such as Haiti and some in Africa. His 2024 campaign has focused heavily on illegal immigration, often referencing in his speeches crimes committed by migrants. He argues immigrants are responsible for driving up crime and drug abuse in the United States and taking resources from American citizens.

    Here’s a closer look at how the false claims have spread.

    How did this get started?

    On Sept. 6, a post surfaced on X that shared what looked like a screengrab of a social media post apparently out of Springfield. The retweeted post talked about the person’s “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” seeing a cat hanging from a tree to be butchered and eaten, claiming without evidence that Haitians lived at the house. The accompanying photo showed a Black man carrying what appeared to be a Canada goose by its feet. That post continued to get shared on social media.

    On Monday, Vance posted on X. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” he said. The next day, Vance posted again on X about Springfield, saying his office had received inquires from residents who said “their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”

    Other Republicans shared similar posts. Among them was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who posted a photo of kittens with a caption that said to vote for Trump “So Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”

    Hours before Trump’s debate with Harris, he posted two related photos on his social media site. One Truth Social post was a photo of Trump surrounded by cats and geese. Another featured armed cats wearing MAGA hats.

    A billboard campaign launched by the Republican Party of Arizona at 12 sites in metropolitan Phoenix plays off the false rumors. The billboard image resembles a Chick-fil-A ad, portraying four kittens and urging people to “Vote Republican!” and “Eat Less Kittens.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Chick-fil-A said the party didn’t reach out to the restaurant chain before running the ad, declining to comment further. In a statement, the state party said the ad humorously underscores the need for border security.

    What do officials in Ohio say?

    The office of the Springfield city manager, Bryan Heck, issued a statement knocking down the rumors.

    “In response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” Heck’s office said in an emailed statement.

    Springfield police on Monday told the Springfield News-Sun that they had received no reports of stolen or eaten pets.

    Gov. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, held a news conference Tuesday to address the influx of Haitian immigrants to Springfield. He said he will send state troopers to Springfield to help local law enforcement deal with traffic issues and is earmarking $2.5 million over two years to provide more primary health care to immigrant families.

    DeWine declined to address the allegations, deferring comment to local officials. But he repeatedly spoke in support of the people of Haiti, where his family has long operated a charity.

    What do we know about a separate case 175 miles (281 km) away?

    An entirely unrelated incident that occurred last month in Canton, Ohio, quickly and erroneously conflated into the discussion.

    On Aug. 26, Canton police charged a 27-year-old woman with animal cruelty and disorderly conduct after she “did torture, kill, and eat a cat in a residential area in front (of) multiple people,” according to a police report.

    But Allexis Ferrell is not Haitian. She was born in Ohio and graduated from Canton’s McKinley High School in 2015, according to public records and newspaper reports. Court records show she has been in and out of trouble with the law since at least 2017. Messages seeking comment were not returned by several attorneys who have represented her.

    She is being held in Stark County jail pending a competency hearing next month, according to the prosecutor’s office.

    What do advocates for Haitian immigrants say?

    The posts create a false narrative and could be dangerous for Haitians in the United States, according to Guerline Jozef, founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a group that supports and advocates for immigrants of African descent

    “We are always at the receiving end of all kind of barbaric, inhumane narratives and treatments, specifically when it comes to immigration,” Jozef said in a phone interview.

    Her comments echoed White House national security spokesman John Kirby.

    “There will be people that believe it, no matter how ludicrous and stupid it is,” Kirby said. “And they might act on that kind of information, and act on it in a way where somebody could get hurt. So it needs to stop.”

    What is the broader context of Haitians in Ohio and the United States?

    Springfield, a city of roughly 60,000, has seen its Haitian population grow in recent years. It’s impossible to give an exact number, according to the city, but it estimates Springfield’s entire county has an overall immigrant population of 15,000.

    The city also says that the Haitian immigrants are in the country legally under a federal program that allows for them to remain in the country temporarily. Last month the Biden administration granted eligibility for temporary legal status to about 300,000 Haitians already in the United States because conditions in Haiti are considered unsafe for them to return. Haiti’s government has extended a state of emergency to the entire country due to endemic gang violence.

    Another matter cropping up and raised by Trump in an email Monday is the August 2023 death of an 11-year-old boy after a vehicle driven by an immigrant from Haiti hit the boy’s school bus. After that, residents demanding answers about the immigrant community spoke out at city council meetings.

    ___

    Catalini reported from Trenton, New Jersey, and Shipkowski from Toms River, New Jersey.

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  • FACT FOCUS: A look at false claims made by Trump in California

    FACT FOCUS: A look at false claims made by Trump in California

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    In a press conference from his Los Angeles-area golf club, former President Donald Trump revisited several topics from Tuesday night’s debate, repeating several false and misleading claims on issues including crime, the economy and immigration.

    Here’s are the facts:

    Trump again falsely claims crime skyrocketed under the Biden administration

    CLAIM: New numbers show that crime has skyrocketed under the Biden administration.

    THE FACTS: Violent crime surged during the pandemic, with homicides increasing nearly 30% in 2020 over the previous year — the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records.

    But FBI data released in June shows that the overall violent crime rate declined 15% in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period last year. One expert has cautioned, however, that those figures are preliminary and may overstate the actual reduction in crime.

    On Friday, Trump cited numbers he said were from the “bureau of justice statistics” to claim crime was up. This appears to be a reference to the National Crime Victimization Survey recently released by the Justice Department, which shows that the number of times people were victims of violent crime increased by about 40% from 2020 to 2023. The report notes, however, that while the rate of violent victimizations in 2023 was higher than it was in 2020 and 2021, it was not statistically different from the rate in 2019, when Trump was president.

    That survey aims to capture both crimes reported to police and crimes that are not reported to police and is conducted annually through interviews with about 150,000 households. It doesn’t include murders or crimes against people under the age of 12.

    No basis for claims that violent crime has spiked as a result of the influx of migrants

    CLAIM: Thousands of people are being killed by “illegal migrants” in the U.S.

    THE FACTS: This is not supported by evidence. FBI statistics do not separate crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, nor is there any evidence of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants, either along the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities seeing the greatest influx of migrants, like New York. In fact, national statistics show violent crime is on the way down.

    Inflation has not reached record levels

    CLAIM: Prices have gone up “like no one’s ever seen before.”

    THE FACTS: That’s not accurate. Inflation did soar in 2021-22, though it rose by much more in 1980 when inflation topped 14%. It peaked at 9.1% in June 2022.

    Economists largely blame the inflation spike on the pandemic’s disruptions to global supply chains, which reduced the supply of semiconductors, cars and other goods. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also pushed up gas and food prices. And Biden’s stimulus checks and other spending contributed by turbocharging spending coming out of the pandemic.

    Inflation has now fallen to 2.5%, not far from the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Prices are still about 19% higher than they were before the pandemic, but the Census Bureau reported Tuesday that household incomes have risen by a similar amount, leaving inflation-adjusted incomes at roughly the same level as they were in 2019.

    Trump raises false claims to suggest voting systems are fraudulent

    CLAIM: The voting system isn’t honest. Millions and millions of ballots are sent out “all over the place. Some people get two, three, four or five.”

    THE FACTS: Election officials have procedures in place to ensure that only one mail ballot is issued to each eligible voter. When a voter requests a mail ballot, election officials will verify that person’s eligibility by checking voter registration records — looking to match the voter’s information to what’s on file and, in some cases, checking that the voter’s signature matches as well.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    When a ballot is sent out by an election office, that ballot is assigned to that specific voter. If someone else tries to use that ballot, the voter’s information will not match the office’s records for that ballot and it will be rejected. Election officials constantly update their voter lists to ensure they are accurate, removing dead people, those who have moved out of state or are not eligible.

    In some cases, ballots are canceled — if a voter makes a mistake and requests a new ballot or decides to vote in person instead of using a mail ballot. In those cases, the original ballot is marked in such a way that if that original ballot were to show up at the election office it would be flagged and rejected.

    At one point in his remarks, Trump singled out California, where all voters receive a ballot in the mail. He suggested he would win if votes were counted honestly. He has made this claim before and it is a reach. Just 23% of California voters are registered as Republican while 46% are registered as Democrats. He lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016 in California by 4.2 million votes, and he lost the state to Biden in 2020 by 5.1 million votes.

    Trump misrepresents a revision of U.S. job numbers

    CLAIM: A whistleblower forced the government’s recent downward revision of job gains by 818,000.

    THE FACTS: That’s false. The preliminary revision occurred as part of a normal annual process and was released on a previously disclosed date. Every year the Labor Department issues a revision of the number of jobs added during a 12-month period from April through March in the previous year.

    The adjustment is made because the government’s initial job counts are based on surveys of businesses. The revision is then based on actual job counts from unemployment insurance files that are compiled later. The revision is compiled by career government employees with little involvement by politically appointed officials.

    The Biden administration is not secretly flying hundreds of thousands of migrants into the country

    CLAIM: Harris and the Biden administration are secretly flying in hundreds of thousands of “illegal immigrants.”

    THE FACTS: Migrants are not secretly being flown into the U.S. by the government. Under a Biden policy in effect since January 2023, up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela can enter the country monthly if they apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at a specified airport, paying their own way. Biden exercised his “parole” authority, which, under a 1952 law, allows him to admit people “only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

    ___ Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Chris Rugaber, Christina Almeida Cassidy and Elliot Spagat contributed to this story.

    ___

    AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • Former ICE field director seizes on immigration in race against Rep. Jason Crow to represent Aurora

    Former ICE field director seizes on immigration in race against Rep. Jason Crow to represent Aurora

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    John Fabbricatore enforced federal immigration laws in his position as an ICE field office director until two years ago, and now he hopes to help secure America’s borders as a congressman.

    The Republican candidate in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District is drawing on his career with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as he runs against U.S. Rep. Jason Crow in the Nov. 5 election. Crow, a Democrat, just finished his third term in Congress as the representative of the district, which includes Aurora, Littleton, Englewood, Greenwood Village and Centennial.

    The odds weigh heavily in Crow’s favor. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report doesn’t consider the fight for the 6th District to be competitive. It’s ranked as solidly Democratic, in part because Crow, 45, won all three of his elections by double-digit percentages and redistricting in 2020 resulted in boundaries more favorable to Democrats.

    That’s a change from 2018 when the district was seen as a battleground and Crow won his first race by unseating then-U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, now Aurora’s mayor.

    But this time, Fabbricatore, 52, says voters are looking for a candidate who will prioritize the economy and lower taxes — and he contends that he’s the person for the job.

    “They want someone that wants to fight,” Fabbricatore said.

    He and Crow share certain traits. They’re both veterans: Fabbricatore served in the U.S. Air Force, and Crow was an Army Ranger. They’re hunters, each having longstanding experience with firearms. Neither hails from Colorado originally, with Fabbricatore raised in New York City and Crow in Madison, Wisconsin.

    And the candidates, both fathers of two children, reside in Aurora.

    Beyond that, their stances on major issues diverge — including on immigration, which Fabbricatore refers to as his “subject matter expertise.”

    He argues jobs are going to immigrants compensated with lower wages, taking positions that could be filled by Americans for higher pay. Fabbricatore says he supports “legal, vetted” immigration and more stringent enforcement of existing laws.

    “If we actually just enforce those laws, we will be doing much better than we are doing today with immigration,” he said.

    In recent weeks, Fabbricatore has raised the alarm alongside former President Donald Trump and other conservatives about the presence of Venezuelan gangs in Aurora — while Crow has called out exaggerations and criticized Trump for distorting the problems in certain apartment complexes.

    Crow notes that he represents “one of the most diverse districts in the nation,” with nearly 20% of his constituents born outside of the U.S. He wants to use federal grants and other programs to help immigrants and defend them against racist rhetoric.

    He said he backed a bipartisan immigration deal that ran aground earlier this year after failing to earn enough Republican support. It would have boosted the number of border patrol agents, immigration judges and officers that oversee asylum cases, as well as established more legal pathways for migrants and others without documentation.

    Fabbricatore said in a Denver Post candidate questionnaire that he would not have supported the bipartisan bill, instead preferring another bill with a greater focus on border security.

    Gun violence is what motivated Crow to run for office. He backs a ban on assault weapons and supports universal background checks. He’s also working to pass a bill that would apply the same restrictions to out-of-state residents when they purchase long guns and shotguns as they face when buying handguns — requiring that the gun be shipped to a federally licensed seller in their home state, with a background check performed there.

    Gun violence is “just an unacceptable, avoidable, ongoing national tragedy,” Crow said. “We don’t have to live with mass shootings.”

    Fabbricatore says he believes in gun rights and is instead pushing for investments in mental health.

    The candidates differ on abortion. Crow favors abortion rights, saying he aligns with the majority of Coloradans who back legal access to abortion — and he would support a federal law establishing that as a right. Fabbricatore says Congress should leave abortion’s legal status to the states. He opposes abortion, but he says he recognizes a need for exceptions, including in cases of rape.

    “Having been someone who worked in sex trafficking and saw what many women went through, I could never tell a woman that she couldn’t have a medical procedure to end what happened to her,” he said.

    Fabbricatore points to the economy as his No. 1 issue, saying it’s impacted by energy policy and immigration. He sees Colorado’s potential to participate in the energy sector through solar, wind, fracking and coal.

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    Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton

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