ReportWire

Tag: NC State Wire

  • NASCAR settles federal antitrust case, gives all teams the permanent charters they wanted

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Michael Jordan and NASCAR chairman Jim France stood side-by-side on the steps of a federal courthouse as if they were old friends following a stunning settlement Thursday of a bruising antitrust case in which the Basketball Hall of Famer was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit accusing the top racing series in the United States of being a monopolistic bully.

    The duo was flanked by three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin and Curtis Polk, the co-owners of 23XI Racing with Jordan, Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins and over a dozen lawyers as they celebrated the end to an eight-day trial that ultimately led NASCAR to cave and grant all its teams the permanent charters they wanted.

    “Like two competitors, obviously we tried to get as much done in each other’s favor,” Jordan said, towering over the 81-year-old France. “I’ve said this from Day 1: The only way this sport is going to grow is we have to find some synergy between the two entities. I think we’ve gotten to that point, unfortunately it took 16 months to get here, but I think level heads have gotten us to this point where we can actually work together and grow this sport. I am very proud about that and I think Jim feels the same.”

    France concurred.

    “I do feel the same and we can get back to focusing on what we really love, and that’s racing, and we spent a lot of time not really focused on that so much as we needed to be,” France said. “I feel like we made a very good decision here together and we have a big opportunity to continue growing the sport.”

    A charter is the equivalent of the franchise model used in other sports and in NASCAR it guarantees 36 teams a spot in every top-level Cup Series race and a fixed portion of the revenue stream. The system was implemented in 2016 and teams have argued for over two years that the charters needed to be made permanent — they had been revokable by NASCAR — and the revenue sharing had to change.

    NASCAR, founded and privately owned by the Florida-based France family, never considered making the charters permanent. Instead, after two-plus years of bitter negotiations, NASCAR in September 2024 presented a “take-it-or leave-it” final offer that gave teams until end of that day to sign the 112-page document.

    23XI and Front Row refused and sued, while 13 other organizations signed but testimony in court revealed many did so “with a gun to our head” because the threat of losing the charters would have put them out of business.

    Jordan testified early in the trial that as a new team owner to NASCAR — 23XI launched in 2021 — he felt he had the strength to challenge NASCAR. Eight days of testimony went badly for NASCAR, which when it began to present its case seemed focused more on mitigating damages than it did on proving it did not violate antitrust laws.

    Although terms of the settlement were not released — NASCAR was in the process of scheduling a Thursday afternoon call with all teams to discuss the revenue-sharing model moving forward — both Jordan and NASCAR said that charters will now be permanent for all teams. 23XI and Front Row will receive their combined six charters back for 2026.

    An economist previously testified that NASCAR owes 23XI and Front Row $364.7 million in damages, and that NASCAR shorted 36 chartered teams $1.06 billion from 2021-24.

    “Today’s a good day,” Jordan said from the front-row seat he’s occupied since the trial began Dec. 1 as he waited for the settlement announcement.

    U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell, who had presided over two days of failed settlement talks before the trial began, echoed the sentiment. Bell told the jury that sometimes parties at trial have to see how the evidence unfolds to come to the wisdom of a settlement.

    “I wish we could’ve done this a few months ago,” Bell said in court. “I believe this is great for NASCAR. Great for the future of NASCAR. Great for the entity of NASCAR. Great for the teams and ultimately great for the fans.”

    The settlement came after two days of testimony by France and the Wednesday night public release of a letter from Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris calling for NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps to be removed.

    The discovery process revealed internal NASCAR communications in which Phelps called Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress a “redneck” and other derogatory names; Bass Pro sponsors Childress’ teams, as well as some others, and Morris is an ardent NASCAR supporter.

    Childress gave fiery testimony earlier this week over his reluctance to sign the charter agreement because it was unfair to the teams, which have been bleeding money and begged NASCAR for concessions. Letters from Hall of Fame team owners Joe Gibbs, Rick Hendrick, Jack Roush and Roger Penske were introduced in which they pleaded with France for charters to become permanent; France testified he was not moved by the men he considers good friends.

    Hendrick and Penske, who were both scheduled to testify Friday, expressed gratitude that a settlement had been reached. Penske called it “tremendous news” and said it cleared the way to continue growing the series.

    “Millions of loyal NASCAR fans and thousands of hardworking people rely on our industry, and today’s resolution allows all of us to focus on what truly matters — the future of our sport,” Hendrick said. “This moment presents an important opportunity to strengthen our relationships and recommit ourselves to building a collaborative and prosperous future for all stakeholders. I’m incredibly optimistic about what’s ahead.”

    The settlement came abruptly on the ninth day of the trial. Bell opened expecting to hear motions but both sides asked for a private conference in chambers. When they emerged, Bell ordered an hourlong break for the two sides to confer. That turned into two hours, all parties returned to the courtroom and Kessler announced an agreement had been reached.

    “What all parties have always agreed on is a deep love for the sport and a desire to see it fulfill its full potential,” NASCAR and the plaintiffs said in a joint statement. “This is a landmark moment, one that ensures NASCAR’s foundation is stronger, its future is brighter and its possibilities are greater.”

    ___

    AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

    Source link

  • NASCAR chairman refuses to budge on team charters in testimony during Michael Jordan’s lawsuit

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NASCAR Chairman Jim France testified Tuesday in Michael Jordan’s federal antitrust lawsuit against his family that he still has not changed his mind on granting teams permanent charters, and evidence showed he entered negotiations on a new revenue-sharing agreement determined to thwart teams’ efforts for a better deal from the stock car series.

    France was the final witness called by attorneys for Jordan’s 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports on the seventh day of the trial. Those race teams have accused NASCAR of being a monopolistic bully that engages in anticompetitive business practices.

    Also called Tuesday was Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress, who testified that he only signed the 2025 revenue-sharing agreement because refusing to do so would have put Richard Childress Racing out of business.

    NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps testified to the frustrating two-plus years of negotiations between the top motorsports series in the United States and its race teams. The plaintiffs introduced several documents detailing communication between NASCAR executives that showed France was stubbornly opposed to granting teams permanent charters throughout the process.

    The charter system is equivalent to the franchise model used in other sports. In NASCAR, a charter guarantees cars a spot in the 40-car field each week, as well as specified financial terms.

    Asked by plaintiffs’ attorney Jeffrey Kessler if he has changed his stance on making charters permanent, France said, “No, I have not.”

    Kessler later introduced a summary of notes from the first meeting of NASCAR executives on how they would approach negotiations with the teams over the new agreements. Steve O’Donnell, now the president of NASCAR, wrote in those notes, “Jim’s overarching comments — we are in a competition. We are going to win.”

    France’s position never changed, even though — as evidence showed — he received pleas from Hall of Fame team owners Joe Gibbs, Rick Hendrick, Jack Roush and Roger Penske. All four are close personal friends, France said on the stand Tuesday.

    France became chairman of the series his father founded in 1948 following the 2019 resignation of his nephew, Brian. NASCAR has always been privately owned by the Florida-based family, and Brian France negotiated the initial charter system that began in 2016 as a response to teams complaining they were bleeding money at an unsustainable rate.

    Jim France, who is 81, was soft-spoken on the stand and needed many questions repeated, and he said on numerous topics that he was either unable to recall, did not remember or was not sure — even in response to evidence introduced that the France Family Trust received $400 million in distributions from 2021 through 2024 and that NASCAR is valued at $5 billion.

    He wasn’t sure of the title his niece, Lesa France Kennedy, holds with NASCAR, or the ownership percentages between the two. Evidence showed Jim France owns 54% of NASCAR, while France Kennedy, the vice chair, owns 36%. France also testified he believes he is paid in “the $3.5 million range” as chairman.

    Richard Childress details his dissatisfaction

    Childress spoke to the pressure he felt to sign the charter agreement.

    “I would not have signed those charters if I was financially able to do what I do,” the six-time championship winning owner testified. “We are a blue-collar operation.”

    Childress has participated in NASCAR for 60 years and has a longtime personal relationship with the Frances. He testified that he pleaded with Jim France for the charters to be made permanent instead of renewable, and France refused.

    Childress testified he supports the charter system because before its implementation race teams “were worth 10 cents on the dollar at most. We didn’t have nothing.”

    He admitted that the charters added value to his team, but said the equity falls short of its financial potential if the charters were permanent. An economist testified that NASCAR owes 23XI and Front Row $364.7 million in damages, and that NASCAR shorted 36 chartered teams $1.06 billion from 2021-24.

    When Childress’ October declaration of his support for charters was introduced, Childress insisted NASCAR attorney Christopher Yates also show the jury language added to the statement in which Childress pushes for the charters to be permanent.

    Childress said he added those sentences to the declaration, which had been pre-written for him to sign.

    Phelps details negotiations with teams

    NASCAR commissioner Phelps noted that Jordan’s financial advisor would not compromise on key issues in the negotiations.

    Phelps, who was president of NASCAR during the negotiations, said Jordan right-hand man Curtis Polk was the lead representative for the teams and held firm in their demand for increased revenue, permanent charters, a voice in governance and one-third of any new revenue streams.

    The deal finally presented to the teams in September 2024 did not include permanent charters or a voice in governance, but NASCAR gave the teams a firm deadline to accept its final offer or forfeit their charters. 23XI Racing, owned by Jordan, Polk and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, and Front Row Motorsports, owned by Bob Jenkins, were the only two teams out of 15 organizations that refused to sign. They sued instead.

    Phelps, promoted to become NASCAR’s first commissioner earlier this year, testified that he worked hard to get the teams the best deal possible. But he said the teams’ initial request for $720 million in guaranteed revenue would have put NASCAR out of business.

    At the same time, Polk would not budge, either.

    “It was one of the most challenging and longest negotiations I’ve ever been part of,” said Phelps, who admitted he didn’t particularly enjoy negotiating with Polk, who was at the time the representative for the “Team Negotiating Council.”

    “The TNC never wavered off their four pillars. It was just the same thing, the same thing, and that was very frustrating,” Phelps said.

    Phelps testified at one point that NASCAR believed it had landed on a new charter agreement that satisfied the teams but it was contingent on NASCAR finalizing its new media rights deal.

    “I thought we’d just plug in the numbers,” said Phelps, who testified NASCAR was hoping to land a media deal worth $1.2 billion. When it became clear the media rights deal wouldn’t net that much money, Phelps said the teams asked to set a floor in negotiations.

    NASCAR ultimately got a media deal worth $1.05 billion — still an increase of $33 million a year from the previous deal — and Phelps said “every dollar” went to the race teams when it began this year.

    However, the ultimate revenue payout to teams is $431 million annually, the charters are not permanent and the teams did not get a voice in rules and regulations.

    Even so, Phelps testified he believed the charter agreement was “a fair deal.”

    Faster pace

    U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell has repeatedly admonished both sides to pick up the pace of the trial, and once France’s testimony concludes Wednesday, NASCAR will begin to present its defense.

    NASCAR has said it has a witness list of 16 people, but Yates informed Bell he can trim “four or five” names from it and is hopeful to wrap his defense by Friday.

    ___

    AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

    Source link

  • Economist says NASCAR owes $364.7M to teams in antitrust case

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — An economist testified in Michael Jordan’s federal antitrust trial against NASCAR that the racing series owes a combined $364.7 million in damages to the two teams suing it over a revenue-sharing dispute.

    Edward Snyder, a professor of economics who worked in the antitrust division of the Department of Justice and has testified in more than 30 cases, including “Deflategate” involving the NFL’s New England Patriots, testified on Monday. He gave three specific reasons NASCAR is a monopoly participating in anticompetitive business practices.

    Using a complex formula applied to profits, a reduction in market revenue, and lost revenue to 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports from 2021-24, Snyder came up with his amount of damages owed. Snyder applied a 45% of revenue sharing he alleged Formula 1 gives to its teams in his calculations; Snyder found that NASCAR’s revenue-sharing model when its charter system began in 2016 gave only 25% to the teams.

    The suit is about the 2025 charter agreement, which was presented to teams on a Friday in September 2024 with a same-day deadline to sign the 112-page document. The charter offer came after more than two years of bitter negotiations between NASCAR and its teams, who have called the agreement “a take-it-or-leave-it” ultimatum that they signed with “a gun to their head.”

    A charter is similar to the franchise model in other sports, but in NASCAR it guarantees 36 teams spots in the 40-car field, as well as specific revenue.

    Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin for 23XI, along with Front Row Motorsports and owner Bob Jenkins, were the only two teams out of 15 to refuse the new charter agreement.

    Snyder’s evaluations found NASCAR was in fact violating antitrust laws in that the privately owned racing series controls all bargaining because “teams don’t have anywhere else to sell their services.” Snyder said NASCAR controls “the tracks, the teams and the cars.”

    Snyder repeatedly cited exclusivity agreements NASCAR entered into with racetracks after the charter system began. The agreements prevent tracks that host NASCAR from holding events with rival racing series. Prior to the long-term agreements, NASCAR operated on one-year contracts with its host racetracks.

    The Florida-based France family founded NASCAR in 1948 and, along with Speedway Motorsports, owns almost all the tracks on the top Cup Series schedule. Snyder’s belief is that NASCAR entered into exclusivity agreements with tracks to stave off any threats of a breakaway startup series. In doing so, he said it eliminated teams’ ability to race stock cars anywhere else, forced them to accept revenue-sharing agreements that are below market value, and damaged their overall evaluations.

    Snyder did his calculations for both teams based on each having two charters — each purchased a third charter in late 2024 — and found 23XI is owed $215.8 million while Front Row is owed $148.9 million. Based on his calculations, Snyder determined NASCAR shorted 36 chartered teams $1.06 billion from 2021-24.

    Snyder noted NASCAR had $2.2 billion in assets, an equity value of $5 billion and an investment-grade credit rating — which Snyder believes positions the France family to be able to pivot and adjust to any threats of a rival series the way the PGA did in response to the LIV Golf league. The PGA, Snyder testified, “got creative” in bringing in new revenue to pay to its golfers to prevent their defections.

    Snyder also testified NASCAR had $250 million in annual earnings from 2021-24 and the France family took $400 million in distributions during that period.

    NASCAR contends Snyder’s estimations are wrong, that the 45% F1 model he used is not correct, and its own two experts “take serious issue” with Snyder’s findings. Defense attorney Lawrence Buterman asked Snyder his opinion on NASCAR’s upcoming expert witnesses and Snyder said they were two of the best economists in the world.

    Slow pace of trial

    Snyder testified for almost the entirety of Monday’s session — the sixth day of the trial — and will continue on Tuesday. The snail’s pace has agitated U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell, who heard arguments 30 minutes early Monday morning because he was annoyed that objections had been submitted at 2:55 a.m. and then 6:50 a.m.

    He needed an hour to get through the rulings, and testimony resumed 30 minutes behind schedule. When the day concluded, he asked the nine-person jury if they were willing to serve an hour longer each day the rest of the week in an effort to avoid a third full week of trial. He all said all motions must be filed by 10 p.m. each evening moving forward.

    Bell wants plaintiff attorney Jeffrey Kessler to conclude his case by the end of Tuesday, but Kessler told him he still plans to call NASCAR chairman Jim France, NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps and Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress, who was the subject of derogatory text messages amongst NASCAR leadership and has said he’s considering legal action.

    NASCAR has a list of 16 potential witnesses and Bell said he wanted the first one on the stand before Tuesday’s session concludes.

    ___

    AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

    Source link

  • New limits for a rent algorithm that prosecutors say let landlords drive up prices

    Landlords could no longer rely on rent-pricing software to quietly track each other’s moves and push rents higher using confidential data, under a settlement between RealPage Inc. and federal prosecutors to end what critics said was illegal “algorithmic collusion.”

    The deal announced Monday by the Department of Justice follows a yearlong federal antitrust lawsuit, launched during the Biden administration, against the Texas-based software company. RealPage would not have to pay any damages or admit any wrongdoing. The settlement must still be approved by a judge.

    RealPage software provides daily recommendations to help landlords and their employees nationwide price their available apartments. The landlords do not have to follow the suggestions, but critics argue that because the software has access to a vast trove of confidential data, it helps RealPage’s clients charge the highest possible rent.

    “RealPage was replacing competition with coordination, and renters paid the price,” said DOJ antitrust chief Gail Slater, who emphasized that the settlement avoided a costly, time-consuming trial.

    Under the terms of the proposed settlement, RealPage can no longer use that real-time data to determine price recommendations. Instead, the only nonpublic data that can be used to train the software’s algorithm must be at least one year old.

    Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel.


    Follow on

    “What does this mean for you and your family?” Slater said in a video statement. “It means more real competition in local housing markets. It means rents set by the market, not by a secret algorithm.”

    RealPage attorney Stephen Weissman said the company is pleased the DOJ worked with them to settle the matter.

    “There has been a great deal of misinformation about how RealPage’s software works and the value it provides for both housing providers and renters,” Weissman said in a statement. “We believe that RealPage’s historical use of aggregated and anonymized nonpublic data, which include rents that are typically lower than advertised rents, has led to lower rents, less vacancies, and more procompetitive effects.”

    However, the deal was slammed by some observers as a missed opportunity to clamp down on alleged algorithmic price-fixing throughout the economy.

    “This case really was the tip of the spear,” said Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, whose group advocates for government action against business concentration.

    He said the settlement is rife with loopholes and he believes RealPages can keep influencing the rental market even if they can only use public, rather than private, data. He also decried how RealPages does not have to pay any damages, unlike many companies that have paid millions in penalties over their use of the software.

    Over the past few months, more than two dozen property management companies have reached various settlements over their use of RealPage, including Greystar, the nation’s largest landlord, which agreed to pay $50 million to settle a class action lawsuit, and $7 million to settle a separate lawsuit filed by nine states.

    The governors of California and New York signed laws last month to crack down on rent-setting software, and a growing list of cities, including Philadelphia and Seattle, have passed ordinances against the practice.

    Ten states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington — had joined the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit. Those states were not part of Monday’s settlement, meaning they can continue to pursue the case in court.

    Source link

  • Michael Jordan donates $10M to North Carolina medical center in honor of his mother

    WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — Michael Jordan is giving $10 million to a North Carolina regional medical center in honor of his mother.

    The six-time NBA champ and now businessman announced the gift to Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington on Tuesday. With the donation, the medical center will name its neuroscience institute after Deloris Jordan.

    “My mother taught me the importance of compassion and community, and I can’t think of a better way to honor her than by helping to ensure those in need can obtain the most advanced neurological care available,” Jordan said about his donation.

    The money helps support his mother’s work on health and wellness, specifically with making specialists, technology and care more accessible specifically for patients dealing with stroke, spine treatment, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other health issues.

    Deloris Jordan, founder and president of the James R. Jordan Foundation and its international foundation of the same name, has overseen programs in the U.S. and Africa. She said it’s humbling to be a part of bringing high-quality care to more people in North Carolina.

    A dedication ceremony will be held early in 2026 at the Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

    Source link

  • Why Trump’s plan to help GOP keep control of the House could backfire

    As President Donald Trump laid it out to reporters this summer, the plan was simple.

    Republicans, the president said, were “entitled” to five more conservative-leaning U.S. House seats in Texas and additional ones in other red states. The president broke with more than a century of political tradition in directing the GOP to redraw those maps in the middle of the decade to avoid losing control of Congress in next year’s midterms.

    Four months later, Trump’s audacious ask looks anything but simple. After a federal court panel struck down Republicans’ new map in Texas on Tuesday, the entire exercise holds the potential to net Democrats more winnable seats in the House instead.

    “Trump may have let the genie out of the bottle,” said UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, “but he may not get the wish he’d hoped for.”

    Trump’s plan is to bolster his party’s narrow House margin to protect Republicans from losing control of the chamber in next year’s elections. Normally, the president’s party loses seats in the midterms. But his involvement in redistricting is instead becoming an illustration of the limits of presidential power.

    Gov. Greg Abbott announces his re-election campaign for Texas governor in Houston, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. (Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP)

    Playing with fire

    To hold Republicans’ grip on power in Washington, Trump is relying on a complex political process.

    Redrawing maps is a decentralized effort that involves navigating a tangle of legal rules. It also involves a tricky political calculus because the legislators who hold the power to draw maps often want to protect themselves, business interests or local communities more than ruthlessly help their party.

    And when one party moves aggressively to draw lines to help itself win elections — also known as gerrymandering — it runs the risk of pushing its rival party to do the same.

    That’s what Trump ended up doing, spurring California voters to replace their map drawn by a nonpartisan commission with one drawn by Democrats to gain five seats. If successful, the move would cancel out the action taken by Texas Republicans. California voters approved that map earlier this month, and if a Republican lawsuit fails to block it, that map giving Democrats more winnable seats will remain in effect even if Texas’ remains stalled.

    “Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, posted on X after the Texas ruling, mentioning his Republican counterpart in Texas along with the president.

    Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican whose northern California district would be redrawn under the state’s new map, agreed.

    “It could very well come out as a net loss for Republicans, honestly when you look at the map, or at the very least, it could end up being a wash,” Kiley said. “But it’s something that never should have happened. It was ill-conceived from the start.”

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a rally with Harris County Democrats at the IBEW local 716 union hall in Houston, on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a rally with Harris County Democrats at the IBEW local 716 union hall in Houston, on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)

    For Trump, a mix of wins and losses

    There’s no guarantee that Tuesday’s ruling on the Texas map will stand. Many lower courts have blocked Trump’s initiatives, only for the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court to put those rulings on hold. Texas Republicans immediately appealed Tuesday’s decision to the high court, too.

    Republicans hope the nation’s highest court also weakens or eliminates the last major component of the Voting Rights Act next year, which could open the door to further redraws in their favor.

    Even before Tuesday, Trump’s push for mid-decade redistricting was not playing out as neatly as he had hoped, though he had scored some apparent wins. North Carolina Republicans potentially created another conservative-leaning seat in that battleground state, while Missouri Republicans redrew their congressional map at Trump’s urging to eliminate one Democratic seat. The Missouri plan faces lawsuits and a possible referendum that would force a statewide vote on the matter.

    Trump’s push has faltered elsewhere. Republicans in Kansas balked at trying to eliminate the state’s lone swing seat, held by a Democratic congresswoman. Indiana Republicans also refused to redraw their map to eliminate their two Democratic-leaning congressional seats.

    After Trump attacked the main Indiana holdout, state Sen. Greg Goode, on social media, he was the victim of a swatting call over the weekend that led to sheriff’s deputies coming to his house.

    Trump’s push could have a boomerang effect on Republicans

    The bulk of redistricting normally happens once every 10 years, following the release of new population estimates from the U.S. Census. That requires state lawmakers to adjust their legislative lines to make sure every district has roughly the same population. It also opens the door to gerrymandering maps to make it harder for the party out of power to win legislative seats.

    Inevitably, redistricting leads to litigation, which can drag on for years and spur mid-decade, court-mandated revisions.

    Republicans stood to benefit from these after the last cycle in 2021 because they won state supreme court elections in North Carolina and Ohio in 2022. But some litigation hasn’t gone the GOP’s way. A judge in Utah earlier this month required the state to make one of its four congressional seats Democratic-leaning.

    Trump broke with modern political practice by urging a wholesale, mid-decade redraw in red states.

    Democrats were in a bad position to respond to Trump’s gambit because more states they control have lines drawn by independent commissions rather than by partisan lawmakers, the legacy of government reform efforts.

    But with Newsom’s push to let Democrats draw California’s lines successful, the party is looking to replicate it elsewhere.

    Next up may be Virginia, where Democrats recaptured the governor’s office this month and expanded their margins in the Legislature. A Democratic candidate for governor in Colorado has called for a similar measure there. Republicans currently hold 9 of the 19 House seats in those two states.

    Overall, Republicans have more to lose if redistricting becomes a purely partisan activity nationally and voters in blue states ditch their nonpartisan commissions to let their preferred party maximize its margins. In the last complete redistricting cycle in 2021, commissions drew 95 House seats that Democrats would have otherwise drawn, and only 13 that Republicans would have drawn.

    The State Capitol is seen in Austin, Texas, on June 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

    The State Capitol is seen in Austin, Texas, on June 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

    Gerrymandering’s unintended consequences

    On Tuesday, Republicans were reappraising Trump’s championing of redistricting hardball.

    “I think if you look at the basis of this, there was no member of the delegation that was asked our opinion,” Republican Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas told reporters.

    Incumbents usually don’t like the idea of radically redrawing districts. It can lead to what political experts call a “dummymander” — spreading the opposing party’s voters so broadly that they end up endangering your own incumbents in a year, like 2026, that is expected to be bad for the party in power.

    Incumbents also don’t like losing voters who have supported them or getting wholly new communities drawn into their districts, said Jonathan Cervas, who teaches redistricting at Carnegie Mellon University and has drawn new maps for courts. Democratic lawmakers in Illinois and Maryland have so far resisted mid-decade redraws to pad their majorities in their states, joining their GOP counterparts in Indiana and Kansas.

    Cervas said that’s why it was striking to watch Trump push Republicans to dive into mid-decade redistricting.

    “The idea they’d go along to get along is basically crazy,” he said.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti and Kevin Freking in Washington contributed to this report.

    Source link

  • Colleges are fighting to prove their return on investment

    WASHINGTON (AP) — For a generation of young Americans, choosing where to go to college — or whether to go at all — has become a complex calculation of costs and benefits that often revolves around a single question: Is the degree worth its price?

    Public confidence in higher education has plummeted in recent years amid high tuition prices, skyrocketing student loans and a dismal job market — plus ideological concerns from conservatives. Now, colleges are scrambling to prove their value to students.

    Borrowed from the business world, the term “return on investment” has been plastered on college advertisements across the U.S. A battery of new rankings grade campuses on the financial benefits they deliver. States such as Colorado have started publishing yearly reports on the monetary payoff of college, and Texas now factors it into calculations for how much taxpayer money goes to community colleges.

    “Students are becoming more aware of the times when college doesn’t pay off,” said Preston Cooper, who has studied college ROI at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “It’s front of mind for universities today in a way that it was not necessarily 15, 20 years ago.”

    Most bachelor’s degrees are still worth it

    A wide body of research indicates a bachelor’s degree still pays off, at least on average and in the long run. Yet there’s growing recognition that not all degrees lead to a good salary, and even some that seem like a good bet are becoming riskier as graduates face one of the toughest job markets in years.

    A new analysis released Thursday by the Strada Education Foundation finds 70% of recent public university graduates can expect a positive return within 10 years — meaning their earnings over a decade will exceed that of a typical high school graduate by an amount greater than the cost of their degree. Yet it varies by state, from 53% in North Dakota to 82% in Washington, D.C. States where college is more affordable have fared better, the report says.

    It’s a critical issue for families who wonder how college tuition prices could ever pay off, said Emilia Mattucci, a high school counselor at East Allegheny schools, near Pittsburgh. More than two-thirds of her school’s students come from low-income families, and many aren’t willing to take on the level of debt that past generations accepted.

    Instead, more are heading to technical schools or the trades and passing on four-year universities, she said.

    “A lot of families are just saying they can’t afford it, or they don’t want to go into debt for years and years and years,” she said.

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been among those questioning the need for a four-year degree. Speaking at the Reagan Institute think tank in September, McMahon praised programs that prepare students for careers right out of high school.

    “I’m not saying kids shouldn’t go to college,” she said. “I’m just saying all kids don’t have to go in order to be successful.”

    Lowering college tuition and improving graduate earnings

    American higher education has been grappling with both sides of the ROI equation — tuition costs and graduate earnings. It’s becoming even more important as colleges compete for decreasing numbers of college-age students as a result of falling birth rates.

    Tuition rates have stayed flat on many campuses in recent years to address affordability concerns, and many private colleges have lowered their sticker prices in an effort to better reflect the cost most students actually pay after factoring in financial aid.

    The other part of the equation — making sure graduates land good jobs — is more complicated.

    A group of college presidents recently met at Gallup’s Washington headquarters to study public polling on higher education. One of the chief reasons for flagging confidence is a perception that colleges aren’t giving graduates the skills employers need, said Kevin Guskiewicz, president of Michigan State University, one of the leaders at the meeting.

    “We’re trying to get out in front of that,” he said.

    The issue has been a priority for Guskiewicz since he arrived on campus last year. He gathered a council of Michigan business leaders to identify skills that graduates will need for jobs, from agriculture to banking. The goal is to mold degree programs to the job market’s needs and to get students internships and work experience that can lead to a job.

    A disconnect with the job market

    Bridging the gap to the job market has been a persistent struggle for U.S. colleges, said Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, a think tank that studies the workforce. Last year the institute, partnering with Strada researchers, found 52% of recent college graduates were in jobs that didn’t require a degree. Even higher-demand fields, such as education and nursing, had large numbers of graduates in that situation.

    “No programs are immune, and no schools are immune,” Sigelman said.

    The federal government has been trying to fix the problem for decades, going back to President Barack Obama’s administration. A federal rule first established in 2011 aimed to cut federal money to college programs that leave graduates with low earnings, though it primarily targeted for-profit colleges.

    A Republican reconciliation bill passed this year takes a wider view, requiring most colleges to hit earnings standards to be eligible for federal funding. The goal is to make sure college graduates end up earning more than those without a degree.

    Others see transparency as a key solution.

    For decades, students had little way to know whether graduates of specific degree programs were landing good jobs after college. That started to change with the College Scorecard in 2015, a federal website that shares broad earnings outcomes for college programs. More recently, bipartisan legislation in Congress has sought to give the public even more detailed data.

    Lawmakers in North Carolina ordered a 2023 study on the financial return for degrees across the state’s public universities. It found that 93% produced a positive return, meaning graduates were expected to earn more over their lives than someone without a similar degree.

    The data is available to the public, showing, for example, that undergraduate degrees in applied math and business tend to have high returns at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, while graduate degrees in psychology and foreign languages often don’t.

    Colleges are belatedly realizing how important that kind of data is to students and their families, said Lee Roberts, chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill, in an interview.

    “In uncertain times, students are even more focused — I would say rightly so — on what their job prospects are going to be,” he added. “So I think colleges and universities really owe students and their families this data.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    Source link

  • Bill Belichick says he never sought an early departure from the North Carolina job

    CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — Bill Belichick has denied reports that he’s been seeking an exit strategy from his North Carolina coaching role.

    “Some of the reports out last week about my looking for a buyout and trying to leave here and all that is categorically false,” Belichick said Monday during his first public comments since a blowout loss to Clemson. “Glad I’m here. Working toward our goals and the process.”

    Next up for the Tar Heels (2-3, 0-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) is Friday night’s game at California (4-2, 1-1).

    During the second of two off weeks in a three-week span, the subject of Belichick’s status and future with the Tar Heels was a hot topic, so much so that last Wednesday the university released brief statements from the coach and athletics director Bubba Cunningham reaffirming commitments between Belichick and the school.

    “It’s a learning curve,” Belichick said Monday. “We’re all in it together, but we’re making a lot of progress.”

    On Monday, there was double the media turnout compared to Belichick’s normal game-week availability. University chancellor Lee Roberts also attended along with high-ranking officials in the athletics department.

    With only one game during a span of nearly a month, it has allowed off-field drama to command plenty of attention. Yet Belichick was spotted attending a high school game Friday night, perhaps an indication of normal in-season functions in terms of recruiting.

    Belichick said the program has approximately 40 high school players committed for the next recruiting class.

    Results on game days haven’t given Tar Heels fans much reason to be encouraged.

    “Obviously we’re all a little frustrated with the results, but the only thing we can do is continue to work and improve,” Belichick said. “We’ve made a lot of progress. Right now, unfortunately, the scoreboard doesn’t reflect that, but I’m confident that it will.”

    The former Super Bowl-winning coach disputed suggestions that there’s division within the team and a lack of progress.

    “We’ve made a lot of improvements,” Belichick said. “I think that’s exciting for all of us to see, certainly for the individual players to see it, in the units that they work with. So I don’t know what kind of perspective some of those people have that are saying that.”

    Offensive lineman Christo Kelly, who talked about the team coming together and buying into the process, said the Tar Heels shouldn’t be bothered by reports regarding Belichick.

    “Some of that outside noise stuff doesn’t affect what we do day-in and day-out,” Kelly said.

    Belichick referred to the Tar Heels as a developmental program, calling them similar to other teams he has overseen.

    “I’ve been involved in a lot of programs where things started and where things ended up are honestly where they should go,” he said.

    Belichick is in the first year of a deal that guarantees $10 million in base and supplemental pay for each of the next two seasons. Team general manager Michael Lombardi, a former NFL executive who’s largely a partner with Belichick in this college endeavor, is making $1.5 million for each of the next two seasons.

    Belichick defended Lombardi, who has been the subject of criticism stemming from some local media reports.

    “I think Michael has done a great job of keeping the people close to the Carolina program up to date in what we’re doing, what our process is,” Belichick said. “We’re all working together. We’re all learning together.”

    North Carolina has been blown out in three games against power conference opponents, including a 38-10 belting from Clemson in the most-recent game that resulted in a largely empty stadium in the second half. The Tar Heels surrendered 28 first-quarter points in that game.

    Running back Caleb Hood announced last week that he was ending his playing career. Belichick said he had a conversation with Hood similar to ones he has had with many athletes through the years.

    “For him, it was time, so I respect that,” Belichick said.

    There was a light moment Monday when Belichick was asked about a phone call he made to ESPN commentator Kirk Herbstreit during the weekend. He said he was answering a text sent by Herbstreit, though the timing wasn’t ideal.

    “I didn’t realize he was on the air,” the coach said.

    Also last week, the school announced that cornerbacks coach Armond Hawkins has been placed on suspension for violating rules connected to improper benefits. He’s on leave while the school “further investigates other potential actions detrimental” to the team and school.

    This comes following months-long tabloid-level interest involving Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, who has been on the sidelines prior to games.

    ___

    Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

    Source link

  • Delivery drones may soon take off in the US. Here’s why

    Delivery drones are so fast they can zip a pint of ice cream to a customer’s driveway before it melts.

    Yet the long-promised technology has been slow to take off in the United States. More than six years after the Federal Aviation Administration approved commercial home deliveries with drones, the service mostly has been confined to a few suburbs and rural areas.

    That could soon change. The FAA proposed a new rule last week that would make it easier for companies to fly drones outside of an operator’s line of sight and therefore over longer distances. A handful of companies do that now, but they had to obtain waivers and certification as an air carrier to deliver packages.

    While the rule is intended to streamline the process, authorized retailers and drone companies that have tested fulfilling orders from the sky say they plan to make drone-based deliveries available to millions more U.S. households.

    Walmart’s multistate expansion

    Walmart and Wing, a drone company owned by Google parent Alphabet, currently provide deliveries from 18 Walmart stores in the Dallas area. By next summer, they expect to expand to 100 Walmart stores in Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston; and Orlando and Tampa, Florida.

    After launching its Prime Air delivery service in College Station, Texas, in late 2022, Amazon received FAA permission last year to operate autonomous drones that fly beyond a pilot’s line of sight. The e-commerce company has since expand its drone delivery program to suburban Phoenix and has plans to offer the service in Dallas, San Antonio, Texas, and Kansas City.

    The concept of drone delivery has been around for well over a decade. Drone maker Zipline, which works with Walmart in Arkansas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, began making deliveries to hospitals in Rwanda in 2016. Israel-based Flytrex, one of the drone companies DoorDash works with to carry out orders, launched drone delivery to households in Iceland in 2017.

    But Wing CEO Adam Woodworth said drone delivery has been in “treading water mode” in the U.S. for years, with service providers afraid to scale up because the regulatory framework wasn’t in place.

    “You want to be at the right moment where there’s an overlap between the customer demand, the partner demand, the technical readiness and the regulatory readiness,” Woodworth said. “I think that we’re reaching that planetary alignment right now.”

    Flying ice cream and eggs

    DoorDash, which works with both Wing and Flytrex, tested drone drop-offs in rural Virginia and greater Dallas before announcing an expansion into Charlotte. Getting takeout food this way may sound futuristic, but it’s starting to feel normal in suburban Brisbane, Australia, where DoorDash has employed delivery drones for several years, said Harrison Shih, who leads the company’s drone program.

    “It comes so fast and it’s something flying into your neighborhood, but it really does seem like part of everyday life,” Shih said.

    Even though delivery drones are still considered novel, the cargo they carry can be pretty mundane. Walmart said the top items from the more than 150,000 drone deliveries the nation’s largest retailer has completed since 2021 include ice cream, eggs and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

    Unlike traditional delivery, where one driver may have a truck full of packages, drones generally deliver one small order at a time. Wing’s drones can carry packages weighing up to 2.5 pounds. They can travel up to 12 miles round trip. One pilot can oversee up to 32 drones.

    Zipline has a drone that can carry up to 4 pounds and fly 120 miles round trip. Some drones, like Amazon’s, can carry heavier packages.

    Once an order is placed, it’s packaged for flight and attached to a drone at a launch site. The drone automatically finds a route that avoids obstacles. A pilot observes as the aircraft flies to its destinations and lowers its cargo to the ground with retractable cords.

    Risks and rewards of commercial drones

    Shakiba Enayati, an assistant professor of supply chain and analytics at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, researches ways that drones could speed the delivery of critical health supplies like donated organs and blood samples. The unmanned aircraft offer some advantages as a transport method, such as reduced emissions and improved access to goods for rural residents, Enayati said.

    But she also sees plenty of obstacles. Right now, it costs around $13.50 per delivery to carry a package by drone versus $2 for a traditional vehicle, Enayati said. Drones need well-trained employees to oversee them and can have a hard time in certain weather.

    Drones also can have mid-air collisions or tumble from the sky. But people have accepted the risk of road accidents because they know the advantages of driving, Enayati said. She thinks the same thing could happen with drones, especially as improved technology reduces the chance for errors.

    Woodworth added that U.S. airspace is tightly controlled, and companies need to demonstrate to the FAA that their drones are safe and reliable before they are cleared to fly. Even under the proposed new rules, the FAA would set detailed requirements for drone operators.

    “That’s why it takes so long to build a business in the space. But I think it leads to everybody fundamentally building higher quality things,” Woodworth said.

    Others worry that drones may potentially replace human delivery drivers. Shih thinks that’s unlikely. One of DoorDash’s most popular items is 24-packs of water, Shih said, which aren’t realistic for existing drones to ferry.

    “I believe that drone delivery can be fairly ubiquitous and can cover a lot of things. We just don’t think its probable today that it’ll carry a 40-pound bag of dog food to you,” Shih said.

    The view from the ground in Texas

    DoorDash said that in the areas where it offers drone deliveries, orders requiring the services of human delivery drivers also increase.

    That’s been the experience of John Kim, the owner of PurePoke restaurant in Frisco, Texas. Kim signed on to offer drone deliveries through DoorDash last year. He doesn’t know what percentage of his DoorDash customers are choosing the service instead of regular delivery, but his overall DoorDash orders are up 15% this year.

    Kim said he’s heard no complaints from drone delivery customers.

    “It’s very stable, maybe even better than some of the drivers that toss it in the back with all the other orders,” Kim said.

    For some, drones can simply be a nuisance. When the FAA asked for public comments on Amazon’s request to expand deliveries in College Station, numerous residents expressed concern that drones with cameras violated their privacy. Amazon says its drones use cameras and sensors to navigate and avoid obstacles but may record overhead videos of people while completing a delivery.

    Other residents complained about noise.

    “It sounds like a giant nagging mosquito,” one respondent wrote. Amazon has since released a quieter drone.

    But others love the service. Janet Toth of Frisco, Texas, said she saw drone deliveries in Korea years ago and wondered why the U.S. didn’t have them. So she was thrilled when DoorDash began providing drone delivery in her neighborhood.

    Toth now orders drone delivery a few times a month. Her 9-year-old daughter Julep said friends often come over to watch the drone.

    “I love to go outside, wave at the drone, say ‘Thank you’ and get the food,” Julep Toth said.

    ___

    AP Video Journalist Kendria LaFleur contributed from Frisco, Texas.

    Source link

  • A power loss changed everything: How Palou secured his fourth IndyCar title

    Alex Palou wrapped up his fourth IndyCar championship in the last five seasons on Sunday at Portland International Raceway when title contender Pato O’Ward lost power early in the race.

    O’Ward started from the pole and was the only driver mathematically eligible to beat Palou for the championship. Palou went into Sunday with a cozy 121-point lead over O’Ward in the standings and so long as he left Portland up by 108 points, he’d clinch the championship in the first race of a three consecutive weekends to close the season.

    The Astor Cup became his just 22 laps into the race on the Portland road course when O’Ward had an electronic issue on his Arrow McLaren Chevrolet and had to make an unplanned pit stop. He returned to the track down nine laps from the leaders.

    Palou finished third, O’Ward finished 25th and Palou has the title cemented with two races remaining in the IndyCar season and an insurmountable 151-point lead.

    Palou was feisty in the closing portion of the race and raced unnecessarily aggressive at times — even driving off course with four laps remaining and drag-racing Christian Lundgaard for position.

    “We’re here to win. That’s why we’re here. We’ve said it many times. When we come here, although we have that big goal of winning the championship, our priority is always to win races and win every single weekend,” insisted Palou. “Even though could have been OK to stay third, we wanted to win.”

    Palou has won all four of his championships for Chip Ganassi Racing and ran away with this one, his third consecutive, by storming out of the gate with a win in the first two races of the year to set the pace for Ganassi to win its 17th IndyCar title in 30 years. The 17 championships tie Penske Racing.

    Twelve of Ganassi’s IndyCar titles have come in the last 17 years, starting with Scott Dixon’s brilliant 2008 season in which he put together a run similar to the one Palou had this year. Dixon in 2008 won six races, including the Indianapolis 500, six poles and the first of his six championships.

    Ganassi has many times before dressed-down drivers for putting themselves in unnecessary positions, but this time had no qualms with Palou racing hard for a race win rather than sitting back and coasting to to the title.

    “It depends on the situation, the driver. Like Alex said, we go into this race with that 10 car team, every race, we want to win the race, OK? That’s how we got to this point,” said Ganassi. “We didn’t change anything today. You can’t play God.”

    But Ganassi admitted Palou did cause a brief scare with his determination to race hard in the final laps.

    “When he was fighting for second or third, I was fine with it,” said Ganassi. “I got to say my heart skipped a beat when he went off there, but other than that I was all for it.”

    Only A.J. Foyt (seven) and Dixon (six) have more championships than Palou, who broke through this season by winning on ovals to finally show he’s the complete package. That was clear years ago, and he is embroiled in a $30 million breach of contract civil suit with Arrow McLaren for not honoring a deal to join that team.

    He’s instead stayed loyal to Ganassi and this year, Palou won five of the first six races, including the Indianapolis 500 that had eluded him in five previous tries. That win at the Brickyard cemented the Spaniard’s path to another championship and he’s been untouchable since.

    Palou went into Portland with a series-high eight wins, five poles, 11 top-five finishes in 14 races, 563 laps led and a 1.2 average finish. He padded those number on Sunday.

    Palou joined Dario Franchitti, Sebastien Bourdais and Ted Horn as the only drivers in series history to win three consecutive titles. But, with two more races this season, Palou has a chance to tie the IndyCar record for victories in a season set at 10 by Foyt in 1964 and Al Unser in 1970.

    He lost his chance to break the most wins in a season record Sunday when Will Power won at Portland. It was the first victory of the season for the Penske fleet, which has been in a slump all year and did not get its first win until the 15th of 17 races.

    ___

    AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

    Source link

  • Trump makes false claims about federal response as he campaigns in area ravaged by Hurricane Helene

    VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) — Donald Trump repeatedly spread falsehoods Monday about the federal response to Hurricane Helene despite claiming not to be politicizing the disaster as he toured hard-hit areas in south Georgia.

    The former president and Republican nominee claimed upon landing in Valdosta that President Joe Biden was “sleeping” and not responding to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who he said was “calling the president and hasn’t been able to get him.” He repeated the claim at an event with reporters after being told Kemp said he had spoken to Biden.

    “He’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying,” Biden said Monday.

    The White House previously announced that Biden spoke by phone Sunday night with Kemp and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, as well as Scott Matheson, mayor of Valdosta, Georgia, and Florida Emergency Management Director John Louk. Kemp confirmed Monday morning that he spoke to Biden the night before.

    “The president just called me yesterday afternoon and I missed him and called him right back and he just said ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And I told him, you know, we’ve got what we need, we’ll work through the federal process,” Kemp said. “He offered if there are other things we need just to call him directly, which I appreciate that.”

    In addition to being humanitarian crises, natural disasters can create political tests for elected officials, particularly in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign in which among the hardest-hit states were North Carolina and Georgia, two battlegrounds. Trump over the last several days has used the damage wrought by Helene to attack Harris, the Democratic nominee, and suggest she and Biden are playing politics with the storm — something he was accused of doing when president.

    Biden is defiant about spending time at his beach house

    While the White House highlighted Biden’s call to Kemp and others, the president faced questions about his decision to spend the weekend at his beach house in Delaware, rather than the White House, to monitor the storm.

    “I was commanding it,” Biden told reporters after delivering remarks at the White House on the federal government’s response. “I was on the phone for at least two hours yesterday and the day before as well. I commanded it. It’s called a telephone.”

    AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports Donald Trump is touring Hurricane Helene’s damage in Georgia, while blasting the Biden administration’s response to the deadly storm.

    Biden received frequent updates on the storm, the White House said, as did Harris aboard Air Force Two as she made a West Coast campaign swing. The vice president cut short her campaign trip Monday to return to Washington for a briefing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    Trump, writing on his social media platform Monday, also claimed without evidence that the federal government and North Carolina’s Democratic governor were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” Asheville, which was devastated by the storm, is solidly Democratic, as is much of Buncombe County, which surrounds it.

    The death toll from Helene has surpassed 100 people, with some of the worst damage caused by inland flooding in North Carolina.

    Biden said he will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to get a first-hand look at the devastation, but will limit his footprint so as not to distract from the ongoing recovery efforts.

    During remarks Monday at FEMA headquarters, Harris said she has received regular briefings on the disaster response, including from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, and has spoken with Kemp and Cooper in the last 24 hours.

    What to know about the 2024 election:

    News outlets globally count on the AP for accurate U.S. election results. Since 1848, the AP has been calling races up and down the ballot. Support us. Donate to the AP.

    “I have shared with them that we will do everything in our power to help communities respond and recover,” she said. “And I’ve shared with them that I plan to be on the ground as soon as possible without disrupting any emergency response operations.”

    When asked if her visit was politicizing the storm, she frowned and shook her head but did not reply.

    Trump partnered with a Christian charity to bring supplies

    The Trump campaign partnered with the Christian humanitarian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse to bring trucks of fuel, food, water and other critical supplies to Georgia, said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary.

    Leavitt did not immediately respond to questions about how much had been donated and from which entity. Samaritan’s Purse also declined to address the matter in a statement.

    Trump also launched a GoFundMe campaign for supporters to send financial aid to people impacted by the storm. It quickly passed its $1 million goal Monday night.

    “Our hearts are with you and we are going to be with you as long as you need it,” Trump said, flanked by a group of elected officials and Republican supporters.

    “We’re not talking about politics now,” Trump added.

    Trump said he wanted to stop in North Carolina but was holding off because access and communication is limited in hard-hit communities.

    When asked by The Associated Press on Monday if he was concerned that his visit to Georgia was taking away law enforcement resources that could be used for disaster response, Trump said, “No.” He said his campaign instead “brought many wagons of resources.”

    Katie Watson, who owns with her husband the home design store Trump visited, said she was told the former president picked that location because he saw shots of the business destroyed with the rubble and said, “Find that place and find those people.”

    “He didn’t come here for me. He came here to recognize that this town has been destroyed. It’s a big setback,” she said.

    “He recognizes that we are hurting and he wants us to know that,” she added. “It was a lifetime opportunity to meet the president. This is not exactly the way I wanted to do it.”

    Trump campaign officials have long pointed to his visit to East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a toxic trail derailment, as a turning point in the early days of the presidential race when he was struggling to establish his footing as a candidate. They believed his warm welcome by residents frustrated by the federal government’s response helped remind voters why they had been drawn to him years earlier.

    Trump fought with Puerto Rico and meteorologists while president

    During Trump’s term as president, he visited numerous disaster zones, including the aftermaths of hurricanes, tornadoes and shootings. But the trips sometimes elicited controversy such as when he tossed paper towels to cheering residents in Puerto Rico in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

    It also took until weeks before the presidential election in 2020 for Trump’s administration to release $13 billion in assistance for the territory. A federal government watchdog found that officials hampered an investigation into delays in aid delivery.

    In another 2019 incident, Trump administration officials admonished some meteorologists for tweeting that Alabama was not threatened by Hurricane Dorian, contradicting the then-president. Trump would famously display a map altered with a black Sharpie pen to indicate Alabama could be in the path of the storm.

    ___

    Fernando reported from Chicago, and Amy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Chris Megerian and Aamer Madhani in Washington, and Will Weissert in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

    Source link

  • What to know about Biltmore Estate reopening after Hurricane Helene

    What to know about Biltmore Estate reopening after Hurricane Helene

    North Carolina’s Biltmore Estate will soon reopen after being forced to close when floodwaters pushed by Hurricane Helene devastated the area.

    The popular tourist destination announced over the weekend that they plan to open and “celebrate the joy of the holiday season” on Nov. 2.

    “For more than 125 years, Biltmore has been a witness to the resilience of this community,” the Asheville-based estate posted in a statement. “The compassion and resolve of our region have been rising every day from beneath the weight of this storm.”

    Here are a few things to know:

    Why did Biltmore close?

    On Sept. 27, the remnants of Hurricane Helene destroyed large swaths of the Southeast as flooding overwhelmed communities, swiped out roads and knocked out power for thousands. North Carolina’s largest mountain city was left largely isolated as many of the main routes into Asheville were washed away or blocked by mudslides.

    Officials have warned that rebuilding after Helene will be lengthy and difficult. Helene first roared ashore in northern Florida on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 hurricane and quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. The storm upended life throughout the Southeast, where to date nearly 250 deaths have been reported in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

    Western North Carolina was hit especially hard because that’s where the remnants of Helene encountered the higher elevations and cooler air of the Appalachian Mountains, causing even more rain to fall. Asheville and many surrounding mountain towns were built in valleys, leaving them especially vulnerable to devastating rain and flooding.

    It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005.

    What damage did Biltmore experience?

    According to the Biltmore Estate, the 8,000-acre property was impacted very little by Hurricane Helene. Along with the Biltmore House, the estate includes a conservatory, winery, gardens and overnight properties, which received varying degrees of minimal or no damage.

    Instead, some of the property’s more low-lying areas were the most impacted by the storm. Notably, the entrance to the Biltmore Estate experienced flooding and is currently undergoing “extensive repairs.” The estate’s website says the recovery effort will result in the removal of weakened poplar trees that lined the entrance gate.

    Why is the Biltmore a tourist destination?

    The Biltmore Estate was completed in 1895 during the nation’s Gilded Age. It was anchored by a 250-room French chateau built at the direction of George Vanderbilt and is the largest privately owned home in the United States.

    Biltmore draws about 1.4 million visitors on average in a year and employs nearly 2,500 employees — all of whom were accounted for after the storm, according to the estate’s website. The estate is one of the largest employers in the Asheville area.

    The mansion has rarely closed since opening to the public. When Biltmore laid off most its staff in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, the estate said it was first time it was forced to close since World War II.

    Source link

  • AI is being used to send some households impacted by Helene and Milton $1,000 cash relief payments

    AI is being used to send some households impacted by Helene and Milton $1,000 cash relief payments

    Nearly 1,000 hurricane-impacted households in North Carolina and Florida will benefit this week from a new disaster aid program that employs a model not commonly used by philanthropy in the United States: Giving people rapid, direct cash payments.

    The nonprofit GiveDirectly plans to send payments of $1,000 on Friday to some households impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. The organization harnesses a Google-developed artificial intelligence tool to pinpoint areas with high concentrations of poverty and storm damage. On Tuesday, it invited people in those areas to enroll in the program through a smartphone app used to manage SNAP and other government benefits. Donations will then be deposited through the app’s debit card.

    The approach is meant to deliver aid “in as streamlined and dignified a way as possible,” said Laura Keen, a senior program manager at GiveDirectly. It removes much of the burden of applying, and is intended to empower people to decide for themselves what their most pressing needs are.

    It won’t capture everyone who needs help — but GiveDirectly hopes the program can be a model that makes disaster aid faster and more effective. “We’re always trying to grow the share of disaster response that is delivered as cash, whether that is by FEMA or private actors,” said Keen.

    The influx of clothing, blankets, and food that typically arrive after a disaster can fill real needs, but in-kind donations can’t cover getting a hotel room during an evacuation, or childcare while schools are closed.

    “There is an elegance to cash that allows individuals in these types of circumstances to resolve their unique needs, which are sure to be very different from the needs of their neighbors,” said Keen. She added that getting money into people’s hands fast can protect them from predatory lending and curb credit card debt.

    The organization employs direct payments for poverty relief around the world, but it first experimented with cash disaster payments in the U.S. in 2017, when it gave money to households impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Back then, GiveDirectly enrolled people in person and handed out debit cards activated later. The process took a few weeks.

    Now that work is done in days — remotely. A Google team uses its SKAI machine-based learning tool to narrow down the worst-hit areas by comparing pre- and post-disaster aerial imagery. GiveDirectly uses another Google-developed tool to compare those findings with poverty data. It sends the target areas to Propel, an electronic benefits transfers app, which invites users in those places to enroll.

    “They don’t have to find a bunch of documentation that proves their eligibility,” Keen said. “We already know they’re eligible.”

    Still, focusing on areas with lots of damaged buildings won’t pick up all low-income households devastated by a disaster. Nor will reaching out to those already signed up for government benefits, as not all poor people enroll in them, and undocumented residents aren’t eligible for them. People without smartphones can’t access the app. Propel serves only 5 million of the 22 million households enrolled in SNAP benefits.

    In North Carolina, where electricity in some communities has still not been restored after Hurricane Helene, having a smartphone makes no difference without a way to power it and a signal to connect to.

    Keen said GiveDirectly is aware of this model’s shortcomings. She said some can be alleviated with a hybrid model that uses both remote and in-person enrollment. But the limitations also come down to funding. So far, GiveDirectly has raised $1.2 million for this campaign, including a $300,000 donation from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

    Despite the pitfalls, GiveDirectly hopes its model sparks ideas for other direct payment programs.

    FEMA overhauled its own cash relief program, called Serious Needs Assistance, in January. The agency increased the payments from $500 to $750 ($770 with the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1) and eliminated the requirement that states request the aid first.

    Across all Helene- and Milton-impacted states, more than 693,000 households have received Serious Needs Assistance as of Oct. 24 for a total spend of more than $522 million, according to a FEMA spokesperson.

    But the program still requires households to apply, which proved problematic when misinformation about the program ran rampant in the weeks after Helene. In places with high costs of living, the $750 might not go very far.

    Technology could help FEMA improve its system, said Chris Smith, who managed FEMA’s Individual Assistance program from 2015 to 2022 and is now director of individual assistance and disaster housing at the consulting firm IEM. “I think that we have to open up our imaginations that maybe there are other ways to quickly identify need and quickly identify eligibility.”

    But Smith cautions that a publicly funded program doesn’t enjoy the same license to experiment as a philanthropic one. “There has to be ultimately an accountability of how any level of government is providing assistance to individuals. People are going to want to know that, and to have that degree of certainty is very important.”

    The government has experimented with other types of unconditional cash assistance, such as when it expanded the child tax credit into a monthly direct deposit payment in 2021. That program briefly cut the child poverty rate almost by half before it expired.

    Research on guaranteed income programs shows recipients spend the money on their needs, said Stacia West, founding director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research. “There is no one who can budget better than a person in poverty,” she said.

    In a study tracking spending across 9,000 participants in more than 30 guaranteed income programs in the U.S., the Center for Guaranteed Income Research has found that the majority of the money is spent on retail goods, food and groceries, and transportation.

    West said one-time cash payments can be a huge help to families recovering from a disaster, but the money can make a more profound difference if it’s given for a sustained time.

    That has happened in two U.S. disasters. In 2016, Dolly Parton funded a program that gave $1,000 per month for six months to people in Tennessee who lost their homes in the Great Smoky Mountains wildfires. The People’s Fund of Maui, a program sponsored by Oprah and Dwayne Johnson, gave 8,100 adults affected by the 2023 Maui wildfires $1,200 month for six months.

    Keen said GiveDirectly would love to implement such a program if it had the funding, especially because long-term assistance could help people build future resilience. “So you’re not only repairing your home, but also fortifying it to a level that is more protected against the next time.”

    ——

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits 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. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

    Source link

  • North Carolina Supreme Court orders medical certification lawsuit be reheard

    North Carolina Supreme Court orders medical certification lawsuit be reheard

    RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s highest court ruled Friday that a lower court should reconsider the constitutionality of a state law that requires health regulators to sign off before expanded health care services can be offered to the public.

    An eye doctor originated the challenge to the series of statutes known as the certificate of need law. Dr. Jay Singleton argued the requirement that regulators approve his ability to perform surgeries at his office violates his constitutional rights.

    The state Supreme Court, in a unanimous unsigned opinion, ordered that Singleton’s case be returned to a trial court.

    The justices wrote in part that the trial court that originally heard the case and a panel on the intermediate-level Court of Appeals mistakenly treated the lawsuit as one that challenged the law solely as it related to Singleton’s situation.

    In fact, Friday’s decision read, the lawsuit also contains allegations of “facial challenges” that “if proven, could render the Certificate of Need law unconstitutional in all its applications.” That could eliminate fully the requirement that a medical entity seeking to expand bed space or use expensive equipment receive formal approval from the Department of Health and Human Services.

    The agency is supposed to determine whether the services are necessary due to things like population growth or patient needs. Republican lawmakers and right-leaning think tanks have sought to reform or do away with certificate of need, replacing them with more free-market forces.

    The facial challenge found in the lawsuit means three trial judges could now preside over the case instead of one.

    Singleton sued the state health agency and executive and legislative branch leaders in 2020, alleging he was essentially unable to expand his New Bern practice and offer less costly surgeries because state regulators have calculated there’s no need in his area for additional operating room space. Singleton had been performing most of his surgeries at a New Bern hospital.

    The ruling that vacates the 2022 Court of Appeals decision sets no date for the case to be heard.

    Source link

  • A rare copy of the US Constitution sells for $9 million at auction

    A rare copy of the US Constitution sells for $9 million at auction

    ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A rare copy of the U.S. Constitution printed 237 years ago and sent to the states to be ratified was sold for $9 million at an auction Thursday evening in North Carolina.

    Brunk Auctions sold the document, the only copy of its type thought to be privately owned, at a private auction. The name of the buyer was not immediately released.

    Bidding took just over seven minutes, with bids coming in at $500,000 intervals mostly over the phone. There was a pause at $8.5 million, then another after someone on the phone bid $9 million.

    “Just another second or two. Savor it a little bit selling here at nine million,” said auctioneer and auction house owner Andrew Brunk.

    Brunk was thankful. The auction was originally set for Sept. 28 but was delayed after Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage throughout Asheville and western North Carolina.

    “It’s a privilege to have it here. It’s been quite a ride,” Brunk said.

    Part of a 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution that sold for $9 million is displayed on a screen at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C., on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

    Image

    Brunk Auctions owner Andrew Brunk takes bids for a copy of a painting shortly before a 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution was sold for $9 million in Asheville, N.C., on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

    Image

    Lauren Brunk waits to see if a bidder on the phone wants to make a bid during an auction that included a 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution that sold for $9 million at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C., on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

    The copy was printed after the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the proposed framework of the nation’s government in 1787 and sent it to the Congress of the ineffective first American government under the Articles of Confederation, requesting it be sent to the states to be ratified by the people.

    It’s one of about 100 copies printed by the secretary of that Congress, Charles Thomson. Just eight are known to still exist and the other seven are publicly owned.

    Thomson likely signed two copies for each of the original 13 states, essentially certifying them.

    What happened to the document up for auction Thursday between Thomson’s signature and 2022 is not known.

    Image

    A 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution that sold for $9 million is displayed at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C., on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

    Image

    FILE – An 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution that will be put up for auction is shown at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C., on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins, file)

    Image

    A Brunk auction employee waits to see if a bidder on the phone wants to make a bid during an auction that included a 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution that sold for $9 million at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C., on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

    Two years ago, a property was being cleared out in Edenton in eastern North Carolina that was once owned by Samuel Johnston. He was the governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789 and oversaw the state convention during his last year in office that ratified the Constitution.

    The copy was found inside a squat, two-drawer metal filing cabinet with a can of stain on top, in a long-neglected room piled high with old chairs and a dusty book case, before the old Johnston house was preserved. The document was a broad sheet that could be folded one time like a book.

    Along with the Constitution on the broad sheet printed front and back is a letter from George Washington asking for ratification. He acknowledged there would have to be compromise and that certain rights the states enjoyed would have to be given up for the nation’s long-term health.

    Image

    FILE – Part of an 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution that will be put up for auction is shown at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins, file)

    Image

    FILE – Auctioneer Andrew Brunk, left, and historian Seth Kaller, right show off a 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution that will be put up for auction at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C., on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins, file)

    Image

    Brunk Auctions owner Andrew Brunk takes bids for a 1787 copy of the U.S. Constitution that sold for $9 million in Asheville, N.C., on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

    The Constitution copy wasn’t the only seven-figure purchase Thursday. A watermarked 1776 first draft of the Articles of Confederation went for $1 million.

    Also sold for $85,000 was a 1788 Journal of the Convention of North Carolina at Hillsborough where representatives spent two weeks debating whether ratifying the Constitution would put too much power with the federal government instead of the states.

    Auction officials were not sure what the Constitution document would go for because there is so little to compare it to. The last time a copy of the Constitution that was sent to the states sold, it was for $400 in 1891.

    In 2021, Sotheby’s of New York sold one of only 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for the Continental Congress and delegates to the Constitutional Convention for $43.2 million, a record for a book or document.

    ___

    This story corrects that Andrew Brunk is the owner of the auction house that sold the document and not the owner of the document.

    Source link

  • North Carolina maker of high-purity quartz back operating post-Helene

    North Carolina maker of high-purity quartz back operating post-Helene

    SPRUCE PINE, N.C. (AP) — One of the two companies that manufacture high-purity quartz used for making semiconductors and other high-tech products from mines in a western North Carolina community severely damaged by Hurricane Helene is operating again.

    Sibelco announced on Thursday that production has restarted at its mining and processing operations in Spruce Pine, located 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Asheville. Production and shipments are progressively ramping up to full capacity, the company said in a news release.

    “While the road to full recovery for our communities will be long, restarting our operations and resuming shipments to customers are important contributors to rebuilding the local economy,” Sibelco CEO Hilmar Rode said.

    Sibelco and The Quartz Corp. shut down operations ahead of the arrival of Helene, which devastated Spruce Pine and surrounding Mitchell County. Following the storm, both companies said that all of their employees were accounted for and safe.

    The Quartz Corp. had said last week that it was too early to know when it would resume operations, adding it would depend on the rebuilding of local infrastructure.

    Spruce Pine quartz is used around the world to manufacture the equipment needed to make silicon chips. An estimated 70% to 90% of the crucibles used worldwide in which polysilicon used for the chips is melted down are made from Spruce Pine quartz, according to Vince Beiser, the author of “The World in a Grain.”

    The high-tech quartz is also used in manufacturing solar panels and fiber-optic cables.

    A Spruce Pine council member said recently that an estimated three-quarters of the town has a direct connection to the mines, whether through a job, a job that relies on the mines or a family member who works at the facilities.

    Source link

  • North Carolina governor candidate Mark Robinson sues CNN over report about posts on porn site

    North Carolina governor candidate Mark Robinson sues CNN over report about posts on porn site

    RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson sued CNN on Tuesday over its recent report that he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website’s message board, calling the reporting reckless and defamatory.

    The lawsuit, filed in Wake County Superior Court, comes less than four weeks after a report that led many fellow GOP elected officials and candidates, including presidential nominee Donald Trump, to distance themselves from Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign.

    Robinson, who announced the lawsuit at a news conference in Raleigh with a Virginia-based attorney, has denied authoring the messages.

    CNN “chose to publish despite knowing or recklessly disregarding that Lt. Gov. Robinson’s data — including his name, date of birth, passwords, and the email address supposedly associated with the NudeAfrica account — were previously compromised by multiple data breaches,” the lawsuit states, referencing the website.

    Robinson, who would be the state’s first Black governor if elected, called the report a “high-tech lynching” on a candidate “who has been targeted from Day 1 by folks who disagree with me politically and want to see me destroyed.”

    CNN declined to comment Tuesday, spokesperson Emily Kuhn said in an email.

    The CNN report, which first aired Sept. 19, said Robinson left statements over a decade ago on the message board in which, in part, he referred to himself as a “black NAZI,” said he enjoyed transgender pornography, said he preferred Hitler to then-President Barack Obama, and slammed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot.”

    The network report said it matched details of the account on the message board to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name. CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. CNN also said it compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.

    Polls at the time of the CNN report already showed Democratic rival Josh Stein, the sitting attorney general, with a lead over Robinson. Early in-person voting begins Thursday statewide, and over 57,000 completed absentee ballots have been received so far.

    Robinson also in the same defamation lawsuit sued a Greensboro punk rock band singer who alleged in a music video and in an interview with a media outlet that Robinson, in the 1990s and early 2000s, frequented a porn shop the singer once worked at and purchased videos. Louis Love Money, the other named defendant, released the video and spoke with other media outlets before the CNN report.

    Robinson denies the allegation in the lawsuit, which reads, “Lt. Gov. Robinson was not spending hours at the video store, five nights a week. He was not renting or previewing videos, and he did not purchase ‘bootleg’ or other videos from Defendant Money.”

    Money said in a phone interview Tuesday that he stands by his statements and the music video’s content as truthful: “My story hasn’t changed.”

    The lawsuit, which seeks at least $50 million in damages, says the effort against Robinson “appears to be a coordinated attack aimed at derailing his campaign for governor.” It provides no evidence that the network or Money schemed with outside groups to create what Robinson alleges are false statements.

    Attorney Jesse Binnall, right, speaks at a news conference, with his client North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, left, in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Karl B DeBlaker)

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Robinson’s lawyer, Jesse Binnall, said that he expects to find more “bad actors,” and that entities, which he did not identify, have stonewalled his firm’s efforts to collect information.

    “We will use every tool at our disposal now that a lawsuit has been filed, including the subpoena power, in order to continue pursuing the facts,” said Binnall, whose clients have included Trump and his campaign.

    In North Carolina courts, a public official claiming defamation generally must show a defendant knew a statement was false or recklessly disregarded its untruthfulness.

    Most of the top staff running Robinson’s campaign and his lieutenant governor’s office quit following the CNN report, and the Republican Governors Association, which had already spent millions of dollars in advertising backing Robinson, stopped supporting his bid. And Democrats from presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris to downballot state candidates began running ads linking their opponents to Robinson.

    Robinson’s campaign isn’t running TV commercials now. He said that “we’ve chosen to go in a different direction” and focus on in-person campaign stops.

    Robinson already had a history of inflammatory comments about topics like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights that Stein and his allies have emphasized in opposing him on TV commercials and online.

    Stein spokesperson Morgan Hopkins said Tuesday in a statement that “even before the CNN report, North Carolinians have known for a long time that Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor.”

    Hurricane Helene and its aftermath took the CNN report off the front pages. Robinson worked for several days with a central North Carolina sheriff collecting relief supplies and criticized Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper — barred by term limits from seeking reelection — for state government’s response in the initial stages of relief.

    Trump endorsed Robinson before the March gubernatorial primary, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids” for his speaking ability. Robinson had been a frequent presence at Trump’s North Carolina campaign stops, but he hasn’t participated in such an event since the CNN report.

    Source link

  • Voters in North Carolina and Georgia have bigger problems than politics. Helene changed everything

    Voters in North Carolina and Georgia have bigger problems than politics. Helene changed everything

    VILAS, N.C. (AP) — Brad Farrington pulls over to grab a case of water bottles being passed out in Vilas, a small rural community tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He’s on his way to help a friend who lost much of what he owned when Hurricane Helene blew through last weekend.

    His friend, like countless others across western North Carolina, is starting over, which explains why Farrington isn’t thinking too much about politics or the White House race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris right now.

    “I don’t believe people’s hope is in either people that are being elected,” he said.

    Farrington pauses, then gestures toward a dozen volunteers loading water and other necessities into cars and trucks.

    “I believe we’re finding a lot more hope within folks like this,” he said.

    In the election’s final weeks, people in North Carolina and Georgia, influential swing states, are dealing with more immediate concerns: widespread storm damage. If that weren’t enough, voters in Watauga County, a ticket-splitting Appalachian county that has become more Democratic in recent years, must contend with politicians laying blame while offering support as they campaign in a race that could be decided by any small shift.

    Large uprooted trees litter the sides of roads, sometimes blocking driveways. Some homes in Vilas are inaccessible after bridges collapsed and roads crumbled. More populous areas like Boone, home of Appalachian State University, saw major flooding.

    Residents wonder where are missing friends and relatives, is there enough food and water to last until new supplies arrive and how will they rebuild.

    The focus is on survival, not politics — and may remain that way for weeks.

    Politicians travel to affected battleground states

    Trump and Harris have visited North Carolina and Georgia five times since the storm hit. Trump was in North Carolina on Friday, and Harris was there the next day.

    After Trump went to Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, 20-year-old Fermin Herrera said the former president clinched his vote with his display of caring, not out of any frustration with how President Joe Biden and Harris, the vice president, are handling the federal disaster response. Herrera already leaned toward voting for Trump.

    “I feel like everybody’s kind doing what they can,” he said. “All the locals are appreciating the help that’s coming.”

    Trump, who has his own mixed record on natural disaster response, attacked Biden and Harris for what he said was a slow response to Helene’s destruction. Trump accused the Democrats of “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas” and said there wasn’t enough Federal Emergency Management Agency money because it was spent on illegal immigrants. There is no evidence to support either claim.

    “I’m not thinking about voters right now,” Trump insisted after a meeting with Gov. Brian Kemp, R-Ga., on Friday. “I’m thinking about lives.”

    Biden pushed back hard, saying he is “committed to being president for all of America” and has not ordered aid to be distributed based on party lines. The White House cited statements from the Republican governors of Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee expressing satisfaction with the federal government’s response.

    FEMA’s head, Deanne Criswell, told ABC’s “This Week” that this “truly dangerous narrative” of falsehoods is “demoralizing” to first responders and creating “fear in our own employees.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Criticism of aid efforts so soon after a natural disaster is “inappropriate,” especially when factoring in the daunting logistical problems in western North Carolina, said Gavin Smith, a North Carolina State University professor who specializes in disaster recovery. He said the perilous terrain from compromised roads and bridges and the widespread lack of power and cellphone service make disaster response in the region particularly challenging.

    Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has made several stops in western North Carolina, including Watauga County and surrounding areas, and Biden viewed the extensive damage via an aerial tour.

    A focus on recovering and rebuilding

    In Watauga County, Jessica Dixon was scraping muck and broken furniture off the ground with a shovel, then dumping it in the bucket of a humming excavator. The 29-year-old stood in a home she bought two years ago. It’s now gutted after a rush of water forced Dixon, her boyfriend and their two dogs to flee to safety.

    Without flood insurance, Dixon is not sure what will happen over the next month. She said she filled out a FEMA application but hasn’t checked her email since. She had given the presidential election some thought before Helene, but now she’s preoccupied with cleaning her home.

    “It wouldn’t change my views on anything,” said Dixon, who was planning to vote for Harris.

    The presidential election isn’t top of mind for 47-year-old Bobby Cordell, either. He’s trying to get help to neighbors in western Watauga County, which has become inaccessible in some parts.

    His home near Beech Mountain is one of those places, he said, after a bridge washed away. Cordell rescued his aunt from a mudslide, then traveled to Boone and has been staying in Appalachian State’s Holmes Convocation Center, which now serves as a Red Cross emergency shelter.

    He’s trying to send disaster relief back where he lives by contacting officials, including from FEMA. That conversation, he said, “went very well.”

    Accepting help isn’t easy for people in the mountains, he said, because they’re used to taking care of themselves.

    Now, though, the people who are trapped “need everything they can get.”

    Helping neighbors becomes more important in Helene’s aftermath

    Over the past week of volunteering at Skateworld, where Farrington stopped for water, it’s become harder for Nancy Crawford to smile. She’s helped serve more than 1,000 people, she said, but the emotional toll has started to settle in for “a lot of us that normally are tough.”

    That burden added to the weight she was already feeling about the election, which she said was “scary to begin with.” Crawford, a registered Republican, said she plans to vote for Harris. As a Latina of Mexican descent, she thinks Trump’s immigration policies would have harmful effects on her community.

    The storm, she said, likely won’t change her vote but has made one thing evident.

    “It doesn’t matter what party you are, we all need help,” she said.

    Jan Wellborn had a similar thought as she made her way around the Watauga High School gym collecting supplies to bring to coworkers in need. A 69-year-old bus driver for the school district, she said the outpouring of support she’s seen from the community has been a “godsend.”

    She takes solace from the county’s ability to pull together. The election matters, she said, but helping people make their way through a harrowing time matters more.

    “The election, it should be important,” Wellborn said. “But right now we need to focus on getting everybody in the county taken care of.”

    ——

    Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.

    Source link

  • US disaster relief chief blasts false claims about Helene response as a ‘truly dangerous narrative’

    US disaster relief chief blasts false claims about Helene response as a ‘truly dangerous narrative’

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government’s top disaster relief official said Sunday that false claims and conspiracy theories about the federal response to Hurricane Helene — spread most prominently by Donald Trump — are “demoralizing” aid workers and creating fear in people who need recovery assistance.

    “It’s frankly ridiculous, and just plain false. This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” said Deanne Criswell, who leads the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do. We have had the complete support of the state,” she said, referring to North Carolina.

    AP AUDIO: Correspondent Julie Walker reports after the deluge, lies and misinformation are clouding the recovery effort from Hurricane Helene.

    Republicans, led by the former president, have helped foster a frenzy of misinformation over the past week among the communities most devastated by Helene, promoting a number of false claims, including that Washington is intentionally withholding aid to people in Republican areas.

    Trump accused FEMA of spending all its money to help immigrants who are in the United States illegally, while other critics assert that the government spends too much on Israel, Ukraine and other foreign countries.

    “FEMA absolutely has enough money for Helene response right now,” Keith Turi, acting director of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery said. He noted that Congress recently replenished the agency with $20 billion, and about $8 billion of that is set aside for recovery from previous storms and mitigation projects.

    There also are outlandish theories that include warnings from far-right extremist groups that officials plan to bulldoze storm-damaged communities and seize the land from residents. A falsehood pushed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., asserts that Washington used weather control technology to steer Helene toward Republican voters in order to tilt the presidential election toward Democrat Kamala Harris.

    Criswell said on ABC’s “This Week” that such baseless claims around the response to Helene, which caused catastrophic damage from Florida into the Appalachian mountains and a death toll that rose Sunday to at least 230, have created a sense of fear and mistrust from residents against the thousands of FEMA employees and volunteers on the ground.

    “We’ve had the local officials helping to push back on this dangerous — truly dangerous narrative that is creating this fear of trying to reach out and help us or to register for help,” she said.

    President Joe Biden said in a statement Sunday that his administration “will continue working hand-in-hand with local and state leaders –- regardless of political party and no matter how long it takes.”

    Meantime, FEMA is preparing for Hurricane Milton, which rapidly intensified into a Category 1 storm on Sunday as it heads toward Florida.

    “We’re working with the state there to understand what their requirements are going to be, so we can have those in place before it makes landfall,” she said.

    Source link

  • Andrew Frazier, TJ Magee lead Davidson over Presbyterian 48-37 in delayed conference opener

    Andrew Frazier, TJ Magee lead Davidson over Presbyterian 48-37 in delayed conference opener

    DAVIDSON, N.C. (AP) — Andrew Frazier threw a touchdown pass and had two of Davidson’s five touchdown runs, TJ Magee returned an interception 98 yards for a score and the Wildcats defeated Presbyterian 48-37 on Sunday night after the two teams were forced to wait an extra day because of severe weather from Tropical Storm Helene.

    The site of the Pioneer Football League opener was also moved from Clinton, S.C., to Davidson College Stadium.

    Frazier completed all three of his passes for 50 yards and carried five times for 33 yards, scoring on a 16-yard run to give Davidson (3-1) a 7-0 lead after one quarter.

    Mason Sheron had a 1-yard touchdown run three minutes into the second quarter and the Wildcats led 14-0. Magee’s interception came on second-and-goal at the 1-yard line for the Blue Hose for a 21-0 advantage. Sheron had another short touchdown run and Frazier fired a 60-yard scoring strike to Aaron Malone for a 35-13 lead at halftime.

    Collin Hurst threw touchdown passes covering 23 yards to Dominic Kibby and 15 to Nathan Levicki to pull Presbyterian (2-3) within 35-25. but it would get no closer after Mari Adams followed with a 63-yard touchdown run for the Wildcats.

    Frazier completed 8 of 10 passes for 159 yards and rushed eight times for 51. Adams carried 16 times for 128 yards, while Sheron added 93 on 11 carries. The Wildcats rushed for 355 yards.

    Hurst finished with 358 yards on 23-for-37 passing. Worth Warner had eight catches for 132 yards. Zach Switzer had two short scoring runs and a touchdown catch. Quante Jennings had a 33-yard touchdown run.

    ___

    Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

    Source link