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  • Amazon workers vote against forming union in upstate New York, dealing setback to grassroots labor group | CNN Business

    Amazon workers vote against forming union in upstate New York, dealing setback to grassroots labor group | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Amazon workers in upstate New York have voted against forming a union, dealing another blow to a grassroots labor group attempting to organize several of the tech giant’s US warehouses.

    In total, 406 workers at the Amazon facility near Albany voted against unionizing and 206 voted for it, according to a preliminary tally Tuesday from the National Labor Relations Board. There were some challenged and void ballots, but not a big enough figure to sway the final results.

    Workers at the facility, called ALB1, were seeking to organize with the Amazon Labor Union, the same grassroots worker group that successfully formed the first-ever union at a US Amazon facility in Staten Island, New York, earlier this year. The Albany vote was the ALU’s third attempt to unionize an Amazon warehouse, after it fell short of securing a union win at a smaller Amazon facility also located in Staten Island. It also comes as Amazon has still not formally recognized the union in Staten Island or come to the bargaining table.

    After the vote count concluded on Tuesday, ALU President Chris Smalls said his labor group is “filled with mixed emotions” over the results and pledged: “This won’t be the end of ALU at ALB1.”

    Smalls also accused Amazon of retaliating against union organizers at ALB1, which Amazon has previously denied, and blasted the vote as a “sham election.”

    Amazon, meanwhile, welcomed the results of the election in a statement Tuesday.

    “We’re glad that our team in Albany was able to have their voices heard, and that they chose to keep the direct relationship with Amazon as we think that this is the best arrangement for both our employees and customers,” Kelly Nantel, a spokesperson for Amazon, said in a statement. “We will continue to work directly with our teammates in Albany, as we do everywhere, to keep making Amazon better every day.”

    The Amazon organizing efforts have come amid a broader reawakening of the US labor movement during the pandemic, with some early union victories at companies such as Apple and Starbucks. Smalls, in particular, has emerged as a face of this labor movement since the win in Staten Island, making appearances at the White House and posing with celebrities at the Time 100 summit.

    Smalls previously told CNN Business that the ALU has been fielding an explosion of interest from Amazon workers at other facilities since its original victory. In addition to the ALB1 facility, an Amazon fulfillment center in Moreno Valley, California, also recently submitted a petition for a union election with the ALU.

    But ahead of the Albany vote last week, Smalls appeared to play down the ramifications of the outcome, suggesting the organizing activity itself is a victory. “The expansion of the ALU is definitely historical by itself,” he previously told CNN. “I don’t think nothing’s up for stake.”

    Smalls echoed that sentiment in a tweet on Tuesday before the vote tally kicked off. “Proud of the brave workers of ALB1 regardless of todays results,” he tweeted, adding: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!”

    Amazon’s worker-organizers at the Albany facility say they were inspired to form a union after seeing the success of the ALU in Staten Island. Some workers in Albany said they were also motivated to organize after witnessing colleagues get injured on the job. A report from the National Employment Law Project found that the ALB1 facility had the highest rates of “most serious injuries” among all Amazon facilities in the state.

    An Amazon spokesperson previously told CNN Business that Amazon ramped up hiring to meet demand from Covid-19 “and like other companies in the industry, we saw an increase in recordable injuries during this time from 2020 to 2021 as we trained so many new employees.” The spokesperson added that the company has invested billions of dollars in new operations safety measures.

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  • As Democrats try to hold on in November, it’s Pete Buttigieg who’s in demand on the campaign trail | CNN Politics

    As Democrats try to hold on in November, it’s Pete Buttigieg who’s in demand on the campaign trail | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A selfie crowd formed around Pete Buttigieg as he stood in line for coffee at the airport in Washington.

    One woman said she wasn’t going to stop because she wasn’t sure it was him. “It’s me,” the Transportation secretary replied.

    An older man explained to his wife, “That’s Pete BOOT-GUG,” missing the pronunciation and the emphasis.

    “He’s the President’s…” the man said, unable to come up with his job title.

    And yet, it’s Buttigieg – whose only political experience before his failed presidential bid was serving as mayor of South Bend, Indiana – who has become the most requested surrogate on the campaign trail for Democratic candidates in the midterms, people familiar with the requests tell CNN. He’s so in demand that he’s getting more requests than Vice President Kamala Harris, those sources tell CNN – but still fewer than President Joe Biden – as Democrats look to defend their narrow congressional majorities and win governor’s races in November.

    With invitations flowing into the White House and the Democratic National Committee, a relatively low-ranking Cabinet secretary’s staff has to choose between Democratic candidates trying to chase him down. There’s no precedent for this. But there’s also no precedent for the winner of the Iowa caucuses becoming Transportation secretary and proving more agile on camera than the vice president and Biden.

    Both Buttigieg and Harris are widely expected to run to succeed Biden – whether an open race emerges in 2024 or 2028 – and for Democrats looking ahead, the party’s preference for Buttigieg on the trail may be an early indicator of the future direction of the party overall.

    Two dozen operatives and candidates tell CNN they think Buttigieg is benefiting from the desire for a fresh face. Despite a steady uptick since the summer, Biden’s approval ratings are low, and Democrats believe that’s hurting Harris too, who has had her own political struggles – even as much of the administration’s agenda remains broadly popular.

    “It’s the association with being a Democrat – but not with Biden or Harris,” said one operative involved in multiple House races, explaining why campaigns have been gravitating to Buttigieg. “In the context of what people have to pick from, he’s very popular.”

    It’s not just about popularity. Some campaign operatives admit, with a note of embarrassment, they have been reluctant to invite Harris out of fear that would bring scrutiny from Republicans who monitor every word she says in ways Buttigieg rarely has to worry about, leaving candidates as collateral damage in an attack (fairly or unfairly) aimed at the first Black woman vice president.

    And some point to the basics of tight campaign budgets in the final stretch of the midterms: the vice president’s security footprint is large, and when she travels for politics, some of the costs for the Secret Service and local police protection have to be covered by the campaigns that are bringing her in. Even just a few hours on the ground can run tens of thousands of dollars and create traffic and other hold ups.

    Buttigieg, by contrast, can travel with just a member of the Protective Services Division squished beside him in coach on a commercial flight. Harris only meets people who’ve been wanded by the Secret Service and tested for Covid-19, while Buttigieg can go to political events making his way through the airport in the reverse of his campaign trail style – suit jacket on now, but no tie.

    White House political aides “recognize the dexterity and want to dispatch him to places that he uniquely can go and where Democrats don’t traditionally campaign,” said one person familiar with Buttigieg’s plans taking shape.

    That’s in contrast to the vice president’s team, which has been hoping to rebuild her standing by keeping her away from many tight races and focused largely on Black voters, among whom she remains very popular, and on women as she talks about abortion rights, arguing that she can have a large influence indirectly.

    Aides to a West Coast House Democrat in a very competitive race were debating who was going to be their one big ask in the final stretch. The President? The vice president? The first lady?

    “A senior staffer on our campaign says, ‘Throwing in two cents from our finance director – our San Francisco people have expressed that they don’t really care about POTUS, VPOTUS or the first lady. … They just really like Secretary Pete,’” recounted one of the aides.

    One Biden adviser highlighted an intentional deployment of the Cabinet over the final month in races where they think they’ll matter most, urging them to appear in their personal capacities to avoid violating the Hatch Act provisions on not mixing government work with campaigning. Only a few secretaries beyond Buttigieg, though, have generated much interest: Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, rarely much of a political presence, will also hit the trail soon for a few events.

    But of those, Buttigieg is the only one who shows up in early presidential polls. He’s the one who was invited to address House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s retreat for top donors in Napa Valley in August. He’s the one who’s already headlined an event for Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, seen as perhaps the most endangered Democrat in the Senate, and for Nan Whaley, the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor.

    Buttigieg, who came in a close second in the 2020 New Hampshire Democratic primary, was state party officials’ top choice to headline their big fall fundraising dinner, according to party officials, even before a poll that came out in late July showing him leading the field for a theoretical New Hampshire primary, essentially tied with Biden but edging out Harris by 11 percentage points.

    To the surprise of some in New Hampshire, the White House political office greenlit the invitation not long after. Tickets sold out.

    The morning of the New Hampshire speech, state Rep. Matt Wilhelm proudly tweeted a photo of a “BOOT EDGE EDGE” mug he had left over from when he’d endorsed and volunteered on his presidential campaign two years ago.

    “When I was asked by the party, ‘Who do we want as a surrogate?’ not only was I supportive of Pete, because yeah, I want him back here, but I think that he’s the kind of messenger that we want on the ground to get people fired up ahead of the midterms,” Wilhelm said. He remains very popular in the state, added Rep. Annie Kuster, who’d endorsed him in 2020 and had him headline a fundraiser for her campaign this year.

    The synth-horn notes of “High Hopes,” his old campaign anthem, played as Buttigieg took the stage. He hadn’t done a big political speech in two years. And while rattling off Biden administration accomplishments – like putting Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court and signing bipartisan legislation providing health care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits – he had some rusty moments working out new lines.

    “Most Americans don’t need culture wars every time there’s a gay Muppet or Black mermaid on TV – we need funding for our public schools,” he said in one riff.

    But it all built to a very Buttigieg centerpiece, intended to generate knowing smirks more than laughs, and metered out to invite the standing ovation he got.

    “Teddy Roosevelt had the square deal. FDR had the New Deal. So I’m going to say this body of defining achievements, this incredibly productive year, amounts to such a big deal that we ought to just call it The Big Deal,” Buttigieg said, putting that up against Republicans’ “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

    “And if, in the tradition of our President, you like to insert an extra adjective in there, feel free.”

    He ended with a passage that could one day drop right into a political convention speech, soaring past Biden or the infrastructure law or any more Trump mentions, to an aspirational line about building a “truly representative, fully inclusive, multi-racial, democratic republic like the one that has been under constant construction here on US soil for the last 200 years.”

    “This is somebody who really believes in the promise of democracy and in delivering results,” Sen. Maggie Hassan said after the final standing ovation for Buttigieg. “And we have seen him delivering results. And his pragmatic approach really means a lot to people here.” Hassan, who is facing a competitive reelection after winning her first term by only 1,017 votes, also had Buttigieg headline a fundraiser for her in Washington earlier this summer.

    Two weeks later, on another Saturday night, Harris was the featured speaker at the Texas Democrats’ big dinner in Austin. Every statewide Democratic candidate skipped, except the nominee for state railroad commissioner. Tickets were not as hard to get, though the state chair said it was their highest grossing event ever, and some took note that several state legislators from other parts of the state specifically flew in to be there.

    Harris’ stump speeches tend to be more grounded and direct, much like she is herself.

    She rooted her Austin speech in home turf stories about former Rep. Barbara Jordan and Lyndon Johnson, leading an enthusiastic call and response. She built up to a line she has often used, paraphrasing, she recalled, “the words of a great American leader, Coretta Scott King, who said: The struggle for justice is a never-ending process. And freedom is never really won; you earn it, and you win it in each and every generation.”

    Even though the White House political office lets Harris’ team pick her spots and write her speeches, she can’t stray far. When she talks up Biden’s record, she has to be subsumed to the President. She can’t put her own spin on it, aside from occasional moments, such as two days after Biden rolled out his marijuana policy changes without her in the frame, when she said, “Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.”

    Harris discusses reproductive rights at the LBJ Presidential Library on October 8, 2022, in Austin, Texas.

    “There’s a house that Joe Biden built – it’s got a bunch of rooms, and as vice president you can choose which of the rooms you sit in. But you’ve got to be in Joe Biden’s house,” a Harris adviser said recently, trying to come up with a metaphor to describe the dynamics within the administration.

    That reality – in addition to the different political landscapes in the two states – helps explains the different responses Buttigieg and Harris received in New Hampshire and Texas.

    “The administration does not have a good brand in Texas – and that’s Joe Biden or Kamala Harris,” said one of the attendees at the Austin event who asked not to be named.

    By contrast, being part of the administration has benefits for Buttigieg – without some of the burdens Harris faces. Since he’s doling out federal dollars in his official capacity, politicians like to be seen with him. At the dinner in New Hampshire, nearly every speaker made a joke about how they hoped he’d come back with another big check for an infrastructure project.

    This past Wednesday in South Carolina, House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn – a key Biden supporter, and a promoter of Harris – spent the day with the secretary, going around with him to multiple events.

    But he said he had been eager to have Harris appear at the South Carolina Democratic Party dinner in June, and noted that she was in the critical early primary state again at his alma mater just a few weeks ago.

    “When you’re bringing her in, there’s a cost factor that goes far beyond what most Democratic Party folks can afford,” Clyburn said, not the expense of Air Force 2. “When we were bringing her to South Carolina, it was a real big problem. In fact, yours truly had to step up to help the party be able to afford it.”

    That speech, to an enthusiastic room in Columbia, was warmly received. Clyburn called the money he’d kicked in from his own campaign account “money well spent.”

    Buttigieg is both self-aware enough to know that any move suggesting presidential thinking would almost certainly leak and self-confident enough to believe he doesn’t need to start laying the groundwork for a campaign now.

    People in Buttigieg’s orbit and the secretary himself try to downplay any presidential speculation, and any suggestion of tension between the once and possible future rivals. People in Harris’ orbit say that they don’t spend much time thinking about the Transportation secretary, but when they do, they’re often left feeling he gets a pass on moves that for her would be seen as machinations.

    “The future is Joe Biden is going to run for reelection in 2024 – so what’s the point of thinking beyond that?” said one Buttigieg adviser.

    In the airport coffee line, though, a woman shrugged as her husband tried to explain who Buttigieg was after mispronouncing his name.

    “I would not have known him if he bought my coffee,” she said.

    That’s the downside for Buttigieg. Not far away, a stand was selling Harris bobbleheads and a T-shirt with her face on it.

    CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to more accurately reflect the demand for tickets for Harris’ Austin event, which was the highest grossing event ever for the state party, according to its chair.

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  • DeSantis migrant relocation program planned to transport ‘100 or more’ to Delaware, Illinois, documents obtained by CNN show | CNN Politics

    DeSantis migrant relocation program planned to transport ‘100 or more’ to Delaware, Illinois, documents obtained by CNN show | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ migrant relocation program planned to transport “approximately 100 or more” migrants to Delaware and Illinois between September 19 and October 3, according to documents obtained by CNN through a public records request.

    The documents are memos sent to the Florida Department of Transportation’s state purchasing administrator from James Montgomerie, the CEO of Vertol Systems Company Inc., the company that Florida contracted to arrange transport for the migrants.

    The memo explicitly states that Vertol Systems would provide the services to transport the migrants, “from Florida.”

    Two “projects” were planned, according to a September 15 memo. “Project 2” would transport “up to fifty” migrants to Delaware; “project 3” would transport “up to fifty” migrants to Illinois.

    Both projects were scheduled to take place between September 19 and October 3.

    A second memo, dated September 16, combined the projects into one and estimated their cost as $950,000.

    The memo also said the migrants could be transported to a “proximate northeastern state designated by FDOT based on extant conditions.”

    CNN reached out to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker for comment but did not immediately receive a response. A spokesperson for Delaware Gov. John Carney said he had no comment.

    Vertol Systems was paid $1.6 million by the state of Florida, including a payment of $950,000.

    The flights to Delaware and Illinois never happened. However, flight plans were filed with the FAA that indicated there was a second set of flights planned from San Antonio to Delaware.

    A third memo, dated October 8, notes that Vertol extended the project dates to December 1, meaning that the flights could still take place.

    On September 14, two planes picked up 48 migrants from San Antonio, Texas, and transported them to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The flights, paid for by the state of Florida, temporarily stopped to refuel in Crestview, Florida, and the Carolinas.

    DeSantis has tried to sidestep criticism of the flights, saying they were necessary to stop the flow of migrants at the source before they came to Florida.

    “If you can do it at the source and divert to sanctuary jurisdictions, the chance they end up in Florida is much less,” DeSantis told reporters in September.

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  • Apple store workers in Oklahoma to vote on labor union | CNN Business

    Apple store workers in Oklahoma to vote on labor union | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Apple workers in Oklahoma City are set to vote this week on whether to form the second-ever labor union at one of the tech giant’s US stores.

    The Apple store workers in Oklahoma are seeking to gain representation with the Communication Workers of America union. Voting is set to take place on Thursday and Friday, with the vote-tally scheduled for Friday evening. Just under 100 employees at the Apple store in the Penn Square Mall are eligible to vote in this union election.

    Earlier this year, Apple store workers at a mall in Towson, Maryland, made history when they voted to become the first unionized Apple store in the United States. The move was lauded by President Joe Biden, among others. In late June, the National Labor Relations Board officially certified the union election win, paving the way for the workers and Apple management to negotiate their first contract.

    The organizing efforts at Apple stores come amid the backdrop of a tidal wave of workplace activism emerging at major companies from Amazon to Starbucks after the pandemic exposed new pressures on frontline workers and a tight labor market gave these workers new leverage.

    Leigha Briscoe, a worker at the Oklahoma Apple store, said that their group was inspired to organize after “seeing what was happening in the labor movement across the United States with other large corporations.”

    “Particularly watching Amazon and Starbucks has been the two that really stuck out to me,” she said. “That really kind of brought to light the possibility of us being able to do that in our store.”

    Watching these other workers seize new power via organizing also helped in “shifting my view of what a labor union was, and seeing that, ‘Hey, this is something that can still be done in the modern workforce,’” Briscoe added. “That’s really what kind of helped me see that this was going to be valuable for our team, and I think it’s safe to say that a lot of our other team members were also watching that happen as well, and that kind of inspired them in the same way as it has me.”

    “Fundamentally, what we’re looking for is being able to have a seat at the table and negotiate what our experience looks like,” she said.

    An Apple spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the Oklahoma City vote. Ahead of the union election at the Maryland store earlier this year, Apple said in a statement that it deeply values its retail team members and emphasized that it offers a “very strong compensation and benefits for full time and part time employees.”

    One of the worker organizers at the Maryland location previously told CNN that “compensation is important” but “the most important” goal was “having a say” in store policies that impact staff.

    Patrick Hart, another worker at the Oklahoma City Apple store, echoed that sentiment. Hart said he was tired of hearing from his managers that “that’s just how it is” when he raised concerns or brought feedback to them about their workplace experiences. He said they are seeking more of a voice in their workplace with their unionization efforts.

    Hart also emphasized that he was inspired by the resurgence of the organized labor movement, and especially efforts to unionize Amazon warehouses. The new labor push comes as union membership overall in the United States has plummeted in recent decades. The unionization rate for all wage and salary workers in the United States last year was some 10.3%, Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data indicates, compared to 20.1% in 1983, which was the first year comparable data was available.

    After taking inspiration from others, Hart said he hopes that their efforts in Oklahoma can similarly embolden fellow workers to band together – no matter what industry they may be in.

    “I want everyone to realize unions aren’t just for those bad and hard workplaces, it is for everyone in America, we have the right to unionize,” Hart said. “I just want people to realize that, because it can do a lot of good for a lot of people who feel they’re stuck in their workplace.”

    Hart continued: “They don’t have to leave their job, they can just make their current one a better place.”

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  • New York City announces its largest fentanyl seizure in history, eclipsing record bust from last month | CNN

    New York City announces its largest fentanyl seizure in history, eclipsing record bust from last month | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Days after federal officials announced the largest fentanyl seizure in New York City history, an even greater quantity of the highly addictive substance has been found, authorities say.

    Two people have been arrested and charged with multiple drug and firearm charges in connection to the seizure on October 7 at a Bronx apartment building, prosecutors said in a news release.

    Authorities found roughly 300,000 rainbow-colored fentanyl pills inside two closets in the apartment, and more than 22 pounds of the drug in powdered form were wrapped in clear plastic packaging in multiple rooms, according to the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York. The total sum of the drugs is worth about $9 million in street value, officials said.

    The historic seizure saved lives, according to DEA Special Agent in Charge Frank Tarentino.

    “Hundreds of thousands of lethal pills were lying in wait in a Bronx apartment to be unleashed onto our streets. In today’s world, the potential to overdose is dangerously high,” Tarentino said. “There is no quality control in these fake pills and it only takes two milligrams of fentanyl to be lethal.”

    The seizure comes after federal officials announced last week that a woman has been charged with concealing about 15,000 rainbow-colored fentanyl pills in a Lego box as part of a drug trafficking scheme in September. That seizure at the time was also deemed the largest of fentanyl in New York City’s history.

    Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that’s highly addictive. It can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control said.

    Rainbow fentanyl comes in bright colors and can be used in pill form or powder.

    “Rainbow fentanyl is the latest threat we face in our fight against the opioid epidemic that sadly continues to ravage our communities – a multi-colored poison specifically designed to attract younger users,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said.

    And as Halloween nears, officials have been warning families to be especially vigilant regarding their children’s candy before they consume it.

    The dangerous drug has been a major driver of fatal and nonfatal overdoses in the US as well as the opioid epidemic.

    Although there has been a slight decrease in recent months in drug overdose deaths, the numbers remain high. About 108,000 people died of a drug overdose in the 12-month period ending May 2022 – which is down from the record high of more than 110,000 deaths reported in the 12-month period that ended March 2022, CDC provisional data published Wednesday shows.

    The latest overdose death figure remains 32% than it was two years earlier and higher than any other period before November 2021, according to the CDC data. Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, were involved in more than two-thirds of deaths in the 12-month period ending May 2022, and psychostimulants were involved in nearly a third.

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  • Jury awards nearly $1 billion to Sandy Hook families in Alex Jones case | CNN Business

    Jury awards nearly $1 billion to Sandy Hook families in Alex Jones case | CNN Business

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    (Pool/WFSB)

    Erica Lafferty, the daughter of Sandy Hook Elementary principal Dawn Hochsprung, who was killed during the school shooting, told reporters Wednesday that the verdict against Alex Jones is a moment “years in the making.”

    Lafferty recounted how difficult it was for her and her family to deal with the threats fueled by the conspiracy theories led by Jones.

    “As I was upstairs testifying about the rape threats that were sent to me, Alex Jones was standing right here holding a press conference. After almost a decade of threats and messages from conspiracy theorists led by Jones, this is a moment years in the making,” she said.

    Lafferty went on to say how she wished she could tell call her mother to tell her about the verdict and the years leading up to it.

    “And in this big moment, like in every big moment, since the shooting, I wish I could just call my mom and tell her about it. I would tell her about the horror of watching Alex Jones hold court with the press outside, right here. About the disappointment of so many news outlets who’ve known us since 12-14 run his words unfiltered. The heartbreak of reliving the shooting as so many families shared stories of their slain loved ones. But I would also like to tell her about the bright spots. News stations, like NBC Connecticut, refused to give a dangerous conspiracy theorist a platform throughout this trial, and I thank them. The jury bravely bore witness to our pain, sitting through hours upon hours of testimony that will never leave their minds,” she said.

    Lafferty then thanked the people in her life who were by my side throughout this trial… You guys were my guideposts and my shining lights throughout all of this and I cannot thank you enough for your compassion, extreme expertise, and your friendship. I wish I could tell ,my mom about all of this. I wish I could tell her about so many things that can happen, that have happened since she was murdered. Mostly that I’ll never stop missing her.”

    She added that while she hopes to put this chapter of her life behind her, she and her family are aware of the stain Jones’ actions have left on their lives.

    “I wish that after today, I could just be a daughter grieving her mother and stop worrying about conspiracy theorists sending me threats or worse. But I know that this is not the end of Alex Jones in my life. I know that his hates, his hate, lies and conspiracy theories will follow both me and my family through the rest of our days. But I’m also hopeful for what happened here today. That it may save other families from high-profile tragedies from the cycle of abuse and re-traumatization that we have all been put through as we simply tried to survive the hardest days, weeks, and years of our lives,” Lafferty said.

    She continued, “I’m incredibly proud and thankful for the message that was sent here today. The truth matters. And those who profit off of other people’s pain and trauma will pay for what they have done. There will be more Alex Joneses in this world, but what they learned here today is that they absolutely will be held accountable.”

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  • Shooting outside NY GOP governor nominee’s home sharpens debate over crime and guns | CNN Politics

    Shooting outside NY GOP governor nominee’s home sharpens debate over crime and guns | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A shooting that wounded two teenagers on the property of Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor of New York, was a disturbing development in a campaign that has seen him hammer Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul over public safety and a controversial bail reform law enacted more than three years ago.

    The random incident Sunday afternoon outside his Long Island house – his two 16-year-old daughters were inside, terrified but uninjured – provided Zeldin with an opportunity, however personally unwelcome, to sharpen his message on an issue for which concerns cross party lines and potential solutions have often defied typical partisan divides.

    “This is day after day after day,” Zeldin told Fox News on Monday. “And there are a lot of parents, there are a lot of families, dealing with this reality of rising crime in New York. For us, fortunately, my daughters knew exactly how to respond. But listen, they were just sitting there at the kitchen table doing homework and bullets started going off all around them.”

    An ally of former President Donald Trump, Zeldin has mostly run a one-issue campaign focused on crime and his criticism of the 2019 Democratic-led enactment of a bail reform law that made it more difficult for judges to keep some suspects behind bars. The law has been amended twice, but Republicans and some Democrats have pushed for more substantial revisions. While the backlash is real, Zeldin’s ability to parlay it into a winning message remains in doubt. He has struggled to break through with voters in deep-blue New York and Hochul has used his opposition to new gun restrictions to undermine his “soft on crime” attacks.

    Zeldin entered the general election at a clear disadvantage. There are more than twice as many registered Democrats in New York as Republicans, whose party has been hollowed out by a generation of cascading defeats. The last GOP victory in a statewide election came in 2002, when Gov. George Pataki won his third term in office. Hochul, nominally an incumbent after replacing disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo following his resignation last year amid a sexual harassment scandal, has distanced herself from her predecessor, but not the state’s Democratic donor apparatus, and has trounced Zeldin in fundraising.

    Zeldin has employed familiar GOP attacks against Hochul over the economy and inflation, but like other Republicans around the country, he sees an opening on the criminal justice front. Last November, months after he entered the GOP primary, Republicans won a pair of district attorney races in the New York City suburbs. In Nassau County, the incumbent Democratic executive was also unseated by a Republican. The backlash to bail reform played a central role in GOP messaging in those races.

    Zeldin has followed that roadmap. Perhaps, some critics suggest, too closely for a candidate whose path to an upset win requires a strong performance in the suburbs and upstate, but also a significant dent in the blue wall of New York City.

    For her part, Hochul has largely focused her broadsides against Zeldin on his ties to Trump and his opposition to abortion rights. (Zeldin has said he would not seek to change state law guaranteeing access to the procedure.) When pressed on the bail reform law, Hochul has pointed to the amendments passed by the legislature.

    Zeldin’s efforts to make hay over the controversy has been hamstrung by cash woes. Short on money, he turned to Trump for a fundraiser in early September. The event netted Zeldin’s campaign a reported $1.5 million but underscored a fundamental conundrum – Trump, and his wing of the Republican Party, are crucial drivers of campaign funds, but close public ties to them can be self-defeating in a state the former President lost by 23 points in 2020.

    “I don’t think Zeldin is in an impossible situation. In fact, I think he’s going to do better than expected,” said Kenneth Sherrill, a professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College. “But the campaign has been totally negative, hasn’t presented any positive reasons for supporting him. He says nothing about his record in prior offices. He says nothing about issues other than to attack. At some point, he has to explain why he’s a desirable alternative to Hochul.”

    Zeldin has found an unwilling ally of sorts in New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who, though he endorsed Hochul, has pilloried the state’s bail reform law and demanded lawmakers hold a special session in Albany to further restrict rules over pretrial detention. His ask was rejected.

    But Zeldin and Adams break sharply on gun violence, with the mayor – along with Hochul – pushing for stricter regulations on firearms. Zeldin criticized a new round of gun control measures passed in Albany and signed by Hochul this past summer that sought to circumvent a recent Supreme Court decision striking down some restrictions on concealed carry outside the home.

    “I think we need to separate a law-abiding New Yorker who wants to safely and securely carry a firearm for, solely, their self-defense and the criminals who want to carry firearms illegally and commit offense after offense after offense, harming others, and then because of the system in New York, they end up back on the street,” Zeldin told Fox News in an interview from early July.

    A federal court last week blocked enforcement of large chunks of the law. The ruling is being appealed by the state attorney general’s office.

    Early Sunday evening, Hochul tweeted a conciliatory note in response to the incident involving Zeldin’s family.

    “I’ve been briefed on the shooting outside of Congressman Zeldin’s home. As we await more details, I’m relieved to hear the Zeldin family is safe and grateful for law enforcement’s quick response,” Hochul said from her campaign’s Twitter account.

    The shooting marked the second time Zeldin has been thrust into the headlines by an act of violence. The first came over the summer, when a man wielding a sharp object accosted him onstage at a campaign event near Rochester. Zeldin was not hurt, and the alleged attacker was promptly subdued and arrested.

    Asked about the shooting on Monday, Hochul reiterated to reporters that her office had “sent our message right away” that the state police would be made available if desired to aid in the investigation.

    “It’s a reminder, we all have to work together to get guns off the streets,” she added. “And so I will continue, as I’ve been on this journey as governor, to do everything we can to ensure that our streets are safe. That is one of my highest priorities.”

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  • Louis Farrakhan Fast Facts | CNN

    Louis Farrakhan Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam.

    Birth date: May 11, 1933

    Birth place: The Bronx, New York

    Birth name: Louis Eugene Walcott

    Father: Percival Clark

    Mother: Sarah Mae (Manning) Clark

    Marriage: Khadijah Farrakhan, formerly Betsy (Ross) Walcott, (September 12, 1953-present)

    Children: Mustapha, Joshua Nasir, Abnar, Louis Junior, Donna, Hanan, Maria, Fatimah and Khallada

    Education: Attended Winston-Salem Teachers College, 1951-1953

    Farrakhan was named for Louis Walcott, the man his mother became involved with after his biological father, Percival Clark, deserted them.

    The Walcott family moved from the Bronx to the Roxbury neighborhood in Boston during the mid-1930s.

    He won a track scholarship to college in North Carolina.

    Farrakhan is an accomplished classical violinist who began playing at the age of 5. He is also a singer, songwriter, playwright and film producer. Farrakhan wrote two plays, “The Trial” and “Orgena.” (“A Negro” spelled backward).

    Farrakhan is known for having preached antisemitic, anti-White, anti-Catholic and anti-homosexual rhetoric.

    1955 – Joins the Nation of Islam (NOI) and adopts the name Louis X.

    December 4, 1964 – Condemns rival Malcolm X in the NOI newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, saying “the die is set and Malcolm shall not escape… such a man is worthy of death.”

    February 21, 1965 – Malcolm X is assassinated. Louis X replaces him as the national spokesman of the NOI.

    Late 1960s – Takes the name Louis Abdul Farrakhan.

    Late 1970s – Farrakhan has a falling out with NOI leader, Wallace Deen Muhammad, who wants to move the NOI away from racial separatist teachings to a more conventional and racially inclusive Islam. The dispute leads to the formation of two rival groups. Farrakhan becomes head of the NOI, while Muhammad becomes the head of the World Community of al-Islam.

    December 1983 – Accompanies Jesse Jackson and other clergy to Syria to negotiate the release of US Navy pilot Lt. Robert O. Goodman.

    1984 – Months after Jesse Jackson came under heavy fire for his off-the-record comments that were later published in the Washington Post, referring to Jews by the insulting nickname “Hymie” and New York as “Hymietown,” Farrakhan, during his weekly radio broadcast, comes to Jackson’s defense claiming Judaism is a “gutter religion” and supporters of Israel are criminals in the sight of God.

    May 1, 1985 – Announces acceptance of a $5 million interest-free loan from Libyan president Moammar Gadhafi.

    June 25, 1986 – Files a lawsuit against US President Ronald Reagan, Secretary of State George Schultz, Secretary of Treasury James Baker and Attorney General Edwin Meese, claiming the government’s economic sanctions and travel ban on Libya violate Farrakhan’s freedom to worship and freedom of speech.

    June 3, 1987 – Farrakhan’s lawsuit against the government is terminated after a district court judge upholds economic sanctions against Libya and prevents the repayment of the $5 million loan.

    1991 – Receives first prostate cancer diagnosis.

    October 16, 1995 – Organizes the Million Man March, also known as the Day of Atonement, on the Mall in Washington, DC. The event features 12 hours of speeches on the commitment of black men to take responsibility for improving themselves, their families and communities.

    April 1999 – Prostate cancer reoccurrence requires emergency surgery at Howard University.

    February 25, 2000 – Farrakhan makes peace with former NOI leader, Muhammad, who formed his own Islamic group in the wake of a dispute with Farrakhan on the direction of NOI. The men announce the unification of their groups during an event called the Savior’s Day Rally.

    May 10, 2000 – Appears on “60 Minutes” with Malcolm X’s daughter, Qubilah Bahiyah Shabazz, and says he regrets that his writing may have influenced others to assassinate Malcolm X.

    October 15, 2005 – Organizes and speaks at the Million More Movement at the Mall in Washington, DC, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March.

    September 22, 2006 – Releases a letter stating he is giving up many day-to-day duties as leader of the NOI due to illness, but will remain its leader.

    January 6, 2007 – Farrakhan undergoes a successful surgery to remove his prostate and cancerous colon tissue.

    October 10, 2015 – Farrakhan speaks at the “Justice or Else” rally in Washington, DC, marking the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March.

    February 11, 2016 – Farrakhan speaks at a rally at Tehran University in Iran, marking the 37th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution.

    May 2, 2019 – Facebook designates Farrakhan “dangerous,” and bans him from its social media platforms.

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  • Why the GOP can’t count on Joe Biden’s low ratings to sink Democrats | CNN Politics

    Why the GOP can’t count on Joe Biden’s low ratings to sink Democrats | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    We are now under a month until Election Day, and you can feel the midterm campaign really taking hold. From Herschel Walker generating headlines for his troubles in Georgia to the Senate GOP campaign arm cutting bait in New Hampshire, we’re getting down to crunch time.

    All of this is happening with President Joe Biden’s approval rating stuck in the low-to-mid 40s. Democratic Senate nominees, though, still seem to be holding leads in a number of important battlegrounds (i.e., Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania) that are key to determining control of the chamber.

    So this got me thinking: In an era of high polarization, will Biden sink his party in these key races? A look back through recent history suggests that it may not.

    And that’s where we begin our view of the week in politics that was.

    This past week, CNN released polls conducted by SSRS in Arizona and Nevada. What was notable was that Biden’s approval rating was a mere 41% among likely voters in both states.

    Looking at that number, you’d think Democrats should be down considerably in both states. But in Arizona, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly clung to a narrow lead, while Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was in a close race in Nevada.

    Indeed, these are not the only states where that is true. Recent polling from Georgia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania shows Biden well south of a 50% approval rating, but the Democratic Senate nominees there are polling a good deal ahead of him.

    For Republicans hoping Biden’s numbers will drag the Democratic ticket into oblivion, history says to hold on for a second.

    The high correlation between how people feel about a president and how they vote for the Senate began in earnest in the 2010 cycle. That gives us two midterms to analyze whether Democrats can win with an unpopular Democratic president.

    It turns out there were at least eight Senate races in which the Democratic nominee won and the exit polls found the Democratic president (Barack Obama) with an approval rating below 50%.

    Three of these were in 2010 (Colorado, Nevada and West Virginia) and five were in 2014 (Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon and Virginia). Obama averaged an approval rating of 44% in these eight states. Democrats were able to emerge victorious in all of them.

    Now some of these (i.e., Illinois and Oregon) were blue states that aren’t politically comparable to the states Democrats need to win this year to maintain Senate control.

    But the other six were either swing states or flat-out red (i.e., West Virginia). Obama’s approval rating averaged 42% in these six states.

    The formula to win in these six states tended to be pretty simple: a very popular Democratic nominee (i.e., Joe Manchin in West Virginia) or an unpopular Republican nominee.

    Consider the three races that are probably the best analogies to this year’s races: Colorado and Nevada in 2010 and New Hampshire in 2014. Republicans Ken Buck of Colorado, Sharron Angle of Nevada and Scott Brown of New Hampshire all had negative net favorability (favorable minus unfavorable) ratings.

    (It was harder to get reliable data for Minnesota and Virginia, though it seems Republicans in those states were also underwater in terms of their favorable and unfavorable ratings.)

    Take a peek at recent 2022 polls from Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. They all share something in common: the Republican Senate candidate has a negative net favorability rating.

    The aforementioned CNN poll from Arizona is a perfect example. Republican Blake Masters had a net favorability rating of -16 points among likely voters. Kelly’s was +6 points.

    History has shown this is a recipe for success for Democrats. People vote for a Senate nominee of the president’s party when they like that nominee and dislike both the president and the other party’s Senate nominee.

    And it could be the recipe that saves Democrats’ Senate majority this year.

    A lot has been written about how polls have underestimated Republican strength in recent years. For Senate races, that might not have as big a consequence as you might think. In fact, Democrats would still win the Senate today if every state had the same polling miss it did in 2020.

    Less spoken about is the House. Even a small miss on the generic congressional ballot could have major consequences in terms of who controls that chamber.

    The generic congressional ballot usually asks respondents some form of the following question: “If the elections for Congress were held today, would you vote for the Democratic or Republican party?”

    The final generic congressional ballot aggregates have differed from the House popular vote by an average of about 3 points since 2000. That may not seem like a lot, but consider this: Every extra point swing in the national House vote is worth about three to four seats. So an average error of 3 points could be worth upward of 12 House seats.

    A generic ballot error like we had in 2020 (4 points) could be worth upward of 16 seats. That’s why the House forecasts in 2020 underestimated Republicans so much. The national environment was 4 points more Republican than what the polls indicated.

    Right now, Democrats and Republicans are tied on the generic congressional ballot of the national House vote. One estimate from FiveThirtyEight suggests that would result in an evenly divided House in terms of seats.

    So if the generic ballot ends up being off by the same margin this year as it was two years ago and if the current polling holds through the election, Republicans could be looking at a gain north of 20 House seats.

    Of course, it’s worth considering whether Democrats’ position on the generic ballot underestimates their standing nationally.

    Recent special elections have suggested a political environment that leans in their favor. If they were able to win the national House popular vote by a few points, they’d be clear favorites to hold on to the chamber.

    That is one reason why, as a number of smart people have said, it is time to seriously consider the possibility of Democrats holding the House. It’s still not likely, but it’s realistic.

    Growing up, many of you may have marked Columbus’ birthday each year. A CNN poll from 1992 showed that 57% of Americans thought the country should be celebrating the 500th anniversary of his voyage to America.

    Last year, however, only 27% of Americans told Ipsos that they planned to observe Columbus Day in the upcoming year.

    The change in celebrating Columbus comes as views of him have shifted in the last 30 years. A 1991 Gallup poll found that 59% of Americans believed Columbus first discovered America, compared with 14% for Leif Erikson and 7% for American Indians/Native Americans.

    In 2014, 49% of Americans said American Indians/Native Americans deserved the most credit, according to a CBS News survey. Columbus’ share dropped to 40%.

    Views split on Covid-19 communication: A bare majority (51%) told the Pew Research Center that public officials have done an excellent or good job of communicating with the public about the coronavirus outbreak. A similar 49% said public officials have done a poor or only a fair job.

    We’re becoming a cashless society: Just 24% of Americans had never used cash in a typical week back in 2015, according to Pew. That’s up to 41% this year.

    Flying the flag: Most Americans (55%) said in a Marist College poll that they display the American flag on their property for at least some of the year. There was a partisan split: 75% of Republicans do so compared with 43% of Democrats.

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  • DeSantis’ migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard appear outside the scope of Florida transport program guidelines, state documents show | CNN

    DeSantis’ migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard appear outside the scope of Florida transport program guidelines, state documents show | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A pair of flights carrying migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last month, orchestrated by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, may have exceeded the original scope of the state’s plan to transport undocumented individuals, according to records obtained by CNN.

    The records show that in the months leading up to those flights, Florida had planned a narrower mission for a controversial new state program to transport migrants to other states. The goal, according to a callout to contractors and guidelines for the program, was to, “relocate out of the state of Florida foreign nationals who are not lawfully present in the United States.”

    But that’s not what transpired. On September 14, two planes picked up 48 migrants in San Antonio – not Florida – and dropped them off in Martha’s Vineyard.

    The documents, provided to CNN through a records request and released Friday evening by the Florida Department of Transportation and the governor’s office, offer new details about the stunt that thrust DeSantis even deeper into the middle of a national debate on immigration. From the White House to Florida, Massachusetts and beyond, the condemnation from Democrats was swift. So was the praise from Republicans for DeSantis, who only further bolstered his standing in his party as he considers running for President in 2024.

    A Democratic state lawmaker is already suing the state and asking a judge to stop future flights, arguing the DeSantis administration was illegally spending taxpayer dollars. The budget act that created the $12 million program specified the money was set aside to relocate “unauthorized aliens from this state.”

    The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The records for the first time also directly tie a $615,000 state payment made to Vertol Systems Company for the September flights that sent migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard. Previously, the payment to Vertol was disclosed by the state, but the governor’s office for weeks declined to confirm that the check was linked to the flights that landed in Massachusetts.

    The Florida Department of Transportation, the agency tasked with executing the new migrant relocation program, received a price quote from Vertol CEO James Montgomerie on September 6 for “the first Project,” one document showed. Montgomerie identified that project as “the facilitation of the relocation of up to fifty individuals to the State of Massachusetts or other, proximate northeastern state.” The price, he said, was $615,000.

    The next day, FDOT officials sent a letter asking for authorization for the $615,000 and the state made the payment within the next 24 hours, according to financial statements maintained on the Florida Chief Financial Officer’s website previously reported by CNN.

    In communications with FDOT earlier during the summer, Montgomerie offered the state services that suggested a considerably less ambitious mission for the migrant relocation program.

    On July 26, after a discussion with FDOT’s general counsel, Montgomerie gave the agency estimates for his company to charter flights that could carry four to 12 people from Crestview, Florida, to the Boston or Los Angeles areas, according to an email from the Vertol executive to FDOT.

    “We are certainly willing to provide you with pricing information on specific ad-hoc requirements on a case by case basis,” Montgomerie wrote in the email.

    The prices quoted for flights originating from Florida more closely aligned with FDOT’s guidelines for the program that it sent to prospective contractors and the agency’s request for quotes. In the three-page guidelines, FDOT stipulated the chosen company needed to ensure “that the Unauthorized Alien has voluntarily agreed to be relocated out of Florida.” The quotes also showed Montgomerie early on anticipated Vertol would be moving less people. Later, in September, his quotes evolved to include many more people on board.

    Ultimately, the planes that left San Antonio briefly touched down in Crestview before eventually landing in Massachusetts.

    At the time of the state’s request for contractors, DeSantis was publicly claiming that President Joe Biden could send buses of migrants from the US-Mexico border to Florida. But DeSantis acknowledged last month those buses never arrived, and his focus began to shift hundreds of miles away to Texas.

    DeSantis has said the intention of executing the flights from Texas was to stop the flow of migrants at the source before they came to Florida.

    “If you can do it at the source and divert to sanctuary jurisdictions, the chance they end up in Florida is much less,” DeSantis told reporters in September.

    DeSantis has vowed to use “every penny” of the $12 million allocated to his administration for migrant transports. However, the state has not publicly taken credit for any transports since the two planes landed in Martha’s Vineyard.

    State Sen. Jason Pizzo, the lawmaker now suing DeSantis, said the governor cannot choose to ignore the law when spending state money.

    “You can’t even play by your own rules,” Pizzo told CNN last month when speaking of DeSantis. “This isn’t something that we passed 12 years ago. It was done four months ago at your request.”

    DeSantis’ office previously said the lawsuit by Pizzo was an attempt at “15 minutes of fame.”

    The state has paid Vertol $1.6 million so far through its migrant program, which is funded by interest earned on federal coronavirus relief money, according to the state budget documents. The initial payment of $615,000 was made by the FDOT on September 8, six days before the Martha’s Vineyard flight. Another payment for $950,000 followed on September 16, though it’s not clear what that payment went for.

    A few days after that second payment, reports of a similar flight plan from San Antonio to Delaware, Biden’s home state, sent officials there scrambling to prepare for migrant arrivals. The flights, though, never arrived.

    The state did not provide a contract with Vertol in the records released Friday night. Nor do the documents offer further insight into why Vertol was chosen over two other companies that appeared to submit quotes to the state, according to records.

    CNN has reached out to Montgomerie for further comment.

    Vertol had an existing link to a DeSantis administration official prior to its work with the state. Lawrence Keefe, Florida’s “public safety czar” appointed by DeSantis to lead the state’s crackdown on illegal immigration, represented the aviation company from 2010 to 2017.

    In its quoted price to the state, Vertol said it was providing “Project management, aircraft, crew, maintenance logistics, fuel, coordination and planning, route preparation, route services, landing fees, ground handling and logistics and other Project-related expenses,” according to the documents.

    The request for quotes from the state also asked that potential contractors have “multilingual capability for Spanish.” The chosen contractor would also have to develop procedures for “confirming with Partner Agencies that the person to be transported is an Unauthorized Alien.” Pizzo and others have questioned whether the migrants are considered “unauthorized” by the federal government if they are legally seeking asylum.

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  • Micron to invest up to $100 billion to build chip factory in upstate New York | CNN Business

    Micron to invest up to $100 billion to build chip factory in upstate New York | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Micron on Tuesday said it would invest up to $100 billion over the next two decades to build a massive semiconductor factory in upstate New York. The move comes in the wake of US government efforts to boost domestic chip production.

    The Idaho-based firm said it plans to build the “largest semiconductor fabrication facility in the history of the United States” in Clay, New York. Micron said the new facility, about 15 miles from Syracuse, will create nearly 50,000 New York jobs over the next two decades.

    The initial investment of $20 billion is planned “by the end of this decade,” the company said. Site preparation work will start in 2023, with construction slated to begin in 2024 and production output expected to “ramp up in the latter half of the decade, gradually increasing in line with industry demand trends,” according to the company.

    Shares for Micron rose nearly 5% Tuesday after the news was announced.

    In August, President Joe Biden signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act, which aimed to boost American chip manufacturing with a more than $200 billion investment over the next five years. The package included some $52 billion for chip manufacturing and research, providing companies incentives to build, expand and modernize US facilities and equipment. The legislation aimed to lessen a US dependency on offshore chip production from Asia, and came in the wake of a global shortage of these building blocks required for smartphones, autos and computers.

    In a statement Tuesday, Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said he is “grateful to President Biden and his Administration for making the CHIPS and science Act a priority.”

    “This historic leading-edge memory megafab in Central New York will deliver benefits beyond the semiconductor industry by strengthening U.S. technology leadership as well as economic and national security, driving American innovation and competitiveness for decades to come,” Mehrotra added. (A fab refers to a semiconductor fabrication plant).

    The company said that the $5.5 billion in incentives from the state of New York over the life of the project, alongside anticipated federal grants and tax credits from the CHIPS and Science Act, “are critical to support hiring and capital investment.”

    New York Governor Kathy Hochul touted Micron’s investment in a statement, saying it “marks the start of something transformative in scale and possibility for our state’s economic future.” She added that this investment, which is the largest private-sector investment in state history, will help “usher the state into another Industrial Revolution.”

    Getting new semiconductor factories up and running in the US can take years. Ahead of the CHIPS legislation, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company committed at least $12 billion to build a semiconductor fabrication plant in Arizona, with production expected to begin in 2024.

    Intel announced plans to build a $20 billion semiconductor manufacturing plant in Ohio at the beginning of the year, but then warned that this project could be delayed if lawmakers did not pass the CHIPS legislation. Groundbreaking for the new Intel chip plant took place just last month. Biden traveled to Ohio to celebrate the occasion.

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  • The most important Senate race in the country | CNN Politics

    The most important Senate race in the country | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Senate playing field has narrowed in recent weeks, with both parties focusing heavily on Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania as the three races most likely to decide which party has the majority come January 2023.

    Picking which race is most critical of those three is a tough task. But for my money, it’s in Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Dr. Mehmet Oz are competing for the seat being vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey.

    Why do I see Pennsylvania as the first among equals? A few reasons:

    1) Pennsylvania could well be the biggest battleground of the 2024 presidential race – especially if Joe Biden and Donald Trump run again.

    2) Oz is a candidate directly out of Trumpworld’s central casting. A longtime TV doctor and celebrity, he won the primary thanks to an endorsement from the former President. Now the question becomes whether Oz’s style of conservatism can sell in a general election.

    3) Fetterman is an unapologetic liberal. Rather than hedge those positions or hide them in a general election, he’s leaned into them. That’s a blueprint liberals have long argued can be successful, even in a swing state like Pennsylvania. Fetterman’s candidacy is a test case for that theory.

    4) Both national parties are heavily invested in this race – testing messaging for the inevitable fight to come in 2024.

    What’s clear about the race is that Fetterman led by mid-to-high single digits for much of the spring and summer as Oz was battered in a primary that he narrowly won – and struggled to united Republicans even after he became the nominee.

    But of late – thanks to a coordinated attack on Fetterman’s record on crime and lingering questions about his health following a stroke he suffered in the spring – Oz has crept back.

    The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, a nonpartisan campaign tipsheet, shifted its rating of the race to “lean Democrat” roughly six weeks ago. But on Tuesday, the rating moved back to “toss up.”

    Senate editor Jessica Taylor explained:

    “In conversations with several GOP strategists and lawmakers – who a month and a half ago had begun to put the Keystone State in the loss column – this has emerged as a margin-of-error race that they once again see winnable. Republicans and Democrats alike admit the race has tightened and that Pennsylvania could be the tipping point state for the Senate majority.”

    So, with exactly five weeks left in this campaign, we have a tie (or something close to it) in a critical swing state between two candidates who represent drastically different visions of what the future of the country should look like.

    That seems pretty important to me.

    The Point: The fight for Senate control now seems very likely to come down to just a handful of races that are nip and tuck right now. And none is more important than Pennsylvania.

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  • The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

    The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The race for the Senate is in the eye of the beholder less than six weeks from Election Day, with ads about abortion, crime and inflation dominating the airwaves in key states as campaigns test the theory of the 2022 election.

    The cycle started out as a referendum on President Joe Biden – an easy target for Republicans, who need a net gain of just one seat to flip the evenly divided chamber. Then the US Supreme Court’s late June decision overturning Roe v. Wade gave Democrats the opportunity to paint a contrast as Republicans struggled to explain their support for an abortion ruling that the majority of the country opposes. Former President Donald Trump’s omnipresence in the headlines gave Democrats another foil.

    But the optimism some Democrats felt toward the end of the summer, on the heels of Biden’s legislative wins and the galvanizing high court decision, has been tempered slightly by the much anticipated tightening of some key races as political advertising ramps up on TV and voters tune in after Labor Day.

    Republicans, who have midterm history on their side as the party out of the White House, have hammered Biden and Democrats for supporting policies they argue exacerbate inflation. Biden’s approval rating stands at 41% with 54% disapproving in the latest CNN Poll of Polls, which tracks the average of recent surveys. And with some prices inching back up after a brief hiatus, the economy and inflation – which Americans across the country identify as their top concern in multiple polls – are likely to play a crucial role in deciding voters’ preferences.

    But there’s been a steady increase in ads about crime too as the GOP returns to a familiar criticism, depicting Democrats as weak on public safety. Cops have been ubiquitous in TV ads this cycle – candidates from both sides of the aisle have found law enforcement officers to testify on camera to their pro-police credentials. Democratic ads also feature women talking about the threat of a national abortion ban should the Senate fall into GOP hands, while Republicans have spent comparatively less trying to portray Democrats as the extremists on the topic.

    While the issue sets have fluctuated, the Senate map hasn’t changed. Republicans’ top pickup opportunities have always been Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and New Hampshire – all states that Biden carried in 2020. In two of those states, however, the GOP has significant problems, although the states themselves keep the races competitive. Arizona nominee Blake Masters is now without the support of the party’s major super PAC, which thinks its money can be better spent elsewhere, including in New Hampshire, where retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc is far from the nominee the national GOP had wanted. But this is the time of year when poor fundraising can really become evident since TV ad rates favor candidates and a super PAC gets much less bang for its buck.

    The race for Senate control may come down to three states: Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, all of which are rated as “Toss-up” races by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. As Republicans look to flip the Senate, which Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called a “50-50 proposition,” they’re trying to pick up the first two and hold on to the latter.

    Senate Democrats’ path to holding their majority lies with defending their incumbents. Picking off a GOP-held seat like Pennsylvania – still the most likely to flip in CNN’s ranking – would help mitigate any losses. Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is vying for a third term, looks like Democrats’ next best pickup opportunity, but that race drops in the rankings this month as Republican attacks take a toll on the Democratic nominee in the polls.

    These rankings are based on CNN’s reporting, fundraising and advertising data, and polling, as well as historical data about how states and candidates have performed. It will be updated one more time before Election Day.

    Incumbent: Republican Pat Toomey (retiring)

    Sarah Silbiger/Pool/Getty Images

    The most consistent thing about CNN’s rankings, dating back to 2021, has been Pennsylvania’s spot in first place. But the race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey has tightened since the primaries in May, when Republican Mehmet Oz emerged badly bruised from a nasty intraparty contest. In a CNN Poll of Polls average of recent surveys in the state, Democrat John Fetterman, the state lieutenant governor, had the support of 50% of likely voters to Oz’s 45%. (The Poll of Polls is an average of the four most recent nonpartisan surveys of likely voters that meet CNN’s standards.) Fetterman is still overperforming Biden, who narrowly carried Pennsylvania in 2020. Fetterman’s favorability ratings are also consistently higher than Oz’s.

    One potential trouble spot for the Democrat: More voters in a late September Franklin and Marshall College Poll viewed Oz has having policies that would improve voters’ economic circumstances, with the economy and inflation remaining the top concern for voters across a range of surveys. But nearly five months after the primary, the celebrity surgeon still seems to have residual issues with his base. A higher percentage of Democrats were backing Fetterman than Republicans were backing Oz in a recent Fox News survey, for example, with much of that attributable to lower support from GOP women than men. Fetterman supporters were also much more enthusiastic about their candidate than Oz supporters.

    Republicans have been hammering Fetterman on crime, specifically his tenure on the state Board of Pardons: An ad from the Senate Leadership Fund features a Bucks County sheriff saying, “Protect your family. Don’t vote Fetterman.” But the lieutenant governor is also using sheriffs on camera to defend his record. And with suburban voters being a crucial demographic, Democratic advertising is also leaning into abortion, like this Senate Majority PAC ad that features a female doctor as narrator and plays Oz’s comments from during the primary about abortion being “murder.” Oz’s campaign has said that he supports exceptions for “the life of the mother, rape and incest” and that “he’d want to make sure that the federal government is not involved in interfering with the state’s decisions on the topic.”

    Incumbent: Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto

    02 democrat immigration legislation 0717

    CNN

    Republicans have four main pickup opportunities – and right now, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s seat looks like one of their best shots. Biden carried Nevada by a slightly larger margin than two of those other GOP-targeted states, but the Silver State’s large transient population adds a degree of uncertainty to this contest.

    Republicans have tried to tie the first-term senator to Washington spending and inflation, which may be particularly resonant in a place where average gas prices are now back up to over $5 a gallon. Democrats are zeroing in on abortion rights and raising the threat that a GOP-controlled Senate could pass a national abortion ban. Former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt – the rare GOP nominee to have united McConnell and Trump early on – called the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling a “joke” before the Supreme Court overturned the decision in June. Democrats have been all too happy to use that comment against him, but Laxalt has tried to get around those attacks by saying he does not support a national ban and pointing out that the right to an abortion is settled law in Nevada.

    Incumbent: Democrat Raphael Warnock

    Sen Raphael Warnock 10 senate seats

    Megan Varner/Getty Images

    The closer we get to Election Day, the more we need to talk about the Georgia Senate race going over the wire. If neither candidate receives a majority of the vote in November, the contest will go to a December runoff. There was no clear leader in a recent Marist poll that had Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who’s running for a full six-year term, and Republican challenger Herschel Walker both under 50% among those who say they definitely plan to vote.

    Warnock’s edge from earlier this cycle has narrowed, which bumps this seat up one spot on the rankings. The good news for Warnock is that he’s still overperforming Biden’s approval numbers in a state that the President flipped in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes. And so far, he seems to be keeping the Senate race closer than the gubernatorial contest, for which several polls have shown GOP Gov. Brian Kemp ahead. Warnock’s trying to project a bipartisan image that he thinks will help him hold on in what had until recently been a reliably red state. Standing waist-deep in peanuts in one recent ad, he touts his work with Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville to “eliminate the regulations,” never mentioning his own party. But Republicans have continued to try to tie the senator to his party – specifically for voting for measures in Washington that they claim have exacerbated inflation.

    Democrats are hoping that enough Georgians won’t see voting for Walker as an option – even if they do back Kemp. Democrats have amped up their attacks on domestic violence allegations against the former football star and unflattering headlines about his business record. And all eyes will be on the mid-October debate to see how Walker, who has a history of making controversial and illogical comments, handles himself onstage against the more polished incumbent.

    Incumbent: Republican Ron Johnson

    Sen Ron Johnson 10 senate seats

    Leigh VogelPool/Getty Images

    Sen. Ron Johnson is the only Republican running for reelection in a state Biden won in 2020 – in fact, he broke his own term limits pledge to run a third time, saying he believed America was “in peril.” And although Johnson has had low approval numbers for much of the cycle, Democrats have underestimated him before. This contest moves down one spot on the ranking as Johnson’s race against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has tightened, putting the senator in a better position.

    Barnes skated through the August primary after his biggest opponents dropped out of the race, but as the nominee, he’s faced an onslaught of attacks, especially on crime, using against him his past words about ending cash bail and redirecting some funding from police budgets to social services. Barnes has attempted to answer those attacks in his ads, like this one featuring a retired police sergeant who says he knows “Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police.”

    A Marquette University Law School poll from early September showed no clear leader, with Johnson at 49% and Barnes at 48% among likely voters, which is a tightening from the 7-point edge Barnes enjoyed in the same poll’s August survey. Notably, independents were breaking slightly for Johnson after significantly favoring Barnes in the August survey. The effect of the GOP’s anti-Barnes advertising can likely be seen in the increasing percentage of registered voters in a late September Fox News survey who view the Democrat as “too extreme,” putting him on parity with Johnson on that question. Johnson supporters are also much more enthusiastic about their candidate.

    Incumbent: Democrat Mark Kelly

    Mark Kelly AZ 1103

    Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images

    Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who’s running for a full six-year term after winning a 2020 special election, is still one of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents in a state that has only recently grown competitive on the federal level. But Republican nominee Blake Masters is nowhere close to rivaling Kelly in fundraising, and major GOP outside firepower is now gone. After canceling its September TV reservations in Arizona to redirect money to Ohio, the Senate Leadership Fund has cut its October spending too.

    Other conservative groups are spending for Masters but still have work to do to hurt Kelly, a well-funded incumbent with a strong personal brand. Kelly led Masters 51% to 41% among registered voters in a September Marist poll, although that gap narrowed among those who said they definitely plan to vote. A Fox survey from a little later in the month similarly showed Kelly with a 5-point edge among those certain to vote, just within the margin of error.

    Masters has attempted to moderate his abortion position since winning his August primary, buoyed by a Trump endorsement, but Kelly has continued to attack him on the issue. And a recent court decision allowing the enforcement of a 1901 state ban on nearly all abortions has given Democrats extra fodder to paint Republicans as a threat to women’s reproductive rights.

    Incumbent: Republican Richard Burr (retiring)

    Sen Richard Burr 10 senate seats

    Demetrius Freeman/Pool/Getty Images

    North Carolina slides up one spot on the rankings, trading places with New Hampshire. The open-seat race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr hasn’t generated as much national buzz as other states given that Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in the state since 2008.

    But it has remained a tight contest with Democrat Cheri Beasley, who is bidding to become the state’s first Black senator, facing off against GOP Rep. Ted Budd, for whom Trump recently campaigned. Beasley lost reelection as state Supreme Court chief justice by only about 400 votes in 2020 when Trump narrowly carried the Tar Heel state. But Democrats hope that she’ll be able to boost turnout among rural Black voters who might not otherwise vote during a midterm election and that more moderate Republicans and independents will see Budd as too extreme. One of Beasley’s recent spots features a series of mostly White, gray-haired retired judges in suits endorsing her as “someone different” while attacking Budd as being a typical politician out for himself.

    Budd is leaning into current inflation woes, specifically going after Biden in some ads that feature half-empty shopping carts, without even mentioning Beasley. Senate Leadership Fund is doing the work of trying to tie the Democrat to Washington – one recent spot almost makes her look like the incumbent in the race, superimposing her photo over an image of the US Capitol and displaying her face next to Biden’s. Both SLF and Budd are also targeting Beasley over her support for Democrats’ recently enacted health care, tax and climate bill. “Liberal politician Cheri Beasley is coming for you – and your wallet,” the narrator from one SLF ad intones, before later adding, “Beasley’s gonna knock on your door with an army of new IRS agents.” (The new law increases funding for the IRS, including for audits. But Democrats and the Trump-appointed IRS commissioner have said the intention is to go after wealthy tax cheats, not the middle class.)

    Incumbent: Democrat Maggie Hassan

    Sen Maggie Hassan 10 senate seats

    Erin Scott/Getty Images

    A lot has been made of GOP candidate quality this cycle. But there are few states where the difference between the nominee Republicans have and the one they’d hoped to have has altered these rankings quite as much as New Hampshire.

    Retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who lost a 2020 GOP bid for the state’s other Senate seat, won last month’s Republican primary to take on first-term Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. The problem for him, though, is that he doesn’t have much money to wage that fight. Bolduc had raised a total of $579,000 through August 24 compared with Hassan’s $31.4 million. Senate Leadership Fund is on air in New Hampshire to boost the GOP nominee – attacking Hassan for voting with Biden and her support of her party’s health care, tax and climate package. But because super PACs get much less favorable TV advertising rates than candidates, those millions won’t go anywhere near as far as Hassan’s dollars will.

    A year ago, Republicans were still optimistic that Gov. Chris Sununu would run for Senate, giving them a popular abortion rights-supporting nominee in a state that’s trended blue in recent federal elections. Bolduc told WMUR after his primary win that he’d vote against a national abortion ban. But ads from Hassan and Senate Majority PAC have seized on his suggestion in the same interview that the senator should “get over” the abortion issue. Republicans recognize that abortion is a salient factor in a state Biden carried by 7 points, but they also argue that the election – as Bolduc said to WMUR – will be about the economy and that Hassan is an unpopular and out-of-touch incumbent.

    Hassan led Bolduc 49% to 41% among likely voters in a Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The incumbent has consolidated Democratic support, but only 83% of Republicans said they were with Bolduc, the survey found. Still, some of those Republicans, like those who said they were undecided, could come home to the GOP nominee as the general election gets closer, which means Bolduc has room to grow. He’ll need more than just Republicans to break his way, however, which is one reason he quickly pivoted on the key issue of whether the 2020 election was stolen days after he won the primary.

    Incumbent: Republican Rob Portman (retiring)

    Sen Rob Portman 10 senate seats

    TING SHEN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Ohio – a state that twice voted for Trump by 8 points – isn’t supposed to be on this list at No. 8, above Florida, which backed the former President by much narrower margins. But it’s at No. 8 for the second month in a row. Republican nominee J.D. Vance’s poor fundraising has forced Senate Leadership Fund to redirect millions from other races to Ohio to shore him up and attack Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee who had the airwaves to himself all summer. The 10-term congressman has been working to distance himself from his party in most of his ads, frequently mentioning that he “voted with Trump on trade” and criticizing the “defund the police” movement. Vance is finally on the air, trying to poke some holes in Ryan’s image.

    But polling still shows a tight race with no clear leader. Ryan had an edge with independents in a recent Siena College/Spectrum News poll, which also showed that Vance – Trump’s pick for the nomination – has more work to do to consolidate GOP support after an ugly May primary. Assuming he makes up that support and late undecided voters break his way, Vance will likely hold the advantage in the end given the Buckeye State’s solidifying red lean.

    Incumbent: Republican Marco Rubio

    Sen Marco Rubio 10 senate seats

    DREW ANGERER/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Democrats face an uphill battle against GOP Sen. Marco Rubio in an increasingly red-trending state, which Trump carried by about 3 points in 2020 – nearly tripling his margin from four years earlier.

    Democratic Rep. Val Demings, who easily won the party’s nomination in August, is a strong candidate who has even outraised the GOP incumbent, but not by enough to seriously jeopardize his advantage. She’s leaning into her background as the former Orlando police chief – it features prominently in her advertising, in which she repeatedly rejects the idea of defunding the police. Still, Rubio has tried to tie her to the “radical left” in Washington to undercut her own law enforcement background.

    Incumbent: Democrat Michael Bennet

    Sen Michael Bennett 10 senate seats

    DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is no stranger to tough races. In 2016, he only won reelection by 6 points against an underfunded GOP challenger whom the national party had abandoned. Given GOP fundraising challenges in some of their top races, the party hasn’t had the resources to seriously invest in the Centennial State this year.

    But in his bid for a third full term, Bennet is up against a stronger challenger in businessman Joe O’Dea, who told CNN he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. His wife and daughter star in his ads as he tries to cut a more moderate profile and vows not to vote the party line in Washington.

    Bennet, however, is attacking O’Dea for voting for a failed 2020 state ballot measure to ban abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy and arguing that whatever O’Dea says about supporting abortion rights, he’d give McConnell “the majority he needs” to pass a national abortion ban.

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  • How Buffalo is ensuring the Black community isn’t left behind after mass supermarket shooting | CNN

    How Buffalo is ensuring the Black community isn’t left behind after mass supermarket shooting | CNN

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    Buffalo, NY
    CNN
     — 

    The day after Buffalo experienced the largest mass shooting in its history, teams of emergency volunteers and mental health counselors arrived on the scene, offering emotional support and distributing food.

    The response was robust and swift, but there was one big problem.

    “The community didn’t feel comfortable coming up the stairs to the center because what they saw was a large group of White people,” said Kelly Wofford, Erie County’s director of health equity.

    A White gunman had deliberately opened fire at a predominantly Black neighborhood’s only grocery store, a Tops supermarket, on a busy Saturday in May. Eleven of the 13 people shot were Black, including the 10 killed. Authorities called the shooting racially motivated.

    “In any other kind of tragedy, like a hurricane or flood, anyone offering resources would be gladly welcomed, but this was different. This tragedy had a face and a hatred for a certain group of people,” said Thomas Beauford Jr., president and CEO of the Buffalo Urban League, which was one of the community organizations on site the day of the shooting.

    “They completely rejected it,” said Beauford, adding, “The immediate reaction to the counselors was, ‘We need to see counselors that look like us.’”

    By Monday, the problem was addressed. Wofford, who grew up down the street from the Tops, tapped her network to ensure there were more Black counselors on site, that Black people were the ones handing out flyers on the street about available services, and that Black people greeted folks at the help center.

    “We made sure the community affected felt comfortable seeking the services they need,” Wofford said.

    Her response efforts – and the spotlight the May 14 shooting put on the community’s existing disparities – exemplifies the role Erie County’s newly formed Office of Health Equity is meant to play in the community: ensuring that health services are equitably distributed across disadvantaged and marginalized populations.

    Within Erie County, there is a significant disparity between the health outcomes of White residents and residents of color, which became even clearer as Covid-19 disproportionately affected Black and brown communities there, as well as across the country.

    Even before the pandemic, the life expectancy of Black Buffalo residents was 12 years shorter than White residents, according to a report published by the Buffalo Center for Health Equity in 2015, the most recent data available.

    Erie County’s Office of Health Equity was launched to help address those disparities. It was established in January by county law, and the funding was made possible by a major federal pandemic relief package known as the American Rescue Plan that distributed money to states, counties and cities across the country.

    Kelly Wofford is the first director of the Erie County Office of Health Equity, which launched earlier this year.

    Erie County allocated roughly $1 million of the nearly $179 million it received from the American Rescue Plan for the creation of the Health Equity Office. It is using the remaining funds on a variety of needs, including economic assistance for small businesses, water treatment infrastructure and restoring jobs and spending that were initially cut due to the pandemic.

    While issues of health equity were addressed prior to the formation of the office, the law formalized the efforts and put funding behind them, ensuring it can work to address long-term solutions. With Wofford at the helm, the office has nine staff members, including two epidemiologists.

    “The Office of Health Equity – which did not exist and would not have existed without the funding we received from the American Rescue Plan – immediately became an integral partner in the response to the Tops shooting on May 14, by being in some ways the boots on the ground and the coordinator between third-party agencies and the county’s delivery of these services to the community,” said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

    “It was unlike any experience we’ve ever had,” Poloncarz added, “and I’m very grateful that we had the Office of Health Equity in place because it would have made our job a lot tougher without it.”

    Addressing health disparities is something communities across the country are grappling with, and while the pandemic caused illness and death for millions, it also has helped spur some momentum.

    State and local health equity offices are far from being as prevalent as water departments, for example, but they are having a moment – due in part to the influx of money from the federal government meant to help communities recover.

    “The pandemic really highlighted the gross differences in our ability to keep people healthy, related to race and ethnicity,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

    The group hasn’t tracked how many formal equity offices have opened, but the number is growing, Freeman said. Philadelphia hired its first chief racial equity officer earlier this year.

    In the past, some communities have not had the political will or the resources to formalize their health equity efforts, she added.

    A memorial waterfall was built inside the renovated Tops supermarket in Buffalo, which reopened in July, two months after the mass shooting.

    High-profile killings of Black people by police, notably the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, gave rise to a number of communities declaring racism as a public health crisis, laying the groundwork for some of the offices opening now. In April 2021, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also declared racism a serious public health threat.

    Resolving health inequities will take time and requires tackling the social determinants of health. These are the factors that contribute to someone’s health that they don’t have control over themselves, like access to clean water and healthy food and other conditions where they live, work and play that can affect their health.

    “You’re really trying to create the same opportunity for health for every single person in the community, no matter what their economic status is, where they live or whether they have a job,” Freeman said.

    In mid-July, the Tops grocery store reopened to mixed reactions from the community.

    Without the supermarket, those without a car may have lacked convenient access to nutritious food. For others, it was emotionally difficult to reenter the store.

    Migdalia Lozada, a crisis counselor with the Buffalo Urban League, spent one August morning offering support to shoppers. Lozada took one woman by the hand as she walked into the store for the first time since the tragedy, feeling the woman’s tears fall onto her arm.

    The Buffalo Urban League’s community resource center, located just two blocks from the Tops, continues to serve the traumatized neighborhood. People can walk right into the space and speak with a crisis counselor. Some people are regulars who come in nearly every day. Others may have been triggered by an event like a shooting elsewhere or movement in a court case against the shooting suspect.

    “We just try to give the person some space to open up in a safe, confidential place,” said Lozada.

    While the Buffalo Urban League’s crisis counselors had already been serving the community for months, its leaders wanted a physical space nearby the Tops store after the shooting. The group found an open space down the street that had once been a neighborhood bar known as Pixie’s and opened a resource center there within days after the tragedy. The building intentionally looks and feels much more like a local watering hole than a health institution.

    Buffalo Urban League's Yukea Wright (left), a crisis counselor team leader, and Migdalia Lozada, a crisis counselor, work at the resource center near the Tops.

    The center also serves as a place that connects people with other resources to address a wide range of social determinants of health, like employment, housing and education.

    The Buffalo Urban League plans to work closely with the county, especially with the new Office of Health Equity, to help drive long-term change going forward.

    The county office is first working on training people in the Mental Health First Aid national program, so that the county can deploy counselors throughout the community – like at Bible studies and community centers – to meet people where they already may be. A recent nationwide study found that while the share of US adults who received treatment for mental health grew throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, people of color are less able to access mental health services.

    The office is also working on a survey that, in part, will show what problems members of the community would like addressed – it could be the high prevalence of diabetes or high blood pressure, for example.

    “When you look at the social determinants of health, there are inequities across all of them, so you can pick whichever one you want,” Wofford said.

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  • Steps of a Russian Orthodox cathedral in New York were splashed with red paint | CNN

    Steps of a Russian Orthodox cathedral in New York were splashed with red paint | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Russian Orthodox cathedral in New York appears to have been defaced with red paint, following a similar incident in which the Russian consulate was vandalized with red spray paint.

    The two vandalism incidents come after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the beginning stages of annexation of parts of Ukraine.

    An eyewitness told CNN that they saw a person in a face mask splash red paint on the steps of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral on New York’s Upper East Side late Friday night.

    The cathedral’s spokesperson, Abbot Nicodemus, also confirmed the vandalism to CNN.

    Remnants of the paint could be seen Saturday morning, after the eyewitness observed a woman working to scrub it away.

    “We sincerely do not understand those individuals that allow themselves acts of vandalism in relation to our cathedral. We pray for them,” Nicodemus said n a statement to CNN. “We want them to realize that the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA carries out important spiritual and peacemaking activities here, and we are open to all people, regardless of their nationality and political beliefs.”

    The New York Police Department said it was not aware of or investigating this incident.

    The NYPD previously told CNN it was investigating the red graffiti on the Russian consulate building as a “possible bias incident.” There were no updates in that investigation.

    The spokesperson told CNN that Friday’s incident is the third case of vandalism since the beginning of the year in which the cathedral has been marked with paint or written with “insulting” inscriptions.

    In addition, “insulting” calls and emails have been received by the cathedral, Nicodemus said, adding that some include direct threats against the clergy and parishioners.

    Saint Nicholas Cathedral said it is “compelled to turn such messages to the police,” said Nicodemus. “We are grateful to the law enforcement agencies of New York for their prompt response to our messages and their constant support.”

    The cathedral said that since February, its parishioners have been actively involved in collecting financial and humanitarian assistance for the victims of the armed conflict in Ukraine.

    Half of the parishioners of the cathedral are Ukrainian, Nicodemus said

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  • Sandy Hook parent recounts years of harassment after Alex Jones called him a crisis actor | CNN Business

    Sandy Hook parent recounts years of harassment after Alex Jones called him a crisis actor | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    In emotional testimony on Thursday, Robbie Parker, the parent of a Sandy Hook shooting victim, recounted the violent threats and harassment he and his family have suffered in the years since conspiracy theorist Alex Jones called him a crisis actor.

    The day after their six-year-old daughter, Emilie, was murdered in the 2012 shooting, Parker gave a statement to the press. Hours later, Jones was on his InfoWars show describing him as a crisis actor to his audience of millions. (Jones acknowledged that he spoke about Parker by name when he testified earlier during the trial, which is to determine how much he must pay to families of Sandy Hook shooting victims for his lies about the massacre.)

    Later that night, unable to sleep, Parker said he saw the start of a deluge of hateful messages about the press conference on the Facebook memorial page for Emilie. Parker said he removed Emilie’s Facebook memorial page weeks after the shooting because the harassment was too much to control.

    “I felt like I couldn’t protect Emilie’s name, or her memory anymore so I had to get rid of it,” Parker said through tears.

    As days passed and the harassment increased, Parker’s family grew paranoid. They questioned what of Emilie’s life to share with guests during the wake and funeral services. Ultimately, they chose to have a closed casket wake out of concern someone would try to take photos of Emilie’s body or her things, Parker testified.

    “I was paranoid and he was paranoid. Like we just shut down. We were just zombies. I don’t even hardly remember what was said on the day of the funeral,” Alissa Parker said during testimony before her husband. “They stole that from me.”

    Robbie Parker, who has in many ways been the face of Jones’ hoax narrative about the shooting, said he reported the harassment and threats to law enforcement and social media attacks to Facebook and YouTube. “I was like pleading and pleading for their help,” he said. But that didn’t work either, he testified.

    For years, he tried to ignore it, choosing not to engage with the people threatening his family and calling him an actor. “I’d been taught that like, you don’t engage with a bully,” he said. “If somebody’s bullying you, you ignore them and eventually they get tired and they leave you alone. And that had worked for me in my life.”

    The family moved to Washington state in early 2014. Within months of moving, however, Robbie Parker realized the “hoaxers” had found them. He said he saw a YouTube video detailing the sale of their new home and address.

    “And so immediately that sense of security that I thought that we had was totally shattered,” he said. “They would come in these waves and it was almost like I knew when Alex Jones said something because we would get a huge wave of stuff.”

    Through tears, he recalled a man confronting him on the street in Seattle in the fall of 2016, nearly four years after the shooting. Yelling and cursing at him, the man asked him how he could sleep at night and how much he was paid by the government for acting in the hoax.

    Robbie Parker said he confronted the man attempting to defend his family for the first time as a crowd of onlookers gathered. He said he eventually walked away from the heckler, but first he circled the block several times to make sure no one was following him before returning to his family.

    His wife described the change she saw in her husband as the weight of their family’s safety got to him.

    “I would say the most painful is just how it’s changed his view about himself. He felt so much shame. And he felt like it was his fault that all of this happened. And he felt like it was because of him that our family got attacked and all the other families got attacked,” she said.

    The emotional testimony capped off the third week of the trial. Plaintiffs in three Connecticut lawsuits against Jones, including family members of eight school students and employees and one FBI agent who responded to the scene, have all been condensed into the trial.

    The jury has now heard from most of the named plaintiffs in the case and the plaintiffs’ attorneys have indicated they’ll wrap up their case early next week.

    Jones is expected to testify again next week during his own defense case. Then the jury will deliberate to determine how much Jones and the company should pay in damages to each of 15 plaintiffs that say their lives were negatively impacted by his’ hoax coverage of the shooting.

    Judge Barbara Bellis found the defendants liable by default last year largely because Jones and the company did not comply in turning over evidence during the discovery process, according to court filings.

    Robbie Parker had flown back and forth each week to sit in the Connecticut courtroom ahead of his testimony this week. At the beginning of his testimony Wednesday, he said: “I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”

    – CNN’s Oliver Darcy contributed to this report.

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  • Donald Trump has been indicted following an investigation into a hush money payment scheme. Here’s what we know | CNN Politics

    Donald Trump has been indicted following an investigation into a hush money payment scheme. Here’s what we know | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump’s indictment by a New York grand jury has thrust the nation into uncharted political, legal and historical waters, and raised a slew of questions about how the criminal case will unfold.

    The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has been investigating Trump in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election.

    Though the indictment – which has been filed under seal – has yet to be unveiled, Trump and his allies have already torn into Bragg and the grand jury’s decision, blasting it as “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”

    Here’s what we know about Trump’s indictment so far.

    Trump faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud in the indictment, CNN has reported. It remains under seal.

    The investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office began when Trump was still in the White House and relates to a $130,000 payment made by Trump’s then-personal attorney Michael Cohen to Daniels in late October 2016, days before the 2016 presidential election, to silence her from going public about an alleged affair with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the affair.

    A target in the probe has been the payment made to Daniels and the Trump Organization’s reimbursement to Cohen.

    According to court filings when Cohen faced federal criminal charges, Trump Org. executives authorized payments to him totaling $420,000 to cover his original $130,000 payment and tax liabilities and reward him with a bonus. The company noted the reimbursements as a legal expense in its internal books. Trump has denied knowledge of the payment.

    Hush money payments aren’t illegal. Ahead of the indictment, prosecutors were weighing whether to charge Trump with falsifying the business records of the Trump Organization for how it reflected the reimbursement of the payment to Cohen, who said he advanced the money to Daniels. Falsifying business records is a misdemeanor in New York.

    Prosecutors were also weighing whether to charge Trump with falsifying business records in the first degree for falsifying a record with the intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal another crime, which in this case could be a violation of campaign finance laws. That is a Class E felony and carries a sentence of a minimum of one year and as much as four years. To prove the case, prosecutors would need to show Trump intended to commit a crime.

    Trump was caught off guard by the grand jury’s decision to indict him, according to a person who spoke directly with him. While the former president was bracing for an indictment last week, he began to believe news reports that a potential indictment was weeks – or more – away.

    The former president has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the matter and continued his attacks on Bragg and other Democrats following news of the indictment.

    “I believe this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden,” the former president said in a statement Thursday. “The American people realize exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

    The former president had first been asked to surrender Friday in New York, his lawyer said, but his defense said more time was needed and he’s expected in court on Tuesday.

    As for the former president’s initial court appearance, it’ll look, in some ways, like that of any other defendant, and in others, look very different.

    First appearances are usually public proceedings. If an arrest of a defendant is not needed, arrangements are made with them or their lawyers for a voluntary surrender to law enforcement. With their first appearance in court, defendants are usually booked and finger-printed. And if a first appearance is also an arraignment, a plea is expected to be entered.

    Trump will have to go through certain processes that any other defendant must go through when a charge has been brought against him. But Trump’s status as a former president who is currently running for the White House again will undoubtedly inject additional security and practical concerns around the next steps in his case.

    Yes. This is the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges.

    That alone makes it historic. But Trump is currently a few months into his third White House bid, and his criminal case jolts the 2024 presidential campaign into a new phase, as the former president has vowed to keep running in the face of criminal charges.

    That’s one of many big questions here. So far, a number of congressional Republicans have rallied to Trump’s defense, attacking Bragg on Twitter and accusing the district attorney of a political witch hunt.

    “Outrageous,” tweeted House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the Republican committee chairmen who has demanded Bragg testify before Congress about the Trump investigation.

    Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, called the indictment “completely unprecedented” and said it is “a catastrophic escalation in the weaponization of the justice system.”

    And as part of the response to the indictment, Trump and his team will be rolling out surrogates beginning to hit Democrats, the investigation and Bragg across various forms of media as they work to shape the public narrative, according to sources close to Trump.

    Yes.

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  • Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey will run for reelection, boosting Democrats’ Senate outlook for 2024 | CNN Politics

    Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey will run for reelection, boosting Democrats’ Senate outlook for 2024 | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Bob Casey will run for reelection in 2024, the Pennsylvania Democrat announced Monday morning, providing good news for Democrats in a pivotal swing state.

    “Folks, I’m running for reelection,” Casey, 62, said in an announcement posted on Twitter. “There’s still more work to do to cut through the gridlock, stand up to powerful special interests and make the lives of hardworking Pennsylvanians easier. The map is back, and I’m not done yet.”

    Pennsylvania is one of several Senate battlegrounds where the party will be pressed to defend its slim majority. In 2022, the open seat Senate race in the Keystone State between Democrat John Fetterman, the eventual winner, and Republican Mehmet Oz was among the most expensive and competitive of the cycle.

    Casey is seeking his fourth term representing Pennsylvania in the Senate. The veteran Democrat had been noncommittal on his reelection plans up to this point, and in February he announced that he had undergone surgery for prostate cancer which “should not require further treatment,” according to his office.

    According to his latest FEC filings – which are set to be updated later this week – Casey had a little over $3 million in cash on hand stockpiled as of the end of 2022. Those funds and more will be critical in the upcoming contest, as Casey’s colleague, Fetterman, raised more than $76 million during his competitive 2022 race.

    Potential Republican challengers include David McCormick, a wealthy businessman who unsuccessfully ran against Oz in the state’s 2022 GOP Senate primary and who could pour millions from his personal fortune into another bid.

    McCormick has publicly expressed interest in the race, releasing a book and touring.

    “I’m thinking about it, obviously,” McCormick told CNN about a potential Senate run.

    And Doug Mastriano, the unsuccessful far-right nominee for governor in 2022, has also teased the possibility of running for Senate in 2024.

    “What do you do with a movement of 2.2 million?” Mastriano told Politico. “We’re keeping it alive.”

    Casey could stand to benefit from a competitive GOP primary with echoes of 2022, when a drawn out, bitter contest between McCormick and Oz helped Fetterman strengthen his position heading into the fall campaign.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • E. Jean Carroll battery and defamation trial against Donald Trump begins: What to know | CNN Politics

    E. Jean Carroll battery and defamation trial against Donald Trump begins: What to know | CNN Politics

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The civil battery and defamation trial for columnist E. Jean Carroll against former President Donald Trump is set to begin Tuesday.

    Carroll alleges Trump forcibly raped and groped her in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in the mid 1990’s. Trump denies the charges and has said Carroll is “not my type.”

    Unlike his dramatic courtroom appearance in New York state court earlier this month, Trump is unlikely to appear in the Manhattan federal courtroom, his lawyers have said, unless he is called to testify in Carroll’s case or opts to take the stand in his own defense. Because it is a civil case, he is not required to appear.

    Jury selection begins Tuesday and the trial is expected to last up to two weeks.

    Trump is not being criminally prosecuted on Carroll’s rape allegations. Carroll did not specify an amount in her civil lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court but is seeking monetary damages and a retraction of an October 2022 social media statement Trump made about Carroll.

    Here’s what to know:

    Nearly four years after Carroll first went public with the allegations in 2019, a jury is expected to be empaneled. Federal District Judge Lewis Kaplan is expected to winnow down a pool of about 100 prospective jurors.

    The attorneys have asked the judge to quiz the jury pool on issues like their potential biases and their knowledge of Carroll, Trump and the pending legal matters Trump is facing in unrelated cases like his recent indictment in New York County criminal court.

    The jury will remain anonymous to the public and the attorneys, the judge ruled. The decision was in part influenced by Trump’s threats to the state Supreme Court judge overseeing his criminal case in New York.

    Attorneys for Carroll and Trump could give opening statements late in the day Tuesday.

    Carroll filed the suit last November under New York’s 2022 Adult Survivors Act that opened a look-back window for sexual assault allegations like Carroll’s with long-expired statutes of limitations.

    The former Elle columnist first came forward with her story in June of 2019 publishing an excerpt from her book “What Do We Need Men For” in New York Magazine ahead of the book release.

    “And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

    “In the meantime, and for the record, E. Jean Carroll is not telling the truth, is a woman who I had nothing to do with, didn’t know, and would have no interest in knowing her if I ever had the chance. Now all I have to do is go through years more of legal nonsense in order to clear my name of her and her lawyer’s phony attacks on me. This can only happen to ‘Trump’!”

    The lawsuit argues the denial of Carroll’s allegations is defamatory and caused her emotional, reputational and professional harm.

    Trump’s lawyer corrects him after error during deposition

    Carroll’s account of the alleged rape after encountering Trump at Bergdorf Goodman in the fall of 1995 or spring of 1996 is detailed in the lawsuit.

    She recalled telling Trump she was 52 at time. Both are now in their 70’s.

    She helped Trump shop for “a girl” when he recognized her leaving the store, Carroll says.

    “Hey, you’re that advice lady!” he said to her, according to the lawsuit. “Hey, you’re that real estate tycoon!” she replied.

    Trump steered what started out as light-hearted shopping to the lingerie department where he suggested Carroll try on a bodysuit, the suit alleges. Carroll says Trump then guided her toward a dressing room, where she jokingly suggested he try on the lingerie.

    Once in the dressing room Trump “lunged at Carroll, pushing her against the wall, bumping her head quite badly, and putting his mouth on her lips,” according to the lawsuit. With Carroll fighting back, Trump pushed her against the wall again, “jammed his hand under her coatdress and pulled down her tights,” the lawsuit says.

    “Trump opened his overcoat and unzipped his pants. Trump then pushed his fingers around Carroll’s genitals and forced his penis inside of her,” the suit alleges.

    Carroll eventually pushed him off with her knee and ran out of the dressing room to exit the store, according to the lawsuit.

    The former president categorically denies that the interaction and assault ever happened.

    After Carroll went public, Trump said he “never met this person.”

    Trump’s counsel has made several legal attempts to dismiss the litigation with Carroll and once tried to countersue her, alleging Carroll violated New York’s anti-SLAPP law prohibiting frivolous defamation lawsuits – a claim rejected by Judge Kaplan.

    Carroll first sued Trump for defamation in 2019 for statements he made denying the allegations at the time. That case has been paused pending further litigation about how to handle the case because Trump was president when he made the statements at issue in the lawsuit.

    Attorneys for the career advice columnist have indicated that Carroll will likely take the stand to tell her account to the jury.

    Trump, however, is unlikely to appear in the Manhattan federal courtroom, his lawyers have said, unless he is called to testify in Carroll’s case or opts to take the stand in his own defense.

    Trump’s attorney told the court that Trump wanted to attend the trial but claimed it would be a burden on the city and court staff to accommodate him given the security protection he receives.

    Judge Kaplan has not decided whether he’ll instruct the jury about Trump’s absence from the defense table.

    Jurors are expected to see at least some parts of Trump’s video deposition taken last October for this case. Excerpts of the deposition were previously unsealed in court filings ahead of the trial.

    Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta Kaplan, a civil attorney who’s represented women in high-profile sexual assault litigation like victims of Jeffrey Epstein, indicated that her team can put on Carroll’s case without Trump making an appearance. (Carroll’s attorney and the judge are not related.)

    Two longtime friends of Carroll, who’ve confirmed that she confided in them soon after the alleged incident more than two decades ago, can testify to corroborate Carroll’s story, Judge Kaplan ruled over objections from Trump’s legal team.

    Carroll has said when she confided in journalist Lisa Birnbach, her friend told her she’d been raped and should report the incident to the police at the time.

    When she told former local TV anchor Carol Martin a day or so later, Martin warned Carroll that she was no match for Trump’s army of lawyers and said it was best to keep it to herself – which is ultimately what Carroll did until 2019, she says.

    Two other women who allege Trump physically forced himself on them can also testify about their allegations, the judge ruled.

    Jessica Leeds has alleged that Trump, seated next to her on a plane, groped her on a flight from Texas to New York in 1979. Leeds, who first came forward during the 2016 presidential election, said in a deposition for this case that Trump acknowledged remembering her from the plane when she saw him at an event sometime after the alleged incident.

    People Magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff similarly alleges that Trump groped her and tried to forcibly kiss her in 2005 when Stoynoff was at Mar-a-Lago to interview Trump and a then-pregnant Melania Trump on their first wedding anniversary.

    Trump denies both incidents ever happened.

    Attorneys for Carroll are expected to show the jury a black and white photo of Trump where he is interacting with several people, including with his then-wife Ivana, Carroll and her then-husband.

    A transcript of his October 2022 deposition revealed that Trump mistook Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples when he reviewed the photo during the deposition.

    “I don’t know who – it’s Marla,” Trump said when shown the photo. “That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife,” he says when asked to clarify.

    e. jean carroll new day 071619

    E. Jean Carroll: ‘I’m not sorry’ (2019)

    Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, then interjected and said “no, that’s Carroll,” according to the transcript.

    Carroll’s lawyers have said the photo proves Trump had in fact met Carroll and she could be his “type.”

    Trump’s comments on the 2016 campaign trail denying allegations from Leeds and Stoynoff can also be admitted as evidence, the judge ruled.

    Like Carroll, Trump has asserted that the allegations are false and implausible in part because the women aren’t attractive or his ‘type.’

    Jurors may also hear the controversial “Access Hollywood” tape on which Trump can be heard telling show host Billy Bush how he would use his stardom to aggressively come on to women.

    Trump has chalked up his graphic language on the tape, which first surfaced during his 2016 Presidential election campaign, as “locker room talk” that wasn’t actually true.

    Judge Kaplan ruled that a jury could reasonably find that Trump admitted in the Access Hollywood Tape “that he in fact has had contact with women’s genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he has attempted to do so,” and the jury may view accounts from Leeds and Stoynoff as support for that argument.

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  • The US immigration story extends well beyond the border | CNN Politics

    The US immigration story extends well beyond the border | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    There is a tendency to view the different elements of the immigration landscape in isolation.

    • Texas is being sued by the US Department of Justice for acting on its own to put obstructions along the border.
    • New York and other cities complain they are overwhelmed by buses of migrants being sent from the border.
    • In the absence of action by Congress, court decisions are setting US border policy.

    But the elements are all interrelated.

    I talked to CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez to get her perspective as a White House reporter with a deep background in reporting on all aspects of the larger immigration story. Our conversation, conducted by email, is below. And don’t miss her story that published Tuesday: Federal judge blocks Biden’s controversial asylum policy in a major blow to administration.

    WOLF: The US government is suing Texas to remove floating barriers from the Rio Grande. But it’s just the latest in a series of escalating measures Texas has undertaken on its own to keep migrants out of the country. What is the state of play at the border?

    ALVAREZ: The handling of the US-Mexico border has long been a point of contention between President (Joe) Biden and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who’s argued that the administration hasn’t done enough to enforce the border.

    As an affront to Biden’s border policies, Abbott has transported migrants to Democratic-led cities without coordinating with city officials, deployed more personnel to the Texas-Mexico border, and earlier this month, installed buoys in the Rio Grande.

    Border agents have historically worked closely with the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety. But the latest steps taken by the state have made day-to-day operations more difficult.

    DPS made certain portions of the Texas-Mexico border more difficult to access, marking a departure from the coordination that previously existed between law enforcement. Agents on the ground have also sent regular reports to US Customs and Border Protection headquarters about what they’ve observed as Abbott’s operation has been underway, a Homeland Security official told me.

    But disturbing images of migrants with injuries and troubling reports of Texas troops pushing migrants back to Mexico forced the Biden’s administration hands.

    Last week, the Justice Department said it’s assessing the situation along the Texas-Mexico border and on Monday, the DOJ filed a lawsuit on a separate, though related matter: the installation of a floating barrier. The lawsuit says Texas didn’t seek authorization before placing the floating barrier in the Rio Grande and poses a threat to navigation.

    That court battle could take months to play out. But in the interim, it could fuel tensions between agents and troops on the ground and further escalate the feud between Biden and Abbott.

    WOLF: You’ve written about how an expected surge of migrants after the end of a Covid-era policy known as Title 42 never materialized. What happened?

    ALVAREZ: Let’s provide some context first. Migration often ebbs and flows.

    But the Biden administration has had to grapple with unprecedented mass movement of people in the Western hemisphere, which is in part the outcome of the coronavirus pandemic decimating conditions in the region.

    The administration relied on a public health authority, known as Title 42, to quickly expel migrants back to Mexico or their origin countries. That authority had been invoked under former President (Donald) Trump and used to turn away migrants, including asylum-seekers, at the US-Mexico border on public health grounds.

    In the days leading up to the expiration of Title 42, thousands of migrants tried to cross the US southern border, knowing that they could face tougher penalties after the end of the authority including bans on reentry to the United States.

    And that’s indeed been the case. Increased deportations and tougher policies, paired with other, new legal pathways to the United States, appear to have driven down the number of people attempting to unlawfully cross the US-Mexico border.

    In June, for example, US Border Patrol arrested nearly 100,000 migrants along the US southern border, marking a decrease from May and marking the lowest monthly border encounters since February 2021, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.

    WOLF: Far from the border in Texas, New York Mayor Eric Adams, after earlier welcoming migrants bused to his city, has said with increasing urgency that the city is full. Migrants are now also being bused to Los Angeles. What’s the latest on the busing angle?

    ALVAREZ: The busing is still happening. Since last year, Texas has bused more than 27,000 migrants to six cities, according to Abbott’s office. The cities include Washington, DC, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles.

    One of the main issues with the transport of migrants to these cities that officials often raise alarm about is the lack of coordination. The governor’s office doesn’t generally notify cities that migrants are being sent there, leaving border NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) to try to fill the information void.

    It’s important to note, though, that migrants who are released from government custody have been vetted and processed by federal authorities and are released as they go through their immigration court proceedings. An immigration judge ultimately decides whether a migrant has grounds to stay in the United States or be ordered removed.

    WOLF: All of these things are related – the efforts by Texas to create its own border policy, the difficulty New York and cities are facing as they deal with an influx of migrants … everything feeds from the lack of more comprehensive immigration reform. Is there any movement in Congress toward dealing with all of this in a comprehensive way?

    ALVAREZ: Bills addressing the immigration system have been introduced by both parties. Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, for example, has introduced legislation that addresses work visa programs, among other parts of the system. But it’s such a divisive issue that legislation struggles to move forward.

    Both parties are so far apart on the issue that even though Democrats and Republicans acknowledge the US immigration system is broken, they can’t agree on how to fix it.

    Without comprehensive reform, the federal government is left to implementing a patchwork of policies and then playing defense when lawsuits are filed against them, often resulting in policy whiplash.

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