US Politics

New York City’s mayoral election has been thrown into chaos after the board of elections mistakenly included 135,000 “test ballots” in its vote tally.The board of elections had published updated vote totals for the Democratic primary earlier on Tuesday, which showed Kathryn Garcia, New York’s former sanitation commissioner, narrowing the gap on Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, to less than two points.Hours later, however, the board of elections said it had become aware of a “discrepancy” in its report. The elections board said its calculations had included “both test and election night results, producing approximately 135,000 additional records”.The error is likely to sow unfortunate confusion around the system of ranked choice voting, which was used for the first time in a New York City mayoral election this year.Ranked choice voting allowed voters to rank up to five candidates for mayor, and Tuesday night’s vote tally was supposed to give New Yorkers an early glimpse at how the race was shaping up after rankings from early and in-person votes had been calculated.Instead, the city has provided fuel to election conspiracy theorists nationwide, with millions still convinced the presidential election was fraudulent. There is no evidence of mass fraud in either the New York City mayoral election or the presidential election.“Board staff has removed all test ballot images from the system and will upload election night results, cross-referencing against election night reporting software for verification,” the elections board said on Twitter at 10.34pm on Tuesday night.“The cast vote record will be re-generated and the RCV rounds will be re-tabulated.”Garcia had been the main beneficiary, with the erroneous results showing her on 48.9% after ranked choice votes were counted. Results from the first vote count, published a week ago, showed she had received 19.5% of first choice votes. Like other candidates, Garcia criticized the board of elections overnight.“The BOE’s release of incorrect ranked choice votes is deeply troubling and requires a much more transparent and complete explanation,” Garcia said.“Every ranked choice and absentee vote must be counted accurately so that all New Yorkers have faith in our democracy and our government.”There was no trace of any results, erroneous or otherwise, on the board of elections website on Wednesday morning.Even if Tuesday’s total had not included 135,000 test ballots, it still would have created confusion: the tally would not have included the 124,000 absentee ballots which are yet to be counted. Those votes are set to be added to the total and published next week.“Today’s mistake by the board of elections was unfortunate. It is critical that New Yorkers are confident in their electoral system, especially as we rank votes in a citywide election for the first time,” Adams said in a statement.“We appreciate the board’s transparency and acknowledgment of their error. We look forward to the release of an accurate, updated simulation, and the timely conclusion of this critical process.” More

A new survey has found that since Joe Biden came to power, positive views of the United States have rebounded across 17 advanced economies in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Most continue to see China in an unfavourable light.“Confidence in the US president has shot up precipitously since Joe Biden took office, while confidence in President Xi Jinping remains unchanged and near historic lows,” the survey, conducted by the US-based Pew research centre, found. The survey was conducted between 1 February and 26 May this year across 17 advanced economies as a part of Pew’s 2021 Global Attitudes survey wave. There were 18,850 respondents.Last year the survey found that negative views of both the US and China had reached historic highs in many countries.The pro-America opinion is the highest in South Korea, where 77% have positive views of the country, while around two-thirds or more in the US, Italy, Japan, France and the UK say the same. In every place except New Zealand, around half or more had a favourable opinion of the US.Only two countries – Greece and Singapore – have a more positive view of China compared with last year. Three-quarters or more in Japan (88%), Sweden (80%), Australia (78%), South Korea (77%) and the US (76%) have negative views of China. “In many places, these unfavourable views are at or near historic highs, though they are largely unchanged since last year,” the authors wrote.The large majority of respondents also said that China “does not respect personal freedoms of its people”. In 15 of 17 publics, eight-in-10 have this impression. “This sense is also at or nearly historic highs in nearly every place surveyed, having risen significantly in countries like Italy, South Korea, Greece, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom since 2018,” Pew found.On US-China leadership, when the question was asked last year, few respondents had confidence in either Xi or then-President Donald Trump to do the right thing when it came to world affairs. It found that across much of western Europe, more had confidence in Xi than Trump.Half or more people in almost every place surveyed say it is “more important for their nation to have strong economic ties with the US than with China”. The views were different in Singapore (33%) and New Zealand (45%).But the feelings towards China are not all negative. When it comes to the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, China scored higher than the US. A median of 49% respondents among the 17 publics surveyed say that China has done “a good job” in handling the coronavirus outbreak, whereas a median of 37% regard the US’s response positively. More

The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to remove statues of white supremacists and Confederate leaders who advocated for slavery from the US Capitol.The vote passed 285 to 120 with every Democrat present and 67 Republicans voting in favor of the legislation, which directs the removal of “all statues of individuals who voluntarily served in the Confederate States of America or of the military forces or government of a State while the State was in rebellion against the United States”.Representative Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia, said that honoring these men sent a message in the US Capitol that Black people’s lives are not valued.“It’s personally an affront to me as a Black man to walk around and look at these figures and see them standing tall, looking out as if they were visionaries and they did something that was great. No, they did something that was very hurtful to humanity,” Johnson said.The legislation specifically calls for the removal of statues of three men who supported slavery and segregation: the North Carolina governor Charles Aycock, Vice-President John Calhoun and the Arkansas senator James Clarke.It also orders the replacement of a bust of Roger Taney, who owned enslaved people and wrote the 1857 supreme court decision that denied enslaved people citizenship. The bust would be replaced with one of Thurgood Marshall, who became the first Black supreme court justice in 1967 and who previously won a landmark supreme court case which said school segregation was unconstitutional, Brown v Board of Education.Some Republicans in the debate highlighted that Democrats represented the south during the civil war. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, said he supported the bill but emphasized “all the statues being removed by this bill are statues of Democrats.”A similar bill passed the House last year but the then Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, declined to bring the measure to a vote. It is more likely to be introduced to the Senate now that Democrats have a slight majority. For the legislation to succeed, 10 Republican senators would have to vote in favor of it with every Democrat because of the filibuster rule.The House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland, reintroduced the legislation in May and said: “It’s never too late to do the right thing, and this legislation would work to right a historic wrong while ensuring our Capitol reflects the principles and ideals of what Americans stand for.”The majority of Confederate memorials were put up decades after the civil war, according to a database created by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The period which saw the biggest spike in the creation of these statues was in the 1900s, when southern states enacted Jim Crow laws that limited the rights of Black people after a period of integration.The push to remove Confederate symbols from public places has been going on for decades and ramped up last year during civil rights protests. In 2020, at least 160 Confederate symbols were taken down or removed from public spaces, according to the SPLC database. More

It’s less than a year since Lordstown Motors was touted as the future for the Youngstown, Ohio, the once thriving steel and manufacturing city that has struggled to reinvent itself in the post-industrial age.The company and its Endurance all-electric pickup truck were seen as saviors for Youngstown after General Motors pulled the plug on its nearby Lordstown plant. “It’s booming now. It’s absolutely booming,” said Donald Trump in September, during an unveiling of the Endurance truck at the White House.Now those hopes are fading as Lordstown Motors faces financial difficulties that have locals worried, once again, about the region’s financial future.“It’s a very sad moment in the history of Youngstown. It seems every five years that hope is just over the horizon and somebody just closes it up and it disappears,” said Bob Hagan, who represented the Youngstown area for nearly three decades in the Ohio state legislature as an assembly representative and state senator.General Motors announced plans to shut down five factories in North America in November 2018, including its plant in Lordstown, which employed 1,600 workers and had operated for 52 years. The number of employees had steeply declined since the early 1990s, when more than 10,000 workers were employed at the plant.In March 2019, the last Chevy Cruze rolled off the assembly line as the plant ceased operations, leaving hundreds of workers forced to retire, transfer to a different GM plant elsewhere in the US, or find other work.The closure was devastating for residents in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, as the area has steadily declined from outsourcing and plant closures over the past few decades in the automotive, manufacturing, and steel industries.General Motors sold the plant to Lordstown Motors for $20m in 2019, and loaned the company $40m.But hope for a bright electric future soon faded. Since its purchase of the plant, Lordstown Motors has experienced financial and developmental difficulties. The company recently gave a tour of the facility to reporters, analysts and other visitors amid a turmoil of conflicting statements on its outlook, the resignations of its CEO and CFO, and a statement to securities regulators that the company did not have enough funds to start production.Hagan said these travails are just the latest setback for an area that has taken many hard knocks. Over the past several decades, steel mills and manufacturing plants have shuttered amid broken promises. He fears Lordstown Motors may prove another corporation that came into the area with high hopes and lofty promises – only to let the community down.“They’re rearranging the chairs on the Titanic,” he said.The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened an inquiry into Lordstown Motors over statements it has made about orders in the wake of a report from short-seller Hindenburg Research that accused Lordstown Motors of misrepresenting orders to raise capital. Five Lordstown Motors executives sold more than $8m in stocks in February 2021, ahead of the company’s financial reporting results and before the company’s financial problems were publicly disclosed.“If you talk to the vast majority of us, we are not surprised by all the issues with Lordstown Motors,” said Timothy O’Hara, former president of United Auto Workers local 1112, the union which represented GM Lordstown employees. He worked at the plant for 41 years before retiring.“Lordstown Motors has been a shaky situation from the beginning. For the economy of the Mahoning Valley I hope it succeeds – but I’m not holding my breath.”The Lordstown Motors plant currently has about 600 employees, and production is projected to begin at the end of September. But it faces some huge hurdles. In a statement filed with the SEC, the company said its success hinges on “its ability to complete the development of its electric vehicles, obtain regulatory approval, begin commercial scale production and launch the sale of such vehicles” – all as it seeks additional financing before it’s projected to run out of funds by May next year.Elected officials have bet heavily on the success of Lordstown Motors in the area. In December, the Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved a state tax credit for the company estimated to save $20m in payroll taxes, based on its promise to create 1,570 full-time jobs. Ohio’s private economic development agency, JobsOhio, has pledged $4.5m in grants to Lordstown Motors. In April last year, the company received more than $1m through a federal pandemic loan to retain 42 jobs.But Hagan believes the money may not be enough and, once again, it will be the people of Youngstown who pay the price.“Tax dollars are being used to lure people into our community. We have to have elected officials be more vigilant on how organizations are taking money and make sure they deliver,” he said. More

California added five states, including Florida, to its list of places where state-funded travel is banned because of laws that discriminate against members of the LGBTQ+ community.California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, on Monday added Florida, Arkansas, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia to the list that now has 17 states where state employee travel is forbidden except under limited circumstances.“Make no mistake: we’re in the midst of an unprecedented wave of bigotry and discrimination in this country, and the state of California is not going to support it,” Bonta said.Lawmakers in 2016 banned non-essential travel to states with laws that discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The 12 other states on the list are: Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.The five states newly added to the list have introduced bills in their legislatures this year that prevent transgender girls from participating in school sports consistent with their gender identity, block access to certain types of healthcare and allow the discrimination of the LGBTQ+ community, Bonta said.Florida, Montana, Arkansas and West Virginia passed laws that prevent transgender girls from participating in school sports that confirm with their gender identity. North Dakota signed into law a bill allowing certain publicly-funded student organizations to restrict LGBTQ+ students from joining without losing funding. Arkansas passed the first law in the nation to prohibit physicians from providing gender-affirming healthcare to transgender minors, regardless of the wishes of parents or whether a physician deems such care to be medically necessary.These lawmakers “would rather demonize trans youth than focus on solving real issues like tackling gun violence beating back this pandemic and rebuilding our economy”, Bonta said.The California law has exemptions for some trips, such as travel needed to enforce state law and to honor contracts signed before the states were added to the list. Travel to conferences or out-of-state training are examples of trips that can be blocked.It’s unclear what effect California’s travel ban will have. Bonta did not have information about how many state agencies have stopped sending state employees to the states on the list or the financial impact of California’s travel ban on those states. More

Amid chaos at the White House as the coronavirus pandemic worsened, Donald Trump took to referring derisively to the Covid taskforce chaired by his vice-president as “that fucking council that Mike has”.The revelation about the president’s contempt for his key advisory body is one among many in a new book, Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History, which is published in the US on Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.Previous revelations from the book have included that Trump wanted to send infected Americans to Guantánamo Bay and that he mused about John Bolton, his national security adviser, being “taken out” by Covid.Authors Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, both Washington Post reporters, also report in depth on how the extraordinary influence of “outside consultants” to Trump, including the controversial Stephen Moore, relentlessly undermined the work of the president’s scientific advisers.The book is a deeply reported account of the beginning of a pandemic that has killed more than 600,000 in the US and a federal response hamstrung by incompetence and infighting.Trump’s derisive term for his task force, the authors write, was “a signal that he wished it would go away” and “didn’t want anyone to exert leadership”.“Many on the task force didn’t want the responsibility either, fearful of the consequences.”Under the chairmanship of Vice-President Mike Pence – who is shown resisting his own appointment to replace the outmatched health secretary, Alex Azar – the task force was led by Dr Deborah Birx, a US Army physician widely praised for her role in the fight against Aids but whose star waned under Trump.Abutaleb and Paletta portray Birx as a confident leader unafraid to challenge powerful men, but also someone who “overplayed her hand” when she decided to praise and flatter Trump as a way to manage him.Of an interview Birx gave to the rightwing Christian Broadcasting Network, in which she praised Trump’s “ability to analyse and integrate data”, the authors write: “It was the kind of sycophancy one expected from Pence or [treasury secretary] Steve Mnuchin, not a government scientist.”The authors also say Birx worked well with Pence and was admired by fellow workers, though by April 2020, chief of staff Mark Meadows was deriding the task force as “useless and broken”.Birx served until the end of the Trump administration in January this year. Unlike her fellow task force member Anthony Fauci, now chief medical adviser to Joe Biden, she did not remain in public service.Abutaleb and Paletta also report that in March, as cases spiraled and the US death toll passed 1,000, unofficial adviser Stephen Moore, Trump’s “emissary [from] the conservative establishment … strode into the Oval Office to convince the president” to end shutdowns and get the economy moving.Moore is an economist who in 2019 was nominated by Trump to the board of the Federal Reserve, only to withdraw after outlets led by the Guardian reported controversies in his past.He told Abutaleb and Paletta Trump’s controversial and soon dropped promise to reopen the US economy by Easter was “the smart thing to do”, because “the economic costs of this are mounting and there’s not a lot of evidence that lockdowns are working to stop the spread”.Lockdowns to stop the spread of Covid-19 remain in use around the world.Moore is also quoted attacking Fauci, a common target for conservative ire over subjects including mask-wearing and the origins of Covid in China.“Fauci is the villain here,” Moore says. “He has the Napoleon complex, and he thinks he is the dictator who could decide how to run the country.”Moore also says conservative activists he advised as they staged protests against lockdowns and masks – and who he famously claimed were successors of the great civil rights protester Rosa Parks – asked: “What’s wrong with this fucking Fauci? Sometimes they’d call him Fucky, not Fauci.” More