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      Arizona to vote on enshrining abortion rights in state constitution in November

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      Arizona voters will decide this November whether to add abortion rights into their state constitution, a prospect that could turbocharge voter turnout in a critical battleground state in the 2024 election.Late Monday, the Arizona secretary of state’s office announced that it had validated an estimated 577,971 signatures in support of a ballot measure, the Arizona For Abortion Access Act, to establish a constitutional right to abortion in the state.On X, the office called the measure “the largest petition effort in Arizona history”. The measure will be listed on the ballot as Proposition 139.Arizona is not the only state to face the prospect of an abortion-related ballot measure this November. So far, states including Colorado, Florida and Nevada – another key battleground state – are also set to hold similar ballot measures. Tuesday also marks the deadline for the state of Missouri to determine whether to add its own abortion-related measure to its ballots.Since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, ballot measures that protect or preserve abortion rights have successfully passed even in red states such as Ohio, Kansas and Kentucky. However, they have never been tested during a presidential election. Democrats are hoping that enthusiasm for the measures will boost turnout among their base, especially since the vice-president, Kamala Harris, one of the Democrats’ most effective messengers on abortion rights, became the party’s nominee.Abortion is currently legal up until 15 weeks in Arizona. Earlier this year, the state supreme court ruled that a near-total abortion ban from 1864 – enacted before Arizona even became a state – could take effect. That ruling unleashed weeks of nationwide outrage and ultimately led a handful of Republicans to break with their party to vote in favor of a bill to repeal the 1864 ban.If passed, Arizona for Abortion Access Act would establish that Arizonans have “a fundamental right to abortion”. It would protect the right to abortion until fetal viability, which is typically dated to around 24 weeks of pregnancy, and allow for abortions past that point if a medical provider deems them necessary to protect a pregnant individual’s life, physical health or mental health.In May, a CBS poll found that 66% of Arizona adults want abortion to be legal in all or most cases. More

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      Police Nab Fugitive Tortoise on Slow Run to Freedom

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      Arizona state troopers rescued Stitch, the giant sulcata tortoise, from an interstate highway after it escaped from its enclosure at a ranch.On an interstate highway between Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., drivers on their morning commute called 911 to report a runaway. A very … very … slow one.He was miles from home and ambling across the four-lane highway when he was finally caught by police.State troopers, with the help of a few good Samaritans, stopped traffic and picked up the escapee: Stitch, a giant sulcata tortoise with a sand-colored shell.The 14-year-old tortoise had broken out of his enclosure and a few layers of fences at the nearby Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch, a roadside animal park open to the public, before making a run for it. Danna Cogburn, an owner of the ranch, said he had been missing for two to three hours before officers told the owners they had found him on the road.“How in the world or where he got out?” Ms. Cogburn said. “I’m not really sure.” She said Stitch was one of only two tortoises on the ranch who were small enough to have made it through the fence. “He had to work at it and be very determined.”The night before his July 30 escape, Ms. Cogburn said, storms had damaged some of the ranch’s gates and enclosures, including the area where the tortoises are kept.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Así es la estrategia de Kamala Harris en materia de migración

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      La candidata demócrata ha sido vapuleada por Trump y otros por su historial en materia migratoria. Ahora está probando un enfoque que, según los demócratas, ya ha funcionado antes.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Durante semanas, los republicanos se han dedicado a atacar a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris por el tema migratorio, culpándola de las políticas del presidente Joe Biden en la frontera.Ahora, Harris, la candidata presidencial demócrata, está tratando de neutralizar esa línea de ataque, una de sus mayores debilidades ante los votantes, con una serie de estrategias que los demócratas aseguran que les han funcionado en las últimas elecciones y con la postura más contundente que ha mostrado hasta ahora como una fiscala estricta con la delincuencia y dedicada a proteger la frontera.Esta semana, contraatacó con la promesa de aumentar la seguridad fronteriza de resultar elegida y criticó a su oponente republicano, el expresidente Donald Trump, por ayudar a acabar con un acuerdo fronterizo bipartidista en el Congreso. Además, su campaña ha dado marcha atrás en algunas de las posturas más progresistas que adoptó durante su candidatura a la nominación demócrata en 2019, entre ellas su postura de que los migrantes que cruzan la frontera de Estados Unidos sin autorización no deberían enfrentar sanciones penales.“Fui fiscala general de un estado fronterizo”, dijo el viernes Harris, quien fue fiscala superior de California, en un mitin en Arizona, un estado pendular donde la inmigración es una de las principales preocupaciones de los votantes.“Perseguí a las bandas transnacionales, a los cárteles de la droga y a los traficantes de personas. Los procesé, caso por caso, y gané”, dijo.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon’s politics: how Musk became a driver of elections misinformation

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      When Elon Musk took over as owner of Twitter, researchers and elections officials feared a rampant spread of misinformation that would lead to threats and harassment and undermine democracy.Their fears came true – and Musk himself has emerged as one of its main drivers.The tech billionaire has cast doubt on machines that tabulate votes and mail ballots, both common features of US elections. He has repeatedly claimed there is rampant non-citizen voting, a frequent Republican talking point in this election.Musk, the ultra-wealthy owner of Tesla and other tech companies, is scheduled to interview Donald Trump on Monday, where they are sure to find common ground on these election conspiracies. Musk is a vocal supporter of the former US president and current Republican nominee. He has restored the Twitter/X accounts of people banned under previous ownership, dismantling the platform’s fact-checking and safety features. Trump’s X account, which was suspended after the January 6 insurrection, was restored as well, though Trump has not returned actively to the platform.“Electronic voting machines and anything mailed in is too risky. We should mandate paper ballots and in-person voting only,” he wrote on X in July.Maricopa county recorder Stephen Richer responded, asking if he could give Musk a tour of the large Arizona county’s facilities and run through the mail voting processes.“You can go into all the rooms. You can examine all the equipment. You can ask any question you want. We’d love to show you the security steps already in place, which I think are very sound,” Richer said.It wasn’t the only time Richer has sought to correct election misinformation Musk had shared. He previously tried to fix misunderstandings of Arizona voter data and rules for proof of citizenship.Social media platforms overall have taken less aggressive stances on fact-checking election falsehoods after an ongoing campaign by Republican lawmakers and their allies to attack the ways information was flagged by elected officials and researchers and how platforms responded.“I think X really kind of sticks out as a place where that change has been striking, and for it to come from the very top kind of just shows how much of an issue it is,” said Mekela Panditharatne, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s elections & government program.Musk shared a video that used an AI-generated voice for Kamala Harris, which raised concerns that it could fool some people into thinking it was real. Musk and the video creator defended it as parody.He has also written multiple times claiming that non-citizens are voting in US elections, which is illegal except in a few local elections. There are few instances of non-citizens voting, or even registering to vote. In late July, he shared a video of Elizabeth Warren talking about a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented people living in the US. “As I was saying, they’re importing voters,” he said, a nod to “great replacement” theory.Grok, the platform’s artificial intelligence chatbot that Musk has billed as an “anti-woke” antidote to left-biased chatbots, has spread false information that ballot deadlines had passed in nine states, meaning the vice-president couldn’t get on the ballot in those places, which is untrue. Secretaries of state are urging Musk to fix this issue for the chatbot that doesn’t have election information guardrails that other chatbots, like ChatGPT, do.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It’s important that social media companies, especially those with global reach, correct mistakes of their own making – as in the case of the Grok AI chatbot simply getting the rules wrong,” Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon told the Washington Post. “Speaking out now will hopefully reduce the risk that any social media company will decline or delay correction of its own mistakes between now and the November election.”Off the platform, a political action committee Musk created is mining personal information from voters in key states in what appears to users to initially look like a voter registration portal, CNBC reported. America Pac, a pro-Trump group backed by Musk’s enormous wealth, is targeting swing states voters. The data scraping is now being investigated by at least two states.Despite his endless claims about election fraud, Musk told the Atlantic this month he would accept the results of the 2024 election – with a caveat.“If there are questions of election integrity, they should be properly investigated and neither be dismissed out of hand nor unreasonably questioned,” he said. “If, after review of the election results, it turns out that Kamala wins, that win should be recognized and not disputed.” More

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      Harris Hopes a New Playbook Will Neutralize G.O.P. Attacks on Immigration

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      For weeks, Republicans have pummeled Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration, blaming her for President Biden’s policies at the border.Now, Ms. Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is seeking to neutralize that line of attack, one of her biggest weaknesses with voters, running a playbook that Democrats say has worked for them in recent elections and staking out her clearest position yet as a tough-on-crime prosecutor focused on securing the border.This week, she has hit back by promising to heighten border security if elected and slamming her Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, for helping kill a bipartisan border deal in Congress. And her campaign has walked back some of the more progressive positions she took during her bid for the Democratic nomination in 2019, including her stance that migrants crossing the U.S. border without authorization should not face criminal penalties.“I was attorney general of a border state,” Ms. Harris, who was once California’s top prosecutor, said on Friday at a rally in Arizona, a swing state where immigration is a top concern for voters. “I went after the transnational gangs, the drug cartels and human traffickers. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won.”A day earlier, the Harris campaign released a television advertisement highlighting her pivot. The ad, targeted to voters in the battleground states, promised that Ms. Harris would “hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking.” It made no mention of undocumented immigrants already in the United States — a top priority for many progressives and immigration activists — although in her Arizona speech Ms. Harris stressed the importance of “comprehensive reform” that includes “an earned pathway to citizenship.”No other Democratic nominee has taken a position this tough on border security since Bill Clinton. Her stance reflects a change in public opinion since Mr. Trump left the White House in 2021. More Americans, including many Democrats and Latino voters, have expressed support for hard-line immigration measures.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harris Rides Momentum to Arizona, for What Campaign Says Is Largest Rally Yet

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      Vice President Kamala Harris rolled into Arizona on Friday evening with the same political momentum that has infused her first swing across the country this week, drawing a crowd that her campaign estimated at more than 15,000 — her largest yet — in a Western state that not long ago appeared to be falling off the battleground map.Along with her newly minted running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Ms. Harris delivered a stump speech that is barely a week old, and yet familiar enough to an impassioned new following that some shouted her lines before she did.The rally was her fourth in four days with an arena-filling crowd that demonstrated the degree to which her candidacy replacing President Biden’s had remade the 2024 race.Mr. Walz relished the crowd that filed into the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz., in 100-degree heat as he poked fun at Mr. Trump’s obsession with rally crowds.“It’s not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything,” Mr. Walz said to knowing cheers.Despite her momentum, Ms. Harris faces an uphill battle in Arizona, a longtime Republican stronghold that flipped to Mr. Biden in 2020 but, according to polling, had been drifting back to former President Donald J. Trump this year.To win, she will need to reunite the diverse coalition of voters who delivered the state four years ago, and she made an explicit appeal to one part of that group on Friday: Native American voters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      First conviction in Arizona fake electors case as Republican activist pleads guilty

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      A Republican activist who signed a document falsely claiming Donald Trump had won Arizona in 2020 became the first person to be convicted in the state’s fake elector case.Loraine Pellegrino, a past president of the group Ahwatukee Republican Women, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false document, the Arizona attorney general’s office spokesperson, Richie Taylor, said on Tuesday, declining to comment further. Records documenting her guilty plea have not yet been posted by the court. Still, court records show Pellegrino was sentenced to unsupervised probation. Before the plea, she faced nine felony charges.Seventeen other people had been charged in the case, including 10 other Republicans, who had signed a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claimed Trump had carried Arizona in the 2020 election. Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes. Joshua Kolsrud, an attorney representing Pellegrino, said in a statement that his client has accepted responsibility for her actions. “Loraine Pellegrino’s decision to accept a plea to a lesser charge reflects her desire to move forward and put this matter behind her,” Kolsrud said.On Monday, Jenna Ellis, former Trump’s campaign attorney who worked closely with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, entered a cooperation agreement with prosecutors who have asked for her charges to be dismissed. The remaining defendants, including Giuliani and Mark Meadows, Trump presidential chief of staff, have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges.Pellegrino and 10 other people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors had met in Phoenix on 14 December 2020 to sign the false document. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.Arizona authorities unveiled the felony charges in late April. Overall, charges were brought against 11 Republicans who submitted the document falsely declaring Trump had won Arizona, five lawyers connected to the former president and two former Trump aides.Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment. More

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      Ex-Trump attorney agrees to cooperate in Arizona fake electors case

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      Jenna Ellis, Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign attorney charged in Arizona as part of the fake electors scheme, has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for getting her charges dismissed.Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, announced the deal on Monday, sharing a legal agreement that shows Ellis agreed to sit for interviews and turn over documents related to the scheme. The agreement also calls on Ellis to “testify completely and truthfully at any time and any place requested by the Arizona attorney general’s office”.In exchange, Ellis will avoid potential jail time for her role in the scheme.“This agreement represents a significant step forward in our case,” Mayes said in a statement. “I am grateful to Ms Ellis for her cooperation with our investigation and prosecution. Her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the state in proving its case in court.”In Arizona, 18 people were charged – the 11 people who falsely attested that Trump had won the state’s electors, and seven others from Trump’s circle who helped coordinate the scheme.Ellis previously pleaded guilty in Georgia to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings in that state’s election subversion case. Her plea deal in Georgia resulted in five years’ probation, a fine and community service in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors. Her plea came quickly after two others pleaded guilty in the case, and she subsequently had her law license suspended.Documents filed in the Arizona case cite the Georgia plea agreement, saying that it was “in the interest of justice” for the judge to accept the Arizona deal because it comes from “the same conspiracy charged in this case”.Ellis, and the others indicted in the Arizona case, faced nine felony charges related to fraud, forgery and conspiracy. All pleaded not guilty.Arizona is one of seven states where Trump and his allies sought to install “alternate” electors who claimed Trump won in their states. In five of the states, prosecutors have worked to bring charges against at least some of those involved. More