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      ‘We can win Florida’: Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff rallies for VP in red state

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      In terms of presidential elections at least, Florida has fallen a long way since its heady days as the ultimate swing state. Seven cycles on from the 537-vote cliffhanger in 2000 that was finally resolved when the US supreme court placed George Bush in the White House, Florida is so reliably red, and Donald Trump so confident of picking up its 30 electoral college votes, that he has barely campaigned here.For the same reason, the Sunshine state has not featured on Kamala Harris’s schedule either. So some eyebrows were raised when second gentleman Doug Emhoff, the vice-president’s husband, rolled up on Wednesday to rally Democrats in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, on a break from stumping in the battleground states of the north-east.Publicly, at least, Emhoff believes the state is still in play. “We can win Florida. We should win Florida!” he told a lively gathering of supporters at a Get Out the Early Vote rally at the OB Johnson Center in Hallandale Beach, a Fort Lauderdale suburb in the Democratic stronghold of Broward county.Polling would suggest otherwise: Trump leads Harris by about six points in the latest FiveThirtyEight.com average in a state he won handily in both 2016 and 2020.But even under the specter of a Florida defeat in the presidential contest, Democrats at the national and state levels see extra value in his visit because of a tighter US senate race in Florida between incumbent Republican Rick Scott and his Democratic challenger, former representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.Much of the sparring in that contest has been over women’s healthcare rights, and especially Amendment 4, the ballot initiative that will overturn Florida’s draconian six-week abortion ban if approved by a 60% majority.It’s an issue that has caused outrage among advocates largely because of ultra-conservative Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to interfere. He has been accused of sending law enforcement to the homes of people who signed a petition in support, illegally spending taxpayers’ money on TV ads opposing it, and threatening legal action against networks that broadcast ads supporting it.Emhoff, unsurprisingly, had thoughts. Attacking Trump as the architect of the downfall of Roe v Wade, he said: “Make no mistake, Donald Trump is no friend to women. He has proven himself to be a threat to women. Now he claims to be a friend to women. Would he protect you? Of course not. Trump is proud of it. He brags about stripping away Roe v Wade.”His comments prompted chants of: “Yes on 4!”Mucarsel-Powell was among the speakers and also addressed it. “I will protect healthcare and people with pre-existing conditions. I will stand for women, and children, to make sure we protect them against the attacks on their reproductive freedom,” she said.

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      Also on Emhoff’s agenda was gun violence, the economy and immigration, as well as the Republicans’ extremist Project 2025 agenda. He laid out how Harris would address these issues from the White House, and expressed disappointment that polling, less than two weeks from election day, showed a tightening race.“It shouldn’t be this close,” he said.Some had thought the back-to-back hurricanes, Helene and Milton, that ravaged parts of Florida in recent weeks would be addressed. Harris had sparred with DeSantis over the storms, with the governor reportedly refusing to take her calls because, he said, they “seemed political”.But Emhoff did cover a number of other familiar recent Democratic talking points in his half-hour speech, including Trump’s reported admiration for Adolf Hitler’s military generals, which, as he pointed out, Harris addressed earlier Wednesday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We really need to listen to what Donald Trump is saying, what’s coming out of his mouth. We lived through it when he was president. Somehow we got through it. This time around, he poses an even greater threat – to the economy, to women, and our very lives,” he said.“We can’t look away from this. This is as real as it gets. This is right in front of our faces. He’s completely unfit, unhinged and un-American. We need to turn the page on this chapter of American history.”He also referred to Trump’s “weird” references to Arnold Palmer, and the size of his genitalia. “What is that?” Emhoff said.Following his address in Hallandale, Emhoff headed for a Wednesday night rally and fundraiser in Coral Gablers, Miami, close to where Trump spoke directly to Latino voters earlier this week. Both sides are desperately courting south Florida’s sizeable Hispanic community in the final stages of the race.Supporters speaking before the Hallandale Beach event welcomed Emhoff’s visit. Democratic voter Anthony Hill, of Lauderdale Lakes, said it showed Democrats had not given up on Florida.“Every weekend, the Trump supporters are out here on street corners with their flags. It gets depressing,” he said. “I don’t think Kamala is going to win here, but if we can win some of the down-ballot races we can show that we’re still alive.” More

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      Trump ‘roundtable’ in Miami packed with pre-screened ultra-loyalist Latinos

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      It was billed as a roundtable discussion with Latino leaders, but the reality of Donald Trump’s appearance at his Doral golf club in Miami on Tuesday was a succession of adulatory monologues from his most loyal Latino supporters, interspersed with familiar, lengthy rants from the former president laden with grievances and insults.Little of the conversation, such as it was, related to issues directly affecting Latino voters, with whom Trump falsely claimed he was leading in the polls despite significant evidence to the contrary.His remarks about immigration, for example, were largely limited to baseless and often-aired claims that foreign countries, especially Venezuela, were opening their prisons to send “violent gang members” and drug dealers into the US with military weapons.And, his comments addressed to the many business owners and leaders present were distinctly light on policy, apart from a promise to maintain the generous tax cuts from his first term in office.“We gave you the biggest cut in taxes in the history of the country,” he said. “We have a great foundation to build on so we have a lot of companies coming in very fast.”Trump trails Harris in all battleground states among Latinos, a poll for Voto Latino published Monday and cited by the Hill, found, while the most recent AS/COA poll tracker shows a 56-31 preference for Harris nationally among the 36 million eligible Latino voters.Still, there is evidence Trump has been gaining ground, with the Democratic edge among Latino voters at its lowest level in four presidential election cycles, according to NBC News polling.Perhaps with this in mind, Trump was directly appealing to the Latino bloc for the second time in less than a week at Tuesday’s roundtable.“We’re going to talk about what’s happening with the election. We’ll take some questions from the fake news,” he said after a raucous welcome to the stage.Ultimately, he took none, ensuring he would avoid a repeat of his misfire at a town hall hosted by Univision, the largest US Spanish-language network, in Miami last Thursday when he mostly dodged awkward questions about immigration from undecided voters. At that event, he repeated debunked claims that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets and “other things too that they’re not supposed to”.Tuesday’s audience, a gallery of pre-screened ultra-loyalists at Trump National Doral, appeared unconcerned by the lack of a dialogue, cheering loudly at every insult. Trump called Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the 5 November election, “a stupid person” as he falsely labeled her Joe Biden’s “border tsar” during a brief section on immigration.His remarks segued quickly into an attack on Democrats for allegedly allowing transgender athletes to play women’s sports, and he told a somewhat fanciful tale of “a man who transitioned into, congratulations, a woman” smashing a baseball so hard it hit a female player on the head and “these young ladies said they’d never seen anything like it”.Calling Harris a “radical-left lunatic”, he added: “There’s a sickness going on in our country. We have to end the sickness.”Perhaps sensing things were going off-topic, event host Jennifer Korn, a former White House aide and executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network, attempted to interrupt with a: “Mr President … ”“I just want to leave it at that,” Trump said. “Would anybody else like to say anything?”Robert Unanue, the president of Goya Foods, the largest Latino-owned food company in the US, and a longtime vocal cheerleader of the former president and his lies that the 2020 election was stolen, stepped up to take the microphone and deliver a lengthy speech praising Trump.“I can’t believe your courage, your fight, and I know why you’re doing this. You’re not doing it for anything, but because you love this country. You love us, and we love you,” he said.“The other side of loving and building and creating is hating and destroying and dividing, and that’s what’s happened. We have become from the land of opportunity the land of exploitation, and the exploiter-in-chief is Kamala Harris and this administration.”Unanue was not the only Latino business figure heaping praise. Joel Garza, owner of multiple Sonic fast-food franchises and another veteran of the Trump podium, said the former president needed to be re-elected to “help us with banks [and] stop regulations”.“The last three-and-a-half years, the worst years for businesses, inflation, interest rates, with banks, prices, everything, is nothing compared to 2017 to 2020 when you were at the White House,” Garza said.The ultimate adulation, however, came at the conclusion of the roundtable when a group of religious leaders stood around Trump, who was seated at the table, eyes closed, with their hands on his shoulders.“We lift up the man that we believe you’ve put your hand upon to help restore America and bring America back to the place that honors you,” Ramiro Peña, one of Trump’s most influential Latino evangelists, said in a direct appeal to the heavens.Honduran televangelist Guillermo Maldonado, founder of Miami megachurch the King Jesus International Ministry, closed out the event with a prediction Trump would defeat Harris because “there’s a higher assignment for him to finish with this nation”.“This is a war between good and evil,” he insisted. “God sets up kings. He removes kings. We’re going to pray for the will of God to make [Trump] the 47th president.” More

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      A Crack, a Shift, Then Screams: Witnesses Describe Georgia Dock Collapse That Killed 7

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      Investigators have begun looking for reasons behind the failure at a ferry dock on Sapelo Island, the site of a festival celebrating the heritage of descendants of enslaved people. They had come to Sapelo Island, just off the curve of the Georgia coast, for a celebration of resilience, of a people, of a culture that for generations had been so fragile but could not be broken.The smell of smoked mullet drifted. Vendors sold red peas and rice. Performers onstage presented poetry and sang African spirituals.By midafternoon on Saturday, dozens readied for the trip back to the mainland, a route beginning with a ferry known as the Annemarie waiting at the end of the floating dock in the marsh. But then, a strange cracking noise. The walkway to the dock suddenly shifted. Then it collapsed.“Everyone’s falling into the water, and you’re hearing screams,” said Michael Wood, 43, who had been waiting in line to board.On Sunday, members of the tight-knit Gullah Geechee community, descendants of formerly enslaved people in the Southeast, who had gathered for a festival celebrating their heritage, mourned four women and three men, all of them older than 70, who were killed. And officials began investigating how a short journey to the only way off the Georgia island could have led to such tragedy.“The initial findings of our investigation at this point showed a catastrophic failure of the gangway, causing it to collapse,” said Walter Rabon, the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, adding that investigators and engineers will be gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses. Three people were also injured and remain hospitalized in critical condition. 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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      Judge slaps down Florida effort to ban abortion ad: ‘It’s the first amendment, stupid’

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      Florida’s health department can’t block a TV advertisement in support of a ballot measure that would protect abortion rights, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, after the department sent letters to local TV stations commanding them to stop airing the ad or risk criminal consequences.“The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is ‘false’,” US district judge Mark E Walker wrote in his ruling. “To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”Florida is one of 10 states set to vote on abortion-related ballot measures in November. If enacted, Florida’s measure would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution and roll back the state’s six-week ban on the procedure, which took effect in May.Earlier this month, Florida’s health department sent cease-and-desist letters to TV stations running an ad by Floridians Protecting Freedom, the campaign behind the measure. In the ad, a woman named Caroline speaks about being diagnosed with cancer while pregnant.“The doctors knew if I did not end my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life and my daughter would lose her mom,” Caroline says in the ad. “Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine.”The letters said the claim that women can’t get life-saving abortions in Florida was “categorically false”, since Florida’s ban permits abortions in medical emergencies. “The fact is these ads are unequivocally false and detrimental to public health in Florida,” Jae Williams, the Florida department of health communications director, said in an email late on Thursday.However, doctors across the country have said abortion bans are worded so vaguely as to force them to deny people medically necessary abortions. A New York doctor recently said that she had treated a woman with an ectopic pregnancy – which is nonviable and potentially life-threatening if left untreated – who had been turned away from a Florida hospital.In response to the letters, Floridians Protecting Freedom sued the Florida surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, and John Wilson, the former general counsel for the state health department. At least one TV station stopped airing the ad, the coalition’s lawsuit alleged.On Thursday, Walker granted a temporary restraining order blocking Ladapo from taking any further action against broadcasters or other media outlets that might air ads by Floridians Protecting Freedom.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Of course, the surgeon general of Florida has the right to advocate for his own position on a ballot measure,” Walker wrote. “But it would subvert the rule of law to permit the state to transform its own advocacy into the direct suppression of protected political speech.”Over the last several weeks, Florida’s government, run by Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, has sent law enforcement officials to investigate people who signed a petition to get the measure on the ballot, set up a webpage urging people not to vote for it, and issued a report suggesting the measure got on the ballot due to “a large number of forged signatures or fraudulent petitions”. Floridians Protecting Freedom has denied wrongdoing.Anti-abortion activists have since filed a lawsuit to remove the measure from the ballot or nullify votes cast for it. More

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      Judge Orders DeSantis Administration to Stop Threats Over Abortion-Rights Ad

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      The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida must stop threatening television stations with criminal prosecution for airing a political ad in favor of enshrining abortion rights in the state’s Constitution, a federal judge ordered on Thursday.Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee ruled in a temporary restraining order that the threats by the Florida Department of Health to stations across the state likely amounted to “unconstitutional coercion” and “viewpoint discrimination.”“The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is ‘false,’” Judge Walker, who has frequently ruled against the administration, wrote in his 17-page order. “To keep it simple for the state of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”The order followed an emergency hearing on Thursday after Floridians Protecting Freedom, the organization behind a campaign for an abortion-rights ballot measure known as Amendment 4, sued on Wednesday.This month, the state’s health department sent several television stations a cease-and-desist letter urging them to stop airing an ad, titled “Caroline,” that is part of the “Yes on 4” campaign. It features a woman named Caroline Williams discussing how she had been diagnosed with stage four brain cancer when she was 20 weeks pregnant.“Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine,” Ms. Williams says in the ad.The state called the ad “false.” At least one station stopped airing the ad after receiving the department’s letter, the suit said.“This critical initial victory is a triumph for every Floridian who believes in democracy and the sanctity of the First Amendment,” Lauren Brenzel, the director of the “Yes on 4” campaign, said in a statement on Thursday. “The court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: The government cannot silence the truth about Florida’s extreme abortion ban.”Mr. DeSantis has vowed to defeat Amendment 4 and has leveraged the power of the state to oppose the measure, leading to several legal challenges. The courts had declined to intervene in prior cases.Julia Friedland, Mr. DeSantis’s deputy press secretary, said in a statement that Judge Walker had “issued another order that excites the press.”“The ads are unequivocally false and put the lives and health of pregnant women at risk,” she said. “Florida’s heartbeat protection law always protects the life of a mother and includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest, and human trafficking.”The campaign is seeking a preliminary injunction against the state. Judge Walker scheduled a hearing for Oct. 29.A separate lawsuit, filed by opponents of Amendment 4 and seeking to toss the measure from the ballot, is pending in state court. More

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      Trump stands by debunked claims immigrants are eating pets at event for Hispanic voters

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      Donald Trump – who has built his presidential campaign on the idea that immigrants are “destroying” the US and promoting mass deportation – faced blunt, tough questions from undecided Hispanic voters on Tuesday.At a town hall hosted by Univision, the largest US Spanish-language network, several dozen Latino voters from across the country questioned the former president about immigration, as well as the economy, abortion and other key issues.The Republican presidential candidate – who has been increasingly trying to court Latino voters – struggled to field specific questions about policy, even as he doubled down on misinformation about immigration.Polls have indicated that Trump is making inroads with Hispanic voters, who – like multiple other demographic groups – say they favour the former president on economic issues. Latino voters are an increasingly important voting bloc in several swing states. At the town hall, in front of 100 voters, Trump did not mention his plans to order the largest mass deportation in US history.He also dodged or dismissed tough questions about his rhetoric and policies concerning immigrants. When a voter, who mentioned he was a registered Republican, asked why Trump keeps repeating the debunked myth that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, Trump doubled down.“I was just saying what was reported,” Trump said – adding that migrants were “eating other things too, that they’re not supposed to”.Guadalupe Ramirez, whose parents immigrated from Mexico, asked Trump for more details about his proposals and asked why he had urged legislators to vote against a bipartisan immigration reform bill. Trump provided no details, but instead criticised Democratic leaders, including the governor of Illinois, alleging that migrants were driving up crime, and boasted that he had the “strongest border”.When Jorge Velázquez, a California farmworker, asked bluntly who would do the backbreaking labor of harvesting America’s fruit if Trump were to deport the many undocumented workers who currently do the job, the former president dodged.He accused newer immigrants of stealing jobs from Hispanic people in the US, and characterised migrants – as he often does – as “hundreds of thousands of people that are murderers, drug dealers and terrorists”.“We have to have people that are great people come into our country,” he said. “I want them in even more than you do.” But he never directly addressed deportations.During her town hall with Univision, Kamala Harris highlighted her policies to address inflation and protect abortion rights. She also warned that her opponent was sowing misinformation and division.“I know that the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us, and part of what pains me is the approach that frankly Donald Trump and some others have taken, which is to suggest that it’s us versus them … and having Americans point fingers at each other, using language that’s belittling people,” she said.“I don’t think that’s healthy for our nation, and I don’t admire that.” More

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      Desi Arnaz Historical Marker Celebrates the ‘I Love Lucy’ Star in Miami Beach

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      A new historical marker in Miami Beach pays tribute to his younger years, before Hollywood, when as a Cuban émigré he performed at a nightclub.Years before he played the charming and devoted husband Ricky Ricardo on the sitcom “I Love Lucy” and became a bandleader who belted out “Babalú” before audiences, Desi Arnaz was a teenage Cuban immigrant who struggled to learn English in Florida.He attended a Catholic school in Miami Beach, picking up the guitar and the conga drum. And he was eventually hired as a bandleader at a nightclub where he popularized the conga.Nearly 90 years after that first big break, Miami Beach honored him on Tuesday with a historical marker that was placed near where the nightclub stood. The marker pays tribute to his younger years in the city and celebrates him for paving the way for generations of Latino entertainers.“He was not only a pioneer for Cubans that were coming to the United States but he was a pioneer for the arts in Miami Beach,” said Alex Fernandez, a member of the Miami Beach Commission, the city’s legislative body.Desi, ‘an American Original’Desi Arnaz during a publicity tour to Lucille Ball’s hometown in Jamestown, N.Y., in 1956.Charlotte BrooksThe new marker is at Collins Park outside the Miami City Ballet. It is near the site of the former Park Avenue Restaurant that hosted performances and came to be remembered as the Park Avenue nightclub. The memorial joins an artsy Miami Beach district that includes the Bass Museum of Art and a library.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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      California Rejects Bid for More Frequent SpaceX Launches

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      A commission denied a request to increase the number of rocket launches on the state’s central coast, citing environmental concerns.A California state commission this week rejected the U.S. Space Force’s bid to increase the number of SpaceX rocket launches on the state’s central coast, citing concerns about the environmental impacts of the launches.The Space Force had sought to increase the number of launches of SpaceX’s flagship Falcon 9 rocket from 36 to 50 per year out of California. But on Thursday, the California Coastal Commission denied the bid in a 6-4 vote, pointing to its previous requests for the military and SpaceX to mitigate the disruptive sonic booms caused by the rockets and to keep a closer eye on the operations’ effects on the state’s wildlife.The commission also rejected the military and SpaceX’s argument that the launches should be considered a federal activity, saying they mostly benefit SpaceX and its private business operations, as opposed to the government.The move came just a couple of months after the commission had approved increasing the number of SpaceX launches to 36, contingent on the military’s commitment to adopting such measures. The board, which is tasked with protecting the state’s coastal resources, previously expressed its reservation for approving more launches without understanding the effects of the sonic booms and launch debris on wildlife.SpaceX, which is owned by Elon Musk, has grown to dominate the space launch business, serving as the primary provider to both NASA and the Pentagon. It has blasted its own commercial satellites into space out of bases across the country at a rapid clip, and it is set to test its new Starship rocket on Sunday in Texas. In California, SpaceX carries out many of its missions at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.But the sonic booms have been startling residents in Southern California, whose homes have been shaken by powerful, confusing jolts, The Los Angeles Times reported. And several environmental groups submitted letters urging the commission to take more time to study the impact on wildlife ahead of this week’s meeting.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