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    Abortion as an Issue in the Election

    More from our inbox:Veterans as Poll WorkersAn Immigrant’s StoryPolitical Messages: Time to Turn Up the Sound Allison Dinner/EPA, via ShutterstockTo the Editor:Re “November’s Second-Most-Important Election,” by David French (column, Oct. 14):I find it difficult to understand why the heart has become a determiner of fetal life in abortion discussions and law when it’s the brain that makes us truly human.According to much neurological research, the brain doesn’t reach its major development until the end of the second trimester, about 24 weeks into a pregnancy, also known as viability. The brain then continues to develop through the ninth month of pregnancy, and certain parts, such as the frontal cortex, are not fully developed until adults reach their mid-20s.All of us, even lawmakers, should pay attention to the neurological science instead of emotional reactions to sounds.Ellen CreaneGuilford, Conn.To the Editor:I personally am deeply conflicted on the issue of abortion, but the problem I have with many pro-life supporters is that they never talk about support after the baby is born.Live babies and children need diapers and food and child care and good schools and support for college or learning a trade and safe schools and streets. If you have no concrete plans to eliminate child poverty, improve public education and put gun controls in place, can you really say that you support children?Ending the conversation (and legislation) at birth is not pro-life, but pro-childbirth.Margaret DowlingPhiladelphiaWe 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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    Desi Arnaz Historical Marker Celebrates the ‘I Love Lucy’ Star in Miami Beach

    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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    Trump Rally in Aurora, Colo., Is Marked by Nativist Attacks

    Former President Donald J. Trump escalated the nativist, anti-immigration rhetoric that has animated his political career with a speech Friday in Aurora, Colo., where he repeated false and grossly exaggerated claims about undocumented immigrants that local Republican officials have refuted.For weeks, Aurora has been fending off false rumors about the city. And its conservative Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, said in a statement on Friday that he hoped to show Mr. Trump that Aurora was “a considerably safe city.”But Mr. Trump has made debunked claims about Aurora, a Denver suburb, such a central part of his stump speech that he took a campaign detour to Colorado, which has not voted for a Republican in a presidential election since 2004, to make the case in person at a rally at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center.And during a meandering 80-minute speech Mr. Trump repeated claims, which have been debunked by local officials, that Aurora had been “invaded and conquered,” described the United States as an “occupied state,” called for the death penalty “for any migrant that kills an American citizen” and revived a promise to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected members of drug cartels and criminal gangs without due process.That law allows for the summary deportation of people from nations with which the United States is at war, that have invaded the United States or that have engaged in “predatory incursions.” It was far from clear whether the law could be used in the way that Mr. Trump was proposing.The false tale that Aurora, Colorado’s third-largest city, was occupied by armed Venezuelans stemmed from a dispute over housing conditions.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 Town Hall Shows Her Straining for a Tough Empathy on Immigration

    The woman was weeping as she told Vice President Kamala Harris about her mother, who she said died six weeks ago without having ever achieved legal status in the United States.“My question for you is, what are your plans to support that subgroup of immigrants who have been here their whole lives, or most of them, and have to live and die in the shadows?” Ivett Castillo asked at Ms. Harris’s first voter town hall as the Democratic nominee, an event hosted by Univision for undecided Hispanic voters.In her answer, Ms. Harris strove to connect, gently urging Ms. Castillo to “remember your mother as she lived.” But the vice president’s response also underscored how much her hard-line immigration message has focused on enforcement rather than reform, as former President Donald J. Trump uses the border to paint Ms. Harris as a weak and ineffective leader.While Ms. Harris called the nation’s immigration system “broken” and pointed out that the first bill proposed by the Biden-Harris administration would have created an earned pathway to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants, she quickly turned to the topic of the southern border — and condemned Mr. Trump for helping kill a bill that would have devoted more resources to securing it.“Real leadership is about solving the problems on behalf of the people,” she said at the town hall, which was held in Las Vegas and will be broadcast at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Many questions were asked in Spanish and translated for her. Hispanic voters could help decide the election, but Ms. Harris’s support among them is lagging.On Thursday, she also faced intense and emotional questions on health care and the economy, giving her a chance to display a greater degree of empathy and humanity than in the more choreographed interviews she has recently given. Much of the conversation centered on themes that Democratic presidential candidates have used to appeal to Latino voters for decades, including promises to stimulate small businesses, lower costs for families and create more legal pathways for undocumented workers.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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    Trump’s Remarks on Migrants Illustrate His Obsession With Genes

    With the presidential race in its closing weeks, Donald J. Trump’s language has grown increasingly strident on the issue of immigration. But as he continues to demonize undocumented migrants as violent criminals, the former president is also reviving another old habit: invoking his long-held fascination with genes and genetics.For decades, including long before he became a political figure, Mr. Trump has been publicly obsessed with bloodlines and his stated belief that genetics are the best predictor of a person’s success. He has repeatedly commented on what he described as his, his family’s and his supporters’ good genes, and on others’ bad genes.In an interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” on Monday, Mr. Trump misleadingly cited government data to assert that thousands of murderers had crossed the southern border under the Biden administration. And then he pivoted.“Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Hewitt, a conservative radio talk show host. “You know, now, a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”Mr. Trump’s remarks about migrants’ having “bad genes” brought a flurry of headlines from news outlets, and then condemnation from Democrats. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, called the language “vile, disturbing, hateful” during a briefing on Monday.Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, accused the news media of ginning up a controversy, saying that Mr. Trump “was clearly referring to murderers, not migrants.”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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    Lore Segal, Mordant Memoirist of Émigré Life, Dies at 96

    One of thousands of Jewish children transported to England at the dawn of World War II, she explored themes of displacement with penetrating wit in novel-memoirs like “Other People’s Houses.”Lore Segal, a virtuosic and witty author of autobiographical novels of her life as a young Jewish Viennese refugee in England and as an émigré in America, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 96.Her daughter Beatrice Segal announced her death.On Dec. 10, 1938, 500 Jewish children boarded a train in Vienna as part of the British-organized Kindertransport, as it was known, that would deliver them from Nazi-occupied territory to foster families in England. Ms. Segal, age 10, was registered as No. 152, the pampered only child of comfortably middle-class parents.She would go on to live with four families in seven years, including a pair of pious, garden-and-house-proud sisters straight out of a Barbara Pym novel whose influence would make Ms. Segal, as she wrote later, a temporary snob and an Anglophile forever.The writer at age 11. A year earlier, she was one of 500 Jewish children sent to Vienna as part of the British-organized Kindertransport.via Segal familyHer parents followed her there in 1939, entering the country on domestic servant visas, which was the only route available to them. Her mother, a skilled homemaker, would rise to accept that role. But it would break her father, a former accountant, who died after a series of strokes.Ms. Segal, with the adaptability and callousness of youth, along with her innate sense of the absurd and the detachment of a born writer, fared better. After settling in New York, she found her métier by telling tales of her exile.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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    Trump Says He Would Try Again to Revoke Haitian Immigrants’ Protections

    Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that, if elected again, he would revoke the legal status of tens of thousands of Haitian immigrants who have been the target of false accusations by the former president and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, over the past month.Mr. Trump’s administration tried to do that during his first term, too, but courts temporarily blocked it, and President Biden’s administration renewed the immigrants’ status after he took office in 2021.The immigrants in question are living and working in the United States legally through the Temporary Protected Status program, which Congress created in 1990 for people from countries experiencing war, natural disasters or other crises. The Department of Homeland Security designates countries for up to 18 months at a time based on the current conditions, and the designation can be renewed indefinitely. Haiti was initially added in 2010, under President Barack Obama, after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated the country. It has since experienced a major hurricane and a cholera epidemic.“Absolutely I’d revoke it, and I’d bring them back to their country,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with NewsNation on Wednesday.He spoke at length about Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, claiming that the city had been a utopia — “you had a beautiful, safe community, everyone’s in love with everybody, everything was nice, it was like a picture community” — and that the Haitians had destroyed it.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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    Inside a Pro-Harris Ad Telling Hispanic Voters She’s Friendlier Than Trump

    Two Democratic groups — Somos PAC and Priorities USA Action — are running this 30-second ad on digital platforms in battleground states in support of Vice President Kamala Harris. The ad is targeted at Hispanic voters, and the two groups are spending $1 million on it as part of a $5 million campaign. It has both English- and Spanish-language versions.Here’s a look at the ad, its accuracy and its main takeaway.On the ScreenThe ad opens with images of smiling, hard-working people engaged in jobs often filled by immigrants from Latin America: operating a food truck, picking crops on a farm, working construction, serving coffee in a diner. The background music is light and airy.The spot then transitions to a grainy clip of former President Donald J. Trump at a rally as disturbing images pop on and off the screen. Young children are seen sleeping in cages, evoking Mr. Trump’s family separation policy. Cheering Trump rally-goers in cowboy hats hold up signs that read “Mass Deportation Now!”Then the screen brightens as Ms. Harris appears smiling in a crowd of children and adults. Her presence is followed by scenes of happy families, a young person graduating from college and more Americans hard at work.The goal of the ad seems to be shoring up Ms. Harris’s support with Hispanic voters by contrasting her approach to immigration with Mr. Trump’s.Somos PAC and Priorities USA ActionThe ScriptNarrator“Working people, including hard-working immigrants, are bringing our economy back. But while Trump threatens to separate families and weaken our economy, Kamala Harris’s balanced approach to immigration is keeping families together: by protecting our loved ones from deportation, providing a pathway to citizenship and work visas for Dreamers. With the Biden-Harris administration’s historic action, working people like us can continue to build a good life and strengthen our economy for generations to come.”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