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      Mark Cuban says Harris’s economic plan is ‘better for business’; Trump to rally at site of first assassination attempt – live

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      Mark Cuban, who attended Harris’s speech at the Economic Club in Pittsburgh, praised the vice-president’s pitch as “better for business”.Cuban, the entrepreneur and investor who rose to prominence as owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team and star of the reality TV show Shark Tank, lauded Harris for discussing AI and other emerging technologies and her plans to encourage entrepreneurs in an interview with MSNBC.“Every single person in this country has that entrepreneur in them,” he said. “And she’s going to lift them up.”Trump meanwhile, “has no interest in really finding out what it takes to be successful with any policy,” Cuban said.Cuban has been a big supporter of Harris.Harris, in turn, had largely catered this speech to business owners and centrists who may have identified with pro-business Republican candidates in the past, and may be turned off by Donald Trump’s inscrutable economic agenda.The US House passed a three-month government funding package on Wednesday, sending the bill to the Senate with just days left to avert a shutdown set to begin next Tuesday.The vote was 341 to 82, with 132 Republicans and 209 Democrats supporting the legislation. All 82 votes against the bill, which will extend government funding until 20 December, came from House Republicans.Republican House speaker Mike Johnson revealed the legislation on Sunday after his original funding proposal failed to pass last week. Johnson’s original bill combined a six-month funding measure with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) act, a controversial proposal that would require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote. Fourteen House Republicans and all but two House Democrats voted against that bill last Wednesday, blocking its passage.Read the full story here:In Racine county, Wisconsin, the Guardian’s Callum Jones looked at Donald Trump’s promises to “rebuild the economy” and how they panned out. Less than 30 miles south of the Fiserv Forum, the Wisconsin convention center where Republicans confirmed Donald Trump as their nominee for president for the third time, lies the site of a project Trump predicted would become “the Eighth Wonder of the World”.While still in office, the then president traveled to Mount Pleasant in Racine county to break ground on a sprawling facility that the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn had agreed to build – in exchange for billions of dollars’ worth of subsidies.Flanked by local allies and executives from the company, Trump planted a golden shovel in the ground. “America is open for business more than it has ever been open for business,” he proclaimed in June 2018, as FoxConn promised to invest $10bn and hire 13,000 local workers.Highways were built and expanded. Homes were razed. The area – a former manufacturing powerhouse – was primed for revitalization in a deal that seemed to underline the executive prowess of America’s most famous businessman, an image that has helped maintain many voters’ confidence that he could steer the US economy more competently than his rival, Kamala Harris, and could win him the White House again come November.But on a recent drive around the site, fields of long grass and weeds stretched as far as the eye could see. Trees marked where houses used to stand. The Eighth Wonder was nowhere to be seen.“Everyone was very skeptical it was going to happen,” said Wendy DeBona, a local Uber and Lyft driver, 53. “And then, of course, look what happened.”Foxconn all but pulled the plug in April 2021, blaming “unanticipated market fluctuations” as it drastically cut back its plan and struck a new deal, through which it committed to spend $672m on a campus that would create about 1,400 jobs.Today, a striking glass globe stands over what the firm did, eventually, build. What work is actually taking place there is the subject of local speculation; the company did not respond to a request for comment.Trump had left office by the time Plan A fell through. “They dug a hole with those golden shovels, and then they fell into it,” Joe Biden, his successor, suggested earlier this year. “Foxconn turned out to be just that: a con.”But one section of the site is a hive of activity, with cranes, diggers, trucks, lorries and tractors visible from the road. Biden himself visited in May, as Microsoft announced it would invest $3.3bn into a new data center on part of the land abandoned by Foxconn. The project is set to create 2,300 union construction jobs, and the tech giant has also pledged to build a new academy with a local technical college, through which more than 1,000 students will be trained in five years “to work in the new data center and IT sector jobs created in the area”.So did Biden do what Trump didn’t? It depends on whom you ask. Who is better for the economy will be a crucial question in Wisconsin, a must-win swing state in the race for the White House. The state backed Barack Obama in 2012, Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. As Trump pledges to “rebuild” the US economy by cutting taxes, boosting wages and creating jobs, those attempting to persuade Racine county to reject him believe his role in the Foxconn debacle has shifted the dial.Donald Trump’s campaign has already responded to Harris’s speech, pointing back to Joe Biden’s economic record.“She’s had three and a half years to prove herself, and she has failed. Personal savings are down, credit card debt is up, small business optimism is at a record-low, and people are struggling to afford homes, groceries and gas,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign national press secretary. “ONLY President Trump will Make America WEALTHY Again” (emphasis hers).Although small business optimism remains low, it is not at a record low.As Marketplace explains:
      National Federation of Independent Business’ newest small-business optimism index is out. The good news? The index rose more than two points in July, and small businesses feel the most optimistic they have since February 2022. The less good news? Optimism is still below the survey’s 50-year average.
      The challenge for Trump’s campaign will be holding Harris accountable for the economy under Biden. Polls are increasingly finding that voters are willing to give Harris the benefit of the doubt – and hear her out.Mark Cuban, who attended Harris’s speech at the Economic Club in Pittsburgh, praised the vice-president’s pitch as “better for business”.Cuban, the entrepreneur and investor who rose to prominence as owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team and star of the reality TV show Shark Tank, lauded Harris for discussing AI and other emerging technologies and her plans to encourage entrepreneurs in an interview with MSNBC.“Every single person in this country has that entrepreneur in them,” he said. “And she’s going to lift them up.”Trump meanwhile, “has no interest in really finding out what it takes to be successful with any policy,” Cuban said.Cuban has been a big supporter of Harris.Harris, in turn, had largely catered this speech to business owners and centrists who may have identified with pro-business Republican candidates in the past, and may be turned off by Donald Trump’s inscrutable economic agenda.Although voters overall still seem to favor Donald Trump over Kamala Harris on economic issues, the former president’s edge has been blunted.Recent polls have showed that voters have more faith in Harris than they did in Joe Biden to steer the economy. A Quinnipiac poll released yesterday, for example, found that 52% of voters favored Trump vs 45% for Harris on the economy . An AP poll, meanwhile, found that voters were split – 43% favored Trump on the economy v 415 for Harris.Here’s some analysis from the AP:
      The finding is a warning sign for Trump, who has tried to link Harris to President Joe Biden’s economic track record. The new poll suggests that Harris may be escaping some of the president’s baggage on the issue, undercutting what was previously one of Trump’s major advantages.
      It may help Harris that the economy is also looking up for many voters. Interest rates are coming down, prices are stabilizing.Her speech today didn’t include much that was new – but Harris did detail several specific policies, including reiterating pledges she has previously made to help families with childcare costs, cut taxes for the middle class and encourage affordable housing construction. She also proposed policies to encourage entreprenuership.Harris wrapped up her speech by making a lengthy attack on the economic policies Donald Trump announced yesterday, saying many of them were rehashes of policies he proposed in 2016, but did not execute during his time as president.“On Trump’s watch, offshoring went up and manufacturing jobs went down across our country and across our economy. All told, almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during his presidency, starting before the pandemic hit, making Trump one of the biggest losers ever on manufacturing,” Harris said.The vice-president also accused her opponent of talking tough on China, while doing little to stand up to its government:
      Donald Trump also talked a big game on our trade deficit with China, but it is far lower under our watch than any year of his administration.
      While he constantly got played by China, I will never hesitate to take swift and strong measures when China undermines the rules of the road at the expense of our workers, our communities and our companies, whether it’s flooding the market with steel inferior or at all, unfairly subsidizing shipbuilding or hurting our small businesses with counterfeits.
      “Understand the impact of these so-called policies that really are not about a plan for strengthening our prosperity or our security,” Harris said. She then repeated a promise she made, to applause, when accepting the nomination at last month’s Democratic national convention:
      I will never sell out America to our competitors or adversaries, never, never. And I will always make sure we have the strongest economy and the most lethal fighting force anywhere in the world.
      Warning that the US’s rivals, particularly China, are catching up to it, Kamala Harris said that the “third pillar” of her economic plan would be focused on ensuring the country is the leader in technological innovation, and on cutting red tape that slows down the completion of projects.“The third pillar of our opportunity economy is leading the world in the industries of the future and making sure America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century,” Harris said.She then elaborated on the types of technologies her administration would prioritize:
      I will recommit the nation to global leadership in the sectors that will define the next century. We will invest in biomanufacturing and aerospace, remain dominant in AI and quantum computing, blockchain and other emerging technologies, expand our lead in clean energy innovation and manufacturing, so the next generation of breakthroughs from advanced batteries to geothermal to advanced nuclear are not just invented, but built here in America by American workers.
      Turning to unions, she promised to “double the number of registered apprenticeships by the end of my first term”. Harris also proposed eliminating “degree requirements while increasing skills development”, something she said she would do for federal workers.She then turned to the pace of construction in the United States, which she argued was too slow:
      But the simple truth is, in America, it takes too long and it costs too much to build. Whether it’s a new housing development, a new factory or a new bridge, projects take too long to go from concept to reality. It happens in blue states, it happens in red states, and it’s a national problem. And I will tell you this, China is not moving slowly. They’re not and we can’t afford to either.
      Lowering costs was “the first pillar” of her economic policy, and now Kamala Harris is getting into her “second pillar”, which she said was “investing in American innovation and entrepreneurship”.“There has been no incubator for unleashing human potential like America, and we need to guard that spirit,” the vice-president said.Her plan to do that involves making it easier for entrepreneurs to get loans:
      We can make it easier for our small businesses to access capital. On average, it costs about $40,000 to start a new business, but currently, the tax deduction for startups is only $5,000.
      So, currently, for startup costs, the tax deduction is $5,000. Well, in 2024 it is almost impossible to start a business on $5,000 which is why as president, I will make the start-up deduction 10 times richer, and we will raise it from $5,000 to $50,000 tax deduction and provide low- and no-interest loans to small businesses that want to expand.
      She also set the goal of generating 25m new applications for small businesses by the end of her first term, which would be in January 2029.Kamala Harris is now talking about the sorts of policies she would pursue as president, reiterating pledges she has previously made to assist families with childcare costs, cut taxes for the middle class and spur the construction of affordable housing:
      Under my plan, more than 100 million Americans will get a middle-class tax break that includes $6,000 for new parents during the first year of their child’s life to help families cover everything from car seats to cribs. We’ll also cut the cost of childcare and elder care, and finally, give all working people access to paid leave, which will help everyone caring for children, caring for aging parents and that sandwich generation, which is caring for both.
      She then went into her plan to lower housing costs, a major concern for both her and Donald Trump:
      We will also go after the biggest drivers of cost for the middle class and work to bring them down. And one of those, some would argue, one of the biggest is the cost of housing. So here’s what we will do. We will cut the red tape that stops homes from being built and take on, in addition, corporate landlords who are hiking rental prices and, yes, and we will work with builders and developers to construct 3 million new homes and rentals for the middle class, because increasing the housing supply will help drive down the cost of housing.
      Then we will also help first time homebuyers just get their foot in the door with the $25,000 down payment assistance.
      Trump’s policy on housing has centered on mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, who he argues have increased demand for housing and, therefore, costs. Here’s more about that:Harris has thus far talked less about policy than about her ideology when it comes to handling economic challenges.Harris has invoked Democratic icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt as inspiring her economic approach, saying:
      I will engage in what Franklin Roosevelt called bold, persistent experimentation, because I believe we shouldn’t be constrained by ideology, and instead, should seek practical solutions to problems, realistic assessments of what is working and what is not, applying metrics to our analysis, applying facts to our analysis, and stay focused … Not only on the crises at hand, but on our big goals, on what’s best for America over the long term.
      The vice-president then got more direct about what she supported:
      I’ve always been, and will always be, a strong supporter of workers and unions, and I also believe we need to engage those who create most of the jobs in America.
      Look, I am a capitalist. I believe in free and fair markets. I believe in consistent and transparent rules of the road to create a stable business environment, and I know the power of American innovation. I’ve been working with entrepreneurs and business owners my whole career, and I believe companies need to play by the rules, respect the rights of workers and unions and abide by fair competition, and if they don’t, I will hold them accountable.
      Harris has not actually gotten into specifics yet, but continues to elaborate on her promise to lower costs for Americans.“I want Americans and families to be able to not just get by, but be able to get ahead, to thrive, be able to thrive,” the vice-president said.She went on:
      I don’t want you to have to worry about making your monthly rent if your car breaks down. I want you to be able to save up for your child’s education, to take a nice vacation from time to time. I want you to be able to buy Christmas presents for your loved ones without feeling anxious when you’re looking at your bank statement. I want you to be able to build some wealth, not just for yourself, but also for your children and your grandchildren, intergenerational wealth.
      Harris, speaking a little more slowly and deliberately than she usually does, then went on to attack Donald Trump’s economic policies:
      The American people face a choice between two fundamentally very different paths for our economy. I intend to chart a new way forward and grow America’s middle class. Donald Trump intends to take America backward to the failed policies of the past.
      He has no intention to grow our middle class. He’s only interested in making life better for himself and people like himself, the wealthiest of Americans, you can see it spelled out in his economic agenda, an agenda that gives trillions of dollars in tax cuts to billionaires and the biggest corporations, while raising taxes on the middle class by almost $4,000 a year, slashing overtime pay, throwing tens of millions of Americans off of health care and cutting Social Security and Medicare. In sum, his agenda would weaken the economy and hurt working people and the middle class.
      In a speech in Georgia yesterday, Trump announced plans to slash taxes for corporations who make their products in the United States, and put steep tariffs on imports from countries where US firms move jobs:Kamala Harris began by recounting how the economy grew and unemployment stayed low under Joe Biden’s presidency, then pivoted to acknowledging the toll inflation has taken on Americans.“Over the past three and a half years, we have taken major steps forward to recover from the public health and economic crisis we inherited. Inflation has dropped faster here than the rest of the developed world. Unemployment is near record low levels,” she said.“But let’s be clear, for all these positive steps, the cost of living in America is still just too high. You know it, and I know it, and that was true long before the pandemic hit.”Kamala Harris is coming onstage now in Pittsburgh, where she’s set to elaborate on her proposals for the economy.We’ll let you know what she has to say. More

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      Judge in federal Trump election interference case to allow special counsel to file hundreds of pages of evidence – live

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      A federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s federal election interference case will allow special counsel Jack Smith to submit a 180-page brief that could contain new evidence.The oversized brief contains legal arguments and evidence reflecting how the supreme court’s ruling regarding presidential immunity will affect the case against Trump, which include felony charges for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The supreme court’s ruling regarding presidential immunity affects the charges against Trump, who is facing four felony counts related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.Trump’s legal team called the request to submit the brief “fundamentally unfair” in part because it was so much longer than most opening briefs.The Trump campaign is holding a bus tour this week in Wisconsin featuring campaign surrogates and local party activists. The bus stopped in Appleton today, drawing around 100 spectators and featuring a lineup of activists, including an activist with the rightwing organization Moms for Liberty, the president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition – Wisconsin, and Trump loyalist Kash Patel.During the event, John Pudner of Wisconsin’s chapter of the Faith and Freedom Coalition handed out pamphlets for attendees to hand out to the public and stressed that faith-focused voters could have an outsize impact on the election if the Republican party can turn them out.“Let me tell you something,” said Pudner. “Florida in 2000 is Wisconsin in 2024.”In 2000, Florida’s election was decided by roughly 500 votes and a supreme court decision to end the recount there.The first ballots have been sent out for the hotly contested November elections that will determine the nation’s future.What is early voting?States – with the exception of Mississippi, New Hampshire and Alabama – offer all voters the opportunity to cast a ballot in person at a polling place before election day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.In those places, registered voters can head to their polling location within the early voting time frame and cast a ballot. Most states begin counting those ballots on election day, and some require officials to wait until polls are closed to begin counting.Some states offer a version of early voting called “in-person absentee” voting, in which a voter can obtain and submit an absentee ballot in person at a polling place before election day.What about absentee voting?Most states allow for some form of absentee voting, in which a voter requests a ballot ahead of time, which officials then send to them in the mail to fill out and return by mail. Some jurisdictions offer voters the option of returning absentee ballots to a secured dropbox. Fourteen states require an excuse for voters to cast a ballot by mail, such as an illness or work-scheduling conflict. Eight states practice “all-mail” elections – in those places, all registered voters receive a ballot in the mail, whether or not they plan to use it.Federal law requires states to send absentee ballots to military voters and voters overseas.States regulate the “processing” and counting of absentee ballots; most states allow officials to immediately process ballots, which typically entails verifying the signature on the ballot with the voter’s signature from when they registered to vote. Other states require officials to wait until election day to begin processing ballots – which can slow the release of election results.One morning in February, 16-year-old Levi Hormuth took off school as his parents called out of work, and the three began a five-and-a-half-hour drive.The purpose of the 350-mile trip from their home in St Charles county, Missouri, to Chicago, Illinois, was a routine doctor’s appointment.Levi, a transgender boy, now 17 and in his final year of high school, had been a patient at the Washington University (WashU) Transgender Center since he was 13. The center, a short drive from home, had helped Levi in his transition, providing counseling and eventually hormone treatments at age 15. The testosterone had profoundly positive impacts, Levi and his parents said, helping him overcome significant mental distress stemming from his gender dysphoria.But in June 2023, Missouri’s Republican governor enacted a bill banning gender-affirming healthcare for youth under 18. The law had an exception for youth like Levi who were already accessing the care, but WashU, fearing legal liability, stopped prescribing medications to all trans youth.The best alternative for Levi and his family was to cross state lines.“The fact that I have to drive five hours both ways for treatment just shows our government in Missouri doesn’t care about things that are actually important,” Levi said one afternoon, sitting on his backyard deck with his parents in St Charles county, which is more conservative than neighboring St Louis. “We have potholes galore that should be fixed, we have horrible crime rates. It’s enraging that they’re not focusing on what matters and listening to our voices.”The stakes of the presidential election are enormous for people like Levi and the broader LGBTQ+ community.Donald Trump has promised aggressive attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, with a focus on trans youth, who have been a central target of the GOP’s culture war. The former president’s proposed “plan to protect children from leftwing gender insanity” includes ordering federal agencies to end all programs that “promote … gender transition at any age”; revoking funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to youth and subjecting them to US justice department investigations; punishing schools that affirm trans youth; and pushing a federal law stating the government doesn’t legally recognize trans people.Read more:A federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s federal election interference case will allow special counsel Jack Smith to submit a 180-page brief that could contain new evidence.The oversized brief contains legal arguments and evidence reflecting how the supreme court’s ruling regarding presidential immunity will affect the case against Trump, which include felony charges for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The supreme court’s ruling regarding presidential immunity affects the charges against Trump, who is facing four felony counts related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.Trump’s legal team called the request to submit the brief “fundamentally unfair” in part because it was so much longer than most opening briefs.Seeking to secure every last electoral vote he can get, Donald Trump had been pushing allies in Nebraska to change the state’s electoral system to a winner-takes-all system. The state currently awards its five electoral votes based on congressional district.But after a key Republican legislator declined to support the last-minute effort to change the state’s system, the state’s governor has said that he won’t be calling a special legislative session to make the changes.“My team and I have worked relentlessly to secure a filibuster-proof 33-vote majority to get winner-take-all passed before the November election. Given everything at stake for Nebraska and our country, we have left every inch on the field to get this done,” said Jim Pillen, Nebraska’s governor. “Unfortunately, we could not persuade 33 state senators.”Mike McDonnell, a Republican state senator, announced he wouldn’t support the change. “Elections should be an opportunity for all voters to be heard, no matter who they are, where they live, or what party they support,” McDonnell said in a statement. “I have taken time to listen carefully to Nebraskans and national leaders on both sides of the issue. After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change.”Nebraska has awarded its electoral votes by congressional district since 1991, and since then, Republican candidates have usually secured all of the state’s votes. But in 2008, Barak Obama got the vote from the state’s second congressional district in the Omaha region, and in 2020, Joe Biden took that vote.Back at the United Nations, Ukraine’s president spoke before the security council, and suggested that negotiations to end Russia’s invasion would do no good.“This war can’t be calmed by talks. Action is needed, and I’m grateful to all the nations that are truly helping in ways that save the lives of our people,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.“Putin has broken so many international norms and rules that he won’t stop on his own. Russia can only be forced into peace, and that is exactly what’s needed, forcing Russia into peace as the sole aggressor in this war, the sole violator of the UN charter.”Zelenskyy is also using his visit to the summit of global leaders to press US lawmakers for continued aid that he says will give his military the edge over Russia in the conflict. Here’s more on that:Joe Biden will travel to Angola next month, the White House announced, marking the first trip by a US president to sub-Saharan Africa since 2015.Biden will visit the capital, Luanda, from 13 to 15 October, and meet with João Lourenço, the southern African nation’s president, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.“The president’s visit to Luanda celebrates the evolution of the US-Angola relationship, underscores the United States’ continued commitment to African partners, and demonstrates how collaborating to solve shared challenges delivers for the people of the United States and across the African continent,” Jean-Pierre said.Barack Obama was the last US president to visit sub-Saharan Africa, with a trip to Kenya and Ethiopia in July 2015. Biden welcomed Lourenço to the White House last year, and promised to visit Angola.Prior to arriving in Angola, Biden will visit Germany “to further strengthen the close bond the United States and Germany share as allies and friends and coordinate on shared priorities”, Jean-Pierre said.Local authorities in Tempe, Arizona, have said that someone fired shots at a Democratic party campaign office in a Phoenix suburb, causing damage but no injuries, according to the Associated Press.Tempe police told the Associated Press that the damage was discovered early on Monday and that the incident is being investigated as a property crime. Nobody was in the office at the time the shots were fired.On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the office is shared by staff for the Arizona Democratic party, the Kamala Harris campaign, and Senate and House campaigns.This comes as Harris is scheduled to visit Arizona later this week.New York’s Climate Change Superfund act was stripped from the state budget this year, but then it passed both chambers of the state’s legislature with bipartisan support in June.Modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, it would require officials to work with scientists to figure out how much climate-related damage to people, ecosystems and infrastructure is attributable to big oil companies’ planet-heating pollution, then establish procedures to collect payments from big oil companies to fund those changes.At the rally on Tuesday outside the New York governor Kathy Hochul’s office, New Yorkers detailed their own experiences with climate disasters.Michael-Luca Natt from the New York chapter of the youth-led environmental group Sunrise Movement described how extreme city heat in the summer made it difficult to play outside as a youth.“It is time for the fossil fuel industry to be held accountable,” he said.If signed into law, the New York bill would be the largest policy of its kind in the nation. Vermont became the first state to pass a climate superfund bill in May.Dozens of climate activists gathered outside Kathy Hochul’s office on Tuesday demanding the New York governor pass the Climate Change Superfund act, which would force big polluters to help the state pay for damages caused by the climate crisis.“We are being played for suckers by the fossil fuel industry, and Governor Hochul is going along with it,” Bill McKibben, the veteran environmentalist who founded non-profits 350.org and Third Act, said at the rally.The activists from the fossil fuel accountability group Make Polluters Pay coalition, which includes environmental and human rights organizations such as Food and Water Watch, the New York Public Interest Research Group, Fossil Free Media, and Avaaz, carried large boxes filled with more than 127,000 petitions to Hochul’s office. They chanted: “What do we want? Climate justice,” and: “Make polluters pay.”A new poll of young voters published on Tuesday shows that among registered voters aged 18 to 29, Kamala Harris is 23 points ahead of Donald Trump, and 31 percentage points ahead among likely voters.The leader of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a non-profit that represents the Haitian community of Springfield, Ohio, has filed criminal charges against Donald Trump and JD Vance on behalf of the group, according to an announcement from the law firm representing them.The group is charging the former president and Republican nominee for president, and his running mate and Ohio senator, with disrupting public service, making false alarms, committing telecommunications harassment, committing aggravated menacing and violating the prohibition against complicity per the press release.The Associated Press is reporting that the group has invoked its private-citizen right to file the charges in the wake of inaction by the local prosecutor.This comes as the city of Springfield has experienced an onslaught of disruption, harassment, chaos and threats since Trump and Vance began spreading false claims about Haitian immigrants there eating other residents’ pets.Last week, the mayor of Springfield issued an emergency proclamation following the continued rise in public safety threats.A new Reuters/Ipsos poll of registered voters published on Tuesday has Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump 46.61% to 40.48% in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.The Democratic vice-president’s six-point lead is a slight increase from the last Reuters/Ipsos poll from earlier this month, which had her five percentage points ahead of the former president. More

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      Trump campaign’s suspected Iranian hack may still be happening

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      A suspected Iranian hack of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has continued within the last 10 days and may still be happening, according to a journalist who received illegally obtained documents from the Republican nominee’s election effort.Judd Legum, the publisher of the progressive newsletter Popular Information, revealed that he was sent a letter that Trump’s lawyer had written to the New York Times on 15 September from a source called “Robert”, as well as dossiers on three potential running mates, including JD Vance, the current GOP vice-presidential nominee.The letter was verified to be authentic. “Robert” appeared to be the same source who had leaked other Trump materials to Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post in August. The FBI has said it is investigating that leak as a suspected Iranian hack. The source known as “Robert” has been linked by a Microsoft threat analysis to a group within the theocratic regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which sent out phishing emails to presidential campaigns.US intelligence agencies revealed last week that Iranian hackers passed sensitive information stolen from Trump’s campaign to Joe Biden’s now-defunct presidential campaign in June and July. Legum’s disclosure suggests that the breach may have been more extensive than previously known and could still be under way despite the efforts of US security agencies.Legum said that he received a message from “Robert” on 18 September containing the cover page of a dossier on Vance. “Robert refused to identify himself,” Legum wrote, except to suggest it was the same “Robert” from the previous leaks.Legum – whose own communications were made public after the 2016 Russian hack of Hillary Clinton’s then campaign chair John Podesta – described then receiving a 271-page file on Vance, along with thick dossiers on Doug Burgum, the South Dakota governor, and Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, both of whom were considered by Trump as possible running mates. All documents were marked “Privileged & Confidential”.He said he was also sent a dozen emails purporting to be from senior Trump advisers Susie Wiles and Dan Scavino and pollster John McLaughlin, dated from October 2023 until last August.Legum said he also received a four-page letter sent by a Trump lawyer to three individuals at the New York Times just nine days ago, further evidence that the breach had not been plugged.“The letter has not been made public by either the Trump campaign or the paper,” Legum wrote.Legum then provided a copy of the letter to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor, who confirmed it as genuine after checking with a source at the New York Times who had already seen it. The letter complained about a Times article that questioned Trump’s validity as a successful businessman, Smith wrote in a separate piece.“The legitimacy of the letter proves that the person or people representing themselves as Robert has stolen electronic communications from people associated with the Trump campaign within the last 10 days,” Legum concluded.During a rally in New York last Wednesday, Trump referred to the disclosure of the breach from US intelligence agencies, saying: “Iran hacked into my campaign. I don’t know what the hell they found, I’d like to find out. Couldn’t have been too exciting.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe campaigns of Biden and Kamala Harris, as well as the media outlets that have received stolen Trump materials, have all declined to make them public – a stark contrast to the 2016 hack of Clinton, the results of which were published in multiple outlets, while Trump vocally encouraged Russia to continue hacking.Legum said he would stick to the current policy of non-publication.“It was tempting to use this opportunity to turn the tables on the Trump campaign and publish the stolen campaign materials provided to me by Robert,” he wrote. “But I believe that is the wrong approach.”A Trump campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said the hack showed that Iran is “terrified of the strength and resolve of Donald J Trump”.Suspected Iranian-backed plots to kill Trump – who has already survived two assassination attempts during the campaign – prompted the Secret Service in July to step up additional security at his rallies. The following month, a Pakistani national with suspected links to Iran was arrested on suspicion of plotting political assassinations on US soil, including against Trump. More

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      Abortion measures are on the ballot in 10 states this year. Democrats can win them | Katrina vanden Heuvel

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      If you’re tired of breathlessly following the horserace polling of the presidential and congressional races, you might consider instead breathlessly following the horserace polling of ballot initiatives to protect reproductive rights. In a sense, they’re more revealing.Pending some outstanding court challenges from Republicans – whose dogged commitment to “leaving this issue to the states” curiously disappears when they realize they’re going to lose – up to 10 states will have abortion referendums on the ballot this year. And it happens that they’ll share that ballot with competitive Senate races in states like Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Florida and Maryland.In Nevada and Arizona, which could also play a decisive role in the presidential race, a Fox News poll found that over 70% of voters in both states plan to vote in favor of codifying abortion rights.Giving voters the opportunity to vote directly on abortion rights is a strategic win for progressives on a few levels. Of course, in a time when 22 state legislatures have acted to restrict abortion access since Dobbs, it’s a powerfully effective way to protect the right to choose. It also helps keep the subject in headlines when the Trump campaign would prefer voters to be distracted by mythical, racist claims about Haitian immigrants. And perhaps most significantly, it could motivate otherwise unenthusiastic voters to show up for what seems to be yet another excruciatingly close election.Ballot initiatives are a useful exercise in revealed preference. It has long been observed that millions of Americans end up voting against their economic self-interest each election cycle. In presidential elections, voters choose candidates, not policy papers. It’s why swing voters were not compelled by the argument that Joe Biden could serve four more years as president because he “surrounds himself with the right people”.Yet when voters have the chance to vote up or down on an issue that will directly impact their lives, they aren’t in the habit of denying themselves civil rights or quality of life improvements. And in the wake of Roe v Wade getting overturned, that has proved especially true.In 2022, every state referendum on abortion was a victory for pro-choice advocates. Voters in California, Michigan and Vermont voted to enshrine reproductive rights in their respective constitutions, while voters in Kentucky and Montana decisively voted down measures that would have restricted them. This coincided with progressive overperformance in gubernatorial and congressional races, where abortion proved highly salient.Ballot initiatives on other issues have also demonstrated sizable majorities for the right progressive priorities, even in so-called conservative states. Since 2012, measures to legalize recreational marijuana have passed in over a dozen states – including Alaska, Montana, Missouri and Ohio. Meanwhile, per Ballotpedia, there have been 22 statewide measures to raise the minimum wage since 1998; they’ve all passed.In this election, too, there are opportunities for waves of support for progress in unexpected places.Take Florida (please). The citizen-led group Floridians Protecting Freedom has been tirelessly pushing for amendment 4, which would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution if it can garner 60% of the vote. One poll found that the initiative is positioned nicely to pass, with 69% support.Meanwhile, Florida amendment 3, which would legalize marijuana in the state, has already broken the record for the most money spent on any state cannabis measure, with more than $100m raised and counting. On that issue, the Republican party seems to recognize which way the smoke is blowing, since Trump has come out in favor of it.For all the talk of Florida falling out of reach for progressives, these amendments could serve as yet another signal that the left shouldn’t give up on the state. This is the same state that voted to restore the voting rights of more than 1 million felons in 2018 (despite immediate efforts that followed by the Republican government to subvert the will of the people). There is such a sizable bloc for progress, in fact, that despite Florida’s 60% threshold for constitutional amendments being the highest in the country, Republicans have proposed raising it even higher, to 66.67%.Beyond the Sunshine state, putting abortion rights front and center could also help address the Harris campaign’s nationwide challenges with younger voters. While Kamala Harris has managed to earn back some of the support that Biden lost among voters under 30, she still isn’t matching his 2020 performance.Sure, maybe touting Taylor Swift’s endorsement on Instagram or sending Barack Obama to juice voter registration on TikTok will move the needle. But with women under 45 citing abortion as their most motivating issue this election, it would seem wise to keep spotlighting a rare issue that is both persuasive to swing voters and galvanizing for young activists.At the St Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida, the 20-year-old college senior Alexis Hobbs can be found wearing a pink T-shirt behind a pink table recruiting her peers to vote “Yes on 4.”In an interview with New York Magazine, Hobbs shared just how motivated her fellow young people are to fight this fight: “They don’t want to live out their entire adulthood this way.”

      Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has contributed to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times More

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      Harris calls out Trump again for ‘looking for an excuse’ to avoid a second debate

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      Kamala Harris laid down another challenge to Republican rival Donald Trump to meet her for a second debate before November’s presidential election, telling supporters in New York that her opponent “seems to be looking for an excuse” to avoid a second confrontation.On Saturday, the vice-president and Democratic nominee said she had accepted an invitation from CNN to debate the former president, but Trump said it was already “too late”.In her remarks at a New York fundraiser, Harris doubled down in her taunting of Trump over the issue, saying: “I think we should have another debate.”“I accepted an invitation to debate in October, which my opponent seems to be looking for an excuse to avoid when he should accept,” she added. “He should accept because I feel very strongly that we owe it to the American people, to the voters, to meet once more before election day.”The question of the US’s high stakes presidential debates has hung over the candidates since Joe Biden dropped out of the race following a disastrous performance in June. The single scheduled debate between Trump and Harris, earlier this month, was widely viewed to have gone Harris’s way and been a serious blow to Trump.But it did not move the polls as much as the Harris campaign hoped and her campaign is still tasked with introducing her to US voters. Last week, Harris went on Oprah to help smooth the introduction along.This week Harris is due to reveal a set of new economic policies. Polls show she is steadily gaining trust on the key issue of the economy, which often favors Trump and the Republican party.On Sunday, Harris returned to the key themes of the message Democrats wish to underline – a threat to democracy they perceive a second Trump terms represents and the knife-edge that polls suggest the race remains balanced upon.“This is a man who said he would be a dictator on day one … just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails,” Harris said in New York. “This race is as close as it could be. This is a margin of error race … and I am running and we are running as the underdog.”Harris called Trump an “unserious man”, but said the consequences of putting him back in the White House were “very serious”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHead-to-head polls tend to show Harris with a narrow but solid lead over Trump, though the situation is more mixed in the crucial swing states that will decide the race to the White House. That is a reverse of the situation when Biden was in the race, where Trump had established a firm lead over the US president. More

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      The Guardian view on Israel’s booby-trap war: illegal and unacceptable | Editorial

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      In the second world war, guerrilla forces scattered large quantities of booby-trapped objects likely to be attractive to civilians. The idea was to cause widescale and indiscriminate death. The Japanese manufactured a tobacco pipe with a charge detonated by a spring-loaded striker. The Italians produced a headset that blew up when it was plugged in. More than half a century later, a global treaty came into force which “prohibited in all circumstances to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material”. Has anyone told Israel and its jubilant supporters that, as Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group points out, it is a signatory to the protocol?On Tuesday, pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least 12 people – including two children and four hospital workers – and wounding thousands more. This situation is directly analogous to the historical practices that current global arms treaties explicitly prohibit. US media say Israel was behind the attack, and the country has the motive and the means to target its Iran-backed enemies. Israel’s leaders have a long history of carrying out sophisticated remote operations, ranging from cyber-attacks, suicide drone attacks and remote-controlled weapons to assassinate Iranian scientists. On Wednesday it was reported that Israel blew up thousands of two-way personal radios used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon, killing nine and wounding hundreds.This week’s attacks were not, as Israel’s defenders claimed, “surgical” or a “precisely targeted anti-terrorist operation”. Israel and Hezbollah are sworn enemies. The current round of fighting has seen tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from the Israel-Lebanon border because of the Shia militant group’s rocket and artillery attacks.However, the pager bombs were clearly intended to target individual civilians – diplomats and politicians – who were not directly participating in hostilities. The plan appeared to produce what lawyers might call “excessive incidental civilian harm”. Both these arguments have been levelled at Russia to claim Moscow was committing war crimes in Ukraine. It’s hard to say why the same reasoning is not applied to Israel – apart from that it is a western ally.Such disproportionate attacks, which seem illegal, are not only unprecedented but may also become normalised. If that is the case, the door is opened for other states to lethally test the laws of war. The US should step in and restrain its friend, but Joe Biden shows no sign of intervening to stop the bloodshed. The road to peace runs through Gaza, but Mr Biden’s ceasefire plan – and the release of hostages – has not found favour with either Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Hamas.The worry is that Israel’s actions lead to a disastrous all-out conflict that would pull the US into a regional fight. The world stands on the edge of chaos because Mr Netanyahu’s continuing hold on power and consequent insulation from corruption charges depend largely on his nation being at war. None of this is possible without US complicity and assistance. Perhaps it is only after its presidential election that the US will be able to say that the price of saving Mr Netanyahu’s skin should not be paid in the streets of Lebanon or by Palestinians in the occupied territories. Until then, the rules-based international order will continue to be undermined by the very countries that created the system. More

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      Harris condemns Senate Republicans for blocking IVF bill; VP calls Ohio attacks a ‘crying shame’ – live

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      Kamala Harris said that Senate Republicans refusal to vote in favor of protecting IVF “is not an isolated incident”:
      Every woman in every state must have reproductive freedom. Yet, Republicans in Congress have once again made clear that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child.Congressional Republicans’ repeated refusal to protect access to IVF is not an isolated incident. Extremist so-called leaders have launched a full-on attack against reproductive freedom across our country. In the more than two years since Roe v Wade was overturned, they have proposed and passed abortion bans that criminalize doctors and make no exception for rape or incest. They have also blocked legislation to protect the right to contraception and proposed four national abortion bans.Their opposition to a woman’s freedom to make decisions about her own body is extreme, dangerous and wrong. Our administration will always fight to protect reproductive freedoms, which must include access to IVF. We stand with the majority of Americans – Republicans and Democrats alike – who support protecting access to fertility treatments. And we continue to call on Congress to finally pass a bill that restores reproductive freedom.
      Arizona’s top elections official said Tuesday that a newly identified error in the state’s voter registration process needs to be swiftly resolved, as early ballots are scheduled to go out to some voters as soon as this week.Election staff in the Maricopa county recorder’s office identified an issue last week, which concerns voters with old drivers licenses who may never have provided documentary proof of citizenship but were coded as having provided it and therefore were able to vote full ballots. The state has a bifurcated system in which voters who do not provide documentary proof of citizenship cannot vote in local or state elections, only federal ones.Because of the state’s very close elections and status as a swing state, the issue affecting nearly 100,000 voters will likely be the subject of intense scrutiny and litigation in the coming weeks. Arizona has more than 4.1 million registered voters.Governor Katie Hobbs directed the motor vehicles division to fix the coding error, which the secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, said was already resolved going forward.It’s not clear if any of these voters have unlawfully cast a ballot or if they have already provided proof of citizenship. People who register to vote check a box on registration forms, under penalty of perjury, declaring they are citizens.“We have no reason to believe that there are any significant numbers of individuals remaining on this list who are not eligible to vote in Arizona,” Fontes said in a press conference Tuesday. “We cannot confirm that at this moment, but we don’t have any reason to believe that.”The error, reported by Votebeat on Tuesday, relates to several quirks of Arizona governance.Since 1996, Arizona residents have been required to show proof of citizenship to get a regular driver’s license. And since 2004, they have been required to show proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections.State drivers licenses also do not expire until a driver is age 65, meaning for some residents, they will have a valid license for decades before needing renewal. These factors play into the error.The issue has split the Republican recorder in the state’s largest county, Maricopa, and the Democratic secretary of state. Recorder Stephen Richer is arguing that these voters should only be able to cast a federal-only ballot, while Fontes says the state should keep the status quo of allowing them to vote full ballots given how soon the election is. Fontes directed counties to allow these residents to cast full ballots this year.Read more here:Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said that Republicans would do well to help avert a looming government shutdown.The path to preventing a shutdown, as ever, remains shrouded. House leader Mike Johnson’s current proposal – which extends funding while also folding in a Republican measure requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote in national elections – lacks even enough Republican votes to pass.Non-citizen voting is already illegal and voter fraud by non-citizens is virtually non-existent, and the inclusion of the measure, which would add barriers to voting for US citizens, is a nonstarter for Democrats in the Senate.Meanwhile, far-right Republicans say Johnson’s proposal doesn’t go far enough in pushing their agenda, and see the threat of shutdown as an opportunity to push Democrats to compromise on immigration and other issues.Since Kamala Harris launched her presidential bid in July, Democrats have showered her campaign with cash. Last month alone, the vice-president raised $361m, tripling Donald Trump’s fundraising haul of $130m for the month. According to Harris’s campaign, she brought in $540m in the six weeks after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race.Democratic congressional candidates appear to be benefiting from this financial windfall as well, as Republicans sound the alarm about their fundraising deficit in key races that will determine control of the House and Senate in November.But in one crucial area, Republicans maintain a substantial cash advantage over Democrats: state legislative races. In recent years, Republicans have controlled more state legislative chambers than Democrats, giving them more power over those states’ budgets, election laws and abortion policies.The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), which supports the party’s state legislative candidates, has raised $35m between the start of 2023 and the end of this June, the committee told the Guardian. In comparison, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) – which invests in an array of state-level campaigns, such as supreme court races, in addition to legislative campaigns – has raised $62m in the same time period.That resource gap is now rearing its head in key battleground states, the DLCC says. In Pennsylvania, a crucial state for the presidential and congressional maps, Republican state legislative candidates have spent $4.5m on paid advertisements, compared with $1.4m for Democratic candidates.“When we think about the context of what’s at stake, we think about more than 65 million people being covered by our target map this year,” said Heather Williams, president of the DLCC. “And that means that the rights of all those people will be determined by who’s in power the day after the election.”Read more here:A national voter poll from Monmouth has found that there are fewer “double haters” – voters that dislike both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates – since Kamala Harris joined the race.Only 7% of voters polled in this latest round favored neither Donald Trump nor Harris – compared to 16% of disliked both Trump and Joe Biden.“Senate Republicans put politics first and families last again today by blocking the Right to IVF Act for the second time since June,” said Emilia Rowland, national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee.Rowland warned that Donald Trump, who claimed to be a “leader” on IVF during his debate against Kamala Harris last week, would jeopardize access to fertility treatments if he wins in November.“Voters know the difference between words and actions,” she said. “And between now and November, they will turn out against Republicans from the top to bottom of the ballot.”JD Vance is scheduled to speak in an hour at an event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.The last time I was at this event space was for one of Kamala Harris’s inaugural rallies, which was held on the sprawling grounds adjacent to the hall where Vance will speak today.Cathy Weber, a retired farmer and military serviceperson, said she came to see Vance speak to get a better sense of who he is as a politician. When I asked about Vance’s comments about Haitian immigrants, she said she thought “he misspoke,” and chalked it up to being a younger politician – which she viewed as an asset.“He’s 39,” said Weber. “I said to my son: ‘That’s your generation, that’s our future.’”As the Guardian’s Robert Tait reported earlier this month, JD Vance has a history of opposing IVF – in contradiction to the Republican party and Donald Trump’s current stance that they support it:In 2017, months into Trump’s presidency, Vance wrote the foreword to the Index of Culture and Opportunity, a collection of essays by conservative authors for the Heritage Foundation that included ideas for encouraging women to have children earlier and promoting a resurgence of “traditional” family structure.The essays lauded the increase in state laws restricting abortion rights and included arguments that the practice should become “unthinkable” in the US, a hardline posture the Democrats now say is the agenda of Trump and Vance, who they accuse of harbouring the intent to impose a national ban following a 2022 supreme court ruling overturning Roe v Wade and annulling the federal right to abort a pregnancy.The report also includes an essay lamenting the spread of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other fertility treatments, with the author attributing them as reasons for women delaying having children and prioritising higher education rather than starting families.IVF has emerged as an issue in November’s presidential race after Trump said last week that he favoured it being covered by government funding or private health insurance companies – a stance seeming at odds with many Republicans, including Vance, who was one of 47 GOP senators to vote against a bill in June intended to expand access to the treatment.Kamala Harris said that Senate Republicans refusal to vote in favor of protecting IVF “is not an isolated incident”:
      Every woman in every state must have reproductive freedom. Yet, Republicans in Congress have once again made clear that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child.Congressional Republicans’ repeated refusal to protect access to IVF is not an isolated incident. Extremist so-called leaders have launched a full-on attack against reproductive freedom across our country. In the more than two years since Roe v Wade was overturned, they have proposed and passed abortion bans that criminalize doctors and make no exception for rape or incest. They have also blocked legislation to protect the right to contraception and proposed four national abortion bans.Their opposition to a woman’s freedom to make decisions about her own body is extreme, dangerous and wrong. Our administration will always fight to protect reproductive freedoms, which must include access to IVF. We stand with the majority of Americans – Republicans and Democrats alike – who support protecting access to fertility treatments. And we continue to call on Congress to finally pass a bill that restores reproductive freedom.
      Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, pointed to the failure of the IVF bill today as proof that Republicans’ promise to protect access to in vitro fertilization is hollow:Meanwhile, John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota, called the bill “an attempt by Democrats to try and create a political issue where there isn’t one”.Before its convention this year, the Republican party adopted a policy platform that supports states establishing fetal personhood, while also, contradictorily, encouraging support for IVF. But the platform does not explain how IVF could be legally protected if frozen embryos are given the same rights as people.Senate Republicans voted to block a bill that would have ensured access to in vitro fertilization nationwide.Every Republican, except Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted against the measure. Though a majority of 51 voted in favor, the bill needed 60 votes to pass.Democrats had brought the measure back to the floor after Republicans previously blocked it from advancing in June.Democrats have been pushing the issue this year after the Alabama’s supreme court ruled that frozen embryos could be considered children under state law, leading several clinics in the state to suspend IVF treatment.Republicans, including Donald Trump, have scrambled to counter what could be a deeply unpopular stance against IVF. More