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      Peter Meijer, a Republican Who Voted to Impeach Trump, Is Running for Senate in Michigan

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      The one-term representative of Michigan who was defeated by a Trump-backed primary challenger is aiming for a political comeback.Peter Meijer, the one-term Republican congressman who lost his seat after voting to impeach President Donald J. Trump, has announced he is running for Senate in Michigan, jumping into a crowded primary in a key battleground.“We are in dark and uncertain times, but we have made it through worse,” Mr. Meijer said in a statement announcing his candidacy on Monday.Mr. Meijer, an heir to the Meijer supermarket empire and an Army Reserve veteran who served in Iraq, joins a field that includes Mike Rogers, another former representative who served seven terms in the House and led the House Intelligence Committee, who announced his candidacy in September.Also running in the Republican primary are James Craig, former chief of the Detroit Police Department; Nikki Snyder, a member of the State Board of Education; Dr. Sherry O’Donnell, a physician and former 2022 congressional candidate; Sharon Savage, a former teacher; Ezra Scott, a former Berrien County commissioner; Alexandria Taylor, a lawyer; J.D. Wilson, a technology consultant; and Michael Hoover, a businessman.The crowded Republican field reflects a party eager to make gains in Michigan after Democrats swept to victory in the state in 2022. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer handily won re-election that year, part of a political trifecta as Democrats won total control of the state government.President Biden narrowly won in Michigan in 2020 and the state is considered a battleground in next year’s presidential election.Mr. Meijer, 35, is competing for the seat held by Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat who announced this year that she would not seek a new term in 2024. The race for the open seat is competitive but has been leaning toward the Democrats, according to a projection by the Cook Political Report.Ms. Stabenow’s retirement set off a frenzy among ambitious Democrats in Michigan who are now aiming to succeed her.Among them is Representative Elissa Slotkin, a moderate and former C.I.A. analyst who has earned a national profile and scored victories in several close races for her House seat. Also in the running are Nasser Beydoun, a businessman from Dearborn; Hill Harper, an author and actor; Leslie Love, a former state representative of Detroit; Pamela Pugh, the president of the State Board of Education; and Zach Burns, a lawyer and Ann Arbor resident.Mr. Meijer was elected to represent his Grand Rapids-based district in 2020. He was thrust into the national spotlight just days after taking office when he voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.Only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump survived the retribution from Republican voters that followed. Mr. Meijer narrowly lost his primary to a Trump-backed opponent, John Gibbs, who was boosted by Democrats and who was defeated by his Democratic opponent in the general election.After Mr. Meijer’s announcement, the Michigan Democratic Party criticized him in a statement for, among other things, his position on abortion rights — an issue that helped put Democrats over the top in 2022. More

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      Trump Indictments Haven’t Sunk His Campaign, but a Conviction Might

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      For Donald J. Trump, a new set of New York Times/Siena College polls captures a stunning, seemingly contradictory picture.His 91 felony charges in four different jurisdictions have not significantly hurt him among voters in battleground states. Yet he remains weaker than at least one of his Republican rivals, and if he’s convicted and sentenced in any of his cases, some voters appear ready to turn on him — to the point where he could lose the 2024 election.Mr. Trump leads President Biden in five key battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, according to the Times/Siena polls. He has eaten significantly into Mr. Biden’s advantages among younger, Black and Hispanic voters, many of whom retain positive views of the policies Mr. Trump enacted as president. And Mr. Trump appears to have room to grow, as more voters say they are open to supporting the former president than they are to backing Mr. Biden, with large shares of voters saying they trust Mr. Trump on the economy and national security. More

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      Trump Sues to Ensure He Is on the Ballot in Michigan

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      Donald Trump’s lawsuit was the latest turn in a nationwide battle over his eligibility to hold office again, including a case being heard this week in Colorado.Former President Donald J. Trump sued Michigan’s top elections official, seeking to ensure he would be on the ballot for the 2024 presidential election.In a 64-page filing on Monday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers said that Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, had created “uncertainty” by failing to respond to communications from the Trump campaign about his ballot eligibility. Mr. Trump is the dominant front-runner for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.His lawyers added that other parties had sued Ms. Benson to keep Mr. Trump off the ballot in 2024, arguing that he was ineligible to hold office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — a section that disqualifies anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution after having taken an oath to support it.Ms. Benson previously declined to disqualify Mr. Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, saying she did not have the authority to determine who was or was not eligible to run under the 14th Amendment. Plaintiffs in that case then sued in Michigan state court to have the court order Ms. Benson to disqualify Mr. Trump. Ms. Benson has noted that she is watching for the results of that case.Cheri Hardmon, a spokeswoman for Ms. Benson, said on Tuesday that the Michigan Department of State could not comment on pending litigation.The Michigan lawsuit was the latest turn in a nationwide battle over Mr. Trump’s eligibility to run for president. The suit was filed Monday afternoon in Michigan state court as a trial played out in Colorado to determine whether Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election met the disqualification criteria in the 14th Amendment.That trial continued on Tuesday with testimony related to Mr. Trump and far-right extremists and their actions on Jan. 6, 2021.Peter Simi, an expert witness on political extremism and violence called by the plaintiffs, said during questioning that far-right extremists often communicate in ambiguous language, and that many of Mr. Trump’s comments before and on Jan. 6 were a key influence on extremists who rioted at the Capitol.Mr. Simi focused on Mr. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse that day, where he repeatedly called on his supporters to “fight” to prevent the election from being stolen.“A call to fight for far-right extremists — especially within the context as it’s laid out, that these threats are imminent, that you’re going to lose your country — then fighting would be understood as requiring violent action,” Mr. Simi testified.Lawyers for Mr. Trump argued during cross-examination that Mr. Simi had selectively chosen particular moments that made Mr. Trump look bad, and sought to cast doubt on whether the president had intended for the far right to interpret his remarks the way they did.Other cases on Mr. Trump’s eligibility are soon to follow: A similar lawsuit has been filed in New Hampshire. Oral arguments in a case in Minnesota are scheduled to begin Thursday. Separately, Democratic legislators in California asked their state’s attorney general last month to seek a court opinion on Mr. Trump’s eligibility.Whatever rulings come in these cases will not be final. They will almost certainly be appealed by the losing side, and the Supreme Court — which has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices appointed by Mr. Trump — is likely to have the final say. More

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      In Michigan, Muslim and Arab American Voters Reconsider Support for Biden

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      Many in the swing state say they feel betrayed by the president’s support for Israel.Sam Baydoun, a Wayne County commissioner in Dearborn, Mich., has been glued to Al Jazeera for weeks to absorb news from the war in Israel and Gaza.Mr. Baydoun, a Democrat who is Lebanese American, has watched with fury as Israeli airstrikes have caused the deaths of many civilians, including children, following the deadly attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed many. He saw President Biden visit Israel and pledge full-throated American support.And he is thinking ahead to the presidential election of 2024, a contest that could hinge on a handful of states including Michigan, whose Muslim and Arab American voters turned out decisively for Mr. Biden three years ago.“How can I tell somebody who’s watching these atrocities on live TV, today, to vote for President Biden?” he said. “The pulse of the community is overwhelmingly not supportive of Biden now. They feel betrayed.”There are about 200,000 registered Muslim American voters in Michigan, by some counts, a significant bloc in a battleground state of 8.2 million registered voters.Valaurian Waller for The New York TimesThat anger at the Biden administration’s response to the conflict in the Mideast is widely shared by Arab Americans in Michigan, especially in Wayne County, which includes the cities of Hamtramck and Dearborn, where Muslims have a large population and have been elected to top leadership roles.Mr. Biden has made repeated gestures of support to Muslims and Arab Americans: In an Oval Office address on Oct. 20, he denounced Islamophobia and the death of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old who was fatally stabbed in Illinois in what authorities have called a hate crime. Mr. Biden said he was “heartbroken” by the loss of Palestinian life in the war: “We can’t ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace and have an opportunity,” he said.Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the president’s re-election campaign, said that Mr. Biden “knows the importance of earning the trust of every community, of upholding the sacred dignity and rights of all Americans,” and is working closely with Muslim and Palestinian American leaders.But many Arab Americans were outraged by Mr. Biden’s visit to Israel, his embrace of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his pledge that “we will continue to have Israel’s back.”Nada Al-Hanooti, a Palestinian American organizer based in Dearborn, said that as of 2020, there were approximately 200,000 registered Muslim voters in Michigan, making the community a significant voting bloc in a battleground state of 8.2 million registered voters.“In 2020, the Muslim community was instrumental in turning out the vote for Joe Biden,” said Ms. Al-Hanooti, the Michigan executive director of Emgage, a national organization that seeks to strengthen the political power of Muslim Americans. “We did a lot of get-out-the-vote efforts.”Mr. Biden won the state by nearly 155,000 votes. Muslim voters turned out in significant numbers — 145,000 voted in the presidential election, according to Emgage. An exit poll commissioned by the Council on American-Islamic Relations found that roughly 69 percent of Muslims nationwide voted for Biden.Ms. Al-Hanooti said Muslims turned out in large numbers for Mr. Biden mainly because they were motivated to help defeat President Trump. As a candidate for president, Mr. Trump called for a shutdown of Muslim immigration and referred to “radical Islam” infiltrating American communities; while in office, he issued an executive order that imposed restrictions on refugees and visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries.In Dearborn, Mich., the bustling downtown is dotted with Middle Eastern restaurants and storefronts with signs in Arabic. Valaurian Waller for The New York Times“But the truth is that we are experiencing the same Islamophobic rhetoric right now coming from the Biden administration,” she said, adding that Muslims in Michigan “don’t feel safe, they don’t feel heard and they don’t feel seen.”Adam Y. Abusalah, a Palestinian American resident of Dearborn, joined the Biden 2020 campaign as a field organizer in Michigan.“At the time, I thought Biden was the better candidate and that he would lead with compassion and humanity,” said Mr. Abusalah, 22, who works in local government.But he now feels that the administration’s approach to Palestinian issues and Israel, he said, is indistinguishable from Mr. Trump’s. The president’s staunch support for Israel in recent days has been gut-wrenching, he said.Mr. Abusalah said his community is feeling anguished and fearful in the wake of the outbreak of violence in the Middle East.“It feels like it’s a crime to speak up for Palestine right now,” he said. “The media and our elected officials make us look like we’re bad just for speaking up about injustices.”Some prominent Arab American figures in Michigan have predicted that many voters in the state will choose to leave the presidential candidate ballot blank next year.One of them is Osama Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News and an outspoken voice on Middle East policy. He has heard the worry that abandoning Mr. Biden means that Mr. Trump, should he be the Republican nominee for president, will prevail.“My argument is, ‘Let him win,’” he said of Mr. Trump.In Dearborn, a city whose bustling center is dotted with Middle Eastern restaurants and storefronts with signs in Arabic, Mayor Abdullah Hammoud has absorbed the distress from his constituents over the direction of the Democratic Party.“What I’m hearing from community members now is the feeling of being back-stabbed,” he said. “The feeling of being brought into the fold under this tent of diversity, yet the issues, the values, the principles we fight to uphold are not being taken up by the party that we have pledged to support again and again.”Osama Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News in Dearborn.Valaurian Waller for The New York TimesAt a vigil for Gaza on Thursday evening on the campus of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, students held candles and listened somberly as an organizer, Hani J. Bawardi, an associate professor of history at the school, spoke to the crowd.He planned the vigil to help students despairing over the war feel that they are not alone, he said on Friday.Many students have never voted in a presidential election before, Mr. Bawardi noted, and some are now asking themselves: “What do we do with our votes?” he said.He predicted that a third-party candidate would capture their attention next year, in the same way that Ralph Nader did in the presidential election of 2000.“I don’t see any other path than a repeat of that,” Mr. Bawardi said. More

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      ‘How can I vote for Biden?’ Arab Americans in Michigan ‘betrayed’ by Israel support

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      Leading up to the 2020 election, Arab American organizers in south-east Michigan like Terry Ahwal worked to convince their community to go to the polls for Joe Biden. The message was simple: Donald Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric and policies such as the Middle East travel ban were a threat to Arab Americans. Voters mobilized to help push Biden over the top in this critical swing state.Several years on, amid Biden’s full-throated support of Israel in the current war and an unfolding humanitarian crisis that has claimed thousand of lives in Gaza, Ahwal feels deep regret: “I have to say “I’m sorry’ to my friends.’”Ahwal is among hundreds of thousands of Arab Americans in Michigan, many of whom are watching with horror as the US supports Israel as it carries out its bombing campaign. After the community backed Biden by a wide margin in November 2020, the feeling goes “beyond betrayal”, about a dozen Arab Americans in Michigan said.“This is a complete loss of humanity, it is the active support of a genocide, and I don’t think it gets any worse than that,” said Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian American activist and attorney. “I’ve gotten a few comments, ‘Well, the GOP is going to be worse,’ and my question is: ‘How can you get worse than active support of a genocide?’”Polls show that Americans have generally been supportive of Israel and its response to the 7 October attack, though Morning Consult data released this week also shows the number of people who sympathize equally with Israelis and Palestinians is on the rise. That poll also showed support for Biden’s response is growing.But Arab Americans who spoke with the Guardian said they did not know of anyone in their community who would vote for Biden in 2024. That could have profound consequences in a state in which Trump won by 10,000 votes in 2016, and a tight rematch is taking shape.Still, the Biden administration has remained steadfastly supportive of Israel, proposing $14bn in aid; providing weapons such as missiles and armored personnel carriers; refusing calls for a ceasefire; and deploying US troops to the region. A Data for Progress poll released Thursday found 66% of Americans think the US should call for a ceasefire.The use of Arab American tax dollars to bomb Gaza is generating “widespread horror and fury”, Arraf said.Though Biden has called on Israel to show restraint and touted a deal he struck to allow trucks carrying aid to enter Gaza, Arab Americans who spoke with the Guardian view the gestures as pittances. They see the US’s support as ham-fisted and “shocking” in the context of the last presidential election.“Even our conservative members voted for Biden, only to get a guy who dehumanizes us, who is sending the weapons to Israel, and the only purpose of these weapons is to use Palestinian as target practice,” Ahwal said. “I don’t know anybody who would vote for him.”That sentiment was echoed by Muslim and Arab Americans elsewhere in the country. Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblymember, called Biden’s response to the crisis “disgusting” and warned that the president is underestimating the Arab American voting bloc.“I have had many constituents of mine, as well as Muslims from beyond my district, reach out to me and ask me: ‘How am I supposed to vote for Joe Biden?’ And I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell them,” he said.A number of people also expressed fears that the Biden administration’s rhetoric and positions are fanning the flames of Islamophobia in the US and putting their communities in danger. People who are publicly critical of Israel or supportive of Palestine have lost jobs and faced harassment in recent weeks. Muslim and Arab American politicians are receiving death threats and the level of vitriol is above what was experienced in the wake of 9/11, said Abraham Aiyash, a Muslim American state representative in Michigan.The president’s comparison of Hamas’s attacks to “15 9/11s”, Aiyash said, “enhances Islamophobia”, referencing the recent murder in Illinois of a six-year-old Palestinian American boy in an alleged hate crime.“If you support [Israel’s war] abroad, you have to be ready for the consequences of it at home,” he said.Multiple Palestinian Americans who do not work in politics declined to speak with the Guardian over safety fears.Any potential for political fallout for Biden is greatest in Michigan, a critical swing state that is home to 300,000 Arab Americans who helped boost Biden after Clinton’s narrow 2016 loss. Biden beat Trump in 2020 by about 150,000 votes.Few – if any – issues are more important to this group than Palestine and Middle East foreign policy, said Amer Zahr, a Palestinian American activist and comedian. He noted that Dearborn, a majority Arab American city just outside Detroit, went for Bernie Sanders by a significant margin during the last two Democratic presidential primaries because Sanders was willing to challenge US policy on Israel.But Biden was viewed as better than Trump, so Arab-Americans turned out in the general election, Zahr said. Next time, many people have said, they will vote third party, or leave the top of the ticket blank.Dearborn went 63% for Clinton in 2016 when she lost the state by 10,000 votes, but nearly 80% for Biden four years later. In the four municipalities with the largest Arab American populations in metro Detroit, about 40,000 more people voted for Biden than Clinton.“They came into our community and asked us to vote for Joe Biden and save America from Donald Trump, and now we feel like we have to save Palestine from Joe Biden,” Zahr added. “The argument that we heard before is we have to save the country from Trump – that’s not going to work.”“If [2024] is going to be a close election then the loss of Arab American support for Biden could have an impact,” said the state pollster Bernie Porn.The White House’s “lazy” language and the skewed portrayal of the crisis in US media dehumanizes Arabs – Palestinians, in particular, said James Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute, a Washington DC-based civil rights advocacy organization.“This objectification of Palestinians and the humanization of Israelis – which is an old story going back to the beginning of the conflict – fed into the pre-existing narrative that it’s Israeli people versus the Arab or Palestinian problem,” he said.The White House, he added, “sets the tone”, and “it’s important for us to let the administration know, you’re at risk of losing this particular component group of the community.”Those who spoke with the Guardian said they found the situation especially frustrating because they expected this kind of policy and positions from Republicans, but not Democrats.“What makes me incensed with Democrats is that they preach human rights, preach equality and diversity, but when it comes to Palestinians, all the preaching goes away, and there is justification for the killing and slaughter,” Ahwal said.“I know the ramifications and I know the consequences but I cannot justify a vote for a guy who says it’s OK to kill Palestinians.” More

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      Trump fake elector scheme: where do seven states’ investigations stand?

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      As Donald Trump faces criminal charges in multiple cases across the country, several states are still investigating a scheme created by Trump allies and boosted by Trump himself to cast fake electoral votes for the Republican candidate for the 2020 election.As part of the US electoral college system, states cast a set number of votes for the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state, the winner of which then takes the presidency. Seven states that the former president lost saw slates of fake GOP electors falsely claim Trump had won their electoral votes. These fake electors included high-profile Republicans, such as sitting officeholders and state party leaders.Two prosecutors, in Michigan and Georgia, have already filed charges against fake electors. Others have confirmed investigations but provided few details. One state prosecutor said local laws did not address this kind of crime, which is unprecedented.Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump campaign legal adviser and the supposed mastermind of the fake electors scheme, pleaded guilty in Georgia over his role in subverting the election. Chesebro allegedly created the plan in a secret memo based on Wisconsin’s electoral vote.At the federal level, the special counsel Jack Smith and his team brought charges against Trump and his allies over their attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, which include the fake elector scheme. Several states have confirmed they are cooperating with Smith’s investigation, and news reports have indicated Smith offered limited immunity to some fake electors for their testimony.Since the scheme had no precedent, some states and experts have struggled to figure out which laws may have been broken, and whether the charges should be state or federal. In some states, the fake electors also face civil lawsuits. Here’s where they stand.ArizonaThe former Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich, a Republican, never publicly confirmed any investigation into the state’s fake electors, which included high-profile far-right figures such as the state senator Jake Hoffman and the former Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward. The state actually saw two separate sets of fake electors.His successor, the Democrat Kris Mayes, told the Guardian earlier this year that her office is investigating the fake electors, but has not provided any details of the investigation so far. On a recent Arizona Republic podcast episode, Mayes said she could not say much about the contours of the investigation, but that her office was taking it “very seriously” and that it was a “very important investigation”.While the cases in Michigan and Georgia are much further along, she noted that their prosecutors have been in place much longer than she has. Mayes took office in January 2023.GeorgiaThree fake electors in Georgia were charged as part of a broader case against Trump and his allies over election subversion attempts.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, brought charges against the former Georgia Republican party chairman David Shafer, the state senator Shawn Still and the activist Cathy Latham, three of the 16 fake electors from that state. They face various charges, including forgery, impersonating a public officer and attempting to file false documents.Several of the others who signed on as false electors for Trump struck immunity deals or plea agreements with prosecutors.The three fake electors charged have pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys argued in September that they were not fake electors, but instead “contingent” electors who could be used should the courts overturn Biden’s win, the Associated Press reported. The three are trying to get their case moved from state court in Georgia to a federal court, arguing they were acting as federal officers who were keeping an avenue open for Trump depending on what happened in the courts.Sidney Powell, who was charged in the broader case, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the prosecution. The unexpected move netted Powell six years of probation and some fines and marks a major shift in the Georgia case for Trump and his allies. Chesebro, on the day jury selection for his trial was set to begin, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents and probably will serve five years’ probation.MichiganThe Democratic attorney general Dana Nessel charged 16 Michiganders who participated as fake electors with eight felonies each, including multiple forgery charges, for their roles in the scheme. Those charged include party activists, candidates for office and state and local party officials.Attempts by two defendants to get the charges dismissed because of Nessel’s comments about how the electors were “brainwashed” were unsuccessful. The 16 people charged pleaded not guilty, and probable cause hearings are set for this month.This week, one of Michigan’s fake electors saw his charges dropped as part of a deal with the state’s attorney general. James Renner, a Republican who falsely signed that Trump had won, agreed to “full cooperation, truthful testimony and production of any and all relevant documents” in exchange for the dropped charges, filings from the attorney general’s office, obtained by NBC News, show. This includes information about how he was asked to become part of the fake slate and the circumstances of meetings among those involved in the scheme.NevadaNevada’s top prosecutor has said his office would not bring charges against the six people who signed on as fake electors there in 2020. The state’s Democratic attorney general, Aaron Ford, said current state laws did not address this kind of situation, “to the dismay of some, and I’m sure, to the delight of others”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Democratic state senator Skip Daly attempted to solve that problem, and the state legislature passed a bill that would have made it a felony for people to serve as false electors, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Ford had endorsed the bill.But the Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, vetoed the bill, saying the penalties were too harsh, though he said he believed those who undermine elections should face “strict punishments”.New MexicoThe former New Mexico attorney general Hector Balderas started an investigation into the five Republicans who signed as false electors there, then referred the matter to federal prosecutors, according to Source New Mexico.The office of the current attorney general, Raúl Torrez, confirmed there was an active state investigation into the fake electors to see if they violated state law, but details about the case have been scant. Torrez’s office said it would work with Jack Smith to get any evidence related to a state inquiry, according to KOAT Action News.Like Pennsylvania, the fake electors in New Mexico included a caveat in their documents that could help them, should charges be filed. They wrote that they signed the documents “on the understanding that it might be later determined that we are the duly elected and qualified electors”.PennsylvaniaThe 20 fake electors in Pennsylvania are unlikely to face any criminal charges because of how they worded the documents they signed. The documents say the false electoral votes would only be considered valid if the courts deemed the slate to be the “duly elected and qualified electors” for Pennsylvania.Governor Josh Shapiro, then the state’s Democratic attorney general, said the hedged language would spare the false electors from a criminal investigation by his office. His successor as attorney general, Michelle Henry, told Votebeat that the office’s position remained that charges were not warranted.“Though their rhetoric and policy were intentionally misleading and purposefully damaging to our democracy, based on our initial review, our office does not believe this meets the legal standards for forgery,” Shapiro said in 2022.WisconsinThe Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, has not said whether his office is investigating the state’s 10 fake electors for potential state law violations, though a civil lawsuit against the alternate slate is moving forward. Kaul has said he supports the federal investigation and that he expects to see “further developments” in that case.Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, said in August he wanted to see the Wisconsin fake electors “held accountable” via prosecution.“What those ten fake electors did was wrong,” Evers wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “People have to be held accountable for that, and I hope to hell somebody does.”Federal prosecutors, in the Trump indictment, said the fake electors scheme started in Wisconsin with the attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who suggested electors meet there to sign on to a slate in case Trump’s team won in the courts. More

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      Former US congressman says family members killed in Gaza church blast

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      The first Palestinian American to serve as a US Congress member said he was grieving after several of his relatives were killed at a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza that authorities report was hit by an Israeli airstrike.Justin Amash detailed his sorrow over losing family members amid the Israel-Hamas war in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.“I was really worried about this. With great sadness, I have now confirmed that several of my relatives … were killed at Saint Porphyrius Orthodox Church in Gaza, where they had been sheltering, when part of the complex was destroyed as the result of an Israeli airstrike,” Amash wrote in a post that pictured whom he identified as two lost family members, Viola and Yara.The ex-congressman’s post continued: “Give rest, O Lord, to their souls, and may their memories be eternal. The Palestinian Christian community has endured so much. Our family is hurting badly. May God watch over all Christians in Gaza – and all Israelis and Palestinians who are suffering, whatever their religion or creed.”Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Amash has previously said his father was a Palestinian Christian who lived in Ramla until his family was forced out during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948.The 43-year-old Amash served as a US House representative for Michigan from 2011 to 2021. He was elected as a Republican but declared himself an independent in 2019 after supporting the first impeachment of the party’s leader, then president Donald Trump.Amash was the first and only Palestinian American in Congress until Rashida Tlaib joined the US House in 2019. Tlaib, a fellow Michigander and progressive Democrat, became the first Palestinian American woman elected to Congress.On Thursday evening, hundreds of Christians and Muslims were sheltering inside Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City when a missile took down part of the church, killing at least 16 people. The bodies of those killed – including four small children – were wrapped in white sheets and laid out in the church courtyard Friday for a mass funeral.The church authority that runs Saint Porphyrius, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said many of those inside at the time of the missile strike were women and children. The patriarchate also accused Israel of targeting churches, which it condemned.Israel’s military said in response it had damaged “a wall of a church” while hitting a Hamas “command and control center” nearby, but it denied deliberately targeting Saint Porphyrius.Saint Porphyrius is less than 300 meters (nearly 1,000ft) from the al-Ahli hospital compound where an explosion on Tuesday killed and injured hundreds of people who had fled there to escape Israeli airstrikes.Israel has blamed the hospital explosion on a failed Palestinian rocket, an assessment that has received US and French backing. Hamas blamed an Israeli missile.The US estimated between 100 and 300 people died in the hospital courtyard. Hamas-controlled local authorities have said the death toll was nearly 500.Amash’s lamentation over his late relatives was one of two statements he made on Friday about the war that Israel launched in retaliation for the 7 October attack by Hamas, in which 1,400 were killed as they overran military posts, murdered civilians in their homes and took nearly 200 hostages.He also commented on Hamas’s release on Friday of two American hostages.“This is fantastic news,” he wrote. But Amash also said Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad “need to unconditionally release all hostages of every nationality”. More

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      U.A.W. Will Not Expand Strikes at G.M., Ford and Stellantis as Talks Progress

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      The United Automobile Workers reported improved wage offers from the automakers and a concession from General Motors on workers at battery factories.The United Automobile Workers union said on Friday that it had made progress in its negotiations with Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, and would not expand the strikes against the companies that began three weeks ago.In an online video, the president of the union, Shawn Fain, said all three companies had significantly improved their offers to the union, including providing bigger raises and offering cost-of-living increases. In what he described as a major breakthrough, Mr. Fain said G.M. was now willing to include workers at its battery factories in the company’s national contract with the U.A.W.G.M. had previously said that it could not include those workers because they are employed by joint ventures between G.M. and battery suppliers.“Here’s the bottom line: We are winning,” said Mr. Fain, wearing a T-shirt that read, “Eat the Rich.” “We are making progress, and we are headed in the right direction.”Mr. Fain said G.M. made the concession on battery plant workers after the union had threatened to strike the company’s factory in Arlington, Texas, where it makes some of its most profitable full-size sport-utility vehicles, including the Cadillac Escalade and the Chevrolet Tahoe. The plant employs 5,300 workers.G.M. has started production at one battery plant in Ohio, and has others under construction in Tennessee and Michigan. Workers at the Ohio plant voted overwhelmingly to be represented by the U.A.W. and have been negotiating a separate contract with the joint venture, Ultium Cells, that G.M. owns with L.G. Energy Solution.Ford is building two joint-venture battery plants in Kentucky and one in Tennessee, and a fourth in Michigan that is wholly owned by Ford. Stellantis has just started building a battery plant in Indiana and is looking for a site for a second.G.M. declined to comment about battery plant workers. “Negotiations remain ongoing, and we will continue to work towards finding solutions to address outstanding issues,” the company said in a statement. “Our goal remains to reach an agreement that rewards our employees and allows G.M. to be successful into the future”Shares of the three companies jumped after Mr. Fain spoke. G.M.’s stock closed up about 2 percent, Stellantis about 3 percent and Ford about 1 percent.The strike began Sept. 15 when workers walked out of three plants in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri, each owned by one of the three companies.The stoppage was later expanded to 38 spare-parts distribution centers owned by G.M. and Stellantis, and then to a Ford plant in Chicago and another G.M. factory in Lansing, Mich. About 25,000 of the 150,000 U.A.W. members employed by the three Michigan automakers were on strike as of Friday morning.“I think this strategy of targeted strikes is working,” said Peter Berg, a professor of employment relations at Michigan State University. “It has the effect of slowly ratcheting up the cost to the companies, and they don’t know necessarily where he’s going to strike next.”Here Are the Locations Where U.A.W. Strikes Are HappeningSee where U.A.W. members are on strike at plants and distribution centers owned by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.The contract battle has become a national political issue. President Biden visited a picket line near Detroit last month. A day later, former President Donald J. Trump spoke at a nonunion factory north of Detroit and criticized Mr. Biden and leaders of the U.A.W. Other lawmakers and candidates have voiced support for the U.A.W. or criticized the strikes.When negotiations began in July, Mr. Fain initially demanded a 40 percent increase in wages, noting that workers’ pay has not kept up with inflation over the last 15 years and that the chief executives of the three companies have seen pay increases of roughly that magnitude.The automakers, which have made near-record profits over the last 10 years, have all offered increases of slightly more than 20 percent over four years. Company executives have said anything more would threaten their ability to compete with nonunion companies like Tesla and invest in new electric vehicle models and battery factories.The union also wants to end a wage system in which newly hired workers earn just over half the top U.A.W. wage, $32 an hour now, and need to work for eight years to reach the maximum. It is also seeking cost-of-living adjustments if inflation flares, pensions for a greater number of workers, company-paid retirement health care, shorter working hours and the right to strike in response to plant closings.In separate statements, Ford and Stellantis have said they agreed to provide cost-of-living increases, shorten the time it takes for employees to reach the top wage, and several other measures the union has sought.Ford also said it was “open to the possibility of working with the U.A.W. on future battery plants in the U.S.” Its battery plants are still under construction and have not hired any production workers yet.The union is concerned that some of its members will lose their jobs, especially people who work at engine and transmission plants, as the automakers produce more electric cars and trucks. Those vehicles do not need those parts, relying instead on electric motors and batteries.Stellantis’ chief operating officer for North America, Mark Stewart, said the company and the union were “making progress, but there are gaps that still need to be closed.”The union is also pushing the companies to convert temporary workers who now make a top wage of $20 an hour into full-time staff.Striking at only select locations at all three companies is a change from the past, when the U.A.W. typically called for a strike at all locations of one company that the union had chosen as its target. Striking at only a few locations hurts the companies — the idled plants make some of their most profitable models — but limits the economic damage to the broader economies in the affected states.It also could help preserve the union’s $825 million strike fund, from which striking workers are paid while they’re off the job. The union is paying striking workers $500 a week.G.M. said this week that the first two weeks of the strike had cost it $200 million. The three automakers and some of their suppliers have said that they have had to lay off hundreds of workers because the strikes have disrupted the supply and demand for certain parts.Santul Nerkar More