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      Harris and Cheney talk economy, women’s health and Trump in Michigan campaign event – US elections live

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      Maria Shriver asks Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney if they ever imagined they would be campaigning together. Harris says she has long worked with Republicans, and given the threat Donald Trump poses, she is not surprised to be standing with the former Republican congresswoman:
      What is at stake in this election is so fundamental for us as Americans … Do we take seriously the importance of a president who obeys the oath to be loyal to the constitution of the United States? Do we prioritize a president … who cares about the rule of law?
      Cheney says: “Everyone who watched January 6th knows what Donald Trump is willing to do.” She adds:
      I could have just said I’m going to do everything I can to work against Donald Trump, and there are a lot of Republicans who have said that … I have decided, and I am very proud, and I’m honored to have made the decision to endorse Vice-President Harris … As a mother, I want my children to know that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office that they can look up to, someone who can be a role model.
      Shriver asks Cheney if she was afraid to endorse Harris, knowing the backlash she’d face. Cheney shares a message to Republicans who want to support the Democratic ticket, but are afraid: “You can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody … Vote him out.”Donald Trump repeated a litany of falsehoods and conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene and the federal government’s response while campaigning in North Carolina today.The former president falsely suggested, once again, that federal money meant for hurricane relief was “spent … on illegal migrants”. There is no basis for the claim that disaster funding was reallocated to services related to immigration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which also oversees the major US immigration agencies. But money allocated for a program to help migrants is separate and unrelated to disaster response funds.Trump also falsely implied that the Democrats were spending money on undocumented people so that they could “vote in the election”, reiterating his frequently cited baseless claim about election fraud.He also claimed Fema’s money is “all gone”. But this is false, CNN noted, as the federal agency told the network last week that its disaster relief fund had roughly $8.5bn remaining.More here:As Kamala Harris’s Michigan rally with Liz Cheney comes to a close, moderator Maria Shriver asks the vice president how she copes with the stress of the race and what her message is to voters who are struggling with anxiety over the election.Harris says, “I wake up in the middle of the night usually these days … but I work out every morning. I think that’s really important [for] mind, body and spirit … I try to eat well. I love my family, and I make sure that I talk to the kids and my husband everyday … My family grounds me in every way.”The vice president adds:
      We cannot despair … Every individual has the power to make a decision about what this will be… so let’s not feel powerless. I get the overwhelming nature of this all makes us feel powerless … That’s not our character as American people. We are not one to be defeated. We rise to a moment.”
      Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman now campaigning with Kamala Harris in Michigan, outlines Trump’s threats on foreign policy:
      He heaps praise on the world’s most evil people, while he attacks with venom his political opponents here at home … If you look at where the Republican party is today, there’s been a really dangerous embrace of isolationism, a dangerous embrace of tyrants …
      Don’t think that Congress can stop him … all he has to do is what he’s doing and say, I won’t fulfill our Nato treaty obligations, and Nato begins to unravel.
      Liz Cheney, campaigning with Kamala Harris in Michigan, criticizes commentators who assert that the vice-president isn’t ready to be president:
      She is supremely qualified to be president of the United States. There sometimes are some men who suggest that she’s not, but if you look at her qualifications, there’s no question that she’s somebody that I know I can count on, who will put the good of this country first.
      Cheney also emphasizes her conservative credentials while explaining her support for Harris: “The very first campaign I ever volunteered in was for President Gerald Ford … and ever since then, I have been voting for Republicans. I’ve never voted for a Democrat.”Maria Shriver asks Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney if they ever imagined they would be campaigning together. Harris says she has long worked with Republicans, and given the threat Donald Trump poses, she is not surprised to be standing with the former Republican congresswoman:
      What is at stake in this election is so fundamental for us as Americans … Do we take seriously the importance of a president who obeys the oath to be loyal to the constitution of the United States? Do we prioritize a president … who cares about the rule of law?
      Cheney says: “Everyone who watched January 6th knows what Donald Trump is willing to do.” She adds:
      I could have just said I’m going to do everything I can to work against Donald Trump, and there are a lot of Republicans who have said that … I have decided, and I am very proud, and I’m honored to have made the decision to endorse Vice-President Harris … As a mother, I want my children to know that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office that they can look up to, someone who can be a role model.
      Shriver asks Cheney if she was afraid to endorse Harris, knowing the backlash she’d face. Cheney shares a message to Republicans who want to support the Democratic ticket, but are afraid: “You can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody … Vote him out.”Maria Shriver, former first lady of California, has taken the stage at Kamala Harris’s campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan, with Liz Cheney.Shriver starts off by making a pitch for bipartisanship, saying: “I served as a Democratic first lady in a Republican administration in California. So I get this bipartisan thing. I’ve seen it up close. And now I’m a proud independent … People of both parties used to get along really well.”Kamala Harris will soon make another appearance with Liz Cheney at a campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan.Earlier in the day, the vice-president and former conservative congresswoman made their pitch in Pennsylvania, geared toward Republican voters. Cheney said:
      I’m a conservative, and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the constitution. And you have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump, who is not just us predicting how he will act. We watched what he did after the last election.
      Trump then went on to insinuate that he had been told he was a better president than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.He was harping on the border and the alleged ills of undocumented people, before going on to say that the border patrol had endorsed him. That’s not quite true – the government agency has not endorsed him, but its union, the Border Patrol Council has. Undeterred, Trump went on:
      They’re great. They endorsed your favorite president. They didn’t only endorse me, saying I’m the greatest president there’s ever been … What about George Washington? No, you’re better. What about Lincoln? What about Abraham Lincoln? No, you’re better, they said, I’m tougher on the border than Abraham Lincoln.
      The former president appeared to try to hit back at claims that, at the age of 78, he is “cognitively impaired”.But Trump raised more questions than he answered by jumbling his words.The moment came as he told the crowd in North Carolina, in a somewhat confusing anecdote, that he was talking to someone from the state on the phone, but was then distracted by watching one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets land.He told the person on the phone to wait while he watched the rocket, then forgot he was on the phone. “I forgot he was on the phone because, and now they, all these idiots back there, will say he’s cognitively impaired because he put he’s cognitively impaired,” Trump said, apparently referring to reporters in attendance.“You know, I do this stuff, five, six, seven times a day for 52 days without a break,” he said, by way of explanation for his misstatements. He appeared to then lose his train of thought:
      I’ll tell you what they are, really not all of them, not all of them. I’d say about 92% couple of good ones. That’s a lot of cameras going on. There are a couple of good ones back there. Now it is crazy in the crazy what they do, and the level of meanness.
      Trump is now onstage in Greenville, North Carolina, where he’s been whipping up the crowd with his usual attacks on Kamala Harris.Earlier in the day, he took note of Harris’s campaigning alongside Liz Cheney. On Truth Social, Trump implied that Arab voters – significant communities of which live in Michigan, a battleground state – are unlikely to look kindly on the vice-president associating with the daughter of Dick Cheney, who, as vice-president under George W Bush, was an architect of the US invasion of Iraq:Arab voters are indeed a source of concern for Democrats, though mostly over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Stephen Starr:Donald Trump is scheduled to soon take the stage in North Carolina, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008 but where polls have indicated Kamala Harris may have a fighting chance this year.Trump earlier in the day visited western parts of the state damaged by Hurricane Helene, and is now rallying in Greenville, on North Carolina’s eastern side. He was introduced by adviser Stephen Miller, who was the architect of the hardline immigration policies Trump allowed during his presidency.“For eight long years, Donald Trump has been fighting for us in the arena. What he has endured, what he has been through on this journey,” Miller said. “They came after him, they came after his family, they came after his children, they came after his businesses, they came after his freedom, and they came after his life, and he’s still standing strong. He is still standing tall. And with your help, North Carolina, Donald J Trump is going to save the United States of America.”The former president then invited Adam Smith, a former Green Beret who has helped relief efforts in the Asheville area since Hurricane Helene devastated the area just over three weeks ago, to speak.At the podium, Smith thanked Trump for coming to the area.“The biggest fear that western North Carolina is sitting on right now, at least in the communities we’ve talked to, is being forgotten,” Smith said.“To have you here and have an opportunity to have this conversation at a national level, will keep western North Carolina on the map, and not leave the communities holding the bag on the back end of this, so we’re very grateful that you’ve shown up,” Smith said to the former president.Trump continued his remarks by accusing the federal government of leaving North Carolinians “helpless and abandoned” after Hurricane Helene. “In the wake of this horrible storm, many Americans in this region felt helpless and abandoned and left behind by their government, and yet, in North Carolina’s hour of desperation, the American people answered the call much more so than your federal government, unfortunately,” Trump said.“Citizens poured into western North Carolina from all over the country, bringing food, water, fuel, medical aid, even helicopters.”“Nothing is more inspiring than to see the American spirit triumph over adversity with the most selfless acts of generosity and love” he added.Donald Trump held a press conference in western North Carolina, where he surveyed the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene and attacked the federal government’s recovery efforts.“Driving up here you see the kind of destruction, actually incredible” he said. “The power of nature, nothing you can do about it but you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House, because it’s not good, not good.”“I’m here today in western North Carolina to express a simple message to the incredible people of the state, I’m with you and the American people are with you all the way” Trump said. “We are going to continue to be with you, we will see what happens with the election and on January 20th I think you are going to have a new crew coming in to do it properly and help you in a proper manner.”Trump also addressed those who had lost family members and loved ones to the storm. “To everyone who has lost a loved one … we ask God to give you comfort and peace,” he said.“It’s been a terrible ordeal and this area was hit about as hard as anyone has ever seen….the communities were ravaged and destroyed, we are praying for you and we will not forget about you.”Trump’s repeated criticisms of the federal response to Hurricane Helene comes as the director of Fema condemned the former president and his supporters for spreading misinformation about the hurricane and the response by the federal disaster agency, which, the director said, has hampered the government’s ability to get people the help they need.Donald Trump has long drawn criticism before over his statements about the Central Park Five, a group of men who were exonerated after being wrongly convicted for a crime and who earlier today sued him.After the jogger’s assault, he spoke out about the case and took out a full-page ad in several New York newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty, Reuters reports.Trump in 2019 stood by his prior comments about the Central Park Five, and declined to apologize.The Guardian adds that at the debate with Kamala Harris last month, Trump said of the men: “They pled guilty…They killed a person, ultimately.”The five then-boys, who were tried as adults, actually pleaded not guilty. And the victim, Trisha Meili, although almost killed, was found unconscious in the park, survived and testified in court.Yusef Salaam watched the debate in Philadelphia, afterwards telling the Washington Post in an interview: “Here we are right now, full-circle moment, being able to be participants in this great democracy on the cusp of everything really powerfully supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I’m ready for it.”The five Black and Hispanic teenagers who were wrongfully convicted for the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York’s Central Park have sued Donald Trump for defamation over statements he made at last month’s US presidential debate, Reuters reported.Known widely as the Central Park Five, the defendants spent between five and 13 years in prison before they were cleared in 2002 based on new DNA evidence and the confession of another person.Trump falsely said at the September 10 debate with presidential rival Kamala Harris that the Central Park Five had killed a person and pleaded guilty.The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia by Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise, called Trump’s statements “demonstrably false.”A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign called the case “just another frivolous, election interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists.”A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Shanin Specter, said in a statement that Trump’s remarks “cast them in a harmful false light and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them.” The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages for reputational and emotional harms as well as punitive damages.Kamala Harris is on tour of the three Great Lakes swing states with Liz Cheney, a Republican former congresswoman who broke with her party over their support for Donald Trump. In their first event together in a Philadelphia suburb, Harris warned voters to take Trump seriously, while Cheney said she came around to backing the Democrats because she does not think the former president will stand up for American allies. They will appear together in metro Detroit and then Milwaukee before the day is through. Meanwhile, Tim Walz was on daytime talk staple “The View”, where he said that Trump’s comments about deploying the national guard against his political enemies was a sign that he planned to bend the country’s “constitutional guardrails”.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      The White House proposed an expansion of contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) that will allow women to access birth control without a prescription.

      Harris has scheduled an interview with NBC News from her home at the Naval Observatory in Washington DC on Tuesday.

      A new poll found Trump may have lost his edge among voters when it comes to handling the economy, while Harris is viewed more favorably overall.
      Kamala Harris’s push for the support of Republican voters won her the support of the daughter of Gerald Ford, the late Republican former president who served from 1974 to 1977.Susan Ford Bales’s endorsement is perhaps most consequential in Michigan, the ex-president’s home and also a swing state coveted by both candidates. The Detroit News has Bales’s statement:As they wrapped up their joint event in Pennsylvania, Liz Cheney was asked to give something of a closing argument to her fellow Republicans for why they should support Kamala Harris.The former congresswoman said:
      I think that in this election, and especially here in Pennsylvania, we have the opportunity to tell the whole world who we are, and we have the chance to say, you know, we’re going to reject cruelty. We’re going to reject the kind of vile vitriol that we’ve seen from Donald Trump. We’re going to reject the misogyny from Donald Trump and JD Vance. And we have the chance in this race to elect somebody who, you know is going to defend the rule of law.
      You know, vice-president Harris is going to defend our constitution. We have the chance to remind people that we are a good country. We are a good and honorable people. We are a great nation and in this race, we have the opportunity to vote for and support somebody you can count on. We’re not always going to agree, but I know vice-president Harris will always do what she believes is right for this country. She has a sincere heart, and that’s why I’m honored to be here.
      Thus concluded the first of three joint events the pair will do today. They now fly to Michigan for an event in the Detroit suburbs, followed by another in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.All three states are part of the Democrats’ “Blue Wall” of swing states along the Great Lakes where voters traditionally back the party, but where polls show Harris is locked in a tight race against Donald Trump. More

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      Trump uses North Carolina visit to reiterate hurricane relief conspiracies

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      Donald Trump on Monday used a trip to a hurricane-ravaged part of North Carolina to double down on false claims about the federal government’s recovery effort and promote baseless conspiracy theories about immigration.Trump claimed the Biden administration had not done enough work for recovery and aid in North Carolina, saying instead the federal government spent its resources on “illegal migrants”, three weeks after a hurricane devasted the state.Trump and some other Republicans have earned widespread condemnation for boosting false claims around the recovery effort in the state. They have ranged from claims that the US government can influence the weather to theories that crucial aid was being withheld, prompting some government officials to warn of threats to federal emergency workers.But Trump did not hold back in his attacks. After surveying damage in western North Carolina, Trump gave a press conference in the city of Asheville, saying that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) had been gutted by the Biden administration and was doing a “poor” job in helping residents of the state affected by the hurricane.“The power of nature, nothing you can do about it. But you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House, because it’s not good, not good,” the Republican presidential candidate said.Hurricane Helene, which struck the US eastern coast on 27 September has led to the deaths of 95 people in North Carolina and widespread damage. Nearly 5,000 roads remained closed as of Sunday, with more than 8,000 people approved to receive individual assistance from Fema.During his press conference, Trump encouraged voters in North Carolina to get out and vote, despite the destruction in the state.He also pointed to the Biden administration, saying the White House has limited Fema’s recovery efforts, deciding to instead spend money on “illegal migrants”, implying it may have been done to possibly influence the 2024 elections.“They were not supposed to be spending the money on taking in illegal migrants, maybe so they could vote in the election, because that’s a lot of people are saying that’s why they’re doing it – I don’t know, I hope that’s not why they’re doing it,” Trump said.Fema is under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which also oversees the major federal immigration agencies: Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.“They’ve spent it on illegal migrants,” Trump said, in reference to federal government money. “Many of them are murderers, many of them are drug dealers, many of them come out of mental institutions and insane asylums, and many of them are terrorists.”Immigration has been a major campaign issue for both political parties. As Republicans accuse Democrats of being “soft” on immigration enforcement policies, the Democratic party has shifted to the right, pushing for tougher immigration policies. This year, the Biden administration put in place significant changes to asylum policy, restricting access to asylum at the US ports of entry.

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      Trump, in similar fashion to his 2016 presidential campaign, has continued to demonize immigrants and asylum seekers, claiming they are bringing more crime to the USand placing Americans at risk and using racist language and imagery.Last month, the Trump-Vance campaign circulated false rumors that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio. The campaign also promoted false and sensational rumors that a Venezuelan gang had taken over an apartment complex in Colorado.“They spent money to bring these people into our country, and they don’t have the money to take care of the people from North Carolina and other states,” Trump said on Monday about the Biden administration.Trump also said that, if he is elected, he would help reconstruction efforts in North Carolina by slashing “every bureaucratic barrier” and would recruit businesses to operate in the state “through the proper use of taxation incentives and tariffs – one of the most beautiful words that nobody understands, or very few people understand”. More

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      North Carolina grapples with holding election in hurricane disaster zone

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      In a normal life Jon Council would be holding his last campaign fundraiser of the 2024 cycle, exhorting local small business owners in Watauga county to back his bid to become a county commissioner over a plate of spaghetti and garlic bread.But in the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene, which left western North Carolina reeling from massive floods that swept away buildings, downed power lines, and left thousands of people stranded in their homes, life is anything but normal in this part of the Appalachians. Instead of wooing donors, the candidate is seeking winter feed for sheep.“We’re talking hay bales, so we really need a truck,” he pleads down the phone.With just over two weeks to go to election day, Council is wrestling with a problem that is common to anyone running for office in this rugged mountainous stretch of western North Carolina, from local candidates like him all the way up to Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. How do you hold an election in a disaster zone?Can you meaningfully talk to people about their electoral choices at a time when they are fighting for daily survival? How do you reach them, let alone engage them, when the internet is down, there is scant cellphone coverage, the roads are broken, power is still out, and mail boxes swept away?“The voting landscape has totally changed,” Council said. “Polling places have been destroyed, people have been unable to leave their homes, absentee ballots and IDs are lost – given all that, talking to folk about why they should vote for me just feels wrong.”Council, who is unaffiliated with any political party, was gearing up his campaign for the final stretch when Helene struck on 26 September. The flooding and landslides killed at least 115 people in North Carolina, with almost 100 still missing.View image in fullscreenBefore Helene, Council and his team of volunteers were canvassing the 10,000 voters in his heavily rural – and largely Trump-supporting – district. They planned to step up advocacy for more affordable housing and, presciently, increased environmental protections to clean up local rivers and prevent flooding.“We were just ramping up the push to November when the storm happened,” he said.After Helene, campaigning was put on hold. The team immediately segued to disaster relief, helping rescue families trapped in their homes and hiking into remote areas to deliver food, water and critical medical supplies.And now, as winter sets in with early snows already falling, he is scouring for sources of fresh hay to donate to farmers in danger of losing their animals after bale supplies of vital winter feed were destroyed in the floods.“Since the storm, I really haven’t campaigned at all,” Council said. The result is visible in his office, which is now stacked with generators, canned vegetables and cat food where hand-made election placards and fliers were once stored.But the election will still happen on 5 November, so that agonising question – how to communicate with voters in the midst of a disaster – is becoming more pressing.“It’s a very difficult balance,” he said. “I’ve built a trust with people, including many Trump supporters who have told me I’ve got their support, and I don’t want to call that into question by being disingenuous.”So he remains painstakingly careful to avoid any impression that his relief work is tied to people’s votes, while at the same time gradually segueing back to campaigning. In the daytime he continues disaster efforts, then after dark he and his campaign manager turn to the election until midnight.View image in fullscreenThey are cranking their social media election posts back up, working out ways to encourage people to vote early or through absentee ballots, and debating whether to send out a mailer. They still feel odd about that.“It doesn’t feel appropriate to the way we’ve wanted to run this campaign, sending election mail to people when they still don’t have a driveway,” he said.The election board for Avery county, one of 25 North Carolina counties badly hit by Helene, sits inside the courthouse in Newland. Visitors to the building have to pass through a metal detector guarded by a uniformed officer who greets you with the refrain: “Are you for Trump? You better be, cause if he loses you’re gonna be speaking Chinese.”In her office, the director of the board of elections, Sheila Ollis, is doing all she can to mitigate the fallout of the hurricane. Of the 19 designated polling stations in the county, 14 were seriously damaged.Ollis is hoping that the 13,000 or so registered voters will not be discouraged from casting their ballots. She is proud of the county’s record of high voter turnout – in 2020, despite the pandemic, it was an impressive 76% – and wants to keep it that way.New emergency voting arrangements have been put in place by the state board of elections covering the 13 most devastated counties. The new rules balance access to the polls with the safety of poll workers and voters.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEarly voting days, which began on Thursdaywith all but four of the 80 sites open in the hurricane stricken area, have been boosted. In Avery county a second early polling station has been added in the heart of the worst impacted area.But voting hours have been shortened, ending at 4.30pm to avoid people driving in the dark.The state’s normally strict voter ID restrictions have been eased to allow those who have lost their identification documents in the storm to still cast a ballot, and they can do so in a precinct other than their own should they have been forced to move. Voters are also now allowed to come into the election board office to request or file an absentee ballot.View image in fullscreen“One man brought in an absentee ballot yesterday and it looked like it had been floating in the river,” Ollis said. “So we spoiled it and issued him another.”Election and disaster relief workers have had to deal with the swirl of misinformation, much of it targeted against the federal government and inspired by Trump and Elon Musk. Ollis has had to deal with a spate of calls from registered voters who have received printed notices telling them that they were not eligible to vote in Avery county – she has no idea where the fake declarations came from.“Any little seeds of doubt get folks worried they may not be registered,” she said.For the most part, she tries to block the noise out. Despite the extraordinary collision of arguably the most consequential presidential election in modern times and the worst natural disaster the area has ever seen, Ollis is determined to remain calm and do her job.“You just can’t think about it. The same rules apply for any election, whether town mayor or US president. We just eat the elephant one bite at a time, following the protocol.”With election day fast approaching, Jon Council can feel the energy around his county commissioner race building. “It’s warming back up,” he said.He imagines that within a week he will return to direct canvassing, though he will take each day as it comes. “The landscape shifts daily, so our focus has to shift daily.”Whatever happens on 5 November, he’s feeling philosophical about it. He’s hoping that the work he has done helping his community will speak for itself, without the need for political embellishment.“Honestly, I think it’s a stronger form of canvassing for someone to say, ‘Oh, that’s the guy that brought that generator, and we didn’t even realize he was running for county commissioner.’”But if they still don’t vote for him, that’s OK too.“If I were to lose this election because I’m doing disaster relief, helping people get the things they need, I would wear that like a badge,” he said. More

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      En caso de crisis electoral, esto es lo que debes saber

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      En 2020, cuando Donald Trump cuestionó los resultados de las elecciones, los tribunales rechazaron decisivamente sus intentos una y otra vez. En 2024, el poder judicial podría ser incapaz de salvar nuestra democracia.Los renegados ya no son principiantes. Han pasado los últimos cuatro años haciéndose profesionales, diseñando meticulosamente una estrategia en múltiples frentes —legislaturas estatales, el Congreso, poderes ejecutivos y jueces electos— para anular cualquier elección reñida.Los nuevos desafíos tendrán lugar en foros que han purgado cada vez más a los funcionarios que anteponen el país al partido. Podrían ocurrir en un contexto de márgenes electorales muy estrechos en los estados clave de tendencia electoral incierta, lo que significa que cualquier impugnación exitosa podría cambiar potencialmente las elecciones.Disponemos de unas pocas semanas para comprender estos desafíos y así poder estar alerta contra ellos.En primer lugar, en los tribunales ya se han presentado docenas de demandas. En Pensilvania se ha iniciado un litigio sobre si están permitidas las papeletas de voto por correo sin fecha y si se pueden permitir las boletas provisionales. Stephen Miller, exasesor de Trump, presentó una demanda en Arizona alegando que los jueces deberían tener la capacidad de rechazar los resultados de las elecciones.Muchos estados han cambiado recientemente su forma de votar. Incluso una modificación menor podría dar lugar a impugnaciones legales, y algunas invitan afirmativamente al caos.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mark Robinson sues CNN over report he wrote racist posts on porn website

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      Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, announced a lawsuit Tuesday against CNN over its recent report alleging he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website’s message board, calling the reporting reckless and defamatory.The lawsuit, filed in Wake county superior court, comes less than four weeks after a television report that led many fellow GOP elected officials and candidates, including Donald Trump, to distance themselves from Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign. Robinson announced the lawsuit at a news conference in Raleigh.CNN “chose to publish despite knowing or recklessly disregarding that Robinson’s data – including his name, date of birth, passwords, and the email address supposedly associated with the NudeAfrica account – were previously compromised by multiple data breaches”, the lawsuit states.CNN declined to comment, spokesperson Emily Kuhn said in an email.Polls at the time of the CNN report already showed Democratic rival Josh Stein, the sitting attorney general, with a lead over Robinson. Early in-person voting begins Thursday statewide, and well over 50,000 completed absentee ballots have been received so far.The CNN report said Robinson left statements over a decade ago on the message board in which, in part, he referred to himself as a “black NAZI”, said he enjoyed transgender pornography, said that he preferred Hitler to Barack Obama, and slammed the Rev Martin Luther King Jr as “worse than a maggot”. More

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      Harris Campaign to Fly Ads Over N.F.L. Games in Swing States

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      As the Harris campaign continues to court male voters, it is dialing up a deep shot, targeting a venue where it thinks it will reach quite a few of them: professional football.The campaign is spending six figures on flyover advertisements knocking former President Donald J. Trump and promoting Vice President Kamala Harris at four N.F.L. games that are taking place on Sunday in swing states, with teams in those matchups collectively accounting for six of the seven main presidential battlegrounds.The four games are in Wisconsin, where the Green Bay Packers will host the Arizona Cardinals; Nevada, where the Las Vegas Raiders will host the Pittsburgh Steelers; North Carolina, where the Carolina Panthers will host the Atlanta Falcons; and Pennsylvania, where the Philadelphia Eagles will host the Cleveland Browns. (Michigan is the only swing state left out, with its Detroit Lions playing in Dallas on Sunday.)In Las Vegas, fans will see skytyping planes fly over the stadium to draw a simple message in white: “Vote Kamala.” In the other venues, a plane with a banner will deliver a slightly longer plea: “Sack Trump’s Project 2025! Vote Kamala!” In Philadelphia, that message will include a nod to the home team: “Go Birds!”The campaign is part of an effort to attract hard-to-reach voters, especially men, said Abhi Rahman, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.“Our goal is to meet people where they are, and there is only a sliver of the electorate that is still undecided,” Mr. Rahman said. “What we know about these undecided people — majority male — is they don’t like to read political publications. They aren’t in the 24-7 world of policy and politics, so what we are trying to do is reach them in a different way.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      After Floods, Soaring Insurance Rates Become a Hot Election Issue

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      Few states elect their insurance commissioners. But in North Carolina, a proposed 42 percent rate hike and Hurricane Helene have raised the stakes in the upcoming election.When Marjorie Burnside moved to the North Carolina coast several years ago after retiring as a New York City police officer, she did not know much about the candidates running for the obscure statewide offices that oversee agriculture, labor and insurance. So Ms. Burnside, a lifelong Republican, voted along party lines.She now considers many of her area’s elected Republicans responsible for rubber-stamping too many development projects. And she is furious that they have failed to tame home insurance premiums, which have soared by 75 percent. That was why she accepted an invitation to a friend’s recent beach house party for State Senator Natasha Marcus, a Democrat who is challenging the state’s Republican insurance commissioner.“She just gave me lots to think about,” Ms. Burnside, 59, said after listening to Ms. Marcus’s warnings about loopholes that hurt policyholders and rates in coastal areas that are likely to see a significant rise. “More people, more claims, more raises — it’s all connected.”Eleven states elect their insurance commissioners, an obscure but powerful job that affects virtually every resident through regulations and the ability to challenge or reject rate hikes on home, car and other policies.The contest has typically been treated as a down-ballot afterthought involving little-known candidates, with hundreds of thousands of voters leaving their ballots blank. But as housing and insurance costs have skyrocketed, particularly in areas experiencing whiplash from climate change and extreme weather, these races are becoming proxies for public frustration over pocketbook anxieties.Natasha Marcus, a Democrat running for North Carolina insurance commissioner.Cornell Watson for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Fema chief warns ‘dangerous’ Trump falsehoods hampering Helene response

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      A slew of falsehoods about Hurricane Helene, including claims of funds diverted from storm survivors to migrants and even that Democrats somehow directed the hurricane itself, have hampered the response to one of the deadliest hurricanes to ever hit the US, the nation’s top emergency official has warned.Misinformation spread by Donald Trump, his supporters and others about the hurricane has shrouded the recovery effort for communities shattered by Helene, which tore through five states causing at least 230 deaths and tens of billions of dollars of damage. Many places, such as in western North Carolina, are still without a water supply, electricity, navigable roads or vital supplies.“It’s frankly disappointing we are having to deal with this narrative, the fact there are a few leaders having a hard time telling the difference between fact and fiction is creating an impedance to our ability to actually get people the help they need,” Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), told MSNBC on Monday.Trump has accused Joe Biden’s administration of “abandoning” people to the crisis and, baselessly, of being short of disaster relief funds due to money spent on undocumented migrants. Such claims are “frankly ridiculous” and creating a “truly dangerous narrative that is creating this fear” among affected people, Criswell said.In multiple rallies in the past week, Trump has accused Biden and Kamala Harris of favoring migrants over disaster-hit areas. “They stole the Fema money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season,” Trump has said.“Kamala spent all her Fema money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal immigrants.” Trump added the places worst hit are “largely a Republican area so some people say they did it for that reason”.JD Vance, Trump’s Republican running mate, echoed this theme on Monday, telling Fox News that Fema’s focus on migrants is “going to distract focus from their core job of helping American citizens in their time of need”. Last week, Stephen Miller, a far-right Trump adviser, said that “Kamala Harris turned Fema into an illegal alien resettlement agency”.Fema does, in fact, have a housing program that offers shelter to migrants leaving detention but this is separate from its disaster relief program. “No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. None,” the White House has stated.In remarks on Monday after speaking to Criswell by phone, Harris urged politicians to stop “playing games” with lives at stake. According to the White House pool, the vice-president said: “There’s a lot of misinformation being pushed out there by the former president about what is available, particularly for the survivors of Helene. First of all, it’s extraordinarily irresponsible. It’s about him, it’s not about you. The reality is Fema has so many resources that are available to those who desperately need them.”Congress recently provided an extra $20bn for disaster relief but Biden has warned that more funding will be needed to help the long-term recovery of places increasingly assailed by powerful storms fueled by global heating.Other conspiracy theories and erroneous claims have swirled online and in areas affected by Helene, such as the assertion that Fema will give only $750 to individuals as a loan (it is, in fact, a grant, and can be followed by further claims for more than $40,000) or that the agency is seizing people’s land.Fema has, unusually, put up a web page to counter these claims, with a spokesman saying the misinformation is “extremely damaging” to response efforts as it deters people from seeking assistance. “We are going to continue to message aggressively so everyone understands what the facts are,” he said regarding the looming Hurricane Milton, which is set to hit Florida.Some social media posts spreading misinformation about the hurricanes called for militias to be formed to confront Fema workers, while other posts contained antisemitic hatred aimed at figures such as Esther Manheimer, mayor of Asheville, North Carolina, a city badly affected by the storm.“It’s surprising to me how this is developing but unfortunately it seems antisemitic hate speech is becoming more common in the United States today,” Manheimer said.“I’ve tried to steer clear of X and other platforms but there is a lot of misinformation that people tend to believe. We’ve had people in the community reaching out to ask if false things are true because folks are intentionally misleading them.”Manheimer said that Asheville, including her own home, still lacks running water but is being “overwhelmed” with support by Fema to clear roads and get power back on.More than 130,000 customers in western North Carolina were still without electricity Monday, according to poweroutage.us.“People have lost everything here and the last thing we need is for people to spread false information,” she said. “There are talking points being distributed throughout the Republican party that just aren’t correct. They seem to think spreading misinformation will help win this election.”One of the more outlandish claims about the hurricane came from Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extremist Republican congresswoman who previously claimed that Jewish lasers from space caused forest fires. “Yes they can control the weather,” Greene posted on X about the hurricane last week. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, said: “There is no mechanism to control a hurricane and no evidence that anyone was trying to modify it. This is just a crazy conspiracy theory.”“While humans don’t ‘control’ the weather we are affecting the weather. Human activities, mainly the emission of greenhouse gases, did indeed make Helene more destructive.”He added: “If she wants humans to stop affecting the weather she should support phasing out fossil fuels.”So far, Biden has declared the federal government will pay for the entire cost of activities such as debris removal, search and rescue and food supplies for Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The president has also already approved disaster help for Florida ahead of Milton’s arrival.This approach has garnered some rare praise for Biden from Republican governors of affected states, with some Republican lawmakers calling for the conspiracy theories to abate.“Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet about the floods,” Kevin Corbin, a Republican state senator for western North Carolina, posted on Facebook last week. “Please don’t let these crazy stories consume you or have you continually contact your elected officials to see if they are true.” More