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    Trump Rally in Michigan Dominated by More False Statements

    Former President Donald J. Trump held a rally on Thursday in the key battleground state of Michigan that was notable mainly for his continued false statements and exaggerations on a number of subjects as varied as the 2020 election and the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene.In the roughly 85 minutes that Mr. Trump was onstage, he repeated a pattern of untrue assertions that have characterized many of his events as the 2024 presidential race heads into its final weeks. The crowd of supporters in Saginaw County, which he narrowly lost four years ago, included Mike Rogers, the former Michigan congressman and the Republican candidate for Michigan’s open Senate seat, and Pete Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican Party chairman.Mr. Trump reiterated his familiar false claim that he had won the 2020 election and made no acknowledgment of new evidence that was unsealed against him on Wednesday in the federal election subversion case. He also said his campaign was up in all polls in every swing state, while several public polls show close races and Vice President Kamala Harris leading narrowly in a number of battlegrounds.Mr. Trump also mischaracterized the state of funding at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saying that the Biden administration had stolen disaster-relief money allocated to the agency to give to housing for undocumented immigrants so they would vote for Democrats.He cast electric cars as a threat to the auto industry, while at the same time praising Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive who has endorsed his candidacy and featured him prominently on X, the Musk-owned social media platform.Michigan was one of a handful of swing states where Mr. Trump and his allies tried to overturn his defeat in 2020 through a series of maneuvers that included breaching voting equipment and seeking to seat a set of fake presidential electors. Some of his supporters have been criminally charged in the state, where Mr. Trump was named as an unindicted co-conspirator this year.Mr. Trump spent time in his speech taking satisfaction over his choice of running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, whose debate performance this week was applauded by many.“I drafted the best athlete,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Vance. The audience — several thousand supporters at a recreation center at Saginaw Valley State University, roughly 100 miles north of Detroit — cheered.And he mused, at one point, that instead of being on a beach in Monte Carlo or someplace else, he was running for the presidency again. “If I had my choice of being here with you today or being on some magnificent beach with the waves hitting me in the face, I would take you every single time.”Overall as of Thursday, Ms. Harris led by two percentage points in Michigan, according to The New York Times’s polling average, 49 percent to 47 percent. The vice president is scheduled to return to the state on Friday, campaigning in Detroit and Flint. More

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    Walz, Appealing to Muslim Voters, Says War in Gaza ‘Must End Now’

    Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, on Thursday made a direct appeal to Muslim voters, decrying “staggering and devastating” destruction in Gaza and saying that the war between Israel and Hamas should be brought to an immediate end.“This war must end, and it must end now,” Mr. Walz said in a three-minute video address to the virtual “Million Muslim Votes: A Way Forward” event, which was hosted by the group Emgage Action.Mr. Walz said Vice President Kamala Harris was focused on ensuring that “Israel is secure, the hostages are home, the suffering in Gaza ends now, and the Palestinian people realize the right to dignity, freedom and self-determination.”The remarks, while brief, represented an effort by the Harris campaign to reach Muslim Americans who are angered by the Biden-Harris administration’s approach to the Middle East, have long been targeted by former President Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric and policies, and are struggling with their choice in this year’s election.Emgage Action, focused on building Muslim American political power, has endorsed Ms. Harris despite significant discontent among many Muslims over the White House’s support for Israel, which is now fighting in both Gaza and in Lebanon.Mr. Walz spoke to Emgage Action from his home in Minnesota and did not take questions. On the campaign trail, he has been disrupted by vocal pro-Palestinian protesters at rallies in Phoenix, eastern Pennsylvania and elsewhere.In an illustration of the broad and unwieldy coalition that the Democratic ticket is trying to hold together, Mr. Walz’s appearance came on a day when Ms. Harris campaigned with former Representative Liz Cheney, an anti-Trump Republican who has urged Mr. Biden not to withhold arms for Israel. Ms. Cheney’s father, the hawkish former Vice President Dick Cheney, has said he is also planning to vote for Ms. Harris.Mr. Walz spoke nearly a year after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the start of Israel’s staggering response in Gaza, and during a week in which the Middle East seemed to have entered into a long-feared wider war.The conflicts are reverberating within Muslim and Jewish communities in battleground states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania.In Michigan, some Arab Americans voted “uncommitted” during the Democratic primary this year when President Biden was still the Democratic Party’s candidate, issuing a protest vote against Mr. Biden’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza.The Uncommitted National Movement, the national group that organized major protest efforts, has since said it would not endorse Ms. Harris, though it has also urged a vote against former President Donald J. Trump and warned against third-party votes. More

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    Melania Trump, Whose Husband Helped End Roe, Signals Support for Abortion Rights

    Melania Trump, the former first lady, said in a video on Thursday that there was “no room for compromise” on a woman’s right to “individual freedom,” a day after a reported excerpt from her coming memoir said she supported abortion rights.Mrs. Trump’s comments landed as Mr. Trump and his party are trying to soften their opposition to abortion, a key issue threatening his support with women voters and attempt to return to the White House. They were released in a promotional video for a new memoir scheduled for release on Tuesday,, who opposes federal abortion rights and has taken credit for helping overturn Roe v. Wade. “Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” she said in the video, which was posted to her account on X. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth, individual freedom. What does my body, my choice really mean?”On Wednesday evening, the British news site The Guardian published excerpts from Mrs. Trump’s book, in which she appeared to go a step further than her words in the video: “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”A spokeswoman for Skyhorse Publishing, the publisher of the book, did not respond to a request to confirm the book’s contents or supply an early copy.Mr. Trump, aware of the political pressure over his position on abortion rights, has gone from crowing over the downfall of Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion, to pondering what limits on the procedure he would be willing to accept.Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022, Republicans have toyed with the idea of national abortion limits even as a number of state ballot measures to protect access to the procedure have succeeded.And Democrats have seized on the slate of new abortion restrictions in Republican-led states — and the harrowing stories from women who have died or faced life-threatening complications tied to restrictions on health care — as a winning issue ahead of November.So, in recent months, Mr. Trump has waffled on his views on access to the procedure. In a presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris last month, he declined to say whether he would support a national ban on abortion.On Wednesday, in an all-capital-letters post on social media, Mr. Trump said: “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!).”Mr. Trump went on to say he supported exceptions for abortion if a woman had been raped or a victim of incest, or if her life were in danger. More

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    Trump Says He Would Try Again to Revoke Haitian Immigrants’ Protections

    Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that, if elected again, he would revoke the legal status of tens of thousands of Haitian immigrants who have been the target of false accusations by the former president and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, over the past month.Mr. Trump’s administration tried to do that during his first term, too, but courts temporarily blocked it, and President Biden’s administration renewed the immigrants’ status after he took office in 2021.The immigrants in question are living and working in the United States legally through the Temporary Protected Status program, which Congress created in 1990 for people from countries experiencing war, natural disasters or other crises. The Department of Homeland Security designates countries for up to 18 months at a time based on the current conditions, and the designation can be renewed indefinitely. Haiti was initially added in 2010, under President Barack Obama, after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated the country. It has since experienced a major hurricane and a cholera epidemic.“Absolutely I’d revoke it, and I’d bring them back to their country,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with NewsNation on Wednesday.He spoke at length about Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, claiming that the city had been a utopia — “you had a beautiful, safe community, everyone’s in love with everybody, everything was nice, it was like a picture community” — and that the Haitians had destroyed it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Excompañeros de JD Vance en Yale recaudan dinero para los residentes haitianos de Springfield

    Algunos de los donantes dijeron que buscaban reparar el daño que la campaña de Trump, y el propio Vance, habían causado al difundir rumores falsos.Decenas de antiguos compañeros del senador por Ohio JD Vance pasaron el debate vicepresidencial del martes por la noche donando dinero a un fondo para inmigrantes haitianos en Springfield, Ohio, y recaudaron más de 10.000 dólares.En las entrevistas, algunos donantes describieron las contribuciones como un esfuerzo para reparar parte del daño que la campaña Trump-Vance —y el propio Vance— causaron al difundir rumores falsos de que los migrantes estaban robando y comiendo mascotas. Los haitianos que viven en Springfield y la comunidad en general se han enfrentado a una serie de amenazas sobre las afirmaciones desacreditadas.Peter Chen —quien fue miembro de la promoción de Derecho de Yale de 2013 junto con Vance y su esposa, Usha Vance— organizó la campaña en un grupo de debate de clase el martes.Chen, quien creció cerca de Chicago y es hijo de inmigrantes, dijo en una entrevista que se sintió gratificado al ver que más de 50 compañeros de clase, o alrededor de una cuarta parte de la clase, habían donado, publicando notas de solidaridad con la comunidad haitiana de Springfield.“Fue emotivo para mí, personalmente, ver todos los diferentes mensajes y ver todas las formas en que las personas siguen reflejando esos valores”, dijo Chen el miércoles, citando los comentarios de su compañero de clase en el sitio de donación, el Fondo de Unidad de Springfield, que fue establecido por United Way.La mayoría de los comentarios publicados por los compañeros de Vance en la Escuela de Derecho de Yale eran simples declaraciones de bienvenida, pero algunos llamaban específicamente la atención sobre Vance y su esposa.Robert Cobbs, abogado de Washington, donó 100 dólares. Junto con su donación, Cobbs escribió: “En honor de JD Vance y Usha Vance. La Clase de 2013 de YLS está en contra de chivos expiatorios y demagogia sacados directamente de los manuales del fascismo. Con amor y una oración para que JD Vance y Usha Chilukuri Vance encuentren la fuerza moral para revertir el curso de sus vidas”.Entre los donantes también se encontraba Sofia Nelson, una defensora pública en Detroit cuya estrecha amistad con Vance terminó después de que se separaran por sus puntos de vista sobre cuestiones LGBTQ.Las donaciones al fondo por parte de antiguos alumnos de la Escuela de Derecho de Yale comenzaron durante el debate y continuaron el miércoles, con más de 60 donantes que se identificaron como miembros de la promoción de Vance.Lorie Hale, directora de operaciones de United Way de los condados de Clark, Champaign y Madison, dijo en un correo electrónico que su organización se sentía “bendecida” por recibir tal apoyo de personas de todo el país en un momento de “atención sin precedentes”.Stephanie Saul es una reportera que cubre la educación superior, centrándose recientemente en los drásticos cambios en las admisiones a las universidades y el debate en torno a la diversidad, la equidad y la inclusión en la enseñanza superior. Más de Stephanie Saul More

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    A Storm, a Strike and War Abroad Pose Challenges for Harris

    Scenes of striking workers, hurricane devastation in the Southeast and missiles over Israel represent a rare moment of turbulence for Kamala Harris.Vice President Kamala Harris has cast herself as a candidate of the future, but she has been yanked back by the problems of the present as the Middle East lurches toward a wider war, a longshoremen’s strike threatens to undermine the country’s economy and Americans across the Southeast struggle to recover from a deadly hurricane.The confluence of domestic and global traumas combined to knock Ms. Harris off a message that has been carefully calibrated since she took over for President Biden to showcase her as the avatar of “a new way forward,” as her slogan puts it.The rare moment of turbulence for Ms. Harris interrupts what has been mostly smooth sailing in her two months as the Democratic presidential nominee. It also captures a conundrum of the vice presidency, a prestigious if mostly ceremonial posting. So far, Ms. Harris has been able to take advantage of the trappings of the position — Air Force Two was parked behind her for one rally in Michigan — without being trapped by it.Ms. Harris, long a risk-averse politician, has tried to both claim Mr. Biden’s accomplishments as her own while defining herself as the future and the 81-year-old president as the past. She barely mentions the president’s name in her campaign speeches and makes a middle-class pitch that aims to correct for the inflation and high prices voters blame on Mr. Biden’s economic stewardship. This week’s events thrust Ms. Harris’s balancing act — of being both the No. 2 to Mr. Biden and atop the ticket in her own right — back into the spotlight.The scenes of striking workers, hurricane devastation in the Southeast and missiles over Israel are unwelcome complications to her case to keep Democrats in power. And they were the backdrop of the vice-presidential debate between Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, and Senator JD Vance, former President Donald J. Trump’s No. 2, on Tuesday night, when the senator argued that Republicans would usher in an era of stability.The overlapping developments just as the calendar turned to October were a reminder that while Ms. Harris has framed her candidacy as a fresh start for the nation, she very much is part of the administration still in charge.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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    Four Takeaways From Jack Smith’s Brief in the Trump Election Case

    The special counsel provided new details that help flesh out how Donald Trump sought to remain in power, while setting out his argument for the case to survive the Supreme Court’s immunity decision.The special counsel who has charged former President Donald J. Trump with a criminal conspiracy over his attempt to overturn his loss of the 2020 election has filed a lengthy brief laying out his key evidence along with an argument for why the case should be able to go forward despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in July on presidential immunity.Here are some key takeaways from the 165-page brief, which a judge largely unsealed on Wednesday:The prosecutor revealed new evidence.The brief contained far more detail than the indictment and included many specific allegations that were not previously part of the public record of the events leading up to the attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.None of the new details were game-changing revelations, but they add further texture to the available history. For example, part of the brief focuses on a social media post that Mr. Trump sent on the afternoon of the attack on the Capitol, telling supporters that Vice President Mike Pence had let them all down.Mr. Trump was sitting alone in the dining room off the Oval Office at the time. According to the brief, forensic data shows he was using the Twitter app on his phone and watching Fox News. Fox had just interviewed a man who was frustrated that Mr. Pence was not blocking the certification and then reported that a police officer may have been injured and the protesters had breached the Capitol.Rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesMr. Trump posted to Twitter that Mr. Pence had lacked the “courage” to do what was right. The mob became enraged at the vice president, and the Secret Service took him to a secure location. An aide to Mr. Trump rushed in to alert him to the peril Mr. Pence was in, but Mr. Trump looked at the aide and said only, “So what?” according to the brief.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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    Walz Spoke of Gun Violence Affecting His Son. Here’s an Account of the Shooting.

    At Tuesday’s debate, Gov. Tim Walz said that his son, Gus Walz, witnessed a shooting at a community center. A volleyball coach said Gus helped other young players to safety.Gov. Tim Walz has spoken before of a shooting last year at a recreation center in St. Paul, Minn., that he said had an impact on his teenage son, Gus. But in the vice-presidential debate with Senator JD Vance of Ohio on Tuesday night, Mr. Walz went further in saying that his son witnessed the shooting, which left one teenager seriously wounded.On Wednesday, a volleyball coach who played a central role in the response that day described what he, Gus and others experienced in the frightening moments after they had heard gunfire outside.The coach, David Albornoz, said he ran to investigate, while Gus, a team captain and an assistant coach on a boys’ volleyball team, helped guide young people in the gym to a safe location when many thought a mass shooting was occurring.“We heard the gunshots,” Mr. Albornoz said. “You hear the screaming. I had no more information than what I gathered.”The shooting, which was propelled into the national spotlight when Mr. Walz and Mr. Vance discussed how they would address gun violence in the country, was widely reported in St. Paul at the time. It took place in January 2023 outside the Jimmy Lee Recreation Center, part of the Oxford Community Center, one of the largest and busiest facilities in the city’s parks and recreation system. It is also across the street from Central High School, where Gus is a student.According to several court documents, the 16-year-old victim, JuVaughn Turner, and some of his friends were outside when a young woman got into a dispute with an employee at the recreation center, Exavir Binford.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