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      Biden y López Obrador prometen una acción conjunta para abordar la migración ilegal

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      En una declaración conjunta, los presidentes de EE. UU. y de México se comprometieron a abordar la migración no autorizada, pero no especificaron ninguna acción concreta.El presidente Joe Biden y el mandatario de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, prometieron el lunes una acción combinada para prevenir la migración ilegal. Biden se encuentra bajo una intensa presión política desde todos los bandos para enfrentar el impacto del aumento de los cruces fronterizos antes de las elecciones presidenciales de este año.En una declaración conjunta, Biden y López Obrador afirmaron que habían ordenado a sus asesores de seguridad nacional “trabajar juntos para implementar de inmediato medidas concretas para reducir significativamente los cruces fronterizos irregulares y al mismo tiempo proteger los derechos humanos”.La declaración, que se produjo luego de que ambos líderes conversaron telefónicamente el domingo, no especificó ninguna acción concreta. Un alto funcionario gubernamental se negó a dar detalles sobre lo que Estados Unidos y México podrían “implementar inmediatamente”. Pero el funcionario dijo que, entre las posibilidades que se están analizando, hay medidas coercitivas más estrictas para impedir que se utilicen ferrocarriles, autobuses y aeropuertos para el cruce ilegal de fronteras y más vuelos que regresen a los inmigrantes a sus países de origen.Este tema podría ser decisivo para la permanencia de Biden en la Casa Blanca durante otros cuatro años. Las encuestas realizadas en los últimos meses, tanto a republicanos como a demócratas, indican que la situación en la frontera genera gran preocupación. Incluso algunos de los más fervientes partidarios del presidente en ciudades liberales le están exigiendo que haga algo para frenar el flujo de inmigrantes.El más reciente plan del presidente al respecto —con un proyecto de ley de migración muy restrictivo que contaba con cierto apoyo bipartidista— se estancó en los últimos meses tras ser bloqueado por los republicanos en la Cámara de Representantes. Biden había pedido que la legislación se aprobara junto con la ayuda financiera para Israel, Ucrania y Taiwán, pero cuando el Congreso llegó a un acuerdo sobre la financiación a principios de este mes, la legislación fronteriza no estaba incluida.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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      Matt Gaetz Faces Last-Minute Challenger in Republican Primary

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      Aaron Dimmock, a retired Navy officer and aviator, has entered the Republican primary to challenge Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida — jumping into the race hours before a filing deadline last Friday.Mr. Dimmock’s campaign committee shares a treasurer with American Patriots PAC, a group that was used by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy to support candidates who were aligned with him in the 2022 midterms. Mr. Gaetz led the revolt among House Republicans that ultimately ousted Mr. McCarthy from the speakership.Mr. Dimmock and representatives of American Patriots PAC did not respond to requests for comment. The primary for the First Congressional District, which covers Pensacola and the western Florida Panhandle, will take place on Aug. 20.Mr. Dimmock, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, served as a pilot for the P-3 surveillance plane for the Navy. In an interview with the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association in 2020, Mr. Dimmock said that he had deployed to Bosnia and Kosovo and had completed several tours in the Middle East. He also described flying surveillance missions over New York City in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. He became an instructor pilot, later worked as a recruiting officer and closed out his career as a Navy liaison in the Pentagon. The Navy operates a major air base in Pensacola.Mr. Gaetz quickly attacked Mr. Dimmock on social media, pointing to LinkedIn posts that Mr. Dimmock made as a business consultant in 2020 in support of racial diversity and the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.“Meet Aaron W. Dimmock,” Mr. Gaetz wrote. “The B.L.M. supporting D.E.I. instructor running against me in the Republican Primary. I knew former Representative McCarthy would be getting a puppet of his to run. I didn’t know it would be a Woke Toby Flenderson!” More

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      Surprise Tactics and Legal Threats: Inside R.F.K. Jr.’s Ballot Access Fight

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s effort to get on the ballot in 50 states has already cost millions, federal campaign finance records show.As Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign mounts a bruising state-by-state battle for ballot access, he has often credited enthusiastic volunteers and grass-roots backers with driving the effort.In fact, the operation has become increasingly reliant on consultants and paid petitioners whose signature-gathering work has yielded mixed results and raised questions of impropriety, even among Mr. Kennedy’s fans. In order to get Mr. Kennedy on the ballot in all 50 states, as is his goal, his campaign has deployed a multipart strategy: aggressive legal action, shrewd political alliances and surprise filing tactics meant to slow or prevent challenges.In most states, Mr. Kennedy, 70, an environmental lawyer and heir to an American political dynasty, must produce thousands of signatures, under rules that are varied, intricate and confusing at times even to the local officials administering elections. The effort has already cost his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a supporting super PAC at least $2.4 million more, federal campaign finance records show. It has involved a number of professionals who specialize in getting people on the ground with clipboards and petitions, and helping candidates navigate the complicated process. Their success is what will make or break Mr. Kennedy’s campaign. More

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says Americans Are ‘Voting Out of Fear’

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought to make the case on Sunday that he can do something no third-party or independent candidate has come close to doing in modern U.S. history: win a presidential election. Although polls show him far behind, both major-party campaigns, those of President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, view Mr. Kennedy as a potential spoiler.Speaking at a rally on Long Island outside New York City, Mr. Kennedy cited polls that he said his campaign had conducted, showing him winning in two scenarios: one in which he faced only Mr. Biden without Mr. Trump in the race, and one in which he faced Mr. Trump without Mr. Biden.The reason he is behind in a three-way race, he maintained, is that “so many Americans are voting out of fear.”“Their only strategy is to try to keep me off the ballot and then to make everybody terrified of Donald Trump,” he said of Democrats, “and on the other side, they do the same thing,” he added of Republicans. “When somebody is telling you to vote out of fear, they are trying to manipulate you into abandoning your values,” he said.Mr. Kennedy acknowledged to the crowd in Holbrook, N.Y., that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump differed in numerous ways.“If you look at their personalities, their dispositions, their presentation, their ideology, their approach to life, their interactions with other people, there’s a huge, huge difference,” he said.But he argued that issues on which Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump held starkly different positions — like abortion, border security, guns and transgender rights — were “culture war issues” that “are used to divide us all.” He said that on the national debt and chronic disease — issues he called “existential for our country” — their positions weren’t materially different.In discussing the prevalence of chronic disease, Mr. Kennedy lamented the United States’ disproportionately high death rate from the coronavirus compared with the death rate experienced by other developed countries, a disparity attributable in part to the comparatively low uptake of vaccines that Mr. Kennedy has campaigned against.He suggested — in contradiction of scientific evidence of the safety and efficacy of Covid vaccines, and data showing higher death rates in states with lower vaccination rates — that the nation’s poor Covid performance was a mark against vaccines.“Whatever we’re doing, whatever we did, it was wrong,” Mr. Kennedy said, referring to vaccine mandates, lockdowns and other pandemic responses. More

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      College Protests Over Gaza Deepen Democratic Rifts

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      Scenes of chaos unfolding on campuses across the country are stoking internal divisions and carry political risk as a major election year unfolds.Nearly seven months after the Israel-Hamas war began, the demonstrations convulsing college campuses nationwide are exposing fresh tensions within the Democratic Party over how to balance free speech protections and support for Gazans with concerns that some Jewish Americans are raising about antisemitism.From New York and Los Angeles to Atlanta and Austin, a surge in student activism has manifested in protest encampments and other demonstrations, drawing significant police crackdowns and sometimes appearing to attract outside agitators. The protests also have emerged as the latest flashpoint in the internal Democratic debate over the war.As scenes of campus turmoil play out across the country in the final days of the school year, the moment also carries political risk for a party that has harnessed promises of stability and normalcy to win critical recent elections, and faces a challenging battle for control of the government in the fall.“The real question is, can the Democrats again portray themselves as the steady hand at the helm?” said Dan Sena, a veteran Democratic strategist. “Things that create national chaos like this make that harder to do.”Mr. Sena and other Democrats have argued that Americans have good reason to associate their opponents with chaos: Former President Donald J. Trump faces multiple criminal cases; the narrow, fractious House Republican majority has its own divisions concerning Israel and free speech; some Republicans have urged National Guard deployments to college campuses; and for years, Republicans have faced criticism over antisemitism in their own ranks.But since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and the Israeli military response that has killed more than 30,000 people, according to local authorities, the fight over American policy toward Israel has been especially pronounced on the left.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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      Maximizing Profits at the Patients’ Expense

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      More from our inbox:The Brave Trump JurorsBlack Voters ‘Want to Be Courted’ by DemocratsBetter Than Debates NATo the Editor:Re “Patients Hit With Big Bills While Insurers Reap Fees” (front page, April 7):Chris Hamby’s investigation uncovers the hard truth for patients who receive care from providers outside their insurance network. While most of us try to save out-of-pocket costs by using in-network health professionals and hospitals, it’s not always possible. And there’s no way to determine what we’ll owe until after we get that care — when it’s too late to reconsider based on the costs we’ve incurred.So, it’s more important than ever for the government to swiftly implement an essential element of the No Surprises Act: Providers should have to give patients an advance explanation of benefits so patients can estimate their financial burden before they get treatment, in or out of network.Health price transparency is improving, but it’s outrageous that even two years after the No Surprises Act passed, everyone except the patient knows the price of a procedure or doctor’s visit in advance, leaving patients unpleasantly surprised.Patricia KelmarAlexandria, Va.The writer is senior director of Health Care Campaigns for U.S. PIRG.To the Editor:This is just the latest example of the schemes deployed by insurers to maximize profits by cutting reimbursements to physicians and shifting medically necessary health care costs onto patients.Whether it’s through third-party entities like MultiPlan or using tactics such as narrowing provider networks and restrictive prior authorization policies, insurers have the perverse incentive to boost revenue over offering adequate payment for quality patient care under the guise of “controlling costs.”More and more patients are being forced to decide whether they should forgo treatment because their insurer won’t pay the bill.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Turns on R.F.K. Jr. Amid Concerns He Could Attract Republican Voters

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      Former President Donald J. Trump is sharpening his attacks on the independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as new polls show an overlap between their core supporters.In a series of posts on his Truth Social media platform on Friday night, Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, took aim at both Mr. Kennedy and his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer and investor.“RFK Jr. is a Democrat ‘Plant,’ a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected,” Mr. Trump wrote.Mr. Trump, who had privately discussed the idea of Mr. Kennedy as a running mate, echoed what Democrats have been saying for months about Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy — that it could swing the election. He also appeared to be adopting a new derisive nickname for him.“A Vote for Junior’ would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him,” he said.Mr. Kennedy fired back on Saturday in his own social media post.“When frightened men take to social media they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged,” he wrote on X. “President Trump’s rant against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims that should best be resolved in the American tradition of presidential debate.”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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      Schumer Says Bill to Aid Ukraine and Israel Shows Congress Isn’t Broken

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      The majority leader says the measure to help Ukraine and other recent bipartisan efforts show there is a path to success on Capitol Hill. But deep partisan differences and institutional problems remain.Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, insists that Congress isn’t broken — it just has a stubborn glitch.As he celebrated approval this week of a major national security spending measure to aid Ukraine and Israel that took months of wrangling and strategizing, Mr. Schumer said the success of the package validated his view that bipartisanship can prevail once extreme elements on Capitol Hill are sidelined.“I don’t think that Congress is dysfunctional,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview. “It’s that there are some dysfunctional people in Congress, and we can’t let them run the show.”The majority leader said that the passage of the foreign aid bill, the renewal of a warrantless electronic surveillance program and the approval of government funding for the year have shown that Congress can still function if its damaging glitch — right-wing lawmakers invested in chaos — is dealt out.“They are nasty, they are negative and they don’t want to get anything done at all,” Mr. Schumer said of far-right Republicans in the House. He noted that Congress had been able to move ahead on big issues once Speaker Mike Johnson and a significant bloc of House Republicans decided to marginalize the ultraconservatives, even though it has prompted a threat to Mr. Johnson’s speakership.“The idea that Congress can’t function in this modern world with technology and everything else — which admittedly makes it harder — has been disproved by a whole lot of things that succeeded in a bipartisan way,” he said. “But in each case, the hard right had to be resisted.”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