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      Ilhan Omar, a Vocal Critic of Israel and ‘Squad’ Member, Wins Her Primary

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      Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the progressive lightning rod whose unabated criticism of Israel has deepened the fissures in the Democratic Party over the war in Gaza, won her primary on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.While she prevailed, it has been a rocky summer for the “squad,” the ultraliberal faction of lawmakers in the House.Two other members of the group, Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York and Representative Cori Bush of Missouri, suffered primary defeats in June and August after pro-Israel groups spent millions trying to influence those contests.Ms. Omar, 41, who is seeking a fourth term in Congress, heavily outspent her three opponents, including Don Samuels, a former Minneapolis City Council member, who came within 2,500 votes of ousting her in the 2022 primary. Unlike several other primary contests, Ms. Omar’s race did not see a large amount of campaign spending originating outside the district.Midway through Donald J. Trump’s presidency in 2018, Ms. Omar was one of several women of color on the far left of the Democratic Party who were elected to the House. That group includes Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.Mr. Trump famously said in 2019 that Ms. Omar and those other three women should “go back” to their countries, though she was the only one not born in the United States.Ms. Omar, who was born in Somalia and is one of two Muslim women in the House, has faced backlash for her criticism of Israel and pro-Palestinian beliefs.In 2023, Republicans in the House ousted Ms. Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee in a party-line vote over her past comments about Israel that had been widely condemned as antisemitic.While showing her support for pro-Palestinian protesters at a Columbia University encampment in April, Ms. Omar created a furor when she suggested that some Jewish students were “pro-genocide.” Her daughter had been one of several students who were suspended for participating in the encampment. More

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      Eric Hovde and Tammy Baldwin Will Face Off in Wisconsin in Key Senate Race

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      Eric Hovde, a wealthy businessman, won the Republican nomination for Senate in Wisconsin on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, setting up a key race this fall with Senator Tammy Baldwin, the Democratic incumbent.The race was called with just 4 percent of the vote counted, with Mr. Hovde holding large leads on his challengers: Charles Barman, a construction superintendent, and Rejani Raveendran, a nurse and midwife studying at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.Ms. Baldwin’s seat is one of more than a half-dozen held by Democrats that Republicans are targeting this year. To regain control of the Senate, Republicans need to flip just one or two — depending on whether the party wins the presidency — and they are almost guaranteed to pick up one seat in West Virginia, where Senator Joe Manchin III is not running for re-election.Mr. Hovde, the multimillionaire founder of H Bancorp and the chief executive of a real estate development company, has had several false starts in his political career. He financed a failed Senate campaign in 2012 with $5.8 million from his personal fortune before ultimately losing the Republican primary. He later considered other runs for Senate and governor, but decided against them.Senator Tammy Baldwin during a campaign event in Richland Center, Wis., in June.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Hovde is one of several Republican Senate candidates this year who are in a position to self-fund their campaigns, allowing the party to devote more of its resources elsewhere. Mr. Hovde has so far pumped at least $13 million of his own money into the campaign.He has presented his wealth as a positive, saying it means he doesn’t need “special-interest money” and can be more independent, and pledging to donate his Senate salary to charity if he is elected.Ms. Baldwin, who was uncontested in the Democratic primary, has sought to cast him as out of touch with regular Americans, and as a carpetbagger because he owns property in California and has split his time between there and Wisconsin. He has been registered to vote in Wisconsin since 2012.He also drew criticism this year for suggesting that “almost nobody in a nursing home” is mentally competent to vote, saying he had gained expertise regarding nursing homes because the bank he owns lends to them.Like several of her fellow Democratic Senate candidates, Ms. Baldwin — who has the advantage of incumbency, even though Wisconsin is a competitive state — appears to be running ahead of her party’s presidential ticket. A New York Times/Siena College poll this month found her leading Mr. Hovde by eight percentage points, outstripping Vice President Kamala Harris’s four-point lead over Donald J. Trump in Wisconsin.Chris Cameron More

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      Hunter Biden Sought State Department Help for Burisma

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      After President Biden dropped his re-election bid, his administration released records showing that while he was vice president, his son solicited U.S. government assistance.Hunter Biden sought assistance from the U.S. government for a potentially lucrative energy project in Italy while his father was vice president, according to newly released records and interviews.The records, which the Biden administration had withheld for years, indicate that Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he was a board member.Embassy officials appear to have been uneasy with the request from the son of the sitting vice president on behalf of a foreign company.“I want to be careful about promising too much,” wrote a Commerce Department official based in the U.S. Embassy in Rome who was tasked with responding.“This is a Ukrainian company and, purely to protect ourselves, U.S.G. should not be actively advocating with the government of Italy without the company going through the D.O.C. Advocacy Center,” the official wrote. Those acronyms refer to the United States government and a Department of Commerce program that supports American companies that seek business with foreign governments.Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Mr. Biden, said his client “asked various people,” including the U.S. ambassador to Italy at the time, John R. Phillips, whether they could arrange an introduction between Burisma and the president of the Tuscany region of Italy, where Burisma was pursuing a geothermal project.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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      Transfers and Pay Cuts: Pregnant Officers Accuse Border Agency of Discrimination

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      Under a $45 million settlement, Customs and Border Protection agreed to adjust its policy around pregnancy. Some women say the agency has instilled a culture of shame and perpetuated a fear of retaliation.When Roberta Gabaldon was ready to share news of her pregnancy with her colleagues at Customs and Border Protection in 2015, she brought in pink and blue doughnuts with a sign that read: “Pink and blue. Pink and blue. Somebody’s pregnant, guess who?”But her palpable excitement, particularly after a miscarriage months earlier, quickly dissipated.“My boss came into my office and he’s like: ‘You have to leave. You have to get a note about your pregnancy, and you have to go on light duty,’” Ms. Gabaldon, an agriculture specialist in the El Paso office, recalled, describing how she was told she needed to be reassigned to a post with fewer responsibilities regardless of whether she or her doctor believed it was necessary.Her experience reflects that of hundreds of female employees at the agency who have filed suit against Customs and Border Protection, saying that since at least 2016, they were denied equal treatment once they disclosed they were expecting. No matter the physical demands of their jobs, many were transferred to another post, typically centered on administrative or secretarial work and usually unrelated to what skills they had developed in their existing roles. The policy, they say, hurt their opportunities for advancement, and others add that they weathered pay cuts because light duty meant no more overtime.But under a $45 million settlement reached on Monday, Customs and Border Protection agreed to adjust a practice that some employees say has instilled a culture of shame and perpetuated a fear of retaliation as women try to hide their pregnancies at work for as long as possible.The agreement, which is not final until the end of September, requires C.B.P. to draft a new policy for pregnant women, and lawyers representing the women will monitor the agency’s compliance for three years. C.B.P. will also be required to train all managers and supervisors about the rights of pregnant employees.C.B.P. declined to answer questions about its policy toward pregnant women as described in the lawsuit and in interviews, citing its practice of not commenting on pending litigation. The terms of the settlement agreement state that the agency does not admit wrongdoing.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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      Fact-Checking Trump’s Talk With Elon Musk on X

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      Former President Donald J. Trump repeated a number of inaccurate claims that have become campaign staples in a conversation on Monday night with the billionaire Elon Musk on X, his social media platform.After describing at length the attempted assassination against him at a rally in Pennsylvania in July, Mr. Trump ran through familiar complaints about immigration — echoed by Mr. Musk — and attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris.Here’s a fact check:He inaccurately claimed that a chart he showed at the Pennsylvania rally, which he has repeatedly credited with saving his life, showed that “my last week, we had the best illegal immigration numbers.” (The chart was highly misleading, and unauthorized border crossings were not the lowest when he left office.)He misleadingly described Ms. Harris as “the border czar.” (She was responsible for addressing the root causes of migration in Central America, not border security.)He said that 20 million people had illegally crossed the southern border under President Biden. (The number is overstated.)He claimed, with no evidence, that other countries take unauthorized immigrants “out of jails, prisons” and “bring them to the United States.” (Prison populations are increasing across the world.)He claimed that crime in Venezuela had declined 72 percent because of an exodus of criminals into the United States. (The decrease is overstated, and there is no evidence that Venezuela had “gotten rid” of criminals.)He asserted that Mr. Biden “shut down Keystone XL pipeline, which is our pipeline that would have employed 48,000 people.” (Mr. Biden did rescind a permit for the pipeline, which had a projected employment of 35 permanent jobs.)He falsely described climate change as “where the ocean is going to rise one eight of eighth of an inch over the next 400 years.” (Under a worst-case scenario, sea levels could rise by as much as 10 meters by 2300, or nearly 33 feet, more than 3,100 times what Mr. Trump said.)He exaggerated grocery price inflation as high as “50, 60, even 100 percent in some cases.” (The index that tracks grocery prices is up by about 20 percent since early 2021.)He falsely claimed that inflation was the “worst inflation we’ve had in 100 years.” (Inflation reached 8 percent in 2022, the highest since 1981.)He falsely claimed that bacon now cost “four or five times more than it did a few years ago.” (The average price of sliced bacon was $5.83 per pound in January 2021 and $6.83 per pound in June 2024.)He falsely claimed that the 2017 tax cut was the “largest” in history. (At least half a dozen others are bigger.)He claimed, with no evidence, that the Biden administration orchestrated the criminal cases against him because it “went after their political opponent.” (At least two were brought by state or local prosecutors, meaning the Justice Department has no connection to the cases. Two others are overseen by a special counsel, specifically to avoid the perception of politicization.) More

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      Así es la estrategia de Kamala Harris en materia de migración

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      La candidata demócrata ha sido vapuleada por Trump y otros por su historial en materia migratoria. Ahora está probando un enfoque que, según los demócratas, ya ha funcionado antes.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Durante semanas, los republicanos se han dedicado a atacar a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris por el tema migratorio, culpándola de las políticas del presidente Joe Biden en la frontera.Ahora, Harris, la candidata presidencial demócrata, está tratando de neutralizar esa línea de ataque, una de sus mayores debilidades ante los votantes, con una serie de estrategias que los demócratas aseguran que les han funcionado en las últimas elecciones y con la postura más contundente que ha mostrado hasta ahora como una fiscala estricta con la delincuencia y dedicada a proteger la frontera.Esta semana, contraatacó con la promesa de aumentar la seguridad fronteriza de resultar elegida y criticó a su oponente republicano, el expresidente Donald Trump, por ayudar a acabar con un acuerdo fronterizo bipartidista en el Congreso. Además, su campaña ha dado marcha atrás en algunas de las posturas más progresistas que adoptó durante su candidatura a la nominación demócrata en 2019, entre ellas su postura de que los migrantes que cruzan la frontera de Estados Unidos sin autorización no deberían enfrentar sanciones penales.“Fui fiscala general de un estado fronterizo”, dijo el viernes Harris, quien fue fiscala superior de California, en un mitin en Arizona, un estado pendular donde la inmigración es una de las principales preocupaciones de los votantes.“Perseguí a las bandas transnacionales, a los cárteles de la droga y a los traficantes de personas. Los procesé, caso por caso, y gané”, dijo.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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      Democrats Turn to Their National Security Go-To for Trump Assassination Inquiry

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      Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, whom Democrats tapped for impeachment, investigations and tough questioning of President Biden, is their top member of a task force investigating the shooting.Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and former Army Ranger, had just ordered his second martini at a bar in Bucharest, Romania, when Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker, called him with an urgent question: How quickly could he get to Ukraine?It was April 2022, weeks after Russia had invaded Ukraine and touched off an international crisis, and two Republican lawmakers had rushed to be the first to travel to the besieged country. Now Ms. Pelosi wanted to quickly arrange her own visit — and she wanted Mr. Crow, whose national security background distinguished him in his party, to come with her.A late-night phone call from Ms. Pelosi to Mr. Crow would have been improbable when he first came to Congress in 2019. Hailing from a competitive district in Colorado, he had run as a centrist and avowed detractor of the liberal Ms. Pelosi, and after he knocked off a Republican incumbent he pledged that he would not vote for her for speaker.But since then, his credentials — including three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and a Bronze Star, as well as a law degree and a background in private-sector investigations — have made Mr. Crow a go-to lawmaker for Democratic leaders on difficult national security issues.Ms. Pelosi tapped him in 2019 to manage the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. He was part of the whip operation to rally support for legislation to send tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine. He was selected as the top Democrat on a subcommittee investigating the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.And last month, he was named the senior Democrat on a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.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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      The Changing Supply Chain

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      We explore why commerce has changed — and how companies and governments are reacting.For decades, major companies have behaved as if geographic distance were almost irrelevant. A factory in China was the same as a factory in Michigan. The internet, container shipping and international trading arrangements had supposedly shrunk the globe.No longer. The pandemic and geopolitical upheavals have exposed the risks of depending on faraway industry to make critical things like computer chips, protective gear and medicines.I recently wrote a book on this topic, “How the World Ran Out of Everything.” I’ll use today’s newsletter to help you understand why commerce has changed — and how companies and governments are reacting.The pandemic shockThe emergence of Covid in China ended the previous version of globalization. Quarantines shut Chinese factories at the same time that Western consumers, stuck in lockdown, ordered more manufactured goods like exercise equipment and electronic gadgets.This combination of reduced supply and surging demand made other countries realize that they had become heavily dependent on a single nation — China — for many items, including medical supplies. Covid eventually faded from the headlines, but policymakers and business executives in the United States and Europe faced pressure to diminish their reliance on China.A central reason for concern was the rise of geopolitical tensions. China wasn’t merely the world’s factory; it is also an autocracy that, under President Xi Jinping, has become more aggressive in asserting global influence. Xi, for instance, has been vocal about bringing Taiwan under China’s control, using force if necessary. Taiwan is the dominant manufacturer of the most advanced varieties of computer chips.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