In the news today: Key moments from Kamala Harris’ speech at the Ellipse; how Maricopa County has become the nation’s ultimate swing county; and Mexican cartels maintain strict control of migrants on their way to the U.S. border. Also, Olivier Rioux is the world’s tallest teen — and will soon make college basketball history. |
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ANNA JOHNSON |
For 176 years, AP’s commitment to integrity and accuracy in election reporting has ensured that every race call is grounded in factual analysis, not projections or speculation. In the 2020 U.S. general election, The Associated Press declared winners in more than 5,000 contested races. This hallmark of AP’s Election Day news report is produced by a dedicated team of election analysts, researchers and race callers who make up our Decision Team.
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Kamala Harris at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Tuesday. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
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Key moments from Kamala Harris’ speech at the Ellipse
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Kamala Harris on Tuesday sought to remind Americans what life was like under Donald Trump and then offered voters a different path forward if they send her to the White House, in a speech billed as her campaign’s closing argument from the Ellipse. Harris’ campaign said it was her biggest rally to date. Read more.
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Harris chose to speak from the Ellipse on purpose. It’s the same spot in Washington where Republican Donald Trump helped incite a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But the vice president didn’t devote much of her speech to the violence of that day, instead using the field as a quiet reminder of the different choices Americans face.
Harris devoted a good chunk of her speech to talking about policies she’d enact if she were to win the White House, including helping first-time homeowners with down payments and aiding the so-called “sandwich generation” of adults by allowing elder care to be funded by Medicare. She said she’d work to pass a bipartisan border security bill that tanked last year and bring back abortion protections.
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We may not know the next president on Election Day. This Arizona swing county could be why
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Maricopa County has become the nation’s ultimate swing county — a place that could determine whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will be the next president and which party controls the U.S. Senate. The county is so closely divided politically that it can take more than a week to learn who won it. This year, election officials warn it could be as long as 13 days to tabulate all of the county ballots. Read more.
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It’s a sprawling, fast-growing county. Maricopa County stretches across more than 9,000 square miles and with its 4.5 million residents, the county is home to 60% of Arizona’s voters. It has more residents than nearly half of the states in the country.
The county has become home to a stew of key demographic groups in the battle for the White House: a growing Latino population, retirees, younger, newly arrived voters, and a broad and deep conservative population wrestling with a pivotal splinter group — college-educated, more affluent Republicans who’ve soured on the party’s turn under Trump.
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The drawn-out count has made the county a center of election conspiracy theories spawned by Trump. It also made Maricopa a key part of the former president’s campaign to install those who supported overturning the last election in 2020 into positions overseeing future ones.
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How Mexican cartels manage the flow of migrants on their way to the US border
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Days before the U.S. election, where immigration is a key issue, migrants continue pouring into Mexico, even as encounters at the border reach a four-year low. While U.S. authorities give much of the credit to their Mexican counterparts for stemming the flow to their shared border, organized crime maintains stricter control of who moves here than the handful of federal agents and National Guardsmen. Read more.
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Organized crime’s strict control at Mexico’s southern border tracks with the growing violence generated by the struggle between the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels. The state of Chiapas is only one of their battlegrounds, but it is key to controlling smuggling routes for people, drugs and weapons from Central America. Migrants have become the most lucrative commodity, according to experts.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said the government is dealing with the violence, but refuses to confront the cartels. She appears to maintain tactics that began under the administration of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to cycle migrants from the north back down to the south exhausting their resources and keeping them far from the U.S. border — exposing them to more kidnappings and extortion.
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Pan de muerto at a bakery in the San Rafael neighborhood of Mexico City. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
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Care for a sweet treat during Mexico’s Day of the Dead? Try some ‘pan de muerto’
“Pan de muerto” or “bread of the dead” is baked in Mexico every year, from early October to mid-November, amid Day of the Dead celebrations. Shaped like a bun, decorated with bone-like bread pieces and sugar, pan de muerto can be seen at coffee shops, dinner tables or home-made altars, which Mexicans build to remember deceased loved ones and to welcome them back for a night on Nov. 2.
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Please let us know what you think of this newsletter. You can sign up for more and invite a friend here. For news in real time visit APNews.com. - Sarah
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