One Dead In Motorcycle Crash In Midtown Tucson https://digitalarizonanews.com/one-dead-in-motorcycle-crash-in-midtown-tucson/
TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD News 13) – A man was killed in a motorcycle crash in midtown Tucson late Sunday, Oct. 2.
According to the Tucson Police Department, the accident happened at the intersection of Speedway and Craycoft.
As of 9 p.m., some lanes at the intersection are closed. Drivers should avoid the area.
Copyright 2022 KOLD News 13. All rights reserved.
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AP Top News At 12:29 A.m. EDT https://digitalarizonanews.com/ap-top-news-at-1229-a-m-edt/
Brazil’s Bolsonaro and the right outperform, defying polls
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s election provided the world yet another example of polls missing the mark, with incumbent Jair Bolsonaro considerably outperforming expectations to prove the far-right wave he rode to the presidency remains a force. The most-trusted opinion polls had indicated leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was far out front, and potentially even clinching a first-round victory. One prominent pre-election poll gave da Silva a 14 percentage point lead. In the end, Bolsonaro surprised to the upside and came within just 5 points. He will face da Silva in a high-stakes Oct. 30 presidential runoff.
Russia smuggling Ukrainian grain to help pay for Putin’s war
BEIRUT (AP) — When the bulk cargo ship Laodicea docked in Lebanon last summer, Ukrainian diplomats said the vessel was carrying grain stolen by Russia and urged Lebanese officials to impound the ship. Moscow called the allegation “false and baseless,” and Lebanon’s prosecutor general sided with the Kremlin and declared that the 10,000 tons of barley and wheat flour wasn’t stolen and allowed the ship to unload. But an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline” has found the Laodicea, owned by Syria, is part of a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million — cash that has helped feed President Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — People kayaking down streets that were passable just a day or two earlier. Hundreds of thousands without power. National Guard helicopters flying rescue missions to residents still stranded on Florida’s barrier islands. Days after Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, the dangers persisted, and even worsened in some places. It was clear the road to recovery from this monster storm will be long and painful. And Ian was still not done. The storm doused Virginia with rain Sunday, and officials warned of the potential for severe flooding along its coast, beginning overnight Monday.
Supreme Court welcomes the public again, and a new justice
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is beginning its new term, welcoming the public back to the courtroom and hearing arguments for the first time since issuing a landmark ruling stripping away women’s constitutional protections for abortion. Monday’s session also is the first time new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s first Black female justice, will participate in arguments. And the public is back for the first time since the court closed in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The court’s overturning of the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade abortion decision is still reverberating in legal fights over state abortion bans and other restrictions.
Black representation in Alabama tested before Supreme Court
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The invisible line dividing two of Alabama’s congressional districts slices through Montgomery, near iconic sites from the civil rights movement as well as ones more personal to Evan Milligan. There’s the house where his grandfather loaded people into his station wagon and drove them to their jobs during the Montgomery Bus Boycott as Black residents spurned city buses to protest segregation. It’s the same home where his mother lived as a child, just yards from a whites-only park and zoo she was not allowed to enter. The spot downtown where Rosa Parks was arrested, igniting the boycott, sits on one side of the dividing line while the church pastored by the Rev.
‘We’re with you,’ Biden tells Puerto Rico ahead of visit
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday will survey damage from Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico, where tens of thousands of people are still without power two weeks after the storm hit. The Category 1 hurricane knocked out electrical power to the U.S. territory of 3.2 million people, 44% of whom live below the poverty line. Power has been restored to about 90% of the island’s 1.47 million customers, but more than 137,000 others, mostly in the hardest hit areas of Puerto Rico’s southern and western regions, continue to struggle in the dark. Another 66,000 customers are without water. Biden has pledged that the U.S.
Jurors to begin hearing Jan. 6 Oath Keepers sedition case
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors will lay out their case against the founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates charged in the most serious case to reach trial yet in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack. Opening statements are expected Monday in Washington’s federal court in the trial of Stewart Rhodes and others charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a weekslong plot to stop the transfer of power from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. Defense attorneys will also get their first chance to address jurors, who were chosen last week after days of questioning over their feelings about the insurrection, Trump supporters and other matters.
Stadium tragedy exposes Indonesia’s troubled soccer history
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Gaining the right to host next year’s Under-20 World Cup was a major milestone in Indonesia’s soccer development, raising hopes that a successful tournament would turn around long-standing problems that have blighted the sport in this country of 277 million people. The death of at least 125 people at a league game between host Arema FC of East Java’s Malang city and Persebaya Surabaya on Saturday is a tragic reminder, however, that Indonesia is one of the most dangerous countries in which to attend a game. “Do remember that the FIFA U-20 World Cup will be the worldwide spotlight since the event will be joined by 24 countries from five continents,” Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo said last month as he pushed for thorough preparations for the tournament.
Ukraine presses on with counteroffensive; Russia uses drones
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown and other targets Sunday with suicide drones, and Ukraine took back full control of a strategic eastern city in a counteroffensive that has reshaped the war. Russia’s loss of the eastern city of Lyman, which it had been using as a transport and logistics hub, is a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine and heightening threats to use nuclear force. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s land grab has threatened to push the conflict to a dangerous new level. It also prompted Ukraine to formally apply for fast-track NATO membership.
Mahomes throws for 3 TDs, Chiefs overwhelm Buccaneers 41-31
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes threw for 249 yards and three touchdowns, including an electrifying jump pass to Clyde Edwards-Helaire, to lead the Kansas City Chiefs to a 41-31 victory over Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday night. Playing in a packed stadium only four days after Hurricane Ian ravaged portions of Florida, Mahomes had TD throws of 16 yards to Travis Kelce, 1 yard to Edwards-Helaire and 10 yards to Jody Fortson while making NFL history by reaching 20,000 yards passing faster than anyone else. Edwards-Helaire and tight end Noah Gray rushed for TDs for the Chiefs (3-1), who won the first meeting between Mahomes and Brady since Tampa Bay’s 31-9 rout of Kansas City in the Super Bowl — also played at Raymond James Stadium — two seasons ago.
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Election Officials Bracing For Confrontational Poll Watchers
Election Officials Bracing For Confrontational Poll Watchers https://digitalarizonanews.com/election-officials-bracing-for-confrontational-poll-watchers/
FILE – A Republican election challenger at right watches over election inspectors as they examine a ballot as votes are counted into the early morning hours, Nov. 4, 2020, at the central counting board in Detroit. Election officials across the country are bracing for a wave of confrontations in November as emboldened Republican poll watchers, many embracing former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, flood polling places for the general election. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
GOLDSBORO, N.C. (AP) — The situation with the poll watcher had gotten so bad that Anne Risku, the election director in North Carolina’s Wayne County, had to intervene via speakerphone.
“You need to back off!” Risku recalled hollering after the woman wedged herself between a voter and the machine where the voter was trying to cast his ballot at a precinct about 60 miles southeast of Raleigh.
The man eventually was able to vote, but the incident was one of several Risku cited from the May primary that made her worry about a wave of newly aggressive poll watchers. Many have spent the past two years steeped in lies about the accuracy of the 2020 election.
Those fears led the North Carolina State Board of Elections in August to tighten rules governing poll watchers. But the state’s rules review board, appointed by the Republican-controlled Legislature, blocked the new poll watcher regulations in late September, leaving election officials such as Risku without additional tools to control behavior on Election Day, Nov. 8.
“It becomes complete babysitting,” Risku said in an interview. “The back and forth for the precinct officials, having somebody constantly on you for every little thing that you do — not because you’re doing it wrong, but because they don’t agree with what you’re doing.”
Poll watchers have traditionally been an essential element of electoral transparency, the eyes and ears for the two major political parties who help ensure that the actual mechanics of voting are administered fairly and accurately. But election officials fear that a surge of conspiracy believers are signing up for those positions this year and are being trained by others who have propagated the lie spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies that the 2020 presidential election was riddled with fraud.
In Michigan, groups that have spread falsehoods about that race are recruiting poll watchers. In Nevada, the Republican Party’s nominee for secretary of state, Jim Marchant, denies President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and was a featured speaker at a party poll watcher training.
Cleta Mitchell, a prominent conservative lawyer and North Carolina resident, is running a group recruiting poll watchers and workers in eight swing states. Mitchell was on the phone with Trump when the then-president called Georgia’s secretary of state in January 2021 and asked that official to “find” enough votes for Trump to be declared the state’s winner.
Chris Harvey, who was Georgia’s election director in 2020 when Trump claimed the election was being stolen from him, recalled how swarms of Trump backers came as self-appointed poll watchers to observe the state’s manual recounts, harassing election workers and disrupting the process. Harvey fears a repeat this year.
“The whole tension that we’re expecting to see at polling places is something we’re talking to election officials about, something we’re talking to law enforcement about,” said Harvey, who is advising a group of election officials and law enforcement before November.
The laws governing poll watchers vary from state to state. Their role is generally to observe, question any deviations from required procedure and, in some states, lodge formal complaints or provide testimony for objections filed in court.
The worries this year are similar to those during the 2020 election, when Trump began railing against mail voting and the Republican National Committee launched its first national operation in decades. It had recently been freed from a consent decree that limited its poll watching operation after it previously was found to have targeted Black and Latino voters. But voting went smoothly that November.
Mitchell said her organization, the Election Integrity Network, is just trying to ensure that everyone follows the law.
“We are not a threat,” she told The Associated Press during a text message exchange. “Unless you think elections that are conducted according to the rule of law are a threat. We train people to follow the law.”
Risku said there were issues with poll watchers from both parties during the primary in May. But of the 13 incidents she reported to the North Carolina board from Wayne County, all involved Republicans.
In addition to the poll watcher who had to be ejected, Risku said another Republican poll watcher in her district waited after hours in the parking lot of the Mount Olive Train Depot early voting site until Chief Judge Susan Wiley began carrying boxes of marked ballots to her car.
On two occasions, the man tried to follow her back to the elections office in Goldsboro, about a 20-minute drive.
Recognizing that the job has become “a scary ordeal” in the last year, Risku said she has stepped up security before November and offered raises to entice precinct officials to stay. She expects many won’t return after this year.
The North Carolina GOP chairman, Michael Whatley, said that’s not what the party is teaching its poll watchers.
“What we saw in terms of some of the activities that were at play may have been coming from Republicans but were not things that we have been teaching people in our training sessions,” Whatley said. “What we want to do is make sure that we have people that are in the room that are going to be very respectful of the election officials at all times, be very respectful of the voters at all times and, if they see issues, then report them in.”
He has declined to allow reporters to attend the training sessions, which he said have trained 7,000 potential poll watchers so far this year.
As in many states, poll watchers are only permitted in North Carolina if they have been designated by the major parties. But in Michigan, organizations that register with local election offices also can provide poll watchers. A coalition of groups that have questioned the 2020 election are scrambling to get as many of their members in place as possible in the politically critical state.
“The best I can do is put a whole bunch of eyeballs on it to make sure that anything that doesn’t look right gets a further look,” said Sandy Kiesel, executive director of the Michigan Election Integrity Fund and Force, part of a coalition that recruited 5,000 poll watchers for the state’s August primary.
Kiesel said several of her coalition’s poll watchers and poll challengers — Michigan law allows one person to observe and another person to formally lodge challenges at precincts — were prevented from observing or escorted out of polling places in August.
Michigan election officials are bracing for more confrontations in November. Patrick Colbeck, a former Republican state senator and prominent election conspiracy theorist who is part of Kiesel’s coalition, announced this past week that a comprehensive fall push to scrutinize every aspect of voting would be called “Operation Overwatch.”
“They are talking about intimidating people who have the right to vote,” said Barb Byrum, clerk of Michigan’s Ingham County, which includes Lansing, the state capital.
In a sign of the importance the state’s Republicans place on poll watchers, the GOP-controlled Legislature last week agreed to let election offices throughout Michigan start processing mailed ballots two days before Election Day — something most states with mail voting allow long before then — but only if they allow poll watchers to observe. The ballots are not actually counted until Election Day.
In Texas, a new law allows every candidate to assign up to two poll watchers, raising the potential that observers could pack polling locations, particularly around big cities such as Dallas and Houston where ballots are the longest.
According to records from the secretary of state’s office, more than 900 people in Texas already had received poll watching certification in the three weeks after the state opened required training on Sept. 1.
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For 2024 AP Poll Jagan Looking To Project Father YSR As Trump Card
For 2024 AP Poll, Jagan Looking To Project Father YSR As Trump Card https://digitalarizonanews.com/for-2024-ap-poll-jagan-looking-to-project-father-ysr-as-trump-card/
Over the past three years, the image of Jagan as a messiah of the poor has begun to take a beating; hence, YSR may be the best bet for the election this time
In the 2024 elections, will CM Jagan Mohan Reddy return to power with his self-image or by leaning on the legacy of his father? File photo
The next Andhra Pradesh Assembly election may still be two years away, but the ruling Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRC) is already setting the pitch for the poll battle, which is in sharp contrast with the one it successfully experimented with during the last state election. Ahead of the elections due in 2024, the party seems to have planned a radical shift in its poll strategy from the current Jagan-centric political discourse to the legacy politics revolving around YS Rajasekhar Reddy (YSR), father of Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Recent developments hint at the party’s intent to project YSR as its trump card in order to come back to power for the second term. On September 21, the Jagan government set the cat among opposition Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) pigeons by piloting a bill in the state assembly seeking to replace the name of Dr. NTR Health University with Dr. YSR. Five days later, Dadisetti Ramalingeswara Rao alias Raja attempted to accord demigod status to late YSR, former CM of the Congress, who was killed in a chopper crash in 2009, by spurning NT Rama Rao (NTR), a charismatic figure in Tollywood and the TDP founder.
Also read: Jagan’s move to drop ‘NTR’ from varsity opens bigger battles
“There is no match between YSR and NTR. After all, NTR was the most incapable person, falling prey to backstabbing politics twice (once at the hands of Nadendla Bhaskara Rao, second-in-command in his government way back in August, 1984, and later at the hands of his son-in-law N. Chandrababu Naidu in the same month in 1995),” said Raja. The minister sang paeans to YSR, describing him as a towering leader of the masses, who had a humane face.
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The NTR vs YSR narrative
These two instances set off a raging debate centering around the two personalities from different family backgrounds representing rival political parties. YSR was a diehard Congressman, who was known as a perennial dissident within his party. He came from Rayalaseema’s notorious factions; his father Raja Reddy was killed in faction feuds in his native Kadapa district.
Hailing from Nimmakuru in coastal Andhra region, NTR, however, took a plunge into politics from the film field. After the Nadendla’s coup against his government, NTR emerged as a rallying point for all the anti-Congress opposition parties, breaking the Congress monopoly in national politics. After he lost power to his son-in-law in another coup, a section of leaders from the TDP, led by Naidu, took refuge in the Congress under YSR leadership.
NTR’s widow, Lakshmi Parvathi, is currently heading the Telugu Academy while another admirer, Y Lakshmipathi (YLP), was appointed Chairman of the Official Language Commission in the Jagan Mohan Reddy government. YLP quit his post a few days ago, unable to digest the dropping of NTR’s name from the health university. Assembly Speaker T Sitaram also defected from the TDP.
Aided by poll strategist Prashant Kishor, the Jagan camp was at its best alienating Naidu from the admirers of NTR spread across Andhra and Telangana, holding him responsible for his mentor not being honoured with Bharat Ratna posthumously. To pursue this objective Jagan’s camp sought to see both NTR and YSR on the same page, projecting them as saviours of the poor. The move is ostensibly aimed to wean away Kammas, an affluent community which treats NTR as their icon, from the TDP fold and also his admirers. This card worked to some extent in the elections in 2019 that indicated the Jagan’s landslide victory.
Also read: Jagan Mohan Reddy targets Chandrababu Naidu on latters home turf
Discarding YSR in 2019 polls
Jagan drew lessons from his party’s rout in 2014 elections, which he fought with a promise to deliver Rajanna Rajyam, a welfare state, replicating the one YSR delivered during his stint as the CM, with greater space for Christians and Muslim minorities. YSR himself was a converted Christian. During his regime, YSS has implemented a slew of welfare schemes such as Rajiv Aarogyasri, fee reimbursement for students of professional colleges and free power for agriculture.
The YSR Congress tried to take a leaf out of YSR’s book in that election but its plans came cropper at the hustings. When Jagan was in jail for 16 months in connection with charges of money-laundering and acquisition of illicit wealth, his mother Vijayamma and sister Sharmila, presently leading YSR Congress Telangana Party inTelangana, campaigned for the party with Bible in hands.
This strategy failed to work, as the majority Hindus did not vote for the YSRCP. This indicated the ignominious defeat of Vijayamma, the party honourary president then, at the hands of BJP candidate K Haribabu in Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha segment. The defeat has led Jagan to realize the fact that his father YSR was dated.
Jagan as his party’s poster boy
Subsequently, Jagan has got out of his father’s shadow to emerge as a self-made leader in 2019 elections through his marathon Praja Sankalpa Yatra with a catchy slogan- Jagan Kavali and Jagan Ravali, replacing his early promise of Rajanna Rajyam as per Kishor’s advice, observed an analyst with YSRC’s leanings.
Consequently, Jagan has created his own brand in his three years of rule, with several schemes carrying bearing the imprint of his name. The schemes include Jagananna Amma Vodi, which extends financial assistance of Rs 15,000 to each school-going child; Jagananna Vasati Deevena; Jagananna Vidya Deevena, Jagananna Chedodu, Jagananna Thodu, Jagananna Gorumudda and Jagananna Vidya Kanuka.
Change in the perception battle?
Jagan has seemingly been leaning back to his father YSR now as Naidu got back to his mentor NTR after his rout in 2004. Reddy’s U-turn has left several sections disappointed, with his three-year rule triggering strong anti-incumbency, an analyst Raka Sudhakar, told The Federal.
In the last three years, the image of Jaganmohan Reddy as a messiah of the poor has reportedly begun to take a beating. As a senior YSR Congress leader, considered to be a party’s think tank put it, the positive side of the government gets adversely impacted by a “lumpen” elements mobbing around Jagan Reddy. Besides, charges of corruption in the government that forced Jagan to drop a good number of ministers in his recent cabinet reshuffle also dented Reddy’s image, it is said.
Faced with the cash-starved state finances, the Jagan Reddy government keeps pumping in huge amount of money into welfare schemes. But the satisfaction levels among the beneficiaries appeared to be quite disheartening.
Also read: Jagan’s Mission 175 leaves Chandrababu struggling to save Kuppam turf
According to official data, the government spent Rs 2.70 lakh crore on welfare schemes from June 2019 to August 2022. The YSRC government’s heavy tilt towards welfare at the cost of development apparently leaves heartburn among middle and upper middle class sections, which constitute 20 percent of the state’s populace, CPI-M leader Ch. Babu Rao told The Federal. As welfare takes top priority over the infrastructure development and industrial growth under the Jagan’s regime, youths are getting disillusioned. Besides, the eligibility criteria with lot of restrictions for availing the welfare schemes, leaves several people high and dry.
Dysfunctional party leadership
What is appalling is that the party top brass in the YSRC party became almost dysfunctional down the line after it came to power. The strengthening of the party is no longer the priority as Jagan wanted to run the show with one or two advisors, even keeping his cabinet ministers in the dark.
The Gadapa Gadapaku Mana Prabhutvam—which means ‘our government to every doorstep’ in Telugu — a marathon programme launched on May 11, has exposed the limitations and loopholes of the party’s organization, as well as the style of functioning of its lawmakers. The programme aimed to take feedback from the people on welfare schemes through party legislators and workers. But this objective was not met because of the poor participation of party workers. Even the CM, at a review meeting a few days back, identified these shortcomings and told nearly 30 lawmakers to improve their performance in their respective assembly segments.
NTR died nearly three decades ago. And the new generation is hardly aware of him. YSR, on the other hand, is still relevant as a vast number of students who benefited from the fee reimbursement scheme still remember him. As also those who received treatment under Rajiv Aarogyasri scheme. Therefore, YSR may be the best bet for the election this time, a party worker said. It is to be seen whether Jagan will return to power with his self-image or that of his father.
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Zelensky Hails Advances As Open Recriminations Intensify In Russian Media
Zelensky Hails Advances As Open Recriminations Intensify In Russian Media https://digitalarizonanews.com/zelensky-hails-advances-as-open-recriminations-intensify-in-russian-media/
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the full recovery of a strategic town in eastern Ukraine on Sunday as a public brawl intensified in Russia over responsibility for the latest setback to the Kremlin’s goal of conquering wide swaths of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Kyiv’s Western backers hailed the advance of Ukrainian forces into areas Moscow has declared will soon constitute part of Russia.
Zelensky said the town of Lyman, which Russian troops used as a key logistics hub in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region since their arrival this spring, was completely “cleared of the Russian occupiers” as of midday local time, the Defense Ministry said on Twitter.
The president’s statement came a day after the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged it had been forced to withdraw troops from Lyman “to more advantageous lines.”
The cementing of Ukrainian control of the town, following other gains those forces have made since launching a major counteroffensive last month, offered a sharp contrast to Russia’s advancing steps to officially incorporate Donetsk and three other eastern regions into Russia following a series of staged referendums there last week, which Kyiv and its Western supporters have denounced as illegal and illegitimate.
Zelensky referred derisively to Putin’s attempt to declare Russian authority by fiat over areas now being taken back by Ukrainian troops.
“This, you know, is the trend,” he said later in his nightly video address. “Recently, someone somewhere held pseudo-referendums, and when the Ukrainian flag is returned, no one remembers the Russian farce with some pieces of paper and some annexations.”
The continued advance into Russian-held areas heightens the stakes of repeated threats that President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have made in recent days, suggesting that Moscow could go so far as using nuclear weapons to defend territory it considers part of Russia, including annexed areas of Ukraine.
Putin made reference to America’s use of atomic bombs against Japan in 1945 during a fiery speech Friday, in which the Russian leader cast the annexation of vast swaths of Ukraine as a fulfillment of Russians’ destiny.
Ukraine’s supporters in the West, like leaders in Kyiv, have insisted they won’t bow to Russian intimidation. On Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin cautioned Russia against following through with any escalatory retaliation linked to Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
“Again it’s an illegal claim; it’s an irresponsible statement,” he said in an interview with CNN. “Nuclear sabre-rattling is not the kind of thing that we would expect to hear from leaders of large countries with capability.”
Austin said he expected Ukrainian forces to continue offensive operations aimed at recapturing all Russian-held territory, despite Putin’s recent order to mobilize 300,000 additional troops to bolster the fight in Ukraine. Ukrainian forces are also trying to push deeper into Russian-controlled areas of southern Ukraine, toward the city of Kherson.
“I don’t think that’s going to stop, and we will continue to support them in their efforts,” he said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described the recapture of Lyman as an example of the progress Ukrainian forces were making “because of their bravery and skills, but, of course, also because of the advanced weapons that the United States and other allies are providing.”
He noted that countries including Norway and Germany were stepping up their aid to Ukraine. “This is making a difference on the battlefield every day,” he told NBC.
The recent string of battlefield reversals may indicate that Russia’s military is reaching a “breaking point,” said H.R. McMaster, a retired three-star general who served as national security adviser during the Trump administration.
“What we might be at here is really at the precipice of really the collapse of the Russian army in Ukraine. A moral collapse,” he told CBS.
But U.S. officials have cautioned that despite Russia’s failure to achieve the initial goals of Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion, including the capture of Kyiv, the ongoing mobilization may still present a formidable challenge to Ukraine. Even with larger sums of Western aid, Ukraine’s military is dwarfed in size and weaponry by Russia’s.
The leaders of nine Eastern and Central European nations on Sunday condemned Putin’s annexation, which will be formalized by Russia’s parliament Monday and Tuesday, saying they could not “stay silent in the face of the blatant violation of international law.”
“We do not recognize and will never recognize Russian attempts to annex any Ukrainian territory,” the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovakia said in a joint statement.
As Russian forces attempted to set a new line of defense after their retreat from Lyman, a torrent of public recriminations and bickering on who was to blame for Moscow’s recent setbacks poured forth on hard-line pro-Kremlin Telegram channels.
In open conflict that underscored the disarray in Russian ranks, two powerful figures with their own armed forces fighting Ukraine launched scathing attacks on Russian Defense Ministry commanders. It began with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s criticisms on Saturday of Russian military commanders, and his call to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Then in rare public remarks, Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, founder of mercenary group Wagner, added his own blunt attack.
“Kadyrov’s expressive statement, of course, is not entirely in my style,” he said, according to a Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel. “But I think that we should send all these bastards barefoot to the front with machine guns,” he said in an apparent reference to top Russian military commanders.
Elena Panina, a former lawmaker and director of Russtrat, a pro-Kremlin think tank, called the public attacks on top Russian military figures “unprecedented” before piling on with her own criticisms, complaining about the lack of any tough military retaliation to punish Ukraine for the forced Russian retreat.
She called Ukraine’s recapture of Lyman “a direct act of aggression against Russia,” in reference to Russia’s illegal move to annex the region. Panina said the criticisms of Russia’s military command came “in the midst of military failures and to the delight of the enemy.”
But sweeping Russia’s failures under the carpet was a path “fraught with real disaster,” she said. In what appeared to be a call to dismiss top military officials, she called for “qualitative changes in personnel, of an organizational and operational nature, up to and including emergency measures.”
“According to numerous estimates, Russia is facing an enemy that is more numerous, better armed, better prepared and better motivated,” Panina said, adding that it would take a “superhuman effort” to win.
Pro-Kremlin Telegram news outlet Readovka described the public airing of recriminations as “worse than betrayal” and called for an end to the public accusations by “hot heads” and “turbo-patriots,” in a commentary on its Telegram channel.
Ukraine continued on Sunday to push for the release of an official overseeing its Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant who authorities said has been detained by Russia. Fighting in the area around the facility, which is under Russian control but operated by Ukrainian engineers, has triggered concerns about a nuclear accident.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he had spoken with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, who had told him the IAEA was working to secure the release of Ihor Murashov, the plant’s director.
“I stressed Russia must withdraw troops and military equipment from the station,” Kuleba said in a tweet.
Morgunov reported from Kyiv. Dixon reported from Riga, Lativa.
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The latest: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees Friday to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine, following staged referendums that were widely denounced as illegal. Follow our live updates here.
The response: The Biden administration on Friday announced a new round of sanctions on Russia, in response to the annexations, targeting government officials and family members, Russian and Belarusian military officials and defense procurement networks. President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Friday that Ukraine is applying for “accelerated ascension” into NATO, in an apparent answer to the annexations.
In Russia: Putin declared a military mobilization on Sept. 21 to call up as many as 300,000 reservists in a dramatic bid to reverse setbacks in his war on Ukraine. The announcement led to an exodus of more than 180,000 people, mostly men who were subject to service, and renewed protests and other acts of defiance against the war.
The fight: Ukraine mounted a successful counteroffensive that forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September, as troops fled cities and villages they had occupied since the early days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment.
Photos: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground from the beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work.
How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.
Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video.
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YENILMEZ: Why Aren’t We More Scared? https://digitalarizonanews.com/yenilmez-why-arent-we-more-scared/
Sude Yenilmez
Staff Columnist
Ariane de Gennaro
The Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia), a far right-wing party with neo-fascist roots, won the Italian elections a week ago. Giorgia Meloni, the party leader, will not only become the country’s first female prime minister, but will also lead Italy’s most right-wing coalition government since World War II. The rise of far-right parties and candidates perhaps should no longer come as a surprise given the recent election of Sweden Democrats in September and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s fourth victory in April. But what comes as a surprise to me is how little we care, how little we even talk about it — if we talk about it at all.
Only four years ago, the Brothers of Italy won about 4 percent of the vote. While staying out of the recently-collapsed coalition certainly contributed to their popularity, there was more than that to Meloni’s appeal. Italy has been one of the slowest-growing economies of the EU and the pandemic only worsened its economic outlook. Like many European countries, the Italian population is aging and the fertility rates are significantly lower. The issue of immigration remains concerning as right-wing politicians push for hardline policies and blame migrants for increasing crime rates.
In the face of all these problems, the left and center-wing parties could not form a united front and offer effective solutions. Meloni, on the other hand, promised to make the declining nation her priority. Her “Italy and Italians first!” slogan resonated with many, making them feel seen and heard. This feels eerily familiar — Trump’s “Make America Great Again” mantra still echoes in my ears.
Even though Meloni explicitly rejected her neo-fascist roots and ran on a relatively moderate agenda, there is a lot to be scared of. One of her biggest promises is to support families, encouraging a rise in fertility rates. In this respect, her famous line — “I am a woman. I am a mother. I am Christian” — certainly contributed to her credibility.
But there is also a more sinister side to her identity politics. She believes that low fertility is the reason for a peak in immigration, and that Italy should not need immigrant work-force. Her emphasis on “family” and hence, the “traditional” Italian way of living excludes the LGBTQ+ community altogether. In a speech in June, she declared, “Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby! Yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology! Yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death!” Given that her coalition partners also share her sentiments, we don’t know the extent she will go to achieve this “traditional” way of life.
Perhaps we can hope that being a part of a coalition government will force her to compromise and adopt more moderate views. Perhaps she won’t be able to make drastic changes to the economy or the country’s position in the EU because Italy needs the EU’s post-pandemic support funds. Perhaps the public support for her will erode rather quickly once she cannot deliver all of her promises to save the declining nation. It was easy to criticize from the sidelines. Once she is in office though, she is likely to share the common destiny of many incumbent governments before her.
But all of these should make us question our current political climate. There is a reason why thousands of people still go to Trump’s rallies and are willing to listen to his lies about his alleged win in the 2020 election and his innocence during the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol. What is happening to our democratic values? Who is responsible for the rise of these “demagogues”?
One part of the answer clearly points to the political elites. Perhaps the situation is as not dire as the German President Hindenburg’s appointment of Hitler as chancellor in 1933 with the full knowledge of his ideology and extremist agenda. Yet, there is something to be said about the center left and right-wing parties’ inability to appeal to voters and to unite to keep the extremist leaders out of the government.
But what about us? Why do we, the voters, still believe the promises of these far right-wing and fascist politicians? How much do we care about our democratic institutions or even know about them? The answers to these questions should occupy some space in our minds and are worth some time in our discussions. Yale is arguably one of the most politically active campuses in the United States and even across the globe. Yet I am bewildered by our lack of civic engagement and knowledge every day. With U.S. midterm elections in a month and 2024 presidential elections on the way, there is a lot at stake. And we cannot afford to not care. Not anymore.
SUDE YENILMEZ is a junior in Berkeley College. Her column, ‘Piecing Together,’ runs every other Monday. Contact her at sude.yenilmez@yale.edu.
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📧 O-Zone Late Night: Eagles 29, Jaguars 21 https://digitalarizonanews.com/%f0%9f%93%a7-o-zone-late-night-eagles-29-jaguars-21/
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – This was messy, sloppy – and yes, disappointing.
The Jaguars entered Sunday feeling deservedly good about themselves and alone in first place in the AFC South. They exited it tied for first in the division following a 29-21 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. It was a game defined as much as anything by cold, wet conditions – and by sloppiness and mistakes.
The Jaguars lost because they couldn’t stop the run and because quarterback Trevor Lawrence committed five turnovers – four lost fumbles and an interception.
This loss doesn’t mean Lawrence is bad. It doesn’t mean the Jaguars are bad. It doesn’t mean the season is over. It means they’re 2-2 with both losses to NFC teams and both losses on the road, and it means they lost to an unbeaten Eagles team that currently is one of the NFL’s best.
Jaguars safety Rayshawn Jenkins afterward said there’s “no panic.” And there shouldn’t be. The in-box perchance doesn’t agree. Oh well.
Let’s get to it …
Jeremy from Gilbert, AZ
Mark that down as a very bad game for Trevor. The team was overall manhandled by the Eagles, but Trevor looked especially overwhelmed by the gravity of the game.
I didn’t see Lawrence as overwhelmed by the gravity of the game. This game didn’t have significantly more gravity than Weeks 2 or 3 against the Indianapolis Colts or Los Angeles Chargers and he played very well in those games. I saw him perhaps not handle the wet conditions very well and he certainly must protect the ball better than he did on his final sack/fumble.
Cliff from Everywhere with helicopter
Lost by eight team to the best team in the league in a driving rain on the road. They’ll be fine and right the ship next week. Deep breath.
Good eye and good perspective. I fear you may find yourself a lonely soul in these parts for a day or two. The in-box is angry this day my friends, like an old man trying to … well, do something.
Joe from Caton, NY
Now that’s the Jags I know!
This is clever, I suppose – and if people were waiting excitedly to say this after any sort of Jaguars loss following two consecutive impressive victories, that’s certainly their right. And I know from experience not to try to make logical points to frustrated fans following a bad loss. But this is not the same old Jaguars. They lost in tough conditions on the road Sunday to a really good team. Their quarterback had five turnovers. I don’t expect that to happen again any time soon. It certainly doesn’t mean they suck. Maybe it’s the same team you know, but it’s a lot different from the one I’ve watched the last few seasons. Even on a day such as Sunday.
Lynn from Mandarin
Trevor Lawrence is terrible. No Good. Very Bad Day.
Stop it. For your own sake.
Crash from Glen St. Mary
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.
And sometimes a young team gets in a situation it doesn’t handle very well. It felt like there was an element of that Sunday – rough conditions, a good opponent, on the road, playing a physical offensive line, a bad stretch in the second quarter. The Jaguars actually handled that bad second quarter pretty impressively and looked like they might get back in the game in the second half. Then Lawrence threw an interception in the red zone. It was that sort of day. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be that kind of season.
Daniel from Jersey City, NJ
O-man, how many turnovers does it take for Lawrence to be taken out of the game and replaced with someone, anyone else?
A lot more than five.
Tom from Nocatee
Pick Sixco?
This was the much-ballyhooed, sometimes rain-soaked, always-lucid First Email of the Game – and it understandably came moments after Jaguars safety Andre Cisco returned an interception early in the first quarter for a 59-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead. All was right in Jaguars Land, and all stayed right through the quarter. It changed after that. A lot.
Mikayl from Tampa
I can’t help but to feel we were outcoached. With the weather why did they not run the ball many more times? Also, was James Robinson hurt? Why wasn’t he in more? Philly seemed to adjust, while we just didn’t. I just can’t help to feel that between this game, and the Washington game we should be 3-1.
It’s always coaching in the NFL.
Mike from Port Charlotte, FL
Jags fan in SWFL… took a direct hit from Ian! House is destroyed, no power barely any gas but driving somewhere to watch the Jags today!
This had nothing to do with the game. I included it because life is more than football games and more than my bad attempts at humor in this space. Stay strong, Mike. Seriously.
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Asia-Pacific Markets Fall; Oil Up More Than 2% On Reports Of A Possible OPEC Supply Cut
Asia-Pacific Markets Fall; Oil Up More Than 2% On Reports Of A Possible OPEC+ Supply Cut https://digitalarizonanews.com/asia-pacific-markets-fall-oil-up-more-than-2-on-reports-of-a-possible-opec-supply-cut/
Pedestrians cross a road in front of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), operated by Japan Exchange Group Inc. (JPX), in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Shares in the Asia-Pacific mostly fell on Monday as markets enter the last quarter of the year.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was 0.8% lower in early trade. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gave up early gains to fall 0.4%.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan fell more than 1% in early trade, but recovered slightly and was last up 0.18%, while the Topix index was fractionally lower. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.32%.
Brent crude futures and West Texas Intermediate futures jumped on reports of a possible OPEC+ supply cut.
Later in the week, Australia’s central bank will announce its interest rate decision, while several countries in Asia will report inflation data.
China markets are closed for the Golden Week holiday, and South Korea’s market is also closed.
ANZ sees significant chance of an OPEC+ cut as large as 1 million barrels per day
Ahead of an OPEC+ meeting on Oct. 5, ANZ sees a “significant chance of a cut” as large as 1 million barrels per day, analysts at the firm said in a note.
That move is likely to be made “to counteract the excessive bearishness in the market.”
The note added that any production cuts below 500,000 barrels per day, however, would be “shrugged off by the market.”
–Jihye Lee
CNBC Pro: Investment pro says ETFs are a $10 trillion opportunity — and reveals areas of ‘tremendous’ value
Exchange-traded funds offer the benefit of diversification, says Jon Maier, chief investment officer at Global X ETFs. He said the ETF market is “growing exponentially” and estimates it to be worth $10 trillion.
He names several opportunities for ETF investors in this volatile market.
Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Zavier Ong
Business confidence of Japan’s large manufacturers worsens
Sentiment of Japan’s large manufacturers worsened in the July-to-September quarter, according to the Bank of Japan’s latest quarterly tankan business sentiment survey.
The headline index for large manufacturers’ sentiment came in at 8, a decline from the previous quarter’s reading of 9. Economists polled by Reuters expected a print of 11.
“Our expectation and market expectations were for the manufacturing reading to pick up — supply conditions had improved, you’ve seen fading supply impact from zero-Covid policies in China, commodity prices came down a little bit,” said Stefan Angrick, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics.
“The fact that the manufacturing side of the economy isn’t doing so well certainly isn’t great for the outlook,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
But the non-manufacturing index ticked up slightly, which could mean Japan’s late Covid recovery is getting underway, he added.
— Abigail Ng
Fri, Sep 30 20229:06 AM EDT
CNBC Pro: The five global stocks experiencing the de-globalisation trend, according to HSBC
New research from HSBC says supply chains, geopolitical tensions, and worsening financial conditions have forced many global companies to “substantially” turn inward in search of resilient revenue and growth.
In a tough economic environment with recessionary pressures, the bank said turning inwards is “probably helpful” for these stocks.
The report titled ‘A de-globalisation wave?’ said European firms’ foreign sales dipped below 50% in 2021, the lowest level in the last five years.
Oil prices jump on reports of OPEC+ mulling production cut
CNBC Pro: Should investors flee stocks? Strategists give their take — and reveal how to trade the volatility
With monetary policy set to tighten further in the months ahead, and Wall Street mired in the depths of a bear market abyss, many investors are beginning to wonder if now’s the time to exit the stock market and put their money in other asset classes.
CNBC Pro spoke to market watchers and scoured through research from investment banks to find out what the pros think.
Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Zavier Ong
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'It's Never Ever OK To Be A Racist' Rick Scott Says When Asked About Trump's Personal Attack On Elaine Chao | CNN Politics
'It's Never, Ever OK To Be A Racist,' Rick Scott Says When Asked About Trump's Personal Attack On Elaine Chao | CNN Politics https://digitalarizonanews.com/its-never-ever-ok-to-be-a-racist-rick-scott-says-when-asked-about-trumps-personal-attack-on-elaine-chao-cnn-politics/
01:54 – Source: CNN
Sen. Scott asked about Trump’s racist insult of McConnell’s wife. Hear his response
CNN —
Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Sunday that “it’s never ever OK to be a racist” when asked about former President Donald Trump’s personal attack on Elaine Chao, his onetime Transportation secretary. Scott offered a measured response to Trump’s mocking of a notable Asian American in the GOP.
Trump, in a Friday night post on his social media platform Truth Social, directly ridiculed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Chao, the Kentucky Republican’s spouse, referring to her as the senator’s “China loving wife, Coco Chow!”
“It’s never, ever OK to be a racist,” Scott told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” when asked whether Trump’s comments were acceptable. “I think you always have to be careful, you know, if you’re in the public eye … how you say things. You want to make sure you’re inclusive.”
“I hope no one is racist,” the Florida senator added. “I hope no one says anything that’s inappropriate.”
In his Truth Social post last week, Trump said McConnell had a “death wish” for supporting “Democrat sponsored bills,” something Scott avoided criticizing when asked by Bash if he was OK with it, though he later added, “I don’t condone violence.”
“I think, you know, what the President is saying is, ‘You know, there’s been a lot of money spent over the last two years. We’ve got to make sure we don’t keep caving to Democrats. It’s causing an unbelievable inflation and causing more and more debt.’”
It was not clear what bills Trump was criticizing on Friday, or what he meant as he accused McConnell of believing in the Green New Deal, a package of progressive proposals that McConnell blocked from coming to the Senate floor for a vote when he was majority leader.
Scott, who chairs Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, saw his own disagreement with McConnell spill into the public over the summer.
“Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” McConnell said in August, before later describing the GOP’s chances of flipping the Senate as a “50/50 proposition.”
Scott responded in an op-ed without mentioning the Kentucky Republican by name, writing, “If you want to trash-talk our candidates to help Democrats, pipe down.” (Scott denied last month that his op-ed was directed at McConnell.)
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Gyann Endures To Win Second P2 Championship https://digitalarizonanews.com/gyann-endures-to-win-second-p2-championship/
The Prototype 2 (P2) race on Sunday at the 59th SCCA National Championship Runoffs taking place Sept. 24-Oct. 2, at Virginia International Raceway was more a matter of survival than anything else. With rain falling all day around VIR’s 3.27-mile, 18-turn circuit, the final Hagerty Race Day saw even minor off-course excursions turn into tow truck recoveries. This was especially true for classes with low ground clearance, such as P2.
The Tire Rack Pole Award for P2 went to 2018 P2 champion Tim Day, Jr. of Scottsdale, AZ, driving his No. 8 Goodyear/GDRE/Summit/Hawk Stohr WF1 Suzuki. Gridded outside on the front row was the 2020 class champion Greg Gyann of Western Springs, IL, driving the No. 83 Gycor International Stohr WF1 Suzuki. The second row included Lucian Pancea of San Antonio, TX, behind the wheel of the No. 99 Young Racing/Newport Hills Villa Stohr WF1 Kawasaki, with Mike Reupert of Hubertus, WI gridded outside in the No. 7 Sunshine Metals Stohr WF1 Suzuki Hayabusa.
At the start of the race, the leaders made it through the first lap, but polesitter Day spun off course at the exit of Turns 11-12, VIR’s famous Oak Tree Curve. That brought out the first of what would be several full-course cautions, and packed the field up behind the safety car. With Gyann in the lead followed by Pancea in second place, the field got one green flag lap in before the second caution.
“To be honest, I’m very happy I finished,” Pancea said after the race. “The conditions were treacherous out there. When they dropped the green flag, I think some water got into my electronics, so I couldn’t downshift. I had to downshift by hand. It was one of my toughest races.”
By the time of the second caution, eighth-place qualifier Peter Shadowen of West Palm Beach, FL, driving the No. 12 West WX10 Suzuki, had worked his way through the field to third place. The race saw additional cautions and restarts, but the field continued to circulate with no changes to the top three.
“One key factor was poor visibility,” Shadowen said. “I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing, so I just had to lay back until I could see clear track, and then go. I couldn’t stay close to the leaders on the restarts because I couldn’t see anything. So I had to be patient and really examine the track. It was about being careful.”
At the checkered flag, Gyann won the race with a margin of 1.775s over Pancea, with Shadowen crossing the line almost 20 seconds later.
“Being out in front and having a clear track certainly helped,” Gyann said. “I knew if I could get around the corners, keep it pointed in a straight line as much as possible, and just get on the throttle, I could do it. The car was good, and as long as I didn’t push it past that envelope, I had confidence I would be OK. I could have gone faster, but I also knew it would be hard for anyone to pass me.”
The fourth position was claimed by ninth-place qualifier Michael Moulton of Wilmington, NC, driving the No. 77 Young Racing Stohr WF1 Suzuki, and fifth finishing position went to 11th place qualifier Richard Colburn of Northbrook, IL in the No. 97 Sunshine Metals Nostendo 1 Suzuki.
The top three drivers were greeted at the victory podium with a bottle of bubbly form Mazza Vineyards, the “Official Sparkling Wine” of the Runoffs.
The 59th SCCA National Championship Runoffs, the Pinnacle of American Amateur Motorsports, crowns Sports Car Club of America’s Road Racing National Champions this year at VIR during Hagerty Race Days, Friday, Sept. 30, through Sunday, Oct. 2.
Live, online video coverage of Runoffs races, presented by Mazda, is available throughout the three days of competition at SCCA.com/live, and at SCCA’s official YouTube and Facebook social media channels. Live timing and scoring for each race is also available at SCCA.com, along with an audio-only feed from the Super Tour Radio presented by Hoosier Racing Tire broadcast team.
Below are final results for Sunday’s P2 race at the 2022 SCCA National Championship Runoffs, with finish position, starting position in parentheses, driver, hometown, car, and laps completed.
1, (2), Greg Gyann, Western Springs, IL, Stohr WF1 Suzuki, 14.
2, (3), Lucian Pancea, San Antonio, TX, Stohr WF1 Kawasaki, 14.
3, (8), Peter Shadowen, West Palm Beach, FL, West WX10 Suzuki, 14.
4, (9), Michael Moulton, Wilmington, NC, Stohr WF1 Suzuki, 14.
5, (11), Richard Colburn, Northbrook, IL, Nostendo 1 Suzuki, 14.
6, (13), Robert Iversen, Gulf Breeze, FL, Radical SR3 Suzuki, 14.
7, (12), Pat Wildfire, Fairmont, WV, AMAC Suzuki, 14.
8, (7), Thomas Kaufman, Riviera Beach, FL, Stohr WF1 Suzuki, 12.
9, (10), William B Niemeyer Jr, Loveland, OH, Stohr WF1 Suzuki, 14.
10, (4), Mike Reupert, Hubertus, WI, Stohr WF1 Suzuki Hayabusa, 9.
DNF, (6), Sherman Chao, Palm Beach, FL, Stohr WF1 Suzuki, 5.
DNF, (1), Tim Day Jr, Scottsdale, AZ, Stohr WF1 Suzuki, 1.
Race Stats
Length of Race: 46 miles
Overall Time of Race: 41:51.745 (65.615 mph)
Margin of Victory: 01.775 seconds
Fastest Race Lap: 2:15.834 (86.665 mph)
Lap Leaders: #83, Laps 1-14
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Trump Staffers Not Returning White House Records: National Archives
Trump Staffers Not Returning White House Records: National Archives https://digitalarizonanews.com/trump-staffers-not-returning-white-house-records-national-archives/
WASHINGTON: Former President Donald Trump’s administration has not turned over all presidential records and the National Archives will consult with the Justice Department on whether to move to get them back, the agency has told Congress.
A congressional panel on Sept 13 sought an urgent review by the National Archives and Records Administration after agency staff members acknowledged that they did not know if all presidential records from Trump’s White House had been turned over.
“While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know that we do not have custody of everything we should,” acting Archivist Debra Wall said in a letter Friday to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
The Archives knows some White House staffers conducted official business on personal electronic messaging accounts that were that were not copied or forwarded to their official accounts, in violation of the Presidential Records Act, Wall said.
“NARA has been able to obtain such records from a number of former officials and will continue to pursue the return of similar types of presidential records from former officials,” Wall said in the letter, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
She said the Archives, the federal agency charged with preserving government records, would consult with the Department of Justice on “whether to initiate an action for the recovery of records unlawfully removed.” The Oversight Committee shared a copy of the letter with Reuters but has not issued a statement on it yet.
Representatives for Trump did not immediately return a request for comment on the matter.
Trump is facing a criminal investigation by the Justice Department for retaining government records — some marked as highly classified, including “top secret” — at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office in January 2021. The FBI seized more than 11,000 records, including about 100 documents marked as classified, in a court-approved Aug 8 search at Mar-a-Lago.
Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2022
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Opinion: The House GOP's 'Protect Trump' Caucus Has Just One Mission | CNN
Opinion: The House GOP's 'Protect Trump' Caucus Has Just One Mission | CNN https://digitalarizonanews.com/opinion-the-house-gops-protect-trump-caucus-has-just-one-mission-cnn/
03:02 – Source: CNN
Trump admits fame drove his desire to be president in new book
Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show” and a columnist for The Daily Beast. Follow him @DeanObeidallah. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
CNN —
If the GOP wins control of the House of Representatives this November, it will become the “protect Donald Trump from prosecution” caucus. That’s the message we’ve been hearing with increasing frequency from Trump-loving Republicans since August 8, when FBI agents searched the former President’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
The search, pursuant to a court-approved warrant, found more than 100 documents bearing classification markings – including three in desks inside Trump’s office – among other items that should have been returned to the National Archives.
Nevertheless, many in the GOP were incensed by the search. There were immediate calls to “defund the FBI” by some highly vocal GOP lawmakers such as Reps. Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar. Republican candidates for Congress from North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and elsewhere echoed that call – all part of an effort to stop the investigation of Trump.
Of course, this is the same GOP that slammed Democrats for using the term “defund the police” after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. But when it comes to the defense of Trump, hypocrisy doesn’t matter.
On Thursday – with little media fanfare – the official Twitter account for GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee took matters a step further: During a floor debate on a measure to provide additional funding to the Department of Justice, the account tweeted: “Why would anyone support a bill that gives $140 MILLION to the same Department of Justice that raided President Trump’s home?”
We have gone from some Republicans wanting to defund the FBI to lawmakers actually seeking to withhold funding to the DOJ, all seemingly to protect their beloved leader.
The GOP has no qualms playing hardball to defund something they don’t approve of. For example, in 2013, Republicans so desperately wanted to defund the Affordable Care Act – President Barack Obama’s landmark health care bill – that they caused a 16-day partial government shutdown.
(That begs the question: If the GOP wins back the House next month, will lawmakers threaten to shut down the government to stop the investigation into Trump’s potential crimes, ranging from his role egging on the crowd that rampaged in the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, to his possible illegal retention of classified documents?)
And we are not done. Last week, Politico reported that “GOP lawmakers are preparing a buffet of investigations” aimed at the FBI in response to its investigation of Trump. Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee, told Politico that “we ought to do a deep dive into ensuring that the FBI is focused on organized crime, combating crime, and not witch-hunting Americans.”
“Witch-hunting,” of course, is a reference to any investigation into the GOP’s beloved leader Trump.
Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California – a House impeachment manager during Trump’s trial after the January 6 insurrection – recently predicted on my SiriusXM show what he believes will happen if the GOP gains control of the House.
“If they are given power in the next Congress, they will go there, and they will fight exclusively for Donald Trump,” said Swalwell, a former prosecutor. He added that the House “will be become the largest law firm in D.C., but with just one client.”
And that appears to be exactly what the GOP base wants of their elected Republicans.
A CBS poll released September 25 found that 65% of Republicans respondents said that “loyalty” to Trump is “important.” GOP leaders get that, and as a result, they must defend Trump at all costs – including possibly hampering an investigation into Trump’s possible crimes.
That strong pro-Trump sentiment from the GOP base appears to explain why certain Republican lawmakers are talking about impeaching President Joe Biden if they regain control of the House. On September 25, speaking about the likelihood of impeaching Biden if the GOP regains control of the House, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “I believe there’s pressure on the Republicans to put that forward and have that vote.”
GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz joined the impeachment chorus last week while appearing on a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser who was recently indicted in New York on money laundering and other fraud-related charges. Bannon pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Gaetz said that impeaching and investigating Biden would be high on the agenda of a GOP-led House.
“If we don’t engage in impeachment inquiries to get the documents and the testimony and the information we need, then I believe that our voters will feel betrayed and that likely, that could be the biggest win the Democrats could hope for in 2024, when it really matters to investigate them and to hold them accountable,” Gaetz said.
The Florida Republican added that if his party takes control of the chamber “bill-making” would be “a far, far diminished priority.”
In short, despite what some Republican leaders may have wanted the 2022 election to be about, it’s increasingly becoming a referendum on the GOP’s extremism.
From Republicans enacting laws barring women from controlling their own bodies to GOP bans on books to the cruelty of how certain GOP governors have treated Latino immigrants seeking a better life, the election will give voters the opportunity to accept or reject such extreme policies. And now, we have another issue to add to the mix: the GOP’s threats to defund or hamstring law enforcement if it pursues Trump.
Anyone who believes that Trump is above the law should obviously vote Republican in November. But for countless Americans who believe that all of us – including the rich and politically connected like Trump – should all be treated equally under the law, the choice is equally clear.
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AP News In Brief At 9:04 P.m. EDT https://digitalarizonanews.com/ap-news-in-brief-at-904-p-m-edt-2/
Bolsonaro, Lula headed to runoff after polarized Brazil vote
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s top two presidential candidates will face each other in a runoff vote following a polarized election to decide if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years.
With 98% of he votes tallied on Sunday’s election, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had 48% support and incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro had 43.6% support. Brazil’s election authority said the result made a second round vote between the two candidates a mathematical certainty.
Nine other candidates were also competing, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva.
The tightness of the election result came as a surprise, since pre-election polls had given da Silva a commanding lead. The last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva among those who intended to vote. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
“This tight difference between Lula and Bolsonaro wasn’t predicted,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco.
10 torture sites in 1 town: Russia sowed pain, fear in Izium
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — The first time the Russian soldiers caught him, they tossed him bound and blindfolded into a trench covered with wooden boards for days on end.
Then they beat him, over and over: Legs, arms, a hammer to the knees, all accompanied by furious diatribes against Ukraine. Before they let him go, they took away his passport and Ukrainian military ID — all he had to prove his existence — and made sure he knew exactly how worthless his life was.
“No one needs you,” the commander taunted. “We can shoot you any time, bury you a half-meter underground and that’s it.”
The brutal encounter at the end of March was just the start. Andriy Kotsar would be captured and tortured twice more by Russian forces in Izium, and the pain would be even worse.
Russian torture in Izium was arbitrary, widespread and absolutely routine for both civilians and soldiers throughout the city, an Associated Press investigation has found. While torture was also evident in Bucha, that devastated Kyiv suburb was only occupied for a month. Izium served as a hub for Russian soldiers for nearly seven months, during which they established torture sites everywhere.
Ukraine presses on with counteroffensive; Russia uses drones
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown and other targets Sunday with suicide drones, and Ukraine took back full control of a strategic eastern city in a counteroffensive that has reshaped the war.
Russia’s loss of the eastern city of Lyman, which it had been using as a transport and logistics hub, is a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine and heightening threats to use nuclear force.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s land grab has threatened to push the conflict to a dangerous new level. It also prompted Ukraine to formally apply for fast-track NATO membership.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Sunday that his forces now control Lyman: “As of 12:30 p.m. (0930 GMT) Lyman is cleared fully. Thank you to our militaries, our warriors,” he said in a video address.
Russia’s military didn’t comment Sunday on Lyman, after announcing Saturday that it was withdrawing its forces there to more favorable positions.
125 die as tear gas triggers crush at Indonesia soccer match
MALANG, Indonesia (AP) — Police firing tear gas after an Indonesian soccer match in an attempt to stop violence triggered a disastrous crush of fans making a panicked, chaotic run for the exits, leaving at least 125 people dead, most of them trampled upon or suffocated.
Attention immediately focused on police crowd-control measures at Saturday night’s match between host Arema FC of East Java’s Malang city and Persebaya Surabaya. Witnesses described officers beating them with sticks and shields before shooting tear gas canisters directly into the crowds.
It was among the deadliest disasters ever at a sporting event. President Joko Widodo ordered an investigation of security procedures, and the president of FIFA called the deaths “a dark day for all involved in football and a tragedy beyond comprehension.” While FIFA has no control over domestic games, it has advised against the use of tear gas at soccer stadiums.
Brawls are common among rival Indonesian soccer fans, so much so that the organizer had banned Persebaya supporters from Arema’s stadium. But violence still broke out when the home team lost 3-2 and some of the 42,000 Arema fans, known as “Aremania,” threw bottles and other objects at players and soccer officials.
Witnesses said the fans flooded the Kanjuruhan Stadium pitch and demanded that Arema management explain why, after 23 years of undefeated home matches against Persebaya, this one ended in a defeat.
Feds vow major aid for Hurricane Ian victims amid rescues
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — With the death toll from Hurricane Ian rising and hundreds of thousands of people without power in Florida and the Carolinas, U.S. officials vowed Sunday to unleash a massive amount of federal disaster aid as crews scrambled to rescue people stranded by the storm.
Days after Ian tore through central Florida, carving a deadly path of destruction into the Carolinas, water levels continued rising in some flooded areas, inundating homes and streets that were passable just a day or two earlier.
With branches strewn across the grounds of St. Hillary’s Episcopal Church in Ft. Myers, the Rev. Charles Cannon recognized the immense loss during his Sunday sermon but also gave thanks for what remained. That included the church’s stained-glass windows and steeple.
“People think they have lost everything, but you haven’t lost everything if you haven’t lost yourself,” he said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was in Arcadia on Sunday afternoon, about 30 miles inland from where Ian made landfall. The rural area didn’t get the storm surge experienced by coastal communities, but standing water from floods remained four days after the storm.
Ian is long gone but water keeps rising in central Florida
GENEVA, Fla. (AP) — Residents in central Florida donned fishing waders, boots and bug spray and canoed or kayaked to their homes on streets where floodwaters continued rising Sunday despite it being four days since Hurricane Ian tore through the state.
The waters flooded homes and streets that had been passable just a day or two earlier.
Ben Bertat found 4 inches (10 centimeters) of water in his house by Lake Harney off North Jungle Street in a rural part of Seminole County, north of Orlando, after kayaking to it Sunday morning. Only a day earlier, there had been no water.
“I think it’s going to get worse because all of this water has to get to the lake” said Bertat, pointing to the water flooding the road. “With ground saturation, all this swamp is full and it just can’t take any more water. It doesn’t look like it’s getting any lower.”
Gabriel Madlang kayaked through 3 feet (1 meter) of water on his street, delivering sandbags to stave off water that was 2 inches (5 centimeters) from entering his home.
Haiti reports cholera deaths for first time in 3 years
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti’s government on Sunday announced that at least eight people have died from cholera, raising concerns about a potentially fast-spreading scenario and reviving memories of an epidemic that killed nearly 10,000 people a decade ago.
The cases – the first cholera deaths reported in three years – came in a community called Dekayet in southern Port-au-Prince and in the gang-controlled seaside slum of Cite de Soleil, where thousands of people live in cramped, unsanitary conditions.
“Cholera is something that can spread very, very quickly,” warned Laure Adrien, director general of Haiti’s health ministry.
Food or water contaminated with the cholera bacteria can lead to severe diarrhea and dehydration that can be deadly.
The United Nations said in a statement that it is working with Haiti’s government to “mount an emergency response to this potential outbreak,” stressing that health teams need to be guaranteed safe access to areas where cases have been reported.
Ousted Burkina Faso leader leaves country for Togo
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Burkina Faso’s ousted coup leader Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba left the country for Togo Sunday two days after he himself was overthrown in a coup, while the new junta urged citizens not to loot or vandalize.
Damiba’s departure was confirmed by two diplomats who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. It was not known whether Togo was his final destination.
Earlier Sunday, religious leaders who had mediated between the factions said that Damiba had offered his resignation as long as his security and other conditions were met. A junta representative later announced on state television that their leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traore, officially has been named head of state following the Friday coup that ousted Damiba.
Their power grab marked Burkina Faso’s second military coup this year, deepening fears that the political chaos could divert attention from an Islamic insurgency whose violence has killed thousands and forced 2 million to flee their homes. It followed unrest in Ouagadougou, the capital, in which mobs on Saturday attacked the French embassy and other French-related sites, wrongly believing that they were sheltering Damiba.
Along with agreeing not to harm or prosecute him, Damiba also asked Traore and the new junta leadership to respect the commitments already made to the West African regional...
Republican Tepid On Trump In Nevada Gubernatorial Debate
Republican Tepid On Trump In Nevada Gubernatorial Debate https://digitalarizonanews.com/republican-tepid-on-trump-in-nevada-gubernatorial-debate/
Published Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022 | 5:38 p.m.
Updated 0 minutes ago
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Nevada’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Joe Lombardo, sought in a debate on Sunday to distance himself from former President Donald Trump over his lies about the 2020 election, but said Trump’s policies were better than those under the Biden administration, which he blames for inflation and rising interest rates.
“It’s an abysmal failure. In my opinion Trump moved the country forward,” Lombardo said. But when asked whether Trump was “a great president,” Lombardo hesitated, saying, “I wouldn’t say great, I think he was a sound president.”
Lombardo said he was bothered by Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, saying that he was “not shying away from that” and agreeing that Trump lying about election fraud undermined the confidence of the voters.
Trump is scheduled to campaign for Lombardo next weekend, setting up a potentially awkward meeting.
The debate with incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak was a mostly cordial exchange animated by subjects that are defining midterm races across the country: abortion rights, the economy and inflation, education and crime, which by some measures is up in the Las Vegas area where Lombardo has spent his career in law enforcement and has served as sheriff since 2015.
A third of registered voters in Nevada are Democrats, while nonpartisan voters barely edge out Republicans, making the contest among the nation’s most closely watched. Nonpartisan registration has outpaced both major parties this year and Democratic registration has largely stalled, with some switching their registration to Republican.
ABORTION
Echoing efforts by Democrats nationwide, Sisolak sought to make abortion access a campaign centerpiece, saying voters “have a clear choice in this race.” It’s a tricky topic for Lombardo, who has touted since the Republican primary that he would govern through a “pro-life lens” but has flip-flopped on certain measures.
Sisolak is a staunch supporter of abortion rights and has worked to make Nevada a safe haven for the procedure as neighboring Utah, Arizona and Idaho have restricted access. He has attempted to paint Lombardo as an anti-abortion extremist. A big screen outside the debate said “Joe Lombardo wants to ban contraception.”
Lombardo will keep contraceptives “accessible,” he said on his website in a 106-word explanation for his abortion stance that during the primary race had three words: “Joe is pro-life.”
Lombardo told KRNV-TV that he would overturn Sisolak’s June executive order that protects out-of-state abortion patients and in-state providers. Days later, he told The Associated Press only that he would view it through a “pro-life lens” but did not cite specific action. In a letter posted on his website last week, he said that he would uphold the order.
Earlier this month, Lombardo said he would oppose a national abortion ban proposed by South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham.
Lombardo specified Sunday that he supports laws that require parents to be notified if a minor is having an abortion and legislation to require a waiting period between consultation and abortion. He said he does not support mandatory ultrasounds.
A state law allows abortions up to 24 weeks into pregnancy. Lombardo said “there’s nothing the governor can do” to change that law.
Sisolak scoffed at a question about whether he supports abortions at 28, 30 or 32 weeks. He said it was a “volatile” question to ask, given that the vast majority of abortions occur before 21 weeks, and called it “political theater.”
CRIME AND PUBLIC SAFETY
Sisolak has the final say on criminal justice bills that come out of Carson City. Lombardo implements those laws in Clark County.
Lombardo said crime decreased for six years there but has climbed in the last two years, which he blamed on a Democratic-controlled state government that has passed “soft-on-crime legislation,” including a law that raised the dollar amount for a theft to be considered a felony from $650 to $1,200 and increased the weight of drugs that qualify for felony trafficking.
Debate moderator Jon Ralston, CEO of the Nevada Independent, noted that Lombardo’s sheriff’s department was neutral on the bill. Lombardo said his department had to compromise, “knowing that it was still bad legislation.”
Ralston noted that Sisolak once called Lombardo the “best sheriff in America.” But Sisolak said Lombardo’s policies have changed as he sought the governor’s office.
“People are not safer today than they were eight years ago,” when Lombardo became sheriff, he said. “I met with a roundtable of local businesses, who told me one of the main problems they have is burglary. They can’t get (Las Vegas police) to even respond to burglary because it’s so far down on their list.”
Lombardo said that was “absolutely false,” and that criminal justice reforms mean police have more burglaries to respond to.
ECONOMY
The Democratic governor defended his decision to close nonessential businesses at the start of the pandemic. He said he remembered looking at the Las Vegas Strip and “knowing that if I signed this executive order I’m gonna shut down the Strip, (and) put 250,000 people out of work.”
“Those lives were more important to me,” said Sisolak, who is endorsed by the Nevada Chamber of Commerce. “The economy came back. Those lives we could never regain. There’s 11,051 empty seats at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner right now.”
Lombardo has criticized the longevity of school and business closures and Sisolak’s determinations about which businesses were essential, calling it “too draconian.”
“We didn’t have to be a beta agency or a beta state or a beta department. You can rely on what other people are doing in other states that were showing success,” he said. “I believe the governor just solely relied on what (California Gov.) Gavin Newsom advised him.”
EDUCATION
Lombardo and Sisolak both said they support raising teacher pay. Lombardo said he would back a raise tied to the Consumer Price Index of around 2-3%, but said the exact amount would be negotiated. Sisolak said he would increase starting teacher pay and negotiate raises “north of 3%.”
The sheriff said he would restore a provision in Nevada’s “Read by Grade 3” program that holds back third graders who don’t read at grade level, and supports an expansion of charter schools, which teachers’ unions oppose.
Lombardo, like other Republicans, strongly supports voucher programs that provide public money for students to attend private schools, and said parents should have options besides “failing schools.”
Nevada has long placed near the bottom of national education rankings. The Clark County School District, with 326,000 students, is the fifth in size nationally and has weathered staff shortages. Lombardo has indicated he would consider breaking up CCSD.
Sisolak said the state can’t afford to drain funding from the cash-strapped public school system, noting that private schools “don’t have to take the students that are more expensive to teach,” such as those with learning disabilities or English learners.
___
Associated Press writer Juliet Williams in San Francisco contributed to this report.
___
Stern is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit program that places journalists in newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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AP News Summary At 8:37 P.m. EDT https://digitalarizonanews.com/ap-news-summary-at-837-p-m-edt/
10 torture sites in 1 town: Russia sowed pain, fear in Izium
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — An Associated Press investigation has found that Russian torture in the Ukrainian town of Izium was arbitrary, widespread and absolutely routine for both civilians and soldiers. AP journalists located 10 torture sites in the town, including a deep sunless pit in a residential compound, a clammy underground jail that reeked of urine, a medical clinic, and a kindergarten. AP also spoke to 15 survivors of Russian torture and confirmed the deaths of eight men. All but one were civilians. The AP also found a former Ukrainian soldier who was tortured three times hiding in a monastery, and connected him with loved ones. The town has now been liberated by Ukrainian forces.
Brazil election authority: Bolsonaro, Lula headed to runoff
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the leftist Workers’ Party has gotten the most votes in Brazil’s presidential election, but not enough to avoid a runoff vote against his far-right rival, incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. With 97% of the votes tallied, da Silva 47.9% support and Bolsonaro 43.6%. Since neither candidate received more than 50% of the valid votes, which exclude spoiled and blank ballots, a second round vote between them will be scheduled for Oct. 30. The highly polarized election will determine whether the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right leader in office for another four years.
Ukraine presses on with counteroffensive; Russia uses drones
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia has attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown with suicide drones. This comes as Ukraine has pushed ahead with its counteroffensive that has embarrassed the Kremlin. Ukraine took back control of the strategic eastern city of Lyman, which Russia had been using as a transport and logistics hub. That’s a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine. Photos circulating online pointed to some battlefield movement for Ukraine, showing Ukrainian soldiers entering what appeared to be newly retaken settlements in the south and east. Pope Francis, meanwhile, on Sunday decried Russia’s nuclear threats against the West and appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop “this spiral of violence and death.”
125 die as tear gas triggers crush at Indonesia soccer match
MALANG, Indonesia (AP) — Police firing tear gas after an Indonesian soccer match in an attempt to stop violence triggered a disastrous crush of fans that has left at least 125 people dead. Attention immediately focused on police crowd-control measures at Saturday night’s match between host Arema FC of East Java’s Malang city and Persebaya Surabaya. Witnesses described officers beating them with sticks and shields before shooting tear gas canisters directly into the crowds. President Joko Widodo ordered an investigation of security procedures and the president of FIFA called the deaths “a dark day for all involved in football and a tragedy beyond comprehension.” While FIFA has no control over domestic games, it has advised against the use of tear gas at soccer stadiums.
Feds vow major aid for Hurricane Ian victims amid rescues
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — U.S. officials say they are vowing to unleash a massive amount of federal aid in response to Hurricane Ian as the death toll rises amid recovery efforts. Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Deanne Criswell said Sunday that the government is ready to provide help days after Ian came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane and carved a deadly path of destruction through Florida and into the Carolinas. The monster storm killed at least 54 people, including 47 in Florida, and hundreds of thousands of people and businesses remain without power. Officials warn that flooding could still worsen in parts of Florida because all the rain that fell has nowhere to go, with waterways already overflowing.
Ian is long gone but water keeps rising in central Florida
GENEVA, Fla. (AP) — Residents living in parts of central Florida donned fishing waders, boots and bug spray and canoed or kayaked their way to their homes on streets where floodwaters continued rising Sunday despite it being four days since Hurricane Ian tore through the state. The waters flooded homes and streets that had been passable just a day or two earlier. Ben Bertat found 4 inches of water in his house by Lake Harney off North Jungle street in a rural part of Seminole County north of Orlando after kayaking to it Sunday morning. Only a day earlier, there had been no water.
Haiti reports cholera deaths for first time in 3 years
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti’s government says at least eight people have died from cholera for the first time in three years, raising concerns about a potentially rapid spreading scenario and reviving memories of an epidemic that killed nearly 10,000 people a decade ago. The cases were reported in a community called Dekayet in southern Port-au-Prince and in the seaside slum of Cite de Soleil, where thousands of people live in cramped, unsanitary conditions. The deaths announced Sunday come as a lack of fuel and ongoing protests shut down the availability of basic services across Haiti, including medical care and clean water, which is key to helping fight cholera and keep patients alive.
Ousted Burkina Faso leader leaves country for Togo
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Diplomats say that Burkina Faso’s ousted coup leader Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba has left the country and headed to Togo. Mediators had said earlier Sunday that Damiba agreed to resign so long as his security and other conditions are met. The junta now in charge in Burkina Faso earlier in the day had declared that Capt. Ibrahim Traore was head of state. The formal announcement came after the new coup on Friday, the country’s second this year. Damiba, who came to power in a January coup, saw his popularity plummet as violence linked to Islamic extremists continued across the country.
AP Top 25: Tide retakes No. 1 from UGA; Kansas snaps drought
Alabama reclaimed No. 1 from Georgia in The Associated Press college football poll in one of the closest votes in the recent years. Two points separate the Crimson Tide from the Bulldogs. Six teams including Kansas made their season debut in the AP Top 25. The Jayhawks are ranked for the first time since 2009, which was the longest drought among current Power Five conference teams. The Crimson Tide received 25 first-place votes and 1,523 points. Georgia got 28 first-place votes to become the first team since Alabama in November 2019 to have the most first-place votes but not be No. 1.
Trump: ‘King’ to some in Pennsylvania, but will it help GOP?
MONONGAHELA, Pa. (AP) — The enthusiasm for Donald Trump’s brand of nationalist populism has cut into traditional Democratic strongholds in places such as Monongahela in western Pennsylvania. That’s where House Republicans recently outlined their election-year campaign agenda, called “Commitment to America.” They’re hoping they can tap into the same political sentiment Trump used to attract voters. But it’s not clear whether the support that propelled Trump to the White House will be there on Election Day this November. Just as challenging for the Republican Party is whether Trump’s false claims of voter fraud will hurt the GOP if voters decide to sit out the election.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Brazil Elections 2022 Live: Lula Headed For Run-Off With Bolsonaro
Brazil Elections 2022 Live: Lula Headed For Run-Off With Bolsonaro https://digitalarizonanews.com/brazil-elections-2022-live-lula-headed-for-run-off-with-bolsonaro/
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With 97% of votes counted the leftist veteran had secured 47.88% of the vote, not enough to avoid the 30 October show down with his right-wing rival. Bolsonaro, who significantly out-performed pollsters’s predictions and will be buoyed by the result, received 43.68%.
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Speaking on the eve of the election Lula said he was hopeful of a first round win but would redouble his efforts to reclaim power if a second round was needed.
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“I feel great hope that this election will be decided tomorrow, but if it isn’t we’ll have to behave like a football team when a match goes to extra time. We’ll rest for 15 minutes and then we’ll get back out onto the pitch to score the goals we didn’t score in normal time,” he told reporters.
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The election result was a blow to progresssive Brazilians who had been rooting for an emphatic victory over Bolsonaro, a former army captain who has repeatedly attacked the country’s democratic institutions and vandalized Brazil’s international reputation.
“,”elementId”:”5bbe5dc5-8859-400e-9233-8f4ba20b199c”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement”,”url”:”https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/02/brazil-election-ex-president-luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva-wins-vote-but-not-outright-victory-jair-bolsonaro?CMP=share_btn_tw”,”text”:”Brazil election: ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wins vote but not outright victory”,”prefix”:”Related: “,”role”:”thumbnail”,”elementId”:”4df5867a-39e3-4ae0-955c-f312fa2b2c87″}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1664757225000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”20.33 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1664757485000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”20.38 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1664757266000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”20.34 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”20.34″,”title”:”Lula wins vote but not outright victory”,”contributors”:[{“name”:”Tom Phillips”,”imageUrl”:”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/contributor/2015/7/21/1437469140501/Tom-Phillips.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=64d4710c5e9278bd5d7beaa12d34ca68″,”largeImageUrl”:”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/09/Tom-Phillips,-L.png?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=6daf189d32676df4eccd3f1c18c0bf3a”}],”primaryDateLine”:”Sun 2 Oct 2022 20.47 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Sun 2 Oct 2022 16.43 EDT”},{“id”:”633a1b048f08ec87f1106c75″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
The polling company Datafolha is predicting that the election will go to a second-round on 30 October, which means Lula will have failed to gain more than 50% of the vote in this round – a surprising result given pre-polling that showed the leftwing frontrunner securing a comfortable win.
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After a nail-biting first hour of counting –and with another tense hour or so to go – leftwing frontrunner Lula has overtaken Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential elections.
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Lula currently has 45.74% of the vote, to Bolsonaro’s 45.51%.
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Lula ahead with 70% counted! pic.twitter.com/uXqHXtz0uO
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) October 2, 2022
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The Guardian’s Tom Philips reports from outside Lula’s hotel in São Paulo:
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Joy outside Lula’s hotel as news comes that he has taken the lead pic.twitter.com/9i2SfV3HbV
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) October 2, 2022
n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/tomphillipsin/status/1576707670471741440?s=20&t=zgK54OcpAzZvEJ7kXleEow”,”id”:”1576707670471741440″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”9523e643-7494-4bdb-a4c0-641b28cad743″}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1664751487000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”18.58 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1664751960000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”19.06 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1664751904000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”19.05 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”19.05″,”title”:”Lula takes the lead with 70% of votes counted”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Sun 2 Oct 2022 20.47 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Sun 2 Oct 2022 16.43 EDT”},{“id”:”633a13868f086bb4a78ed28d”,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
With more than 50% of votes counted, Bolsonaro is still ahead.
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The last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva among those who intended to vote. It interviewed 12,800 people.
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Bolsonaro’s lead is steadily dwindling, however. It is now less than 2%.
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More than half of votes have now been counted, and while Bolsonaro's lead has narrowed again – now to just 1.44% – he is still ahead: pic.twitter.com/cAFYEL2i5Z
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) October 2, 2022
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With just over 25% of votes counted, Bolsonaro is still ahead, but is lead over Lula – who is widely expected to win – has narrowed slightly, from around 6% to just over 4%.
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A quarter of votes counted, Bolsonaro's lead over Lula has narrowed again: pic.twitter.com/H5qVIN4XMj
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) October 2, 2022
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Brazilians voted Sunday in a highly polarised election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years.
The race pits incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known as Lula. There are nine other candidates, but they have far less support than the two frontrunners.
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The last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva among those who intended to vote. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of two percentage points.
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Bolsonaro And Lula Appear Headed For Runoff In Brazil Race
Bolsonaro And Lula Appear Headed For Runoff In Brazil Race https://digitalarizonanews.com/bolsonaro-and-lula-appear-headed-for-runoff-in-brazil-race/
October 02, 2022 08:26 PM
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s top two presidential candidates were neck-and-neck late Sunday in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years.
The race pits incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There are nine other candidates, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva.
With 91.6% of votes counted, da Silva had 47.3%, ahead of Bolsonaro with 44.2%, according to the electoral authority.
It appears increasingly likely neither of the top two candidates will receive more than 50% of the valid votes, which exclude spoiled and blank ballots, which would mean a second round vote will be scheduled for Oct. 30.
“We will most likely have a second round,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco. “The probability of ending the election now (in the first round) is too small.”
Recent opinion polls had given da Silva a commanding lead — the last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva among those who intended to vote. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
A man sells flags during general elections in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022. For sale are Brazil national flags and of Presidential candidates, the incumbent Jair Bolsoaro and former president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da silva.
(AP Photo/Andre Penner)
The election wound up being far tighter than anticipated, both in the presidential contest and those for governorships and congressional seats.
“The far-right has shown great resilience in the presidential and in the state races,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.
“It is too soon to go too deep, but this election shows Bolsonaro’s victory in 2018 was not a hiccup,” he added.
Bolsonaro outperformed in Brazil’s southeast region, which includes populous Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais states, according to Rafael Cortez, who oversees political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria.
“The polls didn’t capture that growth,” Cortez said.
Bolsonaro’s administration has been marked by incendiary speech, his testing of democratic institutions, his widely criticized handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years.
But he has built a devoted base by defending conservative values, rebuffing political correctness and presenting himself as protecting the nation from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties and produce economic turmoil.
While voting earlier Sunday, Marley Melo, a 53-year-old trader in capital Brasilia, sported the yellow of the Brazilian flag, which Bolsonaro and his supporters have coopted for demonstrations. Melo said he is once again voting for Bolsonaro, who met his expectations, and he doesn’t believe the surveys that show him trailing.
“Polls can be manipulated. They all belong to companies with interests,” he said.
A slow economic recovery has yet to reach the poor, with 33 million Brazilians going hungry despite higher welfare payments. Like several of its Latin American neighbors coping with high inflation and a vast number of people excluded from formal employment, Brazil is considering a shift to the political left.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly questioned the reliability not just of opinion polls, but also of Brazil’s electronic voting machines. Analysts fear he has laid the groundwork to reject results.
At one point, Bolsonaro claimed to possess evidence of fraud, but never presented any, even after the electoral authority set a deadline to do so. He said as recently as Sept. 18 that if he doesn’t win in the first round, something must be “abnormal.”
Da Silva, 76, was once a metalworker who rose from poverty to the presidency and is credited with building an extensive social welfare program during his 2003-2010 tenure that helped lift tens of millions into the middle class.
But he is also remembered for his administration’s involvement in vast corruption scandals that entangled politicians and business executives.
Da Silva’s own convictions for corruption and money laundering led to 19 months imprisonment, sidelining him from the 2018 presidential race that polls indicated he had been leading against Bolsonaro. The Supreme Court later annulled da Silva’s convictions on grounds that the judge was biased and colluded with prosecutors.
Social worker Nadja Oliveira, 59, said she voted for da Silva and even attended his rallies, but since 2018 votes for Bolsonaro.
“Unfortunately the Workers’ Party disappointed us. It promised to be different,” she said in Brasilia.
Others, like Marialva Pereira, are more forgiving. She said she would vote for the former president for the first time since 2002.
“I didn’t like the scandals in his first administration, never voted for the Workers’ Party again. Now I will, because I think he was unjustly jailed and because Bolsonaro is such a bad president that it makes everyone else look better,” said Pereira, 47.
Speaking after casting his ballot in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the manufacturing hub in Sao Paulo state where he was a union leader, da Silva recalled that four years ago he was imprisoned and unable to vote.
Bolsonaro grew up in a lower-middle-class family before joining the army. He turned to politics after being forced out of the military for openly pushing to raise servicemen’s pay. During his seven terms as a fringe lawmaker in Congress’ lower house, he regularly expressed nostalgia for the country’s two-decade military dictatorship.
His overtures to the armed forces have raised concern that his possible rejection of election results could be backed by top brass.
On Saturday, Bolsonaro shared social media posts by right-leaning foreign politicians, including former U.S. President Donald Trump, who called on Brazilians to vote for him. Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed gratitude for stronger bilateral relations and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also praised him.
After voting Sunday morning, Bolsonaro told journalists that “clean elections must be respected” and that the first round would be decisive. Asked if he would respect results, he gave a thumbs up and walked away.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Leda Wasem, 68, had no doubt Bolsonaro will not just be reelected. Wearing a jersey of the national soccer squad at a polling place in downtown Curitiba, the real estate agent said an eventual da Silva victory could have only one explanation: fraud.
“I wouldn’t believe it. Where I work, where I go every day, I don’t see a single person who supports Lula,” she said.
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Hackers Release Data After LAUSD Refuses To Pay Ransom
Hackers Release Data After LAUSD Refuses To Pay Ransom https://digitalarizonanews.com/hackers-release-data-after-lausd-refuses-to-pay-ransom/
Hackers released data from Los Angeles Unified School District on Saturday, a day after Supt. Alberto Carvalho said he would not negotiate with or pay a ransom to the criminal syndicate.
Some screenshots from the hack were reviewed by The Times and appear to show some Social Security numbers. But the full extent of the release remains unclear.
The release of data came two days earlier than the deadline set by the syndicate that calls itself Vice Society — and happened in apparent response to what it took as Carvalho’s final answer. Hackers demand ransom to prevent the release of private information and also to receive decryption keys to unlock computer systems.
“What I can tell you is that the demand — any demand — would be absurd,” Carvalho told The Times on Friday. “But this level of demand was, quite frankly, insulting. And we’re not about to enter into negotiations with that type of entity.”
In a statement released later that day, he said: “Paying ransom never guarantees the full recovery of data, and Los Angeles Unified believes public dollars are better spent on our students rather than capitulating to a nefarious and illicit crime syndicate.”
The extent of the data theft is now being evaluated by federal and local authorities, including the school district.
“Unfortunately, as expected, data was recently released by a criminal organization,” the school district said in a social media post Sunday. “In partnership with law enforcement, our experts are analyzing the full extent of this data release.”
Carvalho said on Friday that he believed confidential information of employees was not stolen. He was less certain about information related to students, which could include names, grades, course schedules, disciplinary records and disability status.
Some of the documents in the release appear to be forms with confidential information from the facilities services division. These forms could have been filled out either by district employees or by contractors doing work for the school system.
Some W-9 forms also appear to be in the release. The W-9 is an official form furnished by the IRS for employers or other entities to verify the name, address and tax identification number — typically a Social Security number — of an individual receiving income. Independent contractors who do work for companies or agencies they are not employed with must often provide that entity a W-9.
The district will provide assistance to anyone harmed by the release of data and has set up an “incident response” line at (855) 926-1129. Its hours of operation are 6 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding major U.S. holidays.
Since the attack, which was discovered Sept. 3, the nation’s second-largest school district has worked closely with local law enforcement, the FBI and the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA.
CISA posted a warning to education institutions about Vice Society immediately after the LAUSD attack without directly confirming that the syndicate was responsible for it.
The syndicate’s original Monday deadline was posted on the dark web site maintained by Vice Society, which had informally confirmed to at least three reporters that it was responsible for the hack.
On Friday, Carvalho did not contest media accounts identifying Vice Society. He continued his previous practice of not naming the amount that is being demanded.
The claim of responsibility became official with a posting on the dark web. A screenshot shows the Vice Society logo and its catchphrase “ransomware with love.” The site lists as “partners” the entities that it claims to have victimized. These now include the L.A. Unified School District, which is listed along with the district logo.
Hackers this year have attacked at least 27 U.S. school districts and 28 colleges, said Brett Callow, threat analyst for the digital security firm Emsisoft. At least 36 of those organizations had data stolen and released online, and at least two districts and one college paid the attackers, Callow said.
Cybersecurity experts who confirmed late Saturday or early Sunday that the release had occurred included Callow and blogger Dominic Alvieri.
Vice Society alone has hit at least nine school districts and colleges or universities so far this year, per Callow’s tally.
When the LAUSD attack was discovered, district technicians quickly shut down all computer operations to limit the damage, and officials were able to open campuses as scheduled on the Tuesday after the holiday weekend. The shutdown and the hack resulted in a week of significant disruptions as more than 600,000 users had to reset passwords and systems were gradually screened for breaches and restored.
During this rebooting, technicians found so-called tripwires left behind that could have resulted in more structural damage or the further theft of data. The restoration of district systems is ongoing, but there also was another element of the attack: the exfiltration of data.
The hackers claimed to have stolen 500 gigabytes of data.
As part of its response, the district also set up a cybersecurity task force, and the school board has granted Carvalho emergency powers to take any related step he feels is necessary.
The internal systems most damaged were in the facilities division. Carvalho said it was necessary to create workarounds so that contractors could continue to be paid and repairs and construction could continue on schedule.
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German Brews And Brats Return To Gilbert Oktoberfest AZ Big Media
German Brews And Brats Return To Gilbert Oktoberfest – AZ Big Media https://digitalarizonanews.com/german-brews-and-brats-return-to-gilbert-oktoberfest-az-big-media/
Event promotion company Forty8 Live! is kicking off autumn with Gilbert Oktoberfest on Saturday, Oct. 15 at Gilbert Regional Park (3005 E Queen Creek Rd.) From 2 to 9 p.m., attendees will enjoy an authentic, immersive Volksfest experience that will transport desert dwellers to the streets of Munich. Badfish: A Tribute to Sublime will be headlining the stage with their Sublime covers playing all of their biggest hits, incorporating modern day reggae, ska, hip-hop and rock cool vibes to Oktoberfest with a live performance, accompanied by Manuela Horn, known as the ‘Queen of Oktoberfest’, and her band “The Oktoburlesques.” Guests will also be greeted at the entrance by an Oompah band, a German brass musical ensemble named for its characteristic rhythmical sound.
“In anticipation of increased attendance, we’re bringing back Gilbert Oktoberfest with more cooling amenities, authentic German beer and food catering, and activities for guests of all ages to enjoy”, said David Horen, director of events at Forty8 Live! “Lace up your dirndl, throw on your lenderhosen, grab a stein and let the good times roll.”
Local breweries OHSO, Uncle Bears, Desert Monks, 12 West, 4 Silos and Flying Bassett will serve Bavarian beers all day long, with German vendors providing bratwurst, pretzels and fresh catered meals to pair. Attendees seeking to prove the might of their guns and guts can participate in a stein holding and sausage eating competition. Children will have access to a free kid’s entertainment zone, as well as yard games like cornhole, Giant Jenga and Kong Pong.
“If it’s perfectly spiced sausages, streusel and high-quality brews you’re craving, Gilbert Oktoberfest is the perfect place to stay close to home and get your fix,” said Mike O’Donnell, director of partnerships at Forty8 Live! “We’re excited to support local businesses in the community while still providing the Valley with flavors from across the world!”
Badfish: A Tribute to Sublime channels the energy and unique sound of ska band Sublime with its own unique flavor. Manuela Horn, known by her stage name as the ‘Queen of Oktoberfest’, and her band “The Oktoberlesques” will perform humorous, ‘beer-centric’ covers of top 40 hits to set a lighthearted mood.
Ticket pricing will start at $18 plus fees for general admission. To purchase tickets, visit www.Forty8Live.com
For ticketing, venue information, directions to the event, all performing talent and more, please visit www.Forty8Live.com
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Stock Futures Turn Slightly Positive After Dow S&P 500 Cap Worst Month Since March 2020
Stock Futures Turn Slightly Positive After Dow, S&P 500 Cap Worst Month Since March 2020 https://digitalarizonanews.com/stock-futures-turn-slightly-positive-after-dow-sp-500-cap-worst-month-since-march-2020/
Traders on the floor of the NYSE, Sept 7, 2022.
Source: NYSE
Stock futures rose slightly in overnight trading Sunday after Wall Street wrapped up another negative quarter and both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average finished their worst month since March 2020.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 100 points, or 0.35%, while S&P 500 added 0.22%. Nasdaq 100 futures traded flat.
Friday capped off a negative month and quarter for all the major averages, with the Dow falling 500.10 points, or 1.71%, to close below 29,000 for the first time since November 2020.
For the quarter, the Dow fell 6.66% to notch a three-quarter losing streak for the first time since the third quarter of 2015. Both the S&P and Nasdaq Composite fell 5.28% and 4.11%, respectively, to finish their third consecutive negative quarter for the first time since 2009.
The Dow shed 8.8% in September, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite lost 9.3% and 10.5%, respectively. All the major averages also recorded their sixth negative week in seven.
Heading into the new quarter, all S&P 500 sectors sit at least 10% off their 52-week highs. Nine sectors finished the quarter in negative territory. Consumer discretionary was the best performer, gaining more than 4.1%.
In the fourth quarter, elevated inflation and a Federal Reserve intent on bringing surging prices to a halt regardless of what it means for the economy will likely continue to weigh on markets, said Truist’s Keith Lerner. Oversold conditions, however, also make the market vulnerable to a sharp short-term bounce on good news, he added.
“I think we could be set up for some type of reprieve but the underlying trend at this point is still a downward trend and choppy waters to continue,” Lerner said.
On the economic front, Markit PMI and ISM manufacturing data are slated for release on Monday along with construction spending.
Data suggests bigger S&P 500 drawdowns offer a greater potential return, LPL Financial’s Gilbert says
Markets have sold off heavily this year with the S&P 500 starting October down nearly 25%.
While the outlook is murky ahead, historical data analyzed by LPL Financial’s Barry Gilbert indicates that the average one-year return on the S&P 500 improves the more significant the pullback.
According to Gilbert, the one-year average return increases steadily beyond a 10% pullback in the market and as the selloff worsens. When the market is down between 20% and 25% — in line with current times — the return is 11.5% on average one year later.
“When markets are down, the natural bias is to sell,” he said in a note to clients Friday. “But looking at history, the more the S&P 500 is down, the better it does in the next year, on average.”
— Samantha Subin
Where all the major averages stand as the fourth quarter begins
The final quarter of 2022 is set to kick off Monday and cap off what’s been a brutal year for the markets. Here’s where all the major averages stand ahead of Monday’s trading session.
Dow Jones Industrial Average:
Down 20.95% for the year
Sits 22.26% off its 52-week highs
Finished its worst month since March 2020
Capped its third consecutive down quarter for the first time since the third quarter of 2015
S&P 500:
Down 24.77% this year
25.59% off its 52-week high
Finished its worst month since March 2020
Closed out its third negative quarter in a row for the first time since its six-quarter streak that ended the first quarter of 2009
Nasdaq Composite:
Down 27.4% this year
34.77% off its 52-week highs
September marked its worst month since April 2022
Finished its third consecutive negative quarter in a row for the first time since its three-quarter streak ending the first period of 2009.
— Chris Hayes, Samantha Subin
Stock futures open slightly lower
Stocks futures opened slightly lower in overnight trading on Sunday.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 15 points, or 0.05%, while S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures shed 0.19% and 0.42%, respectively.
— Samantha Subin
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Biden Pledge To Make Federal Fleet Electric Faces Slow Start
Biden Pledge To Make Federal Fleet Electric Faces Slow Start https://digitalarizonanews.com/biden-pledge-to-make-federal-fleet-electric-faces-slow-start/
President Joe Biden, a self-described “car guy,″ often promises to lead by example on climate change by moving swiftly to convert the sprawling U.S. government fleet to zero-emission electric vehicles. But efforts to eliminate gas-powered vehicles from the fleet have lagged.
Biden last year directed the U.S. government to purchase only American-made, zero-emission passenger cars by 2027 and electric versions of other vehicles by 2035.
“We’re going to harness the purchasing power of the federal government to buy clean, zero-emission vehicles,” the president said soon after his January 2021 inauguration. He has since used photo ops — taking a spin in Ford Motor Co.’s electric F-150 pickup truck, or driving GM’s Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV at the Detroit auto show — to promote their potential. Cabinet officials have hawked a first set of Ford Mustang Mach-E SUVs in use at the departments of Energy and Transportation.
The White House frequently describes the 2027 timeline as on track. But the General Services Administration, the agency that purchases two-thirds of the 656,000-vehicle federal fleet, says there are no guarantees.
Then there is the U.S. Postal Service, which owns the remaining one-third of the federal fleet. After initially balking and facing lawsuits, the agency now says that half of its initial purchase of 50,000 next-generation vehicles will be powered by electricity. The first set of postal vehicles will hit delivery routes late next year.
Climate advocates say that agency can do even better.
“USPS should now go all-electric or virtually all electric with its new vehicles,″ said Luke Tonachel, senior director of clean vehicles and buildings at the Natural Resources Defense Council, citing an additional $3 billion in federal spending targeted for the postal fleet under the landmark climate law Biden signed last month.
About 30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector, making it the single largest source of planet-warming emissions in the country.
Electrification of the federal fleet is a “cornerstone” of Biden’s efforts to decarbonize the federal government, said Andrew Mayock, chief federal sustainability officer for the White House.
“The future is electric, and the federal government has built a strong foundation … that’s going to deliver on this journey we’re on over the next decade,″ he said in an interview.
Excluding the Postal Service, about 13% of new light-duty vehicles purchased across the government this year, or about 3,550, were “zero emissions,” according to administration figures provided to The Associated Press. The government defines zero emissions as either electric or plug-in hybrid, which technically has a gas-burning engine. That compares with just under 2% in the 2021 budget year and less than 1% in 2020.
Nationwide, about 6% of new car sales are electric.
When it comes to vehicles actually on the road, the federal numbers are even smaller. Many of the purchases in recent months won’t be delivered for as long as a year due to supply chain problems.
Currently just 1,799 of the 656,000-vehicle federal fleet are zero-emissions vehicles.
At a rate of 35,000 to 50,000 GSA car purchases a year, it will take years, if not decades, to convert the entire fleet.
“It hasn’t been exactly a fast start,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal mobility analyst for Guidehouse Insight. “It’s going to be challenging for them probably for at least the next year or two to really accelerate that pace.”
Christina S. Kingsland, who directs the business management division for the federal fleet at GSA, said “the federal fleet is a working fleet.”
The agency pointed to a limited EV supply from automakers with big upfront costs. In addition, it said the needs of agencies are often highly specialized, from Interior Department pickup trucks on large rural tribal reservations to hulking Department of Homeland Security SUVs along the U.S. border.
Agencies also need easy access to public EV charging stations. The White House has acknowledged agencies are “way behind” on their own charging infrastructure, with roughly 600 charging stations and 2,000 total chargers nationwide.
While Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law provides $7.5 billion to states to build out an EV charging network of up to 500,000 chargers over several years along interstate highways, no money from that law was earmarked for federal agencies’ specialized needs. Money for charging stations must be allocated in each department’s budget.
Meeting Biden’s goal for the federal fleet is contingent on industry increasing production as predicted beginning in 2025 and 2026, analysts say. By that time, the effects of big federal investments to build public chargers and boost EV manufacturing in the U.S. will likely be felt alongside tougher rules for automakers to curtail tailpipe emissions.
GM, for example, has set a target of 1 million EV annual production capacity worldwide by 2025, while Ford expects to make 2 million EVs globally by 2026. Stellantis also is cranking up production capacity and is getting ready to launch a whole slate of new EVs.
The White House has declined to set a specific goal for EV purchases in 2023, but Mayock said he expects the number to be higher than 13%.
While the Postal Service is an independent agency, it plays an essential role in fleet electrification, not only because it owns 234,000 vehicles in the federal fleet, but also because the familiar blue-and-white mail trucks are by far the most visible federal vehicle, rolling into neighborhoods across America each day.
The agency plans to buy up to 165,000 of next-generation vehicles over a decade. The Postal Service remains “committed to reducing our carbon footprint in many areas of our operations and expanding the use of EVs in our fleet is a priority,″ said spokesperson Kim Frum.
White House officials say government EV purchases can only increase exponentially after a near-zero baseline a few years ago under President Donald Trump, who sought to loosen fuel economy requirements for gas-powered vehicles and proposed doing away with a federal tax credit for electric cars.
At a recent EV demonstration at a Federal Law Enforcement Training Center outside Washington, officers test-drove EVs outfitted for police use, including the Ford Mustang Mach-E. Officers were impressed with the EV’s acceleration and “nimbleness,″ Mayock said, calling the test drives “a big change-management moment″ for the government.
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Democratic Lawmaker Slams Capitalism Calls America 'a Nation Based On Grift'
Democratic Lawmaker Slams Capitalism, Calls America 'a Nation Based On Grift' https://digitalarizonanews.com/democratic-lawmaker-slams-capitalism-calls-america-a-nation-based-on-grift/
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., bashed the Republican Party for “worshiping” on the “altar” of free market capitalism on SiriusXM’s “The Dean Obeidallah Show” Friday.
“They [Republicans] don’t want government to work. Isn’t that the essence of it? When government is helping people, it undermines their reason for being as a party,” Obeidallah opined.
Pocan responded, “This is the fundamental core of what they believe in, right, that somehow the market should be what drives things, not democrative [sic] decision-making.”
DEMOCRATS LOSE GROUND TO REPUBLICANS WITH LATINO VOTERS AHEAD OF 2022 MIDTERM ELECTIONS
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) speaks at breakout session “Making Congress Listen: How to Transform Trump Anger and Movement Energy into Victories on Capitol Hill” at the Netroots Nation annual conference for political progressives in Atlanta, U.S. August 11, 2017. (REUTERS/Christopher Aluka Berry)
“Ultimately, we’re watching the wealthy get way too wealthy. Corporations aren’t paying any of their fair share, I was so glad to see what we did in the Inflation Reduction Act by having a minium corporate tax, but I guarantee within the next two years they’ll find a massive loophole and once again we’ll be fighting the same fight. Until we decide that actually people through a democracy make the decisions rather than somehow the free market is the altar that we’re worshiping on that’s going to be the problem that we’re going to face,” Pocan continued.
“Trump is like the ultimate example of a shitty capitalist,” Pocan went on. “He’s the example of a guy who’s a constant grifter, even as president the guy’s a grifter.”
“You can’t have a nation based on grift and have it sustainable,” he said.
GLOBAL ELITES ARE PUSHING FOR A FUTURE WHERE YOUR DIGITAL MONEY CAN ‘EXPIRE’: LAYAH HEILPERN
Former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., Wednesday, July 7, 2021. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Pocan’s comments do not represent the first time a prominent Democrat has criticized capitalism. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Mich., has previously called for the destruction of America’s political and economic systems, which she describes as oppressive.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., another member of the “Squad”, also has been critical of America’s capitalist system. She recently attempted to spark a bank run against J.P. Morgan Chase after its CEO refused to abide by her extremist climate demands.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-WI, criticized America’s capitalist system. (iStock)
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Defenders of the capitalist system argue that, while imperfect, capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty around the world than any other system that previously existed.
Joe Silverstein is a production assistant for Fox News Digital.
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WATCH: SNL Season Opener Pokes Fun At Overdone Trump Sketches Not Covering Biden
WATCH: SNL Season Opener Pokes Fun At Overdone Trump Sketches, Not Covering Biden https://digitalarizonanews.com/watch-snl-season-opener-pokes-fun-at-overdone-trump-sketches-not-covering-biden/
October 02, 2022 07:12 PM
The new cast of Saturday Night Live kicked off its 48th season cold opener with some self-deprecating humor.
Guest host Miles Teller impersonated Peyton Manning in a sketch that broke the fourth wall. Teller commented on the SNL sketch as it happened, complaining about another skit about former President Donald Trump when President Joe Biden had such low voter approval. The show has notoriously had a host of famous names, including Alec Baldwin, and cast members impersonate the former president in sketches over the years.
“Oh, good, Trump sketch. Way to mix it up,” Teller said as Manning. “A political impression that no one asked for. What about a fun impression like Anthony Fauci or Lindsey Graham or Rudy Giuliani?”
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE ADDS ITS FIRST OPENLY NONBINARY PERSON TO CAST FOR 48TH SEASON
“Those were all Kate McKinnon,” Andrew Dismukes said, impersonating Eli Manning. McKinnon left the show after its 47th season, along with Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson, Kyle Mooney, Aristotle Athari, Alex Moffat, Chris Redd, and Melissa Villaseñor.
The cold open clip was number one trending on YouTube by Sunday with over 480,000 views. SNL won the Emmy for outstanding variety show last month, an award it also won the previous year.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
SNL’s 47th season premiere recorded only 4.9 million total viewers, while its season 46 premiere in 2020 raked in over 8.2 million viewers, per a Nielsen report. Numbers from this weekend’s season premiere have yet to be released.
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AP News Summary At 6:37 P.m. EDT https://digitalarizonanews.com/ap-news-summary-at-637-p-m-edt/
10 torture sites in 1 town: Russia sowed pain, fear in Izium
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — An Associated Press investigation has found that Russian torture in the Ukrainian town of Izium was arbitrary, widespread and absolutely routine for both civilians and soldiers. AP journalists located 10 torture sites in the town, including a deep sunless pit in a residential compound, a clammy underground jail that reeked of urine, a medical clinic, and a kindergarten. AP also spoke to 15 survivors of Russian torture and confirmed the deaths of eight men. All but one were civilians. The AP also found a former Ukrainian soldier who was tortured three times hiding in a monastery, and connected him with loved ones. The town has now been liberated by Ukrainian forces.
Brazil counting votes in historic race of Lula vs. Bolsonaro
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s electoral authority was tallying votes Sunday night in Brazil in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years. The race pits far-right President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Recent polls have given da Silva a commanding lead, pointing to a chance that he might win the first round outright, without need for a runoff. Da Silva would have to get more than 50% of the votes cast Sunday, topping the total vote for Bolsonaro and the other nine candidates.
Ukraine presses on with counteroffensive; Russia uses drones
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia has attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown with suicide drones. This comes as Ukraine has pushed ahead with its counteroffensive that has embarrassed the Kremlin. Ukraine took back control of the strategic eastern city of Lyman, which Russia had been using as a transport and logistics hub. That’s a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine. Photos circulating online pointed to some battlefield movement for Ukraine, showing Ukrainian soldiers entering what appeared to be newly retaken settlements in the south and east. Pope Francis, meanwhile, on Sunday decried Russia’s nuclear threats against the West and appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop “this spiral of violence and death.”
125 die as tear gas triggers crush at Indonesia soccer match
MALANG, Indonesia (AP) — Police firing tear gas after an Indonesian soccer match in an attempt to stop violence triggered a disastrous crush of fans that has left at least 125 people dead. Attention immediately focused on police crowd-control measures at Saturday night’s match between host Arema FC of East Java’s Malang city and Persebaya Surabaya. Witnesses described officers beating them with sticks and shields before shooting tear gas canisters directly into the crowds. President Joko Widodo ordered an investigation of security procedures and the president of FIFA called the deaths “a dark day for all involved in football and a tragedy beyond comprehension.” While FIFA has no control over domestic games, it has advised against the use of tear gas at soccer stadiums.
Feds vow major aid for Hurricane Ian victims amid rescues
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — U.S. officials say they are vowing to unleash a massive amount of federal aid in response to Hurricane Ian as the death toll rises amid recovery efforts. Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Deanne Criswell said Sunday that the government is ready to provide help days after Ian came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane and carved a deadly path of destruction through Florida and into the Carolinas. The monster storm killed at least 54 people, including 47 in Florida, and hundreds of thousands of people and businesses remain without power. Officials warn that flooding could still worsen in parts of Florida because all the rain that fell has nowhere to go, with waterways already overflowing.
Ian is long gone but water keeps rising in central Florida
GENEVA, Fla. (AP) — Residents living in parts of central Florida donned fishing waders, boots and bug spray and canoed or kayaked their way to their homes on streets where floodwaters continued rising Sunday despite it being four days since Hurricane Ian tore through the state. The waters flooded homes and streets that had been passable just a day or two earlier. Ben Bertat found 4 inches of water in his house by Lake Harney off North Jungle street in a rural part of Seminole County north of Orlando after kayaking to it Sunday morning. Only a day earlier, there had been no water.
Ousted Burkina Faso leader leaves country for Togo
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Diplomats say that Burkina Faso’s ousted coup leader Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba has left the country and headed to Togo. Mediators had said earlier Sunday that Damiba agreed to resign so long as his security and other conditions are met. The junta now in charge in Burkina Faso earlier in the day had declared that Capt. Ibrahim Traore was head of state. The formal announcement came after the new coup on Friday, the country’s second this year. Damiba, who came to power in a January coup, saw his popularity plummet as violence linked to Islamic extremists continued across the country.
Yemen’s warring sides fail to extend UN-backed truce
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The United Nations says that negotiations between Yemen’s warring sides have failed to extend a nationwide cease-fire, after an agreement was not reached before a deadline on Sunday. In a statement, the U.N.’s envoy to Yemen called on all sides to refrain from acts of provocation as the talks continue. The development dampers hopes that the 6-month-old ceasefire could have turned into a longer peace. The truce, which initially took effect in April, is the longest lull of fighting in Yemen’s civil war, now in its eighth year. The brutal conflict began in 2014, when the Iranian-backed Houthis seized the capital of Sanaa and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile.
AP Top 25: Tide retakes No. 1 from UGA; Kansas snaps drought
Alabama reclaimed No. 1 from Georgia in The Associated Press college football poll in one of the closest votes in the recent years. Two points separate the Crimson Tide from the Bulldogs. Six teams including Kansas made their season debut in the AP Top 25. The Jayhawks are ranked for the first time since 2009, which was the longest drought among current Power Five conference teams. The Crimson Tide received 25 first-place votes and 1,523 points. Georgia got 28 first-place votes to become the first team since Alabama in November 2019 to have the most first-place votes but not be No. 1.
Trump: ‘King’ to some in Pennsylvania, but will it help GOP?
MONONGAHELA, Pa. (AP) — The enthusiasm for Donald Trump’s brand of nationalist populism has cut into traditional Democratic strongholds in places such as Monongahela in western Pennsylvania. That’s where House Republicans recently outlined their election-year campaign agenda, called “Commitment to America.” They’re hoping they can tap into the same political sentiment Trump used to attract voters. But it’s not clear whether the support that propelled Trump to the White House will be there on Election Day this November. Just as challenging for the Republican Party is whether Trump’s false claims of voter fraud will hurt the GOP if voters decide to sit out the election.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Their Paradise Lost To Ian Sanibel Residents Hope Its Spirit Survives
Their Paradise Lost To Ian, Sanibel Residents Hope Its Spirit Survives https://digitalarizonanews.com/their-paradise-lost-to-ian-sanibel-residents-hope-its-spirit-survives/
SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. — Crossing the causeway bridge from the mainland, visitors’ first glimpse of this cherished Gulf Coast getaway was often Point Ybel Light, an iron tower built in 1884 at the tip of the 33 square-mile spit of land, surrounded by a thick green mix of palms and seagrapes. Spot the lighthouse, and you had reached paradise.
The barrier island was home to 6,500 locals, but that swelled during the winter to 20,000 retirees, tourists and other seasonal residents, many of them Midwesterners seeking relief from frigid climates. Locals list famous visitors, from Denzel Washington to Johnny Depp, Eric Clapton to former vice president Mike Pence.
Seashell collectors came to scour Sanibel’s beaches, renowned for their diverse bounty. Birdwatchers frequented its nature preserves; golfers its resorts. They built multimillion-dollar mansions or bought mobile homes, then rubbed shoulders at businesses on Periwinkle Way, at The Sandbar, Tipsy Turtle and Jerry’s Foods.
The lighthouse survived Hurricane Ian, but the storm devastated much of the rest of Sanibel. It tore homes and apartment complexes apart, killing some residents. It flooded Periwinkle businesses, mobile home parks, condos and resorts, knocking out power, water and a stretch of the causeway, filling streets with debris and sticky gray mud. No one knows how long it will take to rebuild — much hinges on the three-mile bridge officials haven’t said will be repaired any time soon — or how lasting the damage will be to the barrier island’s spirit.
Many living on the island evacuated before the storm and have not been allowed back. On Saturday, the fire department warned holdouts that Sunday was the last day they’d be driven from their homes to the makeshift ferry service at the Sanibel Boat Ramp. It was clear that some were staying: They could be seen bicycling to spots with cellphone reception, to the grocery store or to the beach to take makeshift baths.
At a briefing late Saturday in a Fort Myers hotel, Sanibel’s temporary city hall, City Manager Dana Souza stressed the island wasn’t yet safe for Sanibelians.
“Sanibel remains under a 24-hour curfew, and we ask people not to go to the island,” Souza said, urging those on the island to evacuate and noting that about a hundred left Saturday. “We don’t want people staying on the island. We know that you’re anxious to do that, but it’s still a dangerous situation out there.”
He said there have been four fatalities so far, but that searches and rescues were still underway and National Guard troops were expected to arrive Sunday. On Saturday, police escorted several people from the island after they were caught stealing property, he said.
Souza and Sanibel Mayor Holly Smith faced a barrage of questions from homeowners, business owners, renters and seasonal residents about how they could rebuild remotely, many of which depended on restoring the causeway bridge, which one man called the island’s “umbilical cord.”
“What do you tentatively foresee as time for life on the island again, with the causeway sustaining life on the island?” a woman asked.
Kyle Sweet, 51, lives on the east end but works to the west, as superintendent at The Sanctuary Golf Club. Driving by the boat ramp Saturday, he said the west end’s power lines and poles sustained far more damage, and would likely take months to repair.
“This area will be sooner to recover, and the Periwinkle downtown area,” he said.
Beside the damaged causeway, volunteers ran ferryboats and small groups of residents formed at the boat ramp, the island’s new hot spot. It was one of the few areas on Sanibel with decent cellphone service.
“They’re all great friends. I don’t know who’s going to stay or go,” said Captain Paul Primeaux as he sat with one group.
Primeaux runs Sanibel & Captiva Fishing Charters, and has been an island institution for 20 years. Neighbors waiting with him near the dock listened as he took stock of which Sanibel landmarks had weathered the storm.
The Lazy Flamingo, Tipsy Turtle and other Periwinkle restaurants were battered. Jerry’s survived. He wasn’t sure about George and Wendy’s Sanibel Seafood Grille.
“Shalimar Hotel was scraped clean,” Primeaux said, his face grim. “Beachview Cottages: Wiped.”
His house?
“Done. I’m ground level,” he said, adding, “The Mucky Duck survived.”
Bob Butterfield grinned. Butterfield, 38, was a server and bartender at the restaurant. Others would rebuild too, he was sure. But that didn’t mean they would truly restore Sanibel.
“It’s going to be weird to see everything new. It’s going to ruin that old island look,” Butterfield said.
Neighbor Robin Roberts, 39, was working as a bartender at The Island Cow until it caught fire in August. Before the owner could rebuild, the hurricane struck.
“It’s just destroyed now,” she said.
Roberts had been working more recently at Cips Place Restaurant, she said, but when she visited after the storm, “It looked pretty bad, too.”
Bailey’s Grocery Store & Deli survived, said June Bailey, 84, whose family built Sanibel in the 1800s, including the general store that became Bailey’s and was still family-run.
On Saturday, she was escorting her grandson to the mainland on the ferry while his parents spent one more day cleaning their home. Dylan Stevens, 13, said he was a 7th grader at Sanibel Elementary, but, “I guess that’s not going to be operational.”
Bailey, a retired executive secretary now hosting evacuated family at her home in Fort Myers, wasn’t sure how long it would take to rebuild the island. “I just hope they recover fairly soon,” she said.
Much will depend on how fast officials rebuild the bridge, a lifeline to mainland Florida for Sanibel’s residents and economy.
“The big wild card for everyone is the causeway. Repairing is going to be slow,” said Primeaux, the charter captain. And that will delay the supplies necessary to rebuild everything else, he said, “and the tourists we all rely on.”
Yet even in the wake of the disaster, the island exerted its familiar pull: With so much work to do, many were torn about leaving.
Lorraine Regan, 57, a gym teacher and mother of four from coastal New Jersey, retired to Sanibel this summer to live in her late grandmother’s ranch house. She bought a condo at Seawind Apartments to rent out, and that’s where she ended up surviving the storm, safe on the second floor while her first floor flooded. The hurricane inundated her grandmother’s house with storm water, churning the contents, leaving a muddy flood line inches from the ceiling and rendering it uninhabitable for now.
When a search and rescue team stopped by to check on her the day after the storm, Regan told them she was staying at her condo, which seemed structurally sound. Later, a passing police officer urged her to leave. But she’d already started cleaning muddy, flooded floors on the first story and was sleeping upstairs. She’d filled the bathtub with water before the storm hit Wednesday, and had enough food to last for days. Sometimes she walked to the local fire station to get water and sandwiches.
“All I thought is if I can try to salvage this place,” she said as she stood in the muddy living room. Before the storm, she had rented the condo to someone for three months starting in January. “But that’s not going to happen,” she said.
She missed her neighbors, most of whom had evacuated before the storm, leaving their street, East Gulf Drive, eerily silent even at midday.
“It’s pretty desolate,” Regan said, but she has her condo and her Havapoo dog, Lola.
Her children live far away, in Chicago, Nashville and Washington, D.C. Regan said she knows shelters on the mainland allow people to bring pets, but she doesn’t feel safe going to one.
“I’ve already put my life in jeopardy once,” she said as she walked over to check on her late grandmother’s flooded house on Beach Road, now nearly blocked by fallen trees and an errant boat. “I’m not doing it again.”
Down Beach Road, where a muddy footpath connects it to Bailey Road, longtime residents Flor and Mario Cruz were surveying their blue and white rental cottage before evacuating. They pointed to the roof, which had been ripped off by Ian as they sheltered in a neighbor’s million-dollar elevated home across the street.
Natives of Yucatán, Mexico, the Cruzes had lived on the island for 20 years. Mario Cruz, 60, worked as a cook at the Bubble Room restaurant on nearby Captiva Island. He was wearing his black work shirt, one of the few belongings he was able to salvage.
“We threw away almost everything,” he said.
They planned to stay at a shelter on the mainland. When a Sanibel police officer arrived with a search and rescue crew in a pickup truck to take the couple to the evacuation ferry, Flor Cruz, 57, joked: “Where am I going, Disneyland?”
“I love your spirit,” the officer said.
“What do I do, cry?” Mario Cruz said, smiling ruefully.
“I know,” the officer said, leading them to the truck, “Let’s get you off this island.”
A barge was expected to arrive this weekend to carry construction, fire and police equipment to the island, city manager Souza said. Once a structural safety team arrives Monday and completes inspections starting at the island’s east end, residents in those areas will be allowed to return for day-long visits via the barge or boats the city had arranged with space for 40 passengers, he said.
The island’s main roads have been cleared by city crews, along with about 80 percent of roads on Sanibel’s more heavily populated east end, home to the main business district. But crews have only restored enough water to supply first responders and city hall. More than half of the wastewater pump stations were damaged by salt water, and it wasn’t clear how soon power would return, Souza said.
Search and rescue...
AP News In Brief At 6:04 P.m. EDT https://digitalarizonanews.com/ap-news-in-brief-at-604-p-m-edt-2/
10 torture sites in 1 town: Russia sowed pain, fear in Izium
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — The first time the Russian soldiers caught him, they tossed him bound and blindfolded into a trench covered with wooden boards for days on end.
Then they beat him, over and over: Legs, arms, a hammer to the knees, all accompanied by furious diatribes against Ukraine. Before they let him go, they took away his passport and Ukrainian military ID — all he had to prove his existence — and made sure he knew exactly how worthless his life was.
“No one needs you,” the commander taunted. “We can shoot you any time, bury you a half-meter underground and that’s it.”
The brutal encounter at the end of March was just the start. Andriy Kotsar would be captured and tortured twice more by Russian forces in Izium, and the pain would be even worse.
Russian torture in Izium was arbitrary, widespread and absolutely routine for both civilians and soldiers throughout the city, an Associated Press investigation has found. While torture was also evident in Bucha, that devastated Kyiv suburb was only occupied for a month. Izium served as a hub for Russian soldiers for nearly seven months, during which they established torture sites everywhere.
Brazil counting votes in historic race of Lula vs. Bolsonaro
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s electoral authority was tallying votes Sunday night in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years.
The race pits incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There are nine other candidates, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva. With 20.3% of votes counted, Bolsonaro had 47.9%, ahead of da Silva with 43.3%.
Recent opinion polls have given da Silva a commanding lead — the last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva among those who intended to vote. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of two percentage points.
Fernanda Reznik, a 48-year-old health worker, wore a red T-shirt — a color associated with da Silva’s Workers’ Party — to vote in Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana neighborhood, where pro-Bolsonaro demonstrators often congregate, and had been waiting in line for 40 minutes.
“I’ll wait three hours if I have to!” said Reznik, who no longer bothers talking politics with neighbors who favor Bolsonaro. “This year the election is more important, because we already went through four years of Bolsonaro and today we can make a difference and give this country another direction.”
Ukraine presses on with counteroffensive; Russia uses drones
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown and other targets Sunday with suicide drones, and Ukraine took back full control of a strategic eastern city in a counteroffensive that has reshaped the war.
Russia’s loss of the eastern city of Lyman, which it had been using as a transport and logistics hub, is a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine and heightening threats to use nuclear force.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s land grab has threatened to push the conflict to a dangerous new level. It also prompted Ukraine to formally apply for fast-track NATO membership.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Sunday that his forces now control Lyman: “As of 12:30 p.m. (0930 GMT) Lyman is cleared fully. Thank you to our militaries, our warriors,” he said in a video address.
Russia’s military didn’t comment Sunday on Lyman, after announcing Saturday that it was withdrawing its forces there to more favorable positions.
125 die as tear gas triggers crush at Indonesia soccer match
MALANG, Indonesia (AP) — Police firing tear gas after an Indonesian soccer match in an attempt to stop violence triggered a disastrous crush of fans making a panicked, chaotic run for the exits, leaving at least 125 people dead, most of them trampled upon or suffocated.
Attention immediately focused on police crowd-control measures at Saturday night’s match between host Arema FC of East Java’s Malang city and Persebaya Surabaya. Witnesses described officers beating them with sticks and shields before shooting tear gas canisters directly into the crowds.
It was among the deadliest disasters ever at a sporting event. President Joko Widodo ordered an investigation of security procedures, and the president of FIFA called the deaths “a dark day for all involved in football and a tragedy beyond comprehension.” While FIFA has no control over domestic games, it has advised against the use of tear gas at soccer stadiums.
Brawls are common among rival Indonesian soccer fans, so much so that the organizer had banned Persebaya supporters from Arema’s stadium. But violence still broke out when the home team lost 3-2 and some of the 42,000 Arema fans, known as “Aremania,” threw bottles and other objects at players and soccer officials.
Witnesses said the fans flooded the Kanjuruhan Stadium pitch and demanded that Arema management explain why, after 23 years of undefeated home matches against Persebaya, this one ended in a defeat.
Feds vow major aid for Hurricane Ian victims amid rescues
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — With the death toll from Hurricane Ian rising and hundreds of thousands of people without power in Florida and the Carolinas, U.S. officials vowed Sunday to unleash an unprecedented amount of federal disaster aid as crews scrambled to rescue people still trapped by floodwaters.
Days after Ian tore through central Florida, carving a deadly path of destruction into the Carolinas, water levels continued to rise in some flooded areas, inundating homes and streets that were passable just a day or two earlier.
With branches strewn across the grounds of St. Hillary’s Episcopal Church in Ft. Myers, the Rev. Charles Cannon recognized the immense loss during his Sunday sermon but also gave thanks for what remained. That included the church’s stained-glass windows and steeple.
“People think they have lost everything, but you haven’t lost everything if you haven’t lost yourself,” he said.
Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the federal government was ready to help in a huge way, focusing first on victims in Florida, which took the brunt of one of the strongest storms to make landfall in the United States. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to visit the state on Wednesday.
Ian is long gone but water keeps rising in central Florida
GENEVA, Fla. (AP) — Residents in central Florida donned fishing waders, boots and bug spray and canoed or kayaked to their homes on streets where floodwaters continued rising Sunday despite it being four days since Hurricane Ian tore through the state.
The waters flooded homes and streets that had been passable just a day or two earlier.
Ben Bertat found 4 inches (10 centimeters) of water in his house by Lake Harney off North Jungle Street in a rural part of Seminole County, north of Orlando, after kayaking to it Sunday morning. Only a day earlier, there had been no water.
“I think it’s going to get worse because all of this water has to get to the lake” said Bertat, pointing to the water flooding the road. “With ground saturation, all this swamp is full and it just can’t take any more water. It doesn’t look like it’s getting any lower.”
Gabriel Madling kayaked through 3 feet (1 meter) of water on his street, delivering sandbags to stave off water that was 2 inches (5 centimeters) from entering his home.
Ousted Burkina Faso leader leaves country for Togo
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Burkina Faso’s ousted coup leader Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba left the country for Togo Sunday two days after he himself was overthrown in a coup, while the new junta urged citizens not to loot or vandalize.
Damiba’s departure was confirmed by two diplomats who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. It was not known whether Togo was his final destination.
Earlier Sunday, religious leaders who had mediated between the factions said that Damiba had offered his resignation as long as his security and other conditions were met. A junta representative later announced on state television that their leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traore, officially has been named head of state following the Friday coup that ousted Damiba.
Their power grab marked Burkina Faso’s second military coup this year, deepening fears that the political chaos could divert attention from an Islamic insurgency whose violence has killed thousands and forced 2 million to flee their homes. It followed unrest in Ouagadougou, the capital, in which mobs on Saturday attacked the French embassy and other French-related sites, wrongly believing that they were sheltering Damiba.
Along with agreeing not to harm or prosecute him, Damiba also asked Traore and the new junta leadership to respect the commitments already made to the West African regional bloc ECOWAS. Damiba, who came to power in a coup last January, had recently reached an agreement to hold an election by 2024.
Yemen’s warring sides fail to extend UN-backed truce
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemen’s warring sides have failed to reach an agreement to extend a nationwide cease-fire, the U.N. said Sunday, endangering the longest lull in fighting since the country’s bloody civil war began.
In a statement, the U.N.’s envoy to Yemen called on all sides to refrain from acts of provocation as the talks continue, after the deadline of Oct. 2 for extending the agreement was missed.
The U.N.-backed truce initially took effect in April, and raised hopes for a longer pause in fighting as...
Scottsdale Man Convicted Of $700,000 Tax Dodge https://digitalarizonanews.com/scottsdale-man-convicted-of-700000-tax-dodge/
TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — 34-year-old Ryan C. Patterson was found guilty by a federal jury on three counts of Tax Evasion.
Between the years 2014 and 2016 Patterson did not correctly report his income.
According to The Department of Justice (DOJ), Patterson failed to report over 1.9 million in gross income and avoided paying a combined total of $700,000 in taxes.
Court documents state Patterson owns or operates a number of construction or contracting businesses in the Phoenix area.
Patterson’s businesses offer services including flooring, restoration, remodeling, and plumbing.
The DOJ says he received checks from customers made out to him personally and then deposited the checks into his personal checking accounts.
Evidence at a trial show Patterson reported a loss of $38,000 in 2016. But he bought a primary residence for $445,000 along with other lavish expenditures in the same year.
Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation conducted the investigation in this case.
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Corey Salmon is a real-time editor and associate producer for KGUN 9. He was born in New York but has lived in Tucson for over 10 years. Share your story ideas and important issues with Corey by emailing corey.salmon@kgun9.com or by connecting on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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