Author: Reporter

Some of Trump’s 2020 fake electors in Wisconsin and other states still have roles in how 2024 race is run

Nearly two years after he signed false documents attempting to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 loss in Nevada, Jim Hindle thanked everyone gathered in a historic Nevada boomtown’s commission chambers and asked them to bear with him while he learned how to oversee elections in rural Storey County. Hindle was another replacement in what was a revolving door of county election officials across Nevada as the 2022 midterms approached. He had just unseated the interim clerk, who had stepped in after the prior clerk resigned. But Hindle’s tenure in the heavily Republican county is part of a trend across battleground...

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Longstanding Jewish allies feel ties strained as Black Americans shift to solidarity with Palestinians

Cydney Wallace, a Black Jewish community activist, never felt compelled to travel to Israel, though “next year in Jerusalem” was a constant refrain at her Chicago synagogue. The 39-year-old said she had plenty to focus on at home, where she frequently gives talks on addressing anti-Black sentiment in the American Jewish community and dismantling white supremacy in the U.S. “I know what I’m fighting for here,” she said. That all changed when she visited Israel and the West Bank at the invitation of a Palestinian American community organizer from Chicago’s south side, along with two dozen other Black Americans...

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Killed on sight: IDF mistakes shirtless hostages waving a white flag and pleading in Hebrew as Palestinians

Three Israeli hostages who were mistakenly shot by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip had been waving a white flag and were shirtless when they were killed, an Israeli military official said on December 16. Anger over the mistaken killings is likely to increase pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to renew Qatar-mediated negotiations with Hamas over swapping more captives for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. Hamas has conditioned further releases on Israel halting its punishing air and ground campaign in Gaza, now in its 11th week. The violent account of how the hostages died also raised questions about...

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Poisoning our blood: Trump invokes rhetoric against immigrants similar to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kempf”

Donald Trump, the criminally indicted Republican presidential front-runner in 2024, delivered alarming anti-immigrant remarks about “blood” purity, echoing Nazi slogans of World War II to cheers at a political rally. Speaking in the early-voting state of New Hampshire, Trump drew on words similar to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kempf” as the former U.S. president berated Biden’s team over the flow of migrants. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump said about the numbers of immigrants coming to the U.S. without immediate legal status. Ironically, two of his three wives were immigrants who lived in America for years before becoming...

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Few specifics reported on how local governments are spending billions of pandemic relief funds

Joplin officials say they have big plans for $13.8 million of pandemic relief funds the tornado-ravaged southwestern Missouri city received under a two-year-old federal law. Yet the latest federal records show none of the money has been spent, or even budgeted. In fact, about 6,300 cities and counties — nearly 1 in 4 nationwide — reported no expenditures as of this spring, according to an Associated Press analysis of data released by the U.S. Treasury Department. About 5,100 of those listed no projects — either planned or underway. So what gives? Is the money not needed? Are cities just...

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European Union snubs Russian dictator after agreeing to open membership negotiations with Ukraine

The European Union decided on December 14 to open accession negotiations with Ukraine, a significant moment and stunning reversal for a country at war that had struggled to find the backing for its membership aspirations and long faced obstinate opposition from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. European Council President Charles Michel, who was chairing a Brussels summit of the EU’s 27 leaders where the decision was made, called it “a clear signal of hope for their people and our continent.” Although the process between opening negotiations and Ukraine finally becoming a member could take many years, Ukrainian President Volodymyr...

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