Meerut Lok Sabha constituency: Check key candidates, polling date, result and other details
This Lok Sabha seat has been won by BJP since 2009. The party has replaced its present MP from Meerut with Arun Govil.
Years ago, Texas hustled to get kids on state health care. Now it’s kicking them off.
Texas’ recent unwinding of Medicaid and CHIP has been criticized, dropping more than a million people eligible for the health insurance programs. Decades ago, Texas officials got kids health insurance in record time.
1.7 million Texas households are set to lose monthly internet subsidy
The Affordable Connectivity Program provides a $30 monthly subsidy to help low-income households pay for internet service. The program is slated to run out of money at the end of the month.
James Carville warns Democratic Party seeing ‘horrifying’ numbers showing loss of young minority voters
Democratic strategist James Carville said Sunday that poll numbers showing the Democratic Party losing support among young minority voters are “horrifying” ahead of November’s presidential election. Carville, a former campaign strategist for former President Bill Clinton, made the comments on his podcast “Carville’s Classroom.” “I’ve been very vocal about this,” Carville said. “It’s horrifying our numbers among younger voters, particularly younger Blacks, younger Latinos … younger people of color. Particularly males.” “We’re not shedding them, they’re leaving in droves,” he added. JAMES CARVILLE SLAMS WOKENESS PUSHED BY DEMOCRATS AS A ‘GIANT, STUPID ARGUMENT,’ BLAMES ‘PREACHY FEMALES’ Last year, a Gallup survey found 66% of Black adults leaned or identified as a Democrat compared to 19% who said they either leaned or identified as a Republican, a 19-point dip from the advantage Democrats held in 2020 and the closest margin in at least 25 years. The poll also found 47% of Hispanics identified as Democrats while 35% identified as Republican. In 2021, 57% of Hispanics identified as Democrats and 26% described themselves as Republicans. Black and Hispanic voters are key Democratic voting blocs, and President Biden has also been losing support from both demographics, as he prepares to take on former President Trump in November. A USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll published in January found Biden’s support among Black voters was at 63%, a 24-point drop from the 87% he had in 2020. BIDEN CAMPAIGN RIPS PAGE FROM TRUMP PLAYBOOK WITH NAME-CALLING STRATEGY The poll also found that Trump had an advantage over Biden among Hispanic voters by a margin of 39% to 34% and voters under the age of 35 by a margin of 37% to 33%. A New York Times/Siena College poll released last month showed Trump ahead of Biden among Hispanic voters 46% to 40%. The survey also found Trump has the support of 23% of Black voters. Carville said Democrats must make the argument that the “consequences” of electing Trump to serve a second four-year term will impact young Black and Hispanic Americans for the next 35 years. “We’re not going to convince under-30, under-35, ‘Oh, we really built a great country for you,’” he said. “You’re looking at this job market … I don’t think you’re going to buy that.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP He said Democrats “need strong advocacy explaining to these youngsters what exactly they have at stake here.” “Forget birth control pills, forget reproductive rights, forget environmental protections, forget anything,” he added. This comes after Carville said in a recent interview with The New York Times that “preachy females” are to blame for Biden’s polling numbers. “A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females. Don’t drink beer. Don’t watch football. Don’t eat hamburgers. This is not good for you — the message is too feminine,” Carville said. “If you listen to Democratic elites — NPR is my go-to place for that — the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election. I’m like: ‘Well, 48 percent of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?’”
Tourist numbers up in post-war Afghanistan
His soldier son toured Afghanistan with fighters in his crosshairs, but US traveller Oscar Wells has a different objective – sightseeing promoted by the Taliban’s fledgling tourism sector. Marvelling at the 15th century Blue Mosque in northern Mazar-i-Sharif, 65-year-old Wells is among a small but rising number of travellers visiting Afghanistan since the war’s end. Decades of conflict made tourism in Afghanistan extremely rare, and while most violence has now abated, visitors are still confronted with extreme poverty, dilapidated cultural sites and scant hospitality infrastructure. They holiday under the austere control of the Taliban authorities, and without consular support, with most embassies evacuated following the fall of the Western-backed government in 2021. They must register with officials on arrival in each province, comply with a strict dress code and submit to searches at checkpoints. ISIL (ISIS) attacks also pose a potential threat in the country. The number of foreign tourists visiting Afghanistan rose 120 percent year on year in 2023, reaching nearly 5,200, according to official figures. The Taliban government has yet to be officially recognised by any country, in part because of its heavy restrictions on women, but it has welcomed foreign tourism. “Afghanistan’s enemies don’t present the country in a good light,” said Information and Culture Minister Khairullah Khairkhwa. “But if these people come and see what it’s really like,” he added, “they will definitely share a good image of it.” Wells, on a trip with travel company Untamed Borders, which also offers tours of Syria and Somalia, describes his visit as a way to connect with Afghanistan’s people. He describes a “sense of guilt for the departure” of United States troops. “I really felt we had a horrible exit, it created such a vacuum and disaster,” he said. “It’s good to help these people and keep relations.” For solo traveller Stefanie Meier, a 53-year-old US citizen who spent a month travelling from Kabul to Kandahar via Bamiyan and Herat in the west, it was a “bittersweet experience”. “I have been able to meet people I never thought I would meet, who told me about their life,” she said, adding that she did not face any issues as a woman on her own. She did experience “disbelief that people have to live like this”, she added. “The poverty, there are no jobs, women not being able to go to school, no future for them.” Adblock test (Why?)
Violence flares again in Haiti as PM questions promised political solution
Panic descends in Haiti’s capital as police and gangs exchange fire overnight, while political leaders continue to debate the formation of a transition council. Violence has flared again in Haiti, with gangs engaging in running gun battles with police, as the effort to push forward with a political solution to the crisis drags on. Gangs launched an armed attack overnight on Monday, clashing with police in the capital, Port-au-Prince. The violence came as Prime Minister Ariel Henry appeared to question the promised establishment of a transitional council, planned to oversee the instalment of a new government. Witnesses said gunfire broke out in the area of Champ de Mars, a big public park near the national palace, which is the presidential residence. The renewed violence, following weeks of chaos, ignited panic among residents. At least five people were reported to have been killed around the city overnight, while scores were trapped for hours in the city centre. At least four police officers were reported to have been wounded. Local media reports said police were forced to flee an armoured vehicle, which was then set on fire by the gangs. The violence flared as outgoing Prime Minister Ariel Henry cast doubt upon the promised formation of a broad transitional council. Racked for decades by poverty, natural disasters, political instability and gang violence, Haiti has had no president since the assassination of Jovenel Moise in 2021 and it has no sitting parliament. Its last election was held in 2016. It descended into chaos in late February, when the country’s powerful armed gangs launched a campaign of violence, attacking police stations, prisons, and the airport. More than 1,500 people were killed in the first three months of this year and about 60 were lynched by vigilante groups operating where police presence was lacking, according to a United Nations report. The gangs demanded that Henry, who took power without being elected following Moise’s death, step down. Henry, who remains stranded outside Haiti, announced on March 11 that he would do so once a transitional council, which would name a new prime minister, had been established. However, its formation has been mired in disagreement among political parties and other stakeholders since. Further raising the stakes, in a statement on Monday, Henry’s office suggested that the council has not yet been formed because Haiti’s constitution does not allow for such a body. Henry is seeking advice from CARICOM, the Caribbean regional body overseeing this urgent transition process, the statement said. Mexican citizens board a helicopter while being evacuated from Haiti by the Mexican Navy, in Port-au-Prince on Monday [Mexican Foreign Ministry/Handout via Reuters] In the meantime, as the gang violence continues, Haitians are ensnared in a severe humanitarian crisis with shortages of food, medicine and other basics. The new US ambassador to Haiti, Dennis Hankins, arrived in the country on Monday, as the United States and other nations continue evacuating their citizens. Mexico evacuated 34 of its nationals the same day, including seven minors and four diplomatic officials, on board a military ship. Adblock test (Why?)
Anti-Assad Syrians lead protests against prison torture by rebel group
Binnish, Syria – Despite the dangers of dissent, people in northwestern Syria have been taking to the streets in recent weeks to protest an armed group formed out of an al-Qaeda breakaway faction. The protests against Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which controls a large portion of Idlib province, began on February 25 in Sarmada, near the Syria-Turkey border. Prompted by the treatment of prisoners by the group’s security arm, the General Security Service (GSS), protesters carry banners calling HTS prisons “slaughterhouses”. Protests with hundreds of participants have now taken place across Idlib. In Binnish, 29-year-old Mohammed Ali Basha spent the night before an anti-HTS protest last week preparing flags and banners with his friends. The activist painted three red stars on the green, white and black backdrop of the Syrian opposition’s flag. A large banner being prepared displays the message Basha and his fellow protesters want to put across: that the Syrian revolution – which began in 2011 – is not just against the country’s President Bashar al-Assad, but against all “tyrants”. “All of them means all of them,” it says, a slogan long adopted by members of the Syrian opposition to indicate their opposition to autocrats of all persuasions. And for Basha, that includes HTS and its leader, Abu Mohamad al-Jolani. “Our protests against HTS resemble our early demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad and his regime because in both cases we have taken to the streets to denounce injustice and preserve our dignity and freedom,” Basha told Al Jazeera. “Over the past few years, I have noticed the injustice practised against the people of the liberated areas [not controlled by al-Assad], and how the security branches affiliated with HTS have begun to commit the same criminal acts committed by al-Assad’s security forces, such as killing under torture and arbitrary detention.” Mohammed Ali Basha, right, and a friend prepare flags for their anti-HTS protest [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera] Tortured to death Ahmad Alhakim said he knows all too well what can happen in an HTS prison. His brother, Abdulqadir, was tortured to death in one, he told Al Jazeera. Abdulqadir, 27, a father of three and a fighter in the Jaish al-Ahrar opposition group, was arrested by HTS last year on charges of dealing with foreign powers. “They abducted my brother for 10 months without us being able to know his whereabouts, any information about him, or even appoint a lawyer to pursue his case,” Alhakim said. In mid-February, Alhakim was told by a released detainee that Abdulqadir had died after being tortured in prison. His death was confirmed to Jaish al-Ahrar by HTS on February 22. “We demanded that the General Security Service hand over my brother’s body, but they told us that they buried him and gave us the address of the burial place,” Alhakim said, describing it as a large trench where many bodies were buried – a mass grave. “There were many graves without names, only numbered.” Protesters have braved potential reprisals from HTS to denounce it and its leader, Abu Mohamad al-Jolani [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera] Calls to overthrow al-Jolani It was Abdulqadir’s death that sparked the protest movement, which quickly spread to Idlib’s main towns. In Binnish the next day, Basha and his fellow activists took their banners and flags and headed to the town centre to join the few dozen people who had gathered. Much of the anger was directed towards the HTS leader al-Jolani, with protesters calling for his removal in areas controlled by HTS and its affiliated Salvation Government, and its replacement by an elected body. “The era of slavery and tyranny ended with the start of the Syrian revolution in 2011, and the Syrian people, after paying dearly to gain their freedom and dignity, will not allow it to be taken away from them,” Basha said. It is a brave stance to take. Idlib province largely remains under the control of Syrian opposition fighters, dominated by HTS after it gradually forced out other opposition factions and monopolised governance of the region. HTS – designated a “terrorist” group by the European Union, Turkey and the United States – formed in 2017 as an alliance of several factions opposed to al-Assad in the country’s ongoing war. The principal force in the alliance was Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly an affiliate of al-Qaeda known as the Nusra Front. HTS has attempted to rebrand itself over the years, severing ties with al-Qaeda and portraying itself as a more moderate group with local aims, with al-Jolani even going as far as to give an interview to US media outlet PBS. It became the most powerful rebel group in northwestern Syria but opposition to its rule is increasing, with activists deeming it vital to break the silence over the group’s violence and grip on security. At an event in Idlib city, 30-year-old activist Abdulrahman, who did not wish to give his full name, reiterated the movement’s demands. “We want the release of all prisoners of conscience, the disclosure of the fate of those missing in the prisons, and dissolving and restructuring the General Security Service,” he said. Promises to meet demands As an initial response to the protests, HTS held meetings – chaired by al-Jolani – between ministers in the Salvation Government and community elites and village elders who presented the protesters’ demands and received promises to fulfil them. “The protests … in the streets against Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham and the Salvation Government are natural and we do not view them in any other context,” said the HTS media office. “We’re confident that those who work make mistakes and all protests aim to correct these mistakes that have recently transpired.” HTS told Al Jazeera the protesters’ demands were complex and resolving them would require some time. For example, it said, wider participation in the group’s leadership Shura Council would take time to recruit community representatives from different areas. Anti-HTS protests have continued in Idlib despite these attempted assurances. However, as of yet, there have been no confirmed
Bangalore Central Lok Sabha Polls 2024: Check voting date, key candidates and other important details
The constituency, one of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, holds significant importance in the state’s political arena.
Trump eyes dual strategy to flip script against Biden amid legal hurdles: ‘We have the messaging’
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Donald Trump, a 2024 presidential candidate, heads out on the stump Tuesday in Michigan and Wisconsin, two Midwestern battleground states he narrowly lost to President Biden four years ago, as he looks to take advantage of a weekday campaign rally ahead of his upcoming hush-money trial in a couple of weeks. The former president’s team said Trump will take aim at what they charged was President Biden’s “Border Bloodbath” during the first stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Trump’s campaign swing is his first in two and a half weeks since he headlined a rally in Ohio on March 16 on behalf of the Republican candidate he was backing in the Buckeye State’s GOP Senate primary. The infrequent weekday campaign rallies may become even rarer this spring and summer as Trump becomes the first current or former president in the nation’s history to go on trial. TRUMP AIMS TO TOP BIDEN’S NEW $26 MILLION FUNDRAISING RECORD As of now, Trump’s hush-money trial is set to begin in New York City on April 15. The former president – who is being tried on 34 state felony charges – is accused of falsifying business records in relation to hush-money payments during the 2016 election he made to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about his alleged affair with the adult film actress. Trump has repeatedly denied falsifying business records as well as the alleged sexual encounter with Daniels. TRUMP HUSH-MONEY TRIAL SET TO START ON THIS DATE During the Republican presidential primaries, Trump used the multiple criminal and civil cases he faces – including two for his alleged attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden and another for mishandling classified documents – to cast himself as a victim, which fired up support among GOP voters and boosted fundraising. “HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON,” Trump said Sunday in a social media post. The former president is required to attend the court proceedings in the hush-money trial, which are scheduled for weekdays, except Wednesdays, and will ground the 74-year-old Trump in the city where he was born and raised and called home until changing his residence to Florida nearly five years ago. Sources in the former president’s political orbit tell Fox News that a schedule’s being mapped out that includes making the most of Wednesdays, when court is not in session, as well as weekends, when Trump usually holds rallies and other campaign events. “We have the message, the operation, and the money to propel President Trump to victory on November 5,” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita predicted last week in a statement. While Trump’s been mostly off the campaign trail, Biden has stopped since delivering the State of the Union address in early March in all six of the crucial battleground states where he narrowly edged Trump to win the White House in 2020. And last week Biden visited North Carolina, which Trump won by a razor-thin margin four years ago. The trips are aimed at pumping up the president’s anemic poll numbers and also to paint a contrast with Trump, who has been sidetracked due to numerous court appearances in New York City and Florida. In a video posted on X last week, the president’s re-election team highlighted Biden’s busy schedule and contrasted it with Trump playing golf. “I’ll tell you this: There’s a difference between the two candidates in this election,” Biden wrote in the social media post after Trump bragged on his Truth Social platform about winning two golf championships at a course he owns. But Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt predicted that the upcoming trial would give the former president a boost against his successor in the White House, and she said in a statement that “Joe Biden and the Democrats’ entire strategy to defeat President Trump is to confine him to a courtroom.” “President Trump has been attacked by the Democrats for eight years. He has stood strong through two sham impeachments, endless lies and now multiple baseless political witch hunts,” Leavitt told Fox News Digital in February. “The Democrats want Donald Trump in a courtroom instead of on the campaign trail delivering his winning message to the American people, but nothing will stop him from doing that.” While he’ll be sidetracked four out of five weekdays when the trial gets underway, Trump is expected to continue his practice of grabbing the cable news spotlight with his courtroom arrivals and departures. And the former president has also used his social media postings on his Truth Social platform to make headlines and drive the campaign conversation. “Trump can dominate the message environment anytime he wants,” longtime Republican strategist Dave Carney told Fox News. “We’ve never seen anything like this where one guy – whatever he says – gets full coverage. It’s a phenomenon. Whether it’s social media or cable TV or even broadcast TV, he just dominates the news.” And Carney, a veteran of numerous presidential campaigns, forecast “there will be such coverage of his court cases that at times I would bet there will be more reporters covering his stakeout than covering the president.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Founder of Soros-funded ‘propaganda’ news network has visited Biden’s White House nearly 20 times
FIRST ON FOX: A longtime Democratic political operative behind a network of left-leaning media organizations masquerading as “independent” local news outlets has maintained access to the upper echelons of President Biden’s White House. Tara McGowan, the founder and publisher of Courier Newsroom, has visited the Biden White House nearly 20 times, a Fox News Digital review found. McGowan, CEO and founder of Courier Newsroom’s parent, Good Information Inc., participated in several one-on-one meetings with top White House aides. For example, McGowan met with Jordan Finkelstein, who was serving as a chief of staff to one of President Biden’s senior advisers, at least six times between October 2022 and October 2023. Another top aide who was listed on the visitor logs for McGowan’s White House visits was Patrick Stevenson. Stevenson’s LinkedIn page reveals he is the “Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor for Digital Strategy.” Stevenson’s role in helping lead the White House’s digital strategy could raise questions about coordination between McGowan’s network of media outlets and the White House due to Courier Newsroom’s business model revolving around online engagement and messaging on social media. PROGRESSIVE MONEY MAN ALEX SOROS HUDDLES WITH DEM CANDIDATES AS 2024 CAMPAIGN HEATS UP Two other top White House aides who McGowan met with were Madeline Strasser, who previously served as an adviser to then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, and Nina Srivastava, who also served as an adviser to Klain. The pair of Klain advisers met with McGowan several times, according to the visitor logs between April 2022 and August 2022. McGowan’s Instagram account also shows a picture of her alongside President Biden and first lady Jill Biden in front of a Christmas tree, but Fox News Digital could not confirm the date or year of the picture. McGowan, who worked on former President Obama’s re-election campaign and later for Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC that backed Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential candidacy, launched Good Information Inc., in 2021 to counter “fake news” and disinformation. As part of its operations, Good Information acquired Courier Newsroom, which McGowan also founded. McGowan’s access to Biden’s White House appeared to pay off for her operation when Courier Newsroom landed an exclusive interview with the president late last year. “The White House invited COURIER for an exclusive interview with the President backstage after his rally at the Belvidere Stellantis auto plant in Illinois this fall,” Courier wrote in its year-end report. “One of our national social correspondents got to talk with the President about jobs and workers, sharing exclusive video footage with our audiences across TikTok, Instagram, X, and other channels.” The Courier News interview with Biden appears to have occurred on Nov. 9 and was posted on TikTok on Nov. 13. White House visitor logs show that McGowan’s second of two White House visits with Stevenson, the top digital White House adviser, occurred one day after the interview was posted on TikTok. GEORGE SOROS’ SON BECOMES KINGMAKER WITH TOP DEMS AS HE MAKES MULTIPLE WH VISITS, MEETS WITH LAWMAKERS “The Biden Administration doesn’t get enough credit for how deeply and strategically they have begun to embrace new models of media, journalism, and social influencers to get their message across to audiences that are no longer reached by the traditional press corps,” the report states. Courier Newsroom also undertook a seven-figure ad campaign to boost Democratic politicians during the 2020 elections, and some of its news pieces mirrored the politicians’ own press releases, the Washington Free Beacon previously reported. At the time, Courier Newsroom had digital outlets and staffed them with reporters in battleground states such as Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. Last summer, Courier was beefing up its infrastructure ahead of the 2024 elections by launching additional newsrooms in Nevada, Texas and New Hampshire, according to an Axios report. The move brought the total number of newsrooms to 11 nationwide, with each newsroom having its own website for the state where it is located. In 2021, Gabby Deutch, who the Washington Post described as “the Washington correspondent for NewsGuard, a New York-based nonpartisan organization that reviews news sites to combat misinformation,” penned an op-ed criticizing Courier Newsroom as a “political operation” and argued it is “exploiting the widespread loss of local journalism to create and disseminate something we really don’t need: hyperlocal partisan propaganda.” The organization, meanwhile, has received millions of dollars in funding from liberal mega-donors. The George Soros-bankrolled Open Society Foundations is one such institution that has provided vast amounts of cash to its operations. According to a search of its grant database, the Fund for Policy Reform, one of the nonprofits in the Soros network, provided Courier Newsroom with three grants totaling $5 million in 2021 and 2022 to “support its non-partisan journalism, which aims to further the common good and general welfare of U.S. communities by providing access to information.” Open Society Foundations stood by their past financial support of Courier Newsroom, calling it “values-driven journalism.” “Open Society is proud to be among several funders who support Courier Newsroom, which is responding to the disappearance of so many trusted local news organizations across the United States to provide quality, local, values-driven journalism and to meet readers where they are — online,” an Open Society Foundations spokesperson told Fox News Digital. One of the grants was earmarked for supporting “journalism on democracy and voting rights issues,” according to the database. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, another left-wing mega-donor, has also provided Courier Newsroom with significant funding, according to reports. We’re “proud to have restored White House press briefings and to engage with a wide range of media,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital, ignoring an inquiry about the nature of the meetings. McGowan’s Good Information Inc. did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on her access to Biden’s administration and the nature of her White House visits.