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On Election Eve, Harris and Trump hold dueling rallies in the biggest of the battlegrounds

On Election Eve, Harris and Trump hold dueling rallies in the biggest of the battlegrounds

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Vice President Kamala Harris – making a last minute pitch to her supporters in the biggest of the battlegrounds. “We need you to vote, Pennsylvania.  We need you to vote,” Harris emphasized as she spoke to a large crowd in the Keystone State’s capital city – Harrisburg – last week. “No one can sit on the sidelines.” The vice president and Democratic presidential nominee returns to Pennsylvania on Monday – holding rallies in Allentown, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia on Election Eve. CLICK HERE FOR FOX NEWS UPDATES ON THE 2024 ELECTION Her rival for the White House – Republican nominee former President Trump – held a rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday.  “A very, very special hello to Pennsylvania….What a great place. And I’m thrilled to be back in this beautiful Commonwealth with thousands of proud, hardworking American patriots,” the former president told the crowd at his rally in Lititz.  And Trump’s message to his supporters: “Pennsylvania, go vote.” NOVEMBER SURPRISE: DISMAL JOBS REPORT HANDS TRUMP INSTANT AMMUNITION TO FIRE AT HARRIS On Monday, the final full day of campaigning ahead of Election Day, Trump returns to the state to hold rallies in Reading and Pittsburgh. It’s no surprise that both major party nominees are heavily concentrating their final campaign schedules in Pennsylvania. With 19 electoral votes up for grabs, it’s the biggest prize among the seven key battlegrounds whose razor-thin margins decided President Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump and are likely to determine if Trump or Harris succeeds Biden in the White House. “Pennsylvania is the one state that it’s hard to see someone losing and then still winning the presidential race,” Mark Harris, a Pittsburgh-based longtime Republican national strategist and ad maker, told Fox News. “It’s clearly ground zero.” Harris, a veteran of multiple GOP presidential campaigns, called Pennsylvania “a big tipping point state.”  VICE PRESIDENT KEEPS HER DISTANCE FROM BIDEN IN FINAL STRETCH TO ELECTION DAY And pointing to the state’s major cities – Philadelphia and Pittsburgh – its electorally crucial suburban areas, and its vast swath of rural counties, Harris highlighted, “I think it’s a good microcosm of America.” Harris, Trump, and their running mates – GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance and his Democratic counterpart – Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz – as well as top surrogates, have repeatedly stopped in the state this summer and autumn. And while the campaigns and their allied super PACs have poured resources into all seven battlegrounds, more money has been spent to running spots in Pennsylvania than any of the other swing states, according to figures from AdImpact, a top national ad tracking firm. Pennsylvania, along with Michigan and Wisconsin, are the three Rust Belt states that make up the Democrats’ so-called “Blue Wall.” CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS IN THE 2024 ELECTION The party reliably won all three states for a quarter-century before Trump narrowly captured them in the 2016 election to win the White House. Four years later, in 2020, Biden carried all three states by razor-thin margins to put them back in the Democrats’ column and defeated Trump. A New York Times/Siena College poll in Pennsylvania last Tuesday through Saturday and released on Sunday indicated Harris and Trump deadlocked at 48% among likely voters in the state. It was the latest survey to indicate a tied or margin-of-error race.  Senior Harris campaign officials, taking questions from reporters on Sunday evening, noted that roughly three-quarters of Keystone State voters will cast ballots on Tuesday “because unlike other states, the guidelines, and availability of early voting is just more limited in Pennsylvania.” But they added that when it comes to the early vote in the state, “we really like what we’re seeing.” And they predicted that “we expect in Pennsylvania, we’ll have a very strong Election Day.” But Pennsylvania is also the state where Trump survived an assassination attempt in July – two days before the start of the Republican National Convention. And the former president returned to the site in Butler – in the western part of the state – for a massive rally last month. Ahead of his two rallies in Pennsylvania, Trump kicks off his Monday campaign schedule in North Carolina – where he’ll hold his fourth rally since Saturday, which has raised eyebrows among political operatives. “We’ve had a lot of luck in North Carolina. We won it twice,” Trump said Sunday in Kinston. “We are going to win North Carolina.” But a day earlier, at another North Carolina rally, he warned his supporters that “when you’re winning by a lot, you can still lose by a little.” Polls indicate a margin-of-error race in North Carolina, the only one of the seven key battlegrounds that Trump narrowly carried over Biden four years ago. And a source in the former president’s political orbit confided to Fox News that there were concerns of a possible setback in the Tar Heel state. While Harris closes out her campaign with a late night rally in Philadelphia, Trump will be in Grand Rapids, in battleground Michigan, for his final rally. For Trump, it’s tradition. He closed out his 2016 and 2020 campaigns in the southwestern Michigan city. Trump, as he has in recent days, on Sunday once again argued without providing proof that the Democrats were trying to cheat. “They are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing,” the former president charged at his Pennsylvania rally. And later, at his rally in North Carolina, he also reiterated his claim that “we have a big lead. We have a big lead. The fake news, they don’t tell you this. We have a big, beautiful lead.” Responding, Harris told reporters on Sunday that “I would ask in particular people who have not yet voted to not fall for his tactic, which I think includes suggesting to people that if they vote, their vote won’t matter. Suggesting to people that somehow the integrity of our voting system is not intact so that they don’t

Trump camp confident based on early voting, while Black leaders say Harris is struggling

Trump camp confident based on early voting, while Black leaders say Harris is struggling

At a time when we’re all deluged with conflicting polls and statistical ties, Donald Trump’s campaign is unusually confident. The Kamala Harris operation also sees reason for optimism, with news that late deciders are breaking her way by more than 10%. But she still casts herself as the underdog. Her “SNL” appearance doesn’t change that; nor does Trump saying that RFK’s plan to remove fluoride from the water, a major public health advance, “sounds okay to me.” Most media folks, either publicly or privately, believe Trump will win, even as the anti-Trumpers beg their followers to turn out for the VP – such as MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace asking her ex-boss George W. Bush to publicly back Harris. The climax of the campaign seems built around a gaping gender gap–with Kamala doing far better among women and Trump much better among men.  THE ‘GARBAGE’ CAMPAIGN: WHY MISTAKES AND DISTRACTIONS COULD TILT THE OUTCOME The view from the Trump camp is that registration figures favor Republicans, based on mail-in voting, in the battleground states that will decide the race. Nearly half the country has already voted. Take the crucial commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In 2020, Democrats had a 7.5% advantage, and that’s now shrunk to a 3-point edge. What’s more, just 39% of Democrats who have voted there so far are men, compared to 49% among Republicans. Democratic strategist Tom Bonier, who appears on MSNBC, says the Pennsylvania electorate is much more Republican, and much more male, than last time. Harris needs a huge turnout in Philadelphia to carry the state, and numerous news reports say she’s still struggling to win over some Black men. In Wisconsin, the view from Trump World is that in-person voting (which tends to favor the former president) is outnumbering mail ballots (which lean Democratic). Trump’s strength is among male, white and rural voters. So, as in the case of Philly, Harris must do very well in Milwaukee and Madison to carry the state. RACIST TALK AT RALLY MARS TRUMP’S MESSAGE, BUT HE SCORES ON JOE ROGAN PODCAST Michigan, which Rep. Debbie Dingell recently told me is a toss-up, remains an enigma, because it doesn’t track party registration. So the ballgame there may turn on how well Harris does in Detroit.  The Trump camp sees similar advantages in such swing states as Georgia and North Carolina, where public polling is close but would be a bigger stretch for a Harris win. The election really turns on the three Blue Wall states. Maybe Harris should have picked Josh Shapiro? In one key state after another, local Black leaders are quoted on the record as saying they’re worried about warning signs in their community: Politico: “The city of Milwaukee is trailing the rest of the state by about 7 percent both in its mail-in return rate and in overall registered voter turnout. It’s a warning sign, even some Democrats privately say, for Harris as her campaign looks to run up the score with urban and suburban voters to overcome Wisconsin’s rural counties.” Capital B, Atlanta: The turnout of Black voters in Georgia “has dropped from more than 29 percent” on the first day of early voting “to about 25 percent…That’s the bad news for Harris… TRUMP IS ‘SURGING’ WHILE KAMALA HARRIS IS ‘COLLAPSING’: CLAY TRAVIS “Elected leaders and political observers say Democrats looking for a guaranteed win in statewide office races in Georgia usually need to hit a 30 percent Black turnout rate.” Charlotte Observer: “As of Wednesday, Black voters had cast 207,000 fewer ballots compared with four years ago — a drop of almost 40 percent.” “I am worried about turnout in Detroit. I think it’s real,” said Jamal Simmons, a former Harris aide, told ABC. A sunnier view is offered by this Politico piece, which says that public polls appear to be undercounting Harris’ support. The story says that “shy Trump voters” – who don’t want to tell pollsters who they’re supporting–are a thing of the past, given the aggressive nature of his campaign.  Instead, many “forgotten” Harris voters are missed by the polls, especially Republicans frustrated with their own party: Nikki Haley voters. SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF ON THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES Citing a national survey, Politico says 66% of those voting for Haley in the primaries backed Trump in 2016, dropping to 59% four years ago and an estimated 45% this time. “Meanwhile, their support for the Democratic presidential nominee has nearly tripled from only 13 percent supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 to 36 percent indicating an intent to vote for Kamala Harris.” To which I say: Who the hell knows? We’re at the point now before tomorrow’s election that pollsters are analyzing the polls to figure out which ones are off. And–here comes the cliché – it all depends on turnout. Despite raising a billion bucks, if some of Harris’ potential supporters stay home, that sinks her candidacy. The scenarios favored by the Trump team rest largely on party registration, not polls that have missed the mark in the last two cycles. That explains why the former president is more confident, even as he asks his advisers whether they really believe he’s going to win.

Stunning Verstappen wins wet Sao Paulo Grand Prix from 17th on the grid

Stunning Verstappen wins wet Sao Paulo Grand Prix from 17th on the grid

The Red Bull driver wins a chaotic race, tightening his grip on the title as McLaren’s Norris plunges from pole position to sixth. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has his fourth Formula One title within reach after a stunning drive to victory from 17th on the grid in Brazil, dealing a shattering blow to Lando Norris’s hopes. Norris, who started the wet and chaotic Sao Paulo race in pole position and 44 points behind Verstappen, finished sixth for McLaren on Sunday. The title gap blew out to 62 points with three rounds remaining and 86 points still to be won. If results go his way, Verstappen could hit the championship jackpot in the next race down the floodlit Las Vegas Strip on November 23. In a crash-strewn race shortened to 69 laps, halted after 33 and restarted, Verstappen took his eighth win of the season – and one of the best of his career – by 19.477 seconds and with a bonus point for the fastest lap. “We stayed out of trouble, we made the right calls and stayed calm and we were flying so all of these things together made that result possible,” Verstappen said. “But I mean unbelievable, to win here from so far back on the grid.” The win stopped the rot at Red Bull, ending a 10-race losing streak for their Dutch driver dating back to Spain in June. Verstappen now has 393 points to Norris’s 331, with Leclerc on 307. McLaren lead the constructors’ standings with 593 points to Ferrari’s 557. “It was a tough day, I did my best. I’ve had a lot of good races, it was about time that something didn’t go right,” said Norris, who won the Saturday sprint. Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina waves the chequered flag to Max Verstappen as he wins the Sao Paulo Grand Prix [Sebastiao Moreira/AFP] ‘Like driving a jet-ski’ Verstappen was described as “insane” and “invaluable” after delivering one of the greatest wet weather drives in chaotic, rain-lashed conditions. “I was feeling all over the place, a roller-coaster,” he said. “My emotions went from wanting to destroy the garage after qualifying to winning the race.” Verstappen said driving under those conditions was akin to “driving a boat or a jet-ski”. “The rain came and we stayed out, which was sketchy, and I just had to keep the car on track and the conditions were undriveable – so it was special today.” Verstappen’s victory was also an emphatic statement of intent as he reeled off five successive fastest laps in the closing stages and 17 altogether as he came home 19.4 seconds clear of Alpine’s Esteban Ocon. His win made him the first driver since Kimi Raikkonen at the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix to win from as far back as 17th on the grid. “He was insane today,” his father Jos, a former F1 driver, said. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner described the world champion as “invaluable”. “It’s impossible to put a number on that. That was a champion’s drive. There’s some great drivers out there, but to stand out and shine like that today – that marks him out, I think, with some of the greats now,” said Horner. “The way he’s driven, and even when we’ve had a difficult car this year, he’s never given up. He’s gone about collecting the points, he’s always trying to get maximum out of the car.” DRIVER STANDINGS (after 21/24 rounds) Max Verstappen surges ahead with just three races to go#F1 #BrazilGP pic.twitter.com/7PezUcF3om — Formula 1 (@F1) November 3, 2024 Adblock test (Why?)

With North Korea’s troops in Russia, South Koreans weigh role in Ukraine

With North Korea’s troops in Russia, South Koreans weigh role in Ukraine

Seoul, South Korea – When Yang Seung-ji heard that thousands of North Korean soldiers had been sent to Russia for possible deployment in Ukraine, she began searching online for the nearest emergency shelter. Yang is concerned that tensions between North and South Korea, which have been aggravated by Pyongyang’s reported involvement in the war in Ukraine, could spill over into an armed confrontation. “I worried that public transportation would be down and make me unable to go back home,” the 25-year-old job seeker, who recently moved from the regional city of Chungju to Seoul, about 50 km (30 miles) from the inter-Korean border, told Al Jazeera. “We thought about packing our stuff and stacking some food in our apartment.” “Ever since hearing about North Korea’s balloons carrying rubbish landing in parts of Seoul, there’s just a sense that things are escalating,” Yang added. Yang Seung-ji (left) and her sister in Seoul [David D. Lee/Al Jazeera] The United States Department of Defense said last week that up to 10,000 North Korean soldiers are undergoing training in Russia as Moscow looks to reinforce its troop strength in the nearly three-year-long war, corroborating earlier statements by Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence. For South Korea, the cooperation has raised fears North Korea could receive nuclear technology from Russia as compensation. On Thursday, North Korea test-launched a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed Hwasong-19, which logged a record flight time of 86 minutes. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has pledged to respond to North Korea’s involvement in Ukraine, including by potentially supplying weapons to Kyiv. “If North Korea dispatches special forces to the Ukraine war as part of Russia-North Korea cooperation, we will support Ukraine in stages and also review and implement measures necessary for security on the Korean Peninsula,” Yoon said last week during a joint news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda. Directly supplying weapons to Ukraine would mark a significant change in South Korea’s involvement in the war, which has so far been confined to humanitarian aid and helping backfill weapons by supplying arms to NATO members. Such a move would also require revisions to South Korea’s Foreign Trade Act, which prohibits the country from sending lethal weapons to live conflict zones except for peaceful uses. Since the division of the Korean Peninsula following the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, South Korea has focused heavily on diplomacy to forge the trade relationships that drive its export-driven economy. During its rapid transformation into one of the world’s most developed economies during the 1960s and 1970s, the country honed its soft power, including cultural exports such as K-pop and Korean film, to exert influence. Its military involvement overseas, such as in the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been mostly confined to small deployments of troops in noncombat roles. “As a country that has been able to manage decades of relative stability without involvement in any direct warfare, it goes against the tendencies of our society and the government’s policies to jump into a war,” Son Key-young, a professor of international relations at Korea University, told Al Jazeera. “Even looking at the outlier instance, which was the Vietnam War, South Korea sent a significant amount of troops only because we didn’t want US forces in South Korea leaving their bases.” Between 1964 and 1973, South Korea deployed about 320,000 soldiers to Vietnam to fight alongside the US army in exchange for US aid to revive the then-ailing economy. “Hearing from my students, it’s quite obvious how young people are against being involved in the Russia-Ukraine War. And the slow state of the economy is likely to make other South Korean citizens frown upon the idea as well,” Son said. “South Korea’s role in this conflict looks to be very limited, but President Yoon seems to be searching for a way to be involved as his administration has shown to be active in national security issues.” South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attends a news conference at the Presidential Office in Seoul on October 24, 2024 [Jeon Heon-Kyun/pool via AFP] Han Jun-seo, a 27-year-old advertising professional, said he would support South Korea sending weapons to Ukraine, but only if the government could do so without “catching too much attention”. “One thing that does worry me is that North Korean troops will get real field experience while the last time our troops got any live experience was in Vietnam,” Han told Al Jazeera. Park J. R., an office worker in Seoul, said South Korea should only take action in Ukraine in cooperation with the international community and the United Nations. “Russia won’t remain our enemies forever, so we don’t want to damage relations for good. Acting by ourselves and making hasty decisions is a fast lane to being used,” Park, 54, told Al Jazeera. Park also said he was uncertain about North Korea’s true motives. “I don’t know if North Korea is doing this as a form of aggression towards our country or if they want to just strengthen their alliance with Russia. Either way, both scenarios don’t look good for us,” he said. For some older South Koreans, who grew up when military clashes between the Koreas were a more regular occurrence, it is crucial not to show weakness to the North. “I don’t think it’s right for South Korea to be overly conscious about North Korea when we make these decisions,” Kim Shin-gyu, a 65-year-old apartment complex janitor, told Al Jazeera. “If the situation calls for it, we should be able to confidently make our own decisions.” Taking a break from a game of janggi, a board game sometimes compared to chess, at Seoul’s Tapgol Park, Oh R. M. said South Korea should learn to fight fire with fire. “If our country also had nuclear weapons, the north wouldn’t be able to put fear in us all the time,” Oh, 68, told Al Jazeera. “If we become capable of defending our country from outside threats first, why not send weapons

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 983

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 983

As the war enters its 983rd day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Monday, November 4: Fighting Debris from destroyed Russian drones started park and grass fires in Kyiv, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital said on Monday. Emergency crews were dispatched, with no immediate reports of casualties. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air defence units tried to repel a Russian drone attack on Kyiv, the military administration said on Monday. “Stay in shelters!” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration posted on Telegram. A Russian guided bomb attack late on Sunday, which hit a supermarket in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, injured four people. An earlier strike had hit a forested area of the city. Russia’s military said on Sunday its forces had taken control of the village of Vyshneve in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as they pursue their advance towards the logistical centre of Pokrovsk. One man was killed by a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Belgorod region on Sunday, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. A second Taiwanese volunteer fighting alongside Ukrainian soldiers against Russia has been killed, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday. The man was a member of Ukraine’s military legion of foreign fighters, the ministry said in a statement. Diplomacy United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he is “very concerned” about reports that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia to possibly aid in its war against Ukraine, said Stephane Dujarric, the UN chief’s spokesperson, on Sunday. Europe will need to rethink its support of Ukraine if Donald Trump is elected president of the United States, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Sunday, as the continent “will not be able to bear the burdens of the war alone”. Orban opposes military aid to Ukraine and supports Trump in the election, believing he shares his views and would negotiate a peace settlement for Ukraine. Adblock test (Why?)