Vice President Harris reportedly to give closing argument next week on National Mall in DC
Vice President Kamala Harris is reportedly planning to deliver her closing presidential campaign argument in an address next Tuesday. And according to reporting from the Washington Post, that address will take place on the National Mall in the nation’s capital. The publication pinned their reporting on people familiar with the planning of the speech and a permit application that they obtained. WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKING IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE SHOW The address would take place with one week until Election Day on November 5, with Harris and former President Trump locked in a margin-of-error battle in the race to succeed President Biden in the White House. According to the people familiar with the plans, Harris is expected to use the speech to contrast herself with Trump, portraying the former president as a threat to democracy. The Washington Post also reported that organizers requested space close to where Trump gave his Jan. 6 speech. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
New battleground state polls show glaring gender gap in Harris-Trump showdown: ‘Who shows up’
A new poll points to a massive gender gap in two crucial battlegrounds that are among the seven states that will likely determine if Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Trump wins the 2024 election. Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, edges Trump 49%-46% among all likely voters in Michigan, according to a Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday. According to the poll, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West each received 1% support. But the survey points to a massive divide among the sexes, with women backing Harris by a 20-point margin and Trump, the Republican Party nominee, up by 16 points among men. In Wisconsin, the poll indicates Harris and Trump deadlocked at 48%, with all listed third-party candidates each receiving less than 1% support. CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLS IN THE HARRIS-TRUMP SHOWDOWN Harris tops Trump by 18 points among women in Wisconsin, with the former president leading the sitting vice president by 21 points among men. The news surveys are the latest to illustrate an extremely wide gender divide in the White House race. WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKING IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE SHOW “It’s the battle of the sexes and it’s no game. There is a glaring gap in Michigan and Wisconsin between the number of women supporting Harris and the number of men supporting Trump,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy highlighted. Malloy added that in two weeks “on November 5th, it will all come down to who shows up.” Both polls point to some positive movement for Harris. Trump was up by 2 points in Wisconsin in Quinnipiac’s previous survey, conducted earlier this month. Now the two major party nominees are tied. In Michigan, Harris’ 3-point edge is a switch from earlier this month, when Quinnipiac indicated Trump up by 3 points. Michigan and Wisconsin, along with Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, had razor-thin margins that decided President Biden’s 2020 White House victory over Trump. And the seven states are likely to determine if Trump or Harris wins this year. Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are also the three Rust Belt states that make up the Democrats’ so-called “Blue Wall.” 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 defeat Trump. Both the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, as well as their running mates, have made repeated stops in the three states this summer and autumn. Wisconsin and Michigan are also home to crucial Senate races that are among a handful that will determine if the GOP wins back the chamber’s majority. In Michigan, the new poll indicates Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin leads former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, 52%-44%, in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. And in Wisconsin, incumbent Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin narrowly edges Republican challenger Eric Hovde 49%-48%. The Quinnipiac University surveys were conducted Oct. 17-21, with overall sampling errors of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Laredo ends boil-water notice after 11 days, turns attention to illegal connections and old pipes
The South Texas city has hired a consulting firm for $200,000 to provide an interim director for the utility amid a restructuring of the department.
GOP lawmaker warns Cuban blackouts are an admonition against a Kamala Harris presidency
A top Republican lawmaker issued a warning Wednesday against the dangers of socialist policies creeping into the federal government as the Cuban people continue to suffer under a widespread blackout. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., the only Cuban-born lawmaker in Congress, said the tragedy facing the island is directly attributable to the 65 years of leftist, authoritarian rule under the Castro brothers and now President Miguel Diaz-Canel. “We’ve got six days now when the entire island of Cuba has been blacked-out,” Gimenez said, further describing how the government at times has initiated 20-hour regional blackouts to conserve power. “But at least they had some electricity [then]. Now the entire island is blacked-out. This is all due to the incompetence of the system: the socialist-communist system that the Cubans have had…” CUBAN REGIME’S REPORTED RETURN TO MEDDLING IN US ELECTIONS A ‘BADGE OF HONOR’ FOR TARGETED CRITICS Gimenez said the entire situation is a warning against electing Vice President Kamala Harris and lawmakers with socialist tendencies and those who self-identify as such. “Bernie Sanders, AOC, and now Kamala Harris is [sic] to the left of Bernie Sanders: I’ve always said they’re all socialists,” he said, further suggesting Sanders and others’ use of the term “democratic socialist” is a distinction without a difference. “They’re trying to bring this kind of government, this style of living, to the United States. And that’s why I’m vehemently against it. Cuba’s a great example. Nicaragua is also a great example, and so is Venezuela … of what these regimes do.” “You see Bernie Sanders always apologizing for what’s happening in Cuba. Same thing with AOC, and not so much with Kamala Harris. She’s being a little bit smarter than that. But since she is to the left of Bernie Sanders, you can tell she’s sympathetic to these regimes.” “That’s the kind of system they want to bring to the United States of America.” BIDEN’S MOVE TO LIFT FINANCIAL RESTRICTIONS ON NOTORIOUS DICTATORSHIP TRIGGERS BACKLASH Cuba completely lost power Friday after its electrical grid collapsed upon the failure of the Antonio Guiteras Power Plant. Compounding that situation, Hurricane Oscar, a Category 1 storm, made landfall over the weekend in Guantanamo state. By Monday, some power had been restored chiefly to Havana, the capital. Cuba’s state utility reported only 200 of the roughly 3,000 megawatts of electricity needed to power the country was being generated as of Monday, according to the Miami Herald. Gimenez said that Cuban citizens have been warned not to demonstrate against the government during this crisis, adding that dissidents are regularly jailed for public expression. “That’s to instill fear in the Cuban people so that they don’t rise up against this dictatorship. That’s what communist-socialist governments do. They’re totally incompetent. This communist-socialist government doesn’t work, hasn’t worked, and will never work.” Gimenez warned that in instances such as the current blackout and the continued suppression of free speech and protest against the government, everyone is treated the same: “They’re all miserable — go talk to the people in Cuba and see if they would rather have a socialist system where they want freedom like we have here in the United States.” While Cuba may not have free and fair elections, Gimenez said Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans are indeed “voting with their feet” and emigrating from their suppressive nations to the U.S. in droves. Such is true in Miami, he said. In a Tuesday recording, he stood on an upper floor of the outdoor Brickell City Centre mall over top of Route 41 and gestured to show how Miami grew from a veritable trading post to a vibrant metropolis in the years since Cuban migration began following the Castros’ coup. “I think the answer is very obvious, since they’re are already voting … with their feet.” “Part of the reason we have so many immigrants coming here is because of these failed systems. And these folks are trying to bring those failed systems and policies here in the United States.” The Cuban-American vote is key in local and statewide elections in Florida. More than 1 million reside in Miami-Dade County alone. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP They also tend to trend conservative, as evidenced by journalist-turned-politician Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar’s, R-Fla., 2020 upset of former Clinton HHS Secretary Donna Shalala in the Kendall and Little Havana area. Looking ahead, Gimenez said the next administration must put “maximum pressure” on Diaz-Canel’s regime, adding that humanitarian assistance alone never makes it to the people and only enriches the government. “The only thing that they understand is force. They don’t understand you being nice to them. You can’t be,” he said. If Cuba was to become a democratic government with an alliance with the U.S., it would deal a blow to America’s other rivals China and Russia — denying them safe harbor, literally, in a geopolitically key area just 90 miles off of Key West. “But foremost, [it would] give [Cubans] the freedom they deserve.” Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders for comment. Fox News Digital’s Matteo Cina contributed to this report.
Odessa bans transgender people from using restrooms that don’t match sex assigned at birth
LGBTQ+ advocates called the ban one of the most extreme measures enacted by a local government.
Proposed costly national exam for psychologists put on hold after pushback from Texas
The national licensing board announced Tuesday it will consider folding the proposed test into the existing one.
DHS identifies hundreds of migrants with possible ties to bloodthirsty Venezuelan gang
The Department of Homeland Security is recommending more than 100 migrants that it has identified as having possible ties to a bloodthirsty Venezuelan gang be put on an FBI watchlist, Fox News confirmed Wednesday, after the agency flagged more than 600 with possible ties overall. NBC News first reported that DHS has identified more than 600 individuals with possible ties to Tren de Aragua, and that 100 of those are deemed “subjects of interests.” Fox has confirmed that it recommended they be placed on the FBI’s Watchlist for Transnational Criminal Organizations. Officials do not believe that all of the 600 migrants will be confirmed gang members, and that many will be relatives, victims or witnesses to crimes by the notorious gang members. Officials are making the gang a priority so it does not grow. WHO IS TREN DE ARAGUA? VICIOUS VENEZUELAN GANG ‘FOLLOWING IN THE PATH OF MS-13’ IN AMERICA The gang is believed to have started in the Tocoron prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua and has since expanded into Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and the U.S. In a statement, DHS said that the identities emerged as part of an ongoing re-screening operation to tackle the gang. “As a part of our work to counter TdA, DHS has an ongoing operation to crack down on gang members through re-screening certain individuals previously encountered, in addition to the rigorous screening and vetting at the border,” a DHS spokesperson said. The agency said that those confirmed or suspected of being gang members will be either referred for prosecution or placed into expedited removal — a deportation process that allows for the quick removal of illegal immigrants. The statement stressed that those identified in the re-screening “include those already in custody, potential victims or witnesses who are not themselves suspected of being TdA members, and others who may not have any involvement in TdA at all.” There have been numerous crimes in the last year that have been linked to TdA, in states including Georgia, Illinois, Texas, Colorado and New York. NEW REPORT WARNS BLOODTHIRSTY VENEZUELAN GANG’S FOOTPRINT WILL REMAIN IN US ‘FOR DECADES’ The gang is believed to have taken over apartment blocks in Aurora, Colorado, and authorities in New York City have warned that the gang is recruiting children and is linked to dozens of robberies in the sanctuary city. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has also sounded the alarm about the growth of the gang in his state. Federal immigration authorities announced last week that a confirmed TdA member was arrested in Houston for allegedly recruiting middle school students to become new gang members. But the gang’s presence has increased at the same time as a massive migration surge to the southern border, which included a significant number of Venezuelans. While border numbers have dropped sharply since June, the impact of that crisis is still being felt in communities across the U.S. Experts noted to NBC that the number of identified members is low and could represent a gap in intelligence. Venezuela does not share its databases with the U.S., and relations are frosty. Earlier this year, Venezuela stopped accepting deportation flights from the U.S. While authorities have put out warnings to Border Patrol agents about possible markers of the gang, they can be hard to identify, while others get past agents as gotaways. TdA has become an issue in the presidential election as well. Former President Donald Trump announced recently that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle “every illegal migrant criminal network operating on American soil.” Trump said, if elected, the federal government would “send elite squads of ICE, Border Patrol and federal law enforcement officers to hunt down, arrest and deport every last illegal alien gang member until there is not a single one left in this country.” Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has stressed her support for a bipartisan border security bill to provide additional funding to the border and has also highlighted her history targeting transnational criminal organizations as a federal prosecutor.
Texas AG sues Biden-Harris admin for not verifying citizenship of 450K ‘potentially ineligible’ voters
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the Biden-Harris administration for not providing information that the Republican says he needs to verify the citizenship of 450,000 “potentially ineligible voters.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), its secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, as well as the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and its director, Ur Jaddou, are named as defendants. DHS says states wishing to verify citizenship can use the USCIS SAVE program and that it will not provide an “alternative process to any state.” The federal lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Texas, claims that the Biden-Harris administration has refused to comply with federal law and answer “valid requests” for information from Paxton and Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson “for the citizenship status of the over 450,000 people on Texas’s voter rolls for whom the State cannot verify their citizenship status using existing sources.” Paxton says those over 450,000 people did not use a Texas-issued driver’s license or ID card to register to vote in the state, so “those voters never had their citizenship verified.” TEXAS AG OPENS INVESTIGATION INTO ‘SUSPICIOUS DONATIONS’ MADE TO HARRIS CAMPAIGN THROUGH DEMOCRATIC GROUP Nelson wrote to Jaddou on Sept. 18 saying the Texas Secretary of State’s office compiled a list of individuals on Texas’ voter rolls whose citizenship could not be verified and asked for assistance in doing so. Paxton penned a similar letter to the USCIS director on Oct. 7, stating, “Although I have no doubt the vast majority of the voters on the list are citizens who are eligible to vote, I am equally certain that Texans have no way of knowing whether or not any of the voters on the list are noncitizens who are ineligible to vote.” In a letter to Nelson on Oct. 10, Jaddou responded, saying that the “Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program is the most secure and efficient way to reliably verify an individual’s citizenship or immigration status, including for verification regarding voter registration and/or voter list maintenance,” and maintained that USCIS “currently cannot offer an alternative process to any state.” “Since 2009, SAVE has been used by elections authorities in states for voter registration and/or voter list maintenance. Currently, ten states are registered to use SAVE for these purposes,” Jaddou wrote. “The process has been the same since the program’s inception.” “By inputting an individual’s name, unique DHS-issued immigration identifier, and birthdate, registered agencies can determine whether that person obtained U.S. citizenship through the naturalization process or, for certain other individuals born abroad, whether USCIS has information confirming their U.S. citizenship. Each registered agency determines the best process to obtain the required identifiers,” Jaddou explained. “The state elections authority must provide any individual who is not verified as a U.S. citizen through SAVE the opportunity to show documentation of their U.S. citizenship.” BIDEN ADMIN SLAPPED WITH MAJOR LAWSUIT OVER ALLEGED REFUSAL TO HELP STATE PURGE NONCITIZENS FROM VOTER ROLLS Paxton’s lawsuit states that “pointing to the SAVE system” does not fulfill the Texas secretary of state’s request and Jaddou’s response does not satisfy USCIS’s “unambiguous obligations under federal law.” It also says that Jaddou has not responded to Paxton’s letter. According to Paxton, the SAVE program, designed to confirm a person’s lawful presence in the United States, “is not an adequate tool, on its own, for a state seeking to verify the citizenship status of an individual on the voter rolls.” That’s because it requires the use of a “unique DHS-issued immigration identifier,” which the lawsuit says is “information that is not maintained by, or readily available to, the Secretary of State of Texas or Texas’s voter registrars.” Texas’s statewide voter registration system “does not contain any “DHS-issued immigration identifier[s],” the lawsuit says, so even if the Texas Secretary of State “could obtain this data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, that effort would be limited to individuals who provided such information to obtain a driver license or personal identification card – and thus would not encompass individuals for whom there is no Texas-issued driver license or ID card number in Texas’s voter registration system.” The filing also noted that USCIS charges users a fee for each verification submitted to the SAVE system – fees that the state is willing to pay but “will more than double over the next three years.” “Although federal and state law prohibit non-citizens from voting, federal law paradoxically creates opportunities for non-citizens to illegally register to vote while prohibiting States from requiring voters to have proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections – a common sense measure to identify illegal registration,” the suit says. “Under any circumstances, this federal prohibition against citizenship verification makes little sense, but it is especially troubling given the current scale of the illegal immigration crisis.” The filing also cited how the Senate has not passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (“SAVE Act”), “which would allow states to ensure that votes are being cast legally by eligible voters.” Asked about Paxton’s lawsuit, a DHS spokesperson again pointed to the SAVE program. Scores of election-related lawsuits happen in every cycle, and Florida filed a similar lawsuit citing how the SAVE program’s DHS identifier requirement is a roadblock in verifying citizenship of those on the voter roll. While Texas could see Republican Sen. Ted Cruz locked in a close race against Democratic challenger, Rep. Colin Allred, the Lone Star State is unlikely to go blue in the presidential contest.
Lindsey Graham demands ICC reveal details of probe into prosecutor Khan’s misconduct allegations
EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Lindsey Graham is demanding answers on reporting that British International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan was accused of misconduct at the same time he was pursuing criminal charges against Israeli officials. “Public reports indicate that allegations of harassment surfaced in early May – just a few days before Prosecutor Khan applied for arrest warrants against the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of Israel for alleged violations of law during the defensive Israeli-Hamas War,” Graham, R-S.C., wrote in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital. “The timing of the allegations is troubling, and only compounds the other strong legal, jurisdictional, and prudential objections I have expressed regarding the Prosecutor’s decision to seek arrest warrants.” On May 20, Khan requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif. All three Hamas leaders have been killed in the past year. Khan’s application was unprecedented – the first time the criminal court had sought arrests for Western-allied officials. Graham said that prior to Khan’s warrants, he along with a group of senators was working to urge Khan to “adhere to the Rome Statute” and have a dialogue with Israeli officials before moving forward with their prosecution. On May 20, Khan was set to travel to Israel to meet with officials before deciding whether to move forward with the warrant requests. But he never showed up. He publicly announced his warrant requests without any warning to the Israelis who had planned to make their case against them, according to Graham. GRAHAM SAYS ISRAEL HAS WINDOW TO ‘REPLACE HAMAS FOREVER’ AFTER SINWAR KILLING: ‘DOOR IS NOW OPEN “It has now come to my attention through media reports that Prosecutor Khan was facing allegations of misconduct around the same time, and the resolution of this matter remains a mystery,” the senator wrote in the letter. “The abrupt decision to cancel this visit to Israel, along with these contemporaneous allegations needs to be explained, and I request full transparency on the matter to ensure there is no conflict of interest.” Graham said he was “shocked” to learn Khan never showed up for his trip to Israel. “It was a complete change of what we were told that was going to happen, and we never really understood what happened – never made sense to me.” But last week, the Mail on Sunday reported that around the same time, a female employee with the court informed senior managers about harassment claims made by another female employee against Khan. The woman “was so upset she was in tears.” The Independent Oversight Mechanism (IOM), which probes misconduct allegations by ICC employees, reportedly questioned the alleged victim, but she decided not to make a formal complaint. The IOM did not launch a formal investigation and recommended measures intended to “safeguard everyone’s rights.” “I’ve never understood what led to such a change in position. So my concern is, did these two events have anything to do with each other?” Graham questioned. BIDEN-HARRIS ENVOY ACCUSED OF PRESSURING ISRAELI LAWMAKERS TO DROP BILL BANNING TERROR-LINKED UN AGENCY “We need transparency here. You know, is it a coincidence the guy is being accused of inappropriate conduct, and again, I have no idea if it’s legitimate or not, but just weeks later, there’s a change of course here.” An annual report released by the IOM on Friday said that on May 3, the watchdog had been told about allegations that an elected official engaged in behavior that would breach the court’s harassment rules. It confirmed the woman “declined to pursue a formal complaint.” She refused to explicitly confirm or deny to the IOM the allegations that had been reported by a third party. When asked for comment on the letter, the ICC prosecutor’s office referred Fox News Digital to comments Khan made to the Mail on Sunday: “I absolutely can confirm there is no truth to suggestions of misconduct.” “This is a moment in which myself and the International Criminal Court are subject to a wide range of attacks and threats. In recent months my family including my wife and child have also been targeted,” Khan added. He said he would cooperate with the IOM if asked to do so. “I underline that I stand with any victim of sexual harassment or abuse and would encourage all survivors to raise their voice and come forward with such accounts wherever they may occur. I have always been supportive of a proactive approach in this regard.” The court’s panel of judges has not yet issued the warrants. It took them only three weeks to issue the warrant for President Vladimir Putin’s arrest after Khan requested it following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. and Israel are not party to the Rome Statute that founded the ICC 22 years ago and do not recognize its jurisdiction. Palestinians were granted membership in 2015. Since the court’s establishment in 2002, it has issued 55 arrest warrants in 32 cases. Twenty-one people have been detained and tried at The Hague while 26 remain at-large. Israel is also facing accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice in a case brought forth by South Africa. Despite the ICC prosecutor’s arrest warrant requests, Graham insisted that the international law body does hold an important role. “There’s a place for the ICC. I mean, like Putin’s collapsed every legal system in Russia, truly is a despot.” Graham added: “But bringing charges against the defense minister and the prime minister of Israel in the middle of a war for the survival of the Jewish people without even talking to them, canceling a meeting, just doesn’t pass the smell test. I want to know what the hell happened.” This file has been updated to include the ICC prosecutor’s office’s comments.
Biden seeks to cement legacy on climate change in remaining months as president
President Joe Biden is seeking to cement his climate legacy by allocating billions of dollars for energy and environment-related projects in the remaining months of his presidency. Biden ramped up his administration’s energy-related spending in October, announcing several new initiatives after former President Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that if elected, he would “rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act,” which could directly impact Biden’s climate projects. On Thursday, the Department of the Interior approved the Fervo Cape Geothermal Power Project in Beaver County, Utah, which seeks to expand geothermal energy on public lands. The Energy Department also announced nearly $2 billion in funding for 38 power grid projects for clean energy, and on Tuesday, the administration allocated $428 million for 14 clean energy manufacturing projects in former coal communities. HARRIS TOUTS GROWING UP IN MIDDLE CLASS WHILE PUSHING MANDATE MOST ‘WON’T BE ABLE TO AFFORD’: ECONOMIST In early October, the Biden-Harris administration issued a final rule to replace every lead pipe in the U.S. within 10 years as part of Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI). In addition to the rule, the EPA also announced $2.6 billion in new funding for drinking water infrastructure through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. September also saw several new projects launched as part of the final push for the administration’s climate agenda. LEFT-WING CLIMATE GROUPS SILENT AFTER HARRIS CAMPAIGN DROPS MILLIONS ON PRIVATE JET FLIGHTS SINCE JULY The Department of Energy announced $3 billion for electric vehicle battery production, while the Department of the Interior will distribute $24 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for land and water restoration through an investment in “climate resilience.” The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) approved an offshore wind turbine in Maryland — the 10th approval of a commercial-scale offshore wind project. Trump has stated that if elected, he would end offshore wind projects “on day one” through an executive order, suggesting the energy source causes harm to the environment. “They destroy everything. They’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is,” Trump said of wind turbines during a campaign event in New Jersey. “They ruin the environment. They kill the birds. They kill the whales.” White House’s Deputy Chief of Staff Natalie Quillian told listeners on a press call in October that Biden is “sprinting to the finish” to deliver “on his historic Investing in America agenda.”