August 18, 2024 8:13 am
CHICAGO (AP) — Thousands of activists are expected to converge in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention, hoping to call attention to abortion rights, economic justice and the war in Gaza. While Vice President Kamala Harris has energized crowds of supporters as she prepares to accept the Democratic nomination at the event this week, progressive activists maintain their mission remains the same. Activists say they have learned lessons from last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and are predicting bigger crowds and more robust demonstrations in Chicago, a city with deep social activism roots.
August 18, 2024 8:19 am
9ap) – Former U.S. Rep. George Santos is expected to plead guilty to multiple counts in his federal fraud case, according to a person familiar with the matter. Santos, a Republican from New York, is expected to enter the plea at a court hearing planned for Monday on Long Island, the person said. The person could not publicly discuss details of the plea and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Messages were left seeking comment from Santos and three lawyers representing the former congressman. The court hearing was scheduled for Monday afternoon after prosecutors and Santos’ lawyers jointly requested one on Friday. They also sought and received a delay in certain pre-trial deadlines. The news comes just weeks before jury selection was set to begin on Sept. 9. Santos has previously pleaded not guilty to a range of financial crimes, including lying to Congress about his wealth, collecting unemployment benefits while actually working and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses such as designer clothing. (Photo: AP)
August 18, 2024 8:21 am
(AP) – Even with the storm hundreds of miles offshore, Hurricane Ernesto was still being felt Saturday along much of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, with dangerous rip currents forcing public beaches to close during one of the final busy weekends of the summer season. The storm’s high surf and swells also contributed to coastal damage, including the collapse of an unoccupied beach house into the water along North Carolina’s narrow barrier islands. Hurricane specialist Philippe Papin from the National Hurricane Center said Ernesto, which made landfall on the tiny British Atlantic territory of Bermuda early Saturday, was a “pretty large” hurricane with a “large footprint of seas and waves” affecting the central Florida Atlantic coastline all the way north to Long Island in New York. “That whole entire region in the eastern U.S. coastline are expecting to have high seas and significant rip current threats along the coast,” Papin said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes rip currents as “powerful, narrow channels of fast-moving water” that move at speeds of up to 8 feet (2.44 meters) per second.
August 18, 2024 8:17 am
ATLANTA (AP) — Delta Air Lines said Friday it is reviewing how a man who allegedly followed a family around the terminal then boarded the family’s plane earlier this month without a ticket for the flight. The incident happened at Washington Dulles International Airport. “Delta has processes in place for gate agents and flight crews to verify that individuals onboard aircraft prior to departure are customers that are booked on that particular flight,” the airline said in a statement. “Delta is reviewing the matter in question internally and has been in touch with airport authorities in conjunction with this review.” Lauren Benton told ABC News that she noticed a man who appeared to be following herself, her husband and their two young children inside the terminal, even into a women’s restroom. She said when they boarded the plane, the man followed and sat down in their row. Benton said her husband confronted the man, and a flight attendant asked to see his boarding pass, which he was unable to produce. The man was removed from the plane. According to the Transportation Security Administration, he had a valid ID and boarding pass for a later flight, explaining how he got past the checkpoint.
August 18, 2024 8:07 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz will campaign by bus in southwestern Pennsylvania on Sunday, hoping to ride the wave of enthusiasm her candidacy has brought to the presidential race to their party’s nominating convention in Chicago this week. Vice President Harris and Walz, the governor of Minnesota, will be joined by their spouses, Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walz, as they get on and off the bus in the Pittsburgh area to glad-hand with voters. Harris and Emhoff were scheduled to deliver remarks at an event in the borough of Rochester, in Beaver County, which Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, won in 2020, though he lost the general election to Democrat Joe Biden. Southwestern Pennsylvania is a critical part of a key battleground state that has long commanded the attention of presidential candidates. The state voted for the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 and for the Democratic candidate in 2020. Both Harris and Trump are vying to see who can put Pennsylvania in their column on Nov. 5th. (Photo: AP)
August 18, 2024 8:12 am
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly swerved from a message focused on the economy into non-sequiturs and personal attacks, including thrice declaring that he was better looking than Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump, on Saturday, wound back and forth between hitting his points on economic policy and delivering a smattering of insults and impressions of President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron at a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania. Trump’s rally was in a swath of the pivotal battleground state where he hopes conservative, white working-class voters near Biden’s hometown will boost the Republican’s chances of winning back the White House.
August 17, 2024 4:53 am
Vice President Kamala Harris has proposed a ban on “price gouging” by food suppliers and grocery stores, as part of a broader agenda aimed at lowering the cost of housing, medicine, and food. The proposal, introduced Friday, is an attempt to tackle a clear vulnerability of Harris’ head-on: Under the Biden-Harris administration, grocery prices have shot up 21%, part of an inflation surge that has raised overall costs about 19% and soured many Americans on the economy, even as unemployment fell to historic lows. Wages have also risen sharply since the pandemic, and have outpaced prices for more than a year. Still, surveys find Americans continue to struggle with higher costs.
August 17, 2024 4:50 am
SUDZHA, Russia (AP) — A trail of destruction lies in the path that Ukrainian forces carved on their risky incursion into Russia, blasting through the border and into the Russian town of Sudzha. Associated Press journalists traveled on Friday on a Ukrainian government-organized trip to the town. Artillery fire has blown chunks out of a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin in a central square. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday the town was fully under his troops’ control. Ukrainian forces overran one Russian settlement after another in the surprise operation that Kyiv hopes will change the dynamic of the 2 ½-year-old conflict. Sudzha is the biggest town to fall since the attack began on Aug. 6.
August 17, 2024 4:47 am
CAIRO (AP) — The threat of polio is rising fast in Gaza, prompting aid groups to call for an urgent pause in the war so they can ramp up vaccinations and head off a full-blown outbreak. One case has been confirmed and others are suspected. Polio had been eradicated in Gaza 25 years ago, but vaccinations plunged after the war began 10 months ago. Now, the territory is a breeding ground for the virus. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crowded into tent camps lacking clean water or proper disposal of sewage. Health authorities are preparing to vaccinate 640,000 children in the coming weeks.
August 17, 2024 4:45 am
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon has killed at least 10 Syrian nationals. The strike early Saturday in Wadi al-Kfour in the Nabatieh province is among the deadliest in Lebanon since the Hezbollah militant group and Israeli military started trading strikes on Oct. 8, a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel and sparked the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah maintains that it will stop it attacks once a ceasefire is reached in the Gaza Strip. Among the dead are a woman and her two children. Five others were wounded, of whom two are in critical condition, the ministry said. An Israeli military spokesperson said the strike in the southern province targeted a weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah.
