Harris and Trump push for Latino vote with just 14 days to go

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump prays during a roundtable discussion with Latino community leaders at Trump National Doral Miami resort in Miami, Florida, on October 22, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 22 October 2024
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Harris and Trump push for Latino vote with just 14 days to go

WASHINGTON: US election rivals Donald Trump and Kamala Harris made their pitches to Latino voters Tuesday as their neck-and-neck White House race entered its final two-week stretch.

Democratic candidate Harris was set to tape an interview with Spanish-language TV network Telemundo while Republican nominee Trump held a roundtable event with Latino leaders in Florida, where he called the border the “biggest issue” facing the nation.

Both campaigns are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into a last push for undecided voters who could tilt the balance in their favor, with polls showing the candidates in a dead heat ahead of Election Day.

About 18 million Americans have already voted by mail or in person — representing more than 10 percent of the total in 2020.

Whatever the result, Americans will make history on November 5: they will either elect the first woman president in the world’s leading superpower — or they will put the first convicted felon into the White House.

At Trump’s event, one speaker falsely claimed Vice President Harris and outgoing President Joe Biden were “human traffickers” while pushing baseless claims that Trump won the 2020 election.

The former president still refuses to accept his defeat at the polls four years ago and is expected to reject the result in November if he loses again — potentially pitching the United States into chaos.

Some polls appear to be giving the Republican, who at 78 is the oldest nominee from a major party in US history, a slight edge recently — but all within the margin of error.

Trump, speaking to Latino leaders, falsely claimed the Biden administration was flying in “hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.”

Harris, who will give an interview to NBC on Tuesday evening, has been honing in on abortion.

Her campaign announced she would on Friday travel to Texas — “ground zero of Trump’s extreme abortion bans” since a 2022 Supreme Court decision ended the national right to the procedure.

In Madison, Wisconsin, a long line for early voting snaked through a library branch, and resident Dawn Lauderdale said she would have to come back another day to cast her ballot.

“There is no reason any politician, male or female, should be in that room,” the Harris supporter said, referring to abortion procedures.

Harris, 60, is also deploying two of her party’s most popular emissaries onto the campaign trail: Barack and Michelle Obama.

The former president, speaking at a rally in Madison, rolled back the years with fiery attacks on Trump.

“Don’t boo, vote!” he implored people after each jibe.

Upping the star factor, rapper Eminem will introduce Obama at a major Harris campaign event in Detroit on Tuesday, according to US media.

After his Florida appearance, Trump was set to fly to North Carolina, for an event that is supposed to be devoted to the economy.

He rarely sticks to the topic at his rallies, however — instead, recent weeks have featured rambling monologues and threats about weaponizing the military against Democrats, whom he calls “the enemy from within.”

One televised town hall veered into an impromptu music session as Trump abandoned discussion of the election to play his favorite hits while swaying on stage.

The Harris campaign has begun to hammer at his mental and physical fitness to occupy the Oval Office.

But a tide of MAGA-capped supporters continue to flock to his events, convinced that he is the victim of political persecution, or that Democrats are instigating threats against him.

Democrats are also seeking to woo moderate Republicans turned off by Trump’s ominous rhetoric and scandals.

Harris has sought to frame herself as a “joyful warrior” seeking to turn the page on Trump’s years of outrage and move into a new generation of American political leadership.


Zelensky says Russia using Belarus territory to circumvent Ukrainian defenses

Updated 58 min 30 sec ago
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Zelensky says Russia using Belarus territory to circumvent Ukrainian defenses

  • While President Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine

KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Russia was using ordinary apartment blocks on the territory of its ally Belarus to attack Ukrainian targets and circumvent Kyiv’s ​defenses.
The Kremlin used Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Belarus remains a steadfast ally, though longstanding President Alexander Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the conflict.
“We note that the Russians are trying to bypass our defensive interceptor positions through the territory of neighboring Belarus. This is risky ‌for Belarus,” Zelensky wrote ‌on Telegram after a ‌military ⁠staff ​meeting.
“It is ‌unfortunate that Belarus is surrendering its sovereignty in favor of Russia’s aggressive ambitions.”
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence had observed that Belarus was deploying equipment to carry out its attacks “in Belarusian settlements near the border, including on residential buildings.
“Antennae and other equipment are located on the roofs of ordinary five-story apartment ⁠buildings, which help guide ‘Shaheds’ (Russian drones) to targets in our western regions. This ‌is an absolute disregard for human ‍lives, and it is important ‍that Minsk stops playing with this.”

The Russian and ‍Belarusian defense ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Zelensky said the staff meeting also discussed ways of financing interceptor drones, which officials in Kyiv see as the best economically ​viable means of tackling Russian drone attacks, which have grown in intensity in recent months.
The president ⁠said the Ukrainian military’s general staff had been charged with working out changes to strategy in fending off air attacks “to defend infrastructure and frontline positions.”
Lukashenko this month said Russia’s Oreshnik ballistic missile system, described by Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin as impossible to intercept, had been deployed to Belarus and entered active combat duty.
An assessment by two US researchers, reported by Reuters on Friday, said Moscow was likely stationing the nuclear-capable hypersonic Oreshnik at a former air base in ‌eastern Belarus, a development that could bolster Russia’s ability to deliver missiles across Europe.