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WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved nearly $40 billion in new aid for Ukraine on Thursday sending the bill to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law as Washington races to keep military assistance flowing nearly three months after Russia’s invasion.

The Senate voted 86-11 in favor of the emergency package of military, economic and humanitarian assistance, by far the largest U.S. aid package for Ukraine to date. All 11 no votes were from Republicans.

The strong bipartisan support underscored the desire from lawmakers – most Republicans as well as Biden’s fellow Democrats – to support Ukraine’s war effort, without sending U.S. troops. It came hours after the Senate confirmed Biden’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, career diplomat Bridget Brink, filling a post that had been vacant for three years. read more

“This is a large package, and it will meet the large needs of the Ukrainian people as they fight for their survival,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, urging support for the emergency supplemental spending bill before the vote.

Biden said the spending bill’s passage ensured there will be no lapse in U.S. funding for Ukraine.

“I applaud the Congress for sending a clear bipartisan message to the world that the people of the United States stand together with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their democracy and freedom,” Biden said in a statement, noting that he would announce another package of security assistance on Thursday. read more

A top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked the Senate and said the money would help ensure the defeat of Russia. “We are moving towards victory confidently and strategically,” Zelenskiy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said in an online post minutes after the vote.

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The House of Representatives passed the spending bill on May 10, also with every “no” vote from Republicans. It stalled in the Senate after Republican Senator Rand Paul refused to allow a quick vote. Biden’s fellow Democrats narrowly control both the House and Senate, but Senate rules require unanimous consent to move quickly to a final vote on most legislation. read more

Some of those who voted “no” said they opposed spending so much when the United States has a huge national debt. “I’m always going to ask the question, how are we paying for it?” Senator Mike Braun told reporters at the Capitol.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had urged lawmakers to work quickly, telling congressional leaders in a letter that the military had enough funds to send weapons to Kyiv only until Thursday, May 19, so the bill passed just before that deadline.

When Biden signs the supplemental spending bill into law, it will bring the total amount of U.S. aid approved for Ukraine to well over $50 billion since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24.

Biden had originally asked Congress for $33 billion for Ukraine, but lawmakers increased it to about $40 billion, with an eye toward funding Ukraine for the coming months.

The package includes $6 billion for security assistance, including training, equipment, weapons and support; $8.7 billion to replenish stocks of U.S. equipment sent to Ukraine, and $3.9 billion for European Command operations.

In addition, it authorizes a further $11 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows Biden to authorize the transfer of articles and services from U.S. stocks without congressional approval in response to an emergency.

And it includes $5 billion to address food insecurity globally due to the conflict, nearly $9 billion for an economic support fund for Ukraine and some $900 million to help Ukrainian refugees.

The war has killed thousands of civilians, forced millions of Ukrainians from their homes and reduced cities to rubble. Moscow has little to show for it beyond a strip of territory in the south and marginal gains in the east.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/us/after-delay-congress-sends-40-billion-ukraine-aid-package-biden-2022-05-19/

A 16-year-old was being investigated as the possible shooter in the attack, according to sources. A 27-year-old reportedly was arrested after being stopped in a vehicle that police say was used during the attack. He was found to have a loaded, concealed weapon readily accessible as he drove, according to a police report.

Source Article from https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-melissa-ortega-shooting-arrest-charges-20220126-gntzmmtubngipn57wdnrhefhdu-story.html

A forecast map of the snow storm set to hit the Northeast.

National Weather Service


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National Weather Service

A forecast map of the snow storm set to hit the Northeast.

National Weather Service

More than 2,000 flights scheduled for Friday and Saturday have been canceled, as snow begins to pound the Northeast. In some areas, the snow accumulation could reach as high as two feet, and the snow and wind could yield blizzard conditions, according to the National Weather Service.

In Boston, which could see more than 18 inches of snow this weekend, at least 85% of flights out of Logan International Airport on Saturday have already been canceled. At Newark Liberty International, more than half of Saturday’s flights have been grounded.

Meanwhile, more than 400 JetBlue flights and more than 350 American Airlines flights across the country scheduled for Saturday have been canceled.

A winter storm warning is in effect Friday from Virginia to Maine, according to the National Weather Service. And blizzard warnings have been issued for parts of Maine, Massachusetts and New Jersey, among others. Cape Cod could see some of the highest accumulations.

On Friday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a snow emergency. In anticipation of heavy accumulations and high winds, Wu announced a parking ban that will take effect at 9 p.m. on Friday. Under the ban, vehicles parked on major roads and “main arteries” will be towed.

City employees have already begun preparations and the Public Works Department plans to treat roads before snow begins to fall, Wu said in the statement. The city has 38,000 tons of salt, and more than 850 pieces of equipment to use on local streets.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday directed state agencies to prepare for the storm. The state’s transportation department has more than 1,500 large snow plows on hand. The Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services is prepared to deploy generators and sandbags, among other items.

“We are monitoring forecasts and making emergency response preparations for whatever this storm system throws our way,” Hochul said in a news release.

Farther up the coast, Maine’s emergency management agency encouraged motorists to stay off the roads. Gov. Janet Mills urged people to “be mindful of road crews and emergency responders.”

Powerful winds and blowing snow could create low visibility, making for “hazardous conditions,” said Peter Rogers, director of the state’s emergency management agency.

With sub-freezing temperatures expected, it’s a good idea to keep blankets, extra layers, and hats and gloves in the car. And if you get caught in a storm, experts encourage you to stay in the car.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/01/28/1076368348/winter-storm-blizzard-northeast

Though the majority of those charged are facing misdemeanor charges with sentences that are likely to run their course before Trump could potentially reclaim the Oval Office, hundreds of those facing conspiracy, obstruction and assault charges could receive sentences that land them in prison for years.

Trump’s hint that he may pardon people his supporters claim have been treated “unfairly” could become a calculus in their decisions to accept plea deals or enter into negotiations with prosecutors. Some of those facing the most serious charges grumbled about Trump’s inaction in his final days in office — thoughts captured in private messages obtained by the Justice Department — even as he pardoned dozens of other political allies.

“We are now and always have been on our own. So glad he was able to pardon a bunch of degenerates as his last move and shit on us on the way out,” Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean said in one message prosecutors included in a May 2021 court filing. “Fuck you trump you left us on [t]he battle field bloody and alone.”

Nordean has been held in jail for nearly a year and is scheduled to go to trial in May on conspiracy and obstruction charges, along with at least three other Proud Boys leaders.

It’s unclear if Trump’s suggestion also included those who have been targeted by the Jan. 6 select committee and have since asserted their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination — including figures like attorney John Eastman, who helped Trump devise a plan to subvert the election and pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to carry it out. It could also include figures like Steve Bannon, who has been charged with criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the select panel, and former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who has been referred for prosecution by the House for refusing a deposition.

But Trump’s remarks about fair treatment appear to align with supporters who have decried the prosecution of those who stormed and breached the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Of the defendants sentenced so far, only three received a jail term that would extend past Biden’s first term: Robert Palmer, who assaulted police officers in the Capitol’s lower west terrace tunnel; Scott Fairlamb, who hit an officer in the head outside the Capitol; and Jacob Chansley, who wielded a spear and egged on early waves of rioters as he charged into the Senate chamber and took the dais where Pence had sat just minutes earlier. Palmer was sentenced last month to 63 months in prison, while Fairlamb and Chansley each received a 41-month sentence in November.

Dozens of others facing assault charges are still awaiting trial or plea agreements that could result in sentences far beyond the next inauguration. They include the 11 Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy for allegedly preparing a violent attempt to prevent the transfer of power from Trump to Biden. They also include members of the Proud Boys leadership, like Nordean.

Authorities also continue to make new Jan. 6-related arrests on a a nearly daily basis, estimating that between 2,000 and 2,500 people breached the Capitol that day — meaning that nearly two-thirds of potential cases have not even begun. Prosecutors estimate that about 1,000 police assaults occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Trump’s comments Saturday appeared to align with complaints by allies who have claimed that Jan. 6 defendants in pretrial detention are being treated more harshly than others held in the D.C. jail. Though the broader D.C. facility was recently ripped by U.S. Marshals Service inspectors for squalid conditions, the assessment found that the wing housing Jan. 6 detainees had fared better in the review. In addition, Jan. 6 defendants have cited policies restricting access to various services for inmates unvaccinated against Covid as evidence of mistreatment — a charge jail officials reject and say is applied uniformly against all held in the facility.

Many of the cases for those facing lengthier jail terms are set to go to trial in the spring but have seen the dates slip repeatedly amid ongoing Covid restrictions in federal courthouses as well as challenges prosecutors have faced building a system to share massive troves of evidence with defendants and their attorneys.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/30/trump-pardon-jan6-defendants-00003450

BRUSSELS — With anxiety mounting about the dangers to Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant, which is occupied by the invading Russian Army, there finally seems to be some movement to get international inspectors into the facility to verify its safe operation.

In a conversation late Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that Russia “had reconsidered” its insistence that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency first travel through Russian territory to reach the Zaporizhzhia plant, according to the French presidency.

The Russian presidency was less explicit, stating that “both leaders noted the importance of sending an I.A.E.A. mission to the power plant as soon as possible” and that Russia had “confirmed its readiness to provide the necessary assistance to the agency’s inspectors.”

The two presidents will speak again about such a mission “in the next few days following discussions between the technical teams and before the deployment of the mission,” the French said.

The I.A.E.A. — the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog and monitoring agency — has met with several obstacles in its discussions with Russia and Ukraine to get into the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, since at least June.

Ukraine objected to the idea that the inspectors would enter through Russian-occupied territory, an option that would seem to underscore Russian control of the plant, which provides at least a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity. The United Nations had significant security concerns about having inspectors travel through the front lines of this bitter war, with so much shelling.

As Russia and Ukraine blame each other for bringing the possibility of nuclear catastrophe to the plant through the artillery war — part of what a senior Western official on Friday called “the information war” — pressure has grown on Moscow to relent about how the inspectors might arrive.

That pressure has also come from Turkey, which has tried to mediate between Russia and Ukraine on the issue, as it did in the recent deal to free grain shipments from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports amid a Russian blockade, and from the United Nations itself.

When António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, visited Ukraine this past week along with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to discuss grain shipments, the U.N. leader also urged quick movement to try to keep the Zaporizhzhia plant safe.

Mr. Guterres warned Russia not to disconnect the facility from the Ukrainian grid, as Kyiv says Russia intends to do, in order to switch the supply into the Russian grid. Such a move could interrupt the vital cooling of the reactors and cut electricity to millions of Ukrainians.

Western officials consider the main danger of a nuclear accident coming less from a shell hitting one of the containment buildings around the six light-water nuclear reactors, which are constructed to withstand a 9/11-like impact of an airliner, than from an interruption in electricity. Should that happen, and should the plant’s generators fail or be damaged, then a meltdown could occur.

The main concern in that respect, a senior Western official said on Friday, would be if the plant suffered a loss of cooling due to the loss of backup electricity, should Russia take it off the Ukrainian grid and should backup generators fail.

There is also worry that a shell could hit one of the ponds that store spent nuclear fuel, but that would have a more minor and localized effect.

Russia has rejected the plea of Mr. Guterres to demilitarize the area around the plant.

On Friday, the I.A.E.A.’s director general, Rafael M. Grossi, “welcomed recent statements indicating that both Ukraine and Russia supported the I.A.E.A.’s aim to send a mission” to Zaporizhzhia.

The Russian ambassador to the agency has suggested that such a mission could take place in early September. But even if inspectors can verify the safety of the plant at the time, the dangers will inevitably persist as the artillery war continues.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/21/world/ukraine-russia-news-war

Meanwhile, exhausted health providers say they are bracing for case spikes that are largely preventable, driven by the hyper-transmissible delta variant. “We are frustrated, tired and worried for this next surge — and saddened by the state we find ourselves in,” said Jason Yaun, a Memphis-based pediatrician, who said his colleagues are grappling with an “accumulation of fatigue” since the outbreak exploded in March 2020.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/23/anger-targets-vaccine-holdouts-delta-surge/

MIAMI (AP) — Polls have closed across much of Florida on Tuesday as Gov. Ron DeSantis waits to learn the identity of his general election opponent in a matchup that could have presidential implications.

Florida Democrats are choosing between Charlie Crist, a 66-year-old Democratic congressman who served as the state’s Republican governor more than a decade ago, and 44-year-old Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who hopes to become the state’s first female governor while leaning into the fight for abortion rights.

While most polling places are closed, voting across the Florida Panhandle is scheduled to continue until 8 p.m. EDT.

The race is ultimately a debate over who is best-positioned to defeat DeSantis, who emerged from a narrow victory four years ago to become one of the most prominent Republicans in politics. His relatively light touch handling the pandemic and his eagerness to lean into divides over race, gender and LGBTQ rights have resonated with many Republican voters who see DeSantis as a natural heir to former President Donald Trump.

His reelection effort is widely assumed to be a precursor to a presidential run in 2024, adding to a sense of urgency among Democrats to blunt his rise now.

“I have been in the trenches. I have taken on DeSantis,” Fried told The Associated Press. DeSantis “won’t have a 2024 because he won’t have a 2022. We are going to beat him in November, and we are going to kill all of his aspirations to run for president of the United States.”

Crist, in an interview, described DeSantis as a threat to democracy.

“He is the opposite of freedom. He is an autocrat. He is a demagogue. And I think people are sick of him,” Crist said of the sitting Republican governor, noting that DeSantis earlier this year admonished a group of high school students for wearing face masks at an indoor news conference. “Who is this guy? Who does he think he is? He is not the boss.”

The Florida contest wraps up the busiest stretch of primaries this year. Republicans from Pennsylvania to Arizona have supported contenders who have embraced Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen, an assertion roundly rejected by elections officials, the former president’s attorney general and judges he appointed.

And for the most part, Democrats have avoided brutal primary fights. That could be tested Tuesday, however, as voters in New York participate in congressional primaries that feature two powerful Democratic committee chairs, Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler, competing for the same seat and other incumbents fending off challenges from the left.

Democrats are entering the final weeks ahead of the midterms with a sense of cautious optimism, hoping the Supreme Court’s decision overturning a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion will energize the party’s base. But Democrats still face tremendous headwinds, including economic uncertainty and the historic reality that most parties lose seats in the first midterm after they’ve won the White House.

The dynamics are especially challenging for Democrats in Florida, one of the most politically divided states in the U.S. Its last three races for governor were decided by 1 percentage point or less. But the state has steadily become more favorable to Republicans in recent years.

For the first time in modern history, Florida has more registered Republicans — nearly 5.2 million — than Democrats, who have nearly 5 million registered voters. Fried serves as the only Democrat in statewide office. And Republicans have no primary competition for four of those five positions – governor, U.S. Senate, attorney general and chief financial officer — which are all held by GOP incumbents.

Democrats hope that U.S. Rep. Val Demings, who faces a little-known candidate in her Senate primary Tuesday, can unseat the state’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Marco Rubio, this fall. But for now, the party’s national leadership is prioritizing competitive Senate contests in other states, including neighboring Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

In Florida’s governor’s race, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision has animated the final weeks of the Democratic primary.

Fried has promoted herself as the only true abortion-rights supporter in the race, seizing on Crist’s appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices while he was governor.

The conservative-leaning court will soon decide whether the Republican-backed state legislature’s law to ban abortions after 15 weeks is constitutional. Florida’s new abortion law is in effect, with exceptions if the procedure is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life, to prevent serious injury or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality. It does not allow exemptions in cases of rape, incest or human trafficking.

Crist insisted he is “pro-choice” and highlighted a bill he vetoed as governor in 2010 that would have required women seeking a first-trimester abortion to get and pay for an ultrasound exam.

“It is a woman’s right to choose,” Crist told the AP. “My record is crystal clear. And for my opponent to try to muddy that up is unconscionable, unfair and unwise.”

DeSantis and Fried spent several hours together on Tuesday morning during a Cabinet meeting at the Tallahassee statehouse. They kept things cordial during the hourslong event, which placed Fried seats away from the governor as they heard reports from agency heads on state finances, contracting and other matters.

DeSantis shook Fried’s hand as the meeting concluded and told her “good luck” before criticizing her campaign and predicting her loss in brief remarks to reporters.

“I think that you know she had an opportunity as being the only Democrat elected statewide to exercise some leadership and maybe get some things done and instead she’s used her time to try and smear me on a daily basis, that’s all she does,” DeSantis said of Fried.

After the meeting, Fried told reporters she thought the governor had scheduled the meeting as a way to sideline her during her final day of campaigning.

“Of course it’s not a coincidence,” she said of the meeting’s timing. “I think that he is scared of me winning tonight so he’s doing everything in his power to keep me off the campaign trail today.”

___

Peoples reported from Washington, Farrington from Tallahassee. Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee and Marc Levy in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/abortion-2022-midterm-elections-florida-primary-c7381cddbff112b8c65873b6a03250cd

Rep. Karen Bass has built a double-digit lead in the Los Angeles mayor’s race with a little over two months to go until election day, firming up her base among the city’s Democratic voters and eroding Rick Caruso’s margin in the San Fernando Valley, a new poll shows.

Since beating Caruso in the June primary by 7 points, Bass has widened her advantage over the businessman to 43%-31%, with 24% undecided, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental studies poll, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

Bass has consolidated support among liberal and Democratic voters, picking up the lion’s share of those who went for other candidates in the primary. She leads Caruso by nearly 2 to 1 among former supporters of Councilmember Kevin de León, who came in third in the primary, and wins overwhelmingly among backers of Gina Viola, the progressive activist who came in fourth.

Bass has also significantly narrowed the lead Caruso enjoyed in the Valley, the one region of the city the businessman won in the primary. The Valley accounted for 38% of ballots cast in the primary, and he won there by 7.5 percentage points. Now he’s up by just 2 points, according to the poll.

These numbers raise the question of whether the billionaire mall developer, who bombarded Los Angeles’ airwaves with millions of dollars of advertising during the primary, can claw back into contention and make the race more competitive as the runoff between the two moves into its final phase.

“This isn’t a done deal” because of Caruso’s vast resources, said Paul Mitchell, a political data expert who has been closely following the race.

“It’s a 12-point lead where you’re going to have a large amount of spending, and Caruso is going to have an opportunity to try to re-introduce himself to voters and also to try to be more effective than she is at turning out the voters that do support him.”

Nonetheless, Caruso starts out the fall campaign in a deep hole. Although determining who is a likely voter is difficult this far in advance of the election, among voters whose responses to the poll indicate that they are most likely to cast ballots, Bass’ lead grows to 21 points — 53%-32%, with 14% undecided.

Governor has strong lead for reelection, even though voters see the state on the wrong track.

Bass, a six-term member of Congress representing parts of the Westside and South Los Angeles, has several advantages going for her — some of which her campaign has generated, others which involve changes in the overall political environment.

Those advantages start with a far more favorable image among voters than Caruso has.

About half of registered voters surveyed, 49%, said they had a favorable opinion of Bass, while 22% said they had an unfavorable view, and 29% gave no opinion.

Caruso’s numbers are starkly worse. Thirty-five percent of respondents had a favorable impression of him, while 40% said they had an unfavorable view and 24% had no opinion.

“The favorable-unfavorable comparison between the two candidates is really striking,” said Mark DiCamillo, who directed the poll and has been surveying California voters for decades.

Bass has built her popularity and her sizable lead on support among registered Democrats, people who identify as strongly liberal and Black voters as well as liberal white voters. These groups make up the majority of voters in Los Angeles.

She leads Caruso by 40 points among registered Democrats, 30 among voters who describe themselves as somewhat liberal and nearly 70 points among those who say they’re strongly liberal.

Caruso has found some success with moderates, a sizable chunk of the electorate among whom he has a nine-point lead. Among people who identify as strongly conservative, who make up a small chunk of the city’s registered voters, he has a 50-point advantage.

The candidates’ images are similarly polarized along partisan and ideological lines, the poll found.

“Her image among Democrats is overwhelmingly positive, and his is overwhelmingly negative,” DiCamillo said. “It almost looks like a Democrat versus a Republican on the ballot even though that’s not technically the case.”

Topline results from the August Berkeley IGS poll

The poll found that Bass and Caruso were essentially tied among Latino and Asian voters, with about 34% of the vote. Black voters favored Bass by more than 40 points and she was up among whites by 17 points.

In L.A. precincts with populations that are at least 80% Latino, Caruso got 34% of the vote in the primary, and Bass 27%, according to a Times analysis. Turnout in these Latino-heavy precincts analyzed by The Times was just 17% — much lower than the overall turnout of 30%.

This is the second poll in as many weeks to show Bass up big. A poll released by an outside group supporting the congresswoman found her up by 11 percentage points among likely voters.

When asked what attributes they wanted in their next mayor, voters in the Berkeley IGS poll leaned toward traits that more closely mirror Bass’ background than Caruso’s.

The poll found that 71% of voters said it was important to have someone who is progressive, 75% want a mayor with previous experience in elected office, and 72% want someone who has a history of defending abortion rights.

The one attribute that might favor Caruso is that 77% want a candidate who is tough on crime.

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Voters were far less interested in whether the candidate had a business background, was a political outsider or was a woman.

“If you look at those top four that were all 70% or above, only one of those would probably not be associated with Bass as opposed to Caruso,” said USC political science professor Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro — with crime being the exception.

In February, when The Times asked similar questions, respondents rated previous elected experience and progressive politics as the two most important attributes of a future mayor. In this poll, people who said previous experience was very important supported Bass by about a 40-point margin. Bass had similar advantages among people who said it was very important to have a progressive mayor and those who wanted a mayor with a long history of defending abortion rights.

Among voters who said it was very important to have a candidate who is tough on crime, Caruso leads 47% to 29%.

He has made crime a major focus of his enormous advertising blitz in the spring — along with homelessness. But Bass so far appears to have been able to defang the issue.

In July, Caruso vociferously attacked Bass for endorsing city attorney candidate Faisal Gill, who has run partly on a promise to institute a 100-day moratorium on the prosecution of most new misdemeanor charges. The congresswoman then revoked her endorsement of Gill.

Earlier in the campaign, she also endorsed more hiring at the Los Angeles Police Department.

While those stands angered some activists on the left, they do not appear to have cost Bass many votes among progressives, even as they have blunted Caruso’s attacks.

Caruso’s ads “were effective in kind of defining him during the primary season and getting him to where he got, but I think that was more of a ceiling than I expected,” Hancock Alfaro said.

Bass has also benefited from “what’s changed on the national front,” Hancock said — the renewed focus on women’s reproductive rights in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe vs. Wade.

Eight in 10 California voters say abortion is an important issue when voting this year, while 71% say they plan to vote Yes on Proposition 1, a constitutional amendment to enshrine reproductive rights in the state Constitution.

Bass’ campaign has pointed repeatedly to her long support for abortion rights and Caruso’s position on the issue. A journalist in a 2007 Los Angeles Magazine profile paraphrased Caruso’s views on the subject, writing: “He says he opposes abortion in most cases but would support some stem cell research.”

Caruso’s campaign has declined to comment on those remarks, but throughout the primary the candidate said he would be a stout defender of reproductive rights if he were elected. He also has castigated the Supreme Court’s June decision.

Bill Carrick, who previously advised mayoral candidate Jessica Lall and is now working with Robert Luna in his campaign for Los Angeles County sheriff, said Caruso’s previous Republican affiliation is “the elephant in the room.”

Caruso needs to do a better job of explaining why he’s a Democrat, Carrick said, and sharpen his explanation for why he switched parties.

Caruso switched between Republican and no party preference multiple times before becoming a Democrat in January.

Still, Carrick, a longtime expert in California politics, said Caruso will be an exuberant campaigner this fall who will spend big to get his message across.

“He’s clearly planning an aggressive field operation and has obviously stepped up his retail campaigning,” Carrick said.

Robert Luna holds a small lead over Sheriff Alex Villanueva as the race for sheriff takes on a strongly partisan cast.

Bass may also benefit from the recent failure on the part of opponents of Dist. Atty. George Gascón to get a recall on the ballot.

If the signature drive had succeeded, it might have been on the November ballot, although that was not a certainty. If it had been, it probably would have increased turnout among conservative voters who disapprove of Gascón and favor Caruso.

Supporters of the recall favored Caruso 57% to 24%, the poll found. Caruso, a former LAPD commissioner, earlier this year said he supported the recall, while Bass opposed it.

Had the recall gotten on the ballot, it would have been a serious threat to Gascón. The poll found that registered voters countywide would have favored the recall 41% to 20%, with the rest undecided. Citywide the margin was slightly tighter, with 37% favoring the recall, 23% opposed and the rest undecided.

The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll was conducted Aug. 9 to 15, among 4,538 registered voters in Los Angeles County. It included 1,746 voters in the city of Los Angeles, of whom 1,212 were deemed likely voters. The estimated margin of error for the registered voter sample is +/- 2.5 percentage points for the countywide sample and +/- 3 percentage points for the city.

Times staff writer Iris Lee contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-26/california-election-2022-bass-leads-caruso-poll

March for Our Lives, the student-led movement focused on gun violence prevention, will return to Washington this weekend for a mass demonstration in the wake of recent shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.

The DC march is set to start Saturday afternoon at the Washington Monument, where rallygoers will hear from a slate of speakers pushing for action on gun violence. Rallies are also scheduled in states across the country Saturday.

“After countless mass shootings and instances of gun violence in our communities, it’s time to take back to the streets and march for our lives,” the organization’s website states. “We marched in 2018 after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida, and now we’re headed back to DC.”

The marches come alongside a renewed push in Congress for gun control. Lawmakers have been facing intense pressure to act in the wake of the recent mass shootings, and at least 10 Republicans need to vote with Democrats in order to clear the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster and pass legislation.

Despite widespread GOP opposition, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the lead Democrat in the bipartisan negotiations, told CNN he believes there will be more than 10 Republicans supporting gun safety measures in the Senate.

“I think we will put together a package that will get more than 10 Republican votes,” he told CNN’s John Berman on “New Day” on Thursday.

March for Our Lives last held a rally in DC in 2018 following the deadly shooting rampage at a Parkland, Florida, high school. Survivors of the shooting delivered a resounding message that Washington’s inaction on the scourge of gun violence is no longer acceptable.

“To the leaders, skeptics and cynics who told us to sit down, stay silent and wait your turn, welcome to the revolution,” then-Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Cameron Kasky told the crowd in Washington at the time.

“Either represent the people or get out. Stand for us or beware.”

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/11/politics/march-for-our-lives-dc/index.html