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Florida’s Abortion Rights Battle: Mucarsel-Powell Challenges Rick Scott
(CTN News) – Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the leading Democratic candidate to unseat Republican Sen. Rick Scott, rallied health-care workers in front of Jackson Memorial Hospital on a recent weekday morning and made the pitch that has become central to her campaign: Floridians should vote in November to protect abortion rights in a referendum — and if they care about that, they should vote for her as well.
“Access to abortion is on the ballot this November,” Mucarsel-Powell, a former South Florida congresswoman who lost her seat to a Republican in 2020, told the audience gathered to watch her accept the endorsement of the Service Employees International Union’s local and state chapters. “And if we want to stop these extreme bans, we have to stop the extremists that are pushing them.”
Mucarsel-Powell and her fellow Florida Democrats have not won a United States Senate contest or an electoral vote in this once-purple state since 2012. They believe they have found something that would draw voters to the polls and help her and President Biden win the state: a November referendum that would entrench abortion access in the state’s constitution, thereby overturning a near-total abortion prohibition that went into effect earlier this year.
Polls reveal that the referendum is quite popular. However, several Democrats and voting experts in Florida worry that the proposal will assist increase Democratic turnout in a presidential election year.
They point to Republicans’ sizable lead over Democrats in registered Florida voters, certain Republicans’ willingness to support the abortion amendment alongside their party’s candidates, and Mucarsel-Powell’s relative lack of statewide prominence.
“It’s going to be really difficult, I think, for this measure to be the magic bullet to help Democrats,” said Dan Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida who has long studied the influence of ballot initiatives. “I don’t see a lot of Republicans breaking rank and supporting Democratic candidates up and down the ballot over this issue.”
And the groups pushing for the referendum, which rely on independent and Republican support to secure the 60 percent vote required to pass, are staying away from partisan politics.
“This work is completely distinct. This is a basic human rights initiative. “It is not a political campaign,” said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Yes on 4, the coalition advocating for the amendment.
Abortion rights campaigners have seen electoral victory in the two years since Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized the procedure nationwide. Voters defeated anti-abortion ballot proposals in Republican states such as Kansas and Kentucky, while Democrats won midterm elections in campaigns centered on reproductive rights.
Abortion Rights and Elections
However, this year’s presidential election, the first in the post-Roe era, will put Democrats and abortion rights supporters to the test.
Mucarsel-Powell, who served one term in Congress before being defeated in a close race in 2020, has made abortion access a cornerstone of her campaign, frequently citing the state’s six-week abortion ban as an example of how Scott and Republicans are undermining the freedom her family sought when they immigrated from Ecuador to the United States.
Her campaign has held roundtables with Floridians, released digital advertising, and discussed the subject on social media ahead of her August primary. Mucarsel-Powell raises more money and receives more endorsements than her opponents.
Mucarsel-Powell, 53, agreed that abortion rights are not a party issue, which is why she hopes to persuade people from all sides of the political spectrum that if they support the ballot referendum to repeal the abortion restriction, they should also support her.
“The choice is going to be so clear that if they’re coming out to vote to protect access to abortion, they’re going to vote for the candidate that’s going to make sure that we protect access to abortion at the federal level — not for the man that wants to pass a national abortion ban and has his name on the bill,” Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview, referring to Scott’s previous support for a nationwide prohibition.
“They need 60 percent,” she said, referring to the ballot proposal backers. “I think they’ll get 60 percent of the vote. “I need fifty plus one.”
Scott, who is running for another term and to succeed Mitch McConnell (Ky.) as Senate Republican leader, has sought to soften his stance on abortion as Republicans across the country grapple with the issue’s power in driving Democratic victories in the years since Roe was overturned.
Scott, 71, is opposed to Florida’s ballot measure and has stated that if he were still governor, he would have signed the state’s six-week moratorium into law. He has also shown support for in vitro fertilization and feels that abortion access should be determined by individual states.
Even if the abortion referendum is approved, “it doesn’t really matter for the Senate race if nobody knows who Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is,” said Chris Hartline, Scott’s senior strategist. “And that’s the problem that she has right now.”
Some Democratic operatives contend that the ballot proposal alone will not have a revolutionary impact in the state, especially as economic anxiety remains high across the country and voters continue to tell pollsters that the economy is the most pressing problem on their minds.
Democrats in the state likewise believe that turning around the party’s fortunes will take time, money, and organization. So far, longtime party operatives say they haven’t seen anything that suggests a real campaign to win a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 900,000 in voter registration.
Florida has become a “mecca for MAGA.” It’s quite tough to locate and seek out any kind of silver lining,” said Fernand Amandi, who shaped former President Barack Obama’s Hispanic outreach in Florida and nationally in 2008 and 2012.
The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee have consistently said that Donald Trump’s home state is in play, and they intend to invest money there this year.
However, when Puck News recently questioned Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon whether Florida is a battleground state, she responded with a single word: “No.”
Dan Kanninen, the Biden-Harris battleground states director, then walked back O’Malley Dillon’s statement, saying that the campaign feels Florida is “in play for President Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot.”
NBC is bringing a version of legendary sportscaster Al Michaels back to the Olympics this summer, but with an unexpected twist: his voice will be powered by artificial intelligence.
On Wednesday, NBC said that it will utilize AI software to reproduce Michaels’ voice to offer daily Summer Games summaries to users of its Peacock streaming platform. This marks a significant milestone in the application of AI by a major media firm.
NBC | CTV Image
NBC To Use AI Version Of Announcer Al Michaels’ Voice For Olympics Recaps
The employment of an artificial intelligence voice for the Olympics comes at a time when technology has advanced dramatically, particularly in its ability to generate images, sounds, and text. This has sparked concerns in creative industries, such as journalism, regarding how artificial intelligence may—or should—be utilized.
A new tool, “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock,” will allow subscribers to create 10-minute highlights packages incorporating event updates, athlete back stories, and other related content based on their preferences.
The company stated that the highlights could be packaged in approximately 7 million distinct ways, based on 5,000 hours of live coverage in Paris, thereby making AI (artificial intelligence, not the guy) a far more efficient way to give individualized summaries.
“When I was approached about this, I was skeptical but obviously curious,” Michaels stated in a press statement. “Then I saw a demonstration of what they had in mind. I replied, ‘I’m in.'”
An NBC representative told CNN that Michaels is being rewarded for his participation.
A veteran broadcaster, Michaels is now the play-by-play sportscaster for Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime. He is well noted for his work on earlier Olympic Games broadcasts for NBC and ABC and for announcing the Miracle on Ice Game at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.
NBC | Fox Image
NBC To Use AI Version Of Announcer Al Michaels’ Voice For Olympics Recaps
NBC stated that the AI system was trained using previous NBC broadcast audio from Michaels.
The business stated that a team of NBC Sports editors will evaluate all of the content, including audio and footage, to ensure that it is factually correct and that names are pronounced correctly.
Beginning July 27, the highlights tool will be available on Peacock in web browsers and iOS and iPad apps.
SOURCE – CNN
Jamie Foxx has yet to publicly divulge the reason for his hospitalization last year, although he did share further facts during a videotaped encounter.
The Oscar-winning actor was hospitalized in April 2023 due to a health problem while filming the Netflix film “Back in Action” in Atlanta.
In a TikTok video posted this week, Foxx informs an unidentified group of people that he has a “bad headache” on April 11, 2023. He remembers asking his friend for an Advil, and then “I was gone for 20 days.”
Jamie Foxx Shares New Details About Health Crisis That Left Him ‘Gone For 20 Days’
“I don’t remember anything,” he claimed in a video shot on June 29 in Phoenix.
Foxx went on to say in the video that he was told his sister and daughter took him to the doctor, who him a cortisone shot. Another doctor told him something was “going on up there,” as Foxx pointed to his head.
“I won’t say it on camera,” he remarked throughout the video.
The singer is known to be discreet about his personal life, and he disappeared from the spotlight at the time due to what his daughter Corinne Foxx described as a “medical complication” on social media.
In July 2023, the “Ray” star revealed that he chose not to reveal more information because he did not want the public “to see me like that.”
“I want you to see me laughing, having fun, partying, cracking jokes, or performing in a movie or television show. I didn’t want you to see me with tubes coming out of me and wondering if I was going to make it,” he said in a video posted on Instagram at the time, adding that he felt like he had gone “to hell and back.”
Foxx provided another health update on his verified social media accounts in August 2023.
Jamie Foxx | Fox Image
Jamie Foxx Shares New Details About Health Crisis That Left Him ‘Gone For 20 Days’
“You are looking at a thankful man…” “I’m finally starting to feel like myself,” he wrote at the time. “The journey has been unexpectedly dark…” “But I can see the light.”
He added that he was “thankful to everyone who reached out and sent well wishes and prayers.”
According to IMDB, “Back in Action” is now in post-production.
SOURCE – CNN
NEW YORK — Hunter Biden filed a complaint accusing Fox News of illegally distributing sexual photographs of him as part of a streaming series.
The president’s son filed the complaint on Sunday in state court in Manhattan over photos from “The Trial of Hunter Biden,” which will premiere on Fox Nation in 2022. According to the lawsuit, the series included a “mock trial” of Hunter Biden on crimes he has not faced, as well as photos of Biden naked and engaging in sex acts.
Hunter Biden | AP News Image
Hunter Biden Sues Fox News Over Explicit Images Featured In A Streaming Series
The lawsuit argues that the distribution of intimate photographs without his consent violated New York’s so-called revenge porn legislation.
“Fox published and disseminated these Intimate Images to its vast audience of millions as part of an entertainment program in order to humiliate, harass, annoy and alarm Mr. Biden and to tarnish his reputation,” the lawsuit states.
In an emailed statement, a Fox News representative termed it an “entirely politically motivated lawsuit” that was “devoid of merit.” According to the statement, Biden’s attorneys filed a letter demanding its removal from streaming sites in April 2024.
“The program was removed within days of the letter, out of prudence, because Hunter Biden is a public figure who has been investigated several times and is now a convicted felon. According to the emailed statement, Fox News has faithfully covered Mr. Biden’s newsworthy events by the First Amendment, and we look forward to defending our rights in court.
Hunter Biden was convicted last month of three felony charges stemming from the purchase of a revolver in 2018. Prosecutors claimed the president’s son lied on a mandated gun-buy form by claiming he was not unlawfully using or addicted to narcotics.
Hunter Biden | AP News Image
Hunter Biden Sues Fox News Over Explicit Images Featured In A Streaming Series
According to the lawsuit, the series’ simulated trial included bribery claims and inappropriate financial relationships with foreign governments, which Hunter Biden has not faced.
The lawsuit says Fox did not completely remove promotional materials and that the program is still available on some third-party streaming sites.
SOURCE – (AP)
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