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Florida’s Abortion Rights Battle: Mucarsel-Powell Challenges Rick Scott

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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.”

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Pam Bondi Is Appointed US Attorney General Following Gaetz’s Resignation.

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Pam Bondi
Photo via Reuters

(VOR News) – President-elect Donald Trump selected Pam Bondi, a former Florida Attorney General and ally, to succeed Matt Gaetz on Thursday after the latter withdrew from consideration.

Gaetz’s drug use and sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old girl were the subject of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee. He denies any wrongdoing.

During Trump’s first administration, Pam Bondi, 59, served on the Opioids and Drug Abuse Commission. He served as police chief of the third-most populous state from 2011 to 2019.

She was also a member of Trump’s defense team at his first impeachment hearing, where he was charged with use military assistance to get Ukraine to look into the wrongdoing of his opponent, now President Joe Biden. The Senate cleared Trump on all charges.

The right-wing America First Policy Institute, which has collaborated with Trump’s campaign to create government concepts, most recently had Pam Bondi as its leader of the legal branch.

Unlike Pam Bondi, Gaetz lacks the experience necessary to serve as attorney general and is likely to encounter resistance from Senate Democrats and some Republicans.

According to Jones Walker defense attorney David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Florida, “She is unequivocally qualified for the position on paper.” Throughout her life, she battled in court. She stood out from the previous nominee because to her resume.

In a tweet announcing his intention to nominate Bondi, Trump praised her skills as a prosecutor and her firm stance against crime as Florida’s first female attorney general. Trump said that even though Bondi was elected on November 5th, while numerous state and federal criminal investigations were underway, he pledged to keep federal prosecutions from being politicized.

According to Trump, “The biased Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans for an excessive duration.” Not true anymore.

Discussion about Pam Bondi and Trump’s history before 2016.

In 2013, the Trump Foundation may have broken federal law by giving $25,000 to a political action committee that supported Pam Bondi. Bondi thought about looking into the for-profit Trump University.

Pam Bondi disputed that her decision to end her legal actions against Trump University following the 2016 disclosure of Trump’s $25,000 gift had anything to do with her decision to withdraw from those actions. According to her, all pertinent material was made public by her office.

The erroneous money disclosure was attributed by the Trump team to a “series of unfortunate coincidences and errors.” New York state fraud investigations resulted in the dissolution of both Trump University and the Trump Foundation.

After misleading Trump University students, he settled for $25 million and was fined $2 million for misusing charitable funds.

Following Special Counsel Jack Smith’s acquisition of two indictments against him for his interference in the 2020 election and his possession of secret materials after leaving office, Trump has voiced his displeasure with the present leadership of the Justice Department and pledged retaliation.

AFPI’s Pam Bondi remains loyal to Trump.

She and a number of other lawyers claimed that Smith’s appointment was illegal in an amicus brief they prepared in support of Trump in the secret information litigation. The Justice Department filed an appeal after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee, rejected the case.

According to a long-standing rule against charging a sitting president, Smith and other top Justice Department officials are examining how both of the Trump criminal cases were resolved.

During his first administration, Trump was incensed with the Justice Department’s obstructionism. Bill Barr specifically refuted Trump’s baseless claims that he lost the 2020 election due to fraud, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions permitted an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Trump’s overarching objectives for the Justice Department have been delineated through his public remarks, interviews with former department lawyers, and Mark Paoletta, a conservative lawyer who develops the department’s policy.

Federal prosecutors may give illegal immigration cases priority.

To obtain a portion of the department’s $291 million justice assistance award, cities might have to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

It is probable that the Civil Rights Division will refocus its attention from legal challenges to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the public and commercial sectors to police accountability to religious freedom.

SOURCE: EAT

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PayPal’s Technical Challenges Are Affecting Thousands Of Customers Globally.

Matt Gaetz Withdraws as Trump’s Pick for Attorney General

 

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PayPal’s Technical Challenges Are Affecting Thousands Of Customers Globally.

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PayPal

(VOR News) – PayPal is a software program that enables the sending and receiving of monetary orders and transactions.

According to the corporation, which has taken responsibility for the incident that was mentioned before, PayPal is apparently experiencing problems in every region of the world in which it conducts business. This information was provided by the company.

In addition, PayPal noted on its service status website that it was experiencing “a system issue” which may affect a variety of PayPal Products, such as the ability to withdraw money from an account and the ability to complete an express checkout. This issue may even hurt the ability to complete an express checkout.

This problem may also affect other PayPal products.

In light of the fact that this vulnerability is present, there are further PayPal products that have the potential to be affected by it.

One of the remarks that was made was that “Our technical teams are actively working towards resolving the issue,” which was stated in the email that was distributed. This was one of the comments that individuals made. A number of assertions were made, and this was one of them all.

Several customers from various regions of the world have stated that they are unable to access their accounts or that they are having difficulty when it comes to making payments. These customers have also mentioned that they are encountering difficulties making payments.

These clients have informed us that they are experiencing difficulties obtaining their orders by communicating their concerns. As an additional point of interest, a number of customers have reported that they are currently having trouble processing payments. This is something that should be taken into consideration.

Up to the moment that the clock struck twelve twelve Central European Time (GMT), the platform outage monitor known as Downdetector had already received more than seven thousand alerts from users. When the clock reached twelve o’clock, this was the situation that existed.

As indicated by a dashboard that provides an overview of the current state of the services that are being offered by the organization, the crisis started at roughly 10:53 UTC.

PayPal gathered this information via the dashboard.

Among the services that were impacted by the outage, the business asserts that its bitcoin services and the peer-to-peer payment platform Venmo were among those that were affected. Venmo is a form of cryptocurrency that enables users to send and receive payments from one another.

This information suggests that these services were among those that were impacted by the circumstances. This information has been provided.

There are consumers who have voiced their frustration on social media over the fact that they are unable to access their accounts, and some of these customers have expressed their frustration over this issue. A number of users have stated their frustration about this issue.

The discontentment that users are experiencing has been communicated through posts that have been published on various social media platforms as of late.

Users of X, which was once known as Twitter, have submitted screenshots of a notification that flashed when they attempted to log into the platform.

The notification appeared after logging in.

The message was flashed on the screen whenever they attempted to log in by entering their credentials. For those individuals who were fortunate enough to receive the notification, it was strongly recommended that they “please check your entries and try again.”

Since its beginning in 1998, PayPal has developed into a global financial institution that is associated with a significance level that is significant enough to be considered noteworthy. The occurrence of this evolution took place virtually immediately following the establishment of PayPal.

Investors were informed that the total number of active accounts across all of the company’s companies had increased to $432 million for the month that ended on September 30th.

This information was provided to investors. Following the conclusion of the month, this information was made available to the public.

During the course of the month of October, investors were provided with this information for the purpose of their consideration. For those individuals who were interested in investing, the material in question was made available to them.

SOURCE: BBC

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NVIDIA’s Earnings: The Leader In AI Chips Demonstrates Relentless Growth.

Thousands of Asylum Seekers in Canada Get Free Housing

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Thousands of Asylum Seekers in Canada Get Free Housing

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Asylum Seekers Canada

With a large increase in the number of asylum seekers in Canada, several communities have begun to create free accommodations for new immigrants, while many Canadians remain homeless.

The city of Ottawa is attempting to build a sprung building, which will function as both a temporary shelter and a center for settlement services such as language training and job placement.

These facilities are intended to host refugees in the city for the first few weeks before transitioning to more suitable housing in Ottawa’s settlement infrastructure.

The city has identified two possible sites for these centers, both in the city’s west end. Planning records refer to them as “modular tension fabric buildings.”

The proposed placements for these structures have caused concern in the local areas. The city’s first proposed location was canceled due to strong community opposition. Subsequently, it proposed two alternative options and rallies for and against constructing the structures, which took place last weekend in both locations.

Many people protested that they had not been fully consulted on the location, while others grumbled that nothing was being done to assist Canadian citizens.

Asylum Seekers Canada

Canadian authorities opened a temporary housing center for migrants with 1,050 beds in the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

According to city data, one planned location is a federally owned tract of property near the Nepean Sportsplex, which serves around 1.5 million people annually. The other is near a public transport park-and-ride lot in Kanata’s western suburb.

City Councillor Sean Devine, whose constituency includes the Sportsplex site, stated that citizens have much to say about the problem.

“A lot of it is coming from the fact that it would have been preferable if the city of Ottawa had communicated the information sooner, perhaps in advance of the recommendations,” he told Global News during a telephone interview.

According to Devine, the number of migrants arriving in Ottawa has increased significantly in the last two years. This is consistent with national trends in refugee and asylum seeker rates.

Under Trudeua’s leadership, Canada had approximately 250,000 asylum petitions pending as of September 30, 2024, with more than 33,000 approved between January and the end of September.

International students in Canada filed nearly 14,000 asylum petitions in the first nine months of 2024, a roughly 14% increase over the same period last year. Compared to the present figures, approximately 12,000 asylum applications were lodged by international students in 2023—a tremendous surge from a mere 1,810 claims in 2018.

Devine stated that the city has been using two community center gymnasiums outfitted with bunk beds to temporarily lodge certain claimants before transitioning to other sorts of accommodation.

Asylum seekers get free housing in Quebec and Ontario

Asylum seekers get free housing in Quebec and Ontario.

According to a September release, the Ottawa Mission noticed a considerable increase in refugees filling its shelter beds in the summer of 2023. By October, asylum seekers were using 61% of the beds, a record high under Trudeau’s leadership.

The new structures will be funded under the federal interim housing aid program, which allows municipalities and provinces to reimburse the federal Government for expenditures incurred while temporarily hosting asylum seekers.

Since 2017, well over $1 billion has been distributed, largely in Ontario and Quebec, with the city of Ottawa getting $105 million to date.

Jenna Sudds, Minister of Families, Children, and Social Development, who represents the Ottawa riding of Kanata-Nepean, expressed disappointment with how the plans were presented to people.

Louisa Taylor, executive director of Settlement Service Organization 613 Asylum Seekers, has collaborated with the city to coordinate resources for settlement assistance at future centers.

Taylor explained that many asylum seekers in an Ottawa homeless shelter prompted her and 613 refugees to organize a recent rally supporting the structure.

“For several years, hundreds of refugee claimants have been living and sleeping on bunk beds and cots in community centers and arenas throughout the city.”

Nobody has gone out protesting about it. “What they’re protesting is the concept of having a facility in their community that they don’t know much about,” she explained.

Homeless Canadians

Homelessness is not a problem that most people connect with within Canada, but it is becoming a growing one. The projected number of homeless persons in Canada fluctuates from 150,000 to 300,000, which is increasing.

According to the 2016 State of Homelessness study, Canada had at least 235,000 homeless people. According to the Homeless Hub, the number of homeless people in Canada varies each year, ranging from 150,000 to 300,000.

However, many more people may be without a permanent home in Canada. The actual number is impossible to determine because many homeless people live in concealed places.

They are so named because they temporarily reside in squats or with friends and relatives. An estimated 1.3 million Canadians have experienced insecure housing or homelessness.

Homelessness Statistics for Canadians

  • Between 25,000 and 35,000 people are homeless on any given night in Canada.
  • Toronto has the most homeless people in Canada.
  • 62% of homeless people in Canada are males.
  • 30% of Canadian homeless come from Indigenous communities.
  • 90% of homeless shelters in Canada are in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, and Alberta, and 44% of them are in Ontario alone.
  • 22% of shelters are aimed at young homeless in Canada, while 20% of people experiencing homelessness are 13-24 years old.
  • The annual cost of homelessness is over $7 billion.
  • The Canadian Government has invested $2.2 billion over ten years to expand funding for the homeless.

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