Trump campaign projects confidence and looks to young male voters for an edge on Harris

Trump campaign projects confidence and looks to young male voters for an edge on Harris
Pokiyotaka Ikeda holds an "Asians for Trump" flag outside of a rally for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Bozeman, Montana, on August 9, 2024. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Updated 10 August 2024
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Trump campaign projects confidence and looks to young male voters for an edge on Harris

Trump campaign projects confidence and looks to young male voters for an edge on Harris

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: As Donald Trump adjusts to the reality of his new race against Kamala Harris, his campaign is counting on younger male voters to give him the edge in November in a presidential contest they insist is his to lose.
Trump and his Republican campaign now face a dramatically different race than the one just three weeks ago, before President Joe Biden abandoned his bid. While they acknowledge polls have tightened with Harris as the Democratic nominee, they maintain that the fundamentals of the race have not changed, with voters deeply sour over the direction of the country, and particularly the economy.
“What has happened is we are witnessing a kind of out-of-body experience where we have suspended reality for a couple of weeks,” Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio told reporters during a briefing in West Palm Beach on Thursday of the current state of the race.
It was a message echoed by Trump during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club.
“The honeymoon period’s gonna end,” he insisted while minimizing the size of the crowds Harris has been drawing and lashing out at his new opponent. “Let me tell you: We have the enthusiasm.”
Campaign officials acknowledge that Harris had energized the Democratic base and that her team has taken the lead on fundraising. But they insist they have more than enough to do what they need to win. Trump’s campaign and its affiliates reported raising $138.7 million in July — far less than the eye-popping $310 million sum reported by Harris. Her campaign began August with more cash on hand.
With less than three months to go, senior campaign officials are focused on a group of persuadable voters that they believe is key to victory. The targets, which they say comprise about 11 percent of the electorate in key battleground states, skew younger and are disproportionately male and moderate. While more than half are white, they include more nonwhites, especially Asians and Hispanics, than the broader electorate.
They are especially frustrated by the economy, including their personal finances, and are pessimistic things will improve.
“It’s a very narrow band of people that we are trying to move,” Fabrizio said of the efforts. Since these voters don’t engage with traditional news outlets and have traded cable for streaming services, the campaign has been working to reach them in novel ways.
“There is a reason why we’re doing podcasts. There is a reason why we’re doing Adin Ross,” Fabrizio said, referring to the controversial Internet personality who ended his interview with the former president earlier this week by giving him a Tesla Cybertruck wrapped in images of Trump raising his fist after his assassination attempt.
“There is a reason why we are doing all of those things. You know what these people pay attention to? MMA, Adin Ross,” he said. “MMA” refers to mixed martial arts.
Trump campaign officials acknowledge the Democratic base is now motivated in a way it wasn’t when Biden was the nominee. Harris, they say, will likely do better than Biden would have with Black voters, especially women and older men.
But they argue Harris is doing little to appeal to swing voters. And they intend to spend the next 80-plus days painting her as a radical liberal and as the incumbent rather than a change, tying her to the most unpopular Biden administration policies.
“There’s way more information about her that they don’t know that they’re going to hear. And we’re going to make sure they’re going to get,” Fabrizio said.
By the end of the race, they believe, neither candidate will be liked, but voters will choose the candidate they feel will most improve their economic conditions.
They pointed to a line Harris has been using to refer to Trump’s presidency — “We are not going back” — as particularly ill conceived, given that some voters say things were better when Trump was in office than they are now.
Trump campaign aides said they now have staff on the ground in 18 states, ranging from critical battlegrounds to states like Virginia, where Democrats have been favored, that they hope they can put into play.
The campaign says it now has hundreds of paid staff and more than 300 Trump and GOP offices open across battleground states.
But much of their effort relies on volunteers and outside groups.
They are trying to replicate a model they used successfully during the GOP primary in Iowa this winter, where volunteer “caucus captains” were given a list of 10 neighbors they pledged to get out to the polls. The campaign has credited that model with boosting turnout on a brutally cold and icy caucus night.
The “Trump Force 47” program is focused on targeting low- and medium-propensity voters. Volunteers will be canvassing, writing postcards, phone banking and organizing their neighbors.
So far, 12,000 captains have been trained and given voter target lists, according to officials. An additional 30,000 have volunteered, with more than 2,000 expected to be trained per week between now and Election Day.
A large part of the campaign’s outreach will also rely on outside groups, which will be running paid canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts thanks to new guidance from the Federal Election Commission that allow campaigns to coordinate with outside groups in ways that were previously not allowed.
The campaign said more than 1,000 paid canvassers are on the ground in battleground states, and they’re also working to register about 1.6 million targeted voters in those competitive places.


Gisele Pelicot’s daughter says has filed sex abuse case against father

Gisele Pelicot’s daughter says has filed sex abuse case against father
Updated 6 sec ago
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Gisele Pelicot’s daughter says has filed sex abuse case against father

Gisele Pelicot’s daughter says has filed sex abuse case against father
  • The daughter of convicted French rapist Dominique Pelicot said Thursday she had filed a complaint against her father accusing him of sexual abuse
PARIS: The daughter of convicted French rapist Dominique Pelicot said Thursday she had filed a complaint against her father accusing him of sexual abuse, after he was jailed for repeatedly sedating and raping her mother Gisele Pelicot along with dozens of strangers.
Caroline Darian, whose parents are now divorced, filed the complaint on Wednesday, accusing Dominique Pelicot of drugging her and committing “sexual abuse” against her, she told AFP in an interview.
She said she took legal action as a “message to all victims” of sexual abuse who were drugged not to give up.
Darian has said she suspects Dominique Pelicot abused her too after pictures of her naked and unconscious body were found among the detailed records he kept of his crimes.
Dominique Pelicot, 72, has always denied he abused his daughter.
“Yes, he denied it, but he also lied several times and gave different versions of the story during the two and a half years of the investigation,” Darian said.
Gisele Pelicot, 72, last year became a feminist icon for her courage during trial of her former husband for mass rape while they were married.
She had insisted that the trial be held in public and waived her right to anonymity.
A court in southern France in December sentenced him to 20 years for drugging and raping her and inviting dozens of men to do the same for almost a decade.
His 50 co-defendants were also found guilty and handed various sentences of between three and 15 years.
“We clearly saw in court that at no time was Dominique capable of telling the whole truth about what happened,” Darian added.
Darian has campaigned for awareness about the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse, and in 2022 wrote a book about the family’s ordeal, “Et j’ai cesse de t’appeler papa” (“And I stopped calling you dad“).
Her new book about victims of sexual abuse, titled “For us to remember” (“Pour que l’on se souvienne“), hit bookstands on Wednesday.


In the latest book, she recalls her time in court at her father’s trial, describing it as “the worst experience of my life” and her feeling of having been “the person who was most forgotten at the trial.”
She says that since the trial she has been plunged into “abyssal void” and a “feeling of injustice” which “crushes” her. She wants more than ever to be a voice for the victims who are sexually abused after being drugged, she writes.
“Rebuilding requires recognition of my status as a victim,” she told AFP, adding: “I know that the road is still long.”
Beyond “my personal case,” the complaint filed this week represents “a message sent to all victims,” she said.
“It is important for me to convey this message so that other victims” of chemical sedation can “tell themselves that there are things to do, there are remedies, and we must never give up.”
She has stepped up her public activities since the trial, notably through an NGO she has set up called M’endors pas (Don’t fall asleep).
“It’s a fight that requires a lot of time, brainpower and a certain form of mental load, but it’s really worth it,” she told AFP.
“Things are moving and I want to believe that this will allow us to set up real initiatives and real avenues for improvement to support victims who really need it.”

Australians told ‘prepare for worst’ as tropical cyclone nears

Australians told ‘prepare for worst’ as tropical cyclone nears
Updated 4 min 55 sec ago
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Australians told ‘prepare for worst’ as tropical cyclone nears

Australians told ‘prepare for worst’ as tropical cyclone nears
  • Some four million people in the firing line along a 400-kilometer stretch of coastline straddling the state border of Queensland and New South Wales
  • It is a region rarely troubled by typhoons – it has been more than 50 years since a tropical cyclone made landfall in that stretch of coast

GOLD COAST, Australia: Violent winds toppled power lines Friday as a tropical cyclone inched toward Australia’s eastern coast, swelling rivers, sparking evacuation orders and leaving 80,000 homes without electricity.
Tropical Cyclone Alfred was 125 kilometers east of Brisbane by Friday afternoon, crawling toward the densely populated coastline at “walking speed,” government forecasts said.
Some four million people were in the firing line along a 400-kilometer (250-mile) stretch of coastline straddling the state border of Queensland and New South Wales.
It is a region rarely troubled by typhoons — it has been more than 50 years since a tropical cyclone made landfall in that stretch of coast.
No deaths have been reported, but police said one man was missing after his four-wheel drive vehicle was swept from a bridge into fast-running river water south of the cyclone.
“The male driver was able to exit the vehicle and secure himself to a tree branch,” New South Wales police said in a statement.
But later, “the man was swept from the tree and seen to go beneath the water where he has not been sighted since.”
Heavy rains associated with the cyclone had already prompted flood warnings in the area.
Around 80,000 homes were left in the dark across the two states as winds uprooted trees and brought down power lines, officials and utility companies said, as repair crews raced to restore electricity.
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said the storm already “packed a punch,” warning conditions would get worse as it approached land on Saturday morning.
AFP images showed a white yacht blown into the rocks after snapping its moorings at Point Danger on the Gold Coast.
Two people made “a lucky escape” after a large gum tree crashed through the roof of a house in rural Currumbin Valley, the Queensland Ambulance Service said.
Emergency response officials said they had issued evacuation orders for some 10,000 people in the flood-prone northern rivers region of New South Wales.
There was particular concern for the town of Lismore, which was engulfed by record 14-meter (45-feet) floodwaters after heavy rains in 2022.
Many residents have spent the past three days fortifying their homes with sandbags, tying down loose furniture and stocking up on food and water.
“A lot of people are feeling a bit anxious, for sure, because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Paul Farrow from Coolangatta, a coastal suburb better known for its sun-splashed beaches.
“Yeah, we could all lose our houses. Who knows,” the 62-year-old told AFP.
“The pubs might be shut for a week or two. Who knows.”
Farrow said he had stashed a “couple of peaches,” a “couple of cartons of beer,” and “a bag of grapes” to get him through.
“So I’ll be right,” he said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the region should “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”
“When nature does its worst, Australians are at our best. We rally. We lift each other up. We look out for our neighbors,” he told reporters.
Tropical Cyclone Alfred would likely cross the coast on Saturday, the Bureau of Meteorology said, although its path has proven increasingly difficult to track.
It was forecast to make landfall somewhere north of Brisbane.
Drenching rains, “destructive” wind gusts, and “abnormally high tides” would pummel the coast as it crept nearer, the bureau said.
More than 900 schools across Queensland state and neighboring parts of northern New South Wales were closed on Friday, education department officials said.
While cyclones are common in the warm tropical waters lapping Australia’s northern flank, it is rarer for them to form in cooler waters further south.
Alfred would be the first to make landfall in that part of Australia since 1974, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
Researchers have repeatedly warned that climate change amplifies the risk of natural disasters such as bushfires, floods and cyclones.


Discovery of World War 2 bomb disrupts trains from Paris’ Gare du Nord

Discovery of World War 2 bomb disrupts trains from Paris’ Gare du Nord
Updated 47 min 57 sec ago
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Discovery of World War 2 bomb disrupts trains from Paris’ Gare du Nord

Discovery of World War 2 bomb disrupts trains from Paris’ Gare du Nord
  • “An unexploded bomb from the Second World War was discovered near the tracks,” TER said on social media platform X

PARIS: The discovery of a World War 2 bomb has disrupted morning traffic to and from Paris’ busy Gare du Nord train station, French national railway company TER said on Friday.
“An unexploded bomb from the Second World War was discovered near the tracks,” TER said on social media platform X.
The disruption is affecting both local metros and national and international trains.
Eurostar’s website shows that at least three trains scheduled to depart from Gare du Nord Friday morning have been canceled.
The international train company did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.
French police were not immediately available to provide more information.


Women spearhead maternal health revolution in Bangladesh

Women spearhead maternal health revolution in Bangladesh
Updated 07 March 2025
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Women spearhead maternal health revolution in Bangladesh

Women spearhead maternal health revolution in Bangladesh
  • Young Bangladeshi mother Mafia Akhter’s decision to give birth at home and without a doctor left her grieving over her firstborn’s lifeless body and vowing never to repeat the ordeal

BISWAMBHARPUR: Young Bangladeshi mother Mafia Akhter’s decision to give birth at home and without a doctor left her grieving over her firstborn’s lifeless body and vowing never to repeat the ordeal.
“My first baby died,” the 25-year-old told AFP. “I told myself that if I didn’t go to the clinic it could happen again, and that I wouldn’t be able to bear it.”
She gave birth again last month at a medical center in a village hemmed in by rice paddy and rivers, far from the nearest hospital and without the oversight of an obstetrician.
But this time her child survived — something she credits to Nargis Akhter, one of the thousands of Bangladeshi women working as “skilled birth attendants” to help mothers through delivery.
“Giving birth is the most important and critical moment for a woman,” Nargis — no relation to her patient — told AFP.
“I am lucky and proud to be able to be with them at that moment.”
Nargis was speaking to AFP after her routine post-natal consultation with Mafia, who was cradling her young daughter during her return to the spartan village health center where she gave birth.
Skilled birth attendants have been a fixture of Bangladesh’s maternal health policy for two decades and are an important pillar of the South Asian nation’s underfunded health system.
More than 30 percent of Bangladeshi women nationally give birth without the assistance of a doctor, nurse or midwife, according to government data from 2022 Demographic and Health Survey.
Birth attendants like Nargis, 25, are given several months training and put to work plugging this gap by serving in a jack-of-all-trades role akin to a cross between a nurse and a doula.
The use of skilled birth attendants has coincided with dramatic improvements to maternal health outcomes in Bangladesh.
Over the past 20 years, the mortality rate for pregnant women has fallen by 72 percent, to 123 deaths per 100,000 births and babies by 69 percent to 20 deaths per 100,000 births, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Many women do not have access to quality care, so I feel useful by helping them,” said Nargis, who in her five years as a birth attendant has overseen more than 400 deliveries.
“Almost no women die in childbirth here anymore,” she added.
“For me, that’s the most important thing.”


Besides helping with deliveries, birth attendants will screen pregnant women weeks ahead of their due date to refer high-risk pregnancies to hospitals further afield.
For women in Biswambharpur, the remote district that Mafia and Nargis call home, complicated cases will wind up in a district hospital struggling with inadequate resources.
“We never leave a patient without care, but they sometimes have to wait a long time for treatment,” said Abdullahel Maruf, the hospital’s chief doctor.
“Plus, we can’t change the geography. In an emergency, it takes time to get to us.”
Biswambharpur is lashed by monsoon rains for months each year that make travel difficult, and a lack of paved roads mean that many of its villages are inaccesible by the district’s only ambulance, even during the drier months.
Maruf’s hospital sees up to 500 patients each day and still has around eight women die in labor each year — fatalities he says are avoidable, given that his emergency department lacks an obstetrician and backup surgeon.
“We could easily reduce this figure if we had all the required staff,” he said.
Maruf said that mortality rates had nonetheless improved by an awareness campaign encouraging women to give birth at local health clinics rather than at home.
“This is our greatest victory,” he said.
Bangladesh spends only 0.8 percent of its GDP on public health, a figure that Maya Vandenent of the UN children’s agency said risked stalling the country’s improvements to maternal health.
“Huge progress has been made,” she told AFP. “But the movement is slowing down.”
Sayedur Rahman, a physician overseeing Bangladesh’s health ministry, freely concedes that more health funding is far from the top of the agenda of the government he serves.
The country is still reeling from the dramatic ouster of autocratic ex-premier Sheikh Hasina last August during a student-led national uprising.
Rahman is part of an interim administration tasked with steering democratic reforms ahead of fresh elections, and he laments that these priorities will leave others in the health sector unaddressed.
“We need resources to create a national ambulance network, recruit more anesthesiologists, open operating rooms,” Rahman told AFP.
“Our financial constraints will directly impact maternal and neonatal mortality rates.”


One dead, seven missing in Indonesia floods and landslides

One dead, seven missing in Indonesia floods and landslides
Updated 07 March 2025
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One dead, seven missing in Indonesia floods and landslides

One dead, seven missing in Indonesia floods and landslides
  • One child was found dead, and seven people in three separate districts were still missing

JAKARTA: Floods and landslides on Indonesia’s main island of Java killed one and left seven more missing after heavy rains inundated more than a dozen towns, an official said Friday.
Torrential rains this week hit capital Jakarta and its surrounding cities, forcing thousands of residents to evacuate and authorities to use weather modification technology.
But the bad weather carried on in neighboring West Java province Thursday, hitting most parts of its Sukabumi district, damaging houses and flooding hundreds of public facilities including schools and hospitals.
One child was found dead, and seven people in three separate districts were still missing, according to the local disaster agency.
“The disaster was caused by extreme weather and torrential rain with high intensity that lasted for a long time,” agency spokesman Andrie Setiawan told AFP.
At least 18 towns in the district were affected by flooding and landslides, he said, adding more than 200 people had to evacuate to higher ground.
Indonesia is prone to landslides during the rainy season, typically between November and April.
Climate change has also increased the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.
In January, at least 25 people died after floods and landslides hit a town in Central Java.
Around 70 people died in May last year after heavy rains caused flash floods in West Sumatra, pushing a mixture of ash, sand and pebbles from the eruption of Mount Marapi into residential areas.