WASHINGTON: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appeared Friday at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty, a national nonprofit that has spearheaded efforts to get mentions of LGBTQ+ identity and structural racism out of K-12 classrooms.
In a “fireside chat” in the nation’s capital, the former president sought to shore up support and enthusiasm among a major part of his base. The bulk of the group’s 130,000-plus members are conservatives who agree with him that parents should have more say in public education and that racial equity programs and transgender accommodations don’t belong in schools.
Yet Trump also runs the risk of alienating some moderate voters, many of whom see Moms for Liberty’s activism as too extreme to be legitimized by a presidential nominee.
A year ago, Moms for Liberty was viewed by many as a rising power player in conservative politics that could be pivotal in supporting the Republican ticket. The group’s membership skyrocketed after its launch in 2021, fueled by parents protesting mandatory masking for students and remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But in the last several months, a series of embarrassing scandals and underwhelming performances during local elections have called Moms for Liberty’s influence into question.
The group also has voiced support for Project 2025, a detailed and controversial playbook for the next conservative presidency from which Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself.
Moms for Liberty serves on the advisory board for Project 2025, and the author of the document’s education chapter taught a “strategy session” at the group’s Friday gathering.
The negative perceptions about Moms for Liberty around the country could increase the potential liability for Trump as he sits down with co-founder Tiffany Justice on Friday evening, said University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett.
“It certainly helps him rally his base,” Jewett said. “But will that be enough to outdo the backlash?”
Justice said she wanted to ask Trump about “what was important in his kids’ lives and his kids’ education.”
“I think the fascinating thing about Donald Trump is that he’s a father and a grandfather, but he’s involved his children in business and in politics with him,” she said. “They have a very strong family. And so I think we’ll enjoy hearing more about that from him tonight.”
Justice disputed the idea that her group’s influence is waning, pointing to the 60 percent of Moms for Liberty-backed candidates who won their recent races in the Florida primaries.
That’s “a really big deal,” she said, especially considering that many of the school board hopefuls the group endorses are first-time candidates running against incumbents. She also noted three Moms for Liberty members who won Florida House primaries, showing the group’s reach into other political offices.
The group, which as a nonprofit is officially nonpartisan, said it also invited both Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, who recently suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump, to speak at the gathering. Neither is scheduled to make an appearance.
Trump didn’t share details of what he would discuss at the gathering, but his campaign pointed to his education proposals, which include promoting school choice, giving parents more say in education and awarding funding preference to states and school districts that abolish teacher tenure, financially reward good teachers and allow parents to directly elect school principals.
He also has called for terminating the Department of Education, barring transgender athletes from playing in girls’ sports, and cutting funding from any schools pushing “inappropriate racial, sexual or political content.”
“President Trump believes students should be taught reading, writing and math in the classroom — not gender, sex and race like the Biden Administration is pushing on our public school system,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary.
The event took on a party-like atmosphere as the group awaited Trump’s arrival to a hotel ballroom in Washington. Donning shirts with messages like “Moms for Trump” and “We don’t co-parent with the government,” attendees at the group’s annual gathering ate buffet desserts, drank beer and cheered to a cover band playing country hits.
Trump entered the ballroom as he does at his signature rallies, standing onstage and soaking up applause for the entirety of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” Despite the event’s focus on education, Trump began by discussing illegal immigration, an issue he’s put at the center of his campaign.
“Many of these people are coming out of the roughest countries in the world, and they’re coming from all over the world, they’re not just coming from South America,” Trump said.
Vice President Harris has criticized her Republican opponent for his threats to dismantle the Department of Education. She also has spoken out against efforts to restrict classroom content related to race.
Democrats have lauded her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for an executive order he signed protecting the rights of LGBTQ people to receive gender-affirming health care in his state. Republicans, including Trump, have lambasted him for it.
During a campaign stop earlier Friday in Johnstown in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Trump offered extensive criticism of the media for what he called unfavorable coverage and singled out CNN for its interview with Harris and Walz on Thursday.
Moments later, a man rushed the media area and made it over a bike rack barrier and close to a riser where television reporters were watching the rally. Private security pushed him back, and the man was eventually subdued by law enforcement using a Taser.
Trump at first said of the man, “he’s on our side,” but it’s not clear what his intent was. As police led the man away, the former president declared, “Is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?”
Johnstown was once a steel-producing hub but has seen its factories close over the decades. In his speech, Trump vowed to restore American manufacturing by imposing steep tariffs on goods from China and other foreign countries. He also used energy-rich Pennsylvania as a backdrop to deride Harris for once suggesting she’d be willing to ban hydraulic fracturing — a position her campaign says she no longer supports.
The former president said he was “exposing how bad it’s going to be in Pennsylvania and our country if we stop doing the fossil fuel thing.”
Trump seeks to activate his base at Moms for Liberty gathering but risks alienating moderate voters
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Trump seeks to activate his base at Moms for Liberty gathering but risks alienating moderate voters
- Moms for Liberty serves on the advisory board for Project 2025, a detailed and controversial playbook for the next conservative presidency
- The group, which as a nonprofit is officially nonpartisan, said it also invited both Kamala Harris and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy
Gavi to buy 500,000 mpox vaccine doses from Bavarian Nordic
Around 3.6 million doses of mpox vaccine have already been pledged to the DRC by rich nations which have stockpiles, WHO has said
LONDON: The global vaccine group Gavi will buy 500,000 doses of Bavarian Nordic’s mpox vaccine, its first purchase of the shot to help battle an outbreak in parts of Africa, the group said on Wednesday.
In 2024, there have been more than 25,000 suspected mpox cases and 723 deaths in Africa, mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the World Health Organization, which has declared the outbreak a global health emergency.
Gavi, a public-private alliance which co-funds vaccine purchases for low-income countries, said it will spend up to $50 million on the plan, which includes the transportation, delivery and costs of administering the vaccines. The doses are due to be delivered this year.
Around 3.6 million doses of mpox vaccine have already been pledged to the DRC by rich nations which have stockpiles, the World Health Organization has said, but only a small portion has arrived so far. The WHO approved the vaccine for use on Friday last week.
Gavi’s purchase, using a new facility set up after the COVID-19 pandemic to respond quickly to public health emergencies, could speed up the response in Congo and other affected countries.
Also on Wednesday, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said it would provide $9.5 million to support Congo with its emergency response at the request of the government there, including surveillance, laboratory systems and risk communication.
The price of the vaccine was not disclosed. Gavi’s $50 million investment would likely equate to less than around $100 per vaccine, because transportation and logistics are included in the total. The figure is lower than previous estimates of the cost.
Gavi chief executive Sania Nishtar said the priority was working with partners “to turn these vaccines into vaccinations as quickly and effectively as possible and, over time, to build a global vaccine stockpile.”
The deal will significantly increase the availability of mpox vaccine for African countries, Bavarian Nordic chief executive Paul Chaplin said. Last week, the company said it would push back some existing orders to 2025, based on US government contracts, to focus on market needs now.
Mpox, which spreads through close contact and typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, has been a public health problem in parts of Africa for decades. But vaccines have never previously been available outside clinical trials in affected countries in Africa, even after a different strain of the virus spread globally in 2022 and high-income countries used vaccines to help stem the outbreak.
Pakistan police arrest key suspect in gang rape of a woman polio worker
- Police also detained husband of attacked woman for kicking her out of home and threatening to kill her over allegedly tarnishing the family’s honor by being raped
MULTAN: Pakistani police arrested the key suspect in the gang rape of a woman polio worker who was assaulted by three men during last week’s vaccination campaign, officials said Wednesday. Two other suspects are still at large.
The assault on Thursday in Jacobabad, a district in the southern Sindh province, was one in a spate of attacks targeting polio vaccination teams going door to door in the campaign across Pakistan.
The woman who was attacked had alerted the authorities, saying she was raped by three men after going into a house in Jacobabad to administer polio drops to the children there, local police official Mohammad Saifal said.
The suspect, identified as Ahmad Jakhrani, was arrested overnight, Saifal added.
Police are still seeking the arrest of the two other men, accused of taking turns to assault the woman, Saifal said. A local police chief was fired for negligence following the attack, for failing to provide the polio worker with adequate security.
The attack shocked many Pakistanis as such sexual assaults are rare, though women polio workers have complained of harassment in the past during the campaigns. The provincial government in Sindh has said it would fully investigate the case.
Police also detained the husband of the attacked woman for kicking her out of their home and threatening to kill her after the assault over allegedly tarnishing the family’s honor by being raped.
So-called honor killings, in which women and girls are slain by their own relatives for allegedly dishonoring the family’s reputation, are still common in Pakistan.
Saifal also said police have been deployed to the house where the woman was now staying with her relatives for her protection.
Anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan are regularly marred by violence. Militants often target polio vaccination teams and police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming that the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Since January, Pakistan has reported 17 new cases of polio, jeopardizing decades of efforts to eliminate the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease from the country. Polio often strikes children under age 5 and typically spreads through contaminated water.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in which the spread of polio has never been stopped. Pakistan’s government is planning another polio vaccination drive in October.
Ukrainian drones strike a major military depot in a Russian town northwest of Moscow
- Ukraine claimed the strike destroyed Russian military warehouses in Toropets about 380 kilometers northwest of Moscow
- The attack was carried out by Ukraine’s Security Service, along with Ukraine’s Intelligence and Special Operations Forces
KYIV: Ukrainian drones struck a large military depot in a town deep inside Russia overnight, causing a huge blaze and prompting the evacuation of some local residents, a Ukrainian official and Russian news reports said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a senior US diplomat said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently said he has a plan for winning the war that “can work” and help end the conflict, which is now in its third year. But the Ukrainian leader hasn’t publicly spelled out the plan.
Ukraine claimed the strike destroyed Russian military warehouses in Toropets, a town in Russia’s Tver region about 380 kilometers (240 miles) northwest of Moscow and about 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
The attack was carried out by Ukraine’s Security Service, along with Ukraine’s Intelligence and Special Operations Forces, a Kyiv security official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the operation.
According to the official, the depot housed Iskander and Tochka-U missiles, as well as glide bombs and artillery shells. He said the facility caught fire in the strike and was burning across an area 6 kilometers (4 miles) wide.
Among the destroyed ammunition were North Korean KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles, another official, in Ukraine’s Intelligence Office, told The AP. He was not authorized to comment publicly and didn’t provide evidence to support his claim.
Russia and North Korea signed a landmark pact last June that envisioned mutual military assistance between Moscow and Pyongyang.
More than 100 domestically-produced kamikaze drones were deployed in the attack on the depot, the Ukrainian Intelligence Office official added.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted regional authorities as saying air defense systems were working to repel a “massive drone attack” on Toropets, which has a population of around 11,000. The agency also reported a fire and the evacuation of some local residents.
There was no immediate information about whether the strikes had caused any casualties.
Successful Ukrainian strikes on targets deep inside Russia have become more common as the war has progressed and Kyiv developed its drone technology.
Zelensky is also seeking approval from Western nations for Ukraine to use the sophisticated weapons they are providing to hit targets inside Russia. Some Western leaders have balked at that possibility, fearing they could be dragged into the conflict.
Ukraine’s targeting of Russian military equipment, ammunition and infrastructure deep inside Russia, as well as making Russian civilians feel some of the consequences of the war that is being fought largely inside Ukraine, is part of Kyiv’s strategy.
The swift push by Ukrainian forces into Russia’s Kursk border region last month fits into that plan, which apparently seeks to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to back down.
Putin, however, has shown no signs of backing down, and has been trying to grind down Ukraine’s resolve through attritional warfare and also sap the West’s support for Kyiv by drawing out the conflict. That has come at a price, however, as the UK Defense Ministry estimates that the war has likely killed and wounded more than 600,000 Russian troops.
On Tuesday, Putin ordered the country’s military to increase its number of troops by 180,000 to a total of 1.5 million by Dec. 1.
Zelensky last month said his plan for victory includes not only battlefield goals but also diplomatic and economic wins. The plan has been kept under wraps but the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said during a news conference Tuesday that Washington officials have seen it.
“We think it lays out a strategy and a plan that can work,” she said, adding that the United States will bring it up with other world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York next week. She did not comment on what the plan contained.
Rising rivers threaten southern Poland as flooding recedes elsewhere in Central Europe
- Authorities have reported 23 deaths so far, with seven each in Poland and Romania, five in Austria and four in the Czech Republic
- The combination of floods in Central Europe and deadly wildfires in Portugal are joint proof of a “climate breakdown”, the European Union’s head office said
WARSAW: Soldiers and volunteers in southwestern Poland were laying sandbags Wednesday near swollen rivers in the region of Wroclaw as they worked to safeguard homes and businesses after days of flooding across Central Europe.
Several Central European nations have been hit by severe flooding, including Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania as a result of a low pressure system that began dumping record rainfall in the region last Thursday.
Authorities have reported 23 deaths so far, with seven each in Poland and Romania, five in Austria and four in the Czech Republic.
The combination of floods in Central Europe and deadly wildfires in Portugal are joint proof of a “climate breakdown” that will become the norm unless drastic action is taken, the European Union’s head office said Wednesday.
The fourth death in the Czech Republic was reported Wednesday, when police said they found the body of a 70-year-old woman who was swept away by waters on Sunday in the town of Kobyla nad Vidnavkou near the town of Jesenik, located in the badly hit northeast.
The weather has improved, with warm and sunny conditions in the Czech Republic, Poland and elsewhere. Water levels were falling in some places, allowing authorities and residents to clean up debris.
Firefighters in Poland were pumping water out of flooded streets and basements. And in Romania, about 1,000 firefighters were working across the country to clean up severely affected areas, the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations said Wednesday in a Facebook post.
But some areas are still facing a threat, particularly in southwestern Poland.
Soldiers and residents in Marcinkowice, near Wroclaw, were laying sandbags near a bridge over the Olawa River, whose waters flow into the Oder, the major river that rises in the Oder Mountains in the Czech Republic and runs north through Poland to Germany.
The community leader of the town of Olawa, Artur Piotrowski, described the situation as difficult. He told the Polish state news agency PAP that two villages in a low-lying area have been flooded since Monday and residents refused to evacuate.
Thousands of Polish soldiers were in action. Some evacuated people and animals — including dogs and horses — from flood-affected areas and distributed food and drinking water. The army also posted on X on Wednesday that it set up a field hospital in the town of Nysa after patients in a hospital there had to be evacuated earlier this week.
Experts have been preparing for flood threats due to the cresting Oder River in Opole, a city of some 130,000 residents, and Wroclaw, home to about 640,000 residents, which suffered disastrous flooding in 1997.
Philippines resumes sending workers to Kuwait under new protective measures
- Only Filipinos with prior work experience abroad will be deployed to Kuwait
- Manila will appoint welfare officers to assist overseas Filipino workers
MANILA: The Philippines has resumed sending workers to Kuwait, with new protections in place to secure their rights and welfare, the Department of Migrant Workers said, as a group of two dozen Filipino domestic workers readies to depart to the Gulf state this week.
Manila has been working to tackle labor concerns related to overseas Filipino workers in Kuwait since last year, when it suspended the deployment of first-time workers following the murder of domestic worker Jullebee Ranara in January 2023.
Bilateral relations saw another setback when Kuwait suspended the issuance of new visas for Philippine nationals in May 2023.
After a series of consultations, the countries reached an agreement in June 2024 to lift their respective suspensions.
“The resumption of OFW deployment was a result of the agreement between the Philippine government and Kuwait, which provides measures for enhanced OFW protection,” the DMW said in a statement.
“The 35 OFWs are Filipino domestic workers with prior experience working overseas and deployed through Philippine and Kuwait recruitment agencies with good track record. Eleven of them were sent off last Friday, led by Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac, while the 24 OFWs are set to depart this week.”
The new batch will join around 270,000 OFWs who live and work in Kuwait, which for years has been among the top destinations for Filipino migrant workers.
The Philippines and Kuwait have agreed to establish a joint committee to address labor affairs, implement a system for the whitelisting of recruitment agencies and appoint welfare desk officers to monitor and provide assistance for OFWs.
Arnold Mamaclay, president of the Philippine Employment Agencies and Associates for Corporate Employers in the Middle East, told Arab News that the Philippine Migrant Workers Office in Kuwait has been “very strict in verifying documents” to “make sure that OFWs are protected and will be deployed to companies who are well-verified.”
Other measures, such as electronic salary payment, will “address issues like non-payment and delayed wages,” he added.
Furthermore, he said sending “only those with prior work experience abroad” to Kuwait will reduce their “vulnerability to abuse.”
