MADISON, Wisconsin: Voters lined up across battleground Wisconsin to cast their ballots Tuesday on the first day of early, in-person voting, as former President Barack Obama and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz urged supporters in the liberal capital city to do the same.
Donald Trump lost Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes in 2020, an election that saw unprecedented early and absentee voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are expecting another razor-thin margin in Wisconsin, and both sides are pushing voters to cast their ballots early.
Walz, the governor of neighboring Minnesota, called Harris the underdog and encouraged voters to do all they can to get people to the polls.
“Even one or two extra votes per precinct will be enough to win this thing and send Kamala to the White House,” Walz said.
Obama, the only president to carry Wisconsin by more than a percentage point in the past six elections, said he drove to the event from Chicago after his plane was leaking oil. Obama mocked Trump, calling him “loonier” than he was in 2016.
“We know this election is going to be tight,” Obama said when urging early voting. “It’s going to be tight here in Wisconsin, its going to be tight all across our country.”
Obama was headed to neighboring Michigan later Tuesday, among the several stops the former president is making in battleground states to encourage early voting.
Voters lined up Tuesday in communities across Wisconsin, including in the liberal strongholds of Milwaukee and Madison and in conservative suburban Milwaukee communities. Hours and locations for early voting varied across the state.
Trump has been highly critical of voting by mail during past elections, falsely claiming it was ripe with fraud. But this election, he and his backers are embracing all forms of voting, including by mail and early in-person. Trump himself encouraged early voting at a rally in Dodge County, Wisconsin, earlier this month.
Higher turnout from Republicans has led to breaking records for ballots cast before November in key states such as Georgia and North Carolina.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler said given the new push from Trump and Republicans in support of early voting, “Democrats should expect Republicans to vote in massive numbers.”
“Across the country, the bigger question is how many Republicans are voting early for Trump and how many who voted for him in the past are voting for Harris,” Wikler said.
Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming said Monday that Trump and Republicans have been “very clear” in their support for voting early. Schimming even put in a plug for using absentee ballot drop boxes, a method of returning ballots that Trump once opposed and that some Wisconsin Republicans still do.
“We need to avail ourselves of every imaginable way to get votes in,” Schimming said on a press call.
Numerous Republican officeholders and candidates voted Tuesday. One of them, Republican US Senate candidate Eric Hovde, said after casting his ballot at the village hall in Shorewood Hills, a Madison suburb, that early voting is part of the election process now.
Hovde encouraged others to vote early because it’s impossible to predict what might happen on Election Day.
Harris has been spending a lot of time in the ” blue wall ” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in the final weeks of the campaign, including stops in Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday. Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance was in the conservative Milwaukee suburbs on Sunday.
The Wisconsin Democratic Party was also staging events across Wisconsin to encourage early voting, as were liberal advocacy groups including Souls to the Polls, a Milwaukee-based organization that targets Black voters. That is a key demographic for Democrats in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city and also the source of the highest number of Democratic votes.
Early voting in Wisconsin began Tuesday and runs through Sunday, Nov. 3. Voters do not need to give a reason for voting absentee. Ballots started being sent by mail in late September, but beginning Tuesday voters can request one at designated voting locations and cast their ballot in person.
As of Monday, more than 360,000 absentee ballots had already been returned in Wisconsin. Voters can continue to return them by mail, in person, or at absentee ballot drop boxes in communities where those are available. All absentee ballots must be received by the time polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Obama and Walz urge Democrats to vote early in battleground Wisconsin
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Obama and Walz urge Democrats to vote early in battleground Wisconsin
- Walz called Harris the underdog and encouraged voters to do all they can to get people to the polls.
Uganda fuel truck explosion kills 11
KIGOGWA: A fuel truck ran out of control and exploded into flames near the Ugandan capital on Tuesday, killing 11 people, including two minors, police said.
The impoverished East African country has witnessed several similar disasters in recent years as people rushed to steal fuel from tankers involved in road accidents.
Ugandan police said the latest tragedy struck at 3 p.m. (1200 GMT) when the tanker overturned and caught fire in the town of Kigogwa, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Kampala.
Eleven people died, including two minors, the Uganda Police Force said in a statement on X, adding: “The victims were burnt beyond recognition.”
The incident took place just days after a fuel tanker exploded in northern Nigeria on October 15, killing more than 170 people.
Images from the scene in Kigogwa showed yellow police tape around the charred wreck of the tanker while forensic specialists and emergency responders inspected nearby properties destroyed in the blast.
Bukenya Jefferson 29, a shopkeeper at Kigogwa trading center who witnessed the blast, said fuel started to spill onto the road after the vehicle rolled over.
“People rushed to the truck. Some people had begun taking fuel in cans. Then we heard a loud sound and smoke started coming toward us,” he told AFP.
“We were confused and saw everyone running and I ran, then saw smoke increasing.”
The police statement said the tanker was traveling from Kampala to Gulu in northern Uganda, a journey of about 650 kilometers.
“Unfortunately, people who rushed to siphon fuel from the tanker were the most affected,” it said.
Four buildings housing nine shops were destroyed in the blaze, it added, saying property worth millions of Ugandan shillings was lost.
“This tragic incident serves as a reminder of the risks associated with fuel tanker accidents and the importance of exercising caution when dealing with hazardous materials.”
Charles Lwanga, resident district commissioner for the area, told AFP that investigations were under way.
He also told reporters that firefighters had brought the blaze under control, preventing the flames from reaching a nearby petrol station.
The town lies on the road between Kampala and the town of Bombo, where the Uganda Land Forces have their headquarters.
In August 2019, 19 people died when a fuel truck barrelled into other vehicles in the busy town of Kyambura in western Uganda and exploded.
In 2002, 70 people were killed when an oil truck rammed into a bus in Rutoto, less than 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Kyambura.
And in 2013, 33 people died in a blast after a fuel truck overturned in Kampala.
Uganda imports an average of 2.5 billion liters of petroleum a year, according to local media reports.
It is currently developing oil fields in the Lake Albert area of northwestern Uganda in a controversial mega-project with TotalEnergies of France and China’s state-run CNOOC.
The $10 billion project — which also involves building a 1,443-kilometer (900-mile) heated pipeline to ship the crude to Tanzania — has come under fire from rights groups and environmental campaigners.
Uganda’s veteran President Yoweri Museveni says the oil is vital to help economic development in the country, where the poverty rate stood at about 20 percent in 2020-21, according to government figures.
UN group questions France over racial profiling
GENEVA: A United Nations group on Tuesday raised the issue of racial profiling by French police during identity checks.
The UN’s committee responsible for verifying the application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights said it “continues to receive disturbing information about systemic racism and the persistence of racial and ethnic profiling, and about the inadequacy of complaints handling procedures.”
Yvonne Donders, the committee’s vice president, said during a regular examination of France that the body had been informed that “people of color are subject to identity checks by police approximately 20 times more often than other citizens.”
The French delegation at the meeting responded that the codes governing France’s security forces “explicitly” ban discriminatory identity checks, and that the security forces all receive training on this issue.
Donders replied that there could be a gap between practice and the law, adding that “greater ethnic and racial diversity within law enforcement can help reduce racial profiling.”
The committee’s final observations, covering several countries and subjects, will be released in early November at the end of this year’s session.
Harris and Trump push for Latino vote with just 14 days to go
WASHINGTON: US election rivals Donald Trump and Kamala Harris made their pitches to Latino voters Tuesday as their neck-and-neck White House race entered its final two-week stretch.
Democratic candidate Harris was set to tape an interview with Spanish-language TV network Telemundo while Republican nominee Trump held a roundtable event with Latino leaders in Florida, where he called the border the “biggest issue” facing the nation.
Both campaigns are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into a last push for undecided voters who could tilt the balance in their favor, with polls showing the candidates in a dead heat ahead of Election Day.
About 18 million Americans have already voted by mail or in person — representing more than 10 percent of the total in 2020.
Whatever the result, Americans will make history on November 5: they will either elect the first woman president in the world’s leading superpower — or they will put the first convicted felon into the White House.
At Trump’s event, one speaker falsely claimed Vice President Harris and outgoing President Joe Biden were “human traffickers” while pushing baseless claims that Trump won the 2020 election.
The former president still refuses to accept his defeat at the polls four years ago and is expected to reject the result in November if he loses again — potentially pitching the United States into chaos.
Some polls appear to be giving the Republican, who at 78 is the oldest nominee from a major party in US history, a slight edge recently — but all within the margin of error.
Trump, speaking to Latino leaders, falsely claimed the Biden administration was flying in “hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.”
Harris, who will give an interview to NBC on Tuesday evening, has been honing in on abortion.
Her campaign announced she would on Friday travel to Texas — “ground zero of Trump’s extreme abortion bans” since a 2022 Supreme Court decision ended the national right to the procedure.
In Madison, Wisconsin, a long line for early voting snaked through a library branch, and resident Dawn Lauderdale said she would have to come back another day to cast her ballot.
“There is no reason any politician, male or female, should be in that room,” the Harris supporter said, referring to abortion procedures.
Harris, 60, is also deploying two of her party’s most popular emissaries onto the campaign trail: Barack and Michelle Obama.
The former president, speaking at a rally in Madison, rolled back the years with fiery attacks on Trump.
“Don’t boo, vote!” he implored people after each jibe.
Upping the star factor, rapper Eminem will introduce Obama at a major Harris campaign event in Detroit on Tuesday, according to US media.
After his Florida appearance, Trump was set to fly to North Carolina, for an event that is supposed to be devoted to the economy.
He rarely sticks to the topic at his rallies, however — instead, recent weeks have featured rambling monologues and threats about weaponizing the military against Democrats, whom he calls “the enemy from within.”
One televised town hall veered into an impromptu music session as Trump abandoned discussion of the election to play his favorite hits while swaying on stage.
The Harris campaign has begun to hammer at his mental and physical fitness to occupy the Oval Office.
But a tide of MAGA-capped supporters continue to flock to his events, convinced that he is the victim of political persecution, or that Democrats are instigating threats against him.
Democrats are also seeking to woo moderate Republicans turned off by Trump’s ominous rhetoric and scandals.
Harris has sought to frame herself as a “joyful warrior” seeking to turn the page on Trump’s years of outrage and move into a new generation of American political leadership.
Poland alleges Russian sabotage and is closing one of Moscow’s consulates
- Radek Sikorski demanded that Russia stop what he called hybrid war actions against Poland and its Western allies
- “As the minister of foreign affairs, I have information that the Russian Federation is behind attempts at sabotage, both in Poland and in allied countries,” Sikorski told reporters
WARSAW: Poland’s foreign minister said Tuesday that he is ordering the closure of one of three Russian consulates in the country in response to acts of sabotage including arson attacks that he said were sponsored by Moscow.
Radek Sikorski demanded that Russia stop what he called hybrid war actions against Poland and its Western allies, warning that Poland reserves the right “to take further decisive action” if they don’t stop.
“As the minister of foreign affairs, I have information that the Russian Federation is behind attempts at sabotage, both in Poland and in allied countries,” Sikorski told reporters in Warsaw.
He said he was withdrawing consent for the Russian Consulate in Poznan, and that its personnel would be unwelcome in Poland. Russia also has consulates in Gdansk and Krakow.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova promised “a painful response to yet another hostile act” in comments to state news agency RIA Novosti.
Sikorski cited the arrest in January of a Ukrainian citizen who he said admitted that Russian agents told him to carry out an arson attack in the city of Wroclaw. The attack was foiled, and the 51-year-old man, identified only as Serhii S., is awaiting a court trial.
Sikorski alleged that about 20 such sabotage suspects are under investigation in Poland, and that he has knowledge of other such arson plans in allied countries.
“Putin must be deterred,” the foreign minister said in an interview Monday on the private TVN broadcaster. “We have other such arson attacks all over Europe, all over Europe, and we know about the Russian plans for further arson attacks.”
The pro-European Union government in Warsaw says Russia is pursuing acts of hybrid war against Poland and other Western countries in retaliation for their support for Poland’s neighbor Ukraine in its struggle against Russia’s invasion.
Majority of Arab American voters support continuing US military presence in Mideast: Poll
LONDON: A majority of Arab-American voters support a continuing US military presence in the Middle East, but when it comes to dealing with Iran, 41 percent would prefer to see fewer sanctions and more diplomacy and incentives, according to a survey conducted for Arab News by YouGov.
However, 32 percent support a more aggressive stance, believing the US should not only be applying maximum diplomatic pressure but should also increase sanctions against Iran.
Eleven percent believe the new US administration should maintain the current pressure on Tehran. Only 4 percent support the use of military force against Iran by the US.
The poll’s finding of an appetite for diplomacy over sanctions surprised Joseph Haboush, a former non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute and Washington correspondent for Al Arabiya English.
“From the conversations that I’ve had over the years in the Arab-American community, I thought it would be more prevalent for Arab Americans to take a more hawkish approach toward Iranian proxies and other groups, but the poll shows that that isn’t 100 accurate,” he told the Arab News-sponsored “Ray Hanania Radio Show.”
Nevertheless, 52 percent believe the US should either maintain its military presence in the Middle East (25 percent) or increase it (27 percent). Thirty-eight percent think the US should reduce its military footprint in the region.
“That’s another interesting element,” said Haboush. “They want the US to work its diplomatic channels, but at the same time they don’t want the US to leave from a military point of view.
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“I think the belief is that once the military presence is gone, the overall interest is gone, and then … they’re left to look to other powers that may not be as influential as they’d like.”
It would “be great for policymakers here in Washington to have a look at this poll because it’s reflective of how much people in the region want US involvement and think that it’s productive.
“At the same time, the policies we’ve seen toward Gaza and now in Lebanon are putting a dent in the US image abroad. But despite that, folks still want to see some sort of US involvement.
“The reality of the matter, for better or worse, is that the US is the only side that’s going to be able to bring these wars to an end, or at least put some sort of pressure on the Israelis.”
Caroline Rose, director of the Project on Post-Withdrawals Security Landscapes at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, D.C., said: “It’s clear that Arab Americans clearly recall the costs of sudden withdrawal in the region and value America’s deterrence with malign terrorist organizations, militias and other forces that undermine security.
“After the US pulled out of Iraq in 2011, the emergence of the Islamic State (Daesh) compelled it to redeploy its forces in 2017.
“The Trump administration’s sudden announcement of withdrawal from northeast Syria ushered in new security risks for local actors on the ground, such as Syria’s Kurdish communities, as it invited a Turkish offensive and encroachment from the Syrian regime and Iran-aligned militant groups.
“The Trump administration’s incremental draw-down effort in 2020, reducing 5,000 US personnel in Iraq to 2,500 in the wake of escalation with Iran over the killing of IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) Gen. (Qassem) Soleimani, ultimately didn’t incite the level of regional chaos that the Syria withdrawal announcement did in October 2019.
“However, it did set the groundwork for a more long-term strategy for withdrawal in Iraq that could very well create further space for Iran and Iran-sponsored groups to exploit in the country.
“The elephant in the room additionally affecting Arab-American hesitancy for seeing the US military presence in the Middle East withdrawn, of course, is the memory of a botched Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021 that fully displayed the potential consequences of an immediate evacuation of US forces.”
