“I’m not looking for status quo. I’m hoping the boat gets rocked." On Trump voters who went for Obama in '08 and '12 https://t.co/Gppep35XeK
— Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) August 7, 2016
In Trump, some Obama backers see a new champion of hope and change:https://t.co/aT20I9Djt8 pic.twitter.com/fMohQziT6z
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) August 6, 2016
Last year, total U.S. imports of furniture and fixtures from China hit $20.4 billion, up from $4.4 billion in 2000 https://t.co/qgtimJuzW4— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 11, 2016
Many assumed the U.S. would withstand the import threat as it had with Japan, Mexico; devastation in Hickory, N.C.Keep reading.
HICKORY, N.C.—In the late 1990s, this furniture-making hub seemed sheltered from the disruptive forces of globalization. Laid-off steelworkers from West Virginia, Tennessee and beyond streamed here for new jobs building beds, tables and chairs for American homes. The unemployment rate fell below 2%.
These days, Hickory is still suffering from a series of economic shocks, none more powerful than China’s rise as an export power. The invasion of imported furniture drove factories out of business, erased thousands of jobs and helped drive unemployment above 15% in 2010.
Stuart Shoun, 59 years old, has been laid off three times since 1999. After one layoff, the Hickory machinist studied architecture at a community college but then couldn’t find a job and returned to the furniture industry. He makes $45,000 a year, the same as he did nearly 20 years ago and $14,000 a year poorer after adjusting for inflation.
Mr. Shoun ’s son, Steven, a trained furniture upholsterer, manages a junkyard and discourages his own son, now in college, from working in the industry that gave North Carolina the nickname “Furniture Capital of the World.” Steven Shoun says he blames “the people who run our country and who run our companies” for Hickory’s economic turmoil.
Mr. Shoun and his father say they favor Donald Trump for president, even though they don’t plan to vote. “I don’t think one vote will make any difference,” says Stuart Shoun.
When import booms from Japan, Mexico and Asian “tiger” economies such as Taiwan arrived in the U.S., many cities and towns were able to adapt.
China was different. Its emergence as a trade powerhouse rattled the American economy more violently than economists and policy makers anticipated at the time or realized for years later. The U.S. workforce adapted more slowly than expected.
What happened with Chinese imports is an example of how much of the conventional wisdom about economics that held sway in the late 1990s, including the role of trade, technology and central banking, has since slowly unraveled.
The aftershocks are sowing deep-seated political discontent this election year. Disillusionment with globalization has fed one of the most unconventional political seasons in modern history, with Bernie Sanders and especially Donald Trump tapping into potent anti-free-trade sentiment.
Both presidential candidates aimed much of their criticism at 1994’s North American Free Trade Agreement, which boosted imports from Mexico. Even then, though, the real culprit was China, economists now say.
Many U.S. factories that moved to Mexico did so to match prices from China. Some of the new Mexican factories helped support U.S. jobs. For example, fabrics made in the U.S. are turned into clothing in Mexico for sale globally by U.S. companies.
David Autor, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who has studied trade, labor markets and technological change, calls China’s economy a “500-ton boulder perched on a ledge.” At some point, it would tumble and splatter what was below, but “you just didn’t know when,” he says.
Economists have long argued that while free trade creates winners and losers, the net results are beneficial. Americans gained from inexpensive imports and filled their homes with low-price bicycles, jewelry and kitchenware. U.S. companies won access to overseas markets.
Workers in industries exposed to imports were expected to upgrade their job skills or move somewhere offering fresh opportunities.
Japan’s invasion in the 1970s largely hit industries in cities with broad manufacturing bases on which to fall back. In Akron, Ohio, long the center of the U.S. tire industry, chemists trained at the University of Akron helped create a local polymer industry that employs tens of thousands of workers, said David Lieberth, a former Akron deputy mayor who chronicles the city’s history.
China upended many of those assumptions. No other country came close to its combination of a vast working-age population, super-low wages, government support, cheap currency and productivity gains.
Imports from China as a percentage of U.S. economic output doubled within four years of China joining the World Trade Organization in 2001. Mexico took 12 years to do the same thing after Nafta. Japan took just as long after becoming a major U.S. supplier in 1974.
By last year, imports from China equaled 2.7% of U.S. gross domestic product, a percentage point larger than Japan or Mexico ever won.
Japan’s import wave also challenged a limited group of advanced manufacturing industries, largely autos, steel and consumer electronics. China’s low-cost imports swept the entire U.S., squeezing producers of electronics in San Jose, Calif., sporting goods in Orange County, Calif., jewelry in Providence, R.I., shoes in West Plains, Mo., toys in Murray, Ky., and lounge chairs in Tupelo, Miss., among many other industries and communities.
“If we encouraged China to trade, we needed domestic policies in place that would minimize the impact that would follow,” says Gordon Hanson, a University of California, San Diego economics professor. He calls the lack of such policies “a catastrophic mistake.”
A group of economists that includes Messrs. Hanson and Autor estimates that Chinese competition was responsible for 2.4 million jobs lost in the U.S. between 1999 and 2011. Total U.S. employment rose 2.1 million to 132.9 million in the same period.
In the 2000s, congressional districts where competition from Chinese imports was rapidly increasing became more politically polarized, the two researchers and two coauthors concluded from examining vote totals. “Ideologically strident” candidates replaced moderates, they wrote in a paper.
In this year’s Republican presidential primary races, Mr. Trump won 89 of the 100 counties most affected by competition from China, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. Those counties include Hickory’s Catawba County, where Mr. Trump got 44% of the Republican vote in the March primary against 11 other candidates.
Mr. Sanders won Democratic primaries in 64 of the 100 most-exposed counties in northern and Midwestern states. That pattern didn’t hold in the South, where Hillary Clinton was strong among black voters...
New Time cover https://t.co/9FpZntjujE pic.twitter.com/YLoe7UEwJr— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) August 11, 2016
Donald Trump's sinking polls, unending attacks and public blunders have the GOP reconsidering its strategy for November.Keep reading.
When Donald Trump mucks things up, the first person to let him know is usually Republican Party boss Reince Priebus. Almost every day, Trump picks up his cell phone to find Priebus on the line, urging him to quash some feud or clarify an incendiary remark.
The Wisconsin lawyer has been a dutiful sherpa to the Manhattan developer, guiding him through the dizzying altitude of the presidential race and lobbying the GOP to unite behind a figure who threatens its future.
But every bond has its breaking point. For this partnership, the moment nearly arrived in early August. Priebus was on vacation when he learned that Trump had declined to endorse Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House and a close friend. The chairman had a frank message for the nominee, according to two Republican officials briefed on the call. Priebus told Trump that internal GOP polling suggested he was on track to lose the election. And if Trump didn’t turn around his campaign over the coming weeks, the Republican National Committee would consider redirecting party resources and machinery to House and Senate races.
Trump denies the exchange ever took place. “Reince Priebus is a terrific guy,” Trump told TIME. “He never said that.” Priebus could not be reached for comment. But whatever the exact words spoken on the phone, there is no doubt that the possibility Republicans will all but abandon Trump now haunts his struggling campaign.
Since his convention in Cleveland, Trump has done almost nothing right by traditional standards. He has picked fights with senior Republicans and Gold Star parents, invited Russian spies to meddle in U.S. democracy, appeared to joke about gun enthusiasts’ prematurely removing a U.S. President from office. He’s shuffled campaign messages like playing cards and left GOP elders fretting that he lacks the judgment to be Commander in Chief. During a dismal two-week stretch, he surrendered a narrow lead over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and now trails by an average of 8 points in recent nationwide polls.
Trump has overcome rough patches before. But with fewer than 90 days until Nov. 8, he now faces a reckoning. There are daunting demographics to surmount. Allies complain of massive staff shortages in battleground states. And voters are skeptical of a billionaire reality star who seems to study the rules of campaigning only so he can break them.
Then there are the challenges entirely of Trump’s own making. More than three months after he effectively clinched the Republican nomination, he has yet to settle on a strategy to match the demands of a broader electorate. In an interview with TIME on Aug. 9, the improvisational candidate sounded torn between conflicting pieces of advice, unsure of how much to hold back and when to let loose. “I am now listening to people that are telling me to be easier, nicer, be softer. And you know, that’s O.K., and I’m doing that,” he says. “Personally, I don’t know if that’s what the country wants.”
Polls show that Trump has failed to grasp one of the essential truths about this extraordinary contest: in a race between the two most unpopular major-party nominees in modern history, it’s in each campaign’s interest to train the spotlight on the other. Clinton wants the race to be about Trump. Which is what the publicity-addled Republican wants too. And why not? It worked for him in the Republican primaries. “I got 14 million votes and won most of the states,” he boasts. “I’m liking the way I ran in the primaries better.”
But the general election will likely be decided by groups of voters who are rarely among the cheering throngs at his rallies. This is a fact that Trump is only now starting to confront. “I don’t know why we’re not leading by a lot,” he admitted to a crowd of thousands in Jacksonville, Fla., on Aug. 3. One reason is that he’s getting crushed by minority voting blocs that Republican strategists have suggested courting, such as blacks, Hispanics and young women.
Ask him about these struggles and the braggadocio fades to fatalism. “All I can do is tell the truth,” he says. “If that does it, that’s great. And if that doesn’t do it, that’s fine too.” Even the best salesman must bow to the realities of the marketplace.
The trouble started before Trump even left Cleveland. Twelve hours after accepting his party’s nomination, he arrived in a half-empty hotel ballroom for a victory lap. It was a chance to thank supporters and bask in the previous night’s afterglow. Free’s “All Right Now” echoed through the speakers. And then, as Priebus’ team watched live from their hotel a few blocks away, everything went wrong.
Two evenings before, Trump had crushed the last vestiges of Republican opposition, orchestrating an outburst of boos as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas delivered the ultimate snub: refusing to endorse his onetime rival. But for Trump, that victory wasn’t enough. Rather than mend fences, he told fans he didn’t want the GOP runner-up’s endorsement and might bankroll a super PAC to kill Cruz’s career. Apropos of nothing, he revived a dormant controversy involving an unflattering picture of the Texan’s wife, boudoir shots of Trump’s and a tiny super PAC that no longer exists. He once again linked Cruz’s father to the Kennedy assassination, a false conspiracy fed by a 50-year-old photo published in a supermarket tabloid. For good measure, Trump fired a parting shot at Ohio Governor John Kasich, another vanquished rival whose political machine could provide a boost in a critical swing state.
The riot of recrimination was a vivid reminder that some of Trump’s worst traits as a candidate–paper-thin skin, an absence of discipline, a bottomless capacity to nurse grudges–are not going away. Republicans waiting for the long-promised presidential pivot seemed like characters in a Beckett play, trapped in Trump’s theater of the absurd.
As Democrats hurled criticism during their convention, Trump tried to compete with press conferences. But his counterprogramming verged on the bizarre. In a striking breach of protocol, he urged Russia on July 27 to hack Clinton’s emails. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said, essentially urging a geopolitical adversary to commit espionage against his opponent. Establishment-minded Republicans phoned one another. Was this really happening?
The next night, a Virginia lawyer named Khizr Khan stepped to the microphone in Philadelphia. The Pakistani émigré turned American citizen spoke of his son Humayun, a U.S. Army captain killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004. “If it was up to Donald Trump,” he thundered, his son “never would have been in America.” Brandishing a pocket-size copy of the Constitution, he addressed Trump directly: “You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”
The return volley was predictable. Trump seemed to question whether Khan’s wife Ghazala, who had stood silently alongside her husband, was barred from speaking because of her religion. “It’s Queens,” one Republican operative mused, invoking Trump’s birthplace. “If they hit you, you hit back.” A stirring moment became a multiday feud. And Trump lost. More than 70% of respondents in a Washington Post/ABC News poll said they disapproved of his handling of the dispute, including 59% of Republicans. The emergence of the Muslim parents, blistering Trump’s policies through the scrim of their own patriotism, was more than karmic irony. It was strategic success. A hook had been dangled by the Clinton campaign that he could not help but bite.
Trump goes with his gut, and when his instincts betray him, no one can rein him in. “No one puts words in his mouth, and nobody decides what he says other than him,” says longtime adviser Roger Stone. “Politics is nine-tenths discipline.”
For party officials, the Trump campaign has become like the sign inside factories: X days without an accident, with the tally regularly resetting to zero. “I think what he wants to do and what he does do are two different things,” says another senior GOP official...
On message! #DonaldTrump claims Obama 'founded ISIS' and #CrookedHillary was co-founder. https://t.co/HD7snnD5J7 #TrumpNation #MAGA
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 11, 2016
I like Trump's consistent message discipline of late. #TrumpTrain #VoteTrump #TrumpNation #MAGA #DonaldTrump https://t.co/pc6V2L1BLO
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 11, 2016
Apart from his other shortcomings, Donald Trump is giving a sensible approach to U.S. foreign policy a bad name. In recent years, a number of scholars and policy analysts have labored to articulate and explain why the United States would be better off with a foreign policy that was less interventionist, less costly, less hypocritical, less beholden to special interests, and above all more successful than the strategy of liberal hegemony pursued by the past three U.S. administrations.There's more at the link.
This more restrained approach seeks to advance the U.S. national interest first and foremost. In other words, it maintains that the first goal of U.S. foreign policy is to make Americans safer and more prosperous. This alternative grand strategy would eschew ambitious attempts to remake the world in America’s image and would press key U.S. allies to take more responsibility for their own defense. The United States would not disengage from the world or retreat to Fortress America, but it would be much more selective in its use of military power and focus primarily on preventing potentially dangerous concentrations of power from emerging in Europe, Asia, or the Persian Gulf.
Unfortunately, because these ideas overlap with some (but by no means all) of Trump’s pronouncements on foreign policy, his increasingly incoherent, ignorant, and incompetent campaign threatens to tarnish this alternative in the minds of some observers. Assuming he loses — fingers crossed — the end result could perpetuate America’s present grand strategy despite its many shortcomings.
To give The Donald his due, he has thus far said three perfectly sensible and uncontroversial things about foreign policy. First, he has made it clear he believes the primary purpose of U.S. foreign policy is to advance U.S. interests. In other words, he thinks most states pursue their own interests first and foremost and the United States should do the same. Though most of the foreign-policy establishment claims to have loftier goals (i.e., spreading democracy, promoting human rights, halting proliferation, etc.), Trump’s emphasis on U.S. interests is hardly beyond the pale.
Second, he believes many U.S. allies are wealthy countries free-riding on American protection and failing to bear their rightful share of collective security burdens. He’s correct, and plenty of other U.S. leaders — including President Barack Obama and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — have said exactly the same thing on numerous occasions.
Third, Trump is skeptical of ambitious efforts to “nation build” in far-flung corners of the world, and he now claims to be opposed to dumb wars. It’s hard to argue with him on this point either, though let’s not forget that he supported the Iraq War in 2003 (and then denied that he had done so). Moreover, he sometimes sounds like he’d be willing to go to war at the drop of a hat. But a disinclination to enter more open-ended quagmires is hardly a controversial position at this point.
Reasonable people can disagree about these three assertions, but they are hardly bizarre or outside the boundaries of acceptable discussion. If Trump stuck with them and made them the centerpiece of his foreign-policy platform, the 2016 campaign might actually feature an instructive and long-overdue debate on the global role of the United States and the proper use of American power. Unfortunately, those three elements pretty much exhaust Trump’s wisdom on foreign affairs, and the rest of his views are a farrago of ignorant, offensive, and toxic beliefs that have no business anywhere near the Oval Office.
For starters, Trump’s views on international economics reflect a protectionist outlook that was discredited a couple of centuries ago. Tearing up the North American Free Trade Agreement or leaving the World Trade Organization would not restore American manufacturing or make the country “great” again; it would instead be a body blow to the United States and the world economy and could quite possibly trigger another global recession. Trump simply doesn’t seem to understand that trade is not a zero-sum game where one state “wins” and the rest “lose”; it’s not like one of his shady business deals, which have lined his own pockets and left lots of unhappy customers feeling bilked. Furthermore, Trump’s claim that he can single-handedly negotiate “great” deals to replace the existing global trading system just tells you that he doesn’t know how such deals are actually negotiated or how that order works.
On top of that, Trump’s thinly veiled racism and his penchant for insulting rivals are a recipe for diplomatic disaster. Seriously, how can someone who routinely demeans Hispanics and Muslims expect to conduct effective diplomacy with our neighbors in Latin America or with the entire Arab world?
Rio 2016: The Green Water Spreads to Water Polo Pool - WSJ https://t.co/x5isF39taJ
— SnewsHound (@SnewsHound) August 10, 2016
RIO DE JANEIRO—The Rio Olympics’ green-water crisis claimed another victim: the water polo pool.Well, maybe not.
Officials scrambled to contain the new embarrassment, which shocked television viewers and spectators Tuesday when the pool hosting the women’s 10-meter synchronized diving finals turned a deep, bright green. Wednesday, even as officials insisted they had the problem under control, they acknowledged that the problem was also affecting the adjoining water polo pool, which also displayed a greenish tint.
“Yesterday mid-afternoon there was a sudden decrease in the alkalinity of the pool,” said Mario Andrada, spokesman for the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee. “Obviously, the people in charge of maintaining the pool and of checking could and should have done more intensive tests.”
Andrada said the pool color would get back to normal “very shortly.” However, he added, Wednesday’s rain in Rio was complicating things.
Several possible explanations emerged on Wednesday, though not all seemed to fit together.
FINA, swimming and diving’s world governing body, said the change occurred, because “the water tanks ran out of some of the chemicals used in the water treatment process. As a result the pH level of the water was outside the usual range, causing the discolouration.”
FINA also added that its sport medicine committee had deemed the water safe for competition...
Malia Obama won’t be able to roll her way out of this one https://t.co/V7iWLhwEMx
— New York Post (@nypost) August 10, 2016
Twerking now smoking pot? What type of example is Malia Obama setting for young kids in America?
— Watch Clinton Cash (@JaredWyand) August 10, 2016
🐸☕️ pic.twitter.com/eOPTxJZOjV
Remember when Obama said Trump was a bad father? Malia Obama has been caught smoking weed. https://t.co/BQ9u20XDBk
— Milo Yiannopolous ✘ (@NimbleNavgater) August 10, 2016
Trump accused of threatening violence against Clinton with gun-rights remarks https://t.co/2JcggL3pFt
— Michael Finnegan (@finneganLAT) August 10, 2016
Today's analysis: Donald Trump is stuck in a destructive loop. And he's done it to himself. https://t.co/Zj5pYKtJ1x
— Cathleen Decker (@cathleendecker) August 10, 2016
⚠️ You'll never swim in the sea again after watching this ⚠️ @blakelively stars in #TheShallows previewing TODAY. pic.twitter.com/0BFxv00stU
— Sony Pictures UK (@SonyPicturesUK) August 10, 2016
Why is the diving pool water green? @vickihallch tries to get to the bottom of it. (The question, not the pool.) https://t.co/9BQv44wiXL— National Post (@nationalpost) August 10, 2016
RIO DE JANEIRO — An unsettling thing happened at the Olympic diving pool on Tuesday: the water inexplicably turned green, just in time for the women’s synchronized 10-meter platform diving competition.More.
Officials said they did not know what caused the trouble, exactly. But they declared the water had been tested and was not dangerous. It was an unsettling sight, appearing to become greener and murkier as the day went on, having been a lovely light blue on Monday.
The British diver Tom Daley, who won a bronze medal in the same pool the day before, posted a photograph on Twitter showing the contrast between the colors of the pools. “Ermmmm – what happened?” he said.
The adjoining pool at the aquatic center, used for synchronized swimming and water polo, remained its normal blue color, which made the extreme greenness of the diving pool all the more striking.
Meanwhile, diving practice went on as planned, and so did the women’s synchronized event. Competitors generally said that the swampiness of the water did not put them off their form, although they found it weird and puzzling.
“I’ve never dived in anything like it,” said Britain’s Tonia Couch, who finished fifth, along with Lois Coulson.
The situation overshadowed the news conference after the event, with reporters more interested in the state of the water than in the quality of the diving. Officials released a brief statement that did not address the main questions: what had happened, why had it happened so quickly, and why wasn’t there a simple explanation, given that this is the sort of thing that commonly happens to swimming pools?
“To ensure a high quality field of play is mandatory to the Rio 2016 organizing committee,” the statement said. “Water tests at Maria Lenk Aquatic Center diving pool were conducted and found to be no risk to the athletes’ health. We’re investigating what the cause of the situation was.”
The statement also said, “We’re pleased to say the competition was successfully completed.”
Officials at the news conference declined to take questions from the news media about the water.
Steve Henderson, who owns AAA Pool Service in Santa Rosa, Calif., said that although he was not an expert on Brazilian swimming pools, there were two likely causes: a sudden algae bloom, which could be eradicated by zapping the pool with extra chlorine overnight; or a chemical reaction between chlorine and a metal in the water, most likely manganese.
“If they have manganese in the water, you will get a reaction depending on level of chlorination,” Henderson said. He said that it was a normal occurrence, as even a slight imbalance can cause a violent color change, and not a cause of alarm.
Still, he said, he found it puzzling that officials at the Games did not have a better explanation...
See the exact moment Chad le Clos regretted provoking Michael Phelps https://t.co/nYxAkCQekn via @mashable #Olympics2016
— Cece (@CeceCalabrese) August 10, 2016
WILMINGTON, N.C.— Donald Trump, confounding the hopes of Republicans who want him to run a more measured presidential campaign, touched off another firestorm Tuesday with an off-the-cuff remark that critics interpreted as inciting violence against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.Keep reading.
His comments, before a packed basketball arena here, came a day after he delivered an economic-policy speech in a Detroit hotel ballroom that many Republicans saw as a disciplined reboot amid falling poll numbers—including those released Tuesday in new Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist polls.
Speaking at his rally here about how he claims Mrs. Clinton as president would undermine gun rights under the Second Amendment, Mr. Trump said, “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks.” He then added: “Although the Second Amendment people—maybe there is, I don’t know.”
The Clinton campaign declared his remarks “dangerous,” charging that they amounted to a call for an attack against his opponent. The Trump team quickly said it was an awkwardly worded call to mobilize gun owners as a political force before the election.
The Secret Service, in a tweet Tuesday afternoon, said only that it was “aware of the comments” made earlier in the day.
The latest flare-up over Mr. Trump’s penchant for provocative remarks comes at a precarious time for the New York businessman’s presidential bid. His standing in battleground states is slipping and GOP defections are continuing. On Tuesday, Maine Sen. Susan Collins announced she wouldn’t support him.
“He makes it harder every day to continue to support him,” said Ryan Williams, a former aide to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns who now works for the New Hampshire GOP. “It’s almost like he wants people to denounce him. He’s basically asking for it at this point. Donald Trump saying something crazy is becoming a daily occurrence like the sun rising or the weather.”
Mrs. Clinton has opened an 11-point lead in Pennsylvania and is inching ahead in closer races in Ohio and Iowa, according to the Journal/NBC/Marist polls.
Mrs. Clinton leads Mr. Trump among registered voters by 48% to 37% in Pennsylvania, where the Republican nominee will hold a campaign rally in Erie on Friday.
She has improved her position in that state since a Journal/NBC/Marist poll last month, when she led 45% to 36%. In Ohio, Mrs. Clinton broke last month’s tie and pulled ahead 43% to 38%, according to the new state poll. And in Iowa, Mrs. Clinton was ahead 41% to 37%, an edge little-changed from a month ago...
A game face for the ages from Michael Phelps https://t.co/2WZlO2YJa3 via @jasongay #Rio2016 pic.twitter.com/Znwh01sjcF— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 9, 2016
The polls aren't skewed; Trump really is losing badly: https://t.co/ea5mFtOzVI pic.twitter.com/B0yx5wSNKw
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) August 9, 2016
I interviewed @rcallimachi https://t.co/ptOGTgCz6P, an incredible reporter on the most important beat in the world.
— Caitlin Roper (@caitlinroper) August 3, 2016
More than a week after the end of her nominating convention, Hillary Clinton continues to slowly gain ground in the USC Dornsife/L.A. Times "Daybreak" tracking poll of the election.It's a "rolling average" over seven-days.
Since July 28, the Democratic nominee has gained 5 percentage points in the survey and leads Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, 45%-44%. Trump has lost just over 4 percentage points in the same period.
Clinton's lead, which is well within the survey's margin of error, is smaller than in many other polls released in the last week. That's in part because of the design of the Daybreak poll, which is structured in a way that makes it less susceptible to big swings one way or the other than standard surveys.
Julie Faith Strauja tried everything she could conceive of — a water hose, pepper spray, loud yells — to chase off a bear after it repeatedly barged into her home in the San Bernardino Mountains, terrifying her and her three young children.Keep reading.
She locked up her trash after the bear got into her garage last month and was alarmed when she arrived home with her children, ages 5, 6 and 9, on July 29 to discover the bear inside her kitchen. She called 911. And when a game warden came to her A-frame cabin in the small community of Forest Falls and found damage and fur on the windows, she issued a permit to kill the animal.
The bear returned later that night, entering through a bathroom window. The next day, Strauja called a friend who is a hunter to keep watch. When the bear charged toward the house again sometime before 2 a.m. on July 31, he shot and killed the creature.
Since then, Strauja, 34, said she has faced an intense backlash from some residents of Forest Falls, about 75 miles east of Los Angeles, as well as harsh criticism and threats on social media...
Madison — Two judges have trimmed back the state’s voter ID law in recent weeks, but those going to the polls Tuesday will still need to show identification to cast ballots.We need voter ID in California, heh.
That’s because the judges said their rulings wouldn’t take effect until after the primary. So, voters will have to show ID at the polls Tuesday but not necessarily in the Nov. 8 presidential election, when turnout will be much higher.
Here’s what you need to know about Tuesday’s primary...
Tomorrow's cover: Trump’s "tax revolution" should be embraced by both parties https://t.co/lq4XjCi2cB pic.twitter.com/k9D800bMjR
— New York Post (@nypost) August 9, 2016
Training in the training hall complete! Team looking good #TEAMUSA pic.twitter.com/kXGTAEOFy8— Jake Dalton (@jake_dalton) August 1, 2016
When the United States men’s gymnastics team came to the site of the Olympics earlier this year for a reconnaissance training camp, the American athletes did what anyone in Brazil with a carefully sculpted body would do. They went to the beach, stripped to their Speedos and whipped out a selfie stick. The soaring peaks of Sugarloaf Mountain in the background have never looked so meek.See? It's sexism all around!
What happened next was exactly the reaction the U.S. team imagined. The Internet went gaga for the ensuing Instagrams.
That wasn’t an accident. It’s one of the ways they think they can get attention in a country that showers glory upon gold-medal-winning women gymnasts while ignoring America’s less-successful men’s team.
So the men’s team has been brainstorming ways to market their sport better. They would like to be objectified.
“Maybe compete with our shirts off,” said U.S. star Sam Mikulak, the four-time, reigning all-around national champion. “People make fun of us for wearing tights. But if they saw how yoked we are maybe that would make a difference.”
The Rio Games’ women’s team final Tuesday is the marquee Olympic gymnastics event for American audiences—yet again. It’s a near-lock that Team USA will win the gold medal, the women will be immortalized with a catchy superlative like the “Fierce Five” and Simone Biles will be anointed Olympic royalty, to be remembered forever.
But first comes the men’s team final Monday. Don’t laugh. America’s men’s team actually did far better than expected during Saturday’s qualifying round, finishing second behind China.
After months of experts predicting that the men’s team final would come down to a race between China and Japan, the U.S. actually enters Monday’s competition as a frontrunner. The last medal for America’s men’s team was a bronze that came in Beijing in 2008.
But there’s a feeling on the men’s team that even if they won gold, they wouldn’t enjoy the stardom that America confers upon its top female gymnasts...
.@lamblock So crazy seeing @JihadWatchRS and @PaleHose67 at last night's #Angels game. #LTBU #GoAngels pic.twitter.com/t0naOERxRk
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 4, 2016
Donald Trump has dominated the airwaves for much of the 2016 presidential campaign, but the Republican presidential nominee has faltered in recent polls.Keep reading.
His campaign has been dogged by a series of controversies, including Trump’s sparring with the family of a Muslim soldier killed in Iraq, his invitation to Russian hackers to look into Hillary Clinton’s emails, and his initial hesitancy in endorsing House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.
Are those issues causing second thoughts among his most ardent supporters? Earlier this year, we profiled several voters around the country — a personal trainer in Virginia, a retired car salesman in Las Vegas and a Latina immigrant in Texas, among others. All had become, for different reasons, enthusiastic citizens of Trump Nation.
What’s behind Trump’s slipping poll numbers? Have the latest controversies caused these voters to reconsider? We checked back with some of them, and the answer is: not really. The things that made Trump appealing to them to begin with — his willingness to take on the status quo, his calls for building American strength and clamping down on immigration — still hold true, they said...
BRUSSELS — Belgian authorities have opened a terrorism probe following a weekend machete attack on two police officers in the city of Charleroi, the latest assault in what has become a relentless summer-long barrage.More.
The assailant, who was fatally shot during the attack, was identified Sunday by the authorities as a 33-year-old Algerian man who had been living in Belgium illegally since 2012.
Authorities didn’t disclose any indications of accomplices or large-scale planning behind Saturday’s attack, which left one of the officers with serious injuries to her face and neck. The assailant wasn’t carrying explosives or any other weapon, and while he was known to authorities because of his illegal status in the country, he wasn’t known to have any terror links, federal authorities said. They released his initials, K.B., but not his name.
Islamic State’s news agency Amaq claimed the attack was carried out by one of the group’s “soldiers” in response to strikes by the U.S.-led coalition fighting against it in Iraq and Syria.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said federal prosecutors had opened a probe into “attempted terrorist murders,” assigning an investigative judge specialized in terrorism cases.
“The terrorist track is the possibility which is under analysis at this point,” Mr. Michel said, adding that at this early stage it was important to be “extremely prudent” in drawing any conclusions.
The slashing was the most recent in a string of attacks claimed by the Sunni Muslim extremist group that have left scores dead, in what Mr. Michel described as a “new reality” in Europe.
In addition to orchestrating large-scale attacks, directed at least in part from abroad, Islamic State has also encouraged sympathizers to carry out lone-wolf attacks targeting civilians, which authorities have acknowledged are much harder to prevent. In some cases, authorities haven’t been able to corroborate claims of responsibility by the group.
Some of the more recent attacks linked to Islamic State in Europe have been carried out away from the more heavily guarded capitals—including the July 14 attack in Nice, in southern France; the July 24 suicide bombing in Ansbach, Germany, and the July 26 killing of a French priest in Normandy...
The 2016 Olympic Games kicked off in Rio de Janeiro on the weekend without major incidents. That seemed a near miracle after weeks of grim reports about shoddy construction, an unprepared security detail and monstrous traffic jams. Whether the athletes, visitors and Cariocas (as Rio residents are known) can get through the next two weeks without a catastrophe remains an open question.Still more.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Then again, when Rio won the competition in 2009 to host these games, Brazil wasn’t forecast to look like it does today—with a budget deficit equal to some 8% of gross domestic product, inflation near 10%, two years of economic contraction and a cesspool of corruption scandals.
In 2009, President Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party (PT) had been at the helm for more than six years and was somewhat of a world rock star. His hip rhetoric denigrated the economic liberalism of the 1990s while hyping a new and improved brand of socialism with a samba twist.
Much of the region bought Lula’s 2.0 version of big government. Concerns about the return of left-wing Latin populism and its potential damage to entrepreneurship and economic growth were met with assurances that this time would be different.
Lula was a man of the left but he wasn’t Hugo Chávez, conventional wisdom explained. A November 2009 Economist magazine cover story was titled “Brazil takes off.” It cited a forecast by the consulting firm PwC that by 2025 São Paulo would be the world’s fifth-wealthiest city. Most of punditry agreed: Brazil was on course to take its rightful place as a world economic superpower.
Lula stepped down after two terms in 2011, handing power to his PT successor, President Dilma Rousseff. The 2016 Olympics were supposed to showcase the socialist paradise he had cultivated: an urban utopia mixing affordable housing, national industrial champions and orderly public-transportation networks to provide a tranquil—and environmentally approved—living experience.
Instead, at the Olympic Village, just weeks before the opening, sinks fell off the walls and there were various other plumbing disasters. The Australian national team fled from its quarters upon arrival because it found, among other things, exposed electrical wires next to indoor puddles of water. Guanabara Bay, the venue for open-water swimming and sailing races, is a giant petri dish of bacteria. A new metro line that was supposed to take visitors to the games ends eight miles short of its promised destination.
The Rio security company that was hired to screen spectators was fired 10 days ago for noncompliance with its contract. Organizers scrambled last week to hire and train a replacement team.
The world seems stunned. It shouldn’t be. Rio is a microcosm of Lula’s Brazil, where bureaucracy runs things from the top down and human beings are an afterthought. The only thing missing in this Rio analogy—so far—is the corruption that flourished at the federal level during 14 years of PT government...
The two refugees who launched terror attacks in Germany last month were in contact with suspected members of the militant group Isis, including one with a Saudi phone number, according to reports in the German media on Saturday.Still more.
Records of internet communication now in the hands of German investigators show both men, the Afghan teenager Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, and Mohammed Daleel, a 27-year-old Syrian, were advised and directed by Isis, which provided tips on ensuring the maximum number of casualties.
Ahmadzai was shot dead by police after going on the rampage with an axe and a knife near the Bavarian town of Würzburg on July 18, wounding five people, while Daleel died after blowing himself up outside a wine bar in Ansbach, also in Bavaria, six days later, injuring 15 people.
Germany is still reeling from the attacks, the first committed by Muslim refugees who were part of the big wave of migrants that has entered the country over the past few years.
They have become a problem for Angela Merkel, Germany's long-serving chancellor, whose popularity has taken a big knock in the wake of the attacks...
No state this year does Republican dysfunction like Ohio.Keep reading.
The popular Republican Gov. John Kasich stiffed Donald Trump at the home-state convention and now regularly dismisses him on Twitter. Trump has threatened to retaliate by raising money to squash Kasich’s future ambitions.
The state’s Republican Sen. Rob Portman, running for re-election, has stuck with his endorsement of the party’s nominee but has yet to appear in public with him. Instead, Portman has upbraided Trump repeatedly, and his campaign recently sent aides to search for potential supporters at Hillary Clinton rallies.
All that would be merely familial squabbling if not for Ohio’s frequent role as the decider in presidential contests. It is a must-win state for Trump; a loss here would almost certainly deny him the presidency and secure the White House for Clinton.
It is also a high-profile test of the contours of the national campaign, as both Trump and Clinton have a good chance here of stealing from the other party’s usual voters.
Clinton is going after Republican-leaning suburbanites put off by Trump’s demeanor and is trying to persuade blue-collar white voters that Trump is a hypocrite on trade and business issues.
Trump has set his sights on those blue-collar Democrats with a campaign heavy on expressions of grievance for decades of manufacturing declines. He’s also courting Republicans eager for change after two Democratic White House terms.
“Both campaigns are probably spending time watching some of their traditional voters run away and watching others run to them,” said Doug Preisse, a Columbus-based Kasich confidant who heads the Republican Party in Franklin County, which includes Columbus.
The most recent public polling has the race dead even in the state — but that survey was conducted weeks ago, during the Republican convention. Even Republicans suggest that Clinton has likely pulled ahead here, as she has in nearby industrial states and nationally since the end of her convention.
But few expect Ohio to deviate in November from its recent record of close contests.
“It’s winnable for both candidates. The question is who has the superior ground game and strategy,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, whose July poll had Clinton and Trump deadlocked at 44% each. “It’s going to be fought in hand-to-hand combat in a lot of these counties.”
If so, Trump could be hard-pressed. Organizationally, Clinton has the upper hand. Her team barely left after the March primary; the candidate and her running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, have been regular visitors.
Clinton is building on multiple winning streaks: former President Bill Clinton’s wins here in the 1990s, President Obama’s two general election wins, and her own primary victories in 2008 and this spring.
Her team has hundreds of workers in the state, and in her visit here Sunday, Clinton advertised more openings for organizers. The campaign is canvassing supporters and registering voters in communities across the state this weekend.
Trump’s campaign has been slower to form, a danger in a state where early ballots can be cast starting Oct. 12 — just a little more than two months away. The campaign’s new state director began work on June 23, well after Clinton’s chief strategist set up shop; only last week he was moving into an office in Columbus...
While the team was battling Houston, @CityOfArlington voters were saying "Yes" to @KeepTheRangers. #KeepTheRangers pic.twitter.com/Yt4UoQBMeS
— Texas Rangers (@Rangers) August 7, 2016
The Produnova vault is a gamble only a handful of women’s gymnasts are willing to make https://t.co/fX092NX1GJ #Rio2016
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 7, 2016
