Frustrated Americans await the economic changes they voted for with Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fed up with high prices and unimpressed with an economy that by just about any measure is a healthy one, Americans demanded change when they voted for president.
They could get it.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to topple many of the Biden administration's economic policies. Trump campaigned on promises to impose huge tariffs on foreign goods, slash taxes on individuals and businesses and deport millions of undocumented immigrants working in the United States.
With their votes, tens of millions of Americans expressed their confidence that Trump can restore the low prices and economic stability they recall from his first term — at least until the COVID-19 recession of 2020 paralyzed the economy and then a powerful recovery sent inflation soaring. Inflation has since plummeted and is nearly back to normal. Yet Americans are frustrated over still-high prices.
“His track record proved to be, on balance, positive, and people look back now and think: ‘Oh, OK. Let’s try that again,’ ” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former White House economic adviser, director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the conservative American Action Forum think tank.
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Trump’s gains with Latinos could reshape American politics. Democrats are struggling to respond
MIAMI (AP) — From Pennsylvania to Florida to Texas, areas with high numbers of Hispanics often had little in common on Election Day other than backing Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris for president.
Trump, the president-elect, made inroads in heavily Puerto Rican areas of eastern Pennsylvania where the vice president spent the last full day of her campaign. Trump turned South Texas' Rio Grande Valley, a decadeslong Democratic stronghold populated both by newer immigrants and Tejanos who trace their roots in the state for several generations.
He also improved his standing with Hispanic voters along Florida's Interstate 4 corridor linking the Tampa Bay area — home to people of Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Colombian and Puerto Rican origin — with Orlando, where Puerto Ricans make up about 43% of the local Hispanic population. Trump was the first Republican since 1988 to win Miami-Dade County, home to a sizable Cuban population and the country’s metropolitan area with the highest share of immigrants.
It was a realignment that, if it sticks, could change American politics.
Texas and Florida are already reliably Republican, but more Hispanics turning away from Democrats in future presidential races could further dent the party's “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, that had helped catapult it to the White House before Trump romped through all three this time. The shift might even make it harder for Democrats to win in the West, in states such as Arizona and Nevada.
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Biden and Trump will meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the White House says
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will host President-elect Donald Trump for a traditional postelection meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the White House said Saturday.
Such a meeting is customary between the outgoing president and the incoming president, and is meant partly to mark the start of a peaceful transfer of power under America's democracy.
But then-President Trump, a Republican, did not host Biden, a Democrat, for a sit-down after the 2020 election, when Trump lost his reelection bid.
Trump sought the presidency again four years later, and on Tuesday he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. Trump is the first former president to return to power since Grover Cleveland regained the White House in the 1892 election.
The White House said Biden called Trump this past Wednesday to congratulate him and invite him to meet in the Oval Office. Their meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m.
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Qatar suspends its mediation efforts on Gaza and the Hamas office there may have to leave
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Qatar has suspended its key mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel, it said Saturday, after growing frustration with the lack of progress on a cease-fire deal for Gaza.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the remaining Hamas leadership hosted by Qatar must leave, or where it would go. Hamas has good relations with Iran and Turkey, and some of its leaders are now in Lebanon.
However, Qatar is highly likely to return to mediation efforts if both sides show “serious political willingness” to reach a deal, according to an official with Egypt, the other key mediator.
Qatar told Israel and Hamas it can't continue to mediate “as long as there is a refusal to negotiate a deal in good faith” and "as a consequence, the Hamas political office no longer serves its purpose” in Qatar, a diplomatic source briefed on the matter said. Qatar told Hamas it will have to leave if it isn't ready to engage in serious negotiations, the source said.
In Washington, a U.S. official said the Biden administration informed Qatar two weeks ago that the Hamas office's continued operation in Doha was no longer useful and the Hamas delegation should be expelled.
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Hungry Palestinians in north Gaza search for food, sealed off from aid for a month by Israeli siege
JERUSALEM (AP) — With virtually no food allowed into the northernmost part of Gaza for the past month, tens of thousands of Palestinians under Israeli siege are rationing their last lentils and flour to survive. As bombardment pounds around them, some say they risk their lives by venturing out in search of cans of food in the rubble of destroyed homes.
Thousands have staggered out of the area, hungry and thin, into Gaza City, where they find the situation little better. One hospital reports seeing thousands of children suffering from malnutrition. A nutritionist said she treated a pregnant woman wasting away at just 40 kilograms (88 pounds).
“We are being starved to force us to leave our homes,” said Mohammed Arqouq, whose family of eight is determined to stay in the north, weathering Israel’s siege. “We will die here in our homes.”
Medical workers warn that hunger is spiraling to dire proportions under a monthlong siege on north Gaza by the Israeli military, which has been waging a fierce campaign since the beginning of October, saying it's rooting out militants. Hamas, who are still holding hostages inside Gaza, have regrouped in the area and have been carrying out hit-and-run attacks from tunnels and bombed-out buildings. The military has severed the area with checkpoints, ordering residents to leave. Many Palestinians fear Israel aims to depopulate the north long term.
On Friday, experts from a panel that monitors food security said famine is imminent in the north or may already be happening. The growing desperation comes as the deadline approaches next week for a 30-day ultimatum the Biden administration gave Israel: raise the level of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza or risk possible restrictions on U.S. military funding.
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A record 13 women will be governors next year after New Hampshire elected Kelly Ayotte
The election of Republican Kelly Ayotte as New Hampshire's governor means 13 women will serve as a state's chief executive next year, breaking the record of 12 set after the 2022 elections.
Governors hold powerful sway in American politics, shaping state policy and often using the experience and profile gained to launch campaigns for higher offices.
“It matters to have women in those roles to normalize the image of women in political leadership and even more specifically in executive leadership, where they’re the sole leader, not just a member of a team,” said Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was floated as a potential Democratic nominee for president after President Biden exited the race. Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was thought to be in the running for President-elect Donald Trump's vice presidential post.
Ayotte, a former U.S. senator, defeated the Democratic nominee Joyce Craig, a former mayor of Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city.
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The Democrats are starting to discuss party chair candidates for the second Trump era
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic Party faces existential questions after Donald Trump's resounding victory. One of the first: Who will lead it?
Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison is not expected to seek a second term, opening a job that must be filled by March 1, according to the party's bylaws. Who takes the position will speak volumes about how the party wants to present itself going forward and what issues members believe hampered Democrats against Trump in 2024.
The incoming chair will also oversee the party’s 2028 nominating process, a complex and contentious exercise that will make that person central to the next presidential election. Harrison was derided for having backed President Joe Biden even as many Democratic voters questioned whether the president should run again. He was accused after Biden's disastrous debate performance of pushing for a virtual roll call before Biden chose to withdraw.
The early debate over Harrison's replacement appears to be set on a clear dividing line: Do Democrats need an operative with clear skills and experience in reshaping the party’s infrastructure? Or does the party need a communicator who can respond to everything the Trump administration plans to do and can sell Democratic ideas to a public that rejected them at the ballot box?
“They have to find someone from outside Washington who understands politics at the grassroots level,” said Howard Dean, a former chair who took the position after George W. Bush won a second term as president. Dean said he has received calls from members urging him to run, but he has no plans to do so. “The DNC is often a creature of Washington, which is a major problem. … You have to have a DNC that is big enough to include the whole country.”
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US will appeal judge's ruling that 9/11 defendants can plead guilty and avoid the death penalty
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Department will appeal a military judge's ruling that plea agreements struck by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and two of his co-defendants are valid, a defense official said Saturday.
The ruling this past week voided Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's order to throw out the deals and concluded that the plea agreements were valid. The judge granted the three motions to enter guilty pleas and said he would schedule them for a future date to be determined by the military commission.
The department will also seek a postponement of any hearing on the pleas, according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss legal matters and spoke on condition of anonymity. Rear Adm. Aaron Rugh, the chief prosecutor, sent a letter Friday to the families of 9/11 victims informing them of the decision.
The ruling by the judge, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, allowed the three 9/11 defendants to enter guilty pleas in the U.S. military courtroom at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and would spare them the risk of the death penalty. The pleas by Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi would be a key step toward closing out the long-running and legally troubled government prosecution in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Government prosecutors had negotiated the deals with defense lawyers under government auspices, and the top official for the military commission at Guantanamo had approved the agreements. But the deals were immediately slammed by Republican lawmakers and others when they were made public this summer.
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Here are new guidelines for preventing stroke, the nation's 4th biggest killer
The majority of strokes could be prevented, according to new guidelines aimed at helping people and their doctors do just that.
Stroke was the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than half a million Americans have a stroke every year. But up to 80% of strokes may be preventable with better nutrition, exercise and identification of risk factors.
The first new guidelines on stroke prevention in 10 years from the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association, include recommendations for people and doctors that reflect a better understanding of who gets strokes and why, along with new drugs that can help reduce risk.
The good news is that the best way to reduce your risk for stroke is also the best way to reduce your risk for a whole host of health problems — eat a healthy diet, move your body and don't smoke. The bad news is that it's not always so easy to sustain.
Dr. Sean Duke, a stroke doctor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, blames the forces in society that keep people sedentary and eating poorly, like cell phones and cheap, unhealthy food. “Our world is stacked against us,” he said.
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100-year-old Royal Air Force veteran will join UK memorial service for the first time
LONDON (AP) — Michael Woods has visited his wife, Mary, every day since she moved into a nursing home two years ago.
But on Sunday, the 100-year-old Royal Air Force veteran will skip the daily get-together so he can fulfill another duty — honoring the men he served with during World War II.
For the first time since he left the RAF in 1947, Woods will take part in Britain’s national Remembrance Day service, joining thousands of veterans as they march past the Cenotaph war memorial in central London to honor those who died during the world wars and all the conflicts that followed.
“It’s a great privilege for me to do this,” said Woods, a mechanic who kept Lancaster bombers flying during the war. “And I suppose I’ll never do it again."
The annual ceremony is a solemn event marked every year when the king and envoys from the Commonwealth nations that fought alongside Britain in the two world wars lay wreaths at the Cenotaph. It culminates when up to 10,000 veterans, many with medals gleaming on their chests and regimental berets on their heads, parade past the memorial.
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