Americans favor Trump on immigration, support mass deportation of illegal immigrants, poll finds
A new poll shows a majority of Americans support the mass deportation of migrants living illegally in the United States. The latest Scripps News/Ipsos Poll, released Wednesday, found the majority of Republicans and Independents support such a policy, while only a quarter of Democrats agree. Approximately 54% of all respondents “strongly” or “somewhat” support the idea of mass deportation, according to the poll. EX-BORDER CHIEF WARNS OF ‘SIGNIFICANT THREAT’ AS MIGRANT NUMBERS SKYROCKET: ‘ENTIRE SECTORS’ MISSING AGENTS More granular results indicate a partisan split on the issue, with approximately 86% of Republicans and 58% of independents in favor — compared to just 25% of Democrats. The poll also demonstrated that immigration remains a prominent political issue for Americans, coming close to the top of respondents’ list of concerns. GERMANY CLAMPS DOWN ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AS COUNTRY FORCED TO RETHINK POLICIES AMID VOTER ANGER Inflation was the highest-ranked priority among respondents with 57%, while immigration came in second at 39%. On the subject of immigration, respondents favored Trump (44%) to Harris (34%) as better able to handle the issue. The poll was conducted between Sept. 13 and Sept. 15 and interviewed 1,027 individuals over the age of 18. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
GOP to call on Schumer, Dems to take up border bills as they tout immigration vigilance
Republican senators will take to the Senate floor on Wednesday and call on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to bring several pieces of border legislation for votes in the chamber as Vice President Kamala Harris and vulnerable Democrats across the country make commitments to supporting border security. Led by Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., the group will ask that a number of strict bills regarding the border, immigration, and cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) be considered, including the Laken Riley Act and the WALL Act, according to remarks provided by Britt’s office. “Vice President Harris now says she has changed policy positions on some of our country’s most pressing issues,” Britt will say in remarks on the floor prior to making unanimous consent requests to advance the bills. “Let’s see if her own party believes her claims, or whether they’ll defend the radical policy positions Vice President Harris has long held and the Biden-Harris Administration has imposed for these painful past few years.” SECRET SERVICE TOLD LOCALS THEY WOULD ‘TAKE CARE OF’ BUILDING USED BY THOMAS CROOKS TO SHOOT TRUMP The Alabama senator will be joined by Sens. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., James Lankford, R-Okla, and Mike Lee, R-Utah. The Laken Riley Act was named for a 22-year-old female college student in Georgia who was found dead on the University of Georgia’s campus in February. An illegal immigrant, Jose Ibarra, faces 10 counts following her death and has pleaded not guilty. ‘AN ABSOLUTE DISGRACE’: SENATE REPUBLICANS CONDEMN PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY’S UN BID TO UNDERMINE ISRAEL The bill would require ICE to detain illegal immigrants who have committed theft, burglary, larceny or shoplifting offenses. Vulnerable Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., made headlines in May when he came out in support of the bill, despite blocking a vote in March on a modified version of it in the form of an amendment to a $1.2 trillion spending package. The procedural vote was struck down along party lines — with Tester voting against it. TOP SENATE DEMOCRAT ‘ANGRY’ OVER BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN ‘STONEWALLING’ AFTER TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS He notably faces an uphill battle in the Montana Senate race, with his opponent, former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, beating him in new polls and top political handicappers giving Republicans an advantage in the state. While Tester committed to supporting the bill if it came for a stand-alone vote, such votes are increasingly rare in the upper chamber and even more so when they are priorities of the minority party. Meanwhile, the WALL Act would provide $25 billion in funds for building the southern border wall. Schumer’s office did not tell Fox News Digital whether he would bring any of the Republican bills, such as the Laken Riley Act or the WALL Act, for votes following Republicans’ request. However, the majority leader has been unwilling to schedule votes on them thus far, indicating he doesn’t plan to. GOP DEMANDS TRUMP HAVE ‘SAME LEVEL’ SECRET SERVICE PROTECTION AS BIDEN AFTER 2ND ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT Harris and vulnerable Senate Democrats have used a failed immigration bill, which they have touted as “bipartisan,” despite only two Republicans voting in its favor on the most recent procedural vote, to back up their claims of wanting to secure the southern border on the campaign trail. Lankford, who will take the floor on Wednesday with Britt, was one of the negotiators of that bill, along with Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. In recent floor remarks on the subject, he called out Harris for using the border bill in her campaign. “I mean no disrespect to the Vice President, but we had four months of negotiations, and she neither initiated those negotiations nor participated in a single second of those negotiations — not one second,” he said. The negotiated bill has been blasted by numerous Republican senators, some of whom claimed it would actually exacerbate the current situation at the southern border. Some of those GOP senators who supported pieces of the bill also suggested that the administration would not properly implement them and would use the bill’s passage as a reason not to act further on the border.
India’s richest and poorest states: Top GDP contributors, highest income earners revealed
Southern Indian states have surged ahead in GDP contribution and per capita income, while northern states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have seen declines.
Speaker Johnson warns illegal immigrant voting could ‘throw an election’ as House readies spending bill vote
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is warning that “thousands” of people residing in the U.S. illegally could shift the tides in the upcoming U.S. elections. Speaking to reporters at his weekly press conference on Wednesday, Johnson pointed out that several members of the House GOP won their elections by just a few hundred votes – or less, as in the case of Rep. Marianette Miller Meeks, R-Iowa, who won her first election by just six votes. “If you have a small percentage of the millions and billions of illegals who came over the border in the last four years under border czar Kamala Harris’ policies, they can throw an election, they can throw the majority of the House,” Johnson said. “It could affect a presidential race. It’s very, very serious stuff.” OBAMA’S HALF BROTHER RIPS BIDEN-HARRIS AGENDA WHILE HYPING SECOND TRUMP TERM: ‘WE’RE GOING TO WIN’ It comes hours before the House is set to vote on a measure extending the current fiscal year’s federal funding for another six months to avert a partial government shutdown on Oct. 1, coupled with a bill to mandate proof of citizenship in the voter registration process. That bill, the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, was deemed a nonstarter by the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House, and President Biden has threatened to veto Johnson’s government funding plan. But nevertheless, Johnson insisted the House would “do the right thing” in pressing ahead with the vote, despite a significant number of Republicans being already opposed to the federal funding aspect of the legislation. PENNSYLVANIANS OFFER MIXED ANSWERS ON WHERE HARRIS STANDS ON KEY ISSUES “We’re going to responsibly fund the government, and we’re going to stop the noncitizens voting in elections,” Johnson said. Opponents of the SAVE Act have argued it’s grounded in xenophobia and is needlessly duplicative, given it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. But Johnson and other Republicans have countered that years of progressive policies have made it easier for illegal immigrants to gain access to voter registration forms, and they have positioned the SAVE Act as an enhanced security measure to prevent illegal voting. CONSERVATIVE GROUP LAUNCHES MASSIVE VOTER REGISTRATION EFFORT IN KEY STATES “It is against federal law for non-U.S. citizens to vote in U.S. elections. But we have no mechanism right now to ensure that in the states, because they’re not allowed to ask for proof of verification of citizenship when someone registers to vote,” Johnson said. “We’ve had a number of states already do audits. They found thousands of illegals already on the rolls. This is a serious problem because some of our elections are decided by razor-thin margins, as everyone in this room and the whole press corps knows.” Currently, 14 states plus Washington, D.C. do not require any documentation to vote at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Arizona election database flags 100,000 voters as possible noncitizens: ‘Coding oversight’
A “coding oversight” in state software is calling into question the citizenship status of 100,000 registered Arizona voters, prompting the state’s Democratic secretary of state to insist he will send out ballots to those affected anyway. “I am unwilling to disenfranchise this many voters by limiting them, suddenly, and with little notice, to a federal-only ballot when none of them had actual notice of or blame for this issue,” Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said during a Tuesday news conference. “We inherited this problem, we’re on it, and we’re going to fix it. It’s as simple as that.” WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE ARIZONA SUPREME COURT’S REINSTATEMENT OF AN 1864 NEAR-TOTAL ABORTION BAN The mistake affects individuals who obtained their driver’s licenses before October 1996 and subsequently received duplicates before registering to vote after 2004. Since 2005, Arizona has required proof of U.S. citizenship for voting in state and local elections. Without this proof, these voters would be considered “federal only” voters, permitting them to vote solely on presidential and congressional elections rather than the full ballot. “We don’t have any reason to believe that anyone in this gap is not an eligible voter,” Fontes said. “We don’t have any reason to believe that they’re not eligible citizens in spite of the fact that we did find one. All we know is they fit into this category and all of this requires more research.” WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKING IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE SHOW The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office filed an emergency petition requesting the Arizona Supreme Court determine whether voters affected by the data oversight should be required to prove U.S. citizenship before the November election. Fontes said the error comes as longtime Arizona residents have been voting in elections for years under the impression that they had already provided proof of citizenship. And if the justices determine these individuals are only eligible to vote in federal races, Fontes said there will be an outreach effort to inform them. NEW POLL INDICATES WHETHER HARRIS OR TRUMP HAS THE EDGE IN THE MOST IMPORTANT BATTLEGROUND The error comes as Arizona Republicans and a conservative watchdog group have been pushing for stricter voting measures that require proof of U.S. citizenship to participate in state and national elections. Arizona is also a swing state that flipped blue in the 2020 presidential election. Last month, watchdog group America First Legal sued 15 Arizona counties for allegedly refusing to remove thousands of illegal immigrants from its voter rolls. The lawsuit claims that, as of April 2024, over 35,000 registered voters in Arizona had not provided proof of citizenship, limiting them to voting only in federal races, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office. For their part, U.S. House Republicans are also attempting to attach H.R. 8281, which mandates proof of citizenship for voter registration and was passed in July, to a temporary government funding bill. Neither of Arizona’s U.S. Senate candidates, Republican Kari Lake and Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, responded to requests for comment by publication deadline. Get the latest updates on the ongoing border crisis from the Fox News Digital immigration hub.
Cruz interrupted by anti-Israel agitator who yelled, ‘F—ing Jews’ during hearing on ‘hate’
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was interrupted during a congressional hearing dedicated to discussing “hate” on Tuesday by an anti-Israel agitator who stood up shouting “F—ing Jews.” During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled, “A Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America,” Cruz discussed soaring antisemitism on college campuses in the wake of Oct. 7. “Antisemitism is a unique, historic form of evil, and over millennia, it is manifested in violence, mass murder and genocide,” Cruz said. “October 7th was one of the darkest days in human history when terrorists murdered over 1,200 Israelis and took 251 hostages. Women and girls were raped. It was the single largest mass murder of Jews in a day since the Holocaust. In the wake of October 7th, we have seen antisemitism explode across the United States and across the world, but especially on college campuses.” After listing examples of antisemitic and pro-Hamas messages hurled toward Jewish students, Cruz called out the Biden-Harris administration. COLUMBIA ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS TO REACH ‘CRESCENDO OF INTIMIDATION’ AS SCHOOL SUFFERS LATEST BLACK EYE “Throughout all of this, the Biden-Harris administration has been utterly absent. Does anyone doubt if the Klan were on college campuses terrorizing African American students, threatening African American students, that we would see the FBI there, that we would see prosecutors there, that we would see federal funding cut off to universities? Of course we would. And we should,” Cruz said. “But when it comes to antisemitism, the Democrats have a problem. I would note this is occurring in blue states with blue governors, because the Democrat Party is terrified of the pro-Hamas wing of their party.” “In states like Texas and Florida, we don’t allow this. At the University of Texas, when violent protests threatened Jewish students, police officers arrived and arrested them. That’s what happened when you enforce the law,” Cruz continued. “Every Republican member of this committee asked the chairman to hold a hearing on antisemitism in February. And yet we don’t get a hearing on antisemitism. We get a hearing generically on hate.” Cruz was about to explain why he believes the Biden administration is to blame for this, when a man in the audience stood up and interjected, shouting profanities including “F—ing Jews,” according to video on social media. The anti-Israel agitator was then escorted out. “And this is the kind of anger and hate that is encouraged. You’re now seeing the hate manifesting right here,” Cruz said, referencing the protester. “So we now have a demonstration of antisemitism. We have a demonstration of the hate,” he added. Cruz proceeded to ask one of the witnesses, Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, “Has the Biden administration cut off the funding of any of the colleges that have allowed this hate? Have they indicted anyone for funding these violent protests? Have they indicted the people paying for the matching tents, or have they sat there silently and have the universities, sat there silently while their students are terrified to go to class?” Goldfeder responded, “They have not indicted anyone.” “Has any university had their funding cut off for allowing this sort of violent intimidation?” Cruz asked. “Not a single university,” Goldfeder said. The senator earlier referenced how the Anti-Defamation League has illustrated how the number of antisemitic incidents in the United States more than doubled from 2022 to 2023. ACTRESS SELMA BLAIR CONDEMNS ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS ‘PRAISING’ HAMAS TERRORISTS: ‘SOMETHING VERY WRONG’ Cruz said that “college campuses in particular have become vile incubators of hatred of Jews,” citing examples of how one Cornell University student made threats after Oct. 7, including statements such as “if I see a pig, male Jew, I will stab you and slit your throat. If I see another pig female Jew, I will drag you away and rape you and throw you off a cliff.” The Republican senator displayed a flier circulated by a student organization at California State University, Long Beach, calling for a “Day of Resistance” celebrating Oct. 7, noting how the flier included an image of a person parachuting with a fan attached, “a direct reference to and a glorification of Hamas terrorists that used gliders to descend upon a music festival and murder 260 innocent people and take many more hostages.” Cruz recalled that in the days after now-former Columbia University President Minouche Shafik was confronted about soaring antisemitism on campus before the House Education and the Workforce Committee in April, Rabbi Elie Buechler issued a warning to Jewish students that Columbia “cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy,” and that he “would strongly recommend” that Jewish students leave campus and go back to their homes. Cruz said the rabbi “had every reason to be concerned,” as at Columbia’s campus, individuals yelled, “We’re all Hamas! Long live Hamas!” The senator continued to list examples of antisemitism on campuses across the U.S., including the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor who was told to “go back to the gas chambers,” and displayed a photo of a student at Columbia University holding a sign reading “al-Qassam’s next targets,” in front of a group of students holding American and Israeli flags in counter-protest. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “Al-Qassam is the military arm of Hamas. According to social media, this particular student is a wealthy student from Georgia. She’s not Palestinian, but she has been taught lies and hatred, and she feels perfectly comfortable advocating the murder of her fellow students at Columbia,” Cruz said.
New poll indicates whether Harris or Trump has the edge in this key battleground state
A new poll conducted entirely after last week’s debate indicates Vice President Kamala Harris holding a three-point edge over former President Donald Trump in the crucial battleground state of Wisconsin. Harris stands at 48% support among likely voters in Wisconsin, with Trump at 45% in an AARP poll conducted Sept 11-14 and released on Wednesday. The vice president’s three-point margin over the former president is within the poll’s overall sampling error of plus or minus four points. Democrat-turned-Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – who last month suspended his campaign and backed Trump – stands at 2% support in the poll, with Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 1%. One percent said they would back a different candidate, with 2% undecided. A Wisconsin judge on Monday denied Kennedy’s request to drop his name from the presidential ballot, ruling that state law requires candidates to remain on the ballot unless they die. HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLS IN THE 2024 ELECTION Contributing to Harris’ overall edge is an 11-point advantage among independent voters, as well as an 11-point lead among women voters compared to a 7-point advantage for Trump among men. The poll also indicated a large geographic divide, with Harris far ahead among urban and suburban voters, while Trump enjoyed a large lead among rural voters. WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKING IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE SHOW The poll’s release also points out that “the educational attainment gap is large, with Trump leading non-college voters by 10-points, but Harris up 24-points among college+ voters.” When the third party and independent presidential candidates are removed from the questionnaire, the poll indicated Harris at 49% and Trump at 48% in a head-to-head match up, with 3% undecided. The AARP survey is the fourth straight poll conducted this month in Wisconsin to indicate Harris with a slight edge. Wisconsin, along with Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, had razor-thin margins that decided the outcome of the 2020 election between Trump and President Biden. Additionally, these seven states will likely determine whether Harris or Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. The Badger State, along with Michigan and Pennsylvania, are the three Rust Belt states that make up the Democrats’ so-called “Blue Wall.” HARRIS-TRUMP SHOWDOWN ROCKED AGAIN, WITH 50 DAYS TO GO UNTIL ELECTION The party reliably won all three states for a quarter-century before Trump narrowly captured them in the 2016 election to win the White House. Four years later, in 2020, Biden carried all three states by razor-thin margins to put them back in the Democrats’ column and defeated Trump. Both the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees have made repeated stops in the state this summer. Trump was most recently in the state a week and a half ago, with a rally in Mosinee. Harris returns to Wisconsin on Friday for a rally in Madison, the state capital. The running mates are also making plenty of stops in the state, with Republican vice presidential nominee Ohio Sen. JD Vance holding a campaign event in Eau Claire on Tuesday and his Democratic counterpart, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, visiting Superior last weekend. Besides the White House battle, Wisconsin is also home to a crucial Senate race that is one of a handful that will likely decide whether Republicans can win back the chamber’s majority. According to the poll, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin edges Republican challenger Eric Hovde 50% – 47% with 3% undecided. The new AARP survey in Wisconsin was conducted by the bipartisan polling team of Fabrizio Ward (Republican) & Impact Research (Democrat). The firms interviewed 1,052 likely voters, which included a statewide representative sample of 600 likely voters. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Trump says he will tax Mexican auto imports by 200% and make them ‘unsellable’ in the US
During a campaign town hall Tuesday night in Flint, Michigan, former President Trump spoke about his plan to implement a 200% tariff on all Mexican auto imports, which he said would make them “unsellable” in the U.S. “Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented,” Trump said at the town hall event hosted by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “I took in $467 billion from China. Nobody else took in anything.” Trump predicated his comments about implementing a 200% tax on Mexican auto imports with a story about one of his friends in the auto manufacturing industry. Trump said he asked that friend to show him a contemporary, top-of-the-line automaking plant located in the U.S. But, according to Trump, his friend told him that was not possible, because the U.S. only has smaller auto manufacturing plants, while the major ones are located in Mexico and are mostly run by China. ‘AUTO WORKERS FOR TRUMP’ LEADER SAYS THOUSANDS POISED TO BREAK FROM DEMS OVER GREEN POLICIES, JOB KILLING REGS “They think they’re going to make their cars [in Mexico] and they’re going to sell them across our line and we’re going to take them and we’re not going to charge them tax,” Trump said Tuesday evening. “We’re going to charge them – I’m telling you right now – I’m putting a 200% tariff on, which means they are unsellable in the United States.” Trump quipped after the declaration: “You wonder why I get shot.” He noted that “when I say something like [taxing Chinese auto imports]” it puts a target on his back, adding “only consequential presidents get shot at.” But, Trump conceded, “You have to do what you have to do.” “We have to be brave otherwise we’re not going to have a country left,” the former president added. TRUMP: IF KAMALA BECOMES PRESIDENT, THERE WILL BE NO AUTO INDUSTRY Earlier this week, Brian Pannebecker, a retired autoworker who has spent a combined 36 years on the manufacturing floors at Ford, Chrysler and Stellantis, spoke to Fox News Digital about why he and other pro-Trump autoworkers are backing the former president over Kamala Harris. He said that besides the former president’s pushback on Democratic efforts to implement electric vehicle mandates and other green regulations in the auto industry, Trump’s replacement of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the stricter trade rules under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) was also a factor. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “Kamala Harris is on record saying she would like to see all vehicles built in the United States reaching zero-emissions by 2035. She supported legislation to that effect when she was a U.S. senator,” Pannebecker said. “She knows nothing about manufacturing. She knows nothing about the economy. She’s a San Francisco liberal district attorney. And then she was California’s attorney general. And we all know what’s happened in California. They’ve ruined that state.” Fox News Digital reached out to the Trump campaign for comment, but did not receive a response before publication time.
Fact check: Was Kamala Harris truthful in interview with Black journalists?
During her interview with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris criticised former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Republican Senator JD Vance, for spreading misinformation about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. In the presidential debate held last week, Trump claimed that immigrants in the Midwestern state were eating residents’ pets. “When you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought to understand how much your words have meaning,” Harris said on Tuesday. “I learned at a very young stage of my career that the meaning of my words could impact whether someone was free or in prison.” On Israel’s war on Gaza, Harris reiterated that Israel has a right to defend itself, following Hamas’s October 7 attack last year, but didn’t have a straight answer for co-moderator and Politico White House Correspondent Eugene Daniels’ question about how her policies would differ from President Joe Biden’s. Harris said “We need to get this deal done,” referring to freeing captives and a ceasefire deal. The discussion took place at US public radio station WHYY in downtown Philadelphia and featured Daniels, theGrio White House correspondent and Managing Editor of Politics Gerren Keith Gaynor and WHYY Fresh Air programme co-host Tonya Mosley as moderators. Harris’s interview happened days after Trump was targeted in an apparent assassination attempt. Harris said she spoke to Trump earlier in the day. “There’s no place for political violence in our country,” Harris said. In addition to these topics, the moderators tried to get specifics from Harris about her positions on the economy and healthcare. We fact-checked several of her claims. Economy ‘Worst unemployment since the Great Depression’ When Harris and Biden took office, replacing Trump, the US had “the worst unemployment since the Great Depression”. False. Harris had also made this claim during the presidential debate against Trump. She’s wrong. The US unemployment rate spiked to a post-Great Depression record of 14.8 percent in April 2020, as the pandemic escalated. Trump was in office then. But by December 2020, before Biden and Harris took office, the unemployment rate fell to 6.4 percent – high for recent history but well below numerous spikes during recessions. Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris criticised former President Donald Trump during her interview with members of the National Association of Black Journalists [Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo] ‘Lowest Black unemployment rate in generations’ Harris: “We have the lowest Black unemployment rate in generations.” Half True. The Black unemployment rate in August, the most recent month available, was 6.1 percent. That’s low by historical standards, though it’s up from a record low of 4.8 percent set in April 2023. Black unemployment was also low under Trump, which was not “generations” ago. Trump set a record low of 5.3 percent in September 2019 which was later eclipsed by the record low under Biden. Reduced Black child poverty ‘by half’ Harris: “When we expanded the Child Tax Credit a couple years ago, we reduced Back child poverty by half.” Mostly True. The White House, after Biden made a similar claim in February 2023, said Black child poverty fell from 17.2 percent in 2020 to 8.3 percent in 2021, a 52 percent drop. The drop from 2019, the White House said, was 60 percent. The White House cited supplemental poverty numbers from the Census Bureau. The supplemental poverty measure, introduced in 2011, updated the official poverty measure, which was based on cash resources. The supplemental poverty measure includes cash and non-cash benefits and accounts for government programmes designed to aid low-income families. Biden’s American Rescue Plan increased the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,600 for children younger than six and to $3,000 for children aged six to 17. Beneficiaries, which included families with very low incomes that weren’t required to file tax returns, received up to half the credit in monthly payments from July 2021 to December 2021. The provision lapsed after that, facing opposition from Republicans and independent Senator Joe Manchin, who said expanding the credit would worsen inflation. When the expanded tax credit expired, child poverty spiked. Supplemental child poverty rose from 12.1 percent in December 2021 to 17 percent in January 2022 – a 41 percent change. This meant 3.7 million more children were living below the poverty line in 2022 compared with 2021. Creating new jobs Harris: “As of today, we have created over 16 million new jobs, over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs.” Mostly True. Non-farm employment has increased by about 15.9 million jobs from January 2021 to August 2024, the period that Biden and Harris have been in office. Manufacturing employment has risen by 739,000. However, there are a few caveats. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency that calculates how many people are working, said in August that the initial statistics may have overstated job gains by 818,000. This revision was part of the bureau’s annual effort to fine-tune initial data that the agency acknowledges is imperfect. That would reduce the job gains to about 15 million jobs, not 16 million. But for now, the old numbers Harris was using are the official ones. Any changes would be finalised early next year. Another caveat is that no president can claim full credit for job gains on their watch (or job losses). Many factors that go into employment changes stem from developments beyond presidents’ control, including the health of the global economy. Healthcare Black people are ’60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes’ Harris: “We know Black folks are 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes.” True. Black adults in 2018 were 60 percent more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to be diagnosed with diabetes by a physician, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows. In 2019, Black adults were 2.5 times more likely to be hospitalised with the condition and have associated long-term complications. The group was also twice as likely as non-Hispanic white people to die from the disease, the
More deadly explosions hit Lebanon, a day after Hezbollah pager blasts
BREAKINGBREAKING, Lebanon’s state media says three people killed in Lebanon’s Bekaa region, as more explosions reported across the country. At least one person has been killed and hundreds were wounded in Lebanon in a new wave of blasts related to communication devices, the Health Ministry has said, a day after thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah detonated across the country. Multiple explosions were reported across Lebanon on Wednesday, with Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reporting that pagers and “devices” exploded in Hezbollah strongholds in the east and south of Beirut. The Iran-backed group’s Al Manar TV reported explosions in multiple areas of Lebanon, which it said were the result of walkie-talkies detonating. Hezbollah’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tyre in southern Lebanon, witnessed two explosions. “There was a car that exploded just behind us. At the same time, there was an explosion at another place [nearby],” he said. “I’m currently in the middle of the street. There are a lot of ambulances, chaos everywhere.” Several blasts took place simultaneously, Hashem said, similar to what happened on Tuesday. “But this time, it was mostly walkie-talkies or radios [that exploded],” he said, adding that reports suggested that solar devices and some batteries in cars also exploded. Lebanon’s official news agency reported that home solar energy systems exploded in several areas of Beirut. In Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan said a blast was reported in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital city. “We are hearing a lot of ambulance activity in the area suggesting there may be well casualties coming here or other hospitals nearby, possibly as a result of explosions within Beirut itself.” The new round of explosions took place a day after pagers used by Hezbollah, a Lebanese Iran-backed group, exploded nearly simultaneously in several locations across Lebanon, killing at least 12 people, including two children, and wounding around 2,800. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for Tuesday’s attacks. Adblock test (Why?)