Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris skipped the centennial homecoming ceremony at Howard University to campaign with the rapper Lizzo.
Harris, an '86 grad from the historically black college, has often touted her ties to Howard to appeal to black voters.
But with days left before Election Day, Harris is making it clear she has no time for her alma mater.
The Democrat released a letter to the school's alumni, sending her "best wishes" as she spent the day campaigning in Michigan.
“I am proud to be an alumna of Howard University, and I send you all my best wishes for a wonderful homecoming celebration," she wrote.
The snub comes as Harris has bled support from black and Latino voters, particularly black and Hispanic men.
Her campaign had made tentative plans in September to attend Howard's homecoming as part of a tour of historically black colleges, but those plans were apparently dropped so Harris could campaign in Michigan, where the race has become uncomfortably close for Democrats.
The campaign's black outreach director said in September that Harris would not take black voters for granted.
"Vice President Harris has been very clear: she is not taking a single voter for granted, Black voters are not in our back pocket, and we must put in the work to earn their vote,” Christale Spain, National Black Engagement Director of the Harris-Walz, said. “That is exactly what we are doing by launching an HBCU homecoming tour across battleground states.”
Democrats have grown concerned that Harris is losing momentum in the crucial "Blue Wall" states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania that Donald Trump won in 2016.
Democratic insiders told NBC News that Harris may lose one or more of those states, which have traditionally voted for the same presidential candidate.
"There has been a thought that maybe Michigan or Wisconsin will fall off,” said a senior Harris campaign official.
Harris will campaign in Michigan on Saturday with Michelle Obama, who will be joining Harris for the first time on the trail. Barack Obama has already been stumping for Harris. Obama has faced backlash for scolding black men who are considering a vote for Trump.
The Harris campaign is considering Howard's Washington D.C. campus as a headquarters for Election Night, according to NBC.
One Direction star Liam Payne had multiple drugs in his system when he fell to his death from a hotel balcony, including a potent combination called "pink cocaine," a partial autopsy found.
The new details shed some light on what led to Payne's tragic demise at 31 years of age at a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The boy band singer had a potent mix of drugs in his system, including "pink cocaine" - a term for a cocktail of methamphetamine, ketamine, MDMA and other psychoactive drugs – as well as cocaine, benzodiazepine and crack.
An improvised aluminum pipe, used for smoking drugs, was found in Payne's hotel room - which was in a state of complete disarray, with drugs everywhere and the TV smashed up.
Payne reportedly was accompanied by sex workers shortly before his death, but prosecutors say he was alone in the room before his fatal fall.
Moments before he died, the hotel called the police to ask for help with a guest who was potentially in life-threatening danger.
"We need to send someone with urgency because I don't know if the guest's life is in danger because he is in a room with balcony, and we are afraid he could do something that threatens life," the worker told emergency services.
Minutes later, Payne's body was found in the hotel's inner courtyard.
The preliminary autopsy found that Payne died from "multiple traumas" and "internal and external bleeding." Investigators believe Payne was not fully conscious because he did not adopt a "reflexive posture" to cushion the fall.
"Due to the position in which the body was found and the injuries from the fall, it is presumed that Payne did not adopt a reflexive posture to protect himself and may have fallen in a state of semi or total unconsciousness," the preliminary autopsy said.
Police have interviewed a hotel employee suspected of providing drugs to Payne the day he died. The person has not been charged.
Payne's body will not be returned to his family until the autopsy is complete.
"We are heartbroken. Liam will forever live in our hearts and we'll remember him for his kind, funny, and brave soul. We are supporting each other the best we can as a family and ask for privacy and space at this awful time," his family said in a statement.
Payne leaves behind a 7-year-old son, Bear, whom he shares with singer Cheryl Cole.
President Joe Biden's short-lived role as a campaign surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris is over.
With days left before the presidential contest is decided, the Harris campaign has no plans to bring Biden along on the trail, NBC reported.
The snub comes as Harris has tried to define herself as a fresh face to voters eager for change.
“He’s out there doing the job as president, and she’s out there campaigning,” one anonymous White House official said, adding: “It’s clear voters want something new.”
Biden will quietly support Harris by tapping his political contacts, the report said, particularly with labor leaders, as Democrats fear losing working-class voters who backed "Scranton Joe" four years ago.
Biden has been seldom seen or heard since he ended his re-election campaign in July under pressure from Democrats. He still has not spoken with Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.), his friend of decades who orchestrated the shocking plot to force him off the ticket.
Adding insult to injury, the Harris operation is leaning on appearances from Barack and Michelle Obama, the party's biggest stars, to put Harris over the top.
It's no secret that Obama has long been dismissive of his former vice president's ambitions, and Obama did not use his influence to stop the coup against Biden this summer.
“Harris has to be establishing herself as a change agent, and it’s hard to do that with a sitting president at her side,” one longtime Democratic strategist said.
Months after his brief, spirited effort to stay in the race, Biden appears to have, rather sadly, acquiesced to his diminished role. At an event last week, he pledged that Harris will "cut her own path."
“Folks, Kamala will take the country in her own direction," he said last week.
At times, Biden has appeared to undercut Harris' message in recent days, leading to speculation that he is trying to sabotage her.
Harris' messaging has been wildly inconsistent. She told The View during a late media blitz that she had no major criticism of Biden's record.
In a combative interview with Fox News last week, Harris promised to chart a new path, without sharing specifics.
"My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and, like every new president that comes in to office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership," Harris told him.
California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff has always been quick to criticize his political opponents on a variety of topics, but he now faces notable potential legal issues of his own.
According to JustTheNews, Schiff has claimed his "principal" residences in mortgage and election filings as being in California and Maryland.
However, Americans are only allowed to claim one residence as their principal residence, and Schiff has reportedly claimed both homes in the aforementioned paperwork dating back to 2003.
The revelation has sparked the possibility of an ethics investigation that could ultimately promote prosecutable charges, according to reports.
The outlet explained the fact that American citizens can only claim one home as their "principal" residence. Schiff apparently believes the rules do not apply for his circumstance.
JustTheNews noted:
Americans are allowed to claim just one home as their primary residence: the one they live in the majority of the year, according to the federally backed lender Freddie Mac. But Schiff alternately declared both of his properties in the two different states as “principal” on multiple mortgage and election forms dating to 2003 and reviewed by Just the News.
One of the problems -- of many -- is that by doing what he did, Schiff was able to score "financial and political benefits like lower mortgage interest rates, tax advantages and the ability to run for election in a California House district."
The outlet noted:
In at least three instances, documents show that in 2009 and again in 2011 and 2013, Schiff refinanced his Maryland home and declared it was his “principal residence” at the same time he had declared his principal residence was in the California, according to 2009 and 2011 financing docs for his Burbank condo.
Sacramento-based real estate investigator Christine Bish, who also happens to be running for Congress as a Republican, first uncovered the situation.
Bish has already filed an ethics complaint against Schiff.
Schiff might have already ratted himself out due to a peculiar change he made in his 2020 filings, where he lists his Maryland residence as a "secondary" residence.
Bish argued that such a change is nothing less than a full admission of what he has been accused of doing.
Retired FBI supervisory special agent Jeff Danik reviewed the documents at the request of JustTheNews, and he believes there are potential charges to be filed.
"These are serious, documented allegations which carry significant criminal penalties if substantiated," Danik told the outlet.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has had a rocky relationship with former President Donald Trump ever since the outcome of the 2020 election.
According to ABC News, an upcoming biography revealed how McConnell really felt about Trump following the election, and his words are sure to stir a response from the former president.
In the biography, McConnell reportedly disparaged Trump at the time, calling him "stupid" and "despicable."
McConnell and Trump have traded barbs for years, and the Kentucky Republican's new biography will undoubtedly cement those hard feelings.
Michael Tackett, deputy Washington bureau chief of The Associated Press, authored the McConnell biography, and some of the Republican leader's private remarks were included in the book, titled "The Price of Power."
Notably, the biography is set to be released at the end of October, just a week out from the next election. Many believe Democrats could leverage McConnell's assessment of Trump to score points.
"And for a narcissist like him,” McConnell reportedly said, "that's been really hard to take, and so his behavior since the election has been even worse, by far, than it was before, because he has no filter now at all."
McConnell also said Trump is "stupid as well as being ill-tempered and can’t even figure out where his own best interests lie."
ABC News noted:
The animosity between Trump and McConnell is well known — Trump once called McConnell " a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack." But McConnell's private comments are by far his most brutal assessment of the former president and could be seized on by Democrats before the Nov. 5 election. The biography will be released Oct. 29, one week before Election Day that will decide if Trump returns to the White House.
Even with the back-and-forth between the two Republicans, McConnell endorsed Trump's presidential run over the summer, and was even seen shaking hands with Trump, though it was likely for the cameras and GOP unity.
After several medical episodes over the past two years, McConnell finally agreed earlier this year to step aside as the Senate Republican leader after the upcoming election.
The Senate GOP leader told reporters that anything he said was nothing compared to what Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) -- both strong Trump allies -- said about him.
McConnell clarified that regardless of what has been said, he's on the "same team" now.
"Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now."
The man charged with trying to assassinate Donald Trump at his Florida golf course has asked the judge to recuse herself from the case.
Attorneys for Ryan Routh asked Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, to step aside to eliminate perceptions of bias.
Lawyers for Routh asked Cannon to step aside, arguing Trump's praise of her rulings could create doubts about her impartiality.
"By repeatedly and publicly praising this Court by name for its rulings in his case, Mr. Trump has arguably bolstered the perception that the Court is partial in his favor. Moreover, were Mr. Trump to become President again in the future, he would be in a position to nominate Your Honor to a vacancy on a higher appellate court, including the U.S. Supreme Court," the lawyers said.
"In the mind of the public, this prospect of a judicial promotion could arguably affect this Court’s ability to be impartial in this case, where Mr. Trump is the alleged victim and has an interest in the outcome," the motion said.
Cannon was appointed to the federal bench by Trump in 2020. She rose to prominence last year for her role in Trump's federal classified documents case.
Trump won a significant legal victory when Cannon dismissed his classified documents case in July. The judge ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed.
Cannon was randomly selected to oversee Routh's trial following his arrest in September for attempting to kill Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course.
A Secret Service agent noticed the barrel of Routh's rifle, and he fled the scene as agents fired their guns at him. The assassination attempt came only weeks after Trump was left bloodied by a sniper's bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Routh spelled out his intention to kill Trump in a letter bashing Trump as "totally unfit" to be president.
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” the letter read. “Everyone across the globe from the youngest to the oldest know that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less a US president."
Trump has blamed the assassination attempt on inflammatory rhetoric from his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, and her allies.
Despite the threats against his life, Democrats have continued to paint Trump as a threat to democracy in the final days before the election.
Joe Biden bragged Wednesday about Donald Trump's criminal sentencing - after Trump repeatedly accused Biden and Democrats of weaponizing the justice system against him.
Biden's troubling remarks came as Kamala Harris has tried to paint Trump as an authoritarian figure who would lock up his political opponents.
Speaking at a rally for Harris in Pennsylvania, Biden recited the litany of civil and criminal cases that have been filed against Trump.
"And folks, look. This is the same guy who’s been held liable for $83 million for sexual abuse and defamation, the same guy for getting rid of Roe V. Wade, the same guy with three other major cases waiting for him when he loses," Biden said.
All four of Trump's criminal indictments were filed last year, after Trump launched his presidential campaign. The prosecutions have mostly stalled, with the exception of Trump's "hush money" case in New York, where he was convicted in May for "falsifying business records."
A Justice Department insider privately called the case "nonsense" and suggested Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was motivated by ambition.
Biden, in his remarks, said he looks forward to Trump's November 26 sentencing, which was delayed until after the election.
"And by the way, 34 felonies, and so far — he had to get sentenced. He got the sentence kick back, but I want to watch that sentence. Look, Donald Trump is not running for you. He’s running for himself. I think he’s running to stay out of jail."
Democrats have repeatedly accused Trump of wanting to weaponize the justice system - although Trump says that's exactly what Democrats have done to him.
Just weeks before Election Day, DOJ prosecutor Jack Smith publicly released evidence against Trump in his stalled January 6th case. Smith's move has been seen as an improper attempt to influence the election and try the case in the court of public opinion.
In addition to his criminal prosecutions, Trump has also been fined upwards of half a billion dollars in two separate civil cases. An appeals court recently suggested it might reverse the verdict in the "business fraud" case, calling the gargantuan $454 million punishment "troubling."
Biden's unseemly gloating comes despite Harris' repeated warnings that Trump is a threat to democracy and the rule of law.
"This is a democracy, and in a democracy the president of the United States in the United States of America, should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he'd lock people up for doing it," she told Fox News' Brett Baier Wednesday night.
Trump has long blasted the avalanche of legal cases as politically motivated and a threat to free and fair elections.
Nancy Pelosi has gone missing from Joe Biden's life.
After decades of friendship, their relationship broke down this summer as Pelosi pressured Biden to drop his re-election bid - and they have not spoken since.
"Not since then, no,” she told the Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian. "But I’m prayerful about it.”
The former House Speaker flexed her influence over the summer after Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance on CNN led to panic in the Democratic party.
Pelosi was seen as the driving figure behind the effort to push Biden out of the presidential race. At the time, Pelosi raised eyebrows by urging Biden to make a decision about dropping out, even after he sent a defiant message to Congress stating his intention to keep running.
Biden relented after weeks of pressure that left Biden and his family feeling shocked and betrayed. Pelosi showed no remorse in her Guardian interview, insisting she was protecting Biden's "consequential" legacy.
“I have the greatest respect for him. I think he’s one of the great consequential presidents of our country,” she said. “I think his legacy had to be protected. I didn’t see that happening in the course that it was on, the election was on," she said.
"My call was just to: ‘Let’s get on a better course.’ He will make the decision as to what that is. And he made that decision. But I think he has some unease because we’ve been friends for decades."
A famously cutthroat political operator, Pelosi explained that her desire to keep Donald Trump out of the White House drove her decision-making.
"I decided a while ago that Donald Trump will never set foot in the White House again as president of the United States or in any other capacity … So when you make a decision, you have to make every decision in favor of winning … and the most important decision of all is the candidate.”
Tensions have also lingered between Biden and Kamala Harris, despite his endorsement of her. Some have speculated that Biden is sabotaging Harris by overshadowing her at key moments of her campaign.
Pelosi, a Catholic who strongly supports abortion, said she fears punishment in the afterlife, but not for the reason some might expect.
The sworn Trump enemy said she thinks of Trump's name like a bad word that she dares not utter.
"I’m afraid, you know, when I grew up Catholic, as I am now, if you said a bad word, you could burn in hell if you didn’t have a chance to confess. So I don’t want to take any chances," she explained.
An Arkansas ballot measure revoking the license for a casino can move ahead after the state's Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge from the casino's operator.
The dispute centers on a planned casino in Pope County licensed to Cherokee Nation Entertianment. The campaign against the casino is being led by Local Voters in Charge and the Choctaw Nation, which has donated millions to stopping the casino.
The Supreme Court was asked to weigh on Issue 2, which would strip the license for the Pope County casino and require local public input on all future casinos in the state.
In a unanimous ruling, the court rejected a lawsuit from Cherokee Nation Entertainment challenging the signature collection process. A court-appointed special master found that Local Voters in Charge did not violate the rules on paid canvassing.
On the other hand, the court did not decide on a separate issue involving the popular name and title of the initiative.
"Issue 2’s message of local voter control — that communities should have the final say on a casino in their own hometown — is resonating across the state,” Hans Stiritz, a spokesperson for Local Voters In Charge, said in a statement. “We look forward to the court’s final decision on the ballot language challenge, with hope that the vote of the people will be counted on Issue 2 in November.”
Local Voters in Charge says the case is about communities asserting their autonomy. But Investing in Arkansas, the Cherokee-backed group campaigning against Issue 2, say the dispute is fundamentally about business.
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma lost out on the license for the Pope County casino, and the tribe has donated $5.6 million to Local Voters In Charge.
"It is about another casino operator who didn't get the license in Pope County, who now wants to make sure that nobody gets any of those dollars and that those dollars stay in Oklahoma," said Natalie Ghidotti, of Investing in Arkansas.
Another group backing the casino says Issue 2 would override the will of voters, who adopted a 2018 constitutional amendment approving four casino licenses, including the one in Pope County.
"While disappointing, we still await the Court’s decision on the ballot title challenge," Allison Burum, spokesperson for the Arkansas Canvassing Compliance Committee, said in a statement. “Issue 2 is misleading, and its sole purpose is to undo the will of Arkansas voters by eliminating the fourth casino license they approved in 2018.”
Barron Trump has been named his father's all but official ambassador to Generation Z - as Donald Trump aims to reach young voters, particularly young men, with a string of podcast appearances.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump admitted his youngest son is impacting his presidential campaign - something he perhaps never saw coming.
When asked by Maria Bartiromo about Barron's role, Trump, 78, admitted that his 18-year-old son has helped him adapt to the unfamiliar podcasting world.
“A little bit, I mean, he tells me about all the hot guys, people I’d never heard of, ‘Dad, that guy is hot,’” Trump said. “You know, it’s very cute, actually. A little bit."
"But you know, Don [Jr.] knows a lot about it, and Eric knows a lot about it. Tiffany knows a lot," Trump added. "Ivanka knows a lot."
This isn't the first time Trump has credited Barron with connecting him to podcasters like Adin Ross, Lex Fridman, and Theo Von. The podcast appearances have afforded Trump the opportunity to show off his personal side to a younger demographic that typically leans left.
Polling in Trump's matchup with Kamala Harris has shown a pronounced gender gap, with Trump leading strongly among men in all age groups. The gap has rattled Democrats, prompting Barack Obama to scold black men in particular for considering Trump.
Harris has also engaged in podcast outreach, recently targeting young women on the sex podcast Call Her Daddy.
Meanwhile, Trump told the Nelk Boys podcast that he would be going on Joe Rogan before the election, although Rogan has yet to confirm this. Rogan has the top-rated podcast and a significant audience of young men.
“Oh sure I would. I mean I think I’m doing it, actually,” Trump told the Nelk Boys podcast, calling Rogan a “good guy.”
Earlier this year, Trump announced that Barron would be going to business school at New York University. Speculation has intensified around Barron's future and whether he will follow his father into politics.
During his Fox interview, Trump made it clear how proud he is of his "very tall" son, his only child with wife Melania Trump.
"You know, Barron’s a very good student, he’s going to a very good school, always got good marks. He’s also tall, very tall, he’s a tall student," he said.