Iranian officials threaten Israel with armed response to IDF airstrikes
Iran’s top military leaders are vowing an overwhelming response to Saturday’s Israeli airstrikes that hit Tehran’s air defenses and ballistic missile production facilities.
It’s Supposed to Be One of the Pinnacles of Sport. It Actually Kind of Blows.
I run a bunch of long races. Let me tell you, this one isn’t for everyone.
Mike Johnson, who shares ‘secret’ with Trump, fights to keep the House
The Speaker could lead a conservative overhaul of the government. Or find himself in the political wilderness.
What to expect in Wisconsin on Election Day
This story is part of a series of state-by-state previews of the 2024 election.
Wisconsin is no stranger to close presidential elections. The margin of victory was less than a percentage point in the state’s 2020, 2016, 2004, and 2000 elections. So it might be again this Election Day.
Both Republican Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris are competing hard for the 10 electoral votes at stake in Wisconsin, making frequent stops in the Badger State—including several in the vote-rich Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay areas.
Wisconsin was one of three “blue wall” states (Michigan and Pennsylvania are the others) that went narrowly for Trump in 2016 after almost 30 years of voting for Democratic presidential candidates. Four years later, Democrat Joe Biden won all three states back for Democrats with a margin in Wisconsin of about 20,000 votes out of nearly 3.3 million votes cast.
In the state’s U.S. Senate race, Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin seeks a third term against Republican Eric Hovde . Baldwin is one of five vulnerable Senate Democrats defending a seat against a well-funded, Trump-backed challenger in a campaign cycle when a defeat for even one would likely cost the party control of the chamber.
Both the Baldwin and Hovde campaigns and their allies have blanketed the state with more than $160 million in advertising, according to data from the campaign ad tracking firm AdImpact.
RELATED STORY: Another GOP Senate candidate caught pushing a rags-to-riches lie
In the state Legislature, Democrats hope that new district maps will help them chip away at the lopsided majorities Republicans have enjoyed in both chambers for more than a decade. Almost half of Wisconsin’s 33 state Senate seats and all 99 state Assembly seats are up for election this year. In the state Assembly, Democrats have their most competitive campaign cycle in years, thanks in large part to the newly redrawn districts and the retirements they helped bring about.
Wisconsin voters will also consider a statewide ballot measure that would amend the state constitution to specifically ban noncitizens from voting in state elections. Noncitizens are already barred from participating in federal elections nationwide, and no state permits them to vote in state elections. However, some municipalities in a handful of states allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. The issue has prompted efforts by Republicans in Congress and several states to ban the practice entirely.
Here’s a look at what to expect in the 2024 election in Wisconsin:
Election Day
Nov. 5.
Poll closing time
9 p.m. ET.
Presidential electoral votes
10 awarded to statewide winner.
Key races and candidates
President: Harris (D) vs. Trump (R) vs. Randall Terry (Constitution) vs. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) vs. Jill Stein (Green) vs. Claudia De la Cruz (Party for Socialism and Liberation) vs. Cornel West (Justice for All) vs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (We the People).
U.S. Senate: Baldwin (D) vs. Hovde (R) and two others.
Ballot measures: Question 1 (require citizenship to vote).
RELATED STORY: Supreme Court won’t remove RKF Jr. from ballot in 2 swing states
Other races of interest
U.S. House, state Senate, and state Assembly.
Decision Notes
In Wisconsin, the first vote results reported on election night tend to be a mix of ballots cast on Election Day and in advance. In the April presidential primaries, more than a third of counties reported most or all of their vote results in their first vote report of the night—including in-person Election Day votes as well as mail-in and early votes.
But larger counties, including the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Dane, took much longer. Their first vote update of the night included only a small share of the total votes cast. In a close race, that likely means waiting for final results in both places to know who has won the state.
In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton lost to Trump despite winning Milwaukee County with 66% of the vote; Dane County, the home of Madison, with 70%; and LaCrosse County with 51%. Four years later, Biden won Milwaukee with 69% of the vote, Dane with 76%, and LaCrosse with 56%, eking out a narrow statewide victory.
Trump carried Brown County, the home of Green Bay, in 2016 and 2020 with about 52% of the vote, but Biden improved upon Clinton’s showing there by about 4 percentage points on his way to a win.
Along with support in the more rural parts of the state, Trump will likely need to post big numbers in the “WOW” counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington in suburban Milwaukee to counter the heavy Democratic support Harris will likely claim in Milwaukee and Dane.
The Associated Press doesn’t make projections and will declare a winner only when it has determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race hasn’t been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, like candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear it hasn’t declared a winner and explain why.
Recounts are not automatic in Wisconsin, but candidates may request and pay for one if the vote margin is less than a percentage point. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
Past presidential results
2020: Biden (D) 50%, Trump (R) 49%, AP race call: Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, 2:16 p.m. ET.
Voter registration and turnout
Registered voters: 3,503,706 (as of Sep. 1, 2024).
Voter turnout in Nov. 2020: 84% of registered voters.
Pre-Election Day voting
Votes cast before Election Day 2020: about 61% of the total vote.
Votes cast before Election Day 2022: about 29% of the total vote.
Votes cast before Election Day 2024: See AP Advance Vote tracker .
How long does vote-counting take?
First votes reported, Nov. 3, 2020: 9:07 p.m. ET.
By midnight ET: about 70% of total votes cast were reported.
Where millions of Americans have cast ballots during early voting
Here are the latest numbers from early voting in person and vote by mail in each state, according to the Associated Press.
Former Trump Senior Aide Blasts ‘Convicted Felon’ Over His Liz Cheney Gun Remarks: ‘Should Be Taken Into Custody’
(Photo by Bastiaan Slabbers/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)
Anthoney Scaramucci, the former White House Communications Director under former President Donald Trump, insisted that the former president be taken into custody following remarks about Liz Cheney.
At issue are comments made during an event hosted by Tucker Carlson, in which Trump blasted Cheney as “stupid” and a “Warhawk” but then insulted her, suggesting that she’d behave differently if there were guns “shooting at her.” Referring to Cheney as “a very dumb individual,” he then said:
She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrel shooting at her. Okay. Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.
Suggesting a scenario in which a political enemy is fired upon is a dangerous level of heated rhetoric. It has caused an early firestorm just days before the presidential election. Cheney did not take the comments lightly , posting her retort on social media. “This is how dictators destroy free nations,” she said. “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
Scaramucci, a former Trump media surrogate who served an 11-day term as his communications director, has since become a vocal critic of his former boss and supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign for president. He jumped into the fray Friday morning in a social media post that reminded readers that Trump is a “convicted felon.” He suggested he should be “taken into custody” as he violated his bail conditions by “threatening someone’s life. He needs to be sent away.
While Trump’s comments are reasonably seen as dangerous and arguably deeply irresponsible, the takeaway that he “threatened someone’s life” does not line up with the context or specific words that he said to Tucker Carlson. He was making the point that as a member of Congress, Liz Cheney may have been less eager to send military troops into battle if she had had guns pointed at her and not enlisted soldiers.
The post Former Trump Senior Aide Blasts ‘Convicted Felon’ Over His Liz Cheney Gun Remarks: ‘Should Be Taken Into Custody’ first appeared on Mediaite .
Daily Show’s John Leguizamo Goes in Disguise To Talk to ‘Trump Curious Latino Voters’: ‘He Misspeaks From the Heart’
John Leguizamo went undercover and disguised on The Daily Show to speak to “Trump curious Latino voters” to determine former President Donald Trump’s “surprising support in the Latino community.”
“Election day is almost upon us, and Democrats are concerned about Donald Trump’s surprising support in the Latino community,” Leguizamo said on Thursday’s Daily Show as he revealed his disguise, which included grey hair, a grey beard, and a fake nose.
Leguizamo spoke to six “undecided and Trump curious Latino voters” and introduced himself as a representative for the pro-Trump PAC Keep America American named Ron. The voters in the group cited the economy and the southern border as their biggest issues in the election.
“Can I see everybody’s ID real quick and see if you’re real citizens?” Leguizamo asked, getting an immediate no from everyone.
The comedian and actor later played clips of Trump for the six voters to see if the former president’s more controversial statements would sway them, including Trump saying illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
In another clip, Trump spoke of criminals being let into the country and declared we have “a lot of bad genes” in the US.
“I think maybe there’s better words that can be used,” one voter said. “We all misspeak sometimes.”
“I mean, what I love about Trump is when he misspeaks from the heart,” Leguizamo said.
“He misspeaks from the heart because he’s got a lot and maybe he has a good heart,” another voter agreed.
“Well said,” Leguizamo responded.
Leguizamo later revealed his identity to the voters, but found not one person changed their mind.
“Now that I’ve shown you all of these awful things about Trump, does that change your vote?” he asked.
Every voter shook their head no.
“Democracy,” Leguizamo said to the camera.
Watch above via Comedy Central .
The post Daily Show’s John Leguizamo Goes in Disguise To Talk to ‘Trump Curious Latino Voters’: ‘He Misspeaks From the Heart’ first appeared on Mediaite .
Stock market today: Amazon helps pull Wall Street higher, while yields skid after jobs report
Amazon and oil-and-gas companies are helping to pull U.S. stock indexes higher on Friday, while yields skid in the bond market following a surprisingly weak jobs report that was marred by hurricanes and other unusual occurrences.
Trump spurs backlash with Cheney guns ‘trained on her face’ remarks
Former President Trump is spurring backlash with his comments about former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in which he described her having guns “trained on her face” while criticizing her foreign policy.
Ian Sams, senior adviser for the Vice President Harris’s campaign, slammed Trump for “dangerous, violent rhetoric.”
“You have Donald Trump, who’s talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad. And you have Vice President Harris talking about sending one to her Cabinet,” Sams said Friday morning on MSNBC.
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, host Joe Scarborough said Trump was “calling for Cheney being shot in the face by nine guns — nine rifles — the closing weekend of the campaign.”
“Not only what it says about the Republican Party in 2024, but also what it must look like in London, in Paris, in Madrid, in Warsaw, across the world,” Scarborough said.
Trump made the comments about Cheney during a fireside chat with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in Arizona on Thursday evening, while criticizing Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, for endorsing Harris .
“I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb,” Trump said Thursday.
“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said. “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine-barrel shooting at her, OK. Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face. You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, oh, gee, we’ll, let’s send — let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.”
Cheney has emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal Republican opponents since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and has jumped into the race this cycle on behalf of Harris and a handful of downballot Democrats.
She responded to Trump’s remarks , posting on the social platform X that it was akin to a death threat.
“This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death,” Cheney said.
Former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), who is running for Congress against Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), took a swipe at his opponent for supporting Trump in light of the comments.
“As Donald Trump calls for the murder of Liz Cheney, it is despicable and disqualifying that Mike Lawler continues to support him,” Jones posted on X .
5 takeaways from the Chicago Blackhawks’ 3-2 loss that ‘we think we could win and should have’
SAN JOSE — Would you believe Thursday night’s game at SAP Center came down to which team is the bigger underdog.
The Chicago Blackhawks had assuaged a four-game losing streak with a statement win against the Colorado Avalanche . That’s peanuts compared to the San Jose Sharks, who took some of the stink off their 0-7-2 start with two straight wins.
Make that three.
The Sharks pestered the Hawks from the start to take the first lead of the game, then erased a 2-1 deficit with two unanswered goals during what Hawks coach Luke Richardson called a “disorganized” and “sloppy” second period.
The Hawks made a push in the third and generated plenty of good (or good enough) looks, but they just missed or were stymied by Sharks goalie Mackenzie Blackwood in a 3-2 loss.
“Very frustrating, very disappointing,” Seth Jones said. “It’s a winnable game for us. We think we’re a better hockey team, but we have to go out and show it every night. It’s just frustrating.
“Big win in Colorado, and then we come out and lose this one. It’s one we think we could win and should have.”
Sharks rookie Will Smith scored his first two goals of his NHL career, and with them earned his first two points.
Ryan Donato and Tyler Bertuzzi each scored goals 50 seconds apart for the Hawks, with Connor Murphy assisting on them both.
On a Halloween night in which the Sharks looked like they could barely string two fans together (SAP Center had a season-low attendance of 10,315), the Hawks failed to string together two wins through 11 games now.
Can you see the empty seats through the scaffolding? I get it’s Halloween and it’s the Sharks, but even at the Blackhawks’ worst, the United Center would never. pic.twitter.com/mX4AlDGzvt
— Phillip Thompson (@_phil_thompson) November 1, 2024
“There’s not much to say right now,” Donato said. “You’re disappointed in yourselves. It’s a hard loss. We had a lot of chances that we could’ve scored on, obviously, but it’s not good enough just to create.
“We’ve been saying in the locker room that we’re not going to take any moral victories and getting chances is just not good enough.”
Here are five takeaways from the loss.
1. There’s no getting around it: This was a painful loss.
Especially coming off a technically sound (in other words, non-fluky) win against the Avalanche.
Richardson pointed out how the Sharks entered on a winning streak, but they were also winless through their first nine games. And yeah, the Sharks have made improvements from last season’s last-place team, but so did the Hawks. Supposedly.
The Hawks seem to come up with myriad reasons why they backslide from what they always preach – simple, structured, consistent hockey – but let’s see what the issue is this time:
“We were off and on our game plan, really,” Richardson said.
He explained: “This team’s a fast team, and they get going up and down, north and south. And sometimes we can get trapped into playing their game plan instead of playing ours. We started to try and play their game plan a little bit in the second period. And that’s not really the way our team’s built.”
2. At a loss to explain another loss.
After the Hawks took command in the first period, how did they allow the Sharks to wrest momentum from them in the second?
Donato stammered, “If we had that answer, we would’ve… I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Jones could pinpoint it: “The second period, we started turning pucks over: same old story. We give them life.”
He had a reason the Hawks offense dried up, too.
“You’ve heard it a thousand times,” he said. “We start going east-west in the neutral zone. Sometimes we think we’re the Globetrotters in the neutral zone when we need to be getting pucks deep and going to work and scoring rebound goals like we did last game.
“Just keep it simple.”
3. If there’s a bright side, it’s Ryan Donato production.
Really, who saw this coming?
Donato, playing on the third line, leads the Hawks in goals with six. His 42.9% shooting percentage is bonkers (and frankly unsustainable, so enjoy it while it lasts). He ranks ninth in the league in that category right now and first among skaters who’ve take at least 10 shots.
His career high is 16 goals in 74 games for the Seattle Kraken, so where is this offensive outburst coming from?
“I worked hard in the summer,” he said. “It’s hard to look at it after a hard loss like that, but I pray a lot. That’s all I can say. I try to show up and do the right things and work hard, but my faith has carried me a long way.”
Richardson said he isn’t surprised.
“Dono’s definitely a shooter,” he said. “He’s a guy that has had some really good fortune lately, but it’s from working hard and getting to the right spots.
“He’s got a certain role on this team of checking the other teams’ top lines, and he is doing a pretty good job in that department, as well. So very similar to (Jason) Dickinson’s success in the goal department from last year and in that role.”
It does bear shades of Dickinson, who shared the team lead in goals (22) with Connor Bedard.
Donato’s goal came 37 seconds after Smith’s opening goal for the Sharks.
Richardson said, “I like to see our team react when we get scored on just the way he did, we scored right away back.”
4. You could say Connor Bedard got the shaft, so to speak.
OK, bad pun, but Bedard did hit Blackwood’s goalie stick on a couple of shots.
“He had two and I think someone else had one off the knob part of the stick. So it wasn’t meant to be, I guess, to go in that part of the net tonight,” Richardson said.
Bedard is tied for 18th in the league with 37 shots on goal, but he’s making just 8% of those shots.
Positive regression has to be coming his way.
“He’s kind of elusive the way he shoots that puck and gets his body going one way and shoots it the other way,” Richardson said. “I like him shooting the puck and we’re going to continue to keep asking him to do that.”
5. Bedard has been dreadful at the dot.
Entering Thursday’s game, Bedard had won just 30% of faceoffs – not great numbers for a center. He’s made it a point of emphasis.
“Just try to practice it as much as I can,” he said. “I feel like there’s been games where it’s been pretty good, and then you still have those games where it’s tougher. But it’s something that I want to get better at throughout the year.”
Against the Sharks Thursday, he went 4-of-9 (44.4%).