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Chicago plans to move migrants to other shelters and reopen park buildings for the summer

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago plans to close five shelters for migrants in the coming weeks and move nearly 800 people, including families, in order to reopen park district buildings hosting popular summer camps, athletic contests and other community events in time for summer.

The shift is part of the city’s ongoing scramble to meet the needs of people arriving from the U.S. border with Mexico.

Advocates for the newly arrived have frequently criticized Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat, and argued that the available services are inadequate. Others believe Chicago is unfairly prioritizing new arrivals over longtime residents, including unhoused people with similar needs.

Johnson announced the plan to close the park district shelters this week, saying they were “no longer necessary.”

“I am proud of the efforts of my administration, our partners, and the many Chicagoans who stepped up to welcome new arrivals by providing shelter in our Park District field houses at a time when this was clearly needed,” Johnson said in a statement Monday.

“We are grateful to the alderpersons and communities who have embraced new neighbors with open arms, and we are pleased that these park facilities will be transitioned back to their intended purpose in time for summer programming.”

Chicago has reported more than 37,000 migrants arriving to the city since 2022, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began sending buses of people to so-called sanctuary cities. Many migrants who land in Chicago come from Venezuela, where a social, political and economic crisis has pushed millions into poverty, and where three-quarters of residents live on less than $1.90 a day.

The city initially used police stations and airports as officials searched for other temporary shelters. Some residents of neighborhoods surrounding some of the park district fieldhouses have regularly protested their use as shelters since last summer.

On Friday, a city dashboard showed more than 10,000 people remain in city-run shelters. That’s down from a peak of nearly 15,000 in January.

The city has not specified when all the park buildings will be empty, only that it will take several weeks. Volunteers who work with migrants said residents of at least two of the park buildings were told they will begin moving to other shelters Saturday.

Nearly 20 other temporary shelters are still operating in the city, including churches, hotels, a library and former warehouses. The largest shelters are housing more than 1,000 people while others reported counts closer to 100, according to the city’s latest update this month.

The city is aiming to move people to other shelters closer to the park buildings, particularly families with children enrolled in nearby schools, Johnson’s statement said.

Chicago began enforcing a 60-day limit on shelter stays in mid-March. But many exemptions, including for families with children in school, have meant few people are actually being evicted yet.

The city has reported only 24 people leaving shelters so far because of the caps.

Other U.S. cities, including New York and Denver, have used similar shelter limits to cope with limited resource availability for migrants arriving by bus and plane. Mayors also have pleaded for more federal help.

In Chicago, people who are evicted can return to the city’s “landing zone” and reapply for shelter. Volunteers have said that sometimes means people leave a shelter and are sent back to the same location.

Volunteers who work with new arrivals said they understand the desire for neighborhoods to have park district facilities back, particularly for camps and other programs popular during summer months.

But they worry the forced move will upend migrants’ efforts to find work and get their children to school.

“Most people are actively, constantly trying to figure out how they get out of shelters,” volunteer Lydia Wong said. “I don’t know that this helps expedite it at all. The city is saying they want to keep people relatively close, but it’s extremely disruptive — needing to find new routes, new ways to get to school or work.”

Several people living in the park-based shelters told The Associated Press this week they had received little information about the city’s plan, including where they might be moved. They declined to give their names, with several saying they did not want to face any retaliation from employees of the private agency running the shelters.

As of Wednesday, the city said more than 15,000 people have found other housing since officials began keeping data in 2022.

Many have sought rental assistance provided by the state. More than 5,600 families have used the program to find housing, according to the Illinois Department of Human Services.

With a few exceptions like diplomats and people on tourist visas, immigrants in the U.S. must notify officials when they move.

Asylum seekers in the immigration court system have five days to do so after changing addresses, to ensure they receive notifications from the court. Missing mail might not sink their case directly, but failing to show up for a court date could lead to them being deported.

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Associated Press reporter Cedar Attanasio contributed from New York.


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Activists watch for potential impact on environment as Key Bridge cleanup unfolds

Authorities removing twisted wreckage from the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge are deploying nearly a mile’s worth of barriers in the water, testing samples for contamination and monitoring the Patapsco River for oil and other hazardous spills as they confront the potential for environmental fallout.

The Unified Command, which includes state agencies and the Coast Guard, said Thursday they have unfurled 2,400 feet (732 meters) of an absorbent containment device, along with another 2,400 feet (732 meters) of barrier to try to prevent the spread of any hazardous materials.

It’s a scenario that environmental experts are watching closely for a number of reasons, including the river’s location in a metropolitan area that plays an important role in commercial shipping, as well as for marine life and migratory birds moving northward at this time of year.

“Any time you have something like this happen, there’s a risk of some sort of hazardous material getting in the water. And I think the question really is how much and to what extent,” said Gary Belan of American Rivers, a national nonprofit that focuses on issues affecting rivers across the country.

The possibility for a major environmental problem could arise from the bridge materials that fell into the river or from the containers aboard the cargo ship, the Dali, he said. But a big concern would be if the ship’s fuel container ruptured and spilled into the water.

“If that gets … into the river we’re talking about a pretty strong environmental catastrophe at that point, particularly going out into that part of the Chesapeake Bay,” Belan said.

First responders have observed a sheen in the water near the site, according to the Unified Command, which said Thursday there was “no immediate threat to the environment.”

The ship carried 56 containers with hazardous materials, and of those, 14 that carried perfumes, soaps and unspecified resin had been destroyed. It’s not clear if those materials had spilled into the water.

“We have been conducting air monitoring on the vessel and around the vessel with our contractor. No volatile organic compounds or flammable vapors were observed,” the Unified Command said in a statement posted online.

The Maryland Department of the Environment has begun sampling water up- and down-river and is on scene with first-responders to “mitigate any environmental” concerns, according to department spokesperson Jay Apperson.

Emily Ranson, the Chesapeake regional director for Clean Water Action, an environmental advocacy group, said it was too early to tell what the fallout could be. But she said the federal government should play a key role in enforcing regulations because of the interstate commerce at the port. The federal government has more tools than the state to enforce regulations, she said.

“The big thing to keep in mind is that it certainly reinforces the fact that we need to make sure that we have adequate protections and safety precautions with shipping with our port,” she said.

The crash happened in the early morning hours Tuesday, when the Dali, which had lost power, crashed into a pillar supporting the bridge, collapsing it moments later. The crash has closed off a major U.S. port and left six construction workers on the bridge presumed dead. Two people were rescued from the site.


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Building a new Key Bridge could take years and cost at least $400 million, experts say

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Rebuilding Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge could take anywhere from 18 months to several years, experts say, while the cost could be at least $400 million — or more than twice that.

It all depends on factors that are still mostly unknown. They range from the design of the new bridge to how swiftly government officials can navigate the bureaucracy of approving permits and awarding contracts.

Realistically, the project could take five to seven years, according to Ben Schafer, an engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University.

“The lead time on air conditioning equipment right now for a home renovation is like 16 months, right?” Schafer said. He continued: “So it’s like you’re telling me they’re going to build a whole bridge in two years? I want it to be true, but I think empirically it doesn’t feel right to me.”

Others are more optimistic about the potential timeline: Sameh Badie, an engineering professor at George Washington University, said the project could take as little as 18 months to two years.

The Key Bridge collapsed Tuesday, killing six members of a crew that was working on the span, after the Dali cargo ship plowed into one its supports. Officials are scrambling to clean up and rebuild after the accident, which has shuttered the city’s busy port and a portion of the Baltimore beltway.

The disaster is in some ways similar to the deadly collapse of Florida’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which was was struck by a freighter in Tampa Bay in 1980. The new bridge took five years to build, was 19 months late and ran $20 million over budget when it opened in 1987.

But experts say it’s better to look to more recent bridge disasters for a sense of how quickly reconstruction may happen.

Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, cited the case of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota, which collapsed into the Mississippi River in 2007. The new span was up in less than 14 months.

“It’s the best comparison that we have for a project like this,” Tymon said. “They did outstanding work in being able to get the approvals necessary to be able to rebuild that as quickly as possible.”

Tymon expects various government agencies to work together to push through permits, environmental and otherwise.

“It doesn’t mean that all of the right boxes won’t get checked — they will,” Tymon said. “It’ll just be done more efficiently because everybody will know that this has to get done as quickly as possible.”

One looming issue is the source of funding. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the federal government will pay for the new bridge, but that remains to be seen.

“Hopefully, Congress will be able to come together to provide those resources as soon as possible so that that does not become a source of delay,” Tymon said.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar helped to obtain funding quickly to rebuild the I-35W bridge in her state. But she said replacing the Baltimore span could be more complicated.

She noted that the I-35W bridge, a federal interstate highway, was a much busier roadway with about 140,000 vehicle crossings a day, compared with about 31,000 for the Maryland bridge.

“But where there’s a will there’s a way, and you can get the emergency funding,” Klobuchar said. “It’s happened all over the country when disasters hit. And the fact that this is such a major port also makes it deserving of making sure that this all gets taken care of.”

Badie, of George Washington University, said the cost could be between $500 million and $1 billion, with the largest variable being the design.

For example a suspension bridge like San Francisco’s Golden Gate will cost more, while a cable-stayed span, like Florida’s Skyway Sunshine Bridge, which handles weight using cables and towers, would be less expensive.

Whatever is built, steel is expensive these days and there is a backlog for I-beams, Badie said. Plus, the limited number of construction companies that can tackle such a project are already busy on other jobs.

“A project like this is going to be expedited, so everything is going to cost a lot more,” Badie said.

Hota GangaRao, a West Virginia University engineering professor, said the project could cost as little as $400 million. But that’s only if the old bridge’s pier foundations are used; designers may want to locate the new supports farther away from the shipping channels to avoid another collision.

“That’s going to be more steel, more complicated construction and more checks and balances,” GangaRao said. “It all adds up.”

Norma Jean Mattei, an emeritus engineering professor at The University of New Orleans, said replacing the Key Bridge likely will take several years. Even if it’s a priority, the process of designing the span, getting permits and hiring contractors takes a lot of time. And then you have to build it.

“It’s quite a process to actually get a bridge of this type into operation,” she said.


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Cranes arriving to start removing wreckage from deadly Baltimore bridge collapse

BALTIMORE (AP) — The largest crane on the Eastern Seaboard was being transported to Baltimore so crews can begin removing the wreckage of a collapsed highway bridge that has halted a search for four workers still missing days after the disaster and blocked the city’s vital port from operating.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the crane, which was arriving by barge and can lift up to 1,000 tons, will be one of at least two used to clear the channel of the twisted metal and concrete remains of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and the cargo ship that hit it this week.

“The best minds in the world” are working on the plans for removal, Moore said. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Baltimore District told the governor that it and the Navy were mobilizing major resources from around the country at record speed to clear the channel.

“This is not just about Maryland,” Moore said. “This is about the nation’s economy. The port handles more cars and more farm equipment than any other port in America.”

He warned of a long road to recovery but said he was grateful to the Biden administration for approving $60 million in immediate aid. President Joe Biden has said the federal government will pay the full cost of rebuilding the bridge.

“This work is not going to take hours. This work is not going to take days. This work is not going to take weeks,” Moore said. “We have a very long road ahead of us.”

Thirty-two members of the Army Corps of Engineers were surveying the scene of the collapse and 38 Navy contractors were working on the salvage operation, officials said Thursday.

The devastation left behind after the cargo ship lost power and struck a support pillar early Tuesday is extensive. Divers recovered the bodies of two men from a pickup truck in the Patapsco River near the bridge’s middle span Wednesday, but officials said they have to start clearing the wreckage before anyone can reach the bodies of four other missing workers.

State police have said that based on sonar scans, the vehicles appear to be encased in a “superstructure” of concrete and other debris.

Federal and state officials have said the collision and collapse appeared to be an accident.

The victims, who were part of a construction crew fixing potholes on the bridge, were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Butler said. At least eight people initially went into the water when the ship struck the bridge column, and two of them were rescued Tuesday, officials said.

The crash caused the bridge to break and fall into the water within seconds. Authorities had just enough time to stop vehicle traffic, but didn’t get a chance to alert the construction crew.

During the Baltimore Orioles’ opening day game Thursday, Sgt. Paul Pastorek, Cpl. Jeremy Herbert and Officer Garry Kirts of the Maryland Transportation Authority were honored for their actions in halting bridge traffic and preventing further loss of life.

The three said in a statement that they were “proud to carry out our duties as officers of this state to save the lives that we could.”

The cargo ship Dali, which is managed by Synergy Marine Group, was headed from Baltimore to Sri Lanka. It is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and was chartered by Danish shipping giant Maersk.

Synergy extended sympathies to the victims’ families in a statement Thursday.

“We deeply regret this incident and the problems it has caused for the people of Baltimore and the region’s economy that relies on this vitally important port,” Synergy said, noting that it would continue to cooperate with investigators.

Of the 21 crew members on the ship, 20 are from India, Randhir Jaiswal, the nation’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told reporters, saying one was slightly injured and needed stitches but “all are in good shape and good health.”

Scott Cowan, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333, said the union was scrambling to help its roughly 2,400 members whose jobs are at risk of drying up until shipping can resume in the Port of Baltimore.

“If there’s no ships, there’s no work,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can.”

The huge vessel, nearly as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall, was carrying nearly 4,700 shipping containers, 56 of them with hazardous materials inside. Fourteen of those were destroyed, officials said. However industrial hygienists who evaluated the contents identified them as perfumes and soaps, the Key Bridge Joint Information Center said, and there was “no immediate threat to the environment.”

About 21 gallons (80 liters) of oil from a bow thruster on the ship is believed to have caused a sheen in the waterway, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said.

Booms were placed to prevent any spreading of oil, and state environmental officials were sampling the water and air.

At the moment there are containers hanging dangerously off the side of the ship, Gilreath said, adding, “We’re trying to keep our first responders … as safe as possible.”

The sudden loss of a roadway that carried 30,000 vehicles a day and the port disruption will affect not only thousands of dockworkers and commuters but also U.S. consumers, who are likely to feel the impact of shipping delays.

The governors of New York and New Jersey offered to take on cargo shipments that have been disrupted, to try to minimize supply chain problems.

From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collisions, according to the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.

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Witte reported from Annapolis, Maryland. Associated Press writers Sarah Brumfield in Washington, Krutika Pathi in New Delhi, and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed.


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Network political contributors have a long history. But are they more trouble than they’re worth?

NEW YORK (AP) — One of the nation’s most prominent news outlets has found itself in an embarrassing mess over the hiring — and quick firing — of someone who isn’t even a journalist in the first place.

Among other things, NBC News’ brief employment of former Republican National Committee chief Ronna McDaniel has illustrated the role of political contributors in television news, and the frustration many executives feel in adequately representing the GOP point of view in the Donald Trump era.

NBC News’ leadership felt it had secured a prize in the services of McDaniel to provide an insider’s perspective on the Republican campaign. Yet they were taken aback and changed course Tuesday after network personalities like Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow objected to working with someone who had trafficked in election disinformation.

Those bosses, starting with NBC Universal Chairman Cesar Conde, now face questions about their leadership and anger from Republicans, some of whom their journalists count upon as news sources heading into a presidential election.

“The reputation of a news organization will never rise on the hiring of a non-journalistic contributor,” said Mark Whitaker, a former NBC News senior vice president and Washington bureau chief. “But it can fall.”

Televised political combat existed in earlier times, like Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick’s “point-counterpoint” segment on “60 Minutes” in the 1970s. Politics and journalism had its share of cross-fertilization with figures such as George Stephanopoulos and the late Tim Russert.

Yet the idea of building rosters of paid political contributors took off with cable news. MSNBC, CNN and Fox News Channel are, in large part, political talk channels and seek experts to help fill the time. News streaming has similar needs. Being on call to opine can be lucrative work; several reports had NBC agreeing to pay McDaniel $300,000 a year.

The networks say they strive for political balance. Even NBC News, whose MSNBC cable outlet appeals to liberals, has more than a dozen Republican contributors. Yet most of them — figures like former RNC chief Michael Steele, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Bulwark founder Charlie Sykes — either predate Trump in their active political work or oppose him, or both.

Finding someone with a MAGA pedigree has been more difficult. Former Trump chiefs of staff Reince Priebus and Mick Mulvaney had short tenures at CBS News; some CBS journalists privately objected to hiring Mulvaney. Priebus last year joined ABC News, where former Trump Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert also is a contributor.

Former Trump communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin is at CNN, along with ex-Trump campaign adviser David Urban and Mark Esper, a former defense secretary in the Trump administration.

Many figures who have stepped outside of Trump’s orbit, like Griffin, have turned against him. To some insiders and supporters, the simple act of becoming a network contributor makes you anti-MAGA. Even a generally reliable Trump defender such as Kayleigh McEnany, among a handful of former administration officials like Mike Pompeo now on Fox News’ payroll, has been criticized by her ex-boss as being insufficiently loyal.

A Trump supporter has to wonder if it’s worthwhile to continually feel outnumbered and defensive on television and be forced to account for every wild statement the former president makes, GOP consultant Alex Conant said.

Networks, meanwhile, need contributors to speak authoritatively and get beyond talking points, said Mark Lukasiewicz, a former NBC executive who is now dean of Hofstra University’s communications school.

“Journalists in a lot of newsrooms are starting to think more about the stakes, thinking about the costs of delivering a large audience and a platform to someone who doesn’t fundamentally believe in a system that allows that platform to exist,” Lukasiewicz said. “I think there is a higher bar for somebody who is on the payroll of a journalistic institution, rather than just somebody you interview.”

If publicly supporting, or at least not objecting to, Trump lies about a rigged 2020 election is a litmus test for a job as a network contributor — well, that would eliminate a lot of Republicans.

“To remain itself, the MAGA movement has to practice election denial, minimize the events of Jan. 6, and treat the news media as a hate object for pointing this out,” said Jay Rosen, a New York University professor and author of the Pressthink blog. “Extending the hand of welcome is just too costly for a self-respecting newsroom with a public service charter, as NBC learned this week.”

Networks should retire this category of contributors and switch to a system relying on their own journalists and vetted, unpaid experts, he said. He has no expectations: in reality, they rarely compete by striking out on their own in this manner.

NBC’s Conde made clear that while McDaniel didn’t work out, the principle behind her hiring stands. The network remains committed to seeking diverse viewpoints, and will “redouble our efforts” to seek such voices, he said in the internal memo announcing her firing. Whether that will placate Republicans is uncertain at best.

Some of the personalities who publicly objected to McDaniel at NBC News, such as “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, said they don’t object to airing conservative viewpoints but draw the line at people who actively tried to subvert the 2020 election.

That’s not a nuance many Republicans perceived. Through its failure, an effort designed to make NBC News more inviting had the opposite effect.

“For Republicans who already think NBC is biased, this confirms everything,” Conant said.

Trump, in messages on his Truth Social platform, has tried to draw in NBC’s corporate parent, Comcast.

“These sick degenerates over at MSDNC are really running NBC, and there seems nothing (Comcast) chairman Brian Roberts can do about it,” he wrote. There has been no public indication Conde and his management team has lost Comcast’s support.

Still, the aftermath has increased public scrutiny on Conde and his management team: Rebecca Blumenstein, NBC News president-editorial; MSNBC President Rashida Jones; and Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president for politics.

Among the questions: through two full days of NBC and MSNBC journalists and show hosts publicly condemning the McDaniel hiring, why didn’t anyone in management step forward to explain the motivations behind it? The Washington Post on Wednesday raised questions about Jones’ role in recruiting the former Republican leader.

Margaret Sullivan, executive director of the Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University, wrote in the Guardian that NBC could “earn itself a lot of good will and recover from this blunder” by publicly apologizing.

There was no comment from NBC News on Thursday.

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David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.


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Many Americans say immigrants contribute to economy but there’s worry over risks, AP-NORC poll finds

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are more worried about legal immigrants committing crimes in the U.S. than they were a few years ago, a change driven largely by increased concern among Republicans, while Democrats continue to see a broad range of benefits from immigration, a new poll shows.

The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that substantial shares of U.S. adults believe that immigrants contribute to the country’s economic growth, and offer important contributions to American culture. But when it comes to legal immigrants, U.S. adults see fewer major benefits than they did in the past, and more major risks.

About 4 in 10 Americans say that when immigrants come to the U.S. legally, it’s a major benefit for American companies to get the expertise of skilled workers in fields like science and technology. A similar share (38%) also say that legal immigrants contribute a major benefit by enriching American culture and values.

Both those figures were down compared with 2017, when 59% of Americans said skilled immigrant workers who enter the country legally were a major benefit, and half said legal immigrants contribute a major benefit by enriching American culture.

Meanwhile, the share of Americans who say that there’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the U.S. has increased, going from 19% in 2017 to 32% in the new poll.

Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say that immigration is an important issue for them personally, and 41% now say it’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the U.S., up from 20% in 2017. Overall, Republicans are more likely to see major risks — and fewer benefits — from immigrants who enter the country legally and illegally, although they tend to be most concerned about people who come to the country illegally.

Bob Saunders is a 64-year-old independent from Voorhees, New Jersey. He disapproves of President Joe Biden’s performance when it comes to immigration and border security and is particularly worried about the number of immigrants coming to the southern border who are eventually released into the country. He stressed that there’s a difference between legal and illegal immigration. Saunders said it’s important to know the background of the immigrants coming to the U.S. and said legal immigration contributes to the economy. He also noted the immigrants in his own family.

“It’s not anti-immigration,” Saunders said. “It’s anti-illegal immigration.”

Many Republicans, 71%, say there’s a risk of people in the country illegally coming to the U.S. and committing crimes , although many studies have found immigrants are less drawn to violent crime than native-born citizens. Even more, 80%, think there’s a major risk that people in the country without permission will burden public service programs, while about 6 in 10 Republicans are concerned that there’s a major risk of them taking American jobs, that their population growth will weaken American identity or that they will vote illegally — although only a small number of noncitizen voters have been uncovered.

Amber Pierce, a 43-year-old Republican from Milam, Texas, says she understands that a lot of migrants are seeking a better life for their children, but she’s also concerned migrants will become a drain on government services.

“I believe that a lot of them come over here and get free health care and take away from the people who have worked here and are citizens,” Pierce said. “They get a free ride. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to see benefits from immigration, although the poll did find that only half of Democrats now think that legal immigrants are making important contributions to American companies, a decrease of more than 20 percentage points from 2017. But they’re more likely than Republicans to say that the ability of people to come from other places in the world to escape violence or find economic opportunities is extremely or very important to the U.S’s identity as a nation.

“People who are coming, are coming for good reason. It’s how many of us got here,” said Amy Wozniak, a Democrat from Greenwood, Indiana. Wozniak said previous waves of immigrants came from European countries. Now immigrants are coming from different countries but that doesn’t meant they’re not fleeing for justifiable reasons, she said: “They’re not all drugs and thugs.”

There’s also a divide among partisans about the value of diversity, with 83% of Democrats saying that the country’s diverse population makes it at least moderately stronger, compared with 43% of Republicans and Independents. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say that a shared American culture and set of values is extremely or very important to the United States’ identity as a nation, although about half of Democrats also see this as important.

U.S. adults — and especially Republicans — are more likely to say that the country has been significantly changed by immigrants in the past five years than they are to say that immigrants have changed their own community or their state. About 3 in 10 U.S. adults say immigrants have had a major impact on their local community while about 6 in 10 say they’ve had a major impact on the country as a whole. The gap between perceptions of community impact and effects on the country as a whole is particularly wide among Republicans.

There is some bipartisan agreement about how immigration at the border between the U.S. and Mexico should be addressed. The most popular option asked about is hiring more Border Patrol agents, which is supported by about 8 in 10 Republicans and about half of Democrats. Hiring more immigration judges and court personnel is also favored among majorities of both parties.

About half of Americans support reducing the number of immigrants who are allowed to seek asylum in the U.S. when they arrive at the border, but there’s a much bigger partisan divide there, with more Republicans than Democrats favoring this strategy. Building a wall — former President Donald Trump’s signature policy goal — is the least popular and most polarizing option of the four asked about. About 4 in 10 favor building a wall, including 77% of Republicans but just 12% of Democrats.

Donna Lyon is a Democratic-leaning independent from Cortland, New York. She believes a border wall would do little to stop migrants. But she supports hiring more Border Patrol agents and more immigration court judges to deal with the growing backlog of immigration court cases: “That would stop all the backup that we have.”

Congress just recently approved money to hire about 2,000 more Border Patrol agents but so far this year, there’s been no significant boost for funding for more immigration judges. Many on both sides of the aisle have said it takes much too long to decide asylum cases, meaning migrants stay in the country for years waiting for a decision, but the parties have failed to find consensus on how to address the issue.

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The poll of 1,282 adults was conducted March 21-25, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.


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Georgia House approves new election rules that could impact 2024 presidential contest

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia House of Representatives on Thursday approved new rules for challenging voters and qualifying for the state’s presidential ballot that could impact the 2024 presidential race in the battleground state.

The House passed Senate Bill 189 by a vote of 101 to 73. It now goes to the state Senate for consideration. Republicans in Georgia have repeatedly floated election changes in the wake of false claims by former President Donald Trump and other Republicans that he lost Georgia’s 16 electoral votes in 2020 because of fraud.

SB 189 would grant access to Georgia’s ballot to any political party that has qualified for the presidential ballot in at least 20 states or territories. The change could be a boost to independent candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose campaign has spooked Democrats worried it could draw support away from President Joe Biden.

The bill also spells out what constitutes “probable cause” for upholding challenges to voter eligibility. Probable cause would exist if someone is dead, has voted or registered to vote in a different jurisdiction, has registered for a homestead exemption on their property taxes in a different jurisdiction or is registered at a nonresidential address.

Democrats slammed the provision, saying it would enable more baseless attacks on voters that would overwhelm election administrators and disenfranchise people.

Rep. Saira Draper of Atlanta said the provision was based on “lies and fearmongering.”

“You know the policy of not negotiating with terrorists,” she said. “I wish we had a policy of not making laws to placate conspiracy theorists.”

Democrat Ruwa Romman said the bill and others like it chip away at confidence in the U.S. election system, a bedrock of its democracy.

“We have a responsibility to push back on lies, not turn them into legislation,” she said.

Republican Rep. Victor Anderson defended the voter challenge section, pointing to a provision deeming the appearance of someone’s name on the U.S. Postal Service’s national change of address list insufficient on its own to sustain a challenge. He also noted a provision postponing challenges that occur within 45 days of an election.

“Colleagues, I contend that our bill actually makes the process of challenging more difficult,” he said.

Republican Rep. John LaHood said the bill increases confidence in elections.

“What this bill does is ensure that your legal vote does matter,” he said.

The bill also would require counties to report the results of all absentee ballots by an hour after polls close and let counties use paper ballots in elections where fewer than 5,000 people are registered, though that change would not take effect until 2025.

The measure also says that beginning July 1, 2026, the state could no longer use a kind of barcode, called a QR code, to count ballots created on the state ballot marking devices. That is how votes are counted now, but opponents say voters don’t trust QR codes because they can’t read them. Instead, the bill says ballots must be read using the text, or human readable marks like filled-in bubbles, made by the machines.

State lawmakers already have sent bills to the governor that would require audits of more than one statewide election, add an additional security feature on ballots, restrict who can serve as poll workers to U.S. citizens and allow a reduced number of voting machines.


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Georgia teachers and state employees will get pay raises as state budget passes

ATLANTA (AP) — Pay raises for Georgia’s public school teachers and state employees were never in doubt politically from the moment Gov. Brian Kemp proposed them, but lawmakers finally clinched the deal on Thursday, passing a budget that also boosts spending on education, health care and mental health.

Senators and represenatives worked out their differences on House Bill 916, with it passing the House 175-1 and the Senate 54-1. The budget spends $36.1 billion in state money and $66.8 billion overall in the year beginning July 1.

“As they say, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Matt Hatchett, a Dublin Republican, explaining that not every request was satisfied, but many were.

Spending would fall from this year’s budget after Gov. Brian Kemp and lawmakers supplemented that budget will billions in one-time cash, boosting state spending to $38 billion in the year ending June 30. Kemp backed the budget in remarks to lawmakers Thursday and is expected to sign it.

Public school teachers would get a $2,500 raise starting July 1, boosting average teacher pay in Georgia above $65,000 annually, as the Republican governor proposed in January. That is in addition to a $1,000 bonus Kemp sent out in December. Prekindergarten teachers also would get a $2,500 raise.

State and university employees also would get a 4% pay increase, up to $70,000 in salary. The typical state employee makes $50,400.

Some employees would get more. State law enforcement officers would get an additional $3,000 bump, atop the $6,000 special boost they got last year. Child welfare workers also would receive extra $3,000 raises.

Judges, though, won’t get the big pay raises once proposed. Instead, they only will get the 4% other state employees will receive.

One big winner in the budget would be Georgia’s public prekindergarten program. Kemp on Wednesday declared lawmakers could spend an extra $48 million in lottery funds. Lawmakers put nearly all that money into the state’s Department of Early Care and Learning, a move that won plaudits from Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, a Stone Mountain Democrat.

“For most of my 30 years in the Senate, Democrats pushed for that funding,” Butler said. “Tonight my friends in the majority listened.”

The state would spend hundreds of millions of dollars more to increase what it pays to nursing homes, home health care providers, dialysis providers, physical and occupational therapists and some physicians, but lawmakers cut back some of those rate increases in their final document.

Lawmakers agreed on spending nearly $19 million more on domestic violence shelters and sexual assault response to offset big cuts in federal funding that some agencies face.

The budget also would raise the amount that local school boards have to pay for health insurance for non-certified employees such as custodians, cafeteria workers and secretaries.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery, a Vidalia Republican, argued it was fair to speed up the phase-in of higher premiums because of other money the state is pumping into education, including boosting by $205 million the state’s share of buying and operating school buses and $104 million for school security. The Senate would add another $5 million for school security for developing school safety plans.

Lawmakers shifted another $60 million into new construction projects. Tillery said that was at Kemp’s behest, seeking not to commit so much money to new ongoing spending, in case revenues fall.

The state already plans to pay cash for new buildings and equipment in the upcoming budget, instead of borrowing as normal, reflecting billions in surplus cash Georgia has built up in recent years.


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KEYWORD NOTICE – A mostly male board will decide whether a Nebraska lawmaker faces censure for sexual harassment

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska lawmaker implored the Legislature’s Executive Board on Thursday to hold a colleague accountable for invoking her name in a graphic reading on the legislative floor, which some say constitutes sexual harassment.

The decision of whether Republican state Sen. Steve Halloran will face a censure vote of the full Legislature now rests with a group of their colleagues who are mostly men.

“If we don’t move this forward, we are in fact condoning this kind of speech,” Democratic state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh said at a hearing on her resolution. “This has traumatized the public. It has traumatized my family.”

The Executive Board consists of eight men and one woman. All but one are Republican in the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature.

The hearing was held 10 days after Halloran took to the mic on the floor and repeatedly called out the name “Sen. Cavanaugh” while reading a graphic account of rape from a best-selling memoir, making it appear as if that lawmaker was the subject of the assault. His embellished reading from the memoir “Lucky” by Alice Sebold came during debate of a bill that would have held school librarians and teachers criminally responsible for providing what it considers to be “obscene material” to students in grades K-12.

Most people in the chamber at the time — including Cavanaugh — understood the graphic comments to be directed at her, and she was visibly shaken immediately after Halloran’s remarks. Halloran insisted later that he was invoking the name of her brother and fellow Democratic Nebraska lawmaker, state Sen. John Cavanaugh, as a way to get him to pay attention to the remarks.

On Thursday, Machaela Cavanaugh tearfully begged the board not to wait any longer to make a decision about whether Halloran will face censure, noting it made no difference whether Halloran was targeting a woman or a man in his graphic reading — either constitutes sexual harassment.

The board must vote on whether to advance Machaela Cavanaugh’s censure resolution to the full Legislature for a vote. A vote to censure Halloran would only repudiate his remarks and have no effect on his ability to legislate, speak during debate or serve on legislative committees.

In the hearing, Machaela Cavanaugh also cast doubt on Halloran’s explanation that he was seeking her brother’s attention, noting that Halloran had approached her privately before making the public remarks to recite the scene about sexual violence, which had been read by a supporter of the obscenity bill during a public hearing.

“I said something to the effect of, ‘OK, Steve. I’m going to walk away now,’” she recounted.

This week, Halloran was accused of joking privately with other lawmakers inside the legislative chamber that Machaela Cavanaugh likes to view pornography. Speaker of the Legislature Sen. John Arch — who is a member of the Executive Board — confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday that he confronted Halloran about those remarks and that Halloran acknowledged he had made them.

Machaela Cavanaugh was the only person to testify at Thursday’s hearing, although her brother and another Democratic lawmaker, state Sen. George Dungan, whom Halloran addressed after his graphic reading, were invited to speak.

Halloran declined to appear for the hearing, but submitted written testimony in which he railed against it as a violation of legislative rules that protect lawmakers from being censured for words spoken in debate. He also blasted the decision to make the hearing public, saying the complaints against him are “a legislative internal matter.”

“An accusation of sexual harassment is one of the most significant accusations that can be made in our modern world,” he wrote. “Look at the last decade for evidence of this. Even a false accusation — even if made just once — can be the death knell to somebody’s career and livelihood.”

The only woman on the Executive Board, Republican state Sen. Julie Slama, reiterated her support for the Cavanaugh siblings and brought up her own struggle years earlier when then-Sen. Ernie Chambers, a Democrat, implied she was appointed to her seat in exchange for sexual favors. Chambers, the Nebraska Legislature’s longest serving lawmaker and the state’s first Black legislator, also invoked Slama’s name on the mic in 2020 while denouncing U.S. President Andrew Jackson for being a slaveholder.

“Suppose I enslaved Sen. Slama and used her the way I wanted to?” Chambers said. Slama was 23 at the time.

Slama said at the hearing Thursday that she wished she had done more at the time to try to hold Chambers accountable for his remarks.

“The same people that are trying to silence you now are the ones who pressured me not to act in 2020,” Slama said to Cavanaugh. “You’ve had so much courage in this that I didn’t have.”

Cavanaugh apologized to Slama for not doing more to come to her defense four years earlier.

“You had the courage,” Cavanaugh said. “You just didn’t have the support.”

Republican Sen. Ray Aguilar, chair of the Executive Board, praised Cavanaugh for her testimony, but said the board would not make a decision until after the Easter holiday weekend.


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Obama, Clinton on why Americans don’t love the Biden economy

By Jeff Mason

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton dug into an issue that has vexed economists, political strategists and the White House on Thursday – if the U.S.’s fiscal numbers are so good, why are Americans so unhappy about the economy?

Speaking at a high-dollar fundraiser for President Joe Biden at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, Obama and Clinton urged thousands there to stick with the Democratic president for a second term, while trying to pin down the reasons economic concerns are high despite job growth, healthy spending and better-than-expected GDP increases.

There are “structural problems” that frustrate people, Obama said, including the suppression of unions. That’s something Biden has specifically battled against, he said.

“If you’re working hard, and your paycheck is getting stretched, beyond the breaking point, and you’re worried about rent, and you’re concerned about the price of gas, it’s understandable,” Obama said.

The thing Biden and the people who support him need to communicate is: “Who do you think is actually going to look out for you?” Obama said. He made clear he did not think former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, would meet that test.

Trump and Republicans have blamed Biden for high prices that hurt American pocketbooks in grocery stores, the housing market and other sectors of the economy. Biden has pointed to company profit-taking, lack of competition and argued that inflation is coming down but there is still more work to do.

Clinton, who was president from 1993 until 2001, seemed to compare the current situation to the run-up to the 2016 election that his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, lost to Trump.

The 2008 financial crisis marred and limited what Obama could accomplish, Clinton said. Biden, at the time Obama’s vice president, did a “heck of a good job” running the 2009 Recovery Act then, Clinton said, as they worked to fill a $3 trillion hole in the economy. But at the end of Obama’s term, people couldn’t fully feel the economic progress yet. They did later.

“President Trump, let’s be honest, had a pretty good couple of years ‘cause he stole them from Barack Obama,” Clinton said about the economy Trump inherited from his predecessor.

“I listened to him tell us how terrible the American economy was all during 2016 and then by January 2017, after the inauguration, it had become wonderful, miraculously, overnight.”

The country should not make the mistake of 2016 again, Clinton said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Heather Timmons; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)


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