International
As midterm count drags on, focus shifts to 2024 White House race
| By AFP | Chris Lefkow |
Control of the US Congress hung in the balance on Thursday as ballot-counting dragged on and attention shifted to the next big election — the 2024 presidential race — and whether Americans could see a Joe Biden-Donald Trump re-match.
With 209 seats so far, Republicans appear poised to secure a slim majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives, but control of the Senate may come down to an early December runoff in the southern state of Georgia.
Biden celebrated on Thursday what he said was the success of his Democratic Party in fending off a predicted Republican landslide in a stormy economic climate.
“For months and months, all of you heard from the press and the pundits was Democrats are facing to disaster … a giant red wave,” he said. “Folks, that didn’t happen.”
“The American public have made it clear — they expect Republicans to work with me,” he said.
Speaking a day earlier, Biden who turns 80 this month and is already America’s oldest president, insisted he intends to run for a second term in 2024 despite calls by some members of the party for him to hand the reins over to a new generation of leaders.
He promised a final decision “early next year.”
A drubbing would have surely raised questions about whether Biden should run again. But instead he did better than his two Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, who both took a hammering in their first midterms.
The 76-year-old Trump has promised a “very big announcement” in Florida on Tuesday that is expected to be the launch of his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Trump’s early entry into the race would appear designed in part to fend off possible criminal charges over taking top secret documents from the White House, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6 last year.
It may also be intended to undercut his chief potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who emerged as one of the biggest winners from Tuesday’s midterms.
“(Trump’s) intention is to consolidate his support early and crowd out other potential candidates,” said Jon Rogowski, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.
‘Ron De-Sanctimonious’
The 44-year-old DeSantis, a Harvard- and Yale-educated lawyer, notched up a nearly 20-point victory over his Democratic opponent in the Florida governor’s race and took credit for a host of Republican victories in other races in the Sunshine State.
“We not only won election, we have rewritten the political map,” DeSantis said. “We’ve got so much more to do and I have only begun to fight.”
While DeSantis has emerged as Trump’s main rival for the nomination, the former president continues to dominate in the polls when Republicans are asked who they want to represent the party in the 2024 White House race.
But Trump may have lost the backing of a major ally — the powerful media empire of conservative billionaire Rupert Murdoch.
Pointing to the party’s disappointing midterms showing, The Wall Street Journal, the flagship of Murdoch’s News Corp, declared in an editorial on Thursday that “Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser.”
The cover of the tabloid New York Post depicted Trump on a precarious wall as “Trumpty Dumpty” who “had a great fall” in the vote, blaming him for the failure of Republicans to sweep past Democratic rivals.
It celebrated DeSantis as “DeFUTURE.”
Trump coined his own derogatory nickname for DeSantis, a one-time ally, referring to him as “Ron De-Sanctimonious” and belittling his election victory.
“Shouldn’t it be said that in 2020, I got 1.1 Million more votes in Florida than Ron D got this year, 5.7 Million to 4.6 Million?” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “Just asking?”
Biden was asked by reporters on Wednesday about a Trump-DeSantis showdown.
“It’ll be fun watching them take on each other,” he said.
In the Senate, Democrat John Fetterman defeated Trump-endorsed candidate Mehmet Oz, seizing the Pennsylvania seat after the most expensive Senate race in US history.
The final makeup of the Senate now hangs on three seats: Arizona and Nevada, where the counting of votes could take several more days, and Georgia, where there will be a December 6 runoff between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and former American football star Herschel Walker.
Even with a slim majority in the House, Republicans could stymie Biden’s legislative agenda and launch investigations into the president and his allies.
International
Regional mexican music mourns the death of Banda Gota de Oro singer Giovanni Vera
Regional Mexican music is mourning the death of Giovanni Vera, lead vocalist of the band Banda Gota de Oro, who was among the victims of an armed attack that occurred on Sunday, December 28, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato.
The incident took place inside a residence located in the Los Presidentes neighborhood, in the municipality of Irapuato.
According to preliminary reports, several people were gathered at the house when armed men burst in and opened fire on those present. The attack left five people dead, including the singer.
Hours after the shooting, Banda Gota de Oro confirmed Vera’s death through its official Instagram account. In one of the posts, the group expressed its grief with an emotional message: “Today, the sky is dressed for a celebration because you are singing up there. Your voice and your joy will live on forever within us.”
Messages of support and condolences from fans and fellow musicians quickly flooded social media, paying tribute to the artist and expressing solidarity with his family and bandmates.
International
One Dead, Three Injured in Shooting at Cree Nation in Saskatchewan
One person was killed and three others were injured in a shooting reported early Tuesday in the Big Island Lake Cree Nation, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, according to local media.
Police said they were alerted to the incident in a remote area located approximately 392 kilometers northwest of the city of Saskatoon. Authorities issued a dangerous persons alert for two suspects, who were described as armed.
Saskatchewan police urged residents to seek shelter immediately, lock their doors, and avoid the area while the situation remains under investigation. Officers are working to determine whether the shooting was a targeted attack or a random act of violence.
As a precautionary measure, seven health-care facilities in the surrounding area were placed under lockdown, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said in a post on X.
International
Mexico’s President Visits Victims After Train Derailment Kills 13 in Oaxaca
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum visited on Monday the victims injured in a train accident that left 13 people dead in the southern state of Oaxaca and announced financial assistance for those affected by the derailment of the Interoceanic Train, which was inaugurated in 2023.
The train, carrying 241 passengers and nine crew members, derailed on Sunday while traveling along the Interoceanic Corridor, a major infrastructure project that connects the Pacific coast with the Gulf of Mexico across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The corridor was one of the flagship initiatives of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration (2018–2024).
Sheinbaum visited three hospitals in the neighboring towns of Tehuantepec and Salina Cruz, where around 20 injured passengers remain hospitalized. She also went to a funeral home to accompany the families of those who lost their lives in the accident.
According to Mexico’s Navy Secretary, Raymundo Morales, the accident occurred when one of the locomotives derailed, causing all four railcars to leave the tracks.
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