VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) — Chinese Premier Li Qiang called for deeper market integration with Southeast Asia on Thursday during annual summit talks where territorial disputes in the South China Sea are likely to be high on the agenda.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ meeting with Li followed recent violent confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam that raised unease over China’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed waters.

Li didn’t mention the row in his opening speech at the summit talks but said that intensifying trade relations between Beijing and ASEAN — a market of 672 million people — are beneficial for the bloc.

“The global economy is still seeing a sluggish recovery, protectionism is rising and geopolitical turbulence has brought instability and uncertainty to our development,” Li said.

“An ultra large-scale market is our greatest foundation for promoting economic prosperity. Strengthening market coordination and synchronization is an important direction for our further cooperation,” he said.

China is ASEAN’s No. 1 trading partner and its third-largest source of foreign investment — a key reason why the bloc has been muted in its criticisms of Chinese actions in the South China Sea. ASEAN leaders have repeatedly called only for restraint and respect for international law.

ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei along with Taiwan have overlapping claims with China, which claims sovereignty over virtually all of the South China Sea and has become more aggressive in its attempts to enforce its claims. ASEAN members and China have been negotiating a code of conduct to govern behavior in the strategic waterway for years but progress has been slow. Sticky issues include disagreements over whether the pact should be binding.

Chinese and Philippine vessels have clashed repeatedly this year, and Vietnam said last week that Chinese forces assaulted its fishermen in a disputed area of the sea. Beijing has said it was defending its offshore territories. China has also sent patrol vessels to areas that Indonesia and Malaysia claim as exclusive economic zones. The Philippines, a longtime U.S. ally, has been critical of other ASEAN countries for not doing more to get China to back away.

The U.S. has no claims in the South China Sea but has deployed Navy ships and fighter jets to patrol the waterway and promote freedom of navigation and overflight. China has warned the U.S. not to meddle in the disputes.

ASEAN leaders, who held a summit among themselves on Wednesday, also separately met with new Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol before convening an ASEAN Plus Three summit along with China. The bloc will also hold individual talks with dialogue partners Australia, Canada, India, the U.S. and the United Nations that will culminate in an East Asia Summit of 18 nations including Russia and New Zealand on Friday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who will fill in for President Joe Biden at the meetings, is expected to arrive in Vientiane later Thursday.

Former ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong said that despite challenges in addressing disputes in the South China Sea and the Myanmar civil war, ASEAN’s central role in the region is undisputable.

“ASEAN and its diplomatic maneuvers have sustained the relative peace and progress of Southeast Asia to date. ASEAN will continue to be useful in that regard. Big powers cannot do what they wish in the region,” said Ong, who is now deputy chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

After the Myanmar army ousted an elected government in 2021, fighting there has descended into a civil war that has killed nearly 6,000 people and displaced more than 3 million. The military has backtracked on an ASEAN peace plan it agreed to in late 2021 and fighting has continued with pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic rebels. Less than half of the country’s territory is believed to be under the army’s control.

Myanmar’s top generals have been shut out of ASEAN summits since the military takeover. Thailand will host an informal ASEAN ministerial-level consultation on Myanmar in mid-December as frustration grows in the bloc over the prolonged conflict.

Eileen Ng And Jintamas Saksornchai, The Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A pilot killed when a helicopter crashed on the roof of an Australian hotel two months ago was affected by alcohol and was not qualified to fly at night, an investigation concluded.

Two hotel guests were briefly hospitalized for smoke inhalation and 400 people had to evacuated from the hotel following the crash in the tropical city of Cairns on Aug. 12.

The four-minute flight had not been authorized and there were no airworthiness factors that likely contributed to the Robinson R44’s crash, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in its final report Thursday.

The pilot, Blake Wilson, a 23-year-old New Zealand citizen, had been employed by the helicopter’s operator Nautilus Aviation since April.

He had Australian and New Zealand commercial pilot licenses and had flown R44 helicopters before. But he was employed by Nautilus as a ground handler and did not have qualifications to fly at night, the report said.

“The flight was a purposeful act, but there was no evidence to explain the pilot’s intentions,” the report said.

Wilson had been due to be transferred by Nautilus on the day he died to an island 800 kilometers (500 miles) from Cairns. He had been drinking with colleagues and friends at several Cairns bars before returning to his apartment the night before his intended departure.

A toxicology report indicated he had a “significant blood-alcohol content” when he died. The report doesn’t specify a level of concentration, but said he was “affected by alcohol.”

Wilson had traveled from his apartment to Cairns Airport, used as security code to enter a Nautilus hangar then flew a helicopter toward Cairns, a city of 150,000 people and a popular tourist gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.

He flew over his apartment twice, a wharf complex and along the waterfront before the crash. Security camera footage showed the helicopter pitched up before descending steeply on to the hotel roof, where most of its wreckage remained.

While pilots are required to remain at least 1,000 feet (304 meters) above the highest feature of a built-up area in Australia, Wilson’s flight never flew higher than 500 feet (152 meters).

The bureau’s Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said Wilson had switched off the helicopter’s strobe lights which made his flight difficult to detect from the airport’s air traffic control tower.

“We do know that the pilot did take significant measures to conceal the nature of the flight,” Mitchell told reporters.

“This is quite an exceptional set of circumstances for the ATSB to be investigating,” he added.

Rod Mcguirk, The Associated Press

Multiple powerful tornadoes ripped across Florida hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall Wednesday, tearing off roofs, overturning vehicles and sucking debris into the air as the black V-shaped columns moved through.

Deaths were reported in St. Lucie County on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, but local authorities did not specify how many residents had been killed.

By Wednesday evening, more than 130 tornado warnings associated with Milton had been issued by National Weather Services offices in Florida.

The appearance of tornadoes before and during hurricanes isn’t unusual, scientists say, but the twisters’ ferocity was.

“It’s definitely out of the ordinary,” said Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini. “Hurricanes do produce tornadoes, but they’re usually weak. What we saw today was much closer to what we see in the Great Plains in the spring.”

Tornadoes spawned by hurricanes and tropical storms most often occur in the right-front quadrant of the storm, but sometimes they can also take place near the storm’s eyewall, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The heat and humidity present in the atmosphere during such storms and changes in wind direction or speed with height, known as wind shear, contribute to their likelihood.

“There’s an incredible amount of swirling going on,” Gensini said of the conditions that allowed for the twisters to grow. “Those tornadoes were just in a very favorable environment.”

The warming of the oceans by climate change is making hurricanes more intense, but Gensini said he did not know of any connection between human-caused warming and the deadly tornadoes that Floridians experienced with Milton.

Approximately 12.6 million people in the state were facing potential exposure under a National Weather Service tornado advisory in place until Wednesday night.

Videos posted to Reddit and other social media sites showed large funnel clouds over neighborhoods in Palm Beach County and elsewhere in the state.

Luke Culver, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami, said he wasn’t sure whether Milton had spawned a record number of tornados, but he pointed out that only 64 Florida tornado warnings were associated with Hurricane Ian, which hit the Tampa Bay area as a massive storm in 2022.

Florida has more tornadoes per square mile than any other state. But they’re usually not as severe as those in Midwest and Plains. However, a big outburst of powerful twisters killed 42 people and injured over 260 in Central Florida in the space of a few hours in February 1998.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Suman Naishadham, The Associated Press

KAMPONG PHLUK, Cambodia (AP) — Em Phat, 53, studies his eel tanks with the intensity of a man gambling with his livelihood.

For millennia, fishermen like him have relied on the bounty of the Tonle Sap in Cambodia, Southeast Asia’s largest lake and the epicenter of the world’s most productive inland fishery. But climate change, dams upstream on the Mekong River that sustains the lake, and deforestation in the region have changed everything.

There aren’t enough fish and living by the lake has become dangerous as storms intensify due to global warming. “Being a fisherman is hard,” he said.

Phat hopes that raising eels — a delicacy in Asian markets like China, Japan and South Korea — will provide a way forward. He raises eels in different tanks: translucent eel eggs bob gently in Small glass aquariums. Voracious glassy larvae swim in plastic tanks. Larger tubs have bicycle tires to provide places for juvenile eels to hide.

Raising eels can be profitable but it’s risky. Eels are notoriously difficult and expensive to raise. They need constant pure, oxygenated water and special food and are susceptible to diseases. Phat lost many eels when a power cut stopped his oxygen pumps, killing the fish. But he’s optimistic about the future. Living on land, instead of on the lake, also means that his wife, Luy Nga, 52, can grow vegetables to eat and sell, so they are making enough money to get by.

“The eels have value and can also be exported to China and other countries in the future,” he said.

That fishermen like Phat can no longer rely on the Tonle Sap, literally the “Great Lake,” for their livelihood reflects how much has changed. The lake used to more than quadruple in size to an area larger than the country of Qatar during the rainy season, inundating native forests and creating the perfect breeding ground for diverse fish to thrive.

The “flood pulse,” a natural process of periodic flooding and droughts in the river system helped make the Mekong Basin the world’s largest freshwater fishery, with nearly 20% of all freshwater fish worldwide caught there, according to the think tank Stimson Center in Washington. More than 3 million people live and fish by the lake: a third of all 17 million Cambodians rely on the fisheries sector and up to 70% of Cambodia’s intake of animal protein is from fish.

But dams upstream in China and Laos are cutting the Mekong’s flow, weakening that flood pulse. The lakes have been depleted by overfishing and much of the forest surrounding it has been logged or burned for farmland. Cambodian authorities are reluctant to estimate the extent that fish stocks have declined.

This year, the flood pulse was delayed by about two months, according to the Mekong Dam Monitor, a research project.

In this shattered ecosystem, raising eels or other fish can provide fishermen like Phat with a “buffer,” said Zeb Hogan, a fish biologist at the University of Nevada who has worked in the region for decades. “Aquaculture, such as eel farming, is a way for people to take more control over their income source and livelihood,” he said, adding that it also allows them to raise fish that they know will fetch higher prices.

Phat is one of more than thousands helped by a program run by the Britain-based nonprofit VSO to boost incomes of people living by Tonle Sap. VSO provides his baby eels and has taught him how to raise them.

Eels are in high demand in Cambodia and elsewhere, said Sum Vy, 38, a coordinator at VSO, so they’re profitable. When fishermen know how to farm eels and hatch the babies, others can follow.

“Not only can he or she earn the money to support their family, they can share this knowledge and skill with other people,” he said.

Expanding aquaculture is helping increase Cambodian exports. Its fish production increased 24-fold in the two decades leading up to 2021 and, unlike its neighbors, most of its fish catch is inland, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization or FAO. Much of it is consumed domestically and exports have grown sluggishly. Earlier this year, the government launched a scheme to improve fish processing technologies and address food safety concerns, hoping to begin exporting more fish to Europe next year.

Cambodia has signed trade agreements with China and began shipping frozen eels to Shanghai last year.

“This export will contribute to economic growth, creating jobs for our farmers and fishermen,” Heng Mengty, the export manager of the Cambodian fish exporter told China’s official Xinhua news agency.

The promised growth can’t come soon enough for Cambodians living in fishing communities around the lake. Some families live in homes that float year round, others on homes built on stilts up to 8-meters-high (26 feet), to keep them above floodwaters during the rainy season. Fishing is the only form of subsistence for many, but signs of decay are evident. Fishing nets catch only very small fish, or worse, nothing at all. Families speak of giant fish that are now rarely seen. The catch is a fraction of what it used to be.

Even 10 years ago, Som Lay, a 29-year-old fisherman said, the lake was teeming with fish. But illegal fishing has increased and some families have already given up fishing and are trying to find land where they can grow rice.

“The entire village — my family and others — is facing these difficulties,” he said.

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Associated Press journalist Sopheng Cheang contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Aniruddha Ghosal And Anton L Delgado, The Associated Press

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The fabric roof over the home of baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays was ripped to shreds after Hurricane Milton came ashore in Florida on Wednesday night, bringing wind gusts exceeding 100 mph and flooding parts of the state.

It was not immediately clear if there was damage inside Tropicana Field, located in St. Petersburg. Television images showed the swaths that serve as the domed building’s roof were completely tattered, giving a clear line of sight to the lights that were on inside the stadium.

The Rays’ stadium was not being used as a shelter, but the Tampa Bay Times reported that it was being used as “a staging site for workers” who were brought to the area to deal with the storm’s aftermath. The Rays had previously announced that they were “working with state and local emergency management partners … to aid efforts for debris removal.”

The stadium opened in 1990 and initially cost $138 million. It is due to be replaced in time for the 2028 season with a $1.3 billion ballpark.

An NBA preseason game in Orlando between the Magic and the New Orleans Pelicans, scheduled for Friday, was canceled even before Milton hit the state. The game will not be rescheduled.

Orlando was playing at San Antonio on Wednesday night and was scheduled to return to central Florida on Thursday. Those plans are now in flux because of the storm, which made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida. It forced the airports in Orlando and Tampa to close and it wasn’t clear when it would be safe for the Magic to return home.

“There’s always things bigger than the game of basketball and that’s what we have to keep our perspective on,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. “Knowing that there’s families and homes and situations that are going through a tough time right now, we need to be mindful of that and conscious of it.”

The Magic-Pelicans game is the second NBA preseason matchup to be affected by Milton. A game scheduled for Thursday in Miami between the Heat and Atlanta Hawks was postponed until Oct. 16 because of storm concerns. Also called off earlier this week: a rescheduled NHL preseason game on Friday in Tampa between the Lightning and Predators — one that was originally set to be played last month and was postponed because of Hurricane Helene.

“Stay safe Florida!” former Tampa Bay star Steven Stamkos, who is entering his first season with Nashville, posted on social media Wednesday. “Thinking about all the amazing people in the Tampa area right now.”

Countless college and high school events in Florida also have been canceled or postponed because of the storm.

For now, two planned exhibitions by Simone Biles and other Olympic gymnasts — part of the “Gold Over America Tour,” the acronym not coincidentally spelling out GOAT in a nod to Biles’ status as the consensus Greatest Of All-Time in the sport — this weekend are still on. The tour is scheduled to come to Sunrise, the home of the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, on Friday and then move to Orlando on Saturday.

Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Florida, which is north of Miami, is scheduled to resume live racing on Friday. Saturday’s college football game with Cincinnati going to Orlando to face UCF is still on, and the Memphis-South Florida game in Tampa was rescheduled earlier this week to be played Saturday.

UCF and USF officials have both said further decisions will be made, if necessary, after the storm damage is evaluated.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

The Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares mostly rose Thursday, as market optimism got a perk from the record highs set on Wall Street.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 edged up 0.4% in morning trading to 39,439.50. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.6% to 8,239.10. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.3% to 2,601.66.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.4% to 21,127.55, after a previous day of wild swings. Earlier in the week, the index dropped more than 9%, recording its worst loss since the global financial crisis of 2008. The Shanghai Composite surged 2.0% to 3,324.61.

After surging on hopes for stimulus to prop up the world’s second-largest economy, Chinese stocks slumped earlier this week on disappointment that more isn’t on the way. One plus was the announcement from China’s Finance Ministry it will hold a briefing Saturday that could provide details on planned government moves.

“There’s still a glimmer of hope that Beijing might swoop in with a fiscal stimulus lifeline in October to reignite growth. In short, the market is hanging in the balance, waiting for the next big move,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.7% to top the all-time high it had set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 431 points, or 1%, to hit its own record, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.6%.

Leading the way were cruise-ship companies, whose customers stand to benefit from the surprisingly strong U.S. job market. Norwegian Cruise Line steamed 10.9% higher after analysts at Citi upgraded its stock and said data suggests growth for the cruise industry “has real legs” into 2025 and beyond. Carnival rose 7%, and Royal Caribbean Group gained 5.3%.

KinderCare Learning rose 8.9% in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange. It has over 2,400 early childhood education centers and before- and after-school sites across the country for kids aged between six weeks and 12 years.

They helped offset a 3.4% slump for Boeing. The aerospace giant withdrew a contract offer that would have given striking workers 30% raises over four years following a break down in labor talks.

Alphabet also kept the market’s gains in check after the heavyweight stock sank 1.5%. The U.S. Department of Justice is considering asking a federal judge to break up its Google business after its search engine was declared an illegal monopoly. A breakup is one of many possible remedies under review.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 40.91 points to 5,792.04. The Dow jumped 431.63 to 42,512.00, and the Nasdaq composite gained 108.70 to 18,291.62.

In the oil market, a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, recovered to rise 34 cents to $73.58 a barrel. It briefly topped $81 early this week. Benchmark U.S. crude gained 34 cents to $76.92 per barrel.

Earlier leaps for oil driven by worries about worsening tensions in the Middle East had helped drag the S&P 500 on Monday to its worst loss in a month.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.07% from 4.01% late Tuesday.

Treasury yields have swung recently, first sharply downward through the spring and summer and then turning upward in the last week or so.

They’ve followed traders’ expectations for what the Federal Reserve is likely to do with overnight interest rates. The central bank has just begun cutting interest rates from a two-decade high, as it widens its focus to include keeping the economy humming instead of just fighting high inflation.

That caused the sharp easing of rates through the summer, but recent reports have shown the U.S. economy remains stronger than expected.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched down to 149.15 Japanese yen from 149.16 yen. The euro cost $1.0943, up from $1.0945.

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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.

Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — For the first time in over 10 years, Luci Harrell can vote in a presidential election.

Around the time she graduated law school this year, Harrell completed two years of parole and became legally allowed to register.

“It feels important to me…real and symbolic,” Harrell said. “For years I was required by the federal government to pay taxes and pay student loans, yet being denied the ability to vote.”

Harrell is one of an estimated 450,000 people in Georgia with past convictions who are eligible to cast ballots. As get-out-the-vote efforts ramp up across the swing state, advocates have a hard time reaching those who are formerly incarcerated, in part because many of them don’t know they can vote.

“Nobody comes back and informs you that your voting rights are restored,” said Pamela Winn, an Atlanta organizer who was formerly incarcerated. “You don’t receive a letter. There’s no kind of notification. So most people, once they get a felony, in their mind all their rights are gone.”

According to a report released Thursday by The Sentencing Project, which advocates for reducing reducing imprisonment, almost 250,000 people in Georgia cannot vote because of a felony conviction, out of 4 million nationwide.

The national rate has fallen in recent years as some states expanded voting rights for people with past convictions, but Georgia has not followed suit. Most cannot vote until they have completed their prison sentences and are off probation or parole.

Fourteen other states have similar restrictions and 10 are even stricter, but Georgia has the eighth highest rate of people who cannot vote due to past convictions, something observers attribute in part to the state’s unusually long prison and probation sentences.

“We have the No. 1 rate of correctional control,” said Ann Colloton, policy and outreach coordinator for the Georgia Justice Project, which advocates for people in the criminal justice system. “More people per capita are either incarcerated, on probation or on parole than any other state. That’s what drives our rate of felony disenfranchisement.”

A billboard across from a federal courthouse in Atlanta shows Winn and Travis Emory Barber, who also advocates for people who have been incarcerated, standing cross-armed in orange suits alongside the words, “Formerly Incarcerated People/USE YOUR POWER TO VOTE.”

Last Sunday, the day before the state voter registration deadline, the duo set up a tent in west Atlanta to register people. Winn said her organization, IMPPACT, canvasses in areas where there are high rates of people on probation, but there is no way to target people who are eligible or will soon be eligible to vote.

Before he came by the tent, Sirvoris Sutton wasn’t sure whether he could register to vote. He originally chose not to because he didn’t want to be accused of voter fraud, which former President Donald Trump and his supporters have falsely said was widespread in Georgia during the 2020 election.

He learned that day that he will not be able to vote for 11 years, the amount of time he has left on parole.

“It feels like another phase of incarceration again,” Sutton said. “I’m out here in free society. How could my one vote be a threat to the democratic process?”

Of the quarter-million Georgians who cannot vote because of criminal convictions, about 190,000 are ineligible because they are on probation or parole, according to The Sentencing Project. That is the case even though the state passed legislation in 2021 creating a pathway for people to terminate their probation early.

Some people with past convictions feel the government has always failed them and don’t want to vote.

For example, when Christopher Buffin of Terrell County recently left prison, he knew there was a chance he could vote. And two days before Monday’s deadline, an advocate helped him register. But for now at least, he feels too frustrated to actually cast a ballot because he has not gotten his disability benefits back since leaving prison.

“In a marginalized community, voting isn’t really a priority,” Winn said, noting that people who are incarcerated are disproportionately Black and come from economically depressed communities. “The priority is survival.”

Inconsistency from state to state also adds to confusion about whether people can register, observers say.

“The U.S. is an incredibly patchwork nation when it comes to these laws,” said Sarah Shannon, a University of Georgia sociology professor who worked on The Sentencing Project’s report.

Florida has the most who are unable to vote. Voters there approved an amendment in 2018 to expand voting rights for people with past convictions, but legislation and legal rulings reimposed restrictions for those with outstanding fees. In 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said an election police unit arrested 20 people for registering even though they had a felony conviction that made them ineligible.

And in Nebraska, the secretary of state and attorney general issued an opinion this year against two state laws that let people vote after completing their sentences.

Back in Georgia, Democratic senators introduced a bill in 2023 that would modify state law to permit people still serving time for a felony to vote as well as a resolution to remove the state’s constitutional restriction on people voting before completing their sentences. They didn’t pass, however.

Such restrictions on voting rights date back to Jim Crow, after the 13th amendment outlawed slavery except as a punishment for crime. States such as Georgia added language to their constitutions that banned voting for people convicted of a felony “involving moral turpitude,” a vague term that state officials say apply to all felonies.

Organizers feel the weight of this history today as Black people are incarcerated at disproportionately high rates. The Sentencing Project estimates that over half of the people who can’t vote due to past convictions in Georgia are Black. But even for those who can, getting them to vote is an ongoing battle.

“Because people are marginalized and because they have criminal background, they are led to believe that their vote doesn’t count,” Winn said.

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Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @charlottekramon

Charlotte Kramon, The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs is set to make his first appearance before the judge who is expected to preside over the hip-hop powerbroker’s trial on sex trafficking charges.

Combs will be brought to Manhattan federal court from a Brooklyn jail for a Thursday afternoon appearance before Judge Arun Subramanian.

The hearing is expected to result in deadlines being set for lawyers on each side to submit arguments that will establish the boundaries for a trial that Combs’ lawyers want to start in April or May. Prosecutors have not expressed a preference for when the trial might occur.

The judge was assigned to the case after another judge recused himself based on his past associations with lawyers in the case.

Combs, 54, has pleaded not guilty to charges lodged against him last month. Those charges included racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking based on allegations that go back to 2008.

An indictment alleges Combs coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violent acts including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.

His lawyers have been trying unsuccessfully to get the founder of Bad Boy Records freed on bail since his Sept. 16 arrest.

Two judges have concluded that Combs is a danger to the community if he is freed. At a bail hearing three weeks ago, a judge rejected a $50 million bail package, including home detention and electronic monitoring, after concluding that Combs was a threat to tamper with witnesses and obstruct a continuing investigation.

In an appeal of the bail rulings to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, lawyers for Combs on Tuesday asked a panel of judges to reverse the bail findings, saying the proposed bail package “would plainly stop him from posing a danger to anyone or contacting any witnesses.”

They urged the appeals court to reject the findings of a lower-court judge who they said had “endorsed the government’s exaggerated rhetoric and ordered Mr. Combs detained.”

Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press

About 200 women ages 18-22 from across Africa have been recruited to work in a factory alongside Russian vocational students assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.

In interviews with The Associated Press, some of the women said they were misled that it would be a work-study program, describing long hours under constant surveillance, broken promises about wages and areas of study, and working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching.

The AP analyzed satellite images of the complex in Russia’s republic of Tatarstan and its leaked internal documents, spoke to a half-dozen African women who ended up there, and tracked down hundreds of videos in the online recruiting program to piece together life at the plant in what is called the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of Moscow.

What to know from AP’s reporting:

Plans for making 6,000 drones a year

Russia and Iran signed a $1.7 billion deal in 2022 after President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of neighboring Ukraine, and Moscow began launching Iranian imports of drones later that year.

Satellite images show the plant at Alabuga quickly expanded.

It is now Russia’s main plant for making the one-way, exploding drones, with plans to produce 6,000 a year by 2025, according to the internal documents and the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

Facing a wartime labor shortage in Russia, Alabuga has recruited from African countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.

About 90% of the foreign women recruited via a campaign dubbed “Alabuga Start” manufacture drones, according to David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector now with the Institute for Science and International Security. The documents show the women largely assemble the drones, use chemicals and paint them. The AP has been told some women have left the plant but are discouraged from doing so by management.

Constant surveillance and caustic chemicals

The foreign workers travel by bus from their living quarters to the factory, passing multiple security checkpoints, according to one worker who assembled drones.

They share dormitories and kitchens that are “guarded around the clock,” Alabuga’s social media posts say.

Foreigners receive local SIM cards upon arrival but cannot bring phones into the factory. Four women indicated they couldn’t speak freely to outsiders and one suggested her messages were monitored.

The woman who assembled drones said recruits put them together and coat them with a caustic substance with the consistency of yogurt. Many workers lack protective gear, she said, adding that the chemicals made her face feel like it was being pricked with tiny needles, and “small holes” appeared on her cheeks, making them itch.

Disagreements over pay

Although one woman said she loved working at Alabuga because she was well-paid and enjoyed experiencing a different culture and people, most interviewed by AP disagreed about the compensation and suggested that life there did not meet their expectations.

The program initially promised $700 a month, but later social media posts put it at “over $500.”

One African woman said she couldn’t send money home because of banking sanctions on Russia, but another said she sent up to $150 a month.

Four women described long shifts of up to 12 hours, with haphazard days off, but some suggested they could tolerate it if they could send money home.

Human rights organizations said they were unaware of what was happening at the factory, although they said it sounded consistent with other actions by Russia in recruiting foreigners.

Russia’s actions “could potentially fulfill the criteria of trafficking if the recruitment is fraudulent and the purpose is exploitation,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, noting that Moscow is a party to theU.N. Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime.

The AP contacted governments of 22 countries whose citizens Alabuga said it had recruited for the program. Most didn’t answer or said they would look into it.

Betty Amongi, Uganda’s minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development, told AP that her ministry raised concerns with its embassy in Moscow about the recruitment, particularly on the age of the women, because “female migrant workers are the most vulnerable category.”

The ministry said it wanted to ensure the women “do not end up in exploitative employment,” and needed to know who was responsible for their welfare while in Russia. Alabuga’s Facebook page said 46 Ugandan women were at the complex, although Amongi had said there were none.

How accurate are the drones they make?

Bolstered by the Alabuga recruits, Russia has vastly increased the number of drones it can fire at Ukraine.

Nearly 4,000 were launched at Ukraine from the start of the war in February 2022 through 2023, the Institute for Science and International Security said. In the first seven months of this year, Russia launched nearly twice that.

An AP analysis of about 2,000 Shahed attacks documented by Ukraine’s military since July 29 shows that about 95% of the drones hit no discernible target, instead crashing in Ukraine or flying out of its airspace.

The failure rate could be due to Ukraine’s improved air defenses or poor craftsmanship among the low-skilled workforce. Another factor could be because Russia is using a Shahed variant without explosives to overwhelm air defenses.

The social media plan

The “Alabuga Start” recruiting drive relies on a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos of smiling African women cleaning floors, directing cranes or visiting Tatarstan’s cultural sites. They don’t mention the plant’s role at the heart of Russian drone production.

The program was promoted by education ministries in Uganda and Ethiopia, as well as in African media that portrays it as a way to earn money and learn skills.

Initially advertised as a work-study program, Alabuga Start’s newer posts say it “is NOT an educational programme,” although one of them still shows young women in plaid school uniforms.

Last month, the social media site said it was “excited to announce that our audience has grown significantly!” That could be due to its hiring of influencers to promote it on TikTok, describing it as an easy way to make money.

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Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker in Washington and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

Emma Burrows And Lori Hinnant, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 70 million Social Security recipients will learn Thursday how big a cost-of-living increase they’ll get to their benefits next year.

In advance of the announcement, analysts predicted that the increase would be about 2.5% for 2025, smaller than increases the previous two years. Recipients received a 3.2% increase in their benefits in 2024, after a historically large 8.7% benefit increase in 2023, brought on by record 40-year-high inflation.

The lower COLA for next year reflects the moderating inflation.

About 70.6 million people participate in the Social Security program, with an average benefit of about $1,920 a month. The AARP estimates that a 2.5% COLA would increase that by $48 a month.

In advance of the announcement, retirees voiced concern that the increase would not be enough to counter rising costs.

Sherri Myers, an 82-year-old Pensacola City, Florida, retiree, is now hoping to get an hourly job at Walmart to help make ends meet.

“I would like to eat good but I can’t. When I’m at the grocery store, I just walk past the vegetables because they are too expensive. I have to be very selective about what I eat — even McDonald’s is expensive,” she said.

With increased participation and fewer workers contributing, the Social Security program faces a severe financial shortfall in the coming years.

The annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report released in May said the program’s trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2035. If the trust fund is depleted, the government will be able to pay only 83% of scheduled benefits, the report said.

The program is financed by payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers. The maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security payroll taxes was $168,600 for 2024, up from $160,200 in 2023. Analysts estimate that the maximum amount will go up to $174,900 in 2025.

On the presidential campaign trail, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have presented dueling plans on how they would strengthen Social Security.

Harris, the Democratic nominee, says on her campaign website that she will protect Social Security by “making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.”

Trump, the Republican nominee, promises that he would not cut the social program or make changes to the retirement age. Trump also pledges tax cuts for older Americans, posting on Truth Social in July that “SENIORS SHOULD NOT PAY TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY!”

AARP conducted interviews with both Harris and Trump in late August, and asked how the candidates would protect the Social Security Trust Fund.

Harris said she would make up for the shortfall by “making billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share in taxes and use that money to protect and strengthen Social Security for the long haul.”

Trump said, “We’ll protect it with growth. I don’t want to do anything having to do with increasing age. I won’t do that. As you know, I was there for four years and never even thought about doing it. I’m going to do nothing to Social Security.”

Fatima Hussein, The Associated Press

The social media ads promised the young African women a free plane ticket, money and a faraway adventure in Europe. Just complete a computer game and a 100-word Russian vocabulary test.

But instead of a work-study program in fields like hospitality and catering, some of them learned only after arriving on the steppes of Russia’s Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.

In interviews with The Associated Press, some of the women complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching.

To fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia, the Kremlin has been recruiting women aged 18-22 from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.

That has put some of Moscow’s key weapons production in the inexperienced hands of about 200 African women who are working alongside Russian vocational students as young as 16 in the plant in Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of Moscow, according to an AP investigation of the industrial complex.

“I don’t really know how to make drones,” said one African woman who had abandoned a job at home and took the Russian offer.

The AP analyzed satellite images of the complex and its internal documents, spoke to a half-dozen African women who ended up there, and tracked down hundreds of videos in the online recruiting program dubbed “Alabuga Start” to piece together life at the plant.

A hopeful journey from Africa leads to ‘a trap’

The woman who agreed to work in Russia excitedly documented her journey, taking selfies at the airport and shooting video of her airline meal and of the in-flight map, focusing on the word “Europe” and pointing to it with her long, manicured nails.

When she arrived in Alabuga, however, she soon learned what she would be doing and realized it was “a trap.”

“The company is all about making drones. Nothing else,” said the woman, who assembled airframes. “I regret and I curse the day I started making all those things.”

One possible clue about what was in store for the applicants was their vocabulary test that included words like “factory” and the verbs “to hook” and “to unhook.”

The workers were under constant surveillance in their dorms and at work, the hours were long and the pay was less than she expected — details corroborated by three other women interviewed by AP, which is not identifying them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.

Factory management apparently tries to discourage the African women from leaving, and although some reportedly have left or found work elsewhere in Russia, AP was unable to verify that independently.

A drone factory grows in Tatarstan

Russia and Iran signed a $1.7 billion deal in 2022, after President Vladimir Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine, and Moscow began using Iranian imports of the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in battle later that year.

The Alabuga Special Economic Zone was set up in 2006 to attract businesses and investment to Tatarstan. It expanded rapidly after the invasion and parts switched to military production, adding or renovating new buildings, according to satellite images.

Although some private companies still operate there, the plant is referred to as “Alabuga” in leaked documents that detail contracts between Russia and Iran.

The Shahed-136 drones were first shipped disassembled to Russia, but production has shifted to Alabuga and possibly another factory. Alabuga now is Russia’s main plant for making the one-way, exploding drones, with plans to produce 6,000 of them a year by 2025, according to the leaked documents and the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

That target is now ahead of schedule, with Alabuga building 4,500, said David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who works at the institute.

Finding workers was a problem. With unemployment at record lows and many Russians already working in military industries, fighting in Ukraine or having fled abroad, plant officials turned to using vocational students and cheap foreign labor.

Alabuga is the only Russian production facility that recruits women from Africa, Asia and South America to make weapons according to experts and the AP investigation.

About 90% of the foreign women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work on making drones, particularly the parts “that don’t require much skill,” he said.

Documents leaked last year and verified by Albright and another drone expert detail the workforce growing from just under 900 people in 2023 to plans for over 2,600 in 2025. They show that foreign women largely assemble the drones, use chemicals and paint them.

In the first half of this year, 182 women were recruited, largely from Central and East African countries, according to a Facebook page promoting the Alabuga Start program. It also recruits in South America and Asia “to help ladies to start their career.”

Officials held recruiting events in Uganda, and tried to recruit from its orphanages, according to messages on Alabuga’s Telegram channel. Russian officials have also visited more than 26 embassies in Moscow to push the program.

The campaign gave no reasons why it doesn’t seek older women or men, but some analysts suggest officials could believe young women are easier to control. One of the leaked documents shows the assembly lines are segregated and uses a derogatory term referring to the African workers.

The factory also draws workers from Alabuga Polytechnic, a nearby vocational boarding school for Russians age 16-18 and Central Asians age 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production. According to investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.

Surveillance, caustic chemicals — and a Ukrainian attack

The foreign workers travel by bus from their living quarters to the factory, passing multiple security checkpoints after a license plate scan, while other vehicles are stopped for more stringent checks, according to the woman who assembles drones.

They share dormitories and kitchens that are “guarded around the clock,” social media posts say. Entry is controlled via facial recognition, and recruits are watched on surveillance cameras. Pets, alcohol and drugs are not allowed.

The foreigners receive local SIM cards for their phones upon arrival but are forbidden from bringing them into the factory, which is considered a sensitive military site.

One woman said she could only talk to an AP reporter with her manager’s permission, another said her “messages are monitored,” a third said workers are told not to talk to outsiders about their work, and a fourth said managers encouraged them to inform on co-workers.

The airframe worker told AP the recruits are taught how to assemble the drones and coat them with a caustic substance with the consistency of yogurt.

Many workers lack protective gear, she said, adding that the chemicals made her face feel like it was being pricked with tiny needles, and “small holes” appeared on her cheeks, making them itch severely.

“My God, I could scratch myself! I could never get tired of scratching myself,” she said.

“A lot of girls are suffering,” she added. A video shared with AP showed another woman wearing an Alabuga uniform with her face similarly affected.

Although AP could not determine what the chemicals were, drone expert Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies confirmed that caustic substances are used in their manufacture.

In addition to dangers from chemicals, the complex itself was hit by a Ukrainian drone in April, injuring at least 12 people. A video it posted on social media showed a Kenyan woman calling the attackers “barbarians” who “wanted to intimidate us.”

“They did not succeed,” she said.

Workers ‘maltreated like donkeys’

Although one woman said she loved working at Alabuga because she was well-paid and enjoyed meeting new people and experiencing a different culture, most interviewed by AP disagreed about the size of the compensation and suggested that life there did not meet their expectations.

The program initially promised recruits $700 a month, but later social media posts put it at “over $500.”

The airframe assembly worker said the cost of their accommodation, airfare, medical care and Russian-language classes were deducted from her salary, and she struggled to pay for basics like bus fare with the remainder.

The African women are “maltreated like donkeys, being slaved,” she said, indicating banking sanctions on Russia made it difficult to send money home. But another factory worker said she was able to send up to $150 a month to her family.

Four of the women described long shifts of up to 12 hours, with haphazard days off. Still, two of these who said they worked in the kitchen added they were willing to tolerate the pay if they could support their families.

The wages apparently are affecting morale, according to plant documents, with managers urging that the foreign workers be replaced with Russian-speaking staff because “candidates are refusing the low salary.”

Russian and Central Asian students at Alabuga Polytechnic are allowed visits home, social media posts suggest. Independent Russian media reported that these vocational students who want to quit the program have been told they must repay tuition costs.

AP contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and the offices of Tatarstan Gov. Rustam Minnikhanov and Alabuga Special Economic Zone Director General Timur Shagivaleev for a response to the women’s complaints but received no reply.

Human rights organizations contacted by AP said they were unaware of what was happening at the factory, although it sounded consistent with other actions by Russia. Human Rights Watch said Russia is actively recruiting foreigners from Africa and India to support its war in Ukraine by promising lucrative jobs without fully explaining the nature of the work.

Russia’s actions “could potentially fulfill the criteria of trafficking if the recruitment is fraudulent and the purpose is exploitation,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, noting that Moscow is a party to the U.N. Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime.

The AP contacted governments of 22 countries whose citizens Alabuga said it had recruited for the program. Most didn’t answer or said they would look into it.

Betty Amongi, Uganda’s Minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development, told AP that her ministry raised concerns with its embassy in Moscow about the Alabuga recruiting effort, particularly over the age of the women, because “female migrant workers are the most vulnerable category.”

The ministry said it wanted to ensure the women “do not end up in exploitative employment,” and needed to know who would be responsible for the welfare of the Ugandan women while in Russia. Alabuga’s Facebook page said 46 Ugandan women were at the complex, although Amongi had said there were none.

How accurate are the drones?

Bolstered by the foreign recruits, Russia has vastly increased the number of drones it can fire at Ukraine.

Nearly 4,000 were launched at Ukraine from the start of the war in February 2022 through 2023, Albright’s organization said. In the first seven months of this year, Russia launched nearly twice that.

Although the Alabuga plant’s production target is ahead of schedule, there are questions about the quality of the drones and whether manufacturing problems due to the unskilled labor force are causing malfunctions. Some experts also point to Russia’s switching to other materials from the original Iranian design as a sign of problems.

An AP analysis of about 2,000 Shahed attacks documented by Ukraine’s military since July 29 shows that about 95% of the drones hit no discernible target. Instead, they fall into Ukraine’s rivers and fields, stray into NATO-member Latvia and come down in Russia or ally Belarus.

Before July, about 14% of Shaheds hit their targets in Ukraine, according to data analyzed by Albright’s team.

The large failure rate could be due to Ukraine’s improved air defenses, although Albright said it also could be because of the low-skilled workforce in which “poor craftsmanship is seeping in,” he said.

Another factor could be because Russia is using a Shahed variant that doesn’t carry a warhead of 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives. Moscow could be launching these dummy drones to overwhelm air defenses and force Ukraine to waste ammunition, allowing other UAVs to hit targets.

Tourism, paintball games and a pitch on TikTok

The Alabuga Start recruiting drive relies on a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women visiting Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports.

The videos show them working — smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes, and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.

One video depicts the Polytechnic school students in team-building exercises such as paintball matches, even showing the losing side — labeled as “fascists” — digging trenches or being shot with the recreational weapons at close range.

“We are taught patriotism. This unites us. We are ready to repel any provocation,” one student says.

The videos on Alabuga’s social media pages don’t mention the plant’s role at the heart of Russian drone production, but the Special Economic Zone is more open with Russian media.

Konstantin Spiridonov, deputy director of a company that made drones for civilian use before the war, gave a video tour of an Alabuga assembly line in March to a Russian blogger. Pointing out young African women, he did not explicitly link the drones to the war but noted their production is now “very relevant” for Russia.

Alabuga Start’s social media pages are filled with comments from Africans begging for work and saying they applied but have yet to receive an answer.

The program was promoted by education ministries in Uganda and Ethiopia, as well as in African media that portrays it as a way to make money and learn new skills.

Initially advertised as a work-study program, Alabuga Start in recent months is more direct about what it offers foreigners, insisting on newer posts that “is NOT an educational programme,” although one of them still shows young women in plaid school uniforms.

When Sierra Leone Ambassador Mohamed Yongawo visited in May and met with five participants from his country, he appeared to believe it was a study program.

“It would be great if we had 30 students from Sierra Leone studying at Alabuga,” he said afterward.

Last month, the Alabuga Start social media site said it was “excited to announce that our audience has grown significantly!”

That could be due to its hiring of influencers, including Bassie, a South African with almost 800,000 TikTok and Instagram followers. She did not respond to an AP request for comment.

The program, she said, was an easy way to make money, encouraging followers to share her post with job-seeking friends so they could contact Alabuga.

“Where they lack in labor,” she said, “that’s where you come in.”

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Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker in Washington and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

Emma Burrows And Lori Hinnant, The Associated Press

More than 1.9 million without power as Hurricane Milton slams Florida, causes deaths and flooding

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Milton plowed into Florida as a Category 3 storm Wednesday, bringing misery to a coast still ravaged by Helene, pounding cities with winds of over 100 mph (160 kph) after producing a barrage of tornadoes, but sparing Tampa a direct hit.

The storm tracked to the south in the final hours and made landfall in Siesta Key near Sarasota, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa. The situation in the Tampa area was still a major emergency as St. Petersburg recorded over 16 inches (41 centimeters) of rain, prompting the National Weather Service to warn of flash flooding.

Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, appeared to be badly damaged. Television images Wednesday night showed that the fabric that serves as the domed building’s roof had been ripped to shreds. It was not immediately clear if there was damage inside the stadium.

More than 1.9 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. The highest number of outages were in Hardee County, as well as neighboring Sarasota and Manatee counties.

Before Milton even made landfall, tornadoes were touching down across the state. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, was hit particularly hard, with homes destroyed and some residents killed.

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The Latest: Hurricane Milton lands near Siesta Key, Florida, as a Category 3 storm

Hurricane Milton made landfall Wednesday along Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm, bringing powerful winds, deadly storm surge and potential flooding to much of the state.

Milton drew fuel from exceedingly warm Gulf of Mexico waters, twice reaching Category 5 status.

The cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (205 kph) when it roared ashore in Siesta Key, Florida, at 8:30 p.m., the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane was bringing deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf Coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers.

The hurricane was downgraded to a Category 2 storm as it moved through Florida later Wednesday evening.

Here’s the latest:

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Here’s what has made Hurricane Milton so fierce and unusual

With its mighty strength and its dangerous path, Hurricane Milton powered into a very rare threat flirting with experts’ worst fears.

Warm water fueled amazingly rapid intensification that took Milton from a minimal hurricane to a massive Category 5 in less than 10 hours. It weakened, but quickly bounced back, and when its winds briefly reached 180 mph, its barometric pressure, a key measurement for a storm’s overall strength, was among the lowest recorded in the Gulf of Mexico this late in the year.

At its most fierce, Milton almost maxed out its potential intensity given the weather factors surrounding it.

“Everything that you would want if you’re looking for a storm to go absolutely berserk is what Milton had,” Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said.

That’s not all. Milton’s eastward path through the Gulf is so infrequent the most recent comparable storm was in 1848. Tampa — the most populous metro area in its general path — hasn’t had a direct hit from a major storm in more than 100 years, making this week the worst-case scenario for many experts.

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Trump lashes out at Harris and ‘The View’ co-hosts, as Hurricane Milton makes landfall

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump hurled insults at his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other women Wednesday — saying he had no interest in stopping his attacks even if they turn off female voters — as Hurricane Milton made landfall, lashing Florida with rain, tornadoes and tropical-storm-force winds.

“I don’t want to be nice,” Trump said at his first of two rallies of the day in the pivotal battleground state of Pennsylvania. “You know, somebody said, ‘You should be nicer. Women won’t like it.’ I said, ‘I don’t care.’”

He later refuted the idea that his rhetoric was a problem, even as polls show Trump is viewed less favorably by women than by men. “The women want to see our country come back,” he said. “They don’t care.”

Trump was campaigning even as the storm threatened to overshadow the presidential race with fears that it would cause catastrophic damage in Tampa and other parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Harris flew to Nevada for a Western campaign swing, but first attended a briefing on the storm and the federal response with President Joe Biden at the White House.

Speaking in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Trump lobbed personal insults at Harris — calling her “grossly incompetent” and “totally ill-equipped to do the job of being President of the United States” — and went after one of the hosts of ABC’s “The View,” which Harris appeared on Tuesday.

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Israeli defense minister warns an attack on Iran would be ‘lethal’ and ‘surprising’

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s defense minister warned on Wednesday that his country’s retaliation for a recent Iranian missile attack will be “lethal” and “surprising,” while the Israeli military pushed ahead with a large-scale operation in northern Gaza and a ground offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah militants.

On the diplomatic front, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden held their first call in seven weeks, with a White House press secretary saying the call included discussions on Israel’s deliberations over how it will respond to Iran’s attack.

The continuing cycle of destruction and death in Gaza, unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, comes as Israel expands a weeklong ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and considers a major retaliatory strike on Iran following Iran’s Oct. 1 missile barrage.

“Our strike will be lethal, precise and above all, surprising. They won’t understand what happened and how. They will see the results,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said during a speech to troops. “Whoever strikes us will be harmed and pay a price.”

Iran fired dozens of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 which the United States helped fend off. Biden has said he would not support a retaliatory strike on sites related to Tehran’s nuclear program.

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Washington state woman calls 911 after being hounded by up to 100 raccoons

Sheriff’s deputies in Washington’s Kitsap County frequently get calls about animals — loose livestock, problem dogs. But the 911 call they received recently from a woman being hounded by dozens of raccoons swarming her home near Poulsbo stood out.

The woman reported having had to flee her property after 50 to 100 raccoons descended upon it and were acting aggressively, said Kevin McCarty, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office. She told deputies she started feeding a family of raccoons decades ago and it was fine until about six weeks earlier, when the number showing up went from a handful to around 100.

“She said those raccoons were becoming increasingly more aggressive, demanding food, that they would hound her day and night — scratching at the outside of her home, at the door. If she pulled up her car, they would surround the car, scratch at the car, surround her if she went from her front door to her car or went outside at all,” McCarty said. “They saw this as a food source now, so they kept coming back to it and they kept expecting food.”

It was not clear what caused their numbers to balloon suddenly. Both the sheriff’s office and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife determined no laws were broken, McCarty said.

“This is a nuisance problem kind of of her own making that she has to deal with,” he said. Video from the sheriff’s office shows raccoons milling around trees, and deputies who responded to the call observed 50 to 100 of them, he added.

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Trump-Putin ties are back in the spotlight after new book describes calls

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new book’s assertion that former President Donald Trump may have had as many as seven private phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving the White House has refocused attention on their politically fraught relationship and on Trump’s sustained dialogue with world leaders as he seeks a return to power.

It’s not surprising in and of itself that an ex-president would preserve ties with foreign counterparts. But the detail in journalist Bob Woodward’s book “War” raised eyebrows in light of a special counsel investigation during Trump’s presidency that examined potential ties between Russia and the Republican’s 2016 campaign as well as Trump’s more recent criticism of U.S. aid to Ukraine as it fends off Russia’s invasion — statements that have hinted at a possible U.S. policy overhaul if he’s elected.

“I would caution any world leader about trusting Vladimir Putin with anything,” said Emily Harding, who led the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into 2016 Russian election interference and is now a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Both Trump campaign and the Kremlin, which U.S. officials have said is working to influence the 2024 election in favor of Trump, denied the reporting.

Asked at a press briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the administration would have “serious concerns” if the reported calls were true.

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Sanewashing? The banality of crazy? A decade into the Trump era, media hasn’t figured him out

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly a decade into the Trump Era of politics, less than a month from his third Election Day as the Republican candidate for president and there is still remarkably little consensus within the media about how best to cover Donald Trump.

Are reporters “sanewashing” Trump, or are they succumbing to the “banality of crazy?” Should his rallies be aired at length, or not at all? To fact-check or not fact-check?

“If it wasn’t so serious, I would just be fascinated by all of it,” said Parker Molloy, media critic and author of The Present Age column on Substack. “If it didn’t have to do with who is going to be president, I would watch this and marvel at how difficult it is to cover one person who seems to challenge all of the rules of journalism.”

Books and studies will be written about Trump and the press long after he is gone. He’s always been press-conscious and press-savvy, even as a celebrity builder in Manhattan who took a keen interest in what tabloid gossip columns said about him. Most issues stem from Trump’s disdain for constraints, his willingness to say the outrageous and provably untrue, and for his fans to believe him instead of those reporting on him.

It has even come full circle, where some experts now think the best way to cover him is to give people a greater opportunity to hear what he says — the opposite of what was once conventional wisdom.

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Social Security’s scheduled cost of living increase ‘won’t make a dent’ for some retirees

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sherri Myers, an 82-year-old resident of Pensacola City, Florida, says the Social Security cost-of-living increase she’ll receive in January “won’t make a dent” in helping her meet her day-to-day expenses.

“Inflation has eaten up my savings,” she said. “I don’t have anything to fall back on — the cushion is gone.” So even with the anticipated increase she’s looking for work to supplement her retirement income, which consists of a small pension and her Social Security benefits.

About 70.6 million Social Security recipients are expected to receive a smaller cost of living increase for 2025 than in recent years, as inflation has moderated. The Social Security Administration makes the official COLA announcement Thursday, and analysts predicted in advance it would be 2.5% for 2025. Recipients received a 3.2% increase in their benefits in 2024, after a historically large 8.7% benefit increase in 2023, brought on by record 40-year-high inflation.

The AARP estimates that a 2.5 percent COLA would increase the average benefit for a retiree who receives about $1,920 a month by $48 a month starting in January 2025.

“I think a lot of seniors are going to say that this is not really enough to keep up with prices,” said AARP Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Bill Sweeney.

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Francisco Lindor’s grand slam sends Mets into NLCS with 4-1 win over Phillies in Game 4 of NLDS

NEW YORK (AP) — Francisco Lindor hit a grand slam in the sixth inning, his latest clutch swing in a storybook season full of them, and the New York Mets reached the National League Championship Series with a 4-1 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday.

Edwin Díaz struck out Kyle Schwarber with two runners aboard to end it as New York finished off the rival Phillies in Game 4 of their best-of-five Division Series, winning 3-1 to wrap up a postseason series at home for the first time in 24 years.

“I want to win it all. And ours will be a team that will forever be remembered,” Lindor said, speaking in the interview room with one of his young daughters on his lap drinking from a Gatorade bottle.

“This will be a team that comes every 10 years and eats for free everywhere they go. And I want to do that. I want to do that. But the job is not done.”

With tears in his eyes, outfielder Brandon Nimmo embraced Lindor as the Mets poured onto the field in excitement following the final out.

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s contributions from small-dollar donors have plummeted since his last bid for the White House, presenting the former president with a financial challenge as he attempts to keep pace with Democrats’ fundraising machine.

Fewer than a third of the Republican’s campaign contributions have come from donors who gave less than $200 — down from nearly half of all donations in his 2020 race, according to an analysis by The Associated Press and OpenSecrets, an organization that tracks political spending.

The total collected from small donors has also declined, according to the analysis. Trump raised $98 million from such contributors through June, a 40% drop compared to the $165 million they contributed during a corresponding period in his previous presidential race.

The dip has forced Trump to rely more on wealthy donors and groups backed by them, a shift that cuts into the populist message that first propelled him to the White House. The decline in donations could not come at a worse time for Trump. Democrats have raised massive sums from small-dollar donors this cycle. President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris have raised a staggering $285 million from such donors since April 2023, representing more than 40% of their fundraising, according to data from OpenSecrets.

GOP operatives said the trend could portend trouble for the broader party. Trump’s fundraising dip raises questions about the party’s ability to continue tapping its aging base for funds. Such voters often live on fixed incomes and don’t have the extra cash to contribute to candidates, and polls have consistently found that the Republican base is growing older.

Republicans also engaged in a hyperaggressive — often combative — style of digital fundraising that is alienating voters, the operatives said. Campaigns and committees often share or rent lists of donors to each other, leading to voters being flooded with similar solicitations that can be confusing.

“Republican vendors have so mistreated our donors that many grassroots donors don’t want to give to us anymore,” said John Hall, a Republican fundraising consultant and partner at Apex Strategies. “If you make a donation to almost any Republican candidate today, within three weeks you are going to start getting 30-50 text messages from other candidates you have never heard of before.”

In a poll of thousands of Republican donors earlier this year, Apex Strategies found 72% of Republican donors said they continued to receive text message solicitations after they had requested to be removed from a list.

“Donors feel like they are never thanked, they feel abused, and they don’t know how to get off lists,” Hall said. “This has a chilling effect on everyone’s fundraising.”

Small-dollar donors are frustrated

Small-dollar donors echoed Hall’s concerns. They told the AP they stopped giving to Trump’s campaign because they were tired of being barraged with solicitations for donations from other Republicans, who presumably got the donor information from the Trump campaign. Others said they were being more careful about their political giving due to financial struggles.

“I am sick of them asking for money,” said Susan Brito, 51, of Florida, who gave dozens of small donations totaling $69 in 2022 and 2023 but hasn’t contributed this year. ”I am disabled, you are sending me text, after text, after text.”

Bill Ruggio, 70, donated nearly every month, a total of $60, to Trump’s campaign over 2022 and 2023. He hasn’t contributed anything this year, saying he doesn’t have the extra cash and is deeply frustrated by a barrage of text messages he receives from the Republican candidates and committees.

“I don’t even look at my texts anymore during the political season. It is just so many that I miss personal ones because there are so many of the political ones,” Ruggio said. “It kind of sticks in your craw.”

Doug Deeken, the Republican Party chair in Wayne County, Ohio, said such complaints are fairly common.

“People get annoyed by the text messages, and the direct mail, and the emails, Deeken said, his phone filled with texts from random conservative groups asking for money. “It is annoying. It annoys me!”

Trump campaign blames Harris for drop-off

Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, did not directly respond to the donor drop-off, but blamed the Biden administration and Harris for a bad economy leading people to have less money, something “President Trump completely understands.”

Before Trump, Democrats dominated the small-dollar donor playing field, but Trump cut into the advantage in 2016, turning his devoted base into small donations throughout the year. Trump raised $170 million from small-dollar donors, about 52% of his total, according to OpenSecrets. The candidate’s haul from small donors outpaced the $164 million that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton raised from such contributors, a figure that represented just under 30% of her total fundraising. In 2020, Trump continued that fundraising prowess.

The problem this year, said Republican officials and activists in key states, is that the persistent fundraising requests from campaigns and committees have led voters to question whether their money is actually going to Trump. One reason for this issue is major email lists being rented out by smaller campaigns. This means that someone who has signed up to receive emails from Trump, could get emails from a host of Republican candidates, raising skepticism about where their money is actually going.

“It’s the total number of texts people are getting and fundraising requests that are coming in. That causes the confusion,” said Shannon Burns, a top Republican activist in Ohio and vocal Trump supporter. Burns said donors feel “bombarded” by the often breathless outreach from a range of groups, leading to questions from Trump supporters. Those questions were so frequent, he said, that at one point he began giving out the physical mailing address where a Trump supporter could send a check.

Trump’s campaign has tried to stop committees from using his name and likeness in fundraising appeals.

In March 2023, the Trump campaign sent Republican digital fundraising vendors a memo that stated the former president “does not consent” to outside groups or candidates using his name or image in fundraising appeals. He also sent a cease and desist letter to the top Republican committees in Washington in 2021, urging them to stop using his name in fundraising appeals.

Still supporting Trump at the ballot box

Trump has experienced spikes in small-dollar fundraising this cycle — like in the days after his felony conviction in May and when a gunman attempted to assassinate the candidate in July. But those jolts have not made up for a steady decline in donations from people like Stephen Buckhalter.

Buckhalter, 78, retired from the insurance industry a year ago and donated $120 to Trump’s campaign in 2022 and 2023. He stopped this year.

“The cost of living has gotten to the point where there is not much left at the end of the month,” he said. “When you are paying all this extra money for food and gas and insurance and rent… that doesn’t leave a lot of extra money coming in at the end of the month.”

When asked if his decision to stop donating indicates he no longer supports Trump, Buckhalter was blunt: “Heck no.”

Dan Merica, Aaron Kessler And Richard Lardner, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. inflation last month likely reached its lowest point since February 2021, clearing the way for another Federal Reserve rate cut and adding to the stream of encouraging economic data that has emerged in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.

The consumer price index is expected to have risen just 2.3% in September from 12 months earlier, down from the 2.5% year-over-year increase in August, according to economists surveyed by FactSet, a data provider. A reading that low, likely reflecting lower gas prices and only a slight rise in food costs, would barely exceed the Fed’s 2% inflation target. A little over two years ago, inflation had reached a peak of 9.1%.

Measured month over month, consumer prices are thought to have risen a scant 0.1% from August to September, down from a 0.2% increase the previous month.

The improving inflation data follows a mostly healthy jobs report released last week, which showed that hiring accelerated in September and that the unemployment rate dropped from 4.2% to 4.1%. The government has also reported that the economy expanded at a solid 3% annual rate in the April-June quarter. And growth likely continued at roughly that pace in the just-completed July-September quarter.

Cooling inflation, steady hiring and solid growth could erode former President Donald Trump’s advantage on the economy in the presidential campaign as measured by public opinion polls. In some surveys, Vice President Kamala Harris has pulled even with Trump on the issue of who would best handle the economy, after Trump had decisively led President Joe Biden on the issue.

At the same time, most voters still give the economy relatively poor marks, mostly because of the cumulative rise in prices over the past three years.

For the Fed, last week’s much-stronger-than-expected jobs report fueled some concern that the economy might not be cooling enough to slow inflation sufficiently. The central bank reduced its key rate by an outsized half-point last month, its first rate cut of any size in four years. The Fed’s policymakers also signaled that they envisioned two additional quarter-point rate cuts in November and December.

In remarks this week, a slew of Fed officials have said they’re still willing to keep cutting their key rate, but at a deliberate pace, a sign any further half-point cuts are unlikely.

The Fed “should not rush to reduce” its benchmark rate “but rather should proceed gradually,” Lorie Logan president of the Federal Reserve’s Dallas branch, said in a speech Wednesday.

Inflation in the United States and many countries in Europe and Latin America surged in the economic recovery from the pandemic, as COVID closed factories and clogged supply chains. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine worsened energy and food shortages, pushing inflation higher. It peaked at 9.1% in the U.S. in June 2022.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core prices likely rose 0.3% from August to September, according to FactSet, and are probably 3.2% above their level a year earlier. Though such a figure would be faster than is consistent with the Fed’s 2% target, economists expect core inflation to cool a bit by year’s end as rental and housing prices grow more slowly.

Economists at Goldman Sachs, for example, project that core inflation will drop to 3% by December 2024. Few analysts expect inflation to surge again unless conflicts in the Middle East worsen dramatically.

Though higher prices have soured many Americans on the economy, wages and incomes are now rising faster than costs and should make it easier for households to adapt. Last month, the Census Bureau reported that inflation-adjusted median household incomes — the level at which half of households are above and half below — rose 4% in 2023, enough to return incomes back to their pre-pandemic peak.

In response to higher food prices, many consumers have shifted their spending from name brands to private labels or have started shopping more at discount stores. Those changes have put more pressure on packaged foods companies, for example, to slow their price hikes.

This week, PepsiCo reported that its sales volumes fell after it imposed steep price increases on its drinks and snacks.

“The consumer is reassessing patterns,” Ramon Laguarta, CEO of PepsiCo, said Tuesday.

Christopher Rugaber, The Associated Press

MANLIUS, N.Y. (AP) — Elegant white swans have an outsize presence in this upstate New York village measuring less than 2 square miles. Their likeness is on village flags, community centers and welcome signs. “Swan Fest” is celebrated each fall.

Residents say it’s hard to imagine Manlius without the mute swans that have inhabited a pond in the village center for more than 100 years. Until recently, they didn’t have to.

But the violent killing of one of the village’s swans in 2023 set off a battle with regulators that is forcing Manlius to make a difficult decision about the birds’ future: it’s put the village that wants to keep them at odds with a state that views them as trouble.

By the end of the year, Manlius must choose: Keep its four existing mute swans but sterilize them, or retain only two of the same sex. Either option would end the village’s annual tradition of watching the swans hatch and raise cygnets, and could signal the beginning of the end of their presence in Manlius altogether.

“I don’t think they understand how important it is to this village,” said Mayor Paul Whorrall, a lifelong resident who as a boy passed the swans on his paper route and is loath to see them go under his watch. “If you take away the swans, you’re taking away a lot of the identity of the village.”

In recent years, New York has moved to limit the number of mute swans within its borders, managing them as an invasive species whose numbers have grown since they were brought over from Europe in the late 1800s. Before escaping or being released into the wild, the majestic birds with long curved necks beautified ponds on private estates in the lower Hudson Valley and on Long Island, where most of the swans — an estimated 2,200 — are still concentrated.

But the Department of Environmental Conservation says the huge birds disrupt ecosystems, degrade water quality with their waste and eat as much as 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) of submerged vegetation daily. With wingspans of nearly 7 feet (2.1 meters) and weighing 20 to 25 pounds (9 to 11 kilograms), the swans have also had aggressive run-ins with people and displaced native wildlife.

Under a 2019 management plan, mute swans can only be possessed with DEC authorization.

Manlius had a license that was supposed to last through 2025, allowing it to uphold what had been the status quo: a pair of adult swans named Manny and Faye lived in the pond and each spring hatched cygnets, which were eventually transferred out of state before they were old enough to reproduce.

That all changed last year, when police say three Syracuse teenagers climbed a fence and took Faye and her four cygnets. The teens decapitated Faye, brought her to a relative to cook and ate her, police said. The babies were recovered and returned to the pond, but Manny behaved aggressively toward them and was sent to live in Pennsylvania.

Now, the four young swans, two male and two female, are the only ones in the pond.

That means Manlius no longer meets the terms of its license, which specifies that it possess two adult swans. A revised license allowing the village to have the four swans will run out at the end of this year.

With no chance that baby mute swans will come along, residents fear that the current options offered by DEC officials — sterilize all four or keep only one sex — will be the end of mute swans in Manlius. The agency has suggested breeding similar trumpeter swans instead, an option many oppose.

“I see no reason not to let them live here,” said village resident Martha Ballard Lacy, 89, who became enamored with Manny and Faye on her daily walks around the Manlius Swan Pond. Lacy frequently photographed the pair, which had been at the pond since 2010, as they tended to a nest of eggs.

“The town loves having a place to come to and identify themselves with something that’s been here for 100 years,” Lacy said.

The state has long wrestled with what to do about mute swans. In 2013, the DEC announced a goal of eliminating free-ranging mute swans in New York by 2025, but its plans to shoot or euthanize them and destroy their eggs drew public outcry.

Revisions followed and in 2019, the agency finalized its latest plan that, instead of elimination, aims to stabilize or reduce their numbers by nonlethal means like egg-addling — stopping fertilized eggs from developing — although the plan allows for killing swans that can’t be captured or relocated in some circumstances.

Whorrall doesn’t dispute that mute swans are problematic elsewhere. But he says disrupting the ones in Manlius will do nothing to solve the problem. The village’s swans are contained to the fenced-in pond where they have shelter and a specialized diet of vegetation and feed.

On a recent afternoon, a resident tossed cracked corn through the fence as the swans bobbed upside down to retrieve it.

“They really are fun to see, and families come and stop by,” Lacy said.

With the Dec. 31 deadline approaching, Whorrall said the village wants to maintain the status quo, saying leaders have done everything the state has asked, including installing educational displays at the pond. The village even agreed to sterilize any baby swans before removing them if it would save the breeding tradition, Whorrall said, but the DEC rescinded the option after raising it.

In a statement, the DEC said it “continues to work closely with the village of Manlius to ensure its possession of swans is wholly consistent with New York State and Atlantic flyway management objectives” outlined in a 17-state agreement to reduce the ecological impacts of the swans.

Village residents say the situation has made Faye’s death even more painful.

“People are going to cause crimes and and unfortunately that’s part of life, and you’ve got to just do what you can to move on,” Whorrall said. “And that’s what we’re doing, we’re trying to move on. And they’re making it hard to move on.”

Carolyn Thompson, The Associated Press

Multiple powerful tornadoes ripped across Florida hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall Wednesday, tearing off roofs, overturning vehicles and sucking debris into the air as the black V-shaped columns moved through.

Deaths were reported in St. Lucie County on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, but local authorities did not specify how many residents had been killed.

By Wednesday evening, more than 130 tornado warnings associated with Milton had been issued by National Weather Services offices in Florida.

The appearance of tornadoes before and during hurricanes isn’t unusual, scientists say, but the twisters’ ferocity was.

“It’s definitely out of the ordinary,” said Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini. “Hurricanes do produce tornadoes, but they’re usually weak. What we saw today was much closer to what we see in the Great Plains in the spring.”

Tornadoes spawned by hurricanes and tropical storms most often occur in the right-front quadrant of the storm, but sometimes they can also take place near the storm’s eyewall, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The heat and humidity present in the atmosphere during such storms and changes in wind direction or speed with height, known as wind shear, contribute to their likelihood.

“There’s an incredible amount of swirling going on,” Gensini said of the conditions that allowed for the twisters to grow. “Those tornadoes were just in a very favorable environment.”

The warming of the oceans by climate change is making hurricanes more intense, but Gensini said he did not know of any connection between human-caused warming and the deadly tornadoes that Floridians experienced with Milton.

Approximately 12.6 million people in the state were facing potential exposure under a National Weather Service tornado advisory in place until Wednesday night.

Videos posted to Reddit and other social media sites showed large funnel clouds over neighborhoods in Palm Beach County and elsewhere in the state.

Luke Culver, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami, said he wasn’t sure whether Milton had spawned a record number of tornados, but he pointed out that only 64 Florida tornado warnings were associated with Hurricane Ian, which hit the Tampa Bay area as a massive storm in 2022.

Florida has more tornadoes per square mile than any other state. But they’re usually not as severe as those in Midwest and Plains. However, a big outburst of powerful twisters killed 42 people and injured over 260 in Central Florida in the space of a few hours in February 1998.

___

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Suman Naishadham, The Associated Press

Winnipeg sports teams are embracing artificial intelligence for their security solutions, as a security expert warns about the technology's effectiveness.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Republican former baseball star Steve Garvey is making a late-hour push for Latino support in his longshot U.S. Senate campaign against Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff for the California seat long held by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

The low-key contest has been largely overlooked nationally in a year when control of the Senate will turn on a handful of competitive races, including in Ohio, Michigan and Nevada. Republicans are outnumbered by Democrats in California by a staggering margin – nearly 2-to-1 statewide – and a GOP candidate hasn’t won a Senate race in the state since 1988.

Voting is already underway — mail-in ballots went out to each of the state’s 22 million voters no later than Oct. 7.

Schiff, 64, has recently displayed outward confidence, traveling to Pennsylvania and Ohio to campaign on behalf of other Democratic Senate candidates. With California considered a secure seat for Democrats, he has plans to campaign for Democratic candidates in battleground states in the next month and also has raised money for national Democrats.

If the race has lacked drama, it nonetheless represents a turning point in California politics, which was long dominated by Feinstein, former U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, former Gov. Jerry Brown and a handful of other veteran Democratic politicians. The matchup also means that California won’t have a woman in the Senate for the first time in more than three decades.

Garvey announced last week he planned to spend $5 million on advertising in the run-up to Election Day aimed at the Latino community, including a TV spot in Spanish, the campaign’s first statewide ad. It hits on familiar themes for Garvey, including inflation and gas prices, crime and the state’s notoriously high taxes.

It’s not clear how much good it will do to change the trajectory of a lopsided race in which Schiff has held an edge in polling and campaign finances. The last time a Republican candidate won a statewide race in California was in 2006, nearly two decades ago, underscoring the Democratic advantage.

The race has loosely followed the contours of the national fight for Congress.

Schiff has warned of GOP threats to abortion rights, after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 stripped away women’s constitutional protections for abortion, and the potential return of former President Donald Trump to the White House. Schiff, a longtime Trump foil, calls the former president a threat to democracy.

Garvey, who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres and was National League MVP in 1974, has hammered Schiff and Democratic leadership for soaring grocery and housing prices, a long-running homeless crisis and other qualify of life concerns in a state that has seen its once-booming population drop in recent years.

Trump figured prominently at a prickly and probably little-watched debate this week, in which Schiff depicted Garvey as a Trump acolyte cloaked in a baseball uniform, while Garvey suggested Schiff was obsessed with Washington partisan politics while ignoring pressing California problems back home.

One Schiff ad recalls the Jan. 6, 2021 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol and the Trump impeachment. “When our democracy was in danger, he stood up,” a narrator says.

Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney said Democrats are likely to benefit from an elevated turnout in a presidential election year, with Vice President Kamala Harris, a former California U.S. senator and attorney general, leading the party’s ticket. He noted that state Republicans have struggled for years to enlist viable candidates for marquee offices — voters could choose from only two Democrats for U.S. Senate in the 2016 and 2018 general elections. Garvey, while known to an older generation of baseball fans, would probably be a cypher to many younger voters.

Given California’s political tilt, Garvey’s chances of pulling off a surprise on Election Day “are about equal to my chances of becoming Pope,” Pitney said.

Feinstein, a centrist Democrat who was elected to the Senate in 1992, died at 90 in September 2023. Laphonza Butler, a Democratic insider and former labor leader, was appointed to the seat following Feinstein’s death and decided not to seek a full term this year.

Michael R. Blood, The Associated Press

John Roston, the co-ordinator of the Richmond Rental Housing Advocacy Group, said that the number of housing investors operating in Metro Vancouver is squeezing out working families in the region.