Loons leader Khaled El-Ahmad’s goal this summer: “Strengthen the team”

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Minnesota United’s current roster of 26 players needs not only replenishment but proven difference makers.

The summer transfer window, which opens next week, puts Loons Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad in the spotlight to make his first full round of adjustments. El-Ahmad, who arrived in Minnesota in late January, had a truncated first attempt at adding to the roster before the season started and through the primary transfer window into April.

El-Ahmad has since had 22 matches (65% of the season) to understand his team — both its potential in a club-record start to the season and its shortcomings in its current club-record six-match losing streak. El-Ahmad has been encouraged by the “resilience” of the team despite a recent skid which has pushed the Loons (8-9-5, 29 points) to 10th place and out of the nine-team Western Conference playoff field.

“My strategy towards this window was the same: it’s to strengthen the team and evaluate and try to be as proactive as we can within the means that we have. And the needs that we need to address,” El-Ahmad said in a wide-ranging interview on Wednesday.

How that pans out for the Loons is yet to be seen. It could range from Designated Players to next tier additions using Targeted Allocation Money to Under-22 Initiative signings and squad players.

El-Ahmad has been more active in moving on from current players than bringing new ones in, including selling two-time MLS All-Star midfielder Emanuel Reynoso to Club Tijuana in Mexico in May, and in June, versatile player Kervin Arriaga to Partizan in Serbia and the underwhelming center back Victor Eriksson to Hammarby in Sweden.

El-Ahmad said the Loons tried this season to extend Arriaga’s contract, which expired at season’s end, after he had performed well in a position switch to center back. But the 26-year-old sought a new challenge in Europe.

MNUFC had an outside offer for Arriaga last season, but El-Ahmad said they got a larger transfer fee for Arriaga this year: $500,000.

“We sold for profit,” El-Ahmad said. “I think it might be the first sale for profit, I’ll say in a long time, because I don’t know historically (at MNUFC). I said it from the beginning, I also want us to be a club that can develop and move players on. The other alternative is (Arriaga) would have left for free (after the season).”

The Loons have previously made one signing for the summer: attacker Samuel Shashoua through the 2024 season, with two club options for 2025-26. He has been training with MNUFC since early June and will be eligible for his first match on July 20 vs. San Jose.

The MLS summer transfer window opens next Thursday, July 18, and closes Aug. 14.

This story will be revised.

Briefly

Captain center back Michael Boxall has been called into the New Zealand team for the Summer Olympics in France. He will remain with Loons for next three MLS matches through July 20 and then head to France. The Kiwis have three group-stage matches: versus Guinea in Nice on July 25; against USA in Marseille on July 28 and versus France in Marseille on July 31. The Loons play two Leagues Cup matches during that span: against Seattle Sounders on July 26 and they host Necaxa on July 30. … Goalkeeper Clint Irwin (groin) returned to the open portion of training on Wednesday. … Right back DJ Taylor (hamstring) might be out a month after subbing out of the 2-1 loss to L.A. Galaxy on Sunday.

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In swing-state Pennsylvania, a Latino-majority city embraces a chance to sway the 2024 election

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By LUIS ANDRES HENAO Associated Press

READING, Pa. (AP) — Religion and politics frequently overlap in Reading, an old industrial city in one of the most pivotal swing states of this year’s presidential election.

In Pennsylvania, there is early precedent for this kind of thing. The state began as a haven for Quakers and other European religious minorities fleeing persecution. That includes the parents of Daniel Boone, the national folk hero born just miles from Reading, a town where the Latino population is now the majority.

Today, the Catholic mayor is also a migrant — and the first Latino to hold the office in Reading’s 276-year history. Mayor Eddie Moran is keenly aware of the pivotal role Pennsylvania could play in the high-stakes race, when a few thousand votes in communities like his could decide the future of the United States.

“Right now, with the growing Latino population and the influx of Latinos moving into cities such as Reading, it’s definitely an opportunity for the Latino vote to change the outcome of an election,” Moran says. “It’s not a secret anymore.”

A community of spirituality — and Latinos

In Reading, the sky is dotted with crosses atop church steeples, one after the other. Catholic church pews fill up on Sundays and many stand for the services. Elsewhere, often in nondescript buildings, evangelical and Pentecostal congregations gather to sing, pray and sometimes speak in tongues.

Outside, salsa, merengue and reggaeton music (often sung in Spanglish) blast from cars and houses along city streets first mapped out by William Penn’s sons — and that now serve a thriving downtown packed with restaurants proudly owned by Latinos.

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This is a place where, when the mayor is told that his town is 65% Latino, he takes pride in saying: “It’s more like 70%.”

They believe in their political sway. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that eight in 10 Latino registered voters say their vote can make a difference.

On a recent Sunday, Luis Hernandez, 65, born in Puerto Rico, knelt to pray near the altar at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church. Later, walking out after Mass, Hernandez said he’ll vote for Trump — even on the very day of the former president’s criminal convictions related to hush money for a porn star.

“Biden is old,” Hernandez says, and then reflects on how Trump is only a few years younger. “Yes, but you look at Trump and you see the difference. … Biden’s a good man. He’s decent. But he’s too old.”

In the weeks after he spoke, many more Americans would join in calls for Biden to withdraw from the race after his debate debacle, which crystallized growing concerns that, at 81, he’s too old.

Immigration is a key topic on people’s lips

It’s not just about Biden’s age or debate performance. It’s also, Hernandez says, about the border crisis. He says too many immigrants are arriving in the United States, including some he considers criminals. And, he adds, so much has changed since his Dominican-born father arrived in the 1960s — when, he says, it was easier to enter and stay in America.

For some, there are other issues as well.

“It’s the economy, immigration and abortion,” says German Vega, 41, a Dominican American who became a U.S. citizen in 2015. Vega, who describes himself as “pro-life,” voted for Trump in 2020 and plans to do so again in November.

“Biden doesn’t know what he’s saying. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and we have a country divided,” Vega says. Trump is “a person of character. … He looks confident. He never gives up; he’s always fighting for what he believes.”

Of course, there are some here who just don’t favor taking sides — except if it’s for Jesus. Listen to Pastor Alex Lopez, a Puerto Rican who cuts hair in a barber shop on the first floor of his home on Saturdays, and preaches on the second floor on Sundays.

“We’re neutral,” he says. “We just believe in God.”

A city with deep industrial roots resurges

Reading was once synonymous with iron and steel. Those industries cemented the creation of the Reading Railroad (an early stop on the Monopoly gameboard) that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution and became, in the late 19th century, one of the country’s major corporations.

Today, the city of about 95,000 people, 65 miles northwest of Philadelphia, has a fast-increasing population. However, it is one of the state’s poorest cities, with a median household income of about $44,000, compared to about $72,000 in Pennsylvania.

Reading is 67% Latino, according to U.S. Census figures, and home to high concentrations of people of Dominican and Puerto Rican heritage — as well as Colombians and Mexicans, who own restaurants and other businesses around town.

Political candidates are taking notice of Reading’s political and economic power. The 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania was decided by about 82,000 votes, and — according to the Pew Research Center — there are more than 600,000 eligible Latino voters in the state.

It’s true that Reading still leans mostly Democratic — Biden crushed Trump in the city by a margin of about 46 percentage points in 2020. However in that election, voting-age turnout in the city (about 35%) was significantly lower than the rest of the state (about 67%).

But the Trump campaign doesn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to turn it around. It recently teamed up with the Republican National Committee and Pennsylvania GOP to open a “Latino Americans for Trump” office in a red-brick building near the Democratic mayor’s downtown office.

Moran has made a plea to Biden and other Democrats to take notice and visit Reading before the election. It’s crucial, he says.

“I think that it’s still predominantly Democratic,” he says. “But the candidates need to come out and really explain that to the community.”

One development, Moran says, is that religious leaders are now less hesitant to get involved in politics.

“Things change, even for churches,” he says. Clergy “realize the importance that they hold as faith-based leaders and religious leaders and they’re making a call of action through their congregations.”

The message: Get out and vote

A few blocks from St. Peter’s, a crowd gathers inside First Baptist Church, which dates to the late 19th century.

In a sign of Reading’s changing demographics, the aging and shrinking congregation of white Protestants donated the building to Iglesia Jesucristo es el Rey (Church Jesus Christ is the King), a thriving Latino congregation of some 100 worshippers who have shared the building with First Baptist for nearly a decade.

Pastors Carol Pagan and her husband Jose, both from Puerto Rico, recently led prayer. At the end of the service, microphone in hand, the pastors encourage parishioners to vote in the election — irrespective of who they choose as the president.

“The right to vote is,” Carol Pagan says before her husband chimes in: “a civic responsibility.”

After the service, the congregation descends to the basement, where they share a traditional meal of chicken with rice and beans.

“I believe the principle of human rights have to do with both parties — or any party running,” Carol Pagan says. “I always think of the elderly, of the health system, of health insurance, and how it shouldn’t be so much about capitalism but more rights for all of us to be well.”

Both of the Pagans make clear that they won’t vote for Trump. They’re waiting, like others, for circumstances that might lead Biden to withdraw, so they can support another Democratic candidate.

“It’s our duty to shield that person with prayer — it doesn’t matter if that person is a Democrat or a Republican,” Carol Pagan says. “We owe them that.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Political ads on social media rife with misinformation and scams, new research finds

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By DAVID KLEPPER Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The online advertisement to Donald Trump supporters was clear enough: Click here, and receive a free Trump 2024 flag and a commemorative coin. All in exchange for taking a quick survey and providing a credit card number for the $5 shipping and handling.

“You’ll get two free gifts just by taking this quick poll in support of Trump,” says the ad’s narrator.

The ad — which has appeared on Facebook, YouTube and other platforms — didn’t mention the $80 charge that would later appear on credit card statements. Those that clicked were scammed.

Political advertisements on social media are one of the best ways for candidates to reach supporters and raise campaign cash. But as a new report from Syracuse University shows, weak regulations governing online ads and haphazard enforcement by tech companies also make ads a prime source for misleading information about elections — and a tantalizingly easy way for con artists to target victims.

“There is very little regulation on the platforms,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, the professor who led the research for the ElectionGraph Project at Syracuse University’s Institute for Democracy, Journalism & Citizenship. “It leaves the American public vulnerable to misinformation, disinformation and propaganda.”

Stromer’s research examined more than 2,200 groups on Facebook or Instagram that ran ads between September and May mentioning one of the presidential candidates. Combined, the ads cost nearly $19 million and were seen more than 1 billion times.

Data connected to the ads (and made public by Meta, Facebook’s owner) shows that both right- and left-leaning ads targeted older voters more than younger ones. Right-leaning ads were more likely to target men, progressive ads were more likely to target women.

Overall, conservative-leaning organizations bought more ads than progressive-leaning groups. Immigration was the top issue raised in right-leaning ads while the economy dominated progressive ads.

Many of the ads contained misleading information, or deepfake video and audio of celebrities supposedly crying during a speech by former First Lady Melania Trump. Stromer-Galley noted that falsehoods in ads about urban crime and immigration were especially common.

While most of the groups paying for the ads are legitimate, others seemed more interested in getting a user’s personal financial data than boosting any particular candidate. Using a partnership with the data science firm Neo4j, Stromer-Galley found that some of the pages shared common creators, or ran virtually identical ads. When one page disappeared — perhaps removed by Facebook moderators — another would pop up quickly to take its place.

Many of the pages sold Trump-related merchandise such as flags, hats, banners and coins or advertised fictitious investment schemes. The true motive, apparently, was to get a user’s credit card information.

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The ads promising a free Trump flag were placed by a group called Liberty Defender Group. Emails sent to several addresses listed for the company were not returned, and a phone number for a company representative could not be found. One website associated with the group has moved on from politics, and is now selling devices which claim to improve home energy efficiency.

Meta removed most of the network’s ads and pages earlier this year after researchers noticed their activity, but the ads are still visible on other platforms. The company says it prohibits scams or content that could interfere with the operation of an election and removes ads that violate the rules. In addition, the company urges its users not to click on suspicious links, or to hand over personal information to untrustworthy sources.

“Don’t answer messages asking for your password, social security number, or credit card information,” the company said.

The Trump campaign, which has no known ties to the network, did not respond to a message seeking comment.

The researchers at Syracuse were only able to study ads on Meta platforms because other companies do not make such information public. As a result, Stromer-Galley said the public is in the dark about the true amount of misinformation and scams spreading on social media.

Walker Art Center’s performance season includes everything from Nordic folk to London jazz

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Grammy winners Meshell Ndegeocello and Caroline Shaw, Nordic indie-folk trio Dreamers’ Circus and buzzy London jazz musician Shabaka Hutchings are among the artists booked for the Walker Art Center’s newly announced 2024-25 performing arts season.

The season, which was announced Wednesday, includes a series of music, dance and theatrical events, all of which take place in the McGuire Theater unless otherwise noted. For more details or to purchase tickets, see walkerart.org. Season highlights include:

Moor Mother: “The Great Bailout”: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 14, Camae Ayewa, aka Moor Mother, explores colonialism, slavery and commerce in Great Britain and their historical parallels in the United States in this musical piece performed by a hand-picked, seven-piece ensemble including Minneapolis musician Douglas Ewart.

“Tell it anyway, 2024”: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 4-5, a world premiere Walker commission from cross-disciplinary artist and MacArthur Fellow Ralph Lemon that examines issues of memory, race and impermanence.

Ontroerend Goed: “Fight Night”: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 10-11, Belgian theater collective Ontroerend Goed offers an interactive examination of free will and politics in which the actors’ fates hinge on a live vote from the audience.

Caroline Shaw and So Percussion: “Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part”: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 19, Grammy and Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw joins forces with the So Percussion quartet for an evening of rhythm and vocals drawn from their collaborative albums “Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part” and “Rectangles and Circumstance.”

WaxFactory: “Traces (after Sophie Calle)”: Oct. 28-Nov. 10, downtown Minneapolis: Co-created by Brooklyn theater artist Ivan Talijancic and Minnesota playwright Rachel Jendrzejewski, “Traces” is a roving theater piece that unfolds in real time across downtown Minneapolis. It’s based on the opus of French conceptual artist Sophie Calle and follows a fictional character through a series of public locations.

Nadia Beugre: “Quartiers Libre Revisited”: 8 p.m. Nov. 1-2, an expanded version of choreographer Nadia Beugre’s “Quartiers Libre (Free Rein),” seen on the Walker stage in 2012, features the artist alongside two performers from her home country of Cote d’Ivoire.

Choreographers’ Evening: 4 and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 30, now in its 52nd year, the Walker’s annual dance showcase celebrates Minnesota’s dance community with performances by a roster of local choreographers and movement artists.

Meshell Ndegeocello: “No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin”: 6:30 and 9 p.m. Dec. 7, The latest evolution of Grammy winner Meshell Ndegeocello’s study of writer and activist James Baldwin is based on her 2024 album of the same name, which marks its namesake’s 100th birthday.

Out There 2025: This annual festival highlights new innovations and radical approaches to theatrical live performance. It includes Forced Entertainment: “Exquisite Pain,” 7:30 p.m. Jan. 9-11; Edgar Arceneaux: “Boney Manilli,” 7:30 p.m. Jan. 23-25; Jaha Koo: “Cuckoo,” 7:30 p.m. Feb. 6-8; Autumn Knight: “New Work,” 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20-22.

Dreamers’ Circus: 7:30 p.m. March 4, hailing from Sweden and Denmark, the indie-folk trio Dreamers’ Circus bridges the gaps between the traditional and the contemporary through fiddle, accordion, piano, cittern and other instruments.

Shamel Pitts: “Tribe: Touch of Red”: 8 p.m. March 6-8, Northrop Auditorium: Choreographer Shamel Pitts created this piece featuring two fighters and onstage seating for the audience with scenic design by MacArthur Fellow Mimi Lien.

Shabaka Hutchings: 7:30 p.m. March 20, this Mercury Prize-nominated saxophonist has operated at the center of London’s new jazz scene for a decade. At the height of his acclaim, he set aside the saxophone and took up the flute, which he’ll play with a six-member ensemble.

Eiko Otake and Wen Hui: “What Is War,” 7:30 p.m. April 11-12, performance artist Eiko Otake and dance-theater artist Wen Hui join forces for the world premiere of this Walker commission. It explores how war has affected both performers’ lives, as Otake grew up in postwar Japan and Wen in China during the Cultural Revolution.

Tyshawn Sorey Trio and Greg Osby: 6:30 (Trio) and 9 p.m. (Trio and Osby) April 26, drummer and composer Tyshawn Sorey also acts as jazz archivist in his Walker debut. Alto saxophonist Greg Osby joins Sorey’s trio for the second set.

Deerhoof: 7:30 p.m. May 1, celebrated avant garde indie band Deerhoof celebrate 30 years together by performing one song from each of their 20 albums.

Mathew Janczewski: “Arena Dances: Only the perverse fantasy can still save us,” 7:30 p.m. May 16-17, Minnesota-based choreographer Mathew Janczewski examines the gender binary and asks how creative repression changes us in this world premiere Walker commission.

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