13 Aug 2024

Trump and Musk talk about assassination attempt and deportations during glitchy chat on X

by admin | posted in: Politics | 0

Donald Trump recounted his assassination attempt in vivid detail and promised the largest deportation in U.S. history during a high-profile return to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter — a conversation that was plagued by technical glitches.

“If I had not turned my head, I would not be talking to you right now — as much as I like you,” Trump told X’s owner Elon Musk.

Musk, a former Trump critic, said the Republican nominee’s toughness, as demonstrated by his reaction to last month’s shooting, was critical for national security.

“There’s some real tough characters out there,” Musk said. “And if they don’t think the American president is tough, they will do what they want to do.”

The rare public conversation between Trump and Musk, which was overwhelmingly friendly, revealed little that’s new about Trump’s plans for a second term. The former president spent much of the conversation discussing his recent assassination attempt and illegal immigration.

Still, the meeting underscored just how much the U.S. political landscape has changed less than four years after Trump was permanently banned by the social media platform’s former leadership for spreading disinformation that sparked the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress and undermined the very foundation of the American democracy.

Such disinformation has thrived at X under Musk’s leadership.

The session was also intended to serve as a way for the former president to reach potentially millions of voters directly. It was also an opportunity for X, a platform that relies heavily on politics, to redeem itself after some struggles.

It did not begin as planned.

With more than 878,000 users connected to the conversation more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time, the interview had not yet begun. Many users received a message reading, “Details not available.”

Trump’s team posted that the “interview on X is being overwhelmed with listeners logging in.” And once the meeting began, Musk apologized for the late start and blamed a “massive attack” that overwhelmed the company’s system.

Trump supporters were openly frustrated.

“Not available????? I planned my whole day around this,” wrote conservative commentator Glenn Beck.

“Please let Elon know we can’t join,” billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posted.

Ahead of his conversation, Musk posted on the platform that X was conducting “some system scaling tests” to handle what’s anticipated to be a high volume of participants.

The rocky start was reminiscent of a May 2023 social media conversation between Musk and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Republican governor was using the social media platform as a way to officially announce his presidential bid, a disastrous rollout marred by technical glitches, overloaded by the more than 400,000 people who tried to dial in.

Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, noted that Trump mocked DeSantis at the time.

“Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!” Trump wrote in a message reposted by Harris’ campaign Monday.

Monday’s meeting also highlighted the evolving personal relationship between Trump and Musk, two of the world’s most powerful men, who have shifted from being bitter rivals to unlikely allies over the span of one election season.

Musk, who has described himself as a Democrat until a few years ago, suggested in 2022 that Trump was too old to be president again. Still, Musk formally endorsed Trump two days after his assassination attempt last month.

The tech CEO had already been working privately to support a pro-Trump super PAC. The group, known as America PAC, is now under investigation by election officials for alleged misleading attempts to collect data from voters.

Meanwhile, Trump has softened his criticism of electric vehicles, citing Musk’s leadership of Tesla. And on Monday, at least, Trump returned to Musk’s social media platform in force. The former president made at least eight individual posts in the hours leading up to the Musk interview.

Long before he endorsed Trump, Musk turned increasingly toward the right in his posts and actions on the platform, also using X to try to sway political discourse around the world. He’s gotten in a dustup with a Brazilian judge over censorship, railed against what he calls the “woke mind virus” and amplified false claims that Democrats are secretly flying in migrants to vote in U.S. elections.

Musk has also reinstated previously banned accounts such as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Trump, who was kicked off the platform — then known as Twitter — two days after the Jan. 6 violence, with the company citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” By November 2022, Musk had bought the company, and Trump’s account was reinstated, although the former president refrained from tweeting until Monday, insisting that he was happier on his own Truth Social site, which he launched during the ban.

Trump’s audience on X is legions larger than on Truth Social, which became a publicly traded company earlier this year. Trump has just over 7.5 million followers on Truth Social, while his mostly dormant X account is followed by 88 million. Musk’s account, which hosted the interview, has more than 193 million followers.

In a reminder that the world was watching, the chat prompted a preemptive note of caution from Europe.

Thierry Breton, a French business executive and commissioner for internal market of the European Union, warned Musk of possible “amplification of harmful content” by broadcasting his interview with Trump. In a letter posted on X, Breton urged Musk to “ensure X’s compliance” with EU law, including the Digital Services Act, adopted in 2022 to address a number of issues including disinformation.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung urged the EU to “mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the U.S. Presidential election.” He said the EU was “an enemy of free speech and has no authority of any kind to dictate how we campaign.”

___

Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.

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13 Aug 2024

Twins gain some breathing room with 8-3 victory over Royals

by admin | posted in: News | 0

After splitting a four-game series against the team ahead of them in the American League Central Division standings, the Twins started a three-game set against the division rival breathing down their necks.

And created a little space.

Willi Castro and Royce Lewis hit home runs in a six-run second inning off Kansas City starter Brady Singer, and Pablo Lopez gave Minnesota a quality start for the fourth time in five appearances as the Twins beat the Royals, 8-3, in front of 22,173 on Monday night at Target Field.

Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Pablo Lopez throws to the Kansas City Royals in the second inning of a baseball game Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)

With the victory, the Twins remained 3½ games behind first-place Cleveland and moved 1½ games ahead of Kansas City for the second AL wild card spot with 44 regular-season games to go.

Castro tied his career high with his ninth home run, a three-run shot off of Singer with two out in the second. After Trevor Larnach drew a walk, Lewis hit his 15th homer of the season, a rocket off the ribbon board in left, to make it 6-2.

Lopez (11-8) was charged with three runs, two earned, on six hits. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out five.

Austin Martin and Matt Wallner added run-scoring singles, and Manny Margot — who replaced Byron Buxton in center field in the sixth inning, hit a sacrifice fly off reliever Carlos Hernandez to make it 8-3 in the seventh.

Buxton left with what the Twins were calling right hip discomfort and is considered day to day.

The Royals jumped to an early lead on Bobby Witt Jr.’s one-out solo home run off Lopez in the first, and took a 2-0 lead when Kyle Isbel hit a two-out single to right that scored Adam Frazier, who had reached on a fielder’s choice, in the second.

The Twins, however, roared back in their half of the inning. After Buxton lined out to left, and Max Kepler struck out swinging, the Twins sent six straight players to the plate against Singer (8-8).

Carlos Santana walked, and Ryan Jeffers singled him to second. Austin Martin’s single to right scored Santana, and leadoff hitter Castro followed with his three-run shot into the home run porch in right to make it 4-2.

Larnach followed with a single up the middle, and Lewis finished an eight-pitch at-bat with a two-run home run for a 6-2 lead.

After that offensive outburst, Lopez settled down, retiring nine of the next 11 batters he faced, allowing Isbel’s one-out double and then hitting Witt Jr. in the triceps with two out in the fifth.

Singer was charged with six earned runs on eight hits and two walks. He fanned nine.

The Royals got one back in the top of the sixth. MJ Melendez doubled to center with one out and scored on Frazier’s two-out single to right to cut Minnesota’s lead to 6-3.

The Twins added two runs in the eighth off Carlos Hernandez. Larnach walked to start the inning and scored on Wallner’s single. Lewis, who reached on an error by Witt Jr., scored from third on Margot’s sac fly.

Scott Blewett pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for Minnesota.

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13 Aug 2024

North Dakota voters to weigh in again on marijuana legalization

by admin | posted in: Society | 0

BISMARCK, N.D. — A ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana in North Dakota has qualified for the November election, the state’s top election official said Monday. That sets up another vote on the issue in the conservative state after voters and lawmakers rejected previous efforts in recent years.

North Dakota Secretary of State Michael Howe said nearly 19,000 signatures were accepted after his office’s review, several thousand more than was needed to earn placement on the ballot. The group that sponsored the measure, New Economic Frontier, had submitted more than 22,000 signatures in early July.

Measure leader Steve Bakken, a Burleigh County commissioner and former Bismarck mayor, said law enforcement resources would be better directed at opioids and fentanyl than marijuana. The initiative also is an effort to head off any out-of-state measure that might have unmanageable results, he said.

The 20-page statutory measure would legalize recreational marijuana for people 21 and older to use at their homes and, if permitted, on others’ private property. The measure also outlines numerous production and processing regulations, prohibited uses — such as in public or in vehicles — and would allow home cultivation of plants.

The measure would set maximum purchase and possession amounts of 1 ounce of dried leaves or flowers, 4 grams of a cannabinoid concentrate, 1,500 milligrams of total THC in the form of a cannabis product and 300 milligrams of an edible product. It would allow cannabis solutions, capsules, transdermal patches, concentrates, topical and edible products.

Marijuana use by people under 21 is a low-level misdemeanor in North Dakota. Recreational use by anyone older is not a crime — but possessing it is, with penalties varying from an infraction to misdemeanors depending on the amount of marijuana. Delivery of any amount of marijuana is a felony, which can be elevated depending on certain factors, such as if the offense was within 300 feet (91 meters) of a school.

In 2023, 4,451 people statewide were charged with use or possession of marijuana, according to North Dakota Courts data requested by The Associated Press.

North Dakota voters approved medical marijuana in 2016 but rejected recreational initiatives in 2018 and 2022. In 2021, the Republican-led state House of Representatives passed bills to legalize and tax recreational marijuana, which the GOP-majority Senate defeated.

Republican state Rep. Matt Ruby, who was a member of the sponsoring committee, said in a statement that the priority now will be to tell voters about the economic growth opportunities, the more effective approach to regulation and easier access to medical marijuana.

“Our goal now is to educate voters on why we believe this to be a great step forward for our state,” he said.

The Brighter Future Alliance, an organization opposed to the measure, said in a statement that the supporters “won’t take no for an answer” after multiple defeats.

“The people of North Dakota soundly rejected the idea of recreational marijuana in 2018 and 2022, but here they are again,” said Patrick Finken, the group’s chair.

Burleigh County Sheriff Kelly Leben pointed to “detrimental impacts” in states where recreational marijuana is legal, saying, “Legalized marijuana increases crime, increases DUIs and increases illegal drug trafficking of harder drugs. In fact, with more users, illegal sales increase, not decrease.”

Twenty-four states have legalized recreational marijuana for adults. Ohio did so most recently, by initiative in November 2023. Measures will be on the ballot in Florida and South Dakota in November.

In May, the federal government began a process to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

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13 Aug 2024

Hastings man dies in single-vehicle crash on St. Paul’s U.S. 61

by admin | posted in: News | 0

A driver died after his vehicle went off a highway, into a center median ditch and struck a tree in St. Paul, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

The 53-year-old from Hastings was heading north on U.S. 61 near Lower Afton Road when the crash happened about 4:30 a.m. Monday. The man was not wearing a seatbelt, the State Patrol said. He died at the scene.

The State Patrol plans to release the man’s name in the coming days.

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