AP-GfK Poll: Hispanics, a group Trump vows to in over, give him a thumbs down
AP-GfK Poll: Hispanics, a group Trump vows to in over, give him a thumbs down
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Republican front-runner Donald Trump is widely unpopular among the nation’s Hispanics, a new AP-GfK poll finds, challenging the billionaire’s oft-repeated assertion that he will win the Hispanic vote if he becomes his party’s nominee.
The survey finds many of the Republican candidates running for president would probably struggle to win significant support among Hispanics in a general election. Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are their favorites, but even they are a hard sell, the poll suggests.
Even so, most in the field are unknown to enough Hispanics that they might have a shot at proving themselves.
That’s a particular struggle for Trump, who began his campaign for president by calling some immigrants from Mexico rapists and has vowed to deport all of the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally if he is elected president. Trump is viewed unfavorably by 72 percent of Hispanics, with 6 in 10 having a very unfavorable opinion of him, the AP-GfK poll finds. Only 11 percent view him favorably.
Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, the Hispanic civil rights advocacy group, said the findings are no surprise and “consistent from what we’ve heard from the community.”
Israeli premier orders review that could strip Jerusalem residency rights of some Palestinians
JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered a review of the status of certain Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, an official confirmed Monday, a decision that could potentially strip tens of thousands of Palestinians of their Israeli residency rights.
Such a move is unlikely to overcome Israeli legal hurdles, but the very prospect has unnerved Palestinians in the city. The review comes after weeks of Israeli-Palestinian violence, much of it concentrated in east Jerusalem, the section of the city claimed by the Palestinians for their future capital. Many of the Palestinian attackers involved in deadly assaults came from east Jerusalem neighborhoods. Any move to change the status of the city’s Palestinians would threaten unleashing new unrest and draw international condemnations.
The current round of violence began last month with clashes at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, a hilltop compound in the Old City that is revered by Jews and Muslims. The clashes quickly spread to other areas of east Jerusalem, across Israel and into the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In all, 10 Israelis have been killed, mostly in stabbings, while 52 Palestinians, including 30 identified by Israel as attackers, have been killed by Israeli fire. Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem have experienced frequent clashes between stone-throwing youths and Israeli security forces.
The Israeli official said that Netanyahu recently ordered a review of Palestinian neighborhoods located outside of Israel’s West Bank separate barrier. Roughly-one third of the city’s Palestinian population, about 100,000 people, live outside the barrier.
Israel captured east Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. It immediately annexed east Jerusalem as part of its capital in a move that has never been internationally recognized.
Boehner pushes last deal on budget, debt ceiling before exiting
WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker John Boehner is pressing ahead with one last deal as he heads for the exits, pushing to finalize a far-reaching, two-year budget agreement with President Barack Obama before handing Congress’ top job over to Rep. Paul Ryan this week, congressional officials said Monday.
The budget pact, in concert with a must-pass increase in the federal borrowing limit, would solve the thorniest issues awaiting Ryan, R-Wis., who is set to be elected speaker on Thursday. It would also take budget showdowns and government shutdown fights off the table until after the 2016 presidential election, a potential boon to Republican candidates who might otherwise face uncomfortable questions about messes in the GOP-led Congress.
Congress must raise the federal borrowing limit by Nov. 3 or risk a first-ever default, while money to pay for government operations runs out Dec. 11 unless Congress acts. The emerging framework would give both the Pentagon and domestic agencies two years of budget relief in exchange for cuts elsewhere in the budget.
The measure under discussion would suspend the current $18.1 trillion debt limit through March 2017. After that it would be reset by the Treasury Department to reflect borrowing over that time.
The emerging budget side of the deal resembles a pact that Ryan himself put together two years ago in concert with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that eased automatic spending cuts for the 2014-2015 budget years. A lot of conservatives disliked the measure and many on the GOP’s right flank are likely to oppose the new one, which would apply to the 2016-2017 budget years.
New way to bet on oil hands big money to Wall Street, big losses to ordinary investors
NEW YORK (AP) — When Karen Robinson’s husband died, she worried she wouldn’t have enough money to raise her two young girls and save for retirement.
Then she met a financial planner, Tom Parks, who told her about investment partnerships that would allow her to ride the boom in U.S. oil and gas production while receiving a steady stream of payments to help pay her bills.
“He showed me this picture of the United States, and said they were getting oil out of shale, and energy was the way to go,” says Robinson, a high school teacher from Cranfills Gap, Texas. She liked that Parks seemed so confident. “I trusted him.”
Two years later, her partnerships have plunged in value and Robinson has lost more than half of the $202,000 she invested, according to a complaint filed with regulators against Parks and his firm, Ameriprise Financial Services. Parks did not return phone calls and emails; Ameriprise declined to comment.
For years, brokers have been luring savers like Robinson into drilling partnerships with the promise of fat payouts. With yields on safer investments like government bonds so puny, it wasn’t a hard sell. But now this once hot business, a big source of fees for brokers and banks, is coming to a messy end.
Family stunts disabled daughter’s growth, has her womb removed, in a bid to improve her life
BALI, Indonesia (AP) — Whether Charley Hooper has any concept of the space she occupies in the world is an enigma.
She is so disabled that her mother considers her “unabled.” At 10, her brain is believed to function at the level of a newborn’s. She cannot speak, cannot walk, cannot see anything beyond light and dark and perhaps the shadowy shape of a face held inches away.
As her body grew bigger, her parents feared her world would grow smaller. How would they lift her or get her out of the house? They saw for Charley a grim future of hoists and machinery, of isolation and loneliness, of days spent trapped in bed, staring up at a ceiling she couldn’t even see.
So Jenn and Mark Hooper came up with a radical solution. They gave their daughter hormones to stop her growth. Then they had doctors remove her womb to spare her the pain of menstruation. Charley is now around 1.3 meters tall (4 foot 3) and 24 kilograms (53 pounds), and will remain so for the rest of her life.
The Hoopers’ fight to get the hormone treatment — known as growth attenuation — was grueling. Although an increasing number of parents across the U.S., Europe and New Zealand consider it a medical miracle, others see the very idea of stunting and sterilizing the disabled as a violation of human rights.