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VP Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump put focus on Pennsylvania on eve of 2024 election

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VP Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump put focus on Pennsylvania on eve of 2024 election


What to Know

  • The focus is on Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes as both Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris work to get out the vote the day before Election Day.
  • Harris will spend all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the Electoral College outcome.
  • Donald Trump makes four stops in three states, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan. He’ll end in Grand Rapids, where he completed his first two campaigns.

A presidential campaign that has careened through a felony trial, an incumbent president being pushed off the ticket and multiple assassination attempts comes down to a final push across a handful of states on the eve of Election Day.

Kamala Harris will spend all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the Electoral College outcome. The vice president and Democratic nominee will visit working-class areas including Allentown and end with a late-night Philadelphia rally that includes Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.

Allentown public schools were closed due to the Kamala rally that’s “expected to draw large crowds, heavy traffic, and potential disruptions that may impact the safety and security of our students and staff,” the Lehigh Valley school district said.

Donald Trump plans four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh. The Republican nominee and former president ends his campaign the way he ended the first two, with a late Monday night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

About 77 million Americans already have voted early, but Harris and Trump are pushing to turn out many millions more supporters on Tuesday. Either result on Election Day will yield a historic outcome.

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A Trump victory would make him the first incoming president to have been indicted and convicted of a felony, after his hush-money trial in New York. He will gain the power to end other federal investigations pending against him. Trump would also become the second president in history to win non-consecutive White House terms, after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.

Harris is vying to become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office, four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming President Joe Biden’s second in command.

The vice president ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket after Biden’s disastrous performance in a June debate set into motion his withdrawing from the race. That was just one of a series of convulsions that have hit this year’s campaign.

Trump survived by millimeters a would-be assassin’s bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. His Secret Service detail foiled a second attempt in September when a gunman had set up a rifle as Trump golfed at one of his courses in Florida.

Harris, 60, has played down the historic nature of her candidacy, which materialized only after the 81-year-old president ended his reelection bid after his June debate against the 78-year-old Trump accentuated questions about Biden’s age.

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Instead, Harris has pitched herself as a generational change, emphasized her support for abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision ending the constitutional right to abortion services, and regularly noted the former president’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Assembling a coalition ranging from progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney, Harris has called Trump a threat to democracy and late in the campaign even embraced the critique that Trump is accurately described as a “fascist.”

Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump. She is promising to solve problems and seek consensus, while sounding an almost exclusively optimistic tone reminiscent of her campaign’s opening days when she embraced “the politics of joy” and the campaign theme “Freedom.”

“From the very start, our campaign has not been about being against something, it is about being for something,” Harris said Sunday evening at Michigan State University.

Trump, renewing his “Make America Great Again” and “America First” slogans, has made his hard-line approach to immigration and withering criticisms of Harris and Biden the anchors of his argument for a second administration. He’s hammered Democrats for an inflationary economy, and he’s pledged to lead an economic “golden age,” end international conflicts and seal the U.S. southern border.

But Trump also has veered often into grievances over being prosecuted after trying to overturn Biden’s victory and repeatedly denigrated the country he wants to lead again as a “failed nation.” As recently as Sunday, he renewed his false claims that U.S. elections are rigged against him, mused about violence against journalists and said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2021 — dark turns that have overshadowed another anchor of his closing argument: “Kamala broke it. I will fix it.”

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The election is likely to be decided across seven states. Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 only to see them flip to Biden in 2020. North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada add the Sun Belt swath of the presidential battleground map.

Trump won North Carolina twice and lost Nevada twice. He won Arizona and Georgia in 2016 but saw them slip to Democrats in 2020.

Harris’ team has projected confidence in recent days, pointing to a large gender gap in early voting data and research showing late-deciding voters have broken her way. They also believe in the strength of their campaign infrastructure. This weekend, the Harris campaign had more than 90,000 volunteers helping turn out voters — and knocked on more than 3 million doors across the battleground states. Still, Harris aides have insisted she remains the underdog.

Trump’s team has projected confidence, as well, arguing that the former president’s populist appeal will attract younger and working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines. The idea is that Trump can amass an atypical Republican coalition, even as other traditional GOP blocks — notably college-educated voters — become more Democratic.

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Bacteria In Toothpaste: What PA Customers Need To Know

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Bacteria In Toothpaste: What PA Customers Need To Know


PENNSYLVANIA— Any Pennsylvania residents who use Tom’s of Maine toothpaste and have noticed a strange taste or smell from the product aren’t alone, according to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, which recently detailed how bacteria was found in some of the company’s products and black mold was discovered at a facility.

The agency this month issued a warning letter to Tom’s of Maine Inc. about its “significant violations” of manufacturing regulations for pharmaceuticals, and discussed a May inspection of the facility in Sanford, Maine.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a type of bacteria that can cause blood and lung infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was found from June 2021 to October 2022 in samples of water that was used to make Tom’s Simply White Clean Mint Paste, the letter stated. The water was also used for the final rinse in equipment cleaning.

Gram-negative cocco-bacilli Paracoccus yeei, which is associated with several infections, according to the Hartmann Science Center, was in a batch of the company’s Wicked Cool! Anticavity Toothpaste, the letter stated.

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Ralstonia insidiosa, a waterborne bacteria, according to the Journal of Medical Microbiology, was repeatedly found at water points of use at the facility, the letter stated.

“A black mold-like substance” was discovered within one foot of equipment that came into contact with products, according to the letter, which stated the substance was at the base of a hose reel and behind a water storage tank.

The company received about 400 complaints related to toothpaste odor, color and taste, including in relation to products for children, but the complaints were not investigated, the letter said.

“We have always tested finished goods before they leave our control, and we remain fully confident in the safety and quality of the toothpaste we make,” Tom’s of Maine said, according to News Center Maine. “In addition, we have engaged water specialists to evaluate our systems at Sanford, have implemented additional safeguards to ensure compliance with FDA standards, and our water testing shows no issues.”

In the federal administration’s letter, dated Nov. 5, the agency directed the company to provide multiple risk assessments, reserve sample test results from all unexpired batches, and a water system remediation plan, among other things. The administration requested a written response from Tom’s of Maine within 15 working days.

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With reporting by Anna Schier of Patch.



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How Philadelphia took care of its own through history

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How Philadelphia took care of its own through history


The Orphan Society was formed by a committee of wealthy Philadelphia women, notably Sarah Ralston and Rebecca Gratz, who each took the role of social reformer very seriously.

Gratz, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant, also formed the Female Association for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances, the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, and the Hebrew Sunday School. Gratz College in Elkins Park is named after her.

“She never married,” Barnes said. “She did things like put her money and her time toward doing that kind of public service.”

Ralston, the daughter of onetime Philadelphia mayor Matthew Clarkson, also formed the Indigent Widows and Single Women’s Society, which ultimately became the Sarah Ralston Foundation supporting elder care in Philadelphia. The historic mansion she built to house indigent widows still stands on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, which is now its chief occupant.

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Women like Ralston and Gratz were part of the 19th-century Reform Movement that sought to undo some of the inhumane conditions brought about by the rapid industrialization of cities. Huge numbers of people from rural America and foreign countries came into urban cities for factory work, and many fell into poverty, alcoholism, and prostitution.

“These are not new problems, but on a much larger scale than they ever were,” Barnes said. “It was just kind of in the zeitgeist in the mid- and later-1800s to say, ‘We’ve got to address all these problems.”

The reform organizations could be highly selective and impose a heavy dose of 19th-century moralism. The Indigent Widows and Single Women’s Society, for example, only selected white women from upper-class backgrounds whose fortunes had turned, rejecting women who were in poor health, “fiery-tempered,” or in one case, simply “ordinary.”



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How did Pennsylvania’s top-ranked football teams fare on Friday, Nov. 22?

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How did Pennsylvania’s top-ranked football teams fare on Friday, Nov. 22?


St. Joseph Prep’s Khyan Billups (24) runs past Parkland’s Blake Nassry (7) during the PIAA Class 6A football quarterfinals at Pennridge High School on Nov. 22, 2024. (Alan Sylvestre | lehighvalleylive.com)Alan Sylvestre | lehighvalleylive.com contributor



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