Nancy Rosales Hernandez, 23, protests outside the Luxe Hotel, where Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was expected to speak in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, on July 10, 2015. Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

PUEBLO, Colo. — Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration is testing a long-term trend among Hispanics: Members of a family that has been in the country for multiple generations and uses primarily English are more likely to vote Republican than those who more recently arrived in the United States.

Leo Lopez’s father, who came to the United States from Mexico in the 1980s, is a Democrat and firm Hillary Clinton supporter. But Lopez himself, an accounting student at the state university in this heavily Hispanic, blue-collar town, is leaning toward Trump.

“I’m kind of scoping them all out,” Lopez said at a recent Donald Trump rally here. “Trump’s tax plan would help me out more.”

Ninety percent of Hispanics who primarily speak Spanish identify as Democrats, but of those who mostly use English that number drops to 59 percent, according to a Pew Hispanic Center survey released earlier this month. Those English-dominant voters are by no means leaving the Democratic Party in droves, however. Overall, Clinton leads among Latino voters by nearly 3-1.

But of Latino Trump supporters, 83 percent are U.S.-born. A similar pattern was seen in 2012, when Hispanics who mainly speak Spanish supported Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by a whopping margin of 59 percentage points. English-speaking Latinos still overwhelmingly supported the president, but the margin dropped to 40 points.

“For them the issues of immigration are much closer,” Mark Hugo Lopez of the Pew Hispanic Center said of first- and second-generation Hispanic Americans, who tend to be poorer than longer-established families. By contrast, English-dominant Latinos are usually wealthier and consume less Spanish-language media. The great exception is among Cuban-Americans. First-generation immigrants from Cuba lean Republican — their politics are partly defined by their flight from a communist country — but their children are more likely to vote Democratic.

As immigration from Latin America slows, an increasing percentage of Hispanics are U.S.-born, but how those people vote is an open question.

“It’s not a single bloc that will forever be tied to one party,” Lopez said. “You might see Americans in 50 years who say, ‘Yes, I have a Mexican heritage, but I don’t consider myself Mexican or Hispanic — I’m American.'”

But Trump’s harsh words against immigrants could turn American-born Latinos against the Republican Party by making even them feel unwelcome.

“If you’re going to force someone to vote on their ethnicity, they will,” said Sylvia Manzano of the polling group Latino Decisions. “Latino voters who voted against Mitt Romney did so on health care and the economy but didn’t think, “This guy hates people like me.’ This thing with Trump is a qualitatively different animal.”

The dynamic is on display in Pueblo, a city of 100,000 in southern Colorado that is 44 percent Hispanic. Pueblo is an anomaly in generally affluent Colorado — a downscale slice of Rust Belt on the high plains, a heavily unionized steel town that for decades was a Democratic bastion but has been trending Republican. Many of its Latino residents trace their ancestry back centuries, to when the area was part of Mexico. While many have been considering Republican candidates, voting for Trump is a bridge too far for some.

“He’s a racist. He’s anti-everything but white,” said Dario Madrid, a 66-year-old retired cook who has voted for Republicans in the past but will vote for Clinton.

That view is far from unanimous. Alison Valdez, 41, brought her 10-year-old son, David, and newborn daughter, Olive, to see Trump speak in downtown Pueblo earlier this month. She liked his views on subjecting immigrants to what he calls “extreme vetting” to weed out terrorists. “San Bernardino, that did it for me,” Valdez said, referring to the December 2015 attack that claimed 13 lives. “Keeping America safe is No. 1.”

Valdez and many other Pueblo residents said their families, all of which have been in the country for multiple generations, are torn in this election. Valdez said she and her 11 siblings are all over the map on the campaign.

Erin Ruiz’s family is also divided. The high school teacher is a Clinton supporter but she, too, avoids discussing politics around family or even at local coffee shops. “There’s no conversation between the two sides,” Ruiz said.

At his appearance in Pueblo, Trump was introduced by the Hispanic chairman of the county party and a bilingual pastor. “This is a city with a rich immigrant history and a rich Latino history — Latinos love Trump, right?” the candidate said to cheers. Trump spoke about how combatting illegal immigration would boost wages of working-class Hispanic citizens and those immigrants living in the U.S. legally. He told the crowd: “You are united by this one important factor: You are all Americans.”

It was just what Mary Celeste Madrid wanted to hear. A longtime Democrat and Obama voter who changed her registration to Republican last year over the GOP’s support for gun rights and opposition to abortion, she’s also had to endure family battles over her support for Trump. She thinks he’s being overly dramatic in some of his immigration positions, but says, “I honestly believe his heart is in the right place.”

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Some cities are loosening rules on public drinking to enliven their downtown areas. Photo by Flickr user Yogma.

CANTON, Ohio — This shrinking factory town, seeking a hipper image to attract young people, tried a new tack this year: legalizing outdoor drinking.

Taking a page from warmer spots known for street parties, such as New Orleans and Memphis, the town best known as the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame marked off 42 blocks of its downtown as an “outdoor refreshment area.” In that zone it is now legal to carry a drink into the streets, where art and music festivals often attract thousands of people.

Beginning in the 1950s, many cities banned open containers of alcohol in public. Now Canton and several other cities are bringing it back — in a controlled fashion — to appeal to millennials and attract tourists and conventions.

In addition to Canton, other Ohio cities including Lancaster, Lorain, Middletown and Toledo launched public drinking areas this year, as did Mississippi cities such as Biloxi and Gulfport. In both Ohio and Mississippi, state law had to change before the cities could adjust their rules.

Last year, Nashville carved out a public drinking area between the convention center, a hotel and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, hoping that groups would be more likely to book all three venues if visitors could drink as they walk between them. And Lincoln, Nebraska, and Mobile, Alabama, created public drinking districts in 2013. Changes to state law were necessary in both states, as well as Tennessee.

Typically, the drinks must be in plastic cups, rather than in bottles or cans. And in most places, security guards or police officers patrol the borders of the district to make sure people don’t carry their beverages outside of it.

“You have boomers and millennials both seeking an urban lifestyle that’s driving demand for more nightlife districts,” said Jim Peters, who advises cities on how to take advantage of that desire. In 1983, Peters founded the Responsible Hospitality Institute, which is funded in part by beer, wine and spirits retailers.

Nightlife, including public drinking, can be a “magnet,” Peters said. “But once people start living there, they may not like all the noise and litter, so restrictions come,” he said.

Generally the experiments have proceeded smoothly, though last summer there were two shootings in Mobile’s Lower Dauphin Street Historic District, where public drinking is legal. In response, the city council approved an emergency measure in August banning public drinking after midnight, two hours before many bars close.

Canton credits the new policy for larger weekend crowds, peaking at 10,000 in June, or 3,000 more than last year’s high. Participating businesses levy a $1 surcharge on alcoholic drinks “to go” to cover the cost of hiring off-duty police officers to provide additional security. Bar employees are tasked with picking up litter.

Police in Canton have reported only a slight increase in arrests and citations within the public drinking area, though they have issued more traffic tickets. Police attribute the uptick to having more officers downtown.

READ NEXT: Women are fast catching up to men in alcohol consumption — and abuse

Rewards and Risks

Canton’s master plan stresses the need for a vibrant nightlife to attract the kind of educated millennials who have turned around other Rust Belt factory towns.

Canton’s population is 60 percent of what it was in the 1950s, and it collects about half as much tax revenue. But it has high hopes for new apartment buildings downtown and the planned expansion of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which is located north of downtown.

“Our refreshment area is not an antidote for the challenges facing a Rust Belt city in the Midwest, but it is an ingredient,” said Edmond Mack, a city councilman. “It’s one of the steps we’re taking to stop the contraction and get our downtown growing and expanding again.”

Most bars and restaurants support the idea because they think it will boost sales and revenue.

Developers also have lobbied for public drinking districts so they can build mixed-use developments with outdoor plazas where residents can drink and socialize, said Peters of the hospitality group. And sometimes art galleries push for the change, envisioning “arts walks” where patrons can drink wine as they roam from gallery to gallery.

In Lincoln, the goal was to get the graduates of the University of Nebraska and of other local colleges to stick around instead of moving to places with a more vibrant nightlife.

“The question was how do we keep the young people in our city,” said Tessa Warner, business manager for the Railyard district.

“We set out to make it not a place for more people to drink more alcohol, but a place where people can come and congregate and socialize, and have a drink if they want,” Warner said.

Vibrancy, not Chaos

Peters said he advises cities considering a public drinking district to make alcohol part of a broader social or entertainment experience, whether it revolves around art, music or sports.

“If it gets to be all about the alcohol, that’s not good,” Peters said. “You want vibrancy. You don’t want chaos.”

A few cities long known for unrestrained outdoor partying recently have taken steps to curb it. In New Orleans, some neighborhoods have cut back on public drinking. Las Vegas has banned glass bottles outdoors to cut down on dangerous broken glass.

The shootings and other late-night incidents in Mobile’s public drinking district have sparked some second-guessing there. In 2014, Nashville leaders rejected a proposed public drinking district in the Lower Broad section, where most of the city’s famous honky-tonks reside. Members of Nashville’s Metro Council feared that increased drunkenness and underage drinking would threaten public safety.

Emily Evans, the former councilwoman who spearheaded opposition to the plan, said many bar owners were on her side despite the potential for more profit.

“Most of the owners think that if you’re having a beer you should be in a building where you can be observed and controlled,” Evans said. “Maybe in a smaller town you could keep [public drinking] under control, but I think it’s a terrible idea for Nashville.”

But in Mobile, supporters contend that the economic benefits of the public drinking district outweigh the costs of occasional trouble. In the last three years, 15 new bars and restaurants have opened in the area, bringing the total to 51. Four more are planning to open in the next few months, according to Carol Hunter, spokeswoman for the Downtown Mobile Alliance.

“People know that they can come downtown and sit outside and enjoy a drink, and walk to the movies or walk to shows,” Hunter said. “That really does help cement downtown Mobile as a place to go.”

This story was produced by Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

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FBI Director James Comey testifies at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in Washington, U.S., September 27, 2016. Photo by Gary Cameron/Reuters

WASHINGTON – The FBI’s announcement that it recently came upon new emails possibly pertinent to the Hillary Clinton email investigation raised more questions than answers.

FBI Director James Comey said in a letter to Congress on Friday that the bureau had discovered the emails while pursuing an unrelated case and would review whether they were classified.

The announcement, vague in details, immediately drew both criticism and praise to Comey himself. Some questions and answers:

Q: WHERE DID THE EMAILS COME FROM?

A: The emails emerged during a separate criminal sexting investigation into former Rep. Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides, a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation and discussed the matter on condition of anonymity.

Federal authorities are investigating communications between Weiner, a New York Democrat, and a 15-year-old girl.

It was not clear from Comey who sent or received the emails or what they were about.

Q: WHY IS THIS COMING OUT SO CLOSE TO THE ELECTION?

A: Apparently because the emails were found very recently. In his letter to Congress, Comey said he had been briefed only Thursday by investigators.

Releasing the letter opened Comey to partisan criticism that he was dropping a significant development too close to an election. But keeping it under wraps until after Nov. 8 would surely have led to criticism that he was sitting on major news until after the election.

Comey has said there are no easy decisions on timing in the case. In an internal email sent Friday to FBI employees, he said he was trying to strike a balance between keeping Congress and the public informed and not creating a misleading impression, given that the emails’ significance is not yet known.

“In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood,” he wrote.

Upon learning of Comey’s intention to send lawmakers the letter, Justice Department officials conveyed disapproval and advised the FBI against it, according to a government official familiar with the conversations who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Department leaders were concerned that the letter would be inconsistent with department policy meant to avoid the appearance of prosecutorial interference or meddling in elections, the official said.

Q: IS THE DISCLOSURE STANDARD FOR THE FBI?

A: No, but neither was the Clinton email investigation.

In a nod to the extraordinary nature of an election-year probe into a presidential candidate, Comey promised extraordinary transparency as he announced the investigation’s conclusion in July.

“I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest,” Comey said at the unusual news conference where he announced the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton.

Since then, the FBI has periodically released investigative files — that is, summaries of witnesses who were interviewed. Those materials aren’t typically public.

Comey, a former Republican who is not registered with a political party, has served in government under both Democratic and Republican administrations and speaks repeatedly about the need for the FBI to be accountable to the public.

His letter Friday seemed in keeping with a statement he made to Congress last month, that although the FBI had concluded its investigation, “we would certainly look at any new and substantial information” that emerged.

Q: BUT WHY WAS THE LETTER SO VAGUE?

A: For one thing, the FBI avoids publicly discussing ongoing criminal investigations, or even confirming it has one open.

It also appears the FBI isn’t sure what it has. Comey said the FBI cannot yet assess whether the material is significant, or how long it would take to complete the additional work.

Nevertheless, the letter’s vagueness was immediately seized upon by critics as unacceptable and leaving the public in the dark.

Q: WHAT HAPPENS NOW? DOES THIS INCREASE THE LIKELIHOOD THAT SOMEONE COULD BE CHARGED?

A: The FBI will review the emails to see if they were classified and were improperly handled.

It’s impossible to say if anyone is in greater jeopardy than before.

The FBI announced in July that scores of emails from Clinton’s server contained information that was classified at the time it was sent or received. So, new emails determined as classified might do nothing to change the legal risk for anyone who sent them.

Comey said in July that the FBI had found no evidence of intentional or willful mishandling of classified information, of efforts to obstruct justice or of the deliberate exposure of government secrets. Those were elements that Comey suggested were needed to make a criminal case.

Nothing in the letter appears to change that standard.

U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton holds an unscheduled news conference to talk about FBI inquiries into her emails after a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. October 28, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder – RTX2QWY0

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The number of women serving on state legislatures in the U.S. has stagnated in recent years, in part because of factors that discourage women to run for office, studies suggest.

Nationally, women make up about a quarter of the seats on state legislatures, a number that has mostly leveled off since 1999 after a period of rapid rise beginning in the 1970s started to close the gap.

Colorado and Vermont have the largest percentage of women serving on their state legislatures at 41 percent, while Louisiana has the fewest, with 12 percent of seats held by women.

A Pew Charitable Trust study released last year found that women are less likely to seek office, are often not recruited by male-dominated political committees and may not have crucial access to funding to the extent that male candidates seeking office do.

Katie Ziegler, of the National Conference of State Legislatures, said while women tend to win at the same rate as men, a leading cause for the disparities comes down to participation. A 2012 study called “Men Rule: The Continued Under-Representation of Women in U.S. Politics” found that “no differences emerge in women and men’s fundraising receipts, vote totals, or electoral success.”

“The really fundamental reason is because women are not running for these legislative seats,” Ziegler said. “It’s not any ballot box bias but it’s making the decision to become a candidate.”

More Democratic than Republican women hold state office

According to the Pew study and interviews with research institutions that track statistics on women in politics, the number of women in office also differs by party lines.

A total of 60 percent of female state legislators come from the Democratic Party and 40 percent from the Republican Party. More than 33 percent of Democratic seats and 20 percent of Republican seats are filled by women, Pew said.

“Republican gains at the state level over the past decade may be one reason the overall percentage of women in state legislatures has been stuck at 25 percent,” according to the Pew study.

Child care responsibilities, bias against women candidates and increasingly pernicious partisan politics may also be factors leading fewer women to seek office, Ziegler said.

A survey conducted by the Rutgers University Center for American Politics asked male and female politicians about their motivations to seek office and found that women were more likely to run after being encouraged or recruited by someone in power.

“Somebody demonstrated to them that they had a real chance, that they had powerful people behind them,” Kelly Dittmar, a professor at the center, said.

A Princeton University study found that women are often less involved in policy decisions when they are not in the majority.

Women are ‘strategic’ about running for office

Dittmar said cultural norms may also cause more women to refrain from seeking office.

“Women are strategic about where they run and when they run and why they run,” she said. “That it’s not going to hurt their family and they’re going to be able to win.”

As PBS NewsHour reported this month, those kinds of challenges can be seen in Utah, a state that has one of the fewest number of women in the nation on its state legislature and one whose culture is often influenced by the Mormon Church.

On the Utah State Legislature, six of 29 state senators and 10 of 75 representatives in the House are women, despite the fact that 60 percent of the state’s workforce are comprised of women.

Sophia DiCaro, a Republican incumbent to the Utah State House of Representatives, said there are a number of factors for the gender gap.

“We have a part-time legislature, it is full-time intensity for a 45-day period,” she told the NewsHour. “So your family situation has to be such that you’re able to accommodate that kind of schedule. You have to have the availability of time and you have to have the financial ability to make it work, you’re not paid very much as a legislator.”

While Dittmar said it’s difficult to prove a correlation, the lack of women in legislatures across the country may also be influencing policies like paid family leave, education and reproductive rights. Some studies suggest women legislators at the state and congressional levels “tend to be more likely than male legislators to prioritize issues important to women,” she said.

Despite the challenges for women, this year there is a slight uptick in participation. Dittmar said 44 states are holding races for state legislature. Of the approximately 11,800 nominees, 2,602 are women, up from 2,537 the last election cycle.

“A couple of states don’t run this year,” she said. “Even with fewer states we have more women candidates. So that’s promising to us.”

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A protester chants slogans during a protest denouncing South Korean President Park Geun-hye over a recent influence-peddling scandal in central Seoul, South Korea, October 29, 2016. The banner reads, “Call for Park Geun-hye to step down”. Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

Thousands of people in Seoul demanded on Saturday that South Korea President Park Geun-hye step down after finding out that a friend influenced her political decisions.

The protest came after Park told 10 of her chief advisers to resign and as her ratings, while approaching the last year of her term, reached an all-time low of 14 percent. It is the latest fallout after Korean cable TV reported on Monday that Park’s friend Choi Soon-sil, a private citizen whose father was Park’s mentor and the leader of a religious cult, had been editing some of Park’s speeches.

Park made a televised apology the next day, admitting she gave Choi “some documents” after she took office as the first woman president in 2013.

But her apology did not appease and it’s not just the speeches that are worrying people.

Protesters take part in a protest denouncing South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye over a recent influence-peddling scandal in central Seoul, South Korea, October 29, 2016. Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

Choi’s foundations were already at the heart of an investigation by prosecutors. They allege she monetized her relationship with Park by using it to rack in more than $70 million in donations to her nonprofits from the some of the country’s conglomerates, according to NPR.

Investigators also say that she siphoned funds for herself and to pay for her daughter’s equestrian training. Choi’s daughter has also provoked public uproar because students say she received preferential treatment at her prestigious university.

On Saturday, prosecutors expanded that investigation and seized computers of government employees that they suspect have interacted with Choi, while searching the offices of two presidential secretaries, according to Bloomberg.

“We gave her power and she gave it to a friend,” Kim Jung Hyun, a 22-year-old college student, told Bloomberg while handing out leaflets depicting Choi controlling Park like a puppet. “Now we want it back.”

Protesters wearing cut-out of South Korean President Park Geun-hye (C) and Choi Soon-sil attend a protest denouncing President Park Geun-hye over a recent influence-peddling scandal in central Seoul, South Korea, October 27, 2016. Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

By midnight local time, rows of officers in neon jackets barricaded the hundreds of protesters who remained.

Tension was already high in Seoul, where last month a prominent activist farmer died after being hit by a police water cannon at 68 during the biggest anti-government protest since Park’s inauguration.

On Saturday, Jae-myung Lee, from the opposition Minjoo Party, told the protesters, “Park has lost her authority as president and showed she doesn’t have the basic qualities to govern a country,” according to the Associated Press.

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PATRICIA SABGA: That’s the sound of manufacturing jobs on the way. Two thousand of them expected within two years, when this 500 acre plant near Ridgeville, South Carolina, starts rolling out vehicles for Swedish auto giant Volvo.

KATERINA FJORDING: This is our very first factory on the American continent. We’re going to have a full-fledged plant, where you can build cars from scratch, basically.

PATRICIA SABGA: Katarina Fjording is the company vice president overseeing the new facility. NewsHour Weekend was given a first look at the construction site, which is already boosting the economy.

KATERINA FJORDING: Anywhere we can, we use services and companies that are as local as possible.

PATRICIA SABGA: When the factory opens in 2018, the production line will be filled with high-skilled workers — many trained at one of South Carolina’s 16 technical colleges through the state-sponsored program Ready South Carolina, or Ready SC.

KATERINA FJORDING: The state has lined up different ways of supporting this project, and bringing us here. And one key factor was Ready SC, where they actually do pre-hiring, and pre- pre-staging, pre-screening, and pre-training.

PATRICIA SABGA: The program is part of the state’s economic revival strategy that’s lured other big global manufacturers like BMW, Honda, Mercedes, and Michelin.

Manufacturers are coveted not only for the jobs they create on the factory floor. They have what’s called a multiplier effect – spawning more jobs from producers and services that want to do business with the factory and its workers. And economists estimate that one auto job in South Carolina creates as many as four in turn.

Once heavily dependent on textiles, South Carolina saw its traditional manufacturing base decimated by automation and globalization — forces that since 1990 caused roughly 150 thousand factory jobs to disappear or migrate to countries where workers are typically paid far less.

But South Carolina has been clawing back manufacturing jobs – adding more than 30-thousand of them since the Great Recession — thanks to a combination of economic incentives, robust supply chains, trading infrastructure. There’s also an abundance of cheap labor. Due in part to the lowest union membership in the country.

BOBBY HITT: 25 years ago, we were what I call a three T state. That’s textiles, tobacco, and tourism.

PATRICIA SABGA: Bobby Hitt is South Carolina’s Commerce Secretary.

BOBBY HITT: Now, we’re an aerospace and automobile manufacturing state, which gives us a broader base with the big supply chains and more succ- a more successful operation, manufacturing-wise.

PATRICIA SABGA: US Aerospace behemoth Boeing started assembling its 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina five years ago.

JOAN ROBINSON BERRY: About 30 miles of wiring in that airplane.

PATRICIA SABGA: Joan Robinson Berry is vice president of Boeing South Carolina, which currently employs 75-hundred full time workers in North Charleston.

JOAN ROBINSON BERRY: There’s a lot of good reasons for being here. It’s that ecosystem – government, community, supply base, but more importantly, an- a skilled and motivated workforce.

PATRICIA SABGA: But labor organizer Mike Evans, with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, says Boeing is building that industry on the backs of non-union workers who are getting a raw deal compared to workers in the company’s unionized flagship plant in Everett, Washington.

PATRICIA SABGA: What kind of deal does a Boeing worker in South Carolina get, compared to their unionized counterparts in Washington State?

MIKE EVANS: Their counterparts’ experience is a lot different. Having a union contract. The wages and benefits are much better than what they’re experiencing here in South Carolina.

PATRICIA SABGA: According to the union’s calculations, after six years on the job, assembler mechanics in Washington State make roughly 39 dollars an hour, while their non-unionized counterparts in South Carolina makes around 23.

JOAN ROBINSON BERRY: I don’t know the facts on that, but here’s what I do know — is that both the union and Boeing evaluate pay based on regions and market.

MIKE EVANS: What they’ll tell you is that it’s all about this being South Carolina, the cost of living is cheaper, and so forth. But we’ve done our research on that. And it’s very minimal.

PATRICIA SABGA: Boeing opposes a union for its South Carolina workers, because it says it will make the plant less nimble and therefore less competitive.

JOAN ROBINSON BERRY: Boeing here in South Carolina, would not benefit from having a union organized here. The entire strategy around advanced manufacturing’s changing. We’re bringing new and innovative things together. It’s not the same skill set every day, and then it’s going to be static. And that’s kind of the union environment.

PATRICIA SABGA: And South Carolina is attracting investment from all over the world.

BOBBY HITT: In the last eight years, there’ve been ten automobile plants announced on this continent. Eight of them went to Mexico. Two of them came to South Carolina. The world is looking at us in the United States in a slightly different way. I think the ones that win are the ones that are flexible, one that understand what a company needs.

PATRICIA SABGA: But labor activists say South Carolina is lowering the bar nationwide.

ERIN MCKEE: I moved here in 1996, and one of the first activist things that I did was we protested outside a convention.

PATRICIA SABGA: Erin McKee is President of the South Carolina AFL-CIO.

ERIN MCKEE: Back in 1996, the signs said, “South Carolina: last stop before Mexico.”

PATRICIA SABGA: And do you think that still holds true?

ERIN MCKEE: Yes. I think we are the race to the bottom.

BOBBY HITT: How can we be racing to the bottom when our employment is down, our manufacturing involvement is up, our growth overall in our economy is steaming along, and we’re attracting companies from all over the world?

ERIN MCKEE: Just because jobs are created, unless they’re good jobs where people can actually pay their bills and not just live on credit, and have retirement and health insurance, and can plan for the future, it’s not really a good job.

PATRICIA SABGA: Manufacturing conjures images of the golden era of America’s middle classes. A time when factories provided blue collar workers with steady jobs that paid significantly higher than the U.S. average.

A typical manufacturing worker earned around 21 dollars an hour in September- 5 dollars less than the average for all workers.

DOMINICK WHITE: I previously worked at Honda South Carolina. Like every job, it had its ups and downs.

PATRICIA SABGA: The downside for Dominick White was working between 2010 and 2012 as a so-called permatemp. That’s a worker hired through a temp agency who puts in full-time hours but often without benefits and for lower pay than full time direct employees of a company.

How did your compensation and sort of experience differ from the full-time employees on the shop floor?”

DOMINICK WHITE: Basically, I was a temp for the first two years. I didn’t get any raises. I made $9.65.

PATRICIA SABGA: Later, when he was hired by Honda fulltime, White earned more than 18 dollars an hour.

DOMINICK WHITE: Being a temp kind of sucked because you do the same or more than someone that would be considered full time, but you basically make half what they did.

Hard numbers on permatemps are hard to come by, because the U.S. Department of Labor does not count them as part of the manufacturing workforce. But Researchers say a bad deal for permatemps can negatively impact full time workers.

GEORGE GONOS: Those depressed wages for temp agency workers come back and drag the wages of all workers down in those occupations and in those industries where temp workers are used.

Chasing the Dream: Poverty and Opportunity in America is a multi-platform public media initiative that provides a deeper understanding of the impact of poverty on American society. Major funding for this initiative is provided by The JPB Foundation. Additional funding is provided by Ford Foundation.

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Pat McCrory, governor of North Carolina, attends a press conference at Reynolds American in Tobaccoville, North Carolina, on May 23, 2014. REUTERS/Chris Keane

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Republican Gov. Pat McCrory has been unable to quash the firestorm over his signing of a law limiting protections for LGBT people, while trying to focus his re-election bid on North Carolina’s economy, taxes, teacher pay and his recent response to historic flooding.

Cooper wants to repeal the law known as House Bill 2, which among other things directs transgender people to use bathrooms in schools and government buildings that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates. He also says he’ll work to restore the state’s progressive image if elected and has launched an ad blasting the LGBT law, saying it’s “trashed our brand” and cost thousands of jobs.

“North Carolina is better than this. We always have been. We will be again,” Cooper, the state’s attorney general since 2001, told dozens of Democratic volunteers working for him in Greensboro.

McCrory got a shot at resetting the campaign narrative this month when flooding spread following flooding triggered by Hurricane Matthew, as he made near-daily appearances on the news leading response and recovery efforts. One of his recent ads shows footage from the storm and the riots sparked by the fatal shooting of a black man by Charlotte police.

“The last four years I’ve focused on my job as governor. The campaign has always been secondary,” McCrory told The Associated Press in an interview, adding that with “any event that happens in a state … you just do your job. But I assume if we didn’t do it right, there would be political ramifications.”

The state’s response earned McCrory support from even Democrats, like David Parker, 72, of Rocky Mount. He said he voted for McCrory because he has “stood out during Hurricane Matthew and been very responsive to the people in eastern North Carolina that have been in some problems.” Flooding from Matthew overwhelmed Rocky Mount roads and other buildings and rose to 7 feet in downtown Princeville nearby. McCrory visited the two towns in the past week.

The Cooper-McCrory campaign basically began in 2013 after Cooper, a 30-year veteran of state politics, started speaking out against legislation approved by the Republican-controlled General Assembly and signed by McCrory. They included a wide-ranging ballot access law that required photo identification to vote and scaled back early in-person voting by seven days.

A federal appeals court in July struck down the voter law as racially motivated, giving further proof to those angry with McCrory about House Bill 2 that he hasn’t led like the moderate former seven-term Charlotte mayor they thought they were getting when he was elected in 2012.

“Anyone who lives in North Carolina has now been hurt by something that a few individuals think they can pass,” said William Brinkley, 27, a registered independent from Charlotte who voted for McCrory in 2012. He said recently he won’t this time.

Like other Democratic candidates, Cooper benefited from a massive get-out-the-vote operation by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as early in-person voting began Oct. 20. The campaign has been expensive and nasty: Cooper and several allied groups have outspent McCrory and his supporters, with Cooper’s campaign airing almost twice as many ads on broadcast television so far than McCrory, according to data analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity.

Cooper is “for everything that I stand for,” said Charles Upchurch, 76, of Raleigh, a registered Democrat wearing an NAACP shirt and waiting to vote in downtown Raleigh. “Jobs for one, but right now justice. … Civil rights for everybody. We want justices whenever we go to our courts, justice when we go downtown to the police station.”

McCrory points to a record of lower income taxes, unemployment under 5 percent and a fiscally sound state budget. Cooper said the tax cuts helped the wealthy the most and took away funds to help move teacher salaries to the national average.

Hardly a public event goes by where McCrory doesn’t answer a media question about House Bill 2. The governor sounds exasperated in a previously-run ad describing the controversy as political correctness. “Are we really talking about this?” the governor asks.

But the governor has retained support among social conservatives by defending the law. Republicans have said the law provides privacy and protection for children using restrooms and locker rooms, though the Justice Department and others argue the threat of sexual predators posing as transgender to enter a bathroom is practically nonexistent.

“I believe he’s got the state on a good moral course,” said Jerry O’Carroll, 69, a registered Republican voting early in Nash County, an hour northeast of Raleigh and where Cooper grew up.

The post LGBT law, hurricane jostle close North Carolina governor’s race appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

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ALISON STEWART, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR:  For the first time in a presidential election, nine more states are enforcing new laws requiring eligible voters to present a government-issued photo ID at the polls.  That includes New Hampshire, Virginia, Wisconsin and Texas.

The laws, which have been controversial, were ostensibly put in place to thwart voting irregularities, but voter identity isn’t the only issue in the spotlight this election season.

To help us delve into these questions, I am joined here in the studio by Wendy Weiser.  She directs the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.

Let’s talk about North Carolina and the voter ID laws there.  Do people have to show photo ID?

WENDY WEISER, BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE:  Absolutely not.  That was struck down, along with the rest of the new restrictive voting laws in North Carolina.  And I do want to make it clear to your listeners and watchers that even though there have been new voting restrictions put in place in states across the country and even though some of them have not been struck down by the courts, people should not worry.  For most people they are not going to experience barriers voting.  It is still reasonably easy to vote and they should check their voter registration status, make a plan and get out there and vote.

ALISON STEWART:  Let me talk to you about Texas.  Texas had what some called a strict voter ID law, but the court said you have to make accommodations for those who don’t have a photo ID, a government photo ID, have those accommodations been met?  Is this being handled correctly?

WENDY WEISER:  You should not have to show say a photo ID to vote in Texas right now, if you face some kind of burden, reasonable impediment to obtaining an ID.  So, under the law and under a court victory right now, voters have another process where they can go through where they sign an affidavit explaining what their difficulty is obtaining that ID, and they should be able to cast a regular ballot that will count just like everybody else.

ALISON STEWART:  Even if someone tells you something else or if you see an outdated poster.

WENDY WEISER:  Yes.  Early voting has started in Texas as well last week, and there were more than a dozen counties where there was incorrect signage, incorrectly telling people they must show a photo ID to vote.  There were places like in Harris County, Texas, where there were election officials walking up and down the line telling people they need a photo ID.  In none of these cases did they tell people about the other process that’s available if you don’t have these IDs.

ALISON STEWART:  Let’s talk about the physical act of voting.  I know the Brennan Center has been talking about investigating the actual physical machines which in many states are a decade old.

WENDY WEISER:  One problem that we are concerned about this year and really going forward is that in 42 states, we found, states are using machines that are 10 or more years old, and that is close to or passed the projected life span of those machines.  And what we expect to see — and I think we’re already seeing — are breakdowns, malfunctions, like vote flipping, where you try to press a vote for one candidate and it appears for another candidate.  You know, we hope that now and having encouraged election officials to be prepared, so that if there are these kinds of problems, the machines can be immediately decommissioned, replaced with other machines.  There are backup paper ballots or other processes in place.  But this is a big problem that we’re concerned about and something we really do need to address right after Election Day.

ALISON STEWART:  Quick question — is hacking an issue?  Hacking of voting machines?

WENDY WEISER:  Absolutely not.  This is not something that people need to be concerned out.  Ere were reports of hackers actually obtaining access to voter registration databases in 20 states earlier, and that’s made people really worried.  But we are able to detect those.  There was no tampering.

But more importantly, voter registration databases are connected to the Internet.  Voting machines should never be — which means that no one sitting in a basement in Moscow or anyone else should be able to access your voting machine.

So this is not something that security experts think is a credible threat to our election integrity right now.

ALISON STEWART:  Wendy Weiser, thanks so much.

WENDY WEISER:  Thank you for having me.

The post How are controversial voter ID laws affecting voters? appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Turkish flags, with the control tower in the background, fly at half mast at the country’s largest airport, Istanbul Ataturk, following yesterday’s blast in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 29, 2016. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

WASHINGTON — The State Department is ordering family members of employees posted to the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul to leave because of security concerns.

In a statement issued Saturday, the State Department says the decision is based on security information indicating extremist groups are continuing aggressive efforts to attack U.S. citizens in areas of Istanbul where they reside or frequent.

The Consulate General remains open and fully staffed. The order applies only to the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul, not to other U.S. diplomatic posts in Turkey.

The travel warning issued Saturday updates a warning last week of increased threats from terrorist groups throughout Turkey. U.S. citizens were advised to avoid travel to southeast Turkey and carefully consider the risks of travel to and throughout the country.

The State Department said international and indigenous terrorist organizations in Turkey have been targeting U.S. as well as other foreign tourists.

Anti-American sentiment runs high in Turkey despite its status as a NATO ally and a member of the anti-ISIS coalition.

In addition to the terrorist threat, friction between Washington and Ankara has increased since a failed July coup in Turkey, which Turkish officials blame on a U.S.-based cleric who lives in self-exile in Pennsylvania. Turkey has requested his extradition, but the U.S. has yet to make a decision.

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ALISON STEWART, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR:  In July, FBI Director Comey said Clinton had sent or received 110 emails containing classified information on her private servers and called her conduct careless but not criminal.

For more on the FBI’s extended inquiry into Clinton server emails, I am joined from Washington by one of the reporters following the story, “Politico” investigative reporter Ken Vogel.

So, Ken, “The Washington Post” and “The New York Times” report that senior Justice Department officials told Comey not to do this.  “Politico” is reporting that prosecutors, some are “shocked” is the word that’s been used.  Can you fill this in for me?

KEN VOGEL, “POLITICO” INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER:  Yes, sure.  There’s a feeling Comey kind of painted himself into a corner a little bit by, in July, when he announced that they were not bringing charges, going into great detail about the investigation, about his rationale for not bringing charges.  This in many ways flies in the face of typical FBI procedure where you don’t comment on an ongoing investigation — you don’t even acknowledge the existence of an investigation if the existence is independently corroborated, you don’t comment on it.

And, you know, the Clinton folks praised him for coming out and announcing that he wasn’t pressing charges.  But in so doing, he basically set stage for this type of scenario where if new information did arise, that he would feel obligated to present it at least to Congress who, of course, quickly turned around and leaked it to the public, with the idea being that if he didn’t do it before the election, he would come under criticism for potentially revealing new information after the election.  It was a little bit of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” in this case.

ALISON STEWART:  I want to focus on the word “obligation”, because that’s the word that he used in an internal memo to the FBI.  He said, “Given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of e-mails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression.”  He said it was his obligation to tell Congress about these e-mails.

Two questions: one, was it, indeed, an obligation?  And, two, didn’t he create a misleading impression?

KEN VOGEL:  Well, certainly there was no formal obligation.  He did in July, when he was asked about this by Congress, when he testified before Congress he was asked specifically, would he reopen any investigation or look into additional information if it came forward after they decided not to press charges?  He said that he would look into it.  So, here we are.

As to whether it creates a misleading impression, certainly that’s the argument among the Clinton folks and without knowing really anything about these e-mails.

ALISON STEWART:  There’s one prosecutor in New York who described his actions as inappropriate because these are e-mails that haven’t even been reviewed, correct?

KEN VOGEL:  Well, certainly, there are people in the FBI New York office who are pursuing the investigation into Anthony Weiner who have looked at these investigations — look at these e-mails, rather, and at least on a cursory basis determined they could be pertinent.  They flagged it up the food chain and Director Comey said that he wanted to seek access to these.  That means gets a subpoena, because these — this case, this investigation into the Clinton e-mails and the handling of classified information is, of course, unrelated to this investigation into Anthony Weiner.

ALISON STEWART:  Let me ask you a little bit about the Clinton campaign’s reactions.  Previously, about the e-mails they kind of had a wait and see to see if this smoke came into a full flame.  They came right back at this immediately it in a way we hadn’t seen throughout the campaign, really.  Why do you think that was?

KEN VOGEL:  What my sources around the campaign tell me that they are worried about is give moment to Donald Trump and allow him to lean heavily on his voters to get them out to vote with this idea that the system was rigged or that Hillary Clinton is corrupt, and they’re concerned that this gives him the ammunition to do so without any additional information about what these e-mails say, that they believe will exonerate her and Huma Abedin in this case.

ALISON STEWART: What happens next?  Does any of this get resolved before November 8th?

KEN VOGEL:  Director Comey has certainly created a situation where he is under pressure now, he has sort of created pressure on himself to release additional information.  The Clinton campaign is pressuring him.  Republicans are pressuring him.

So, I think we haven’t heard the last from him before the election.  But I don’t think he’ll come out with anything approximate anything kind of findings in this investigation.

ALISON STEWART:  Ken Vogel from “Politico” — thanks for sharing your reporting.

KEN VOGEL:  Pleasure.

The post Why the FBI announced it is looking at more Clinton-related emails appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton listens as Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump (not pictured) speaks during their third and final 2016 presidential campaign debate at UNLV in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 19, 2016. REUTERS/Joe Raedle/Pool

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department discouraged the FBI from alerting Congress to the unexpected discovery of emails potentially related to its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, given the proximity to the presidential election and the potential for political fallout, a government official said.

In an apparent departure from the wishes of top Justice Department leaders, FBI Director James Comey acted independently when he sent several members of Congress a letter about the emails on Friday, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The move creates the potential for a divide between the Justice Department and Comey, who has served in government under both Democratic and Republican presidents. And it provides political fodder for Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Speaking at a rally in Phoenix on Saturday, where the crowd cheered “Lock her up!” at the mention of Clinton’s name, the billionaire accused the Justice Department of doing everything it can to protect the Democratic nominee in another example of what he claims is a “rigged system.”

“Now it’s reported that the Department of Justice is fighting with the FBI. That’s because the Department of Justice is trying their hardest to protect the criminal activity of Hillary Clinton,” Trump said, offering no evidence for the assertion.

It was not immediately clear what the emails were about or what significance, if any, they carried to the email investigation. Nor was it clear when agents would complete the process of reviewing the recovered emails, and Comey made no guarantees that would happen before Election Day.

The newly discovered emails were on a device seized during a sexting investigation of disgraced former New York congressman, Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides.

A person familiar with the investigation, who lacked authority to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity, said the device that appears to be at the center of the new review was a computer that belonged only to Weiner and was not one he shared with Abedin.

As a result, it was not a device searched for work-related emails at the time of the initial investigation. The person said it is “news to (Abedin)” that her emails would be on a computer belonging to her husband.

Abedin told lawyers in June in a deposition that, like millions of internet users who don’t manage their inboxes, she never deleted old emails on her devices, either at work with Clinton or at home with Weiner.

“I didn’t have a practice of managing my mailbox other than leaving what was in there sitting in there,” Abedin said. “I didn’t go into my emails and delete State.gov emails. They just lived on my computer. That was my practice for all my email accounts. I didn’t have a particular form of organizing them. I had a few folders, but they were not deleted. They all stayed in whatever device I was using at the time or whatever desktop I was on at the time.”

In February 2013, Abedin signed a routine State Department document under penalty of perjury in which she promised to “turn over all classified or administratively controlled documents and materials” before she left her government job, and promised that she was not retaining copies, “including any diaries, memorandums of conversation or other documents of a personal nature.”

The document required her to give back all “unclassified documents and papers relating to the official business of the government acquired by me while in the employ of the department.”

Abedin and Weiner separated this year after Weiner was caught in 2011, 2013 and again this year sending numerous woman sexually explicit text messages and photographs of himself undressed. Federal authorities in New York and North Carolina are investigating online communications between Weiner and a 15-year-old girl.

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A vial of Naloxone and syringe are pictured at a Naloxone training class taught by Jennifer Stepp and her daughter Audrey for adults and children to learn how to save lives by injecting Naloxone into people suffering opioid overdoses at the Hillview Community Center in Louisville, Kentucky, on Nov. 21, 2015. REUTERS/John Sommers II

Many primary care practitioners have been avoiding the battle against opioid addiction and opioid overdoses. But they shouldn’t.

The impact of the opioid epidemic is staggering. In just the time it takes to read this article, another American has likely died from an opioid-related overdose. I witness the effects of this tragedy every day among my patients and their families in my primary care clinic in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston.

Someone needs to take charge. I believe that community-based primary care practitioners should take the lead.

Michael Botticelli, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, agrees. At a recent forum in New England, he called the opioid epidemic “a national crisis that manifests itself as a local problem.” Arguing that local problems require local solutions, Botticelli called for further integrating addiction treatment into primary care.

My primary care colleagues and I provide longitudinal, community-based care for chronic diseases that require frequent and long-term attention. Addiction is clearly one of these. Continuity of care lets us identify and address the underlying causes of addiction and help patients build supportive networks, secure stable housing, and avoid familiar triggers of relapse.

At the same time, we can help them manage their diabetes or quit smoking. Paying attention to an individual’s whole health, including opioid addiction, makes medical sense and is financially smart. In fact, research highlighted by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration shows that caring for “substance use and physical health together improves both physical health and substance use conditions.” In other words, treating addiction is good for diabetes and vice versa.

But primary care providers need support to ensure access to care for patients with addiction and to properly care for them. Barriers to care include low payments from insurance companies, little training in addiction care in medical schools, and unnecessary red tape for using buprenorphine, a medication that reduces cravings for opioids. Because of these barriers, relatively few doctors treat patients with opioid addictions. The short supply of clinicians taking on this task means that fewer than half of patients with addiction who need care can get it in most states across the country. This shortage leaves many patients out on the streets without treatment or waiting months for lifesaving care. Many die as a result.

It’s akin to a primary care provider not treating a patient with diabetes because the doctor isn’t familiar with insulin or can’t prescribe a lifesaving heart medication.

Leaders across the country have called attentionh to this access problem. But we need to match these calls with action, beginning with support for primary care providers at the front line of the opioid epidemic. And we should all get behind what has been shown to work in addiction care.

There are, to be sure, success stories in addiction care. Many of these start with interdisciplinary care teams that bring primary care doctors and nurses together with social workers, mental health counselors, and health coaches to follow patients along their path to recovery. At my clinic in Charlestown, recovering addicts are integral members of the care team, often acting as health coaches. They have the on-the-ground knowledge needed to help patients navigate the complex maze of addiction treatment. This shared responsibility model has been the norm for years in the management of diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic conditions. It should become the standard of care for addiction treatment, too.

When a particularly challenging patient comes my way, there are specialists to help. Several programs, such as Project ECHO out of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, help connect community providers to the specialty support they need to care for certain patients.

Addiction care training is finally making its way into medical schools and residency programs. While special training for medication-assisted treatment such as buprenorphine is still not required in the vast majority of medical schools and residencies across the country, it is increasingly being made available to trainees at places like Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Washington’s rural family medicine program. These are important first steps in making addiction treatment as accessible, destigmatized, and standard as is the care for ear infections, migraine headaches, and heart disease.

Supporting front-line primary care providers and their teams will go a long way toward improving both access to care and the quality of care for patients with opioid addictions.

By opening their doors to patients struggling with addiction, primary care practitioners can provide the best care possible for these patients, treating their diabetes along with their addiction. This kind of care will help keep those struggling with addiction off the streets, improve their whole health, and hopefully prevent another tragic overdose death in a public bathroom or teenage bedroom somewhere in this country.

Julian A. Mitton, MD, is a senior resident in global medicine and primary care at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. This article is reproduced with permission from STAT. It was first published on Oct. 28, 2016. Find the original story here.

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Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks at a campaign rally in Chicago, Illinois. Photo by Jim Young/Reuters

NEW YORK — Jill Stein says America is running out of time.

The 66-year-old Massachusetts doctor and Green Party presidential candidate is offering an aggressive set of policy prescriptions in her longshot bid.

“My ultimate goal is to have a world in which we can survive and thrive,” Stein recently told The Associated Press. “I’m in this as a mother on fire, ultimately, and it’s clear there is no future for our younger generation.”

Stein’s proposals are far outside the mainstream of most elected officials, making it nearly impossible she’d be able to push her ideas through Congress. But she hopes her pitch for radical change to voters fed up with America’s two-party system can attract enough support to make the Green Party more viable in future elections.

“Right now this is a realignment election,” she said. “The more powerful we are in the election, the more votes we get, the greater the chances of averting this catastrophic future that is being pursued by both the Democratic and Republican parties.”

A look at Stein’s top issues.

Clean energy revolution

Stein’s platform centers on an ambitious “Green New Deal” that would push the U.S. toward using only renewable energy — wind, water and solar — by 2030. Stein’s called climate change a threat greater than World War II, and she’s seeking a wartime mobilization to tackle it.

Stein pledges to create 20 million jobs, mainly in public transportation, sustainable agriculture and conservation. She’s estimated the cost at $500 billion. She contends those costs would be recouped because people would be healthier and the U.S. would no longer fight wars over oil.

No student debt

On student debt, Stein offers a far more radical vision than Democrat Hillary Clinton, who would make tuition free at in-state public colleges for many students. Stein would wipe out student debt.

Roughly 44 million Americans are expected to hold about $1.3 trillion in such debt, and Stein says she would erase it all. She reasons if the country can bail out big banks and Wall Street, it can afford to bail out students.

Stein also pledges to make public college tuition free.

Health care for all

Stein advocates a “Medicare-for-all” government-paid health care system. That would mean no co-pays, premiums or deductibles, and mental health, dental and vision care would be included.

She’d also push to make Americans healthier by spending on clean energy and food. She favors mandatory genetically modified organism (GMO) labeling.

Peace not war

Consider Stein a pacifist. She advocates a foreign policy based on a “peace offensive,” meaning more attention to international law, human rights, diplomacy and nonviolence.

She proposes chopping military spending by half and closing more than 700 foreign military bases — like several of her proposals, a nonstarter with both parties in Congress. She’d also cut off financial and military support to “human rights abusers” and puts Israel, one of the closest U.S. allies, on that list.

She’d try to nix drone strikes, withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, remove U.S. nuclear weapons from other countries and begin a process of disarmament.

Government

Whether it’s overhauling the campaign finance system or eliminating the Electoral College to have presidents picked by popular vote, Stein sees a shake-up of government and politics as critical.

Stein supports public financing of elections. She would make voter registration automatic and designate Election Day a national holiday. She’d also push to restore voting rights to people in prison.

And to move away from the two-party system, she supports eliminating “winner take all races,” instead allowing for proportional representation.

The post For Stein, climate change and erasing student debt are high-priority appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Nuns stand next a partially collapsed wall following an earthquake in Norcia, Italy, October 30, 2016. Photo By Remo Casilli/Reuters

A 6.6. magnitude earthquake struck central Italy on Sunday and injured at least 20 while knocking down buildings in the Apennine Mountain region of the country, which had already been decimated by another tremor in August that killed more than 300 people.

Initial reports indicated there were no fatalities, even though Sunday’s earthquake was the strongest to hit the country since 1980, when more than 3,000 people were killed by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake in southern Italy, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“It is since 1980 that we have had to deal with an earthquake of this magnitude,” Fabrizio Curcio, the head of Italy’s Civil Protection agency, told the Associated Press.

Saint Anthony church is seen partially collapsed following an earthquake along the road to Norcia, Italy, October 30, 2016. Photo By Remo Casilli/Reuters

Aftershocks are expected to continue for “weeks and possibly months,” the survey said in a statement released on Sunday, adding that “the possibility of similar sized or larger events” could not be ruled out.

The region is located near a major fault line and has endured dozens of quakes in recent months, the AP reported. Two significant earthquakes last week caused at least 3,600 people to leave their homes. Those who remained flooded into the streets Sunday morning as buildings buckled and collapsed.

Firefighters carry belongings of a resident following an earthquake in Norcia, Italy, October 30, 2016. Photo By Remo Casilli/Reuters

The ancient city of Norcia was closest to the quake’s epicenter, though tremors could be felt as far north as the Austrian border, according to the AP.

Many of the city’s newer homes built to withstand earthquake were spared damage, Reuters reported, but Norcia’s Basilica of St. Benedict, which dates back to the 14th Century, was destroyed.

“This is a tragedy. It is a coup de grace. The basilica is devastated,” Bishop Renato Boccardo of Norcia said. “Everyone has been suspended in a never-ending state of fear and stress. They are at their wits end.”

Rubble is seen in the main square of the Italian city of Norcia, following the largest earthquake to strike the country in 36 years. October 30, 2016. Photo By Remo Casilli/Reuters

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the country would begin reconstruction in the area during the coming years.

“We will rebuild everything, the houses, the churches and the businesses,” Renzi said. “Everything that needs to be done to rebuild these areas will be done.”

Rubble seen following an earthquake in Norcia, Italy, October 30, 2016. Photo By Remo Casilli/Reuters

Firefighters take care of a woman following an earthquake in Norcia, Italy, October 30, 2016. Photo By Remo Casilli/Reuters

A damaged house is seen following an earthquake in Norcia, Italy, October 30, 2016. Photo By Remo Casilli/Reuters

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An Iraqi Christian prepares for the first Sunday mass at the Grand Immaculate Church since it was recaptured from Islamic State in Qaraqosh, near Mosul in Iraq on Oct. 30, 2016. Photo by Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters

Explosions in Iraq’s capital on Sunday killed at least 17 people and was possibly one of many retaliatory efforts to come in the country’s attempt to reclaim the city of Mosul from the Islamic State, according to news reports.

The blasts mainly targeted neighborhoods in Baghdad that are predominately Shiite, which make up Iraq’s majority. The latest was a car bomb that was parked in the northwestern neighborhood of Hurriyah at a popular food and vegetable market, according to the Associated Press.

While there were no immediate claims for responsibility, the Islamic State has stepped up attacks after Iraq put into action about two weeks ago its long-anticipated plan to take back Mosul, its second largest city with about 1.5 million residents left. Mosul is the Islamic State’s last major stronghold in the country.

The explosions also came a day after thousands of Shiite militia joined Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iraqi troops in the effort, according to Reuters.

Their aim is to take over the town of Tal Afar, about 35 miles west of Mosul, to cut off the Islamic State from using it as a place to retreat or get reinforcement from Syria.

But the attempt to reclaim Mosul could be one of the toughest battles since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein, which brought the Shiites to power, according to Reuters.

“The battle of Mosul will not be a picnic. It needs time, it needs precision, it needs a deep breath,” said Hadi al-Amiri, head of the Badr Organisation, the most powerful political group within the organized effort. “We are prepared for the battle of Mosul even if it lasts for months.”

The Iraqi military told the AP that there are over 40,000 army units, militarized police, and special forces trying to fight the Islamic State.

And the U.S. military, which in recent months deployed more than 1,100 troops to help with logistics on top of the 4,000 that were already in Iraq, estimates that there are up to 5,000 Islamic State fighters inside Mosul and as many as 2,500 around it.

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AR-15 rifles line a shelf in the gun library at the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia December 15, 2015. The guns represent many of the models the ATF has come across in their investigations, and are collected through seizures from criminals or donations from manufacturers and members of the public. Picture taken December 15, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The last time voters in Maine were asked about gun rights, they easily passed a constitutional amendment creating a right to own firearms that “shall never be questioned.”

Maine is one of four states, along with California, Nevada and Washington, where voters will decide Nov. 8 whether to enact tougher firearms laws. In a change from past elections, there are no statewide initiatives seeking to expand gun rights anywhere in the U.S.

The presence of so many ballot questions in the same year reflects the strategy, growing power and deep pockets of gun-control supporters, who are outspending opponents in all four states. They hope passage of the proposals shows widening support for more measures designed to keep firearms away from dangerous people.

In Maine and Nevada, a group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has spent millions advocating for background checks on nearly all gun sales and transfers. Supporters want to close gaps in the federal system that allow ineligible felons, domestic abusers and the mentally ill to buy firearms from private sellers at gun shows and online without a background check.

“I do call it a movement. People are really getting fed up with all the violence,” said Judi Richardson, 57, of South Portland, Maine, who gathered signatures to help place the initiative on the ballot.

Her 25-year-old daughter, Darien, was fatally shot in 2010 during a home invasion that remains unsolved. The investigation hit a dead-end because the handgun used to kill her was bought without a background check from a seller who told police he did not know the buyer’s name. Richardson said the Maine initiative would help reduce gun violence by making firearms harder to access and easier to trace.

In Washington state, advocates who successfully campaigned for a background check law in 2014 are now seeking passage of a measure that would allow judges to issue orders temporarily seizing guns from people who are deemed a threat. For instance, concerned families could seek the removal of guns from relatives threatening to harm themselves or others.

California’s Democratic lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, is leading the campaign for a first-of-its-kind law that would require anyone buying ammunition to pass a background check and obtain a state permit.

Gun-safety groups say a Democratic sweep that includes a White House victory and party gains in Congress would put pressure on federal lawmakers to strengthen the national background-check system.

Congress has blocked attempts to create universal background checks, even after the fatal shooting of 20 elementary school students in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. That prompted groups such as Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety to focus on a state-by-state strategy often compared to the strategy used to spread gay marriage.

The history of gun-related ballot initiatives shows how the tide of public opinion may be turning. During the last 40 years, states have approved 15 out of 18 ballot initiatives to expand gun rights and six of nine to restrict them, according to Ballotpedia, which tracks the initiatives.

Supporters organized the initiatives in Maine and Nevada after the states’ Republican governors in 2013 vetoed background check bills approved by their legislatures.

Everytown is the largest spender in those states, assembling coalitions that include concerned parents, families of gun violence victims and law enforcement officials. The movement has also been financed by entrepreneurs such as Nicolas Hanauer of Seattle, who has donated more than $1 million total to the Washington, Maine and Nevada campaigns.

“My guess is they will be successful, and you will see voters in different geographies and backgrounds who are willing to stand up for stronger gun laws,” said Zach Silk, a Hanauer aide who is helping lead the Washington campaign.

If the Maine and Nevada initiatives pass, half of Americans would live in the 20 states that require universal background check laws on gun sales, Everytown President John Feinblatt said.

Opponents say the measures will not stop criminals and go too far by banning the routine sale and transfer of guns between law-abiding citizens, who would have to drive to a firearms dealer and pay for a background check that can cost $30.

“It’s a restriction on the freedom of the good guys,” said 75-year-old Charles Rumsey III of Bangor, Maine, secretary of the Penobscot County Conservation Association, which is opposing the initiative in that state.

The retired Defense Department employee recently borrowed a rifle from a longtime acquaintance after his malfunctioned so he could compete in a shooting event. He worries that such a transfer would be illegal without a background check.

The Maine and Nevada initiatives would require anyone buying or receiving a gun to pass a background check at a federally licensed dealer, with limited exceptions for hunting and transfers of guns between family members. Anyone who has a felony or disqualifying domestic abuse conviction would be denied, as required by federal law.

Rumsey said the possible effects are not well understood and that questions are getting drowned out by the safety message of supporters.

The National Rifle Association is financing opposition efforts in Nevada and Maine but has spent far less than supporters. NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said the states were carefully selected because they were “electorally advantageous” for gun-control supporters.

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By Christopher Booker and Connie Kargbo

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: At the University of South Florida, in Tampa, it would be difficult to  find a young person who hadn’t been told by candidates, canvassers, or a fellow students that their votes are needed and that their votes are important.

ABBY AFSAHI: If you are interested you can go to Hillary.com website and they send you emails when they are in town or at the event.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: USF and its 40,000 students are on the receiving end of a relentless political courtship, occurring at college campuses across the battleground states.

Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have visited. Both knowing Millennials in Florida now outnumber Baby Boomers.

There are over a quarter million Millennials registered to vote here in Tampa and surrounding Hillsborough county. They are not only the most diverse voting bloc in Florida, they are also the most independent.”

While 38 percent are registered Democrat and 23 percent are registered Republican, a sizable 35 percent of voters 18 to 35 are registered Independent, what Florida calls “no party affiliation.”

MARIANNE MENDOZA: We’ve had record numbers of voter registrations on campus. There’s been at least, at one point in time, five organizations trying to register people to vote.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Marianne Mendoza is one of those registered Independents. 2016 Is her first time voting in a presidential election.

What’s the political mood like on campus?

MARIANNE MENDOZA: It’s really divided, I would say.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Mendoza, a junior majoring in political science, helped distribute and collect ballots for the university’s final straw poll organized by student government and other campus groups

Clinton received 53 percent of the vote and Trump, 25 percent.  The remaining 22 percent went to either Libertarian Gary Johnson, Green party candidate Jill Stein or other candidates.

SUSAN MACMANUS: To say that they don’t like the two-party system as it stands today is putting it mildly.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Susan MacManus is a political science professor at USF.

SUSAN MACMANUS: The biggest question mark of Millennials,  there are two, actually. One is, will they turn out? The second part is, will they lean as heavily Democrat as they have in the last two elections, where president Obama was a candidate?

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: On this campus, the outreach by the Democrats is a bit like a hybrid automobile, a combination of old fashioned campaign canvassing and new communication technologies.

KUNOOR OJHA: Tactically, there’s really, like, no special sauce. There is no secret. We just want to make sure that we are talking to young people wherever they’re at.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Kunoor Ojha is the national student organizing director for the Clinton campaign.

On the final day of Florida voter registration, the Clinton camp enlisted actress Danai Gurira, best known for her part on the hit TV show “The Walking Dead.”

KUNOOR OJHA:  Obviously voter registration is super, super important. But we’re also making sure that we’re communicating online, where young people are getting most of their news.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Ojha, who worked for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries, says she joined the Clinton team, because it adopted issues central to the Sanders campaign, like a 15 dollar an hour minimum wage or free public college tuition for middle class families.

Kunoor Ojha: It really is about the issues. This is the most progressive platform that the Democratic party has ever seen. Part of that was because of negotiations between senator Sanders and secretary Clinton. But a lot of that was, you know, driven by young people. They were a huge part of his base. And the fact that there issues were, you know, codified in the party platform really, really meant a lot to them.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: We reached out to the Trump campaign about its efforts to appeal to Millennials, but no one was made available.

USF college Republican chairman Chris Happel says the very nature of Trump’s candidacy is attracting young voters.

CHRIS HAPPEL: Well, I think he’s brought a lot of people who would not even consider  voting Republican to our side. They understand that Washington is broken, and they want someone who can go in and not just be like, the typical politician, who will go in and say hope and change during the election, and then just sit in office and do nothing. They want someone who they can believe will go in there, and try and actually do something.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: while Happel supports Trump, he concedes that he struggles with the Republican party label.

CHRIS HAPPEL: I’m more economics and foreign policy and immigration, that’s kind of how I vote. I don’t like identifying myself as a member of a party, ’cause I think I have a lot of mixed beliefs within being a conservative. So like a lot of Millennials, I really couldn’t care less about what happens with gay marriage, because I just don’t think the government should be involved in general, which is different from the national Republican party.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: What do you think the Republican party has to do to evolve in order to grow?

CHRIS HAPPEL: I think we have to do a better job of reaching out on social media, and just appealing to that voter block rather than, like, the typical party member, who’s a baby boomer and votes Republican every election. The Democratic party has been doing it really well for a long time, and Hillary Clinton’s doing it again. I mean, every time I go on youtube, it’s a Hillary Clinton ad before the video that I’m trying to watch.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: But unmatched social media might is of little concern to registered Republican and first time voter noel Cantrell.

Do you think your decision to support Donald Trump was driven more by the candidate or by the issues?

NOEL CANTRELL: By the issues, yes. He caused me to get involved in politics, because he’s an outsider, and that’s one thing I really do like about him is that he is he matches up with more of the Republican values than, you know, liberal values. We need to focus on America. And we need to help ourselves first, because our country’s going down lately.  It’s just, like, if you think about it with an airplane, how they say, ‘you need to put on your oxygen mask before you put on someone else’s.’

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Have you found yourself having to defend him and your support for him?

NOEL CANTRELL: Yes, I have. Yes.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: And so what do you usually say?

NOEL CANTRELL:  From the other students. I tell them, ‘you know, I can’t defend everything he says. He’s not the best candidate, but he’s the candidate we have. So we need to support him.’

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: If Donald Trump loses, what do you think happens to you as a participant in the political process?

NOEL CANTRELL: I think right now if Hillary Clinton wins this election, next election there will be  even a bigger movement, because it’s been the same-old, same-old for a while. And people are ready for a change.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER USF graduate Ahmad Saadaldin says he’s not willing to wait until 2020. He’s voting for Green party nominee Jill Stein, as neither the Republican nor the Democrat appeal to him.

AHMAD SAADALDIN: These cannot be our only two options. When we go to the grocery store, there are a hundred brands of cereal. There’s a cereal aisle, okay? But for president, it’s like we only consider two brands, red or blue. And I think that’s, that’s done for. Americans don’t, you can see it in the polls, americans want a change.”

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: No one from the Gary Johnson campaign responded to our requests for comment.

SUSAN MACMANUS: So that brings me to a good question that y’all should discuss.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Each election cycle, professor MacManus requires students to volunteer at least 20 hours for a local, state, or national campaign.

SUSAN MACMANUS: Any candidate who comes in, or a candidate representative that comes in and wants to make an appeal for volunteers for my class. If they don’t talk about issues, they’re out of the picture.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Sara Guerrero, a sophomore  in MacManus’ class registered as a Republican earlier this year to vote for home state senator Marco Rubio in Florida’s presidential primary, and she interned for the state Republican party.

SARA GUERRERO: I really did not think trump would win the nomination.  I went to my boss and I was, like, ‘hey, like, look, like, I love this job. I love organizing events. I love talking to people, you know. But I cannot do this. Like, I morally cannot support a candidate that just I in no way agree with on absolutely anything.’ So I quit that job, and it was funny. He says to me, he goes, ‘you know, good luck, you know, in politics you’re never gonna find a candidate that you agree with entirely.’ And I’m, like, ‘okay, well it’s not trump so.’

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Trump’s promise to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and build a wall along the US border with Mexico drove her from the Republican party.  Guerrero moved from colombia to Florida when she was three, and then she and her parents became US citizens.

SARA GUERRERO: Hillary Clinton was not my top pick it’s strategic voting at this point. I’m dedicating my entire life to either undoing what trump does with immigration or furthering what Hillary Clinton does. Socially, like that’s what matters to me now. Immigration reform, that’s it for me.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Do you think there’s anything the Republican party could do to bring you back to the party?

SARA GUERRERO: Not alienate, like, an entire minority. Okay, me as, like, a Latino, female, Millennial, it’s hard for me to even explain why I would be a Republican. I mean, why would I? But  I feel like I morally lean Democrat and then, like, economically lean Republican. So we’ll see.

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FBI Director James Comey testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on “Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation” on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 28, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

WASHINGTON — FBI investigators in the Anthony Weiner sexting probe knew for weeks about the existence of newly discovered emails potentially related to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, a law enforcement official said Sunday.

The emails were found on a device that belonged to Weiner, the estranged husband of close Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

A second law enforcement official also said the FBI was aware for a period of time about the emails before Comey was briefed, but wasn’t more specific.

The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The timing of Comey’s letter just 11 days before Election Day drew criticism from Democrats and some Republicans who cast it as unprecedented and potentially tipping the scales in the presidential race in favor of Republican Donald Trump.

Energized by the news, the GOP presidential nominee has rallied his supporters, calling the latest developments worse than Watergate and arguing that his candidacy has the momentum in the final days of the race.

“We never thought we were going to say ‘thank you’ to Anthony Weiner,” Trump said in Nevada.

Trump also highlighted reports that the Justice Department had discouraged the FBI from alerting Congress to the unexpected discovery of the emails, and said the department is trying “so hard” to protect Clinton.

Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of State has dogged her campaign since early last year. In July, Comey recommended against criminal prosecution after a months-long investigation, but rebuked Clinton and her aides for being careless with classified material.

READ NEXT: Justice Department advised FBI against Clinton email letter

Justice Department officials who were advised of the FBI’s intention to notify Congress about the discovery expressed concern that the action would be inconsistent with department protocols designed to avoid the appearance of interference in an election.

In an apparent departure from the wishes of top Justice Department leaders, Comey acted independently when he sent several members of Congress a letter about the emails on Friday, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The move creates the potential for a divide between the Justice Department and Comey, who has served in government under both Democratic and Republican presidents.

It was not immediately clear what the emails were about or what significance, if any, they carried to the email investigation. Nor was it clear when agents would complete the process of reviewing the recovered emails, and Comey made no guarantees that would happen before Election Day.

The newly discovered emails were on a device seized during a sexting investigation of disgraced former New York Democratic Rep. Weiner.

A person familiar with the investigation, who lacked authority to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity, said the device that appears to be at the center of the new review was a computer that belonged only to Weiner and was not one he shared with Abedin.

As a result, it was not a device searched for work-related emails at the time of the initial investigation. The person said it is “news to (Abedin)” that her emails would be on a computer belonging to her husband.

Abedin told lawyers in June in a deposition that, like millions of internet users who don’t manage their inboxes, she never deleted old emails on her devices, either at work with Clinton or at home with Weiner.

“I didn’t have a practice of managing my mailbox other than leaving what was in there sitting in there,” Abedin said. “I didn’t go into my emails and delete State.gov emails. They just lived on my computer. That was my practice for all my email accounts. I didn’t have a particular form of organizing them. I had a few folders, but they were not deleted. They all stayed in whatever device I was using at the time or whatever desktop I was on at the time.”

In February 2013, Abedin signed a routine State Department document under penalty of perjury in which she promised to “turn over all classified or administratively controlled documents and materials” before she left her government job, and promised that she was not retaining copies, “including any diaries, memorandums of conversation or other documents of a personal nature.”

Abedin and Weiner separated this year after Weiner was caught in 2011, 2013 and again this year sending numerous woman sexually explicit text messages and photographs of himself undressed. Federal authorities in New York and North Carolina are investigating online communications between Weiner and a 15-year-old girl.

This report was written by Eric Tucker of the Associated Press.

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Medical marijuana plants are pictured as they dry in the Los Angeles area. Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

BOSTON — Having proven they can win in the West, advocates for recreational marijuana hope the Nov. 8 election brings their first significant electoral victories in the densely populated Northeast, where voters in Massachusetts and Maine will consider making pot legal for all adults.

Supporters believe “yes” votes in New England would add geographical diversity to the legalization map, encourage other East Coast states to move in the same direction and perhaps build momentum toward ending federal prohibitions on the drug.

Three other states – California, Arizona and Nevada – are also voting on recreational pot. If the California initiative passes, marijuana will be legal along the entire West Coast. Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska have already voted to permit it. The District of Columbia also passed a legalization measure in 2014, but it has no regulatory framework for retail sales and possession remains illegal on federal property.

Several Eastern states are among the 25 that already allow some form of medicinal marijuana, but none in the region has approved recreational pot.

Big money is at stake, which helps explain why marijuana supporters have raised more than $6 million in Massachusetts and about $1.3 million in Maine, most from outside those states.

Analysts from Cowen and Co. issued a report last month forecasting a $50 billion legal cannabis market in the U.S. by 2026, a nearly tenfold increase over today. But such growth would be predicated on federal legalization. Passage of the November state referendums would be a “key catalyst” toward that end, analysts wrote.

Higher marijuana usage in the West may help explain why the region has been a more fertile ground for legalization, said Matt Simon, New England director for the Marijuana Policy Project, another major pro-legalization group.

“More people have direct experience with marijuana or know someone who has, and that leads to it being demystified,” Simon said.

Recent polls on the New England ballot questions, which propose significantly lower tax rates than those in Colorado and Washington, indicate the “yes” sides trending ahead in both states. Still, passage is far from guaranteed.

In Massachusetts, a socially liberal state, voters previously decriminalized small amounts of marijuana and approved it for medicinal use. This year’s initiative has met formidable opposition from politicians, business leaders, clergy and even billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who recently donated $1 million to opposing groups.

The state’s popular Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston’s Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh are among many elected officials fighting the idea. Their arguments include concerns that edible pot products resembling candy or other treats could fall into the hands of children, and that marijuana can be a “gateway” to far more dangerous drugs.

“The availability of marijuana for adolescent users already constitutes an environmental factor for the later use of other illicit drugs,” the state’s four Roman Catholic bishops said in a recent statement. “Its legalization will only serve to worsen this problem.”

A TV ad urging a “no” vote imagines a neighborhood overrun by pot shops and a mother shocked to see her own son emerge from one of the stores. Legalization proponents dismissed the ad as a “smear-and-fear” tactic.

“There is a puritanical streak that runs through New Englanders,” said NORML’s Stroup, a onetime Boston resident.

The Puritans lost their influence centuries ago, and the phrase “banned in Boston” is an anachronism. Yet uneasiness persists when it comes to issues that would have once been considered sinful. Massachusetts, for example, only recently authorized casino gambling and did so in a limited and highly regulated form.

In Maine, critics worry about disrupting the state’s well-established medical marijuana program.

“We want to make sure patients don’t lose access and that small growers will still be able to flourish,” said Catherine Lewis, director of education for Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine.

Portland, the state’s largest city, legalized possession of up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana in 2013, but the statewide prohibition still makes buying and selling the drug illegal.

Marijuana companies that have focused largely on Western states are watching developments closely, sensing new regional opportunities for investment and growth.

“The Northeast specifically is going to be a very powerful market because of the population density,” said Derek Peterson, chief executive of Terra Tech Corp., which operates cannabis cultivation, production and retail facilities.

Marc Harvill, client services and training manager for Denver-based Medicine Man Technologies, said the firm has already fielded inquires for consulting services from potential retail operators in New England should the ballot questions pass.

“The sky’s the limit,” he said.

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ALISON STEWART, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR: In U.S. elections, the term “October surprise” has come to mean an event in the closing weeks or days of a presidential campaign that could affect or even alter the outcome. The developing story about the FBI reviving its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server could qualify.

For more on the “October surprise” phenomenon, I’m joined from Santa Barbara, California, by “NewsHour Weekend” special correspondent Jeff Greenfield.

Jeff, let’s get a little bit of historical context. When has an October surprise affected the results of a presidential election?

JEFF GREENFIELD, NEWSHOUR WEEKEND SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you can go back to 1960, whether John and Robert Kennedy got Martin Luther King out of a rural Georgia jail where his family feared for his life. King’s father who had endorsed Nixon switched his endorsement. There was a spike in African-American turnout in some big cities and very close states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, may well have changed and helped elect Kennedy because of that event.

You could point to Henry Kissinger, secretary of state, saying in 1972 that peace at hand in Vietnam, though Nixon was probably headed for a landslide. The use of George W. Bush’s youthful drunk driving arrests in closing days of 2000 campaign, his campaign blamed those stories for him closing the popular vote. John Kerry claimed that an Osama bin Laden in 2004 hurt him.

The most on point example of example was back in ’92 when a special prosecutor looking into the Reagan administration’s dealings with Iran pointed a finger at then-Vice President George Bush who was up for reelection, saying he might have known, and his campaign was very angry about that. So, we never quite know when these October surprises didn’t make a difference, but those are some plausible candidates.

STEWART: Up until this weekend, there were several contenders for the October surprise, and given this surprising election season overall, could there be October surprises this time around, plural?

GREENFIELD: You know, you can start with that “Access Hollywood” tape. You can talk about the WikiLeaks drip, drip, drip that seemed to raise questions about the Clinton Foundation. Certainly, FBI Director Comey’s statement, you know, so close to the election qualifies. And we should remember, who says there can’t be November surprises? We still have more than a week to go.

STEWART: The FBI’s director’s letter to Congress revealed that there were e-mails on Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s computer, but that’s just about it, just that there were emails, not much more information.

So, what position did that put candidate Clinton in in terms of her response?

GREENFIELD: It puts here, that campaign in an extremely difficulty position because they don’t know what they’re dealing with. That’s why apart from really raising the temperature on their criticisms of what Comey did, they’re demanding for a full accounting of these e-mails immediately. But it’s less so much what happens to her. It’s hard to imagine that somebody will change their minds if they voted for Clinton — thought about voting for Clinton before.

What this does is to encourage the Trump campaign because Republicans looking at polls, we could go, we’re thinking, well, maybe I won’t bother, looks like it’s all over. And so, what she has to worry about is less than erosion in her support than an increase in Trump’s support.

STEWART: Let’s talk about the down ballot races. They’re quite interesting. And obviously, the presidential election is affecting many of the down ballot races. Which ones stand out to you?

GREENFIELD: Well, the half dozen Senate races literally from one end of the country to the other, from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania to North Carolina, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nevada, I might be leaving out one, because the control of the Senate in my view is just about as important as who wins the White House.

There’s one way down ballot, out in Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, been there for 24 years, he’s the one who makes prisoners wear pink prison outfits, very, very tough on immigration, he has been the sheriff for 24 years and right now, it looks like he’s trailing badly. And for a lot of people who don’t like that hard line on immigration, the loss of that election by Joe Arpaio would be very disappointing or very gratifying.

STEWART: And that’s his — I think he’s going for a seventh term as sheriff, he’s 84 years old.

GREENFIELD: That’s the one. You know, there re a couple of others. I would point to a couple of congressional races. Darrell Issa in California, who’s been running endless investigations about Clinton and Obama, he’s in a very tough race, and that’s another one that if he were to lose, that would not break a lot of Democratic hearts.

STEWART: And Wisconsin has gotten surprisingly tight, correct?

GREENFIELD: Yes, all along the assumption was that Senator Johnson was going to lose to the man he defeated six years ago, Russ Feingold. For some reason, the campaign has been putting a lot of money into that state. I believe Secretary Clinton is visiting that state.

And again, when you have six Senate races that seemed close, anyone of them, the one in New Hampshire between governor and the incumbent senator, any one of them could tip balance of power, which in turn is going to affect everything from the Supreme Court to the new president’s legislative agenda.

STEWART: Jeff, at this point in the presidential election, the candidates would be making their closing arguments. This is how this last week would be spent. But given the untraditional nature of this election season in our multiple October surprises, what position are they in? Do they — can they make the closing argument, or they still have to fight?

GREENFIELD: I think the closing arguments for both campaigns are going to be aimed squarely at the mobilization. At this point, trying to persuade voters is probably a fools’ errand. So, in both camps, what you’re going to find is urgent appeals, “If you are for me, for heaven’s sakes, get out and vote”. And that’s why the ground game, the get out the vote operation, which normally is marginal, maybe accounts to one or two points, is so critical this election, particularly if the polls are right and that this race is tightening.

STEWART: Jeff Greenfield, thanks so much.

GREENFIELD: Thank you.

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