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Trump Speaks in Battleground Pennsylvania, Harris Makes Michigan Push
Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump looks on during a rally at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, in Uniondale, New York, US, Sept. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Republican Donald Trump made a last pitch for support in Pennsylvania, the largest of the seven states expected to decide this week’s US presidential election, while Democratic rival Kamala Harris focused her energy on Michigan on Sunday.
Opinion polls show the pair locked in a tight race, with Vice President Harris, 60, bolstered by strong support among women voters while former President Trump, 78, gains ground with Hispanic voters, particularly men.
Voters overall view both candidates unfavorably, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, but that so far has not dissuaded them from casting ballots. More than 76 million Americans have already done so ahead of Tuesday’s Election Day, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, approaching half the total 160 million votes cast in 2020, which saw the highest US voter turnout in more than a century.
North Carolina, another swing state, reported setting a record when its early-vote period ended on Saturday.
Control of the US Congress is also up for grabs on Tuesday, with Republicans favored to capture a majority in the Senate while Democrats are seen as having an even chance of flipping Republicans’ narrow majority in the House of Representatives. Presidents whose parties have not controlled both chambers have struggled to pass major new legislation over the past decade.
“Here’s all you need to know: Kamala broke it and we’re going to fix it,” said Trump, beginning his rally in Lititz, in central Pennsylvania, an hour late and his voice raspy. In a speech where he repeatedly criticized the US election process, he added, “It’s a damn shame and I’m the only one who talks about it because everyone is damn afraid to talk about it.”
Trump is later due to speak in Kinston, North Carolina, before ending his day with an evening rally in Macon, Georgia. Those two states are the second-biggest prizes up for grabs on Tuesday, with each holding 16 of the 270 votes a candidate needs to win in the state-by-state Electoral College to secure the presidency. Pennsylvania offers 19 electors.
Nonpartisan US election analysts reckon Harris would need to win about 45 electoral votes in the seven swing states to win the White House, while Trump would need about 51, when accounting for the states they are forecast to win easily.
HARRIS IN MICHIGAN PUSH
Harris is due to speak at a church in Detroit, the largest majority-Black US city, at around noon ET (1700 GMT) on Sunday before heading to East Lansing, a college town in an industrial state that is viewed as a must-win for the Democrat.
She faces skepticism from some of the state’s 200,000 Arab Americans who are frustrated Harris has not done more to help end the war in Gaza and scale back aid to Israel. Trump visited Dearborn, the heart of the Arab American community, on Friday and vowed to end the wars in the Middle East.
Harris, who has met behind closed doors with selected Arab American and Muslim leaders, will focus her energy on Black neighborhoods on Sunday.
Samah Noureddine, 44, a Lebanese American from Grosse Ile, a town near Detroit, said she voted for Biden in 2020 but was casting a ballot for Jill Stein of the Green Party this year.
“I’m upset because Harris is funding the genocide and if we get Trump we’re going to suffer too,” she said. “I’m sick of both of them.”
COST OF LIVING
In the campaign’s final days, Harris has sought to convince voters that she will bring down the cost of living, a top concern after several years of high inflation. She has also portrayed Trump as dangerous and erratic and urged Americans to move on from his divisive approach to politics.
“We have an opportunity in this election to turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other. We’re done with that,” she said in Charlotte on Saturday.
Trump has argued that Harris, as the sitting vice president, should be held responsible for rising prices and the high levels of immigration of the past several years, which he has portrayed as an existential threat to the country.
The stakes are high, with Harris and Trump having starkly different views of the economy, the role of government in American life and the role of the US in the world.
One illustration of that came from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a Trump supporter and opponent of military aid to Ukraine as it fights off a Russian invasion. Orban said Europe will need to rethink its support of Ukraine if Trump wins.
Trump’s public comments have suggested he could seek to wind down US aid for Ukraine if he wins on Tuesday.
The post Trump Speaks in Battleground Pennsylvania, Harris Makes Michigan Push first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.