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By Helen Coster, Alexandra Ulmer and David Morgan (Reuters) – Republican nominee Donald Trump has called her “crazy,” “nuts” and “dumb as a rock.” Republicans in Congress disparage her as a diversity hire. Right-wing activists and trolls have smeared her online with racist, sexist and sexualized barbs. The attacks on Kamala Harris, the first woman and first Black and South Asian person to serve as U.S. vice president, have intensified in the days since she consolidated support to become Democrats’ likely presidential nominee. The demeaning racist and sexist attacks threaten to distract from the Republican Party’s concerted effort to focus on Harris’ policies. Trump allies, including some members of the “Black Americans for Trump” coalition, warn that disparaging Harris could hurt him in his outreach to Black voters, a crucial demographic in the Nov. 5 presidential election. In interviews with nine Republican lawmakers and 11 Black Republican women who back Trump, eight said personal attacks on Harris should be avoided. While guarded in their comments and emphasizing their continued support for Trump, several expressed worry over the tenor of the attacks and whether the onslaught could harm Republicans at the ballot box. “I think there is a way to critique her without going underneath her clothes,” said P Rae Easley, a Black conservative radio show host in Chicago and a member of the “Black Americans for Trump” coalition, a loosely organized group of Black allies backing Trump. Several members of Congress echoed her sentiments. “I’m going to oppose Vice President Harris because of what she’s done, not who she is,” said Representative Dusty Johnson, who chairs the 75-member Republican Main Street Caucus. “Some of this ugliness is unbecoming of a great country.” Others said the attacks on Harris’ personal life were no different than Democrats attacking Trump over his personal and family life. “It’s a nasty fight. Democrats have a tendency to play victim,” said Madgie Nicolas, co-chair of Haitians for Trump and the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s national director of African American voices. The tension suggests Trump campaign efforts to tie Harris to President Joe Biden’s record – particularly on immigration, crime and the economy – risk being overshadowed by personal attacks that show no signs of slowing. “Going after Kamala Harris as a ‘DEI hire’ is breathtakingly stupid,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who has worked on campaigns for U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others. “It’s going to backfire,” Ayres said, adding that Harris had an “incredible array of far left-wing policies” that could be targeted. DEI stands for “diversity, equity and inclusion” initiatives aimed at increasing representation of women and people of color in the workforce to address longstanding inequities and discrimination. The term “DEI hire” is now used to suggest a person is not qualified for their role and has been chosen on the basis of their race or gender. Ayres said the disparaging rhetoric would alienate women and “anyone who isn’t far-right.” The Trump campaign did not directly respond to questions about whether it had discussed trying to tone down personal attacks on Harris. Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric has emboldened people with racist beliefs to express them, according to rhetoric experts, critics and past public opinion polling. The former president has a history of attacking political opponents, including other Black women in power such as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting his election interference case in Georgia, and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge assigned to the federal case against him for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. At a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump did not go after Harris on gender or racial grounds. Instead, he painted a potential Harris presidency in apocalyptic terms. “She is a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country,” Trump said. Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said voters would reject Harris not because of her race and gender, but because of her failed policies. A spokesperson for Harris, whose nascent campaign has generated a groundswell of grassroots fundraising and activism, said she is staying focused on her work. “These attacks are backfiring and even Republicans know it,” said Sarafina Chitika. LEWD COMMENTS Online attacks against Harris were ramping up even before Biden dropped out on Sunday, according to researchers and a Reuters review of posts on the X platform, although exact data is hard to come by. Some of the recent posts refer to sexual acts and speak of Harris’ past relationships in lewd terms. Others disparage her for not having biological children, echoing a comment Trump running mate JD Vance made in 2021, when he criticized Harris and other Democrats as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives.” Harris has two stepchildren with her husband, lawyer Doug Emhoff. Emhoff’s ex-wife on Wednesday called such attacks “baseless” and described Harris as a “loving, nurturing, fiercely protective” co-parent. Disinformation researchers say the online attacks do not appear to be coming from a specific epicenter and are now so prevalent that most accounts are merely “amplifiers” of already-existing narratives. U.S. Representative Michael Cloud, a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, defended Republicans who have disparaged Harris as a “DEI hire.” “Those were Biden’s words, actually,” Cloud said. Biden has not called Harris a “DEI hire.” At a campaign appearance with Harris in May, he spoke of the values of DEI and having a diverse administration. “And it starts at the top with the vice president,” Biden said. Trump has nicknamed Harris “Laffin’ Kamala,” mocking her laugh, and “Lyin’ Kamala,” claiming she tried to hide Biden’s aging from the public. At a Sunday rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the former president called her “crazy” and “nuts.” Kelly Dittmar, a political science professor at Rutgers University, said the nicknames appeared to be playing into stereotypes about women’s voices and emotions, as well as seeking to emulate African American pronunciation. “The actual laughing and cackling goes back to tropes about not wanting to hear women’s voices,” Dittmar said. “It’s not the laugh itself. It’s to characterize her as annoying. I think the nicknames are trying to cue the fact she’s Black.” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who attended a closed-door meeting this week where party leaders urged members to concentrate on policy issues, told Reuters on Thursday that he had not spoken to Trump or the Trump campaign about how to message regarding Harris. “This campaign will be about policies,” Johnson said. “And I think everybody will be discussing that in detail, and I think we’ll win on that basis.”  Easley, the radio show host, said she suggested to Trump campaign officials they engage Black allies more to counter Harris “without the veil of racism being attached to it.” She and several other Black Republican women who spoke to Reuters said they did not like the personal attacks, with some noting their own experiences confronting higher standards and expectations as Black women, or having their qualifications questioned. “As a Black woman myself, I don’t appreciate when people start saying because of the color of your skin, that makes you a DEI hire. I don’t think that’s fair to anyone,” said Corrin Rankin, vice chair of the California Republican Party, who said she met Harris when they both worked in San Francisco. However, Rankin said she felt Biden’s vow to pick a woman or person of color as his running mate in 2020 had allowed that term to take hold. Other Trump allies warned that his attacks could alienate some voters. “I am hoping that his advisers will encourage Trump to pull it back,” said Camilla Moore, chair of the Georgia Black Republican Council. “Because it could hurt in the long run.” (Reporting by Helen Coster, Alexandra Ulmer and David Morgan; Additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly and James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Wallis) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A new era is coming for Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel in the wake of the capture by U.S. authorities of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the last of the grand old Mexican drug traffickers. Experts believe his arrest will usher in a new wave of violence in Mexico even as Zambada could potentially provide loads of information for U.S. prosecutors. Zambada, who had eluded authorities for decades and had never set foot in prison, was known for being an astute operator, skilled at corrupting officials and having an ability to negotiate with everyone, including rivals. Removing him from the criminal landscape could set off an internal war for control of the cartel that has a global reach — as has occurred with the arrest or killings of other kingpins — and open the door to the more violent inclinations of a younger generation of Sinaloa traffickers, experts say. With that in mind, the Mexican government deployed 200 members of its special forces Friday to Culiacan, Sinaloa state’s capital. There is “significant potential for high escalation of violence across Mexico,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution. That “is bad for Mexico, it’s bad for the United States, as well as the possibility that the even more vicious (Jalisco New Generation cartel) will rise to even greater importance.” For that reason, Zambada’s arrest could be considered a “great tactical success,” but strategically problematic, Felbab-Brown said. While details remain scarce, a United States official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Zambada was tricked into flying to the U.S., where he was arrested along with Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of the infamous Sinaloa leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The elder Guzmán is serving a life sentence in the United States. A small plane left Hermosillo in northern Mexico on Thursday morning with only an American pilot aboard, bound for the airport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, near El Paso, Texas. Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said Friday that while one person left Hermosillo, three people arrived in New Mexico. The flight tracking site Flight Aware showed the plane stopped transmitting its elevation and speed for about half an hour over the mountains of northern Mexico before resuming its course to the U.S. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a vocal critic of the strategy of taking down drug kingpins, said Friday that Mexico had not participated or known about the U.S. operation, but said he considered the arrests an “advance.” Later, López Obrador, while talking about where the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels are battling for control of smuggling routes along the Guatemala border on Friday, downplayed the violence that had driven nearly 600 Mexicans to seek refuge in Guatemala this week. He said, as he often has, that it’s his political adversaries who are trying to make Mexico’s violence appear to be out of control. But those cartels were already fighting each other in many locations throughout Mexico before Zambada’s arrest. Frank Pérez, a lawyer for Zambada, told The Associated Press that his client “did not come to the U.S. voluntarily.” It appeared the sons of “El Chapo” Guzmán were somehow in on the trap for Zambada, said José Reveles, author of a number of books about the cartels. The so-called Chapitos, or Little Chapos, make up a faction within the Sinaloa cartel that was often at odds with Zambada even while trafficking drugs. Guzmán López, who was also arrested Thursday, “is not his friend nor his collaborator,” Reveles said. He is considered to be the least influential of the four brothers who make up the Chapitos, who are considered among the main exporters of the synthetic opioid fentanyl to the United States. Joaquín Guzmán López is now the second of them to land in U.S. custody. Their chief of security was arrested by Mexican authorities in November. Guzmán López has been accused of being the cartel’s link for importing the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl from Asia and for setting up the labs that produce the drug, Reveles said. Anne Milgram, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief, said that Zambada’s arrest “strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast.” During the current Mexican administration, which ends Sept. 30, Mexico has been unable to control the country’s violence. López Obrador’s decision to focus on alleviating what he sees as the root causes of violence instead of head-on confrontation with the cartels has caused tensions with the U.S. authorities, in particular the DEA. Felbab-Brown said it has also allowed the cartels to accumulate power that “is unprecedented in Mexico’s history.” Zambada could now offer reams of information about the cartel’s operations if he decides to cooperate. He faces charges in multiple U.S. federal courts. He was the cartel’s most skilled agent of corruption and the most influential trafficker who “has been running extensive corruption networks across many administrations in Mexico, across vast geographic spaces, from the top of the Mexican government to municipal institutions,” Felbab-Brown said. “The most important thing to watch is how much intelligence El Mayo will now provide and how much evidence in exchange for better terms,” she said. ___ Durkin Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Christopher Sherman, Alexis Triboulard and Martín Silva in Mexico City contributed to this story. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a fresh broadside against one of the world’s most popular technology companies, the Justice Department late Friday accused TikTok of harnessing the capability to gather bulk information on users based on views on divisive social issues like gun control, abortion and religion. Government lawyers wrote in a brief filed to the federal appeals court in Washington that TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance used an internal web-suite system called Lark to enable TikTok employees to speak directly with ByteDance engineers in China. TikTok employees used Lark to send sensitive data about U.S. users, information that has wound up being stored on Chinese servers and accessible to ByteDance employees in China, federal officials said. One of Lark’s internal search tools, the filing states, permits ByteDance and TikTok employees in the U.S. and China to gather information on users’ content or expressions, including views on sensitive topics, such as abortion or religion. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported TikTok had tracked users who watched LGBTQ content through a dashboard the company said it had since deleted. The new court documents represent the government’s first major defense in a consequential legal battle over the future of the popular social media platform, which is used by more than 170 million Americans. Under a law signed by President Joe Biden in April, the company could face a ban in a few months if it doesn’t break ties with ByteDance. The measure was passed with bipartisan support after lawmakers and administration officials expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data or sway public opinion towards Beijing’s interests by manipulating the algorithm that populates users’ feeds. The Justice Department warned, in stark terms, of the potential for what it called “covert content manipulation” by the Chinese government, saying the algorithm could be designed to shape content that users receive. “By directing ByteDance or TikTok to covertly manipulate that algorithm; China could for example further its existing malign influence operations and amplify its efforts to undermine trust in our democracy and exacerbate social divisions,” the brief states. The concern, they said, is more than theoretical, alleging that TikTok and ByteDance employees are known to engage in a practice called “heating” in which certain videos are promoted in order to receive a certain number of views. While this capability enables TikTok to curate popular content and disseminate it more widely, U.S. officials posit it can also be used for nefarious purposes. Justice Department officials are asking the court to allow a classified version of its legal brief, which won’t be accessible to the two companies. Nothing in the redacted brief “changes the fact that the Constitution is on our side,” TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said in a statement. “The TikTok ban would silence 170 million Americans’ voices, violating the 1st Amendment,” Haurek said. “As we’ve said before, the government has never put forth proof of its claims, including when Congress passed this unconstitutional law. Today, once again, the government is taking this unprecedented step while hiding behind secret information. We remain confident we will prevail in court.” In the redacted version of the court documents, the Justice Department said another tool triggered the suppression of content based on the use of certain words. Certain policies of the tool applied to ByteDance users in China, where the company operates a similar app called Douyin that follows Beijing’s strict censorship rules. But Justice Department officials said other policies may have been applied to TikTok users outside of China. TikTok was investigating the existence of these policies and whether they had ever been used in the U.S. in, or around, 2022, officials said. The government points to the Lark data transfers to explain why federal officials do not believe that Project Texas, TikTok’s $1.5 billion mitigation plan to store U.S. user data on servers owned and maintained by the tech giant Oracle, is sufficient to guard against national security concerns. In its legal challenge against the law, TikTok has heavily leaned on arguments that the potential ban violates the First Amendment because it bars the app from continued speech unless it attracts a new owner through a complex divestment process. It has also argued divestment would change the speech on the platform because a new social platform would lack the algorithm that has driven its success. In its response, the Justice Department argued TikTok has not raised any valid free speech claims, saying the law addresses national security concerns without targeting protected speech, and argues that China and ByteDance, as foreign entities, aren’t shielded by the First Amendment. TikTok has also argued the U.S. law discriminates on viewpoints, citing statements from some lawmakers critical of what they viewed as an anti-Israel tilt on the platform during its war in Gaza. Justice Department officials disputes that argument, saying the law at issue reflects their ongoing concern that China could weaponize technology against U.S. national security, a fear they say is made worse by demands that companies under Beijing’s control turn over sensitive data to the government. They say TikTok, under its current operating structure, is required to be responsive to those demands. Oral arguments in the case is scheduled for September. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

California’s largest active fire exploded in size on Friday evening, growing rapidly amid bone-dry fuel and threatening thousands of homes as firefighters scrambled to meet the danger. The Park Fire’s intensity and dramatic spread led fire officials to make unwelcome comparisons to the monstrous Camp Fire, which burned out of control in nearby Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people and torching 11,000 homes. More than 130 structures have been destroyed by this fire so far, and thousands more are threatened as evacuations were ordered in four counties: Butte, Plumas, Tehama and Shasta. It stood at 480 square miles (1,243 square kilometers) on Friday night and was moving quickly north and east after igniting Wednesday when authorities said a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then calmly blended in with others fleeing the scene. “There’s a tremendous amount of fuel out there and it’s going to continue with this rapid pace,” Cal Fire incident commander Billy See said at a briefing. He said the fire was advancing up to 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) an hour on Friday afternoon. Officials at Lassen Volcanic National Park evacuated staff from Mineral, a community of about 120 people where the park headquarters are located, as the fire moved north toward Highway 36 and east toward the park. Communities elsewhere in the U.S. West and Canada were under siege Friday, from a fast-moving blaze sparked by lightning sent people fleeing on fire-ringed roads in rural Idaho to a new blaze that was causing evacuations in eastern Washington. In eastern Oregon, a pilot was found dead in a small air tanker plane that crashed while fighting one of the many wildfires spreading across several Western states. More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometers) were burning in the U.S. on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some were caused by the weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures record heat and bone-dry conditions. A fire in eastern Washington destroyed three homes and five outbuildings near the community of Tyler, which was evacuated Friday afternoon, said Ryan Rodruck, spokesperson with the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Firefighters were able to contain the Columbia Basin fire in Spokane County to about half a square mile (1.3 square km), he said. In Chico, California, Carli Parker is one of hundreds who fled their homes as the Park Fire pushed close. Parker decided to leave her Forest Ranch residence with her family when the fire began burning across the street. She has previously been forced out of two homes by fire, and she said she had little hope that her residence would remain unscathed. “I think I felt like I was in danger because the police had come to our house because we had signed up for early evacuation warnings, and they were running to their vehicle after telling us that we need to self-evacuate and they wouldn’t come back,” said Parker, a mother of five. Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, of Chico, was arrested early Thursday in connection with the blaze and held without bail pending a Monday arraignment, officials said. There was no reply to an email to the district attorney asking whether the suspect had legal representation or someone who could comment on his behalf. Fire crews were making progress on another complex of fires burning in the Plumas National Forest near the California-Nevada line, said Forest Service spokesperson Adrienne Freeman. Most of the 1,000 residents evacuated by the lightning-sparked Gold Complex fires were returning home Friday. Some crews were peeling off to help battle the Park Fire. “As evidenced by the (Park) fire to the West, some of these fires are just absolutely exploding and burning at rates of spread that it is just hard to even imagine,” Tim Hike, Forest Service incident commander of the Gold Complex fire about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Reno, said Friday. “The fire does not look that bad right up until it does. And then that just might be too late.” Forest Ranch evacuee Sherry Alpers, fled with her 12 small dogs and made the decision to stay in her car outside a Red Cross shelter in Chico after learning that animals would not be allowed inside. She ruled out traveling to another shelter after learning the dogs would be kept in cages, since her dogs have always roamed free at her home. Alpers said she doesn’t know whether the fire spared her home or not, but she said that as long as her dogs are safe, she doesn’t care about the material things. “I’m kind of worried, but not that much,” she said. “If it’s gone, it’s gone.” Brian Bowles was also staying in his car outside the shelter with his dog Diamon. He said he doesn’t know if his mobile home is still standing. Bowles said he only has a $100 gift card he received from United Way, which handed them out to evacuees. “Now the question is, do I get a motel room and comfortable for one night? Or do I put gas in the car and sleep in here?” he said. “Tough choice.” In Oregon, a Grant County Search and Rescue team on Friday morning located a small single-engine air tanker that had disappeared while fighting the 219-square-mile (567 square kilometers) Falls Fire burning near the town of Seneca and the Malheur National Forest. The pilot died, said Bureau of Land Management information officer Lisa Clark. No one else was aboard the bureau-contracted aircraft when it went down in steep, forested terrain. The most damage so far has been to the Canadian Rockies’ Jasper National Park, where a fast-moving wildfire forced 25,000 people to flee and devastated the park’s namesake town, a World Heritage site. In Idaho, lightning strikes sparked fast-moving wildfires and the evacuation of multiple communities. The fires were burning on about 31 square miles (80 square kilometers) Friday afternoon. Videos posted to social media include a man who said he heard explosions as he fled Juliaetta, about 27 miles (43 kilometers) southeast of the University of Idaho’s campus in Moscow. The town of just over 600 residents was evacuated Thursday just ahead of roaring fires, as were several other communities near the Clearwater River and the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery Complex, which breeds salmon. There’s no estimate yet on the number of buildings burned in Idaho, nor is there information about damage to urban communities, officials said Friday morning. Oregon still has the biggest active blaze in the United States, the Durkee Fire, which combined with the Cow Fire to burn nearly 630 square miles (1,630 square kilometers). It remains unpredictable and was only 20% contained Friday, according to the government website InciWeb. The National Interagency Fire Center said more than 27,000 fires have burned more than 5,800 square miles (15,000 square kilometers) in the U.S. this year, and in Canada, more than 8,000 square miles (22,800 square kilometers) have burned in more than 3,700 fires so far, according to its National Wildland Fire Situation Report issued Wednesday. ___ Associated Press writers Holly Ramer, Sarah Brumfield, Claire Rush, Terry Chea, Scott Sonner, Martha Bellisle and Amy Hanson contributed to this report. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

CHICAGO (AP) — “ Brats for Harris.” “ We need a Kamalanomenon. ” “ Gen Z feels the Kamalove.” In the days since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Gen Z voters jumped to social media to share coconut tree and “brat summer” memes — reflecting a stark shift in tone for a generation that’s voiced feeling left behind by the Democratic party. Youth-led progressive organizations have warned for months that Biden had a problem with young voters, pleading with the president to work more closely with them to refocus on the issues most important to younger generations or risk losing their votes. With Biden out of the race, many of these young leaders are now hoping Harris can overcome his faltering support among Gen Z and harness a new explosion of energy among young voters. Since Sunday, statements have poured out from youth-led organizations across the country, including in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, Minnesota, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as leaders thanked Biden for stepping aside and celebrated the opportunity to organize around a new candidate. On Friday, a coalition of 17 youth-led groups endorsed Harris. “This changes everything,” said Zo Tobi, director of donor organizing for the national youth organizing group Movement Voter Project, when he heard the news that Biden was dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris. “The world as it is suddenly shifted into the world as it could be.” As the campaign enters a new phase, both Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, are expected to target messages aimed at younger voters who could prove decisive in some of the most hotly contested states. Trump spoke late Friday at a Turning Point USA conference and Harris plans to deliver a virtual address Saturday to Voters of Tomorrow, an organization focused on young voters. John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, who has worked with Biden, said the “white-hot energy” among young people is something he hasn’t seen since former President Barack Obama’s campaign. While there’s little reliable polling so far, he described the dynamic as “a combination of the hopefulness we saw with Obama and the urgency and fight we saw after the Parkland shooting.” In many ways, it was the first time many young people felt heard and felt like their actions could have an impact on politics, he and several young leaders said. “It’s reset this election in profound ways,” he said. “People, especially young people, for so long, for so many important reasons have been despondent about politics, despondent about the direction of the country. It’s weighed on them. And then they wake up the next morning, and it seems like everything’s changed.” About 6 in 10 adults under 30 voted for Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, but his ratings with the group have dipped substantially since then, with only about a quarter of the group saying they had a favorable opinion of him in the most recent AP-NORC poll, conducted before Biden withdrew from the race. That poll, along with polls from The New York Times/Siena and from CNN that were conducted after Biden dropped out, suggest that Harris starts off with somewhat better favorable ratings than Biden among young adults. Sunjay Muralitharan, vice president of College Democrats of America, said it felt like a weight was lifted off his chest when Harris entered the race. Despite monthly coalition calls between youth-led groups and the Biden campaign, Muralitharan spent months worrying about how Biden would fare among young voters as he watched young people leave organizations such as the College Democrats and Young Democrats to join more leftist groups. College Democrats issued statements and social media posts encouraging the party to prioritize young people and to change course on the war in Gaza and have “worked tirelessly to get College Dems programming” at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this summer. But they received limited outreach in return, Muralitharan said. A Harris campaign represents an opportunity to move in a new direction, he said. The vice president has shown her vocal support for issues important to young voters such as climate change and reproductive rights, Muralitharan said, adding that she may also be able to change course and distance herself from Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza. “The perpetual roadblock we’ve run into is that Biden is the lesser of two evils and his impact on the crisis in Gaza,” he said. “For months, we’ve been given this broken script that’s made it difficult for us to organize young voters. But that changes now.” Santiago Mayer, executive director of the Gen Z voter engagement organization Voters of Tomorrow, said the Biden campaign “created an entirely new framework for operating with youth organizations” that can now be transitioned into supporting Harris’ campaign. “Gen Z loves VP Harris, and VP Harris loves Gen Z,” he said. “So we’re ready to get to work for her.” ___ The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com