In New York's June primary, Jamaal Bowman, an educator from the NYC suburbs running an unabashedly progressive insurgent campaign appeared to topple Rep. Eliot Engel, a 16-term incumbent, for the Democratic nomination in the state's 16th Congressional district, though Engel is now suing to challenge the validity of mail-in ballots.
Bowman told Cheddar on Thursday that he's "not worried at all" about the suit, noting that as more absentee ballots are counted, his vote count is actually widening and the delta is now about 13,000 votes.
"We want every vote to be counted as well," Bowman said. "We're very comfortable with where we are."
As Bowman seems likely to be heading to Congress — NY-16 is about as blue a district as there is and the Democratic nominee is expected to coast to victory in November — he says it's critical that the U.S. pandemic response takes a less "top-down" approach when it comes to vexing problems like whether or not to open schools in the fall.
Bowman, a middle school principal by vocation, said: "We are not ready to open schools, because we have not brought the full resources of the federal government to bear." He called on officials to get serious about "innovative" ways to safely reopen, from prioritizing alternative spaces for learning to redesigned ventilation systems in school buildings. But right now, there are "too many unanswered questions" to safely reopen, he said.
The presumptive nominee also said he'd give President Trump a grade of "less than zero" for his response to the racial unrest and protests that have gripped the nation since the death of George Floyd.
"President Trump is a racist. He is a fascist. And he wants to maintain an order of white supremacy," Bowman stated.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont spoke at length about the need to defeat Donald Trump and discussed his campaign today after falling behind in another set of Democratic primaries on Tuesday but did not announce his intention to drop out of the contest.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, March 11, 2020.
Lenore Hawkins, chief macro strategist at Tematica Research, told Cheddar from Lake Como, Italy, that the local populace seems to be taking the directives to stay indoors seriously.
The Earth's average temperature last year was about 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, second only to the record established in 2016.
Swaths of shale producers, many heavily in debt and still recovering from the price crash of 2015, have posted double-digit drops in stock prices in the past 48 hours, with some companies already announcing rounds of layoffs.
Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will go head to head for the 352 delegates promised on what some are calling ‘Super Tuesday 2.0,’ with a focus on the battleground state of Michigan.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, whose grandniece was killed in that disaster, said that even once the plane makes it back to the skies, he won't fly in it.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 7.8%, its steepest drop since the financial crisis of 2008, as a free-fall in oil prices and worsening fears of fallout from the spreading coronavirus outbreak seize markets. The sharp drops triggered the first automatic halts in trading in two decades.
Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil and for U.S. gasoline prices, hovered around $36 a barrel after opening Monday at about $33 -- down from $45 a barrel on Friday and nearly $70 in January.
