Bloc gives Liberals Oct. 29 deadline to meet demands or face potential early election

WASHINGTON (AP) — Liz Cheney, one of Donald Trump’s fiercest Republican antagonists, will join Democrat Kamala Harris at a campaign event in Wisconsin on Thursday aimed at reaching out to moderate voters and rattling the former president.

Cheney was the top Republican on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, earning Trump’s disdain and effectively exiling herself from her own party.

Cheney lost her Wyoming seat to a Trump-endorsed candidate two years ago and she endorsed Harris, the Democratic nominee, last month. The two women will appear together in a historic white schoolhouse in Ripon, where a series of meetings held in 1854 to oppose slavery’s expansion led to the birth of the Republican Party.

Harris is opening a two-day stay in Wisconsin and Michigan, and Trump will be in Michigan on Thursday as the two candidates grapple for wins in the “blue wall” battleground states, which also include Pennsylvania.

Harris’ visit to Wisconsin comes one day after a federal judge unsealed a 165-page court filing outlining prosecutors’ case against Trump for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and obstruction.

It’s uncommon, to say the least, for a candidate to give a nod to the origins of the opposing party in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign. Not only that, the Cheney name was once anathema to Democrats who deplored Dick Cheney, Liz’s father, for his role as vice president under George W. Bush.

But now both Cheneys are backing Harris, part of a cadre of current and former Republican officials who have broken with the vast majority of their party, which remains in Trump’s corner. Harris wants to portray her candidacy as a patriotic choice for independent and conservative voters who were disturbed by Trump’s unwillingness to cede power. Trump continues to deny his defeat with false claims of voter fraud.

Harris on Friday will hold a campaign rally in Flint, Michigan, continuing her tour of states that have been critical to Democratic victories. Trump won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016, and Joe Biden won them in 2020.

Trump on Thursday will hold a rally in Saginaw County, a bellwether in the center of the state.

The Republican candidate has ramped up his focus on Michigan, holding two rallies there less than a week ago. In 2020, Biden’s win in Saginaw County by a slim 303 votes contributed to his victory in the state.

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Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

PARIS (AP) — Victor Perahia, the president of the French Union of Auschwitz Deportees and a Holocaust survivor, has died. He was 91.

Perahia, who was deported as a child to the Nazi death camp of Bergen-Belsen, died on Monday in the eastern Paris suburb of Saint-Mande, the Union of Auschwitz Deportees said in a statement. The cause of death wasn’t disclosed.

The union hailed Perahia, as “one of its eminent figures, who worked with great humanity and determination to preserve the memory of the Shoah” for other generations.

As a child survivor of the Holocaust, the ever present “racism and antisemitism tormented him and fueled his strength to awaken minds,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement.

He added: “As a lesson for future generations, he considered human cruelty to be limitless and the duty to fight without fear against all forms of intolerance and all attacks on basic human rights.”

Perahia’s death comes four months before the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Six million European Jews and people from other minorities were killed there and in other extermination camps across Europe by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust.

Perahia was born on April 4, 1933 in Paris into a family of fairground merchants. He lived in Saint-Nazaire in western France. He was arrested along with his parents in July 1942. They were taken to Lande internment camp, in central France, and then to Drancy camp, in the Paris region, where nearly 4,000 people were detained by French gendarmes.

He was interned in Drancy for nearly two years before he was deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration and a forced labor camp with his mother in 1944. He was freed by Soviet troops at the end of March 1945. His father, Robert Perahia, was deported to Auschwitz, where he died along with Victor Perahia’s maternal grandfather.

“The witnesses are leaving us,” Joël Mergui, president of the Paris Consistory, said in a post on X. “We must take over the fight against antisemitism.”

After years of keeping silent of the horrors that he and his family had endured, Perahia published a memoir of a stolen childhood in 2015. He often recounted the trauma and suffering of the Holocaust in Paris schools and at memorials. He became president of the Union of Auschwitz Deportees

France bestowed him with the Knight of the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit for enduring and bearing witness to unimaginable human cruelty and for preserving the memory of the Holocaust for future generations.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

MONTREAL – The union representing Montreal dockworkers has ended a three-day strike at two terminals as scheduled, but there’s potential for more job action in the coming weeks.

The Maritime Employers Association confirmed the work stoppage came to an end at 7 a.m. at the Viau and Maisonneuve terminals, which handle more than 40 per cent of container traffic at the country’s second-largest port.

The two sides have not met all week, with the union claiming the employers refused a sit-down convened by federal mediators on Thursday.

“What is this employer up to? It denounces the effect of a partial strike on the economy and on the supply chain, but it doesn’t deign to come to the negotiating table to find solutions. It’s mind-boggling,” said Michel Murray, a spokesman for the union local, affiliated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

The employers association, which represents shipping companies and terminal operators, said in fact there was no meeting scheduled and its aim remains a collective agreement hammered out through negotiations.

The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service did not answer questions on whether meetings were scheduled or cancelled.

“At this time, we can confirm the mediators remain in contact with the parties and are continuing work to assist them in their negotiations,” said spokeswoman Samuelle Carbonneau in an email.

“Clearly, the current mediation process is no longer producing results,” said employer spokeswoman Isabelle Pelletier in a statement Wednesday. Over the summer, two months passed after employers submitted a contract offer before the union responded, she said.

“We are currently evaluating all the options available to arrive at a sustainable solution that reflects the reality of the situation.”

The three-day job action by a quarter of the port’s 1,200 loaders and checkers kicked off Monday, one day before tens of thousands of dockworkers walked off the job at three-dozen ports in the United States, halting roughly half of the country’s ocean cargo.

In Canada, manufacturers and food distributors worry that a prolonged strike in the U.S. would cause weeks-long backlogs and strand shipments of items ranging from apples to auto parts.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.