Month: November 2020

Where the Republican Party Stands: Virginia’s Political Shifts in the 2020 Election

Corinne Murdock

The 2020 election outcomes revealed a telling political trajectory occurring in Virginia and the nation. Final tallies indicated that Republicans’ future chances of winning in the state may be ever-slimming. A consistent theme across the board – Republicans fell short with the unprecedented number of absentee voters.

Although Republicans increased their presidential vote totals from 2016 by about 185,000, Democrats increased their votes by nearly 400,000. In every election since 2008, Democratic candidates had only enjoyed about a 10,000 vote increase per year.

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Canadian Company Caught Quietly Exploring for Gold in Buckingham County

Eric Burk

Buckingham County officials discovered Canadian mining company Aston Bay Holdings sample drilling in parts of the region for gold deposits, in violation of zoning requirements, according to minutes from a planning commission meeting. After stopping the company in June from continuing its exploration, Buckingham officials have been holding meetings and public hearings to decide whether or not to allow Aston Bay Holdings to continue its core drilling. The issue is the latest conflict of environmentalists and mineral extraction businesses fighting for local support in Virginia.

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Biden Declares Victory Over Trump, White House Says Race Isn’t Over

Virginia Star Staff

Democrat Joe Biden declared victory Saturday in his race to win the White House after several national news outlets called him the winner over President Donald Trump.

“America, I’m honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country,” Biden said on his Twitter account. “The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a President for all Americans – whether you voted for me or not. I will keep the faith that you have placed in me.”

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Mayoral Results in Portsmouth, Roanoke and Suffolk

Eric Burk

In addition to Richmond and Virginia Beach, the cities of Roanoke, Suffolk, and Portsmouth all held mayoral elections on Tuesday. In Suffolk, Councilmember Michael Duman has a solid lead in unofficial results; in Roanoke, incumbent Democrat Sherman Lea has declared victory; and in Portsmouth, Councilmember Shannon Glover has won, according to data from the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP).

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Commentary: A Republican Senate Will Keep Biden in Check? Oh, Please!

Virginia Star Staff

In February 2020, Mitt Romney became the first U.S. senator in history to vote to convict the president of his own party. Despite a laughable impeachment case concocted by House Democrats and clear evidence of corruption tied to the Democratic presidential candidate whom the impeachment effort was designed to protect, Romney nonetheless supported the removal of Donald Trump from the White House.

“My faith is at the heart of who I am,” Utah’s junior senator claimed while working up tears from the Senate floor on February 5. “The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of high crime and misdemeanor. Yes, he did.”

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Supreme Court Orders Pennsylvania Counties to Separate Mail-in Ballots Received After November 3 

Jack Windsor

Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. issued an Order on Friday evening requiring all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties to keep all ballots received after 8:00 p.m. on November 3 “in a secure, safe, sealed container separated from other voted ballots” and that “if counted, be counted separately.”

The Order was issued in a case already before the SCOTUS – Pennsylvania Republican Party v. Kathy Boockvar, Secretary of Pennsylvania, et.al.

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Michigan Secretary of State Spokesperson: Post Alleging 118-Year-Old Man Who Voted by Absentee Ballot Was Probably Just a Mistyped Entry

Corinne Murdock

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s spokesperson stated that a viral post alleging that a 118-year-old man voted was true, but was probably due to a mistyped entry. Fact-checkers said that they discovered another individual with the same name in the area.

The post featured a screen recording: an individual typed in “William Bradley” into the state’s voter information page, followed by a birth date and zip code. Immediately, the search returned with Bradley’s city clerk information as well as a confirmation that an absentee ballot had been received.

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‘Come Back to Haunt’: Pennsylvania Lawsuit Alleges 21,000 Dead People Still on Voter Rolls

Virginia Star Staff
Woman voting at booth

A legal group filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania alleging that the state has tens of thousands of deceased people on its voter rolls and that there is evidence of voting activity among the deceased.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), which is not associated with President Donald Trump’s campaign, filed the lawsuit Thursday arguing that Pennsylvania has failed to maintain voter registration records in violation of federal and state law, according to a press release. PILF alleged that in an October analysis it found at least 21,000 apparently deceased citizens on the state’s voter rolls, according to the complaint.

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Georgia Election Officials Say Recount Likely in Presidential Race

The Center Square

The razor-thin margin between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in Georgia likely will necessitate a recount, Georgia elections officials said Friday.

“Right now, Georgia remains too close to call,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Friday afternoon. “Out of the approximately 5 million votes cast, we’ll have a margin of a few thousand. … With a margin that small, there likely will be a recount in Georgia.”

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Commentary: Europe Has Been Rocked Once Again by a Series of Islamist Terror Attacks

Virginia Star Staff

There’s been a reprisal in the past month of a disturbing trend in Europe: Islamist terror attacks.

On Oct. 4, a migrant from Syria attacked two tourists in the German city of Dresden, killing one. He had arrived in 2015 and had recently finished a three-year juvenile sentence for assaulting a police officer and causing bodily harm.

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Fact Check: Seven Claims of Voter Fraud During the 2020 Presidential Election

Virginia Star Staff

As might be expected during the undecided presidential contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, pundits and typical voters alike are voicing more concerns about voter fraud and unfair election practices.

Already numerous internet rumors have been proven wrong or lack evidence. That doesn’t mean every assertion will prove to be without merit, however. 

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U.S. Economy Added 638,000 Jobs in October, More Than Expected

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. economy added 638,000 jobs in October, while unemployment fell to 6.9%, according to Department of Labor data released Friday.

Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 638,000 in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, and the number of unemployed persons fell by 1.5 million to 11.1 million. The U.S. added 661,000 jobs in September while the unemployment rate dropped to 7.9%.

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Fact-Checkers Rate Viral Video Alleging Whitmer Used Health Officials to Block Poll Challengers As ‘Partly False’

Corinne Murdock

Fact-checkers have ruled a viral video “partly false” after it alleged that Governor Gretchen Whitmer sent health officials to bar poll challengers. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) was present during ballot counting at TCF Center on Wednesday.

It is reported that Whitmer sent MDHHS because the 40,000 square foot building was at capacity for COVID-19 restrictions. In the video, the woman stood alone on the second floor of the building. On camera, MDHHS officials were removing and barring entry to poll challengers.

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USPS Sweeps Discover Thousands of Absentee Ballots in Pennsylvania and North Carolina

Corinne Murdock

  After conducting internal sweeps, the United States Postal Service (USPS) discovered over 2,000 more mail-in ballots for Pennsylvania and North Carolina on Thursday. D.C. Federal District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered twice-daily postal center sweeps after a reported 300,000 ballots were reported as undelivered. Workers accrued about 40,000 mail-in ballots altogether…

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Votes for Trump Went to Biden in Antrim County, Michigan

Jack Windsor

Republicans in Antrim County, Michigan knew something wasn’t right.

In 2016, President Donald Trump received 64% of the vote there to Hillary Clinton’s 32%.

However, on Wednesday morning Antrim polls showed Joe Biden with a 3,000 vote lead.

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GOP-Led Michigan Legislature to Hold Election Hearings After Glitch Initially Gave up to 5,000 Trump Votes to Biden

The Center Square

Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, on Friday said lawmakers will hold hearings Saturday to look into election fraud claims in the 2020 presidential election.

“Every single legal vote needs to be counted, regardless of who cast it or who they voted for. And then the candidate who wins the most of those votes will win Michigan’s electoral votes, just like it always has been. Nothing about that process will change in 2020,” Chatfield said in a statement.

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Steve Bannon Presents ‘War Room: Pandemic’

Virginia Star Staff

An all new LIVE STREAM of War Room: Pandemic starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday.

Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon began the daily War Room: Pandemic radio show and podcast on January 25, when news of the virus was just beginning to leak out of China around the Lunar New Year. Bannon and co-hosts bring listeners exclusive analysis and breaking updates from top medical, public health, economic, national security, supply chain and geopolitical experts weekdays from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon ET.

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Perdue-Ossoff Race, Control of U.S. Senate Heading Toward January Runoff in Georgia

The Center Square

Ongoing vote tallies in Georgia suggest the fate of the U.S. Senate race between Sen. David Perdue and Jon Ossoff, and, perhaps, control of the U.S. Senate, will be decided by a runoff election in January.

As of Friday morning, incumbent Republican Perdue leads Ossoff, a Democrat, by 98,410 votes, with a 49.84% to 47.84% advantage – below the more than 50% of the vote Perdue needs to avoid a runoff against Ossoff on Jan. 5.

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Texas Attorney’s Video of Suspicious Vote-Counting Activity in Detroit Censored by Big Tech, Conservatives Allege

The Center Square

Texas attorney Kellye SoRelle and members of Lawyers for Trump sent a copy of a video to Texas Scorecard of individuals moving what she claims are ballots in the middle of the night on Nov. 4 in Detroit.

In the video, a white van is seen parked in front of polling location at 2:40 a.m. A box is taken out of the van and placed into a red wagon, which is then pulled inside the facility. SoRelle video recorded and photographed the activity, which Texas Scorecard published on its website.

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Virginia Star Reporter Corinne Murdock Describes Husbands Inspirational Gesture of Patriotism and Her Latest Story About Detroit’s Health Dept. Keeping GOP Poll Challengers at Bay

Julie Carr

Friday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host John Fredricks welcomed Corinne Murdock, a reporter for The Virginia Star, to the show to weigh in on her recent stories about voter dumping and GOP poll watchers being kept away by Detroit Department of Health officials.

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UVA-Louisville Football Game Postponed Due to COVID-19 Outbreak in Cardinals Program

Jacob Taylor

The University of Virginia (UVA) and University of Louisville football game set to take place Saturday has been tentatively rescheduled to November 14, after several Cardinals players and support staff tested positive for the coronavirus this week, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) announced Wednesday.

This is the second time a UVA football game has needed to be moved from its original date because of COVID-19 this season.

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Conservatism Gaining Traction in Virginia: Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club

Corinne Murdock

In the northernmost corner of the deep blue state of Virginia, a red stronghold emerged: “Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club.” President Patti Menders is responsible for the club’s newfound success. Menders is a first-generation American, the daughter of refugees from the Cuban exile instigated by Fidel Castro’s communist dictatorship.

Her work made the club the largest Republican Women’s Club in Virginia. Since her appointment last December, she has increased membership from 30-odd members to nearly 200: about a 600 percent increase. 

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Spanberger Declares Victory in Seventh Congressional District, Freitas to Wait for Final Results Before Conceding Race

Jacob Taylor

Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07) declared victory Wednesday night over Republican challenger and state Del. Nick Freitas (R-Culpeper) in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, after further early voting counts gave her a 5,132-vote lead.

Spanberger took the lead after Spotsylvania County reported its final absentee ballots and Henrico County tallied additional absentee votes, which officials overlooked because the ballots had been saved on a mislabeled flash drive, according to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP).

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Commentary: Win or Lose, Trump’s American Revolution Is Only Beginning

Virginia Star Staff

The states of Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania are still counting ballots, and the presidential election of 2020 between the President and former Vice President Joe Biden is still too close to call.

Win or lose in 2020, President Donald Trump, his administration, campaign and supporters have a whole lot to be proud of. This is a President who has fought tirelessly for the American people: to get better deals on trade, to take on the Washington, D.C. establishment, bring jobs back to the U.S. and get the economy moving after eight years of the Obama-Biden stagnation.

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Commentary: How This Presidential Race Ends

Virginia Star Staff

It is obvious the presidential drama is not going to be resolved until early December. There will be litigation and recounts and the real possibility that this election ends up in the Supreme Court.

The Democrats are trying to steal the election. It is blatant and they aren’t even trying to hide it. Ballots are being discovered late in important states where Democrats hold the governor’s office. Amazingly, these ballots are all seeming to break for Biden. In Pennsylvania and in Michigan, Republican poll watchers are being ejected or denied entry to observe the count.

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Commentary: Government Can’t Count Ballots, So How Can It Possibly Manage a Pandemic or Our Health Care?

Virginia Star Staff

Elections are a nasty business, but sometimes they can be clarifying.

We don’t yet know who won the US presidential election, and we may not for days or weeks to come. This stems largely from the ineptitude Americans witnessed on Election Tuesday.

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Analysis Reveals Milwaukee Presidential Election Voting Irregularities

Laura Baigert

An analysis of the City of Milwaukee’s 2020 U.S. Presidential election votes reveals several irregularities related primarily to voter participation.

Wisconsin is a key battleground state with 10 electoral college votes. In 2016, then first-time presidential candidate Donald Trump won the state over Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, taking a little over 47 percent of the state’s nearly 2.9 million votes.

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Over 100 Illegal Immigrants Detained by CBP in Texas Over One Week

Virginia Star Staff

Over 100 illegal immigrants were found at three separate stash houses and detained over the span of a week near Laredo, Texas, border officials announced.

The illegal immigrants received medical screenings before they were processed as none were wearing personal protective equipment when officials searched the residences, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

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Colorado Joins Growing List of States Who Pledge to Dedicate Their Electoral Votes to the Winner of the Popular Vote

Virginia Star Staff

Colorado residents approved a measure Wednesday to join a list of states pledging to award their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who obtains the majority of the popular vote.

Proposition 113 passed with roughly 52% approval from voters, entering Colorado into the Interstate Popular Vote Compact, according to the Denver Post. The state joins 15 other jurisdictions across the U.S., including California, Illinois, New York and Washington, according to the compact’s website.

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Michigan USPS Whistleblower: Late Mail-in-Ballots Are Being Stamped as Received on November 3

Virginia Star Staff

A mail carrier who works for a post office in Traverse City, Michigan blew the whistle Wednesday on what he called a “sketchy” directive from his supervisor.

“We were issued a directive this morning to collect any ballots we find in mail boxes, collection boxes—just outgoing mail in general—separate them at the end of the day so they could hand stamp them with the previous day’s date,” the whistleblower told Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe.

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Democratic Sen Gary Peters Wins Reelection in Michigan

Virginia Star Staff

Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters won a second term Wednesday, multiple outlets reported.

Peters beat GOP challenger John James, a businessman and former Air Force pilot, by just 1.1 points, leading 49.6% to 48.5% when the race was called. Though the state was viewed as one of Republicans’ only senate pickup opportunities this cycle, most forecasts predicted Peters to win.

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A Breakdown of Michigan’s Witching Hour Ballot Dump from Tuesday

Corinne Murdock

The masses turned in for the night during the early hours on Wednesday with President Donald Trump ahead of Democratic candidate Joe Biden by around 5 points. By sunrise, Biden had gained nearly 139,000 votes due to an alleged data error.

As Wednesday morning’s counts added to the early morning influx of votes, the race had slimmed down to less than one percentage point – a slightly larger margin than Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

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Viral Video Alleged Gov. Whitmer Sent Health Officials to Bar Poll Challengers in Detroit

Corinne Murdock

In viral video posted Wednesday afternoon, a woman alleged that Governor Gretchen Whitmer had ordered health officials to block poll watchers and challengers from entering a Detroit ballot counting facility.

The woman, Connie Johnson, shot the video using Facebook Live. She showed herself standing on the second floor of the TCF Center in Detroit. The following is her account of the ballot counting on Wednesday afternoon in Detroit.

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Constitutional Amendment on Redistricting Commission Approved by Virginia Voters

Jacob Taylor

The majority of Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment this week aimed to prevent and stop political gerrymandering by changing the Commonwealth’s redistricting process.

Sixty six percent of Virginians answered yes to constitutional amendment question 1 on ballots and, overall, voters in every locality were in support except for Arlington, while 34 percent voted no to the question, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

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Virginia Gets Four Casinos

Eric Burk

Four cities have voted to bring casinos to Virginia for the first time, according to unofficial results reported on The Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP). Although Norfolk City is only reporting 93.9 percent of its votes, over 42,611 of those votes are in favor of the initiative versus 22,822 against.

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Hacker Accessed D.C. Donor Information from Virginia Hospital Center For Months

Corinne Murdock

An unauthorized party accessed donor and fundraiser information for months from Virginia Hospital Center (VHC), who has served the Washington, D.C. area for 75 years. The company, Blackbaud, also reported many of its other clients’ donor and fundraising data jeopardized by the hackers.

VHC stored donors’ personal information. This included names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses – even birth dates and the last four digits of credit card numbers. Hackers had access to these records for approximately three months, from February to May. However, the last traces of hacking didn’t cease until early June.

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TRUMPDATE: Latest from the Team Trump Virginia Campaign for November 6

Jordan Bondurant

Welcome to the Friday edition of our daily Virginia Trump campaign update! We will provide our readers with daily updates on the Trump Virginia campaign from today to November 3 (and after…if need be!).

We are in Election Day +2, and the nation is currently still awaiting results in several key battleground states.

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Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney Wins Re-election

Eric Burk

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney has won another term in office with 38.07 percent of voters, just ahead of the 35.72 percent of voters he won in 2016, according to data from the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) and the City of Richmond. That upper-30s range is also the percent of support the mayor had in recent 2020 polls. In his first term, the mayor faced challenges including poor graduation rates in Richmond schools, controversy over his coliseum project, COVID-19 health and economic concerns, and questions of racial equity around policing and Confederate monuments. Those issues still face the mayor as he enters a second term.

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Trump Campaign Announces ‘Major Victory’ in PA Court Allowing GOP Poll Watchers Access to Ballot Counting

Virginia Star Staff

The Trump Campaign announced Thursday morning a “major victory” in a Pennsylvania appellate court in their suit challenging the lack of access of Republican poll watchers to the ballot processing and counting process.

Justin Clark, Trump 2020 Deputy Campaign Manger and Senior Counsel called the decision a “major victory for election integrity, election transparency, all Pennsylvania voters, and the rule of law.”

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New Unemployment Claims Miss Expectations, Stay Unchanged

Virginia Star Staff

The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims came in at 751,000 last week as the economy continues to suffer the effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to the Department of Labor.

New jobless claims were unchanged compared to the week ending Oct. 24 in which there were also 751,000 new jobless claims reported, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics figure released Thursday showed. New jobless claims have been below 800,000 for three consecutive weeks, according to CNBC.

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Six Virginia Counties Vote to Keep Confederate Monuments

Eric Burk

Residents of six rural Virginia counties voted to keep local Confederate monuments in place on Tuesday. The referenda are non-binding, but demonstrate voter preference to the local boards of supervisors. In four of the counties, over 70 percent of voters chose to keep the monuments, according to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP). Two counties were closer; Charles City County voted against removing its monument by 55.11 percent, while Halifax County voted against relocating its monument by 59.69 percent.

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Commentary: Republicans Leading in the Senate May Save America from Democratic One-Party Rule

Virginia Star Staff

States are still counting votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina — and with disputed deadlines currently allowing absentee ballots to still be received days after the election in Pennsylvania and North Carolina — it is simply too close to call the presidential race.

President Donald Trump carried Ohio, Florida and Iowa by big margins despite many mainstream news polls saying he would lose those states handily — which are little better than astrology at this point — and is still promising to take the race for the White House to the Supreme Court with litigation, presumably challenging any late ballots that come in.

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U.S. Officially Withdraws from Paris Agreement on Climate Change

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement on climate change Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

The 2015 agreement was ratified by 189 countries and six more have signed, but have yet to ratify, the AP reported. President Donald Trump sparked criticism and support after announcing the U.S’s withdrawal in 2017, according to another AP report.

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Democrats’ Massive Fundraising Haul Barely Moved the Needle in Key Senate Races

Virginia Star Staff

Sen. Lindsey Graham fared nearly as well on Tuesday against a Democratic challenger who spent more than $100 million in the 2020 cycle as he did against his opponent in 2014, who raised a paltry $525,000 for that campaign.

Graham’s stronger-than-expected showing highlights one of the most startling patterns to emerge from the election Tuesday: historic campaign contributions to Democrats against incumbent Senate Republicans did not pay off.

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Seeking Inclusion, Grammys Change Name of a Music Category

The Associated Press

The Grammy Awards have changed the name of their best world music album category to the best global music album, an attempt to find “a more relevant, modern and inclusive term.”

The Recording Academy said in a statement that the new name “symbolizes a departure from the connotations of colonialism, folk and ‘non-American’ that the former term embodied.”

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