5 vital stories to know this week
From bomb threats rocking Springfield, Ohio, to Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris for president, here are five stories to know this week.
Springfield, Ohio in chaos after Trump spreads false claim that migrants are “eating dogs and cats”
SPRINGFIELD—Multiple K-12 schools were forced to evacuate because of bomb threats. Two hospitals were forced into lockdown because of similar threats. Wittenberg University in Ohio said someone threatened to shoot Haitians on campus and all of their events have been canceled. KKK flyers saying ‘foreigners & hatians out’ are being distributed across the town.
This is the state of Springfield, Ohio a small town of 60,000 people that has made national headlines after former President Trump falsely said that Haitian immigrants are “eating dogs” and “cats” in the town during the 2024 presidential debate. However, officials, including the city manager, Ohio’s governor, and local authorities say the claim is baseless.
“This is something that came up on the internet, and the internet can be quite crazy sometimes,” Mike DeWine, Ohio’s governor told CBS News. "Mayor [Rob] Rue of Springfield says, 'No, there's no truth in that.' They have no evidence of that at all. So, I think we go with what the mayor says. He knows his city.”
The rumor originated from a Facebook post by Springfield woman Erika Lee, who told NBC she wrote a post about a friend of a neighbor’s daughter who lost her cat – and then found the animal strung up outside the home of a Haitian family. Lee has apologized for rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets that resulted from the post saying “It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Lee told NBC News on Friday.
CONTEXT: “About 15,000 Haitian immigrants began trickling into Springfield – a city of 60,000 – to work in local produce packaging and machining factories in 2017”, per the Guardian.
UPDATE: White House says Biden or Harris has not spoken to family of slain Turkish American activist
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a Turkish-American activist who was fatally shot in the head by Israeli forces during an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank, was laid to rest near Turkey’s Aegean coast earlier today.
In an interview before the funeral with the New York Times, her father, Mehmet Suat Eygi, said he felt that the U.S. had not done enough to pressure Israel over her death.
“I have been living in the U.S. for 25 years, and I know how seriously the U.S. looks out for the safety of its citizens abroad,” he said. “I know that when something happens, the U.S. will attack like the eagle on its seal. But when Israel is in question, it transforms into a dove.”
Although the White House and Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris have offered their condenses, they have not directly reached out to the Eygi's family who are calling for an independent investigation. Critics of the administration on social media argue this breaks the traditional norm of contacting families of slain Americans by foreign entities.
Witnesses tell Zeteo that American authorities have also not contacted them to ask for their account of what happened at the protest.
The Israeli military has said that she was likely hit “indirectly and unintentionally” and that the matter was still being investigated.
Footage reported by the Washington Post shows that the Israeli military shot Eygi more than 30 minutes after demonstrations had peaked and her autopsy revealed she was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper, according to three Palestinian forensic experts.
'We Are All Culpable': Matt Nelson Self-Immolates to Protest Israel's war on Gaza in Boston
On Wednesday night a man named Matt Nelson reportedly lit himself on fire outside the Israeli consulate in Boston, protesting what he called “the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
“My name is Matt Nelson and I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest. We are all culpable in the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” he said in a YouTube video the day before. “We are slaves to capitalism and the military-industrial complex. Most of us are too apathetic to care. The protest I’m about to engage in is a call to our government to stop supplying Israel with the money and weapons it uses to imprison and murder innocent Palestinians, to pressure Israel to end the genocide in Gaza, and to support the ICC indictment of Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli government.... A democracy is supposed to serve the will of the people, not the interests of the wealthy. Take the power back. Free Palestine.”
Nelson was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with severe burns and his current condition is unknown. Boston police told reporters that they are investigating the situation. A witness said Nelson poured gasoline over himself before lighting himself on fire and surveillance footage shows him walking back and forth covered in flames.
He is the third person to self-immolate outside an Israeli consulate since Israel began its military assault on Gaza nearly one year ago in retaliation to Hamas-led fighters killing over 1,200 Israelis and taking over 200 hostages on Oct. 7.
Majority of debate watchers say Harris outperformed Trump onstage, per ABC News polls and social media users
On Tuesday night was the first—and only—presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. For most of the night, social media users told TUT they thought the Vice President was composed, focusing on fact-based evidence and speaking directly with voters about issues that may concern them, including the economy and abortion. On the other hand, social media users told TUT they thought the former president continued to spread false information about minorities, attacked political opponents, and was consistently on the defensive about clearing up his policies.
“Kamala looked to bait Trump and he took everything,” one user, who wanted to remain anonymous told us via Instagram direct messages. “She looked calm, cool, and collective. Very presidential. Something we haven’t been able to see from her.”
On average, 57% of debate watchers nationally said Harris turned in the better performance; only 34 percent said Trump did, according to polls from ABC News, which hosted the debate Tuesday night.
Are you registered to vote?
“Childless Cat Woman” Taylor Swift officially endorsed Kamala Harris for President Tuesday night after the 2024 presidential debate citing Harris’ stance on abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and Trump’s use of AI images as her primary reasons.
“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “I’m voting for Kamala Harris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate Tim Walz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
Since her post on Tuesday, Vote.org has reported over 400,000 new users on its website and over 35,000 new registered voters. However, ABC News polls show that only 6% of voters changed their mind because of Swift’s endorsement and, surprisingly, another 13% said they are now “less likely” to vote for Harris. 80% said it didn’t change their opinion at all.
Are you registered to vote? Register here! Or check your voter status.
*This is not an endorsement of any presidential candidate.