BOYNTON BEACH: Florida Democrats made bold claims last week about their chances in a state that has steadily grown more conservative in recent years. But so far they have not matched their words with the kind of money it will take to win there.
“Florida is in play,” proclaimed Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former representative from Miami, at the start of a bus tour in defense of women’s reproductive rights in Boynton Beach. Mucarsel-Powell is the choice of Florida Democrats to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Scott for one of a handful of Senate seats the GOP is defending this election cycle.
According to data from AdImpact, which tracks spending on advertising by political campaigns and their surrogates, Republicans have outspent Democrats on Florida’s US Senate race by roughly a 4-to-1 margin through Sept. 11, $12.7 million to $3.2 million. Based on ad spots currently reserved through the general election, that margin is expected to grow.
The dynamics of the Senate race mirror what has happened in the presidential race in a state that used to be hotly contested by both parties’ top-of-the-ticket candidates. Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the launch of the bus tour and has not been to Florida as a candidate since she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for president in the race against Republican former President Donald Trump.
The Republicans’ massive spending advantage may help to explain why Scott scoffs at the claims coming from Democrats about Florida being competitive.
“They are so far from what Florida voters believe in, that they don’t have a chance in the world of winning Florida,” he said in an interview last week. “They don’t have a chance of beating Trump, and they don’t have a chance of beating me.”
Mucarsel-Powell says her side is more in touch with voters on issues such as reproductive rights. She says ballot amendments on both abortion rights and legalizing marijuana will help Democrats turn out voters. She also said the switch from Biden to Harris gave Florida Democrats a burst of fresh momentum.
“This is momentum that has been building for quite some time, and her announcement just was like the tip of the iceberg on the momentum and the energy that was building here around the state of Florida,” Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview.
A national AP-NORC survey conducted in July showed that about 8 in 10 Democrats said they’d be satisfied with Harris as the party’s nominee for president, versus 4 in 10 Democrats in March saying they’d be satisfied with Biden as the nominee.
But Mucarsel-Powell’s task remains formidable. Although some polling shows Scott leading narrowly in the Senate race, national Democrats have yet to invest heavily in Florida’s expensive media markets. Harris, who has proven to be a prolific fundraiser since she became the Democratic nominee, recently allocated $25 million of her own campaign funds to help down-ballot Democrats in November — with only $10 million of those funds going to US Senate candidates. Harris’ campaign did not respond to questions on how these funds were being allocated.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said it has spent money on staffing and digital advertising on the race but didn’t specify how much. In a statement, they did not address plans for spending going forward but said: “Scott’s unpopularity coupled with the strength of Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign makes Florida one of Senate Democrats top offensive opportunities.”
Scott, who has his eye on a Senate leadership position if he wins, said he would welcome a bigger effort from national Democrats.
“I hope they spend a bunch of money and waste it, because they don’t have a chance of winning the Senate in Florida,” he said.
Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried said national Democrats showed their support by starting their bus tour in Florida and sending campaign representatives there to support Democratic candidates. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who is in a strong enough position in her own reelection bid to work on behalf of other Democrats around the country, was one of several Democrats who joined Mucarsel-Powell at the start of the bus tour.
“They could have started anywhere else in the country. They started here in Palm Beach County, in Donald Trump’s backyard,” Fried said. “That shows how important Florida is, and that they are going to continue to watch what is happening on the ground, send surrogates here and making sure that we are in play for November.”
About 150 people attended the bus tour event.
Fried acknowledged that Democrats have been outspent on advertising in Florida, but she said they’re putting their energy into campaigning at the grassroots level. She said 40,000 new volunteers signed up after Harris entered the race and were making an all-out effort to knock on doors and reach out to Florida voters by phone.
This year’s Florida ballot looks different from the one voters saw two years ago, where US Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis led the top of Florida’s ticket. The governor had hoped to ride a wave of momentum from his emphatic 19-point victory to national prominence but was unable to loosen Trump’s grip on the Republican Party nationally.
Trump, now a Florida resident, defeated Biden in Florida by 3.3 percentage points in 2020, further diminishing its status as a swing state.
Brian Ballard, a Republican political strategist who was a top fundraiser for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, said the lackluster spending effort by Democrats will make it harder for Mucarsel-Powell to introduce herself to people across the state who don’t recognize her — as opposed to Scott, who was Florida’s governor from 2010 to 2018 and has since then been serving in the Senate.
The lack of spending from the national party, Ballard said, is “usually a sign of a losing campaign.”
“Florida is not in play,” Ballard said. “I hope the Democrats commit and spend a lot of money in Florida on the presidential race. It’ll move the needle not at all. If she’s relying on Democrats spending on top of the ticket, she’s relying on fool’s gold.”
The Florida contest has not drawn much attention from national Democrats, who are trying to hold onto far more Senate seats than Republicans this year. Instead, they have focused much of their energy and resources on defending seats they already hold, including in the red states of Ohio and Montana. Still, the Florida US Senate race was close in late July, just before the Florida Senate primaries, according to a poll of Florida voters conducted by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab.
Scott said in the interview that he isn’t “taking a chance” by treating his own race lightly. And yet he has spent at least some of his time campaigning for other Republicans, including a trip across state lines to battleground Georgia last week for a town hall in Braselton, northeast of Atlanta.
“This is a team sport,” Scott said of his efforts on behalf of other GOP candidates.
Tiffany Lanier, 36, attended the bus tour Tuesday morning in Boynton Beach. Lanier, a Lake Worth civic engagement public speaker, said that although Biden ran on a similar platform to Harris, she thinks Harris’ position and emphasis on abortion rights really excites and motivates people to turn out to vote.
“I think it was more like in my wilder dreams that Florida would be in play for this November,” Lanier said. “I know that we are so very tight in the polls, but I do see that there is an energetic shift. And so, I do see a lot of possibility here.”
Democrats claiming Florida Senate seat is in play haven’t put money behind the effort to make it so
https://arab.news/jggtc
Democrats claiming Florida Senate seat is in play haven’t put money behind the effort to make it so
- Democrats hope ballot amendments on abortion rights and marijuana legalization will help boost turnout on their side
Sacred staple: Uzbekistan’s timeless tradition of everyday bread
- Bread holds a special position in Uzbek culture and is always handled with respect
- There are dozens of bread varieties, with each province having own flavors, designs
MARGILAN, Fergana Valley: As he pulls freshly baked flatbreads from a massive, scorching hot tandoor, Marufxon Nematov prepares to repeat the same process dozens of times throughout the day, until the last customers arrive at the bakery to buy bread for dinner.
Some round, some flower-shaped with stamped centers and decorative patterns, the loaves are placed in a huge basket. From there, Nematov’s friend arranges them neatly on display, joining the rows of breads from other bakeries along Burhoniddin Marginaniy Street, a busy thoroughfare in Margilan, one of the main cities in Fergana Valley, eastern Uzbekistan.
Every day, they bake 2,000 loaves of non — a circular flatbread with a thin, decorated center and puffy edges — following a routine Nematov has kept for the past 55 years.
“I started working as a baker when I was 10 years old. I’ve learnt the whole process from making the dough to the form and baking,” he said.
“I’ve been doing this since a very young age, and thanks to it I’ve been able to feed my family. This work means a lot to me.”
In Uzbekistan, bread is a staple food, eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. Across the country, dozens of varieties are baked, with each of the 12 provinces adding its own flavor, pattern and signature to centuries-old recipes.
Breads from the Fergana Valley are often dense and hearty, sometimes topped with green onions and decorated with floral or sunburst patterns. In Tashkent, loaves are round and thick, with soft, fluffy interiors, while in Bukhara and Khiva they may be layered or specially embellished for celebrations.
Sometimes bakers who developed their own designs would even stamp their phone numbers on the bread as a personal signature.
In Samarkand, about 600 km from Nematov’s bread shop in Margilan, master baker Gulchera follows a similar practice. But she bakes different kinds of bread, including the famous Samarkand non, which is lighter and airier, with a crisp exterior, marked only with a chekich — a wooden stamp that creates a sunburst pattern and helps the bread bake evenly.
Assisted by her son and granddaughter, she starts work at 4 a.m. before others go to the morning market and start preparing breakfast.
“I like it. I like everything about it. It makes me happy knowing that people will eat this bread,” she said. “We take orders and people come, and knowing that they like my bread, it just makes my day.”
Bread holds a special position in Uzbek culture and is always handled with care. It should not be placed upside down and it is meant to be torn by hand — never cut with a knife — and shared with others.
If an Uzbek notices a crumb on the ground, he or she will gently pick it up, kiss it three times, touch it to their forehead, and place it on a clean surface. Even if they do not consume it, they would treat it with sufficient respect.
While there are many reasons for the special position bread holds in Uzbekistan, including the famines experienced during Soviet rule, this reverence is also connected to Islam.
Prof. Marianne Kamp, a social historian of modern Central Asia at Indiana University, links it to the cultural tradition of the region, which was once a center of Muslim theological, spiritual, and philosophical thought.
“In times that long preceded Russian conquest of Central Asia, there were spiritual tracts (risala) for people who practiced all sorts of trade and craft, from farming to ironworking. One such risala discusses the production of bread — from when wheat is planted, to how it is grown and harvested, milling, making dough, baking,” she told Arab News.
“The risala describes the prayers that should be said and other actions that should be taken along this production route so that the bread would be halal. Thus, it may be a particular aspect of Islamic everyday practice that makes bread special.”
In everyday life, this sense is reinforced by continuity and belonging. The way bread has been baked in Uzbekistan has remained unchanged for generations.
Kimmathon Lazizova, a homemaker from Rishtan in the Fergana Valley, fondly recalled how, as a child, she and her siblings would wait for their mother to take the non out of the tandoor.
“It was so hot, burning our hands. We would pour water or tea into a little cup and dip the hot bread into it and eat. That was the most delicious of all breads,” she said.
That tandoor bread, the simplest non, always has four ingredients: flour, water, salt, and yeast.
“This is how bread was always baked. Our grandmothers, great-grandmothers, they always did it this way. This is how it was long ago, even before the Soviet Union,” Lazizova said. “It has come down to us from ancient times, and we’ll continue to carry it forward.”
UK Ministry of Defence admits 49 breaches of Afghans’ data
- New figures uncovered by BBC raise concerns about lax security culture, lawyers say
- It follows controversy over leak that endangered 19,000 Afghans fleeing Taliban
LONDON: The UK’s Ministry of Defence has admitted that 49 separate data breaches relating to Afghan relocations took place over the past four years, the BBC reported on Thursday.
The breaches occurred within the unit responsible for processing relocation claims from Afghans seeking refuge in the UK.
Of the 49 breaches, four were publicly known, including the massive 2022 leak of a spreadsheet containing the personal details of almost 19,000 people fleeing the Taliban.
That leak led to thousands of Afghans being secretly relocated to the UK, a fact that was concealed from the public for years under a gagging order lifted last month.
The latest figure of 49 breaches was revealed to the BBC through the Freedom of Information Act.
Initially, the UK’s information watchdog described the highly controversial 2022 leak as a “one-off occurrence.”
It took place “following a failure to (follow) usual checks, rather than reflecting a wider culture of non-compliance,” the watchdog claimed.
The latest figure raises concerns about a lax security culture among people working on the resettlement scheme, lawyers representing Afghans affected by the breaches said.
The MoD has not disclosed the details of each breach. However, previous incidents that were made public included officials accidentally revealing the personal details of Afghan applicants to third parties.
Barings Law is representing hundreds of Afghans affected by the major 2022 breach. The firm’s head of data protection, Adnan Malik, said: “What began as an isolated incident, which the Ministry of Defence initially sought to keep from public view, has now escalated into a series of catastrophic failings.
“We urge the Ministry of Defence to be fully transparent with both those affected and the wider public. Victims should not be forced to learn the truth through legal action or news reports.”
In the wake of the Afghanistan withdrawal, the British government established the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy in April 2021.
The scheme was designed to help at-risk Afghans seek refuge in the UK, specifically those with close ties to the British presence in the country during the war against the Taliban.
ARAP, which closed in July this year, was beset by constant complaints relating to data security.
More than 250 Afghans seeking relocation to Britain were mistakenly copied into an email from the MoD, putting them at risk of revenge attacks by the Taliban, the BBC reported in 2021.
The UK government at the time announced “significant remedial actions” in the wake of the incident, including a new rule that any external email required a “second set of eyes” for review for before being sent.
Yet the breaches continued, including the catastrophic 2022 leak caused by a soldier at Regent’s Park barracks, who sent a spreadsheet with what they believed to be a small number of applicants’ names to trusted Afghan contacts.
Hidden data in the spreadsheet, however, were the names, personal information and family contacts of almost 19,000 people.
Jon Baines, senior data protection specialist at law firm Mishcon de Reya, said the new figures represent a “remarkable number of data security incidents in relation to the ARAP scheme.
“It is difficult to think of any information more sensitive than that which is involved with the scheme, and it baffles me why there were not better security measures in place.”
An MoD spokesperson said: “We take data security extremely seriously and are committed to ensuring that any incidents are dealt with properly, and that we follow our legal duties.”
Saudi student wins silver at international astrophysics olympiad in Mumbai
- Jude Basem Al-Lahyani claims medal at 2025 IOAA
- Event featured more than 300 students from 64 countries
NEW DELHI: A Saudi Arabian student won a silver medal at the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics, which concluded in India’s Mumbai on Thursday.
The IOAA is an annual competition held to recognize talented high-school students from around the world in astronomy and astrophysics through a series of theoretical, practical and experimental tests.
The event was organized this year by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education — a national center of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research — and took place in Mumbai from Aug. 11-21.
A five-member team represented Saudi Arabia at the event, which featured more than 300 students from 64 countries.
“This year's competition was extremely challenging. The exams were long, difficult, and required a high level of intuition and time management. Teams were exceptionally well prepared, making the event even more competitive,” Talal Al-Dawood, supervisor of the astronomy and space program at Mawhiba — the King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity — told Arab News after the closing ceremony on Thursday.
“Despite this, our students performed remarkably well. We are incredibly proud to have won our first silver medal, along with two honorable mentions.”
Saudi student Jude Basem Al-Lahyani was awarded the silver, following her bronze medal at the Kingdom’s IOAA debut at the 2024 edition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Her teammates Hussain Hasan Al-Mubarak and Fajr Al-Obaidan obtained honorable mentions this year.
“They were incredibly happy to see the fruits of their hard work and dedication, as the countless hours they spent studying and preparing finally paid off,” Al-Dawood said.
The IOAA was launched in 2007 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Students competing at the IOAA are required to be younger than 20 years old and must tackle three papers across 10 days spanning theory, data analysis and observations.
The Saudi team was trained by Mawhiba — a non-profit endowment dedicated to nurturing young talent in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — with support from the Ministry of Education, the Saudi Space Agency, and NEO Space Group.
Al-Dawood said the students were chosen following “highly competitive and rigorous qualification stages” that lasted almost a year, and added: “This year’s achievement will definitely inspire the next generation of the Saudi team.”
Azerbaijan sounds the alarm over shallowing of Caspian Sea
- The Caspian, the world’s largest salt lake, holds significant offshore oil reserves and is bordered by five countries that are all major producers of oil or gas or both: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan
BAKU: Rapid falls in the level of the Caspian Sea are affecting ports and oil shipments and threatening to inflict catastrophic damage on sturgeon and seal populations, according to Azerbaijani officials.
The Caspian, the world’s largest salt lake, holds significant offshore oil reserves and is bordered by five countries that are all major producers of oil or gas or both: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan.
Azerbaijan’s Deputy Ecology Minister Rauf Hajjiyev told Reuters that the sea had been getting shallower for decades, but figures showed that the trend was accelerating.
Its level has fallen by 0.93 meters (3 ft) in the past five years, by 1.5 meters in the last 10, and 2.5 meters in the past 30, he said in an interview, estimating the current rate of decline at 20-30 cm per year.
“The retreat of the coastline changes natural conditions, disrupts economic activity and creates new challenges for sustainable development,” said Hajjiyev, who represents Azerbaijan in a joint working group with Russia that met for the first time in April to discuss the problem.
Despite worsening relations between the two countries, according to the protocol signed between the two countries the working group plans to approve a joint program online in September for monitoring and responding to the issue.
Russia links the problem mainly to climate change but Azerbaijan also blames Russia’s construction of dams on the Volga River which provides 80 percent of the water entering the Caspian.
Hajjiyev said the falling water level was already affecting the lives of coastal populations and the work of ports. About 4 million people live on the coast of Azerbaijan, and about 15 million in the Caspian region as a whole.
He said ships are facing increased difficulties when entering and manoeuvring in the port of Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital. This is reducing cargo capacity and raising logistics costs, he added.
REDUCED OIL CARGOES
Transportation of oil and oil products through the Dubendi oil terminal, the largest in the Azerbaijani waters of the Caspian Sea, fell to 810,000 tons in the first half of 2025 from 880,000 in the same period of last year, according to Eldar Salakhov, director of the Baku International Sea Port.
He linked the decline to the falling water level, which he said was making it necessary to carry out major dredging work to ensure stable and uninterrupted port operations.
In 2024, more than 250,000 cubic meters of dredging were carried out at the Dubendi oil terminal to ensure that the largest tankers could enter without restrictions, he told Reuters.
In April, the Baku Shipyard finished building a new dredging vessel, the Engineer Soltan Kazimov, which is due to enter service shortly. Salakhov said it would be able to deepen the bottom to 18 meters in order to help maintain the port’s capacity.
THREAT TO FISH AND SEALS
Hajjiyev, the deputy minister, said the retreat of the waters was destroying wetlands, lagoons, and reed beds and threatening the survival of some marine species.
The biggest blow is to sturgeon, prized for their caviar, which are already under threat of extinction. They are losing up to 45 percent of their summer and autumn habitats and being cut off from their traditional spawning grounds in rivers.
Caspian seals are also threatened by the shrinking sea area and disappearance of seasonal ice fields in the north, where they breed, he added.
“With a 5-meter drop in the sea level, seals lose up to 81 percent of their breeding sites, and with a 10-meter drop, they are almost completely deprived of suitable sites,” Hajjiyev said.
Russia strikes global business in major Ukraine air attack and accuses Kyiv of blocking peace
- One person was killed and 22 were wounded, most of them in the attack that damaged storage facilities at the electronics manufacturer in Ukraine’s far Western Zakarpattia region, authorities said
KYIV: Russia targeted a US-founded electronics manufacturer near Ukraine’s border with the European Union in a major air attack on Thursday as President Volodymyr Zelensky sought US support to bring Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
The overnight attack, which included 574 drones and 40 missiles, was one of the largest of Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, now in its fourth year.
One person was killed and 22 were wounded, most of them in the attack that damaged storage facilities at the electronics manufacturer in Ukraine’s far-Western Zakarpattia region, authorities said.
“It was a regular civilian business, supported by American investment, producing everyday items like coffee machines. And yet, it was also a target for the Russians,” Zelensky wrote on X.
“This is very telling.”
Mukachevo mayor Andriy Baloha said the damaged enterprise belonged to the US-listed company Flex Ltd. The corporate headquarters of the company, a global technology, supply chain and advanced manufacturing solutions partner, is in Austin, Texas and its registered office is in Singapore.
The company employed thousands of the area’s residents, Baloha said. Flex, which grew from a family firm founded in Silicon Valley in 1969, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Ukraine’s western city of Lviv, the attack killed one person, wounded three others and damaged 26 homes, said Governor Maksym Kozytskyi. Authorities in southeastern Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region also reported damage to businesses, homes and gas lines. Two industry sources told Reuters a key gas pumping facility had been attacked, without giving a location.
Russia said Putin had repeatedly said he was ready to meet Zelensky but that Ukraine was trying to undermine Trump’s efforts to resolve the conflict and its leader was illegitimate.
The defense ministry in Moscow said it had struck Ukrainian energy and airfield infrastructure as well as military industrial facilities overnight, and captured another frontline village — Oleksandro-Shultyne, Russian news agency RIA reported. Ukraine said it had hit a Russian oil refinery, a drone warehouse and a fuel base.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
SECURITY TALKS
US President Donald Trump met both Zelensky and Vladimir Putin over the past week in pursuit of a diplomatic end to the fighting but has acknowledged that his Russian counterpart may not want to make a deal. Zelensky urged Trump to react firmly if that was the case.
“We are ready. But what if the Russians are not ready?” he said in comments released on Thursday. “If the Russians are not ready, we would like to see a strong reaction from the United States.”
US and European military planners have begun exploring post-conflict security guarantees for Ukraine, according to US officials and sources, but the path to peace remained uncertain.
A defense ministry source in Turkiye, which has opposed sanctions on Russia while also giving military help to Ukraine and joining a “Coalition of the Willing” to help it with post-conflict security, said peace was still far off.
“It is necessary to first secure a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, then determine the framework of a mission with a clear mandate, and clarify the extent to which each country will contribute,” the Turkish source said on condition of anonymity.
The Kremlin said Putin had discussed Ukraine with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, when Moscow also said attempts to resolve security issues without Russian involvement were a “road to nowhere.”
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready for an honest talk about security guarantees for Ukraine and accused Ukraine’s European backers of ‘adventurism’ by excluding Moscow from their discussions.
Russia, which denies targeting civilians, has used missiles and drones to strike Ukrainian towns and cities far from the front lines throughout the war.
Thousands of civilians, the vast majority of them Ukrainian, have been killed since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of February 2022. More than a million Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are estimated to have been killed or wounded.
