MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s new president announced an agriculture plan Tuesday that could make the country’s food production and distribution look a lot more like it did in the 1980s, when meals in Mexico were dominated by tortillas, beans, instant coffee and cheap hot chocolate.
Four decades ago, the ingredients for those meals were often bought at government stores that stocked a few basic goods.
President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged Tuesday to revive those often shabby, limited government stores and continue efforts to achieve “food sovereignty.”
“It is about producing what we eat,” Sheinbaum said of her policy, whose main focus will be on increasing bean and corn production.
Sheinbaum appears to have a deep interest in boosting beans. On Monday, she said, “It is much better to eat a bean taco than a bag of potato chips."
Agriculture Secretary Julio Berdegué said the focus would be on guaranteeing prices for farmers who grow corn used for tortillas and lowering tortilla prices by 10% after prices jumped a couple of years ago.
The government aims to boost bean production by about 30% in six years to replace imports of beans, and will set up research centers to supply higher-yielding bean seeds.
“Self-sufficiency in beans is a goal the president has set for us,” Berdegué said.
The government will also focus on supporting coffee production, but mainly for instant coffee, which it claims is used by 84% of Mexican households. The plan will also seek to support cocoa production, but mainly for powdered baking and hot chocolate, not fine chocolate bars.
The policies appear to run counter to market trends and what Mexican food sales look like today, when consumption of most of the old basics has fallen.
Most Mexicans today shop at modern grocery stores, and consumption of fresh ground coffee, not instant, has increased enormously, accompanied by a boom in specialized coffee chains and shops.
Meanwhile, bean consumption has been dropping precipitously for decades in Mexico. According to the government's “2024 Agricultural Panorama” report, Mexicans consume only about 17 pounds (7.7 kilograms) of beans annually. That's less than half of the 35.2 pounds (16 kilograms) consumed per year in 1980.
A combination of factors, including the time it takes to cook dried beans, may be behind this. Amanda Gálvez, a researcher at Mexico's National Autonomous University, wrote that “we look down at beans because it is considered ‘the food of the poor,’ and we are making a serious mistake,” because beans are a good source of protein.
However, the health benefits aren't clear: The most common bean recipe in Mexico — refried beans — often contains a considerable dose of lard.
Tortilla consumption has also fallen from nearly 220 pounds (100 kilograms) per capita annually in 2000 to about 165 pounds (75 kilograms) in 2024. Consumers have increasingly taken to buying bread and other bakery products instead of tortillas.
Apart from the challenge of trying to change consumer habits, the policy also runs counter to market trends. While some countries are trying to encourage high-value varietal and specialized chocolate strains, Mexico is focusing on the cheapest products.
While chocolate was first exported to the rest of the world from Mexico, Mexico's own production has fallen dramatically because of plant diseases and a lack of investment. It dropped from almost 50,000 tons in 2003 to about 28,000 tons in 2022.
And while most Mexican homes may have a jar of instant coffee in their cupboards, that's not where the tendency — or consumer spending — is headed. According to a Technavio industry report, instant products accounted for only about 37% of the sales value of coffee in Mexico.
Sheinbaum's focus on self-sufficiency in oil, energy and foodstuffs is a holdover from her predecessor and political mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who left office on Sept. 30.
López Obrador also appears to have passed on his nostalgia for a 1970s-style Mexico — including passenger rail service, state-owned industries, tight-knit families and small corner stores — to Sheinbaum.
The agriculture plan comes one day after Sheinbaum announced a complete “junk food” ban on salty, fried, processed snacks or sweetened beverages and soft drinks in schools, starting within six months.
But the government's track record in actually changing consumer behavior is poor, columnist Javier Tejado wrote Tuesday in the newspaper El Universal. He reminded readers that the government banned junk food advertisements aimed at children in 2014.
“The result after ten years of prohibitions?” Tejado wrote. “Things are worse than when they started in 2014; Mexicans have decided to keep consuming things they like.”
FILE - A worker packages tortillas to sell at a tortilla factory in Mexico City, May 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)
FILE - Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum gives a media briefing from the National Palace in Mexico City, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, the morning after her inauguration. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)
FILE - A farm worker irrigates black bean plants with wastewater near Tepatepec, Hidalgo state, Mexico, April 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
With just over two weeks before the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are hitting the campaign trail in strategic battleground states.
Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Here’s the latest:
Trump’s campaign is seizing on President Joe Biden saying “lock him up” in reference to Trump during an appearance in New Hampshire.
“Joe Biden just admitted the truth: he and Kamala’s plan all along has been to politically persecute their opponent President Trump because they can’t beat him fair and square,” said Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, calling on Harris to “condemn Joe Biden’s disgraceful remark.”
Biden, during his appearance, had been casting Trump as a threat to Democracy when he made the remark.
“Politically lock him up,” Biden continued. “Lock him out, that’s what we have to do.”
Trump has routinely blamed Biden for the indictments against him, though there is no evidence the president had anything to do with them.
Trump is portraying the nation’s economy as in shambles during a campaign stop in Greensboro, N.C. He claims that “with four more years of Kamala Harris, North Carolina will be an economic wasteland.”
But that’s in contrast to a CNBC study earlier this year that named North Carolina as the second best state to do business, and it’s been in the top three of CNBC’s survey for five years in a row.
The state’s Department of Commerce says that since 2017, North Carolina has announced more than 115,300 jobs and promised capital investments of $53.45 billion. Major projects have been announced by companies including Apple, Toyota and Wolfspeed.
Trump is kicking off his rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, by asking his audience if they’re better off now than they were four years ago. And he’s going after Harris, calling her the country’s worst-ever vice president and “a radical left lunatic.”
He’s calling the country “a failing nation” and saying this election “is a choice between whether we will have four more years of incompetent failure and disaster, or whether we’ll begin the four greatest years in the history of our country.”
“We’re going to take care of you. We’re going to work together”
Trump is urging those who were displaced by Hurricane Helene to visit his campaign’s website to see how they can vote.
Trump’s team and Republicans have backed a series of modifications to make it easier for those in the state to vote, despite having railed against changes so that people could more safely vote during the pandemic.
He says his supporters need to make the election “too big too rig.”
Trump is speaking to supporters at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, saying he’s seen a lot of the state lately and has followed the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene.
Trump began his rally complaining that the state’s residents “haven’t had much help from our government in Washington. I can tell you that.”
He says that following Jan. 20th, “you’re going to be seeing a lot of me. We’re going to fix it up and make it better than ever.”
In an interview with Telemundo, Harris said she will help construct an economy that “supports the working class.”
The Spanish-language news channel spoke to Harris in English, but her interview was dubbed into Spanish for listeners. In response to claims by Donald Trump that she’s a socialist, she said she was a “capitalist. A pragmatic capitalist.”
And she said she would focus on bringing capital to community banks to help Latino men get small business loans
Harris says she still believes Joe Biden is “capable in every way” of being president, after his disastrous debate against Trump forced him to abandon his reelection campaign, clearing the way for her to become the Democratic nominee for president.
Speaking to NBC News, Harris says “you’d have to ask him if that’s the only reason why” he dropped out of the race, but that she has “no reluctance” in saying he’s up for the job.
Harris says she’s not going to “get into those hypotheticals” about potentially pardoning Trump if she wins the White House. Trump has been convicted in a New York hush money trial and faces federal charges over his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Asked if she thought pardoning Trump would help the country move on, she says, “Let me tell you what’s going to help us move on. I get elected President of the United States.”
Harris tells NBC News she doesn’t believe that religious exceptions should be granted as Democrats look to restore a national right to abortion. Harris says she’s not “going to engage in hypotheticals” about negotiations with Congress, but appears to reject having a carve-out for providers with a religious objection to providing abortions. “I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body,” she says.
Harris says she’s not focused on pointing out the historic nature of her candidacy. She tells NBC News: “I’m clearly a woman, I don’t need to point that out to anyone.”
Harris would be the first woman elected to the White House if she wins. She says she’s not worried about sexism harming her candidacy, saying she’s focused on speaking to all voters.
“I will never assume that anyone in our country should elect a leader based on their gender or their race, instead that that leader needs to earn the vote based on substance and what they will do to address challenges and to inspire people,” she said.
Vice President Kamala Harris says that if elected she will be more focused on lowering costs for American families than President Joe Biden.
Speaking to NBC News, Harris says: “Mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration. I bring my own experiences, my own ideas to it, and it has informed a number of my areas of focus.” She added that those focus areas are on “lowering costs.”
President Joe Biden has laid into his predecessor, Donald Trump, declaring during a visit to New Hampshire that the former president is a “genuine threat to democracy.”
Biden gave a speech focused on prescription drug prices but used the end to suggest that world leaders are terrified of a second Trump term. He said they often pull him aside at summits and quietly wonder what a Trump return to the White House will do to democratic rule around the world.
Biden got so wrapped up in his criticism that he declared at one point of Trump, “lock him up,” echoing similar calls that some supporters make at the rallies of Vice
“Politically lock him up,” Biden continued over applause from attendees. “Lock him out, that’s what we have to do.”
Record numbers of people are voting early, driven partly by a surge of Republicans convinced to do so by Donald Trump. Trump previously turned his party off voting early with his election lies, but he’s changed direction this year and now encourages it.
The early vote doesn’t tell you who’s going to win an election. You just know who’s casting a ballot, not who they’re voting for. Wait until Election night to find that out.
▶ Meanwhile, you can see who’s voting in your state here.
Biden veered into talking about the election as he closed his prescription speech in New Hampshire.
“Folks, there’s so much at stake so please call your neighbors, get your friends, get your relatives,” the president said, urging people to vote in the presidential election.
Biden made veiled references to Trump when he said that every world leader he meets pulls him aside to tell him they don’t want Trump to win.
“If America walks away, who leads the world? Who?” Biden asked his audience.
Biden is criticizing Trump on the issue of health care, specifically the former president’s attempts to unravel the Affordable Care Act.
The president is in Concord, New Hampshire, to talk about prescription drug savings under the Inflation Reduction Act he signed into law.
Biden noted that Trump recently said he has “concepts of a plan” when he was asked about his plans for health care in the United States.
Said Biden of Trump, “He has no concept of anything. No plan.”
Florida-based voter advocacy group Equal Ground launched its Pastors at the Polls community initiative intended to ensure voter safety throughout the final leg of this year’s election season.
Community pastors in Florida will receive various training sessions including poll monitoring and de-escalation training. Then, over the final two weekends of early voting, they’ll be deployed and stationed at precincts across the state with higher voter intimidation risks.
The 2024 election marks the first presidential since three major voter suppression laws have gone into effect. Florida is one of several states where Republicans have enacted voting restrictions that created or enhanced criminal penalties and fines for those who assist voters. A federal judge blocked portions of a Florida measure earlier this year, including the one targeting felons and those who are not citizens.
Even so, the law initially had a direct effect on the operations of Equal Ground and other voter advocacy organizations in the state before the ruling.
Former President Barack Obama tells a Wisconsin audience “you’d be worried if grandpa was acting like” Donald Trump.
Campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris, Obama honed in on Trump’s actions at some of his rallies as well as calling himself the “father of IVF,” or in vitro fertilization.
“I have no idea what that means. You don’t either,” Obama said.
Obama said to the crowd when it comes to Trump that they would call up their brother or cousin, and ask ’have you noticed?”
“This is coming from somebody who wants unchecked power,” Obama said. “So, Wisconsin, we do not need to see what an older, loonier Donald Trump looks like with no guardrails. America is ready to turn the page.”
Tim Walz campaigning in Wisconsin is mocking billionaire Elon Musk for his appearance at a campaign rally for Donald Trump, saying “Elon’s on that stage jumping around, skipping like a dipsh——t on the stage. You know it.”
The Madison audience roared its approval in response.
Walz said Musk is “literally the richest man in the world, spending millions of dollars to help Donald Trump buy an election.”
He asserts that Musk is doing so because Trump has “already promised that he would put Elon in charge of government regulation that oversees the businesses that Elon runs.” Trump has said he would create a government efficiency commission to audit the entire federal government, an idea suggested by Musk, who would lead it
“We had a nice road trip instead,” Obama said to laughs from the crowd.
The drive from Chicago to Madison takes around three hours. Obama took the stage about two hours after the rally started.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz preceded Obama, along with a host of Wisconsin candidates and officeholders.
That’s according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm the taping.
Trump and Rogan have a complicated history. While the two shook hands and spoke briefly at a UFC fight, Trump criticized Rogan after he said that then-candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. was the only one running who made sense to him.
“It will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC Ring??? MAGA2024,” Trump wrote on his social media site in August.
Both Trump and Harris have appeared on a slew of popular podcasts — with Trump’s typically aimed at young men.
— Jill Colvin
The webpage provides information for voters in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, who may be confronting lost identification, relocated polling places or other disruptions because of the hurricanes.
The Justice Department has compiled information about changes states have made to aid those affected by the storms. The page answers questions such as how people who’ve been displaced can get a ballot mailed to their new location and how residents can check to see if the place where they usually cast their ballot is open for voting.
Groups in Russia created and helped spread viral disinformation targeting Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday.
The content, which includes baseless accusations about the Minnesota governor’s time as a teacher, contains several indications that it was manipulated, said the official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Analysts identified clues that linked the content to Russian disinformation operations, said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the office of the director.
Digital researchers had already linked the video to Russia, but Tuesday’s announcement is the first time federal authorities have confirmed the connection.
The disinformation targeting Walz is consistent with Russian disinformation seeking to undermine the Democratic campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz, her running mate. Russia also has spread disinformation aimed at stoking discord and division ahead of voting, officials said, and may seek to encourage violent protests after Election Day.
▶ Read more about Russian disinformation.
The participants gathered around Trump with their hands on his shoulders. Trump remained seated and had his eyes closed.
They asked God to continue to protect Trump and give him strength. And to “make America godly again.”
He claimed that switching to all-electric trucks would require rebuilding every one of the country’s bridges and that solar fields kill rabbits.
He says he recently saw a solar field “that looked like it took up half the desert.”
“It’s all steel and glass and wires. And it looks like hell,” he said. “You see rabbits, they get caught in it.”
Trump often rails against wind power, saying the turbines “kill all the birds” and confuse whales. He’s been more complimentary of electric cars since he received the backing of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
But he is criticizing their range and weight at an event with Latino supporters Tuesday, claiming the nation would need to rebuild every one of its bridges if truck fleets swap diesel for electric vehicles to handle the extra weight.
He called it a “bad thing.”
“Can you imagine somebody doing that? That’s the enemy. I guess that maybe is the enemy from within,” he said, repeating the phrase he’s used in recent speeches to refer to Democratic lawmakers such as U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff.
“We just can’t stand for this incompetence anymore.”
The FBI said Tuesday that it’s investigating the unauthorized release of these documents.
The company’s CEO, Bob Unanue, is a vocal supporter.
“It’s actually quite good out of the can,” Trump says of the company known for its beans and other products.
“I eat it whenever I can,” he claims.
Former President Barack Obama will also be there.
Springsteen will hold another concert with Obama on Monday in Philadelphia.
A senior campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said more concerts will be announced in the coming days.
— Chris Megerian
At the event, Trump said Harris is “slow” and has a “low IQ.”
“We don’t need another low IQ person,” he said.
“She’s sleeping right now,” he said. “This is not what you want.”
Trump’s jabs come after Harris tried to cast him as “exhausted” after he pulled out of several interviews — though Trump has had a busy schedule of interviews with conservative outlets and podcasts.
In the opening remarks, notable Florida Republicans including Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott proclaimed Trump’s record in supporting the Hispanic community during his previous term.
Suarez was one of three Florida Republicans running for president in the earlier campaign cycle, but despite running against Trump, the mayor endorsed the former president in March. Suarez said that under Trump’s term, Hispanics experienced the lowest unemployment and the biggest reduction in poverty.
Scott, who’s running for reelection, emphasized Trump would be the best to handle Latin American conflicts and fight against dictatorial regimes, where the families of many voters in the crowd escaped from.
Miami is home to one of the largest Hispanic communities in the country, with about 70% of Miami-Dade County’s population identifying as Hispanic according to 2023 Census data.
It’s a beautiful day in Miami, with blue skies framing the property’s many palm trees.
Scott’s main message to Hispanic voters was that under Trump’s presidency, Hispanic voters were better off, because the border was more secure and inflation was lower.
Scott is saying Harris’ policy will institute price controls, which is socialism. He said her administration would raise taxes.
“The Hispanic vote is the deciding factor. If you want someone to fight for Latin America, Trump’s going to do it,” Scott said.
When Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and Kamala Harris jumped in, a cascade of Zoom meetings with hundreds of thousands of participants popped up seemingly out of nowhere and helped propel her to the Democratic nomination.
Now organizers are trying to turn that burst of digital enthusiasm into traditional get-out-the-vote efforts like phone banking and door knocking. They’ve created a loose constellation of volunteer networks operating independently of the Harris campaign, all geared toward marshaling local or online communities behind the vice president.
People are sending postcards, texting friends, canvassing battleground states, making friendship bracelets with campaign messages, and sometimes surprising themselves by getting involved in ways they’ve never done before.
The question is whether the Zoom meetings that drew so much attention during the summer — for Black women, Black men, white women, white dudes, cat ladies, Taylor Swift fans and more — will turn out to be a short-lived phenomenon or a powerful catalyst for Harris to beat Republican nominee Donald Trump.
▶ Read more about Zoom organizing by Democrats.
But she’s not necessarily trying to sway voters there. She’s trying to highlight a make-or-break issue for Democrats: abortion rights.
Harris will seek to show how Texas’ restrictive abortion ban is creating increasing medical distress for women. During her campaign, the Democratic presidential nominee has often highlighted the increasingly perilous landscape for women since the fall of Roe, and she links it to Donald Trump, who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned the landmark abortion rights ruling.
But it’s unusual for her to do it from a state she’s highly unlikely to win. Campaign officials say the plan is a nontraditional way to capture the attention of voters in battleground states who are inundated with campaign ads and run-of-the-mill campaign events.
But Harris also thinks the issue is resonating with Republican voters, too, particularly women.
Pennsylvania is arguably the hardest fought of the battleground states and happens to have one of the fastest-growing Hispanic communities in the country, in what is known as the 222 Corridor, after the highway that connects small cities and towns west and north of Philadelphia.
It’s fertile ground for both Democrats and Republicans to test their strength among Latinos in a state where small margins decide who gets 20 electoral votes. It’s a place where Democratic nominee Kamala Harris can prove that her party still commands a large share of the demographic’s support, and where Republican Donald Trump’s campaign has been working to gain ground.
“This is the epicenter for Latino voters in Pennsylvania,” said Victor Martinez, who is of Puerto Rican descent and lives in and broadcasts his show from Allentown. “I like the fact that Kamala Harris has to keep sending people over here to listen to us and talk to us. I like it. I like the fact that JD Vance has to keep coming back. I like it, because that means that they have to pay attention to us.”
Pennsylvania’s Latino-eligible voter population has more than doubled since 2000 from 208,000 to 579,000, according to the Latino Data Hub from the University of California, Los Angeles’ Latino Policy & Politics Institute. The population in cities like Allentown and Reading is now more than half Hispanic, with a majority being of Puerto Rican descent and a sizable portion of Dominican origin.
▶ Read more about the Latino vote in this election.
The Biden-Harris administration is awarding $428 million for 14 clean-energy manufacturing projects in Pennsylvania and other states hit hard by the decline of the U.S. coal industry.
One of the larger grants, $87 million, will go to a Pennsylvania company to make state-of-the-art linear generators at a plant outside Pittsburgh, a key battleground in the presidential election.
Linear generators can use any fuel source to produce low-carbon power for utilities, data centers and industry. Mainspring Energy plans to use Energy Department funds to create enough electricity annually to power more than 40,000 homes. Harris, like Biden, has pledged to help workers displaced by the transition to clean energy, a key issue in energy-rich Pennsylvania.
Two weeks out from Election Day, the crisis in the Middle East is looming over the race for the White House, with one candidate struggling to find just the right words to navigate its difficult cross-currents and the other making bold pronouncements that the age-old conflict can quickly be set right.
Vice President Kamala Harris has been painstakingly — and not always successfully — trying to balance talk of strong support for Israel with harsh condemnations of civilian casualties among Palestinians and others caught up in Israel’s wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Former President Donald Trump, for his part, insists that none of this would have happened on his watch and that he can make it all go away if elected.
Both of them are bidding for the votes of Arab and Muslim American voters and Jewish voters, particularly in extremely tight races in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania.
▶ Read more about the Mideast conflict’s role in the election.
For the past year, Project 2025 has endured as a persistent force in the presidential election, its far-right proposals deployed by Democrats as shorthand for what Donald Trump would potentially do with a second term at the White House.
Even though the former president’s campaign has vigorously distanced itself from Project 2025, the sweeping Heritage Foundation’s proposal to gut the federal workforce and dismantle federal agencies aligns closely with his vision. Project 2025’s architects come from the ranks of Trump’s administration and top Heritage officials have briefed Trump’s team about it.
It’s rare for a complex 900-page policy book to figure so dominantly in a political campaign. But from its early start at a think tank, to its viral spread on social media, the rise and fall and potential rise again of Project 2025 shows the unexpected staying power of policy to light up an election year and threaten not only Trump atop the ticket but down-ballot Republicans in races for Congress.
Through it all, Project 2025 hasn't gone away. It exists not only as a policy blueprint for the next administration, but as a database of some 20,000 job-seekers who could staff a Trump White House and administration and a still unreleased “180-day playbook” of actions a new president could employ on Day One.
▶ Read more about Project 2025.
In-person early voting kicks off Tuesday across battleground Wisconsin, with former President Barack Obama and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz hosting a rally in liberal Madison and Republicans holding events to encourage casting a ballot for Donald Trump before Election Day.
Trump lost Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes in 2020, an election that saw unprecedented early and absentee voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are expecting another razor-thin margin in Wisconsin and both sides are pushing voters to cast their ballots early.
Trump was highly critical of voting by mail in past elections, falsely claiming it was rife with fraud. But this election, he and his backers are embracing all forms of voting, including by mail and early in-person. Trump himself encouraged early voting at a rally in Dodge County, Wisconsin, earlier this month.
▶ Read more about early voting in Wisconsin.
Harris is set to discuss how her plan will lower costs, increase their chances for homeownership and expand job opportunities for Latino men in an interview she’s taping Tuesday in Washington with Telemundo, the Spanish-language TV network.
The campaign says Harris, running mate Tim Walz and her husband, Doug Emhoff, are giving interviews to several Hispanic media outlets this week in a bid to get her message across to Latino men.
Harris’ Telemundo interview is set to air Wednesday night.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., attend a campaign event Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Brookfield, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a faith event at the Concord Convention Center, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Concord, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
