Trump’s cats and dogs conspiracy is fantasy world stuff with real world consequences

Published

7 days ago

September 13, 2024

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The moment Donald Trump uttered the words at the debate on Tuesday night I knew I’d be off to Springfield.

And so here I am, with a dispatch from a once unremarkable small American town that’s now utterly remarkable, if you believe the claim.

“They’re eating the dogs! They’re eating the cats! They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump had said.

First stop – the park to find the dog walkers. The first man I met, with his dog, was called Bruce.

“I’ve heard about it…” he told me when I asked if he could verify the Trump claim. “…but I haven’t seen anything really.”

“You’re not worried about your dog?” I asked. “No.”

“You should ask them…” he then said, pointing to a man in a municipal vehicle.

He didn’t want to be filmed but was happy to chat. He said how the duck and geese numbers had fallen. Maybe they were being eaten he said, or maybe they were just migrating elsewhere.

“What about the pets?” I asked him. And that’s when I got the first hint of how conspiracies are seeded.

“I’ve never seen nothing going on with the dogs and cats, except what I’ve seen on TikTok with the Springfield police arresting a lady for eating a cat. She was from Haiti wasn’t she,” he said.

The video he’d seen has been doing the rounds for the past week in the conspiracy incubator that is social media.

It is police bodycam footage of a woman being arrested a few weeks ago for allegedly killing and eating a cat.

But she isn’t a Haitian migrant. She was born in America. And the incident didn’t happen in Springfield either. The local police have confirmed all these facts to be true.

Across Springfield we have not found anyone who has seen pet-eating immigrants.

Driving the streets and talking to the residents I can confirm that the dogs seem safe; the cats are roaming loose.

The instinct then maybe to laugh at the peak-Trump nonsense. Indeed, the Haitians of Springfield can see the funny side too.

Analysis:
How Trump’s claims of immigrants eating pets started and spiralled online

“The Haitians don’t eat cat and dog. No. It’s not the culture to eat that,” Viteo Lawway, 24, told me, with a laugh.

But within this cat and dog story there are some actual truths. There are huge challenges over immigration in America and they are acute in Springfield.

Viteo Lawway is one of 15,000 to have arrived here in Springfield from war-torn, gang-run Haiti since 2020. The pressures on services and society are obvious.

Springfield is a small place with an existing population of under 60,000.

“How did you feel when you heard Donald Trump’s words?” I asked Casey Rollins the executive director of the St Vincent de Paul centre which helps newly arrived migrants.

“I was physically ill. Still am. I can’t even react. I can’t even repeat it. It’s just unfathomable to me, but that’s what happens when hysteria is spread, you know, and all kinds of fictional narratives and it’s really doing harm to our world.”

We looked at another view from another Springfield resident that’s gone viral online.

The woman in the video, who appears to be addressing a community group, is heard saying: “I feel like we have been invaded by some sort of pest.

“I am angry that my friends and family are packing up and moving away. I am angry that foreigners are using up the resources they were set up for the Americans who reside here.”

The clip went on to allege and amplify the pet-eating migrant story.

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“Every community, every culture has its myth and its folklore. I guess this is one,” Casey said to me in response.

The tensions in the town are clear but they are being fanned.

An accident last year between a car and a school bus in Springfield was caused by a Haitian driver. There is a particular concern that the newly-arrived Haitians do not drive well.

An 11-year-old boy died in the crash. Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has cited the tragedy but has framed it a particular way. The boy, Vance said on X last week, was “murdered by migrants”.

A Trump campaign social media page weighed in too: “REMEMBER: 11-year-old Aiden Clark was killed on his way to school by a Haitian migrant that Kamala Harris let into the country in Springfield, Ohio.”

The boy’s father has hit back.

Nathan Clark told a city commission meeting this week that he wished for “the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone”.

He continued: “My son Aiden Clark was not murdered. He was accidentally killed by a migrant from Haiti. This tragedy is felt all over this community, the state and even the nation. But don’t spin this towards hate.”

Baseless, evidence-free, racist conspiracies usually stay deep down rabbit holes where they belong.

But Donald Trump inhabits these rabbit holes. He is led down them by people in his inner circle, like Laura Loomer, a known conspiracy theorist who regularly travels in Mr Trump’s entourage.

Rumours which would usually only exist in small echo chambers precisely because there is no evidence no support them, suddenly get massively amplified when Donald Trump mentions them.

This is a country where too often people no longer believe their own l neighbours, their own instinct or their own eyes. And that applies to both sides in this divided country. That’s the problem.

Its Black Mirror type stuff – a conspiracy about cats and dogs. Fantasy world stuff but with real world consequences.

US

Titan submersible: New coastguard video shows wreckage on seafloor

Published

11 hours ago

September 19, 2024

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Titan submersible: New coastguard video shows wreckage on seafloor

New video has been released of the remains of the Titan submersible – more than 3700m down on the seafloor.

The US Coast Guard said it shows “the aft dome, aft ring, remnants of the hull and carbon fiber debris”.

It comes shortly after images of the sub’s tail were released.

A hearing is currently taking place in the US about the Titan’s fatal implosion on a trip to the Titanic in June 2023.

OceanGate’s former operations boss told the panel earlier this week the sub was a huge risk and the company was only focused on profit.

David Lochridge also painted an unflattering picture of the firm’s founder, Stockton Rush, saying he would “fly off the handle” and had a “total disregard for safety”.

In one incident, he said Mr Rush crashed the sub into a wreck site and threw the PlayStation controller used to pilot the vehicle at his head.

Three Britons died in the incident – adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood

Mr Rush and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet were also killed instantly when the craft was crushed by the pressure of the ocean.

OceanGate’s scientific director Steven Ross is expected to give evidence on Thursday, as is Renata Rojas, a mission specialist for the American company.

The firm suspended operations after the disaster and now has no full-time staff but is being represented by a lawyer during the US Coast Guard hearing.

Titan lost contact with its support ship on 18 June last year, prompting a search in the Atlantic that made global headlines.

However, the wreck was found four days later 300m from the Titanic’s bow. The sub had been making voyages to the site of the legendary shipwreck since 2021.

US

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs refused bail a second time as he faces sex trafficking charges

Published

24 hours ago

September 18, 2024

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Sean 'Diddy' Combs refused bail a second time as he faces sex trafficking charges

Sean “Diddy” Combs has been refused bail a second time as he faces several charges including sex trafficking, drug possession and firearms offences.

US district judge Andrew L Carter said the government had proved “by clear and convincing evidence that there is no condition or set of conditions” that will ensure the safety of the community and that the rapper and music mogul will not tamper with witnesses.

The 54-year-old pleaded not guilty after he was first arrested by officers at the Park Hyatt hotel in Manhattan, New York, on Monday.

He was originally denied bail and told he would be detained after pleading not guilty to three felony counts during an initial court appearance on Tuesday.

Lawyers representing Combs asked a judge on Wednesday to let him await his trial at his luxury home on an island near Miami Beach, as opposed to in jail in Brooklyn.

But prosecutors argued against the proposal, saying there was too great a risk that Combs could threaten or harm witnesses.

Combs’s lawyers offered a $50m (£37.8m) bail package in exchange for his release to home detention with GPS monitoring and strict limitations on who could visit him.

Arguing to keep him behind bars, prosecutor Emily Johnson told the judge that Combs had a long history of intimidating both accusers and witnesses to his alleged abuse.

Ms Johnson cited text messages from women who said Combs forced them into “Freak Offs” and then threatened to leak explicit videos of them engaging in sexual acts.

She also said that Combs’s own defence team was “minimising and horrifically understating” his propensity for violence.

The defence and prosecution were wrangling over the request before the judge passed his ruling.

“I am feeling confident. We’re going to go get Mr Combs out of jail,” Combs’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo said on his way into court on Wednesday, before the judge decided Combs would spend his time before the trial at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

A legal indictment released after Combs’s arrest detailed allegations dating to 2008, accusing him of abusing, threatening, and coercing women for years “to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct”.

He allegedly induced female victims and male sex workers into drug-fuelled sexual performances, dubbed “Freak Offs”, according to the report.

Combs, formerly known as Puff Daddy and P Diddy, was once one of the most influential figures in hip-hop – famous as a producer and manager of the late Notorious BIG, as well as a rapper in his own right for hits including I’ll Be Missing You, Come With Me, and Bad Boy For Life.

However, in November, his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, filed a lawsuit accusing him of coercing her, and others, into unwanted sex in drug-fuelled settings.

The suit was settled in one day, but months later CNN aired hotel security footage showing Combs punching and kicking Cassie and throwing her to the floor.

He apologised after the video aired, saying: “I was disgusted when I did it.”

US

Bumper US interest rate cut aims to boost flagging economy

Published

1 day ago

September 18, 2024

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Bumper US interest rate cut aims to boost flagging economy

US interest rates have been slashed for the first time in more than four years – by more than many expected – amid fears the world’s largest economy is flagging.

The US central bank, the Federal Reserve, brought interest rates down by 0.5 percentage points to 4.75% to 5%.

Unlike the UK, the US interest rate is a range to guide lenders rather than a single percentage.

Bringing down inflation to 2% is a primary goal of the Fed and it has used interest rates to draw money out of the economy by making borrowing more costly since 2022, when the Ukraine/Russia price shock hit.

Recent figures show the Fed is not far from its inflation target – with the main measure hitting 2.5% in August, the lowest rate in three years.

But signs of a weakening economy emerged last month as data on job creation led to recession fears.

The Fed signalled in its statement that while it was confident on both the inflation and growth outlooks, a slowdown in the pace of hiring was a cause for concern.

Only one member of its rate-setting committee dissented on the 0.5 percentage point reduction. Financial market participants had been split on whether it would go for the 0.25 option instead.

US stocks rallied in the wake of the decision, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and broader S&P 500 both up by more than 0.5% from flat positions moments before the rate decision was revealed.

The dollar was trading a cent lower versus sterling at $1.32.

Some market analysts said the Fed’s move showed Fed chair Jay Powell and his fellow policymakers had been too slow to react to the employment slowdown.

He told reporters: “We’re going to be making decisions meeting by meeting, based on the incoming data and the evolving outlook, the balance of risks… it’s a process of recalibrating our policy stance away from where we had it a year ago, when inflation was high and unemployment low, to a place that’s more appropriate given where we are now and where we expect to be.

“That process will time time”, he added, saying there would be no “rush”.

Michael Sheehan, fund manager of fixed income at EdenTree Investment Management, said: “Kicking off this cutting cycle with a 50 basis point reduction will undoubtedly vindicate those who had argued that the Fed had fallen behind the curve.

“Any doubts that this cutting cycle would be any less dramatic than previous ones have been firmly laid to rest.

“We expect this larger cut of 50 basis points to boost risk assets in the short term. The key for markets, and indeed the Federal Reserve, will be how far the softening of the labour market has to run.

“Powell will be hoping that taking aggressive action early will go some way to curtailing a substantial weakening and achieve the elusive soft landing.”

What about the UK?

It comes as the UK central bank the Bank of England meets on Thursday to make its own interest rate decision.

While the Bank will focus on UK economic data – and on Wednesday afternoon was expected by markets to hold rates – it could be influenced by US decision-making.

Lower interest rates tend to weaken currencies, so a big cut from the Fed could be good news for the pound.

While being able to buy more dollars is good news for people holidaying in the US and paying for imports like oil, it’s bad news for exporters who get less for their goods as a result and have a less competitive product.

Lower exports can slow inflation, meaning the Bank could be more likely to cut.