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A woman who wrote a Facebook post about Haitian immigrants eating local pets has said she is now filled with regret after it spiralled into a national frenzy.

Erika Lee, a resident of Springfield, Ohio, posted online about a neighbour’s cat going missing and said she had been told the cat was a victim of an attack by her Haitian neighbours.

She was one of the first people to post the rumour online, according to NewsGuard, a media watchdog that monitors misinformation.

Ms Lee’s post became part of a rumour mill that sparked a feeding frenzy, with the baseless claims being repeated by presidential hopeful Donald Trump during an election debate with Kamala Harris, and also by his running mate JD Vance on other occasions.

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‘They’re eating pets in Springfield’

“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Ms Lee told Sky’s partner organisation, NBC News.

“I’m not a racist,” she said, adding that she and her daughter are of ethnically diverse backgrounds and she is a member of the LGBTQ community.

“Everybody seems to be turning it into that, and that was not my intent.”

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The neighbour Ms Lee cited in her post, Kimberley Newton, told NewsGuard that the post had misstated her story.

Read more: Inside Springfield – where dogs seem safe and cats roam loose

Schools closed amid bomb threats

Other posts that contributed to the false allegations included a photo of a man holding a dead goose that was taken in Columbus, Ohio, but was spread by some online as evidence of the claims about Springfield. A woman who allegedly did kill and try to eat a cat was found to have been from Canton, Ohio, and had no links to the Haitian community.

Pic: End Wokeness/X
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The false claims began to circulate widely. Pic: End Wokeness/X

Local police and city officials have repeatedly said there is no evidence pets are being eaten in Springfield, but that hasn’t stopped the claims spreading across the country.

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Anti-immigrant fervour has led to school closures in Springfield, as officials received bomb threats.

Ms Lee said she never imagined her post would become fodder for conspiracy theories and hate. She said there are real problems in the city, which was caught off-guard by a population boom when a rising number of migrants arrived.

“I didn’t think it would ever get past Springfield,” she said, adding that she has pulled her daughter out of school amid concerns for her safety.

Read more:
Where did Trump’s pet eating claims come from?
How the rumour spread online

And immigrant advocacy groups have said these kinds of claims can be dangerous.

“The Haitian-American community in Springfield, Ohio, and around the country is feeling targeted and unsafe because dehumanising, debunked and racist conspiracies are being advanced at the highest levels of American politics and are still being repeated,” Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, a non-profit organisation that advocates for immigration reform told NBC News.

“The false claim that black immigrants are violently attacking American families by stealing and eating their pets is a powerful and old racist trope that puts a target on people’s backs, and it is turbo-charged in the era of MAGA [the make America great again slogan used by Donald Trump] when political violence has become commonplace and we have already witnessed violent incidents incited by such rhetoric.”

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Donald Trump celebrates 100 days in office with campaign-style rally

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Donald Trump celebrates 100 days in office with campaign-style rally

Donald Trump has celebrated the 100th day of his second term with a campaign-style rally in Michigan.

During his 90-minute speech the US president mocked Joe Biden, falsely claimed he won the 2020 presidential election and defended his decision to impose tariffs on countries around the world.

Speaking in front of electronic screens reading “100 days of greatness”, Mr Trump attacked “radical left lunatics”, briefly took on a heckler and boasted about his administration’s “mass deportation” efforts.

“Removing the invaders is not just a campaign pledge,” he said. “It’s my solemn duty as commander-in-chief. I have an obligation to save our country.”

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He played a video of migrants his administration claims are gang members arriving at a notorious prison in El Salvador, with those in the crowd cheering the images of deportees having their heads shaved.

During his speech, during which he called up several of his top team to the stage, Mr Trump claimed his administration has delivered “most profound change in Washington in nearly 100 years”.

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100 days of Donald Trump

Mr Trump also briefly touched on tariffs, saying China, which is facing tariffs of 145%, “has taken more jobs from us than any country has ever taken from another country”.

President Donald Trump arrives to speak after his first 100 days in office.
Pic: AP/Alex Brandon
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Pic: AP

But he said his tariffs did not mean Beijing and Washington cannot “get along” and said he thought a trade deal with China was near, adding: “But it’s going to be a fair deal.”

“I think it’s going to work out,” he says. “They want to make a deal. We’re going to make a deal. But it’s going to be a fair deal.”

Donald Trump. Pic: AP
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Donald Trump speaking in Michigan. Pic: AP

Donald Trump dances at the end of his rally. Pic: Reuters
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Mr Trump dances at the end of his rally. Pic: Reuters

He claimed his administration had “already ended inflation”, but last month the Bureau of Labor Statistics said while inflation slowed in March over the past year, it had in fact risen 2.4%.

Read more:
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Trump’s first 100 days in 100 words

‘You haven’t seen anything yet’

Mr Trump, who has frequently criticised Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell in recent weeks, said: “Interest rates came down, despite the fact that I have a Fed person who’s not really doing a good job, but I won’t say that. I want to be very nice. I want to be very nice and respectful to the Fed.

“You’re not supposed to criticise the Fed. You’re supposed to let him do his own thing. But I know much more than he does about interest rates, believe me.”

Mr Trump also defended his administration’s steep tariffs on cars and car parts, hours after he signed an executive order aimed at easing the impact of his tariffs on US carmakers.

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“We’re here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country,” Mr Trump said.

He later added: “We’ve just gotten started. You haven’t even seen anything yet.”

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US voters divided over Trump’s first 100 days – 10 out of 10, or a lack of grace and empathy?

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US voters divided over Trump's first 100 days - 10 out of 10, or a lack of grace and empathy?

From the White House these past 100 days, I’ve chronicled the whirlwind that’s reshaping America.

Getting beyond the West Wing and out of Washington has been harder. The volume of news has necessitated a near-constant presence in the US capital.

Every single day, there has been something. Of course, this has been entirely intentional for the president and his team of proud disrupters.

They pledged to govern differently, and on that promise, they have more than delivered.

To fix America, Donald Trump first had to convince people that it is broken. Many didn’t need convincing. Look for decline here and you’ll easily find it; communities left behind.

Look for bureaucracy and waste – you’ll find that too. Common sense silenced by wokism? Many can relate to that. Immigration out of control? Politicians have been struggling with that for decades.

In just 100 days, Mr Trump has harnessed all of that into a package of change that feels like nothing short of a revolution.

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Despite the tsunami of news, my colleagues and I have managed to escape from the White House. And it is there, beyond Washington, that the more subtle but no less profound changes to the fabric of this nation can be felt.

Whether it be innocuous tattoos that might now be associated with gang membership, free speech opinions penned on social media, or the willingness just to chat about politics, one startling thing I have observed these past 100 days is a growing sense of fear.

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Does Trump really ‘run the country and the world?’

A passion for politics

Anyone who has worked as a foreign correspondent in America will tell you that Americans love to give their opinion on politics. And they do it, always, with word-perfect articulation. There is no better place in the world for a ‘voxpop’.

There is a passion for politics that I haven’t seen anywhere else I’ve lived and worked. Until now. Over these past 100 days, I have increasingly found a reticence that reflects an America changed by this president and his style.

I’m in Detroit at the moment, in Michigan, the battleground state that helped to deliver Donald Trump the presidency back in November. I was here back then, too, and recall the enthusiasm with which people would discuss the upcoming election. There was enthusiasm for Trump and enthusiasm for Harris.

An indictment of the times

Now the response to my questions is, so often, “no thanks, I’d rather not”. Sometimes people ask where the report will be seen. “Will it be on in America?” Think about it – this is America. What an indictment of the times, that people fear offering their opinion – whatever side of the aisle they sit.

Very often, it’s businesses that are extremely cautious of being associated with one political view or another. Such is the animosity now between the two sides.

After a day of perseverance in Detroit this week, a few folk did talk to us. Their answers were revealing.

In a park, I met Marie Freeman who said people are now “more angry”. Her view is that America has lost something over these past 100 days.

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“I definitely want us to move forward in a positive, more empathetic way. I think with Trump being such a hardcore president, we lose the empathy, we lose the grace for our fellow neighbours. We’re all so angry because we’re under angry leadership. And that’s not good.”

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She articulated a vibe which I recognise in so many parts of this country right now. A lack of grace and empathy.

Yet, yards away, a couple walking their cats stopped to chat. I asked how they would rate these past 100 days. Two tens out of ten for Trump’s performance.

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Trump ‘very disappointed’ in Russian strikes on Ukraine and calls for Putin to ‘sit down and sign a deal’

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Trump 'very disappointed' in Russian strikes on Ukraine and calls for Putin to 'sit down and sign a deal'

Donald Trump has said he’s “very disappointed” with Russia as he continues to push for a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.

On Saturday, the US president met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Vatican for their first face-to-face meeting since their explosive White House summit.

The Ukrainian president said the meeting ahead of Pope Francis’s funeral could end up being “historic.” Hours later, Mr Trump questioned Vladimir Putin’s appetite for peace in a Truth Social post.

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From Saturday: Trump meets Zelenskyy at funeral

Speaking before boarding Air Force One on Sunday, Mr Trump again said the meeting went well, and that the Ukrainian leader was “calmer”.

“I think he understands the picture, I think he wants to make a deal,” he said, before turning to Mr Putin and Russia.

“I want him to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal,” the US president said, adding he was “very disappointed that they did the bombing of those places (including Kyiv, where nine people were killed in a Russian airstrike on Friday) after discussions”.

However, Mr Trump said he thinks Mr Zelenskyy is ready to give up Crimea, which the Ukrainian leader has repeatedly said he would refuse to do.

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He added that “we’ll see what happens in the next few days” and said “don’t talk to me about Crimea, talk to Obama and Biden about Crimea”.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, while Barack Obama was president.

Meanwhile, US secretary of state Marco Rubio told Sky’s US partner network NBC News that a peace deal to end the war was “closer in general than they’ve been any time in the last three years, but it’s still not there”.

“If this was an easy war to end, it would have been ended by someone else a long time ago,” he added on the Meet the Press show.

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It comes after North Korea confirmed it had deployed troops to fight for Russia, months after Ukraine and Western officials said its forces were in Europe.

State media outlet KCNA reported North Korean soldiers made an “important contribution” to expelling Ukrainian forces from Russian territory, likely to be the Kursk region.

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KCNA said leader Kim Jong Un made the decision to deploy troops to Russia and notified Moscow, and quoted him as saying: “They who fought for justice are all heroes and representatives of the honour of the motherland.”

It also quoted the country’s ruling Workers’ Party as saying the end of the battle to liberate Kursk showed the “highest strategic level of the firm militant friendship” between North Korea and Russia.

Last June, Mr Kim and Mr Putin signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty after a state visit – his first to the country in 24 years.

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From June 2024: Putin drives Kim around in luxury limo during state visit

The North Korean leader promised at the time “full support and solidarity to the Russian government, army and people in carrying out the special military operation in Ukraine”.

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