Millions of Americans are set to cast their ballots after a heated presidential election campaign.
Tuesday is the final day to cast a ballot, and below, we’ve assembled a broad overview of when polling stations close in each of the 50 states, which span six time zones.
In Georgia, it’s adorned with a peach. In the seaside city of San Francisco, it boasts sea lions and the Golden Gate Bridge.
The “I Voted” sticker is the traditional prize of casting a ballot on Election Day – and different jurisdictions around the US use their versions to show off their local pride.
Some areas even encourage submissions from residents. A fan favourite this year came from Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, where 12-year-old Jane Hynous submitted a drawing to a local “I Voted” sticker competition – and came away victorious.
Her entry? A deranged werewolf, ripping its shirt in two: a perfect portrait of the pathos of election season.
The monthly jobs report, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, showed that the economy added about 12,000 jobs in October. In September, by comparison, the economy added about 223,000 jobs.
For Harris, who is rated as less competent than Trump to handle the economy in most polls, the report could have hardly arrived at a worse time. Unsurprisingly, the Trump campaign held up the report as evidence of economic mismanagement by the Biden-Harris administration, branding the jobs figure a “catastrophe”.
The picture, however, is complicated by the fact that the period overlapped with hurricanes Helene and Milton and strike action by more than 30,000 Boeing employees.
Even so, the figure fell well short of expectations: economists polled by Dow Jones, who took into account the hurricanes and the strike, had predicted 100,000 jobs. Still, there are other strong economic metrics to consider, too, including 2.8 percent growth in the third quarter.
Harris’s Indian ancestral village is praying for her victory
Harris’s maternal grandfather was born in the village, about 350 kilometres (217 miles) from the southern coastal city of Chennai, more than 100 years ago. As an adult, he moved to Chennai, where he worked as a high-ranking government official until his retirement.
Harris has never visited Thulasendrapuram and she has no living relatives in the village, but people here still venerate the family that made it big in the US.
“Our village ancestors’ granddaughter is running as a US presidential candidate. Her victory will be happy news for every one of us,” M Natarajan, the temple priest, told The Associated Press.
Natarajan led prayers in front of the image of the Hindu deity Ayyanar, a form of Lord Shiva. “Our deity is a very powerful God. If we pray well to him, he will make her victorious,” he said.
Source – Aljazeera
