Dems lining up for ’28 presidential race in early voting states

SENECA, S.C. >> The first presidential primary votes won’t be cast for another two and a half years. And yet, over the span of 10 days in July, three Democratic presidential prospects are scheduled to campaign in South Carolina.

Nearly a half dozen others have made recent pilgrimages to South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa — states that traditionally host the nation’s opening presidential nomination contests. Still other ambitious Democrats are having private conversations with officials on the ground there.

The voters in these states are used to seeing presidential contenders months or even years before most of the country, but the political jockeying in 2025 for the 2028 presidential contest appears to be playing out earlier, with more frequency and with less pretense than ever before.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom was referred to as a presidential candidate at one stop in his two-day South Carolina tour last week. Voters shouted “2028!” after he insisted he was there simply to strengthen the party ahead of the 2026 midterms. South Carolina has virtually no competitive midterm contests.

U.S. nursing homes struggle during Trump’s crackdown

NEW YORK >> Nursing homes already struggling to recruit staff are now grappling with President Donald Trump’s attack on one of their few reliable sources of workers: immigration.

Facilities for older adults and disabled people are reporting the sporadic loss of employees who have had their legal status revoked by Trump. But they fear even more dramatic impacts are ahead as pipelines of potential workers slow to a trickle with an overall downturn in legal immigration.

“We feel completely beat up right now,” says Deke Cateau, CEO of A.G. Rhodes, which operates three nursing homes in the Atlanta area, with one-third of the staff made up of foreign-born people from about three dozen countries. “The pipeline is getting smaller and smaller.”

Eight of Cateau’s workers are expected to be forced to leave after having their Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, revoked.

TPS allows people already living in the U.S. to stay and work legally if their home countries are unsafe due to civil unrest or natural disasters and during the Biden administration, the designation was expanded to cover people from a dozen countries, including large numbers from Venezuela and Haiti.

Cuomo to fight on in mayor’s race after loss to Mamdani

NEW YORK >> Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo launched an independent run for New York City mayor on Monday, restarting his campaign after a bruising loss to progressive Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary.

In a video, Cuomo announced he would remain in the race to combat Mamdani, a democratic socialist state lawmaker, while previewing a strategic reset that would bring a more personal approach to a campaign that had been criticized as distant from voters.

“The fight to save our city isn’t over,” Cuomo said. “Only 13% of New Yorkers voted in the June primary. The general election is in November and I am in it to win it.”

‘Gorky Park’ author dies at 82

NEW YORK >> Martin Cruz Smith, the best-selling mystery novelist who engaged readers for decades with “Gorky Park” and other thrillers featuring Moscow investigator Arkady Renko, has died at age 82.

Smith died Friday at a senior living community in San Rafael, California, “surrounded by those he loved,” according to his publisher, Simon & Schuster. Smith revealed a decade ago that he had Parkinson’s disease, and he gave the same condition to his protagonist. His 11th Renko book, “Hotel Ukraine,” was published this week and billed as his last.

“My longevity is linked to Arkady’s,” he told Strand Magazine in 2023. “As long as he remains intelligent, humorous, and romantic, so shall I.”

Police: Four people were killed in a plane crash at airport

LONDON >> All four people aboard a small plane that crashed shortly after taking off from London Southend Airport are dead, police said Monday.

Essex Police said work continued to formally identify the victims of Sunday’s crash. “At this stage, we believe all four are foreign nationals,” Police Chief Superintendent Morgan Cronin told reporters.

Britain’s national news agency, PA, reported that a document listing passengers indicated that two Dutch pilots and a Chilean nurse were among those aboard.

The Beechcraft B200 Super King Air operated by Dutch firm Zeusch Aviation had flown from Athens, Greece, to Pula in Croatia before heading to Southend. It was due to return to its home base of Lelystad in the Netherlands on Sunday evening.

The 39-foot turboprop plane came down moments after takeoff and burst into flames.

— Denver Post wire services