The Donald Trump scarecrow shown beside a Hillary Clinton scarecrow on The Press front page this week was apparently stolen from its post on Main Street, Kathy Graham of the Fairfield County Bank reported.

The Trump and Hillary scarecrows, tied back-to-back on a pole on Main Street, were Fairfield County Bank’s entry into the Keeler Tavern Scarecrow Contest that was part of the Fall in Love with Ridgefield event.

Monnie Newman and Brittany Burdick created the dummies of the two politicians for the bank, along with a sign that read: Please Vote, Every Vote Counts.

“We wanted everyone to vote for our scarecrows but also remind every citizen that it is our American privilege to vote,” said Graham.

She said she noticed the Trump dummy’s disappearance early Tuesday morning.

“…Someone stole Donald Trump Halloween night — the whole thing including the crossbar that he was tied too. We are waiting to hear that he showed up somewhere else in town,” Graham said in an email exchange Friday with Macklin Reid of The Press, who took the photo.

Graham said she didn’t know who’d taken Trump.

“No suspects — I was walking my dog at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 1, and saw that Trump was gone. So I am assuming it was taken the night before — Halloween,” Graham said.

All the scarecrows that lined Main Street from the contest have been taken down now.</s>My fellow Midwesterners, as this historic presidential election draws to a close, it is our duty as citizens to turn our collective gazes inward and evaluate the soul of our country. Who are we as a nation? Where do we want to go? What do we want to be?

The two candidates running for the highest office in the country are among the least-liked candidates in America's history, depending on who you ask.

But maybe you've been asking the wrong people.

Donald Trump has warned us there is a vast international conspiracy aligned against him; a consortium of powerful elites, media outlets, economists, scientists, critical thinkers, comedians and everyday losers who want to see America devolve into a financially destitute, communist, radical Islamic slave state.

These are the kind of people who want to grant asylum to Syrian refugees and Mexican rapists. These are the kind of people who want to destroy the traditional white, straight, protestant fabric of the United States. That is why I urge you to consider voting for Donald Trump on Wednesday, Nov. 9, and not a moment sooner.

America, the great among you, the Donald needs you now more than ever. Don't you want to be there for him in his time of need, like he has been there for you? Think of all he has given you: Neckties with his name on them. Steaks with his name on them. Other people's hotels with his name on them. A reality television program that once paired Gary Busey with Meatloaf and Lil' John.

What has Hillary Clinton ever done for you? Run her crooked Clinton Foundation for over two decades and donate 80 to 90 percent of its raised funds to charity? Did her foundation ever donate any money to you? To your mama? Does she even know Gary Busey? Has she ever sold you a steak with her name on it? How could you consider trusting someone who hasn't? Do you think Hillary Clinton ever manufactured her own line of neckties? No she hasn't — she was too busy killing American soldiers with her bare hands in Benghazi. Hillary Clinton hates America, she hates premium steaks and she regularly alternates her choice of toilet paper between the American flag and the constitution.

It is imperative that you vote for Donald J. Trump on Wednesday, Nov. 9, so he can put crooked Hillary and all of her terrorist friends in prison, where they will be forced to wipe themselves with great, white American toilet paper once again!

Donald Trump is the tremendous man who can make it happen. He won't even ask, he'll just grab this country by its nether regions and pull it into the greatest form you've ever seen! I know it, you know it, we all know it.

But you don't have to take it from me, just look at any one of the great minds who have pooled their considerable star power to advocate for Trump's winners-only brand of political revolution: Hulk Hogan, Tila Tequila, Scott Baio, Ted Nugent, Dennis Rodman, Sandra Bullock's white supremacist ex-husband Jesse James, Mike Tyson, Gary Busey and one of the Baldwin brothers who isn't Alec.

This Nov. 9, ask yourself: Who does Phil Robertson, holy patriarch of Duck Dynasty want you to vote for? Who does God himself want you to vote for? The answer is Donald Trump.

And you may ask, how do I know that God wants you to vote for Donald Trump? (You mean, aside from all the posts from religious leaders on social media assuring me as much?) I know because Hillary Clinton is literally the Devil, himself. If you rearrange the letters in her name, it spells Lord of Flies. And you can better your buttermilk biscuit that God doesn't want Satan to be our president!

Did you know as a lawyer, Hillary Clinton once high-fived an alleged child rapist after winning his court case for him, then laughed as she punched the 12-year-old accuser in the eye with brass knuckles given to her on her birthday by ISIS? Bet you didn't, you mindless liberal scum. Try reading the internet sometime. It's all right there for you.

And let's not even talk about the emails, OK? How many emails has crooked Hillary deleted? Donald Trump has never deleted an email in his life. As president, he will have the greatest email server you've ever seen; you're not going to believe how tremendous and beautiful and huge his email server will be. Because he is a great man with great instincts who always stands behind the things he says, until he changes his mind to say something better.

This is why it is imperative that you get out and vote for Donald Trump on Nov. 9.

And don't try to use a polling booth — the elections are rigged. Sad! The only real way to vote for Donald, and have it counted, is to write his name on a bag of nacho cheese Doritos, say a prayer set to country music, spin counterclockwise three times while singing the national anthem backward, then light the bag on fire and toss it into the nearest dumpster.

Who do you want running this country? Somebody who is on a first-name basis with world leaders, like ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Or do you want somebody who will call Rosie O'Donnell a fat pig to her face on Twitter? Forget about world leaders, who needs them? Donald Trump knows Billy Bush, which means he has access to Hollywood.

If you believe only Trump can Make America Great Again, then man up and do your duty and cast your vote on Nov. 9.

Again, that's Nov. 9. Don't let some liberal terrorist convince you it's the 8th, or early, or mail-in — that's all brainless Obama propaganda designed to throw this election. Nov. 9. Nacho cheese Doritos. Toss your vote in a flaming dumpster of revolution.

Most politicians will simply tell you what you want to hear. Few politicians dare to tell you what your racist uncle wants to hear.

Ryan Jackson is registered to vote in all 52 states courtesy of Poe's Law, and he can be reached a thereluctanttownie@hotmail.com.</s>Raleigh — Hillary Clinton unleashed top surrogates including campaigner-in-chief President Barack Obama to bolster her case on Thursday in the election’s home stretch, as rival Donald Trump deployed wife Melania to soften his image in crucial battleground states.

As a slew of polls showed the race tightening with just five days to go, the campaigns brought all hands on deck in a handful of states that will decide the rollercoaster election.

Obama shuttled into Florida for fiery rallies aimed at turning out the Democratic base for Clinton in a must-win state for her rival Trump, who is under pressure to snatch battleground states and even poach one or two Democratic strongholds if he is to prevail.

A CBS/New York Times nationwide survey showed Clinton’s lead shrinking to three points, at 45 percent against Trump’s 42 percent, a sign the bombastic mogul is winning over once-wary Republican voters.

After months of vitriolic and turbulent campaigning, political tribalism appears to be returning to the fore in the deeply divided nation ahead of Election Day on November 8.

“This will be a close race and you cannot take it for granted,” Obama warned supporters in Jacksonville, Florida, painting an apocalyptic vision of what Trump would mean for American democracy.

Clinton added to the portrayal, telling North Carolinians that “if Donald Trump were to win this election we would have a commander-in-chief who is completely out of his depth and whose ideas are incredibly dangerous”.

“Are we going to work together to build a stronger, fairer, better America?” Clinton asked. “Or are we going to fear the future and fear each other and hunker down and be paralysed by all of our prejudices?”

North Carolina, with its changing demographics, is critical for both camps, and Clinton and Trump were holding duelling rallies in the state on Thursday.

Their motorcades even passed one another on the tarmac at Raleigh-Durham’s airport. But the Democrats’ last stand will come in Philadelphia on the eve of the election for a joint rally binding America’s two most powerful political dynasties.

Clinton will be joined by her husband Bill Clinton, President Obama and 2016’s most potent campaigner, First Lady Michelle Obama.

For sure the state of Pennsylvania is a firewall for Clinton; a Trump win there would be a giant step toward him becoming the 45th president. But a rally in Philadelphia — the City of Brotherly Love — sends an unmistakable message: Trump is a threat to the republic. It was here that the United States Constitution came into being in 1787.

Melania Trump, the Slovenian-born former model who could become America’s first foreign-born first lady in two centuries, also chose Pennsylvania on Thursday for her first solo campaign appearance.

“He certainly knows how to shake things up, doesn’t he?” she said of her husband’s incendiary campaign.

Trump’s third wife insisted her husband, with whom she lives in opulence, was running to improve the lives of suffering workers, struggling parents and children.

She also made a bold play for the votes of suburban mothers, who could make all the difference in the tightly-contested state where Clinton’s lead has narrowed, by fretting that “children and teenagers can be fragile”.

Despite the Manhattan mogul’s boasts about sexual assault and allegations of groping by several women, white women are evenly split between the candidates, the CBS poll showed.

As the race goes down to the wire, profound Republican scepticism about Trump’s controversial candidacy appears to be ebbing. “I think Republicans are coming home,” Congressman Jason Chaffetz told CNN.

Similarly, Clinton’s FBI troubles appear to have dissuaded few Democrats, with only 8 percent saying it would make them less likely to vote for the former secretary of state.

But in new ads on Thursday, Trump hammered home the message that Clinton put America at risk by using a private email server while secretary of state, and that a renewed FBI probe into the scandal shows she is “unfit to serve” – language Clinton often uses to describe her rival.

With the campaign now in its final stages, each candidate is making closing arguments to voters, with Trump sticking to the teleprompter and avoiding his most explosive rhetoric.

“Nice and cool. Right? Stay on point, Donald, stay on point,” the 70-year-old billionaire said out loud during a rally in Florida. That prompted mockery from Clinton. “His campaign probably put that in the teleprompter,” she sneered.

While Trump has no room for error on the electoral map, Clinton has sought to expand into Republican territory, notably Arizona, where she attended a huge rally on Wednesday.

Her running mate Tim Kaine visited the border state on Thursday, making a play for Hispanic voters by delivering his remarks entirely in Spanish.

 Trump has ridden the aftershocks of the Great Recession and waves of antipathy toward the political elite to the brink of presidential power.

 Financial markets lurched this week as the race has tightened — trying to “price-in” a Trump victory that they had long thought impossible.

“Democrats are quite right to be nervous about the outcome,” said a team of political analysts at the University of Virginia.

But, they added, there was no “compelling argument” that the race favours Trump, or is even a toss-up. — AFP</s>JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Donald Trump warned on Thursday that a cloud of investigation would follow Hillary Clinton into the White House, evoking the bitter impeachment battle of the 1990s in a closing campaign argument meant to bring wayward Republicans home. Clinton and her allies, led by President Barack Obama, told voters to get serious about the alternative.

Fiercely negative exchanges between the Republican businessman and his Democratic rival signaled the long-slog campaign was likely to end on a low note, as polls show Trump closing in on Clinton in key battleground states. Clinton's shrinking lead has given Trump's campaign a glimmer of hope, one he's trying to broaden into breakthrough before time runs out.

That means courting the moderate Republicans and independents who have been the holdouts of his campaign, voters turned off by Trump's controversies but equally repelled by the possible return of the Clintons. Trump directed his message at those voters at a rally in Jacksonville, where he zeroed in on questions of Clinton's trustworthiness and a new FBI review of an aide's emails.

"Here we go again with the Clintons — you remember the impeachment and the problems." Trump said. "That's not what we need in our country, folks. We need someone who is ready to go to work."

Obama and allies, meanwhile, are seeking to keep the spotlight on Trump, charging that his disparaging comments about women and minorities make him unfit for office. The stakes are higher than a typical election and Americans need to get serious about the choice, Obama told students at Florida International University in Miami.

"This isn't a joke. This isn't 'Survivor.' This isn't 'The Bachelorette.'" Obama said. "This counts.

Obama openly taunted the former reality-TV star, zig-zagging from mockery to dire warnings to boasting about his own record in office. And he repeatedly returned to his new campaign catchphrase capturing his disbelief in the unpredictable race to replace him.

"C'mon, man," he said, to cheers.

The president's mission in the final push before Tuesday is to fire up the Democratic base — and bait the Republican into veering off message. Democrats are counting on Trump not to have the discipline or the ground game to capitalize on a late surge.

But the famously unconventional Trump has so far hewed closer to convention, running some upbeat ads, bringing out his wife for a rare campaign appearance and even talking publicly about trying not to get distracted.

"We don't want to blow it on Nov. 8," Trump said Thursday in Jacksonville.

Trump's path to victory remains narrow. He must win Florida to win the White House, no easy feat. Still, his campaign has been buoyed by tightening polls there and in other key battlegrounds, as well as by signs that African-American turnout for Clinton may be lagging.

Clinton's team will try to drive up enthusiasm in the final weekend, capping its efforts by bringing Clinton and Obama together, along with their spouses, for a final pre-election rally in Philadelphia on Monday evening.

Trump's wife, Melania Trump, was to campaign in a suburb of Philadelphia on Thursday, her first turn on the trail since the Republican convention in July. The former model is trying to counter the Clinton campaign's pounding attacks on her husband as anti-woman.

In excerpts of Melania Trump's prepared remarks, distributed by the campaign, she said, "I come here today to talk about my husband, Donald, and his deep love and respect for this country and all of its people."

Donald Trump isn't the first Republican to raise warnings of a new cycle of scandal and investigation. Republicans lawmakers have recently threatened to block Clinton's Supreme Court nominees, investigate her endlessly or even impeach her over her use of private emails as secretary of state.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday hit back, saying any effort to impeach Clinton "would be a brazen attempt to nullify the vote of the American people" and would be a waste of time and taxpayers' money. Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said he was "really despaired" by the talk.

Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Miami contributed to this report.</s>Melania Trump delivers a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.

Melania Trump was paid for 10 modeling jobs in the United States worth $20,056 that occurred in the seven weeks before she had legal permission to work in the country, according to detailed accounting ledgers, contracts and related documents from 20 years ago provided to The Associated Press.

The details of Mrs. Trump's early paid modeling work in the U.S. emerged in the final days of a bitter presidential campaign in which her husband, Donald Trump, has taken a hard line on immigration laws and those who violate them. Trump has proposed broader use of the government's E-verify system allowing employers to check whether job applicants are authorized to work.

Mrs. Trump, who received a green card in March 2001 and became a U.S. citizen in 2006, has always maintained that she arrived in the country legally and never violated the terms of her immigration status.

The wife of the GOP presidential nominee has said through an attorney that she first came to the U.S. from Slovenia on Aug. 27, 1996, on a B1/B2 visitor visa and then obtained an H-1B work visa on Oct. 18, 1996.

The documents obtained by the AP show she was paid for 10 modeling assignments between Sept. 10 and Oct. 15, during a time when her visa allowed her generally to be in the U.S. and look for work but not perform paid work in the country.

It is highly unlikely the discovery will affect the citizenship status of Mrs. Trump. The government can seek to revoke the U.S. citizenship of immigrants after the fact in cases when it determines a person willfully misrepresented or concealed facts relevant to his naturalization. But it effectively does this in only the most egregious cases, such as instances involving terrorism or war crimes.

The disclosures about the payments come as Mrs. Trump takes on a more substantial role advocating for her husband's candidacy. She made her first speech in months Thursday, in which she spoke of her time working as a model in Europe and her decision to come to the U.S.</s>PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. (AP) — Fighting as a party of one, Donald Trump vowed Saturday to press into Democratic strongholds over the campaign's final days as Hillary Clinton looked to an army of A-list celebrities and politicos to defend her narrowing path to the presidency.



The divisive Republican outsider conceded he was largely on his own — even as he promised to march into Minnesota, a state that hasn't backed a GOP presidential nominee in more than four decades.



"Hillary Clinton has all of these celebrities and failed politicians out campaigning for her," a defiant Trump said in North Carolina, one of four battleground states he was visiting on Saturday. "I just have me, but I have my family."



At a subsequent appearance in Nevada, he also had the support of the Secret Service when a disturbance erupted near the podium in the middle of his speech. Two agents rushed the Republican nominee off stage after someone yelled "Gun!", the Secret Service said in a statement. The person was apprehended but no weapon was found, the agency said.



Trump returned minutes later and declared, "We will never be stopped."



Meanwhile, Democrat Clinton faced dark skies in Florida, fighting intense rain and wind in a key battleground state before a Pennsylvania appearance with pop singer Katy Perry. Clinton was preparing to campaign Sunday with basketball superstar Lebron James, having shared the stage the night before with music diva Beyoncé and hip hop mogul husband Jay Z.



"Tonight, I want to hear you roar," a smiling Clinton said before introducing Perry for a Saturday night performance in Philadelphia.



Perry, who hugged Clinton while wearing a purple cape bearing the words, "I'm with Madam President," shouted, "In three days, let's make history!"



The final-days scramble highlighted sharp differences between the campaigns in a turbulent 2016 campaign season.



Backed by President Barack Obama and her party's political elite, Clinton spent much of the last year fighting to unify Obama's coalition of minorities and younger voters, aided at times by Trump's deep unpopularity among women in both parties.



Trump has courted working-class white voters on the strength of his own celebrity, having scared off many would-be Republican allies during a campaign marred by extraordinary gaffes and self-created crises. Just four weeks ago, a video emerged in which a married Trump admitted to kissing women and grabbing their genitalia without their permission.



Even with the damaging video, Clinton faced extraordinary challenges of her own in recent days after the FBI confirmed plans to renew its focus on the former secretary of state's email practices. The development is seen as particularly threatening for Clinton in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire that don't offer early voting.



At least 41 million Americans across 48 states have already cast ballots, according to an Associated Press analysis. That's significantly more votes four days before Election Day than voted early in the 2012.



House Speaker Paul Ryan campaigned Saturday alongside Trump's running mate, Mike Pence — a rare show of unity, but not with Trump himself.



The speaker encouraged Republicans to "come home" to support Trump in Ryan's home-state Wisconsin, ignoring for a day his icy relationship with the Republican nominee.



Trump has frustrated party leaders in many ways, particularly by ignoring the hard work that fuels most successful modern-day campaigns.



The Republican outsider has done little to collect data on prospective supporters. He has no significant staffing presence on the ground in key states. And he has been unwilling to invest in a major advertising campaign to keep pace with his Democratic rival.



Clinton's campaign has spent more than $267 million in television advertising through Election Day. Trump, who claims a net worth of roughly $10 billion, has invested $93 million, according to data collected by Kantar Media.



His entire campaign strategy has hinged on an aggressive schedule packed with massive rallies. The path of his luxury campaign jet has been fueled by somewhat risky ambition at times, however.



Rather than hunkering down in must-win Florida this weekend, Trump flew Saturday to Democratic-leaning territory: Wilmington, North Carolina, then Reno, Nevada, and Denver. And as defiant as ever, he promised to make subsequent appearances in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota.



Minnesota hasn't cast its electoral votes for a Republican since 1972. A Republican nominee hasn't won Michigan or Pennsylvania since 1988.



"We're going into what they used to call Democrat strongholds, where we're now either tied or leading," he said in Florida.



Clinton, meanwhile, announced plans to devote valuable attention to Michigan, another unlikely battleground where both she and President Obama planned to campaign on Monday.



Trump mocked Clinton's relatively light schedule: "She doesn't have what it takes to do rallies all over the place. She wants to go home and go to sleep."



Trump may not have Clinton's celebrities, but he has relied on his family for public support at times.



On Saturday, he made a rare campaign stop with his wife, Melania Trump, whose appearance came as The Associated Press revealed more details about her early employment in the U.S.



The AP found that Melania Trump was paid for modeling jobs in the United States worth $20,056 that occurred in the seven weeks before she had legal permission to work in the country, according to detailed accounting ledgers, contracts and related documents from 20 years ago.



While showering his wife with affection, Trump also boasted Saturday that he doesn't need stars to fill his venues.



He campaigned Saturday with retired football coach Lou Holtz and actor Joe Piscopo. An event with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie that was scheduled for Saturday was canceled after two of his top aides were found guilty Friday on all counts for their roles in the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal.



"We do it the old-fashioned way," Trump said.



___



Peoples reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Wilmington, North Carolina, Kathleen Hennessey in Washington and David Eggert in Holland, Michigan, contributed to this report.</s>JACKSONVILLE, Fla. | Donald Trump warned Thursday that a cloud of investigation would follow Hillary Clinton into the White House, evoking the bitter impeachment battle of the 1990s in a closing campaign argument meant to bring wayward Republicans home. Clinton and her allies, led by President Barack Obama, told voters to get serious about the dangers of Trump.

As polls show Trump closing in on Clinton in key battleground states, her campaign is rushing to shore up support in some long-standing Democratic strongholds. That includes the campaign’s Michigan firewall, a remarkable situation for a candidate who looked to be cruising to an easy win just a week ago.

Clinton’s shrunken lead has given Trump’s campaign a glimmer of hope, one he’s trying to broaden into a breakthrough before time runs out. That means zeroing in on questions of Clinton’s trustworthiness and a new FBI review of an aide’s emails.

The attack is aimed at appealing to moderate Republicans and independents who have been the holdouts of his campaign, turned off by his behavior but equally repelled by the possible return of the Clintons.

“Here we go again with the Clintons — you remember the impeachment and the problems.” Trump said Thursday at a rally in Jacksonville. “That’s not what we need in our country, folks. We need someone who is ready to go to work.”

Clinton and allies, meanwhile, are seeking to keep the spotlight on Trump, charging that his temperament and his disparaging comments about women and minorities make him unfit for office.

“He has spent this entire campaign offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters,” Clinton said, singling out Trump’s endorsement from the official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan and noting he has retweeted messages from white supremacists.

“This has never happened to a nominee of a major party,” Clinton said.

“If Donald Trump were to win this election we would have a commander in chief who is completely out of his depth and whose ideas are incredibly dangerous,” she said at Pitt Community College outside of Greenville, North Carolina.

Clinton campaigned later Thursday with former primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders and pop star Pharrell Williams in Raleigh, where she warned that Trump’s election risked “normalizing discrimination.”

Also in battleground North Carolina, Trump delivered a defense-related speech at a nighttime rally and said he can’t picture Clinton as commander in chief. And he saluted veterans, saying, they are “so much more brave than me. I’m brave in other ways. I’m financially brave, big deal!”

Trump’s path to victory remains narrow. He must win Florida to win the White House, no easy feat. Still, his campaign has been buoyed by tightening polls there and in other key battlegrounds, as well as by signs that African-American turnout for Clinton may be lagging.

Clinton enlisted Obama’s help urging those voters to the polls and lighting a fire under other Democrats, particularly young people, who share some of the wariness about Clinton. Speaking to students at Florida International University in Miami, Obama told voters now was the time to get serious about the choice.

“This isn’t a joke. This isn’t ‘Survivor.’ This isn’t ‘The Bachelorette.'” he said, taunting the former reality-TV star. “This counts.”

Relishing one of his last turns on the campaign stage as president, Obama repeatedly returned to his new campaign catchphrase capturing his disbelief in the unpredictable race to replace him.

“C’mon, man,” he said, to cheers.

Obama has been trying to bait Republican into veering off message — counting on Trump not to have the discipline or the ground game to capitalize on a late surge.

But the famously unconventional Trump has been hewing closer to convention, running some upbeat ads, bringing out his wife for a rare campaign appearance and even talking publicly about trying not to get distracted.

“We don’t want to blow it on Nov. 8,” Trump said Thursday at the rally in Jacksonville, his fourth in Florida in two days.

Clinton’s weekend schedule underscored the Democrats’ fresh anxiety in the final stretch. She is due to campaign Friday in Detroit, where a large turnout of black voters has long been crucial to success, following up on a last-minute meeting by former President Bill Clinton with black ministers on Wednesday night.

Clinton and Obama, along with their spouses, will headline a final pre-election rally in Philadelphia next Monday evening.

Trump has had far fewer allies carrying his message. Sen. Ted Cruz, his GOP primary foe, did campaign with vice presidential candidate Mike Pence outside Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday, but he never mentioned Trump by name in a 14-minute speech.

Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, made her first appearance on the trail since the Republican convention in July. At a get-out-the-vote rally in the Philadelphia suburbs, the former model tried to counter the Clinton campaign’s pounding attacks on her husband as setting a poor example for children.

She told the group that if she becomes first lady she will focus on combatting online bullying and working against a culture that has “gotten too mean and too rough,” she said.

Melania made no reference to her husband’s regular name-calling on social media. On Twitter, Donald Trump has called Clinton “crooked,” ”pathetic,” ”liar,” ”a fraud” and “very dumb.” He’s called Cruz a “true lowlife pol” and a “complete and total liar.”

Trump’s daughter Ivanka was campaigning in New Hampshire.

Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Miami, Julie Pace in Raleigh, North Carolina and Errin Haines Whack in Berwyn, Pennsylvania contributed to this report.</s>TAMPA, Fla. — Long on swagger and short on time, Donald Trump declared Saturday he would spend some of the last hours of the presidential campaign in Democratic strongholds, promising to pull off a shocker in states that haven’t voted for a Republican in decades.

Campaigning in Florida, where he appears to be running neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton, Trump plans to head to Minnesota in the final three days of the campaign. Trump was already scheduled to hunt for votes in Nevada and Colorado later Saturday, states that have been leaning in Clinton’s direction for weeks but may be tightening as Trump sees his chances rise in national polls. He’ll also campaign in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Minnesota hasn’t cast its electoral votes for a Republican since 1972. A Republican hasn’t won Michigan or Pennsylvania since 1988.

“We’re going into what they used to call Democrat strongholds, where we’re now either tied or leading,” he told a rowdy crowd at a rally in Tampa. “We’re going to Minnesota, which traditionally has not been Republican at all.” Public polls from earlier this fall found a comfortable lead for Clinton in Minnesota.

Trump kicked off a marathon day in Florida, a state he essentially must win to take the White House. Polls suggest a Florida nail-biter. Democrats say Hispanic voters are showing up in droves to vote early, while Republicans point to signs that reliably Democratic African-American voters are not coming out in the numbers that helped deliver the state to President Barack Obama.

Clinton, too, started her day in Florida, with a stop at an early-voting site in Miami and a rainy outdoor rally outside the city.

“You’re a hardy bunch,” she told a soaked crowd, before cutting short her remarks as rain poured down. “Let’s vote for the future!”

Clinton and Trump have been tangling over relatively few states in the final stretch. In each, Clinton is aiming to fire up her base of Hispanic, African-Americans, young people and women, while Trump is strongest among white, working-class voters. That’s left him looking strongest in Rust Belt states where white voters still hold sway. But it’s also apparently given him hope in Minnesota, which despite its liberal bent has at times looked kindly on unconventional candidates, like former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura.

Still, the path of Trump’s campaign jet appeared to be fueled by somewhat risky ambition. Rather than hunkering down in Florida, he flew Saturday to Democratic-leaning territory: Wilmington, North Carolina, then Reno, Nevada, and Denver.

Clinton has been relying on a cast of allies and A-listers to help her cover territory and fill seats. She basked in some star power in Cleveland on Friday night at a free concert with singer Beyonce and rapper husband Jay Z.

“My personal favourite part — Beyonce had her backup singers in pantsuits” Clinton said with a laugh at her rally in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

She planned to keep up the celebrity cameos — a play for young and minority voters — all weekend.

On Saturday night, Clinton will campaign with pop star Katy Perry in Philadelphia. The next day, she intends to take the stage with basketball star LeBron James in Cleveland, a rare dive into politics for a superstar athlete still in the prime of his career. Clinton will return Monday night to Philadelphia for a joint rally with her husband and the Obamas.

Trump, whose campaign has divided the Republican Party, hasn’t relied on Hollywood headliners, or even top leaders from his own party.

He boasts that he doesn’t need stars to fill his venues in the closing days of the presidential race. He filled the 10,500-seat Giant Center hockey arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Friday night.

“We do it the old-fashioned way,” Trump said Saturday, meaning with his message instead of with stars.

He campaigned Saturday with retired football coach Lou Holtz and actor Joe Piscopo. An event with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie that was scheduled for Saturday was cancelled after two of his top aides were found guilty Friday on all counts for their roles in the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal.

He may not have major celebrities, but he had his family, Trump noted Saturday, including his wife, Melania Trump, who has been in infrequent campaigner.

Melania Trump’s appearance at the North Carolina rally came as The Associated Press revealed more details about her early employment in the U.S.

The AP found that Melania Trump was paid for modeling jobs in the United States worth $20,056 that occurred in the seven weeks before she had legal permission to work in the country, according to detailed accounting ledgers, contracts and related documents from 20 years ago.

Trump has not been able to rely on the GOP establishment for assistance on the trail. But there was a rare moment of GOP unity on Saturday when House Speaker Paul Ryan campaigned with Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence.

At a campaign rally in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin, Pence heaped praise on Ryan, saying he is “one of the great conservative leaders in America and Wisconsin should be proud.” Just days ago, Pence refused to say whether Ryan should be re-elected as speaker.

Ryan, who has feuded with Trump but continues to support him, argued that it’s time for Republicans to “come home” and vote for Trump.</s>PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. (AP) — Fighting as a party of one, Donald Trump vowed Saturday to press into Democratic strongholds over the campaign's final days as Hillary Clinton looked to an army of A-list celebrities and politicos to defend her narrowing path to the presidency.



The divisive Republican outsider conceded he was largely on his own — even as he promised to march into Minnesota, a state that hasn't backed a GOP presidential nominee in more than four decades.



"Hillary Clinton has all of these celebrities and failed politicians out campaigning for her," a defiant Trump declared in North Carolina, one of four battleground states he was visiting on Saturday. "I just have me, but I have my family."



Responding to Trump's push, Democrat Clinton announced plans to devote valuable attention to Michigan, another unlikely battleground where both she and President Obama planned to campaign on Monday.



The Democratic nominee faced dark skies Saturday in Florida, fighting intense rain and wind in a key battleground state before a Pennsylvania appearance with pop singer Katy Perry. Clinton was preparing to campaign Sunday with basketball superstar Lebron James, having shared the stage the night before with music diva Beyoncé and hip hop mogul husband Jay Z.



"My personal favorite part — Beyoncé had her backup singers in pantsuits" Clinton said with a laugh in Pembroke Pines, Florida.



The final-days scramble highlighted sharp differences between the campaigns in a turbulent 2016 campaign season.



Backed by President Barack Obama and her party's political elite, Clinton spent much of the last year fighting to unify Obama's coalition of minorities and younger voters, aided at times by Trump's deep unpopularity among women in both parties.



Trump has courted working-class white voters on the strength of his own celebrity, having scared off many would-be Republican allies during a campaign marred by extraordinary gaffes and self-created crises. Just four weeks ago, a video emerged in which a married Trump admitted to kissing women and grabbing their genitalia without their permission.



Even with the damaging video, Clinton faced extraordinary challenges of her own in recent days after the FBI confirmed plans to renew its focus on the former secretary of state's email practices. The development is seen as particularly threatening for Clinton in states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire that don't offer early voting.



At least 41 million Americans across 48 states have already cast ballots, according to an Associated Press analysis. That's significantly more votes four days before Election Day than voted early in the 2012.



House Speaker Paul Ryan campaigned Saturday alongside Trump's running mate, Mike Pence — a rare show of unity, but not with Trump himself.



The speaker encouraged Republicans to "come home" to support Trump in Ryan's home-state Wisconsin, ignoring for a day his icy relationship with the Republican nominee.



Trump has frustrated party leaders in many ways, particularly by ignoring the hard work that fuels most successful modern-day campaigns.



The Republican outsider has done little to collect data on prospective supporters. He has no significant staffing presence on the ground in key states. And he has been unwilling to invest in a major advertising campaign to keep pace with his Democratic rival.



Clinton's campaign has spent more than $267 million in television advertising through Election Day. Trump, who claims a net worth of roughly $10 billion, has invested $93 million, according to data collected by Kantar Media.



His entire campaign strategy has hinged on an aggressive schedule packed with massive rallies. The path of his luxury campaign jet has been fueled by somewhat risky ambition at times, however.



Rather than hunkering down in must-win Florida this weekend, Trump flew Saturday to Democratic-leaning territory: Wilmington, North Carolina, then Reno, Nevada, and Denver. And as defiant as ever, he promised to make subsequent appearances in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota.



Minnesota hasn't cast its electoral votes for a Republican since 1972. A Republican nominee hasn't won Michigan or Pennsylvania since 1988.



"We're going into what they used to call Democrat strongholds, where we're now either tied or leading," he said in Florida.



Later in the day in North Carolina appearance, he mocked Clinton's schedule: "She doesn't have what it takes to do rallies all over the place. She wants to go home and go to sleep."



Trump may not have Clinton's celebrities, but he has relied on his family for public support at times.



On Saturday, he made a rare campaign stop with his wife, Melania Trump, whose appearance came as The Associated Press revealed more details about her early employment in the U.S.



The AP found that Melania Trump was paid for modeling jobs in the United States worth $20,056 that occurred in the seven weeks before she had legal permission to work in the country, according to detailed accounting ledgers, contracts and related documents from 20 years ago.



While showering his wife with affection, Trump also boasted Saturday that he doesn't need stars to fill his venues.



He campaigned Saturday with retired football coach Lou Holtz and actor Joe Piscopo. An event with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie that was scheduled for Saturday was canceled after two of his top aides were found guilty Friday on all counts for their roles in the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal.



"We do it the old-fashioned way," Trump said.



___



Peoples reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Wilmington, North Carolina, Kathleen Hennessey in Washington and David Eggert in Holland, Michigan, contributed to this report.</s>David A. Fahrenthold, a reporter from the Washington Post, obtained a leaked tape from NBC about Donald J. Trump being an absolute utter trash, otherwise known as himself. This time the leaked tape from 2005 showed Donald Trump bragging about kissing married women, making sexual advances on them, and groping them without any consent, since “when you are a star, they let you do it.” As if being rich or a celebrity gives an individual any power or makes them any less of a predator, rapist, and a douchebag. Donald Trump, newly married to Melania Trump at the time, was speaking in a vulgar language about women with Billy Bush, who kept egging him on and laughing. The entire conversation was caught on a hot mic as the two were arriving on the set of Days of Our Lives. Trump was bragging to Billy about making advances on a married woman named “Nancy:”

Donald: “…I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her; she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look. “ Billy: “Yes! The Donald has scored. Whoa, my man!” Donald: “…You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” Donald: “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

The New York Post reported in August this year that Billy Bush, while covering the Rio Olympics, surprisingly, bragged about having a “tape of Trump being a real dog.” The leaked tape didn’t look too good for Billy Bush; he was suspended and might have his future as a co-host on the Today show cut short (Editor’s note: Bush was eventually fired shortly after the scandal started).

“Obviously I’m embarrassed and ashamed. It is no excuse, but this happened eleven years ago — I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along. I’m very sorry,” said Billy Bush in a statement released by NBC Universal.

Trump, on the other hand, didn’t face any consequences. He apologized over the weekend after the tape was leaked and referred to the conversation as “locker room banter” and that the damage is done.

Donald Trump described sexual assault in the video, and for someone to “grab ’em by the pussy” is sexual assault. Donald Trump has sexually assaulted women and bragged about it. He is still a candidate. Why? Trump didn’t take the situation with the seriousness it deserved or take any responsibilities whatsoever. Due to this, the Republican National Committee is considering pulling Trump as their candidate. The mere fact that Trump is still, today, a potential future president of the United States terrifies me. Donald Trump, in general, makes me sick. Trump’s utter lack of respect for women makes him the worst possible presidential candidate, and the Republican National Committee will be doing the right thing if they pull Trump as their candidate. I am pretty positive many of the RNC’s big donors will be pleased if that day comes.
A study of former fashion model and current wife of presidential candidate Donald Trump Melania Trump's work history shows that she was an illegal worker in the United States before she received legal authorization.