By Associated Press - Monday, October 24, 2016

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the U.S. presidential race (all times EDT):

9:05 p.m.

Jay Z, Katy Perry, Jon Bon Jovi and Jennifer Lopez are staging concerts around the country in support of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in the final weeks before Election Day.

Clinton’s campaign says rapper Jay Z will perform at a Get Out the Vote concert in Cleveland prior to Election Day. The campaign has not yet announced a date for the show.

Bon Jovi will headline concerts in Pittsburgh on Thursday and in Tampa, Florida, on Nov. 5.

Lopez will appear in Miami on Saturday to encourage Florida voters to back Clinton.

Perry will perform in Philadelphia on Nov. 5. The singer of “Roar” headlined a Clinton event in Des Moines, Iowa, last year and performed at this summer’s Democratic National Convention.

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8:55 p.m.

A key Nevada Republican official is giving his phone number out to a network TV reporter in hopes of getting the Trump campaign to call him back.

Roger Edwards is chairman of the Washoe County Republican Party in the state’s main swing county. He complained to an NBC News reporter that Trump’s campaign in the must-win state is so poorly organized that he can’t get anyone to call him back and send more yard signs and bumper stickers. Edwards even gave the reporter his phone number.

Several Nevada Republicans are worried about Trump’s prospects in the must-win state. In two days of early voting, nearly twice as many Democrats have cast ballots than Republicans. Trump lags in public polls.

The Trump campaign and Edwards put out a statement Monday night saying they work closely together and will defeat Hillary Clinton.

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8:13 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is attending a New York City fundraiser on Monday night ahead of her 69th birthday. The event includes musician Stevie Wonder and actor Kevin Spacey.

Clinton was joining her husband, former President Bill Clinton, at the midtown Manhattan fundraiser two weeks before Election Day.

Wonder and Spacey were spotted by reporters entering the event, which comes ahead of the Democratic presidential nominee’s birthday on Wednesday.

Clinton is holding campaign events in Florida on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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7:48 p.m.

Mike Pence is heading into the presidential election’s final two weeks imploring Republicans still wary of Donald Trump, “It’s time to come home.”

The Indiana governor used the phrase repeatedly during a rally in Salisbury, North Carolina, on Monday afternoon. He said it again at a later campaign stop in Greensboro.

Pence is promoting the idea that he and Trump can still win a race that some pundits say is becoming a foregone conclusion. He says: “It’s time to reach out to all our Republican and conservative friends. It’s time to come home.”

In addition to voters, that could be a call to some Republicans in Congress who urged Trump to abandon the GOP nomination after the release of the 2005 recording in which Trump made vulgar comments about women.

___7:17 p.m.

Hillary Clinton says in a statement that she’s “appalled” that the National Guard has ordered nearly 10,000 soldiers to repay enlistment bonuses a decade after signing up to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Democratic presidential nominee says it’s unacceptable to subject the troops to financial burdens because of what she calls “mismanagement from the California National Guard” and the Pentagon’s “rigid bureaucracy.”

The California National Guard says it has been trying to inform soliders of an appeals process. The soldiers face returning bonuses of $15,000 or more because of what the guard has called “bad actors” who mislead soldiers with outsized bonuses.

Clinton says Congress should pass legislation “to right this wrong.”

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5:20 p.m.

Tim Kaine is criticizing Donald Trump’s comments on the Iraqi military’s efforts to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State.

Kaine is referring to Trump’s remarks in the final debate that President Barack Obama’s administration wanted to launch the initiative to “look tough” before Election Day.

The Iraqi army and a U.S.-led coalition began the long-awaited battle for Mosul last week. More than 4,800 U.S. troops are in Iraq and there are more than 100 U.S. special operations forces operating with Iraqi units.

Of Trump’s comments, Kaine says, “how dense do you have to be to say something like that?”

Trump has more broadly criticized the offensive as a disaster. Hillary Clinton said today he is “basically declaring defeat before the battle has even started.”

Both Kaine and Trump are campaigning today in Florida.

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4:47 p.m.

A former State Department information technology official has refused to answer questions from a conservative legal group as part of a civil lawsuit over Hillary Clinton’s emails.

John Bentel on Monday invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to 90 questions posed by lawyers from Judicial Watch. A federal judge in August ordered the State Department’s retired director of Information Resource Management to be deposed by the group, which has filed numerous lawsuits targeting the Democratic presidential nominee.

Bentel was granted limited immunity from criminal prosecution as part of the FBI’s now-closed investigation into whether the former secretary of state mishandled sensitive government information that flowed through her private email server.

Bentel’s lawyer previously told congressional investigators that he does not recall any discussions involving Clinton’s email server.

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3:50 p.m.

Mike Pence is evoking Harry S Truman’s 1948 election win over Thomas Dewey in saying that Donald Trump could yet win a race pundits have all-but awarded to Hillary Clinton.

The Republican vice presidential candidate said the media and experts want voters to believe the Nov. 8 election “is all rolled up.” He spoke in a radio interview with Rush Limbaugh from his campaign plane Monday.

Pence said he and Trump have discussed Truman beating Dewey in a presidential election best remembered for a picture of Truman grinning while hoisting a newspaper aloft with a headline wrongly reporting that he’d lost to Dewey. Pence said that race “was a similar deal” to this year’s.

Pence is in North Carolina for events later in Salisbury and Greensboro.

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3:35 p.m.

Donald Trump is mocking the latest woman to accuse him of sexual misconduct, saying “I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.”

Trump was referring to Jessica Drake, an adult film star who says he grabbed her and kissed her without permission.

Trump said Monday that the accusations are “total fiction.” Trump spoke on WGIR radio’s “New Hampshire Today” show.

At a Saturday news conference, Drake accused Trump of accosting her and offering her money to go up to his hotel room alone. She is one of several women who have said Trump sexually assaulted them.

Trump says he’ll sue his accusers after the election.

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3:25 p.m.

President Barack Obama is trying to counter the argument that Congress should be kept under Republican control as a check on Hillary Clinton if she’s elected president.

Obama says America can do better than gridlock. He said giving Republicans the opportunity to block Clinton’s initiatives means the possibility of another government shutdown, the blocking of Supreme Court nominees and preventing progress on dealing with climate change.

Obama was speaking to donors in San Diego during a three-day campaign and fundraising swing on the West Coast.

With Clinton leading in the polls, he is increasingly focusing his remarks on the need for donors to help get Democrats elected to Congress. He describes the current actions on Capitol Hill as “the Keystone Cops up there.”

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3:05 p.m.

Young voters are shifting toward Hillary Clinton in the closing stretch of the presidential campaign. That’s according to a new GenForward poll of Americans age 18 to 30.

Driving the shift are young white voters. They were divided between Clinton and Republican Donald Trump just a month ago and were more likely to support Republican Mitt Romney than President Barack Obama in 2012.

In the survey, Clinton leads among all young whites 35 percent to 22 percent, and by a 2-to-1 margin among those who are likely to vote.

GenForward is a survey of adults age 18 to 30 by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

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2:35 p.m.

Donald Trump is pledging to “stand with” the men and women of law enforcement, saying they “have not been appreciated” by the current administration.

Trump addressed about two dozen law enforcement and rescue officers Monday at the sheriff’s office in St. Johns County, Florida.

The Republican nominee said that while “every profession has a bad person,” too much was made of isolated incidents of police misconduct.

Trump suggested that “you could have 100,000 wonderful events” but the press “would only write” about mistakes.

Trump vowed to empower the law enforcement officers with whatever support they needed.

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2:10 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is accusing rival Donald Trump of “basically declaring defeat” before the start of the battle to retake Mosul, Iraq, from the Islamic State group.

The Democratic presidential nominee is pointing to Trump’s tweet on Sunday that the campaign to retake Mosul was “turning out to be a total disaster,” adding the U.S. is “looking so dumb.”

Clinton said Monday in Manchester, New Hampshire, that Trump has no plan to defeat IS and is proving what it would mean to have an unqualified commander in chief in the White House.

The U.S.-led coalition’s offensive to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants is now in its second week. It involves more than 25,000 Iraqi troops, Kurdish forces and others.

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1:55 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is praising Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, saying she gets under Donald Trump’s “thin skin like nobody else.”

Clinton was joining the liberal favorite at a rally Monday at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, with two weeks to go before Election Day.

After Warren gave fiery remarks on her behalf, Clinton said that Trump was probably “tweeting away” in response. She said Warren “exposes” Trump’s poor temperament and lack of qualifications to be president.

The Democratic nominee was using the rally to build support for New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, who is challenging Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, and Colin Van Ostern, the party’s nominee for governor.

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1:40 p.m.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is warning Republican nominee Donald Trump that “nasty women” will come out in droves to help send Hillary Clinton to the White House.

Warren was joining Clinton at a rally Monday in Manchester, New Hampshire. Warren was picking up on Trump calling Clinton “such a nasty woman” during last week’s final debate.

She said that Trump thinks because he’s wealthy “he can call women fat pigs and bimbos.” She said “nasty women have really had it” with guys like Trump.

The liberal favorite said Trump should know that “nasty women are tough, nasty women are smart and nasty women vote.”

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1:30 p.m.

Tim Kaine is taking a shot at Republican Sen. Marco Rubio while campaigning in Florida.

Kaine pointed to Rubio’s past comments that Donald Trump is a “con artist” and “dangerous.” He said it makes no sense for Rubio to now support the Republican presidential nominee.

He said if someone can’t condemn Trump, “you’ve got to ask the question whether they’re the right person to represent you.”

Kaine said it will be important to have a Congress that can work with a Democratic administration. He praised Rubio’s Democratic rival, Patrick Murphy, but didn’t explicitly make the case for a Democratic-controlled Senate.

In a Saturday interview with the Associated Press, Kaine said Democrats have run a campaign against Trump, not the entire Republican Party.

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1:15 p.m.

Tim Kaine is cautioning Florida voters not to get complacent in the final weeks of the election despite polling that shows the Democratic ticket better positioned to capture the White House.

Kaine is speaking in Miami, where in-person early voting began today. Earlier in the day he greeted people submitting early ballots. Donald Trump is also campaigning in Florida, a must-win state for the Republican presidential candidate.

Kaine said winning Florida would be “checkmate” for Clinton. And he reminded voters that the race could still change, noting that Trump saw a surge in September.

He said, “we can’t take anything for granted.”

Kaine has campaigned frequently in Florida, where he’s used his Spanish language skills to reach out to Hispanic voters.

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