PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Republicans remain positioned to win a congressional race in Rhode Island this fall for the first time since 1992, but Democrats still have a shot at holding the seat, an exclusive 12 News/Roger Williams University poll released Thursday shows.

The survey of 254 likely voters in Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District finds Republican Allan Fung at 46% and Democrat Seth Magaziner at 40%, with 9% of voters undecided and 4% supporting independent candidate Bill Gilbert, who will appear on the ballot as “Moderate.”

12 News political analyst Joe Fleming, who conducted the poll, noted that Fung’s lead remains just inside the survey’s margin of error.

“It’s still relatively close,” he said. “Anything could happen.”

The poll shows Fung’s lead is built in part on his outsized strength with Democrats, 24% of whom are backing him. “If he can hold onto that he’s going to be in a decent position, because normally Republicans don’t get a quarter of the Democratic vote,” Fleming said.

The Georgia prosecutor leading an investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election is aiming to quickly wrap up the grand jury’s work after the midterm elections and could begin issuing indictments as early as December, sources familiar with the situation tell CNN.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said that her investigation into attempts to subvert the 2020 election will go quiet beginning later this week to avoid any appearance of influencing the upcoming election. But while her investigation will not make any overt moves in the next few weeks, her team is gearing up for a flurry of activity after Election Day.

“I think her hands are tied, certainly, until after the midterms,” said Michael J. Moore, former US attorney for the Middle District of Georgia. “She wants to pull some of the politics out of it, so to ensure that the investigation is not forgotten, instead of sort of rattling the sabers and subpoenaing other witnesses you would just say you know we’re going to take this time to reflect on the investigation.”

The Georgia probe – set off by an hour-long January 2021 phone call from Trump to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” the votes necessary for Trump to win the Peach State – has steadily expanded. It now covers presentations on unfounded election fraud claims to state lawmakers, the fake elector scheme, efforts by unauthorized individuals to access voting machines in one Georgia county and a campaign of threats and harassment against lower-level election workers.

“Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has received two major endorsements as his campaign prepares for a runoff election against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro on October 30,” Deutsche Welle reports.

“Simone Tebet, the center-right candidate who came in third place during the first round with 4% of the vote, called on the 5 million people who voted for her to back Lula in the second round.”

“On the same day, former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who is still respected in business circles, announced he too would cast his vote for Lula.”

Publications owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, the second-largest newspaper publisher in the country, will no longer endorse major political candidates in their opinion pages.

In an editorial that is scheduled to run in papers as early as Friday, the company’s publications will tell readers that they will stop endorsing candidates in presidential, senate and gubernatorial elections.

A copy of the editorial was obtained by The New York Times. Alden confirmed its contents and timing.

“Unfortunately, as the public discourse has become increasingly acrimonious, common ground has become a no man’s land between the clashing forces of the culture wars,” according to a copy of the planned editorial.

DENVER (AP) — The Colorado baker who won a partial Supreme Court victory after refusing on religious grounds to make a gay couple’s wedding cake a decade ago is challenging a separate ruling he violated the state’s anti-discrimination law by refusing to make a cake celebrating a gender transition.

A lawyer for Jack Phillips on Wednesday urged Colorado’s appeals court — largely on procedural grounds — to overturn last year’s ruling in a lawsuit brought by a transgender woman.

The woman, Autumn Scardina, called Phillips’ suburban Denver cake shop in 2017 requesting a birthday cake that had blue frosting on the outside and was pink inside to celebrate her gender transition. At trial last year, Phillips, a Christian, testified he did not think someone could change genders and he would not celebrate “somebody who thinks that they can.”

Jake Warner, an attorney representing Phillips from the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, said the ruling was wrong. He said requiring Phillips to create a cake with a message contrary to his religious beliefs amounts to forcing him to say something he does not believe, violating his right to free speech.

Jeremy Bertino, a North Carolina leader of the Proud Boys pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy on Thursday, becoming the first member of the group to admit to the charge stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Bertino appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly to enter his guilty plea, which also included a count of unlawful possession of a firearm.

Bertino, who previously testified to the Jan. 6 select committee, was involved in key conversations and chats with other members of the group, including national chair Enrique Tarrio and other leaders facing seditious conspiracy charges in the weeks before Jan. 6.

Passengers are facing long queues again at Schiphol airport after managers failed to put enough security staff on duty.

The airport has asked some airlines, including Corendon, Turkish Airlines and Surinam Airways, to cancel flights from 4pm onwards so other passengers can catch their flights.

Long lines stretched outside the terminal on Monday, with some passengers telling NOS they had been queuing for longer than the maximum waiting time of four hours. Anyone arriving earlier than four hours before departure is not allowed to join the queue.

Schiphol said the problems were concentrated at Departures 3, which caters mainly for intercontinental flights, but also budget airlines within Europe departing from Pier H.

The financial stability of hundreds of Seattle tenants is on the line as public and private players vie for nearly two dozen apartment buildings that have been on the market since this summer.

The entire portfolio of finished aPodment-branded micro-apartment buildings is for sale, a total of 23 properties and 1,402 apartments from Northgate to the Central District. Built by Calhoun Properties, the apartments average 177 square feet and rent for an average of $921, including internet and utilities, according to the brokers listing the buildings. Typical studio and one-bedroom apartments in Seattle go for around $1,500 to $1,700.

As Seattle-area rents have climbed, the apartments offer a rare bit of affordability for some hourly workers. Baristas making the top end of Seattle’s minimum wage, $17.27, could roughly afford the average aPodment rent without spending more than a third of their income, if they were able to work 40 hours a week.

Micro-apartments also come with trade-offs. Some units have kitchenettes, while others have a sink and access to a shared kitchen in the building. Although some apartments are a bit roomier, the most affordable units are more like dorms, with room for a twin bed and desk.

TOKYO — At the end of a long day at work in the offices of Japan’s professional baseball league, Asumi Fujiwara returned to her apartment and changed into pajamas. She wanted to get in a light workout before going to bed, so she placed her vinyl yoga mat on the floor in front of the toilet, rolling it past the single kitchen burner and the one-slot toaster and toward the foot of her desk.

After a bit of stretching, she stood to get into the warrior position. Instead of extending her arms fully, though, she pulled her elbows into her sides. “I need to modify my poses or else I will hit something,” Ms. Fujiwara, 29, said.

Such is life in a 95-square-foot Tokyo apartment.

With its high property prices and the world’s most populous metropolitan area, Tokyo has long been known for small accommodations. But these new apartments — known as three-tatami rooms, based on how many standard Japanese floor mats would cover the living space — are pushing the boundaries of normal living.