She was 95.

Barbara, (Bobbie, Barcar, Barbie) and Larry, who predeceased her in 2016, were veteran reporters for the Hartford Courant who lived in Middletown before moving to their seaside home in Branford more than 30 years ago.

Born and raised in Middletown, Barbara was the daughter of Arthur and Hester Carlson and sister to her brother, Jack.  As a child she knew she wanted to be a writer.  She attended the city’s then Woodrow Wilson High School, earned high honors, was named to the National Honor Society, served as editor of the school newspaper and became a high school correspondent for the Hartford Courant.  She went on to study her craft, hone her skills and graduated from Wellesley College in 1950 with a B.A. in English. She continued her connection to Wellesley throughout her life by regularly contributing to the college’s monthly magazine.

Following graduation, she lived in Paris and traveled through Europe and returned to the U.S. to work briefly in radio, advertising, and publishing before turning her sights to newspapers. She joined the Hartford Courant in 1957 to work as a general assignment reporter covering breaking news, investigative stories and features.

While working for the Courant, she expanded her news perspective by taking on overseas assignments in the Middle East and Southeast Asia among other areas. Figures she interviewed ranged from Israel’s First Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to dinosaur expert John Ostrom to lion tamer Gunther Gebel-Williams. In 1966 the New England Women’s Press Association honored her with its annual Newspaper Woman of the Year award.  After leaving the Courant, she worked as a general assignment reporter for several years at the Louisville Times, where she was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a series on prisons.

She left the daily news business and became a regular contributor to The New York Times Connecticut Weekly section and for more than a decade filed stories on topics ranging from soup kitchens in the suburbs to the lives of nuns in a cloistered monastery.  She also worked as a correspondent for Business Week reporting locally on national stories, and was a contributing editor to New England Business magazine writing profiles, stories on issues and trends, and a monthly feature on unusual entrepreneurial companies. In addition, she wrote for The New Republic, the National Observer, the Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the Miami Herald,  Modern Maturity, New England Monthly, and the Courant’s Northeast Magazine among many others. Her overseas reporting included writing stories from Egypt, Kenya, Mexico, Afghanistan, China and the Soviet Union. She interviewed figures ranging from famous to familiar with ease.  Her last assignments were at the Shoreline Times weekly when she was 90 years old.

Her longer term projects included writing the book Food Festivals: Eating Your Way from Coast to Coast, co-authoring the book Holidays and Festivals Dictionary, and serving as an editor for a synonym dictionary entitled The Synonym Finder, published by Rodale.

Barbara’s was a life well-lived. She enjoyed an enduring and expansive reporting career, travel to some of the world’s farthest reaches (especially Africa as seen by her large collection of giraffes), living in a  century-old cottage on Long Island Sound, a long happy marriage to her beloved Larry, sharing conversations, laughter, and toasts with her close friends, and, of course, the company of the dogs she cared for and loved – the last one being her dear Kipling.

She leaves her niece Joanne (Bill) Kilmartin and faithful friends.

A private gathering to celebrate her rich life and to bid her a fond farewell will take place in the near future.

Memorial donations in the form of checks may be made out to The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven (memo line – Bambi Bailey Fund), 70 Audubon St., New Haven, CT 06510.

Online gifts may be made using the link below:

https://www.cfgnh.org/funds/bambi-bailey-scholarship-fund

All information provided by her family.

LONDON (AP) — Award-winning British actor Joan Plowright, who with her late husband Laurence Olivier did much to revitalize the U.K.’s theatrical scene in the decades after World War II, has died. She was 95.

In a statement Friday, her family said Plowright died the previous day at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors in southern England, surrounded by her loved ones.

“She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire,” the family said. “We are so proud of all Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being.”

Part of an astonishing generation of British actors, including Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins and Maggie Smith, Plowright won a Tony Award, two Golden Globes and nominations for an Oscar and an Emmy. She was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, Plowright racked up dozens of stage roles in everything from Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” to William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.” She stunned in Eugene Ionesco’s “The Chairs,” and George Bernard Shaw’s totemic two female roles “Major Barbara” and “Saint Joan.”

“I’ve been very privileged to have such a life,” Plowright said in a 2010 interview with The Actor’s Work. “I mean it’s magic and I still feel, when a curtain goes up or the lights come on if there’s no curtain, the magic of a beginning of what is going to unfold in front of me.”

The esteem in which Plowright was held in London was evident with the news that theaters across the West End will dim their lights for two minutes at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in her honor.

Born Joan Ann Plowright in Brigg, Lincolnshire, England, her mother ran an amateur drama group and Plowright was involved in the theater from age 3. She was soon spending school vacations at summer sessions of university drama schools. After high school, she studied at the Laban Art of Movement Studio in Manchester, then won a two-year scholarship to the drama school at the Old Vic Theatre in London.

Following her London stage debut in 1954, Plowright became a member of the Royal Court Theatre in 1956 and gained recognition in dramas written by the so-called Angry Young Men, such as John Osborne, who were giving British theater a thorough airing-out. The new, rough-hewn, working-class actors like Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Anthony Hopkins were her peers.

Plowright made her feature film debut with an uncredited turn in American director John Huston’s epic adaptation of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” in 1956, starring Gregory Peck as the obsessed Captain Ahab.

A year later, she co-starred with her future husband Olivier in the original London production of Osborne’s “The Entertainer.” She played Olivier’s daughter in the work and the two reunited for the 1960 film adaptation.

By then, Plowright’s marriage to British actor Roger Cage had ended, as had Olivier’s 20-year union with Vivien Leigh. Plowright and Olivier were married in Connecticut in 1961, while both were starring on Broadway, he in “Becket” and she in “A Taste of Honey,” for which she won a Tony.

One love letter Olivier sent summed up his love: “I sometimes feel such a peacefulness come over me when I think of you, or write to you — a gentle tenderness and serenity. A feeling devoid of all violence, passion or shattering longing… it makes me go out into the street with a smile on my face and in my heart for everybody.”

Olivier died in 1989 at the age of 82. After that, Plowright enjoyed a career resurgence at the age of 60, satisfying both upmarket tastes and more commercial fare.

She was in Franco Zeffirelli’s version of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” in 1996 and the Merchant-Ivory production of “Surviving Picasso,” as well as starring as the stalwart nanny in Disney’s live-action remake of “101 Dalmatians” in 1996 with Glenn Close.

She starred opposite Walter Matthau in the big screen adaptation of the classic comic strip “Dennis the Menace,” and made a brief appearance in the Arnold Schwarzenegger self-referencing satire “Last Action Hero” in 1993.

Plowright became one of only a handful of actors to win two Golden Globes in the same year, in 1993, when she won the supporting actress TV award for “Stalin” and the supporting actress movie award for “Enchanted April.” For the latter, which told the story of a group of Britons finding their lives transformed on a vacation to Italy, she received her sole nomination for an Academy Award.

Not all her works were career roses, as with the disastrous “The Scarlet Letter” starring Demi Moore and a pilot that went nowhere for a TV series based on “Driving Miss Daisy.” An appearance alongside Chevy Chase in the 2011 holiday family comedy “Goose on the Loose” didn’t rouse critics.

A prominent role in later life was keeper of the Olivier flame — bestowing awards, defending her husband in the press and curating his letters.

“That is my choice because I was privileged to live with him,” she told The Daily Telegraph in 2003. “When someone who has had such fame and idolatry and worship goes, then there’s bound to be a backlash which comes the other way and you get a bit sick of that. Mine was really trying to put things straight.”

Plowright is survived by her three children — Tamsin, Richard and Julie-Kate, all actors, and several grandchildren.

___

Kennedy reported from New York.

He was 62.

“Jeff Meyer was one of the most talented and effective jurists I have known,” said Connecticut’s chief federal judge, Michael P. Shea. “He was fair and just; treated those who came before him with respect and decency; wrote thoughtful, eloquent opinions; and managed his docket with efficiency even while battling cancer during the past two years.

“He was widely admired by his judicial colleagues and served as a mentor and role model to newer judges,” Shea said. “His passing represents a painful loss for the District Court and for the community he so ably served.”

Meyer, who lived in Stony Creek, was nominated to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama and sworn in on February 28, 2014.

Over 11 years, Meyer presided over an array of cases. In addition to complex civil matters, he recently wound up the prosecution of executives of the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative and was about to hear the bribery and extortion trial of  former deputy state budget director Konstantinos Diamantis.

Earlier, as an assistant U.S. Attorney, Meyer was named the Connecticut District’s first, full time appeals chief from 2000 to 2004, while continuing to try criminal cases. Under Meyer’s direction, the Connecticut district’s appellate work was singled out for distinction among the courts of the Second Circuit.

“Under his stellar leadership, the quality of the office’s appellate work was widely recognized as second to none,” said William Nardini, who became Meyer’s appeals deputy in New Haven and now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. “And in his years as a district judge, he acquired a reputation for legal brilliance, fair-mindedness, and an unmatched work ethic.  As both a friend and a colleague, he will be sorely missed.”

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Califano, another colleague, called Meyer a “phenomenal” trial lawyer as well. Among other things, the two led the prosecution of fraudster Martin Frankel, who stole more than $200 million in the 1990s by buying small insurance companies and siphoning off their assets. During their prosecution of Frankel aide Mona Kim, Meyer became the first prosecutor to make a powerpoint presentation part of a closing argument.

Meyer left the U.S Attorney’s office in New Haven in 2004 to rejoin Califano, who had been named chief counsel to the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil for Food Program in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. Meyer became senior counsel.

The oil for food program was conceived as a means of allowing Iraq, then heavily sanctioned following Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, to sell oil in order to obtain food and other necessities for the Iraqi people. Califano and Meyer ultimately reported that the program suffered from massive corruption that reached the highest levels of the United Nations and put nearly $2 billion in bribes in Hussein’s hands..

Califano and Meyer later published the book “Good Intentions Corrupted: The Oil for Food Scandal and the Threat to the U.N.”

“Jeff was a consummate professional with an incredible surgical intellect and a warm sense of humor,” Califano said Monday. “I lost count of the long nights with him preparing for trials, the days in trial, or writing the UN reports, but I will never forget that in every instance he would share his warm, generous sense of humor with me, colleagues, opposing counsel, the court, and the jury.  We loved him for all of that.”

After completing the oil for food investigation, Meyer joined the faculty at Quinnipiac University School of Law and became a visiting professor of law at Yale Law School.

Meyer, originally from New York, graduated from Yale College summa cum laude and Yale Law School.

He served as a clerk for Judge James L. Oakes at the second circuit court of appeals in New York and, from 1991 to 1992, at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Harry Blackmun.

After being selected but before starting in the highly sought-after, Supreme Court clerkship, Meyer’s then-fiance was seriously injured in an accident and he informed Blackmun that he would have to give up the position to care for her. He was able to serve the clerkship at a later date.

“Judge Meyer, who had an absolutely first-rate mind, always adhered to the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct,” said John H. Durham, former U.S. Attorney. “He expected the same from those of us who were blessed to have had him as a colleague in the United States Attorney’s Office and every lawyer who appeared before as a judge.  His passing is a grievous loss.”

Meyer was married with two adult children.

Publicist Jeremy Westby said Moore died Friday morning in Coral Gables, Florida, due to complications while recovering from surgery. No additional details were immediately available.

Moore, whose admirers ranged from Al Green to Bruce Springsteen, was inducted with Dave Prater into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

“Over on E Street, we are heartbroken to hear of the death of Sam Moore, one of America’s greatest soul voices,” Springsteen said Saturday on Instagram. “He was filled with stories of the halcyon days of soul music, and to the end had that edge of deep authenticity in his voice I could only wonder at.”

At the Memphis, Tennessee-based Stax Records, Moore and Prater ranked only behind Otis Redding as the label’s biggest stars. They transformed the “call and response” of gospel music into a frenzied stage show and recorded some of soul music’s most enduring hits, which also included “You Don’t Know Like I Know,” “When Something is Wrong With My Baby” and “I Thank You.”

Most of their hits were written and produced by the team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter and featured the Stax house band Booker T. & the MGs, whose guitarist Steve Cropper received one of music’s most famous shoutouts when Sam & Dave called “Play it, Steve” midway through “Soul Man.”

Like many ’60s soul acts, Sam & Dave faded after the decade ended. But “Soul Man” hit the charts again in the late 1970s when “Blues Brothers” John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd recorded it with many of the same musicians. Moore had mixed feelings about the hit becoming associated with the “Saturday Night Live” stars, remembering how young people believed it originated with the Blues Brothers.

In 2008, the movie “Soul Men” depicted a pair of aging, estranged singers who bore more than a little resemblance to Sam & Dave. Moore lost a lawsuit claiming the resemblance was too close.

He also spent years suing Prater after Prater hired a substitute and toured as the New Sam & Dave. Prater died in a 1988 car crash in Georgia.

In 1993, Moore was among numerous artists who pressed legal claims that the record industry had cheated them out of retirement benefits. Moore and other artists sued multiple record companies and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Moore told The Associated Press in 1994 that he joined the legal effort after learning, despite his million-selling records, his pension amounted to just $2,285, which he could take as a lump sum or in payments of $73 monthly.

“Two thousand dollars for my lifetime?” Moore said then. “If you’re making a profit off of me, give me some too. Don’t give me cornbread and tell me it’s biscuits.”

Moore also became involved in politics. He wrote the song “Dole Man,” modeled on “Soul Man,” for Republican Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996. In 2017, he was among the few entertainers who performed for Republican President Donald Trump’s inaugural festivities. Eight years earlier, Moore had objected when Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign used “Hold On, I’m Comin’.”

Moore was born Oct. 12, 1935, in Miami and got his start singing in church.

He and Prater performed in soul and R&B clubs in the 1950s, but didn’t meet until 1961 in Miami. Moore helped coach Prater on the lyrics of a song and they quickly became a popular local duo. In 1965, after signing with Atlantic Records, producer Jerry Wexler sent them to the label’s Stax subsidiary in Memphis.

Moore and Prater argued often and Moore told the AP in 2006 that a drug habit, which he kicked in 1981, played a part in the band’s troubles and later made entertainment executives leery of giving him a fresh start. The duo broke up in 1970 and neither had another major hit, though Moore did work often with Springsteen, whom Moore would call one of his closest friends. They performed together on stage and sang on each other’s albums, including on the high energy duet “Real World.”

“RIP Sam Moore,” Springsteen sideman Steve Van Zandt posted on X. “Him and Dave Prater were the inspiration for me and Johnny to start Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. An important righteous wonderful man.”

He married his wife, Joyce, in 1982, and she helped him get treatment for his addiction that he credited with saving his life.

“I did a lot of cruise ships, I did a lot of oldies shows,” during those struggles, he said, adding that he once opened for a group of Elvis impersonators.

“That’s funny to think back to it now. And I did a lot of shows where if I did a show with an oldie show, I had to actually audition,” he said. “But you know what? You keep your mouth shut and you get up there and you sing as hard and perform as hard as you can, and get the little money and go on about your business and try and pay those bills. I’m laughing about it now, but at that time, man, it was really serious.”

Moore kept recording and singing. He was a frequent performer at the Kennedy Center Honors and sang for Obama among other presidents.

Moore is survived by his wife, Joyce; daughter, Michell; and two grandchildren.

Authorities in Bucks County found Haddon, 76, dead in a second-floor bedroom Friday morning after emergency dispatchers were notified about a person unconscious at the Solebury Township home. A 76-year-old man police later identified as Walter J. Blucas of Erie was hospitalized in critical condition.

Responders detected a high level of carbon monoxide in the property and township police said Saturday that investigators determined that “a faulty flue and exhaust pipe on a gas heating system caused the carbon monoxide leak.” Two medics were taken to a hospital for carbon monoxide exposure and a police officer was treated at the scene.

As a model, Haddon appeared on the covers of Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Elle and Esquire in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the 1973 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She also appeared in about two dozen films from the 1970s to 1990s, according to IMDb.com, including 1994’s “Bullets Over Broadway,” starring John Cusack.

Haddon left modeling after giving birth to her daughter, Ryan, in the mid-1970s, but then had to reenter the workforce after her husband’s 1991 death. This time she found the modeling industry far less friendly: “They said to me, ‘At 38, you’re not viable,’” Haddon told The New York Times in 2003.

Working a menial job at an advertising agency, Haddon began reaching out to cosmetic companies, telling them there was a growing market to sell beauty products to aging baby boomers. She eventually landed a contract with Clairol, followed by Estée Lauder and then L’Oreal, for which she promoted the company’s anti-aging products for more than a decade. She also hosted beauty segments for CBS’s “The Early Show.”

“I kept modeling, but in a different way,” she told The Times, “I became a spokesperson for my age.”

In 2008, Haddon founded WomenOne, an organization aimed at advancing educational opportunities for girls and women in marginalized communities, including Rwanda, Haiti and Jordan.’

Haddon was born in Toronto and began modeling as a teenager to pay for ballet classes — she began her career with the Canadian ballet company Les Grands Ballet Canadiens, according to her website.

Haddon’s daughter, Ryan, said in a social media post that her mother was “everyone’s greatest champion. An inspiration to many.”

“A pure heart. A rich inner life. Touching so many lives. A life well lived. Rest in Light, Mom,” she said.

Perry, a recipient of a Grammys Trustee Award in 2015, died at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering cardiac arrest, friend Daphna Kastner said.

“He maximized his time here,” said Kastner, who called him a “father friend” and said he was godfather to her son. “He was generous, fun, sweet and made the world a better place. The world is a little less sweeter without him here. But it’s a little bit sweeter in heaven.”

Perry was a onetime drummer, oboist and doo-wop singer who proved at home with a wide variety of musical styles, the rare producer to have No. 1 hits on the pop, R&B, dance and country charts. He was on hand for Harry Nilsson’s “Without You” and The Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited,” Tiny Tim’s novelty smash “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” and the Willie Nelson-Julio Iglesias lounge standard “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.” Perry was widely known as a “musician’s producer,” treating artists like peers rather than vehicles for his own tastes. Singers turned to him whether trying to update their sound (Barbra Streisand), set back the clock (Stewart), revive their career (Fats Domino) or fulfill early promise (Leo Sayer).

“Richard had a knack for matching the right song to the right artist,” Streisand wrote in her 2023 memoir, “My Name is Barbra.”

Perry’s life was a story, in part, of famous friends and the right places. He was backstage for 1950s performances by Little Richard and Chuck Berry, sat in the third row at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival during Otis Redding’s memorable set and attended a recording session for the Rolling Stones’ classic “Let It Bleed” album. A given week might find him dining one night with Paul and Linda McCartney, and Mick and Bianca Jagger the next. He dated Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda among others and was briefly married to the actor Rebecca Broussard.

In Stewart’s autobiography, “Rod,” he would remember Perry’s home in West Hollywood as “the scene of much late-night skulduggery through the 1970s and beyond, and a place you knew you could always fall into at the end of an evening for a full-blown knees-up with drink and music and dancing.”

In the ’70s, Perry helped facilitate a near-Beatles reunion.

He had produced a track on Starr’s first solo album, “Sentimental Journey,” and grown closer to him through Nilsson and other mutual friends. “Ringo,” released in 1973, would prove the drummer was a commercial force in his own right — with some well-placed names stopping by. The album, featuring contributions from Nilsson, Billy Preston, Steve Cropper, Martha Reeves and all five members of The Band, reached No. 2 on Billboard and sold more than 1 million copies. Hit singles included the chart toppers “Photograph,” co-written by Starr and George Harrison, and a remake of the 1950s favorite “You’re Sixteen.”

But for Perry and others, the most memorable track was a non-hit, custom made. John Lennon’s “I’m the Greatest” was a mock-anthem for the self-effacing drummer that brought three Beatles into the studio just three years after the band’s breakup. Starr was on drums and sang lead, Lennon was on keyboards and backing vocals and longtime Beatles friend Klaus Voormann played bass. They were still working on the song when Harrison’s assistant phoned, asking if the guitarist could join them. Harrison arrived soon after.

“As I looked around the room, I realized that I was at the very epicenter of the spiritual and musical quest I had dreamed of for so many years,” Perry wrote in his 2021 memoir, “Cloud Nine.” “By the end of each session, a small group of friends had gathered, standing silently along the back wall, just thrilled to be there.”

McCartney was not in town for “I’m the Greatest,” but he did help write and arrange the ballad “Six O’Clock,” featuring the ex-Beatle and Linda McCartney on backing vocals.

Perry had helped make pop history the year before as producer of “You’re So Vain,” which he would call the nearest he came to a perfect record. Simon’s scathing ballad about an unnamed lover, with Voormann’s bass runs kicking off the song and Jagger joining on the chorus, hit No. 1 in 1972 and began a long-term debate over Simon’s intended target. Perry’s answer would echo Simon’s own belated response.

“I’ll take this opportunity to give my insider’s scoop,” he wrote in his memoir. “The person that the song is based on is really a composite of several men that Carly dated in the ’60s and early ’70s, but primarily, it’s about my good friend, Warren Beatty.”

Perry’s post-1970s work included such hit singles as The Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance” and DeBarge’s “Rhythm of the Night,” along with albums by Simon, Ray Charles and Art Garfunkel. He had his greatest success with Stewart’s million-selling “The Great American Songbook” albums, a project made possible by the rock star’s writer’s block and troubled private life. In the early 2000s, Stewart’s marriage to Rachel Hunter had ended and Perry was among those consoling him. With Stewart struggling to come up with original songs, he and Perry agreed that an album of standards might work, including “The Very Thought of You,” “Angel Eyes” and “Where or When.”

“We were at a back table in our favorite restaurant as we exchanged ideas and wrote them down on a napkin,” Perry wrote in his memoir. Stewart softly sang the options. “As I sat there and listened to him sing, it was clear that we both sensed we were on to something,” Perry added.

Perry was a New York City native born into a musical family; his parents, Mark and Sylvia Perry, co-founded Peripole Music, a pioneering manufacturer of instruments for young people. With his family’s help and encouragement, he learned to play drums and oboe and helped form a doo-wop group, the Escorts, that released a handful of singles. A music and theater major at the University of Michigan, he initially dreamed of acting on Broadway. Instead, he made the “life-changing” decision in the mid-1960s to form a production company with a recent acquaintance, Gary Katz, who would go on to work with Steely Dan among others.

By the end of the decade, Perry was an industry star, working on Captain Beefheart’s acclaimed cult album, “Safe As Milk” and the debut recording of Tiny Tim and Ella Fitzgerald’s “Ella,” featuring the jazz great’s interpretations of songs by the Beatles, Smokey Robinson and Randy Newman. In the early 1970s, he would oversee Streisand’s million-selling “Stoney End” album, on which the singer turned from the show tunes that made her famous and covered a range of pop and rock music, from the title track, a Laura Nyro composition, to Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.”

“I liked Richard from the moment we met. He was tall and lanky, with a mop of dark, curly hair and a big smile, which his big heart,” Streisand wrote in her memoir. “At our first meeting, he arrived laden with songs, and we listened to them together. Whatever hesitation I may have felt about our collaboration soon vanished and I thought, ‘This could be fun, and musically liberating.’ ”

AP Music Writer Maria Sherman and AP Entertainment Writer Jonathan Landrum Jr. contributed.

Nearly 4 in 10 women under 30 surveyed in September and early October told pollsters that abortion is the most important issue to their vote. Just 20% named abortion as their top issue when KFF conducted a similar survey in late May and early June.

The new survey found other shifts among women voters that stand to benefit Harris, including an increase of 24 percentage points in the number of women who said they were satisfied with their choice of candidates and a 19-point increase in the number who said they were more motivated to vote than in previous presidential elections. The changes suggest a significant setback among women in just a few months for former President Donald Trump.

“It looks worse for Donald Trump than it did back in June,” said Ashley Kirzinger, director of survey methodology at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News. “Harris becoming the Democratic presidential nominee energized women voters in a way that the Biden candidacy had not.”

President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection bid on July 21, under pressure from Democratic Party leaders, after a stumbling performance in a June debate against Trump that reignited concerns about the 81-year-old’s fitness for a second term.

While women are more enthusiastic about voting for Harris than they were for Biden, the election remains close. Harris has a 2.5-point edge in national polls, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis. Other polls have found a large gender divide in the election, with a majority of women backing Harris and a majority of men backing Trump.

Harris has long been one of the Democratic Party’s foremost advocates for abortion rights, and she has assailed Trump for appointing three conservative justices to the Supreme Court who joined in the 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 opinion that guaranteed abortion access nationally. Thirteen states have since banned abortion with few exceptions, according to KFF.

Trump says the ruling merely returned the issue to states, and though his positions have often shifted, he has recently promised not to sign a national abortion ban. Harris says she would sign a law restoring nationwide abortion rights.

The former president has made sometimes awkward appeals to women voters.

“You will be protected, and I will be your protector,” Trump told women voters at a rally Sept. 23 in Indiana, Pennsylvania. “Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion.”

The KFF poll found that Harris is gaining on Trump among women not just on abortion — a subject the former president tries to downplay, acknowledging its political peril — but also on economic issues, which Trump and his advisers regard as among their strongest arguments for his return to the White House.

Multiple polls have shown that the economy remains a top issue in the election, especially for Black and Hispanic women. About 75% of respondents in the KFF survey said they worry about household expenses “a lot” or “some.”

Inflation was the top issue for 36% of KFF survey respondents overall, while 13% identified abortion as their priority.

About 46% of women voters in the new poll said they trust Harris over Trump to address household costs, while 39% trust the former president more. Sixteen percent said neither.

In KFF’s previous poll of women in the spring, respondents were nearly evenly split on which party they trusted more to address rising household costs. About 40% said they trusted neither party.

On health care costs, Harris holds a significant lead over Trump in the new poll, with 50% trusting her more on the issue, 34% trusting Trump more, and 16% trusting neither.

Kirzinger said Black women especially prefer Harris on economic issues; for example, they trust the vice president 7-to-1 over Trump on inflation, she said.

More than half of U.S. voters have been women in the last two national elections, according to the Census Bureau.

“A Democratic candidate needs to win women at very high rates and needs to enthuse the base — which largely consists of women,” Kirzinger said. “What we saw in early June was, the Biden candidacy was not doing that. Now it seems the Harris campaign is doing that in multiple different ways; it’s not just abortion. It’s her as a candidate making women more enthusiastic.”

The KFF poll was conducted Sept. 12 to Oct. 1 among 649 women who had been surveyed in the spring, as well as a supplemental sample of 29 Black women registered voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 5 points.

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©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Notable names such as cellist Yo-Yo Ma, musician Jon Bon Jovi, DJ and record producer D-Nice, chef and restaurateur Alice Waters, lawyer and political activist George Conway and former Vice President Al Gore are scheduled to headline or host events, according to a list of fundraisers, a blitz that will help Harris expand her cash advantage over her rival Donald Trump in a race that remains exceedingly tight.

The Harris campaign has deployed a raft of celebrities to help fundraise and energize voters. Last weekend, Harris raised about $55 million in a pair of California events that featured performances by Alanis Morissette and Halle Bailey and included celebrity attendees Sterling K. Brown, Demi Lovato and Stevie Wonder. Harris made rare appearances at both, in addition to a Manhattan fundraiser earlier in September, which also hauled in $27 million.

The Democratic National Convention last month featured an array of other pop culture icons — including television executive and host Oprah Winfrey, who interviewed Harris last month, and musicians Stevie Wonder, John Legend and P!NK. Harris has also received notable endorsements from pop star Taylor Swift and superstar singer Bruce Springsteen.

The Harris campaign has dozens of fundraisers scheduled for October, also enlisting more traditional allies such as governors and congressional lawmakers to headline events across the country and rally deep-pocketed donors.

Trump earlier this week made a swing through Texas oil country, as he seeks to narrow the cash gap with Harris. On Wednesday, he attended a luncheon in Midland, Texas — the hub of the prolific Permian basin — followed by a cocktail reception in Houston, the nation’s energy capital.

Trump’s fundraising base has narrowed, raising the significance of the oil and gas industry for his campaign. It’s now the second-biggest source of funding for Trump’s 2024 White House bid, according to data analyzed by OpenSecrets.

The Harris campaign’s cash lead has been growing. The vice president began September with $404 million in the bank, compared to $295 million for Trump, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The Trump campaign said it raised $160 million in September, and spent more than it raised for a second month in a row. The Harris team has not yet announced their fundraising totals for last month.

The big financial advantage has allowed her to spend an average of about $5 million more a day than Trump’s campaign, which has outsourced its ground game and much of its air game to super PACs and other groups in an effort to keep up.

Recent polls have shown a tight race, with Harris building a slight lead on Trump. A September Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of swing-state voters found that across the seven states, Harris is ahead by 3 percentage points among likely voters — a lead that’s 2 points greater than last month.

(Bill Allison and Jennifer A. Dlouhy contributed to this report.)

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

She died of natural causes Friday night at her home in the Northern California city of Hillsborough, a family spokesperson said Saturday.

Appearing under her stage name of Kathryn Grant, she appeared opposite Tony Curtis in “Mister Cory” in 1957 and Victor Mature in “The Big Circus” in 1959. She made five movies with film noir director Phil Karlson, including “Tight Spot” and “The Phenix City Story,” both in 1955.

Her other leading men included Jack Lemmon in “Operation Mad Ball,” James Darren in “The Brothers Rico” and James Stewart in “Anatomy of a Murder,” directed by Otto Preminger.

Born Olive Kathryn Grandstaff on Nov. 25, 1933, in West Columbia, Texas, she graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in fine arts. She came to Hollywood and began her movie career in 1953.

She met Bing Crosby while doing interviews for a column she wrote about Hollywood for her hometown newspaper. They were married in 1957, when she was 23 and he was 54.

She curtailed her acting career after the wedding, although she appeared often with Crosby and their three children on his Christmas television specials and in Minute Maid orange juice commercials. She became a registered nurse in 1963.

In the 1970s, she hosted a morning talk show on KPIX-TV in Northern California.

After Bing Crosby’s death at age 74 in 1977, from a heart attack after golfing in Spain, she appeared in stage productions of “Same Time, Next Year” and “Charley’s Aunt.” She co-starred with John Davidson and Andrea McArdle in the 1996 Broadway revival of “State Fair.”

For 16 years ending in 2001, she hosted the Crosby National golf tournament in Bermuda Run, North Carolina.

She is survived by children Harry; Mary, an actor best known for the TV show “Dallas”; and Nathaniel, a successful amateur golfer. She was married to Maurice Sullivan for 10 years before he was killed in a 2010 car accident that seriously injured Crosby.

They’re also waiting to see what – if any – will be the fallout from this news for the GOP.

But so far, it’s been mostly radio silence from the party’s candidates, with just one candidate for executive statewide office taking a call from The News & Observer. Two GOP legislative candidates in tight races in Wake County have also made public comments, as well as a couple of congressional candidates.

Meanwhile, the state Republican Party said just after 8 p.m. Thursday on social media that Robinson “has categorically denied the allegations made by CNN but that won’t stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks. The left needs this election to be a personality contest, not a policy contest because if voters are focused on policy, Republicans win on Election Day.”

The NCGOP continued its statement by shifting focus to speak about Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris, concluding that “the left can try to smear Mark Robinson all they want, but when voters go to the polls on Election Day, they are going to be asking one simple question: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? The answer is overwhelmingly no and that’s why Republicans will win on November 5th.”

CNN on Thursday broke the news that Robinson allegedly made a series of online comments years ago on a porn site, including calling himself a “Black Nazi” and saying, “Slavery is not bad.” Robinson also allegedly described instances where he spied on women in gym showers as a 14-year-old and used a racial slur against the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., among other things. Politico has also reported that Robinson appears to have been registered on Ashley Madison, a website for people looking for affairs.

These comments come in addition to derogatory ones he’s previously made about abortion, the LGBTQ+ community and minority groups.

A spokesperson for Robinson said he had not made an account on Ashley Madison, according to Politico. And Robinson in a video on X before the CNN news drop denounced the story as “salacious tabloid lies” and said he would stay in the race. The deadline for him to drop out was Thursday night and has now passed, meaning Robinson will likely remain on the ballot to face off against the Democratic candidate, Josh Stein, who is currently the state’s attorney general.

In addition to the top of the ticket — the presidential race between Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump — there are down-ballot races.

This includes races to fill the state’s 10 executive offices, such as for lieutenant governor, superintendent of public instruction, treasurer and more.

North Carolina is a purple state — where voters will often split their ticket, meaning they’ll vote for candidates across party lines. The current governor, Roy Cooper, is a Democrat, with the other nine Council of State seats held by six Republicans and three Democrats.

The N&O reached out via telephone to all the GOP’s Council of State candidates — either directly or through their spokesperson — to hear their thoughts on Robinson.

The N&O was only able to reach Chad Brown via phone. Brown, who is running to become the GOP’s next secretary of state against longtime Democratic incumbent Elaine Marshall, said in a call that he was “out of town. So I just got back in and heard about a lot of it, so I’m really just now trying to get up to date on everything.

“I haven’t heard a lot about anything from anybody, so I’m just trying to find out what all is credible, what’s not credible.”

He asked to be called in a couple of hours to provide further comment after looking at the information in more detail. The N&O called back, but Brown didn’t answer. He then texted, saying he would call back, but had not done so as of when this story was published Friday evening.

Charles Hellwig, a campaign consultant for state Commissioner of Insurance Mike Causey, who is running for reelection, said via text, that “the campaign has no comment.” Causey is running against Democratic Sen. Natasha Marcus.

The GOP’s candidate for state commissioner of labor, Luke Farley, after a missed call from the N&O, texted back asking to call later but did not reply to an ensuing text and call.

None of the other campaigns replied in time for publication, including those of Michele Morrow for superintendent of public instruction, Dan Bishop for attorney general and Hal Weatherman for lieutenant governor.

In addition to contested statewide elections, some Republican candidates are also facing tight legislative races, in particular those who are running in districts in or near Democratic strongholds such as Wake County.

Scott Lassiter, a Republican candidate for state Senate, on Thursday called for Robinson to end his campaign and let another Republican take his place, as previously reported by The News & Observer.

Rep. Erin Paré, a Republican from Holly Springs who is running for reelection, said on social media Friday morning “the allegations regarding Mark Robinson are completely abhorrent and indefensible. Mark has told the public these allegations are false and it is his responsibility to prove that to North Carolina voters.“

“However, the turmoil at the top of ticket underscores the importance of state legislative races. The Democrats have nominated some of the most radical leftists in history for state legislature,” she said.

“While the Republicans have enacted policies that made NC top in the nation for business, cut your taxes, balanced the budget, lowered costs, increased education outcomes, invested in critical infrastructure and made our communities safer, the Democrats are running on policies that will raise taxes, raise costs, and slide the state backward on every level.” She called for people to vote for her instead of her “radical” opponent.

Paré is running for N.C. House District 37 against Democrat Safiyah Jackson.

Paré followed U.S. Sen. Ted Budd, who is not up for reelection this year, and U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson in calling on Robinson to prove he was not behind those posts.

U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards said in a statement he found the report “shocking” but said Robinson should be allowed to “make his case to voters,” The N&O previously reported.

Republican State Treasurer Dale Folwell, who ran against Robinson in the primary for governor instead of seeking reelection to his own seat, has criticized Robinson.

Democrats have been vocal in denouncing Robinson, including during a news conference held by Cooper on Friday afternoon to speak on his vetoing a GOP-sponsored bill expanding private school vouchers.

On how the news about Robinson affected Democratic candidates’ possibilities in the state, Cooper said “most judicial candidates, most candidates for Council of State, most legislators that are Republicans have endorsed and embraced Mark Robinson. I mean, every North Carolinian when they go to vote, ought to look at whether a candidate has done that, because that sends a strong message about who you are as a a candidate.”

Asked during the news conference if he knew about Robinson’s posts before the news broke, Cooper said “he has made lots of posts and lots of statements in the same vein. So there’s not a whole lot new here about Mark Robinson’s character. They have known — Republican leaders and Donald Trump — have known who he is and embraced him and supported him from day one.”

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