Warren highlights her work on economic crisis in Vegas stop

Democrat Elizabeth Warren used her first visit to Nevada as a presidential candidate to describe a squeeze on working families and a political system that she says fails to protect homeowners, including the residents of Las Vegas who were pummeled by the mortgage crisis a decade ago.

The Massachusetts senator spoke about her work as a consumer activist and her role overseeing the bailout of banks and insurers a decade ago, a job that brought her to the city to hear from residents struggling to keep their homes.

Warren said her own family almost lost their home when she was growing up and recalled one man she met in her Las Vegas visit a decade earlier who was one of millions around the country losing his home.

Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks at an organizing event Sunday, Feb. 17, 2019, in Las Vegas. (AP PhotoJohn Locher)

"You better believe one reason that I am in this fight is we can never let this happen again. Never," Warren told about 500 people at a botanical garden and event center northeast of the Las Vegas Strip.

Warren, fresh off a Saturday swing through South Carolina and Georgia, was bundled up in a puffy coat for the unusually chilly Las Vegas weather as she appeared on an outdoor stage with an American flag backdrop and a faux sandstone formation.

Nevada's early presidential caucus is the first in the West and is seen as a key test of a candidate's ability to appeal to a state with powerful labor groups and diverse demographics, including a population that's about 29 percent Latino.

Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks at an organizing event Sunday, Feb. 17, 2019, in Las Vegas. (AP PhotoJohn Locher)

In her speech, Warren condemned predatory mortgages targeted to minorities and said income inequality disproportionately affects communities of color. She also said unions need strengthening and that the country needs comprehensive immigration reform.

The senator described Washington, D.C., as a place that works well for corporations and lobbyists but not families, saying that when a government "only works for the wealthy and the powerful, that is corruption and we've got to call it out for what it is."

She called President Donald Trump's administration "the most corrupt administration in living memory" but didn't focus on the president during her speech.

Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks at an organizing event Sunday, Feb. 17, 2019, in Las Vegas. (AP PhotoJohn Locher)

In response to Warren's visit, the Republican National Committee released a statement calling her campaign a "full-fledged apology tour" for her past claims of Native American heritage. The statement referred to her as "Fauxcahontas," a reference to Trump's use of the slur "Pocahontas."

Warren's event was about 10 miles away from the site a Las Vegas Strip country music festival that became the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history in 2017 when 58 people were killed and hundreds were wounded.

Warren was introduced by a local activist with Moms Demand Action, a nonprofit that works to change gun laws, and the senator used part of her speech to praise Nevada for passing an expanded firearm background check law this past week — the first gun-control move by the state Legislature since the mass shooting.

Nearby, the campaign debuted a large, white lighted sign that read "Warren 2020" and offered attendees a spot to pose for selfies.

Carolyn Sakamoto and Helen Henson, 75-year-old retired teachers, took selfies in front of Warren's new lighted sign.

Sakamoto said Warren's message on health care and making people pay "their rightful taxes" has put the senator at the top of her list of those she's interested in backing, but mainly she wants to ensure a Democrat is elected in 2020.

"We just want somebody that can win," Sakamoto said. "A lot of people might be good, but they may not have what it takes to win."

Henson said Warren is in her top tier of 2020 candidates but has some reservations about supporting the senator because of the stumbles she's made over her claims of Native American heritage.

"I think that it was an honest mistake on her part, but I think that that's provided a lot of bad publicity," Henson said. "She's just spoken out so strongly from the very beginning about the recession and financial crisis and I just feel like she has a lot to offer on that."

Henson said it will be hard for Warren to move past the heritage controversy.

"With anyone else, maybe she could," she said. "But with Trump, I think he's going to pound it to the ground."

TOKYO (AP) — The American envoy to the United Nations called Friday for countries armed with atomic weapons to pursue nuclear disarmament as she visited the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki, Japan.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who became the first U.S. cabinet member to visit Nagasaki, stressed the importance of dialogue and diplomacy amid a growing nuclear threat in the region.

“We must continue to work together to create an environment for nuclear disarmament. We must continue to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in every corner of the world,” she said after a tour of the atomic bomb museum.

“For those of us who already have those weapons, we must pursue arms control. We can and must work to ensure that Nagasaki is the last place to ever experience the horror of nuclear weapons,” she added, standing in front of colorful hanging origami cranes, a symbol of peace.

The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. A second attack three days later on Nagasaki killed 70,000 more people. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II and its nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.

Nagasaki Gov. Kengo Oishi said in a statement that he believed Thomas-Greenfield's visit and her first-person experience at the museum “will be a strong message in promoting momentum of nuclear disarmament for the international society at a time the world faces a severe environment surrounding atomic weapons.”

Oishi said he conveyed to the ambassador the increasingly important role of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in emphasizing the need of nuclear disarmament.

Thomas-Greenfield's visit to Japan comes on the heels of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's official visit to the United States last week and is aimed at deepening Washington's trilateral ties with Tokyo and Seoul. During her visit to South Korea earlier this week, she held talks with South Korean officials, met with defectors from North Korea and visited the demilitarized zone.

The ambassador said the United States is looking into setting up a new mechanism for monitoring North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Russia and China have thwarted U.S.-led efforts to step up U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile testing since 2022, underscoring a deepening divide between permanent Security Council members over Russia’s war on Ukraine.

She said it would be “optimal” to launch the new system next month, though it is uncertain if that is possible.

The U.N. Security Council established a committee to monitor sanctions, and the mandate for its panel of experts to investigate violations had been renewed for 14 years until last month, when Russia vetoed another renewal.

In its most recent report, the panel of experts said it is investigating 58 suspected North Korean cyberattacks between 2017 and 2023 valued at approximately $3 billion, with the money reportedly being used to help fund its weapons development.

The United States, Japan and South Korea have been deepening security ties amid growing tension in the region from North Korea and China.

U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left, and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, shake hands during a meeting Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)

U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left, and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, shake hands during a meeting Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)

U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, right, speaks to Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, second right, as they wait for a meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)

U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left, and Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, right, walk to meet Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)

U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left, and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, talk prior to a meeting Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)

U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left, and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, prepare to talk during a meeting Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)