N Carolina US House candidate faces questions over choices

When the Republican narrowly leading the country's last undecided congressional election asks North Carolina elections officials to overlook ballot manipulation in a rural county and declare him the winner, he'll have to overcome testimony from a compelling witness — his son.

GOP congressional candidate Mark Harris is expected to tell a special investigative hearing of the state elections board on Thursday that it should certify his November victory and send him to Washington. Democrat Dan McCready's lawyers contend the race was tainted and a new election should be ordered.

McCready trailed Harris by 905 votes out of about 280,000 cast in November's election, but then allegations surfaced that in the eastern corner of the 9th congressional district Bladen County political operative Leslie McCrae Dowless was manipulating mail-in ballots.

Beth Harris, the wife of Mark Harris, a Republican candidate in North Carolina's 9th Congressional race, listens to testimony during the third day of a public evidentiary hearing on the 9th Congressional District voting irregularities investigation Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019, at the North Carolina State Bar in Raleigh, N.C. (Travis LongThe News & Observer via AP, Pool)

North Carolina's elections director said this week that Dowless conducted an illegal and well-funded ballot-harvesting operation during the 2018 election cycle while working for Harris. Dowless' workers in rural Bladen County testified that they were directed to forge signatures, collect blank or incomplete ballots voters handed over, and even fill in votes for local candidates who hadn't earned them.

Harris' had previously said he never suspected his campaign could have deployed a vote-getting specialist who collected ballots by the bundle and turned them in when he wanted. But on Wednesday, the candidate's son, John Harris, said he'd warned his father about Dowless' operation since mid-2016.

John Harris said his warnings were overridden because local Republican figures recommended Dowless to Mark Harris, who was gearing up for a primary rematch against incumbent GOP U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger. Mark Harris and his wife met Dowless in April 2017, when the operative insisted his method for maximizing mail-in vote results was legal and grounded in local relationships, John Harris said Wednesday.

Mark Harris, Republican candidate in North Carolina's 9th Congressional race, listens to testimony during the third day of a public evidentiary hearing on the 9th Congressional District voting irregularities investigation Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019, at the North Carolina State Bar in Raleigh, N.C. (Travis LongThe News & Observer via AP, Pool)

Local politicians knew and had used Dowless since at least 2010, and the community had even voted him to a local soil and water conservation board, Harris' lawyer, David Freedman, said. Harris largely went along with those local recommendations, the attorney said.

"I think he's much too trusting," Freedman said.

Mark Harris previously told The Associated Press he sought out and hired Dowless because he delivered votes, including for a Republican rival in the 2016 GOP primary. Harris said he discussed with an attorney after that primary whether to challenge Dowless' incredible results for a GOP rival with mail-in ballots in Bladen County. Dowless' methods in the 2016 general election were referred to federal prosecutors, who took no action.

Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, listens to testimony during the third day of a public evidentiary hearing on the 9th Congressional District voting irregularities investigation Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019, at the North Carolina State Bar in Raleigh, N.C. (Travis LongThe News & Observer via AP, Pool)

Since October, John Harris has worked as a federal prosecutor in the civil division of the same U.S. Justice Department office in Raleigh. He said he was testifying voluntarily in his capacity as a private citizen and not as a Justice Department employee.

His son's testimony, paired with TV and other interviews Mark Harris gave denying any prior knowledge of a contractor who made illegal vote-getting his business, undercut his claims of truthfulness, McCready attorney Marc Elias said Wednesday.

"Now we know that he was warned by his son in quite stark terms and over both phone and in emails," he said. "We know that what Dr. Harris has been telling us, which is that no one warned him, is patently untrue."

Harris decided to hire Dowless over his son's warnings not because a former judge or other local Republicans recommended him, but because Dowless had gotten votes in the past, Elias said.

"He wanted the same kind of abnormal, fraudulent results that he had been the victim of. And this time, McCrae Dowless was going to be on his team," Elias said.

Follow Emery P. Dalesio on Twitter at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/emery%20dalesio .

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)