Indigenous communities demand that Morales be allowed to run as presidential candidate in the 2025 elections.

On Sunday, Bolivian President Luis Arce called former President Evo Morales (2006-2019) to a dialogue just hours before a massive Indigenous march is set to arrive in La Paz on Monday. The Indigenous communities demand that Morales be allowed to run as the candidate for the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) in the 2025 elections.

“They’ve talked about civil war and bloodshed in the streets. This goes beyond our norms of peaceful coexistence and even masks a political position of sedition that no government would tolerate. Until now, our government has responded to these provocations with a call for dialogue,” Arce stated, accompanied by Vice President David Choquehuanca.

In recent hours, the Office of the Ombudsman issued an invitation to Arce and Morales, urging both parties to sit down and talk before the march reaches La Paz. Arce said he is willing to engage in discussions, while Morales has yet to respond.

On Sunday afternoon, the march, led by the former Bolivian president, arrived in the community of Achica Arriba, 35 kilometers from La Paz, with the intention of entering the government headquarters on Monday. Simultaneously, tensions arose in the city of El Alto between Morales supporters and those backing Arce, who were holding a meeting to stop the former president’s march.

“The persistence of your positions and your refusal to dialogue make us see that you are driven only by a political obsession for electoral power and a personal ambition for power, disguised as a nonexistent concern for the people’s problems,” Arce said, addressing Morales.

The Indigenous organizations’ march began on Tuesday in the town of Caracollo, in the Andean region of Oruro, demanding Morales’ eligibility as a candidate for the 2025 elections. Moreales’ supporters argue that the march is meant to “save the country” from issues like the shortage of dollars and fuel, as well as the rising prices of basic goods.

They also demand that the resolutions from a MAS congress held last year—unrecognized by the Electoral Tribunal—be respected, including the decision to nominate Morales as the candidate for next year.

Arce believes that the march is aimed at getting the Senate president Andronico Rodriguez, who is close to the MAS leader, to assume the presidency of the country so that he can enable Morales’ candidacy.

Morales and Arce have been estranged since the end of 2021 due to differences in state administration, which deepened with the need to renew MAS’s national leadership, still under the former president’s control. Factions loyal to both leaders have been unable to reach an agreement on this issue.

Police are investigating what they’re calling “malicious destruction of property” after a bookstore’s glass door was shattered recently in downtown Three Rivers.

The store’s owner and the founder for the city’s Pride festival said they are worried there’s more to the case. 

On the morning of Sept. 20, Tom Lowry and his bookstore staff say they found that one of the side doors was left shattered. 

“Our very first customer, after she checked out said, ‘I’m sorry about your window,’ and so we all walked outside to look at it,” said Lowry.

The splintered glass obscured the poster for the Netflix show “Heartstopper,” a comedy drama with a gay teen couple as a major part of the plot.

Lowry said the team then posted about the incident on their Facebook page.

“We at Lowry’s are very sad to see our store damaged due to hatred. We as a bookstore spread love and diversity and will not stop doing such,” the post read.

The support flooded in online and in person.

“I’ve had people actually walk into the store for the last 10 days, not only had they posted but also they wanted to hear it personally from them. Some of them I’ve never knew before. So they have driven here from Kalamazoo or somewhere just to state that to me. So I am overwhelmed by the support we have received,” said Lowry. 

The Three Rivers police Department told News 8 the case is being investigated as a malicious destruction of property. They add that pride flags near the business were left undamaged. Police say because Lowry is the city’s mayor, the act could have been from a citizen with issues with local government.

But both Lowry and the founder of Three Rivers Pride believes the motive was anti-gay. 

“To me, its demonstrative of the hatred that simmers out there. There’s a certain amount of anti-gay feelings here and there is anywhere. It’s our gut feeling that it’s anti-gay.”

Andrew George, the Founder of Three Rivers Pride and chairman for the Downtown Three Rivers Board, echoes Lowry. 

“This type of stuff doesn’t happen hardly ever. So it does seems very targeted. So that’s a little bit alarming. Overall, I feel that we have a very safe downtown,” said George. 

Last week, the glass was replaced with the poster back up. This time, accompanied with pride flags. George said it’s a message of support for the LGBTQ+ community in Three Rivers. 

“We are going to continue to fight against these types of issues. We are going to continue to hold Three Rivers Pride Festival as long as we can,” said George. 

Three Rivers Police are asking anyone with information that could aid the investigation to reach out to the department at 269.278.1235.

Donald Trump has said he will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York on Friday. The Republican presidential nominee told a news conference that the pair will meet around 09:45 ET (14:45 BST) at his Trump Tower property.

The meeting is set to go ahead despite earlier reports it had been cancelled amid growing anger from senior Republicans after Zelensky earlier visited the key swing US state of Pennsylvania.

On Thursday, Zelensky met US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris at the White House to discuss his "victory plan", which he hopes will pressure Russia into agreeing a diplomatic end to the war.

"President Zelensky has asked to meet with me, and I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning," Trump told reporters in New York. "And it's a shame what's happening in Ukraine. So many deaths, so much destruction. It's a horrible thing."

Trump said he believed he would be able to "make a deal" between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky "quite quickly". When pushed to provide details of such a deal, he replied: "I don't want to tell you what that looks like".

The former US president was speaking after Zelensky had earlier met Biden and Harris. Hours before, Biden had announced a further $7.9bn (£5.9bn) package of military assistance to Ukraine.

Speaking alongside the Ukrainian president after their meeting, Harris said there are "some in my country" that would "force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory".

"These proposals are the same of those of Putin," she said, calling them "proposals for surrender". Asked at the news conference by a reporter whether Ukraine should cede land to Russia to end the war, Trump did not answer directly.

"Let's get some peace," he said. "We need peace. We need to stop the death and destruction." Friday's meeting comes amid tension between Zelensky and the Republican party ahead of November's US presidential election.

Some Republicans were angered by Zelensky's visit to an arms factory in Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, with top Democrats this week, including its governor Josh Shapiro.

Zelensky's visit to the key swing state was labelled by leading Republicans as a partisan campaign event. In a public letter, speaker of the US House Mike Johnson said the visit was "designed to help Democrats" and claimed it amounted to "election interference".

Trump and Zelensky have a complicated relationship. In 2019, Trump was impeached by the US House over accusations that he pressured Ukraine's leader to dig up damaging information on a political rival. A rough transcript of the call revealed Trump had urged Zelensky to investigate Biden, as well as Biden's son.

Trump has also grown increasingly critical of continued US funding for Ukraine, and in recent days has sharpened his attacks against Zelensky, calling him the “greatest salesman on Earth”.

Zelensky recently told the New Yorker magazine that he believe Trump "doesn't really know how to stop the war". When asked about Zelensky's comments on Thursday, Trump replied: "I do believe I disagree with him. He doesn't know me."