Donald Trump, Slipping in Polls, Warns of Stolen Election

Donald J. Trump has lashed out at fellow Republicans, calling them disloyal and far more difficult than Hillary Clinton.

He has griped openly about a rigged political system, saying Wednesday he has no respect for the nonpartisan Commission on
Presidential Debates and complaining about a defective microphone in the first debate.

And on Monday, at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., he worried the election could be stolen from him and singled out Philadelphia, a
city with a large African-American population, warning, We have to make sure were protected.

Mr. Trumps ominous claims of a stolen election which he often links to black, urban neighborhoods are not entirely new.
But in recent days, he has been pressing the theme with a fresh intensity, citing everything from the potential for Election Day
fraud to media bias favoring Mrs. Clinton to rigged debates.

The assertions - which coincide with Mr. Trumps decline in the polls in the wake of a shaky first debate performance
and accusations he forced himself on women - highlight concerns that he may not accept a Clinton victory, breaking from the
traditional decorum of defeated presidential candidates and undermining the legitimacy of the election result.

At rallies in recent days, Mr. Trump has become a candidate seething with excuses, perhaps the clearest manifestation of his
frustration with his current standing in the polls and the growing alarm within his campaign that a White House victory is slipping
away.

On Monday, on a trip through Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump began the day urging the almost entirely white crowd outside Pittsburgh
to show up to vote, warning about other communities that could hijack his victory.

Hillary Clinton has an 89% chance of winning the presidency.

Clinton
Trump

So important that you watch other communities, because we dont want this election stolen from us, he said. We
do not want this election stolen.

Later, at the evening rally in Wilkes-Barre, Mr. Trump raised more concerns about voting fraud: I just hear such
reports about Philadelphia, he said. I hear these horror shows, and we have to make sure that this election is not
stolen from us and is not taken away from us.

He added for emphasis: Everybody knows what Im talking about.

The crowd chanted an anti-CNN epithet as Mr. Trump attacked the crooked media.

The country has not had a presidential candidate from one of the two major parties try to cast doubt on the entire
democratic process and system of government since the brink of the Civil War, said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential
historian at Rice University.

I havent seen it since 1860, this threat of delegitimizing the federal government, and Trump is trying to say our
entire government is corrupt and the whole system is rigged, Mr. Brinkley said. And thats a secessionist,
revolutionary motif. Thats someone trying to topple the apple cart entirely.

Roger J. Stone Jr., a close confidant and informal adviser to Mr. Trump, has also highlighted fears of election
rigging. In an August column in The Hill,he wrote of voting machine manipulation. And during a panel Saturday at
this years New Yorker Festival, as he discussed the possibility of such tampering, Mr. Stone hedged when asked
whether he would advise Mr. Trump should he lose in November to concede the election and accept its
legitimacy.

As long as there is no irrefutable evidence of fraud, yes, he told his questioner. He should unless there is any
refutable evidence to the contrary.

Mr. Stone is one of the people behind Stop The Steal, a movement of 500 grass-roots volunteers who plan to stand
outside what they believe could be suspect precincts on Election Day and conduct their own exit polls to compare
against voting machine results.
 In an election in which Donald Trump has made it pretty clear that the Clintons are going to prison, I think they
would do anything to make sure they win it, even steal it, Mr. Stone said. But, he added, Trump cannot just lose
and say, They stole it. He has to have some tangible evidence and thats exactly what were trying to collect.

Democrats fear Mr. Trumps rhetoric, in the short term, will lead to voter suppression and, in the long term, could
have the corrosive effect of encouraging huge swaths of Americans to view Mrs. Clinton as an illegitimate president
if she is elected.

Hes using phrases like rigged election to incite his followers to rig the election by using tactics like voter
intimidation, and I dont think its particularly subtle, and I dont think he cares about the integrity of our elections,
said Stacey Abrams, the Democratic minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives.

Ms. Abrams, who is African-American and has worked on voting-rights issues, is also the founder of the New
Georgia Project, a voter registration and engagement effort in the state. She said Mr. Trump was employing a voter
intimidation model.

Just scare them away from the polling place, she said. Thats his crude form of voter suppression not
particularly artful, but effective.

The Clinton campaign is stressing to supporters that they expect voter participation to be higher and easier than in
previous elections but it has also begun recruiting election lawyers to help with voter protection efforts.

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We are prepared for anything in terms of how he chooses to conduct himself in the closing weeks of this campaign,
and that includes what is increasingly looking like a scorched-earth approach, said Brian Fallon, a spokesman for
the Clinton campaign. He is clearly trying to lay a foundation for challenging the legitimacy of the potential next
president, just as he sought to do with the nations first African-American president.

With less than a month until the election, Mr. Trumps litany of grievances has come fast and furious as he has
begun to slip again in the polls.

On Friday, Mr. Trump also asserted, without offering evidence, that the Obama administration was allowing illegal
immigrants to enter the country to vote in November, another example of how he claimed the election was being
rigged. Theyre letting people pour into the country so they can go and vote, Mr. Trump said at a meeting he held
in New York with the National Border Patrol Council, the union of border patrol agents.

There has been no evidence that the administration is delaying deportations of or intentionally letting in
immigrants so they can vote. (Illegal immigrants are barred from voting in federal elections.)

Mr. Trumps claims seem to be resonating among his supporters. At a campaign stop in Iowa on Tuesday, a woman
stood up and, her voice quavering, said she feared voter fraud before offering a stark call to action to Gov. Mike
Pence of Indiana, Mr. Trumps running mate.

If Hillary Clinton gets in, I myself, Im ready for a revolution because we cant have her in, the woman said.

Mr. Pence has emerged as Mr. Trumps most loyal defender. But the call to revolt was a step too far for him. Yeah,
dont say that, he said, shaking his right hand as if to try to brush away her comment.

He then tried for a more positive spin: Theres a revolution coming on November the 8th, he said. I promise
you.
Great White Fight: Scientists Feud Over Shark Tagging

A battle between state and nonprofit researchers is raging off Cape Cod, highlighting sensitivities in animal studies.

It's a shark-eat-shark world, and not just in the ocean. Scientific American reports that state and private researchers are feuding
over access to great whites off Cape Cod, with Massachusetts scientists alleging that the activities of a nonprofit research group
may be compromising their studies.

The state's research was recently covered in a National Geographicmagazine story that documents the return of great
whites to the coast of New England, where they had largely vanished over recent decades. The shark recovery was due to a
return of sealsfavorite prey for the sharksand strong legal protections.

Massachusetts shark biologist Greg Skomal told Scientific American that the activities of nonprofit group Ocearch have
been "extremely egregious." Ocearch has reportedly been chumming waters just outside of Skomal's study area, in an
effort to attract and then tag sharks.

But Skomal alleges those activities may alter the sharks' natural behavior and interfere with his research. On at least one
occasion, one of Skomal's research subjects has even been caught by Ocearch. (Learn more about the rise in sharks off
Cape Cod.)

Ocearch reportedly does not have a permit to operate in state waters but has paperwork for its activities in nearby federal
waters. Given the close proximity, Skomal has requested that Ocearch cease its activities in the region until his study
completes in a few years.

An Ocearch spokesperson responded to Scientific American that "our scientists have asked for but have not been provided
any details or evidence that the claim that Ocearch activities in federal waters in Massachusetts would disrupt any studies
in state waters."

National Geographic has also covered the work of Ocearch in the past, which has been catching and tagging sharks for
several years. The group is perhaps most famous for chronicling the long voyages of Mary Lee , a female great white with
her own Twitter following that has become a minor celebrity. Skomal had helped the group tag the big fish in 2012 and
2013.

The disagreements among the scientists underscores the difficulties and sensitivities involved in studying large marine
animals. Just last week, federal scientists announced that they were suspending tracking programs of orcas, after one
was killed in the Pacific Northwest after a botched darting attempt .

During a press conference last week, scientists said they need tracking data to better understand where large sea creatures
goand how we can better protect them from human impacts like pollution, ship collisions, and bycatch in fisheries. Yet
at the same time, the scientists said they were committed to minimizing harm to individual animals.

It's a tough balance that requires further study, they said.