On the presidential campaign trail

Published 12:00 am Sunday, July 12, 2015

Alicia Lopez Fernandez paints a pinata in the likeness of Donald Trump at her family’s store “Piñatas Mena Banbolinos” in Mexico City.

The pinata was a special order made after Trump’s comments that Mexican immigrants to the U.S. bring drugs and crime, and some are rapists.

Trump doubled down on those comments in appearances Saturday in Las Vegas and Phoenix, saying “These people wreak havoc on our population.”

A Reuters-Ipsos poll published Saturday showed Trump and Jeb Bush in a near dead heat at the top of a field of Republicans running for president.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton picked up the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers, the first national union to back a candidate for the 2016 primary.

The endorsement was not a surprise to close observers — the AFT had supported Clinton in 2008 instead of Barack Obama — but the early timing may be designed to give Clinton a boost against her surging rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Clinton will also lay out her economic agenda in a speech in New York on Monday, with a focus on boosting middle-class wages.

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