Alaska's Two Dan Sullivans, France's Mass Protests, and a Shooting Near a Florida Stadium

MayaOkay, I'm on my second coffee, and my brain is still buffering. Fair warning.

DavidSecond, Maya? It's barely past the opening music.

MayaHey, the news doesn't wait for my caffeine levels. I'm Maya, this is The Morning Rundown, and that's David next to me, who somehow looks awake.

DavidYears of practice. Faking it, mostly.

MayaSo we've got three stories today, and they're a mixed bag.

DavidMixed is right. There's a protest story out of France with a number that changed.

MayaWait, changed how?

DavidNice try. You'll hear it when we get there.

MayaFine. And then Alaska, where there's a legal fight over a Senate ballot, and yes, I said ballot like it's a normal word.

DavidIt is not. Two Dan Sullivans, Maya. Two.

MayaI'm going to need a whiteboard for that one, honestly.

DavidBring a second coffee. Actually, a third.

MayaOkay, but before any of that, we need to shift gears for a minute.

DavidYeah. The first one's heavier, and it's still developing.

MayaA shooting in Florida near a stadium, so let's start there.

DavidRight. Here's what we know, what we don't, and where the reporting still disagrees with itself.

MayaOkay, the Florida story: a shooting near a college stadium in Tallahassee Saturday night. CNN reported 11 people were shot, citing officials.

David11 on a weekend that's supposed to be a party.

MayaRight? And that's the part that gets me. It was homecoming weekend.

DavidWait, which school?

MayaFlorida A&M. The shooting happened near their stadium, not inside it, as far as the reporting shows.

DavidMm, and I'm guessing the number isn't the whole picture yet.

MayaNot even close to settled. The AP has a different count. Their report says at least 12 people were hurt.

DavidSo 11 shot versus 12 hurt. Is that a real disagreement or just two different yardsticks?

MayaHonestly, we can't tell from what we have. Shot and hurt aren't necessarily the same bucket, and early numbers can move, so we're giving you both.

DavidFair.

MayaHere's the detail that stopped me though. The AP says six of those hurt were children.

DavidSix kids.

MayaYeah.

DavidThat's a lot. Okay, what are police saying? Anybody in custody?

MayaPolice Chief Lawrence Revell told the AP no arrests had been made.

DavidSo as of that reporting, whoever did this is still out there.

MayaAs of that reporting, yes. I'd stress that because it may have changed by the time you hear this.

DavidLet me ask the other obvious question. What don't we know right now?

MayaQuite a bit. In what we've seen, there's no suspect described and no motive given. So if you see a theory floating around online today, treat it as a theory.

DavidRight, until someone on the record says it, it's just noise. What about the university?

MayaThe university said the campus remains safe, which, I mean, you can see why they'd lead with that with families and alumni in town for the weekend.

DavidSure. Parents are gonna be calling their kids anyway.

MayaRight, and I don't read that statement as a contradiction of anything. It's an institution trying to reassure people. It just doesn't answer who did this.

DavidWhich is the question everybody will keep asking until somebody is in custody.

MayaExactly. So that's where it stands. 11 shot per CNN, at least 12 hurt per AP, no arrests, and a lot of unanswered questions.

DavidWe'll keep an eye on it. Now, Europe. France has a number that has already changed, and it's about the protests.

MayaOh, that one's a shift. Go. Okay, so the number. BBC had the early version of this. They reported hundreds of thousands of people in the streets across France with protests in other European countries too.

DavidAnd the headline number was arrests, almost 1,000.

MayaAlmost 1,000 people arrested as clashes followed another day of mass protests. That was the earlier figure.

DavidWhich is a lot of handcuffs for one weekend.

MayaRight? But then it moved.

DavidHow far?

MayaCBS updated its report Sunday. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez put the arrest total at 1314.

DavidWait, really? That's roughly 300 more than the earlier figure, nearly a third higher.

MayaYep, so the almost 1,000 line is dead. Use the new one, though it's the interior minister's figure and the latest we have, not necessarily the last.

DavidMm. And what were they protesting? Because mass protests can mean anything.

MayaLiving costs and schools, per CBS. Prices and schools.

DavidOkay, that's a pretty ordinary kitchen table list, which makes the arrests more striking, honestly.

MayaTotally. Nobody's marching over something exotic. And then there's the crowd size, which is where it gets slippery.

DavidOh, I love a crowd count fight.

MayaSo the ministry counted about 410,000 protesters at roughly 298 events.

David300 events. So that's not one big march. It's all over the map.

MayaRight. Now, the CGT union says about 800,000.

DavidDouble.

MayaBasically double.

DavidI mean, come on. Same streets, same day, and one side's number is twice the other's?

MayaSo for scale, I wouldn't pick one. Somewhere between 400,000 and 800,000, and either way, it's a very large turnout.

DavidNow, the part I care about is where the trouble actually was because I picture burning Paris.

MayaSame, but CBS described Paris as calm. 64 arrests there.

David64 out of more than 1300.

MayaSo the bulk of the arrests happened elsewhere. Nice saw clashes with far-right extremists.

DavidHuh. That's a detail the headlines skip. It's not just one flavor of protester making trouble.

MayaRight, and I want to be measured here. Peaceful protest is a basic right, and most of the people out there were presumably just marching, but clashes and more than 1300 arrests make for a serious weekend, and most of the unrest wasn't in the capital.

DavidAgreed. Big, mostly ordinary grievances and trouble in certain places can both be true. Okay, last up, we're heading to Alaska for a lawsuit with a ballot quirk that makes it stranger than it sounds.

MayaOh, you mean the one with the doubled name? Okay, the Alaska one. The Justice Department sued over the Senate ballot, and its ranked choice, and two candidates are named Dan Sullivan. The Hill says the suit was filed Thursday in federal court in Alaska.

DavidQuick explainer for anyone who doesn't live in a ranked-choice state. Instead of picking one name, voters rank the candidates in order of preference.

MayaSo a second Dan Sullivan isn't just a name on a list, he's part of the ranking, too.

DavidAnd the DOJ's argument is basically a mix-up problem, right? Votes meant for the incumbent could land with Daniel J. Sullivan by mistake. CBS News laid out that side of it.

MayaWait, so it's about a voter hitting the wrong Dan?

DavidThat's the worry, and honestly, I mean, come on, it's not a crazy thing to worry about. Two identical names on one ballot, somebody in a hurry, somebody reading fast.

MayaTotally. I'd probably squint at it twice myself.

DavidFair enough. And in a ranking system, you're making more than one choice, so there's more places to slip. That's the intuition, anyway, and I'd call it an intuition, not a finding.

MayaRight. Nothing we've seen measures how many voters would actually get confused.

DavidWhich is why the framing matters. Attorney General Todd Blanche says DOJ isn't trying to stop ballots or certification.

MayaMm-hmm.

DavidBut CBS reports his line is that the goal is to preserve ballots so Alaska officials can assess whether voters were confused.

MayaOkay, but then why does the headline say "block the result"?

DavidBecause the suit is aimed at what happens if the incumbent loses. That's the part critics fixate on.

MayaTo be fair, the administration's stated position is narrower than the headline.

DavidRight. Their stated position is about preserving ballots. Whether that's the whole story is what the critics and the court will argue about.

MayaAnd the other side has a lot to say. Alaska Beacon reports that Trump told reporters he ordered the suit himself.

DavidHuh. That's not nothing.

MayaNo. And the complaint calls Daniel J. Sullivan's candidacy frivolous and says it's meant to confuse voters.

DavidSo what does the other Sullivan say?

MayaHe says he ran because he was dissatisfied with the senator, and he says he has no tie to Peltola.

DavidWhich is a pretty normal reason to run, if you think about it. Politics is mostly people being annoyed.

MayaRight. And the Beacon piece says legal experts dismissed the federal argument.

DavidAll of them?

MayaThe piece says legal experts, so I'll leave it there. I won't stretch it to every lawyer in America.

DavidGood, because, you know, the DOJ isn't wrong that a duplicate name is a real design problem. Whether it's a legal problem is another matter.

MayaThat's the distinction. A confusing ballot is one thing. A federal lawsuit over it is a separate question, and that's where the skeptics are pushing.

DavidAnd where the administration says it's just trying to keep the evidence, the ballots, intact.

MayaNow the stakes. The Hill says Peltola narrowly leads in recent polls.

DavidIn a state Trump won by double digits. That's why everybody's watching.

MayaRight, and the race matters to the fight for Senate control, so every ballot gets looked at.

DavidAnd a narrow lead is the kind of thing where people start worrying about every little factor, including a name.

MayaWhich, again, is a reason to be careful. A close race makes every claim feel bigger than it might be.

DavidAnd the DOJ alleges the second Sullivan entered to mislead the incumbent's supporters.

MayaPeltola's camp denies any involvement with his campaign.

DavidOf course they do. But he says the same thing. So on the record, nobody's connecting those dots.

MayaNo, and nobody's produced a link in what we've seen.

DavidHmm, careful.

MayaAlways. Now the response. NBC News reports attorneys for Peltola and Senate Democrats filed a motion Friday.

DavidAsking for what?

MayaAsking a federal judge to dismiss the suit.

DavidAnd has the judge ruled?

MayaNothing reported yet, so it's sitting there.

DavidSo walk me through where we are. Suit filed Thursday, a motion to dismiss on Friday, and nothing from the bench in what we have.

MayaRight, and that's the honest timeline. It's early, and the story could look different in a few days.

DavidSo here's where I land. The administration's ballot confusion concern gets a fair hearing. Two Dans, one line each. That's a real question for election officials.

MayaBut legal experts are skeptical that a federal lawsuit is the way to answer it.

DavidRight, and that's not ours to settle. The court will decide.

MayaWell, that's our cue. Over to you for the close. Okay, so three stories, and honestly, none of them are tied up in a bow.

DavidNot even close. Tallahassee first. The injury count was still moving when we last looked, and nobody had been arrested.

MayaMm. That one sits heavy.

DavidIt does. And behind every one of those counts are real people, so treat the numbers carefully. France is the opposite problem. The arrest tally already got revised once, so I'd expect another revision before anyone calls it final.

MayaWait, you think it goes up again?

DavidI think official numbers and a big, messy weekend tend to keep shifting. That's all.

MayaFair. And Alaska is the slow one, with the suit still pending.

DavidSlow, yes, which is why you should check the updates before you repeat any number you heard from us today. Some of them will be different by lunch.

MayaRight? Including yours, probably.

DavidIncluding mine, certainly. I'll be the one correcting myself next time.

MayaEspecially yours. I'm Maya, that's David, and this was the Morning Rundown. Go finish your coffee.