Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, incarcerated in Michigan, accused the music mogul of sexual assault 27 years ago
Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs have moved to overturn a $100m judgment awarded this week to a Michigan prison inmate who accused the music mogul of sexual assault 27 years ago.
Two emergency motions filed at Lenawee county’s circuit court accuse Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith of launching a “frivolous” lawsuit against the entertainer, who they insist he never met.
Continue reading...Trump promises to end electric vehicle mandate. Harris has been silent, risking swing state autoworkers’ critical votes
As the critical swing state of Michigan hangs in the balance, experts warn that Democrats’ poor messaging over the shift to electric vehicles could lose them the state in November’s election.
“I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one, thereby saving the US auto industry from complete obliteration, which is happening right now,” Donald Trump told the Republican national convention in a speech this summer that would reach tens of millions of people.
Continue reading...James Shirah, 22, allegedly ran over groomsman with SUV, mortally wounding him, following argument on 30 August
A newly married couple from Michigan were arrested only hours after their wedding because the groom allegedly used a car to intentionally run over and kill one of his groomsmen, according to local police.
The groom, 22-year-old James Shirah of Flint, allegedly ran over his groomsman with an SUV, mortally wounding him, following an argument on 30 August, the Flint police department said on Facebook.
Continue reading...Court worker secretly recorded calls in which Kathleen Ryan made homophobic slur and called Black people lazy
A suburban Detroit judge is no longer handling cases after a court official turned over recordings of her making anti-gay insults and referring to Black people as lazy.
Oakland county probate judge Kathleen Ryan was removed from her docket on 27 August for unspecified misconduct. Now the court’s administrator has stepped forward to say he blew the whistle on her, secretly recording their phone calls.
Continue reading...Rulings upend plans in battleground as nation’s first absentee ballots in presidential contest were set for mailing
Robert F Kennedy Jr’s campaign for president failed – but his campaign to avoid being a spoiler in North Carolina and Michigan appears for the moment to be more successful.
The North Carolina court of appeals made a last-minute decision on Friday to remove Kennedy’s name from presidential ballots, creating a scramble to reprint ballots and begin sending them to voters.
Harris campaign raised $361m in August, triple the amount of Trump campaign
If Trump wins the election, it will doom our efforts to slow climate disaster
Continue reading...Amid close race, Harris to go on tour in Georgia as Trump surrogate insists state’s governor will back ex-president
As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump brace themselves for what promises to be an ugly and bruising sprint to the finishing line in November, both presidential candidates’ campaigns are turning their sights back on the handful of desperately close swing states where the battle is likely to be decided.
Georgia is coming into view as a critical battleground for both leaders as they struggle to gain voters’ attention in an epochal election. On Wednesday, the vice-president will travel from the White House to southern Georgia to hold her first campaign event in the state with her recently anointed running mate and former high school football coach, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.
Continue reading...Ex-president falsely claims US is in grip of violent crime wave, and vows to shield officers from legal accountability
Donald Trump has pledged to shield police officers from legal accountability if he is re-elected as president after falsely claiming the US is in the grip of a wave of violent crime that he blamed on the Black Lives Matter movement and migrants crossing the Mexican border.
Speaking to police officers in Michigan on Tuesday, the former president sought to pin responsibility for the imagined crisis on his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, who he characterised as among “Marxist district attorneys” with a record of being anti-police and pro-criminal during her term as the DA in San Francisco in the 2000s.
Continue reading...Crucial states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan are now leaning Democratic according to a NYT/Siena poll
A major new poll puts Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump in three key swing states, signaling a dramatic reversal in momentum for the Democratic party with three months to go until the election.
The vice-president leads the ex-president by four percentage points in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, 50% to 46%, among almost 2,000 likely voters across the three states, according to new surveys by the New York Times and Siena College.
Continue reading...Pro-militia and election denying Republican will continue 20-year run as sheriff in Barry county
Dar Leaf, the prominent election-denying sheriff of Barry county, Michigan, and leader in the rightwing “constitutional sheriffs” movement, will win his Republican primary by a wide margin, according to unofficial vote totals.
No Democrats filed to run, so Leaf is likely to continue serving as sheriff.
Continue reading...‘Blue wall’ states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin could decide the outcome of November’s election
Of all the lessons Kamala Harris’s campaign will have learned from Hillary Clinton’s botched run for president eight years ago, among the most important is that it’s better to talk about jobs than guns in the three rust belt states that hold the key to the White House.
The peculiarities of the US’s electoral college will almost certainly see November’s presidential election decided by voters in just seven states. Four – Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia – lie in the southern sun belt.
Continue reading...Sole Palestinian American in Congress protests as other progressives call for Israel arms embargo and Gaza ceasefire
Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit and address to a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday was met with a personal protest in the chamber by the sole Palestinian American member of Congress, while some lawmakers gave the Israeli prime minister a standing ovation, others stayed away, and demonstrations by thousands of protesters took place outside.
The Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib, a leading progressive Democrat and fiercely outspoken opponent of Israel’s war in Gaza, held up a sign that said “war criminal” as Netanyahu was speaking. She also wore a Palestinian flag pin and a keffiyeh, the black and white scarf that has been linked with the Palestinian struggle for over half a century.
Continue reading...In first rally with running mate JD Vance, ex-president jibes at leadership chaos within Democratic party
Donald Trump launched a full-throated attack on Democratic rivals Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday as he returned to the campaign trail a week after surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In his first rally since the shocking shooting, and his first with new running mate Ohio senator JD Vance, Trump appeared on stage with the conspicuous white ear bandage he wore during the Republican national convention replaced by a smaller covering. He referred to the assassination attempt as a “horrific event” and said he stood before supporters “by the grace of God. I shouldn’t be here, but let’s face it, something very special happened.”
Continue reading...The former president and his running mate, JD Vance, will hold a joint rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Republican nominee Donald Trump will hold his first public campaign rally since a shocking assassination attempt a week ago by appearing in a crucial rust belt battleground state alongside his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance.
The return to the campaign trail by Trump comes after the attempted killing of the former US president at a Pennsylvania rally last Saturday when a 20-year-old gunman opened fire, injuring Trump and others and killing one rally-goer.
Continue reading...The Michigan city’s residents ask ‘where is the humanity?’ as war in Gaza rages on. Some won’t vote this fall in protest
Abu Bilal sits quietly on a stool in Oriental Fashion, a clothing store he owns on Dearborn’s Warren Avenue, listening to the radio. It’s hard to ascertain whether his tone when talking about the war in Gaza is one of near-complete defeatism or seething anger.
“Ninety people were killed today; hundreds were injured,” he says, referencing an Israeli airstrike that killed dozens of Palestinian civilians in Khan Younis on Saturday.
Continue reading...Hakeem Jeffries reveals ‘candid’ talks with president about 2024 future as another top Democrat urges Biden to pull out
Joe Biden delivered a defiant speech on Friday evening in the battleground state of Michigan, firmly dismissing the doubt swirling around his survival as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Biden held a rally at a high school gymnasium in Detroit as part of his visit to the critical swing state that chose Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. He walked on stage to audience chants of “don’t you quit” and addressed the speculation head on: “I am running, and we’re gonna win,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Michigan governor and potential Biden replacement writes in memoir True Gretch of desire for ‘face-to-face’ talks
Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan widely spoken of as a possible Democratic candidate for president should Joe Biden cede to growing pressure and leave the race, wants to meet members of a far-right militia who plotted to kidnap and kill her.
“I asked whether I could meet with one of the handful of plotters who’d pleaded guilty and taken responsibility for their actions, just to talk,” Whitmer writes in a new book, of the plot motivated by resistance to Covid public health measures and revealed with 13 arrests in late 2020.
Continue reading...Daily text messages and phone calls check on farm workers who work with cows that have tested positive for H5N1
As questions swirl about the spread of bird flu among livestock and people, one US state – Michigan – has taken the lead on monitoring and studying the outbreak.
Other states have seemed wary of tracking cases among animals and people, but Michigan has taken a proactive approach, with daily text messages and phone calls to check on farm workers who work with cows that have tested positive for H5N1. They also have offered free tests if symptoms develop.
Continue reading...Residents rescued by boat as Governor Kim Reynolds declares disaster in 21 counties in north of state
Floodwaters forced people out of their homes in parts of Iowa, the result of weeks of rain, while much of the US longed for relief on Saturday from yet another round of extraordinary heat.
Sirens blared at 2am in Rock Valley, Iowa, population 4,200, where people in hundreds of homes were told to get out as the Rock River could no longer take rain that has slammed the region. The city lacked running water because wells were unusable.
Continue reading...Police say eight-year-old shot in head is in critical condition and shooter Michael William Nash died by suicide
Nine people, including two children, have been shot and wounded at a city-run water park near Detroit in what appeared to be a random attack, police have said.
Two children were among the victims, including an 8-year-old who was shot in the head and is in critical condition, after a shooter opened fire at the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad park, where families had gathered to escape the summer heat.
Continue reading...Meteorologists warn that heat will spread east through the week, with ‘heat dome’ expected to trap high temperatures
Millions of Americans are facing “dangerously hot conditions”, the National Weather Service said, with a heatwave set to hit the midwest and north-east US from Monday.
Michigan, Ohio and western Pennsylvania were all under heat warnings starting Monday, with alerts in place until Friday evening. Meteorologists warned that the heat will spread east through the week, with a “heat dome” expected to trap high temperatures across New York, Washington DC and Boston.
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