Joe Biden to begin fundraising to build presidential library in Delaware

Effort could be a tough task in current political climate, with Trump maligning ex-president and left-leaning groups daily

Former US president Joe Biden has decided to build his presidential library in Delaware and has tapped a group of former aides, friends and political allies to begin the heavy lift of fundraising and finding a site for the museum and archive.

The Joe and Jill Biden Foundation this past week approved a 13-person governance board that is charged with steering the project. The board includes former secretary of state Antony Blinken, longtime adviser Steve Ricchetti, prolific Democratic fundraiser Rufus Gifford and others with deep ties to the one-term president and his wife.

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Joe Biden to begin fundraising to build presidential library in Delaware

Effort could be a tough task in current political climate, with Trump maligning ex-president and left-leaning groups daily

Former US president Joe Biden has decided to build his presidential library in Delaware and has tapped a group of former aides, friends and political allies to begin the heavy lift of fundraising and finding a site for the museum and archive.

The Joe and Jill Biden Foundation this past week approved a 13-person governance board that is charged with steering the project. The board includes former secretary of state Antony Blinken, longtime adviser Steve Ricchetti, prolific Democratic fundraiser Rufus Gifford and others with deep ties to the one-term president and his wife.

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Democrats call for firing of January 6 defendant who works at justice department

Jared Wise, a DoJ senior adviser, urged fellow rioters to kill police officers during the 2021 Capitol attack

A January 6 defendant who urged fellow rioters to kill police officers should be fired from his job at the justice department, three senate Democrats wrote in a letter to US attorney general Pam Bondi on Wednesday.

Earlier this year, the defendant, Jared Wise, was hired as a counselor to Ed Martin, a prominent January 6 defense lawyer who is leading a so-called weaponization working group inside the justice department that is targeting Trump’s political rivals. The scope of Wise’s role remains unclear.

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Democrats blast state department for lack of ‘basic oversight’ of controversial Gaza food organization

Letter by senior Democrats asks state department to reveal details behind financing of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

Senior Democratic senators have called on the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to reveal details behind the financing and oversight of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) amid concerns over rising death tolls near aid sites, the group’s apparent coordination with the Israeli army and its reported use of private military contractors linked to intelligence operations.

The letter, co-signed by senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Welch, accuses the state department of an “inability to answer basic questions about GHF in a timely manner” and said that the department’s “overriding of internal protocol and staff warnings is particularly concerning given it is unlikely to be able to conduct basic oversight of the funds it provided to GHF”.

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JB Pritzker calls for ‘all to stand up’ to Trump’s immigration crackdown in Chicago

President is preparing for controversial federal takeover of US city in crusade against immigration ‘sanctuary cities’

Illinois’s governor JB Pritzker has called on “all to stand up” to Donald Trump as the US president prepares to launch a federally led immigration crackdown across Chicago, a plan which has been met with widespread backlash from local leaders and the public.

Pritzker’s comments come as White House officials vow to target Chicago next in its sweeping immigration crackdowns across the country. Recently, the White House requested that a US military base on the outskirts of Chicago assist with immigration operations as the Trump administration plans a broader takeover of Democratic-run “sanctuary cities”.

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Bernie Sanders demands that RFK Jr step down as health secretary

Vermont senator says Kennedy is endangering the health of the American people as head of the US health department

Bernie Sanders has joined in on growing public calls for Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to resign, after recent chaos across US health agencies.

In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday, the Vermont senator accused Kennedy of “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future”, adding: “He must resign.”

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The Pennsylvania Democrat marching for public transit: ‘Time honoured American tradition’

Malcolm Kenyatta is on a 105-mile march to highlight drastic cuts to the stat’s regional public transport services

“The best part of this is I get to eat as many carbs as possible,” jokes Malcolm Kenyatta, who has lost 100lbs over the past two years. “I had a bagel already, I’m eating snacks, I’m having a good time.”

The Democratic state representative was speaking by phone from Broomall, Pennsylvania, on Friday, around 12 miles into a one-man, 105-mile march from Philadelphia to Harrisburg in protest to drastic cuts to regional public transport services.

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Fulton county election board faces $10,000 a day fine for not appointing Republicans

Democrats voted against appointing two candidates known for election denialism and voter registration challenges

The Fulton county commission in Georgia will be fined $10,000 a day for violating a court order to appoint two Republicans associated with Trump-aligned groups pushing voter fraud conspiracies to the county’s election board.

The county charter states that commissioners “shall” appoint two Republicans and two Democrats nominated by their respective county party chairperson, for two-year terms. When commissioners rejected the nomination by Fulton county’s Republican party chair, the superior court judge David Emerson issued an order requiring the board to appoint them.

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Trump ‘manufactured crisis’ to justify plan to send national guard to Chicago, leading Democrat says

Pentagon official confirms plan as House minority leader Jeffries says president is ‘playing’ with Americans’ lives

Planning is underway to send national guard troops to Chicago, an official at the Pentagon confirmed to ABC News on Sunday.

“We won’t speculate on further operations. The Department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel,” a Department of Defense official said, according to ABC.

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Zohran Mamdani leads in fundraising for New York City mayoral contest

The Democratic nominee far outpaces former governor Andrew Cuomo and embattled incumbent Eric Adams

Zohran Mamdani pulled in almost double the funds of his nearest rivals for New York City mayor between early July and mid-August, as the candidates prepare for the crucial post Labor Day push to the November poll.

New York’s City’s campaign finance board said on Saturday that the democratic socialist, who won the Democratic party nomination in June against former state governor Andrew Cuomo, raised $1,051,200, with an average donation of $121 recorded equally from donors in and outside the state.

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Trump administration accused of wanting to revoke visas ‘based on speech, not conduct’ – US politics live

State department reviewing records of more than 55 million US visa holders for potential revocation

The US vice-president, JD Vance, previewed in Georgia on Thursday the lines of attack candidates will use to defend the president’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act in the midterms next year, calling it “the biggest tax cut for families that this country has ever seen”.

Vance touted an increase in the child tax credit, the elimination of taxes on overtime and on tips in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act while speaking in a warehouse for ATLA Refrigeration in Peachtree City, Georgia.

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California legislature approves first of three redistricting bills in response to Texas gerrymandering

Assembly passes measure 57-20, sending it next to the state senate before on to governor Gavin Newsom

The California assembly on Thursday approved the first in a series of three bills designed to redraw congressional boundaries and create five potential new Democratic US House seats.

The effort in California is an answer to the Republican redistricting push in Texas, sought by Donald Trump and aimed at tilting the map in his party’s favor before next year’s midterm elections.

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Texas Democrats tear ‘permission slips’ imposed by Republican house speaker

Lawmakers refuse to vacate house chamber to protest surveillance after they left state over GOP attempt to redraw maps

Texas Democrats are tearing up “permission slips” they signed in order to leave the chamber, joining state representative Nicole Collier ahead of Wednesday’s vote on the controversial Texas congressional redistricting maps.

The slips are part of new surveillance protocols set by Texas Republicans in the house chamber, stating that Democrats would “be granted written permission to leave only after agreeing to be released into the custody of a designated [Texas department of public safety] officer” who would ensure their return to the chamber.

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Department of Justice to begin handing over Epstein files to Capitol Hill – US politics live

DoJ agrees to provide Congress documents from the Epstein sex trafficking investigation, says House lawmaker on Monday

Today will be an arguably quieter day for the president – his only agenda item today is a bill signing at 1pm ET. This won’t be open to the press, but we’ll let you know if that changes.

Otherwise, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will hold a press briefing, also at 1pm ET today.

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Democrats are fighting fire with fire over redistricting – but will democracy burn?

Trump’s plan to boost Republican House seats in the midterms through gerrymandering has provoked a reaction

The mid-decade redistricting war looming between Republicans and Democrats is exposing an idea that’s corroding American democracy – voters may not matter that much in determining who controls the US House.

After Texas Republicans unveiled a Donald Trump-fueled plan to pick up five additional US House seats last month, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, unveiled a plan on Thursday to throw out districts drawn by an independent commission and put in place new ones that would add five Democratic seats in response. Republicans are also expected to push ahead with plans to redraw maps in Ohio, Missouri, Florida and possibly Indiana, in their favor.

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JD Vance’s attempt to blame Democrats

Vice-president tries to deflect criticism and blames Biden for doing ‘absolutely nothing’ about convicted sex offender

Four days after JD Vance reportedly asked top Trump administration officials to come up with a new communications strategy for dealing with the scandal around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he appears to have put his foot in it, sparking a new round of online outrage even as he tried to defuse the furor.

In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, the vice-president tried to deflect criticism of the administration’s refusal to release the Epstein files by blaming Democrats. He accused Joe Biden of doing “absolutely nothing” about the scandal when he was in the White House.

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Texas redistricting fight with Democrats ‘could last years’, threatens Greg Abbott

Governor warns lawmakers who left to foil redistricting plan that he coould call special session to extend battle

Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has stepped up his war of words with Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to foil an aggressive redistricting plan aimed at giving his Republican party five additional seats in Congress, saying on Sunday that the fight “could literally last years”.

Abbott issued his new threat on Fox News Sunday, saying that he would use his powers to call a special session of the Texas legislature to extend the battle indefinitely. The special session lasts 30 days, he said, “and as soon as this one is over, I’m going to call another one, then another one, then another one, then another one”.

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Kamala Harris says she doesn’t plan to return to ‘broken’ system of US politics

Former vice-president talked to Colbert in first interview since election, after declining bid for California governor

Kamala Harris has said that she currently has no desire to re-enter “the system” of American politics because it is “broken”.

On Thursday night the defeated Democratic party’s presidential nominee, who replaced Joe Biden late in the 2024 campaign after he dropped his re-election bid, gave her first interview since losing the election to Donald Trump, talking to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show.

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Democrats request copy of Epstein ‘birthday book’ that reportedly contains Trump poem

Ro Khanna and Robert Garcia seek ‘complete and unredacted copy’ of book from Epstein estate lawyers

House Democrats on Friday sent a letter to the attorneys representing the estate of Jeffrey Epstein requesting a copy of the so-called “birthday book” that reportedly contains a crude poem and doodle from Donald Trump in celebration of the late sex offender’s 50th birthday.

In the letter, California congressmen Ro Khanna and Robert Garcia say the contents of the book may be “essential” to congressional oversight of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein controversy. In the letter, they ask for a “complete and unredacted” copy of the book by 10 August.

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‘It’s really theft’: the Republican plan to redraw Texas maps – and grab more power

Democrats are livid over the governor’s plan to redraw districts at a time when Texas officials are supposed to be focused on recovery from the floods

A plan for Texas to redraw its congressional districts and gain five additional Republican seats barrels through flimsy legal arguments and political norms like a rough-stock rodeo bronco through a broken chute.

But the fiddly process of drawing the maps to Republicans’ advantage for 2026 may require more finesse than cowboy politics can produce.

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