The president prepares to hold a rally in a city where, in 1921, up to 300 people were murdered in one of the most horrific acts of racist violence in US history
Brenda Alford stood at the spot where her grandfather’s business was burned to the ground.
Related: Why is Trump's comeback rally in Tulsa: the site of a massacre?
Continue reading...Donald Trump was willing to halt criminal investigations to “give personal favors to dictators he liked”, according to a new book written by his former national security adviser John Bolton.
Related: How Trump's missteps undermined the US's recovery from pandemic
Continue reading...Firm aims to double number of registered voters of previous drives and prevent ‘malicious’ interference
Facebook will launch “the largest voting information effort in US history” in the run-up to November’s general election, the company has said, aiming to help 4 million Americans register to vote with a new voting information centre.
That goal, spread across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, is double the number of voters registered as a result of its previous drives, in the 2016 and 2018 elections. The company is also hoping it can prevent a repeat of the foreign interference that plagued the last US presidential election.
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The lawsuit filed by the US against John Bolton aims to stop the former administration official “ from compromising national security by publishing a book containing classified information.”
But it states that “on or around” 27 April, Ellen Knight, who was reviewing Bolton’s manuscript, “had completed her review and was of the judgment that the manuscript draft did not contain classified information”.
Bolton’s book The Room Where It Happened will be a critical account of the Trump administration, according to the publisher.
Bolton “shows a president addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government”, according to Simon and Schuster.
Continue reading...A Virginia Republican congressman who angered social conservatives in his district when he officiated a gay wedding has lost his party’s nomination.
Related: The Skywalker window: what Democrats must do to destroy Trump's Death Star
Continue reading...Tens of thousands of Americans are dead from Covid-19, millions have lost their jobs but the president hopes adoring crowds will change the narrative
On the day that America reached a world record 2m coronavirus infections, Donald Trump announced a campaign rally and his deputy, Mike Pence, posted (then deleted) a tweet of campaign staff gathered indoors without face masks or physical distancing.
Related: It's the economy, stupid – but will Trump or Biden win the argument?
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The Fulton county district attorney’s office has opened an investigation into an incident in which Atlanta police shot and killed a man on Friday night. Police responded to reports that a man had fallen asleep in his car at a Wendy’s drive-thru and was blocking traffic. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) says the man was shot and killed after police tried to take him into custody. One report says the man tried to grab a police taser. The GBI is conducting its own investigation. Unverified reports on social media say the man who died was black.
JUST IN: The #FultonCounty DA’s statement about the @Atlanta_Police involved shooting Friday night. pic.twitter.com/Z3mwwvOnNz
Athletes at the University of Texas have asked the school song to be changed along with the names of buildings on campus.
“The recent events across the country regarding racial injustice have brought to light the systemic racism that has always been prevalent in our country as well as the racism that has historically plagued our campus,” the athletes said in a statement.
Continue reading...Joe Biden has predicted the military will escort Donald Trump from the White House should the president lose November’s election but refuse to leave office.
Biden, speaking to the Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, said that his single greatest concern is that the president will “try to steal this election”.
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The Guardian’s Vivan Ho reports from Houston, Texas:
Supporters of George Floyd stood outside the church in the punishing Houston humidity, waiting for the procession to Floyd’s final resting place.
Joe Biden expressed support for the Buffalo protester who was shoved to the ground by police officers, after Trump suggested the 75-year-old man might be an Antifa plant.
My Dad used to say there's no greater sin than the abuse of power.
Whether it's an officer bloodying a peaceful protester or a President defending him with a conspiracy theory he saw on TV.
I'm a Catholic – just like Martin. Our faith says that we can't accept either.
Related: Trump makes baseless claim about man, 75, shoved by police: ‘Could be a set-up?’
Continue reading...Equipment malfunctions and long waits to vote despite the state having encouraged people to vote by mail
Georgia voters immediately encountered hours-long lines and equipment malfunctions as they showed up to vote in person in the state’s primary races on Tuesday. Today is the latest high-stakes test of whether a state can hold an election during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tuesday also marked the first time Georgia was using new voting equipment, and voters reported malfunctions on Tuesday morning. The Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, tweeted that at some precincts no machines were working.
Continue reading...President’s latest decisions – deploying military forces against protesters, and the church photo op – are chipping away at his base
Donald Trump once famously boasted he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and not lose supporters. For years that seemed true.
Related: Trump reaches for Nixon playbook after protests that have rocked America
Continue reading...Former senior officials also worry Britain may be sidelined if Joe Biden becomes president
The UK’s special relationship with the US may end if Donald Trump wins a second term, some of the UK’s most senior retired diplomats and Conservative foreign policy specialists have said. They also say that if the Democrat Joe Biden wins, Washington may view the EU rather than the UK as its primary partner.
The anxious assessment of what is at stake for Britain in the US presidential election in November has been made on and off the record in a variety of seminars over the past month, and underlines concerns at Trump’s performance during the coronavirus pandemic. It also reflects diplomatic outreach to the UK by Biden’s chief foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken.
Continue reading...Ex-secretary of state and military leader during Bush presidencies becomes first major Republican to back Trump’s Democratic rival
Colin Powell endorsed Democratic former US vice-president Joe Biden on Sunday and said Donald Trump’s behaviour endangers democracy, becoming the first major Republican to publicly back Trump’s rival ahead of November’s election.
Powell, who led the US military during the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq under Republican former President George HW Bush and later led the Department of State under President George W Bush, said Trump has “drifted away” from the US Constitution and “lies about things”.
Continue reading...The president’s approval ratings have dipped sharply but he could still beat Biden
Voter disapproval of Donald Trump’s handling of the George Floyd protests and the Covid-19 pandemic, plus the accompanying economic meltdown, have undoubtedly hurt the president’s re-election chances.
But it’s unclear whether the damage is fatal. Could Trump, despite everything, still stage a comeback and beat the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden?
Continue reading...Former vice-president crosses delegate threshold in latest round of primaries as he campaigns largely from home
Joe Biden has officially captured the Democratic presidential nomination, crossing the delegate threshold to represent the party in a general election contest against Donald Trump.
The Associated Press called the nomination for the former vice-president on Friday night.
Continue reading...Despite the pandemic, the president can’t wait to get back packed rallies while his Democratic rival practices caution. Each thinks he has a winning strategy
Donald Trump wants to be nominated by a Republican national convention with all the trappings of a normal, packed event: the thronging crowds, the balloon drop, the scores of sideshow events. Meanwhile, former vice-president Joe Biden and senior Democratic officials are strongly considering a partially or completely virtual convention.
Related: Can Joe Biden convince protesters he would be a 'transformational' president?
Continue reading...‘It’s not enough to just be better than Trump’ Democratic hopeful told amid anti-racist uprising sparked by killing of George Floyd
Hours before peaceful protests against police brutality were forcibly dispersed so that Donald Trump could pose with a Bible in front of St John’s church, Joe Biden also went to church.
Head bowed, Biden prayed with community leaders at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church in his home town of Wilmington, Delaware. For days the nation had been convulsed over the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man pinned under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer for a fatal eight minutes and 46 seconds.
Continue reading...The post office could be key to people voting during the pandemic but perverse financial rules and Trump’s hostility put that at risk
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the United States post office had been atrophying from financial turmoil. Over the past decade, post offices have been closed across the country, rural mail delivery is stretched thin, and thousands of post office workers have been laid off.
The outgoing postmaster general recently warned that without immediate support the agency could run out of funds within the year, and in that case might need to shut down.
Continue reading...Joe Biden has addressed the killing of George Floyd and the protests that his death has sparked. During a speech in Philadelphia, the Democratic presidential candidate said Floyd’s last words, 'I can’t breathe', were a 'wake-up call for our nation'. Biden also sought to draw a clear distinction between himself and Donald Trump, saying the US president was 'part of the problem'
Continue reading...Trump is sowing doubt about mail-in voting at a time when it may be the safest way for people to cast their ballots
Donald Trump is escalating baseless attacks on mail-in voting in what appears to be an obvious effort to sow doubt about the fairness of the 2020 election.
The president has long made false accusations about voter fraud, claiming without evidence that 3-5 million Americans voted illegally in the 2016 election. But his barrage against mail-in voting is particularly alarming ahead of an election during the Covid-19 pandemic, where there is likely to be severely limited in-person voting and many Americans will probably vote by mail for the first time. Advocates worry voters who don’t want to risk their health and vote in person could also be swayed by Trump’s rhetoric, not feel comfortable voting by mail, and simply choose not to vote at all.
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