Susan Collins of Maine is among vulnerable Republican senators as polls indicate voters trust Biden more on justice picks
On the question of supreme court nominees, the Republican senator Susan Collins has repeatedly threaded the same political needle. It is one with a shrinking eye.
Related: Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed America long before she joined the supreme court | Moira Donegan
Continue reading...The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has sparked a titanic political fight that could shape the future of US supreme court decisions on abortion rights, voting rights and other fundamental issues for a generation.
Related: What does Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death mean for the supreme court?
Continue reading...The US president reacted with visible surprise when reporters informed him the 87-year-old supreme court justice had died. 'She led an amazing life,' Trump said after a rally in Minnesota. 'What else can you say? She was an amazing woman who led an amazing life. I'm actually saddened to hear that.'
Olivia Troye attacks Trump and says he called his own supporters ‘disgusting people’ he no longer had to shake hands with
The coronavirus pandemic moved to the centre of the US election again on Friday, as a former senior official on the White House taskforce turned on Donald Trump.
Related: 'He’s paying attention to people like us': Trump’s messages resonate in Wisconsin
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Kamala Harris, the Democratic party’s vice-presidential candidate, has paid tribute to Ginsburg, calling on the nation to fight for the late justice’s legacy.
Tonight we mourn, we honor, and we pray for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her family. But we also recommit to fight for her legacy.
Doug and I send our heartfelt prayers to Jane and James, and the entire Ginsburg family, particularly on this holy day of Rosh Hashanah. pic.twitter.com/SNyqZCznfv
With the stage set for an epic political battle over who will succeed Ginsburg, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell indicated that the vote will go ahead quickly.
Although McConnell did not give any specific timing, he implied that Trump’s nominee for the vacant position would be put to the vote before the election in November.
Related: Mitch McConnell vows US Senate will push on with Trump's pick to replace Ginsburg
Continue reading...WikiLeaks founder was asked to reveal source of leak damaging to Hillary Clinton, hearing told
Two political figures claiming to represent Donald Trump offered Julian Assange a “win-win” deal to avoid extradition to the US and indictment, a London court has heard.
Under the proposed deal, outlined by Assange’s barrister Jennifer Robinson, the WikiLeaks founder would be offered a pardon if he disclosed who leaked Democratic party emails to his site, in order to help clear up allegations they had been supplied by Russian hackers to help Trump’s election in 2016.
Continue reading...The most prominent US agency for delivering public health advice on Friday reversed key guidelines about who should get tested for coronavirus that were published just a month ago.
Related: Trump under fire for 'shocking' Covid failures as ex-adviser turns against him
Continue reading...Joe Biden has accused Donald Trump of 'close to criminal' behaviour by intentionally misleading the public over the scale of the threat posed by coronavirus. 'He knew it, and did nothing,' the former vice-president said at a CNN town hall event in Pennsylvania.
Biden said he did not trust Trump’s statements on the development of a vaccine, accusing the president of politicizing the issue for the sake of his re-election.
'I don’t trust the president on vaccines. I trust Dr Fauci,' Biden said. 'We should listen to the scientists, not to the president.'
Continue reading...Fellow accuser E Jean Carroll leads chorus of voices supporting former model
A prominent American former magazine columnist who accused Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s has joined a chorus of voices supporting the latest woman to accuse Trump of sexually assaulting her, Amy Dorris.
Dorris, a former model and actor, said in a Guardian interview published on Thursday that Trump had forced his tongue down her throat and groped her at the 1997 US Open.
Continue reading...This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks with the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief David Smith about why Joe Biden is seemingly doing better than Hillary Clinton did in the polls in 2016
This week, the question is: “Why is Biden polling better than Clinton did in 2016?” Polls don’t necessarily determine who will win an election, as anyone who lived through the 2016 election knows – Democrats especially.
However, it is noticeable that Joe Biden has had a consistent lead over Donald Trump for the last 12 months and that when polls are averaged out, he is 6.2% ahead. Around the same time in 2016, Hillary Clinton’s lead over Trump was just 1%. So, what is causing this bump in numbers for Biden?
Continue reading...Donald Trump railed against what he called a 'leftwing revolution' in schools and universities teaching about slavery and colonialism, as he signed an executive order to promote 'patriotic education' in the US. Critics immediately accused the president of attempting to rewrite America's historical legacy of slavery to appeal to his core base of white voters.
'The left has warped, distorted, and defiled the American story,' Trump said at a history conference in Washington DC. 'We want our sons and daughters to know they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world'
The president announced the 1776 Commission, which would teach students ‘about the miracle of American history’
Donald Trump on Thursday launched an extraordinary attack on American education at a history conference in Washington DC, downplaying America’s historic legacy of slavery and claiming children have been subjected to “decades of leftwing indoctrination”.
Speaking at what was dubbed the White House Conference on American History, the president intensified efforts to appeal to his core base of white voters with a historically revisionist speech, while blasting efforts to address systemic racism as divisive.
Continue reading...Christopher Wray, the FBI director, on Thursday warned that Russia is interfering in the 2020 US presidential elections with a steady stream of misinformation aimed at undermining Democrat Joe Biden as well as sapping Americans’ confidence in the election process.
Moscow is also attempting to undercut what it sees as an anti-Russian US establishment, Wray told the Democratic-led House of Representatives’ homeland security committee in a hearing on Capitol Hill.
Continue reading...Amy Dorris alleges she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump in 1997, when she was 24. Speaking publicly about the alleged incident for the first time, the former model claims Trump grabbed her as she came out of the bathroom of his VIP box at the US Open tennis event, forced his tongue down her throat and held her in a grip from which she could not escape. Trump's lawyers said he denied in the strongest possible terms having ever harassed, abused or behaved improperly toward Dorris
Continue reading...Exclusive: Amy Dorris alleges Trump forced his tongue down her throat and groped her at 1997 US Open
A former model has come forward to accuse Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her at the US Open tennis tournament more than two decades ago, in an alleged incident that left her feeling “sick” and “violated”.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Amy Dorris alleged that Trump accosted her outside the bathroom in his VIP box at the tournament in New York on 5 September 1997.
Continue reading...US president predicts that at least 100m doses of a coronavirus vaccine can be distributed by the end of 2020, contradicting a top government health official Trump dismisses as confused.
Hours earlier, Robert Redfield, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said a Covid-19 vaccine could be broadly rolled out by the middle of next year or a little later.
‘No I think he made a mistake when he said that,’ Trump says. ‘That’s incorrect information. ‘I think he just misunderstood the question, probably.’
President warns any agreement to continue operating in US must be ‘100% as far as national security is concerned’
Donald Trump has questioned plans by the Chinese tech firm ByteDance to keep a majority stake in TikTok’s US operations as part of a “trusted technology deal” with Oracle.
“Conceptually I can tell you that I don’t like that,” Trump told a news conference when asked about a reported proposal to give Oracle only a minority share. “I’m not prepared to sign off on anything. They’re going to be reporting to me tomorrow morning and I’ll let you know.”
Continue reading...Dr Robert Redfield, testifying before a Senate subcommittee, suggested face masks may be even more effective than a vaccine in limiting the spread of the coronavirus.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said face masks are 'the most important, powerful public health tool we have'
Senior health officials appear to be offering conflicting timelines on when a coronavirus vaccine will be widely available to the American public.
CDC director Robert Redfield just told senators that the vaccine would not be widely available until “late second quarter, third quarter 2021.”
CDC Director Robert Redfield also told senators that he did not expect a coronavirus vaccine to be widely available to the American public until “late second quarter, third quarter 2021.”
JUST IN: CDC Director Robert Redfield says at a Senate hearing he sees a #Covid19 vaccine being "generally available to the American public" in the "late second quarter, third quarter 2021" pic.twitter.com/8w2904TGhN
Continue reading...In her first ‘state of union’ speech, European commission president delivers criticism of Polish ruling party
The head of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has said Poland’s “LGBT free zones” are “humanity-free zones” that have no place in the European Union in her strongest criticism yet of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party.
In a wide-ranging 77-minute speech spanning from coronavirus to the climate emergency, Von der Leyen pledged to build “a union of equality” and criticised European member states that watered down EU foreign policy messages on human rights.
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