Peggy Flanagan in line to be first US female Indigenous governor if Harris and Walz win

Walz can continue serving as Minnesota’s governor until the election, but if he and Harris are successful, Flanagan will take over

Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, could become the first US female Indigenous governor if Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, resigns from office. Walz can continue serving as the state’s governor until the November election, but if he and Harris are successful, Flanagan will take over his gubernatorial duties.

In fact, a series of firsts would be triggered should the Harris-Walz ticket win: Harris would become the nation’s first woman, first Black woman and first person of Indian descent to ascend to the country’s top office. Flanagan, already the highest-ranking Native woman in a state-level executive office, would become Minnesota’s first female governor and the first Indigenous woman to serve as governor of a US state. And Minnesota’s senate president, Bobby Joe Champion, would become Minnesota’s first Black lieutenant governor.

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Dar Leaf, Michigan’s ‘constitutional sheriff’, wins re-election by landslide

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.

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Cori Bush loses primary after pro-Israel groups spend millions to oust ‘Squad’ member

St Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell defeated Missouri’s first Black female member of Congress with about 51% of the vote

A prominent member of the progressive “Squad” in Congress, Cori Bush, has lost her Democratic primary in St Louis after pro-Israel pressure groups spent millions of dollars to unseat her over criticisms of Israel’s war on Gaza.

St Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell defeated Missouri’s first Black female member of Congress with about 51% of the vote. Bush took about 46%.

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The coach v the couch: key takeaways from the first Harris-Walz rally

Harris praises Walz’s time as a football coach as her VP pick says he’ll debate JD Vance ‘if he’s willing to get off the couch’

Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, to supporters at a packed, energetic rally at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The event, which kicks off a week-long tour through the most politically competitive US states, marks a new chapter for the Harris campaign after securing enough delegates to be the Democratic nominee.

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Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran charged in foiled plot to kill US leaders

Asif Merchant, 46, tried to recruit people for scheme to assassinate figures including Donald Trump, says FBI

A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran has been charged over a foiled conspiracy to carry out political assassinations on US soil, the justice department said on Tuesday as it disclosed what officials say is the latest murder-for-hire plot to target US public figures.

Asif Merchant, 46, sought to recruit people in the United States to carry out the plot in retaliation for the US killing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ top commander, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020, according to a criminal complaint.

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Tim Walz thanks Kamala Harris for ‘honor of a lifetime’ as she praises running mate for ‘fighting for middle-class families’ – live

Democrats welcome choice of Minnesota governor to be Harris’s running mate in race against Donald Trump and JD Vance

As we await Kamala Harris’s running mate announcement, Americans in some states are heading to the polls today.

Voters in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state will cast ballots in their congressional primaries today. Results in Michigan will be especially scrutinized, as the battleground state will play a key role in the presidential election.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) pumped more than $8.5m into the race in Missouri’s first congressional district in support of Bush’s rival, St Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell, through its campaign funding arm, the United Democracy Project (UDP). …

The UDP accounts for more than half of all the money spent on the race outside of the campaigns themselves. Much of it comes from billionaires who fund hardline pro-Israel causes and Republicans in other races, including some who have given to Donald Trump’s campaign.

With the support of 99% of all participating delegates in the virtual roll call, Vice-President Harris has historic momentum at her back as we embark on the final steps in officially certifying her as our Party’s nominee.

We thank the thousands of delegates from all across the country who took seriously their responsibility throughout this process to make their voices – and the voices of their communities – heard.

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Polls show Kamala Harris moving ahead of Donald Trump in 2024 US election

Recent national head-to-head polls favor Harris, but polls battleground states present a more mixed picture

As Kamala Harris named Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, as her running mate, recent polls showed the vice-president moving ahead of Donald Trump in the race for the White House.

Among recent national head-to-head polls, SurveyUSA put Harris up three points ahead of Trump, 48%-45%; Morning Consult put her up four points, 48%-44%; YouGov and CBS News made it a one-point Harris lead, 50%-49%; and University of Massachusetts Amherst put Harris up three, 46%-43%.

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US governor tells parents kids can ‘not look’ at Ten Commandments in schools

Louisiana’s Jeff Landry was defending a law requiring display of text in all public schools starting next year

The far-right Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, has told parents who don’t want the Ten Commandments hung in up classrooms across the state – as now required by law there – to tell their children to “not look at them”.

The Republican’s remarks came at a news conference on Monday defending the mandate, about two months after Louisiana became the first state in the country to order the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms.

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Kamala Harris names Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, as running mate

Under Walz’s leadership, Minnesota has seen progressive legislative wins, and his simple retort that Republicans are ‘weird’ went viral

Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee for US president, has named Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running mate ahead of the November election.

The decision ends intense speculation over which candidate Harris would pick to go up against Donald Trump, the Republican nominee and former president, and his choice for vice-president, the Ohio senator JD Vance.

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Influencer gives Trump a Tesla, a Rolex … and a campaign finance violation?

Video game streamer Adin Ross’s gifts worth tens of thousands may fall foul of fundraising law

After Donald Trump sat down for an interview with a social media influencer whose past guests have included an accused rapist and an avowed white supremacist, the host gave the former president a Tesla Cybertruck as well as a Rolex watch in what could amount to a campaign finance violation.

Trump’s campaign has since said that it will seek guidance from the Federal Election Commission on how to handle the gifts. The internet celebrity who hosted Trump, Adin Ross, has not publicly commented on the gifts in relation to campaign finance laws, which limit individuals’ contributions to political candidates they support to $3,300 – far below the value of the truck and watch.

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US supreme court won’t stop Trump sentencing from going ahead – as it happened

This blog is closed. You can read the latest US election coverage here.

Climate activist, feminist and screen legend Jane Fonda has put out a video message endorsing Kamala Harris to win the White House in November.

“Today I’m proud to endorse Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States,” Fonda begins, talking to camera in close-up.

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Trump says he has ‘no choice’ but to back EVs after Musk endorsement

Ex-president, who previously denigrated electric vehicles, says they are suitable for a ‘small slice’ of the population

Donald Trump has for months denigrated electric vehicles, arguing their supporters should “rot in hell” and that assisting the nascent industry is “lunacy”. He now appears to have somewhat shifted his view thanks to the support of Elon Musk, the world’s richest person.

“I’m for electric cars, I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump, the Republican nominee for US president, told supporters at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday.

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Clarence Thomas failed to disclose more private jet travel, senator says

Senate finance committee learned of additional undisclosed travel on Harlan Crow’s jet, says Ron Wyden

The conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose more private travel on a jet owned by the rightwing mega-donor Harlan Crow, a Democratic senator said on Monday, amid a swirling ethics scandal and demands for judiciary reform.

“I am deeply concerned that Mr Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill,” Ron Wyden of Oregon, the Senate finance committee chair, told a lawyer for Crow in a letter.

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Climate change deniers make up nearly a quarter of US Congress

Climate denialists – 23 in Senate and 100 in House – are all Republicans and make US an outlier internationally

US politics is an outlier bastion of climate denial with nearly one in four members of Congress dismissing the reality of climate change, even as alarm has grown among the American public over dangerous global heating, an analysis has found.

A total of 123 elected federal representatives – 100 in the House of Representatives and 23 US senators – deny the existence of human-caused climate change, all of them Republicans, according to a recent study of statements made by current members.

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RFK Jr says he was behind mystery of dead bear dumped in Central Park with bicycle

In a video on X, the independent presidential candidate said he and his friends thought the prank in New York would be funny

Robert F Kennedy Jr released a bizarre video on Sunday in which he admitted that, a decade ago, he dumped a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park and staged the scene to make it look like a bicyclist had run over the animal.

The video was apparently an effort to combat an upcoming New Yorker story that he predicted will be a “bad story”.

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Trump ally calls GOP attack on Harris’s racial identity a ‘phony controversy’

Florida representative Byron Donalds spars with ABC host over Republicans’ questioning of vice-president’s heritage

Donald Trump ally Byron Donalds and ABC host George Stephanopoulos sparred on Sunday over Republicans’ attack line questioning Kamala Harris’s racial identity.

During an interview on ABC’s This Week, the Republican Florida representative called the issue a “phony controversy” and said “I don’t really care.” He then proceeded to double down on the issues – which the former president brought up earlier this week at the NABJ conference – by saying: “When Kamala Harris went into the United States Senate, it was AP that said she was the first Indian American United States senator … Now she’s running nationally, obviously the campaign has shifted. They’re talking much more about her father’s heritage and her Black identity.”

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Justice Neil Gorsuch: Americans are ‘getting whacked’ by too many laws

Supreme court justice says ‘too much law’ impairs liberties and talks about importance of an independent judiciary

US supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch has said ordinary Americans are “getting whacked” by too many laws and regulations in a new book that underscores his skepticism of federal agencies and the power they wield.

“Too little law and we’re not safe, and our liberties aren’t protected,” Gorsuch told the Associated Press in an interview in his supreme court office. “But too much law and you actually impair those same things.”

Guardian staff contributed.

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Democratic primary in Arizona’s third district remains too close to call

Congressional race could head for recount as Yassamin Ansari leads Raquel Terán by 67 votes as of yesterday

The Democratic primary in Arizona’s third congressional district still remains too close to call and could be headed for a recount.

Former Phoenix city council member Yassamin Ansari led former state lawmaker Raquel Terán by 67 votes with nearly 44,000 ballots counted as of Saturday evening.

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Trump claims he’s pro-worker. Project 2025 will gut labor rights

Far-right plan for a Republican presidency would undercut unions, strip child labor laws and boost corporate profits

Donald Trump proclaimed he was for “all the forgotten men and women”, in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention. His vice-presidential pick JD Vance consistently portrays himself as a pro-worker populist. But an analysis of the labor chapter of Project 2025 – an ambitious rightwing plan to guide the next Republican presidency – found it has little to offer them.

Project 2025’s labor section proposes hardly anything to improve workers’ wages and working conditions. It is, however, chock full of recommendations that would boost corporate profits, undercut labor unions and advance the rightwing culture war.

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Hoping to avoid Clinton’s 2016 mistakes, Harris courts three ‘rust belt’ states

‘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.

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