Far-right firebrand to face off against Democrat Ruben Gallego for US Senate seat vacated by Kyrsten Sinema
Kari Lake, the far-right firebrand and favorite of Donald Trump, has won Arizona’s Republican Senate primary.
The Associated Press projected the race at 8.44pm Arizona time on Tuesday night. Lake rose to prominence as a gubernatorial candidate in 2022, when she refused to concede the race to her Democratic challenger Katie Hobbs.
Continue reading...Park fire scorches 386,000 acres as firefighters battle blazes across US west, including historic mining town of Havilah
The largest wildfire in the US swelled to more than 380,000 acres (154,000 hectares) on Tuesday morning, an area bigger than the city of Los Angeles and three times the surface area of Lake Tahoe, as thousands of firefighters battled the blaze in a remote wilderness area in northern California.
Meanwhile, the destruction caused by wildfires raging across the US west came into sharp focus as photographers documented the destruction left by the Borel fire in southern California. The fast-growing fire tore through the historic mining town of Havilah, leaving burnt buildings, cars and forests.
Continue reading...Zoom call – with pets included – organized as riposte to comments made by JD Vance about ‘childless cat ladies’
A group of pet lovers and self-described “cat ladies” came together for the latest in a series of Zoom calls in support of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. The Tuesday evening call was hosted by Christine Pelosi, a political consultant and the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, and Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic party.
The call was not organized around racial and ethnic identity, but as a rebuff to comments made in 2021 by JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, who told the then Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the US was being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too”.
Continue reading...VP touts prosecution record to cheering crowd after state leaders including Stacey Abrams take stage to show support
Three weeks ago, the political commentariat was writing off Georgia and talking of narrow pathways for Joe Biden to hold the White House. Georgia was a desert. Tuesday evening, an Atlanta crowd greeted Kamala Harris like she backed up a truck full of sweet tea to that desert.
It’s probably too early – nine days since the president’s withdrawal and the vice-president’s ascension – to know if sentiment in Georgia had shifted enough to justify jubilation. But the crowd in Atlanta treated the new presumptive presidential nominee as a reason to celebrate after months of her quieter campaigning in the city as the vice-presidential nominee.
Continue reading...Storms result in caved-in roads and crushed cars nearly three weeks after flooding from Hurricane Beryl
Thunderstorms and torrential rain brought another wave of violent floods Tuesday that caved in roads, crushed vehicles, pushed homes off their foundations and led to dramatic boat rescues in north-eastern Vermont, nearly three weeks after flooding from Hurricane Beryl.
Flash flood warnings remained in effect through Tuesday afternoon hours after some areas got 6 to more than 8in (15 to more than 20cm) starting late the night before.
Continue reading...Officials have mixed accounts around arrest of Sinaloa co-founder El Mayo after Guzmán López turned himself in
Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of Sinaloa cartel co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in federal court in Chicago, days after his arrest in a dramatic operation in which he may have delivered his father’s former business partner to US authorities.
Guzmán López, 38, was detained on Thursday alongside Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, the other co-founder of one of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime groups, after touching down in a small plane in El Paso, Texas.
Continue reading...Good Vibes Festival organizer seeks $2.4m after band’s violation of behavior code led to a shutdown last July
The organizer of Malaysia’s Good Vibes Festival has sued the 1975 and all of the British pop-rock band’s members individually, following lead singer Matty Healy’s purported protest against the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ law on stage.
Future Sound Asia, the music festival’s organizers, are seeking $2.4m (£1.9m) after the band’s violation of the event’s behavior code resulted in the festival being shut down last July.
Continue reading...Lieutenant Calley was the only person convicted over the largest killing of civilians by US army in the 20th century
William Laws Calley Jr, the only person convicted over the notorious My Lai massacre by US soldiers during the Vietnam war, has died at the age of 80.
A lieutenant during the war, Calley was a member of Company C, which alongside his superior, Ernest Medina, he commanded during the search for Viet Cong combatants in the south Vietnamese village of My Lai and its neighbouring hamlets on 15 March 1968.
This article was amended on 30 July 2024. An earlier version stated that Seymour Hersh’s reporting led to Calley and other officers being court martialed. An internal military investigation was already underway when Hersh reported on the story.
Continue reading...Mesa mayor crosses party line to back vice-president and rebuke Trump’s ‘political extremism’ in op-ed
John Giles, the Republican mayor of Arizona’s third largest city and a previous thorn in the side of his party for endorsing Democrats, has thrown his support behind Kamala Harris for president.
Giles, who since 2014 has been mayor of Mesa near Phoenix, also rebuked Donald Trump in an opinion piece for the Arizona Republic published Monday.
Continue reading...This blog is closed. You can find our latest US elections coverage here.
Kamala Harris’s campaign has announced a $50m advertising blitz ahead of the Democratic national convention next month with a television ad that portrays the presumptive Democratic nominee as “fearless”.
The 60-second ad will be the first in a series of paid media efforts ahead of the convention, which begins 19 August in Chicago.
We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead. Where every senior can retire with dignity. But Donald Trump wants to take our country backward. To give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and end the Affordable Care Act. But we are not going back.
Continue reading...Republican presidential nominee denies threatening to stay in office after end of possible second term in Fox interview
Donald Trump on Monday repeated his weekend remarks to Christian summit attendees that they would never need to vote again if he returns to the presidency in November.
But, after being asked repeatedly on Fox News to clarify what he meant, the Republican former president denied threatening to permanently stay in office beyond his second – and constitutionally mandated final – four-year term.
Continue reading...John Podesta says negotiations ‘to find a path forward’ continue with urgent discussions planned for Cop29
Trade frictions and increasing tension between the US and China won’t affect climate negotiations between the two superpowers if he can help it, the US climate chief has pledged.
John Podesta, a senior adviser to Joe Biden on international climate policy, said the relationship between the world’s two biggest emitters and largest economies was critical to climate action, despite what appears to be a deepening gulf over trade policy.
Continue reading...Author’s long-running high school book series sold more than 200m copies and led to a hit TV show
Francine Pascal, creator of the long-running Sweet Valley High book series, has died at the age of 92.
According to the New York Times, the author died in New York City as as result of lymphoma. The news was confirmed by her daughter Laurie Wenk-Pascal.
Continue reading...Jeff Bridges, Mark Hamill, Mark Ruffalo and contenders for Harris’s VP pick among 190,000 participants in Zoom call
A Zoom call meant to rally “white dudes” in support of vice-president Kamala Harris’s run for the White House raised more than $4m from about 190,000 participants, including numerous celebrities, according to the presumptive Democratic nominee’s campaign.
Guests on the call not only included contenders for Harris’s vice-presidential running mate: the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, and the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg. They also included the actors Jeff Bridges – famous for portraying the Dude in The Big Lebowski – and Mark Hamill, who secured a $50,000 donation during the call by delivering his renowned Star Wars line: “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”
Continue reading...Chief executive says tensions ‘not impacting’ business as bank reports pre-tax profits of $1.6bn for second quarter
Fears of a China trade war erupting under a second Trump presidential term are overblown, according to bosses at Standard Chartered bank, as they suggested that the country’s real estate woes were “largely in the rearview mirror”.
While the London-headquartered bank makes most of its money in Asia, particularly in Hong Kong and Singapore, its chief executive, Bill Winters, played down the impact that increasingly strained relations between Washington and Beijing might have on the business.
Continue reading...Vice-president says action needed amid ‘clear crisis of confidence’ in the court; Mike Johnson rejects effort, saying they would ‘tilt the balance of power’
Joe Biden has called for a series of reforms to to the supreme court, including the introduction of 18-year term limits and a binding code of conduct for justices.
Biden, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, also called for a constitutional amendment to remove immunity for crimes committed by a president while in office.
This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one.
When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it. Our democracy is under assault by criminal Donald Trump.
Donald Trump wants to take America backward, to a politics of hate, chaos, and fear – this November America will unite around Vice President Kamala Harris to stop him.
Continue reading...Former friend releases messages largely from 2014-2017 in which Republican VP nominee also says: ‘I hate the police’
Questions continued to mount about the political transformation of Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, after the release of emails from a former friend in which Vance called Trump a “morally reprehensible human being” and said: “I hate the police.”
The messages between Vance and Sofia Nelson, who sent them to the New York Times, were largely dated between 2014 and 2017. In one, Vance sent Nelson a section of Hillbilly Elegy, his bestseller about his Appalachian boyhood.
Continue reading...Doctored campaign video featuring US vice-president reposted by Tesla chief executive watched 128m times
Kamala Harris’s election campaign has accused Elon Musk of spreading “manipulated lies” after the Tesla chief executive posted a doctored video featuring the vice-president on his X account.
Musk reposted a manipulated Harris campaign video on Friday evening in which a fake Harris voiceover says: “I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire,” and that anyone who criticises her is “both sexist and racist”.
Continue reading...Separate study shows poor diet and added sugar also linked to rise in biological age
The stress of bereavement may accelerate the ageing process, according to researchers who found evidence that losing a loved one early in life had an impact long before people reach middle age.
Scientists spotted biological markers of faster ageing in people who had lost a parent, partner, sibling or child, but the signs were absent in others who had not experienced the death of someone close to them.
Continue reading...Former president told Christian supporters on Friday ‘it’ll be fixed’ in four years if he wins 2024 election
Democrats have expressed outrage after Donald Trump told a group of Christian supporters on Friday that if he wins the presidency in November, they would never need to vote again.
“Christians, get out and vote, just this time,” the former president and current presidential nominee told the crowd at at Turning Point Action’s Believers’ Summit on Friday. “You won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.”
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