Beyond Biden, Democrats are split over who would be next —VP Harris or launch a ‘mini primary’
WASHINGTON (AP) — As Democrats churn over whether President Joe Biden should stay in the 2024 race, the party turmoil is deepening over whether his Vice President Kamala Harris is next in line for the job or if a “mini primary” should be quickly launched to choose a new nominee before the party’s August convention. Harris hit the campaign fundraising circuit Saturday in breezy Provincetown, Massachusetts, and picked up a nod from the state’s prominent Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who said before the visit that if Biden were to step aside, his vice president is “ready to step up.” At the event, which organizers said raised $2 million and was attended by 1,000 guests, Harris did not mention the calls for Biden to leave the race or for her to replace him, instead repeating one of her regular campaign lines: “We’re going to win this election,” she said.
Trump holds first rally after assassination attempt with his new running mate, Vance, by his side
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Donald Trump held his first campaign rally since he survived an assassination attempt Saturday, returning to the battleground state of Michigan alongside his newly named running mate. “It was exactly one week ago, even to the hour, even to the minute,” Trump told the crowd, reflecting on the July 13 shooting in Pennsylvania that left him with a bloodied ear, killed one of his supporters and left two others injured. “I stand before you only by the grace of almighty God,” he said, the white gauze on his ear now replaced by a skin-colored bandage. “I shouldn’t be here right now,” he went on.
The biggest of stories came to the small city of Butler. Here’s how its newspaper met the moment
BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — When gunshots echoed at the Trump rally where she was working, Butler Eagle reporter Irina Bucur dropped to the ground just like everyone else. She was terrified. She hardly froze, though. Bucur tried to text her assignment editor, through spotty cell service, to tell him what was going on. She took mental notes of what the people in front and behind her were saying. She used her phone to take video of the scene. All before she felt safe standing up again. When the world’s biggest story came to the small western Pennsylvania hamlet of Butler a week ago, it didn’t just draw media from everywhere else.
Secret Service chief noted a ‘zero fail mission.’ After Trump rally, she’s facing calls to resign
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Kimberly Cheatle led the Secret Service’s operations to safeguard the American president and other dignitaries, she said she would talk to agents in training about the “awesome responsibility” of their job. “This agency and the Secret Service has a zero fail mission,” Cheatle, who is now director of the agency, said in 2021 during a Secret Service podcast called “Standing Post.” “They have to come in every day prepared and ready with their game face on.” Now, the Secret Service and its director are under intense scrutiny over that “zero fail” mission following an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a July 13 rally in Pennsylvania that wounded his ear.
The Secret Service acknowledges denying some past requests by Trump’s campaign for tighter security
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — The Secret Service has acknowledged it denied some requests by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign for increased security at his events in the years before the assassination attempt on him at a recent rally. In the immediate aftermath of the July 13 attack, the law enforcement agency had denied rejecting such requests. But the Secret Service acknowledged late Saturday, a week after the attempt on Trump’s life, that it had turned back some requests to increase security around the former president. The reversal is likely to be a key focus of a congressional hearing Monday where Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is expected to appear before lawmakers who have been expressing anger over security lapses that allowed a 20-year-old gunman to climb atop the roof of a nearby building at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and fire his weapon.
What to know about the Kids Online Safety Act and its chances of passing
The last time Congress passed a law to protect children on the internet was in 1998 — before Facebook, before the iPhone and long before today’s oldest teenagers were born. Now, a bill aiming to protect kids from the harms of social media, gaming sites and other online platforms appears to have enough bipartisan support to pass, though whether it actually will remains uncertain. Supporters, however, hope it will come to a vote later this month. Proponents of the Kids Online Safety Act include parents’ groups and children’s advocacy organizations as well as companies like Microsoft, X and Snap. They say the bill is a necessary first step in regulating tech companies and requiring them to protect children from dangerous online content and take responsibility for the harm their platforms can cause.
Meet some of the world’s cleanest pigs, raised to grow kidneys and hearts for humans
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Wide-eyed piglets rushing to check out the visitors to their unusual barn just might represent the future of organ transplantation – and there’s no rolling around in the mud here. The first gene-edited pig organs ever transplanted into people came from animals born on this special research farm in the Blue Ridge mountains – behind locked gates, where entry requires washing down your vehicle, swapping your clothes for medical scrubs and stepping into tubs of disinfectant to clean your boots between each air-conditioned barn. “These are precious animals,” said David Ayares of Revivicor Inc., who spent decades learning to clone pigs with just the right genetic changes to allow those first audacious experiments.
Israel shoots down a missile fired from Yemen hours after a deadly Israeli strike on Houthi rebels
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen early Sunday, hours after Israeli warplanes struck several Houthi targets in the Arabian Peninsula country. The Israeli airstrikes — in response to a deadly Houthi drone strike on Tel Aviv — were the first time Israel is known to have responded to repeated Houthi attacks throughout its nine-month war against Hamas. The burst of violence between the distant enemies has threatened to open a new front as Israel battles a series of Iranian proxies across the region. The Israeli army late Saturday confirmed the airstrikes in the western Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, a Houthi stronghold.
Bangladesh’s top court scales back government jobs quota after deadly unrest that has killed scores
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh’s top court on Sunday scaled back a controversial quota system for government job applicants, a partial victory for student protesters after days of nationwide unrest and deadly clashes between police and demonstrators that have killed scores of people. Students, frustrated by shortages of good jobs, have been demanding an end to a quota that reserved 30% of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971. The government previously halted it in 2018 following mass student protests, but in June, Bangladesh’s High Court reinstated the quotas and set off a new round of protests.
With AI, jets and police squadrons, Paris is securing the Olympics — and worrying critics
PARIS (AP) — A year ago, the head of the Paris Olympics boldly declared that France’s capital would be “ the safest place in the world " when the Games open this Friday. Tony Estanguet’s confident forecast looks less far-fetched now with squadrons of police patrolling Paris’ streets, fighter jets and soldiers primed to scramble, and imposing metal-fence security barriers erected like an iron curtain on both sides of the River Seine that will star in the opening show. France’s vast police and military operation is in large part because the July 26-Aug. 11 Games face unprecedented security challenges. The city has repeatedly suffered deadly extremist attacks and international tensions are high because of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
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