Joe Biden

Subterms

    More stories

    • 238 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      The US won’t run for another term on UN human rights council. Israel is likely why | Kenneth Roth

      by

      Something unusual happened this week at the UN: the US government decided not to run for a second term on the human rights council. Taking a year off is mandatory after a country serves two three-year terms, but the Biden administration chose to bow out after a single term. That is extremely unusual. What happened?Various rationales are circulating, but one, in my view, looms large: Israel. Or more to the point, Joe Biden’s refusal to suspend or condition the massive US arms sales and military aid to Israel as its military bombs and starves the Palestinian civilians of Gaza.The election for the 47-member human rights council in Geneva is conducted by the 193-member UN general assembly in New York. The balloting would have provided a rare opportunity for the world’s governments to vote on US complicity in Israeli war crimes. The US could have lost. The Biden administration seems to have calculated that it was better to withdraw voluntarily than to face the prospect of such a shameful repudiation.To understand that rationale, one must understand the dynamics of the human rights council election. The council was created in 2006 to replace the old UN commission on human rights. The commission had become a collection of repressive governments that joined it, not to advance human rights but to undermine them. They routinely voted to protect themselves and their ilk.The new council introduced a device that was supposed to avoid that travesty – competitive elections. Rather than the backroom deals that had populated the old commission with the dictators and tyrants of the world, the UN’s five regional groups would each propose slates of candidates on which the full UN membership would vote. The idea was that highly abusive governments could be rejected.View image in fullscreenFor the first few years, it worked. Each year, Human Rights Watch and its allies would single out the most inappropriate candidate for the council, and each year they would either withdraw their candidacy (Syria, Iraq) or lose (Belarus, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka). Even Russia was defeated, in 2016, as its aircraft were bombing Syrian civilians in eastern Aleppo. It lost again in 2023 as it was pummeling Ukrainian civilians.It worked this year as well, when the general assembly for the second time rejected Saudi Arabia, given its murder of hundreds of Ethiopian migrants trying to enter from Yemen, its not-so-distant bombing of Yemeni civilians, its repression of dissidents including women’s rights activists and its brazen murder of Jamal Khashoggi.But to avoid that embarrassment, the regional groups began gaming the system. Many started to propose the same number of candidates as openings, effectively depriving the General Assembly of a choice. That’s how the likes of Burundi, Eritrea and Sudan hold council seats. Sometimes there were still competitive slates – Saudi Arabia lost this year because there were six governments seeking five seats for the Asia-Pacific region – but uncompetitive slates have become the norm.Even the western group, despite its ostensible support for an effective council, usually offers uncompetitive slates. The explanation typically offered is that western governments don’t want to bother with the need to lobby the 193 members of the general assembly for support. But that left western governments in no position to press other regions to present competitive slates. The council suffered for their diplomatic laziness.This year, something seems to have gone wrong with this cozy if detrimental practice. In the election this week, the western group had three seats to fill. Iceland, Spain and Switzerland had all put their hats in the ring, and the United States was expected to seek renewal of its term that was coming to an end. Three years ago, when a similar possibility emerged of four western candidates for three positions, Washington persuaded Italy to withdraw, allowing it to run unopposed.But this year, by all appearances, none of the other three Western candidates were eager to abandon their quest. That could have reflected the possibility that Donald Trump would win the US presidential election next month. In 2018, he notoriously relinquished the US seat on the council to protest its criticism of Israel. Iceland, Spain and Switzerland must have wondered: why defer to the US candidacy if Trump may soon nullify?View image in fullscreenThe Biden administration could have run anyway. After all, why not let the nations of the world choose the best three of the four candidates, as was originally supposed to happen? Instead, it bowed out. Yes, maybe it was just being nice – to Iceland, which assumed its seat when Trump abandoned it; to Switzerland, the host of the council; but to Spain? The Spanish government is one of Europe’s most vocal defenders of Palestinian rights. And Washington is ordinarily not reluctant to throw its weight around on behalf of Israel.It is rare that the UN general assembly has the chance to vote on the US government’s conduct. A competitive vote for the UN human rights council would have provided such an opportunity. Given widespread outrage at Israeli war crimes in Gaza – and at Biden’s refusal to use the enormous leverage of US arms sales and military aid to stop it – that vote could easily have resulted in an overwhelming repudiation of the Biden administration. Rather than face the possibility of a humiliating reprimand, the US government withdrew its candidacy.These events show again how devastating Biden’s support for Israel has been for the cause of human rights. By virtue of its diplomatic and economic power, the US government can be an important force for human rights. Other than on Israel, its presence on the council has generally helped the defense of human rights.But US credibility, already compromised by Washington’s close alliances with the repressive likes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, has been profoundly undermined by Biden’s aiding and abetting of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. With Biden seemingly constitutionally unable to change, the defense of human rights is taking a hit.That doesn’t mean an end to that defense. The human rights council functioned well despite Trump’s withdrawal. Without the baggage of Washington’s ideological animosity, Latin American democracies led a successful effort to condemn Venezuela. Tiny Iceland secured condemnation of the mass summary executions spawned by the “drug war” of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, whom Trump had embraced.But it is a sad state of affairs when, rather than join the frontline defense of human rights at a time of severe threat – in Russia, Ukraine, China, Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere – the Biden administration has gone sulking from Geneva back to Washington. It says it won’t run again for the council until 2028.

      Kenneth Roth was executive director of Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2022. He is now a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs More

    • 200 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Hurricane Milton live updates: storm still producing hurricane-force winds as it moves off Florida’s east coast

      by

      The US National Hurricane Center reports that Hurricane Milton has completed its transit of Florida, and has moved off the state’s east coast. However, the center warns that it is still producing “hurricane force winds and heavy rainfall in east-central Florida”.In an earlier update the center said Milton still had a consistent wind speed of 85 mph (140 kph). About 3 million customers in Florida have been left without power, and there are reports of fatalities as rescue and recovery operations get under way.Milton earlier made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, swerving south and missing a direct hit on Tampa in Hillsborough County.The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office has said “post-storm recovery efforts have begun”. Danny Alvarez, the public information officer for Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, earlier said it had been difficult for crews receiving 911 calls but unable to deploy while winds were consistently about 40 mph.St Petersburg residents could no longer get water from their household taps because a water main break led the city to shut down service, and a construction crane collapsed, falling into a building in the city. Streets in downtown Gulfport were under water.About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane even made landfall, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management said, while authorities in St Lucie County said there had been more than one fatality.Fatalities have been reported on Florida’s east coast, after a tornado ripped through a retirement community in St Lucie county.One eyewitness, Doug Anderson, told local newspaper TCPalm that “I saw a truck knocked sideways. I followed the wreckage into Spanish Lakes. It looked like someone had dropped a weight from the sky and flattened a bunch of houses. One of the last houses I went to looked like it had been ripped in half. The people were out front crying. It was very heartbreaking to watch.”Anderson, a Lakewood Park resident, told the paper he spent about five hours on the scene trying to help, and witnessed numerous people with injuries.St Lucie county sheriff Keith Peterson earlier said of the location “Our deputies are out here. The Fire District is out here. We’re going through the rubble. We’re trying to recover anybody that we can, provide whatever help that we can.”Speaking to ABC News, meteorologist Kevin Musso has described the impact of Hurricane Milton compared to the forecast as a “mixed bag”. He said forecasts about the strength of the hurricane when it made landfall, and the location of the landfall, were “pretty good”, but that there is more that needs to be assessed.He told viewers “the question about the storm surge will really have to wait to be verified once we get to sunrise, get past these evening hours, and get into daylight.”Musso also said that the number of tornadoes associated with the hurricane had “exceeded expectations”. “Tornadoes happen,” he said, “but these were exceptional.”Here is some CCTV footage of CCTV showing Hurricane Milton flooding in a Fort Myers restaurant.The US National Hurricane Center reports that Hurricane Milton has completed its transit of Florida, and has moved off the state’s east coast. However, the center warns that it is still producing “hurricane force winds and heavy rainfall in east-central Florida”.In an earlier update the center said Milton still had a consistent wind speed of 85 mph (140 kph). About 3 million customers in Florida have been left without power, and there are reports of fatalities as rescue and recovery operations get under way.Milton earlier made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, swerving south and missing a direct hit on Tampa in Hillsborough County.The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office has said “post-storm recovery efforts have begun”. Danny Alvarez, the public information officer for Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, earlier said it had been difficult for crews receiving 911 calls but unable to deploy while winds were consistently about 40 mph.St Petersburg residents could no longer get water from their household taps because a water main break led the city to shut down service, and a construction crane collapsed, falling into a building in the city. Streets in downtown Gulfport were under water.About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane even made landfall, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management said, while authorities in St Lucie County said there had been more than one fatality.The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office has posted to Facebook that it is beginning recovery efforts. It said:
      Post-storm recovery efforts have begun in some parts of our county. Please stay home, as we have received reports of downed trees and flooded streets. Your safety is our priority.
      The number of customers without power in Florida has passed 3 million.It has just gone 4am in Florida, and the latest update from the National Hurricane Center reports that Hurricane Milton is moving north-east at 18mph with sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph).Here is a video clip of a crane collapse in Florida caused by Hurricane Milton.Bill Litton, the emergency management director for Osceola County, south of Orlando, has said over 1,400 people were in shelters in the county as of early Thursday morning, the New York Times reports.Max Chesnes, reporting for the Tampa Bay Times from downtown Gulfport in Florida, states that “There are a few flooded streets in the city under less than a foot of water,” noting that is “far from what the worst case forecasts called for.”However, in a sign of how Florida has been hit by two hurricanes in the space of a few days, he posted a picture of debris that had not been cleared from the impact of Hurricane Helene now being soaked in the floodwaters from Hurricane Milton.The NWS National Hurricane Center in Miami has issued an update on Hurricane Milton, which it says now has maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph), and is 30 miles (45 km) off Orlando and 20 miles (30 km) off Cape Canaveral.WINK News meteorologist Matt Devitt has described one of the effects of Hurricane Milton being the “worst tornado outbreak I’ve seen in Southwest Florida in a long time,” adding “there was “horrible damage and devastation from outer bands ahead of Milton.”Witnesses have told CNN that a crane collapsing in St Petersburg due to Hurricane Milton sounded like “a mix of thunder booming, and the metal screeching sound of a train wreck.”Resident Makenna Caskey told the news network it came down and hit a building opposite her apartment, and she said it felt like “a massive rumbling tremor that shook our whole building.”The Tampa Bay Times reported that the crane collapsed near its own office in St Petersburg and that there was “a strong smell of gasoline in the air and the faint sound of alarms ring out.” More

    • 213 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      US election briefing: Trump’s ‘onslaught of lies’ about hurricane relief; Walz calls for end to electoral college

      by

      As Florida braced for its second major hurricane in two weeks, the US president, Joe Biden, criticised Donald Trump for spreading an “onslaught of lies” about how the federal government is handling the damage from Hurricane Helene. Biden spoke as Hurricane Milton – which the president earlier said “is looking like the storm of the century” – was on the verge of making landfall in Florida. “Quite frankly, these lies are un-American,” Biden said from the White House. “Former president Trump has led this onslaught of lies.”Biden said that Donald Trump and his allies had misrepresented the response and resources of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). The president singled out the Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who claimed the federal government could control the weather.Biden was joined in his rebuke by a Republican congressman representing areas devastated by Hurricane Helene, who issued a scorching rebuttal of misinformation and conspiracy theories spread by Trump and his supporters about the storm and the government’s response. Chuck Edwards, the member for North Carolina’s 11th district, contradicted criticism from Trump, and others, of the Biden administration’s handling of the disaster by voicing praise for “a level of support that is unmatched by most any other disaster nationwide”.Trump kept up his campaign schedule even as the storm threatened to overshadow the presidential race with fears that it would cause catastrophic damage in Tampa and other parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast. He offered his prayers to those in Milton’s path while continuing to insult his rival and other women – saying he had no interest in stopping even if it turned off female voters.“I don’t want to be nice,” Trump said in Scranton at his first of two rallies of the day in the pivotal battleground state of Pennsylvania. “You know, somebody said, ‘You should be nicer. Women won’t like it.’ I said, ‘I don’t care.’”Trump also announced that he would not debate Harris again before the election, a few hours after Fox News invited the two presidential contenders to participate in a possible second debate on either 24 October or 27 October. “THERE WILL BE NO REMATCH,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “SO THERE IS NOTHING TO DEBATE.”The vice-president and Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, flew to the swing state of Nevada, with its six electoral college votes, but first attended a briefing on the storm and the federal response that Biden also received at the White House.In an interview on CNN, Harris condemned Trump’s comments on aid, saying: “It is dangerous – it is unconscionable, frankly, that anyone who would consider themselves a leader would mislead desperate people to the point that those desperate people would not receive the aid to which they are entitled.”Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, meanwhile, called for an end to the electoral college system, saying it “needs to go” and be replaced by a popular vote principle. He made his comments to an audience of party fundraisers. While most American voters are in favour of abolishing the electoral college, Harris has not adopted a position on the matter.Walz had earlier made similar remarks at a separate event in Seattle, where he called himself “a national popular vote guy”, while qualifying it by saying: “That’s not the world we live in.”Elsewhere:

      The FBI arrested an Afghan man who officials say was inspired by the Islamic State terrorist organisation and was plotting an election day attack targeting large crowds in the US, the justice department said. Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, of Oklahoma City, told investigators after his arrest on Monday that he had planned his attack to coincide with election day in November and that he and a co-conspirator expected to die as martyrs, according to charging documents.

      Harris campaign and organisations that support her have raised $1bn in donations since she launched her presidential campaign in July. The haul, confirmed to Reuters by a source familiar with the vice-president’s fundraising, went to her campaign, the Democratic national committee and Pacs supporting her run. Trump has raised about $853m in 2024, according to a New York Times tally of public campaign statements. With less than three weeks to go until voting day, the Harris campaign and the Democrats had $404m cash on hand to the Trump campaign’s $295m.

      The Florida health department sent cease-and-desist letters to local news stations over an advertisement urging people to vote in favour of a ballot measure – an issue voted on by people in a given state on election day – that would expand abortion rights in the state.

      A judge ruled that three voting rights groups in Georgia who want voter registrations reopened haven’t proven that internet and power disruptions from Hurricane Helene unfairly deprived people of the opportunity to register. She set another hearing for Thursday to consider evidence and legal arguments. Georgia’s presidential race was decided by only 12,000 votes in 2020. State officials and the state Republican party argue it would be a heavy burden on counties to order them to register additional voters.

      Early in-person voting began on Wednesday in Arizona, making it the first of this year’s presidential battleground states where all residents can cast a ballot at a traditional polling place ahead of election day. Biden defeated Trump in the state in 2020 by just 10,457 votes. Early voting, particularly by mail, has long been popular in Arizona, where nearly 80% of voters submitted their ballots before election day in 2020, according to the secretary of state’s office. More

    • 213 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump is falsely blaming Harris for high prices. His plans will cause huge inflation | Steven Greenhouse

      by

      As the presidential campaign enters the home stretch, one of Donald Trump’s most dishonest – and effective – attacks is that Kamala Harris is to blame for inflation.That attack makes no sense. Several things caused a surge in inflation, but the US vice-president wasn’t one of them. Blame inflation on the pandemic or on Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, but don’t blame it on Harris. Blaming her for inflation makes as much sense as blaming her for the leak in your roof. In seeking to blame Harris for inflation, Trump is absurdly trying to turn her – a vice-president who, like other veeps, has very little power – into some all-powerful economic tsar who somehow controls everything from egg prices to gasoline prices.Any American who is truly concerned about inflation should be much more worried about Trump than about Harris. She is far more serious about fighting inflation and helping households cope with the high cost of living. What’s more, Trump’s plan to impose steep tariffs on all imported goods will significantly push up prices and hit consumers hard, especially less wealthy consumers.If Trump is elected and implements his tariffs and other plans, inflation will probably – and quickly – rise to an uncomfortable 6% to 9.3% per year (from the current 2.5%), according to a respected thinktank, with prices climbing a very painful 20% to 28% during Trump’s four years in office. That means there’s a good chance that inflation would rise more in a second Trump term than it has under Joe Biden. Not only that, economists say the higher prices caused by Trump’s tariffs will cost the typical American household from $2,600 to $3,900 a year. Ouch.Trump blames Harris for causing “the worst inflation in American history”. Comments like that insult everyone’s intelligence and show that Trump knows zilch about American history. Inflation was far worse in the years immediately after the second world war and far worse in the late 1970s and early 1980s.More absurdity: JD Vance recently blamed Harris for higher egg prices, even though we’ve been repeatedly told that bird flu and the loss of more than 100 million chickens were what caused egg prices to soar. (In fact, the not-always-truthful Vance embarrassed himself by blaming Harris for $4-a-dozen egg prices while he stood in front of egg cartons marked $2.99 for a dozen.)Instead of listening to Trump’s attacks about inflation, every American should be rejoicing that inflation has come way down – back to nearly 2%. If we look honestly at inflation, we see that two main factors fueled the spike in inflation back in 2021 and 2022. (Neither of those factors is named Kamala Harris.)The first factor was the pandemic, which closed thousands of factories worldwide and badly disrupted supply chains, causing prices of everything from furniture to cars to soar.The second factor was Putin’s war against Ukraine, which pushed up agricultural prices around the world because Ukraine is a major grain and fertilizer exporter. That war also caused oil and gas prices to soar because Russia is a huge energy exporter and the war disrupted energy exports.There was another important factor behind inflation. Many corporations took advantage of the situation by raising prices far higher than necessary. This “greedflation” jacked up corporate profits while hammering consumers. The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive thinktank, said these moves to boost corporate profits caused one-third of the growth in prices since the pandemic began.Under Biden, Congress enacted the American Rescue Plan, which gave an important boost to our pandemic-plagued economy and sent checks to millions of households to help them weather the pandemic. Thanks to that ambitious plan, the US under Biden has had far stronger economic growth than other G7 countries while also having the lowest average unemployment rate under any president since Lyndon Johnson. Indeed, the 16.2m jobs added under Biden are a record, far more than were added under any previous president in a four-year term.The American Rescue Plan was a huge success: the billions of dollars it put in people’s pockets contributed modestly to inflation, but far less than other factors did. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, has said: “There’s a long list of reasons for the high inflation. At the top of the list is the pandemic and the Russian war … [the American Rescue Plan is] at the bottom of the list.”The truth is, the US economy is in good shape, even though many people are unhappy because prices are considerably higher than when the pandemic began. Many Americans fail to realize that wages have been rising faster than prices.As for what will happen to prices in the future, economists are far more worried about Trump than Harris. They fear that Trump’s promised tariffs will send prices shooting upwards and trigger a huge trade war that could drag the US economy into recession. Trump has talked up two economic policies: big tax cuts for the richest 1% and corporations and, second, steep tariffs – up to 20% on all imports, from TVs to shoes to bananas – and a 60% tariff on imports from China.Trump says foreign companies will pay for those tariffs even though economists keep saying he’s 100% wrong on that. American consumers will pay for those tariffs in the form of higher prices. Economists warn that a second Trump term will dangerously increase inflation through his tariffs, through his plans that will cause the budget deficit to soar, and through his threats to limit the Federal Reserve’s ability to reduce inflation. Sixteen Nobel-prize winning economists have warned that Trump’s policies “will reignite” inflation and have a “destabilizing effect” on our economy.Unlike Trump, Harris has serious plans to fight against higher prices. Seeing how housing prices have soared (largely because builders haven’t built enough homes since 2008), Harris has a bold plan to build 3m new housing units nationwide. She also wants to give a $25,000 down payment subsidy to first-time homebuyers.To battle high grocery prices, Harris has vowed to crack down on price-gouging by food suppliers and supermarket chains. She also wants the government to do more to reduce bloated prescription drug prices, in the same way Biden has chopped insulin prices to $35 a month for seniors.Recognizing how expensive it is to raise a family, Harris has called for creating an annual $3,600 tax credit per child and a $6,000 credit in a newborn’s first year. She is also pushing for a trailblazing measure: to subsidize childcare so that no family spends more than 7% of its income on childcare.Trump is once again attacking people for what he’s guilty of. He is falsely attacking Harris for causing inflation, while he is the one whose economic plans will cause inflation to climb skyward.

      Steven Greenhouse, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, is an American labor and workplace journalist and writer More

    • 275 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Hurricane Milton strengthens into category 5 storm again as Biden warns storm could be worst in over 100 years – live updates

      by

      The National Hurricane Center is reporting that Milton has strengthened back into a category 5 hurricane.Milton’s maximum sustained winds were up to 165mph, the agency said Tuesday afternoon. It will likely fluctuate in intensity, but will continue to be a “dangerous major hurricane” when it makes landfall in Florida Wednesday evening.“This is a very serious situation and residents in Florida should closely follow orders from their local emergency management officials,” the National Hurricane Center said. “Evacuations and other preparations should be completed today. Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida.”A team of “hurricane hunters” from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) flew through Milton as the category 5 hurricane barrelled towards Florida’s coast.The team shared footage of their bumpy ride into the storm to gather data that will provide information for forecasting and hurricane research.Milton is expected to be one of the worst hurricanes to hit the US in decades. Joe Biden warned that evacuation orders for those in the storm’s path were a matter of “life and death” while the Tampa mayor told residents: “If you choose to stay … you are going to die.”The National Hurricane Center is reporting that Milton has strengthened back into a category 5 hurricane.Milton’s maximum sustained winds were up to 165mph, the agency said Tuesday afternoon. It will likely fluctuate in intensity, but will continue to be a “dangerous major hurricane” when it makes landfall in Florida Wednesday evening.“This is a very serious situation and residents in Florida should closely follow orders from their local emergency management officials,” the National Hurricane Center said. “Evacuations and other preparations should be completed today. Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida.”Fema has stationed major resources in Florida to support the state before Hurricane Milton makes landfall, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday.The agency has dispatched dozens of teams overseeing incident management, search and rescue, swift water rescue, disaster medical assistance and temporary power along with 300 ambulances and 30 “high water vehicles” from the defense department. More than 20m meals and 40m liters of water are available as needed, Fema said.“The National Hurricane Center forecasts Hurricane Milton will be a large and extremely dangerous hurricane when it approaches the west coast of Florida tomorrow, bringing devastating hurricane-force winds and life-threatening [storm] surge,” the statement read. The agency also warned “time is running out to prepare for the hurricane’s potentially deadly impacts”.The announcement comes as the Biden administration grapples with the effects of back-to-back hurricanes as well as misinformation spread by Donald Trump and his supporters and others about the federal response to recent storms and false claims that Fema is preventing people from evacuating in Florida.As Florida residents prepare to flee Hurricane Milton, which is expected to be one of the state’s strongest storms in a century, gas stations are running out of fuel.About 1,300 of the state’s 7,500 gas stations, or 17.4%, were out of gas on Tuesday afternoon, CNN reported, citing data from GasBuddy. In areas under evacuation orders, the shortages were even more dire: on Monday night, 70% of stations in Fort Myers were without gas.“These numbers will continue to rise very fast,” Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy, told Reuters.The state’s governor said that officials are working with fuel companies to continue bringing in gasoline before Milton makes landfall on Wednesday.“We have been dispatching fuel over the past 24 hours as gas stations have run out,” the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, said. “So we currently have 268,000 gallons of diesel, 110,000 gallons of gasoline. Those numbers are less than what they were 24 hours ago because we’ve put a lot in, but we have an additional 1.2m gallons of both diesel and gasoline that is currently en route to the state of Florida.”Meanwhile, the supreme court’s latest term is under way, and the nine justices heard oral arguments today in a case challenging the Biden administration’s regulation of “ghost guns”. As the Guardian’s Cecilia Nowell reports, the conservative-dominated body seemed ready to take the government’s side. Here’s more:The US supreme court signalled a willingness to uphold the regulation of “ghost guns” – firearms without serial numbers that are built from kits that people can order online and assemble at home.The manufacturers and gun rights groups challenging the rule argued the Biden administration overstepped by trying to regulate kits.Justice Samuel Alito compared gun parts to meal ingredients, saying a lineup including eggs and peppers isn’t necessarily a western omelet. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, though, questioned whether gun kits are more like ready-to-eat meal kits that contain everything needed to make a dinner like turkey chili.Chief Justice John Roberts seemed skeptical of the challengers’ position that the kits are mostly popular with hobbyists who enjoy making their own weapons, like auto enthusiasts might rebuild a car on the weekend.Many ghost gun kits require only the drilling of a few holes and removal of plastic tabs.“My understanding is that it’s not terribly difficult to do this,” Roberts said. “He really wouldn’t think he has built that gun, would he?”A ruling is expected in the coming months.Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, says he expects Hurricane Milton to reach the state’s west coast by tomorrow night or early on Thursday morning.He also says his administration has taken steps to help people flee areas under evacuation warnings, including negotiating lower hotel prices and arranging free rides with Uber:From his perch on the International Space Station, Nasa astronaut Matthew Dominick got a view of Hurricane Milton as it churned across the Gulf of Mexico towards Florida’s west coast:Speaking in Milwaukee at an event to promote his efforts to rid the US of lead pipes, Joe Biden repeated that his administration was prepared for Hurricane Milton, and that Floridians should heed the warnings of authorities.“We’re prepared for another horrible hurricane to hit Florida. I directed my team to do everything they can to save lives and help communities, before, during and after this hurricane. The most important message today for all those who may be listening to this and the impacted areas: listen to the local authorities. Follow safety instruction, including evacuation orders,” Biden said.The rest of Kamala Harris’s interview with Howard Stern was mostly free of heavy topics, with the vice-president answering, and occasionally parrying, questions on an array of subjects.Such as what she eats for breakfast every morning: “I don’t eat Raisin Bran every morning,” Harris replied. She said she was a fan of Special K, and that her mother used to make Special K cookies.Stern wondered whether Liz Cheney, the former Republican representative who lost her primary after breaking with Donald Trump and co-chairing the January 6 commission, might be someone she would appoint to her cabinet.“I gotta win, Howard,” Harris replied.Stern pondered the pressures of being both vice-president and also a candidate for the presidency, and asked Harris whether she might consider going to therapy. “This is my form of therapy right now, Howard,” the vice-president replied.Her interviewer then brought up people who might not vote for Harris because is a woman. She responded: “Listen, I’ve been the first woman in almost every position I’ve had. I believe that men and women support women in leadership. And that’s been my life experience and that’s why I’m running for president.”Kamala Harris continued her media blitz in New York City, making the second of three stops scheduled today at the studios of Howard Stern, the one-time shock jock who has lately become known for conducting in-depth interviews.Stern asked the vice-president for her reaction to the revelation – from a forthcoming book by investigative journalist Bob Woodward – that Donald Trump sent Vladimir Putin Covid-19 testing machines during the period when the virus was at its worst.Harris replied:
      That is just the most recent stark example of who Trump is, that he secretly sent Covid test kits for the personal use of Putin of Russia, an adversary to the United States, when he was talking about Americans should be putting bleach in their blood. Think about what this is. …
      This election is about strength versus weakness. The weakness of someone who puts himself before the American people, who does not have the strength to stand for their needs and make sure we’re a secure nation.
      The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Aircraft Operations Center posted a video on social media on Tuesday, showing one of their aircraft flying through the hurricane to collect data to improve forecasts and to support hurricane research.Aircraft data and satellite images of Hurricane Milton indicate that Milton’s maximum sustained winds have increased to near 155 mph with higher gusts, according to the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center.“While fluctuations in intensity are expected, Milton is forecast to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane through landfall in Florida” reads the 2pm advisory.It adds: “Today is the last full day for Florida residents to get their families ready and evacuate if told to do so.”The Florida Department of Corrections announced on Tuesday that over 4,636 inmates have been evacuated ahead of Hurricane Milton’s landfall on Wednesday.“Additional evacuations are under way” the department added.The Department also announced the cancelation of visitation statewide through Sunday, in response to anticipated inclement weather.As of 1pm ET, at least 13 counties in Florida have issued mandatory evacuation warnings, and more than 50 counties are under a state of emergency as the state prepares Hurricane Milton’s arrival.Milton became a category 4 hurricane on Tuesday morning, and forecasters predict that the hurricane’s center will likely make landfall along the west-central coast of Florida sometime on Wednesday night.Joe Biden is warning people who live in the path of Hurricane Milton to heed evacuation orders, saying it could be the “worst storm to hit Florida in over a century”. The president postponed his travel to Angola and Germany as the storm churns eastward, and the White House is stepping up its outreach efforts ahead of what could be the next major disaster to befall the southeast, after Hurricane Helene swept through the region not two weeks ago. Kamala Harris gave a similar warning in an live interview on popular talk show the View, while also outlining her plans to relieve the burden on families who support both children and aging relatives.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      On the View, Harris was asked what she would do different from Biden. The vice-president initially said nothing, then amended her answer, saying she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet.

      The FBI never acted on tips received about Brett Kavanaugh during his supreme court nomination process, a Democratic senator opposed to the Trump appointee revealed in a report.

      Trump secretly sent Covid-19 testing machines to Vladimir Putin in 2020, and has called the Russian leader as many as seven times since leaving the White House, investigative journalist Bob Woodward has reportedly written in a forthcoming book.
      The Guardian’s community team is hoping to hear from undecided voters in the seven swing states this election about their thoughts on the contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.If you vote in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona or Nevada and still haven’t picked a candidate, we have some questions for you, and you can find them below:The Trump campaign has seized on Kamala Harris’s comment on the View that she wouldn’t do anything different from Joe Biden to (no surprise) cast her as unfit for the presidency.“If you’re a voter who wants to turn the page from Joe Biden’s failed economy, open border, and global chaos then Kamala Harris is NOT the candidate for you,” an email from the campaign’s rapid response team reads.While Harris initially said in the morning interview that she could not think of anything she would do differently than Biden, she later said he would appoint a Republican to her cabinet – something the president has not done.Joe Biden issued a dire warning about the severity of Hurricane Milton, saying it could pose a historic threat to Florida.“The current path is terminated … in the Tampa Bay area and cuts directly across the state, east to west, all the way across the state, with the potential for this storm to both enter Florida as a hurricane and leave Florida as a hurricane on the Atlantic coast,” Biden said at the White House.“This could be the worst storm to hit Florida in over a century, and God willing, it won’t be but that’s what it’s looking like right now.”He also added that he had spoken to Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida who yesterday refused a call from Kamala Harris.“The governor of Florida has been cooperative. He said he’s gotten all that he needs. I talked to him again yesterday, and … I said, ‘No, you’re doing a great job. It’s being all being done,’” Biden said, adding he gave DeSantis his personal phone number.The president also said he would find another time to travel to Germany and Angola, two trips he postponed as the storm approached. More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Kamala Harris pays tribute to victims of 7 October attacks on first anniversary

      by

      US politicians on both sides of the aisle issued statements marking the anniversary of the 7 October attacks, with Kamala Harris paying tribute to the victims and calling, in their honor, to “never lose sight of the dream of peace, dignity, and security for all”.Outside the vice-presidential residence, Harris, accompanied by her husband, spoke of the nearly 1,200 people, including 46 Americans, killed in Israel one year ago.She mentioned a singer from Missouri who died shielding her son from bullets, an academic and peace activist who studied in Seattle, and a dancer from California who was killed at the Nova music festival.Harris expressed a commitment to “always ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself” and named each of the seven American hostages still held in Gaza, including four still believed to be alive.“We must uphold the commitment to repair the world, an idea that has been passed on throughout generations of the Jewish people and across many faiths,” she added. “To that end we must work to relieve the immense suffering of innocent Palestinians in Gaza who have experienced so much pain and loss over the year.”Earlier, Joe Biden commemorated the anniversary with a candle-lighting ceremony at the White House on Monday.The US president was joined by Jill Biden and Rabbi Aaron Alexander, who said a short prayer. Biden did not speak at the ceremony, but he paid tribute earlier in a statement to “the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust” and condemned the “vicious surge in antisemitism in America” since the attacks.“The October 7 attack brought to the surface painful memories left by millennia of hatred and violence against the Jewish people,” he said, before also referencing the suffering of Palestinians.“I believe that history will also remember October 7 as a dark day for the Palestinian people because of the conflict that Hamas unleashed that day. Far too many civilians have suffered far too much during this year of conflict.”Harris also nodded to the more than 40,000 Palestinians killed in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza.“I am heartbroken over the scale of death and destruction in Gaza over the past year – tens of thousands of lives lost, children fleeing for safety over and over again, mothers and fathers struggling to obtain food, water, and medicine,” she said in a statement. “It is far past time for a hostage and ceasefire deal to end the suffering of innocent people.”The Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, also spoke out on Monday, using the occasion as an opportunity to attack Biden and Harris. Speaking at a pro-Israel rally in Washington DC organized by the Christian group Philos Project, he called the attacks of 7 October “the worst terrorist attack since 9/11” and an attack not only on Israel and Jewish people but “on Americans”.“It is disgraceful that we have an American president and vice-president who haven’t done a thing,” he said. “Vice-President Harris, our message is: ‘Bring them home.’ Use your authority to help bring them home.”Vance then criticized what he described as the “pro-Hamas” protests happening across the country on Monday and the students that he said are “supporting Islamic radicals, destroying property, and threatening Jewish students and professors”.Meanwhile, Donald Trump paid a visit to the Ohel, the gravesite of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in New York City on Monday. The site is considered a pilgrimage destination by many Orthodox Jews – a group that widely supports the former president, in contrast with other Jewish Americans who tend to vote Democratic.Trump is scheduled to speak later on Monday at a remembrance event at his golf course in Doral, Florida.He is widely expected to turn the event into an attack on his rival. In recent weeks, he has said that he has been “the best president by far” for Israel, and that Jewish voters supporting Harris “should have their head examined”. More

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Harris embarks on media blitz and tries to edge out Trump in key swing states

      by

      Kamala Harris has embarked on a week-long media blitz, hurtling from TV studios and late-night shows to podcast interviews as she seeks to gain an edge over Donald Trump in the US election’s key battleground states that remain nail-bitingly close.The vice-president’s decision to face a raft of largely friendly media outlets came as the campaigns entered the final 30 days. More than 1.4 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting across 30 states.The Democratic nominee’s whirlwind media tour has been carefully crafted for maximum reach and minimum risk. Harris has talked to the CBS News show 60 Minutes, along with the popular podcast Call Her Daddy.On Tuesday she hits the media capital, New York, for appearances on ABC News’s daytime behemoth The View and the Howard Stern Show, followed by a recording with late-night host Stephen Colbert.The first of a flurry of comments from Harris was put out by 60 Minutes on Sunday before a full broadcast on Monday. Harris will appear alone, after Trump declined to be interviewed by the election special which has been a staple of US election coverage for more than half a century.In a short clip released by 60 Minutes, Harris was asked whether the Biden-Harris administration had any sway over the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu, the hardline prime minister of Israel who appears not to listen to Washington. Asked whether the US had a “real close ally” in Netanyahu, she replied: “With all due respect, the better question is: do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes.”Since Harris’s meteoric propulsion as Democratic presidential nominee after Joe Biden stepped aside, her relative avoidance of press or TV interviews has become a point of contention on the campaign trail. Republican leaders and pundits on Fox News routinely accuse her of being media-shy.This week’s blitz is designed to counter that impression, while reaching large audiences focused on demographic groups which will be central to Harris’s chances of winning in November. Call Her Daddy is Spotify’s most-listened to podcast among women, while The View is the number one ranked daytime talk show with 2.5 million average viewers, again heavily weighted towards women.Meanwhile Colbert’s show on CBS is the highest rated late-night talk show attracting large numbers of younger viewers aged 18 to 49 – another critical demographic on Harris’s target list.Harris’s running mate, the Democratic governor of Minnesota Tim Walz, is also making his own media scramble which began on Sunday, with him entering less comfortable territory on Fox News Sunday. He was questioned about the pro-abortion law that he signed in his state, and also asked to clarify the occasions on which he has misrepresented his record.That included a comment that he had carried weapons in war when he had not, and his classifying the treatment that he and his wife received to have a child as IVF when it was in fact a different type of fertility treatment.At last week’s vice-presidential debate Walz recognised his missteps, calling himself a “knucklehead”.Walz told Fox News Sunday: “To be honest with you, I don’t think American people care whether I used IUI or IVF, what they understand is that Donald Trump would resist these things. I speak passionately … I will own up when I misspeak and when I make a mistake.”As the contest enters its final month, the Guardian’s latest tracker of opinion polls shows Harris up on Trump by three percentage points nationally. In the more telling test of the seven battleground states that will decide the outcome, though Harris is ahead in five of them, the margin remains essentially too close to call.Both candidates and their running mates are speeding up their frantic dash around the seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris and Walz will be in Arizona this weeks, where early voting begins on Wednesday.On Thursday, the Democratic ticket will gain extra ballast when former president and campaigning superstar Barack Obama kicks off a round of stump appearances in the all-important swing state, Pennsylvania. He will begin in Pittsburgh, and will then travel across the country on Harris’s behalf, campaign aides have said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump was scheduled to hold a rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, on Sunday afternoon, a day after he made a pointed return to the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he came close to being assassinated on 13 July. Trump and his younger son Eric used the occasion to spread the baseless claim that the Democrats had been behind the attempt on his life.“They tried to kill him, it’s because the Democratic party can’t do anything right,” Eric Trump said. Billionaire Elon Musk also appeared on stage.On Sunday, Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House, was asked by ABC News’s This Week whether such comments were responsible amid mounting fears of political violence in the build up to the 5 November election. Johnson sidestepped the question, saying he had not heard the full speeches.The speaker also notably refused to answer whether Trump had lost the 2020 election, in the wake of Trump’s ongoing lies that he was the actual victor. “This is the game that is always played by the media with leading Republicans, it’s a gotcha game, and I’m not going to engage in it,” Johnson said.The former president’s wife, Melania Trump, sat down for an interview with the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. She was asked given how close her husband had come to being shot in Butler whether she trusted the top officials of the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies who “appeared to be against President Trump and yourself from day one”.Melania Trump replied: “It’s hard to say who you really trust. You want to, but it’s always a question mark.”Melania Trump, who is promoting her book, Melania, also spoke about her pro-abortion stance which she revealed in the volume. She said her husband had always known her convictions.“He knew my position and my beliefs since the day we met, and I believe in individual freedom. I want to decide what I want to do with my body. I don’t want government in my personal business,” she said. More

    • 163 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Western leaders’ silence about Israel’s atrocities gives free rein to Netanyahu | Letters

      by

      Owen Jones speaks for many of us (What atrocity would Israel have to commit for our leaders to break their silence?, 3 October). Joe Biden, Keir Starmer and other western leaders have responded to Israel’s actions by repeatedly stating that they stand with Israel and its right to defend itself. They have been quick to vociferously condemn those who threaten or attack Israel, but silent on the atrocities Israel inflicts on tens of thousands of innocent civilians in neighbouring countries. Benjamin Netanyahu has interpreted this silence as permission to pursue his strategy without effective censure or sanction.Therefore the question remains of whether these political leaders are complicit in the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, the creation of millions of refugees and the destruction of towns and cities. Like many others, I yearn to see brave political leadership willing to speak out and challenge Israel’s right to act without adherence to fundamental humanitarian rights and principles of international law. Without such a voice being heard, there will be no end to this humanitarian tragedy.Peter RiddleWirksworth, Derbyshire More