Kamala Harris

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      Kamala Harris says she wouldn't trust Trump on safety of Covid vaccine before election

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      Kamala Harris said that she would not trust Donald Trump’s word on the safety of any coronavirus vaccine approved for use in America before the November election.In an interview with CNN – excerpts of which were released on Saturday – the Democratic vice-presidential nominee warned of the potential for political interference by the US president over the approval of a coronavirus vaccine in order to boost his re-election chances.Asked if she would personally take any vaccine given the green light in the US before the November poll, Harris replied: “I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he’s talking about. I will not take his word for it.”There have been widespread reports of pressure being put on administration health officials to accelerate the development and approval of a vaccine that could halt or blunt the impact of a pandemic that has cost more than 185,000 American lives and wreaked havoc on the economy not seen since the Great Depression.Harris said she expected that medical experts would not be allowed to make decisions on a vaccine without interference from above.“If past is prologue that they will not, they’ll be muzzled, they’ll be suppressed, they will be sidelined,” Harris told CNN. “Because he’s looking at an election coming up in less than 60 days and he’s grasping to get whatever he can to pretend he has been a leader on this issue when he is not.”Concerns over potential politicization of a Covid-19 treatment and vaccine began in the spring, when Trump touted anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as the cure for Covid-19 despite weak evidence that the drug was effective against the virus.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal agency in charge of approving vaccines and treatments for public use, carried out an emergency use authorization (EUA) order to allow the use of the drug without the testing and trials that are usually accompanied with a drug rollout.The EUA for hydroxychloroquine was revoked in June, with the FDA saying the drug has not proven effective against Covid-19 and can have severe side effects.In late August, Trump announced another EUA for convalescent plasma, a type of blood therapy where blood plasma from a recovered Covid-19 patient who has developed antibodies is given to a patient trying to fight the illness.While one study conducted on the therapy suggested that the treatment could be helpful, public health experts, including Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said that there needs to be larger, randomized trials in order to ensure the efficacy of the treatment.Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asked states to expedite approval for vaccine distribution sites by 1 November. Stephen Hahn, the head of the FDA, indicated that he would be willing to authorize a vaccine before phase three trials were complete – a controversial move that has been taken by China and Russia. Hahn insisted he would not expedite a vaccine to appease the president.Moncef Slaoui, the co-chief of the White House initiative to release a vaccine, said that it was possible but unlikely that a vaccine would be ready by 1 November. “There is a very, very low chance that the trials that are running as we speak could [be completed] by the end of October,” Slaoui told NPR.For weeks, Trump has been touting that a vaccine is right on America’s doorstep, an optimism that is not shared by public health experts. Trump told a cheering crowd at the Republican national convention last week that “we will have a safe and effective vaccine by the end of the year”.The Trump administration has dismissed accusations that its claims of confidence in a vaccine in the next few months are a way to boost Trump for election day on 3 November.“I think it’s very irresponsible how people are trying to politicize notions of delivering a vaccine to the American people,” Alex Azar, the health and human services department secretary, told CBS on Thursday.Trump himself has denied that any motivation to get a vaccine out around election day has anything to do with the election itself. “I’m optimistic that it will be around that date … It wouldn’t hurt,” he said. “I’m not doing it for the election. I want it fast because I want to save a lot of lives.” More

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      Animal Crossing: Biden campaign offers virtual yard signs in Nintendo game

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      Lorilei Storm, an American who has lived in Ireland for the last decade, has signs supporting Joe Biden all over her front yard – not in front of her Dublin flat, however, but the one surrounding her home in the wildly popular Nintendo game Animal Crossing.“Campaign signs aren’t as much of a thing in the UK, so I was really excited to find them in the game – I put up as many as I could,” Storm said.Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has introduced four different official yard signs in Animal Crossing, all of which users can download by scanning QR codes through the Nintendo Switch online app. Animal Crossing has been used for everything from weddings to talk shows and virtual dates as it gained popularity amid global lockdowns due to Covid-19. The addition of campaign material marks a new frontier for the game, and for America’s presidential race.The banners are the latest attempt by the Biden campaign to make virtual inroads with voters at a time when many traditional campaign events are considered unsafe due to Covid-19.While Biden has relied heavily on digital outreach this year, Donald Trump continues to hold in-person rallies, insisting doing so is “very safe” and mocking his opponents for “hiding indoors”. For that same reason, Trump will not be using Animal Crossing to get out the vote, said Samantha Zager, a spokeswoman for his campaign. More

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      Kamala Harris assails Donald Trump's 'reckless disregard' for American people

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      Kamala Harris launched a withering attack on Donald Trump’s leadership hours before he will accept his party’s re-nomination on Thursday, accusing the president of demonstrating a “reckless disregard” for the American people in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.Speaking from an auditorium at George Washington University, Harris, a California senator who last week became the first woman of color to accept the vice-presidential nomination of a major party, unfurled a wide-ranging offensive against Trump to address what she said was “a reality completely absent from this week’s Republican national convention”.“The Republican convention is designed for one purpose: to soothe Donald Trump’s ego, to make him feel good,” Harris said. “But here’s the thing: he’s the president of the United States, and it’s not supposed to be about him. It’s supposed to be about the health and the safety and the wellbeing of the American people.”“On that measure,” she continued, “Donald Trump has failed.”Harris , a former prosecutor, methodically detailed Trump’s response to the pandemic from his early praise of the Chinese government to his focus on the stock market.“He got it wrong from the beginning and then he got it wrong again and again and the consequences have been catastrophic,” she said.During their four-day convention, Republicans have made few references to the pandemic, even as the death toll rises to 180,000. Instead, they sought to portray the president as a superhero figure, whose strong leadership will “make America great again, again” as Vice-President Mike Pence vowed.Harris, who marched alongside Black Lives Matter protesters earlier this year, also opened her remarks on Thursday by addressing the shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, by a white officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in an incident captured on camera. Attorneys say Blake is paralyzed and fighting for his life.“The shots fired at Mr Blake pierced the soul of our nation,” she said. “It’s sickening to watch. It’s all too familiar. And it must end.”Harris invoked Blake’s name, repeating the circumstances of his shooting for emphasis – “shot seven times, in the back”. She also spoke the names of other Black Americans killed this summer, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.While condemning violence that has transpired in Kenosha, Harris said Black Americans were “rightfully angry” and praised the Blake family, who she spoke with on Wednesday, for appealing for peace even as they seek justice.“It’s no wonder people are taking to the streets, and I support them,” she said, adding: “Make no mistake we will not let these vigilantes and extremists derail the path to justice.”The Wisconsin governor, Tony Evers, increased the number of national guard troops in Kenosha after a white 17-year-old was charged on Wednesday with killing two protesters and injuring a third.Identifying the mounting crises – from the raging wildfires in California and the hurricane ripping across Louisiana, to the spate of police killings of Black Americans and a rising death toll from the coronavirus – Harris closed her speech by asking Americans to judge Trump on his performance.“We all know, he’s not changing. The president he has been is the president he will be,” she said. “But we have a chance to right these wrongs, and put America on a better path.” More

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      With a word of Tamil, Kamala Harris boosts her fanbase in India

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      As a child wandering between the legs of the aunts, uncles and family friends who filled her grandparents’ apartment in Chennai, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a young Kamala Harris grew used to being addressed in Tamil.It was the main language spoken by her grandmother, who had only fragmented English, and over the years of Harris’s childhood trips from California to Chennai – which back then was called Madras – to visit her mother’s side of the family, she slowly learned to understand, if not speak, the mother tongue of her Indian relatives.Standing at the Democratic convention podium last week accepting her historic nomination for US vice-president, Harris made a passing but significant nod to this aspect of her heritage. She said her mother had “raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage”, adding: “Family is my uncles, my aunts and my chithis.” More