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      Steve Kerr Cheers on Harris and Walz, a Fellow Coach

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      Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors, praised Vice President Kamala Harris onstage on Monday night and urged Americans to come together to reject former President Donald J. Trump as if they were one united basketball team.“Think about what our team achieved with 12 Americans in Paris, putting aside rivalries to represent our country,” Mr. Kerr said at the Democratic convention in Chicago, referring to the Olympic gold medal he won this month as the coach for the U.S. team. “Now imagine what we could do with all 330 million of us playing on the same team.”Mr. Kerr, one of the most outspoken liberal voices in American sports, employed the high-minded language that Bay Area sports fans have come to expect from him when he opines on pressing issues of the day, especially gun violence.“Leadership, real leadership,” Mr. Kerr said, is “not the kind that seeks to divide us, but the kind that recognizes and celebrates our common purpose.”But he also wove in plenty of sports references, speaking in an arena where he won three N.B.A. championships as a member of the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls.“Coach to coach, that guy’s awesome,” Mr. Kerr said of Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Ms. Harris’s running mate and a former high school football coach. But, he joked, Mr. Walz’s defensive coaching left a little to be desired. “Way too much reliance on the blitz, in 1999, against Mankato East,” Mr. Kerr said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Iran Is to Blame for Hacking Into Trump’s Campaign, Intelligence Officials Say

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      American intelligence agencies also confirmed that the effort extended to the Biden-Harris campaign, though that bid was unsuccessful.American intelligence agencies said on Monday that Iran was responsible for hacking into former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign and trying to breach the Biden-Harris campaign.The finding, which was widely expected, came days after a longtime Trump adviser, Roger J. Stone, revealed that his Hotmail and Gmail accounts had been compromised. That intrusion evidently allowed Iranian hackers to impersonate him and gain access to the emails of campaign aides.The announcement was the starkest indication to date that foreign intelligence organizations have mobilized to interfere in the 2024 election at a moment of heightened partisan polarization at home and escalating tensions abroad between Iran and Israel, along with its international allies, including the United States.“Iran seeks to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions,” intelligence officials wrote in a joint statement from the F.B.I., the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.The Islamic Republic has “demonstrated a longstanding interest in exploiting societal tensions through various means,” the officials added.The joint statement provided no new details about the attacks, nor did it specify how the agencies knew Iran was responsible.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At DNC, Hochul Says Trump Lacks ‘New York Values’

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      Two years ago, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York took outsize blame for a lackluster election night in her state that helped cost Democrats control of the U.S. House of Representatives.This week, she arrived at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago determined to prove her political acumen and demonstrate that she could help the party win back the House and the presidency in November.Over breakfast with fellow New Yorkers, she highlighted her efforts to rebuild the state’s Democratic Party. In a meeting with a women’s group, she emphasized the impact of policies enacted by the Biden administration. And in a capstone speech on the convention floor, Ms. Hochul made a forceful case that Vice President Kamala Harris was best positioned to lead the Democratic Party and the nation into the future.“We have kids to feed. Roads to build. Jobs to create. Real problems to solve,” Ms. Hochul said. “And we need leaders who can get it done.”She continued: “Trump talked big about bringing back manufacturing jobs. But you know who actually did it? President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.”The roughly five-minute speech was one of the most high-profile moments of Ms. Hochul’s career. A political journeywoman, she assumed the governorship three years ago after the resignation of Andrew M. Cuomo, and won a full term in 2022 by a narrower-than-expected margin.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      6 Things to Watch For at the Democratic Convention

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      The Democratic National Convention, which opens Monday in Chicago, will be a test for the party and its new standard-bearer, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has never been so center stage. The next few days should signal how Ms. Harris intends to define her candidacy, and will help determine whether the party can remain unified despite deep divisions over issues including the war in Gaza.Here are six things to watch for this week.Harris presents herself: Ms. Harris’s acceptance speech on Thursday offers her a chance to introduce herself to what will likely be, along with her debate or debates with Mr. Trump, one of the biggest audiences she will have before Election Day. Her challenge, Democrats say, is to balance loyalty to Mr. Biden and assuming control of her party.Her speech is an opportunity to show the extent to which she intends to carve out her own political identity and demonstrate how a Harris presidency would be different from a Biden presidency. Not incidentally, it is also a test of whether the sitting vice president will present herself as the candidate of change or as the incumbent, running on the record of the past three years.Party unity: Democrats are hoping for four days of party-building, well aware of the dissension-free convention staged by Mr. Trump and the Republican Party last month in Milwaukee. That might be tough.The convention will be shadowed by demonstrations over the Biden administration’s strong support of Israel in the war in Gaza, a policy opposed by a sizable contingent of Democratic delegates. Protests on the streets could spill into the convention hall. Should that happen, Paul Begala, a Democratic consultant, said Ms. Harris would need to separate herself from “the fringe of her coalition.” He added: “This is important in terms of defining her as both strong and mainstream.”A handoff from a Clinton: Hillary Clinton is set to speak on Monday night, and thoughts about what might have been will not be lost on anyone in the hall. In 2016, Mr. Trump defeated her in her bid to be the first female president, a loss that some Democrats argued was at least in part a sign of Americans’ unwillingness to elect a woman to the nation’s highest office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democrats Unveil Convention Platform With Familiar Themes

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      Democrats released their party platform on Sunday, unveiling a document that offers plenty of political comfort food for a newly energized party ahead of its convention in Chicago.As a sign of what Democrats believe will mobilize their forces — and the head-spinning transformation that has remade their presidential ticket — the document mentions former President Donald J. Trump’s name 150 times.Vice President Kamala Harris, the new nominee who has brought her party back together after a bruising internal fight over President Biden’s candidacy, is mentioned by name just 32 times.The platform seems intended to avoid stirring any controversy that could derail that fresh feeling of unity.At the top of the list of issues that could threaten the party’s cohesiveness is the war in Gaza. Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters are descending on Chicago, and roughly 30 delegates representing the Democratic primary voters who opposed Mr. Biden, mostly in protest over Gaza, will attend the convention, which begins on Monday.The platform repeats a traditional Democratic message supporting Israel, condemning the brutal Oct. 7 assault by Hamas and backing “an immediate and lasting cease-fire deal” that will return hostages still being held by the terrorist group and address “the displacement and death of so many innocent people in Gaza.”Democrats will vote to approve the platform on Monday evening. It was passed by the party’s platform committee, a group of party insiders, with wider input from “community leaders from coalitions across the Democratic Party,” according to the Democratic National Committee.On other issues, the platform represents a predictable collection of Democratic policy priorities, including calls to make investments in infrastructure and manufacturing; to cut taxes on working families while making big corporations and the wealthy “finally pay their fair share”; and to fight climate change.Another section addresses efforts to lower costs on everyday items like food, housing and health care, in similar terms to the economic agenda that Ms. Harris rolled out last week. And there are also calls to protect abortion rights, restore democratic norms and combat gun violence.On the other side, Mr. Trump took a direct hand this summer in reshaping — and shrinking the size — of the Republican platform, which focuses more on his own priorities than on a traditional laundry list of policies.The Democratic platform says that Mr. Trump’s vision for the country is one of “revenge and retribution,” a reflection of the party’s attempt to make the 2024 election a referendum on the former president.The party’s former presumptive nominee, Mr. Biden, is mentioned by name 287 times.Lisa Lerer More

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      Harris and Walz Venture Into Less-Friendly Terrain to Court Pennsylvania Voters

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      Before their convention that this week will signal the final sprint to November, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, headed out on a brief bus tour on Sunday to fire up voters in perhaps the most crucial battleground state in the 2024 election.As they toured western Pennsylvania, their play for support beyond the state’s more liberal cities was apparent at the team’s first stop, a field office in Rochester, Pa., in the largely conservative Beaver County: Ms. Harris picked up a volunteer’s cellphone to speak with a resident from Erie, a northwestern city in one of the state’s swingiest counties, which Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 but Joseph R. Biden Jr. won four years later.“I love Erie,” Ms. Harris said. “At some point we’ll get to Erie.”Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz were joined on the outing by their spouses, Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walz, traveling in two new campaign buses from the Pittsburgh airport, where they arrived on Air Force Two to greet a small group of supporters.Recent polling of Pennsylvania shows a close race between the Harris-Walz ticket and the Trump-Vance ticket.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas are the two main drivers of Democratic support in Pennsylvania, a state whose 19 electoral votes could decide the presidency. Recent polling shows a neck-and-neck race there between Ms. Harris and former President Donald J. Trump, with some surveys showing Ms. Harris gaining a narrow edge recently.Mr. Trump is also increasing his presence in Pennsylvania — on Saturday he held a rally in Wilkes-Barre and another is set in York on Monday, while Senator JD Vance of Ohio, his running mate, campaigns in Philadelphia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tim Walz and the Pull of Rural America

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      More from our inbox:A Rattled Donald TrumpCancer Screenings Save Lives and Are Worth the CostFrom Rust to Rescue HeroAn Olympic Transit Reality Check Abbie Parr/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Democrats Have Needed Someone Like Walz for Decades,” by Sarah Smarsh (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 9):Thank you for publishing Ms. Smarsh’s article, which so eloquently and succinctly illustrates how politicians, pundits and journalists have marginalized rural America by lumping us into a single category: red state.I am from a long line of early Indiana settlers: hard-working people who began as farmers and maintained honest lives while supporting democratic ideals and the Democratic Party. Reading this piece is a breath of fresh air, and I appreciate that Ms. Smarsh shares our appreciation for the honesty and direct communication of a fine person like Tim Walz. Thank you, Minnesota.Diana WannLebanon, Ind.To the Editor:Having grown up in a small town in Minnesota, I agree with Sarah Smarsh that Gov. Tim Walz brings back some essential elements into our politics.I am only a few generations removed from Norwegian immigrants who came to America and helped settle an area near the South Dakota border in the last decades of the 19th century.The effort to tame and harvest the prairie created a very pragmatic “let’s get it done and move on to other things” philosophy. Many of the older farmers I remember would describe today’s political rhetoric as “bells and whistles, but no engine.”Mr. Walz is not only a refreshing relief from much of the mindless political rhetoric we have to listen to today. He may very well also be putting the engine back on our national economy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      George Santos Is Expected to Plead Guilty, People Close to Case Say

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      Mr. Santos could change his mind, but witnesses in his campaign fraud case were told by federal prosecutors that he intends to plead guilty on Monday.George Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York undone by a mind-bending array of biographical lies and moneymaking schemes, has told prosecutors that he intends to plead guilty and avoid a federal trial that was expected to begin next month, according to two lawyers involved in the case and two other people with knowledge of the matter.The plea, which is expected to occur on Monday in Federal District Court in Central Islip, N.Y., would spare Mr. Santos from a trial that almost certainly would have been a colorful spectacle. Mr. Santos, whose trial on 23 felony charges was scheduled to begin on Sept. 9, could still change his mind. But this week, two lawyers representing multiple witnesses in the case were told by federal prosecutors that Mr. Santos had decided to plead guilty.Two others with knowledge of the plans confirmed that he intends to plead guilty on Monday; one of the people said Mr. Santos is expected to give a statement in court acknowledging his crimes. The terms of his expected guilty plea and what sentence he might face were not clear.Lies, Charges and Questions Left in the George Santos ScandalGeorge Santos, who was expelled from Congress in 2023, has told so many stories they can be hard to keep straight. We cataloged them, including major questions about his personal finances and his campaign fund-raising and spending.Public court records show that an in-person hearing has been scheduled for Monday afternoon at the request of prosecutors and Mr. Santos’s lawyers. The records did not explain the purpose of the hearing. Mr. Santos and one of his lawyers, Joseph Murray, did not respond to requests for comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More