‘Squad’ faces final primary challenge as 4 states go to polls Tuesday
After a tough summer at the ballot box for members of the so-called “Squad,” the group of progressive and diverse House Democrats is facing its final intraparty challenge on Tuesday as four states in the Midwest and New England hold primary elections. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota faces voters one week after her fellow Squad member, Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, lost her bid for re-nomination and nearly two months after another Squad member, Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York, fell to his primary challenger. But Omar, who made history as the first Somali American in Congress and the first woman of color to represent Minnesota on Capitol Hill, is the favorite as she faces three primary challengers in the Democrat primary. Omar is seeking a fourth two-year term representing the Minneapolis-anchored 5th Congressional District. CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKING IN THE 2024 ELECTION Bush and Bowman faced well-funded challengers and millions in outside spending by United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. While Omar is also a very vocal critic of Israel, she hasn’t been targeted by any ads from the United Democracy Project. And Omar is considered to be in a much better political position than she was two years ago when she narrowly defeated Don Samuels, who for a second straight cycle is her top challenger. But Samuels, in an interview Monday on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” said he’s seen a surge in his fundraising and in volunteers to his campaign in the week since Bush’s defeat. And he said Omar is “divisive and combative. She picks a side including, simply trying to divide her, her constituency, and ignores the other side.” Minnesota’s primary comes a week after Vice President Harris named the state’s governor, Gov. Tim Walz, as her running mate on the Democrat 2024 ticket. And an old clip of Walz praising Omar has gone viral in recent days. Arguably the highest-profile Squad member, three-term Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, easily crushed her primary challenger in June. The only other Squad member with a primary yet to come this cycle is Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who is unchallenged in her September contest. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is the overwhelming favorite in a five-candidate Democrat Senate primary as she seeks a fourth six-year term representing Minnesota in the chamber. Eight candidates are running in the GOP Senate primary. In neighboring Wisconsin, Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin is unopposed in her party’s primary as she seeks a third term. Republican businessman Eric Hovde, a real estate developer who’s loaned his campaign $13 million and who is backed by former President Trump, faces nominal opposition in the GOP primary. Two Democrats are running in their party’s primary in western Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, with the winner taking on Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a staunch Trump ally, in November. And in northeast Wisconsin’s heavily red 8th Congressional District, all eyes are on the GOP primary in the race to fill the seat of former Rep. Mike Gallagher, who left Congress in April. Taking place alongside the primary is a special election for the remainder of Gallagher’s current term, which expires at the end of the year. In Connecticut, the spotlight is on Republican primaries to challenge two longtime Democrat members of Congress: Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Jim Himes. In Vermont, two Democrats are vying for their party’s gubernatorial nomination, with the winner challenging Republican Gov. Phil Scott in November. Scott, a moderate Republican and GOP Trump critic, is unopposed in his party’s primary as he seeks a fifth two-year term steering Vermont. Even though Vermont is a reliably blue state. Scott remains popular and grabbed nearly 70% of the vote in his 2022 re-election. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Harris camp ducks questions on why Walz retired from military before completing coursework for high rank
The Harris campaign dodged answering questions about why Gov. Tim Walz did not complete the required coursework to retire from the Army National Reserves with the high-ranking title of command sergeant major – a rank he’s repeatedly claimed having attained despite retiring as a master sergeant. Walz served 24 years with the Army National Guard, retiring in 2005 after he and his battalion were deployed to Italy in 2003 to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. After returning from Italy, Walz was promoted to the command sergeant major rank, but he did not complete coursework with the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy to retain the rank in retirement. Walz instead retired as a master sergeant, one rank below command sergeant major. Fox News Digital reached out to both the Harris campaign and Walz’s gubernatorial office to ask why Walz did not complete coursework with the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy before retiring from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005, and both did not provide comment to explain the decision. Instead, the Harris campaign directed Fox Digital to a Minnesota Public Radio article from 2018, when a public affairs officer for the Minnesota National Guard told the outlet that “it is legitimate for Walz to say he served as a command sergeant major.” FORMER LEADER OF WALZ’S BATTALION PUBLISHES SCATHING MESSAGE AIMED AT GOVERNOR’S MILITARY CAREER: REPORT “[The public affairs officer] said the rank changed because Walz retired before completing coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy along with other requirements associated with his promotion,” the article explained. Fox News Digital again asked the campaign for comment as to why Walz did not complete the course work but did not receive a follow-up reply. WALZ ACCUSATIONS OF ‘STOLEN VALOR’ PROMPT BATTLE BETWEEN HOUSE VETERANS Last week, the Harris campaign updated its biography for Walz to omit a reference that he is a “retired Command Sergeant Major,” correcting the bio to show Walz “served as a command sergeant major.” Walz’s military record with the Army National Guard has come under increasing scrutiny since last week, when Vice President Harris named the Minnesota governor as her 2024 presidential running mate. After the announcement, veterans began sounding off on social media and to the media with criticisms of Walz’s “stolen valor.” Walz has previously publicly used language suggesting that he deployed to war zones during his 24 years of service with the Army National Guard, including that he would like to ban the kind of guns he had “carried in war” and describing himself as a retired command sergeant major. Walz was never deployed to a combat zone in his decades of service. The Harris campaign said last week that Walz “misspoke” when he claimed he carried firearms “in war.” JD VANCE ACCUSES TIM WALZ OF ‘LYING’ ABOUT MILITARY SERVICE: ‘STOLEN VALOR GARBAGE’ “In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke,” campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt told the media. “He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them, unlike Donald Trump and JD Vance who prioritize the gun lobby over our children.” Walz retired ahead of his unit – 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery – deploying to Iraq in 2005, and he launched a successful congressional run in Minnesota. Walz served in the U.S. House from 2007 until 2019, when he launched his campaign for Minnesota governor. He is currently serving his second term as the Gopher State’s governor. VP KAMALA HARRIS PICKING GOV TIM WALZ AS RUNNING MATE MET WITH MEDIA SCORN: ‘SUCH A WEIRD CHOICE’ “Walz left the National Guard in May 2005 after 24 years of service. His unit was not given deployment orders to Iraq until July. He had put his retirement papers in 5-7 months prior to his retirement in May,” the Minnesota National Guard said in a statement last week as questions mounted around Walz’s military career. “Second, there are questions about whether he served in OEF. His battalion was sent to Europe, in his case Vicenza to train units in artillery – his specialty was artillery. If you are deployed overseas in support of OEF according to the National Guard you officially served in OEF, whether you touched foot in Afghanistan or not. That is in his official military service record below,” the statement added.
Kamala Harris’ campaign criticizes Trump for serving ‘self-obsessed rich guys’ after interview with Elon Musk
Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is blasting former President Trump’s interview with billionaire Elon Musk, saying Trump’s campaign is in service of “self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class.” Trump joined Musk on X Spaces, a live audio chat feature on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, for an interview Monday night, although it had a shaky start due to technical difficulties. Millions of people ultimately listened to the interview, according to the live tracker throughout the discussion. Musk said in a post after the interview that he would also be happy to host Harris on X Spaces. During Monday’s interview, Musk gave Trump ample time to explain his stance on various issues such as immigration, the assassination attempt he survived at a campaign rally last month, inflation and the idea of eliminating the Department of Education to allow states authority over school systems. TRUMP CHATS WITH MUSK IN LENGTHY, OVERARCHING INTERVIEW AS HARRIS CONTINUES SNUBBING MEDIA “I want to close up the Department of Education, move education back to the states … Of the 50 [states], I would bet that 35 would do great. And 15 of them, or, you know, 20 of them, will be as good as Norway. You know, Norway is considered great,” Trump said, adding that deep blue states like California may struggle if the department is eliminated. The Harris campaign hit Trump following the interview for the policy proposals the former president touched on and took a jab over the technical difficulties the X Space endured. “Donald Trump’s extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight during whatever that was on X.com,” Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement. “Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.” Project 2025 is a controversial initiative organized by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation that was authored by a number of conservatives, including some former Trump administration officials. X MELTS DOWN AFTER TRUMP-MUSK’S INTERVIEW ‘SPACE’ IMMEDIATELY CRASHES The initiative offers right-wing policy recommendations for Trump should he win the presidency, including replacing civil service employees with Trump loyalists, abolishing the Department of Education, criminalizing pornography, eliminating DEI programs, cutting funding for Medicaid and Medicare, rejecting abortion as health care and infusing the government with Christian values. Trump has sought to distance himself from the initiative, which has been criticized as being an authoritarian and Christian nationalist plan that would undermine civil liberties, saying he knows nothing about it, that parts of it are “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal” and that its backers are on the “radical right.” Monday marked Trump’s return to X after nearly a year of not posting on the social media platform, posting a series of campaign ads prior to the interview with Musk. Before Musk purchased X in 2022, Trump was suspended from the platform following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, when the platform was still known as Twitter. But even after Musk reinstated his account, Trump’s only post was sharing his mugshot in August of last year. “This country is going down, and these people are bad people that we’re running against. And they’re liars. They make statements. They do things that are so bad. They say they’re going to make a strong border. They say they’ve been great on the border, and they’ve been the worst in history. They say they’ll stop crime,” Trump said towards the end of the interview. Trump also addressed President Biden’s decision last month to suspend his re-election campaign, saying it was a Democratic “coup” that pressured the president to step aside. Biden’s decision came amid pressure from Democrats to drop out of the race over concerns about his mental acuity. “This was a coup. This was a coup of a president of the United States. He didn’t want to leave, and they said, ‘We can do it the nice way, or we can do it the hard way,’” Trump said. “They just took him out back behind the shed and basically shot him,” Musk responded before Trump criticized Biden as “the worst president in history.” Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.
Kolkata rape-murder case: OPD, hospital services hit nationwide as protest continues, doctors demand…
The victim, a 31-year-old post-graduate trainee, was found dead on August 9 in the seminar hall of RG Kar Medical College
Trump chats with Musk in lengthy, overarching interview as Harris continues snubbing media
Former President Donald Trump spoke with tech billionaire Elon Musk in an overarching, lengthy interview Monday evening on X as Vice President Kamala Harris continues avoiding the media since landing on the top of the Democratic ticket for the White House. “It’s pretty sad when you think that somebody that does this for a living can’t answer a question or is afraid to do an interview, and in her case, with a very friendly interview. She’s got all friendly interviewers,” Trump said of Harris Monday evening during his roughly two-hour interview with Musk on X Space. Trump’s comments come as Harris has avoided the media for 22 days. She has snubbed formal press conferences or sit-down interviews, including for a Time magazine cover story, since she emerged as the DNC’s nominee for the White House after President Biden dropped out of the race last month. “She is considered more liberal, by far, than Bernie Sanders. She’s a radical-left lunatic. And if she’s going to be our president, very quickly you’re not going to have a country anymore. And she’ll go back to all the things that she believes in. She believes in defunding the police. She believes in no fracking, zero,” Trump added of Harris. KAMALA HARRIS DECLINES TIME MAGAZINE INTERVIEW AS SHE CONTINUES TO AVOID THE PRESS Trump’s interview with Musk kicked off after 8:30 p.m. Monday, following a “massive” distributed denial-of-service attack on the platform that caused delays, Musk explained on X. More than 1 million people ultimately listened to the interview according to the live tracker throughout the discussion. X MELTS DOWN AFTER TRUMP-MUSK’S INTERVIEW ‘SPACE’ IMMEDIATELY CRASHES The two held a laid back interview, where Musk prompted Trump with topics before the 45th president was offered ample time to elaborate on policy issues such as immigration, the assassination attempt on his life last month, spiraling inflation and closing the Department of Education in favor of states taking the mantle on school systems. “I want to close up Department of Education, move education back to the states. … Of the 50 [states], I would bet that 35 would do great. And 15 of them, or, you know, 20 of them, will be as good as Norway. You know, Norway is considered great,” Trump said, while noting left-wing states such as California could struggle if he does eliminate the DOE. The 45th president also spoke at length with Musk about the current state of immigration in the U.S. “I believe it’s over 20 million people came into our country. Many coming from jails, from prisons, from mental institutions, or a bigger version of that is insane asylums. And many are terrorists. And I’ll tell you what, they’re coming not just from South America. They’re coming from Africa. They’re coming from all over the world. They’re coming from Asia. They’re coming from the Middle East,” Trump told Musk, who endorsed Trump earlier this year. Trump said that despite Harris’ recent rhetoric to address the spiraling migrant crisis at the border, she and Biden have had years to address migration but “won’t do anything.” “She had three and a half years, and by the way, they have another five months that they can do something. But they won’t do anything. It’s all talk. She’s incompetent and he’s incompetent. And frankly, I think that she’s more incompetent than he is, and that’s saying something, because he’s not too good,” he said. On the topic of immigration, Trump also credited a slide his campaign made showing immigration stats for saving his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month during a rally, when shooter Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate him. The 45th president looked over to the slide on immigration data when Crooks opened fire, which narrowly saved his life as the position of his head had abruptly changed. “That slide — illegal immigration saved my life,” he told Musk. “The incredible thing is that the chart, I used it less than 20% of the time. It was just a moment.” “It’s always to my left, never my right, and it’s always at the end of the speech,” Trump added of the position of the slide. “I’m going to sleep with that chart always,” he joked. FBI INVESTIGATING IRAN’S HACK OF TRUMP CAMPAIGN DOCUMENTS Trump went on to rattle off a list of wars and world events the U.S. could have avoided if Biden were not in the Oval Office, while noting he was tough on nations such as Russia, China and North Korea and knows the countries’ respective leaders “well.” “First of all, the Israeli attack would have never happened. Russia would never have attacked Ukraine, and we’d have no inflation, and we wouldn’t have had the Afghanistan mess, if you think of it well … if you take a few of those events away, and we have a different world.” HARRIS CAMPAIGN POSTS DEBUNKED CLAIM THAT TRUMP CALLED CHARLOTTESVILLE NEO-NAZIS ‘VERY FINE PEOPLE’ He pointed to his tweets back in 2017 when he slammed North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as “little rocket man” as tensions heightened between the two nations amid a series of North Korea missile and nuclear tests. “I had that problem worked out very quickly,” Trump said of North Korea. “It was nasty at the beginning with Rocket Man … [Jong-Un] said he has a red button on his desk. I said, ‘I have a red button on my desk too, but my red button is much bigger, and my red button works.’ And then I called him ‘Little Rocket Man.’” “Anyway, here’s the bottom line. All of a sudden, I got a call from him, and they said they want to meet, they wanted to meet me. And we met … and I got along with him great. We were in no danger, but President Obama thought we were gonna end up in a war, a nuclear war, with him,” he said. BURGLARY AT TRUMP CAMPAIGN VIRGINIA HEADQUARTERS CAUGHT ON SURVEILLANCE CAMERA UNDER INVESTIGATION Trump also addressed
IMD weather update: Rains in Delhi-NCR till… orange alert for these states issued
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted more rainfall for Delhi-NCR today and issued a yellow alert in effect for the next three days. Delhi is expected to experience a generally cloudy sky with light rain and thunderstorms. During the day, maximum and minimum temperatures are likely
Big update about Noida International Airport, it has a Ratan Tata connection as…
Preparations are well underway, with both Tata Company and the Yamuna Authority actively working on the airport’s power supply arrangements.
Officials at UN Security Council push for a permanent seat for Africa
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urges reform, says the African continent is underrepresented in a changing world. The United Nations chief has called for the UN Security Council (UNSC) to reform its outdated structure and assign Africa a permanent seat at the table, stressing that the continent is underrepresented. Addressing the council on Monday during a high-level debate, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the composition of the UNSC has failed to keep pace with a changing world. “We cannot accept that the world’s preeminent peace and security body lacks a permanent voice for a continent of well over a billion people … nor can we accept that Africa’s views are undervalued on questions of peace and security, both on the continent and around the world,” he said. The 15-member UNSC consists of five permanent members with veto power – China, France, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom – while the remaining 10 nonpermanent seats are allocated regionally. The 10 seats include three seats for African states; two each for Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe and other states; and one for Eastern Europe. In May, the UNSC called for the role of African countries to be strengthened in addressing global security and development challenges. Today, I addressed the @UN Security Council on the urgent need for #UNSC reform, emphasizing the historical injustice of Africa’s underrepresentation. We must reflect the world as it is, not as it was 80 years ago. The credibility of the UN depends on meaningful change. I… pic.twitter.com/Jkozt3YCJ8 — UN GA President (@UN_PGA) August 12, 2024 UN General Assembly President Dennis Francis said at the debate that the UN must reflect the world as it is. “The fact that Africa continues to be manifestly underrepresented on the Security Council is simply wrong, offending as it does both the principles of equity and inclusion,” he said. “It runs counter to the principle of sovereign equality of states and calls for the urgency to reform this institution to reflect the world as it is now, rather than what it was nearly 80 years ago.” A ‘favourable’ moment Speaking at the UNSC, Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio said Africa demands two permanent seats in the UNSC and two additional nonpermanent seats. .@PresidentBio of #SierraLeone speaking in the #UN Security Council regarding the historical injustice against #Africa and enhancing the continent’s effective representation in the #UNSC: “Africa demands two permanent seats in the UN Security Council and two additional… pic.twitter.com/bf2Ny6KdVB — Rami Ayari (@Raminho) August 12, 2024 “The African Union will choose the African permanent members. Africa wants the veto abolished. However, if UN member states wish to retain the veto, it must be extended to all new permanent members as a matter of justice,” he said. Carlos Lopes, a professor at the University of Cape Town who previously served as a high representative for the African Union (AU), told Al Jazeera that African attempts to have better representation aren’t new, but current geopolitics have made this current moment “quite favourable”. “[There’s] a competition for Africa’s votes; Africa’s bloc has become much more difficult to actually align with one position or another,” Lopes said. “The Africans have been able to navigate these geopolitical tensions very well. We have seen it with the membership of the G20 being expanded to include the African Union. Now it’s another attempt by the Africans to push the envelope and try to do it at the Security Council.” Adblock test (Why?)
Ukraine hopes to change dynamics in Donetsk with invasion in Kursk
NewsFeed Ukraine’s entry into Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod has succeeded in diverting attention from Donetsk. Whether that will affect the battlefield there is another matter. Published On 12 Aug 202412 Aug 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 900
As the war enters its 900th day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Tuesday, August 13, 2024. Kursk incursion Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, said Kyiv controls about 1,000sq km (386sq miles) of the Russian region of Kursk after launching a surprise incursion across the border on August 6. Kursk Governor Alexei Smirnov told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Ukrainian ground attacks on his region had resulted in the loss of 28 settlements and that the incursion was about 12km deep and 40km wide. Smirnov said 12 civilians have been killed and 121 injured as a result of the fighting. Some 121,000 residents have been evacuated. Putin, who held a meeting with senior officials on the situation, said Ukraine was trying to destabilise Russia and that there would be a “worthy response“. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which also lies on the border with Ukraine, said some residents were being evacuated amid increased Ukrainian military activity. Russia’s state news agency TASS later reported that 11,000 people had been evacuated from the Krasnaya Yaruga district. Fighting in Ukraine The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its experts were unable to determine what caused a fire at a dormant cooling tower at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv have each blamed the other for the fire. The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces had taken control of the settlement of Lysychne in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Politics and diplomacy China urged de-escalation amid Ukraine’s Kursk incursion. “China will continue to maintain communication with the international community and play a constructive role in promoting a political solution to the crisis,” a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said in a statement. Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis signed a joint declaration with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani expressing “deep concern” over Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, but said that Moscow should be present at the next peace summit. The first summit was held in June and Moscow was not invited. State prosecutors and anticorruption police in Ukraine said they had arrested one of the country’s four deputy energy ministers and three other suspects as they were caught “red-handed” receiving part of a $500,000 bribe. A Russian court sentenced Uzbek community leader Usman Baratov to four years in a penal colony for a social media post mocking troops fighting in Ukraine, the RIA Novosti state news agency reported. Weapons The United States warned Iran against sending ballistic missiles to Russia, saying it would invoke a “severe” US response and undermine efforts by Tehran to improve relations. The Reuters news agency, citing European officials, reported on Friday that Iran was planning to deliver hundreds of Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles to Moscow. Adblock test (Why?)