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Trump rekindles endorsement winning streak as GOP gubernatorial hopeful advances to runoff

Trump rekindles endorsement winning streak as GOP gubernatorial hopeful advances to runoff

One week after President Donald Trump‘s endorsement-winning streak in high-profile Republican primaries was snapped, the president’s immense clout over the GOP was on the line again, this time in South Carolina. And the president easily passed the test. The candidate Trump endorsed in the Palmetto State’s GOP gubernatorial primary, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, finished first in a crowded field of candidates and clinched one of the two tickets in the race for the nomination, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday. Evette, who repeatedly spotlighted Trump’s support, now advances to a Republican runoff election in two weeks against South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, the second place finisher, in the race to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Henry McMaster. . DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB Since no candidate topped 50% of the primary vote to land a majority, Evette and Wilson will battle for the nomination in the June 23 runoff, and the winner will be considered the clear favorite in the general election in the solidly red southeastern state. Meanwhile, in the South Carolina GOP Senate primary, longtime Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham did win a majority of the vote, and will avoid a runoff, the Associated Press reported. Graham, who was endorsed by Trump, was facing primary challenges from five candidates, including conservative businessman Mark Lynch, who took aim at the senator over his support for the war in Iran. Lynch was backed by some MAGA leaders who have been critical of the president. Graham’s campaign and allied political groups spent nearly $20 million to highlight Trump’s support. And the president joined Graham and Evette for a primary eve tele-rally. While he wasn’t on the ballot, Trump’s immense clout over the GOP was facing another key test in South Carolina. The brute force of the president’s endorsement power has been on display in GOP primaries over the past month, with his candidates ousting incumbents he targeted in showdowns in Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky and Texas that grabbed plenty of national attention. But his 11th hour endorsement of Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra of Iowa — which came on the same day he also backed Evette — in the race to succeed retiring GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds wasn’t enough to muscle the three-term congressman to victory. Feenstra was narrowly edged by Zach Lahn, a businessman, farmer and former political strategist who was backed by the political wings of MAHA — the acronym for the Make America Healthy Again movement aligned with Trump Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — and Turning Point USA, the powerful conservative organization co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk. TRUMP-ENDORSED FEENSTRA CONCEDES TO MAHA-BACKED LAHN IN GOP GOVERNOR PRIMARY UPSET In the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary, the major contenders had long been highlighting their support for Trump and his agenda, in hopes of landing his support. Trump, after staying neutral for months, endorsed Evette, praising her as an “America First Patriot” and a “WINNER” in his announcement. After Trump backed Evette, Mace said that her very vocal push last year for the Justice Department to release the files related to its probe into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein contributed to the president’s backing of her rival. “I know I put the likelihood of an endorsement on the line when I demanded transparency on the Epstein files,” the lawmaker wrote. “I demanded it because you deserved the truth – ALL OF IT,” Mace emphasized in a post on X. Trump, in a social media post endorsing Evette, also said he expected Evette to choose Henry McMaster Jr., the governor’s son, as her running mate for lieutenant governor. The comment by the president led to blowback in South Carolina political circles and speculation that McMaster, who succeeded then-Gov. Nikki Haley when she stepped down to serve as U.N. ambassador during Trump’s first term and who is in his 10th year as governor, was trying to give his son a political boost. But McMaster denied any deal or pressure, and Evette has said she wouldn’t name any running mate until after the primary is over. And on Friday, the younger McMaster took his name out of contention, saying it was “incredibly humbling” to be mentioned as a possible lieutenant governor candidate, but that “now is simply not the right time.” But the episode didn’t appear to sidetrack Evette. Either Evette or Wilson will face off in November against state Rep. Jermaine Johnson, who captured the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

Trump ally Lindsey Graham survives challenge from GOP’s anti-establishment wing

Trump ally Lindsey Graham survives challenge from GOP’s anti-establishment wing

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., squeaked out a win Tuesday night in a crowded primary race for the Republican nomination in the Palmetto State.  Though there were six candidates, the contest truly fell between Graham and businessman Mark Lynch. Their primary battle again brought forth the ongoing feud within the GOP, pitting Trump-aligned candidates against the edges of the president’s own MAGA movement.  Graham is running for a fifth term in the upper chamber and is fresh off successfully advancing the GOP’s $70 billion immigration enforcement package. He’s now headed to the general election in November, where he’ll face off against Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, who survived a three-way primary contest in South Carolina on Tuesday. TRUMP ENDORSES SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM FOR RE-ELECTION: ‘HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN’ He is also one of President Donald Trump’s most ardent allies in the Senate and was endorsed by the president early last year. Meanwhile, Lynch was recently endorsed by Trump’s former National Counterterrorism Center director, Joe Kent. “He is the America First candidate,” Kent said in an endorsement video on X. “He’s gonna keep us out of all these foreign wars, and he is the best postured right now to get the warhawk neocon Lindsey Graham out of office.” TRUMP SCORES VICTORY DESPITE GROWING GOP DIVIDE AFTER SENATE PASSES $70B ICE, BORDER PATROL FUNDING PACKAGE Lynch also called for “more MTGs, Gaetzes and Massies” in Congress, referring to former Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz and one of Trump’s biggest critics in the GOP, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. Both Greene and Massie have evolved into some of the most vocal critics of Trump and the administration. Massie, however, was felled last month in a hotly-contested primary race in Kentucky by a Trump-backed candidate.  FOUR SENATE REPUBLICANS AGAIN UNITE WITH DEMS TO BLOCK TRUMP’S SAVE AMERICA ACT That alignment saw Trump go after Lynch on Truth Social, where he called on Palmetto State voters to buck him for Graham. “Senator Lindsey Graham is doing a fantastic job,” Trump said. “He is running against a LUNATIC named Mark Lynch, who supports perhaps the Worst Congressman in the History of our Country, Thomas Massie, of the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky.”  “I don’t have to go into great detail, but needless to say, Mark Lynch would be a DISASTER for the Republican Party, and Lindsey Graham just, GETS THE JOB DONE,” he continued. “VOTE FOR LINDSEY ALL THE WAY. MAGA!”

US lists China’s BYD, Alibaba, Baidu as ‘Chinese military companies’

US lists China’s BYD, Alibaba, Baidu as ‘Chinese military companies’

The United States has designated Chinese corporate giants Alibaba, BYD and Baidu as companies that support China’s military, expanding its blacklist to some of the country’s best-known commercial brands. The Pentagon included the firms in an update on Monday that is likely to complicate the fragile detente between Washington and Beijing after years of rocky relations. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list China’s embassy in Washington, DC, condemned the listing as “discriminatory” and an example of the US government “overstretching” the concept of national security. “Chinese companies that do business overseas have been strictly observing laws and regulations of their host countries,” an embassy spokesperson said. “The US should stop its wrong practice and create a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies.” Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce company, said there was “no basis” for its inclusion on the blacklist. “Alibaba is not a Chinese military company nor part of any military-civil fusion strategy,” a company spokesperson said. “We will take all available legal action against attempts to misrepresent our company.” BYD and Baidu did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Pentagon’s list of “Chinese military companies,” which is updated annually, now includes 188 firms, up from 134 in 2025. Firms included on the list, which was created in 2021, and entities under their control will be barred from consideration for US defence contracts under rules set to come into effect later this month. Advertisement The Pentagon defines “Chinese military companies” as entities owned or controlled by the Chinese military, or that contribute to China’s “military civil fusion”, referring to Beijing’s strategy of melding civilian and defence-related research and innovation. Companies must also carry out some of their operations in the US to be designated. In its updated list, the Pentagon said Alibaba, BYD and Baidu supported China’s military development via their affiliations with the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Republican lawmaker John Moolenaar, who chairs the House of Representatives’ committee on strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party, said the updated list served as a warning about Chinese companies working against US national interests. “Any of them that are publicly traded on US exchanges should be immediately delisted and their products should be removed from supply chains our country depends on,” Moolenaar said in a statement. “American companies must stop doing business with these threats to our national security, otherwise they are enabling China’s military ascendance.” The expansion of the blacklist comes less than a month after US President Donald Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing for a two-day summit aimed at lowering the temperature in their countries’ years-long trade war and tech rivalry. Alibaba, Baidu, and BYD are among China’s most prominent brands, claiming the top spots in the e-commerce, internet search and electric vehicle markets, respectively. The addition of several household brands not normally associated with the defence sector mirrors last year’s designation of tech firm Tencent, the owner of the ubiquitous messaging app WeChat. Other additions to the list include RoboSense Technology, an AI and robotics company with headquarters in Shenzhen, and Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics. RoboSense Technology and Unitree Robotics did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Dennis Wilder, a national security expert who worked on China at the CIA and the White House’s National Security Council, expressed scepticism about the feasibility of implementing such a “broad-brush” blacklist. “Although it may make some US firms wary of engaging with the labelled entities, in fact, many US firms already have deep relationships with these entities that they are not going to give up unless there are real penalties attached to working commercial deals with them,” Wilder told Al Jazeera. Advertisement “Sanctions that range this widely are sanctions that don’t work. Unless the US is willing to decouple from the Chinese economy altogether, these sanctions are simply performative,” Wilder said. Adblock test (Why?)

Botswana diamond slump hits miners living on the edge of survival

Botswana diamond slump hits miners living on the edge of survival

Orapa, Botswana – It is a year since Motshwegwa Rakhudu lost his job after 14 years working as an installer at Debswana diamond mining operations in northern Botswana. He says he had been on rolling three-year renewable contracts with Enabler Hires (Pty) Ltd, and expected the arrangement would continue through to 2027. Instead, he was retrenched and made redundant without warning. “The shock was too much,” Rakhudu, (not his real name), told Al Jazeera. “In early 2025, I took a loan of 26,000 pula (about $1,900) to buy a car because I believed my job was secure. By mid-May, I was out of work.” He said the sudden retrenchment left him struggling with debt and household responsibilities, including school fees, with no compensation received. “Being caught unprepared has been very difficult. Jobs are scarce, and even when work is available outside mining, the pay is much lower. I am still looking for work,” he said. Rakhudu said he has considered farming or starting a small business, but lacks the capital. Selling his car, he added, would only cover the outstanding loan. “I would want to go into farming, but if I sell the car, the money will only clear the loan,” he said. Al Jazeera contacted Gaotlhobogwe Radikwata, a senior management official at Enabler Hires (Pty) Ltd, for comment on the retrenchments. “I am not going to answer your questions even if you convince me you are from Al Jazeera. Who gave you my number? I never shared my contacts with journalists. I am not at liberty to share information,” she said. Advertisement Jobs vanish as diamond production slows The retrenchments come as Botswana’s diamond sector, the backbone of its economy, slows sharply. Debswana Diamond Company, a joint venture between the government and De Beers, cut production by about 27% in 2024 to 17.9 million carats amid weak global demand, and plans further reductions to around 15 million carats in 2025. The company accounts for roughly 90% of Botswana’s diamond sales. That slowdown has rippled through the wider economy. Botswana’s output contracted by about 5.3% in the second quarter of 2025, the sharpest fall since the pandemic, driven largely by declining diamond production, according to Reuters. Diamonds account for around 70% of export earnings and roughly a third of government revenue, according to Reuters and S&P Global Ratings, which in 2025 downgraded Botswana’s sovereign credit rating to BBB-, citing sustained pressure from the global diamond downturn and weakening fiscal revenues. Household pressure builds across mining communities For workers, the impact is no longer abstract. “The diamond downturn is no longer just a business issue. It is a human issue affecting workers, families, contractors and entire mining communities,” said Mbiganyi Gaekgotswe, General Secretary of the Botswana Mineworkers Union. He said uncertainty now defines everyday life. “The first question on everyone’s mind is whether they will still have a job next year,” he said. “Will contracts be renewed? Will overtime be reduced? These are not abstract concerns. They affect school fees, loans, medical bills and family responsibilities.” Even where jobs remain, pressure is rising as wages stagnate while food and transport costs increase. Beyond diamonds: searching for new growth Restructuring has already filtered through contractors and service providers, with more workers shifted onto short-term agreements, said Dominic Obusitse Mapoka, Chairperson of the Botswana Diamond Workers Union. “Workers who remain employed are increasingly on short-term or temporary contracts,” he told Al Jazeera. “This makes it difficult for families to plan because they do not know whether contracts will be renewed.” He said many earn between $190-250 a month, while the cost of living continues to increase, with knock-on effects for small businesses tied to mining activity. Since independence in 1966, Botswana’s diamond wealth has transformed what was once among the world’s poorest countries into a middle-income economy, financing infrastructure, public services and sustained growth. Advertisement But that success has also left it heavily exposed to global shocks. The sector is now under pressure from weak demand, competition from lab-grown diamonds and reduced luxury spending in key markets, according to S&P Global Ratings. The downturn exposes the risks of economic concentration, said Levy Ndou, a political scientist at Tshwane University of Technology. “When citizens depend heavily on one sector, a fall in global demand becomes very damaging.” He called for faster diversification into agriculture and beef production, alongside stronger regional trade links. Botswana’s Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Pius Mokgware, said the government is responding by trying to absorb job losses, including expanding copper mining and opening new projects. He added that diversification efforts are also targeting agriculture, tourism and Information and Communication Technology. Minister of Minerals and Energy, Bogolo Joy Kenewendo, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Tshepo Modibedi, President of the Small Scale Miners Association of Botswana, said smaller operators remain largely excluded from the diamond value chain, which is dominated by large firms. While not directly involved in diamonds, the downturn still spreads through households nationwide, he said. “Lab-grown diamonds and strict regulations are challenges,” he told Al Jazeera. “But they could also be opportunities, if policy becomes more inclusive.” For Rakhudu, however, structural shifts in the global diamond market remain distant from daily survival. “I am still looking,” he said. “I just want another chance to work.” Adblock test (Why?)

Trump warns Netanyahu: ‘You’ll be on your own’ if attacks on Iran continue

Trump warns Netanyahu: ‘You’ll be on your own’ if attacks on Iran continue

United States President Donald Trump has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he might find himself fighting on his own if Israel returns to war with Iran. The warning on Monday came as Israel and Iran said they would pause attacks following their most serious escalation since a ceasefire took effect in April. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Trump, who has reportedly grown increasingly exasperated with Netanyahu, demanded that both sides stop “shooting” in a post on his Truth Social platform and said that “final negotiations” towards peace would proceed “subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way”. He also called Netanyahu and told him to stop the strikes, according to media reports. In an interview with Axios, Trump said he had warned Netanyahu about the consequences of continuing the war. “I said, ‘Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon’,” Trump said. The flare-up began on Sunday, triggered by Israel’s deadly bombardment of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. Iran – which has long said any peace deal with the US depends in part on an end to the fighting in Lebanon – responded with a wave of missiles at northern Israel. Trump reportedly called Netanyahu on Sunday evening and asked him not to retaliate, but Israel launched attacks on Iran early on Monday. Israeli forces struck Iranian air defence systems and a petrochemical plant, while Iran retaliated by hitting a similar facility in Haifa and targeting two Israeli airbases. Many of the missiles were intercepted over the occupied West Bank. Advertisement No deaths were reported on either side. Israel plays down tensions The exchanges complicated Trump’s push to end a war that the US and Israel launched on February 28. A ceasefire announced on April 8 paused all-out warfare. But flare-ups in the Gulf have continued. For his part, Netanyahu said in a televised statement that he had told Trump that “Israel has a full right to self-defence, and we are exercising it as required”. “Right now, the fire at the front is contained, because after we hit the terrorist regime in Tehran, it stopped attacking us,” he said. Netanyahu also warned that should Iran “make the mistake of resuming attacks against us, we will respond with full force”. Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, downplayed reports of tension between the US and Israeli leaders, telling Fox News that “sometimes, lovers have a spat”. He said that while Netanyahu had “decided” to “lower the temperature” at Trump’s request, the US president understands “full well” that Israel cannot “absorb ballistic missiles into our country without responding.” Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, blamed Washington for the escalation. “The US is directly responsible,” he said. “They are party to the ceasefire negotiations. Therefore, any act in violation of the ceasefire, be it through the interception of vessels [in the Strait of Hormuz], the targeting of southern Lebanon by Israel, or any other event, will cause the United States to be directly responsible for the escalation in the region.” Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said the operation against Israel, dubbed “Nasr” or victory, showcased “a new level of deterrence from mighty Iran” and that Israel had been “forced to beg once again” for a ceasefire. Behind the scenes, diplomatic efforts continue. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X that Tehran was still “at the negotiating table”, while Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said that Washington and Tehran, through Pakistan as an intermediary, are “presenting and exchanging views” towards an agreement. Iravani told The Associated Press news agency he was hopeful that “very soon” the two sides would reach “a conclusion”. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said efforts for a peaceful diplomatic solution was ongoing “earnestly and painstakingly” and called for restraint, “especially when the final objective is just about to be achieved”. He also said Israel and Iran’s exchange of fire was a “reminder of the dangers associated with a tenuous ceasefire and the unbearable consequences it may lead to”. Advertisement Attacks on Lebanon continue The escalation on Monday also drew in Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The group fired missiles at Israel early in the morning and declared a complete ban on Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea, warning that all Israeli movements would be considered “legitimate military targets”. Later on Monday, air raid sirens sounded in the Israeli port city of Eilat, with the military saying a suspected aerial target was launched from Yemen. Violence has also continued in southern Lebanon. An Israeli strike killed five people in the city of Tyre, while another, in the Nabatieh district, left seven dead. A third strike in Marwanieh killed two people, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said. Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, said Trump was trying to give an impression that he was tougher on Israel than he actually is. “The words could be significant if they were matched by actions,” she told Al Jazeera. “As long as they’re sending billions of dollars directly to the Israeli military, and as long as they’re protecting Israel from being held accountable in the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court, as long as those actions don’t change, the words just don’t mean very much,” she added. Adblock test (Why?)