Headline

Kamala Harris Secures Democratic Presidential Nomination

Published

11 months ago

August 3, 2024

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party’s presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November’s showdown against Republican Donald Trump.

Harris, 59, was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. The first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party’s nomination, she will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month.

“I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States,” Harris said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon virtual vote.

In the two weeks since Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Harris has gained full control of the party, smashing fundraising records, packing arenas and erasing the polling leads Trump had built over the president.

“I couldn’t be prouder,” Biden posted on X after her nomination.

The nomination milestone came with Harris preparing to hit the campaign trail next week for a swing across seven crucial election states alongside her yet-to-be-named running mate.

The Democratic Party decided on a virtual nomination process — departing with tradition and mirroring the procedure used in the pandemic-hit 2020 election — because of an early deadline in Ohio for submitting the names of certified candidates.

The virtual roll call marks the official beginning of the 2024 convention, with the more traditional festivities getting going when thousands of party faithful descend on Chicago on August 19.

The gathering will feature a ceremonial vote for Harris in what is expected to be a raucous celebration of her rise from California prosecutor to historic candidate vying for the nation’s highest office.

Trump’s White House bid was turned upside down on July 21 when 81-year-old Biden, facing growing concerns about his age and lagging polling numbers, withdrew his candidacy and backed Harris.

– Wave of momentum –

Energetic and two decades younger than 78-year-old Trump, the vice president has made a fast start, raising $310 million in July, according to her campaign — more than double Trump’s haul.

She and her running mate are scheduled to rally Tuesday in Pennsylvania — a crucial swing state, where Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro is on the shortlist to join Harris’s ticket.

Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania in 2020 by around 80,000 votes and it is seen as the biggest prize of the closely fought battlegrounds that decide the Electoral College system.

The Keystone State is part of the so-called blue wall that carried Biden to victory in 2020, alongside Michigan and Wisconsin, two states where Harris is due to woo crowds on Wednesday.

Harris will also tour the more racially diverse Sun Belt and southern states of Georgia, North Carolina Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada as she seeks to shore up the Black and Hispanic vote that had been peeling away from the Democrats.

In a sign that the Harris campaign is thinking big, US media reported that a raft of senior advisors from Barack Obama’s own historic candidacies in 2008 and 2012 have taken up top positions with her.

Where the now defunct Biden reelection campaign made high-minded appeals to the nation’s founding principles, Harris’s messaging has focused on the future, repositioning the race as a battle for “freedom” rather than the less tangible “democracy” that the president emphasized.

She and her allies have also been more aggressive than the Biden camp — mocking Trump for reneging on his commitment to a September debate and characterizing the convicted felon as an elderly crook and “weird.”

“Some days I feel sorry for Republicans, because they’ve got to figure out how to run a criminal against a prosecutor,” Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock said at Harris’s Atlanta event.

On the detail, however, Harris has been tight-lipped.

While she has disavowed some of the leftist positions she took during her ill-fated 2020 primary campaign, she hasn’t given a wide-ranging interview since jumping into the race, meaning voters have no clear picture of her overall vision.

Meanwhile Trump and his Republicans have struggled to adapt to their new adversary or hone their attacks against Harris — at first messaging that she was dangerously liberal on immigration and crime before pivoting to accusing her falsely of pretending to be Black for political purposes.

AFP

Headline

Trump Birthright Citizenship Order Halted In Class-action Suit

Published

1 day ago

July 10, 2025

Editor

A federal judge on Thursday halted President Donald Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship, as opponents of the policy pursue a new legal avenue following the US Supreme Court’s overturning of a previous block.

The high court’s conservative majority delivered a landmark decision in late June that limits the ability of individual judges to issue nationwide injunctions against presidents’ policies.

Several such judges had in fact blocked Trump’s attempt to end the longstanding rule, guaranteed in the US Constitution, that anyone born on US soil is automatically an American citizen.

However, the Supreme Court left open the possibility that orders could be blocked via broad class-action suits against the government.

Trump’s opponents quickly filed new class-action suits seeking to block again the executive order.

On Thursday, Judge Joseph Laplante of the US District of New Hampshire granted class-action status to any child who would potentially be denied citizenship under Trump’s order. The judge ordered a preliminary halt to it as legal proceedings carry on.

The judge delayed his ruling for seven days to permit the Trump administration to appeal.

Cody Wofsy, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who argued the case, called the ruling a “huge victory” that “will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended.”

Trump’s executive order decrees that children born to parents in the United States illegally or on temporary visas would not automatically become citizens — a radical reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

His administration has argued that the 14th Amendment, passed in the wake of the Civil War, addresses the rights of former slaves and not the children of undocumented migrants or temporary US visitors.

The Supreme Court rejected such a narrow definition in a landmark 1898 case.

The current high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, avoided ruling last month on the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order and only addressed the issue of nationwide injunctions.

It nonetheless permitted the order to go ahead but delayed its ruling from taking effect until late July to allow for new court challenges.

Several lower courts, in issuing their previous injunctions, had ruled that the executive order violated the Constitution.

Headline

PICTORIAL: Two Undocumented Nigerians Arrested For Drug Trafficking In Libya

Published

1 day ago

July 10, 2025

Editor

Libya’s Counter-Terrorism Forces have arrested two undocumented Nigerians over alleged involvement in drug trafficking.

According to a statement shared by Migrant Rescue Watch on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, the suspects were caught with quantities of hashish and hallucinogenic pills, including Tramadol and Lyrica.

Authorities also recovered a large sum of cash suspected to be proceeds from drug sales during the operation.

Following their arrest, the two Nigerians have been handed over to the appropriate legal authorities for further investigation and possible prosecution.

The statement said, “Counter-Terrorism Forces arrested 2 undocumented #migrants of Nigerian nationality for drug trafficking. The individuals were found in possession of hashish, hallucinogenic pills “Tramadol” & “Lyrica” as well as cash from proceeds.

“Both individuals were referred to competent authorities for legal action.”

Headline

31 Workers Escape Death As Tunnel Collapses In Los Angeles

Published

1 day ago

July 10, 2025

Editor

All 31 workers escaped without injuries from a collapsed industrial tunnel in Los Angeles’ Wilmington area, after scrambling over a tall pile of loose underground soil, city officials said late on Wednesday.

The trapped workers were shuttled back to the tunnel’s entry point, more than 5 miles (8 km) away from the affected area, after they escaped the collapsed section and met several coworkers in the unaffected part of the tunnel, the Los Angeles Fire Department said in a statement.

The tunnel, which had a diameter of 18 ft (5.5 m), trapped 27 individuals, while four workers entered the damaged section to assist with rescue, LA Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva told reporters in a media briefing.

“The workers had to climb through debris. They had to make themselves out through,” before they were assisted out, Villanueva said.

Robert Ferrante, chief engineer and general manager of Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, told the briefing that a section of the already built part of the tunnel experienced squeezing ground conditions and partially collapsed.

“LAFD has just reported that all workers who were trapped in the tunnel in Wilmington are now out and accounted for. I just spoke with many of the workers who were trapped. Thank you to all of our brave first responders who acted immediately,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a post on X.

The collapsed section was a part of the Los Angeles County’s Clearwater Project, where the new 7-mile tunnel is being built to upgrade the region’s sewer system, officials added.

(Reuters)