Harris and Trump offer starkly different visions on climate change and energy
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Earth sizzled through a summer with four of the hottest days ever measured, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have starkly different visions on how to address a changing climate while ensuring a reliable energy supply. But neither has provided many details on how they would get there.
During her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris briefly mentioned climate change as she outlined “fundamental freedoms” at stake in the election, including “the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”
As vice president, Harris cast the tiebreaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law that was approved with only Democratic support. As a senator from California, she was an early sponsor of the Green New Deal, a sweeping series of proposals meant to swiftly move the United States to fully green energy that is championed by the party’s most progressive wing.
Trump, meanwhile, led chants of “drill, baby, drill” and pledged to dismantle the Biden administration’s “green new scam” in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. He has vowed to boost production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal and repeal key parts of the 2022 climate law.
“We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far,” Trump said at the convention. “We are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy.”
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Trump courts conservative male influencers to try to reach younger men
WASHINGTON (AP) — At first glance, there's little that a 78-year-old former president and a 23-year-old internet personality might have in common.
Donald Trump admitted in a recent appearance on Adin Ross' show that he only “more or less” understood livestreaming, the publishing of live video on social media. But he told Ross he appreciated that the show was part of “the new wave” of information — and he credited his youngest son, 18-year-old Barron, for helping educate him.
“My son’s told me about you, and they told me about how big, he said, ‘Dad, he’s really big,’” Trump said during their two-hour conversation.
Trump's campaign has fully embraced the bravado-filled, macho, often contrarian online spaces popular with a subset of younger men on livestreaming platforms like Twitch and Kick, as well as on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. The former president has appeared with the influencer Logan Paul, another personality Trump said was a favorite of his youngest son, and spoke on X with multibillionaire Elon Musk, a figure revered by many younger conservatives.
The computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman, who also has a large audience of mostly younger men, said he will soon host an episode with Trump.
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Moms for Liberty fully embraces Trump and widens role in national politics as election nears
WASHINGTON (AP) — In her welcoming remarks at Moms for Liberty’s annual gathering in the nation’s capital on Friday, the group’s co-founder, Tiffany Justice, urged members to “fight like a mother” against the Democratic presidential ticket.
Later that evening, after she had interviewed Republican nominee Donald Trump onstage, she made a point to say she was personally endorsing him for the presidency. Their talk show style chat was preceded by a “Trump, Trump, Trump” chant from the audience.
The weekend’s gathering, drawing parent activists from across the country, has showcased how Moms for Liberty has moved toward fully embracing Trump and his political messaging as November’s election draws nearer. The group is officially a nonpartisan nonprofit that says it's open to anyone who wants parents to have a greater say in their children’s education, yet there was little pretense about which side of the nation's political divide it has chosen.
A painting that was prominently displayed on an easel next to the security station attendees had to pass through before being allowed into the conference area showed Vice President Kamala Harris kneeling over a bald eagle carcass, a communist symbol on her jacket and her mouth dripping with blood. A Moms for Liberty spokeswoman said she hadn’t seen the gruesome painting and noted that the only official signage for the event included the group’s logo.
The group’s enthusiasm for Trump is likely to benefit the former president this fall by solidifying a key part of his base — parents who share his views that the U.S. Education Department is bloated and ineffective, equity programs are distracting from academic fundamentals, vaccine mandates violate parental rights and schools that accept transgender children are putting other students in danger.
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Police say a man will face charges after storming into the press area at a Trump rally
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Police said Saturday that a man will face misdemeanor charges after he stormed into the press area at Donald Trump's rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, before being surrounded by authorities and eventually subdued with a Taser as the former president spoke at the campaign stop.
The incident Friday came moments after Trump had criticized major media outlets for what he said was unfavorable coverage and had dismissed CNN as fawning for its interview Thursday with his Democratic rival Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.
It was not immediately clear what motivated the man or whether he was a Trump supporter or critic.
The man made it over a barrier ringing the media area and began climbing the back side of a riser where television reporters and cameras were stationed, according to a video of the incident posted to social media by a reporter for CBS News. People near him tried to pull him off the riser and were quickly joined by police officers and sheriff's deputies.
The crowd cheered as a pack of police led the man away, prompting Trump to say, “Is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?”
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On the first day without X, many Brazilians say they feel disconnected from the world
SAO PAULO (AP) — The blocking of social media platform X in Brazil divided users and politicians over the legitimacy of the ban, and many Brazilians on Saturday had difficulty and doubts over navigating other social media in its absence.
The shutdown of Elon Musk’s platform started early Saturday, making it largely inaccessible on both the web and through mobile apps after the billionaire refused to name a legal representative to the country, missing a deadline imposed by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The blockade marks an escalation in a monthslong feud between Musk and de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
Brazil is one of the biggest markets for X, with tens of millions of users.
“I've got the feeling that I have no idea what’s happening in the world right now. Bizarre,” entertainment writer and heavy X user Chico Barney wrote on Threads. Threads is a text-based app developed by Instagram that Barney was using as an alternative. “This Threads algorithm is like an all-you-can-eat restaurant where the waiter keeps serving things I would never order.”
Bluesky, a social media platform that was launched last year as an alternative to X and other more established sites, has seen a large influx of Brazilians in the past couple of days. The company said Friday it has seen about 200,000 new users from Brazil sign up during that time, and the number “continues to grow by the minute.” Brazilian users are also setting records for activities such as follows and likes, Bluesky said.
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Mississippi bus crash kills 7 people and injures 37
BOVINA, Miss. (AP) — Seven people were killed and dozens were injured in Mississippi after a commercial bus overturned on Interstate 20 on Saturday morning, according to the Mississippi Highway Patrol.
Six passengers were pronounced dead at the scene and another died at a hospital, according to a news release. The bus was traveling west when it left the highway near Bovina in Warren County and flipped over. No other vehicle was involved.
The crash was caused by tire failure, the National Transportation Safety Board said on the social media platform X. The bus was operated by Autobuses Regiomontanos. A woman who answered the phone at its Laredo, Texas, office said it was aware of the crash, but she didn't answer questions or provide her name.
The transit company says it has 20 years of experience providing cross-border trips between 100 destinations in Mexico and the U.S. Its website promotes “a modern fleet of buses that receive daily maintenance,” and offers “trips with a special price for workers.”
The dead included a 6-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister, according to Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey. They were identified by their mother. Authorities were working to identify the other victims, he said.
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Border arrests are expected to rise slightly in August but are hovering near 4-year lows
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico during August are expected to rise slightly from July, officials said, possibly ending a streak of five straight monthly declines but the numbers are hovering near four-year lows.
Authorities made about 54,000 arrests through Thursday, which, at the current rate, would bring the August total to about 58,000 when the month ends Saturday, according to two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been publicly released.
The tally suggests that arrests could be bottoming out after being halved from a record 250,000 in December, a decline that U.S. officials largely attributed to Mexican authorities increasing enforcement within their borders. Arrests were more than halved again after Democratic President Joe Biden invoked authority to temporarily suspend asylum processing in June. Arrests plunged to 56,408 in July, a nearly four-year low that changed little in August.
Asked about the latest numbers, the Homeland Security Department released a statement by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calling on Congress to support failed legislation that would have suspended asylum processing when crossings reached certain thresholds, reshaped how asylum claims are decided to relieve bottlenecked immigration courts and added Border Patrol agents, among other things.
Republicans including presidential nominee Donald Trump opposed the bill, calling it insufficient.
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Polio vaccine campaign begins in Gaza a day before fighting is expected to pause
JERUSALEM (AP) — A campaign to inoculate children in Gaza against polio and prevent the spread of the virus has begun, the Health Ministry said Saturday, as Palestinians in the Hamas-governed enclave and the occupied West Bank reeled from Israel's military offensives.
Meanwhile, Israel's military late Saturday in a terse announcement said it had “located a number of bodies during combat” in Gaza. The army was trying to identify the bodies, including whether they were hostages, but said the process would take several hours. “We ask to refrain from spreading rumors,” it said. There were no further details.
A small number of children in Gaza received vaccine doses a day before the large-scale rollout and limited pauses in the fighting agreed to by Israel and the U.N. World Health Organization. Associated Press journalists saw about 10 children receiving doses at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.
“There must be a cease-fire so that the teams can reach everyone targeted by this campaign,” said Dr. Yousef Abu Al-Rish, Gaza's deputy health minister, describing scenes of sewage running through crowded tent camps. Polio is spread through fecal matter.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office in a statement said “Israel will allow a humanitarian corridor only” and “areas will be established that will be safe for administering the vaccines for a few hours.”
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9 days, 640,000 children, 1.3M doses. The plan to vaccinate Gaza's young against polio
JERUSALEM (AP) — The U.N. health agency and partners are launching a campaign starting Sunday to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children in Gaza against polio, an ambitious effort amid a devastating war that has destroyed the territory's healthcare system.
The campaign comes after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg. The World Health Organization says the presence of a paralysis case indicates there could be hundreds more who have been infected but aren’t showing symptoms.
Most people who have polio do not experience symptoms, and those who do usually recover in a week or so. But there is no cure, and when polio causes paralysis it is usually permanent. If the paralysis affects breathing muscles, the disease can be fatal.
The vaccination effort will not be easy: Gaza’s roads are largely destroyed, its hospitals badly damaged and its population spread into isolated pockets.
WHO said Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Israel for limited pauses in the fighting to allow for the vaccination campaign to take place. Even so, such a large-scale campaign will pose major difficulties in a territory blanketed in rubble, where 90% of Palestinians are displaced.
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49ers WR Ricky Pearsall shot in attempted robbery in San Francisco, condition 'serious but stable'
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall was shot in the chest Saturday during an attempted robbery in central San Francisco, officials said, and he was reported to be in serious but stable condition.
Mayor London Breed said in a post on the social platform X that Pearsall was shot in Union Square, which is a downtown shopping and theater district home to a popular public square of the same name.
“My thoughts are with Ricky and his family at this time,” Breed said.
San Francisco police said in a statement that Pearsall was injured while being robbed in the area of Geary Street and Grant Avenue, and so was the suspect. Both were taken to the hospital, the statement said. Police did not return calls seeking further information but said the suspect was in custody.
“This kind of violence has no place in our city and will never be tolerated,” police chief William Scott said on X.
The Associated Press
