WASHINGTON: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump enter the final weekend of the most tense US presidential campaign of modern times with a flurry of swing-state rallies that will test their stamina — and ability to persuade the country’s last undecided voters.
Harris, bidding to become the country’s first woman president, will use rallies in Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan to drive home her message that Trump is a threat to US democracy.
Trump — seeking a sensational return to the White House after losing in 2020 and then becoming the first presidential nominee to have been convicted of crimes — promises a radical right-wing makeover of the government and aggressive trade wars to promote his policy of “America first.”
The 78-year-old, who rallied in Milwaukee, Wisconsin late Friday just miles from Harris’s event there, will all but cross paths with her again as Trump makes whistle-stops in North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Their frenetic schedule will run right into Monday, culminating with late-night rallies — in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for Trump and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Harris.
Election Day is Tuesday but Americans have been voting early for weeks, with more than 70 million ballots already cast — including a record four million in Georgia, where Democrats seek to pull out all the stops to keep the state in their column.
Opinion polls continue to show a tied race, particularly in the seven battleground states likely to determine the result in the US electoral college system, leaving the Republican businessman and his 60-year-old Democratic rival fighting hard to peel off even slivers of support from one another’s camps.
Harris, currently President Joe Biden’s vice president, is doing that by appealing to centrist voters and propelling her base to the polls with a robust ground game and get-out-the-vote effort.
And by painting Trump as a toxic authoritarian, she is also encouraging voters to “finally turn the page” on the former president.
“He is someone who is increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance — and the man is out for unchecked power,” she told supporters in Little Chute, Wisconsin.
Trump, meanwhile, has doubled down on his already extreme rhetoric in hopes of firing up his loyal base to turn out in massive numbers.
“Kamala’s closing message to America is that she hates you,” Trump fumed on Friday night in Warren, Michigan, where he trashed the economy under Biden and Harris as a disaster — which economists say it clearly is not — and warned that “a 1929-style economic depression” would ensue if Harris were elected.
Citing her hawkish foreign policy views, Trump earlier had conjured the image of former Republican representative turned Harris supporter Liz Cheney being shot.
“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face,” Trump said.
Despite the rhetoric, Trump waxed nostalgic on Friday about how his experience campaigning over the past nine years has been “the thrill of a lifetime.”
“And now we want to take that thrill and turn it into ‘let’s do business,’ right?“
Harris, the nation’s first Black and first Asian-American vice president, meanwhile has sought to harness celebrity star power like Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen in the campaign’s waning days.
Jennifer Lopez, a pop icon of Puerto Rican heritage, joined Harris onstage Thursday, amid a firestorm triggered by a Trump rally warm-up speaker branding the US territory a “floating island of garbage.”
Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B appeared with the candidate Friday night, asking the crowd in Milwaukee, “Are we ready to make history?“
With the election just days away — and Trump refusing to say whether he would accept its results if he loses — businesses in the capital Washington have begun boarding up shop fronts as city authorities warn of a “fluid, unpredictable security environment” in the days after the polls close.
Trump is already alleging fraud and cheating in swing states such as Pennsylvania, laying the groundwork for what many fear will be more unrest, following the violence that erupted at the US Capitol in the wake of the 2020 vote.
Harris, Trump go toe to toe in frenzied final campaign weekend
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Harris, Trump go toe to toe in frenzied final campaign weekend
- Kamala Harris is bidding to become the country’s first woman president
- Opinion polls continue to show a tied race, particularly in the seven battleground states
Colombian authorities arrest alleged leader of Italian mafia in Latin America
- Italian Giuseppe Palermo, also known as ‘Peppe,’ was wanted under an Interpol red notice, which called for his arrest in 196 countries
- He was apprehended on the street in Colombia’s capital Bogota during a coordinated operation
Police identified the suspect as Giuseppe Palermo, also known as “Peppe,” an Italian who was wanted under an Interpol red notice, which called for his arrest in 196 countries.
He was apprehended on the street in Colombia’s capital Bogota during a coordinated operation between Colombian, Italian and British authorities, as well as Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, according to an official report.
Palermo is believed to be part of “one of the most tightly knit cells” of the ‘ndrangheta mafia, said Carlos Fernando Triana, head of the Colombian police, in a message posted on X.
The ‘ndrangheta, one of Italy’s most powerful and secretive criminal organizations, has extended its influence abroad and is widely accused of importing cocaine into Europe.
The suspect “not only led the purchase of large shipments of cocaine in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, but also controlled the maritime and land routes used to transport the drugs to European markets,” Triana added.
Illegal cocaine production reached 3,708 tons in 2023, an increase of nearly 34 percent from the previous year, driven mainly by the expansion of coca leaf cultivation in Colombia, according to the United Nations.
US appeals court scraps 9/11 mastermind’s plea deal
- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was regarded as one of bin Laden’s most trusted lieutenants
- He had spent three years in secret CIA prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006
WASHINGTON: A US appeals court on Friday scrapped 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s plea agreement that would have taken the death penalty off the table and helped conclude the long-running legal saga surrounding his case.
The agreement had sparked anger among some relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks, and then-US defense secretary Lloyd Austin moved to cancel it last year, saying that both they and the American public deserved to see the defendants stand trial.
Austin “acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,” judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao wrote.
Plea deals with Mohammed as well as two alleged accomplices — Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Al-Hawsawi — were announced in late July last year.
The decision appeared to have moved their cases toward resolution after years of being bogged down in pre-trial maneuverings while the defendants remained held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.
But Austin withdrew the agreements two days after they were announced, saying the decision should be up to him, given its significance.
He subsequently said that “the families of the victims, our service members and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out in this case.”
A military judge ruled in November that the deals were valid and binding, but the government appealed that decision.
The appeals court judges on Friday vacated “the military judge’s order of November 6, 2024, preventing the secretary of defense’s withdrawal from the pretrial agreements.”
And they prohibited the military judge “from conducting hearings in which respondents would enter guilty pleas or take any other action pursuant to the withdrawn pretrial agreements.”
Much of the legal jousting surrounding the 9/11 defendants’ cases has focused on whether they could be tried fairly after having undergone torture at the hands of the CIA — a thorny issue that the plea agreements would have avoided.
Mohammed was regarded as one of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s most trusted lieutenants before his March 2003 capture in Pakistan. He then spent three years in secret CIA prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006.
The trained engineer — who has said he masterminded the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z” — was involved in a string of major plots against the United States, where he attended university.
The United States used Guantanamo, an isolated naval base, to hold militants captured during the “War on Terror” that followed the September 11 attacks in a bid to keep the defendants from claiming rights under US law.
The facility held roughly 800 prisoners at its peak, but they have since slowly been sent to other countries. A small fraction of that number remains.
Fuel to Air India plane was cut off moments before crash, investigation report says
- Report also indicated that both pilots were confused over the change to the switch setting, which caused a loss of engine thrust shortly after takeoff
- The Air India flight crashed on June 12 and killed at least 260 people, including 19 on the ground, in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad
NEW DELHI: Fuel control switches for the engines of an Air India flight that crashed last month were moved from the “run” to the “cutoff” position moments before impact, starving both engines of fuel, a preliminary investigation report said early Saturday.
The report, issued by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, also indicated that both pilots were confused over the change to the switch setting, which caused a loss of engine thrust shortly after takeoff.
The Air India flight – a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner – crashed on June 12 and killed at least 260 people, including 19 on the ground, in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad. Only one passenger survived the crash, which is one of India’s worst aviation disasters.
The plane was carrying 230 passengers – 169 Indians, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian – along with 12 crew members.
According to the report, the flight lasted around 30 seconds between takeoff and crash. It said that once the aircraft achieved its top recorded speed, “the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another” within a second. The report did not say how the switches could have flipped to the cutoff position during the flight.
The movement of the fuel control switches allow and cut fuel flow to the plane’s engines.
The switches were flipped back into the run position, the report said, but the plane could not gain power quickly enough to stop its descent after the aircraft had begun to lose altitude.
“One of the pilots transmitted “‘MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY’,” the report said.
It also indicated confusion in the cockpit moments before the crash.
In the flight’s final moment, one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report said.
The plane’s black boxes – combined cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders – were recovered in the days following the crash and later downloaded in India.
Indian authorities had also ordered deeper checks of Air India’s entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner to prevent future incidents. Air India has 33 Dreamliners in its fleet.
Memorial in flood-ravaged Texas city becomes focal point of community’s grief
- Brooklyn Thomas, a Kerrville native, stopped by the memorial to affix flowers near a photograph of a high school friend who died in the flood
- On Friday night, a week after the flood hit, a vigil was held to honor those that died
KERRVILLE: A chain-link fence that separates Water Street in the center of Kerrville from the Guadalupe River just a few hundred feet away has become a makeshift memorial, with the flower-covered stretch serving as a focal point for a grieving community.
As survivors in hard-hit Kerr County begin to bury their dead, the memorial has grown, covered with laminated photographs of victims of last-week’s deadly flood that roared through camps and homes, killing at least 120 people.
“I just feel like this is a beautiful remembrance of the individuals that were lost here,” said Brooklyn Thomas, 27, who graduated from high school in Kerrville with Julian Ryan, a resident of nearby Ingram who died in the flood trying to save his family. “I think it’s something really cool for the community to come to see, to remember their loved ones, to share memories if they want to.”
Thomas and her family affixed flowers to the wall near a picture of Ryan. The smell of fresh-cut flowers hung in the air as people placed candles and other mementos along the sidewalk next to the fence. Signs hanging from the fence read “Hill Country Strong” and featured an outline of Texas filled with rolling green hills. A large Texas flag stood on one end of the memorial, flapping in the breeze.
Debi Leos, who grew up in the Hill Country town of Junction, said she stopped by the memorial to leave flowers in honor of Richard “Dick” Eastland, the beloved director of Camp Mystic who died trying to save some of the young girls at his camp.
“Hill Country is near and dear to me, and we came down here to pay our respects,” Leos said. “As a parent, I can only imagine what the families are going through.”
Friday evening, about 300 people showed up at the memorial for a vigil with speakers that included faith leaders and some who told harrowing tales of narrowly escaping the flood.
Michelle McGuire said she woke up July 4 at her apartment in Hunt, Texas, to find her bed and nightstand floating and quickly found herself in deep flood waters, clinging to a tree for life.
“Thank God I’m a good swimmer,” she said. “I didn’t want my mom to have to bury me.”
Marc Steele, bishop-elect of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, said the memorial has become a place where people of all different faiths and backgrounds can come together and share their grief.
“We like to take opportunities like this to come together and pray to God,” Steele said, “and also Sunday mornings we come together and worship in prayer for our sorrow and thanksgiving for lives that were saved.”
German backpacker found alive after 12 days missing in Australian outback
- Carolina Wilga vanished on June 29 from near the outback town of Beacon, about 254 kilometers north of Western Australia state capital Perth
- The backpacker was ‘ravaged by mosquitoes’ during her time stranded in the hostile terrain and was found exhausted
SYDNEY: Australian authorities said they found a 26-year-old German backpacker “safe and well” after she had been missing in a remote part of the country’s northwest for almost two weeks.
Carolina Wilga, who vanished on June 29 from near the outback town of Beacon, about 254 kilometers north of Western Australia state capital Perth, was found by a passing motorist on a road in the region on Friday, police said.
“This is a huge relief for her family and all of her loved ones,” Detective Jessica Securo said on Saturday in a media conference televised from Perth.
“To find Carolina safe and well is a fantastic result.”
Wilga was airlifted to a Perth hospital, where she was stable on Saturday, authorities said.
The backpacker was “ravaged by mosquitoes” during her time stranded in the hostile terrain and was found exhausted, dehydrated and with cuts and bruises, police said.
A large-scale search was initiated for Wilga after her vehicle was found abandoned in the state’s sparsely populated Wheatbelt region, which spans 154,862 square km.
Wilga planned to continue her travels in Australia once recovered, authorities said.
