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VP dodges question on whether she voted for measure that would increase sentences for drug and theft crimes in stateKamala Harris dodged a question on Sunday if she voted for California's Proposition 36, a controversial ballot measure that increases sentences for certain drug and theft crimes.I am not gonna talk about the vote on that because, honestly, it's the Sunday before the election and I don't intend to create an endorsement one way or the other," the US vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee, who votes in California, told reporters at a rally in Detroit. Continue reading...

Former president also denounces polls showing him trailing Harris at one of his final rallies of campaign in PennyslvaniaDonald Trump said with two days until the presidential election that he should never have left the White House after his defeat in 2020 and joked darkly he would be fine with reporters getting shot, dredging up grievances that overshadowed his attack lines against Kamala Harris.The closing themes of the former president's campaign at a rally in Lititz in the battleground state of Pennsylvania brought him full circle with his 2016 campaign that went after the news media and his 2020 campaign that was defined by his attempts to overturn the result. Continue reading...

Selzer poll, widely respected organization with good record in Iowa, shows vice-president leading Trump 47% to 44%Donald Trump has passionately disputed a shock Iowa poll that found Kamala Harris leading the former president in the typically red state 47% to 44%.No President has done more for FARMERS, and the Great State of Iowa, than Donald J. Trump," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network on Sunday morning. In fact, it's not even close! All polls, except for one heavily skewed toward the Democrats by a Trump hater who called it totally wrong the last time, have me up, BY A LOT."Don't miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts Continue reading...

But a spokesperson says the FCC has not made any determination regarding political programming rules'A US government communications regulator has claimed that Vice-President Kamala Harris's surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live violates equal time" rules that govern political programming.Brendan Carr, a commissioner with the federal communications commission (FCC), claimed on the social platform X that Harris's appearance on the show is a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC's Equal Time rule". Continue reading...

Officials uncovered alarming amount of fentanyl-laced pills' during routine traffic stop in state's central valleyA routine traffic stop in California's central valley turned into a major fentanyl bust when authorities seized enough lethal doses to kill a quarter of California's population, according to California highway patrol (CHP).In a statement released on Friday, CHP officers in Stockton, about 50 miles south of the capitol city of Sacramento, said that last month, while conducting a traffic stop on Interstate 5 highway near Airport Boulevard, officers uncovered an alarming amount of fentanyl-laced pills" after a K9 signaled the scent of narcotics. Continue reading...

Women's access to abortion is a top issue, as activists rush to convince men they also have stake in the fightWhen Maxwell Frost bounded on stage at a Saturday morning rally in support of Florida abortion rights, the 27-year-old congressman was quick to explain why he had shown up.I'm so proud to be here as an ally and partner in this fight!" he yelled to the roughly hundred-strong crowd who had gathered in an Orlando church courtyard, clutching handwritten sings with messages like abortion bans are killing us" and womb-tang clan ain't nothing to fuck with". Continue reading...

Kennedy, who Trump promised to let lead health programs, makes claims against fluoride, which strengthens teethRobert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that the former president would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected.Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear-and-tear, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.Don't miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts Continue reading...

The ex-president and vice-president converge on a unifying message: if I lose, the country will not be the sameIn a speech filled with promises, falsehoods, insults and jokes delivered by Donald Trump to a packed Wisconsin arena six days before the presidential election, one line stood out: November 5 will be the most important day in the history of our country."Hyperbole? Undoubtedly, and exactly the sort that the former president has used repeatedly in the past months, as he plots a return to the White House that Joe Biden ousted him from four years ago. Did it ring true to his supporters? For many, the answer was yes. Continue reading...

University of California, Berkeley, research shows people are committed to protecting democratic institutions despite differencesYou know that uncle whose political takes threaten to turn family gatherings into food fights? Don't decline his Thanksgiving invitation just yet. When it comes to support for democracy, left and right in America are much closer than you might think.As a historic US election approaches, both sides see each other as working to upend democracy. But it's our assumptions about our political opponents - rather than their actual views - that drive polarization, according to new research. And if Democrats want to prove to voters on the fence that they're acting in good faith, they might want to consider a surprising grand gesture". Continue reading...

Ashes of 28-year-old female grizzly bear returned to Grand Teton national park where she spent much of her lifeThe remains of a beloved grizzly bear who died last month after being hit by a car in Wyoming have been returned to Grand Teton national park.In a statement released on Friday, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it returned the ashes of Grizzly No 399, a 28-year old female grizzly bear, to the Pilgrim Creek area of the national park where she spent much of her life. Continue reading...

More than 80,000 customers were without power as damage included downed power lines, gas lines and treesSevere storms and reported tornadoes swept across Oklahoma early on Sunday, injuring at least six people, and causing injuries and widespread power outages.Those injured were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, the Oklahoma city police department captain Valerie Littlejohn said.

Both Harris and Trump ignore harm reduction strategies, trying to outdo each other on border policy and law enforcementOverdoses killed 108,000 people in the US last year, more than Covid-19 or diabetes, yet overdose prevention has barely gotten mention this election cycle.On the relatively rare occasions when presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris discuss opioids, they draw from war on drugs" rhetoric - suggesting that tougher border and law enforcement policies are the answer to the problem. Continue reading...

Find out who's up and who's down in the latest US presidential election opinion pollsOn 5 November 2024, millions of Americans will head to the polls to choose between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump for president of the United States. The two candidates have offered starkly different visions for the future of the nation. As the election enters the final stretch, the Guardian US is averaging national and state polls to see how the two candidates are faring. Continue reading...

From abortion to the economy, the Democrat and Republican have widely diverging visions for the countryKamala Harris and Donald Trump offer two starkly different visions for the country with much at stake - from pocketbook economic issues and reproductive rights to the strength of the country's global alliances and existential questions about the future of American democracy and the planet.As they compete for the White House, both candidates have laid out their plans in speeches, campaign ads and media interviews. Most of it amounts to a wish list, sketched out in broad strokes and lacking concrete details about how they would be implemented or paid for. A number of Trump's proposals raise legal questions, while some of Harris's would probably require Democratic control of Congress. Continue reading...

It is debatable what effect celebrity endorsements - in this case, highly contrasting groups of A-listers - have on votersIt is debatable what effect celebrity endorsements have on voters, but candidates always welcome them. Here are the highly contrasting groups of A-listers who have endorsed Kamala Harris and Donald Trump: Continue reading...

From abortion to the economy, the Democrat and Republican have widely diverging visions for the countryKamala Harris and Donald Trump offer two starkly different visions for the country with much at stake - from pocketbook economic issues and reproductive rights to the strength of the country's global alliances and existential questions about the future of American democracy and the planet.As they compete for the White House, both candidates have laid out their plans in speeches, campaign ads and media interviews. Most of it amounts to a wish list, sketched out in broad strokes and lacking concrete details about how they would be implemented or paid for. A number of Trump's proposals raise legal questions, while some of Harris's would probably require Democratic control of Congress. Continue reading...

As the election approaches, experts say a rightwing author is using the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer - executed for resisting Hitler - as a figurehead against the left, raising fears of political violenceThis article is co-published with DocumentedLeading figures on the Christian right have seized on an unlikely hero in their campaign against secular government: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an antifascist theologian and pastor who resisted the Nazi regime before he was executed in 1945. Continue reading...

In the state with a conservative majority in power, many of the project's proposed policies are making life difficult, with cruelty the point', say activistsProject 2025, the conservative blueprint for a second Trump presidency, has been used as a warning by Democrats to highlight what would be in store for the country if he were to win the upcoming election. But for some Americans, much of Project 2025 isn't a distant possible future - it is a current-day reality.In several states across the country, there are already extreme abortion bans that have led to the deaths of multiple pregnant women and at least one teen; restrictive voting policies that make it difficult for citizens to cast their ballots; defunding of education and censorship of books; and other such policies that have also been proposed by the authors of Project 2025. If the plan is successfully implemented, many policies that are already reshaping some states would become federal laws. Continue reading...

The broadcaster's senior US correspondent on whether the election will bring more violence, the challenges of being blind in his job, and what he misses about the UKBorn in Norfolk in 1968, and becoming blind by the age of eight, Gary O'Donoghue studied philosophy and modern languages at Oxford University. After graduating he joined the BBC as a junior reporter on the Today programme, later becoming Radio 4's chief political correspondent. Now the BBC's senior North America correspondent, O'Donoghue was in attendance at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania where Donald Trump was hit by a bullet; his interview with eyewitness Greg Smith subsequently revealed astonishing security lapses. With election day on Tuesday and Americans worried there could be more violence to come, O'Donoghue spoke to us from the corporation's Washington DC bureau. He divides his time between Washington DC, London and Yorkshire with his partner and their daughter.Where will you be when America goes to the polls?

Harris and Trump's policy priorities, polls and paths to victory: a complete guide to the White House raceThe 60th US presidential election will decide the 47th president - widely held to be the most powerful job in the world - and 50th vice-president. The candidates and their supporters are describing it as the most important election of their lifetimes with democracy and the American way of life are at stake. Record amounts of money have been raised and spent on campaign ads and ground games. Media coverage in print, on TV, online and on podcasts has never been more intense - or more polarised.All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs along with 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate, which together will decide the membership of the 119th Congress. Thirteen state and territorial governorships and numerous other state and local elections will take place. Continue reading...

The dark view of populist politics by renowned historian Richard Hofstadter sheds light on the US electionAmerican politics has often been an arena for angry minds." Not a comment on this year's presidential campaign but an observation on another US presidential race, that of 1964. It is the opening line to one of the most influential political essays of the postwar era, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, first published 60years ago this month.The very title of Richard Hofstadter's essay is redolent of contemporary fears. As Donald Trump has, over the past decade, built a movement out of anger and disaffection, old copies of Hofstadter have been dusted off and op-eds written with titles such as The paranoid style in American politics is back" and Donald Trump's style perfectly embodies the theories of renowned historian". Continue reading...

With the contest on a knife-edge, four award-winning writers reflect on the state of the nation, their personal feelings about Harris and Trump, and what the future holdsIrish-born novelist and nonfiction author whose books include Let the Great World Spin and Apeirogon. McCann has lived in New York for three decades Continue reading...

The catastrophic floods in Valencia remind us that the fate of human beings and animals is what is truly importantYou may have heard of Cop29, the global climate change conference that doesn't start until 11 November but has already been generating headlines for weeks. You are less likely to have heard of Cop16, the international summit onbiodiversity. It wrapped up two days ago but has barely scraped thenews agenda.The lack of interest in Cop16 extended even to the participants. A whopping 80%of countries failed to submit plans for meeting a landmark UN nature agreement at the conference, as they had promised to do. Even Colombia, which hosted Cop16, missed the deadline. And, as the summit wore on, representatives noticed with mounting alarm a lack of concrete progress" on any of the major targets they had set themselves. Continue reading...

Launched in the Observer, John's Campaign aims to give frail people the right to be accompanied by those who love themEveryone has their own special way of grieving. Mine turned my life upside down.On 26 November 2014, two days after the funeral of my father, I sent a slightly unhinged email to the Observer saying there was a piece I want (need) to write... My very lovely and beloved father died two weeks ago, after a long and distressing time suffering from dementia. He had been in gradual decline for more than a decade but went into hospital in February, and while there seemed to go off a cliff: his deterioration was catastrophic and when he came out a few weeks later he was emaciated to the point of starvation, immobile, bed bound, incapable of stringing words together, hardly able to recognise anyone." Continue reading...

When JD Vance dismissed Kamala Harris as a childless cat lady', it sparked controversy, brought Taylor Swift into the presidential debate and focused attention on right-wing political pressure placed on women to have childrenWhen writer and artist Alice Maddicott's beloved rescue cat died, she was understandably bereft. Dylan was a proper character, she says, the kind of gregarious cat that follows you to the pub or for a walk. But mourning him made Alice, who was then in her late 30s and single, feel faintly self-conscious. What if people thought she was a mad cat lady, weeping spinsterish tears for her pet?If I'd had a dog, there would be no stereotype. But as a single woman approaching 40, it could be seen very differently," says Maddicott. Curious about the origins of such a kneejerk prejudice, she started digging into its history. The research became a book, Cat Women, reclaiming an insult long used to belittle older women (especially non-compliant ones) or frighten younger women into settling down, lest they end up like the crazy cat lady from The Simpsons: once a high achiever, now a burnt-out drunk. Continue reading...

While owner Mondelz continues to do business in Russia, should we truly just enjoy the moment'?On its bicentenary the chocolate maker Cadbury is keener than ever to remind consumers of its deep connection with the British public: Yours for 200 years".Well, not entirely. Since 2010 Cadbury has belonged first to Kraft then after 2012, to Mondelz International, a US-based confectionery giant that still chooses to operate factories and pay taxes within Russia. In Ukraine Mondelz was designated, in 2023, an international sponsor of war".Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

Vice-president appears in the mirror opposite impressionist Maya Rudolph in last episode before 2024 election of variety show where politicians go to lighten their imageI don't really laugh like that, do I?"Uhhhhh, a little bit." Continue reading...

Harris makes surprise appearance live from New York', while Trump's Republicans lose a court challenge over balloting in Fulton county, Georgia, for the 5 November election

Thousands of women demonstrated in the US capital and across the country in support of abortion rights and other feminist causes ahead of Tuesday's presidential election. Marchers carried posters and signs through city streets as speakers urged people to vote in the election. 'We've got to stand up for democracy,' protester Lina Anderson said. 'We have to stand up for women's right to have control over her body, control over her life. Women's rights are human rights'

City Of Troy's audacious challenge for the Breeders' Cup Classic was over almost before it had begunThe latest interruption arrived just as the Filly & Mare Sprint was approaching its climax, and what a finish it proved to be. Scylla and Ways And Means were among the horses in a four-way go for the lead inside the final furlong ... only for Soul Of An Angel, who missed the kick and all but tailed off after a furlong, to sweep around them all for an upset win.Please accept my apologies for the frequent interruptions to the service at the moment. Not for the first time, the richest and most powerful nation on earth is apparently incapable of organising a stable wi-fi connection in the media room for a global sporting event. Continue reading...

Judge allows Fulton county election offices to be open Saturday and Sunday for mail-in ballots to be dropped offA Georgia judge on Saturday rejected a Republican lawsuit trying to block counties from opening election offices on Saturday and Sunday to let voters hand in their mail ballots in person.The lawsuit only named Fulton county, a Democratic stronghold that includes most of the city of Atlanta and is home to 11% of the state's voters. But at least five other populous counties that tend to vote for Democrats also announced election offices would open over the weekend to allow hand return of absentee ballots. Continue reading...

Brooklyn detention center holding 1,200 has been under scrutiny since two fatal stabbings this summerFederal authorities have confirmed that they seized drugs, homemade weapons and electronic devices during a sweep of the jail where Sean Diddy" Combs is being held on sex trafficking conspiracy charges ahead of a trial next year.The Bureau of Prisons, which headed up the interagency sweep of the Metropolitan detention center (MDC) in Brooklyn that began on Monday, said the action was not related to Combs's detention but was preplanned and coordinated to ensure the safety and security" of staff and inmates. Continue reading...

Mayor Eric Adams asks residents to take shorter showers as city agencies ordered to prepare conservation plansNew York's mayor urged residents to take shorter showers, fix dripping faucets and otherwise conserve water, issuing a drought watch Saturday after a parched October in the city and in much of the United States.A drought watch is the first of three potential levels of water-saving directives, and Eric Adams pitched it in a social media video as a step to try to ward off the possibility of a worse shortage in the United States' most populous city. Continue reading...

By promising troops to Russia, Kim Jong-un has internationalised the conflict, adding to instability around the worldThe transfer to Russia of an estimated 10,000 North Korean troops to bolster Vladimir Putin's illegal war in Ukraine represents an alarming escalation of a conflict that is causing ever-greater international insecurity and instability. The provocative deployment by the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, links the confrontation on Europe's border to the long-running east-west standoff on the Korean peninsula, potentially aggravating both.The US is plainly deeply concerned. Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, forcefully warned Moscow and Pyongyang last week against sending North Korean troops on to Ukrainian battlefields. The US ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, said that if Kim's soldiers enter Ukraine in support of Russia, they will surely return in body bags". Continue reading...

Australia's compulsory voting contrasts with increasingly restrictive voting rules in the US - just one of many differences between the two democraciesYou don't get the day off, but it is on a weekday in winter; there's no sausage sizzle; and, well, the loser might not accept the result. Elections in America are hard yakka.Here is how they compare with Australia's. Continue reading...

Spike Lee, 2 Chainz, Monica, Victoria Monet and Pastor Troy warmed up the crowd of enthusiastic Harris votersKamala Harris struck a contrast between her work as a prosecutor and a Donald Trump campaign obsessed with revenge and consumed with grievance" on Saturday in Atlanta, three days before election day.In less than 90 days it's either going to be him or me in the Oval Office," Harris said. Continue reading...

Kamala Harris said Friday Kennedy is exact last person' who should be setting policy for families and childrenRobert F Kennedy Jr could assume some control over US health and food safety in a second Trump administration, according to reports on Saturday, alarming Democrats who believe the former environmental lawyer and independent presidential candidate could be empowered to act on his vaccine-sceptical views.According to the Washington Post, Kennedy has met with Trump transition officials to help draw up an agenda for a new administration and could take a broad health tsar" position that would not require confirmation by the Senate. Continue reading...

Research shows that those with easier to pronounce names are more successful in the workplaceNames matter. I've written a whole book about our country being called Great Britain at a time when things haven't been going great. And being called Torsten causes all kinds of trauma - there was the distant relative who just gave up and called me Tristram.But I've not worried that having a weird name might have economic impacts. Until now. Reading a few studies last week has made me less chillaxed, because it turns out ease of pronouncing your name matters. A 2012 Australian study found that having a harder to pronounce name was associated with being judged less positively by others. And within law firms, it reduced your chance of having a top position. Continue reading...

In displaying all the signs that he is off his rocker, the Republican candidate has infected millions of othersIs Donald Trump going mad? It depends how you define the word. But since he's hoping to be elected US president on Tuesday, it would be handy to know. Democrats describe him as weird" and unhinged". His rival, Kamala Harris, raised the M" question again last week. This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power," she warned.Harris, to her credit, was being relatively polite, though goodness knows why, given the way he disses and demeans her. So let's pose the question in more colloquial, idiomatic terms. Has stark raving Trump finally lost his marbles? Arethere bats in the belfry? If he's off his rocker, not playing with a fulldeck and away with the fairies, the world and the voters have a righttoknow. Continue reading...

But the Trump ground game - led by TPUSA and Elon Musk's America Pac - might be falling behind the Harris effortOn a warm October morning in Madison, Wisconsin, Ty Schanhofer found a unicorn: an undecided voter.Schanhofer, an organizer with the University of Wisconsin student Democratic party, had unfolded a plastic table on campus and was trying to encourage people to register in the key swing state. Continue reading...

First there was Moore's law, now the Nvidia boss has upped the ante. It's all fuelling a dangerous conviction that everything can be solved by technologyIn 2001 I interviewed the late Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel. He was in Cambridge to attend the opening of a new library that he and his wife, Betty, had endowed. We met in the university library - the central library of the university - and had an agreeable chat about the history of the tech industry and the role that he had played in it. As ever, he was wearing a tacky digital watch that served as a cue for a party trick he used to play on people. He would ask them what they thought it had cost, and most people would suggest a trivial sum - $10, say. Nope, he'd reply. The actual cost was $15m: because that was what it had cost Intel to get into - and out of - the market for digital watches. And one of the lessons he learned from that was that his company should stay away from selling consumer goods.Moore was world famous because of an observation he had made in the early days of the semiconductor industry that Intel once dominated. He had noticed that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit (or chip) had been doubling every year since 1965, and this was likely to continue for several decades. Inevitably, this became known as Moore's law", as if it were a law of physics rather than just an empirical observation and an extrapolation into the future. Continue reading...

From the intimate to the infamous, these pictures of US commanders-in-chief (and a few also-rans) capture moments of tragedy and hope at the heart of the White HouseIs it any surprise that photo op" is a phrase imported into British English from the United States? Of course it came from there, the land where the visual image sits right at the centre of the culture, with politics no exception. It was the Nixon White House that came up with it, specifically a press aide by the name of Bruce Whelihan. According to Washington legend, whenever the president was meeting a visiting dignitary, Richard Nixon's hardball press secretary, Ron Ziegler, would turn to his underling with an order to summon the snappers. Get 'em in for a picture," Ziegler would say. Too polite to put it that way himself, Whelihan would clear his throat and announce to the ladies and gentlemen of the Washington press corps: There will be a photo opportunity in the Oval Office." The photo op was born.But if the term was new, the thing itself had been a part of US politics almost from the start. Just as Roman emperors sought to cast themselves in stone and Tudor kings commissioned the finest artists to capture their likeness, so American presidents moved fast to harness the new technology of the age, in order that the nation might see the men who governed them. The selection of photographs assembled here is made up of a series of striking images, but a couple are extraordinary less for what they show than for the fact that they exist at all. Continue reading...

Amendment 4, which would enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution, must garner 60% of votes to passAs she stood in the parking lot of an auto supply store on Friday evening, Brittany Robinson was practically vibrating. With just a few days left before the 2024 presidential elections, the 32-year-old Floridian needed an outlet for her anxiety.So Robinson decided to go knock on strangers' doors in support of Amendment 4, a ballot measure that, if passed, would enshrine abortion rights into Florida's constitution and overturn the state's six-week abortion ban. Continue reading...

Bereaved mothers in a Michigan city pleaded with the council for action at its last meeting before local electionsTiffany Owens stood before the city council in Saginaw, Michigan, struggling to contain her anguish.I hate this city because this city took away something that was so precious and dear to me. I've been living here all my life and I had to bury two of my kids. They out in Forest Lawn cemetery," she said, her voice shaking with grief. Continue reading...

Trump insists on posing as the salient question of the election: are you crazier today than you were four years ago?Donald Trump's threat to execute Liz Cheney, with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her", is the apogee so far of his Hitlerian rhetoric. By his own words, Trump has proved her point that he is a danger" to the constitution and defied his apologists who insist he can be contained or that he doesn't really mean what he says. And let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face," he said. Shoot Liz Cheney" has replaced Hang Mike Pence."Hours after Trump declared his wish to kill Cheney, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, his reliable excuse maker for the executive collaborator class, published an editorial stating, We don't buy the fascism fears, and we doubt Democrats really do either."Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth Continue reading...