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Nicolas Maduro claimed victory. Protesters say otherwise - and it isn't just the president's usual foes who are expressing concernEven before Venezuelans went to the polls on Sunday, it was entirely predictable that Nicolas Maduro would declare victory and that the opposition would call the election a sham, as before. So it came to pass. With most of the vote counted, the government-controlled electoral authority said that the incumbent president had taken 51% of votes while his rival, the former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, had won 44%. The opposition say that they have voting tallies proving otherwise, and that Mr Gonzalez is president-elect: The Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened," he said.Two things have changed. The first is that there has been a widespread rejection of Mr Maduro's disastrous reign, even in impoverished areas that were previously strongholds of the Chavismo movement he inherited. Their residents have had enough of the economic and humanitarian catastrophe that has left an estimated 19 million people without adequate healthcare and nutrition, and no longer buy his explanation that it's all the fault of others. US sanctions have exacerbated the crisis, but his government is corrupt and incompetent as well as brutal. Mr Maduro may blame the extreme right for the protests and clashes now seen on the streets, but he knows that he's lost supporters on whom he once counted. Continue reading...

Jeff Bridges, Mark Hamill, Mark Ruffalo and contenders for Harris's VP pick among 190,000 participants in Zoom callA Zoom call meant to rally white dudes" in support of Kamala Harris's run for the White House raised more than $4m from about 190,000 participants, including several Hollywood stars, in the latest success for her nascent bid for president.The fundraiser added to a series of positives for the Harris campaign on Tuesday, including the release of a new ad, an endorsement from the Republican mayor of a large city in in Arizona, and an admission from the Republicans' vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, that Harris posed more of a threat to the Trump campaign than Joe Biden did. Continue reading...

Lawsuit alleges Meta violated state law that prohibits capturing or selling information like faces or fingerprintsMeta has agreed to a $1.4bn settlement with Texas in a privacy lawsuit over claims that the tech giant used biometric data of users without their permission, officials said Tuesday.Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said the settlement is the largest secured by a single state. In 2021, a judge approved a $650m settlement with the company, formerly known as Facebook, over similar claims of users in Illinois. Continue reading...

Mesa mayor crosses party line to back vice-president and rebuke Trump's political extremism' in op-edJohn Giles, the Republican mayor of Arizona's third largest city and a previous thorn in the side of his party for endorsing Democrats, has thrown his support behind Kamala Harris for president.Giles, who since 2014 has been mayor of Mesa near Phoenix, also rebuked Donald Trump in an opinion piece for the Arizona Republic published Monday. Continue reading...

Too many are dismissed, while others are overdiagnosed. And the catch-all diagnosis of colic' isn't helpingBabies cry. This we know. But some cry dramatically more than others. Many parents have the experience of being told their inconsolable child has colic". They assume it's a real, diagnosable medical condition, when really it is a catch-all term for excessive, unexplained crying, and even though it can dramatically affect the experience of early parenthood, they might never understand why it's happening.Several friends with colicky" babies had infants who seemed to be screaming in extreme pain, were impossible to put down, and never slept. Several would spit up milk after every feed, but not all of them. It turned out that these babies actually had reflux. While all of us new parents were in the trenches, these parents had it far worse. They were exhausted, distressed, and felt powerless to soothe their children. Reflux - when milk, food and stomach acid flow from the stomach into the oesophagus - is very common in babies, and doesn't usually require treatment. Yet for some, there are complications.Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author Continue reading...

Republican presidential nominee denies threatening to stay in office after end of possible second term in Fox interviewDonald Trump on Monday repeated his weekend remarks to Christian summit attendees that they would never need to vote again if he returns to the presidency in November.But, after being asked repeatedly on Fox News to clarify what he meant, the Republican former president denied threatening to permanently stay in office beyond his second - and constitutionally mandated final - four-year term. Continue reading...

The pommel horse specialist became a breakout star as the American men won bronze in the team gymnastics. He said it was a win for his fellow glasses wearersNearly 167 million American adults wear prescription glasses. Only one is a pommel horse hero.Stephen Nedoroscik, a 25-year-old from Worcester, Massachusetts, has strabismus, more commonly known as crossed eyes, which can lead to double vision. He won gold on the pommel horse at the 2021 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships but was not wearing glasses when scoring 14.866 on the pommel horse in Paris on Monday, a performance that secured a bronze, the first gymnastics men's team medal for the US since 2008. Continue reading...

Shaundelle Brooks, whose son died in a shooting, channels grief into action' after Tennessee lawmakers failed herAfter losing her son to gun violence, Shaundelle Brooks knew she had to do something big.Brooks' son, Akilah DaSilva, was killed in a mass shooting at a Nashville Waffle House in 2018 that left four dead and two wounded. His death launched Brooks into advocacy. Continue reading...

The once outlandish predictions of Ballard, DeLillo and (yes) The Simpsons are coming true. It's time to write our own futureWriting about the assassination of President John F Kennedy for Rolling Stone in 1983, 20 years after the shooting, the novelist Don DeLillo remarked: Europeans and Middle Easterners are notoriously prone to believe in conspiracies ... Americans, for their own good reasons, tend to believe in lone gunmen." How times change. Since Donald Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt on 13 July, social media have boiled over with talk of conspiracies, false flags and complex manipulations of state and psyche for unclear ends. After Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy for president, various online conservatives argued that he was actually dead. Meanwhile, otherwise sensible observers blamed the media for creating the narrative that Biden had lost mental acuity and keeping Trump in the public eye - a kind of Rothschild conspiracy for people who took undergraduate sociology.It's fun to scoff at such people, who believe that powerful forces secretly organise the world even as we confront evidence that human intelligence is no longer sufficient to run a branch of Chipotle. In fairness to the paranoid mindset, though, a lot of events from earlier decades' fiction have been coming true lately. Consider Lisa's prophetic line from the Bart to the Future episode of The Simpsons, original airdate 19 March 2000: As you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump." It was funny at the time. I believe it was either Karl Marx or Nelson Muntz who said that history repeats itself: first as farce, then as whatever all this is now.Dan Brooks writes essays, fiction and commentary from Missoula, Montana Continue reading...

In a DC-area hotel, Democrats and Republicans met to wargame five scenarios they say are not unrealistic'It is the afternoon of 20 January 2025 and Donald Trump is in his White House dining room, glued to the same TV where he sat transfixed as the January 6 attack on the US Capitol unfolded four years ago. This morning, he completed one of the most spectacular political comebacks in US history, reciting the oath of office at the inauguration ceremony that returned him to the most powerful job on Earth.His political resurrection has caused turmoil in the transition period, and massive anti-Trump demonstrations have erupted in several big cities. In his inaugural address, the 47th president makes clear his intention to deal with his detractors: They are rioting in the streets. We are not safe. Make our cities safe again!" he commands. Continue reading...

Trump's current running mate said some of the his supporters voted for him in 2016 for racist reasons'In newly uncovered remarks from 2017, Donald Trump's 2024 vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, said some people who voted for Trump are racist and they voted for him for racist reasons".Race definitely played a role in the 2016 election," Vance said. I think that race will always play a role in our country. It's just sort of a constant fact of American life. And definitely some people who voted for Trump are racist and they voted for him for racist reasons." Continue reading...

Chief executive says tensions not impacting' business as bank reports pre-tax profits of $1.6bn for second quarter

He may soon be one of the most powerful people in the world. So what can we learn about Donald Trump's running mate from his online footprint?Like many an elder millennial, JD Vance once had a blog. Two, actually. The lawyer turned writer turned senator turned venture capitalist turned Donald Trump's running mate launched his first blog during his 2005 deployment to Iraq. It was called The Ruminations of JD Hamel, because that was the name he was ruminating under at the time. Vance has gone by a few names. He has also gone through a hell of a lot of political opinions.His second blog, called The Hillbilly Elite, was launched in 2010, when he was a 26-year-old at Yale Law School. It was meant to help him parse his feelings about being an Appalachian white boy ... training at the world's premier center for elites". When I say feelings", I don't mean silly little girly feelings. This was serious stuff. So it's like a diary," his first entry explained, only far more masculine." Continue reading...

The president also decried the Trump immunity ruling and is proposing a constitutional amendment that explicitly applies the criminal code to presidents. Plus, the man who has ranked every Disney song

Trump, JD Vance, and their Maga allies are misogynists who want to control women. Harris could not be more of a threatWhen Joe Biden stepped down in support of Kamala Harris, he didn't just pass the torch to another generation. He passed it from old white men to America's future.Consider that women now compose a remarkable 60% of college undergraduates. And that by 2050, it's estimated that America will consist mostly of people of color - 30% more Black people than today, 60% more Latinos, and twice the number of Asian Americans. Continue reading...

Kari Lake, who refused to accept her gubernatorial race loss in 2022, is now vying for US Senate - and other key racesRepublican primaries across Arizona on Tuesday will test whether the far-right cadre focused on election denial still can win among their base, despite major losses in the 2022 primaries.The state has been gripped with fights over elections for years, with candidates like Donald Trump and Kari Lake refusing to concede their respective races. These general election losses in 2020 and 2022 ended decades-long Republican dominance, delivering the governor's office and other top spots to Democrats. Continue reading...

Taylor Knibb will follow up her appearance in the time trial with the triathlon. She will join a select group of athletes when she does soIn the early days of the Olympics, competing in multiple sports was far from unusual.At the loosely organized 1904 Olympics, at which the United States won at least 230 (sources vary due to uncertain citizenship for many competitors) of the 280 medals awarded over nearly five months as a sideshow to the St Louis World's Fair, Franz Kugler became the only man to win medals in three sports in the same Games - hitting the podium in wrestling, weightlifting and tug of war. In 1908, eight US track and field athletes - including Irish-born hammer-throwing legend Matt McGrath - entered the tug of war competition, only to withdraw in protest over the shoes worn by the Liverpool Police team, who went on to lose to their fellow law-enforcement personnel from London. A lot of events were unofficial demonstration sports," such as the 1912 baseball games featuring even more US track and field athletes.US boxer-turned-bobsledder Eddie Eagan is still the only Olympian to win gold in both Olympics in different disciplines. (Figure skater Gillis Grafstrom won gold in the Summer and Winter Olympics but in the same event - until the Winter Olympics debuted in 1924, figure skating was held in the summer.)Norway's Jacob Tullin Thams had a similarly esoteric combination, winning ski jumping gold and sailing silver.Cycling and speedskating form a more common combination. Canadian Clara Hughes earned multiple medals in each sport, while East German Christa Luding-Rothenburger will remain the only person to win Winter and Summer medals in the same year, unless the IOC makes a surprising revamp of the Olympic calendar.Bobsledding is a popular second sport for track and field athletes, but US sprinter Lauryn Williams is the only person with medals in both sports. Continue reading...

Find out who is leading the way at the Olympics, and drill down to see which events each country has won medals forSupport the GuardianAs is traditional, the table prioritises the number of gold medals won. On this basis at the 2020 Olympics, held in Tokyo in 2021, the United States led the field with 39 golds, with China second on 38 and Japan third with 27. If countries have the same number of gold medals, the order is then dictated by which has the most silvers, and finally bronze if the numbers are still identical. Continue reading...

Very little thought seems to have been given to how Steven van der Velde's presence might affect victims of sexual abuseFor weeks now, controversy has surrounded the Dutch beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde, who was sentenced to four years in prison in England in 2016 for raping a 12-year-old girl when he was 19. He has served his time and openly expressed regret for what he called the biggest mistake of my life". But is that enough for him to be allowed to represent the Netherlands at the Olympic Games, a contest in which participants are also expected to serve as role models?International media and support groups for victims of sexual violence certainly do not think so. Many condemned the decision to let Van de Velde play, and even called on the International Olympic Committee to investigate how he had been allowed to compete.Renate van der Zee is a Dutch writer and journalistInformation and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html Continue reading...

Michigan and North Carolina governors out as remaining likely running mates are white men governing swing statesTwo lawmakers seen as strong contenders in the race to become Kamala Harris's running mate have announced that they are not in the running. On Monday, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and North Carolina governor Roy Cooper both said that while they support the vice-president, they will be staying in their posts in their respective states.This just wasn't the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket," Cooper said in a statement posted to Twitter/X on Monday. As I've said from the beginning, she has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we'll all work to make sure she wins." Continue reading...

Sales have fallen 1% around the world, as consumers eat at home or choose cheaper menu optionsThey're not lovin' it. McDonald's global sales fell for the first time in nearly four years in the second quarter as inflation-weary consumers skipped eating out or chose cheaper options. The company said it expects same-store sales to be down for the next few quarters and is working on fixes like meal deals and new menu items.Consumers still recognise us as the value leader versus our key competitors, it's clear that our value leadership gap has recently shrunk," McDonald's chairman, president and CEO Chris Kempczinski said on Monday during a conference call with investors. We are working to fix that with pace." Continue reading...

Many fires ignited by weather, with climate crisis increasing lightning strikes amid blistering heat and dry conditionsFire crews made progress in the battle against major wildfires that have left a trail of damage in the western United States, but thousands of firefighters continue to tackle the flames.In northern California, the Park fire grew at ferocious speeds to become one of the largest wildfires in the state this year. In southern California, a blaze swept through the historic mining town of Havilah. And in Oregon and Idaho, authorities were assessing the damage caused by several large wildfires raging there. Continue reading...

President calls immunity principle dangerous' in Austin speech, and proposes code of conduct and term limitsJoe Biden, in a Monday address calling for sweeping reforms of the US supreme court, said the recent decision granting some immunity to presidents from criminal prosecution makes them a king before the law.Speaking in Austin at the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Biden said a president was no longer restrained by the law and that this was a fundamentally flawed [and] dangerous principle". Continue reading...

President cites supreme court decisions that he says eroded civil rights, including presidential immunity ruling and overturning of Roe. This blog is now closed

Mollie O'Callaghan won an Australian battle in the pool while Team GB enjoyed their best day of the Games so farThe Matildas, arguably Australia's most popular team at the Olympics, notched their first win of the Games, a madcap 6-5 victory over Zambia. Qualification to the quarter-finals now looks probable, but not yet assured. Even so, after displaying such poor form in their opening two matches progress deep into the tournament seems unlikely.For the optimists, this remarkable comeback victory will buoy the Matildas ahead of their crunch match against the United States on Wednesday in Marseille. It is just the sort of win needed to invigorate their Olympic campaign. Next stop - an Olympic medal?Then there is a less charitable way to assess the group stage clash on Sunday night. Zambia are ranked 64in the world. They have two of the best attackers in the world, yes, but as a cohesive national team, they are far from the finished product (the untenable position of their coach does not help). This is a game the Matildas, who have finished fourth at consecutive international tournaments, should have controlled and won comfortably.The medal is Fox's fourth in the kayak event stretching back to London 2012, and her second gold after she won in the canoe in Tokyo. She improved her time from the semi-final by a barely believable six seconds, avoiding any penalties. It left her competitors having to take more risks to navigate the tricky course. Continue reading...

Josiah Anthony steps down from role at Cross Timbers church in Fort Worth, as officials decline to give detailsAfter the ex-Trump adviser Robert Morris stepped down from his role as pastor at a Texas megachurch in June following a child sexual abuse scandal, another Texas megachurch pastor has stepped down over accusations of inappropriate" behavior.Cross Timbers church in the Fort Worth suburb of Argyle announced, in a sermon on Sunday, the resignation of its lead pastor, Josiah Anthony. Continue reading...

Ron Klain says he didn't agree with pressures for Biden to drop out but is optimistic about Harris's prospectsSenior Democrats' successful efforts to push Joe Biden out of the presidential race were unfortunate, nasty and public" and did the president a disservice", Biden's former White House chief of staff said - even as the new nominee, Kamala Harris, continued to fundraise strongly, campaign vigorously and show signs of catching Donald Trump in polling.I was disappointed that people in the party called for [Biden] to leave the race, and I thought they got out of control," Ron Klain said. Continue reading...

The face of Japanese skateboarding edged out USA's Jagger Eaton and Nyjah Huston in an awesome display of street skillsYuto Horigome has never been afraid to leave things late. In danger of missing the podium entirely after bottling one trick after another on a sweltering Monday afternoon, the 25-year-old face of Japanese skateboarding roared from behind in the final reel to retain his Olympic men's street title ahead of the US pair of Jagger Eaton and Nyjah Huston, who took silver and bronze respectively.Amid oppressive heat beneath a cloudless sky in the temporary La Concorde stadium, Horigome once again came up clutch when it mattered most. He completed a flawless slide down the 10-stair round rail on his fifth and final trick to slide into gold position by a tenth of a point over Eaton, a bronze medalist three years ago in Tokyo. The near-perfect score of 97.08 left the door open for both Americans, but each wiped out on his final attempt to the relief of Horigome, who became the first double Olympic champion in skateboarding's brief history as a medal sport. Continue reading...

Timelapse video from 25 July captured California's Park fire creating what appears to be a fire tornado'. The fire, burning north-east of the city of Chico, forced thousands of residents in Butte County, about 100 miles north-east of Sacramento, to evacuate their homes. The fire, which stretched over four counties, was believed to be caused by arson, after authorities say a man was seen pushing a burning car into a ravine

Court reinstates ban after lengthy legal battle in a decision pro-choice advocates call violation of human rights'Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, urged Americans to vote after a six-week abortion ban took effect in Iowa on Monday.This ban is going to take effect before many women even know they're pregnant," Harris said in a video posted to YouTube. What this means is that one in three women of reproductive age in America lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban." Continue reading...

Democratic campaign co-chair Gretchen Whitmer says candidate's presidential pick is coming soon

Team was on the verge of giving up search for Scott Hern, who was stranded in the wilderness without food or waterAn Ohio man who went missing for two weeks in a rugged Kentucky forest was rescued just as search efforts for him were nearing their end.Scott Hern had become lost in the Red River gorge, and the Wolf county volunteer technical rescue team was on the verge of giving up searching for him when it heard him scream for help and finally found him. Continue reading...

Would-be assassin detected 30 minutes earlier than what officials previously said due to communication failureDonald Trump has agreed to participate in a victim interview with the FBI regarding his attempted assassination earlier this month, the bureau told reporters on Monday.This comes as authorities continue their investigations into the 13 July shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, where 20-year-old Thomas Matthews Crooks fired eight shots from an assault rifle which hit and injured the former president, killed a rally attendee and injured several others. Crooks was killed by government snipers moments after the shooting began. Continue reading...

President also says presidential immunity for crimes should be removed and ethics rules for justices should be stricterJoe Biden unveiled a much-anticipated series of sweeping changes to the US

Former friend releases messages largely from 2014-2017 in which Republican VP nominee also says: I hate the police'Questions continued to mount about the political transformation of Donald Trump's running mate, JD Vance, after the release of emails from a former friend in which Vance called Trump a morally reprehensible human being" and said: I hate the police."The messages between Vance and Sofia Nelson, who sent them to the New York Times, were largely dated between 2014 and 2017. In one, Vance sent Nelson a section of Hillbilly Elegy, his bestseller about his Appalachian boyhood. Continue reading...

Games in Philadelphia and Columbus are no longer harmless fun. They're warm-ups for league matches being staged overseas

As soon as the Games start, it kicks in: the armchair expertise, the deep well of totally imagined knowledge, the phantom athleticism. I'm not sure this is the spirit of global togetherness the events are supposed to fosterIt was 2012 and, now I look it up, actually my birthday, and I was having a standup row with an American journalist because the Australian Anna Meares had just won gold in the women's cycling sprint event. Let me count the ways in which the Olympics had driven me mad. First, gripped by a patriotic fervour that even Kemi Badenoch would probably have found a bit much, I was enraged that Victoria Pendleton had come second. Enraged. I hated Australia, I didn't understand why American journalists were even allowed to watch the proud sportsters if they weren't going to root for the British ones.Second, I was incandescent about the injustice of an adjudication, on a rule that I'd only learned five minutes before. Pendleton had crossed a lane line, which is forbidden, yet it looked like Meares had pushed her, then the judges said Meares hadn't, then the race was redone, then Meares won, and five-minutes-ago me didn't even know you were allowed a rematch, but now I was the Ruth Bader Ginsburg of cycling tort and I wanted to put Meares in prison. Continue reading...

Flight 2477 to Boston landed in DC to conduct a deep clean' after crew and passengers began vomitingA United Airlines flight was forced to divert after a passenger fell so ill on board that it caused what one crew member reportedly called a biohazard" - and made crewmates and other passengers start vomiting.The plane, Flight 2477 heading from Houston to Boston on Sunday, ended up landing in Washington DC so it could undergo a deep clean", the New York Post reported. Continue reading...

New law limiting confinement was scheduled to take effect after 26 died in city jails in two yearsNew York City mayor Eric Adams over the weekend declared a state of emergency in local jails to prevent them from enacting a new law limiting solitary confinement in the lock-ups.The law was scheduled to take effect Sunday after at least 26 people had died in New York City jails since January 2022. Adams' emergency declaration came Saturday. Continue reading...

Steffens, the highest scoring woman in Olympic history, describes situation as a medical emergency'

Make sure you don't miss a thing with our full, updating guide to the dates and times of all the events at Paris 2024Support the GuardianSearch for every event and start time at the Paris Olympics with our comprehensive live schedule. From the football pitch to the pool, via track and field and much more, use our filter tool to pinpoint the sports and disciplines you want to follow most so that you don't miss a thing. Continue reading...