Biden’s candidacy faces new peril, including first Senate Democrat saying he should exit race
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s imperiled reelection campaign is hitting new trouble. Rather than urging him to stay in, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday “it’s up to the president to decide” if he should. Celebrity donor George Clooney said he should not run, and Democratic senators expressed fresh fear about his ability to beat Republican Donald Trump. Late Wednesday, Vermont Sen. Peter Welch called on Biden to withdraw, becoming the first Senate Democrat to do so. It all shows how unsettled the questions over Biden’s candidacy remain among Democrats, despite Biden’s insistence he is staying in the race. Pelosi has been widely watched for signals of how top Democrats are thinking about Biden’s candidacy.
Biden says pressure on him is driven by elites. Voters paint a more complicated picture
SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) — President Joe Biden says the pressure on him to end his reelection campaign is coming from Democratic Party “elites,” the same kind of people who have doubted him throughout his long journey in public life. The voters, he says, will still have his back in the end. But a sampling of voters and Democratic activists in several key swing states paints a far more complicated picture in the aftermath of Biden’s disastrous debate performance. Many are still with him, but they worry that a lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy could cause a lot of Democratic voters to stay home.
Trump wants Black and Latino support. But he’s not popular with either group, poll analysis shows
WASHINGTON (AP) — As he prepares to accept the Republican nomination for the third time, Donald Trump has promised to expand his coalition — and, in particular, to win over more of the nonwhite voters who largely rejected him during the 2020 election. But an AP analysis of two consecutive polls from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted in June shows that about 7 in 10 Black Americans have a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Trump, as do about half of Hispanic Americans. While both groups do see Trump a little more favorably than when he left office in 2021, their opinion is still more negative than positive.
Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s largest hospital complicates treatment of kids with cancer
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in four months has had severe consequences, paralyzing the operations of the country’s largest children’s hospital and severely affecting the young patients already battling life-threatening diseases. Some families now face a dilemma of where to continue the treatment of their children, who have been evacuated to other hospitals in the Ukrainian capital for now. Oksana Halak has already decided she wants her 2-year-old son, Dmytro, who has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, to get treatment in Germany. But another mom, Yuliia Vasylenko, says her 11-year-old son, Denys, will stay in Ukraine. Diagnosed with multiple spinal cord tumors, she fears he doesn’t have time to start cancer treatment again somewhere else.
Wildfire risk rises as Western states dry out amid ongoing heat wave baking most of the US
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities in Western states are warning of the rising risk of wildfires as hot conditions and low humidity dry out the landscape amid a protracted heat wave baking much of the U.S. California’s top fire official says so far this year the state has responded to more than 3,500 wildfires that have scorched nearly 325 square miles of vegetation. Blazes are also burning in Oregon, where the governor issued an emergency authorization allowing additional firefighting resources to be deployed. More than 142 million people around the U.S. were under heat alerts Wednesday, especially across the West, where dozens of locations tied or broke heat records.
Gun and ammunition evidence is the focus as Alec Baldwin trial starts second day
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Prosecutors sought to cast Alec Baldwin as someone who flouts rules and has little regard for safety at the first day of his New Mexico trial in the shooting of a cinematographer. Special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson repeatedly referred to Baldwin playing “make-believe” with a revolver on the set of the film “Rust.” She says it led to very real danger and the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin’s attorney, Alex Spiro, told jurors that the actor did only what actors always do — act like the characters they’re playing. He called the death an “unspeakable tragedy,” but said Baldwin had committed no crime.
People of diverse backgrounds in France welcome far right’s defeat, but fear a rise in hate speech
PARIS (AP) — For many French voters of diverse backgrounds, last Sunday’s parliamentary election results were a relief. They were seemingly an embrace of the country’s ethnic heterogeneity instead of a victory for xenophobic far-right forces. Loven Bensimon, a Black woman who works in communications, says the results were “a moment of joy, a light at the end of the tunnel.” But she and others say the campaign has exposed a rise in racist hate speech that is unlikely to vanish when the new parliament takes office. A recent report by France’s National Consultative Commission on Human Rights found a 32% spike in racist attacks in 2023, and an “unprecedented” surge in antisemitic acts, up 284% from 2022.
Chileans confront a homelessness crisis, a first for one of South America’s richest countries
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The presidential residence of Gabriel Boric, the leftist millennial leader of Chile, shares a street in Santiago, the capital, with a homeless shelter that’s now at full capacity. The sight of cardboard boxes and blankets strewn across sidewalks in Boric’s bohemian neighborhood are a sharp reminder of his struggle to fulfill his central promise to give Chileans “a better life.” A pandemic-induced recession combined with a housing crunch and a migrant influx has swelled Chile’s homeless population like never before. Over the last four years, the rate of homelessness has jumped 30%, transforming the streets of a country considered far more prosperous than its neighbors.
Demand for rare elements used in clean energy could help clean up abandoned coal mines in Appalachia
MOUNT STORM, W.Va. (AP) — In the hills of West Virginia, researchers are hoping to realize a long-term dream of cleaning up poisonous groundwaters that flow out of old coal mines. They’ve long wanted to do this to address pollution in waterways, but now there’s another reason: They have pioneered methods for extracting rare earth minerals and other valuable metals from the drainage, and every pound or ton is one that isn’t extracted from a new mine in the United States or bought from China. The Department of Energy is funding the project in West Virginia now, along with another one at lignite mines in North Dakota that it could expand to commercial scale enterprises.
Jasmine Paolini reaches her second consecutive Grand Slam final by beating Donna Vekic at Wimbledon
LONDON (AP) — Jasmine Paolini has reached her second consecutive Grand Slam final with a 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10-8) victory over Donna Vekic at Wimbledon. Paolini is the No. 7 seed at the All England Club and her win on Thursday at Centre Court follows her runner-up showing at the French Open last month. The 28-year-old Italian is the first woman to get to the title matches at the French Open and Wimbledon since Serena Williams did it in 2015 and 2016. Paolini will face Elena Rybakina or Barbora Krejcikova for the championship on Saturday.
