In a twist of events, Ruto handed critical dockets including Finance, Energy, and Trade, to opposition leader Raila Odinga’s allies in what has been perceived as an attempt to appease the protesters demanding radical changes in government.
Addressing the media at State House, Nairobi, Ruto hoped his new cabinet would revive efforts to deflate anti-government protests that have been going on for weeks.
President Ruto nominated the chairman of the ODM party, John Mbadi, as Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Economic Planning (Finance). He also picked ODM deputy leaders Wycliffe Oparanya and Ali Hassan Joho to head plum dockets previously held by his loyalists.
Oparanya has been nominated to head the Ministry of Co-operatives and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Development, while Joho will be in charge of the Ministry of Mining, Blue Economy, and Maritime Affairs.
Minority Leader Opiyo Wandayi, also a senior member of Odinga’s ODM party, has been nominated as Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum.
Salim Mvurya was moved from the Ministry of Mining and Blue Economy Investments, Trade, and Industry. Kipchumba Murkomen is set to become the Minister of Youth Affairs, Creative Economy, and Sports after a stint at the Road and Transport docket.
Former Trade Minister, Rebecca Miano, will be in charge of the Tourism and Wildlife portfolio.
Alfred Mutua has been nominated to head the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, while former Attorney General Justin Muturi has been nominated to head the Ministry of Public Service and Human Capital Development. Stella Soi Lang’at is set to take over as the new Minister for Gender, Culture, the Arts, and Heritage.
The ODM party is the main opposition party in Kenya. It is also the largest party in the Azimio la Umoja â” One Kenya coalition, which was formed in the run-up to the 2022 presidential elections.
The Ministry of Finance and Planning recently found itself at the center of the Kenyan protests after drafting the Finance Bill 2024, which sought to raise $2.7 billion local revenue through collection of additional taxes.
Former Prime Minister, Raila Odinga last week opposed calls for President Ruto to resign over government failures and instead called for dialogue to resolve the issues raised by the youth.
While announcing the additional members of the cabinet, Ruto promised to tackle corruption in government by undertaking stringent measures.
'I will be proposing the amendment of the Evidence Act, Criminal Procedure Code, as well as other necessary changes, to expedite and prosecute corruption cases within six months,' he said.
Additionally, the president pledged to propose amendments to the Witness Protection Act to protect and incentivize whistleblowers as well as enhance witness protection.
Kenya’s President William Ruto handed critical dockets including Finance, Energy, and Trade, to opposition leader Raila Odinga’s allies in what has been perceived as an attempt to appease the protesters demanding radical changes in government.
“My deepest sympathies to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali and the victims of the devastating landslides that have claimed hundreds of lives in southern Ethiopia. Rwanda stands in solidarity and support with the people of Ethiopia during this difficult time,' President Kagame posted on his X handle.
According to media reports, the landslides occurred on Sunday evening and Monday morning, triggered by heavy rains in the remote mountainous area of the Gofa zone in Southern Ethiopia.
Local authorities have reported that the search for survivors is “continuing vigorously,” but warned that the “death toll could rise.”
The Communications Affairs Department in Ethiopia disclosed that at least 148 men and 81 women were killed in the Kencho-Shacha locality in the Gofa Zone on Monday.
In May 2024, floods affected more than 19,000 people across several zones in Ethiopia, displacing over 1,000 and causing significant damage to livelihoods and infrastructure.
In 2017, at least 113 people died when a huge Stack of rubbish collapsed in a landfill on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.
Rwanda has also experienced similar tragedies. On the night of Tuesday, May 3, 2023, heavy rains led to floods and landslides that claimed over 130 lives.
However, the region has witnessed other devastating landslides.
In February 2010, mudslides in the Mount Elgon region of Eastern Uganda killed more than 350 people. The deadliest landslide in Africa occurred in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, in August 2017, where 1,141 people died.
The landslides occurred on Sunday evening and Monday morning, triggered by heavy rains in the remote mountainous area of the Gofa zone in Southern Ethiopia.
Local authorities have reported that the search for survivors is “continuing vigorously,” but warned that the “death toll could rise.”
Cinephiles lie awake at night worrying that talented young film-makers are deserting cinema for TV. Jane Schoenbrun, one of the most gifted around, has just made a superb feature film about a fictional TV show, imagined here with such loving and unnerving intensity that it surely can't be long before they are called upon to conjure up a dozen or so episodes for real. With a compelling cod-90s score by Schoenbrun's musical collaborator Alexander Giannascoli, or Alex G, I Saw the TV Glow lives on in my head. It deserves cult classic status without the 'cult'; it is deeply scary, deeply strange and deeply sad, a deadly serious new version of Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge for the 2020s.
Schoenbrun made a brilliant impression with a startling debut in 2021 that exploited the lockdown-Zoom aesthetic with an ingenuity that, for me, is still unmatched by any other film, the no-budget chiller We're All Going to the World's Fair, about a young woman drawn into the world of online gaming and collaboratively authored creepypasta-type online horror. There were no in-person dialogue scenes: everyone was alone in an atomised universe. Now we are in the pre-internet world of the 1990s, in a high school where parents are voting for a second Clinton term. Owen, played by Ian Foreman as a kid and as an adult by Justice Smith (from Benjamin Caron's thriller Sharper), is a deeply unhappy person, unsure about his relationship with his mother, about his sexuality, about everything. He meets the older, supercool, emo-ish Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine, channelling a very young Winona Ryder), equally unhappy and abused by her stepdad. She is queer (as hardly anyone used to say in 1996) and, asked about his own preferences, Owen says shyly that he 'likes TV shows'.
So Maddy introduces him to one called The Pink Opaque and lends him her recorded VHS copies of all the episodes. It's a story of two girls, Isabel and Tara (pronounced 'terror'), who have an intense relationship that clearly goes beyond anything as banal as romance, battling each week against supernatural foes under the direction of villainous Mr Melancholy, who lives in the sky like Georges Méliès's man in the moon.
Owen and Maddy become passionately addicted both to the show and, asexually, to each other. They don't obsess about the actors or directors and their careers (this is when the internet was in its infancy, when discovering these things was pretty difficult). They obsess about the show itself. It speaks to them; The Pink Opaque is their world, incomparably more real and more important than anything in their boring town and boring lives. They yearn for self-reinvention, for escape and the show is the key. But Maddy mysteriously disappears, declared dead, and reappears after a decade, during which Owen has got much older and more depressed, brooding on something about adulthood that no one had told him: years go by quicker than skipped DVD chapters. Where has Maddy been?
Audiences familiar with 90s TV may recognise the dynamic between Owen and Maddy as something like Rickie Vasquez and Rayanne Graff in the small-screen classic My So-Called Life, while the mixture of genuine fear and rapture â” and genuine longing for a compromised teen past â” has something of those 90s masters Bret Easton Ellis and Douglas Coupland. It's a nostalgia: not for the past, but an alternative imagined present. And as for that other towering 90s classic, perhaps Maddy has seen through the Wachowskian Matrix and maybe she hasn't.
The force of this film, which Schoenbrun delivers so matter-of-factly, is that it almost doesn't matter. Maddy is ecstatic about something about which Owen can only feel fear, and his own life is to play out in dreary sadness; living in his late parents' house, getting terrible jobs, ditching the old boxy TV for a new plasma model, and talking about loving his new 'family', by which he means the people he sees on the flatscreen. I Saw the TV Glow is claustrophobic, unwholesome and brilliant.
Sitting on a stack of ammunition crates at a secret military base, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi was tight-lipped about when Ukraine will receive a long-awaited delivery of F-16 fighter jets. The Dutch and other allies have said they will arrive soon. This week? Or maybe August? 'I know. But I can't tell you about it, unfortunately,' he said, with an apologetic grin, as gulls squawked nearby.
Syrskyi is Ukraine's new commander-in-chief. His unenviable task is to defeat a bigger Russian army. Two and half years into Vladimir Putin's full-scale onslaught, he acknowledges the Russians are much better resourced. They have more of everything: tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, soldiers. Their original 100,000-strong invasion force has grown to 520,000, he said, with a goal by the end of 2024 of 690,000 men. The figures for Ukraine have not been made public.
'When it comes to equipment, there is a ratio of 1:2 or 1:3 in their favour,' he said. Since 2022 the number of Russian tanks has 'doubled' â” from 1,700 to 3,500. Artillery systems have tripled, and armoured personnel carriers gone up from 4,500 to 8,900. 'The enemy has a significant advantage in force and resources,' Syrskyi said. 'Therefore, for us, the issue of supply, the issue of quality, is really at the forefront.'
It is this man and machine superiority that explains recent events on the battlefield. Since last autumn Ukraine's armed forces have been going steadily backwards. One of his first acts when he got the job in February 2024 â” replacing Valerii Zaluzhnyi, now Ukraine's ambassador to the UK â” was to order the withdrawal of his troops from the eastern city of Avdiivka. The retreat coincided with a six-month gap in the US supply of weapons.
More have recently arrived. The Russians, however, are still seizing fields and villages in the eastern Donbas, using airdropped bombs to blast a path forward. They have gobbled up territory north-west of Avdiivka, towards the garrison town of Pokrovsk, and besieged the hilltop settlement of Chasiv Yar. In May Russian forces opened a new front in the Kharkiv region, storming the city of Vovchansk. Ukraine anticipated this attack. Seemingly it couldn't stop it.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, his first with a foreign newspaper as overall military chief, Syrskyi admitted things were 'very difficult'. 'The Russian aggressor attacks our positions in many directions,' he said. Could Russia's advance be halted? 'Yes, of course. First of all, it depends on our brave soldiers, our officers,' he said. Quite frequently 'resilient and heroic' Ukrainian units defeated bigger enemy groups, he said.
By way of example, he cited Russia's latest attempt to seize Kharkiv and the neighbouring province of Sumy. 'It failed,' Syrskyi said. Fighting continued but he said Putin's attempt to create a 'so-called security corridor' next to Russia's border and Belgorod region had been thwarted. What about rumours Moscow was planning another assault in the southern Zaporizhia region? If it happens 'we can give them a good response', he replied.
Overall, Syrskyi sought to put recent setbacks in context. He described Russia's creeping victories as 'tactical' ones â” local gains rather than an 'operational' breakthrough, such as the capture of a major city. 'In principle, the enemy has not made any significant progress,' he said. The frontline, he added, was 3,700km long. Active hostilities were taking place across '977km' of it, or 'twice the length of the border between Germany and France'.
Russia's successes, meanwhile, came at a staggering human cost. The Kremlin's casualties were 'three times' higher than Ukraine's, and 'even more' in certain directions, Syrskyi said. 'Their number of killed is much bigger,' he emphasised. In February Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 31,000 Ukrainian service personnel had died since 2022. Could Syrskyi update this figure? He declined, saying losses were 'sensitive' and a topic Moscow could exploit.
Syrskyi contrasted his battlefield tactics with those used by Russian commanders, who are known for sacrificing huge numbers of infantry troops to gain '100 to 200 metres'. 'It's very important for us to save the lives of our soldiers. We don't defend ruins to the death,' Syrskyi said. He said he was not willing to 'achieve goals at any cost', or to chuck his men into 'futile meat assaults'. Sometimes it was necessary to move to 'more favourable positions'.
Amid scepticism about Ukraine's prospect of achieving outright victory, Syrskyi noted various positive developments. F-16s would strengthen Ukraine's air defences. They would allow Kyiv to work more effectively against Russian cruise missiles and to hit ground targets accurately. However, there were limits to what F-16s might achieve, he stressed. They had to remain '40km or more' from the frontline because of the risk Moscow would shoot them down.
Syrskyi says drones play as big a role as artillery. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian
Russia had 'superior aviation' and 'very strong' air defences. Because of this Ukraine was increasingly turning to unmanned aerial systems, Syrskyi said. It used drones 'very effectively' and was trying out 'robotic ground systems' â” land robots that could deliver ammunition or rescue a wounded soldier. There was a new unmanned systems command, the first of its kind. 'We fight not by quantity but quality,' he said, adding that drones played 'as big a role as artillery'.
Ukraine's armed forces were successfully using long-range kamikaze drones to strike deep inside Russia, he said. So far they had targeted 'about 200 critical infrastructure sites'. All were connected with 'military logistics', and included factories, fuel dumps and munition depots. Speedboat-like sea drones, meanwhile, had sunk about a third of Russia's Black Sea naval fleet. 'It really became a trap for them and for some [vessels] a grave,' Sryskyi said.
The Kremlin, he added, has been forced to 'completely pull out' from the Crimean port of Sevastopol, after a series of Ukrainian attacks. Drone and missile strikes have wiped out radar and rocket installations. A key Ukrainian objective is to destroy the Kerch road and rail crossing connecting the occupied peninsula with Russia. Syrskyi declined to say when this might happen. Two earlier attempts featured a truck bomb and a drone strike.
He said Kyiv had a plan to get back Crimea, more than a decade after Vladimir Putin illegally annexed it. Was this really feasible? 'It's realistic. Of course, it's a big military secret,' the general said. He continued: 'We will do everything we can to reach the internationally recognised borders of 1991 [when Ukraine voted for independence from the USSR]. We have to win ⦠to liberate our citizens who are in the occupied territories, who are suffering.'
Aged 58, Syrskyi was born in Vladimir, a city outside Moscow, in what was then the Soviet Union. Since the 1990s he has served in Ukraine's armed forces. Critics accuse him of Soviet military thinking. Supporters describe him as a disciplined and talented commander who â” in contrast to his charismatic predecessor, Zaluzhnyi â” is often on the frontline. In February 2022, as head of ground forces, he led the defence of Kyiv. Zelenskiy made him a hero of Ukraine and six months ago promoted him to commander-in-chief.
Close up, Syrskyi is warm and personable. His handshake is suitably iron. Meeting Syrskyi involved cloak-and-dagger arrangements and a mysterious ride in a van. The Kremlin, you imagine, is keen to kill him. Aides built a small stage for his rare media appearance, with a camouflage netting backdrop.
Like many serving soldiers he sees his family rarely. 'They suffer without me, so it's maybe it's an issue for me too,' he said. 'But I know that we will win. I know how I have to do it. And I'm sure that we will do it.' The general says he doesn't sleep 'many hours'. In rare moments off he read books on Ukrainian history, in order to understand past 'processes'. 'We have brave people and a difficult history,' he observed.
One of Syrskyi's most pressing challenges is to find new recruits to replace Ukrainian soldiers who have been killed and injured. Those fighting in trenches are exhausted. The patriotic fervour that led many in spring 2022 to volunteer has worn off. The government recently reduced the conscription age from 27 to 25. Last week a new law came into effect requiring men to register their details with military recruitment centres. Many have done so. Others are hiding.
Oleksandr Syrskyi with his troops. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian
Syrskyi said that without mobilisation he could not create new reserves and brigades, which were needed as Russia multiplied its own land forces. 'It's very important for us that all citizens of Ukraine fulfil their constitutional duty,' he said. He urged Ukrainians living outside their country to take part as well. 'I hope that after victory they will be able to tell their children where they were. Where were you when all citizens of Ukraine were fighting in such fierce battles? That is the question.'
One initiative is taking shape in neighbouring Poland. Ukrainians abroad will soon be invited to join a new legion there. Training will take place in Poland itself, building trust between men and officers. Later the legion will transfer to the frontline. Syrskyi credited Zelenskiy with this 'different approach'. One senses relations between them are harmonious, helped perhaps by the fact the commander has zero political ambitions and a lower profile than Zaluzhnyi. Syrskyi is celebrated in a cat meme, though.
Russia began its armed takeover of Ukraine in 2014, when it covertly grabbed parts of the Donetsk region. More than a decade on, there seems little likelihood Europe's biggest war since 1945 will finish this year, or next, Donald Trump's pledge to end the war in one day notwithstanding. Could Ukraine win? And if so, how long before victory? 'I think you have to be very, very brave to say when. We do everything to make it happen. There is simply no more important task for us,' Syrskyi said, leaving the stage and striding back to work.
A Russian chef who has lived in France for 14 years has been arrested on suspicion of plotting with a foreign power to stage 'large scale' acts of 'destabilisation' during the Olympic Games in Paris.
The 40-year-old man was arrested during a raid of his apartment in central Paris on Sunday where a document linked to an elite Russian special forces unit operating under the command of the FSB, an heir to the KGB, was reportedly found.
A judicial investigation has been opened into allegations of sharing 'intelligence with a foreign power with a view to provoking hostilities in France,' a crime punishable by 30 years of imprisonment. The alleged plot is not believed to have been terror related.
The man, who has not been named, was indicted on this charge on the same day and placed in pretrial detention.
The ambitious opening ceremony of Paris 2024 will be staged on the banks of the Seine on Friday evening and there has long been concern that Russia could seek to meddle in events.
Prosecutors in Paris said the search of the Russian national's apartment had been carried out at the request of the French interior ministry.
According to briefings given to the French media, agents found evidence suggesting the man was preparing a 'large-scale project' that could have had 'serious' consequences during the three weeks of games.
The French newspaper, Le Monde, reported that the intelligence services had listened into a call two months ago between the individual and a Russian intelligence services handler in which the suspect had stated that 'the French are going to have an opening ceremony like there has never been before'.
No details have been provided as to the nature of the alleged conspiracy to destabilise the games.
The paper reported that the detained man had been trained as a chef in Paris and that he had participated in Russian reality and cooking shows. He had described himself on his CV as a 'private chef'.
He first arrived in France in 2010 and spent some time in Courchevel, a ski resort popular with the Russian elite, where he worked in a Michelin starred restaurant, before leaving for Paris in 2012.
According to emails dating from September 2012, and seen by Le Monde, the suspect had told his landlady, named by the paper as Viviane, that he was returning to Moscow to work as an official in the Russian government. But he took part in a civic training day, a mandatory integration step in France, in April 2013.
The intelligence services had tracked him for months. They picked up on his alleged phone call to his handler in May during at a time when he was returning from a trip to Istanbul to his home in Paris.
He missed his flight due to excessive alcohol consumption and instead returned via Bulgaria, at which point the conversation about the Olympics opening ceremony was monitored, according to Le Monde.
At 6am on Sunday, police officers from the elite 'research and intervention brigade (BRI), called in by the General Directorate of Internal Security, raided the suspect's home on Rue Saint-Denis on the right bank of the Seine. It is claimed that the police found 'documents of diplomatic interest' among his possessions.
Last month Microsoft said Russia was seeking to undermine the Olympics with the creation of fake websites replicating authentic French media outlets and the use of artificial intelligence to fuel concern about violence and terrorism.
The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said this week that authorities had screened over one million people ahead of the games.
'We are here to ensure that sport is not used for espionage, cyberattacks or to criticise and sometimes even lie about France and the French,' Darmanin said.
Sources say that Nemeyimana, on the night of July 23, 2024 staked to drink 13 bottles of the local brew that had been bought for him. Unfortunately, after consuming 11 bottles he accepted defeat and decided to go home only to be discovered dead on the roadside.
It is suspected that his death resulted from the effects of excessive quantities of the brew. The incident occurred in Rugerero Village, Muhambo Cell, Cyumba Sector.
An eye witness who spoke on condition of anonymity narrated that Nemeyimana was reportedly seen at a bar that night, where he accepted a bet from a 24-year-old acquaintance to drink 13 bottles of Nesha.
'After consuming 11 bottles, he began to feel weak and chose to go home. He was later found lying dead on the roadside near a church,' the eye witness said.
SP Jean Bosco Mwiseneza, spokesperson for the Rwanda National Police in the Northern Province has said that individuals suspected of any involvement in Nemeyimana’s death have been apprehended.
“An investigation is underway to determine the exact cause of death. Two individuals suspected of being responsible have been taken into custody and handed over to the Byumba RIB station,” he stated.
SP Mwiseneza urged the public to report any potential risks to safety promptly. The deceased’s body has been taken to Byumba Hospital for an autopsy.
The acquisition was disclosed on the evening of Tuesday, July 23, 2024, though details about the deal are still scanty. IGIHE has learnt that deal was finalized on July 18, 2024.
In a brief interview, Mahmoud Nasr, the CEO of Prime Cement, confirmed the development. Asked what could have triggered the deal, Mahmoud declined to divulge more details.
'It is the responsibility of the government. You should be asking them why the takeover happened,' he said before hanging up.
The CEO of the Rwanda Stock Exchange (RSE), Pierre Celestin Rwabukumba, also confirmed that CIMERWA had informed them about the acquisition last week.
“They informed us last week, and the process is ongoing. This acquisition has significant implications for CIMERWA and its shareholders. Prime Cement was a major competitor in the market. When you acquire a competitor, you are essentially taking over the market. National Cement Holdings Ltd, which acquired CIMERWA, aims to lead the market wherever they operate by reducing the importation of cement into the country,” he stated.
The amount CIMERWA paid to acquire Prime Cement has not been disclosed yet. This move follows CIMERWA’s acquisition by National Cement Holdings Limited, which owns cement manufacturing plants across Africa.
In November 2023, CIMERWA’s management announced that the company had been acquired by National Cement Holdings Limited after it secured 99.94% of its shares.
By January 2024, National Cement Holdings Ltd’s management announced they had completed the payment for the 99.94% shares in CIMERWA, amounting to $85 million, equivalent to Rwf107,963,175,000.
They committed to satisfying the cement demand in Rwanda by eliminating the need for imports thereby ensuring affordable prices to Rwandans.
CIMERWA, established in 1984, became the first cement factory in Rwanda. Its cement has been used in major projects such as BK Arena, Bugesera International Airport, Amahoro Stadium, various roads, and over 2000 classrooms.
Prime Cement, the newly acquired factory, had a capacity of processing 600,000 tons of cement per year. CIMERWA earlier announced through local media outlets that the acquisition of Prime Cement’s assets was an “off-market transaction.”
'CIMERWA Plc will take over all operational assets of Prime Cement, with the government retaining any outstanding liabilities. The company believes this acquisition will significantly boost its capabilities and market position,' reads a statement.
CIMERWA, Rwanda’s leading cement manufacturing company, has completed the acquisition of Prime Cement.
Kamala Harris vowed on Tuesday that Americans were 'not going back' to the 'chaos' of the Donald Trump years, as she made her campaign trail debut in battleground Wisconsin with just over 100 days left before the election.
In an fiery speech a day after securing enough Democratic delegates to win the party's nomination, the vice-president sought to frame the contest against Trump as a choice between starkly different visions for the country, casting his as regressive and backward-looking and hers as optimistic and forward-looking. 'Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and rule of law or a country of chaos, fear and hate?' she asked, drawing roaring applause and chants of 'Kamala' â” reflecting an enthusiasm that has eluded Democrats in recent months.
As Harris arrived in Milwaukee, the two most powerful Democrats in Congress, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, threw their support behind Harris during a joint press conference in Washington DC.
'Democrats are moving forward stronger and more united than ever before,' Schumer told reporters on Tuesday, adding that he had seen a 'surge of enthusiasm from every corner of our party' since Joe Biden's decision to withdraw from the presidential race and endorse his vice-president.
In short order, Harris consolidated support among the party, ending weeks of internal drama following Biden's calamitous debate performance last month that exacerbated voters' concerns about the 81-year-old president's fitness to serve another four years â” and a discussion over who could replace him if he bowed out.
Fears of a messy contest for the nomination never materialized, as members of Congress, party activists, labor leaders and would-be rivals lined up behind Harris. The campaign â” which she inherited from Biden â” was renamed, and has raised an astonishing $100m in 36 hours.
At the rally on Tuesday, Harris drew a sharp contrast between herself, a history-making prosecutor, and Trump, the first president ever to be convicted of a felony.
'I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,' she said to roaring applause. 'So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type.'
She added: 'I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week.'
During a visit to campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday, Harris acknowledged that the last few weeks had been a 'rollercoaster' but sought to project calm and a sense of continuity. She announced that Jen O'Malley Dillon would continue to lead the campaign and that Julie Chávez Rodriguez would remain in her role as campaign manager.
Promising a 'people-powered campaign', Harris told supporters in Milwaukee that 'building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency'. She also vowed to stop Republicans' 'extreme abortion bans', saying that Democrats 'trust women to make decisions about their own body'.
Supporters hold signs for Harris during a campaign event in Wisconsin on Tuesday. Photograph: Jeffrey Phelps/EPA
Tuesday's event was scheduled even before Biden dropped his bid for the presidency, but took on renewed resonance as Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket at an extraordinary moment in American politics.
Just days before, Republicans left their party's convention in Milwaukee, projecting confidence about their prospects in November after nominating Trump just days after he survived an assassination attempt, along with his running mate, the 39-year-old senator from Ohio, JD Vance. As Democrats called on their party's leader to step aside, Republicans emerged energized and united.
Surveys taken since Biden's withdrawal have shown a nail-bitingly close contest, with Harris running marginally stronger than Biden was against Trump. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday found Harris opened up a small two-percentage-point lead over Trump.
On Tuesday, the Trump campaign's pollster Tony Fabrizio circulated a memo warning of a 'Harris Honeymoon' that would see a temporary rise in public opinion before Republican attacks on her begin to sink in. While acknowledging 'the situation we find ourselves in today is totally uncharted territory', he insisted the 'fundamentals of the race stay the same' and Trump remains in a strong position to win in November.
Danielle Butterfield, executive director for Priorities USA, one of the largest liberal Super Pacs, said Biden's decision to end his re-election bid had given Democrats an opening to turn the contest into a referendum on the former president.
'Without an incumbent on the ticket, we believe we have a renewed chance to make this election about the future,' she told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday. The group's data showed Harris was exciting key Democratic constituencies, especially among Black and Hispanic voters and young people.
Republicans quickly pivoted to the vice-president. Trump has already assailed Harris, a former California senator, as 'dangerously liberal', part of Republicans' effort to tie her to Biden's record on the economy and immigration, the Democrats' weakest issues. This week, House Republicans were weighing whether to bring to the floor a resolution condemning her handling of the border as vice-president, even though her mission was to address the 'root causes' of migration, not immigration policy.
'She's the same as Biden but much more radical,' Trump said on Tuesday, on a call with reporters, aimed at hammering Harris over border security and immigration. 'She's a radical left person and this country doesn't want a radical left person to destroy it.'
'That's all he's got?' Harris's husband, the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, said of Trump's attacks during a visit to a reproductive rights clinic in McLean, Virginia, earlier in the day. There, he raised Trump's legacy of appointing the conservative justices who ended the constitutional right to an abortion, which he said paved the way for a 'post-Dobbs hellscape'.
Wisconsin is considered one of the 'blue wall' battleground states that is critical to the Democrats' hopes of winning the White House in November. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 and four years later Biden clinched the state.
'The path to the White House goes through Wisconsin,' Harris told the raucous crowd.
By the time Harris took the stage in Milwaukee on Tuesday, the high school where she spoke was standing room only. A campaign official said organizers received so many requests to attend the event that they were forced to find a larger venue at the last minute.
'I'm glad Joe Biden is passing the torch,' said Sue Fearson, a longtime Democratic party voter who said she had been worried about what might happen if Biden stepped down â” but warmed to the idea once it seemed clear Harris would take over at the top of the ticket.
'I'm trying to be in the moment,' said Kami Graham, a 51-year-old secretarial worker who attended the rally. 'I feel confident and excited. She knows what to do and she will get the young vote that the Democrats need.'
For Olivia Della Rosa, who is 18 and votes absentee from Brazil, the 2024 presidential election will be her first opportunity to vote.
'It's very exciting,' said Della Rosa, who attended the rally with her grandmother, who lives in Milwaukee. 'I can't wait for the debate â” I'm looking forward to Harris bringing down the hammer.'
Balloons carrying rubbish sent by North Korea have fallen on the compound of South Korea's presidential office, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Other South Korean media reported the balloons caused no damage. AFP reported that the balloons prompted Seoul to mobilise chemical response teams. Yonhap gave no further details.
It is the first time the South Korean presidential compound in downtown Seoul, which is protected by scores of soldiers and a no-fly zone, has been directly hit by any of the thousands of trash-carrying balloons launched by Pyongyang since May.
'The chemical, biological and radiological [warfare] response team has safely collected the trash balloons,' the presidential security service told AFP.
'After investigation, results have confirmed ⦠no danger or contamination of the object.'
South Korea's military earlier said North Korea had sent up more balloons likely carrying rubbish, and the North Korean balloons were flying north of Seoul on Wednesday morning after crossing the border.
It was North Korea's 10th such launch since late May. The more than 2,000 huge balloons so far have dropped wastepaper, scraps of cloth, cigarette butts and even manure on South Korea. North Korea has said it was responding to South Korean activists scattering political leaflets across the border via their own balloons.
If North Korea used a timer or any other device to deliberately drop the balloon on a key facility like the presidential office, it would invite a strong response by South Korea, observers said. The security service refused to disclose whether President Yoon Suk Yeol was at the office at the time. Yoon's office earlier said he had no official schedule on Wednesday.
The resumption of the balloon flights comes after South Korea boosted its frontline broadcasts of K-pop songs and propaganda messages across the rivals' heavily armed border.
The tit-for-tat, cold war-style campaigns between the Koreas are inflaming tensions on the Korean peninsula, with the rivals threatening stronger steps and warning of grave consequences.
Experts say North Korea considers South Korean civilian leafleting activities a major threat to its efforts to stop the inflow of foreign news and maintain its authoritarian rule. In furious responses to past South Korean leafleting, North Korea destroyed an empty South Korean-built liaison office in its territory in 2020 and fired at incoming balloons in 2014.
The North's balloons have not caused major damage but have raised concerns among people worried North Korea could drop hazardous materials like chemical and biological agents.
South Korea said on Sunday it was ramping up its anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts from its loudspeakers at all major sites along the land border because North Korea was continuing launches of trash-carrying balloons. South Korea last Thursday restarted its loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in about 40 days in retaliation for North Korea's previous balloon activities.
Observers say South Korean propaganda broadcasts can demoralise frontline North Korean troops and residents. In 2015, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border in anger over South Korea's restart of propaganda broadcasts, prompting the South to return fire.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has denied reports that emerged last week that he was planning to donate $45m a month to a Super Pac focused on getting Trump elected.
On Tuesday, Musk appeared on Jordan Peterson's show, where he said the claim was 'simply not true'. 'I am not donating $45m a month to Trump,' he said.
'Now what I have done is that I have created a Pac or Super Pac or whatever you want to call it,' he said. It is called the America Pac.'
Super Pacs, short for Political Action Committees, are independent political organisations to which donors can give unlimited amounts of money, while donations to individuals or non-Super Pacs are capped.
After the Peterson interview, Musk replied on X to a clip from the interview saying, 'Yeah', and to another tweet referencing the reports saying, 'Yeah, it's ridiculous. I am making some donations to America PAC, but at a much lower level and the key values of the Pac are supporting a meritocracy & individual freedom. Republicans are mostly, but not entirely, on the side of merit & freedom'.
The denial comes days after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race, endorsing his vice-president Kamala Harris, who now has enough delegates to claim the Democratic nomination in August.
Also on Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Super Pac was being staffed by former aides to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's presidential campaign. 'The Super Pac has acquired an air of mystery in the Trump orbit, with other outside groups largely in the dark about its plans,' the Times reported.
But the aides, Generra Peck, who initially managed the DeSantis campaign, and Phil Cox, a former head of the Republican Governors Association, 'may help legitimize it within the Republican establishment as it aims to become one of the leading groups on behalf of Mr Trump.'
'The intent is to promote the principles that made America great in the first place,' Musk said on Peterson's show. 'I wouldn't say that I'm for example Maga,' he added, referring to the Trump catchphrase. 'I think America is great. I'm more M-A-G, make America greater.'
Musk did not clarify how much he intends to donate to the Pac.
The America Pac has already been backed by some of Musk's friends and allies in the tech world, the Times reported, including Joe Lonsdale, who co-founded the software company Palantir with Peter Thiel, a major political donor to Trump's newly named vice-president pick, the Ohio senator JD Vance.
