Pro-Trump wins in blue states threaten GOP hopes in November
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Republicans have found success in Democratic strongholds like Maryland and Massachusetts when they have fielded moderate candidates who could appeal to voters in both parties. With Democrats facing headwinds this year, Republicans had hoped that strategy could pay off yet again.
But Republican voters have nominated loyalists of former President Donald Trump in several Democratic states, including Maryland and Connecticut, making the GOP’s odds of winning those general election races even longer. Massachusetts will face its own test next month as GOP voters decide between a Trump-backed conservative and a more moderate Republican for the party’s gubernatorial nominee.
“It can’t continue,” said former Connecticut U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, a moderate Republican and Trump critic, referring to the GOP choosing pro-Trump candidates. “One of the things that will happen is that a lot of the Trump candidates who won the primary will lose the general election. And there are a lot of unhappy Republicans who hold office now who believe that the Senate now is in jeopardy of staying Democratic.”
Trump’s influence was on full display earlier this month when his last-minute endorsement helped propel Leora Levy, a member of the Republican National Committee who opposes abortion rights, to victory in a Republican U.S. Senate primary in Connecticut over the party’s endorsed candidate, former House Minority Leader Themis Klarides. Klarides supports abortion rights and said she didn’t vote for Trump in 2020.
“Sad day for CT …,” tweeted Brenda Kupchick, the Republican first selectwoman of Fairfield and a former state representative, after the Aug. 9 race was called for Levy. Days earlier, after Trump endorsed Levy on speakerphone at a GOP picnic, Kupchick tweeted, “How is that helpful in the general election in CT?”
Finland, Sweden offer NATO an edge as rivalry warms up north
WASHINGTON (AP) — The first surprise, for the Finnish conscripts and officers taking part in a NATO-hosted military exercise in the Arctic this spring: the sudden roar of a U.S. Marine helicopter assault force, touching down in a field right next to the Finns’ well-hidden command post.
The second surprise: Spilling out of their field headquarters, the Finnish Signal Corps communications workers and others inside routed the U.S. Marines — the Finns’ designated adversary in the NATO exercise and members of America’s professional and premier expeditionary force — in the mock firefight that followed.
Finnish camouflage for the Arctic snow, scrub and scree likely had kept the Americans from even realizing the command post was there when they landed, Finnish commander Lt. Col. Mikko Kuoka suspected. “For those who years from now will doubt it,” Kuoka, modestly stunned by the outcome of the random skirmish, wrote in an infantry-focused blog recording the outcome, of an episode he later confirmed for The Associated Press. “That actually happened.”
As the exercise made clear, NATO’s addition of Finland and Sweden — what President Joe Biden calls “our allies of the high north” — would bring military and territorial advantages to the Western defense alliance. That’s especially so as the rapid melting of the Arctic from climate change awakens strategic rivalries at the top of the world.
In contrast to the NATO expansion of former Soviet states that needed big boosts in the decades after the Cold War, the alliance would be bringing in two sophisticated militaries and, in Finland’s case, a country with a remarkable tradition of national defense. Both Finland and Sweden are in a region on one of Europe’s front lines and meeting places with Russia.
On Chile rivers, Native spirituality and development clash
MELIPEUCO, Chile (AP) — Mist suddenly arose from the Truful Truful River as it flowed below the snow-covered Llaima volcano, and Victor Curin smiled at the sun-dappled water spray.
A leader in one of the Indigenous communities by the river’s shores in the Chilean Andes, Curin took it as a sign that the waterfall’s ngen — its owner and protector spirit — approved of his visit and prayer that mid-July morning.
“Nature always tells you something, always answers,” said Curin, who works as a park ranger in Conguillio National Park, at the river’s headwaters. “Human beings feel superior to the space where they go, but for us Mapuche, I belong to the earth, the earth doesn’t belong to me.”
In the worldview of the Mapuche, Chile’s largest Indigenous group and more than 10% of its population, a pristine river is home to a spiritual force to revere, not a natural resource to exploit.
That has led many Mapuche across Chile’s water-rich south to fight hydroelectric plants and other projects they see as desecrating nature and depriving Indigenous communities of essential energies that keep them from getting sick.
For Republican governors, all economic success is local
WASHINGTON (AP) — Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, often knocks President Joe Biden for high inflation and a looming recession — a standard GOP argument going into the November elections.
But inflation is even worse in major Texas cities than across the nation as a whole. Government figures show inflation is 10.2% in the Houston area and 9.4% around Dallas, higher than the latest national average of 8.5%.
Abbott and other GOP leaders are making a paradoxical argument that the U.S. economy has slumped into a recession, but Republican-led parts of the country are still booming. Those officials are blaming Biden’s policies for sky-high gasoline and food prices, while taking credit for the job gains those same policies helped spur.
The Texas governor tweeted on July 28: “The U.S. economy is in a recession under Biden. Meanwhile, Texas was #1 in the nation for job growth in June & more Texans have jobs today than ever before in our state’s history.”
The Associated Press found a familiar pattern in 15 Republican-led states in which governors on Twitter would praise job growth in their states, while senators would simultaneously say the national economy as a whole was crashing. These seemingly conflicting claims were also repeated in public remarks.
Russians down Ukrainian drones in Crimea as war broadens
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian authorities reported shooting down Ukrainian drones Saturday in Crimea, while Ukrainian officials said Russian forces pressed ahead with efforts to seize one of the few cities in eastern Ukraine not already under their control. The Russian military also kept up its strikes in Ukraine’s north and south.
In Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian authorities said local air defenses shot down a drone above the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. It was the second drone incident at the headquarters in three weeks and followed explosions at a Russian airfield and ammunition depot on the peninsula this month.
Oleg Kryuchkov, an aide to Crimea’s governor, also said Saturday that “attacks by small drones” triggered air-defense systems in western Crimea.
“Air defense systems successfully hit all targets over the territory over Crimea on Saturday morning. There are no casualties or material damage,” his boss, Sergei Aksyonov, said on Telegram.
Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said on Telegram that the city’s air-defense systems were called into action again late Saturday.
Finland asks: Does a prime minister have a right to party?
HELSINKI (AP) — In a leaked video, Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin is seen dancing and singing with friends at a private party. The 36-year-old leader poses for the camera. She sits on her knees, hands behind her head. She’s entangled in a group hug. She’s having a good time.
Countless similar videos are shared daily on social media by young and not-so-young people partying in Finland and all over the world. But the leak has triggered a debate among Finns about what level of reveling is appropriate for a prime minister, especially considering neighboring Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which prompted long-neutral Finland and Sweden to apply for NATO membership.
Marin, who leads the center-left Social Democratic Party, has faced a barrage of questions about the party: Were there drugs? Alcohol? Was she working or on summer vacation? Was the prime minister sober enough to handle an emergency had one arisen?
The video, clearly shot by someone at the party, was leaked on social media and caught the attention of Finnish media this week. Marin said she attended the party in recent weeks, but refused to say exactly where and when.
She also acknowledged that she and her friends celebrated in a “boisterous way” and that alcohol — but, to her knowledge, no drugs — was involved. She said Friday that she took a drug test to put an end to speculation about illegal substances.
UN: US buying big Ukraine grain shipment for hungry regions
BULLA HAGAR, Kenya (AP) — The United States is stepping up to buy about 150,000 metric tons of grain from Ukraine in the next few weeks for an upcoming shipment of food aid from ports no longer blockaded by war, the World Food Program chief has told The Associated Press.
The final destinations for the grain are not confirmed and discussions continue, David Beasley said. But the planned shipment, one of several the U.N. agency that fights hunger is pursuing, is more than six times the amount of grain that the first WFP-arranged ship from Ukraine is now carrying toward people in the Horn of Africa at risk of starvation.
Beasley spoke Friday from northern Kenya, which is deep in a drought that is withering the Horn of Africa region. He sat under a thorn tree among local women who told the AP that the last time it rained was in 2019.
Their bone-dry communities face yet another failed rainy season within weeks that could tip parts of the region, especially neighboring Somalia, into famine. Already, thousands of people have died. The World Food Program says 22 million people are hungry.
“I think there’s a high probability we’ll have a declaration of famine” in the coming weeks, Beasley said.
Gunmen storm hotel in Somali capital, leave 20 dead
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Islamic militants have stormed a hotel in Somalia’s capital, engaging in an hours-long exchange of fire with the security forces that left at least 20 people dead, according to police and witnesses.
In addition, at least 40 people were wounded in the late Friday night attack and security forces rescued many others, including children, from the scene at Mogadishu’s popular Hayat Hotel, they said Saturday.
The attack started with explosions outside the hotel before the gunmen entered the building.
Somali forces were still trying to end the siege of the hotel almost 24 hours after the attack started. Gunfire could still be heard Saturday evening as security forces tried to contain the last gunmen thought to be holed up on the hotel’s top floor.
The Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which has ties with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest of its frequent attempts to strike places visited by government officials. The attack on the hotel is the first major terror incident in Mogadishu since Somalia’s new leader, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, took over in May.
Dorli Rainey, symbol of Occupy movement, dies at 95
SEATTLE (AP) — Dorli Rainey, a self-described “old lady in combat boots” who became a symbol of the Occupy protest movement when she was photographed after being pepper-sprayed by Seattle police, has died. She was 95.
The longtime political activist died on Aug. 12, the Seattle Times reported. Her daughter, Gabriele Rainey, told the newspaper her mom was “so active because she loved this country, and she wanted to make sure that the country was good to its people.”
Rainey was a fixture in the local progressive movement for decades, demonstrating for racial justice, affordable housing and public transit, and against war, nuclear weapons and big banks.
In November 2011, in the early days of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Rainey, then 84, joined protesters in blocking downtown intersections. She was hit when Seattle police used pepper spray to clear the crowd.
Fellow protesters poured milk over her face to ease the sting, and a seattlepi.com photographer, Joshua Trujillo, captured a stunning image of her staring defiantly into the camera, her eyes red and milk dripping off her face.
Pride of Ukraine: Usyk beats Joshua, keeps heavyweight belts
KING ABDULLAH SPORTS CITY, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Oleksandr Usyk kissed the blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine and looked to the Saudi Arabian sky as he waited to discover if he had honored his war-torn country by retaining his world heavyweight titles.
When he heard the winning words “and still,” an emotional Usyk raised his left arm and pulled the flag over his face.
Six months ago, he was patrolling the streets of Kyiv with an automatic rifle and defending Ukraine from the invading Russians.
Here, inside the ring at King Abdullah Sport City arena, the still-undefeated Usyk had lived up to his billing as the sporting pride of Ukraine by beating Anthony Joshua in a closely fought rematch on Saturday to keep his WBA, WBO and IBF belts.
“I devote this victory to my country, to my family, to my team, to all the military defending this country,” the 35-year-old Usyk said through a translator. “Thank you very, very much.”
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