Trump enters Republican convention with a bandage covering his right ear after assassination attempt
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Former President Donald Trump, two days after surviving an attempted assassination, appeared triumphantly at the Republican National Convention's opening night with a bandage over his right ear.
Delegates cheered wildly as Trump appeared onscreen backstage and then emerged, visibly emotional, as Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the USA." Trump did not address the convention.
Trump's appearance came hours after jubilant and emboldened delegates nominated the former president to lead their ticket for a third time and welcomed Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate.
“We must unite as a party, and we must unite as a nation,” said Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley, Trump’s handpicked party leader, as he opened Monday's primetime national convention session. “We must show the same strength and resilience as President Trump and lead this nation to a greater future.”
But Whatley and other Republican leaders made clear that their calls for harmony did not extend to President Joe Biden and Democrats.
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'Hillbilly Elegy': JD Vance's rise to vice presidential candidate began with a bestselling memoir
NEW YORK (AP) — At the heart of JD Vance's swift journey from venture capitalist to vice presidential candidate is a memoir he first thought of in law school, “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Vance's bestseller about his roots in rural Kentucky and blue-collar Ohio made him a national celebrity soon after its publication in the summer of 2016, and became a cultural talking point after Donald Trump's stunning victory that November. The Ohio Republican has since been elected to the U.S. Senate and, as of Monday, chosen as Trump's running mate in the former president's quest for a return to the White House. He is 39, and would be the youngest vice president since Richard Nixon, who served two terms under Dwight Eisenhower, starting in 1953.
In “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance reflects on the transformation of Appalachia from reliably Democratic to reliably Republican, sharing stories about his chaotic family life and about communities that had declined and seemed to lose hope. Vance first thought of the book while studying at Yale Law School, and completed it in his early 30s, when it was eventually published by HarperCollins.
“I was very bugged by this question of why there weren’t more kids like me at places like Yale ... why isn’t there more upward mobility in the United States?” Vance told The Associated Press in 2016.
Sales for “Hillbilly Elegy” now total at least 1.6 million copies, according to Circana, which tracks around 85% of hardcover and paperback sales. Ron Howard adapted the book into a 2020 movie of the same name, earning Glenn Close an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Within hours of Trump's announcement Monday, it was No. 1 on Amazon.com, surging from No. 220 earlier in the day.
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Trump's economic plans include proposed tariffs, tax cuts and no taxes on tips. Here's what to know
WASHINGTON (AP) — The first night of the Republican National Convention kept its official focus on the economy Monday even after Saturday’s shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania in which former President Donald Trump was injured.
Speakers argued that Trump would fix inflation and bring back prosperity simply by returning to the White House as president. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin lamented, “Tonight, America, the land of opportunity, just doesn’t feel like that anymore.”
But Trump has released few hard numbers and no real policy language or legislative blueprints, and most of the speakers Monday didn't get into details either. Instead, his campaign is betting that voters care more about attitude than policy specifics.
Trump says he wants tariffs on trade partners and no taxes on tips. He would like to knock the corporate tax rate down a tick. The Republican platform also promises to “defeat” inflation and “quickly bring down all prices,” in addition to pumping out more oil, natural gas and coal.
The platform would address illegal immigration in part with the “largest deportation program in American history.” And Trump would also scrap President Joe Biden's policies to develop the market for electric vehicles and renewable energy.
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The Latest: Trump picks Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his Republican running mate
Donald Trump says Ohio Sen. JD Vance will be his vice presidential pick.
He said on his Truth Social Network, “After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio.”
The Republican National Convention kicked off this week, with delegates and officials descending on Wisconsin amid the tumult that follows a Saturday assassination attempt on Trump as he prepares to become the GOP’s official nominee.
Follow the AP’s Election-2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024
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At the Trump rally, it was evening sun, songs and blue sky. Then came bullets, screams and blood
On a sweltering weekend evening, beneath a clear blue sky, Donald Trump supporters in red “Make America Great Again” hats packed the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania.
It was a friendly and festive venue for the once and maybe future president's final rally before the Republican National Convention the following week. He won Butler County, just north of Pittsburgh in the crucial swing state, by roughly 2 to 1 in both 2016 and 2020.
“God Bless the U.S.A.” boomed over a speaker — “I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free” — as Trump arrived wearing his own red MAGA hat. He stood before a row of gold-trimmed American flags. He waved, clapped and pointed to his fans, their cell phones held aloft to record him. The peaks of white tents rose near the red, white and blue-striped grandstands. A green farm combine sat to one side of the rally.
To retired emergency room doctor James Sweetland, it felt like "an old-time rock concert.” As they awaited Trump’s appearance, Sweetland helped a fellow attendee who was suffering in the day’s heat, advising her to lie down and giving her water until emergency crews arrived. At the time, he said, it felt like the worst that could happen.
Joleen Monteleone, 57, of Butler, was in the bleachers behind Trump, wearing a “Trump 2024” denim vest that her husband made. Kristen Petrarca, 60, was there, too. “I’d never been to a rally," she said, “and I really wanted to just experience it.”
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Texas governor criticizes Houston energy as utility says power will be mostly restored by Wednesday
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The majority of Houston outages that followed Hurricane Beryl should be fixed within the next two days, the city’s main utility company said Monday as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to punish CenterPoint Energy even after the lights come back.
The Texas Public Utility Commission, the state's regulatory agency, announced Monday it had launched an investigation Abbott demanded into CenterPoint's storm preparation and response as hundreds of thousands of residents sweltered without power for more than a week after the storm. The governor has given the utility until the end of July to submit plans to protect the power supply through the rest of what could be an active hurricane season, as well as trim trees and vegetation that threaten power lines.
But some energy experts question whether Abbott and the Texas regulators, whose leaders are appointed by the governor, have done enough before now to get tough on utilities or make transmission lines more resilient in the nation's biggest energy producing state.
“What CenterPoint is showing us by its repeated failure to provide power, is they seem to be just incapable of doing their job,” Abbott said Monday in Houston.
Spokespeople for CenterPoint, which has defended its response and pace of restoring outages, did not immediately return an email seeking comment Monday.
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California is 1st state to ban school rules requiring parents get notified of child’s pronoun change
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California became the first U.S. state to bar school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child’s gender identification change under a law signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The law bans school rules requiring teachers and other staff to disclose a student’s gender identity or sexual orientation to any other person without the child’s permission. Proponents of the legislation say it will help protect LGBTQ+ students who live in unwelcoming households. But opponents say it will hinder schools’ ability to be more transparent with parents.
The legislation comes amid a nationwide debate over local school districts and the rights of parents and LGBTQ+ students.
“This law helps keep children safe while protecting the critical role of parents," Brandon Richards, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in a statement. "It protects the child-parent relationship by preventing politicians and school staff from inappropriately intervening in family matters and attempting to control if, when, and how families have deeply personal conversations.”
The new law comes after several school districts in California passed policies requiring that parents be notified if a child requests to change their gender identification. That led to pushback by Democratic state officials, who say students have a right to privacy.
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Hamas says Gaza cease-fire talks haven't paused and claims military chief survived Israeli strike
MUWASI, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas said Sunday that Gaza cease-fire talks were ongoing and the group’s military commander was in good health, a day after the Israeli military targeted Mohammed Deif with a massive airstrike that local health officials said killed at least 90 people, including children.
Deif’s condition was still unclear after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night “there still isn’t absolute certainty” he was killed. Army chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi told journalists Israel attacked a compound where Deif “was hiding” but added: “It’s still too early to summarize the results of the attack, which Hamas is trying to hide.”
Hamas representatives gave no evidence to back up their assertion about the health of a chief architect of the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war. His killing would mark the highest profile assassination of any Hamas leader by Israel since the war began.
Deif has long topped Israel’s most-wanted list and has been in hiding for years.
The Israeli military said Rafa Salama, a Hamas commander it described as one of Deif's closest associates, was killed in Saturday's strike. Salama commanded Hamas' Khan Younis brigade. Netanyahu said all of Hamas’ leaders are “marked for death” and asserted that killing them would move Hamas closer to accepting a cease-fire deal.
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Federal judge dismisses Trump classified documents case over concerns with prosecutor's appointment
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Florida dismissed the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump on Monday, siding with defense lawyers who said the special counsel who filed the charges was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.
Hours later, special counsel Jack Smith's office said it would appeal the order, which could result in it eventually being overturned by a higher court. But for now at least, the dismissal by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon brings a stunning and abrupt halt to a criminal case that at the time it was filed was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the legal threats the Republican former president confronted.
Though the case had long been stalled, and the prospect of a trial before the November election already nonexistent, the judge's order is a significant legal and political victory for Trump as he recovers from a weekend assassination attempt and prepares to accept the Republican nomination in Milwaukee this week.
It's the latest stroke of good fortune in the four criminal cases Trump has faced. He was convicted in May in his New York hush money trial, but the sentencing has been postponed after a Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents. That opinion will cause major delays in a separate case charging Trump with plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Another election subversion case filed in Atlanta has been delayed by revelations of a romantic relationship between the district attorney and a special prosecutor she hired for the case.
In a statement on his social media platform, Trump said the dismissal “should be just the first step” and the three other cases, which he called “Witch Hunts,” should also be thrown out.
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Paul Skenes in spotlight, starting All-Star Game after just 11 major league games
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Paul Skenes looked like a summer intern reporting for duty in a light gray suit, white shirt and cream-colored tie, teenage acne on his face and wonder in his voice.
In a ballpark filled with six dozen All-Stars, the 22-year-old Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher with 11 major league appearances was the center of attention.
“Pretty dang cool,” he said.
Skenes is hot, like the 102-degree temperature outside air-conditioned Globe Life Field, and will start Tuesday's All-Star Game for the National League. He will have the fewest big league games of any player in the showcase's 91-year history, a new flavor baseball likes to savor. His splinker, a hybrid that sinks like a splitter with the velocity of a sinker, has batters muttering.
“He’s very intriguing to me, and I’m honored to sit next to him,” NL manager Torey Lovullo of Arizona gushed.
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