SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR QUITS
US Secret Service director Kim Cheatle has resigned following intense criticism of the agency after the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.
The Associated Press reports Cheatle said in an email to staff: “I take full responsibility for the security lapse.
“In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director.”
Cheatle, who had been director since August 2022, had faced growing calls to resign following the Secret Service’s failure to stop Trump being shot at during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
NBC News reports Trump responded to the news of Cheatle’s resignation with a post on Truth Social declaring: “The Biden/Harris Administration did not properly protect me, and I was forced to take a bullet for Democracy. IT WAS MY GREAT HONOR TO DO SO!”
In a post on X, US President Joe Biden thanked Cheatle for “her decades of public service”, adding: “The independent review to get to the bottom of what happened on July 13 continues, and I look forward to assessing its conclusions. What happened that day can never happen again.” He said he planned on appointing a new director soon.
Earlier, Biden also confirmed he would be addressing the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening (local time) on “what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people” after announcing he would not seek reelection in November.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris has received yet more endorsements, including the high-profile pairing of Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the two top Democrats in Congress.
The 59-year-old was in Milwaukee on Tuesday for her first major campaign event since gaining enough commitments from delegates to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, The Washington Post reports.
The New York Times reports the event was expected to have more people attending than any campaign event President Biden held this year.
During the rally Harris set out her policy priorities on tackling affordable healthcare, child poverty, union rights, and being able “to retire with dignity”, the BBC reports. Harris also declared she would “stop Donald Trump’s extreme abortion bans” before telling the enthusiastic crowd: “We have an election to win”.
A Reuters/IPSOS poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday this week, found Harris is leading Trump 44% to 42% in a new national poll.
IS PARIS SAFE FOR OLYMPICS?
This article mentions sexual assault.
French police are investigating claims five men raped a 25-year-old Australian woman in Paris, the ABC reports.
The alleged attack is reported to have happened in the early hours of Saturday morning in the city’s Montmartre precinct.
A spokesperson from DFAT is quoted by the ABC as saying: “The Australian Embassy in Paris is making urgent enquiries with French authorities following reports of an Australian citizen assaulted in Paris. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade stands ready to provide consular assistance.”
Guardian Australia reports Australian athletes have been advised to be careful when going outside the Olympic village following reports of the alleged attack.
The Australian chef de mission, Anna Meares, is quoted as saying: “I have been informed, it sounds horrific. Obviously our hearts go out to the woman involved and we hope she’s being cared for and supported in the trauma she’s experienced. There’s not a lot of detail and information that has come through.”
The opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics is set to take place on Friday.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports two members of Nine’s Olympics broadcast team were attacked during an attempted robbery on the outskirts of Paris on Monday.
The tech workers were reportedly walking to their accommodation in the municipality of Le Bourget when a group attempted to grab one of their backpacks, resulting in a scuffle. The pair escaped serious injury and reported the alleged incident to the police.
Nine’s print coverage of the Games could be thrown into chaos with 17 staff from the publishing division walking off the job on Friday for five days in solidarity with their colleagues back in Australia, The Australian reports.
Unionised journalists are set to meet with management at all the Nine newspapers today following a vote to go on strike earlier this week in an ongoing pay dispute amid restructuring and 90 jobs being cut.
If you or someone you know is affected by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Wild chimpanzees take it in turns to “speak” to each other during conversations in the same way us humans do, new research has found.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, found chimps left gaps before responding to each other. Some also interrupt “speaking” chimpanzees more than a second-and-a-half before they have finished gesturing, the Press Association reports.
Professor Cat Hobaiter, a primatologist at the University of St Andrews, said: “It’s amazing to see how close the chimpanzee and human timings were — and that, just like us, the chimpanzee sometimes even interrupted each other midway through a gesture.”
The chimpanzees communicate mostly with gestures such as hand movements and facial expressions.
Professor Hobaiter told the BBC the study’s findings suggests “deep evolutionary similarities [with humans] in how face-to-face conversations are structured”.
The researchers from the University of St Andrews studied more than 8,500 gestures recorded from 252 wild chimps in five wild communities in east Africa, The Guardian reports.
Say What?
What is truly staggering is how large the difference is between the temperature of the last 13 months and the previous temperature records. We are now in truly uncharted territory — and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years.
Carlo Buontempo
The director of Copernicus Climate Change Service was responding to preliminary data suggesting Sunday was the world’s hottest day ever recorded. The Guardian reports the average surface air temperature hit 17.09C (62.76F) at the weekend. The previous record was set in July last year.
CRIKEY RECAP
The theory is that Joe Biden still has the support of the labour movement, and it still has the ability to get out the vote for him (which it didn’t have for Hillary, and which her 2016 campaign didn’t do much to encourage) in a way that neither Harris nor any other likely candidate could manage. The logic goes that the Democrats will get 66% of the Latino vote whatever happens, 95% of the Black women vote, and a huge cut of the college-educated white vote. The only swing votes are Black men and non-college-educated whites.
That last group is the prize, and what terrifies the Democrats is that Kamala Harris is not merely someone they will not come out for, but someone they will vote against. That would vary between men and women, but not as much as feminists would like to believe or insist. In 2016 Trump only won 35% of college-educated white women, but 56% of non-college-educated white women. They are voting not via sex and gender, but by class — both rough economic class, and also the “knowledge class” as I have spoken of it.
You’ve probably never heard a political advertisement for a council election quite like Sean O’Reilly’s.
The ad for the long-time Labor councillor and former mayor of the City of Dandenong in Melbourne is backed by a stripped-down dance track underneath cool-sounding female vocals.
“Vote for O’Reilly, he’s the one, number one before the rest is done, O’Reilly’s standing in the sun, cast your ballot, it’s time for fun,” she coos. If that’s not for you, there’s a rap version. Or one in the style of a country singer. The councillor has also produced campaign jingles in Vietnamese, Chinese and Khmer.
Climate 200, the political funding group that backed teal candidates at the last federal election, has so far this year spent $200,000 on campaigns in a dozen battleground seats held by the Coalition, and will spend another $1 million in the same districts before the year is over, Crikey can reveal. Meanwhile Labor will face challenges from candidates backed by groups seeking to mobilise Muslim voters, and from emboldened Greens.
“I think there’s a range of seats that can be vulnerable to a good candidate with a campaign machine,” Redbridge director of corporate affairs and communications Tony Barry told Crikey.
“The teals were more than just credible candidates — they had significant money and significant personnel behind those campaigns, which you need. There have been plenty of independent candidates over the years, some very good people, who got utterly flogged at the ballot box because their operations were run at home with a few family members and loved ones.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
At least 229 people killed in Ethiopia landslides (Al-Jazeera)
Brussels ready to mediate between Hungary and Ukraine in spiralling oil dispute (euronews)
Sharks off Brazil coast test positive for cocaine (BBC)
UK must be ready for war in three years, head of British Army warns (Sky News)
Snoop Dogg the torchbearer: American rapper to carry Olympic torch in final stretch before opening ceremony (The Athletic)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Why is Bella Hadid in the headlines? Because it distracts from the hell on Earth that is Gaza — Arwa Mahdawi (The Guardian): On Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu is having the red carpet rolled out for him in Washington DC. The Israeli prime minister, who is propped up by far-right extremists, will have the great honour of addressing Congress. The international criminal court may think he is a tad problematic, but in the twisted world we live in, he is being treated like a dignified statesman.
The real villain du jour? A glance at the press suggests it’s the model Bella Hadid.
Democrats should not fear running a woman — heck, they should run two — Laura McGann (The Washington Post): Even as Kamala D. Harris solidifies party support for the nomination, Democrats won’t fully let go of a nagging fear that a woman can’t win a presidential election.
But a woman can beat Donald Trump. In fact, she’d be in a stronger position than a man in the states Harris most needs to win — so much so that, heck, Democrats should run two women.
Hillary Clinton’s claim that she lost the 2016 presidential election in large part because of sexism doesn’t hold up. It’s true she faced sexism, including double standards in the media. But in the key swing states where Clinton lost — Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin — women have been overperforming for years. Voters in these states have voted for women disproportionately relative to male candidates. They aren’t opposed to electing women. They just didn’t elect Clinton.
