Biden ‘not confident’ of peaceful power transition if Trump loses election

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washington — President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he was not confident about a peaceful transfer of power in the United States if Republican Donald Trump loses the Nov. 5 presidential election. “If Trump loses, I’m not confident at all,” Biden said in an interview with CBS News when asked whether he thought there would be a peaceful transfer of power after the vote. “He means what he says. We don’t take him seriously. He means it. All this stuff about if we lose there’d be a bloodbath,” Biden added. During a March campaign appearance in Ohio, Trump warned of amore

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Are vice presidential picks game changers for US elections?

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Now that both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have selected their running mates, the question is whether those picks will actually help boost the campaigns’ chances of winning the November election. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at the historical relevance of vice presidential candidates and what Tim Walz and JD Vance bring to their respective tickets. …

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Dueling political rallies in one of US oldest cities

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The two U.S. presidential tickets are set. Vice President Kamala Harris named her running mate Tuesday. But the presumed Democratic Party nominee wasn’t alone making news in one of America’s oldest cities, Philadelphia, in the northeastern state of Pennsylvania. That’s where we find VOA’s Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti. …

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Drones warn New Yorkers about storm dangers

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NEW YORK — Gone is the bullhorn. Instead, New York City emergency management officials have turned high-tech, using drones to warn residents about potential threatening weather. With a buzzing sound in the background, a drone equipped with a loudspeaker flies over homes warning people who live in basement or ground-floor apartments about impending heavy rains. “Be prepared to leave your location,” said the voice from the sky in footage released Tuesday by the city’s emergency management agency. “If flooding occurs, do not hesitate.” About five teams with multiple drones each were deployed to specific neighborhoods prone to flooding. Zach Iscol, themore

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Musk’s X sues advertisers over alleged ‘massive advertiser boycott’

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wichita falls, texas — Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws. The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted. It accused the advertising group’s brand safety initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of helping to coordinate a pause in advertising after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and overhauledmore

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Harris selects Tim Walz as her running mate

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Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate Tuesday, capping off a whirlwind sequence of events since President Joe Biden endorsed her to be the top of the Democratic party’s presidential nominee less than three weeks ago. Harris and Walz will kick off a seven-state trip to some of the biggest battleground states in the election. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report. …

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Kamala Harris is now Democratic presidential nominee

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WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, a daughter of immigrants who rose through the California political and law enforcement ranks to become the first female vice president in U.S. history, formally secured the Democratic presidential nomination on Monday — becoming the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket. More than four years after her first attempt at the presidency collapsed, Harris’ coronation as her party’s standard-bearer caps a tumultuous and frenetic period for Democrats prompted by President Joe Biden’s disastrous June debate performance that shattered his own supporters’ confidence in his reelection prospects and spurred extraordinary intraparty warfaremore

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Secretaries of state urge Elon Musk to fix AI chatbot spreading election misinformation on X

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Chicago — Five secretaries of state are urging Elon Musk to fix an AI chatbot on the social media platform X, saying in a letter sent Monday that it has spread election misinformation. The top election officials from Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington told Musk that X’s AI chatbot, Grok, produced false information about state ballot deadlines shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. While Grok is available only to subscribers to the premium versions of X, the misinformation was shared across multiple social media platforms and reached millions of people, according to themore

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Google loses massive antitrust case over its search dominance

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Washington — A judge on Monday ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies. The highly anticipated decision issued by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the U.S. Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century. After reviewing reams of evidence that included testimony from top executives at Google, Microsoft and Apple during last year’s 10-week trial,more

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Senior economic aide Sperling leaving White House to work on Harris campaign

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washington — White House senior adviser Gene Sperling is leaving his administration position to work with Vice President Kamala Harris’ election campaign as the Democrats step up efforts to challenge Donald Trump on policy issues in November’s election. Sperling will be a senior economic adviser to Harris’ policy team. The shift was revealed by White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. Sperling served both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as director of the White House National Economic Council. President Joe Biden tasked Sperling with managing his $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package, a role in whichmore

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Who is Usha Vance, wife of Republican vice presidential nominee?

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In the U.S. presidential election, likely Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is expected to announce her running mate Tuesday. Republican candidate Donald Trump last month chose Ohio Senator JD Vance. Vance went to law school at Yale, where he met his wife, Usha. She is a first-generation daughter of Indian immigrants who recently left her job at a top Washington, D.C., and California law firm. VOA’s Dora Mekouar has more about her. VOA footage by Adam Greenbaum. …

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US expected to propose barring Chinese software in autonomous vehicles

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to propose barring Chinese software in autonomous and connected vehicles in the coming weeks, according to sources briefed on the matter. The Biden administration plans to issue a proposed rule that would bar Chinese software in vehicles in the United States with Level 3 automation and above, which would have the effect of also banning testing on U.S. roads of autonomous vehicles produced by Chinese companies. The administration, in a previously unreported decision, also plans to propose barring vehicles with Chinese-developed advanced wireless communications abilities modules from U.S. roads, the sources added. Undermore

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Harris to announce VP pick soon; Trump wants different debate venue

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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is reportedly narrowing down her choices for a running mate in the 2024 presidential race. Her new vice presidential pick will join her at a campaign event Tuesday in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump took to social media to make his case on why there should be a change in venue and date for the next presidential debate. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the details. (Produced by Henry Hernandez) …

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Trump again tears into Georgia’s Republican governor as he campaigns in state

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ATLANTA — Donald Trump picked a new fight Saturday with the Republican governor of the state of Georgia as he campaigned in the key swing state where he’s looking to avenge his narrow 2020 loss — a defeat he continues to blame on GOP officials for not giving into his false theories of election fraud. Trump railed at Gov. Brian Kemp on his social media site before his rally and said Kemp should be “fighting Crime, not fighting Unity and the Republican Party.” He also criticized Kemp’s wife, Marty, for saying she would write in her husband’s name for president thismore

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Harris campaign staffs up in battleground states, ‘Sun Belt’

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WILMINGTON, Delaware — Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is staffing up in battleground states over the next two weeks including in the ‘Sun Belt’ that increasingly looked out of reach for President Joe Biden, citing momentum for her White House bid as grassroots engagement and fundraising soar.  “Our grassroots engagement is proving that Kamala Harris is strong in both the Sun Belt and the Blue Wall — with multiple pathways to 270 (electoral votes),” wrote Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s battleground states director in a memo on Saturday.  The Sun Belt refers to states including Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, and themore

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Harris rejects Trump’s idea to debate her on FOX with live audience

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reuters — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump proposed to debate Democratic U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Fox News on September 4, and the Harris campaign said Trump is trying to back out of a debate that had been set to run on ABC.  The rules would be similar to the first debate with President Joe Biden, who has since dropped his reelection bid, Trump said in a post on Truth Social late Friday. But this time it would have a “full arena audience” and take place in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Trump said.  Trump and Biden had agreed tomore

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Harris foreign policy would bring continuity with some distinct emphases

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With Democratic nominee Kamala Harris set to face off with Republican Donald Trump for the U.S. presidency, Harris’ positions on military support to Israel and Ukraine; a rising China; and the migrant crisis at the southern border are under increased scrutiny. As VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports, expect a continuation of Biden administration policies with a few shifts in emphasis. …

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Trump, Vance head to Georgia after Harris event in same arena

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ATLANTA, GEORGIA — Former President Donald Trump returns Saturday to Georgia, which he lost four years ago, to campaign in a state that Democrats and Republicans see as up for grabs yet again. Trump’s 5 p.m. event alongside his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, comes just days after Vice President Kamala Harris rallied thousands in the same basketball arena at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Both parties are focusing on Georgia, a Sun Belt battleground that Democrats had signaled just two weeks ago they would sideline in favor of a heavier focus on the Midwestern “blue wall” states. President Joemore

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