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As President Joe Biden likes to remind anyone who’ll listen, “This is not your grandfather’s Republican Party”. One of the issues where that’s becoming more evident by the day is Ukraine. John McCain, the late Arizona Senator and 2008 GOP presidential candidate, sounded the alarm about Russia for years, making him one of President Vladimir Putin’s “greatest antagonists,” the Arizona Republic noted in February 2022, days after the Russian invasion began. During the last year of his presidency in 2008, George W Bush said he “strongly supported” eventual Nato membership for Ukraine and Georgia. Last year, in a viral gaffe, he mistakenly said Iraq when he meant to call the war in Ukraine “unjustified and brutal”. His younger brother, Jeb Bush, a former Florida Governor, went to Europe in 2015 shortly before announcing his presidential campaign. In a speech in Berlin about a year after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support of separatists in eastern Ukraine, he said: “Russia must respect the sovereignty of all of its neighbours. And who can doubt that Russia will do what it pleases if aggression goes unanswered?” Mr Bush was quickly bullied out of the 2016 primary by the man who would come to embody the modern Republican Party – reality TV star and real estate mogul Donald Trump. Support for Ukraine is dividing the GOP field, with several saying the US should continue to support the war effort, while a number of others are following Mr Trump’s lead towards isolationism. The leading candidates are all against further intervention, while those adhering to more traditional Republican foreign policy remain in the lower half of the pack. Ahead of the first Republican primary debate, which may or may not include Mr Trump, here’s what the qualifying candidates have said about Ukraine: Donald Trump While president, Mr Trump attempted to withhold military assistance to Ukraine to get then-rookie president – now wartime leader – Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation into Hunter and Joe Biden, who Mr Trump saw as his main rival in 2020. During an infamous press conference in Helsinki, Finland, Mr Trump sided with Mr Putin when asked if he believed Russia had interfered in the 2016 US election, as outlined by the US intelligence community. More recently, Mr Trump has argued that all aid to Ukraine should be put on pause until federal agencies provide evidence regarding what he claimed were “corrupt business dealings” by Mr Biden and his son. During a July rally in Pennsylvania, Mr Trump argued that Mr Biden was “dragging” the US into the war. “The US Congress should refuse to authorize a single additional payment of our depleted stockpiles … until the FBI, [Department of Justice] and [Internal Revenue Service] hand over every scrap of evidence they have on the Biden crime family’s corrupt business dealings,” Mr Trump said in reference to what Republicans have claimed are allegations of bribery against Mr Biden. The GOP has been unable to provide any evidence of the supposed scheme. Mr Trump appeared on Fox News in March, saying that he would end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours with Zelensky and with Putin”. “And there’s a very easy negotiation to take place. But I don’t want to tell you what it is because then I can’t use that negotiation – it’ll never work. But it’s a very easy negotiation to take place. I will have it solved within one day, a peace between them. Now that’s a year and a half. That’s a long time. I can’t imagine something not happening,” he added. “The key is the war has to stop now because Ukraine is being obliterated.” Mr Trump has also been ambivalent about his support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato). While president he equivocated over whether he would back Article V, which states that an attack on any one of the defence pact’s 31 members constituted an attack on all of them. The article has only been invoked once, by the US following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. He is also reported to have wanted to pull the US out of Nato. Ron DeSantis In March, Mr DeSantis was forced to walk back his comments calling the war a “territorial dispute”. Mr DeSantis made the remark in writing to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “While the US has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” he wrote at the time. In an appearance on the streaming service Fox Nation, he backtracked. “What I’m referring to is where the fighting is going on now, which is that eastern border region Donbas, and then Crimea, and you have a situation where Russia has had that. I don’t think legitimately, but they had,” he said. “There’s a lot of ethnic Russians there. So, that’s some difficult fighting, and that’s what I was referring to, and so it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that, and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it.” In April, he said he supported a ceasefire, saying it’s “in everybody’s interest”. He told the Japanese English-language weekly Nikkei Asia that “You don’t want to end up in like a [Battle of] Verdun situation, where you just have mass casualties, mass expense and end up with a stalemate”. Vivek Ramaswamy On 5 August, the tech entrepreneur suggested that the US is aiding Ukraine because of Hunter Biden. “The purpose of the US military [is] to advance American interests, to protect the homeland. Not to aimlessly fight some random war that’s arguably a repayment for a private bribe that a family member of the United States received, $5m from Burisma,” Mr Ramaswamy told a small crowd at a Council Bluffs, Iowa campaign event, according to NBC News. “Was the payment to Hunter Biden corrupt? Absolutely it was. Do I think that it has some relationship towards our posture toward Ukraine? I think it’s likely that it does,” he added, seemingly in reference to unsubstantiated allegations made by congressional Republicans. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer has claimed that a whistleblower told him about a tip about a $5m payment to Mr Biden and a family member during his time as vice president, “relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions”. Mr Ramaswamy has said that he would work to get an agreement that would offer major concessions to Mr Putin, which would mean handing over most of the eastern Donbas regions of Ukraine to Russia, removing sanctions, shutting down all US bases in Eastern Europe, and blocking Ukraine from entering Nato, according to The New York Times. He would then require Russia to end its military alliance with China and once again join the START nuclear treaty. “I don’t think it is preferable for Russia to be able to invade a sovereign country that is its neighbour, but I think the job of the US president is to look after American interests, and what I think the number one threat to the US military is right now, our top military threat, is the Sino-Russian alliance,” he told ABC News. “I think that by fighting further in Russia, by further arming Ukraine, we are driving Russia into China’s hands.” Mike Pence The former vice president made a surprise visit to Ukraine in June to meet with Mr Zelensky, becoming the first GOP presidential candidate to do so. “I believe America’s the leader of the free world,” Mr Pence told NBC News at the time. “But coming here just as a private citizen — being able to really see firsthand the heroism of the Ukrainian soldiers holding the line in those woods, see the heroism of the people here in Irpin that held back the Russian army, to see families whose homes were literally shelled in the midst of an unconscionable and unprovoked Russian invasion — just steels my resolve to do my part, to continue to call for strong American support for our Ukrainian friends and allies.” He added that the visit “steeled my resolve, and it’s made me better equipped to be able to go home as I speak to the American people about the vital importance of American support to repel Russian aggression”. He also criticised the Biden administration for being slow in sending aid to Ukraine. “We should never send American troops into Ukraine, and we don’t need to,” he said. “There are too many voices in our party that are sounding the retreat, that are willing to let Putin keep the land grab that he’s made in Eastern Ukraine, willing to make promises. I heard my former running mate announced over the weekend that he’s willing to promise that Ukraine will never be in Nato,” Mr Pence told radio host Hugh Hewitt last month. “In my opinion, the only thing Putin will understand is strength, and providing those courageous fighters in Ukraine what they need to repel the Russian invasion is the fastest way to security and preventing, preventing the day that American forces are actually required to go into battle in Europe again.” Tim Scott The South Carolina Senator supports sending military aid to Ukraine but dodged questions on if it was right for the Biden administration to send cluster munitions. Like Mr Pence, Mr Scott told NBC News that Mr Biden has “done a terrible job explaining and articulating to the American people” what the US interests are in Ukraine. “First, it prevents or reduces attacks on the homeland,” Mr Scott said in May, according to the Greenville Post and Courier. “Second, as part of Nato and land being contiguous to Ukraine, it will reduce the likelihood that Russia will have the weaponry or the will to attack on Nato territory, which would get us involved.” Just a month after the invasion, in March 2022, Mr Scott wrote that the war was “for the principles that America has always championed”. In May last year, he voted for funding Ukraine beyond what Mr Biden had suggested. While Mr Scott argued that Mr Biden had been waiting “too long to provide too little support,” the president backed the increase in funding. Nikki Haley The former UN ambassador has argued that it’s in the best interest of the US to support Ukraine. “A win for Ukraine is a win for all of us because tyrants tell us exactly what they’re going to do,” she said on CNN. “China says Taiwan’s next, we’d better believe them. Russia said Poland and the Baltics are next, if that happens, we’re looking at a world war. This is about preventing war,” the ex-South Carolina governor added. She argued that a Ukrainian victory would send a broader message to warn China about attacking Taiwan, that it would push Iran to not build nuclear weapons, and urge North Korea to move away from ballistic missile testing. She added that it would tell Russia that “it’s over”. Mr Biden has been “far too slow and weak in helping Ukraine,” she said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. Chris Christie Like Mr Pence, Chris Christie also ventured through the old iron curtain to visit Ukraine and signal bipartisan support even as the top candidates in the field are arguing for US withdrawal. The former New Jersey governor has argued that the US should back Ukraine until the war is “resolved”. “None of us like the idea that there’s a war going on and that we’re supporting it, but the alternative is for the Chinese to take over, the Russians, the Iranians and the North Koreans,” he said on CNN. He referred to the conflict as “a proxy war with China”. He noted that “some kind of compromise” with Russia may be required at some point and that the US should be part of the negotiations at a time when “Ukraine can protect the land that’s been taken by Russia in this latest incursion”. He argued that Mr Trump “set the groundwork” for the invasion and echoed 2016 comments by former Secretary of State and then-Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, calling him “Putin’s puppet”. He compared Mr DeSantis to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who unsuccessfully attempted to appease Adolf Hitler ahead of the Second World War. Doug Burgum The North Dakota Governor has suggested that he supports backing Ukraine but that he wants “accountability on every dollar”. “Russia cannot have a win coming out of this, because if it’s a win for them, it’s a win for China,” he told told North Dakota TV station KFYR. But he also said he wanted Europe to take on a bigger role financially in supporting Ukraine. In June, during an appearance on CNN, he said that problems within Russia could be exploited by the US and Nato. “Let’s give them the support they need,” he said in reference to Ukraine. “Let’s get this war over now instead of having it be protracted.” On the day the invasion began, 24 February 2022, Mr Burgum issued a statement. “We support and pray for the Ukrainian people as they defend themselves against these brazen acts of aggression by Russia and President Putin, which we condemn in the strongest terms possible,” he said. “The United States and its allies must stand together in support of Ukraine and hold Russia accountable for its unprovoked attacks. “This international crisis underscores the importance of U.S. energy security and increasing American production so we can sell energy to our friends and allies versus buying it from our enemies. “Our thoughts also are with those of Ukrainian heritage here in North Dakota who are concerned for the safety of their relatives as their homeland is under siege, as well as those North Dakota farmers and businesses with interests in Ukraine.” Read More Trump is raking in supporters’ donations to pay for his legal battles. Some of his co-defendants are going broke Trump slammed for ‘racist’ Georgia indictment post using term ‘riggers’ as jail booking nears – live updates Ramaswamy dismisses ‘professional politician’ DeSantis after ‘sledgehammer’ strategy for debate revealed The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

Police in Georgia are investigating online threats to members of a grand jury that voted to indict Donald Trump and 18 of the former president’s allies accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in a sprawling criminal case. The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office is “aware that personal information from members of the jury” has been shared across social media platforms, the agency announced on 17 August, less than three days after a sweeping charging document was unsealed. As required under state law, the names of the jurors are listed in the 98-page indictment. The sheriff’s office is working with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to “track down” the origins of the threats in the county and in other jurisdictions, according to the statement. The former president’s supporters have published the jurors’ names, social media profiles, addresses and phone numbers as part of an apparent harassment campaign following right-wing outrage over a sweeping criminal indictment, the fullest accounting yet of an alleged effort among Mr Trump and his allies to coerce officials into a fraudulent scheme to subvert the votes of millions of Americans. Far-right message boards and platforms dominated by pro-Trump users such as Gab and Truth Social have been flooded with comments and posts surrounding the case and the jurors, with pledges to “doxx” or publish a person’s personal information online with the intent to harass them. Accounts on fringe far-right message boards such as 4chan and The Donald have threatened to follow jurors home and “photograph their faces,” labelled their names a “hit list,” posted images of jurors’ alleged profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn, tried to determine their political affiliations and religious and ethnic backgrounds, and promoted violence against them. The Independent’s review of posts across Truth Social, where users vie for the audience of the former president himself, shows users rushing to Mr Trump’s defence while trying to identify and smear members of the jury who indicted him. Users on the far-right, pro-Trump message board The Donald, frequently a hotbed for violent rhetoric targeting political opponents, have promoted the killing of jurors and suggested igniting civil war. This is a developing story Read More Trump insists Democrats are angry at his indictment too as Georgia jail booking nears – live updates Will the Georgia gang of 18 turn on Trump? Trumpworld hanging by a thread as co-accused pressured to flip on ex-president Who is Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who could take down Trump

Threats to blow up polling stations. Police protection. Ballot counters in hiding. A grim new reality.

Donald Trump is currently negotiating the terms of his voluntary surrender with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office in Georgia after receiving his fourth criminal indictment of the year on Monday, according to CNN. Mr Trump and 18 co-conspirators – lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Jenna Ellis and ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows among them – were formally charged with racketeering by Atlanta prosecutor Fani Willis over their alleged attempts to alter the presidential election result in the swing state in 2020 after it turned blue for Joe Biden, sealing the Democrat’s win. The ousted former president, still the front-runner for the Republican 2024 nomination despite his array of legal problems, is charged with 13 of the 41 counts in Ms Willis’s indictment and faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted. He now has until noon on Friday 25 August to be booked at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta and arraigned at its courthouse before Judge Scott McAfee, where he is again expected to enter not guilty pleas to all charges, as he has at his three previous arraignments in New York, Miami and Washington DC. A bond agreement is likely to be forged to spare Mr Trump having to stay overnight in jail, as is the usual custom, and he is again unlikely to be seen in handcuffs or forced to pose for a mugshot, although county sheriff Pat Labat has previously insisted he intends to apply the same “normal practices” to the politician and his co-accused as he would any other defendants. It is just as well for Mr Trump, a well-known germaphobe, that he will not have to spend an evening at Fulton County Jail, also known by the nickname “Rice Street” as it is notoriously overcrowded and in poor repair, with a reputation for “unhygienic living conditions”. “It’s miserable. It’s cold. It smells. It’s just generally unpleasant,” veteran defence attorney Robert G Rubin told The New York Times this week. “Plus, there’s a high degree of anxiety for any defendant that’s in that position.” The facility was considered state of the art when it was built in 1985 to hold 1,300 inmates. In recent years, it has been forced to house closer to 3,000 people, with an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report from September 2022 observing that hundreds of people were being held at Fulton County Jail for longer than 90 days because they had not yet been formally charged or could not afford to pay off their bail bond. Another 117 had been held for more than a year because they had not been indicted and two more for over two years for the same reason, the report said. Fallon McClure, deputy director of policy and advocacy at the ACLU of Georgia, told the BBC the jail had “essentially been overcrowded since it was built”. “This has just been a perpetual cycle over and over for years,” she added, expressing pessimism that a long-touted $1.7bn replacement containment facility would ever be built. “There’s been a lot of talk of cleaning it up. We have not really seen or heard anything particularly significant. It seems like a lot of posturing.” Another recent report by the Southern Center for Human Rights recounted outbreaks of Covid-19, lice, scabies and cachexia, an affliction otherwise known as wasting syndrome, which hits those who are “significantly malnourished”. Six people have died in Fulton County custody this year, according to the BBC, including 19-year-old Noni Battiste-Kosoko in July (an autopsy report is still being carried out) and a 34-year-old man who was found unconscious in a medical unit cell last week. In September last year, another inmate, Lashawn Thompson, 35, died after being housed in a cell his lawyer likened to a “torture chamber”. The prisoner had spent three months in the jail’s psychiatric ward before he passed away and an independent medical review concluded that while his “untreated decompensated schizophrenia” had played a role in his death, so had dehydration, malnutrition and severe body infestation with insects, including lice and bed bugs. “We’re just letting people literally rot away there,” Sarah Flack, another local defence attorney, lamented to Insider. Read More Trump slammed for ‘racist’ Truth Social as he prepares to be booked into Fulton County Jail – live updates Trump attacks Fox News for using ‘worst’ photos of him: ‘Especially the big orange one’ Arrest, mugshot, cameras in court? What’s next for Donald Trump after his Georgia indictment Can Donald Trump still run for president after charges over 2020 election?

State charges unsealed earlier this week against Donald Trump and 18 others in the Georgia election subversion probe opened a new chapter in the former president's post-White House legal saga and forced the nation to turn its attention to yet another complex criminal case concerning efforts to undermine Joe Biden's 2020 victory.

North Carolina's Republican-controlled legislature passed a bill Wednesday that would make major changes to the state's election laws, the latest in efforts by GOP-led jurisdictions across the country to rewrite election procedures and impose restrictions on voting practices.

Since Donald Trump’s term as president ended and his power to pardon vanished with it in January 2021, he has managed to keep a wide range of former aides, confidantes and associates close to him by dispensing the millions of dollars he’s raised for his political action committee as legal fees for allies who’ve been caught up in investigations into his conduct. According to a Federal Election Commission disclosure report filed late last month, his Save America political committee spent roughly $20m on legal fees during the first half of this year. And a separate review of FEC filings dating back to when Mr Trump first reentered life as a private citizen shows the legal costs to be twice that amount dating back to the end of the ex-president’s term. The commission’s data reveals that Save America’s legal costs since January 2021 were $38m, the largest set of expenditures for the group. According to advisers to the ex-president, that amount represents legal fees not just for Mr Trump, but for dozens of former aides and associates who have become involved in the criminal investigations that have led to him facing four sets of charges in four separate courts. That group of aides includes Mr Trump’s two co-defendants in the criminal case pending against him in the Southern District of Florida, his longtime valet Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance supervisor at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. In a superseding indictment filed against the ex-president, Mr Nauta and Mr De Oliveira last month, prosecutors alleged that Mr Trump personally telephoned Mr De Oliveira and assured him that he would pay for his legal representation. The indictment also alleges that prior to that call, Mr Nauta conferred with another employee of the ex-president’s who vouched for Mr De Oliveira’s loyalty. In a statement, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said the ex-president’s political operation pays legal fees for his associates “to protect these innocent people from financial ruin and prevent their lives from being completely destroyed”. But Mr Trump’s legal largesse does not appear to extend to a small number of aides who’ve incurred the ex-president’s wrath even though their legal exposure has come as a result of their work for him. One of the 18 co-defendants who was indicted along with the former president in a sprawling racketeering case brought by the Fulton County, Georgia district attorney’s office is Jenna Ellis, an attorney and commentator who first came to public attention as part of the self-described “elite strike force” that pushed unfounded claims of election fraud after Mr Trump lost the 2020 presidential race to Joe Biden. Ms Ellis, who broke with Mr Trump and has endorsed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in next year’s election, appears to be getting no help from the ex-president’s political operation. In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) published on Tuesday, she included a link to a crowdfunding campaign on GiveSendGo, the right-wing competitor to GoFundMe that gained prominence in pro-Trump circles after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Her attorney, Mike Melito, said on the campaign’s page: “We will fight for Jenna. If you would like to help support our efforts please consider donating by clicking the link below. America and the profession of law are worth the fight”. Another of her former “elite strike force” compatriots turned Georgia co-defendants, ex-New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, also appears to be struggling financially under a crush of legal fees brought on by his work for Mr Trump — work that has reportedly gone unpaid for nearly three years. According to CNN, Mr Giuliani and his longtime counsel, Robert Costello, journeyed to Mar-a-Lago earlier this year to plead for Mr Trump to turn on the financial spigot and alleviate some of the ex-mayor’s legal bills, which reportedly have reached the seven-figure mark. The former prosecutor, who now faces criminal charges under the same type of Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law which he used against the Italian-American mob in the 1980s, left only with a promise by Mr Trump to pay for “a small fee from a data vendor” which hosts the contents of digital devices for discovery in a defamation suit against him by two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss. Mr Giuliani, who recently listed his New York City apartment for sale was described in a court filing for that case as “having financial difficulties” that impede his ability to produce discovery. It’s not known exactly why Mr Trump has refused to cover his former lawyer and longtime friend’s legal costs, but according to multiple reports, he became disillusioned with Mr Giuliani’s work after it failed to result in him remaining in the White House despite having lost the 2020 election. Read More Trump judge makes barbed comment about Elon Musk as contents of Jack Smith’s Twitter warrant revealed Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta’s lawyer may have conflict of interest, prosecutors say All of Trump’s lawsuits and criminal charges - and where they stand Trump’s team creates legal defence fund to pay for growing number of allies caught up in his legal problems Connecticut official continues mayoral campaign despite facing charges in Jan. 6 case Biden’s approval rating on the economy stagnates despite slowing inflation Canadian woman sentenced to nearly 22 years for sending ricin letter to Trump

A Brazilian hacker claimed at a Congressional hearing on Thursday that former President Jair Bolsonaro wanted him to hack into the country’s electronic voting system to expose its alleged weaknesses ahead of the 2022 presidential election. Walter Delgatti Neto did not provide any evidence for his claim to the parliamentary commission of inquiry. But his detailed testimony raises new allegations against the former far-right leader, investigated for his role in the Jan. 8 riots in the capital city of Brasilia. Delgatti also told lawmakers that he met in person with Bolsonaro and told the former president it was not possible for him to hack the electronic voting system. The Associated Press has reached out to Bolsonaro’s lawyers who have not yet responded. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoings. Bolsonaro's political nemesis, leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, won the Oct. 30, 2022 election with just 50.9% of the votes. According to Delgatti, Bolsonaro had wanted the attempted hack to convince some voters that the country’s voting system was not reliable. Delhgatti also said he was promised a presidential pardon in case he ended up being investigated for his actions. Bolsonaro had long stoked belief among his hardcore supporters that the nation’s electronic voting system was prone to fraud, though he never presented any evidence. In June, a panel of judges concluded that Bolsonaro abused his power to cast unfounded doubts on the country’s electronic voting system and barred him from running for office again until 2030. During Thursday’s hearing, Bolsonaro’s allies in the commission questioned Delegatti’s credibility. In 2015, Delegatti was jailed for lying about being a federal police investigator. Two years later, he was investigated for allegedly forging documents, which he denies. Several people have also accused him of embezzlement — allegations that resurfaced during Thursday’s hearing. In Brazil, witnesses caught lying before a parliamentary commissions of inquiry — more commonly known under its Portuguese acronym CPI — can be imprisoned, according to Luis Claudio Araujo, a law professor at Ibmec University in Rio de Janeiro. Members of parliamentary commissions have the power to investigate, but also pass on information to prosecutors and federal police, Araujo said. The congressional hearing adds to the numerous legal headaches facing Bolsonaro for activities during his term in office. Federal police earlier this month alleged that Bolsonaro received cash from the nearly $70,000 sale of two luxury watches he received as gifts from Saudi Arabia while in office. Officers raided the homes and offices of several people purportedly involved in the case, including a four-star army general. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing involving the gifts. “It is shocking this somewhat amateurism and naïveté of Bolsonaro’s political group in congress," said Creomar de Souza, founder of political risk consultancy Dharma Politics. "So much material is documented and they insist they can control the interpretation of the facts and insist in keeping this congressional probe working.” ___ Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo contributed to this report. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Brazil's police allege Bolsonaro got money from $70,000 sale of luxury jewelry gifts Brazil has 1.7 million Indigenous people, near double the count from prior census, government says An Indigenous leader has inspired an Amazon city to grant personhood to an endangered river

Pakistan’s election oversight body said Thursday that parliamentary elections must be delayed because it needs four months to redraw constituencies to reflect the recently held census. A delay would likely heighten the political strains in Pakistan, which has seen now opposition leader Imran Khan removed as prime minister by a no-confidence vote by parliament in April 2022 and his imprisonment this year after a graft conviction. In a statement, the Election Commission of Pakistan said it won’t be able to complete drawing new constituencies before Dec. 14. That means the vote could possibily be delayed at least until February. The development came a week after President Arif Alvi dissolved parliament at the completion of its five-year term. Usually, that step starts the process of holding elections for a new parliament within 90 days. But elections could still be held later this year if the caretaker government, which was installed under Premier Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar this week, decides to go ahead with it under the previous census. Kakar had no immediate comment on the announcement by the election oversight body. Analysts said the judiciary could also push Kakar’s government to hold the vote on time to meet the constitutional requirement. Under the constitution, a vote was to be held either in October or November. Kakar’s new Cabinet was sworn in Thursday at the Presidency in the capital, Islamabad. Kakar has chosen former diplomat Jalil Abbas Jilani to head the foreign ministry, and longtime journalist Murtaza Solangi to be the information minister. Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf opposition party is hoping to return to power after what is expected to be a close election. Khan, a highly popular 70-year-old former cricket star, has been held at the Attock prison in eastern Punjab province since Aug. 6, when he was sentenced to three years in prison by a court after being convicted of concealing assets he amassed by selling state gifts. A court in Islamabad will take up Khan's appeal next week, and his legal team is expecting him to be released. Khan will not be able to run in the election unless his conviction is overturned. Pakistan bars anyone with a criminal conviction of leading a political party, running in elections or holding public office. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide

A super PAC supporting Ron DeSantis has revealed the Florida governor’s strategy for a comeback in next week’s Republican presidential primary debate, The New York Times reported. Axiom Strategies, which works with Never Back Down, a super PAC that supports Mr DeSantis, released a bevy of research memos on its website to give advice for the governor ahead of the first primary debate in Milwaukee. One of the memos outlines “four basic must-dos” for Mr DeSantis, whom the memos refer to as “GRD,” saying he would need to attack fellow candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who has begun to ascend in the polls against Mr DeSantis. “1. Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times. 2. State GRD’s positive vision 2-3 times. 3. Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response. 4. Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack,” the memo said. Jeff Roe, a chief strategist for Never Back Down, owns Axiom. Mr Roe served as the campaign manager for Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) when Mr Cruz won the 2016 Iowa caucus and came in second behind Mr Trump. When The Times reached out to Axiom, the firm removed the memo from its website. “When GRD's name is invoked and he is given a chance to respond, there are two approaches,” the memo says. “1. When there is a core attack on GRD's central candidacy (calling GRD a liberal, hitting veteran record, hitting conservative record), GRD should take the time, correct the record, and highlight the positive/dismiss the attacker if it's a tier one candidate. GRD can also pivot to hitting Joe Biden when possible.” The memo also says when another candidate attacks Mr DeSantis but does not make a “core” attack, Mr DeSantis should pivot and the take up time. “GRD should ignore the weak attack , not even address it, and instead pivot to message and vision and name check Iowa, New Hampshire , etc. voters directly ‘Iowans/Americans , I'm talking directly to you now,’” the memo says. Super PACs cannot officially coordinate with candidates. But Never Back Down has featured Mr DeSantis and his wife Casey at multiple events as a guest. Candidates can use memos that Super PACs release pubicly. The memo says that Mr DeSantis should attack Mr Ramaswamy, who has started gaining steam by adopting talking points similar Mr DeSantis’s against “wokeness,” as “FakeVivek” or “Vivek the Fake.” A new Fox News poll showed that since June, Mr DeSantis has fallen by six points to 16 per cent in terms of whom Republican primary voters prefer to be the nominee for president. The same poll showed that in June, five per cent of GOP primary voters preferred him to be the nominee, but that number has grown to 11 per cent. The memo also said that Mr DeSantis should defend Mr Trump when former New Jersey governor Chris Christie attacks the former president. “Trump isn'there so let's just leavehim alone. He's too weak to defendhimselfhere. We're all running against him. I don't think we want to join forces with someone on this stage who's auditioning for a show on MSNBC,” the memo suggests Mr DeSantis say. The memo also suggested that Mr DeSantis, who has often been portrayed as awkward or impersonable, “[i]nvoke a personal anecdote storyabout family, kids, Casey, showing emotion.” In addition, the campaign memo showed how Mr DeSantis could simultaneously defend Mr Trump but pivot to get people to support him. “Manyvoters , like me, voted for Donald Trump, love Donald Trump,” he said. “He was a breath of fresh air and the first president to tell the elite where to shove it. But he was attacked all the time, provoked attacks all the time, and it was non-stop. The drama affected families. Trump's drama pitted brother against brother, friend against friend. He's gotso many distractions that it's almost impossible for him to focus on movingthe country forward.” epublicans will hold their first debate on Wednesday in Milwaukee. Fox News will host the debate. Read More Robert F Kennedy Jr Democratic primary support is plummeting – latest 2024 election polls When is the first 2024 Republican presidential primary debate and how can you watch it? Tim Scott will share the spotlight at massive South Carolina campaign event headlined by DeSantis Jenna Ellis forced to crowdfund Georgia lawyer fund after cutting ties with Trump Trump accused of skipping debate because he’s ‘scared of Chris Christie’ Renata Scotto, soprano of uncommon intensity, dies at 89 Why is a police raid on a newspaper in Kansas so unusual? Tom Jones, creator of the longest-running musical ‘The Fantasticks,' dies at 95

A Canadian woman was sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison in Washington Thursday in the mailing of a threatening letter containing the poison ricin to then-President Donald Trump at the White House. Pascale Ferrier, 56, had pleaded guilty to violating biological weapons prohibitions in letters sent to Trump and to police officials in Texas, where she had been jailed in 2019 after refusing to leave a park area as it closed. Her defense attorney Eugene Ohm said Ferrier has no criminal record prior that and is an “inordinately intelligent” French immigrant who had earned a master’s degree in engineering and raised two children as a single parent. But in September 2020, prosecutors said Ferrier made the ricin, a potentially deadly poison derived from processing castor beans, then mailed it to Trump with a letter that referred to him as “The Ugly Tyrant Clown” and read in part: “If it doesn’t work, I’ll find better recipe for another poison, or I might use my gun when I’ll be able to come. Enjoy! FREE REBEL SPIRIT.” The letter from Pascale Ferrier, which also told Trump “give up and remove your application for this election,” was intercepted at a mail sorting facility in September 2020, before it could reach the White House. She was arrested trying to enter a border crossing in Buffalo, New York, carrying a gun, a knife and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, authorities said. Investigators also found eight similar letters to Texas officials. In a winding speech, Ferrier told the judge that she considers herself a “peaceful and genuinely kind person,” but gets angry about problems like unfairness, abuses of power and “stupid rules." She spoke about feeling like she had done little to support her values while raising her children, and considered herself to be an “activist” rather than a “terrorist.” “I want to find peaceful means to achieve my goals,” she said. U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich handed down the 262-month sentence outlined in a plea agreement with prosecutors, which also requires Ferrier to leave the country once she is released and be under supervised release for life if she ever returns to the U.S. The judge noted a “real disconnect" between the Canadian grandmother who has worked toward another degree while behind bars and the crimes Ferrier pleaded guilty to. “That isn't really activism, that's productive,” she said. Prosecutor Michael Freedman said the sentence was an “appropriately harsh punishment” that sends a clear message. “There is absolutely no place for politically motivated violence in the United States of America,” he said. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide

President Joe Biden is using the presidential retreat at Camp David to help with a diplomatic mission -- hosting the first-ever trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea, two countries that are putting aside a fraught history in the face of shared security challenges.