Trump secures nomination in Cleveland
Thirteen months after launching his campaign, Donald Trump has secured the Republican party’s nomination for US president after a once-improbable proposition became a reality on Tuesday night at the Republican national convention in Cleveland. As Trump passed the delegate threshold, an illuminated message proclaimed: “Over the Top”. Later, the candidate proclaimed: “This is a movement and we have to go all the way.”
The convention speakers included Trump’s children, Donald Jr and Tiffany, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who offered a rabble-rousing, prosecutorial takedown of Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign continued to insist Melania Trump’s well-received speech had not been plagiarised,while some conservative groups are staging a rearguard effort to get the Republican party to accept the dangers of climate change.
US election 2016: Republican party nominates Donald Trump for president
Hottest June
Last month was the 14th straight month of record-breaking global temperatures, according to Nasa and Noaa. June 2016 was 0.9C hotter than the average for the 20th century, and the hottest June in the record which goes back to 1880. It broke the previous record, set in 2015, by 0.02C. The 14-month streak of record-breaking temperatures was the longest in the 137-year record.
Hottest ever June marks 14th month of record-breaking temperatures
US police face recruitment crisis
After the killing of five Texas police officers on 7 July, there are growing fears that strained community relations, budget shortfalls and perceptions of a “war on cops” will worsen recruiting problems faced by departments in Dallas and elsewhere. The Dallas police chief, David Brown, recently issued an invitation to those who marched in protest at killings of African Americans by law enforcement: join us. “Serve your community, don’t be a part of the problem.”
Racial tension, budget cuts and ‘war on cops’ could hinder police recruiting
Banned from Twitter
Milo Yiannopoulos, a rightwing writer and notorious internet troll, has been permanently banned from the social media site after he was accused of promoting a social media attack on Ghostbusters’ Leslie Jones. Yiannopoulos, the technology editor for Breitbart.com, tweeted as @Nero, called himself “the most fabulous supervillain on the internet” and referred to Donald Trump as “daddy”.
Milo Yiannopoulos, rightwing writer, permanently banned from Twitter
Ailes to exit Fox hole
The Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, is in negotiations to quit the conservative-leaning cable news network he helped create, following allegations of sexual harassment from some of the channel’s highest-profile female news anchors. Ailes was hit with a sexual harassment suit by anchor Gretchen Carlson earlier this month. Ailes could collect as much as $40m in severance pay, according to a leaked copy of a “separation agreement” published by the Drudge Report on Tuesday.
Roger Ailes negotiating exit from Fox News amid sexual harassment claims
Farmers struggle to meet organic demand
Demand for organic food has never been higher – $13.4bn in the US last year – yet farmers are struggling to get organic certification. Only 1% of US farmland is currently approved and the time and expense required for certification present major roadblocks. Concern over the organic shortage is so acute that corporate businesses and nonprofits are launched new efforts to give growers better incentives to go organic.
American farmers are struggling to feed the country’s appetite for organic food
Many Turks back authoritarian Erdoğan
The enduring popularity of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, perplexes some western observers, who know him mainly for his increasingly authoritarian actions. In recent days, western leaders have expressed alarm at the purge instigated following the failed coup attempt. Since Saturday about 35,000 officers, soldiers, policemen, judges, prosecutors, teachers and university deans have been detained, fired or suspended as Erdoğan attempts to isolate anyone his government perceives to be a threat. But outside city hall the crowds saw him mainly as a saviour. “We love our president so much,” said Ersin Korkmaz, a 29-year-old civil servant who was draped in a Turkish flag and accompanied by his two young daughters.
‘We see him as one of us’: why many Turks still back authoritarian Erdoğan
Russian doping verdict anticipated
Dick Pound, the International Olympic Committee member whose report into Russian doping led to the country’s track and field athletes being banned last year, has broken ranks to suggest the IOC is unlikely to ban the entire Russia team from the Rio Games. In an interview with the BBC, Pound said he thought the committee would be “very reluctant to think about a total exclusion of the Russian team”. In the Guardian’s view, Rio is no place for cheats.
Dick Pound fears IOC reluctant to ban entire Russia team from Olympics
Museums embrace Pokémon
Resisting anxiety that players of the game will amble blindly into works of art, US institutions including the Whitney and the Museum of Modern Art in New York are seizing the opportunity to get gamers through the doors. MoMA, for instance, has two Pokéstops, including characters that are waiting inside the galleries at the current Tony Oursler and Rachel Harrison exhibitions.
American art museums cautiously embrace Pokémon Go
Garry Marshall, Happy Days creator, dies
The TV writer and producer Garry Marshall, who has died aged 81, was considered one of the entertainment industry’s most successful figures who coined the term “jumping the shark”. Earlier this year, he told the Guardian “sharks were big then”. Marshall also created 70s shows such as Mork and Mindy and, in the 80s, directed films, including the blockbuster Pretty Woman, with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.
Garry Marshall, creator of Happy Days, dies aged 81
In case you missed it …
Donald Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, once claimed that Mulan, the 1998 Disney animated film about a Han Dynasty-era woman who disguises herself as a man in order to battle an invading army, was “mischievous liberal” propaganda designed to influence “the next generation’s attitudes about women in combat”. Pence’s piece, written in 1999 and rediscovered by Buzzfeed, criticized Disney for suggesting that a woman could fight alongside men. Pence also claimed the film’s romantic subplot proved that straight men and women were unable to serve beside each other without sex becoming an issue.
Mike Pence: Disney’s Mulan is ‘mischievous liberal propaganda’
