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Kamala Harris expected to announce her vice presidential candidate before touring battleground states next week. Photo: Chris Kleponis / AFP By Jarrett Renshaw and Nandita Bose, Reuters Vice President Kamala Harris will tour battleground states next week with her vice presidential candidate, two sources familiar with the planning said, a sign the selection process for her running mate is coming to a close. The high-stakes decision on who will run with Harris has taken centre stage since she became the Democratic frontrunner for the 5 November election after US President Joe Biden ended his White House bid just over a week ago. Harris will announce her vice presidential pick before next week's tour of states that could swing to Republicans or Democrats in November, one of the sources sai...

China flag Photo: photosport China was plunged backed into the doping spotlight after the New York Times reported that two swimmers in 2022 had tested positive for a banned steroid but had their provisional suspensions lifted when the results were blamed on contaminated food. The latest revelations during the Paris Olympics will increase already high tension between the World Anti-Doping Agency and the US anti-doping body over the handling of a case involving 23 Chinese swimmers, who tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) weeks before the Tokyo Games. Those positives were also blamed on contamination, with a Chinese investigation determining that the swimmers were inadvertently exposed to the drug after traces of TMZ, a medication that increases blood flow to the heart, were found in t...

US Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia on 30 July, 2024. Photo: KYLE MAZZA / AFP Vice President Kamala Harris will hold her first rally with her new vice presidential nominee on Tuesday (Wednesday NZ time) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, launching a four day battleground tour that includes Michigan and Arizona, the campaign said. The location of the first stop suggests Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has moved to the top of a short list of running mates, and that the Harris campaign had decided the state that Democrats won back from Republicans in 2020 is a must-win once again. After Philadelphia, Harris and her vice presidential pick will travel to six other locations including western Wisconsin, Detroit and Las Vegas, the campaign said in a statement ...

Barbara Butch said she had been the target of "cyber-harrassment". Photo: Instagram, @BarbaraButch By Steven McIntosh of the BBC A French DJ who performed during the Paris Olympics' opening ceremony has filed a legal complaint after receiving abuse online. Barbara Butch took part in a drag queen sequence during the event which sparked controversy as viewers interpreted it as a reference to The Last Supper. The ceremony's artistic director, Thomas Jolly, denied this and some art experts said the scene shared more similarities with a painting of Greek gods. A lawyer for Barbara Butch said the DJ "has been threatened with death, torture and rape, and has also been the target of numerous antisemitic, homophobic, sexist and grossophobic insults". Butch said she had been the target of "cyber-...

Floral tributes and soft toys are laid following a vigil in Southport, northwest England, on 30 July 2024, a day after a deadly child knife attack. Photo: ROLAND LLOYD PARRY / AFP "Thugs" were to blame for the violence that saw 39 police officers injured in Southport, the town's MP has said. Unrest broke out in the Merseyside town hours after a vigil to remember the victims of Monday's knife attack at a dance school in which three young girls were killed. Officers were pelted with bricks, a police van was set on fire, and eight officers were seriously hurt, Merseyside Police said. MP Patrick Hurley described the violence - close to a mosque - as "horrific". Hurley told BBC's Radio 4 Today programme that the "riot" was "led by people from outside the town". Police said the violence was b...

Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Green New Deal Network/AFP By Andrew Hay, Reuters At least 973 Native American children died at Indian Boarding Schools from 1819 to 1969, according to a federal report that calls on the US government to apologise for the 150-year-long forced assimilation policy used to separate children from families and destroy tribal identity. Many of the children who died were buried at 65 former schools across the country in at least 74 marked and unmarked burial sites, according to a US Department of the Interior study released on Tuesday. It was the second and final report on the schools commissioned by US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the United States' first Native American cabinet secretary. Haaland, a member of New Mexico's Pueblo of Laguna tribe...

By Tiffanie Turnbull for BBC Photo: 123rf Babies with peanut allergies in Australia will be offered treatment to build immunity to the potentially life-threatening condition, under a world-first program. Supervised by select paediatric hospitals, eligible babies will be given gradually increasing doses of peanut powder each day for at least two years, to reduce sensitivity. Oral immunotherapy has been available in clinical trials and some specialist allergy centres around the globe, but this is the first time it has ever been adopted as a national model of care for peanut allergies. Australia is often dubbed the "allergy capital of the world", with one in 10 infants diagnosed with food sensitivities. Peanut allergy affects about 3 percent of Australians at 12 months old and - unlike o...