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It’s been a mad few months, even by American political standards.

After Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in New York came Joe Biden’s blunders at that debate, then Trump’s brush with an assassin’s bullet and then that dramatic switch for the Democrats from Biden to Harris.

Events have jolted politics here and the Democratic Party’s remarkably smooth ‘switcheroo’ has upended the race for the White House.

Harris’s entry has turned the race into a neck-and-neck fight. In a few weeks, she has – polls suggest – won back voters who should have been in the bag but were put off by ageing Biden.

But beyond what promises to be a star-spangled crowning convention for Harris this week in Chicago, what’s the vibe in the states where it really matters?

I’m just back from Georgia. It is one of those ‘must-win’ swing states.

So starkly diverse and so close electorally, every vote really does matter in Georgia. Biden won here in 2020 by a margin of 0.23% – just 11,779 votes.

It’s been revealing in so many ways. Yes, Harris has shaken up the race, but the fundamentals of this election are unchanged.

The economy, the southern border, abortion and the character of the candidates remain the key factors. And it will come down to a narrow portion of the electorate – probably just over 10% of persuadables.

Here’s a snapshot of a journey through Georgia.

The barbecue joint

No visit to America’s south is complete without a good barbecue.

The Emerald’s Touch in the southwestern Georgian city of Columbus is new and it is the perfect product of the American dream.

Three generations of the same family run the place.

Jayden is taking the orders, his father is in the kitchen and his grandfather is the master griller out at the back. And Sandy, the matriarch, is the creator of the best mac-n-cheese I’ve had in a long time.

It is a business born in COVID under a Trump presidency as a food truck, it expanded under Biden’s term to the take-away it now is. In the next few months, they will expand again to become a full eat-in restaurant.

It’s the perfect reflection of what’s achievable in America. Trump’s low taxes and then Biden’s bottom-up economics have made it possible.

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Jayden is going to be voting for the first time in November and he is undecided – just the type of person both parties will need to target.

He represents a significant group of so-called “low information” voters. It’s an inelegant phrase, but essentially means he hasn’t yet tuned into it all. He doesn’t know what the two candidates represent.

Conversations with the customers are revealing.

Reflecting on the prospect of a female black president, young black mum Erica says: “It’s something that I would like to tell my daughter about… but I don’t let something that’s so close to me be the blindside of a vote just because it could be so historical.”

Vince Allan is a local pastor.

“To me, it’s a disturbing race,” he says. “We hear a lot of bashing and negative rhetoric instead of the candidates sticking to their policies… it’s pretty toxic.”

Then, away from the microphone, he whispered his candidate in my ear. I will not divulge, but it was a surprise.

The basketball court

This election will be all about targeting different demographics and young black men are key. On the basketball court, as the southern sun set, the perfect group agreed to talk politics.

All under 50 and all black or Latino, they are just the people Harris needs if she’s to win the state.

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‘Trump and who?’

“I’m voting for Trump,” one man says. “He’s our best choice.” Two others pile into the conversation, excited. “I’m Trump too… we’re with the Trump!”

“He’s got 34 felony counts! Hell, he’s more black than me!” another player says with a laugh.

This sort of self-deprecating humour speaks volumes for a certain portion of the electorate.

It’s not the first time I have heard it; the idea that it’s kind of cool that their street fighter has been put through the legal wringer and could still rise to the top.

But on this basketball court, it was clear too that beyond the machismo there are simple back-pocket motivations drawing people to Trump rather than Harris.

“Trump is real bro. He doesn’t care what you think about him. He’s going to speak his opinion,” another man says.

But like Jayden in the barbecue restaurant, here too I found many are just not tuned into it all, not yet, maybe they’ll never be, but their vote – if they vote – will count the same as any other.

Trump and Harris both need to swing them just enough to secure their vote.

The rodeo

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In the far north of Georgia is the picturesque town of Blue Ridge.

It sits at the bottom end of the Blue Ridge mountain range which stretches hundreds of miles north through Tennessee and into Virginia. Much of this part of Appalachian America is deeply Trump country.

The annual rodeo is a wonderful snapshot of Americana and felt a million miles from the basketball court a hundred miles or so to the south.

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Young voters divided over Trump and Harris

It’s a country of such extraordinary diversity yet they must coalesce around one of two choices in November.

The first conversation ended any temptation I had to stereotype.

Three young friends, all first-time voters, all in their cowboy hats and all with a different view. One for Trump, one for Harris, and one undecided.

rodeo

The Trump supporter was motivated mostly by his rough-and-ready character, the Harris supporter was concerned about the situation in Gaza, and the undecided person was worried about petrol prices.

For so many, this election will come down to single issues.

Abortion is another. A debate often framed as choice versus life. And in deeply religious Georgia the issue cuts both ways. A libertarian ‘mind your own business’ attitude intersects with fundamentalist religious beliefs.

For many, religion trumps choice. “I’m a devoted catholic,” one young woman told me. She confirmed that she would be voting Republican because of their abortion-restricting policies.

Another local then suggested, intriguingly, that a significant proportion of female voters may claim to support Trump but would, in the end, quietly vote for Kamala because of what she represents.

It is another dynamic to consider in this fascinating race.

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US politics is laced with malevolence and division

Remember how dramatically wrong the polls were in the past two presidential elections.

Trump has a tendency to poll lower than he actually performs.

How accurate are the polls on Harris? It’s hard to know because she is, for now, hard to define.

In one sense she represents something entirely new and fresh, certainly in terms of race and gender.

But she is also fully attached to the last four years of Biden.

That’s the challenge for team Harris: are they selling ‘continuity Kamala’ or does she represent change? Will she build on Biden’s legacy or is she distinct from it.

Different voters want different things. It feels like it’s a tricky balance in a campaign where all’s to play for.

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At least two dead and eight critically injured in US university shooting

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At least two dead and eight critically injured in US university shooting

At least two people have been killed and eight others critically injured in a shooting on the campus of Brown University in Rhode Island, officials have said.

The incident is believed to be unfolding near an engineering building on the campus, according to the school’s alert system.

Providence Police and the Rhode Island State Police are responding.

It is unclear at the moment whether arrests have been made.

Brown University says no suspects are in custody and that additional shots may have been fired.

US President Donald Trump corrected an earlier post he shared online, clarifying that a suspect was not in custody. In his previous post, he had stated that a suspect was in custody.

University officials initially told students and staff that a suspect was in custody, but later said this was not the case and police were still searching for a suspect or suspects.

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Officials noted that the information remained preliminary as investigators try to determine what has occurred.

Police are actively investigating and still gathering information from the scene, said Kristy DosReis, the chief public information officer for the city of Providence.

The shooting was reported near the Barus & Holley building, a seven-storey structure that houses the School of Engineering and Physics Department, according to the school’s website.

It includes 117 laboratories, 150 offices and 15 classrooms.

Brown is a private university with roughly 7,300 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate students.

Providence Council member John Goncalves, whose ward includes the Brown campus, said: “We’re still getting information about what’s going on, but we’re just telling people to lock their doors and to stay vigilant.

“As a Brown alum, someone who loves the Brown community and represents this area, I’m heartbroken. My heart goes out to all the family members and the folks who’ve been impacted.”

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Trump says US ‘will retaliate’ after three Americans killed in Syrian ‘Islamic State attack’

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Trump says US 'will retaliate' after three Americans killed in Syrian 'Islamic State attack'

Donald Trump has said the US “will retaliate” after three Americans were killed in a suspected Islamic State attack in Syria.

Two US service members and one civilian died and three other people were injured in an ambush on Saturday by a lone IS – also often called ISIS in Syria and Iraq – gunman, according to the he US military’s Central Command.

The attack on US troops in Syria is the first to inflict fatalities since the fall of President Bashar Assad a year ago.

“This is an ISIS attack,” the US president told reporters at the White House before leaving for the Army-Navy football game in Baltimore.

He paid condolences to the three people killed and said the three others who were wounded “seem to be doing pretty well”.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said “there will be very serious retaliation”.

The shooting took place near historic Palmyra, according to the state-run SANA news agency, and the casualties were taken by helicopter to the al Tanf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan.

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The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force.

Syria’s Interior Ministry spokesman Nour al Din al Baba said authorities are looking into whether the gunman was an IS member or only carried its extreme ideology, and denied reports suggesting he was a security member.

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Central Command earlier said in a post on X that the gunman was killed, while the identities of the service members killed wouldn’t be released until 24 hours after their next of kin have been notified.

Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said the civilian killed in the attack was a US interpreter.

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X: “Let it be known, if you target Americans – anywhere in the world – you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”

The US has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.

The group was defeated on the battlefield in Syria in 2019 but the UN says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq, and its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks.

Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al Sharaa, made a historic visit to Washington DC last month as Syria signed a political cooperation agreement with the US-led coalition against IS.

“This was an ISIS attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” Mr Trump said in his social media post, adding that Mr al Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed”.

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Washington state flooding forces entire city to evacuate as rivers reach historic highs

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Washington state flooding forces entire city to evacuate as rivers reach historic highs

National Guard troops went door-to-door on Friday to evacuate a farming city north of Seattle as severe flooding in western Washington state put levees at risk.

Days of torrential rain have swelled rivers to record or near-record levels, as flooding has stranded families on rooftops, washed over bridges and ripped homes from their foundations.

Burlington, a city of nearly 10,000 residents near Puget Sound – a large inlet of the Pacific Ocean in northwestern Washington – was placed under a full evacuation order with people told to leave immediately and move to higher ground.

The Skagit River, a major waterway that flows from the Cascade Mountains through the Skagit Valley before emptying into Puget Sound, surged to a record high of nearly 38ft (11.6m) at Mount Vernon, about 10 miles south of Burlington.

“We haven’t seen flooding like this ever,” said Karina Shagren, a spokesperson for the state’s emergency management division, adding that there had been no reports of injuries or missing individuals so far.

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Pic: Reuters

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Pic: Reuters

National Guard troops and sheriff’s deputies were going door to assist with the evacuations.

Some responders were seen paddling stranded Burlington residents to safety in inflatable river rafts through the muddy floodwaters.

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Later on Friday, the evacuation order was lifted for part of the city, Burlington police department spokesperson Michael Lumpkin said.

However, while water levels appeared to ease a little, Mr Lumpkin said “it’s definitely not an all-clear”.

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Pic: Reuters

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Pic: Reuters

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The intense rainfall was driven by an atmospheric river, a massive stream of moisture drawn from the ocean and carried inland over the Pacific Northwest earlier in the week.

Although rainfall has begun to ease, the National Weather Service has issued a flash-flood warning for the Skagit River basin all the way downstream to its mouth at Puget Sound.

Snohomish, around 40 miles south of Burlington, has also been affected. Pic: Reuters
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Snohomish, around 40 miles south of Burlington, has also been affected. Pic: Reuters

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Pic: Reuters

The swollen waters could put enough strain on levees to cause them to fail, the weather service noted.

“Extensive flooding of streets, homes and farmland will be possible” if levees and dikes give way, it said.

The Burlington-Mount Vernon area in Skagit County continues to be the hardest-hit area, facing extensive flooding from days of heavy rainfall stretching from northern Oregon through western Washington and into British Columbia.

National Guard troops were also dispatched to deliver food and check on stranded residents in a number of communities cut off by flooding in adjacent Snohomish County, south of Skagit County.

The flooding washed out or forced the closure of dozens of roads throughout the region, including most of the Canadian highways leading to the port city of Vancouver in British Columbia.

Parts of northern Idaho and western Montana have also been impacted.

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