First Thing: the Democrat ticket’s first major interview of the campaign

Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash in a pre-recorded interview that airs Thursday night. Plus: peacocks in Scotland

Good morning.

Tonight, the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, will give her first major interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. The pre-recorded interview, which was scheduled after some criticism of Harris’s reluctance to expose herself to media scrutiny, will be with CNN’s Dana Bash and will include Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz.

What should we expect from this interview? This interview will be a big test of Harris’s credibility after a prolonged honeymoon that has seen her surge ahead of Donald Trump in opinion polls. “This is the first time she is going to take questions,” said David Chalian, CNN’s political director. “Now is the opportunity to hear her ruminate aloud, with Dana asking her about her policy positions, her plans for the future, her plans for the country, in an unscripted setting.”

Are Republicans happy with this setup? Republicans have long called for Harris, who has had a variable performance in past televised one-on-ones, to take questions live from the press. Some are mocking the setup of the interview, accusing Harris of being unwilling to risk a high-profile grilling without the protective presence of Walz.

Trump staffers reported over behaviour during ‘crass’ photo opportunity at Arlington cemetery

Officials at Arlington national cemetery have filed a report accusing two of Donald Trump’s campaign staff of reportedly shoving and verbally abusing an employee. The Republican presidential candidate was at the Virginia cemetery on Monday to participate in a wreath-laying ceremony for 13 US servicemen and women killed in a 2021 suicide bomb attack outside Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

What do the Arlington officials say happened? Arlington said in a statement that one of its representatives was “verbally abused” and pushed aside after telling two Trump staffers that only cemetery representatives were allowed to take video and photographs in section 60, an area where recent US casualties, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan, are buried. “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within army national military cemeteries,” the statement said.

How has the Trump team responded? JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, dismissed the row as media exaggeration over “a little disagreement”. He later accused the media of “acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a gravesite”.

Telegram chief executive charged in France for “allowing criminal activity” on the app

Pavel Durov, the founder and chief executive of Telegram, has been charged by the French judiciary for allegedly allowing criminal activity on the encrypted messaging app. Durov, a Russian-born multi-billionaire who has French citizenship, was detained outside Paris over the weekend on suspicion of failing to act against illicit content on the service, including the exchange of child sexual imagery, drug trafficking and fraud.

What is the case against Durov? Law enforcement agencies around the world have long monitored Telegram owing to its alleged use by terrorist organisations, drug traffickers, arms dealers and far-right extremist groups for communication, recruitment and coordination. Specialist French cybercrime and fraud detectives said that Durov’s arrest was part of a wide-ranging investigation into a failure to moderate alleged criminal activity on the messaging app.

What is Telegram’s response to the charges? Telegram said in a statement that it abided by European Union laws and that its moderation was “within industry standards and constantly improving”. “Telegram’s chief executive officer, Pavel Durov, has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe,” it said. “It is absurd to claim that a platform, or its owner, are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

In other news …

A jury in Nevada has found a former Democratic Las Vegas politician guilty of murder in the killing of Jeff German, an investigative journalist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The US supreme court ruled on Wednesday that it will not reinstate the Biden administration’s multibillion-dollar student loan repayment plan, which aims to lower monthly payments for millions of borrowers.

Typhoon Shanshan, Japan’s strongest typhoon of the year, has made landfall in the country’s south-west, bringing torrential rain and winds strong enough to destroy homes.

Stat of the day: there has been a 30% increase in the number of intense typhoons since 1900

Scientists have found that July’s “hyper-violent” Typhoon Gaemi was made fiercer and more likely to strike by the climate crisis. Gaemi’s wind speeds were about 9mph (14km/h) faster owing to human-caused global heating and its rainfall up to 14% higher owing to the burning of fossil fuels, said researchers from the World Weather Attribution (WWA).

“Fossil fuel-driven warming is ushering in a new era of bigger, deadlier typhoons,” said Dr Ben Clarke, of Imperial College London and part of the WWA team. “The hard truth is we will see more devastating storms like Typhoon Gaemi as the climate warms [and] Asia will become an increasingly dangerous place to live until fossil fuels are replaced with renewable energy.”

Don’t miss this: the displaced Lebanese caught in crossfire on Israel border

More than 110,000 have fled their homes in Lebanon along the border of Israel to escape the fighting between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces. The International Organization for Migrationwarns that this number is likely to rise, but aid organisations are reporting a slump in donations for relief activities. And with Lebanon still in the grip of an economic crisis, the displaced are forced to rely on charitable organisations for support.

“What we are providing as the international community is not enough,” says Hans Bederski, the national directorat World Vision. “We are set up just to provide the basics for survival: food and a roof over people’s heads, and even that is stretched.”

… or this: why have so many salmon deserted Norway’s rivers?

The North Atlantic salmon population has been declining for years. In Norway, the population shrank from more than a million in the early 1980s to about 500,000 now, a drop largely linked to climate crisis. This spring, the salmon, particularly the medium-sized fish, did not come back from the ocean, raising such alarm over the collapse of the salmon population that 33 of the country’s rivers closed during fishing season for the first time.

Climate check: the US airlines lobbying against monitoring plane emissions

Documents obtained via freedom of information requests have revealed that lobbyists from Airlines for America met with the European Commission in a previously undisclosed meeting to argue against plans to monitor the damage wrought by planet-heating pollutants expelled by planes.

The European Commission plans on forcing airlines to monitor, report and verify the host of gases aircrafts spew at high altitudes, including nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and water vapour. The proposal would apply to flights within Europe from 2025 and outside flights from 2027, but Airlines for America has argued against including external flights, and said it would “consider all available options” to stop the rules from applying to US airlines.

Last thing: peacocking in Scotland

Peacocks and peahens have strutted about Pittencrieff Park in Scotland’s Dunfermline since 1905, when the locally born philanthropist Andrew Carnegie accepted a pair of breeding peacocks from his friend Henry Beveridge. While they have not always remained within the confines of the park – the roads in the area have signs warning drivers to be mindful – Dunfermline has now officially given them a pass to its streets by bestowing upon the peafowl the freedom of the city.

“Peacocks have had the freedom to roam around the park for over a century, so when Dunfermline got city status, we pushed even more to give it officially to the birds,” says the lead warden for the peacocks, Suzi Ross. “These birds are loved by so many people from Dunfermline and all over the world.”

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