Nation and world news in brief for July 31
Head of Project 2025 policy group steps down after Trump criticism
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The director of a conservative policymaking group known as Project 2025, which has drawn criticism from Democrats for its hard-right proposals and has become a campaign liability for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, has stepped down. Trump’s campaign has repeatedly tried to distance itself from the group, which pushes for a major expansion of presidential power, among other controversial proposals, although many of his close allies are deeply involved in the project.
ADVERTISING
Secret Service chief blames Trump security lapse on local police
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. Secret Service’s new acting director said on Tuesday that he was “ashamed” of a security lapse that led to the July 13 attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but blamed the shortfall on local law enforcement. In testimony before two Senate committees, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said he visited the outdoor rally site in Butler, Pennsylvania, and climbed onto the roof of a nearby building from which 20-year-old Thomas Crooks fired shots that wounded Trump’s right ear, killed one rally attendee and wounded two others with an AR-15-style rifle.
Raging California wildfire grows bigger than city of Los Angeles
(Reuters) — The largest wildfire in the U.S. swelled to over 600 square miles on Tuesday, bigger than the city of Los Angeles, fire officials in California said, as thousands of firefighters battled the blaze in a wilderness area north of Sacramento. More than 5,500 firefighters from across California and other states were working around the clock to douse the Park Fire, burning in the state’s Central Valley, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Sacramento, the capital. The fire grew to 385,065 acres (155,830 hectares), becoming the fifth largest wildfire in Californian history, officials said.
Kansas hospital sued for refusing emergency abortion
(Reuters) — A Kansas woman on Tuesday sued the University of Kansas Health System for refusing to give her a medically necessary abortion in 2022, accusing the hospital of violating a federal law on emergency room treatment. Mylissa Farmer’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Kansas City, appeared to be the first case against a hospital under the federal law for witholding an abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling ending the longstanding nationwide right to abortion. A spokesperson for the hospital declined to comment.
Violent crowd clashes with UK police after young girls killed
SOUTHPORT, England (Reuters) — A large crowd of anti-Muslim protesters clashed with police on Tuesday in a northern English town where three girls were stabbed to death and five other children critically wounded during an attack on a Taylor Swift-themed event on Monday. The horrific stabbing incident in Southport, a quiet seaside town north of Liverpool, has shocked the nation. Police have said it was not linked to terrorism and that the suspect was born in the UK. Yet far-right groups have stoked speculation that the teenage suspect was involved with Islam.
