Trump endorsement helps boost Darline Graham in primary to replace her late brother – live

The United States Capitol Police said they “seized a guillotine, which was spotted in the bed of a pickup truck” near the US Capitol on Tuesday.

The police said in a press release, accompanied by photographs of the device, that they arrested the driver of the pickup truck “for Carrying a Dangerous Weapon for being in possession of the guillotine”.

The suspect was identified as Philan-Tam-Duy Le, 35, of Julian, California.

Democrats asked a federal court in Washington DC to block Donald Trump’s executive order to restrict mail voting on Tuesday, arguing that the US Postal Service (USPS) does not have the legal authority it claims in a newly published change to its rules which would allow it to decide not to deliver ballots mailed by voters whose eligibility it cannot confirm.

The US supreme court ruled on Monday that a request to block the implementation of Trump’s March executive order from 23 states, and the District of Columbia, had been filed too early, since the USPS had not yet issued a change to its rules.

In the suit, Democratic party officials, including the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, claim that the new USPS rule, set to go into effect on Wednesday, is unlawful.

“Today, we are taking strong, joint legal action to stop Trump’s unlawful attempt to restrict mail-in voting through the Postal Service. Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling did not say that Trump’s executive order attacking voting rights is constitutional. In America, the law is clear: States have the authority to run elections – not the president,” the Democrats said in a statement.

“We will not stand by while Trump and Republicans try to unnecessarily inject chaos and confusion into our elections, just weeks before voting begins. We are asking a district court to immediately stop the Trump administration from unlawfully disrupting mail-in voting in every state,” they added.

The Democrats also asked the court to hear their motion for a preliminary injunction to block changes to mail voting on September 4, which is the day the midterm elections begin with the first absentee ballots sent to North Carolina voters.

Polls have now closed in the Republican Senate primary in South Carolina, where voters were asked to replace their previous nominee, the late senator Lindsey Graham, with either his sister, Darline Graham, who was appointed to serve the remainder of his term, of Ralph Norman, a congressman in the House Freedom Caucus, a group of right-wing Republicans.

Graham, who was endorsed by Donald Trump but struggled on the debate stage, leads 56% – 44%, with about 2% of the vote counted, of just over 9,000 votes.

Three former US presidents, Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton, have added their voices, and those of their spouses, to the chorus of appreciation for the life of the late Dolly Parton.

In a message posted on social media, Obama wrote:

It’s hard to imagine many people having a bigger impact than Dolly Parton. Born in a one-room cabin, she earned 11 Grammys and an Emmy, built a business empire, helped millions of kids learn to read, and — as if that wasn’t enough — helped accelerate the research that led to the Moderna COVID vaccine. What a life. Michelle and I are thinking of Dolly’s family and her many, many fans.

In a statement, Bush wrote:

Laura and I, along with thousands of her fans, mourn the passing of Dolly Parton. We loved her music and her style. She was a great entertainer and even greater person. We respected her work to promote literacy, advance health, and strengthen communities. Dolly was a talented and hardworking American who will be missed.

Clinton said in a social media post:

Dolly Parton was one of a kind—a great songwriter and performer who told the stories of everyday Americans with honesty, humility, and heart. She rose high from her East Tennessee roots and never forgot where she came from. And she always believed in giving back, especially in her efforts to promote literacy. Hillary and I were big fans and first saw her in 1974, and will always be grateful for the music and the memories. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family, her legion of fans, and everyone who loved her.

Hillary Clinton said in a separate statement:

Dolly Parton did all the good she could, for all the people she could, for as long as ever she could. From her legendary songwriting to the Imagination Library—which sent 1 million books a month to children across the country—she was the best of America. Dolly, we’ll miss your great heart.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday sided with four Democrats running for Congress on Tuesday, by blocking the Federal ⁠Communications Commission from requiring television broadcasters to offer discounted advertising rates to political parties in the run-up to elections, a discount that currently only applies to candidates.

A three-judge panel of the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that campaign finance statutes “are clear that neither political parties nor joint fundraising committees with non-candidate members can be entitled” to the discounted rates mandated by the FCC.

The Republican-controlled FCC had voted for a public notice that would allow party-controlled fundraising committees to get the discounted rates in the lead-up to midterm elections in ⁠November.

Four Democratic candidates who sued to block the FCC ‌rule change: Jon Ossoff, a Georgia senator; Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Michigan ‌congresswoman; former Ohio senator Sherrod Brown, who is running to return to the Senate; and former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper, who is also running for a Senate seat.

The FCC, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee argued thayt the court lacked jurisdiction to review the FCC notice.

In June, the US supreme court struck down limits on how much party committees may spend in coordination with federal candidates but did not ‌address whether they could get the lower advertising rates.

Since the Republican party has an enormous cash advantage over Democrats, the ruling, should it stay in place, would help to level the playing field in the broadcast ad war over the coming months.

Democrat Ro Khanna, the Silicon Valley, California congressman widely believed to be considering a campaign for the presidency in 2028, argued on Tuesday that the US supreme court decision to allow Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail voting means that the court, “has completely lost its moral authority” and needs to be reformed.

“We need to expand the court from 9 to 13 justices. We need to impose term limits on these justices. 18 years and you are out,” Khanna wrote in a social media post.

The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts could be demolished if repairs are not carried out, Donald Trump’s administration warned in a court filing on Monday.

Lawyers for the US president said the national arts complex in Washington DC must undergo a $250m renovation or risk facing the wrecking ball.

“Without those efforts, the ⁠Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to ​build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years,” they argued.

The warning came as Trump leaves a trail of destruction in Washington, demolishing the White House East Wing to make way for a $600m ballroom and ordering a renovation of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool that resulted in algae blooms and a peeling liner.

The court filing represented the first time that Trump’s allies have raised the prospect of knocking down the Kennedy Center – a 100ft-high complex with a concert hall, opera house and theatre – as the dire alternative to closing it for two years of improvements. Such an aggressive move would be sure to face legal challenges, protests and an outcry from historic preservation groups.

The threat emerged on Monday as the administration urged a federal judge to reject a fresh legal challenge to Trump’s efforts to put his name on the Kennedy Center. The dispute has become part of a months-long battle over the president’s attempt to alter the memorial created by Congress in honour of John F Kennedy, the 35th US president who was assassinated in 1963.

A federal judge ruled in May that only Congress has the power to change the Kennedy Center’s name. But the centre’s board, now largely made up of Trump appointees, voted 20-3 on 13 August to change the building’s signage to read: “The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J Trump.” It also voted to name the grounds the “President Donald J Trump Plaza”.

As our colleague Jessica Glenza reports, the Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed on Tuesday that the both of the people who died from measles were unvaccinated residents of Lancaster County.

Lancaster is the center of the current outbreak in Pennsylvania, and home to the largest population of Amish residents of any US county. The state health department reported in 2025 that while the overall rate of vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella for kindergarten children in Lancaster county was 90.5%, among the Amish population, the MMR vaccination rate there “was estimated to be around just 25%”.

Lancaster country also happens to be where, in 2021, Robert F Kennedy, the anti-vaccine activist now serving as US health secretary, “spoke to a crowd of approximately 1,500, discussing topics of public health, personal freedom and the dangers of vaccines for profit”, according to The Lancaster Patriot, a far-right, local newspaper catering to the self-described “Plain People” community of Amish and Mennonite residents.

During his hour-long speech, Kennedy made the discredited claim that the largely unvaccinated Amish does not suffer from autism, and suggested that there was a government conspiracy to force the community to be vaccinated.

Speaking to the newspaper after his hour-long speech, Kennedy suggested that the push to get people to get vaccinated against Covid-19 was motivated by a desire “for money and control.”

• Canada has said it will implement 50% retaliatory tariffs on $20bn worth of US goods – following through on prime minister Mark Carney’s vow to match Donald Trump’s duties “dollar for dollar”. The list of products affected by Canada’s retaliatory tariffs includes a 50% duty on American steel and aluminum. There is also a 25% tariff on cheese, fish and seafood, as well as several wood products.

• Meanwhile, Trump has claimed that the US Navy has informed him that “all mines have been removed and/or detonated” from within the international waters of the strait of Hormuz. The US and Iran ‌have not exchanged air strikes for weeks, but ​attacks on vessels in the strait of Hormuz have continued as the two sides vie for control of the key maritime passage. It remains unclear how or when talks on ending the war between the two sides will resume.

• Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, has defended the president’s policy to suspend higher tariffs on foreign beef imports to help mitigate prices for consumers. This comes amid growing criticism among the Republican ranks that the move threatens to hurt the growth of the US cattle industry, which is already facing tough herding conditions. “This is a very short-term fix from the president’s perspective, that he believed necessary to get lower cost beef on to American plates,” Rollins told Spectrum News.

• The president, and several lawmakers from both parties, have mourned the death of country music legend Dolly Parton. “This is a true loss for millions of people. There has never been anyone like her, and never will,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The president added that he would order American flags to be lowered to half-staff throughout the country for one week beginning Tuesday.

• And in South Carolina, voters will decide whether they want to establish a Graham family dynasty as they go to the polls today in a Republican run off election, pitting Darline Graham against US Representative Ralph Norman. Trump has endorsed Graham and held a rally for her on Friday in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, The primary election will be another in a series of tests of Trump’s sway with voters in this year’s midterm elections. The primary will decide whether the current Senator Graham or Norman will ⁠be the Republican nominee in the November election.

John Fetterman, a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania who frequently breaks with his party and votes with Republicans, has seen his approval rating drop with Democrats over the last two years, while gaining popularity with the state GOP, according to a New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena poll.

Fetterman was the sole Democrat to vote no on several war powers resolutions to curb the Trump administration’s military action in Iran. Earlier this year, he voted to confirm Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Markwayne Mullin, and last year Fetterman routinely joined Republicans on key votes to keep the government open – while Senate Democrats withheld support for key appopriations bills to protest expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.

New polling shows that while 74% of Democrats in the Keystone state had a favorable opinion of Fetterman in 2024 – two years after he won his Senate election – by 2026 that has falled to 22%.

Meanwhile, only 25 % of Pennsylvania Repbublicans viewed Fetterman favorably in 2024. That number has shot up to 73%.

Despite not confirming whether he would seek a second term in office, Fetterman recently said that he has no intention to switch parties. He has, however, issued a caveat – he would consider leaving the Democratic caucus if it became the “anti-Israel party”.

Fetterman has emerged as one of Israel’s most prominent advocates among Senate Democrats, even as others in the party back away from their traditional support for the country amid accusations that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government committed genocide in Gaza.

Donald Trump has reacted to the news that country music legend Dolly Parton has died.

“This is a true loss for millions of people. There has never been anyone like her, and never will,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

Trump said he would order American flags to lowered to half-staff throughout the country for one week beginning Tuesday.

A number of US lawmakers from both parties honored Parton in tribute posts. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican senator from Parton’s home state of Tennessee, said that the singer-songwriter’s death “leaves a void that no one can ever fill. Dolly, we will always love you”.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, noted that Parton “was not only a talented musician” but also “a lifelong philanthropist and advocate for literacy, education, LGBTQ+ rights, healthcare and disaster relief”.

He added: “Her music and humanity touched millions. She will be sorely missed.”

Follow along at our dedicated blog here:

While we’ll be keeping an eye on the results of the South Carolina run off election today, that will determine the Republican nominee for the US Senate race, another contest that will test the strength of Donald Trump’s endorsement powers is happening in deep-red Oklahoma.

Here, a run off competition to be the Republican gubernatorial nominee is playing out. Trump’s pick – former state lawmaker and businessman Mike Mizzei – is up against Oklahoma attorney general Gentner Drummond.

The initial June primary saw Mizzei trailing Drummond by less than a single point – with neither receiving a majority of the vote.

Whichever Republican secures the nomination, they are all but certain to clinch the overall victory in November over the Oklahoma House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson. No Democrat has won the governor’s race since in twenty years.

Drummond, for his part, has received the ire of the president after he filed a lawsuit to block construction of a $4bn aluminium smelter factory in Inola, Oklahoma.

Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, has defended the president’s policy to suspend higher tariffs on foreign beef imports to help mitigate prices for consumers.

This comes amid growing criticism among the Republican ranks that the move threatens to hurt the growth of the US cattle industry, which is already facing tough herding conditions.

“This is a very short-term fix from the president’s perspective, that he believed necessary to get lower cost beef on to American plates,” Rollins told Spectrum News.

However, the agriculture secretary said that she did not yet know where the beef would be imported from, noting that it was part of US trade representative Jamieson Greer’s remit.

“I am actually not part of any of those conversations, so I am not sure what that looks like. I think we’ll know very soon,” Rollins said.

As we’ve been reporting, Canada today pledged to roll out “dollar-for-dollar” retaliatory tariffs on hundreds of US goods next month, days after Donald Trump’s 50% tariffs on roughly $20bn of Canadian goods, ranging from honey to hockey sticks, took effect.

Ottawa has released a list of more than 700 targets on goods ranging from fish and cheese to smartphones and steel imported from the United States.

The new tariffs on these products will carry rates of 15%, 25% or 50%. Canada’s tariffs on many US products would double from 25% to 50%, with the largest share of the new measures affecting steel and aluminum.

Some of the many US items Canada is now targeting include:

1. Live, chilled, dried, salted or in brine, smoked and frozen fish, crustaceans (e.g. lobster), molluscs (e.g. oysters, clams, mussels) and other aquatic invertebrates (25%)

2. Milk and cream in powder, granules or other solid forms, and whey (50%)

3. Cheese and curd products (25%)

4. Natural honey, molasses and baking mixtures (50%)

5. Perfume, makeup and hair preparations (50%)

6. Carpets (25%) and plywood (50%)

7. Toilet paper and facial tissues (25%) notebooks and envelopes (50%)

8. T-shirts, jackets, dresses, coats, gloves and other garments (50%)

9. Various metal products made of steel or aluminum, including wire, rods, tubes, pipes, foil, screws, nuts and bolts (50%)

10. Stoves, ranges, refrigerators, dishwashers, washing and drying machines, hairdryers, and other household appliances (25%) air-conditioning machines (15%)

11. Smartphones and video game consoles (50%)

12. Motorcycles (50%) and trailers (25%)

13. Fishing rods, golf clubs and exercise equipment (50%)

Here’s Canada’s minister of finance and national revenue François-Philippe Champagne’s announcement of tariffs on $20bn worth of US goods, following through on PM Mark Carney’s vow to match US tariffs “dollar for dollar”.