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First Thing: from Clinton to Sanders, Democrats back the Harris pick

<span>Photograph: Biden Campaign/Adam Schultz/EPA</span>
Photograph: Biden Campaign/Adam Schultz/EPA

Good morning,

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have all lent their full-throated support to Joe Biden’s VP pick. California senator Kamala Harris was unveiled as the former vice-president’s running mate on Tuesday. “This is a good day for our country,” tweeted Obama, after the announcement that, for the first time, a woman of color would appear on a major party’s presidential ticket.

Though Biden and Harris clashed on the debate stage early in the Democratic primary process, they are said to have bonded over their mutual affection for Biden’s late son, Beau, who worked with Harris when they were serving as the attorneys general of Delaware and California respectively.

Donald Trump’s campaign has so far struggled to produce a coherent critique of Harris, attacking her both as an overzealous prosecutor during her legal career, and as insufficiently tough on crime. In a choice loaded with symbolism, writes David Smith, Joe Biden may have found the “anti-Trump”, with the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother now “better placed than anyone to be America’s first female president”.

Harris reflects something we may take for granted in the Trump era, argues Richard Wolffe:

Through her own accomplishments, she meets the only standard relevant to a veep pick: she looks and sounds presidential because she is. In this dystopian world, Harris sails above the presidential bar that has been lowered to jackboot level by an old man who admires neo-Nazis and autocrats in equal measure.

Florida’s Covid whistleblower: ‘they’re not listening to scientists’

Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump
Florida governor Ron DeSantis subjected Rebekah Jones to a vitriolic public character assassination. Photograph: Tom Brenner/Reuters

In May, Rebekah Jones, the manager of Florida’s official coronavirus database, claimed she had been ordered to censor information to justify the reopening of the state. She was fired for insubordination and roundly denounced by the governor, Ron DeSantis. Months later, as Florida exceeds half a million Covid-19 cases, Jones tells the Guardian the state government is still “not listening to scientists” and refusing to release crucial data.

If I was insubordinate to say I’m not going to manipulate data to say it’s safe to reopen when it’s not, then yes, I wear insubordination as a badge of honour.

The US health secretary, Alex Azar, has said he expects the US to have a coronavirus vaccine approved by December, after Russia approved its Sputnik V vaccine for widespread use – despite failing to complete the standard process for human trials. “We actually have no idea if it is safe and effective at all,” writes Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz.

And as a coalition of labour unions petitions the federal government to take over the manufacture and distribution of PPE for nurses and other workers, two doctors from New York and Houston recount how the Covid-19 outbreaks in their respective cities overwhelmed their hospitals.

Seattle’s chief of police announced her retirement

Carmen Best
Carmen Best is Seattle’s first black police chief. Photograph: Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

Seattle’s first black police chief, Carmen Best, has announced her retirement two years after taking the post, on the same day the city council approved reducing the police department by as many as 100 officers. Seattle has experienced months of protests calling for the police to be defunded; in an email to the department, the mayor, Jenny Durkin, said she had accepted Best’s resignation “with a very heavy heart”.

The EU is threatening sanctions over the unrest in Belarus

Belarusian security forces arrest a protester in Minsk.
Belarusian security forces arrest a protester in Minsk. Photograph: Valery Sharifulin/Tass

The European Union has threatened to reimpose sanctions on Belarus, in response to claims of vote-rigging during Sunday’s presidential election and the violent crackdown on subsequent protests. On Tuesday there was a third night of clashes between demonstrators and security forces in cities across Belarus, after the country’s longstanding authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, was accused of fixing the result of his landslide re-election.

The opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, remains in neighbouring Lithuania, from where she released an emotional video suggesting she had been forced to flee over an apparent threat to her family. Tikhanovskaya’s husband, a popular YouTuber, has been in jail in Belarus since May.

In other news …

  • Mississippi’s new state flag will not feature a giant mosquito, officials have said, after the unlikely image was erroneously included in an online selection of 147 proposed designs being considered as a replacement for the state’s outgoing flag, which included the confederate battle emblem.

  • Murder rates have risen in many of America’s major cities, including New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, during the months of the pandemic and subsequent economic crisis. The homicide rate remains low compared with previous decades, but the increase is significant compared with the last five years.

  • A QAnon supporter who voiced racist views has won her GOP primary in Georgia. Marjorie Taylor Greene has amassed tens of thousands of followers for her incendiary online videos, despite being denounced by many of her potential future colleagues in Congress.

Great reads

Rob Delaney on the pain and pleasure of his vasectomy

After he and his wife had their fourth child, the standup comedian and star of Catastrophe decided a few months ago that he should get a vasectomy. “I figured after all my wife, Leah, and her body had done for our family,” Delaney says, “the least I could do was let a doctor slice into my bag and sterilize me.”

How ‘flattering’ became fashion’s ultimate F-word

Every fashion season comes with its own new adjectives, but “flattering” is the compliment that has outlived them all. To Generation Z, however, “flattering” is a byword for “slimming”, writes Jess Cartner-Morley – and that makes it body-policing.

Opinion: Trump is driving people to renounce US citizenship

In the first half of 2020, the number of Americans seeking to renounce their citizenship doubled compared with the previous six months. Trump is sending an increasing number of expats over the edge, argues Arwa Mahdawi.

I can’t imagine Trump is too concerned about Americans socially distancing themselves from their passports; the man seems hellbent on making citizenship as unattractive as possible.

Last Thing: The Fresh Prince gets a gritty reboot

Will Smith, as seen in the original series of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Will Smith in the original series, which ran from 1990 to 1996. Photograph: NBC/Getty Images

Last year, director Morgan Cooper produced a four-minute “trailer” for a fake remake of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which reimagined the sitcom as a serious, gritty drama. Now, after almost 8m YouTube views, the show’s original star, Will Smith, says he’s working with Cooper on a real dramatic reboot.

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