Wednesday briefing: Kamala Harris in historic VP bid

Top story: ‘Joe Biden nailed this decision’

Hello, Warren Murray and yes it’s Wednesday already.

Kamala Harris is to be Joe Biden’s running mate in the US presidential election – a first for women of colour in a major party. Harris said she was “honoured” to join Biden on the Democratic ticket and pledged to “do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief”. Harris served six years as attorney general of California before arriving in the Senate in 2016, and notably clashed with Biden during Democratic primary debates. “Joe Biden nailed this decision,” wrote Barack Obama, who in 2008 selected Biden as his running mate. Senator Bernie Sanders wrote: “She understands what it takes to stand up for working people, fight for health care for all, and take down the most corrupt administration in history.” Harris was close friends with Biden’s late son Beau who served as attorney general of Delaware.

David Smith, the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, writes: “As a candidate, Harris’s strengths are formidable and her weaknesses are relatively slight. Her legal career means she is well placed to prosecute the case against Mike Pence in the vice-presidential debate in October and against Trump’s administration in general.” Only two women have previously been nominated for the vice-presidency by a major political party and neither was successful: Sarah Palin in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. There is some thinking that Biden, 77, might only serve a single term before handing over the nomination to Harris. The Trump campaign responded to the announcement by launching a scattergun attack on Harris with the president calling her a “nasty” person who had been “disrespectful” towards Biden in the primary debates.

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Climbdown over A-levels – Last night, ministers seeking to stave off a revolt over exam results granted pupils in England the right to use mock exam results if they are unhappy with their grades. The impending release tomorrow of 730,000 A-level results decided by an algorithm led to mounting alarm in Downing Street. Students will still be able to sit exams in autumn if they are unhappy with the grades they secured in mock exams, or if they are dissatisfied with results awarded by exam boards on Thursday. The Scottish government yesterday took the extraordinary step of reinstating 124,000 downgraded results. Labour has called on the government to change course on the system for deciding A-level results or risk “robbing a generation of young people of their future”.

Midweek catch-up

> The Belarus opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, has fled to Lithuania in fear for the safety of her family and her campaign peers as a violent state crackdown continues following an election that her supporters insist she won.

> BP is considering shifting almost 50,000 employees towards remote working and flexible workplaces in the wake of the pandemic, a decision that could come close to halving its property portfolio in some locations.

> Stephen Lawrence’s father, Neville, will attempt to overturn a decision by Scotland Yard to end the active hunt for his son’s murderers, saying it would leave racist killers out on the streets. Two men were convicted in 2012 but others remain free.

> The Scottish Tories have put Ruth Davidson back in charge at Holyrood, appointing her as the newly created leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist MSP group. Douglas Ross, a Westminster MP, remains overall leader of the Conservatives in Scotland after a bloodless coup last month in which Jackson Carlaw quit that post.

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Coronavirus latest – Labour has called for urgent government action to ensure women pregnant during the pandemic do not have their maternity pay wrongly docked, potentially by thousands of pounds. Where workplaces were unable to be made Covid-secure, pregnant staff unable or unwilling to work should have been sent home on full pay. However, according to research by Labour, many were instead put on statutory sick pay, which drops them below the threshold for maternity pay (SMP). A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “If anyone has lost out financially as a result of their employer not acting in accordance with their legal obligations, they can and should seek redress through the employment tribunal system.”

Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand PM, has postponed dissolving parliament for a general election after four untraced cases of coronavirus triggered a lockdown of Auckland. Australia has recorded its deadliest day of the pandemic with 21 deaths recorded in the state of Victoria. More developments as they arise at our global live blog.

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Swat’s that – After getting rid of its state flag bearing the shunned Confederate emblem, Mississippi opened a competition for a replacement – only to have a design with a big mosquito at its centre sneak through the vetting process and on to the state government website.

It was subsequently ruled out as a contender. A statewide ballot to choose a new design is due to be held in November.

Today in Focus podcast: How one hotel shut down a state

Guardian Australia’s Melbourne bureau chief, Melissa Davey, discusses life under a second lockdown after a hotel quarantine breach in the state of Victoria caused a wave of coronavirus cases.

Lunchtime read: Covid uncoupling

A campaign has highlighted the plight of unmarried couples from different countries parted for months, writes Michael Safi.

Sport

Nuno Espírito Santo said it was frustrating to concede so late in the game but admitted his side had made mistakes at crucial moments in going out of the Europa League to Sevilla. The England and Bath wing Anthony Watson has insisted there is no point forcing Premiership players to take a knee before matches in support of the Black Lives Matter movement after it emerged some have expressed concerns over doing so this weekend. Super League has suffered a major blow just two weeks in to the competition’s resumption after a number of Hull FC players tested positive for Covid-19.

Atlético Madrid women have suspended their training only 10 days before the Champions League is due to restart after five positive Covid tests. Neil Lennon has expressed dismay at the “premeditated” actions of Boli Bolingoli, after Celtic’s Belgian defender caused the postponement of three Scottish Premiership fixtures with an unauthorised trip to Spain. Premiership rugby teams could be required to forfeit games 20-0 if they cannot play because their players have coronavirus. Ronnie O’Sullivan survived a scare as he fought back from 8-4 down to defeat Mark Williams in a quickfire, high-quality quarter-final at the World Snooker Championship. And Stuart Broad has been given a stern reminder from his father about bad language and left on the verge of a ban after being fined around £2,000 for giving Pakistan’s Yasir Shah a send-off during the first Test.

Business

Despite a strong lead from Wall Street yesterday, where stocks edged back towards record highs, investors elsewhere have been much more uncertain about whether the US Congress can agree a fresh stimulus package for their virus-ravaged economy. UK growth figures are due this morning and are expected to show that the economy shrank by a record 21% in the quarter to the end of June. The FTSE100 is set to dip slightly at the opening. The pound is buying $1.305 and €1.112.

The papers

Our later Guardian print editions caught the big news on A-levels with “Ministers in 11th-hour climbdown” – as mentioned above, students will be able to use mock exam results from earlier in the year instead of their computed results. The Mail unkindly calls it “Pick your own exam results” – the i sees it as a “right to choose” and the Times calls it a “second shot at success”. The Telegraph went to bed with “Pressure grows to scrap exam downgrades” with some saying the government’s last-minute “safety net” does not go far enough.

Billed as an, umm, exclusive in the Express is a story about Finding Freedom – heard of it?: “Tell-all book reveals true depth of royal rift”. The Mirror is angry about Recession Britain: “One million jobs lost & worse to come”.

The Metro has “Covid deaths lowest since lockdown”, the FT leads with “Sunak considers delaying Budget” (and anyway didn’t we just have a bit of a one?) “over fears of Covid-19 second wave” while the Sun celebrates with the everyman pop star and his wife, Cherry Seaborn: “Dad Sheeran”. Their baby is due later in the summer.

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