Author: chicagoinquirer

CHICAGO — Coby White scored 21 points, Josh Giddey added 20 and the Bulls beat the Magic 102-99 on Wednesday night. Nikola Vucevic added 18 points and 14 rebounds in Chicago’s second-straight win. Paolo Banchero scored 31 points for Orlando two days after scoring 50 against the Pacers, but it wasn’t enough. Jalen Suggs, who missed a fading jump shot in the final seconds, had 17. The Bulls shot 3 for 15 in the fourth quarter but held on after Orlando shot 4 for 22 in the final quarter. Both teams combined for 28 points in the fourth. The Magic…

by Will Weissert and Chris Megerian MADISON, Wis. — Kamala Harris called Wednesday for Americans to “stop pointing fingers at each other” as she tried to push past comments made by President Joe Biden about Donald Trump’s supporters and “garbage ” and keep the focus on her Republican opponent in the closing days of the race. “We know we have an opportunity in this election to turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump, who has been trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other,” the Democratic nominee said. Harris held rallies in a trio of battleground…

by Darlene Superville, Chris Megerian and Aamer Madhani KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Michelle Obama challenged men to support Kamala Harris ‘ bid to be America’s first female president, warning at a rally in Michigan on Saturday that women’s lives would be at risk if Donald Trump returned to the White House. The former first lady described the assault on abortion rights as the harbinger of dangerous limitations on healthcare for women. Some men may be tempted to vote for Trump because of their anger at the slow pace of progress, Obama said, but “your rage does not exist in a vacuum.”…

by Keiran Smith and Ayaka Mcgill APIA, Samoa — Commonwealth countries adopted Saturday their first ocean declaration during their summit held for the first time in the Pacific island nation of Samoa as calls from some of Britain’s former colonies for reparatory justice for the trans-Atlantic slave trade grew louder. The Apia Ocean Declaration was announced during the closing session of the 27th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, or CHOGM, and calls on all 56 Commonwealth nations to protect the ocean in the face of severe climate, pollution and overexploitation. More than half the Commonwealth members are small countries like…

by Steve Peoples NEW YORK — Progressive Democrats warn Kamala Harris risks losing the support of a small but significant portion of her political base unless she changes her campaign’s closing message — and its messengers — immediately. Specifically, several progressive leaders believe that the Democratic nominee has been too focused on winning over moderate Republicans in recent days at the expense of her own party’s passionate liberals. And they say that Harris’ closing message, which is increasingly centered on Republican Donald Trump and the threat he poses to U.S. democracy, ignores the economic struggles of the nation’s working class.…

by Colleen Long, Darlene Supperville and Nadia Nathan HOUSTON — Vice President Kamala Harris will team up with Beyoncé on Friday for a rally in solidly Republican Texas aimed at highlighting the perilous medical fallout from the state’s strict abortion ban and putting the blame squarely on Donald Trump. It’s a message intended to register far beyond Texas in the political battleground states, where Harris is hoping that the aftereffects from the fall of Roe v. Wade will spur voters to turn out to support her quest for the presidency. Harris will also be joined at the rally by women…

by Alan Rappeport The United States and Europe are close to finalizing a plan to provide Ukraine with a $50 billion loan backed by Russia’s frozen central bank assets by the end of the year, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Tuesday. An announcement of the loan could come this week as finance ministers and central bank governors convene in Washington for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. American and European policymakers have been negotiating for months over how to use Russia’s central bank reserves, most of which are being held in Europe,…

Julie Carr Smyth COLUMBUS, Ohio — Former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, scion of one of the state’s best-known Republican families, threw his support Sunday behind Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in his hotly contested reelection race against GOP nominee Bernie Moreno. Taft, 82, made known his intention to vote for Brown over Moreno, a Donald Trump-backed Cleveland businessman, in a letter to the editor of the Dayton Daily News. The grandson of “Mr. Republican” Robert A. Taft Sr. and great-grandson of William Howard Taft, the only person in American history to have been president and chief justice of the United States,…

by Andrew Goudsward WASHINGTON – A U.S. judge on Friday made public more evidence collected by prosecutors in the federal criminal case accusing former President Donald Trump of attempting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. The hundreds of pages, many of which were blanked out and marked “sealed,” include material referenced in a sweeping court filing from Special Counsel Jack Smith made public earlier this month that argued that Trump, the Republican presidential candidate in this year’s election, is not immune from the remaining allegations in the case. The filings unsealed on Friday included excerpts of interviews conducted…

by Nandita Bose and Jarrett Renshaw LA CROSSE, Wisconsin – Billionaire Mark Cuban chided fellow billionaire and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday for his proposal to issue fresh tariffs on most Chinese goods, arguing it will be Americans who will pay the bill, not the Chinese. Cuban appeared with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Wisconsin on Thursday and is set to hold a town hall for her on Saturday in Phoenix before heading to Michigan. He wasn’t the only billionaire on the campaign trail: Tesla CEO Elon Musk was in Pennsylvania on Thursday mobilizing Trump voters ahead…