It’s the second night of the Republican National Convention, and Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is hoping the first lady’s speech will attract suburban women and voters choosing between the president and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Campaign officials have banked on Melania Trump’s speech tonight, according to a new report, in which she will highlight her immigration story while avoiding a focus on politics and her husband’s White House agenda. The second night of the RNC will feature one of Ms Trump’s first major public speeches in support of her husband since a campaign speech in 2016 in she lifted a portion from a speech previously made by Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention eight years earlier.
The night's speakers also include Tiffany Trump, who will make a rare public appearance after spending her father's presidency quietly studying towards her degree in Washington, as well as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - a rare appearance at a political event by a Cabinet official often considered to be above campaign politics.
Check out The Independent's live updates and coverage below.
Trump Jr. makes false claims on US travel ban on China
The US president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, has claimed that Donald Trump "shut down" travel between the country and China to stop Covid-19's spread several months ago.
In a speech to the Republican National Convention on Monday, Trump Jr. delivered a complete endorsement of his father's presidency whilst claiming that he had "acted quickly" to control the pandemic.
In truth, the US only restricted travel to and from China earlier this year, which allowed some 27,000 Americans to return to the United States from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect on 2 February.
At the same time, the Associated Press reported that more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals entered the US in the first three months in which travel restrictions were put in place.
That comes as the death toll from the pandemic in the US surpassed 177,000 on Monday - the highest world total.
...and on Personal Protection Equipment
"The president acted quickly and ensured ventilators got to hospitals that needed them most," said Trump Jr., who appeared to mispronounce "PPE" (or personal protection equipment) on Monday night.
The US president's eldest son claimed that his father "delivered PP&E to our brave front-line workers"
Instead, president Trump spent March and April complaining that the Obama administration had not left ventilator supplies in the national stockpile.
Some states, meanwhile, imported PPE shipments from China to meet their own demands in the first few months of the pandemic.
When New York governor Andrew Cuomo raised concerns around PPE shortages in March this year, White House adviser Jared Kushner complained that the United States' stockpile was not a long-term solution for states.
“And the notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use,” said Mr Kushner in April.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
Biden attacks Trump on pandemic
Here's the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, with an illustration on the United States' coronavirus pandemic record.
The graph, which shows the growth in US cases since 23 January, passed the 5.7 million mark on Monday night, according to John Hopkins University data.
That came as Republicans praised the Trump administration's response on the first night of their convention, taking place in North Carolina.
FDA disputes Trump on deep state conspiracy against vaccine
US president Donald Trump appeared to suggest this month that Americans would see a potential coronavirus pandemic around the time of November's election - now less than 10 weeks away.
On Saturday, he tweeted without evidence that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was working to stop production of a vaccine on that same timetable.
But in an interview with Reuters on Monday, FDA head Dr. Stephen Hahn said his agency did not harbour any so-called "deep state" elements, in comments that hit back at the president's claims.
"I have not seen anything that I would consider to be 'deep state' at the FDA," Dr. Hahn said.
Mr Trump's tweet, which tagged the FDA commissioner, said: "The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd."
It isn't the first time president Trump has falsely claimed that a "deep state" - referring to government employees - was trying to undermine his presidency.
The public dispute over those comments came as the FDA on Monday authorised blood plasma treatment for the coronavirus.
Dr. Hahn defended that decision, and denied the agency was under political pressure to find a cure for the disease before 3 November.
Reuters
Trump laughs that hydroxychloroquine non-approval was 'a shame'
...because alleging that the FDA was trying to prevent coronavirus cures being approved as part of a "deep state" conspiracy against the Trump administration wasn't enough, Donald Trump on Monday commented that "it was a shame what they've [the FDA] have done" to hydroxychloroquine.
The unproven treatment for coronavirus, which the US president promoted for months, was never approved for widespread use against the disease, and was last month said to cause serious heart rhythm problems.
According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the malarial drug could also cause blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure.
Democrat-run California comes under attack at RNC
Kimberly Guilfoyle – the former Fox News host and girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. – denounced Democrat-run California as a drug-riddled nightmare of blackouts and riots on the first night of the Republican convention.
In an impassioned recorded speech which saw her shouting by the end, Ms Guilfoyle said Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would "destroy" the country and "enslave" Americans with a "victim ideology" if elected.
The chairwoman of the Trump Victory Finance Committee was previously married to Gavin Newsom, the current Democratic governor of California, making her attack on America's most populous state all the more striking.
She told listeners that "the Democrats turned it [California] into a land of discarded heroin needles in parks, riots in streets and blackouts in homes."
That followed Florida Representative Matt Gaetz's claim that California could not keep it's lights on.
"A state that cannot keep power running for it's own people, should not send it's junior senator to be vice president", he said of Ms Harris.
Phil Thomas has the latest:
They said the messaging would be ‘positive’...
Donald Trump complained last week that Democrats "held the darkest and angriest and gloomiest convention in American history."
Having promised an event that would be "very uplifting", Republicans instead offered-up fears about Joe Biden winning the November election.
"Make no mistake: No matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats' America," said the St Louis couple who pointed firearms at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their house in June.
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk warned the convention that a Trump victory was imperative to "ensure that our kids are raised to love America, not taught to hate our beautiful country."
Mr Trump, he added, "is the bodyguard of Western civilisation."
Tanya Weinreis, a small business owner, warned of "the terrifying prospect of Joe Biden."
Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former Fox News host, meanwhile urged Republican voters to ensure that Democrats would not "kill future generations because they told you and brainwashed you and fed you lies that you weren't good enough."
Associated Press
Trump aides not wearing masks at RNC
As Republicans and Trump administration officials arrived at the party's convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Monday, some were not seen wearing masks despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and a mandatory statewide order on mask wearing.
This picture, shared on Twitter, shows White House chief of staff Mark Meadows without a mask at the convention - where he was reported to have shook hands with multiple people.
It comes as health authorities in Charlotte on Monday contacted the RNC to complain about limited mask wearing and social distancing, according to the Charlotte Observer.
Michael Cohen says Trump 'can't be trusted'
The president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has claimed that Americans should not trust the president in an attack-advert set to air during the week of the Republican convention.
Mr Cohen, who once told reporters that he would take a bullet for Mr Trump, says in the video that the president is a leader who “can’t be trusted” and people “shouldn’t believe a word he utters”.
“For more than a decade, I was president Trump’s right-hand man, fixer and confidant. I was complicit in helping conceal the real Donald Trump,” Mr Cohen says in a recorded interview.
The ads were organised by the Democratic super PAC, American Bridge 21st Century.
Matt Matthers reports:
Anthony Fauci warns against premature vaccine for coronavirus
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has cautioned against producing a vaccine that has not been thoroughly tested.
“The one thing that you would not want to see with a vaccine is getting an EUA (emergency use authorisation) before you have a signal of efficacy,” Dr. Fauci told Reuters.
“One of the potential dangers if you prematurely let a vaccine out is that it would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the other vaccines to enroll people in their trial.”
“To me, it's absolutely paramount that you definitively show that a vaccine is safe and effective, both,” he added. “We would hope that nothing interferes with the full demonstration that a vaccine is safe and effective.”
Those comments come as the US Food and Drug Administration approved use of blood plasma to treat patients with the virus.
It's commissioner, who denied being under political pressure to develop treatments, said to Reuters that the approval was warranted by a medical urgency.
AOC among Democrats to blast RNC
As the Republican National Convention got underway on Monday, Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to to Twitter to express sympathy for the party's animal symbol - elephants.
“Honestly elephants deserve so much better than to be a mascot for this,” wrote Ms Ocasio-Cortez on the Republican avatar.
“Here is my new mascot proposal: Progressives take elephants from Republicans, because they are compassionate, empathetic creatures with nuanced social structures.
The progressive Democrat - who last was given a short appearance at the party's convention - then suggested that all Democrats could unite under their Donkey symbol, "if desired".
Andrew Naughtie has more, here:
Wisconsin sees another night of protests over police shooting
Anger over the shooting of a black man by police spilled into the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, for a second night on Monday, with police again firing tear gas at hundreds of protesters who defied a curfew, threw bottles and shot fireworks at law enforcement guarding a courthouse.
Protests erupted in the southeastern Wisconsin city after cellphone footage emerged of police shooting Jacob Blake — a 29-year-old black man who was hospitalised in serious condition.
It comes some three months after police in Minneapolis fatally shot George Floyd, sparking a summer of heightened racial tension and unrest.
Associated Press
Man who filmed Wisconsin police shooting is traumatised
The man who filmed the police shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Wisconsin man now fighting for his life in hospital, has said he is deeply disturbed by having seen the incident unfold just yards from his own house.
Speaking to CNN, Raysean White said that he did not know Mr Blake, but felt intense pain over what he witnessed during the events he filmed.
“It’s disturbing to actually look out the window where I live and see this man get shot by the police seven times,” he said. “It’s highly disturbing to me, but I’m pretty sure Jacob’s kids were more traumatised than anybody during the whole situation.”
In the video shared online, Mr Blake could be seen with his three children who witnessed the incident from inside the family's parked SUV.
Andrew Naughtie reports:
Melania due to speak on second night of RNC
The first lady will address Americans and the Republican convention on Tuesday, as she makes a rare appearance from a renovated White House Rose Garden.
That staging, which has been criticised over its usually bipartisan setting, comes four years after Ms Trump infamously quoted passages similar to what Michelle Obama, the former first lady, had said in her speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
The US president's wife has maintained a relatively low-profile this year, and was absent during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic before she appeared in short videos on social distancing and hygiene.
Still, social media users have provided tongue-in-cheek speculation about whether Ms Trump would give the same speech again, on Tuesday.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
US postmaster refuses to restore mail-sorting machines
Postmaster general Louis DeJoy told lawmakers in Congress on Monday that the US Postal Service would not undo the cost-cutting manoeuvres he instituted this summer to restore mail processing capacity before the November election, sparring with Democrats in a heated hearing before the House Oversight Committee.
Mr DeJoy, who in July ordered that mail handlers depart for their routes sooner even if mail had not arrived, said "I will not" when asked if he would restore mail sorting machines.
The postmaster, who has donated $2.7 million to president Donald Trump and other Republicans since 2016, also rejects allegations that he is helping the Republican to interfere with mail voting during the election.
Here's the latest:
US postmaster doesn't know cost of sending postcard
Asked during a House Oversight Committee Hearing on Monday whether he knew how much a postcard cost to mail, the Trump-appointed postmaster general said he did not.
That comes despite Mr DeJoy defending structural changes at the US Postal Service as a matter of cost cutting.
A House bill that would prevent Mr DeJoy from making changes at the US Postal Service before the election, and provide $25 billion in funding, is not expected to be passed by the Republican-controlled Senate.
Biden is 'Loch Ness monster', says Trump Jr.
In case you missed this take from the Republican National Convention last night, here's the US president's eldest son comparing the Democratic presidential nominee to the Loch Ness monster.
Painting the 77-year-old centrist Democrat as being located on the far-left, Trump Jr. claimed Mr Biden would heavily tax Americans to pay for his programmes if elected.
“Biden has promised to take that money back out of your pocket and keep it in the swamp,” he said.
“That makes sense though, considering Joe Biden is basically the Loch Ness Monster of the swamp.”
Andrew Buncombe reports:
Health officials in Charlotte concerned about RNC mask wearing
Public Health authorities in Charlotte, North Carolina, have raised concerns about officials at this year’s Republican National Convention not enforcing Covid-19 regulations.
Gibbie Harris, Mecklenburg public health director, said she was “concerned” about the lack of face mask-wearing at the event, which began on Monday at the Charlotte Convention Center.
“I have just shared concern about the lack of mask-wearing and social distancing in the room at the RNC Roll Call Meeting with the RNC Convention staff,” Ms Harris said in a statement on Monday.
It comes after video was posted online of Trump administration officials including the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, greeting others without a mask or practising social distancing.
Matt Mathers reports:
Trump praises CNN convention coverage
Donald Trump has praised CNN for its coverage of Monday night's Republican National Convention programming.
Here's that atypical presidential tweet:
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