US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s wife campaigned with him for the first time in South Carolina on Tuesday, telling voters she loved them and saying her husband would be “the best president, ever.”
“Isn’t he the best?” Melania Trump asked the crowd of thousands in Myrtle Beach, flanked by her parents and three of the businessman’s children. “We love you.”
Unlike come of his rivals’ spouses, Trump’s wife, a former model born in Slovenia, has until this point chosen to stay largely behind the scenes, though Trump mentions her often at events.
Trump’s family left the stage before the Republican presidential hopeful launched into more than an hour of criticism of both his Republican rivals and US President Barack Obama’s administration.
Calling Obama a “divider” who has done nothing to unite the country, Trump also again called out Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton as lacking the “strength or the stamina” to lead the country.
US Senator Marco Rubio is “weak on immigration, really weak,” he said.
A few minutes into his remarks, Trump also called up on stage a Trump impersonator he spotted in the crowd. He complimented the imitator’s blond wig, calling it a “big, beautiful head of hair.”
While Trump stirred his crowd in Myrtle Beach, former Florida governor Jeb Bush campaigned about 260km away in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where he collected endorsements from local elected officials and dismantled Trump’s immigration plan.
Talk of a wall and “making Mexico pay for it,” while deporting 11 million people, Bush said, appeals to voters’ frustrations, but does little else.
“It might make you sound good,” Bush said. “It might make you look like the strong guy... It’s not going to happen. Let’s get real with this and have a solution that’s reality based.”
At an earlier stop about an hour’s drive west in Spartanburg, Bush expressed disappointment that a black protester was physically assaulted at a recent Trump rally in Alabama.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was