The US Democratic National Convention’s second night showcased a double dose of Obama firepower to validate Vice President Kamala Harris and deliver an unsparing indictment of Republican Donald Trump. The convention also served up a raucous roll call of states that was essentially one big dance party.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, ducked out of Chicago to hold a rally just up the interstate in Milwaukee, wooing voters in battleground Wisconsin. It was a recognition that Democrats expect this presidential election to be razor-close, comments the Associated Press.

And if the Republican convention was all about Trump, the Democrats on Tuesday wanted to put Harris in a pantheon with past presidents.

The biggest validators of the night were former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle. The latter linked Harris with her husband by telling the rapt crowd, “America, hope is making a comeback.”

Barack Obama, for his part, reached back to his own 2004 convention speech to tie Harris to his legacy. “I am feeling hopeful – because this convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where everything is possible,” he said.

It wasn’t just the Obamas making the case for the vice president. The grandsons of Jimmy Carter and John F. Kennedy also portrayed her as the natural heir of past Democratic leaders.

As groundbreaking as Harris’ candidacy is as the first woman of colour to be her party’s nominee, these speeches by an ex-president and presidential progeny were all about linking her to a broader historical arc and evoking the excitement of Obama’s 2008 run that Harris hopes to replicate.

The Obamas did not hold back in lacing into Trump. Michelle Obama’s well-worn adage from years past that “when they go low, we go high” no longer seemed operative.

Barack Obama called Trump “a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago.”

Michelle Obama also took a personal swipe, saying: “For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who also happened to be Black.”

Playing off her famous line about Republicans going low, Michelle Obama suggested that Trump was going “small” and that “it’s unhealthy, and quite frankly, it’s unpresidential.”

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff wants America to love his wife as much as he does.

His convention speech Tuesday night focused on their love story and offered a personal glimpse meant to pull in voters, too. He dished on the deets of their first phone call, after he left her a rambling voicemail that she still makes him listen to every year on their anniversary.

Biden tells Americans: ‘I gave my best to you’

President Biden took the stage on the first night of the Democratic National Convention for the last time as president – or as a candidate for the presidency – to cite the accomplishments of his single presidential term and the threat to democracy as the reasons Kamala Harris should succeed him as president.

“It’s been the honour of my lifetime to serve as your president,” Biden said in a speech that capped over five decades in office, as senator, vice president and president. “I love the job, but I love my country more. All this talk about how I’m angry at all those people (who) said I should step down – that’s not true. I love my country more, and we need to preserve our democracy in 2024.”

He received a thunderous standing ovation from the crowd and took a moment to wipe his eyes after his daughter, Ashley, introduced him. It took several minutes for the crowd to quiet, and his speech was interrupted at times by chants of, “We love Joe!” The party faithful filling the Chicago arena held up signs that said “We 💗 Joe.” Biden asked the crowd: “Are you ready to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as president and vice president of the United States?”

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I gave my best to you,” he said.

“As your president, I’ve been determined to keep America moving forward, not going back,” he said. “To stand against hate and violence in all its forms.”

Biden celebrated the accomplishments of his presidency, ticking off a list: 60 million new jobs, a record high stock market, bringing inflation down, the smallest racial wealth gap in 20 years and getting health insurance coverage for more Americans than ever.

When the crowd chanted, “Thank you, Joe,” at one point,Mr Biden said, “Thank you Kamala, too!”

Biden then went after his former opponent, Donald Trump, and Trump’s promise of infrastructure week. “And he never built a damn thing,” Mr. Biden said.

“Donald Trump calls America a failing nation,” the president said, adding that Trump is wrong that America is failing. “He says we’re losing. He’s the loser, he’s dead wrong.”

“Crime will keep coming down when we put a prosecutor in the Oval Office instead of a convicted felon,” he said, nodding to Harris’ career as a prosecutor.

Mr Biden said he’ll keep fighting for the freedom to vote and the freedom to love whomever one chooses.

“MAGA Republicans found out the power of women in 2022,” he said. “And Donald Trump is going to find out the power of women in 2024.”

Turning to foreign concerns, the president said his team is “working around the clock” to secure a cease-fire deal in the Middle East and get aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Protesters criticising Mr Biden’s handling of the war stood outside the convention.

“Those protesters out in the street, they have a point,” he conceded. “A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.”

Faith in Donald Trump’s fitness plunges

With Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 election, Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in history. And voters are taking notice.

An exclusive poll conducted by J.L. Partners for DailyMail.com reveals that public confidence in the 78-year-old’s ability to do the nation’s top job is crashing.

Voters are now less confident that the former president can fully digest his national security briefings, hold his own in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin or even survive a full four-year term than when we last asked them for their views in March.

With Biden out of the running, replaced by 59-year-old Kamala Harris, it suggests Trump can no longer deflect questions about rambling answers or muddled names by pointing at his 81-year-old rival.

Last March, some 56 percent of respondents believed Trump could remember the names of key staff. (At that time the number for Biden was only 40 per cent.) Now the proportion is 46 per cent.

In the same way, where once 56 per cent believed the former president could stay alert in the middle of a nuclear emergency. Now it is 49 per cent, just four points higher than where Biden was.

Trump’s ability to do the job declined for each of seven questions, by as much as nine points, in the view of voters.

Six people still missing after luxury yacht tragedy near Sicilian coast

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, Morgan Stanley International director Jonathan Bloomer, and Chris Morvillo, a prominent American lawyer, are among six people still missing after a tornado hit a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily. Bloomer and Morvillo’s wives are also missing.

The vessel sank Monday – killing one of the 22 people on board – after its mast, one of the world’s tallest, broke in half during the storm. Fifteen people have been rescued.

Bloomer is the non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley International and also chairman of London-listed insurer Hiscox.

Both Morgan Stanley and Hiscox issued statement saying they were “deeply shocked and saddened” by the “tragic” news.

Netanyahu says ‘not sure there will be a deal’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he’s “not sure there will be a deal,” according to hostage families who met him today, representing groups demanding that their loved ones be freed by military pressure rather than via a deal with Hamas.

One of the relatives who participated in the meeting, Zvika Mor, whose son Eitan is captive in Gaza, tells Hebrew media afterwards that his impression was that Netanyahu “doesn’t believe there will be a deal”.

The hardline Gvura and Tikva forums, which represent families of some slain soldiers and some hostages respectively, said Netanyahu reiterated during the meeting that should a deal end up being sealed, it would “safeguard Israel’s interests”. They say the premier said he told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in their meeting Monday that “Israel won’t leave the Philadelphi Corridor and the Netzarim Corridor under any circumstances.”

Bodies of six Israeli hostages retrieved from Gaza, Israel says

The bodies of six Israeli hostages have been retrieved from Gaza during an overnight military operation in Khan Younis, Israeli authorities said Tuesday, as the latest ceasefire negotiations continue.

In a joint announcement, the Israel Defencse Forces (IDF) and the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) named them as Yoram Metzger, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Chaim Peri, Nadav Popplewell and Yagev Buchshtab. All but Munder had been announced dead in recent months by the Israeli military.

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that the IDF and ISA had entered Hamas tunnels in a “complex operation” to retrieve the hostages’ bodies.

“We will continue working to achieve the goals of this war – returning the hostages to Israel and dismantling Hamas,” Gallant said on X.

A joint statement by the ISA and IDF said the operation was “enabled by precise intelligence” from the two agencies’ intelligence units, and the IDF Intelligence Directorate Hostage Headquarters.

There are currently 109 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza, including 36 believed to be dead, according to data from the Israeli Government Press Office.

Jennifer Lopez Files for divorce from Ben Affleck

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are divorcing after just over two years of marriage. Lopez filed on Tuesday, August 20, in L.A. County Superior Court, Variety confirms. The official separation date is listed as April 26.

Lopez, 55, and Affleck, 52, married in Las Vegas in July 2022 after re-sparking their relationship from two decades prior, which was dubbed “Bennifer” by tabloid publications at the time and was a fixation of their coverage in the early 2000s.

The two tied the knot again in a large ceremony in Georgia on August 20, 2022 – exactly two years ago.

Both got married and divorced in the intervening years: Lopez to Marc Anthony, Affleck to Jennifer Garner. Then the two began a public relationship once again roughly three years ago.

World’s oldest living person dies at 117

The world’s oldest living person, Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera, who was born in the United States and lived through two world wars, the Spanish Civil War, the 1918 flu pandemic and the Covid pandemic, has died at the age of 117, her family said Tuesday.

“Maria Branyas has left us. She died as she wished: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain,” her family wrote on her account on social network X.

“We will always remember her for her advice and kindness,” they said.

Guinness World Records had officially acknowledged Branyas’s status as the world’s oldest person in January 2023 following the death of French nun Lucile Randon at the age of 118.

In the wake of Branyas’s death, the oldest living person in the world is Japan’s Tomiko Itooka, who was born on May 23, 1908 and is 116 years old, according to the US Gerontology Research Group.

Born on March 4, 1907, in California, one year after her parents emigrated to the US, Branyas spent the first few years of her life in San Francisco, according to Guinness. Eight years later, the family decided to return to Spain, where they settled in Catalonia. She married Joan Moret in 1931, according to Guinness World Records, and had three children, 11 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren.

Mbappé to take legal action against PSG over unpaid salary

The dispute between Kylian Mbappé and his former club Paris Saint-Germain has escalated as the player pursues legal action, saying the club owes him €55 million for the final months of his salary, as well as other bonuses which could total around €100 million.

After seven years at the Paris club, Mbappé’ moved to Real Madrid this summer. Yet disagreements around the circumstances of his departure pitted the star player against PSG’s management and its main shareholder Qatar Sports Investments who withheld payments from the French team captain.

The dispute has now been passed on to France’s professional football league (LFP) according to the newspaper Le Monde. Mbappé’s lawyers have said they are also prepared to go to an employment tribunal if there’s no resolution from sport’s governing bodies.

PSG maintain that their financial actions were justified and confirm that negotiations are ongoing with Mbappé and his representatives.

Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images