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Donald Trump held his first rally since the suspected second assassination attempt on him on Wednesday night, telling supporters in New York that “these encounters with death” had made him stronger and attributed his survival to divine providence.

“God gave me life. It must have been God, not once, but twice,” Trump said to thunderous cheers from the crowd at Nassau Coliseum in a suburb of Long Island.

In a 90-minute speech, Trump further inflamed tensions by referring to Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, as “illegal aliens,” even though the vast majority are legal residents with temporary protected status. He also returned to familiar territory of voter denial, attacked the media and made false claims about global warming.

FBI: Iran sent hacked Trump documents to Biden’s campaign team

Iranian hackers sent material stolen from Donald Trump’s campaign materials to Joe Biden’s campaign team in an attempt to influence the November election by sending unsolicited emails to people close to the former Democratic candidate, the FBI and other US authorities said.

The FBI announced on August 12 that it was investigating a complaint from the Trump campaign that Iran had hacked and shared classified information. A week later, intelligence officials confirmed that Iran was the culprit.

Kamala Harris’ campaign called the emails, which few people received and considered spam or phishing messages, “unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity.” There was no evidence that the recipients on the Democratic campaign team responded to them, officials said Wednesday.

Japanese company: It is impossible to know whether the walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah came from “our company”

Japanese communications equipment maker Icom, whose walkie-talkies were reportedly blown up in Lebanon on Wednesday, said the devices may have been an old model with explosive batteries built in.

“We cannot rule out that they are counterfeits, but there is also a possibility that the products are our IC-V82 model,” said Icom director Yoshiki Enomoto, adding that production of the model was discontinued in 2014 and that images of the devices used in Lebanon suggested that the batteries may have been replaced with explosive ones.

Observers have labelled Wednesday’s attacks, which killed 20 people and wounded at least 450 in towns across Lebanon, a day after exploding pagers killed at least 12 people and injured several thousand, as war crimes. World leaders and diplomats warned that the attacks, for which Israel was blamed, could spark an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.

More news…

• A Republican senator accused the Muslim head of a think tank of supporting Hamas and Hezbollah and told her to “hide her head in a bag.” during a congressional hearing on hate crimes.

• Swedish children start school at the age of six, one year earlier than before. in a move away from the educational system’s focus on play for young children.

• The Teamsters union has refused to endorse a presidential candidate for the first time since 1996Published data suggests that the majority of its members support Donald Trump.

Statistics of the day: Americans pay almost twice as much for their health care as comparable countries – but the US system is in last place

According to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, the U.S. health care system ranked last in a global ranking of 10 comparable countries. The comparison with Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Switzerland found that the U.S. system performed poorly in areas of health equity, access to care and treatment outcomes – even though Americans pay nearly twice as much as other countries.

Don’t miss this: Amber Thurman was killed by Georgia’s abortion ban. There will be others

Amber Thurman died just weeks after Georgia’s abortion ban went into effect. The 28-year-old was the mother of a six-year-old and dreamed of becoming a nurse. Her death in August 2022 meant she was the first woman since Dobbs to suffer a preventable, abortion-related death. Thurman had taken abortion pills in another state, and Georgia’s abortion ban meant doctors were prohibited from performing a simple, 15-minute procedure to treat her miscarriage if the procedure went wrong. “Every life – every woman’s life – is a world of possibilities: these murders by negligence to which the law condemns women like Amber destroy those worlds,” writes Moira Donegan.

Climate check: Storm Boris hits northern Italy and brings severe flooding and landslides

Storm Boris has claimed 24 lives in Central and Eastern Europe since last week and is now hitting the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, where it has caused severe flooding and landslides. EU Crisis Commissioner Janez Lenarčič said of the extreme weather events: “Make no mistake. This tragedy is not an anomaly. It is fast becoming the norm for our common future. Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world and it is particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events.”

Finally: How to win at canapés – Edith Pritchett on hunger at a party

If you’ve ever been to a wedding where the canapés were just out of reach and gone before the tray reached the mingling area – fear not! Edith Pritchett shows you how to get from the canapé-free zone to the premium canapé zone, where all kinds of crostini await you.

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