First Thing: Trump stages first rally since apparent assassination attempt

Presidential nominee claims God saved him and apparent attempts on his life have made him tougher. Plus, how to win at canapes

Good morning.

Donald Trump staged his first rally on Wednesday night since the second apparent attempt on his life, telling his supporters in New York that “these encounters with death” had made him stronger and attributing his survival to divine intervention.

“God has now spared my life. It must have been God, not once, but twice,” Trump said to raucous cheers from the crowd in the Nassau Coliseum in the Long Island suburbs.

In a 90-minute speech, Trump further inflamed tensions by calling Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, “illegal aliens”, despite the vast majority being legal residents on temporary protected status. He also returned to well-trodden ground of election denial and attacking the media, as well as making false claims about global heating.

Why did he pick New York? While Kamala Harris has a double-digit lead in the state overall, Long Island itself has moved rightwards in recent years.

Iran sent hacked Trump documents to Biden campaign, FBI says

Iranian hackers sent material stolen from Donald Trump’s campaign to Joe Biden’s in an attempt to influence November’s election, sending unsolicited emails to people associated with the former Democratic candidate, the FBI and other US agencies have said.

The FBI said on 12 August it was looking into a complaint by Trump’s campaign that Iran had hacked and leaked sensitive information, with intelligence officials confirming Iran to be the actor a week later.

Kamala Harris’s campaign called the emails, which were received by a small number of people and regarded as spam or phishing messages, as “unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity”. There is no suggestion that the recipients in the Democrat campaign team responded, officials said on Wednesday.

Why would Iran do this? Intelligence officials say the state opposes Trump’s re-election, thinking he’ll worsen relations between Washington and Tehran.

Impossible to know if walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah were ‘from our company’, says Japanese firm

Icom, the Japanese communication equipment manufacturer whose walkie-talkies are thought to have been blown up in Lebanon on Wednesday, said the devices may have been an old model in which explosive batteries were planted.

“We can’t rule out the possibility that they are fakes, but there is also a chance the products are our IC-V82 model,” said Icom’s director, Yoshiki Enomoto. He added that production of the model ended in 2014, and said that pictures of the devices used in Lebanon suggested the batteries may have been swapped with explosive ones.

Observers have said the attacks on Wednesday, which killed 20 people and injured at least 450 in cities across Lebanon the day after exploding pagers killed at least 12 people and injured several thousand, may constitute a war crime. World leaders and diplomats have warned that the attacks, which have been blamed on Israel, could trigger all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.

What is the aim of the attacks? The strategic goal is unclear, according to Guardian security expert Dan Sabbagh, though they could have been a provocation for escalation.

In other news …

A Republican senator has accused the female Muslim head of a thinktank of supporting Hamas and Hezbollah and told her to “hide your head in a bag”, during a congressional hearing on hate crimes.

Swedish children will begin school at six, a year earlier than currently, in a shift away from the education system’s focus on play for young children.

The Teamsters union has declined to endorse a candidate for president for the first time since 1996. Published data suggests the majority of its members back Donald Trump.

Stat of the day: Americans pay nearly double for healthcare compared with peer nations – but the US system ranks last

The US health system came last in a global ranking of 10 peer nations, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, which compared it with Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK, Sweden and Switzerland. The US system performed poorly on health equity, access to care and outcomes – despite Americans paying almost double that of 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 a mother to a six-year-old and had dreams of becoming a nurse. Her death in August 2022 meant she was the first woman to die a preventable, abortion-related death in the wake of Dobbs. Thurman had taken abortion pills in another state, and Georgia’s abortion ban meant doctors were banned from carrying out a simple, 15-minute procedure to treat her miscarriage when the process went wrong. “Every life – every woman’s life – is a world of possibility: these murders-by-neglect to which the law sentences women like Amber exterminate those worlds,” writes Moira Donegan.

Climate check: Storm Boris batters northern Italy, bringing severe flooding and landslides

Storm Boris has killed 24 people in central and eastern Europe since last week and is now lashing the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, triggering severe flooding and landslides. The EU’s crisis management commissioner, Janez Lenarčič, said of the extreme weather: “Make no mistake. This tragedy is not an anomaly. This is fast becoming the norm for our shared future. Europe is the fastest warming continent globally and is particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events.”

Last Thing: How to win at canapes – Edith Pritchett on being hungry at a party

If you’ve ever been at a wedding where the canapes are just out of reach, gone before the tray has reached the area where you’re mingling – fear not! Edith Pritchett is here to teach you how to snake out of the no-canape-zone and into the premium canape zone, where all manner of crostini await you.

Sign up

First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.

Get in touch

If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email [email protected]