As climate-fueled wildfires engulf California, tens of thousands of firefighters have been deployed across the state to combat the blazes amid a record heat wave and deadly pandemic.

As party loyalists gather for the Republican National Convention, a group of veteran Republican operatives who want to defeat President Trump have launched a $4 million advertising blitz targeting voters in swing states. The anti-Trump ads are funded by The Lincoln Project, a super PAC that can raise and spend an unlimited amount of money.

The Republican National Convention opened in Charlotte, North Carolina, with dire warnings that a Joe Biden presidency could destroy the country. We feature excerpts from President Trump’s surprise speech after he was formally nominated for a second term, claiming without evidence that Democrats are planning to steal the election, and other speakers throughout the evening who repeatedly praised Trump’s handling of the pandemic even as the U.S.

Harvard professor Cornel West and Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way and former president of the NAACP, discuss the 2020 DNC, Joe Biden’s vow to fight systemic racism and “overcome this season of darkness in America,” the historic nomination of Kamala Harris as his partner on the ticket, and how the convention was a showcase for a broad anti-Trump coalition, including prominent Republican figures given plum speaking slots, but few voices from the party&rsq