NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Former Tennessee Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen and Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn have been running their campaigns for a critical U.S. Senate seat like their matchup was assured.
Voters made it official Thursday.
Bredesen and Blackburn disposed of minimal opposition in their primary elections, kicking off what’s expected to a bruising, expensive fight that could determine Democrats’ chances of overturning the 51-49 Republican Senate majority.
Polls have indicated a close contest to replace retiring Republican Sen. Bob Corker.
A general election win would be historic for Blackburn, who would become the first female U.S. senator ever elected in Tennessee.
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials say the Trump administration is staffing up a Middle East policy team at the White House in anticipation of unveiling its long awaited but largely mysterious Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
The National Security Council last week began approaching other agencies seeking volunteers to join the team, which will work for President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace pointmen Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, according to the officials. The team, which is being set up to organize the peace plan’s public presentation and any negotiations that may ensue, will comprise three units: one concentrating on its political and security details, one on its significant economic focus and one on strategic communications, the officials said.
The creation of a White House team is the first evidence in months that a plan is advancing. Although Trump officials have long promised the most comprehensive package ever put forward toward resolving the conflict, the emerging plan has not been described with even a small amount of detail by Kushner, Greenblatt or any other official.
Timing on the release of the plan remains undecided. The State Department, Pentagon, intelligence agencies and Congress have been asked to detail personnel to the team for six months to a year, according to the officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The agencies declined to comment but an NSC official said that Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and Greenblatt, Trump’s special envoy for international negotiations, “are expanding their team and the resources available as they finalize the details and rollout strategy of the peace initiative.”
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa won election Friday with just over 50 percent of the ballots as the ruling party maintained control of the government in the first vote since the fall of longtime leader Robert Mugabe.
Mnangagwa received 50.8 percent of the vote while main opposition challenger Nelson Chamisa received 44.3 percent. The opposition is almost certain to challenge the results in the courts or in the streets.
While election day was peaceful in a break from the past, deadly violence on Wednesday against people protesting alleged vote-rigging reminded many Zimbabweans of the decades of military-backed repression under Mugabe.
Zimbabwe’s president says he is “humbled” by his win.
“Though we may have been divided at the polls, we are united in our dreams,” Mnangagwa said on Twitter.
WASHINGTON — A former White House staffer is claiming in a new book that President Donald Trump has exhibited a “mental decline that could not be denied.”
An excerpt from Omarosa Manigault-Newman’s new book was published Thursday by DailyMail.com.
The former reality television star, who appeared on Trump’s “The Apprentice” and later served as an assistant to the president, says she was disturbed by a famous interview Trump gave to Lester Holt.
She writes that, while watching the interview on television, she “realized that something real and serious was going on in Donald’s brain” and that his “mental decline could not be denied.”
She says, “I kept thinking, ‘Oh no! Oh no! This is bad!”
From Associated Press