International
Biden’s inner circle, key in the political future of the Democrats
In the midst of the political crisis unleashed by the poor performance of President Joe Biden in last week’s presidential debate, Washington’s attention is focused on the president’s inner circle, which can push the president to withdraw or an uncertain recovery towards electoral victory.
A handful of advisers and relatives are the people who have the most access to the president and to whom the 81-year-old president truly listens, according to US media.
The president’s wife, one of his sisters and his son are the members of the Biden family on whom the Democrat relies the most. The first lady, according to sources consulted by EFE, has reinforced her role as an “anchor” of the president, encouring him to continue his re-election campaign despite criticism for his performance in the debate.
Despite the voices of the Democratic Party and the media asking her to retire, Jill is “fully convinced” that her husband can beat Trump and, in fact, if she couldn’t, she would be the first to tell her, sources close to the campaign told EFE.
According to Jill herself at a fundraising event the day after the debate, Biden approached him after concluding the meeting with Trump to confess that “he didn’t feel well,” to which she replied she replied “we are not going to allow 90 minutes to define the four years in which you have been president.”
The president’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, is the one who has led most of his campaigns since he began his political career in 1970 until he decided to run for president in 2020.
On a personal level, she supported Biden when his wife and daughter died in a car accident in 1972, helping him raise his children.
According to the Political portal, Valerie has also defended her brother’s permanence in the presidential race, but has expressed concern about the impact it could have on her brother’s health and his legacy.
For his part, his son Hunter, a controversial figure over the trials against him for illegal possession of weapons and his fight for drug addiction, has redoubled his presence in the president’s life since the presidential debate.
Biden’s son has been present even at White House meetings, and along with Jill, he fervently supports his father’s decision to stay in the presidential race.
The president’s main political adviser and one of his closest allies. He was part of his team in Biden’s campaign for the Senate in 1972 and, since then, he has become a key piece in the Democratic environment.
Kaufman, 85, replaced Biden in his Senate post with the state of Delaware when the president assumed the position of vice president in 2008.
Biden’s sister, Valerie, describes it in her autobiographical book as the president’s “compass”: “Joe has said for a long time that Ted Kaufman is the wisest man he knows.”
He was chief of staff of the White House until February 2023 and currently works as legal director of the technology company Airbnb.
He has known Biden since the Democrat was in the Senate and was part of his first presidential campaign in 1987. He has an extensive career as an advisor to figures of the “blue” party, he worked as a counselor for Al Gore in 2000 and also for Hilary Clinton’s campaign in 2015.
She was one of the people, along with the current presidential counselor Anita Dunn and political strategist Mike Donilon, who helped prepare Biden for the debate.
He is a lawyer and one of Biden’s closest political advisors and strategists. He has worked for the president since 1982, when he was in the Senate, going through the position of number 2 in the Obama administration and during the 2020 presidential campaign.
He is one of the people in charge of the president’s public speeches and deveived the political message of the first race against Trump, focused on the defense of democracy.
According to The New York Times, almost “all” the important decisions of the White House go through Donilon’s filter and together with Dunn and Kaufam, he prepared the president for days in his residence in Camp David for the debate.
International
Seven bodies found with signs of torture in Sinaloa
Mexican authorities discovered seven lifeless bodies on Wednesday, showing clear signs of torture, in the rural area of Culiacán, Sinaloa, just one day after the same number of bodies was found in several municipalities in the western state of Mexico.
Six of these seven victims were found along the side of the highway that connects Culiacán to Mazatlán, near Laguna de Canachi, according to local media reports, which also noted that messages addressed to a criminal group were found near the bodies.
This brings the total number of violent deaths in the region to seven within just 24 hours. On Tuesday, authorities reported more victims found in the municipalities of Culiacán, Elota, and Mazatlán.
Among the victims identified was a local cattle rancher named Ramón Velázquez Ontiveros, as well as a police officer from Mazatlán, who was killed by a motorcyclist outside his home in San Marcos.
International
Málaga paralyzed by new storm as torrential rains hit Spain
Thousands of people were evacuated and trains were suspended as torrential rains once again struck Spain on Wednesday, following the devastating floods that killed at least 223 people two weeks ago, most of them in the Valencia region.
The national meteorological agency (Aemet) issued a maximum, red-level alert for the Andalusian province of Málaga in the south, and for Tarragona in the northeast, due to the new DANA (isolated depression at high levels), also known as a cold drop.
The city of Málaga appeared to be the hardest hit by the rains, with more than 3,000 people evacuated from 1,000 homes near rivers, flooded streets, and the suspension of urban transport and train services to Madrid.
“Today Málaga is paralyzed,” said Andalusia’s regional president, Juan Manuel Moreno, to reporters. “I know it is a problem for citizens not being able to take their children to school or go to work, but after what we saw in Valencia, we need to ‘prevent’ and minimize the impact in terms of loss of life,” he added.
The storm also led to the postponement of a match between Spain and Poland in the Billie Jean King Cup women’s tennis competition, which was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in Málaga.
International
Hezbollah launches explosive drone strike on Israel’s defense headquarters
The Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah claimed on Wednesday that it launched an attack with explosive drones against the Israeli army’s headquarters in Tel Aviv.
The Iran-backed organization reported in a statement that it had carried out “an aerial attack with a squadron of explosive drones” targeting the site that houses Israel’s main defense institutions.
Hezbollah later stated that it also fired a barrage of rockets at the Glilot military intelligence base in the suburbs of Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military indicated that “sirens sounded in several areas of northern and central Israel following the launch of projectiles from Lebanon.”
It later clarified that “five projectiles were identified over the territory, and some were intercepted.”
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