Kamala Harris began by recounting how the economy grew and unemployment stayed low under Joe Biden’s presidency, then pivoted to acknowledging the toll inflation has taken on Americans.

“Over the past three-and-a-half years, we have taken major steps forward to recover from the public health and economic crisis we inherited. Inflation has dropped faster here than the rest of the developed world. Unemployment is near record low levels,” she said.

“But let’s be clear, for all these positive steps, the cost of living in America is still just too high. You know it, and I know it, and that was true long before the pandemic hit.”

Donald Trump will return to the Butler, Pennsylvania venue where a gunman tried to assassinate him in July, the ex-president’s campaign just announced.

Trump will return on 5 October “to hold a rally on the very same ground where he came within a quarter of an inch of losing his life less than three months ago,” the campaign said.

“During his visit, President Trump will honor the memory of Corey Comperatore, who heroically sacrificed his life to shield his wife and daughters from the bullets on that terrible day. President Trump will also recognize the two other Americans who were wounded by the shooter, David Dutch and James Copenhaver. He will express his deep gratitude to law enforcement and first responders, and thank the entire community for their outpouring of love and support in the wake of the attack.”

His campaign went on to liken Trump’s survival of the assassination attempt to New York’s rebuilding of the World Trade Center after it was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks:

President Trump’s return to Butler will stand as a tribute to the American spirit. In America, we do not let monsters like that evil assassin have the last word. Every time our nation is struck by attack or hardship, we rally, we persevere, and we prevail. When terrorists knocked down our towering skyscrapers, we rebuilt taller. When our communities are ravaged by fire, storm, or natural disaster, we pull together and come back stronger. And when a shooter attacked our democracy and tried to end this movement, President Trump will return to the site, joined by tens of thousands of proud citizens, and together, they will celebrate a unifying vision for America’s future in an event like the world has never seen before.

We’re a few minutes away from Kamala Harris taking the stage in Pittsburgh, where she’ll make a speech billed as outlining her economic policies.

The vice-president has lately been campaigning on creating an “opportunity economy”. Under Joe Biden, she championed his wide-ranging economic proposals, which led to Congress passing legislation to improve the nation’s infrastructure, encourage the growth of the semiconductor industry, lower prescription drug prices and fight climate change.

But several other ideas Biden supported, such as raising the minimum wage to $15 per-hour, strengthening protections for organized labor and providing more government assistance to children and families, were not enacted, leaving it up to Harris to decide whether to pursue them, if elected as president.

Harris is speaking in the second largest city of a swing state where polls show neither her nor Donald Trump has an advantage with voters. We’ll let you know what she has to say.

A new CNN poll published on Wednesday, has Democratic nominee Kamala Harris leading former president Donald Trump by 12 points among likely voters under the age of 35.

The survey also found that “female likely voters younger than 35 prefer Harris over Trump” 53% to 39%, but male likely voters are more closely divided.

Though Harris is leading among young people, CNN reports that the vice-president’s lead among under 35 year olds is smaller than the lead president Joe Biden had in 2020, when he was up 21 points among that same age group.

One of the country’s largest Muslim voter-mobilization groups, Emgage Action, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president.

In an announcement posted to their website on Wednesday, the Muslim advocacy group said that the upcoming election “represents an especially difficult moment for Muslim Americans.”

The group voiced their concerns over the escalating crisis in the Middle East and mentioned the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians who have been killed in the last 11 months, as well as all those in Gaza who have been displaced. The group criticized the Biden Administration for providing ongoing military support and supplying weapons to Israel.

“In November, we have the opportunity to change course and turn our outrage into action” the statement reads.

The group’s endorsement of Harris on Wednesday, “is not an agreement with Vice President Harris on all issues,” the statement reads, “but rather, an honest guidance to our voters regarding the difficult choice they confront at the ballot box.”

The group also said:

We are pledging to do all that we can to ensure that the next administration listens to our communities and takes our calls for peace, justice and safety seriously. We know that will not be Donald Trump. We have always been clear-eyed about the danger Trump’s brand of authoritarianism represents for Muslim Americans, America, and the world. This is why in 2020 we embarked on a historic campaign to make sure that Muslim Americans played a decisive role in ensuring that Donald Trump was a one-term president.

The group added that recognized “the responsibility to defeat Trump” and urged people not to vote for third-party candidates, arguing that while some third-party candidates had “aligned themselves with our community, we are clear-eyed that none of them have a realistic pathway to victory in November.”

“As it stands today, the most effective way to change policy and advance peace, justice and ensure Palestinian self-determination is to push the Democratic Party” the statement added.

Robert Tait

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer – who testified as a hostile witness at this year’s hush money trial that resulted in his former boss being convicted of 34 felony charges – has told MSNBC that he is working on obtaining a foreign passport with a new identity if Trump is elected in November.

“I’m out of here,” he said in response to being asked what he thought would happen to him in the event of a Trump victory. “ I’m already working on a foreign passport with a completely different name. I don’t know how it’s going to work. As far as dealing with my wife and my children, I certainly don’t want them moving to where I’m looking to go.”

He said other Trump adversaries were also in the line of fire if he returned to the White House with a mission of vengeance against his perceived enemies – specifying the former chairman of the armed forces’ joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, and the ex-Republican Congress member, Liz Cheney, as potential fellow targets.

“How many people has he turned around and said [about]….that these are people that I intend to go after if I have the ability to?

“And the worst is the supreme court’s recent decision that gave him immunity, presidential immunity. Now he thinks not only is it I can do whatever I want, but I can’t even be prosecuted [and have a] get out of jail free card solely for the president.”

A bipartisan Senate report found the Secret Service made “preventable” errors in securing Donald Trump’s July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where an assassin opened fire, killing an attendee and wounding the former president. The agency came in for criticism from lawmakers of both parties, after the homeland security committee’s investigation found agents’ communications struggles hampered their ability to respond when it became clear a gunman was at the rally. Meanwhile, new polling of Pennsylvania and North Carolina confirms Trump and Kamala Harris remain locked in a close race to win the swing states’ electoral votes.

Here’s what else has happened today so far:

• Congress is on track to pass legislation to fund the government until 20 December, with the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer saying he hopes to send Joe Biden the bill by the end of the day.

• Harris will give a speech in Pittsburgh on her plans for the economy at 3.15pm today, and sit for an interview with MSNBC that will be broadcast at 7pm.

• The AARP found that Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, was trailing his Democratic challenger in a survey taken before news broke of his history of making lewd statements on pornography websites.