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New York
NRA in court: The state of New York has begun legal action to dissolve America's leading gun rights organisation, the National Rifle Association (NRA), alleging that its bosses used the group as their "personal piggy bank" and misspent up to $64m. In a 164-page civil lawsuit filed last week, New York's attorney general Letitia James alleged that four senior leaders of the NRA, including its chief executive Wayne LaPierre, had spent NRA funds on personal luxuries such as private jets and family trips to the Bahamas. "The NRA's influence has been so powerful that the organisation went unchecked for decades while top executives funnelled millions into their own pockets," said James, who called it "a breeding ground for greed, abuse and brazen illegality". The NRA, which has around five million members, immediately issued a counter lawsuit, and attacked the action as a left-wing stunt.
Wilmington, Delaware
VP pick: Joe Biden, the Democrat nominee for president, announced Senator Kamala Harris of California as his vice-presidential running mate on Tuesday. She becomes the first black woman, and the first South Asian candidate, to feature on the presidential ticket of either main party. Harris, 55, is the daughter of immigrant academics - her father Jamaican and her mother Indian - and a centrist Democrat who ran against Biden for the presidential nomination.
Before becoming a senator, she was San Francisco's district attorney, then California's attorney general. Despite her vigorous attacks on Biden during her campaign, Harris had long been the favourite for the job, though in recent weeks Susan Rice, President Obama's national security adviser, had emerged as a rival front runner. Biden's choice of running mate has been especially closely watched given his age (he would be 78 on inauguration day) and the expectation that, if elected, he would serve only one term.
Washington DC
"World's worst outbreak": The White House coronavirus adviser Dr Anthony Fauci accepted last week that the US had the worst outbreak of Covid-19 in the world. "I mean, the numbers don't lie," he said. This week, the country passed five million confirmed infections, more than a quarter of the world's total. Daily case increases appear to have levelled off, but the number of people dying is still rising in 20...