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Young Venezuelan opposition voters prepare to leave the country if Maduro is reelected

Ambar Leáñez grows quiet when she thinks of a future beyond this weekend.

A staunch supporter of Venezuela’s opposition movement, she’s buoyant about her coalition’s chances to win this Sunday’s presidential election. The thought of another six years under the incumbent – Venezuela’s entrenched authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro – would drive her to flee the country, she says.

Often divided among its many political parties, Venezuela’s anti-government coalition has united behind a single presidential candidate, Edmundo González.

Many experts believe that González could pose Maduro’s toughest political challenge to date. On top of a galvanized opposition, pressure from the international community and Venezuela’s oil sector have led to a series of agreements that paved the way to a competitive election this year.

On Friday, members of a young opposition group in Maracay, a mid-size city in central Venezuela, took to the streets with fliers and slogans to galvanize votes for González. A few years ago, openly calling for Maduro’s removal here could have invited trouble.

But the group, called “Neighbors for Venezuela,” campaigned without incident. Leañez among them shouting anti-Maduro slogans in the city’s market: “Urgent, we need a new president!”

Another protester, Julio César Pérez, described the choice looming on Sunday in stark terms: “For me, it’s change or the Darién.”

Campaigning with your bags ready

Thousands of Venezuelans have already trekked through jungles and rivers in the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panamá to head northward toward the United States.

If Maduro remains in power, experts predict that millions more may follow. One poll conducted in June by Venezuelan firm ODH Consultores, estimates up to a third of the population is considering leaving the country after the election.

“I don’t want to leave!” has become a popular chant among opposition supporters.

Most people in Venezuela know someone who has emigrated already. Large numbers of Venezuelans now live in Colombia, Perú, and Brazil, and growing numbers have attempted relocating to the United States – part of a significant election year issue for American voters.

Leáñez’s uncle, Rafael Cabrera, moved to Miami in 2021. On a videocall to his niece in Maracay, he expressed anger that he would not be able to vote on Sunday – Venezuelans living abroad are not allowed to vote by mail, and Venezuela doesn’t have consular representation in the US, which means there are no paths to the vote for Cabrera.

To join him one day, Leáñez said she would consider migrating as an undocumented migrant. “I would wish to migrate as legally as possible, but it’s is one of the cards in my hand. An option… What else could I do?” she said.

‘To all Venezuelans abroad…come home!’

On the campaign trail, both Venezuela’s current government and the opposition are urging Venezuelans abroad to return.

Since 2018, a government-sponsored “Return to the Homeland” program organized free flights for more than 10.000 Venezuelan migrants who wished to come back from other Latin American countries.

“We have gone through a bad stretch, really bad, but we’re getting better, we’re improving… to all Venezuelans abroad […] come home!” Maduro said last month.

It’s an issue that has touched the top leaders of the opposition movement personally – though they have chosen to stay and fight, in a battle for Venezuela’s future that will be decided on Sunday.

Opposition leader María Corina Machado, who has campaigned alongside González after being barred from running as a candidate, has endured a familiar separation, with her three adult children and their families all living abroad.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

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Mercury has a layer of diamond up to 10 miles thick, scientists suggest

It may be the smallest planet in the solar system but Mercury could be hiding a big secret. 

A layer of diamond beneath the crust of Mercury could be up to 10 miles (18km) thick, new research suggests.

Scientists from China and Belgium used data collected by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft between 2004 and 2015 to inform their theories about the structure of the planet’s interior.

The researchers think two processes could have resulted in the diamond layer.

“First is the crystallisation of the magma ocean, but this process likely contributed to forming only a very thin diamond layer at the core/mantle interface,” Olivier Namur, a member of the research team and an associate professor at KU Leuven, told Space.com.

“Secondly, and most importantly, the crystallisation of the metal core of Mercury.”

When the planet was formed around 4.5 billion years ago, the metal core was entirely liquid which progressively crystallised over time, according to Mr Namur.

The new research – published on 14 June – suggests that under extreme pressure, the carbon present in the mantle turned into diamond.

This diamond then floated to the top of the core – creating a layer between it and the mantle.

To test the theory, scientists used a large-volume press to replicate the pressures and temperatures that exist within the interior of Mercury.

The material synthetic magnesium silicate was put under seven gigapascals (a unit of pressure) and heated to 2,177C (3,950F) to demonstrate how minerals would have changed at the time Mercury was formed, and simulated diamond formation in these conditions.

Mr Namur said the results could point to differences between the formation of Mercury and other planets, including Earth and Mars.

Scientists have previously suggested that there could be more than a quadrillion tonnes of diamond scattered beneath the Earth’s surface.

The minerals are believed to be buried more than 160km (100 miles) beneath the Earth’s surface – far deeper than any human drills have ever reached.

This post appeared first on sky.com

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Assisted dying bill introduced in Britain’s House of Lords, as emotional campaign picks up pace

An emotional, accelerating campaign to allow assisted dying for terminally ill adults in Britain has reached parliament, with activists hoping the country will become one of few to legalize the process.

A Private Member’s Bill is to be introduced in the House of Lords on Friday, putting the issue back on parliament’s agenda – though it is uncertain whether it will reach the House of Commons for approval from lawmakers.

Whatever its progress, it marks another development in a debate that has found its way onto Britain’s airwaves and prompted impassioned appeals from some well-known faces.

“Change is definitely coming.”

Assisted dying generally refers to the process through which a person with a terminal illness can legally access drugs to end their lives. It is legal in few countries; Canada and 11 US states allow it, as does most of Australia, Switzerland and the Netherlands. It is partially available in Germany and Italy, while Spain and Portugal have legalized the process in recent years.

“The conditions for change have never been better,” said Ellie Ball of Dignity in Dying, a leading campaign group that has pushed for years for the United Kingdom to follow suit. “The trend around the world is towards giving people greater choice at the end of their lives.”

But it is a heated national conversation, and its path to legalization remains long – with vocal pockets of opposition from outside and inside parliament.

“The state should not be complicit in encouraging people to end their lives,” said Alistair Thompson, a spokesman for Care Not Killing, which opposes any change in the law on assisted dying or euthanasia and advocates for better palliative care.

“People just need to look very coldly, clinically at the facts and the data, and not necessarily at clearly very emotional stories,” he said.

‘The pain can become unbearable’

Friday’s bill is not the first to reach parliament; nine years ago MPs voted by a sizable margin not to legalize assisted dying in Britain, and Lords have occasionally tried to reintroduce the issue in the years since.

For Falconer, the time is right to try again. “There has been over the last year or two a much greater urgency and interest in the issue,” he said. His bill is similar to the law in Oregon, the first US state to allow assisted dying, where only terminally ill people – and not those in unbearable suffering – are permitted to seek medication that would end their lives.

It does not go as far as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada, which allow an assisted death in cases of suffering as well. Only a handful of countries allow euthanasia, in which another person deliberately ends someone’s life to relieve suffering.

It is currently a crime to help somebody die in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Performing euthanasia on a person, meanwhile, is considered murder or manslaughter.

Polling indicates the public broadly supports ending those laws, and a campaign by celebrated journalist and broadcaster Esther Rantzen, who is terminally ill with lung cancer, has given the issue a prominent face.

“Isn’t it typically British that we give the pets we love a pain-free, dignified, private death but we can’t offer it to the people we love,” she told the BBC in April.

Rantzen told the broadcaster that allowing assisted dying would “mean that I could look forward in confidence to a death which is pain-free surrounded by people I love.”

Currently, traveling alone to a clinic like Dignitas in Switzerland is about the only option for Brits in her situation, but it is one very few seek out; only 33 British citizens ended their lives at Dignitas in 2022, according to the clinic.

Opponents of legalization have argued that those small figures represent a limited appetite for assisted dying in the UK, but there are other pressures at play too. “If my family go with me, they could be investigated by the police for killing me, or pressuring me to die,” Rantzen told the BBC.

One of the clinic’s recent British patients was Paola Marra, who had terminal cancer and died at Dignitas earlier this year. In a video message filmed before her death, she said: “The pain and suffering can become unbearable. It’s a slow erosion of dignity – the loss of independence, the stripping away of everything that makes life worth living.

“Assisted dying is not about giving up. In fact, it’s about reclaiming control,” she said.

A political test

Britons are increasingly hearing stories like Rantzen’s and Marra’s. But some among the country’s lawmakers, who will ultimately decide the fate of the assisted dying law, say there is more to consider.

“We’re in danger of it being a cause célèbre,” said Rachael Maskell, a Labour lawmaker and clinician who has researched assisted dying on parliament’s Health and Social Care Committee.

But she listed a number of reservations that she and other members of the committee considered, including that legalization would encourage patients to seek an earlier death to avoid becoming a burden on their relatives.

“I’ve had that conversation so many times with patients,” she said. “That worries me, because that person has as much right to a fulfilled life.”

And she said a lack of monitoring in Oregon of how medication is assigned and taken by patients “horrified” her when she visited the US state to study its law. “We wouldn’t be a world leader, we would be a world follower,” Maskell added.

The arrival of an intensely delicate issue in Britain’s parliament provides an early political test for Keir Starmer, Britain’s new prime minister – and the decisions his government take on the bill will determine whether and how soon assisted dying becomes legal in the country.

The first stages of a premiership are typically finely choreographed; a government’s priorities are introduced to parliament, one by one, as the prime minister looks to craft the public’s first impressions of their new government.

For Starmer, the assisted dying bill has the potential to disrupt those intentions. He said before and after this month’s general election – which his Labour Party won in a landslide – that he would allow time for a debate on the issue if it reaches the Commons, and he would allow a free vote on the issue, meaning his MPs wouldn’t be asked to vote one way or the other.

But legalizing assisted dying wasn’t in Labour’s manifesto or in its King’s Speech, limiting the opportunities for it to ever reach MPs. Falconer’s effort is a Private Member’s Bill, allocated individually after a ballot determined which peers can introduce a bill. A similar ballot will take place in the Commons in September, which could see an elected lawmaker take on the mantle, and that is the way the government is believed to prefer the matter is introduced.

“The key piece of the jigsaw that is currently missing is a vote in the Commons,” Falconer said. “I think (Starmer) is very keen for it to be done. (But) of course there are other priorities.”

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, is likely to eventually face calls to allow a debate and a vote on the issue, whether those come as a result of Falconer’s bill or another legislative push.

But campaigners are urging lawmakers to turn to the matter faster.

“The debate needs to start as soon as possible,” she said. “Dying people don’t have time to wait.”

This post appeared first on cnn.com

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Man who ate toast for five years inspires high-tech spoon enhancing flavours for dementia sufferers

A man who revealed how he has only eaten toast for the past five years as he can no longer taste things has helped inspire a high-tech spoon which enhances flavours for dementia sufferers.

The device, known as Tasty Spoon, looks like a normal one but it uses electrostimulation to enhance the flavour of foods for patients experiencing a loss of taste.

People with dementia often have issues with eating and drinking due to symptoms like memory loss, not being able to recognise food, and a decreased sense of smell and taste.

This can lead to patient’s losing weight and muscle strength.

According to researchers, the spoon can help users differentiate between foods.

Dr Christian Morgner, of the University of Sheffield’s management school, is leading the project’s development with Healthy Lifespan Institute.

He said a loss of taste “can remove the enjoyment of food” – which, in turn, impacts wellbeing.

“This is especially prevalent in patients who live alone or in public care homes with more generalised nutrition,” he said.

“In a heartfelt disclosure, an individual shared that he only ate toast for the past five years, as to him there’s no difference between toast and a regular Sunday roast.”

There are about 944,000 people in the UK with dementia, with one in 11 over the age of 65 suffering from the disease.

The Tasty Spoon project has partnered with Alzheimer’s Society’s Accelerator Programme, which is supporting bringing new products to market that help people living with dementia.

Simon Lord, head of innovation at Alzheimer’s Society, said: “A healthy, balanced diet can help improve a person’s quality of life.

“However, common symptoms of dementia, such as memory loss and difficulties with thinking and problem-solving, can make it more difficult to eat and drink well.

“That’s why we’re excited about the possibility Tasty Spoon presents in improving the taste and enjoyment of food and subsequently improving the health and nutrition of people living with dementia.

“Innovations like this are vital as they focus on enriching daily experiences and improving health and well-being.”

This post appeared first on sky.com

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NICE’s methodology means people with cancer aren’t getting drugs – AstraZeneca’s Sir Pascal Soriot said

The chief executive of AstraZeneca has criticised a public health body for refusing to make one of its breast cancer treatments available to NHS patients in England and Wales.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) decided in March this year that patients should be denied access to Enhertu because it said the drug did not provide value for money.

Money blog:’ Major boost’ for borrowers as two banks cut mortgage rates

But Sir Pascal Soriot said he was disappointed at the decision – which is estimated to have affected at least 1,000 patients to date – and not least because Enhertu had been made available to patients in 17 other European countries, including NHS patients in Scotland.

He told Sky News: “NICE has a methodology that leads to difficult access for innovative medicines… called severity scoring. And as an example, the decision was… that metastatic breast cancer is only a moderately severe disease.

“Most people would say it’s a severe disease. Patients, I’m sure, would say it’s a severe disease. But NICE concluded it’s a moderately severe disease. It looks like a technical detail, but it’s very important because it drives willingness to pay.

“So the end result is 17 countries around Europe have decided to reimburse Enhertu for metastatic breast cancer. More recently, Romania, reimbursed it. In the UK, Scotland, which is using a different methodology, decided to reimburse Enhertu for metastatic breast cancer.

“And in England and Wales, patients don’t have access because of this NICE methodology.

“It really has to change. It’s affecting on health too, but it will affect many innovative new medicines that are brought to patients who are dealing with severe disease.”

Raised at ‘every opportunity’

Sir Pascal said he had raised the issue at “every opportunity” with ministers and said he understood the new government was looking at it.

He went on: “We are hopeful that the methodology can be changed… If the methodology was to score metastatic breast cancer as a severe disease automatically, instantaneously, the methodology NICE uses would recommend [using Enhertu].

“It’s not a question of price. The question is the methodology and the decision to score metastatic breast cancer as a moderately severe disease or a severe disease – which we all believe it is.”

Sir Pascal said the decision was important because it influenced where companies like AstraZeneca invest in research and development and launch new medicines.

He added: “When the industry… makes decisions to invest, we look at [whether] we have good science in the country? And here the answer is a resounding yes for the UK. We have great science in this country. Do we have the right talent pool? The answer is another resounding yes. We have a great talent pool in the UK. Then you look at the financial environment, the tax rate, and finally you look at access.

“Because if you want to invest in research and development, you have to believe your medicines will be brought to patients. Otherwise you… [may] as well do your R&D elsewhere, in other countries, where your medicines… [will benefit patients].

“And that’s really the area where most efforts need to be made.”

Investing abroad rather than the UK

Sir Pascal – who early last year cited “discouraging” tax rates for a decision to invest $360m in a new manufacturing facility in Ireland rather than the UK – said the last government had addressed some of his concerns by, for example, addressing the rebates drug companies must pay the NHS when its branded drugs bill rose above a certain level.

Those costs soared during the pandemic and left the NHS – which already pays less for its medicines than other European healthcare providers – clawing back vast sums from the industry.

He said Rishi Sunak‘s government had also incentivised investment by the industry – resulting in AZ’s announcement in March that it will invest £450m to research, develop and manufacture vaccines in Speke, Merseyside.

Increased profit

He was speaking as AstraZeneca, the biggest company in the FTSE-100, was reporting a 7% rise in its core operating profit, to $8.4bn, for the first six months of the year and upgraded its sales and profits forecasts for the whole of 2024.

Sales rose by 18%, to $25.6bn, with AZ seeing growth in four out of five of its key therapy areas – oncology; cardiovascular, renal and metabolism; respiratory and immunology and rare diseases.

The only sales slowdown was seen in vaccines and immune therapies and reflected lower demand for the company’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Ironically, Enhertu saw the biggest sales growth, with revenues up 62% on the first six months of 2023, but the biggest-selling medicine was again Farxiga, AZ’s treatment for type-2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease, where sales rose by 38% to $3.8bn during the period.

The number one player

Sir Pascal, who is widely regarded as the most successful CEO of his generation, cited particularly strong sales in emerging markets – where AZ is now the number one player globally among its peers.

AstraZeneca recently committed to launching 20 new molecular entities (medicines to be submitted for clinical trials) by 2030 and Sir Pascal said these would include treatments for types of cancer, obesity, kidney disease and heart disease.

He said ‘combination therapies’ – where more that one medicine is used in a treatment regimen – were revolutionising the future of healthcare and especially in how cancer was treated.

He went on: “Science has exploded, really, in our industry in the last few years. And so we’re investing in a number of technologies.

“Let me give you an example of how we want to use this. If you look at metastatic cancer it’s very hard to cure patients – you extend life rather than cure patients.

“Our vision to cure cancer is actually to attack the cancer tumour with a combination of antibody drug conjugates, or dual nucleotides together with bispecific antibodies…immune therapies. So you attack the cancer tumour, you break it down, you shrink it…and you prevent the cancer cells or the tumour from protecting itself against future treatments.

“Now, it’s not going to work in every cancer in every patient. But I think the hope is high that, in a number of settings, for a number of patients, we can achieve a cure over the next five to 10 years.”

This post appeared first on sky.com

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North Korea-backed group ‘in cyber campaign to steal military and nuclear secrets’

The UK, US and South Korea have accused a North Korea-backed cyber group of carrying out an online espionage campaign to steal military and nuclear secrets.

The “Andariel” group has been compromising organisations around the globe as it attempts to get hold of sensitive and classified technical information and intellectual property data, according to the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

The centre, along with the FBI in the US and South Korea’s national intelligence service, have issued a joint warning and advisory note about Andariel’s actions.

They have urged critical infrastructure organisations to “stay vigilant” against the cyber operations.

North Korea is a secretive and authoritarian state, which is officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and is headed by supreme leader Kim Jong Un.

NCSC director of operations Paul Chichester said: “The global cyber espionage operation that we have exposed today shows the lengths that DPRK state-sponsored actors are willing to go to pursue their military and nuclear programmes.”

Andariel is part of DPRK’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) 3rd bureau, and the group’s malicious cyber activities pose an ongoing threat to critical infrastructure organisations globally, the agency believes.

What did group target?

The group primarily targeted defence, aerospace, nuclear and engineering organisations, but also acted against the medical and energy sectors, according to the NCSC, which is part of the GCHQ intelligence agency.

Andariel has tried to obtain information such as contract specification, design drawings and project details, the NCSC claimed.

As part of its operations, Andariel also launched ransomware attacks against US healthcare organisations in order to extort payments and fund further espionage activity.

The advisory outlines how Andariel has evolved from destructive hacks against US and South Korea organisations to carrying out specialised cyber espionage and ransomware attacks.

The hackers carried out ransomware attacks and cyber espionage operations on the same day against the same victim in some cases.

‘The importance of protecting sensitive information’

Mr Chichester added: “It should remind critical infrastructure operators of the importance of protecting the sensitive information and intellectual property they hold on their systems to prevent theft and misuse.

“The NCSC, alongside our US and Korean partners, strongly encourage network defenders to follow the guidance set out in this advisory to ensure they have strong protections in place to prevent this malicious activity.”

This post appeared first on sky.com

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3D-printed blood vessels could improve heart bypass outcomes, research suggests

3D-printed blood vessels which closely mimic the properties of human veins could transform the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, scientists have said.

In a two-stage process, a team of researchers led by the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering used a rotating spindle integrated into a 3D printer to create tubular grafts made from a water-based gel.

Next, they reinforced the printed graft in a process known as electrospinning, which uses high voltage to draw out thin nanofibers, coating the artificial blood vessel in biodegradable polyester molecules.

The team said the flexible gel-like tubes, which are as strong as natural blood vessels and could be easily integrated into the body, could replace the human and synthetic veins currently used to re-route blood flow in heart bypass operations.

According to the researchers, this could limit the scarring, pain and infection risk associated with the removal of human veins in the 20,000 heart bypass operations performed each year in England alone.

The team said the tubes, which can be made between 1mm and 40mm in diameter, could reduce the failure of small synthetic grafts which can be hard to integrate into the body.

Lead author Dr Faraz Fazal said: “Our hybrid technique opens up new and exciting possibilities for the fabrication of tubular constructs in tissue engineering.”

Principal investigator Dr Norbert Radacsi added: “The results from our research address a long-standing challenge in the field of vascular tissue engineering – to produce a conduit that has similar biomechanical properties to that of human veins.

“With continued support and collaboration, the vision of improved treatment options for patients with cardiovascular disease could become a reality.”

The next stage of the study will involve researching the use of the blood vessels in animals, in collaboration with the university’s Roslin Institute, followed by trials in humans.

The research, published in Advanced Materials Technologies, was carried out in collaboration with Heriot-Watt University.

This post appeared first on sky.com

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Harris edging Trump in new poll conducted after Biden’s withdrawal

Vice President Kamala Harris is edging former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical general election match-up, according to a new poll conducted after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.

The New York Times/Siena College released a new survey that found that Trump leads Harris by only one percentage point among likely voters, 48% to 47%. Among registered voters, Trump led Harris by two percentage points. 

The new results reveal a tightening of the race since Democrats changed their nominee when compared to a New York Times poll in July that found Trump was leading Biden by 6 points.

Harris secured a 10-point lead over Trump among voters 45 and younger, a key demographic that the Republican nominee was previously leading in, according to NYT polling just three weeks earlier.

According to the survey, about 79% of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters want Harris to be the party nominee after Biden’s withdrawal from the race, while 27% think Democrats should have a competitive process to select a new nominee.

About 87% of respondents said they either somewhat or strongly approve of Biden’s decision to drop out of the race. Additionally, 45% of respondents say that they do not approve of the job Biden is currently doing as president.

The New York Times/Siene College poll was conducted from July 22 to 24 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

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Six House Dems vote with GOP to condemn Kamala Harris for ‘border czar’ role

The House of Representatives voted along bipartisan lines to condemn Vice President Kamala Harris’ handling of the U.S. southern border, the first piece of legislation targeting Harris since she became the Democrats’ presumptive 2024 nominee.

Six Democrats joined all Republicans in voting for the measure, which passed 220-196.

The House Democrats who voted for the resolution are Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, Don Davis, D-N.C., and Yadira Caraveo, D-Colo.

For years, Republicans have accused Harris of failing her job as ‘border czar’ after President Biden handed her the task of mitigating the ‘root causes’ of illegal immigration in 2021.

It’s quickly becoming the cornerstone of GOP-led attacks against Harris as she gears up for an expected head-to-head race with former President Trump. But the six moderate Democrats who voted to condemn Harris amount to a scathing rebuke of their party’s likely presidential candidate – despite dozens of left-wing lawmakers rushing to endorse her.

During debate on the bill, House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who is leading the effort, accused Harris of overseeing ‘failed and dangerous policies as Joe Biden’s border czar that caused the most catastrophic border crisis in this nation’s history.’

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., similarly opened debate with, ‘We’ve been told that Vice President Harris’ job was to find the root causes of the crisis. Turns out to do so she could have just looked in the mirror.’

Democrats, however, accused Republicans of being openly political in their motivations.

‘Testing new campaign messaging is not a good use of the House’s time,’ said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee.

Thompson called the bill a ‘second-rate attempt at election interference,’ adding, ‘Perhaps it’s also an ethics violation, since my Republican colleagues are blatantly using House resources for campaign purposes. And like so much other campaign literature, this political resolution is premised on falsehoods and supported by cherry-picked statistics.’

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital, ‘The mainstream media can try to rewrite history all they want, but the American people know the truth and our House Republican majority will remind them. Kamala Harris is Biden’s border czar, and the unprecedented invasion at our borders is hers to own.’

Left-wing lawmakers opposing the resolution also argued that Harris’ mission to tackle the root causes of migration was not a directive to oversee border security and operations.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., accused Republicans of ‘making up’ the border czar title in his weekly press conference on Thursday.

The resolution is the House’s last vote before Congress recesses for the month of August, to return after Labor Day.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

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How VP Harris is narrowing down her list of vice presidential candidates 2 weeks before DNC: report

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is reportedly working with a specific short list of candidates to choose her vice presidential pick in the next two weeks before the Democratic National Convention.

Harris’ list of potential running mates, according to NBC News, was whittled down to Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

‘You need someone who’s moderate, obviously, a white male, and I would say she needs someone from a border state,’ Ashley Etienne, a former Harris communications director, told NBC News.

‘I think her choosing a white male counterbalances her race and her gender in a way that could open her up to peeling off many of those Nikki Haley voters, those disaffected Republicans, independents. And I think it rounds off the ticket in a way that I think feels fresh, feels also forward, but also feels fully aware of where we are as a nation.’

NBC reported the Harris campaign is hoping to find a candidate who will appeal to the demographics that President Biden was strongest with, including older white voters and suburban women. Additionally, the campaign reportedly wants a candidate who appeals to white men who aren’t fans of former President Trump but are skeptical about Harris.

If Harris ends up deciding against choosing a white male, NBC News reported Cedric Richmond, a former Biden adviser and Louisiana congressman, has also been floated as a possible running mate.

Many had speculated Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Gov. Gavin Newsom would also be considered, but both have withdrawn their names from consideration.

‘I think it’s Mark Kelly if I had to bet,’ Etienne said.

Arizona Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is running for Senate in Arizona, said Wednesday Kelly would give Harris a ‘jolt’ if she chose him for vice president.

Kelly’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate have spoken highly of him. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the party’s 2016 vice presidential nominee, told NBC News that Kelly would be a ‘superb’ choice for Harris.

Hailing from the key battleground state of Arizona, Kelly could assist Harris in locking up Western states and provide credibility on the border, which he has said is in ‘crisis.’ He has a compelling life story and career, being a former Navy pilot and astronaut. His parents were both police officers, which could help Democrats dodge GOP attacks for being too soft on crime.

Kelly is married to former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., who was shot during a campaign event with constituents in 2011. He cared for her throughout her recovery and continues to do so. Both are leading advocates of gun control reforms. 

A top Democratic Party donor told NBC News Biden is ‘happy as a clam’ to have Harris at the top of the ticket.

‘Vice President Harris has directed her team to begin the process of vetting potential running mates,’ a Harris campaign spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

‘That process has begun in earnest, and we do not expect to have additional updates until the vice president announces who will be serving as her running mate and as the next vice president of the United States.’

Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.

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