Millions of Malians were voting on Sunday in an unprecedented run-off presidential election, which has been overshadowed by widespread allegations of fraud and the threat of Islamist extremist violence. The current president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, is the favourite in the poll, having won 41% of the vote in the first round two weeks ago while challenger Soumaïla Cissé took only 18%.

Extra security forces have been deployed after around 250,000 people, 3% of the electorate, were unable to vote because of insecurity during the first round. Armed attacks and other incidents were recorded at about a fifth of polling stations. Mali is key to the battle against Islamic extremism in the Sahel region and to efforts to restrict illegal immigration to Europe.  French, US and United Nations troops have been fighting militants in the unstable and impoverished country since 2012 when ethnic and Islamist groups seized swaths of territory and the city of Timbuktu.

However, government authority is still weak in many places and observers say militants, some linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State, have regrouped since French troops intervened in 2013 to push them back. They are now expanding their influence across Mali’s desert north and into the fertile centre.(theguardian)…[+]

Six large new wildfires erupted in the United States, pushing the number of major active blazes nationwide to over 100, with more expected to break out sparked by lightning strikes on bone-dry terrain, authorities said on Saturday. More than 30,000 personnel, including firefighters from across the United States and nearly 140 from Australia and New Zealand, were battling the blazes that have consumed more than 1.6m acres (648,000 hectares), according to the National Interagency Coordination Center.

“We are expecting that there will be more fire-starts today,” Jeremy Grams, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma, said in an interview on Saturday. He said dry thunderstorms, which produce lightning but little rain, are expected for parts of the Rocky Mountain region, while the US north-west has critical fire weather conditions that include strong winds and low relative humidity. Firefighters were battling another day of extremely hot temperatures and strong winds on Saturday, the National Interagency Coordination Center said. The fires have scorched states from Washington to New Mexico, with California among the hardest hit.(theguardian)…[+]

It has all the ingredients of a great novel; power, sex, race, and money. Light on policy, and heavy on the personal, Omarosa Manigault Newman’s Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House is a prime candidate for this summer’s best in beach reading.

Yes, this is the very same former contestant on The Apprentice who once bragged to PBS Frontline in 2016 that “every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump”. Now, as the woman who became the most prominent African American in the Trump White House before she was abruptly dismissed last December, she dishes the dirt, and few are spared.

Manigault Newman recalls her days on The Apprentice when Donald Trump, Don Jr, and the model Carol Alt were seated around the table. According to Manigault Newman, Trump turned to his son, and said: “You’ve got to get ass like that. You got to get some ass like that.” At the time, Vanessa, Don Jr’s soon-to-be ex-wife, was pregnant.

And yes, according to Manigault Newman, there is now a tanning bed in the White House. Unhinged also posits that Trump may have received personal counseling from the Rev Paula White, the pastor of the New Destiny Church, a non-denominational megachurch in Apoka, Florida. According to Manigault Newman, White had blocked her from her job of choice at the White House, head of the Office of Public Liaison.(theguardian)…[+]