Extreme heat at a Colorado airshow caused about 100 people to seek emergency treatment and sent 10 people to area hospitals on Saturday, officials said.

The majority of patients were treated by emergency personnel onsite at the Pikes Peak Regional Airshow, the Colorado Springs Fire Department said in a statement posted on social media.

Colorado Springs Fire Chief Randy Royal said the “quick actions” of organizers and emergency officials prevented serious injuries at the event held at the Colorado Springs Municipal Airport.

The airshow’s website indicated tickets were sold out for both days of the event on Saturday and Sunday, featuring performances by the famed U.S. Navy Blue Angels flight exhibition team and displays of various types of modern and vintage aircraft.

A post on the Pikes Peak Regional Airshow Instagram account advised attendees, “PLEASE remember to stay hydrated during this hot weather. There is a FREE water station at the center of the grounds near the medical station.”

The National Weather Service in Pueblo had issued a heat advisory warning of anticipated temperatures between 93 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the area on Saturday afternoon.

The advisory remained in effect for El Paso County and Pueblo County for Sunday between noon and 7 p.m., the weather service said.

The fire department warned attendees of the airshow’s second day to prepare with water bottles, hats, sunscreen and umbrellas.

“Tomorrow will be hot again and we ask everyone to please stay hydrated, be prepared for hot temperatures, and please stay safe,” Royal said.

A newlywed couple and the bride’s mother were killed in a crash after a semitruck overturned on Interstate 70 west of Denver, spilling its cargo of large plastic tubes, just days after the wedding, family members said.

Ruben Rodriguez, 33; Juliana Rodriguez Plata, 37, and her mother, Luz Melba Martinez, who had traveled from Colombia for the Aug. 10 wedding, were killed in the crash Thursday morning, Ruben Rodriguez’s sister-in-law, Janell Rodriguez, told KMGH-TV.

The bride’s father, Carlos Joaquin Plata, and the couple’s 1-year-old son Danny were injured, Janell Rodriguez also said.

Their westbound car was hit by one of the tubes, which weigh about 500 pounds each, after an eastbound truck flipped over, spilling nearly 100 plastic tubes on both sides of the highway, according to police. All three people taken to the hospital, including the truck driver, were later released, police said Friday.

The family was on the way to the mountains for a honeymoon vacation when the crash happened, Janell Rodriguez said.

The family is still reeling.

“And then the baby without both of his parents, you know? It’s hard. It’s hard for the family. So we’re just gathered here right now just trying to be strong together,” Janell Rodriguez said.

Police said they were working with prosecutors on possible charges being filed in connection with the series of crashes triggered by the truck overturning.

At least six other vehicles besides the truck were involved, they said. However, with a debris field spanning the length of more than two football fields, police cautioned the investigation would likely take weeks, rather than days.

“Our hearts go out to the families that have been impacted by the tragic loss of life yesterday,” police said in a statement posted on social media.

A man who was convicted of pointing a gun at Burger King drive-thru worker who wouldn’t accept drugs for payment and later shooting at other people elsewhere the same night has been sentenced to 143 years in prison.

Prosecutors who announced the sentence Thursday said the drive-thru incident was the beginning of a series of crimes Eugene Robertson carried out in the Denver suburb of Aurora on Oct. 17, 2022. No one was wounded.

In April, a jury found Robertson guilty of 17 crimes, including eight counts of attempted murder. The sentences for many of the crimes were stacked on top of each other, leading to a long sentence. Robertson had faced a maximum sentence of more than 400 years when he was sentenced Aug. 9.

“I hope this century-long prison sentence serves as a warning that my prosecutors and I will not tolerate violent crime in our community,” 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner said in a statement.

After Robertson pointed the gun at the drive-thru worker, prosecutors said he walked into a convenience store across the street and pointed a gun at the head of a clerk. When Robertson saw there was a surveillance video camera system there, he shot at the screen and left, then shot toward two people outside in the parking lot, Kellner’s office said.

The Sentinel Colorado in Aurora previously reported that a witness at the convenience store store told police there seemed to be “something off” about Robertson and that he was “talking about God” and carrying a Bible with a purple cover.

Later that night, a woman who was friends with Robertson called 911 to report that he had fired shots after she refused to open the door of her apartment, where she was with several people, prosecutors said.

Police spotted Robertson at the woman’s apartment complex. He hid behind some bushes before being arrested, prosecutors said.

LOVELAND — A Colorado man has been charged with strangulation and child abuse after allegedly grabbing a teen by the neck and throwing him on the floor of an In-N-Out Burger as the teen was apologizing for splashing water on a woman.

The 55-year-old Loveland man surrendered to police on Tuesday, the day a warrant was issued for his arrest, police said. His bail was set at $75,000 and his next court appearance is Aug. 23, court records said.

He has not yet entered a plea.

Officers were called to the restaurant in Loveland at about 1 a.m. on Aug. 4. A 15-year-old boy told officers he and two friends were splashing water on one another when a woman was accidentally splashed.

The teen approached her table to apologize when the man assaulted him, police said.

The man and woman had left the restaurant by the time officers arrived.

Officers reviewed videos of the incident and witnesses identified the suspect, police said.

By Will Weissert, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is branching out this week and holding his first solo events as Vice President Kamala Harris ’ running mate, making a five-state dash for campaign cash and addressing a key union gathering.

Walz will be in Colorado on Wednesday.

Walz will speak Tuesday at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees convention in Los Angeles before headlining a campaign fundraiser in Newport Beach, California. The 1.4-million-member union has endorsed Harris.

“With all the anxiety and uncertainty in the country, we have a responsibility to bring people together around common values,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said in his convention keynote address on Monday. Then referring to top Republicans, he added, “Instead, antiworker forces have decided to double down on the most extreme, divisive agenda you can imagine.”

On Wednesday, Walz will address fundraisers in Denver and Boston, and he’ll do more of the same on Thursday in Newport, Rhode Island, and Southampton, New York.

The Denver fundraiser will be hosted by Democratic megadonor Tim Gill, who made his fortune as a software entrepreneur. Gov. Jared Polis is a featured guest.

Walz’s focus on fundraising this week comes after he stormed through a series of battleground states with Harris last week to introduce himself to voters nationally. The two held rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada.

Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who was announced as Republican Donald Trump ‘s running mate during the GOP convention in Milwaukee, had his own rollout largely overshadowed by unforeseen events. It came after an assassination attempt against the former president the previous weekend and before President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection bid and endorsed Harris during the following one.

Walz has salted his early campaign appearances with talk of joy and positivity, stressing that he and Harris are championing being kind and neighborly. But he has frequently laid into Trump’s policies and the former president’s 34 felony counts in a New York hush money case.

Vance, meanwhile, has leaned more heavily into the traditional No. 2 role of lobbing political attacks on the opposition. He spent much of last week holding his own events in the same states that Harris and Walz visited and arguing the Democratic ticket was too ultra-liberal for most Americans.

The senator has also suggested that Harris chose Walz over another contender for running mate, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, because Shapiro’s public support for Israel in its war with Hamas might have angered some progressives.

Vance said picking Walz meant that Harris took advice from the “Hamas wing of her party.” He also criticized Walz’s military record, arguing that his retirement ahead of his National Guard Unit’s deployment to Iraq and his implication that he had served in a combat zone suggested “stolen valor garbage.” Over the weekend, the Harris campaign said that Walz “misspoke” when he referenced “weapons of war that I carried in war.”

Orange County Republican Party Chairman Fred Whitaker, picked up on charges that Walz has been imprecise with his characterizations of his military service, saying in a statement Monday that the governor, “may walk away heavy with campaign cash from liberal donors but he will leave with the same empty and fake record he came in with.”

Vance has also faulted Harris and Walz for not sitting for media interviews. When his plane coincided with Harris’ on a tarmac in Wisconsin, where both sides held events last week, Vance began walking toward the vice president’s motorcade, saying he wanted to talk to reporters traveling with her since she’d not done it herself.

Harris has yet to sit for a major interview since Biden left the race but has said she wants to do that later in the month. She briefly took questions from the press traveling with her twice during her battleground travels last week — something Walz did not do, except for one session, answering questions off-the-record, which meant his answers couldn’t be publicly shared.

Vance has appeared on a variety of podcasts angling to appeal to a younger voter set. At age 40, he’s closer to that demographic than any of the other three top-of-the-ticket contenders. Trump is 78, Harris is 59 and Walz is 60.

Colorado Sun reporter Jesse Paul contributed to this report.

By Jacques Billeaud, The Associated Press

PHOENIX — Former President Donald Trump’s campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Rudy Giuliani, will cooperate with Arizona prosecutors in exchange for charges being dropped against her in a fake electors case, the state attorney general’s office announced Monday.

Ellis has previously pleaded not guilty to fraud, forgery and conspiracy charges in the Arizona case. Seventeen other people charged in the case have pleaded not guilty to the felony charges — including Giuliani, Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows and 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump had won Arizona.

“Her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the State in proving its case in court,” Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. “As I stated when the initial charges were announced, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined — it is far too important. Today’s announcement is a win for the rule of law.”

Last year, Ellis was charged in Georgia after she appeared with Giuliani at a December 2020 hearing hosted by state Republican lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol during which false allegations of election fraud were made. She had pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. The cooperation agreement signed by Ellis in the Arizona case requires her to provide truthful information to the Attorney General’s Office and testify honestly in proceedings in any state or federal court. Prosecutors can withdraw from the deal and refile charges if Ellis violates the agreement.

Prosecutors have already asked a court to dismiss the Arizona charges against Ellis. It wasn’t immediately clear if a judge had yet approved the request.

The Associated Press left messages with Ellis’ attorney, Matthew Brown, after the agreement was announced Monday.

While not a fake elector in Arizona, prosecutors say Ellis made false claims of widespread election fraud in the state and six others, encouraged the Arizona Legislature to change the outcome of the election and encouraged then-Vice President Mike Pence to accept Arizona’s fake elector votes.

The indictment said Ellis, Giuliani and other associates were at a meeting at the Arizona Legislature on Dec. 1, 2020, with then-House Speaker Rusty Bowers and other Republicans when Giuliani and his team asked the speaker to hold a committee hearing on the election.

When Bowers asked for proof of election fraud, Giuliani said he had proof but Ellis had advised that it was left back at a hotel room, the indictment said. No proof was provided to Bowers.

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Ellis also is barred from practicing law in Colorado for three years after her guilty plea in Georgia.

Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.

Arizona authorities unveiled the felony charges in late April. Overall, charges were brought against 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump had won Arizona, five lawyers connected to the former president and two former Trump aides. President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment.

The 11 people who claimed to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and asserting that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.

By Andrew Dampf, The Associated Press

SAINT-DENIS, France — American-born Palestinian runner Layla Almasri realizes the weight of responsibility that she and her team carry at the Paris Olympics.

It’s about far more than merely competing.

“I think I can speak for all eight of us here at the Olympics,” Almasri said after competing in the 800 meters Friday. “We’re definitely diplomats for our people as well as athletes.”

It’s a role that’s reinforced every time she turns on the TV or looks at her phone and sees images of people struggling in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.

“Every single time. It’s really difficult to see,” Almasri said. “Mothers with my mother’s face on them. Children who look like me when I was a kid. It’s heartbreaking. And it almost feels like I was just hit with a strike of lightning, of luck, to be able to live somewhere where I don’t have to face the things that they’re facing.”

So it hardly mattered that Almasri finished last in her heat and 48th of the 49 finishers in the 800 heats — ahead of a competitor from Kosovo.

“I wasn’t even looking at the clock,” she said. “Just soaked in the moment. The crowd was really what I was focused on. And of course (I had) the best view in the house watching that race. Right on the track.”

After her father left Nablus for Colorado, Almasri was born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Last year, she earned a master’s degree in health promotion from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, where she’s now an assistant coach for the women’s cross-country team.

She grew up eating Palestinian food and always has felt connected to her father’s homeland.

“It’s in my blood and it’s in my heart,” said Almasri, who won a bronze medal in the 1,500 at the Arab athletics championships last year.

Almasri first visited Nablus two years ago.

“It was beautiful,” she said. “It was home. All my cousins, all my aunts and uncles are there. So I just immediately fit right in.”

Palestine Olympic Committee president Jibril Rajoub has said about 400 athletes of varying levels are estimated to have died since October. The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing approximately 1,200. The war has killed more than 39,200 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Perhaps the most prominent Palestinian athlete to die in the war was long-distance runner Majed Abu Maraheel, who in 1996 in Atlanta became the first Palestinian to compete in the Olympics. He died of kidney failure earlier this year after he was unable to be treated in Gaza and could not be evacuated to Egypt, Palestinian officials said.

“We have a guy I raced with last year who’s been stuck in Gaza,” Almasri said. “He’s very talented and he’s still in Gaza.”

The attention on the Palestine team has been big inside the athletes village.

“Everybody wants a pin. We’re stopped for photos in the dining hall constantly,” Almasri said. “It’s really incredible to see how many people are really surprised to see us and happy to see us.”

There is no extra security for the Palestinians.

“Fortunately, we don’t need it and we don’t have any,” Almasri said. “We’re really lucky to have such a positive environment to be in.”

Have the Palestinians crossed paths with members of the Israeli team?

“We see them, but it’s just business as usual,” Almasri said. “We’re focused on ourselves and we’re sure they’re focused as well.”

By Graham Dunbar, The Associated Press

PARIS — What was expected to be a simple coronation of Salt Lake City as the 2034 Winter Olympic host turned into complicated Olympic politics Wednesday, as the IOC pushed Utah officials to end an FBI investigation into a suspected doping coverup.

The International Olympic Committe formally awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake in an 83-6 vote, but only after a contingent of Utah politicians and U.S. Olympic leaders signed an agreement that pressures them to lobby the federal government.

The International Olympic Committee is angry about an ongoing U.S. federal investigation of suspected doping by Chinese swimmers who were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Games despite positive drug tests. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted Chinese explanations for the tests, and U.S. officials are now investigating that decision under an anti-conspiracy law passed after the Russian doping scandal at the Sochi Winter Games.

President Thomas Bach wants to make sure WADA is the lead authority on doping cases in Olympic sports, especially with the Summer Olympics headed to Los Angeles in 2028. The IOC added a clause to Salt Lake’s host contract, effectively demanding that local organizers — including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox — push to shut down the investigation or risk losing the Olympics.

“That was the only way that we could guarantee that we would get the Games,” Cox said after the announcement. If the U.S. does not respect the “supreme authority of WADA, the governor said, ”they can withdraw the Games from us.”

Even in the world of Olympic diplomacy, it was a stunning power move to force government officials to publicly agree to do the IOC’s lobbying.

U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee Chair Gene Sykes said some officials and athletes from other countries are worried that the anti-conspiracy law would allow the U.S. to arrest or subpoena Olympic visitors.

Some officials “have been very anxious about what it would mean to the sports figures who came to the United States, somehow they were subject to uncertainty in terms of their freedom of travel,” Sykes said. “And that is always concerning to people who don’t understand the United States.”

The capital city of Utah was the only candidate after the IOC gave Salt Lake City exclusive negotiating rights last year in a fast-tracked process.

The campaign team presenting the bid on stage to IOC members included Cox, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and Alpine ski great Lindsey Vonn. Back home, a 3 a.m. public watch party gathered to see the broadcast from Paris.

The clause inserted into the contract requires Utah officials to work with current and future U.S. presidents and Congress “to alleviate your concerns” about the federal investigation into doping.

WADA’s role is under scrutiny for accepting a Chinese investigation that declared all 23 swimmers were contaminated by traces of a banned heart medication in a hotel kitchen. Evidence to prove the theory has not been published. The implicated swimmers won three gold medals in Tokyo, and some are also competing in Paris.

The case can be investigated in the U.S. under federal legislation named for a whistleblower of Russian state doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. The IOC and WADA lobbied against the law, known as the Rodchenkov Act, which gives U.S. federal agencies wide jurisdiction of doping enforcement worldwide.

“We will work with our members of Congress,” Gov. Cox told Bach and IOC voters ahead of the 2034 vote, “we will use all the levers of power open to us to resolve these concerns.”

The head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, who has often publicly feuded with WADA, Travis Tygart, said in a statement it was “shocking to see the IOC itself stooping to threats in an apparent effort to silence those seeking answers to what are now known as facts.”

Salt Lake City first hosted the Winter Games in 2002. That bid was hit with a bribery scandal, which led to anti-corruption reforms at the IOC.

Future U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney was brought in to clean up the Games, which went off well despite tightened security. The Games were the biggest international sports event hosted by the U.S. following the Sept. 11 attacks five months earlier

Utah Gov. Cox confirmed Romney is already involved in the lobbying demanded by the IOC.

It is an Olympic tradition for lawmakers and even heads of state to come to an IOC meeting and plead their case to be anointed as an host city.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair made key interventions at past IOC meetings to secure Olympics for their countries. U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Copenhagen in 2009 did not help in Chicago’s losing cause for the 2016 Summer Games that went to Rio de Janeiro.

For its second turn, Salt Lake City will get almost 10 full years to prepare — the longest lead-in for a modern Winter Games — amid longer-term concerns about climate change affecting snow sports and reducing the pool of potential hosts.

It will be the fifth Winter Games in the U.S. Before Salt Lake City in 2002, there was Lake Placid in 1980 and 1932, and Squaw Valley — now known as Olympic Valley — in 1960.

In a separate decision earlier in Paris, the 2030 Winter Games was awarded to France for a regional project split between ski resorts in the Alps and the French Riviera city Nice.

That project needs official signoff from the national government being formed, and the Prime Minister yet to be confirmed, after recent elections called by President Emmanuel Macron. He helped present the 2030 bid Wednesday to IOC members.

Hours later, the member list included Sykes, the USOPC chair, who became a full IOC member with an 82-3 vote.

By Chris Megerian, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — She’s already broken barriers, and now Kamala Harris could shatter several more after President Joe Biden abruptly ended his reelection bid and endorsed her.

Biden announced Sunday that he was stepping aside after a disastrous debate performance catalyzed fears that the 81-year-old was too frail for a second term.

Harris is the first woman, Black person or person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. If she becomes the Democratic nominee and defeats Republican candidate Donald Trump in November, she would be the first woman to serve as president.

Biden said Sunday that choosing Harris as his running mate was “the best decision I’ve made” and endorsed her as his successor.

“Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump,” he wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Let’s do this.”

Harris described Biden’s decision to step aside as a “selfless and patriotic act,” saying he was “putting the American people and our country above everything else.”

“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said. “Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election.”

Prominent Democrats followed Biden’s lead by swiftly coalescing around Harris on Sunday. However, her nomination is not a foregone conclusion, and there have been suggestions that the party should hold a lightning-fast “mini primary” to consider other candidates before its convention in Chicago next month.

Polling on Kamala Harris as president is mixed

A recent poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Harris would do a good job in the top slot. About 2 in 10 Democrats don’t believe she would, and another 2 in 10 say they don’t know enough to say.

The poll showed that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of Harris, whose name is pronounced “COMM-a-la,” while about half have an unfavorable opinion.

A former prosecutor and U.S. senator from California, Harris’ own bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination imploded before a single primary vote was cast. She later became Biden’s running mate, but she struggled to find her footing after taking office as vice president. Assigned to work on issues involving migration from Central America, she was repeatedly blamed by Republicans for problems with illegal border crossings.

However, Harris found more prominence as the White House’s most outspoken advocate for abortion rights after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She has also played a key role in reaching out to young people and voters of color.

In addition, Harris’ steady performance after Biden’s debate debacle solidified her standing among Democrats in recent weeks.

Even before Biden’s endorsement, Harris was widely viewed as the favorite to replace him on the ticket. With her foreign policy experience and national name recognition, she has a head start over potential challengers, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Harris will seek to avoid the fate of Hubert Humphrey, who as vice president won the Democratic nomination in 1968 after President Lyndon Johnson declined to run for reelection amid national dissatisfaction over the Vietnam War. Humphrey lost that year to Republican Richard Nixon.

Nixon resigned in 1974 during the Watergate scandal and was replaced by Vice President Gerald Ford. Ford never won a term of his own.

Vice presidents are always in line to step into the top job if the president dies or is incapacitated. However, Harris has faced an unusual level of scrutiny because of Biden’s age. He was the oldest president in history, taking office at 78 and announcing his reelection bid at 80. Harris is 59.

She addressed the question of succession in an interview with The Associated Press during a trip to Jakarta in September 2023.

“Joe Biden is going to be fine, so that is not going to come to fruition,” she stated. “But let us also understand that every vice president — every vice president — understands that when they take the oath they must be very clear about the responsibility they may have to take over the job of being president.”

“I’m no different.”

Working for change from inside the system

Harris was born Oct. 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, to parents who met as civil rights activists. Her hometown and nearby Berkeley were at the heart of the racial and social justice movements of the time, and Harris was both a product and a beneficiary.

She spoke often about attending demonstrations in a stroller and growing up around adults “who spent full time marching and shouting about this thing called justice.” In first grade, she was bused to school as part of the second class to integrate Berkeley public education.

Harris’ parents divorced when she was young, and she was raised by her mother alongside her younger sister, Maya. She attended Howard University, a historically Black school in Washington, and joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, which became a source of sisterhood and political support over the years.

After graduating, Harris returned to the San Francisco Bay Area for law school and chose a career as a prosecutor, a move that surprised her activist family.

She said she believed that working for change inside the system was just as important as agitating from outside. By 2003, she was running for her first political office, taking on the longtime San Francisco district attorney.

Few city residents knew her name, and Harris set up an ironing board as a table outside grocery stores to meet people. She won and quickly showed a willingness to chart her own path. Months into her tenure, Harris declined to seek the death penalty for the killer of a young police officer slain in the line of duty, fraying her relationship with city cops.

The episode did not stop her political ascent. In late 2007, while still serving as district attorney, she was knocking on doors in Iowa for then-candidate Barack Obama. After he became president, Obama endorsed her in her 2010 race for California attorney general.

Once elected to statewide office, she pledged to uphold the death penalty despite her moral opposition to it. She refused to defend Proposition 8, a voter-backed initiative banning same-sex marriage. Harris also played a key role in a $25 billion settlement with the nation’s mortgage lenders following the foreclosure crisis.

As killings of young Black men by police received more attention, Harris implemented some changes, including tracking racial data in police stops, but didn’t pursue more aggressive measures such as requiring independent prosecutors to investigate police shootings.

Harris’ record as a prosecutor would eventually dog her when she launched a presidential bid in 2019, as some progressives and younger voters demanded swifter change. But during her time on the job, she also forged a fortuitous relationship with Beau Biden, Joe Biden’s son who was then Delaware’s attorney general. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015, and his friendship with Harris figured heavily years later as his father chose Harris to be his running mate.

Harris married entertainment lawyer Douglas Emhoff in 2014, and she became stepmother to Emhoff’s two children, Ella and Cole, who referred to her as “Momala.”

2020 presidential bid was marred by infighting

Harris had a rare opportunity to advance politically when Sen. Barbara Boxer, who had served more than two decades, announced she would not run again in 2016.

In office, Harris quickly became part of the Democratic resistance to Trump and gained recognition for her pointed questioning of his nominees. In one memorable moment, she pressed now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on whether he knew any laws that gave government the power to regulate a man’s body. He did not, and the line of questioning galvanized women and abortion rights activists.

A little more than two years after becoming a senator, Harris announced her campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. But her campaign was marred by infighting and she failed to gain traction, ultimately dropping out before the Iowa caucuses.

Eight months later, Biden selected Harris as his running mate. As he introduced her to the nation, Biden reflected on what her nomination meant for “little Black and brown girls who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities.”

“Today, just maybe, they’re seeing themselves for the first time in a new way, as the stuff of presidents and vice presidents,” he said.

By Colleen Long and Zeke Miller, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race for the White House on Sunday, ending his bid for reelection following a disastrous debate with Donald Trump that raised doubts about his fitness for office just four months before the election.

The decision comes after escalating pressure from Biden’s Democratic allies to step aside following the June 27 debate, in which the 81-year-old president trailed off, often gave nonsensical answers and failed to call out the former president’s many falsehoods. Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Trump, and encouraged his party to united behind her.

Biden plans to serve out the remainder of his term in office, which ends at noon ET on Jan. 20, 2025.

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote in a letter posted to his X account.

Nearly 30 minutes later, Biden throw his support behind Harris, the party’s instant favorite for the nomination at its August convention in Chicago.

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” he said in another post on X. “Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”

Biden’s decision came as he has been isolating at his Delaware beach house after being diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, huddling with a shrinking circle of close confidants and family members about his political future. Biden said he would address the nation later this week to provide “detail” about his decision.

The announcement is the latest jolt to a campaign for the White House that both political parties see as the most consequential election in generations, coming just days after the attempted assassination of Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.

A party’s presumptive presidential nominee has never stepped out of the race so close to the election. The closest parallel would be President Lyndon Johnson who, besieged by the Vietnam War, announced in March 1968 that he would not seek another term.

Now, Democrats have to urgently try to bring coherence to the nominating process in a matter of weeks and persuade voters in a stunningly short amount of time that their nominee can handle the job and beat Trump. And for his part, Trump must shift his focus to a new opponent after years of training his attention on Biden.

Leaving the race “with the future of Americans in his heart”

The decision marks a swift and stunning end to Biden’s 52 years in electoral politics, as donors, lawmakers and even aides expressed to him their doubts that he could convince voters that he could plausibly handle the job for another four years.

Colorado’s U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, who last week said it would be in the best interest of the country if Biden were to step aside, on Sunday said the president was someone who “has always put the country before any personal concern or ambitions. It’s just who he is.”

Early Sunday morning Gov. Jared Polis appeared on CNN’s State of the Union program and said there was reasonable skepticism about Biden’s continued candidacy, but said it was ultimately up Biden to decide whether to focus on being the best president possible for the next six months, or if he has the energy and ability to be a candidate for the next three and half months.

“This could not have been an easy decision but it is the right one, and Joe Biden promised Americans he would always do what’s right for our country and once again he has delivered,” Polis said after Biden’s announcement. “I know President Biden and Jill are making this choice with the future of Americans in their hearts. The United States cannot afford another potential four years of a disastrous Trump presidency that would trample on rights and freedoms, derail our economy, increase costs and harm our international standing.”

Biden won the vast majority of delegates and every nominating contest but one, which would have made his nomination a formality. Now that he has dropped out, those delegates will be free to support another candidate.

Harris, 59, appeared to be the natural successor, in large part because she is the only candidate who can directly tap into the Biden campaign’s war chest, according to federal campaign finance rules.

Colorado will have 87 delegates to the Democratic convention next month in Chicago. With Biden out of the race they are free to support whomever they want.

Earlier this month, former state Rep. Polly Baca, a DNC delegate from Denver, told The Colorado Sun that if Biden were to drop out, Harris is the only choice to replace him. “If you don’t choose Kamala then it’s an insult to women and people of color,” she said.

The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to be held Aug. 19-22 in Chicago, but the party had announced that it would hold a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden before in-person proceedings begin.

It remained to be seen whether other candidates would challenge Harris for the nomination or how party may need to adjust its rules again to smooth Harris’ nomination on the floor.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, who sparred with Biden during a call with Congressional Democrats earlier this month after Crow questioned his fitness, particularly on the issue of national security, said in a prepared statement that the president “has always put our country first. In 2020, President Biden saved us from a second Trump term and by stepping aside, he may have done so again.

“I am confident Americans will rise up and meet this moment,” the Colorado congressman said. “Onward to victory.”

In 2020, Biden pitched himself as a transitional figure who wanted to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders. But once he secured the job he spent decades struggling to attain, he was reluctant to part with it.

Biden was once asked whether any other Democrats could beat Trump.

“Probably 50 of them,” Biden replied. “No, I’m not the only one who can defeat him, but I will defeat him.”

Biden is already the country’s oldest president and had insisted repeatedly that he was up for the challenge of another campaign and another term, telling voters all they had to was “watch me.”

And watch him they did. His poor debate performance prompted a cascade of anxiety from Democrats and donors who said publicly what some had said privately for months, that they did not think he was up to the job for four more years.

Biden believed he still was fit for the job

Concerns over Biden’s age have dogged him since he announced he was running for reelection, though Trump is just three years younger at 78. Most Americans view the president as too old for a second term, according to an August 2023 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. A majority also doubt his mental capability to be president, though that is also a weakness for Trump.

Biden often remarked that he was not as young as he used to be, doesn’t walk as easily or speak as smoothly, but that he had wisdom and decades of experience, which were worth a whole lot.

“I give you my word as a Biden. I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job,” he told supporters at a rally in North Carolina a day after the debate. “Because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high.”

But voters had other problems with him, too — he has been deeply unpopular as a leader even as his administration steered the nation through recovery from a global pandemic, presided over a booming economy and passed major pieces of bipartisan legislation that will impact the nation for years to come. A majority of Americans disapprove of the way he’s handling his job, and he’s faced persistently low approval ratings on key issues including the economy and immigration.

Biden’s age surfaced as a major factor during an investigation of his handling of classified documents. Special counsel Robert Hur said in February that the president came across in interviews with investigators as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

The president’s allies seized on the statement as gratuitous and criticized Hur for including it in his report, and Biden himself angrily pushed back on descriptions of how he spoke about his late son.

Biden’s motivation for running was deeply intertwined with Trump. He had retired from public service following eight years serving as vice president under Barack Obama and the death of his son Beau but decided to run after Trump’s comments following a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, when white supremacists descended on the city to protest the removal of its Confederate memorials.

Trump said: “You had some very bad people in the group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. On both sides.”

That a sitting president didn’t unequivocally condemn racism and white supremacy deeply offended Biden. Then, Biden won the 2020 election and Trump refused to concede and stood by for hours while his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, beating and bloodying law enforcement in a failed attempt to overturn the certification of Biden’s win.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden once said during at a campaign event.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Biden’s decision to leave the race, but he and his team had made their preference for facing Biden clear.

Colorado politicians on both sides, from Gov. Jared Polis to U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, were quick to respond on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.

This is a developing story that will be updated. The Colorado Sun contributed to this report.