US First Lady Michelle Obama has launched a scintillating attack against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s “sexually predatory behavior.”

Speaking in support of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire on Thursday, Mrs. Obama said that lewd comments made by Trump about women in a 2005 audio recording could not simply be dismissed as a “disturbing footnote in a sad election season.”

“This is not normal. This is not politics as usual,” she said in a speech during which her voice at times was quaking with fury. “This is disgraceful. It is intolerable. And it doesn’t matter what party you belong to. No woman deserves to be treated this way — none of us deserves this kind of abuse.”

The Washington Post released a recording on October 7 in which Trump is heard making vulgar comments about women and having a conversation about trying to have sex with a married woman.

He can be heard saying “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful” women. “I just start kissing them,” he says. “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Trump apologized for the lewd and sexually aggressive remarks, but during the second presidential debate with Clinton, he tried to dismiss the tape as “locker room talk.”

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France says Russian President Vladimir Putin has cancelled his visit to Paris planned for next Tuesday after the French insisted on holding talks only on Syria. “There were contacts between the Kremlin and the Elysee this morning to offer to Putin a working visit on Syria, but excluding all other events that President Hollande could have taken part in,” President Francois Hollande’s office said Tuesday.

“In response to this proposal, Russia has just indicated that it wants to postpone the visit planned on October 19,” a source at the office was quoted as saying. The Kremlin confirmed that President Putin has indefinitely postponed the visit, which envisaged the opening of a Russian cultural center and an exhibition. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the French side had revised the program and insisted that the visit should focus extensively on Syria.

“Regrettably, those events dropped out of the program,” Peskov said, adding it’s up to the French side to explain the reason. “The president decided to cancel the visit,” Peskov said.  Russia on Sunday vetoed a French-drafted resolution calling for an immediate halt of anti-terror airstrikes in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo. Moscow said halting airstrikes “provides cover to terrorists from Jabhat al-Nusra” and other militant groups allied with them. Relations between Paris and Moscow have soured as they back opposite sides in the Syria crisis.

On Monday, Hollande said he had not decided yet whether to meet Putin and claimed that Syrian government forces, backed by Russia, had committed a “war crime” in Aleppo. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault visited Moscow last week before heading to Washington in a bid to garner support for the French draft resolution for a ceasefire in Aleppo.

Last month, Russia brokered a ceasefire in cooperation with the US but it collapsed after an American airstrike killed 83 Syrian troops in Dayr al-Zawr.  The US also failed to implement an important requirement of the peace deal to separate what Washington calls moderate militants from terrorists such as al-Nusra Front members.

Under the deal, the US military had also undertaken to join Russia in targeting terrorists in Aleppo but Washington fulfilled none of the pledges. The calls for a ceasefire come as the Syrian army is tightening the noose around the terrorists in Aleppo as part of its bid to retake the country’s second largest city.

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The Bush family was behind the release of an 11-year-old tape that shows Republican president nominee Donald Trump making lewd comments about women, according James Fetzer, an American scholar and a retired professor in Madison, Wisconsin.

On Friday, The Washington Post released a tape in which Trump is heard making lewd comments about women and having a conversation about trying to have sex with a married woman. GOP officials, including governors, senators and congressmen across the US have disavowed Trump over the sexually obscene remarks caught on a hot microphone.

Even Trump’s apology for the remarks has failed to quell the unprecedented controversy over his comments, prompting growing demands by Republicans for him to quit the race. “During the debate last night against Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump completely diffused the furor that has been created by the release of a tape 11 years ago, in a conversation with producer Billy Bush, who turns out to be a cousin of George Herbert Walker Bush,” Professor Fetzer said.

The scholar said the Bush family is “strongly opposed to Trump, because they represent the New World Order, and he’s out to defeat it. [They] were undoubtedly responsible for the release.”

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Hollywood actor Robert De Niro has criticized Americans for putting an “idiot” like Donald Trump in a position where he might become the US president, and agreed with former secretary of state Colin Powell who called Trump a “national disaster.”

De Niro had been enlisted along with several other actors to speak in a non-partisan video encouraging Americans to vote in the November presidential election. But the 73-year-old actor defied script and delivered a scathing rebuke of Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.

“He’s so blatantly stupid. He’s a punk, he’s a dog, he’s a pig […] a mutt who […] doesn’t do his homework, doesn’t care. He’s an idiot. Colin Powell said it best: He’s a national disaster. He’s an embarrassment to this country,” the Raging Bull actor said in a video surfaced on Friday.

“It makes me so angry that this country has gotten to this point that this fool, this bozo, has wound up where he has,” he stated.

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US House Speaker Paul Ryan and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have criticized Republican Donald Trump over his past crude remarks about women. In a conversation leaked first by The Washington Post on Friday, Trump was caught making vulgar comments about objectifying women.

The audio was recorded in 2005 while Trump was on a bus with former “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush. The business mogul can be heard talking about his failed attempt to seduce a “married” woman. “I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. She was married. And I moved on her very heavily.”

He also says, “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful” women. “I just start kissing them,” he says. “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Clinton tweeted that “this is horrific. We cannot allow this man to become president.” Ryan also said in a statement, “I am sickened by what I heard today,” adding, “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified.”

“I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests,” Ryan added.

Trump issued a statement following the leaked audio, saying, “This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago.” “Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended,” he added.

Clinton has increased her attacks on the real estate tycoon because of his behavior toward women. Trump has also been under attack over his disparaging comments on immigrants and Muslims. He has called for all Muslims to be banned from coming to America. He also advocated forced deportation of Mexican migrants by building a long wall along the US-Mexico border.

A new Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll released Friday shows that Clinton is leading Trump by 5 percent, 43 to 38, among likely voters. The survey is consistent with other Reuters/Ipsos weekly polls conducted since early September that have indicated the former secretary of state leading the business mogul anywhere from 4 to 6 points.

The poll, which was conducted from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, surveyed 1,695 likely voters.

The poll came after the first presidential debate, when Clinton accused Trump of racism, sexism and tax avoidance, putting him on the defensive.

Many observers believe Trump must win at the second presidential debate on Sunday if he is to regain the momentum in the race.

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US President Barack Obama warns that Republican nominee Donald Trump is “unfit” for presidency and would inflict “lasting damage” if he wins the election. In a fundraising email that went out Monday in Florida, Obama called this election cycle more important than his own historic run for the White House, Newsmax reported.

“Winning the presidential election this year is more important than it was in 2008 or 2012,” read the letter. “Now, that may sound incredible – after all, I’m the guy who had the honor of winning those races. And we’ve been able to accomplish amazing, important things for the people of this country because of our victories.”

Obama said that he did not question whether his Republican rivals in 2008 and 2012 – Senator John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts Governor of  Mitt Romney – were fundamentally capable of serving as president.

“I didn’t have to worry that our very democracy would be endangered if they won,” he added. “This year is different. Donald Trump is unfit to handle the demands of the presidency. His election wouldn’t just mean four years of turning back the clock on all our progress – it could very well mean lasting damage to the nation we love,” Obama said.

The president called on supporters of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to “do everything we can” to stop Trump. “Right now, our team is falling short of where we need to be in terms of fundraising, and with 36 days to go, we can’t waste a minute.”

“Hillary and all the Democrats running in Florida need you to help out with $3 right now,” he said. Obama has repeatedly criticized Trump as unfit for the Oval Office, urging American voters to be careful who they will elect as his successor. The president has said that world leaders have expressed grave concerns to him about Trump’s divisive rhetoric.

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US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has retained her comfortable lead over Republican nominee Donald Trump in the aftermath of the first presidential debate, a new national poll shows. The Politico/Morning Consult poll released Monday showed the former secretary of state leading Trump by a 6-point margin in terms of national support, 42 percent to 36 percent.

Coming in at the third was Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson with 9 percent support, followed by Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 2 percent. Another 10 percent said they were undecided. In a head-to-head matchup, Clinton’s lead over the New York businessman was expanded to 7 points, 46 percent to 39 percent. The poll comes a week after the first presidential debate between the two candidates last Monday, which became the most-watched presidential face-off in the history of US elections.

Politico’s pre-debate version of the poll had found Trump at the top with a one-point lead, 39 percent to 38 percent. During the fiery debate, Clinton accused Trump of racism, sexism and tax avoidance, putting the real estate tycoon on the defensive for much of the 90-minute face-off at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.

In the first Politico/Morning Consult poll after the debate, 49 percent of the respondents thought the former first lady had won. This time, nearly 44 percent of the participants said she was going to win the next debate, expected to be held on Sunday evening. Only 22 percent said the same about Trump.

According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, as of Sunday, Clinton held a 2.5-point national edge, leading Trump 47.5 to 45 percent. Fox News’ latest survey also put Clinton in lead at 49 percent, with Trump trailing her at 44 percent. The only recent poll that put Trump on a stronger footing was conducted by LA Times/USC Tracking, according to which the New York businessman led Clinton 47 percent to 42 percent.

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Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is set to campaign along with his former rival, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, in the US state of New Hampshire in the run-up to 2016 presidential election.The Clinton campaign made the announcement on Sunday as the former US secretary of state was preparing for the first national debate before the November 8 Election Day with her rival, GOP nominee Donald Trump. Sanders will appear on the stage alongside Clinton at the University of New Hampshire Field House on Wednesday, two days after the first presidential debate, to talk about the issue of college affordability to American students.

“Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will campaign together in New Hampshire to discuss their shared belief that cost should not be a barrier for anyone who chooses to go to college, and student debt should not hold Americans back after they leave school,” the Clinton campaign said in a statement. “That includes enabling all students with family income up to $125,000 to attend an in-state public college or university tuition-free, covering more than 80 percent of all families.”

On July 12, Clinton and Sanders joined forces at Portsmouth High School, where he endorsed her ahead of the Democratic National Convention. That was the last time the two politicians appeared together in public. Sanders had earlier managed to beat the former New York senator in the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire presidential primary by a landslide margin of 60 percent to 38 percent. As a presidential candidate, the Vermont senator vowed to “fight to make sure that every American who studies hard in school can go to college regardless of how much money their parents make and without going deeply into debt.”

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The campaign of US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is planning to spend $140 million on political advertising in the country’s major media to run until the November 8 Election Day. Trump’s communications director Jason Miller announced on Saturday that the hefty figure would include $100 million in television airtime and $40 million in online political ads, the Associated Press reported.

The plan represents a new approach for the billionaire businessman, who has repeatedly boasted in recent weeks about how much less he has spent than his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and seemed to greatly rely on free media coverage of his large rallies. This is while the campaign of the wealthy Republican presidential hopeful ended August with just $50 million in cash on hand, according to official filings with the nation’s Federal Election Commission.

According to Kantar Media’s political advertising tally, the business mogul has only spent $22 million on TV and radio ads during the general election, while the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has so far spent $124 million on political advertisements. Miller said the new political ad purchases will be devoted to 13 battleground states, including Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, New Mexico and Wisconsin.

The sum equates to nearly $16.7 million in TV ads per week, while Clinton’s campaign is intent on spending $11 million per week, with the option to purchasing more at any time. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to experience strong fundraising online in September, the report added citing campaign aides. Miller further stated that upcoming national television ads would focus on Trump’s key campaign themes, such as the economy and law and order.

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US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will win the race for the White House, says an American professor, who has correctly predicted all the last eight presidents of the United States.

Allan Lichtman, a distinguished professor of history at American University, told The Washington Post that based on a system he calls “Keys to the White House”, Trump will emerge victorious in the November election.

“Based on the 13 keys, it would predict a Donald Trump victory,” he claimed. The professor said he derived the system of true/false statements, “by looking at every American presidential election from 1860 to 1980, and have since used the system to correctly predict the outcomes of all eight American presidential elections from 1984 to 2012.” He said one of the keys he uses to predict the winner of the White House is that the candidate is charismatic or not.

Lichtman said Trump’s rival Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton “doesn’t fit the bill.” Another factor he mentioned against Clinton is that she is going to run after President Barack Obama—a Democrat– who had no major domestic or foreign policy achievements.

He also explained to the newspaper that his prediction is not based upon the polls, adding that “the polls have very recently tightened.” “Clinton is less ahead than she was before, but it’s not because Trump is rising, it’s because Clinton is falling,” he added.

According to the professor, the upcoming election was the most difficult to assess, because “We have never before seen a candidate like Donald Trump, and Donald Trump may well break patterns of history that have held since 1860.” With less than two months remaining to the election, Clinton holds a solid 6-point lead over Trump, according to the McClatchy-Marist poll released Friday.

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