Kamala Harris becomes first woman of color to secure a major party presidential nomination; Cherelle Parker video promoting Josh Shapiro as VP pick prompts confusion

'The Avengers' actor and high-profile environmentalist Mark Ruffalo is highlighting a letter from Pennsylvanians and grassroots environmental groups that urges Vice President Kamala Harris to remove Gov. Josh Shapiro from consideration to be her running mate in a post on X Friday evening, citing what the residents call Shapiro's "detrimental" handling of a contaminated water crisis in Dimock, Pa. when he was state attorney general.

Ruffalo is urging the Harris campaign to read the letter addressed to the vice president and her team alleging that Shapiro's AG office did not provide the "bulk" water supply promised to Dimock residents while they were awaiting a water pipeline to be built — an agreed upon remedy to the community's water contaminated by fracking and oiling drilling.

After fending off vice presidential speculation at a Friday press conference at Cheyney University, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro hustled from the reception area to a basement library to film a video touting his education initiatives. His cameras were already waiting.

Unfortunately for Shapiro, there was a drumline playing upstairs that the school had invited. His aides dispatched someone to shut it down, but time was running short. A call was made to move the production outside before the aide even returned.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro never engaged in military activities with the Israeli Defense Forces, a spokesperson said Friday in response to questions raised by a decades-old column in which Shapiro indicated he was a “past volunteer in the Israeli army.”

Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said Shapiro participated in a program in high school that included a variety of service projects in Israel, including on an Israeli army base. He also worked on a farm and at a fishery in a kibbutz, Bonder said.

When Vice President Kamala Harris appears for the first time with her running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro said he hopes and plans to be in attendance.

But it’s still unclear what his role will be at that event.

Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia said she was surprised to see the video posted on Friday but thought it was fun and agreed with the message promoting Shapiro as VP.

Ellis-Marseglia was involved in a separate pro-Harris ad arranged by the Parker campaign and said the group taped pro-Shapiro content afterwards but that she didn't realize it would be used.

The Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations on Friday called on Gov. Josh Shapiro to apologize for what they described as “racist remarks” in a decades-old opinion article he wrote as a college student.

"We are deeply disturbed by the racist, anti-Palestinian views that Governor Shapiro expressed in this article,” CAIR-Philadelphia executive director Ahmet Tekelioglu said in a statement. “We are also concerned by his failure to clearly apologize for those hateful comments, especially given how quickly and harshly he has targeted college students protesting the Gaza genocide for their speech.”

Did Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker just announce who Kamala Harris’ running mate will be?

As it turns out, no.

Temple University President Richard Englert confirmed in a message to the university community that Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a campaign rally at the Liacouras Center on Tuesday.

The public university — which Englert says has a "policy of making appropriate spaces available for rent to third-party organizations...regardless of their political party or stance — is not covering any costs associated with the event. The Liacouras Center is also managed and operated by a third-party firm.

Vice President Kamala Harris had secured enough votes from Democratic delegates to officially be the party's nominee for president, Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison said Friday.

The online voting process doesn’t end until Monday, but the campaign marked the moment when she crossed the threshold to have the majority of delegates’ votes.

Gov. Josh Shapiro continued on Friday to decline to answer questions about whether he would meet with Vice President Kamala Harris or if he would accept the job, as Harris nears making her final decision.

Shapiro, who met with Harris’ staff earlier this week, would not say whether he would be meeting with Harris. Harris is scheduled to complete the final interviews for her running mate this weekend.

Gov. Josh Shapiro doubled down that a column he wrote in 1993, in which he argued that peace “will never come” to the Middle East, no longer represents his beliefs.

The comments, first reported by The Inquirer, said he favors a “two-state solution” for Israelis and Palestinians.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, is “a phoney baloney” who “doesn’t know what he believes.

Shapiro, who is a front-runner to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, continued his attacks on Trump and Vance as the veepstakes continue. Harris is expected to unveil her pick by Tuesday at the latest in a Philadelphia rally at the Liacouras Center.

Former president Donald Trump weighed in on Vice President Kamala Harris' search for running mate Friday, saying in an interview on Fox Business that choosing Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro would cause her to "lose the Palestinian vote."

"I think if you pick Shapiro, who happens to be Jewish, she loses her little Palestinian base she has," Trump said. "Because they like me, because they think I'm going to bring peace to the Middle East, even though I'm very strong for Israel."

Following a news conference for PhilaWorks being funded $22.8 million, U.S. Sen Bob Casey (D., Pa.) said Gov. Josh Shapiro would be "ready to take the job" as Kamala Harris's vice president, citing Shapiro as a "great communicator who has shown through his work as governor that he "knows how to lead a big state on major initiatives."

"I think Josh is prepared right now not only to do the work of a candidate for vice president, but most importantly, I think he's prepared to do the job that he and Kamala Harris would be elected in," Casey said.

This week, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has been doing damage control for statements she made in 2019 in support of a ban on hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking.

Politicians seeking votes in Pennsylvania have to stake middle ground on fracking, a method of drilling horizontally through shale to tap pockets of natural gas. Harris’ flip-flop is emblematic of the treacherous path Democrats tread in Pennsylvania where the fossil fuel industry flexes economic and political muscle. At the same, time state has forceful environmentalists pushing for renewable energy.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ first rally with her yet-to-be-named running mate will be at Temple University’s 10,000-seat basketball arena on Tuesday, according to a source with knowledge of the planning.

The rally at the Liacouras Center will be Harris’ first campaign stop in Philadelphia since she became the presumptive Democratic nominee following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race. It will kick off a multistate campaign tour with her running mate, who is expected to be named in the coming days. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a native of the Philadephia suburbs, is among the front-runners for the nomination.

Gov. Josh Shapiro has met with Kamala Harris' campaign as the vetting process for vice presidential candidates continues, two people familiar with the process told The Inquirer.

Shapiro met with the campaign Wednesday, according to the sources, who did not know if the meetings were in person or virtual. The meeting was first reported by Bloomberg.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s campaign schedules are sparse Friday, as both candidates prepare for larger events over the weekend and next week.

Harris has no campaign event appearances scheduled Friday, bringing a break in a week that has brought the presumed Democratic presidential nominee to Atlanta and Houston. Harris was most recently slated to be in Houston Thursday to give a eulogy for former U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas), who died from cancer July 19.

Josh Shapiro was under pressure to run for reelection.

It was 1993 and, at 19 years old, Shapiro was one of the youngest-ever student body presidents at the University of Rochester.