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Biden Cruises to South Carolina Democratic Primary Win

A person casts their vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary at a polling station on February 3, 2024 in West Columbia, South Carolina. (AFP)
A person casts their vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary at a polling station on February 3, 2024 in West Columbia, South Carolina. (AFP)
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Biden Cruises to South Carolina Democratic Primary Win

A person casts their vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary at a polling station on February 3, 2024 in West Columbia, South Carolina. (AFP)
A person casts their vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary at a polling station on February 3, 2024 in West Columbia, South Carolina. (AFP)

US President Joe Biden on Saturday won the South Carolina Democratic primary - the first officially sanctioned race of the party's nominating season - with returns showing him swamping two other candidates, according to Edison Research.

While Biden, 81, faced little opposition, the vote was being closely watched amid concerns about his popularity, especially among Black voters.

Edison Research predicted a Biden win soon after polls closed at 7 p.m. EST (0000 GMT) on Saturday and his margin of victory held steady as the night wore on.

With 93.3% of precincts reporting, Biden had won 116,266 votes, or 96.4% out of 120,643 votes cast, way ahead of his two main challengers, US Representative Dean Phillips and best-selling self-help author Marianne Williamson.

But turnout failed to exceed expectations. Democratic officials interviewed by Reuters had expected somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 total votes, following a county-by-county tour of the Southern state aimed at exciting voters and multiple events featuring Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.

In a victory statement, the Biden campaign said: "In 2020, it was the voters of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and set us on the path to winning the presidency.

"Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the presidency again — and making Donald Trump a loser — again," the campaign said in a statement.

Four years ago, it was South Carolina's Black vote in the state's primary that helped ignite Biden's campaign and ultimately propel him to the White House.

Shortly before the polls in South Carolina closed, Biden arrived in Los Angeles, where he was expected to meet with Black entertainers.

Biden, an unpopular incumbent who faces little competition for his party's nomination in subsequent state primaries leading up to the Nov. 5 US election, was on track for an overwhelming victory in South Carolina.

Besides campaign fears that South Carolina's heavily Black electorate might not be energized this time around, there were also doubts about his age and concerns about high consumer prices and security along the US-Mexican border.

Former President Donald Trump, 77, is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in the general election.

South Carolina has not backed a Democrat for president in the general election since 1976. But because Black people make up more than half of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina, it presented an important test of Biden's appeal with a voting base that typically supports Democrats nine-to-one in presidential races.

Some South Carolina voters were lukewarm about Biden's reelection bid.

"Sometimes I wonder, is his presence enough because you don't see him a lot, you don't hear him a lot," said Martin Orr, 52, a school administrator from McConnells, South Carolina, speaking about Biden, whom he planned to support in the election. "Is it quiet because of his age or his physical condition, or what's going on? I think that's what a lot of people are concerned about right now."

Echoes of 2020

Although there are dozens of nominating contests ahead, Biden has already moved into general-election mode, attacking Trump in a series of speeches. "There's a lot at stake here, folks," Biden told campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday.

Trump is heavily favored to win his party's nomination after triumphing in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two Republican contests in the state-by-state battle. South Carolina plays host to the next major Republican presidential nominating battle, on Feb. 24.

Biden reordered the Democratic calendar to make South Carolina the first nominating contest, ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire, in a move that simultaneously increased the voice of Black voters and all but shut out any potential competition for the nomination.

In 2020, Biden garnered 49% of the 539,263 votes cast in South Carolina's seven-person Democratic primary race. Democrats in the state had accurately predicted he would capture a larger share of a smaller electorate this time against US Representative Phillips and self-help author Williamson.

In New Hampshire, where Biden was not on the ballot last month, he captured 64% of the primary vote thanks to a write-in campaign.

In a recent speech to state Democrats, Phillips said he expected 95% of the state will go for Biden in the primary. But Phillips said he still has a role to play.

"If you want to have a first-in-the-nation primary, you need at least two candidates on the ballot, and I'm happy to be that other guy," the congressman said.

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World

Iran Warns Will Not Give Up Enrichment Despite US War Threat

Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
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Iran Warns Will Not Give Up Enrichment Despite US War Threat

Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Iran will never surrender the right to enrich uranium, even if war "is imposed on us,” its foreign minister said Sunday, defying pressure from Washington.

"Iran has paid a very heavy price for its peaceful nuclear program and for uranium enrichment," Abbas Araghchi told a forum in Tehran.

"Why do we insist so much on enrichment and refuse to give it up even if a war is imposed on us? Because no one has the right to dictate our behavior," he said, two days after he met US envoy Steve Witkoff in Oman.

The foreign minister also declared that his country was not intimidated by the US naval deployment in the Gulf.

"Their military deployment in the region does not scare us," Araghchi said.

World

Washington Post Publisher Will Lewis Stepping Down Days after Big Layoffs

A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
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Washington Post Publisher Will Lewis Stepping Down Days after Big Layoffs

A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO

Washington Post publisher Will Lewis said Saturday that he’s stepping down, ending a troubled tenure three days after the newspaper said that it was laying off one-third of its staff.

Lewis announced his departure in a two-paragraph email to the newspaper's staff, saying that after two years of transformation, “now is the right time for me to step aside.” The Post's chief financial officer, Jeff D'Onofrio, was appointed temporary publisher, The Associated Press reported.

Neither Lewis nor the newspaper's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos participated in the meeting with staff members announcing the layoffs on Wednesday. While anticipated, the cutbacks were deeper than expected, resulting in the shutdown of the Post's renowned sports section, the elimination of its photography staff and sharp reductions in personnel responsible for coverage of metropolitan Washington and overseas.

They came on top of widespread talent defections in recent years at the newspaper, which lost tens of thousands of subscribers following Bezos' order late in the 2024 presidential campaign pulling back from a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, and a subsequent reorienting of its opinion section in a more conservative direction.

Martin Baron, the Post’s first editor under Bezos, condemned his former boss this week for attempting to curry favor with President Donald Trump and called what has happened at the newspaper “a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”

The British-born Lewis was a former top executive at The Wall Street Journal before taking over at The Post in January 2024. His tenure has been rocky from the start, marked by layoffs and a failed reorganization plan that led to the departure of former top editor Sally Buzbee.

His initial choice to take over for Buzbee, Robert Winnett, withdrew from the job after ethical questions were raised about both he and Lewis' actions while working in England. They include paying for information that produced major stories, actions that would be considered unethical in American journalism. The current executive editor, Matt Murray, took over shortly thereafter.

Lewis didn't endear himself to Washington Post journalists with blunt talk about their work, at one point saying in a staff meeting that they needed to make changes because not enough people were reading their work.

This week's layoffs have led to some calls for Bezos to either increase his investment in The Post or sell it to someone who will take a more active role. Lewis, in his note, praised Bezos: “The institution could not have had a better owner,” he said.

“During my tenure, difficult decisions have been taken in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post so it can for many years ahead publish high-quality nonpartisan news to millions of customers each day,” Lewis said.

The Washington Post Guild, the union representing staff members, called Lewis' exit long overdue.

“His legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution,” the Guild said in a statement. “But it’s not too late to save The Post. Jeff Bezos must immediately rescind these layoffs or sell the paper to someone willing to invest in its future.”

Bezos did not mention Lewis in a statement saying D'Onofrio and his team are positioned to lead The Post into “an exciting and thriving next chapter.”

“The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity,” Bezos said. “Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus.”

D'Onofrio, who joined the paper last June after jobs at the digital ad management company Raptive, Google, Zagat and Major League Baseball, said in a note to staff that "we are ending a hard week of change with more change.

“This is a challenging time across all media organizations, and The Post is unfortunately no exception,” he wrote. “I've had the privilege of helping chart the course of disrupters and cultural stalwarts alike. All faced economic headwinds in changing industry landscapes, and we rose to meet those moments. I have no doubt we will do just that, together.”

World

US Concerned About Expansion of Terrorism in Sahel, West Africa

Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)
Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)
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US Concerned About Expansion of Terrorism in Sahel, West Africa

Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)
Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)

The United States is concerned by the “expansion” of al-Qaeda affiliates in the Sahel and West Africa, including Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and ISIS-Sahel’s territorial gains.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz shared the concern in his remarks at this week’s UN Security Council Briefing on Terrorist Threats to International Peace and Security caused by terrorist acts.

Highlighting JNIM and ISIS-Sahel’s territorial gains and use in particular of kidnapping for ransom, Waltz said the threats are increasingly diffuse and complex as they involve foreign fighters converging in multiple conflict zones.

The diplomat cited the latest Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team report, which showed that terror cells continue to adapt and exploit instability across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Waltz said ISIS’ growing focus on Africa, and the resilience of its cells in Syria and Iraq, and the persistent threat from ISIS-K in Afghanistan, truly reinforces the need for sustained, coordinated counterterrorism efforts.

Washington is particularly concerned by terrorist groups’ exploitation of new technologies, such as commercial satellite communications, artificial intelligence, drones and cryptocurrencies, he said.

“All of these further complicates the threat landscape and it requires our vigilance, vigilance from Member States and particularly where I think there is room for all of us to improve – is our coordination with the private sector as we face this threat,” Waltz added.

The ambassador called for further disruption of terrorist financing networks, saying the recent successes in Somalia and in West Africa demonstrate that following the money and stopping the money to these various groups can have bold decisive effects.

He said the US commends UN Member States whose counterterrorism operations have constrained ISIS and al-Qaeda, especially in Iraq, Syria, and Somalia.

He also urged all states to strengthen cooperation, including intelligence sharing and joint operations, and to support the effective implementation and evolution of the 1267 sanctions regime.

“Member States should collaborate on screening and information sharing to prevent terrorist movement across borders, in support of UN Security Council Resolution 2396,” Waltz noted.

Last November, the United Kingdom, which currently chairs the UN Security Council, expressed similar concern about the proliferation of terrorist groups in the Sahel and West Africa.

The US has sent a small team of troops to Nigeria, the general in charge of the US command for Africa said on Tuesday, the first acknowledgment of US forces on the ground since Washington struck by air on Christmas Day.

General Dagvin RM Anderson, head of the US military's Africa Command AFRICOM, said the US team was sent after both countries agreed that more needed to be done to combat the terrorist threat in West Africa.

“That has led to increased collaboration between our nations to include a small US team that brings some unique capabilities from the United States,” he told journalists during a press briefing in Dakar on Tuesday.