Number watching Biden’s speech lags total who watched Clinton

The final night of the Democratic National Convention averaged 23.6 million viewers, its largest audience of the week, as Joe Biden accepted his party’s nomination for president.

TV viewing of Biden’s speech, delivered from Wilmington, Delaware, fell 21% short of the 29.8 million who watched Hillary Clinton’s address when she was nominated in 2016.

MSNBC had the largest audience with 6.1 million viewers from 10 to 11:30 p.m. EDT, followed by CNN (5.5 million), ABC (2.97 million), Fox News (2.95 million), NBC (2.15 million), and CBS (1.98 million), according to Nielsen data.

PBS, Fox Business and Newsy also carried coverage. Nielsen was to include viewers for those networks in an updated figure later Friday, which would boost the overall audience number.

Opposition in Mali endorses this week’s coup by military

Hundreds of people marched in the streets of Mali’s capital to celebrate the ouster of the former president, who was overthrown by a military coup this week.

The people that gathered Friday in Bamako’s central Independence Square are mainly supporters of Mali’s opposition coalition who had demonstrated since June for Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to step down from power.

The coalition, known as M5-RFP, wasn’t behind Tuesday’s coup d’etat, but it issued a statement expressing support of the downfall of the government and endorsing the junta’s plan to return the country to civilian rule.

The M5-RFP, however, says it “remains deeply attached to democracy.”

It said it would work with the military junta currently running the country and other members of Mali’s society to agree on a transition to return the country to civilian rule.

Federal buildings in Portland closed after bomb threat

At least two federal buildings in Portland have been closed and the FBI is investigating after a car bomb threat was made, the officials said Friday.

The threat, which was received Thursday, warned of the intention to use a car bomb to target federal property in Portland, according to two law enforcement officials. A number of federal offices in the area have been closed because of the threat, the officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Portland office of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court was closed because of a threat of violence in the area, according to the court’s website. Also closed was the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, which was the site of weeks of violent protests last month.

Demonstrators have taken to the streets of Oregon’s largest city nightly since the May police killing of George Floyd and clashed repeatedly with federal agents dispatched to protect the courthouse.

Famed senator, peace envoy undergoing cancer treatment

Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell of Maine, a famed peace envoy in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, started treatment for leukemia at a Boston hospital Friday, a day after his 87th birthday.

The Portland Press Herald obtained an email outlining the diagnosis and treatment from the president and CEO of the Senator George J. Mitchell Scholarship Research Institute.

Meg Baxter wrote in the email to the staff and board that she’d spoken to Mitchell and that treatment for the cancer of the bone marrow was starting Friday at the Dana-farber Cancer Institute, the newspaper reported.

“With the help of his good doctors and a very supportive family, he hopes to achieve remission,” Baxter said Friday in an email confirming the diagnosis and treatment. She declined further comment.

Mitchell, a Democrat, also was a peace envoy in the Middle East focused on the Palestinian-israeli conflict during President Barack Obama’s administration, brokered the historic 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999. He also was tapped by Major League Baseball to investigate