The US unemployment rate dropped to 3.5 per cent last month as the US economy added 528,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday.

Despite persistent inflation, the Department of Labor said job growth in the US was “widespread” in July, with “leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, and health care” sectors all adding jobs.

Such impressive job growth will further intensify the debate as to whether the US is slipping into a recession amid the growing consensus that the economy is running out of steam following the post-pandemic lockdown boom. Many economists believe a strong jobs market is preventing that from happening.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, DC.

President Joe Biden will continue working from the White House residence after again testing positive for Covid-19 test on Friday, the White House has said.

In a memorandum released by the White House press office, Physician to the President Dr Kevin O’Connor said Mr Biden “continues to feel well” despite continuing to exhibit rebound positivity after the Paxlovid treatment he underwent after initially testing positive for the coronavirus last month.

Andrew Feinberg has the latest on the president’s condition.

The House of Representatives will return on 12 August to give final passage to the Senate reconciliation Inflation Reduction Act bill, per majority leader Steny Hoyer.

Few states so obsess Donald Trump as Wisconsin, which the former president won in 2016 but lost in 2020. Mr Trump has lately been fixating on what he claims is evidence that the state’s vote for Joe Biden was compromised, and is insisting that Republicans in the state legislature somehow have the power to formally overturn the election.

There is no sign of that happening, and Mr Trump will be appearing in Wisconsin tonight with primary challengers tackling Republicans who decline to do his bidding. And just in time for his visit, the Republican Party is announcing that it will hold its 2024 presidential convention in the state’s largest city, Milwaukee.

Liz Cheney has given an interview to CNN in which she celebrates Mike Pence’s actions on 6 January 2021, calling him nothing less than “a hero” for safeguarding the certification of the 2020 election.

Ms Cheney’s primary on 16 August puts her up against a candidate endorsed by both Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy, but Mr Pence has not so far endorsed anyone.

The prison experiences of 6 January riot defendants have become something of a minor cause celebre on part of the American right, at least the part intent on radically reframing the Capitol attack and its significance.

This is being taken to a new extreme at CPAC, where a performance art installation features a fictional rioter in a red Trump hat weeping in jail.

Blake Masters won Arizona’s GOP Senate primary on Tuesday with Donald Trump’s blessing – but with the state more competitive than ever, he is already rebranding himself to appeal to a wider electorate. In a new ad, his wife celebrates that “He’s in it because he loves his country so much, and he loves this state so much” – before Mr Masters’ new tagline appears: “A true independent for Arizona”.

Neither Mr Trump nor the Republican Party are mentioned at any point.

Mr Masters was hit by an unedifying story late in his primary campaign when reporters resurfaced online posts in which he had floated the conspiracy theory that the US was manipulated into joining the Second World War by shadowy Jewish elites. He was endorsed in his campaign by the founder of an infamous neo-Nazi website – an endorsement he rejected.

Herschel Walker, the Trump-backed Republican Senate candidate in Georgia, has worried many in the GOP with his variously erratic and controversial public appearances, which combined with his history of personal scandals have left many observers worrying he could cost them a winnable seat.

Having avoided taking part in any debates during the Republican primary, Mr Walker has since agreed to debate his rival, Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock. Bizarrely, he claims that the debates were his idea and that Mr Walker is somehow wary of talking to him in front of Georgia voters, when in fact it was Mr Warnock who spent weeks challenging Mr Walker to accept his invitation.

Former president Donald Trump’s preferred candidate in Arizona won the Republican gubernatorial primary, meaning that all of Mr Trump’s preferred candidates in the state won their contests on Tuesday.

Kari Lake, a former news anchor, triumphed over Karrin Taylor Robson, who was endorsed by former vice president Mike Pence and current Republican Governor Doug Ducey.

Ms Lake has been one of the most prominent parroters of Mr Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Despite her victory, Ms Lake still claimed there was voter fraud in her race. “We out-voted the fraud, we didn’t listen to what the fake news had to say,” she said on Wednesday.

Eric Garcia reports:

It was only last week that Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban was condemned in his home country and abroad for a speech in which he declared that Europeans “do not want to become peoples of mixed-race.” And this week, he appeared as planned at CPAC in Dallas to address a roomful of American conservatives.

In a 30-minute speech, Mr Orban told the annual gathering of American conservatives that he was “the leader of a country that is under the siege of progressive liberals, day-by-day”.

“Now the West is at war with itself. We have seen what kind of a future the globalist ruling class has to offer. We have a different kind of future in mind. The globalists can all go to hell, I have come to Texas,” he said, before calling for children to be protected from “gender ideology”.

Richard Hall has the story.