Vivek Ramaswamy won the Republican nomination for Ohio governor on Tuesday, putting the staunch ally of Donald Trump on a path to running the Rust Belt state.

In unofficial results, he defeated Casey Putsch, a car designer with an automotive-themed YouTube channel, for a place in the general election, according to US media reports.

Ramaswamy, a health-technology entrepreneur, gained national recognition during his unsuccessful run against Trump for president in 2024. He later threw his support behind Trump.

In the Ohio primary, even as he ran against Republicans, he focused on Democratic nominee Amy Acton, the former Ohio public health director who guided the state’s response to the Covid pandemic and ran unopposed.

During a victory speech, Ramaswamy thanked Ohio voters “for getting us to this point”, adding, “The real destination is in November.”

Acton, who will face Ramaswamy in the general election, said during her own victory speech that she is running for governor to make Ohio more affordable again.

“It shouldn’t be this hard,” she said. “It is time to put working families first.”

Ohio’s current governor, Republican Mike DeWine, cannot run for re-election because of term limits.

Trump boosted Ramaswamy in a social media post on Tuesday: “I know Vivek well, competed against him, and he is something SPECIAL. He is Young, Strong, and Smart!”

Vice President JD Vance, who previously represented Ohio in the US Senate, travelled to Cincinnati on Tuesday to cast his ballot for Ramaswamy and others.

The state has shifted towards Republicans in recent years, and Ramaswamy benefitted from name recognition and shuffling in the top ranks of the state’s Republican Party caused by the ascension of Vance to the vice presidency.

Ramaswamy burst onto the national political scene in 2023 as a neophyte with a knack for using social media and podcast appearances to bolster his image. His mile-a-minute cadence and brash attacks resulted in viral moments during the 2024 Republican presidential debates, but he dropped out early due to lackluster support from voters.

Ramaswamy went on to serve as a top Trump surrogate during the 2024 presidential race and was involved in the effort to start Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, before ceding control of the project to Elon Musk.

When he announced his run for Ohio governor, Ramaswamy cleared the Republican primary field of most competitors. He has drawn on his personal fortune to help fund his campaign; The Columbus Dispatch reported he loaned his operation $25m (£18.4m).

His victory sets up a general election campaign focused on the lingering fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Acton had a highly visible role as the state’s public health director during the height of the crisis. Under DeWine’s leadership, Ohio took a more moderate approach to the pandemic response than other Republican-controlled states. Still, Ohio suspended in-person dining and postponed its presidential primary in 2020 as the virus spread.

But ongoing political backlash to Covid-19 restrictions, including masking and school closures, has opened up a path for Republicans to attack Acton six years later.

Ramaswamy recently released an ad claiming that Acton “called off Ohio’s election at the last minute, defying a judge’s order and abusing her power.”

DeWine – who has endorsed Ramaswamy – took the unusual step of defending Acton from the ad’s claims.

“I told her to issue the health order,” DeWine told NBC4 news station. “The decision was mine.”

The race promises to get more intense and expensive heading into the general election in November.

Meanwhile, seven Republican senators in Indiana who voted against Trump’s redistricting plan faced challengers in Tuesday’s primary election.

Five of the Trump-backed challengers have beat the incumbents, while one has lost. Results for the seventh race have not yet been determined.

The Indiana Republicans defied intense pressure from Trump last December by rejecting his demands to pass a voting map meant to favour their party in midterm elections, scheduled for November.

In one of the most conservative states in the US, 21 Republicans in the Senate joined all 10 Democrats to torpedo the redistricting plan last year.

Trump warned at the time that Republicans who did not support the initiative could risk losing their seats.

[BBC]

Spanish police have seized what is thought to be a national record haul of cocaine from a ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

Between 30,000 to 45,000kg were found when the Civil Guard intercepted a freighter in international waters, the body’s main union, the AUGC, announced. It called the move a “historic blow to drug trafficking”.

The vessel was intercepted off Spain’s Canary Islands on Friday and around 20 people were arrested, the AUGC told the AFP news agency. It had travelled from Sierra Leona and was on its way to Libya.

The Civil Guard has declined to give details of the investigation for legal reasons.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters in Madrid that the seizure was “one of the biggest, not only nationally but internationally”.

The Civil Guard shared a photograph on X showing the drugs stuffed into the hold of the intercepted vessel.

“Today history is being written in the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard,” it wrote.

“Intercepted in international waters the largest known seizure: between 30,000 and 45,000 kg of cocaine on board a freighter.”

While the boat was headed to Libya, AFP reported that the pattern of previous operations suggests that it was due to offload the drugs onto smaller vessels for distribution in Europe.

In January, Spanish authorities made its biggest seizure of cocaine at sea from a ship that was carrying almost 10 tonnes.

[BBC]

Three people have died and a UK national is seriously ill in hospital after a suspected hantavirus outbreak on a small cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

The operator of the MV Hondius ship, tour company Oceanwide Expeditions, said a Dutch husband and wife, as well as a German national, had died but the cause has not yet been established.

However, the Dutch company said hantavirus has been confirmed in the case of the 69-year-old UK national who is in intensive care in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Hantavirus is usually passed to humans from rodents via their faeces, saliva or urine. It can cause severe respiratory illness. Rarely, it can be transmitted between people.

The MV Hondius vessel is currently off the coast of Cape Verde and has 149 people onboard.

Oceanwide Expeditions said there were also two crew members on board “with acute respiratory symptoms, one mild and one severe”.

They were of British and Dutch nationality and both required urgent medical care, it said. It said it had not been established that hantavirus had been confirmed in the pair. And it added that no other persons with symptoms had been identified.

Negotiations are in progress with local authorities following what Oceanwide Expeditions described as “a serious medical situation”.