Biden accuses Trump of echoing Nazis with ‘vermin’ remark

President says comment from predecessor at New Hampshire rally ‘echoes language you heard in Nazi Germany in the 30s’

Joe Biden has attacked Donald Trump for using the word “vermin” to refer to his political enemies, saying it echoed the language of Nazi Germany.

At a recent rally in New Hampshire, Trump repeated his false claim that fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election and told the crowd he would “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections”.

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China and US pledge to fight climate crisis ahead of Xi-Biden summit

Announcement fuels hope rivals can use Apec summit as a chance to reduce tensions

China and the US have pledged to work together more closely to fight global heating, declaring the climate crisis “one of the greatest challenges of our time”, hours before a key meeting in San Francisco between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.

The announcement further fuels hopes that the two nations can mend relations after years of turmoil over issues including trade, human rights and the future of Taiwan.

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White House seeks to restrain Israel in Gaza amid growing internal dissent

More than 500 appointees and staff members criticized Biden’s unwavering support for Israel in letter demanding ceasefire

The Biden administration is increasingly seeking ways to restrain the Israeli military in an effort to slow the civilian toll and limit the risk of a wider conflict, while it faces a rising level of internal dissent over its Middle East policy.

In a letter presented to Biden and his cabinet on Tuesday, more than 500 political appointees and staff members from about 40 agencies across the administration criticised the extent of the president’s support for Israel in its war in Gaza.

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House passes bill to avert shutdown – as it happened

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Donald Trump’s disdain for Letitia James, the New York attorney general who brought a $250m fraud case against the former president, and Arthur Engoron, the judge adjudicating it, is pretty well known. Trump was fined twice last month for breaching a gag order.

On Tuesday, Trump ramped up the rhetoric further, promoting a post on his Truth Social network calling for a citizen’s arrest of the pair “for blatant election interference and harassment”.

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Ukraine MP linked to Rudy Giuliani charged with colluding with Russia

Oleksandr Dubinsky accused of spreading disinformation about Ukrainian interference in US politics while in pay of Russian intelligence

Ukrainian authorities have arrested a controversial MP who was at the heart of efforts by Rudy Giuliani to dig up compromising material about Joe Biden, and placed him in pre-trial detention.

Oleksandr Dubinsky, 42, is accused of collusion with Russia and of spreading “fake” information about Ukraine’s political and military leadership, in particular related to his claims about supposed Ukrainian interference in US political processes.

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Biden and Xi to announce deal cracking down on fentanyl export

Under deal, China will go after chemical companies to halt flow of fentanyl while US will lift restrictions on forensic police institute

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are set to announce an agreement for China to crack down on the manufacture and export of fentanyl, the primary culprit in a synthetic drug epidemic blamed as the leading killer of Americans between 18 and 49.

Bloomberg reported that under the deal – which the US and Chinese presidents are still finalizing – China would go after chemical companies to halt the flow of fentanyl and the source material used to make it.

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Xi-Biden meeting overshadowed by conflicts in Ukraine and Israel – and US stance on Taiwan

Chinese and US presidents meeting amid a deteriorating geopolitical climate, with the countries on opposing sides of two major conflicts

One year after their last in-person talks, Xi Jinping and Joe Biden will come face to face once again on Wednesday in San Francisco, in an encounter that will dominate events at the Apec summit as the Chinese and US presidents seek to stabilise relations in an increasingly fraught geopolitical climate.

The meeting, which could last several hours, is the culmination of months of lower level dialogues which took place over the summer, with Washington sending more delegates to China than Beijing did to the US.

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Five US military members killed after aircraft crashes into Mediterranean

US European command says cause of crash remained under investigation, but there was ‘no indications of hostile activity’

Five US military members were killed in a refueling accident during training that caused an aircraft carrying them to crash into the Mediterranean Sea, the American defense department said in a statement on Sunday.

The US European command said in an initial statement that the cause of the crash remained under investigation, but there had been “no indications of hostile activity”, ABC News reported.

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US in ‘ongoing negotiations’ for release of hostages held by Hamas, Sullivan says

Nine Americans still missing as Hamas says it’s suspending talks amid Israel’s handling of besieged al-Shifa hospital in Gaza

Nine Americans are still missing following the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel, the US national security adviser said on Sunday.

Jake Sullivan, the White House’s chief security adviser, said the US is involved in “ongoing negotiations” for the release of hostages believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza.

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Newsom 2024: could the California governor be a rival to Joe Biden?

Amid concern over the president’s poll ratings, Gavin Newsom appears to be running something of a shadow campaign

One of the strongest candidates for US president in 2024 may be one who’s not yet in the race. There’s growing evidence that Gavin Newsom, the charismatic and energetic Democratic governor of California, is running something of a shadow campaign to Joe Biden and ready to step up if, or when, the incumbent is out of the running.

Several developments in recent days suggest Newsom, who romped to re-election a year ago without really campaigning, is ready to bring forward what was already expected to be a strong run for the presidency in 2028.

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House speaker Mike Johnson faces key test as government shutdown is days away with no deal in sight – US politics live

Kevin McCarthy’s replacement tasked with passing legislation to fund the government but issues that toppled predecessor persist

Meanwhile in South Carolina, Kamala Harris officially filed the Biden campaign’s paperwork to appear on its primary ballot:

Joe Biden’s victory in the state’s primary three years ago revived a presidential campaign that appeared to be flagging. After winning the White House, he successfully pushed to make it the first state to vote in the Democrats’ nominating calendar, arguing the process should better reflect the country’s diversity, though not all Democrats were happy about the decision.

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Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to meet on sidelines of Apec summit

‘Everything is on the table,’ US official says of first face-to-face interaction between leaders in a year, on Wednesday

The US president, Joe Biden, will meet the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, face to face for the first time in a year on Wednesday, the White House said, in high-stakes diplomacy aimed at curbing tensions between the world’s two superpowers.

The closely watched interaction, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in the San Francisco Bay Area, could last hours and involve teams of officials from Beijing and Washington.

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Approval of divisive Alaska oil project upheld in blow to US climate goals

Advocates warned of ‘tragic consequences’ should the project in a remote part of northern Alaska go ahead

A federal judge has upheld the Biden administration’s approval of the Willow oil-drilling project in a remote part of northern Alaska in a move that environmental groups warned will have “tragic consequences” for the Arctic.

On Thursday, the US district court judge Sharon Gleason rejected requests by a grassroots Iñupiat group and environmentalists to undo the approval for the project in the federally designated National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

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West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin will not seek re-election in 2024 – as it happened

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Joe Biden has hailed the tentative deal reached between SAG-AFTRA and television studios on Wednesday.

In a statement released by the White House on Thursday, Biden said:

Collective bargaining works. I applaud SAG-AFTRA and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for working together in good faith towards an agreement that allows our entertainment industry to continue telling the stories of America.

When both sides come to the table to negotiate in earnest they can make businesses stronger and allow workers to secure pay and benefits that help them raise families and retire with dignity.

“She called me four-letter words in each of the last two debates… The reality is this – the Republican party has appropriately I think had scrutiny of Hunter Biden for years. I mean, you know, not only the media but even Republican politicians, correctly,” said Ramaswamy.

“In the last debate…she said, ‘I feel dumber every time I hear you speak’… For using TikTok, the criticism wasn’t of Nikki Haley’s daughter. It was of Nikki Haley for having been completely oblivious to where the next generation of Americans is actually getting their information,” he added.

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Calls to ‘finish’ Hamas and ‘you’re just scum’: key Republican debate takeaways

Candidates showed unequivocal support for Israel on a night when Nikki Haley shot back at Vivek Ramaswamy’s criticism

The third Republican debate was held in Miami on Wednesday, with frontrunner Donald Trump once again foregoing the debate for his own rally nearby.

The pool has dwindled since the last debate, and Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Chris Christie seemed to be more serious and focused this time around as they answered questions on the Israel-Hamas war, immigration, abortion and the federal budget. Even so, the debate had moments where it devolved into a shouting match, with petty barbs and personal attacks.

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House Republicans subpoena Hunter Biden and president’s brother James

House committee has been searching for evidence of influence peddling when Biden was vice-president to Barack Obama

House Republicans issued subpoenas on Wednesday to members of Joe Biden’s family, taking their most aggressive step yet in an impeachment inquiry bitterly opposed by Democrats that is testing the reach of congressional oversight powers.

The long-awaited move by Representative James Comer, the chairman of the House oversight committee, to subpoena the president’s son Hunter and his brother James comes as Republicans hope to gain ground in their nearly year-long investigation. So far, they have failed to uncover evidence directly implicating the president in any wrongdoing.

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Election day 2023: polls close in Ohio and Virginia where abortion rights are at stake; Mississippi partially extends voting – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on the 2023 election, read our latest reports:

US supreme court justices on today appeared inclined to uphold the legality of a federal law that makes it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to have guns in the latest major case to test the willingness of its conservative majority to further expand gun rights, Reuters reports.

The justices heard arguments in an appeal by Joe Biden’s administration of a lower court’s ruling striking down the law – intended to protect victims of domestic abuse - as a violation of the US constitution’s second amendment right to “keep and bear arms”.

I mean, not taking your recycling to the curb on Thursdays, if it’s a serious problem it’s irresponsible,” Roberts said.

What seems irresponsible to some people might seem like, well, it’s not a big deal to others.”

And the reason that we use the term ‘not responsible’ is because it is the standard this court has articulated” in its three major gun rights rulings in the past 15 years, Prelogar said.

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Netanyahu says Israel will have ‘overall security responsibility’ in Gaza after war

Prime minister rules out general ceasefire as Israel marks a month since Hamas attack

Israel will keep control over Gaza indefinitely after its war against Hamas ends, Benjamin Netanyahu has stated, saying his country will take “overall security responsibility” for the territory.

One month after Hamas’s attack killed 1,400 people, the Israeli prime minister also said he would consider hour-long “tactical little pauses” in fighting to allow the entry of aid or the exit of hostages from the Gaza Strip, but again rejected calls for a ceasefire.

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Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis potent challengers to Biden in swing states, poll shows – as it happened

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Gaza’s health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory says more than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed there since 7 October.

We have a separate live blog covering the conflict, and you can follow it here:

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Blumenthal: Democrats have ‘work cut out’ as Biden trails Trump in five swing states

New poll shows Biden ahead in Wisconsin, but Trump leading in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said on Sunday that the party has “its work cut out for us” in response to new polling that shows President Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump in five of six swing states.

The survey by the New York Times and Siena College of voters in six battleground states, was released with 365 days to go until the 2024 presidential election.

Reuters contributed to this report

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