Category Archives: Donald Trump

Coronavirus live news: global deaths near 360,000 as Philippines has biggest daily spike in cases

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Up to six people can gather in UK parks from Monday; Donald Trump says he would take hydroxychloroquine again; drug combination triples death risk in cancer patients

I’m signing off now (it’s Friday afternoon here in Sydney). I leave you in the hands of my wonderful colleague Alexandra Topping, who assures me it’s a glorious morning in London.

Thanks all for your comments and correspondence. Be well all of you.

Bloomberg reports:

Renault SA plans to eliminate about 14,600 jobs worldwide and lower production capacity by almost a fifth as part of cost reductions aimed at outlasting the downturn that has rocked the global auto industry.

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Trump signs executive order to narrow protections for social media platforms

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Move comes amid president’s feud with Twitter after it fact-checked him for the first time

Donald Trump has fired a shot across the bows of “big tech” companies by signing an executive order that aims to narrow their protections from liability over the content posted on their services.

The move came as the US president stepped up his attacks against social media giants after Twitter fact-checked him for the first time over a false assertion that mail-in voting leads to widespread voter fraud.

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George Floyd killing: Trump calls protesters ‘thugs’ as fires erupt in Minneapolis on third night of unrest – live

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Completely surreal. Watching the Third Precinct burn surround by thousands of people in complete anarchy. pic.twitter.com/qNVNAJIlA7

Reports that Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey will hold a press conference shortly.

Mayor Frey will hold a news briefing, set to start in a few minutes, about tonight's protests/burning of the 3rd Precinct. @ChaoStrib will have the livestream.

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Trump expected to sign executive order in bid to target Twitter and Facebook

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  • Move could erode legal protections for social media platforms
  • Twitter placed warning on Trump tweets that spread falsehoods

Donald Trump is preparing to sign an executive order that could erode legal protections for social media companies for content posted on their platforms, potentially opening them to liability claims over controversial content.

Related: Trump focuses on possible social media regulation as US coronavirus death toll passes milestone – live

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Biden sets solemn tone as Trump waits 15 hours to mark Covid-19 milestone

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As the toll of Americans killed by the coronavirus passed 100,000, the president was lashing out at Twitter for factchecking his posts

Four hours after Johns Hopkins University recorded that 100,000 American lives were lost to the coronavirus, Joe Biden released a solemn speech.

“My fellow Americans, there are moments in our history so grim, so heart-rending, that they are forever fixed in each of our hearts as shared grief. Today is one of those moments,” said Biden, speaking directly to the camera from an office adorned with American flags.

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Zuckerberg says Facebook won’t be ‘arbiters of truth’ after Trump threat

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President announced plan to strip social media companies of liability protections after Twitter factchecked his tweets

Two years after admitting under political pressure that Facebook must do more to prevent disinformation campaigns on its platform, founder Mark Zuckerberg told Fox News on Thursday that the company should step away from regulating online speech.

Related: Trump expected to sign executive order in bid to target Twitter and Facebook

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Trump campaign attempts to remove satirical cartoon from online retailer

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Cartoonist Nick Anderson calls president ‘adolescent’ after work parodying bleach-injection claim sparked a legal manoeuvre

The Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Nick Anderson has described Donald Trump as an “adolescent wannabe authoritarian”, after the US president’s re-election campaign failed to pull one of Anderson’s cartoons mocking Trump’s inaccurate suggestion that injecting disinfectant could protect against Covid-19.

Anderson put his cartoon The Trump Cult up for sale on the online retailer Redbubble this month. The illustration shows Trump with supporters in Maga hats, serving them a drink that has been labeled “Kool-Aid”, then “Chloroquine” and finally “Clorox”, a US bleach brand. The cartoon is a reference to the 1978 Jonestown massacre, where more than 900 people died after drinking cyanide-laced punch at the order of cult leader Jim Jones, and to Trump’s widely denounced idea of injecting bleach to protect against coronavirus. Trump has also been taking the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a protection against Covid-19, despite a study showing it has been linked to increased deaths in patients.

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As 100,000 die, the virus lays bare America’s brutal fault lines – race, gender, poverty and broken politics

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The US’s brutal fault lines – of race, partisanship, gender, poverty and misinformation – rendered it ill-prepared to meet the challenges of Covid-19

In one of the rare expressions of empathy that Donald Trump has displayed during the course of the coronavirus pandemic, he talked earlier this month about the disease claiming so many lives it was “filling up Yankee Stadium with death”.

Now the death toll from Covid-19 stands at almost twice the capacity of the Yankees’ home stadium, and has reached another booming landmark: 100,000 deaths.

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US passes 100,000 coronavirus deaths as states relax lockdown measures

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US recorded more deaths from the disease than any other country in the pandemic

The United States has recorded more than 100,000 deaths from Covid-19, moving past a grim milestone even as many states relax mitigation measures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The US has recorded more deaths from the disease than any other country in the pandemic, and almost three times as many as the second-ranking country, Britain, which has recorded more than 37,000 Covid-19 deaths.

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Trump threatens social media after Twitter puts warning on his false claims

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  • Twitter added warning on tweets that spread falsehoods
  • President vows to ‘strongly regulate … or close them down’

Donald Trump has threatened to “strongly regulate” or close down social media platforms that do not meet his standards for ideological balance, a day after Twitter, for the first time, slapped a warning label on a pair of Trump tweets spreading lies about mail-in voting.

Related: George Floyd killing: sister says police officers should be charged with murder

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Trump’s devoted new press secretary is no different from her predecessors | David Smith

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Kayleigh McEnany offered a straight-faced defence of Trump’s wildest conspiracy theories during a Tuesday briefing

“I will never lie to you,” declared Kayleigh McEnany on her debut as the White House press secretary at the start of the month. “You have my word on that.”

That would be a welcome change, reasoned critics of Donald Trump, but their hopes of a change in the way his administration communicates have been dashed.

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Twitter labels Trump’s false claims with warning for first time

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President rails against decision after his tweets on mail-in voting are marked with message: ‘Get the facts’

Twitter for the first time took action against a series of tweets by Donald Trump, labeling them with a warning sign and providing a link to further information.

Since ascending to the US presidency, Trump has used his Twitter account to threaten a world leader with war, amplify racist misinformation by British hate figures and, as recently as Tuesday morning, spread a lie about the 2001 death of a congressional aide in order to smear a cable news pundit. Throughout it all, Twitter has remained steadfast in its refusal to censor the head of state, even going so far as to write a new policy to allow itself to leave up tweets by “world leaders” that violate its rules.

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Kayleigh McEnany praises Trump’s Covid-19 response as US deaths approach 100,000 – video

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As the US coronavirus death toll approached 100,000, Kayleigh McEnany praised Donald Trump’s response to the pandemic, saying the death toll could have been much higher. The White House press secretary repeatedly cited a scientific report suggesting up to 2.2 million Americans could die of coronavirus if the government didn’t take action to limit the spread of the virus

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Widower asks Twitter to delete Trump’s ‘horrifying’ lies about wife’s death

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Twitter says it won’t delete tweets in which the president spreads lie that Joe Scarborough was involved in Lori Klausutis’s death

The husband of a woman whose 2001 death Donald Trump has repeatedly used for a political smear has demanded that Twitter take down tweets in which the president spreads the “horrifying” lie that the woman was murdered.

Related: 'You have to respond forcefully': Can Joe Biden fight Trump's brutal tactics?

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Donald Trump delivers Memorial Day address, returns to golf course – video

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US president Donald Trump marked the Memorial Day weekend with visits to Arlington National Cemetery, Fort McHenry and his Trump National Golf Club. Trump delivered a speech at Fort McHenry thanking those serving in the military as the country battles the 'invisible enemy', Covid-19. The president also returned to the golf course for the first time since early March on the same weekend US coronavirus deaths closed in on 100,000

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Trump spends Memorial Day weekend golfing and insulting female politicians

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President tweets and retweets personal attacks against Pelosi and Abrams as US approaches 100,000 coronavirus deaths

Even by Donald Trump’s standards, it was a wild ride. On a Memorial Day weekend when coronavirus deaths in the US closed in on 100,000, and a grateful nation paid respects to its war dead, its president took to the golf course and turned to social media to unleash a barrage of personal attacks on foes old, new and perceived.

On Saturday and Sunday, both days on which Trump visited his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, he followed his time on the links with late-night Twitter sessions tweeting or retweeting insults to prominent female politicians.

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Why is Trump so quiet about the Biden sexual assault allegation?

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The president rarely misses a chance to sling mud but he has been uncharacteristically quiet about Tara Reade’s claim

Sometimes Donald Trump portrays his election rival, Joe Biden, as a sleepy geriatric who should be in a care home because “he doesn’t know he’s alive”. At others, the president speaks of Biden as a wily manipulator who conspired with the deep state and China.

Related: Who is Tara Reade and what are her allegations against Joe Biden?

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Americans defy Covid-19 social distancing rules to celebrate Memorial Day holiday

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Hundreds gather at pool party at Lake of the Ozarks and at Daytona Beach in Florida, defying safety restrictions

Americans across the country appeared to abandon social distancing guidelines as they sunbathed on beaches and gathered for pool parties on Memorial Day weekend.

The long weekend traditionally signals the start of the US summer, and despite the country’s Covid-19 death toll approaching 100,000, many revellers dismissed any safety concerns to celebrate.

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Trump: Sessions was not ‘mentally qualified’ to be attorney general

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  • Sessions protests loyalty to Trump despite fierce abuse
  • President endorses opponent in Alabama Senate election

Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions’ playground fight continued into Sunday. In an interview with Sinclair TV, Trump said Sessions had not been “mentally qualified” to be his first attorney general.

Related: Jeff Sessions snaps back after Trump tells Alabama not to trust him

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Democratic VP contender Demings slams Trump ‘gall’ over Biden black voters gaffe

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Val Demings, a Democratic representative from Florida among contenders to be Joe Biden’s presidential running mate, has castigated Donald Trump for having the “gall and nerve” to use a gaffe by Biden as a weapon on the campaign trail.

Related: Jeff Sessions protests loyalty to Trump – again – despite Twitter abuse

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