Obama says presidents should avoid social media in apparent Trump jab

Former president also said TV should be avoided: ‘Those are two things I’d advise, if you’re a good president, not to do’

Barack Obama appeared to take a swipe at Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying he would “advise, if you’re president” to avoid social media and cable news.

The former US president was speaking as a guest at an event for Splunk, an international data and software firm, when he was asked how he parsed information while in office. He touted the importance of building a solid team to stay informed.

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‘No guts, no vision!’ Trump unhappy after Fed announces modest rate cut

  • Central bank approves quarter-point interest rate reduction
  • Trump tweets: ‘Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve fail again!’

Under pressure from Wall Street and the White House, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates on Wednesday for a second straight meeting, but declined to signal if it would continue to drop rates in the future.

Related: Ilhan Omar condemns Trump for spreading 'lies that put my life at risk'

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Chaotic scenes at House hearing as Corey Lewandowski refuses to answer questions – video

Former Donald Trump aide Corey Lewandowski's testimony to the House Judiciary Committee descended into farce as Democrats accused him of 'filibustering' for demanding to read passages of the Mueller report before answering questions.

Lewandowski was facing questions from the panel over the report into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and alleged obstruction of justice by the president. In his opening statement he accused 'Trump haters' of playing 'petty politics' with the issue, before invoking executive privilege to refuse to answer a series of questions from increasingly frustrated Democrats

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Russia investigation pushed by ‘Trump haters’ to discredit 2016 win, says Corey Lewandowski – video

Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, has accused 'Trump haters' of creating a 'false narrative' about the president's connections with Russia in order to undermine his 2016 election victory. He said there had been 'no conspiracy or collusion' between the Trump campaign and any foreign government in his time in the post.

Lewandowski was facing questions from the House Judiciary Committee as part of the panel's inquiry into the Mueller report into Russian interference in the 2016 election

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Iran will not hold talks with the US ‘at any level’, says Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – video

The supreme leader of Iran has said that the US must return to the 2015 nuclear deal or 'there will be no talks at any level between Iranian officials and Americans'.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also dispelled any possibility of a meeting between Donald Trump and the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, during the UN general assembly in New York this month 

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Elizabeth Warren: Donald Trump is ‘corruption in the flesh’ – video

Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren targets the president while outlining her plan to end corruption in the White House, Congress and courts. Speaking in Washington Square Park, New York, Warren tells a crowd of around 20,000: 'Corruption has put our planet at risk. Corruption has broken our economy. And corruption is breaking our democracy'

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Manhattan DA ‘subpoenas eight years of Trump’s tax returns’ – as it happened

Subpoena seeks federal and state returns for US president and his accounting firm dating back to 2011, according to the New York Times

Kari Paul signing out for the night, thank you for sticking with me. Here’s the top news of the afternoon:

The White House counsel sent letters to the House Judiciary saying ex White House Aids Rob Porter and Rick Dearborn “may not be compelled” to testify about the Mueller report, according to Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Jacobs.

Trump is reportedly advising former advisers not to appear before the committee despite subpoenas.

WH says Corey Lewandowski can’t talk about conversations with the president not contained in Mueller report. Lewandowski was never a WH employee. pic.twitter.com/mBC4xEc5th

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New York prosecutors subpoena eight years of Trump’s tax returns

Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance sent subpoena to accounting firm Mazars USA, which says it will ‘fully comply’

Donald Trump faces a new battle over the release of his tax returns after New York prosecutors issued a subpoena for them.

Trump is the first US president in nearly 40 years not to release his tax information, despite having promised to do so during his 2016 election campaign. He has resisted pressure from Democrats and watchdogs demanding greater transparency.

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Trump says US response to oil attack depends on Saudi Arabia’s assessment

US secretaries of state and energy both explicitly blamed Iran for the attack but Trump suggests US did not have definitive evidence

Donald Trump has said the US response to the attack on Saudi oil facilities will depend on the assessment in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and downplayed US dependence on Middle East energy supplies.

The US secretaries of state and energy both explicitly blamed Iran for the attack. Unnamed US officials were also quoted in US media outlets as saying Iranian cruise missiles were used in Saturday’s attack on an oil field and processing plant. Estimates of the number of missiles used ranged from “nearly a dozen” to “over two dozen”.

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Donald Trump says Iran appears to be responsible for Saudi oil attacks – video

Donald Trump has hinted that the US believes Iran is responsible for attacks on oil plants in Saudi Arabia over the weekend that raised fears of a fresh conflict in the Middle East. "It would look the most like it was Iran," he told reporters at the White House. 

Iran has denied responsibility for the attacks which damaged the world's biggest crude processing plant in Saudi Arabia and triggered the largest jump in crude prices in decades. Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, suggested on Monday that "Yemeni people" were to blame.

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Saudi Arabia oil attack: Trump hints at action as US points finger at Iran

US president says he has ‘reason to believe we know the culprit’, as oil prices rise

Everything you need to know about the Saudi Arabia oil attacks

Donald Trump has said the US is “locked and loaded” and ready to respond to attacks on a petroleum processing facility in Saudi Arabia, as US officials said the evidence pointed to Iranian involvement.

The US president did not mention Iran, but wrote on Twitter that he had “reason to believe that we know the culprit” behind the series of attacks on the Abqaiq facility, which is the world’s largest petroleum processing plant. The attacks disrupted more than half of the kingdom’s oil output and will affect global supplies.

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Kim Jong-un invites Donald Trump to visit Pyongyang – report

Letter from North Korean leader comes as talks between the men have stalled

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un invited US president Donald Trump to visit Pyongyang in a letter sent in August, a South Korean newspaper reported on Monday, citing diplomatic sources.

The letter pre-dates North Korea’s latest launch of short-range projectiles a week ago and is the second Trump received from Kim last month amid stalled denuclearisation talks between the two countries,

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Trump blasts calls for impeachment of Brett Kavanaugh after new allegations

  • New York Times details new claims against supreme court judge
  • Harris, Castro and Sanders lead calls for constitutional action

Donald Trump came storming to the defence of Brett Kavanaugh on Sunday, after the publication of new allegations about the supreme court justice’s behaviour while he was a student at Yale led to renewed calls for his impeachment.

Related: Trump is seriously, frighteningly unstable - the world is in danger | Robert Reich

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Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University dogged by growing claims of corruption

Trump ally’s political influence may be on the wane as he calls for investigation at evangelical university

Since January 2016, when the head of Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr, endorsed Donald Trump for president, the influential evangelical university has been on a fast-track to the heart of American politics. Since being credited with helping Trump earn the loyal support of the Christian right, Falwell has become a regular presence at the White House.

Meanwhile, the university, founded in 1971 by his late father, the Rev Jerry Falwell Sr, has expanded exponentially. Under Falwell Jr’s leadership, the Lynchburg, Virginia, not-for-profit university’s assets have reportedly grown from $259m in 2007 to over $3bn and it has more than 100,000 students.

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Trump floats possible defense treaty days ahead of Israeli elections

  • President appears to try to boost Netanyahu before tight poll
  • PM looks forward to meeting at United Nations in New York

Donald Trump said on Saturday he had spoken with Benjamin Netanyahu about a possible mutual defense treaty between the two nations, a move that could bolster the Israeli prime minister’s re-election bid days before voters go to the polls.

“I had a call today with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss the possibility of moving forward with a Mutual Defense Treaty, between the United States and Israel, that would further anchor the tremendous alliance between our two countries,” Trump said on Twitter.

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Greta Thunberg joins young activists in climate protest outside White House – live

Swedish teen climate activist and other youth advocates demand action from the US to address the climate crisis

A Taliban negotiating team has reportedly arrived in Russia just days after Trump said potential peace talks with the group were “dead.”

The AP reports:

Russian state news agency Tass cited the Taliban’s Qatar-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen as saying the delegation had held consultations with Zamir Kabulov, President Vladimir Putin’s envoy for Afghanistan.

The visit also was confirmed to The Associated Press by a Taliban official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

This may well be the most terrifying thing you read on this Friday the 13th. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, told a group of donors last month that she got her moral compass from her father.

At a mid-August fundraiser in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Ivanka Trump was asked to name the personality traits she inherited most from her parents.

Without much of a pause, Trump told the crowd of roughly 120 high-end donors that her mother gave her an example of how to be a powerful, successful woman.

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Donald Trump blames lightbulbs for his orange hue – video

Donald Trump has blamed energy-efficient lightbulbs for his sometimes orange appearance. Speaking before an audience of Republican legislators in Baltimore on Thursday evening, he addressed criticism of his recent plans to weaken regulations on environmentally friendly bulbs. 'The bulb that we're being forced to use, number one, to me, most importantly, the light's no good,' he said. 'I always look orange. And so do you! The light's the worst'

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Edward Snowden in exile: ‘you have to be ready to stand for something’ – video

Edward Snowden has spent the last six years living in exile in Russia and has now decided to publish his memoirs, Permanent Record. In the book he reflects on his life leading up to the biggest leak of top secret documents in history, and the impact this had on his relationship with his partner, Lindsay Mills. The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill, who helped break Snowden's story in 2013, has been given exclusive access to meet him


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Trump explains his distinctive orange hue: it’s the lightbulbs

  • President says energy-efficient bulbs do him no favours
  • ‘The light’s no good. I always look orange. And so do you!’

It’s been the subject of intense debate among late-night comedians and Donald Trump’s many online critics: why, in certain circumstances, does the president of the United States sometimes appear … orange?

Related: House panel demands documents from Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon – live

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Man Trump called ‘my African American’ says president has ‘white superiority complex’

  • Trump singled out Gregory Cheadle at California rally in 2016
  • Cheadle quits Republican party for pursuing ‘pro-white agenda’

Gregory Cheadle – a black man who Donald Trump referred to as “my African American” during a rally – has announced he is leaving the Republican party, citing the president’s “white superiority complex”.

Related: El Paso shooting suspect indicted on murder charges – live

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