The wealthy financier was connected to well-known names including Trump, Clinton and Prince Andrew before his July arrest
Wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, whose apparent suicide in jail has stunned the US, courted many rich, powerful and famous people over his lifetime as a mover and shaker on the party circuits of New York and Florida
Related: Jeffrey Epstein: sex abuse allegations against billionaire socialite began in 2005
Continue reading...It’s tempting, though illogical, to blame Donald Trump for all the world’s ills. Yet was it America’s self-aggrandising president who triggered last week’s sudden crisis between India and Pakistan over Kashmir? When Trump took office in 2017, his ignorance of international affairs was seen as potentially dangerous. Those fears now look well-founded. Kashmir may provide conclusive, catastrophic proof.
The trouble started on 22 July when Trump hosted Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, in the Oval office. Despite previously accusing Pakistan of supporting terrorism and slashing US aid, Trump was all smiles. Why? Because he needed Khan’s help in cutting a peace deal with the Taliban. Trump yearns to tell America’s voters next year that he ended the 18-year Afghan war and brought the troops home.
Continue reading...The former vice-president’s folksy charm went down well at the state fair – but critics say the party needs a bolder 2020 candidate
Joe Biden hardly seemed to be sweating.
He was standing on a small wooden stage at the Iowa state fair, a large crowd around him, no shade in sight. He wore a dark polo and his signature aviator sunglasses, and spoke with a vigor that was absent in his first two Democratic debate performances. But while his audience perspired in the oppressive August sun, cooling themselves with paper fans, Biden seemed at ease.
Continue reading...Projectiles fired at dawn on Saturday from area around north-eastern city of Hamhung, South Korea’s military says
North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles into the sea off its eastern coast on Saturday, South Korea’s military said.
The latest launch comes shortly after the US president, Donald Trump, said he had received a “very beautiful letter” from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Continue reading...President speaks amid protests against two fitness companies over Ross’s involvement with Trump campaign
Walmart has sent a memo to its stores asking them to take “immediate action” to remove signing and displays that “contain violent themes or aggressive behavior.”
“We’ve taken this action out of respect for the incidents of the past week, and this action does not reflect a long-term change in our video game assortment,” a Walmart spokesperson said in a statement.
Apparently Walmart is telling its employees to take down displays that show violent video games, specifically shooters, as well as movies and hunting videos. pic.twitter.com/2N3t4B86tf
Twitter has unlocked an account connected to Mitch McConnell’s campaign, which was frozen after it tweeted a video of a protest outside the Senate majority leader’s Kentucky home.
Twitter initially said the video violated its rules about violent threats, but the social media giant said in a statement that it has reviewed the case further.
Victory!!!
Thank you to EVERYONE for helping #FreeMitch.
Help us keep winning: https://t.co/u56exRnfKv pic.twitter.com/7Y28QdkrKv
A backlash is building over a picture posted by Melania Trump on Twitter that showed her and Donald Trump smiling broadly while holding a baby who was orphaned in the mass shooting in El Paso.
Related: Ice raids stir fear as Kamala Harris says they demonstrate 'insensitivity' – live
Continue reading...Donald Trump has been criticised for using a hospital visit in El Paso to boast about crowd numbers at a rally held several months ago. He made the comments while visiting the Texas city after a gunman killed 22 people in a shopping centre. He also hit out at Beto O'Rourke, an El Paso local and Democratic presidential candidate. Trump’s administration then turned the El Paso visit into a campaign video
Continue reading...The ads were launched just before US immigration officials raided food processing plants in Mississippi
On Monday, less than 48 hours after 22 people were killed in what is believed to be an anti-Latino domestic terror attack in El Paso, Texas, Donald Trump’s reelection campaign launched a new batch of Facebook ads referencing the grieving border city.
“¡Únete ya!” (“Join now!) the video ad declared, before displaying footage of two smiling fans holding a sign with the slogan, “LATINOS FOR TRUMP/FUND THE WALL TOUR 2019/EL PASO, TX.”
Continue reading...
Nancy Pelosi is leading a bipartisan congressional delegation to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, after which the group will see a migrant detention center in McAllen, Texas.
Estoy entusiasmada de viajar a Guatemala con la Presidenta de la Cámara @SpeakerPelosi y la delegación del Congreso para que escuchen y hablen directamente con el pueblo guatemalteco como lo he hecho yo. https://t.co/1mZQcJjrKp
Trump has turned his focus to the Federal Reserve, which he has repeatedly bashed for not lowering interest rates fast enough.
....John Deere, our car companies, & others, to compete on a level playing field. With substantial Fed Cuts (there is no inflation) and no quantitative tightening, the dollar will make it possible for our companies to win against any competition. We have the greatest companies...
....in the world, there is nobody even close, but unfortunately the same cannot be said about our Federal Reserve. They have called it wrong at every step of the way, and we are still winning. Can you imagine what would happen if they actually called it right?
Continue reading...Residents of El Paso demonstrated as Donald Trump arrived in the Texas city to pay tribute to the victims of one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent US history. With much of the president’s rhetoric reflected in the El Paso shooter’s anti-immigrant and racist essays, many felt the visit was ‘throwing salt on the wounds’ of a binational, largely Latinx community in mourning
Beto O’Rourke has said that Donald Trump is a white supremacist.
The former El Paso representative earlier spoke at a rally protesting the president’s visit.
Donald Trump has been very clear about who he wants to keep out of this country — with walls and cages and militarization and torture and cruelty. We in El Paso have borne the brunt of that, but we in El Paso are standing up to that. https://t.co/nEdgJvfwwy
Trump just posted photos from his visit to a hospital in Dayton, where the press pool was not allowed because it was “not a photo op”
White House @presssec says reporters were not included in Dayton hospital visit "because the visit was not 'a photo opp’" https://t.co/LKkI3bOkm5
Continue reading...Speaking to reporters at the White House, Donald Trump said he was 'concerned about the rise of any group of hate' and referred to white supremacists and anti-fascist activists. The US president was leaving to travel to Dayton and El Paso to meet with first responders, families and victims of the recent shootings when he said: 'Whether it’s any group or kind of hate ... I am concerned about it and I’ll do something about it'
Continue reading...Donald Trump will receive a frosty reception when he arrives in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday afternoon, three days after the cities were struck by mass shootings. A gunman who invoked the language of white supremacy killed 22 people when he attacked an El Paso Walmart. Local politicians have linked the shooting to Trump's rhetoric about immigrants. The president could also face protests in Dayton, where another gunman killed nine, over his failure to change gun control legislation.
Continue reading...El Paso congresswoman warns Trump is not welcome as Dayton mayor encourages protests
Donald Trump is likely to receive a cool reception, at best, when he touches down in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, three days after a 21-year-old gunman who invoked the language of white supremacy killed 22 people and wounded 24 more in a suburban Walmart superstore there.
The president could also face protests in Dayton, Ohio, the location of the second of two mass shootings at the weekend, where nine were killed by a man who investigators said on Tuesday explored violent ideologies.
Continue reading...
Venezuela’s U.N. ambassador is accusing the Trump administration of trying to start a war by sabotaging talks between president Nicholas Maduro and his opposition, as the Trump administration’s national security adviser John Bolton doubled down on his view that “Maduro has to go,” according to the Associated Press.
Addressing a summit on Venezuela’s crisis in Peru’s capital, Lima, Bolton pronounced Maduro’s “dying regime” doomed – even though a seven-month US-backed campaign has so far failed to topple Hugo Chávez’s authoritarian successor.
Bolton claimed Donald Trump’s latest moves – which will also see those who do business with Maduro’s government sanctioned – would help end “Maduro’s tyrannical reign”.
Related: 'It will not work': experts question Venezuela sanctions as Bolton touts them
Two members of Congress have sent a letter to the National Archives seeking records related to the supreme court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“In the coming year, the supreme court will again address important matters regarding civil rights, criminal justice, and immigration,” reads the letter, authored by the New York congressman and House judiciary committee chairman Jerrold Nadler and the Georgia congressman Hank Johnson.
Related: Judicial council tosses misconduct claims against Brett Kavanaugh
Continue reading...Original headline read ‘Trump urges unity vs racism’ – prompting accusations that newspaper was feeding president’s narrative
The New York Times was forced to change its front-page headline for Tuesday’s newspaper amid an intense backlash over its portrayal of Donald Trump’s statement on the twin mass shootings that left 31 people dead.
The original headline read “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS RACISM”. Many people complained that the wording fed Trump’s claims that those who criticised his persistent anti-immigrant rhetoric – some of which was parroted in the El Paso gunman’s alleged manifesto – were playing politics.
Continue reading...Bolton claimed Trump’s measures will help end Maduro’s reign, but some fear they will make Venezuela’s economic meltdown worse
US national security adviser, John Bolton, has insisted Venezuela’s “tired dictator” was at “the end of his rope”, as he opened another front in the White House’s economic blitz on Nicolás Maduro by freezing all Venezuelan government assets in the United States.
Addressing a summit on Venezuela’s crisis in Peru’s capital, Lima, Bolton pronounced Maduro’s “dying regime” doomed – even though a seven-month US-backed campaign has so far failed to topple Hugo Chávez’s authoritarian successor.
Continue reading...Recent tragic events have, critics say, displayed once again the moral collapse of one of America’s two great parties
Presidential addresses in the wake of national tragedies are typically attempts to heal and unite. For critics of Donald Trump, it was more a case of wondering how much more damage he might do.
Standing in the diplomatic reception room at the White House after a weekend of bloodshed in America, the US president declared: “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy.”
Continue reading...A hate-filled document believed to have been written by the gunman bears striking similarities to the words we hear from Trump
Authorities are investigating a white nationalist “manifesto” posted on the far-right message board 8chan in connection with the suspect in Saturday’s mass shooting in the Texas border city of El Paso, which left 22 people dead.
Related: Trump blames 'violent' video games as El Paso death toll rises to 22 – live
Continue reading...Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke has likened the US to Nazi Germany, saying President Donald Trump has been stoking racial tensions. This comes after a mass shooting in El Paso left at least 20 people dead. O’Rourke, who is from El Paso and represented the district in Congress, said he believed Trump was a white nationalist