Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Documentary about last week’s Hanoi meeting offers benign portrayal of US president
It fell short of Donald Trump’s claim that he and Kim Jong-un had “fallen in love”, but a new North Korean documentary suggests the leaders’ relationship is strong enough to survive last week’s doomed summit in Vietnam.
In keeping with the rest of the regime’s post-talks coverage, the film makes no mention of the summit’s premature end, the countries’ irreconcilable differences over sanctions or their conflicting accounts of why the US president and the North Korean leader parted without an agreement.
An exciting new research project by the Guardian and Team Populism shows empirically what many have asserted and felt: the world is getting more populist. Professor Kirk Hawkins, from Brigham Young University in Utah, and 46 researchers analysed 728 public addresses by 140 presidents and prime ministers in 40 countries, in Europe and the Americas. This is the largest comparative project of this nature I am aware of, and a treasure trove for academics and journalists.
The study shows not just that the number of populist leaders has doubled, but that the average populist content of political leaders’ speeches has doubled too. Where political speeches were on average “not populist” in 2004, they are approaching “somewhat populist” today. To be clear, most of the political leaders studied were “not populist”, but that is to be expected of this particular subset of politicians, ie national leaders. Even today, populism is still primarily a feature of political challengers, who were not included in this study.
US president claims it is too early to tell if Kim Jong-un is reconstructing Sohae facility
Donald Trump has said he will be “very disappointed” in the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, if reports about a rocket launch site being rebuilt prove to be true.
Two US thinktanks and South Korea’s Yonhap news agency have reported that work was under way to restore part of the Sohae satellite launching station even as Trump met Kim in Hanoi last week for their second summit.
House intelligence chief hails ‘productive’ hearing as materials reportedly show edits by Trump’s legal team to Cohen’s past statement
Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer provided the US House intelligence committee with new documents and may hand over more, the panel’s chairman said after a day-long hearing behind closed doors.
The Democratic representative Adam Schiff told reporters that Michael Cohen was cooperative and the eight-hour hearing was “very productive”. He did not say what the new documents related to and declined to comment on the substance of Cohen’s testimony.
That’s all for today, folks. Thanks for sticking with us.
Leaked documents show that the US government established a secret database of advocates, attorneys, and journalists who were connected to or covered the caravan of immigrants from Central America who made their way north through Mexico to the United States southern border in 2018, NBC7 is reporting.
In some cases, those who were secretly tracked had alerts placed on their passports.
As the migrant caravan reached the San Ysidro Port of Entry in south San Diego County, so did journalists, attorneys, and advocates who were there to work and witness the events unfolding.
But in the months that followed, journalists who covered the caravan, as well as those who offered assistance to caravan members, said they felt they had become targets of intense inspections and scrutiny by border officials.
California congressman Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has hired veteran prosecutor Daniel Goldman to join his panel’s investigation of the Trump Administration.
The New Yorker reported that Goldman, who served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 2007 to 2017, joined the committee’s staff as a senior adviser and the director of investigations. The committee is leading the House’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
US president to host billionaire prime minister with whom he has much in common
The billionaire businessman-cum-politician at the White House on Thursday has become the most powerful man in his country by riding a wave of populist sentiment. Under investigation for alleged misdeeds involving his business empire, he has responded by painting himself as the victim of a political witch-hunt. He has attacked the leading investigator in his case in personal terms while, according to critics, stealthily seeking to hamper the inquiry. The role of his children has also come under scrutiny.
That description applies not just to Donald Trump, but also to Andrej Babiš, the Czech prime minister, who this week becomes the first Czech Republic leader in years to be hosted by a US president.
Roger Stone, the longtime Trump confidante with an obsession with Richard Nixon, may have violated the terms of his expanded gag order with yet another Instagram post this weekend.
OH boy. The government has notified Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Roger Stone's Instagram story from yesterday, where he shared an image that claimed he was framed. pic.twitter.com/gg7OwhQEpA
Felix Sater, the Russia-born businessman with ties to President Donald Trump, is being sued by Mariah Carey’s former manager for allegedly creating an electronic backdoor to hack into the manager’s electronics and access confidential information about her celebrity clients, the Associated Press is reporting.
Stella Bulochnikov Stolper filed a lawsuit against Sater and his personal assistant, Kalsom Kam, in New York on Friday, seeking at least $1 million in damages and and for the pair to turn over any stolen material.
Stolper and Sater grew up together in Brooklyn and reconnected at a funeral in November 2017, eventually getting so close that she allowed him and Kam, to stay over at her Los Angeles home, according to the lawsuit.
Sater wanted Stolper’s help pitching his life story to Hollywood and took advantage of her “delicate emotional state” at the time and their shared history to spend more time with her, the lawsuit said.
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel knew about Donald Trump’s illegal hush money payment to a pornographic film actor ahead of the 2016 election but killed the story because the media mogul wanted him to win, it was reported on Monday.
US president says the timing of the Cohen hearing, while he was at the talks in Vietnam, was ‘a new low’ in politics
US president Donald Trump has blamed that the Democrats’ decision to interview his longtime fixer, lawyer Michael Cohen, on the same day as a meeting with Kim Jong-un for the fact that the North Korea summit ended with no deal.
“For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the ‘walk.’” Trump said on Twitter, referring to his decision to walk away from what he previously said was a bad deal with Kim. “Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!”
Democrats in the House of Representatives are stepping up investigations into Donald Trump’s potentially impeachable acts of corruption, obstruction of justice and abuse of power.
Chris Grayling | Otto Warmbier | Michele Hanson | Words for toilet | A Beatles Brexit
The likely cost of £2.7bn to the taxpayer due to Chris Grayling’s incompetence will ring hollow to the parents of disabled pupils in Leicestershire and across the country, who have been informed that their council can no longer provide transport to special schools and colleges post-16 due to lack of funds. The implications for these families, who already face substantial additional burdens of care due to cuts in respite and other services, may place another group in the foodbank queue. Kate Warner Claybrooke Parva, Leicestershire
• If Donald Trump genuinely believes that Kim Jong-un did not know of the brutal treatment of Otto Warmbier which led to his death (Report, 2 March), has he asked Kim to investigate the matter? And if not, why not? Jeremy Beecham Labour, House of Lords
Donald Trump used a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to take aim at the Democrats, mocking a proposal to tackle climate change and describing oversight efforts, relating to the president’s personal finances, as ‘bullshit’
Donald Trump sought to regain his footing after a torrid week with a fiery speech using two of his favourite tactics: going off script and hurling insults at opponents.
The US president says it is ‘very important for our farmers’ while adding that trade talks are ‘moving along nicely’
Donald Trump has urged China to abolish tariffs on agricultural products imported from the United States – adding that trade talks between the rival powers were going well.
“I have asked China to immediately remove all Tariffs on our agricultural products (including beef, pork, etc.),” the US president wrote on Twitter.
We now know where North Korea and US stand – and the gaps that still need to be closed
The Hanoi summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un may have broken down abruptly and stalled negotiations for the time being, but it has opened a window into the talks that leaves some hope that a compromise can be reached.
The summit between the US president, Donald Trump, and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in the Vietnamese capital ended abruptly after both men failed to break the deadlock over US sanctions despite their much-vaunted personal relationship
The US president boasts of being a deal maker. But his summit with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi has ended in failure and recrimination
Only a year ago, many feared that Donald Trump’s dealings with Kim Jong-un might end with a bang. Then came the Singapore summit. Mr Trump boasted that they “fell in love” and that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat. The bromance did not look sustainable. Now a follow-up in Hanoi has ended in a whimper, collapsing without the heralded signing of at least a limited deal.
North Korea needs an easing of sanctions and wants to pursue economic development; Mr Trump wants a diplomatic triumph with his name emblazoned on it. But these powerful drivers are not enough to bridge the gulf between the sides. While North Korea speaks of denuclearisation on the peninsula, it has no intention of unilateral disarmament – as US intelligence officials note. Gestures such as halting missile tests have some value, in real terms as well as in building the relationship, and disabling the Yongbyon nuclear plant would have more; the question is how much they are worth. Many had feared Mr Trump might pay too highly, as he did in Singapore.
Meanwhile, at CPAC, National Rifle Association president Ollie North is requesting thoughts and prayers for the multi-million dollar gun lobbying organization.
"I ask you to pray for the NRA," Ollie North says. He concludes: "The NRA is freedom's safest place."
Donald Trump has reacted to Michael Cohen’s testimony by claiming that Cohen lied about almost everything during yesterday’s congressional hearing – but told the truth by saying he had no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia, writes my colleague Jon Swaine:
Speaking in Vietnam after meeting the North Korean leader Kim Jong un, Trump said Cohen, his former legal fixer, lied “95% instead of 100%” of the time during a hearing of the House oversight committee on Wednesday. “I was impressed,” said Trump.
Trump falsely claimed several times that Cohen had testified that there had been “no collusion”. In fact, Cohen said he did not know any “direct evidence” of collusion. “But I have my suspicions,” he told members of congress.