The US president, Donald Trump, renewed his call for a border wall and threatened another government shutdown or emergency action if he did not get a ‘fair deal’. This came as the president announced he and congressional leaders had reached a short-term deal to reopen the government for three weeks while negotiations continue over the president’s demands for money to build a wall at the US-Mexico border. Trump announced the agreement on Friday to break the 35-day impasse as delays at the nation’s airports and widespread disruption brought new urgency to peacemaking efforts.
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Venezuela at the crossroads: the who, what and why of the crisis
Opposition leader Juan Guaidó is seeking to oust Nicolás Maduro by declaring himself interim president – but how did we get here?
Venezuela’s current plight can be traced to a revolution that went terribly wrong.
Continue reading...Roger Stone says he will not ‘bear false witness’ against Donald Trump – video
Roger Stone, a longtime ally of the US president, says he has been falsely accused of lying to the House intelligence committee and will plead not guilty to the charges filed against him. Stone told reporters outside Fort Lauderdale courthouse in Florida: 'There is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself'
Continue reading...Roger Stone makes statement outside court after being arrested in Trump-Russia inquiry – live
Longtime Trump ally appeared in federal court on Friday after being arrested in Florida on seven charges including obstruction
- Full story: Roger Stone arrested on seven charges in Mueller inquiry
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Roger Stone has apparently called into InfoWars, the website-cum-radio show of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
The InfoWars website seems to be having some problems, so I couldn’t listen in. But Paul Joseph Watson, InfoWars editor-at-large and noted crank, says Stone told the website:
Stone says just before 6am 29 agents burst into home w weapons, allowed him to dress, scared death out of his wife, taken to FBI Miami Dade, where he says agents treated him very well, then did bond hearing - shackled hands and feet - Special Counsel and US atty there, $250k bail https://t.co/HyKA5Fmmlt
Of course, Roger Stone wasn’t the only Trump ally appearing in federal court this morning.
Around the same time Stone was shuffling into Fort Lauderdale court in chains, Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, was in the US District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington DC.
His eyes tired and his hair streaked with grey, Paul Manafort looked morose and walked gingerly, with a limp, during his first court appearance in months on Friday.
The former Donald Trump campaign chairman, imprisoned in Virginia as he awaits sentencing, wore a suit and was not handcuffed during the hour-long hearing at the US District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, which focused mainly on procedure.
Continue reading...Roger Stone’s arrest may renew threat of impeachment for Trump
White House says arrest of Trump’s adviser ‘has nothing to do with the president’ but analysts warn it may thrust him into legal jeopardy
It was time once again on Friday morning for Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, to go on television and say that the arrest of a Donald Trump campaign associate had nothing to do with the president.
This time the arrestee was Roger Stone, a longtime Trump political adviser, taken into custody in a 6am raid by FBI agents on his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Stone was charged with lying to Congress, obstructing an investigation and witness tampering. In the past, Stone has denied all wrongdoing.
Continue reading...Roger Stone indictment packed with details that may make Trump sweat
Indictment reveals a campaign official was directed to contact Stone about ‘damaging information’ – but who gave the order?
The criminal indictment of Roger Stone is packed with the kind of colourful details one might expect from the flamboyant rogue, who has been dealing in dirty tricks for more than 40 years.
Related: Who is Roger Stone, the longtime Trump ally caught in Mueller's net?
Continue reading...Roger Stone explains his role in Trump’s team in 2016 – video
Filmed in July 2016, Roger Stone tells the Guardian's Oliver Laughland 'I have access to all the right people,' and rejects the idea that he's Trump's fixer: 'I'm just an FOT – friend of Trump'
Continue reading...Trump must not be allowed to dictate Venezuela’s democratic recovery | Reynaldo Trombetta
Juan Guaidó can save my country from ruin, but if the US intervenes, we could see it turn into another Afghanistan
Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and his Russian ally Vladimir Putin are predictably claiming that the swearing-in of Juan Guaidó as acting president is a coup organised by Donald Trump. Those of us who want a democratic – and as peaceful as possible – end to Maduro’s dictatorship must ignore the anti-American rhetoric and throw our full support behind the president of the country’s national assembly.
Guaidó must not be allowed to fail. No one within the opposition is better suited to steer Venezuela back towards democracy. Following years of seeing former president Hugo Chávez abuse the rules of democracy, an increasing number of Venezuelans has lost faith in politics and the power of the vote. They are understandably angry, and they seem to believe that the only way out is to take the fight to the streets. Guaidó, who cut his teeth in the 2007 protests against Chávez, has enough credibility to convince this group that a democratic transition is still possible.
Continue reading...Trump has hitched his wagon to regime change in Venezuela – so now what?
The problem for Juan Guaidó and his foreign backers is how to convert assets abroad to real power inside Venezuela
The day after Donald Trump took the bold step of recognising the Venezuelan opposition leader as the country’s head of state, it is unclear how the administration hopes to turn its intentions into regime change.
After Nicolás Maduro refused to give up the presidency, and the military high command stuck by him, the White House kept up the mantra that “all options are on the table”. But it was far from clear whether any of those options would succeed in transferring real power to Juan Guaidó and the opposition-led national assembly.
Continue reading...Trump administration reportedly drafts emergency order for wall funding – live
- Democratic and Trump-backed proposals fall short in Senate
- Michael Cohen subpoenaed by Senate intelligence committee
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Gabrielle Canon here, taking over for Lauren Gambino for the rest of the evening.
As negotiations with top Democrats over funding for the border wall continue at an impasse, CNN is reporting that the Trump Administration has already drafted a backup plan.
Trump has not ruled out using his authority to declare a national emergency and direct the Defense Department to construct a border wall as Congress and the White House fight over a deal to end the government shutdown. But while Trump’s advisers remain divided on the issue, the White House has been moving forward with alternative plans that would bypass Congress.
‘The massive amount of aliens who unlawfully enter the United States each day is a direct threat to the safety and security of our nation and constitutes a national emergency’, a draft of a presidential proclamation reads”.
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‘We want to work’: how the shutdown is affecting US federal workers – video
As the longest US government shutdown continues, unpaid workers are feeling the strain. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees have gone without pay for weeks
Continue reading...Kim Jong-un expresses ‘great satisfaction’ at Trump letter ahead of talks
North Korea’s leader is making ‘good technical preparations’ for February summit, official news agency reports
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has expressed “great satisfaction” after receiving a letter from Donald Trump ahead of a second summit between the two leaders, Pyongyang’s state media reported on Thursday.
Kim is making “good technical preparations” for the meeting, the official KCNA news agency said, in the country’s first comments on the talks scheduled for February.
Continue reading...Student in standoff with Native American defends his actions – video report
The Kentucky high school student filmed in an apparent standoff with a Native American activist in Washington DC says he was 'not disrespectful' during the interaction, as a spokesman for Donald Trump said students from Covington high school may be invited to the White House
Continue reading...Controversy over students mocking Native American strikes national chord
Debate around the incident reverberated culturally and politically amplified by an aggressive entry into the argument by Trump
The spectacle of a crowd of white teens in pro-Trump caps mocking a Native American activist on the National Mall just days before Martin Luther King Jr day was perhaps not needed to demonstrate that America’s social fabric is stretched thin.
The explosion of a media controversy around the incident was probably not necessary to drive participants in the ensuing debate into their usual partisan crouches.
Continue reading...‘Onslaught of outrage’: resistance and activism reawaken in Trump era
Two years since his inauguration, millions of Americans have built on recent movements such as Black Lives Matter to rally, march and strike against the president
For 125 days last year, Ashley Weitz stood with her four-year-old son on a quiet corner near their home in Salt Lake City for one hour daily to protest Donald Trump.
This was unusual for a woman who had mostly ignored the wall-to-wall coverage of Trump’s unprecedented behavior in the White House, occupied instead by the full-time task of being a disabled, single mother. But when his administration separated thousands of migrant children from their parents at the border last summer as part of its immigration crackdown, Weitz erupted – a line had been crossed and she felt acutely the privilege in her life.
Continue reading...Senate to vote on pair of bills that could end government shutdown
Republican-backed measure would meet Trump’s wall demand while the second would extend funding for closed agencies
The Senate will vote on Thursday on a pair of bills that could end the month-long partial shutdown of the federal government– if passed.
The first bill, a Republican-backed measure, would meet Donald Trump’s demand for a $5.7bn wall along the southern border in exchange for temporary protections for young undocumented immigrants. The second would extend funding for the agencies that are currently closed through to 8 February.
Continue reading...Worst job in showbiz: why will no one touch the world’s glitziest gigs?
The Oscars have no host, Rihanna turned down the Super Bowl, and the White House dinner will be MC’d by a historian. What’s behind the sudden demise of entertainment’s biggest jobs?
The loss of the Oscars’ latest host is, on the one hand, just another mishap to add to the list. From 2016’s #OscarsSoWhite to 2017’s wrong delivery of the best picture award, the ceremony now seems like a particularly slow bloopers reel. Yet the loss of Kevin Hart – who quit after old homophobic tweets resurfaced – is also a sign of something else. The fact that no one has replaced him, and that it’s difficult to think of many people who could, or would, reveals a much deeper malaise: a scary loss of nerve across showbiz’s top-tier events.
Within weeks, the Super Bowl half-time show will air. In the past, the American football final has been an epic showcase for the likes of Madonna, Prince and Beyoncé, a 20-minute, legacy-defining megamix. This year, though, with Rihanna and Cardi B having turned it down in solidarity with the activist NFL player Colin Kaepernick, we will be left with the hardly epochal sounds of Maroon 5.
Continue reading...Fresh footage gives more detail on confrontation between Native American and teenagers – video
New footage has emerged of the confrontation between school pupils in Maga hats and a Native American protester that went viral last weekend. While the original clip appeared to show the students surrounding the man and mocking his chants, the additional video shows he approached the group after they became enraged by the taunts of a separate group of Black Hebrew Israelites
Continue reading...New video sheds more light on students’ confrontation with Native American
Initial footage appeared to show students, some wearing pro-Trump Maga hats, from a Kentucky high school taunting Nathan Phillips, an Omaha tribe elder
Longer video footage of a confrontation between a Native American activist and Kentucky high school students at a protest has surfaced, providing fresh insight into the controversial encounter and offering a broader view of deepening divisions in America.
Related: Kentucky teenager denies mocking Native American veteran
Continue reading...Five Donald Trump tactics to watch out for – video explainer
In the two years since he took office, the US president has repeatedly deployed a number of tactics to try to get what he wants. We highlight five of Trump's most commonly used methods to make them easier to spot during the rest of his term
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