‘We can stop our children being poisoned’: the fight for a lead-free Cleveland

Campaigner Kim Foreman helped drive the creation of historic anti-lead poisoning legislation in the Ohio city earlier this year – and she is not done yet

The city of Flint, Michigan, made headlines around the world in 2014 when improperly treated water from the Flint River began corroding lead pipes and releasing harmful chemicals into the city’s tap water.

But many other cities across the US have faced – and continue to face – serious health risks because of new contaminations of lead, or the legacy of failures to get it out of the environment, with children most affected by exposure.

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‘Go back to work’: outcry over deaths on Amazon’s warehouse floor

Billy Foister died last month after a heart attack at work. The incident was just one in a series of recent accidents and fatalities

In September, Billy Foister, a 48-year-old Amazon warehouse worker, died after a heart attack at work. According to his brother, an Amazon human resources representative informed him at the hospital that Billy had lain on the floor for 20 minutes before receiving treatment from Amazon’s internal safety responders.

“How can you not see a 6ft 3in man laying on the ground and not help him within 20 minutes? A couple of days before, he put the wrong product in the wrong bin and within two minutes management saw it on camera and came down to talk to him about it,” Edward Foister said.

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Tonight’s Democratic debate in Ohio: five things to expect

Twelve Democratic 2020 presidential candidates will share the stage in the perpetual swing state on Tuesday

The Democratic 2020 presidential candidates will gather once again on Tuesday night to face off in their fourth debate, this time in the perpetual swing state of Ohio.

Twelve of the candidates have qualified to participate, and they will all share one stage – marking the most crowded debate stage of this election cycle so far. But the dynamics of the race have changed since the candidates last met in September, and some of the contenders face the prospect of this being their last debate.

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When Donald met Scott: a reporter’s view of Trump and his White House wonderland

Australian PM Scott Morrison received a full-blown welcome from the US president. Katharine Murphy was on hand for an inside account

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Scott Morrison has made his first visit to the United States as prime minister. It was a trip that included a close encounter with the unpredictability of the Trump White House, a foreign policy pivot, and a backlash about a lack of climate policy action. Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy, travelled, with the prime minister. Here is what she witnessed:

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FBI says Dayton gunman who killed nine explored ‘violent ideologies’ – live

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

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Republican who blamed shootings on gay marriage urged to resign

Ohio state representative’s screed against cannabis and liberal ‘snowflakes’ goes too far even for her own party

A Republican state representative in Ohio who blamed “homosexual marriage” and “recreational marijuana” – along with many of Donald Trump’s favourite targets – for gun massacres is facing calls from her own party to resign.

In a Facebook post, Candice Keller, who represents a conservative district near Dayton, where nine people were killed early on Sunday, mused about the causes of mass shootings including: family breakdown and same sex marriage, open borders, sportsmen who disrespect the flag and national anthem, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, a godless culture, and liberal “snowflakes”.

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‘Invasion’ and ‘fake news’: El Paso manifesto echoes Trump language

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

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Trump blames shootings on ‘glorification of violence’ – video

Donald Trump has blamed ‘the glorification of violence’ in a speech that identified video games, the internet and mental illness – but not guns – as the cause of the attacks that left at least 30 dead and 53 injured in less than 24 hours over the weekend.

In his first public remarks on the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, Trump also condemned white supremacy as authorities said they were investigating an anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant manifesto allegedly tied to the El Paso suspect.

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Trump blames ‘violent’ video games as El Paso death toll rises to 21 – live

Trump has turned his attention away from the shootings if his Twitter feed is any indication.

The president has instead been busy attacking China for harming America’s economy and repeating the (false) claim that US consumers are not covering the cost of his trade war:

....used currency manipulation to steal our businesses and factories, hurt our jobs, depress our workers’ wages and harm our farmers’ prices. Not anymore!

Another Democratic presidential candidate, Cory Booker, has dismissed Trump’s statement on the shootings this morning as woefully lacking.

The New Jersey senator specifically cited Trump’s focus on mental illness in his remarks. “Mental illness didn’t kill the people of Dayton,” Booker said. “People are too easily getting their hands on guns.”

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Americans mourn victims of mass shootings – in pictures

Thousands of El Paso residents went to a baseball diamond in Ponder Park to pay tribute to the victims of Saturday’s mass shooting in Texas. And less than 24 hours after a masked gunman opened fire in Dayton, Ohio, hundreds of people gathered to pay their respects to the nine people who were killed and 27 injured there

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Two mass shootings in US leave 29 dead as Trump faces barrage of criticism

  • 20 killed in El Paso, Texas, and nine killed in Dayton, Ohio
  • US reels from killings as Trump faces criticism over immigration

Donald Trump faced a barrage of criticism on Sunday as the US reeled from a brutal mass shooting in the border city of El Paso, Texas, on Saturday, linked to white nationalism and anti-immigrant hate rhetoric.

A total of 20 people were killed in the majority Latino city, nestled in western Texas on the US-Mexico border, as federal authorities investigated a potential hate crime and local prosecutors charged a 21-year-old white man, Patrick Crusius, with murder and said they would pursue the death penalty.

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175 people killed worldwide in last eight years in white nationalist-linked attacks

At least 16 high-profile attacks have been motivated by white nationalist conspiracy theories

In the past eight years, more than 175 people around the world have been killed in at least 16 high-profile attacks motivated, or apparently motivated, by white nationalist conspiracy theories, including the far right racist belief that nonwhite immigrants and refugees are “invaders” who pose an existential threat to the white race.

Related: Two mass shootings in US leave at least 29 dead as Trump faces criticism

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Ohio shooting: gunman killed nine in less than one minute, says mayor – video

The mayor of Dayton, Ohio, Nan Whaley, has revealed that police got to the scene of the mass shooting in Dayton and killed the gunman in less than one minute. The attacker killed nine people and injured at least 26 in that time. 'Hundreds of people in the Oregon district [of Dayton] could be dead today,' Whaley said. 'The question has to be raised: why does Dayton have to be the 250th mass shooting in America … this year?' 

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Dayton shooting: police confirm nine dead in second US mass shooting in 24 hours – video

Nine people in Ohio have been killed in the second mass shooting in the US in less than 24 hours, and the suspected shooter also died, police have said. Dayton police tweeted that an active shooter situation began in the Oregon district at 1am on Sunday, but that officers nearby were able to 'put an end to it quickly'.

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Five police officers face disciplinary action over Stormy Daniels arrest

Adult film actor was detained by officers last year after strip club raid in city of Columbus

Police in the US city of Columbus have said five officers from the department’s now-disbanded vice unit are facing disciplinary action over a raid on a strip club last year that resulted in the arrest of Stormy Daniels.

The department said on Wednesday the officers could face punishments ranging from a reprimand to dismissal. The officers include a commander, lieutenant, sergeant and two of the arresting officers.

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Drug makers flooded US with billions of opioid pills as epidemic surged, data shows

Statistics are a blow to country’s biggest pharmaceuticals that paid millions of dollars in out of court settlements

Drug makers and distributors flooded the US with more than 75bn opioid pills in the crucial years when the country’s epidemic of painkiller addiction and deaths surged to record levels, according to previously secret data released by an American court.

The publication of the Drug Enforcement Administration statistics is a blow to some of the country’s biggest pharmaceutical firms that have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in out of court settlements in part to keep sealed evidence that they profiteered from escalating demand for opioids even as public health officials were declaring an epidemic.

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Aerial footage shows scale of destruction after tornado in Dayton, Ohio – video

A line of tornadoes tore across Indiana and Ohio overnight, killing one person and injuring dozens in a wave so close together that one tornado crossed the path carved by another. In and around Dayton, Ohio, more than 40 people were taken to hospital for storm-related injuries

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