Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Attorneys for James Alex Fields Jr seek less than life sentence
Prosecutors: life term will help deter ‘acts of domestic terrorism’
The self-avowed white supremacist who plowed his car into counter-protesters opposing a white nationalist rally in Virginia two years ago, killing one and injuring dozens, has asked a judge for mercy and a sentence shorter than life in prison.
Lawyers for James Alex Fields Jr, 22, said in a sentencing memo submitted in court documents on Friday the defendant should not spend his entire life in prison because of his age, a traumatic childhood and a history of mental illness.
In 2016, the insurgent Republican hammered home his message on jobs, judges, immigration and more. Has he delivered?
Verdict: Failure. As of last month, no new wall had been erected in places where there was not already a barrier at the border. Trump has awarded contracts for 247 miles of wall construction but this has been challenged in court. Even if he prevails, all but 17 miles would merely be replacement for existing barriers, not new construction. Expect to hear a lot more about the wall in 2020.
In a first-of-its-kind forum, the former vice-president claimed a ‘100% voting record’ – before his mic suddenly cut out
In the first presidential forum on reproductive rights in recent memory, former vice-president Joe Biden told an audience of mostly female Planned Parenthood supporters he had a “100% voting record” on reproductive rights.
In fact, his record on the subject is mixed, as a question to the former vice-president suggested.
Donald Trump has said that if Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon, it will be prosperous and have the US president as “a best friend” – but also warned that the Islamic Republic would be “obliterated” in any war between the two countries.
Former White House communications director was steered away from answering questions 155 times
The Democrat-controlled house judiciary committee has released a 273-page transcript of frustrated efforts to interrogate Hope Hicks, a former top White House adviser, during a closed-door hearing on Wednesday.
The session transcript reveals a seven-hour exercise in prevarication as White House lawyers steered Hicks away from answering questions 155 times.
Alabama Republican Roy Moore, whose unsuccessful 2017 campaign for US Senate was marred by allegations he sexually assaulted or pursued teenage girls while in his 30s, is going to try again.
The Democratic candidate, Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor, defeated Moore by a narrow margin in a special election in December 2017 to fill the seat vacated by Republican Jeff Sessions when he became US attorney general. Jones was the first Democrat in a quarter-century to be elected to the US Senate in Alabama.
AP is reporting that Roy Moore will jump into the Alabama Senate race https://t.co/gsALWyjY5v
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders hold narrow leads in a theoretical showdown with President Trump in North Carolina ahead of the 2020 presidential race, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released Thursday.
Forty-nine percent of registered voters surveyed said they would back Biden in a match-up against Trump, while 46 percent said they would support the president. Five percent, meanwhile, said they are unsure who they’d back.
In a match-up against Sanders, 48 percent of North Carolina voters said they’d back the Vermont senator, compared with 47 percent who said they would vote for Trump; 5 percent said they were unsure of their pick.
The British government should call for restraint and de-escalation, says a group of campaigners, politicians and leading cultural figures
The threat of war with Iran is terrifying and the behaviour of the US government risks making the danger real. Its categoric claim that Iran was responsible for last week’s attacks on the two tankers in the Straits of Hormuz has been challenged by the Japanese and the German governments. It has served only to make a dangerous situation more serious.
The context to this is Donald Trump’s scrapping of the nuclear deal with Iran last year, which blocked the way to normalising relations and immediately escalated tension. The accompanying sanctions have caused real economic damage and human suffering. In May the Trump administration turned the screw tighter by dropping exemptions for oil exports. These measures are part of the policy of regime change advocated by John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, Trump’s two senior foreign policy officials, both of whom have called for military attacks on Iran.
The US state department's expert on Iran, Brian Hook, is repeatedly asked by Democrats how the Trump administration interprets its powers to declare war, following a recent rise in tensions with Iran. Hook repeatedly stressed the US was pursuing diplomacy with Tehran, saying: 'No one should be uncertain about our desire for peace'
After the Senate majority leader dismissed the idea of reparations, Coates testified before Congress about ‘campaign of terror’ against black Americans
Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran and the US are also seen as less likely to use their influence for good than they were 10 years ago
The United States has joined Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Iran in a rogue’s gallery of countries perceived as likely to use their influence for bad. All five countries are also seen as less likely to use their influence for good than they were 10 years ago.
The actor Danny Glover, writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Coleman Hughes as well as Senator Cory Booker were among the witness at a congressional hearing on the original sin of the US – the enslavement of 4 million Africans and their descendants – and what can be done to atone for it via reparations
Danny Glover among witnesses who debated the legacy of slavery – and the modern scourges of inequality and poverty that afflict black Americans
For the first time in more than a decade, a debate has taken place between lawmakers in Congress on the original sin of the United States – the enslavement of 4 million Africans and their descendants – and the question of what can be done to atone for it through reparations.
President kicked off his bid with lies, attacks on the press and claims a Democrat president would ‘shut down your free speech’
Donald Trump has set the stage for the nastiest US presidential race in modern times with a campaign rally that recycled old themes and stoked resentment towards Democrats and the media.
After two and a half years in office, Trump remains fixated on the same grievances – and successes
Donald Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign on 16 June 2015, by descending an escalator in front of a small crowd in Trump Tower. Four years on, he launched his 2020 pitch to be re-elected to the White House to 20,000 people at Orlando’s Amway Center on a humid, rainy Florida night.
Officials confirm to me Patrick Shanahan is not only withdrawing from consideration, he is resigning his current Pentagon post. Last day unclear. https://t.co/zufBzZ9nmz
The New York Times is reporting that the Justice Department has intervened to keep former Trump adviser Paul Manafort out of the notorious Rikers Island jail complex.
Manafort was set to be transferred to Rikers this month to await trial on a separate state case, according to the New York Times. But then Manhattan prosecutors received a letter from Jeffrey Rosen, the top deputy for attorney general William Barr, that indicated that “he was monitoring where Mr. Manafort would be held in New York”.
And then, on Monday, federal prison officials weighed in, telling the Manhattan district attorney’s office that Mr. Manafort, 70, would not be going to Rikers.
Concerns of a confrontation between the two countries have mounted since two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman
Acting US defense secretary Patrick Shanahan announced on Monday the deployment of about 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East for what he said were “defensive purposes”, citing concerns about a threat from Iran.
“The recent Iranian attacks validate the reliable, credible intelligence we have received on hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups that threaten United States personnel and interests across the region,” Shanahan said in a statement.
Plan comes after efforts to persuade US that White House had wrong message on Libya
Libya’s UN-recognised government in Tripoli has sought to break the deadlock in the country’s civil war by launching a peace initiative which will include a national peace forum followed by simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections to be held by the end of the year.
The plan comes after sustained diplomatic efforts by the Tripoli-based government to persuade the US that the White House had got the wrong message on Libya and was in danger of backing anti-democratic forces of Gen Khalifa Haftar, on the false premise that he was leading a fight against terrorists.
Democrat hopeful says they could have children in White House
Buttigieg is first openly gay major party presidential candidate
The Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg wants to start a family with his husband, Chasten, and says that could happen if he makes it to the White House.
“I don’t see why not,” the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said in a Father’s Day television interview that also marked his first wedding anniversary.
Iran’s leaders have shown their intent to defend their interests by damaging those of their foes
For much of this year, two beliefs have held firm in the halls of power in Iran: US attempts to strangle its economy cannot be tolerated and Donald Trump has no intention of going to war.
Far from wilting under the barrel of a global superpower’s guns, Iran’s leaders have signalled an intent to defend their interests, by damaging those of their foes. Iran’s anger at the US, and its alleged role in the attacks on six tankers in Gulf waters over the past five weeks did not emerge from a vacuum. US-imposed sanctions have taken a huge toll on its economy, and diminished its ability to service long-lasting commitments across the region – in Syria and Lebanon, in particular.