Donald Trump has said he would not be interested in putting Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) on the table during trade talks with the UK even if it was ‘handed on a silver platter’.
Trump, who is in London for a Nato summit, said: ‘We have absolutely nothing to do with [the NHS], and we wouldn’t want to. If you handed it to us on a silver platter, we’d want nothing to do with it’
Continue reading...The US president’s ambivalence or even hostility towards the alliance will hover over the 70th anniversary meeting in the UK
Donald Trump arrived in the UK to meet Nato allies who are fearful that he could pose a serious threat to the survival of the alliance if he wins re-election next year.
Days before Wednesday’s leaders’ meeting just outside London to mark Nato’s 70th anniversary, the US announced it was cutting its contribution to joint Nato projects.
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Wrapping up our live coverage for tonight. The president is now in London for the Nato summit as the House intelligence committee prepares to review its report on the impeachment inquiry. Among today’s many impeachment-adjacent developments:
Trump’s Attorney General, William Barr, has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department’s inspector general on a central finding of a forthcoming report — that the FBI had enough information in the summer of 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign, the Washington Post reports.
The report from Justice Department’s inspector general Michael Horowitz is expected to be made public in a week.
Political appointee of the president refuses to accept conclusion from independent watchdog that doesn't serve president's political needs:https://t.co/EeVCxKVQbl
Continue reading...Pre-emptive strike offers blueprint for GOP senators to acquit president, claiming a plot by Democrats
Donald Trump’s actions towards Ukraine were “entirely prudent” and involved “no quid pro quo, bribery, extortion, or abuse of power”, according to a draft Republican report on last month’s impeachment inquiry hearings.
Designed as a pre-emptive strike on an imminent report from the Democratic majority, the GOP document underlines how evidence presented at the hearings failed to shatter Republicans’ united front.
Continue reading...American tells BBC she was told to have sex with royal by Jeffrey Epstein’s friend Ghislaine Maxwell
A beleaguered Prince Andrew faced fresh embarrassment after his accuser Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked as a teenager to have sex with him, appeared on television to implore the British public to “not accept this as being OK”.
In her first UK broadcast interview, Giuffre repeated allegations she had sex with the prince when she was aged 17 on the instructions of Ghislaine Maxwell, a socialite and close friend of the US financier and sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in August.
Continue reading...In Free, Melania, obtained by the Guardian, Kate Bennett also reports that president and first lady sleep in separate rooms
Melania Trump suspects Roger Stone, a longtime ally and adviser to Donald Trump, of being behind the release of nude photos from her modelling past, a new book claims.
Related: Trump's 'demeaning fake orgasm' made me speak out – ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page
Continue reading...350 experts call on PM to address president’s ‘dangerous’ and ‘irresponsible’ claims
Boris Johnson is being urged by 350 leading climate researchers to robustly challenge Donald Trump on his “dangerous” and “irresponsible” denial of the risks of climate change during the US president’s visit to the UK this week.
Putting the prime minister under more pressure over his stance on global heating, leading academics involved in climate research said he must try to persuade Trump to take strong domestic and international action.
Continue reading...White House rejects invitation to Wednesday’s judiciary committee hearing but reserves right to attend in future
President Donald Trump and his lawyers will not participate in a congressional impeachment hearing this week, the White House has said, citing a lack of “fundamental fairness”.
Trump’s aides responded defiantly on Sunday to the first of two crucial deadlines he faces in Congress this week as Democrats prepare to shift the focus of their impeachment inquiry from fact-finding to the consideration of possible charges of misconduct over his dealings with Ukraine.
Continue reading...Reality. We all used to know what it meant. The world as it is. Objective facts that provide the foundation for rational – not emotional – judgments and actions.
But the old definition of reality has taken a serious beating during the nearly three years Donald Trump, the reality-show president, has been in office. Partly because Trump himself seems to live in a reality separate from the one most of us inhabit. Partly because too many people still can’t accept the objective facts of his presidency.
Continue reading...Australian teacher thanks those who helped free him and says he formed tight bonds with some of his captors
Freed Taliban hostage Timothy Weeks says he never gave up hope he would be rescued during three “long and tortuous” years in captivity in Afghanistan.
Speaking publicly for the first time since his release as part of a complex prisoner swap almost two weeks ago, the Australian teacher thanked all those who helped secure his freedom, and said he had formed extraordinarily tight bonds with some of his Taliban captors.
Continue reading...Amid strategic U-turns and elevation of war crimes defendants, president’s military support weakens – but Fox pundits back him
On Thursday night, a besuited Donald Trump appeared at a US airbase in Afghanistan, serving Thanksgiving turkey to the troops, complaining half-jokingly about the length of his surprise trip, and drawing attention to all the money he had spent on the military.
“You’ll come back,” the president told soldiers at the Bagram base – a remark interpreted by the reporters covering the event as a reference to the quality of the food he was giving them, rather than warning of further tours of duty in a war that is already 18 years old.
Continue reading...Analysts say an indictment is likely as prosecutors focus on Giuliani’s work for Trump and himself in Ukraine
When the former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani emerged as one of Donald Trump’s most bareknuckle defenders during the Russia investigation, attacking his former colleagues in the justice department, people asked: “What happened to Rudy?”
Related: Gerrymandering held sway in Michigan – until citizens fought back
Continue reading...Symbols at University of Georgia and Georgia College & State University fuel renewed calls for hate crimes law
Swastika symbols on two Georgia university campuses have students and parents on edge.
Swastikas were drawn on message boards recently in Creswell and Russell halls at the University of Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Continue reading...Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee condemn restaurant chain that also donated to civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center
Leading US conservatives have turned on the fast-food restaurant chain Chick-fil-A after the company decided to cut its ties to two Christian groups that have long opposed same-sex marriage.
To compound rightwingers’ fury, it has also emerged via tax filings that Chick-fil-A donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights advocacy organization, in 2017. The SPLC has a lengthy record of supporting LGBTQ+ and abortion rights.
Continue reading...Public testimony in the impeachment hearings has painted a vivid picture of a president fixated on one thing: his own political gain over the fortunes of an ally
Darkness had settled over Kyiv on the evening of 24 April when Marie Yovanovitch, then US ambassador to Ukraine, was summoned from an event she was hosting at her home to answer an urgent phone call from Washington.
The reception was to honor Kateryna Handzyuk, a young anti-corruption activist who died last year from an acid attack. Though the ambassador and the activist had never met, they shared a mission: trying to end a culture of corruption that has persisted for decades in the former Soviet republic.
Continue reading...The financier’s associates, such as Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell, and his victims are unlikely to see closure any time soon
The legal fallout from Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest for sex trafficking and subsequent suicide in jail is likely to go on for years, ensuring that those caught up in the saga – like Prince Andrew – will face scrutiny and negative headlines for years to come.
Federal authorities in the US have repeatedly said that the investigation into the sex trafficking case is ongoing, raising the prospect of a lengthy multi-pronged and international inquiry into the wealthy financier’s jet-set lifestyle.
Continue reading...Trump claims US-Taliban talks are back on but it is unclear if key disputes have been settled
Donald Trump says talks with the Taliban are back on but it is unclear if the disputes that hobbled the last attempt to reach a peace deal – cancelled by a presidential tweet in September – have been resolved.
The insurgent group responded to Trump by telling Agence France-Presse it was “way too early” to discuss resuming direct talks.
Continue reading...Intergenerational incubator and creative writing program Twelve Literary Arts seeks to to inspire young people to participate in democracy
“Hey y’all, I’m Tai,” 15-year-old Tai-Charle’ Walker says into the single microphone. “Hi Tai!” shouts back the audience for tonight’s spoken-word open mic event. “What am I made of?” Tai begins, and then, to cheers, she lights whatever trepidation she has on fire: “You asked a simple question, but get many different complex answers. I myself am made up of pain.”
Pain from the historical trauma of slavery, the “crooked cops’ nightstick”, violence on her street. “I am the moon – everybody wants to get close but once they actually do they have no clue what to do … You ask me what I be? Between you and me, you’ll never know what I’ll be.”
Continue reading...Ohio introduces one of the most extreme bills to date for a procedure that does not exist in medical science
A bill to ban abortion introduced in the Ohio state legislature requires doctors to “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy” into a woman’s uterus – a procedure that does not exist in medical science – or face charges of “abortion murder”.
This is the second time practising obstetricians and gynecologists have tried to tell the Ohio legislators that the idea is currently medically impossible.
Continue reading...The American was abseiling in El Potrero Chico near Monterrey when he plunged about 300m to his death
One of the world’s most renowned rock climbers, the American Brad Gobright, has died after falling off a mountain in Mexico.
The fall occurred on Wednesday on an almost sheer face known as El Sendero Luminoso on the El Toro mountain in the El Portrero Chico area near the northern city of Monterrey, civil defense officials said.
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