Category Archives: US News

Trump tweets as gun violence and white nationalist terrorism stalk America

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Domestic terrorism now results in more deaths than the foreign kind but the president shows no sign of toning down his rhetoric

Two menaces have stalked America throughout its history. One is gun violence. The other is white supremacy. In El Paso, Texas, on Saturday they collided.

A 21-year-old gunman with a hatred of Hispanic immigrants killed 20 people in a shopping mall in the eighth deadliest mass shooting in American history. The suspect is believed to have posted online an anti-immigrant screed that praised the killing of 51 people in Christchurch mosques in New Zealand in March.

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Iran claims it has seized third oil tanker in Gulf as tensions with US rise

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State media says vessel was taken on Wednesday carrying a cargo of 700,000 litres

Iran claims it has seized a third foreign oil tanker in the Gulf in a further escalation of tensions between Tehran and Washington and its regional allies, who continue to stare each other down over crippling economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.

Iranian state media claimed the tanker was Iraqi and was seized on Wednesday in a northern part of the strait of Hormuz with a cargo of 700,000 litres of oil bound for neighbouring Arab states. The strait is one of the world’s most important waterways, on which a combustible standoff has played out since early July, when a British warship intercepted an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar.

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8chan: the far-right website linked to the rise in hate crimes

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Three attackers in six months allegedly posted their plans on the site in advance. In an exclusive interview, Silicon Valley CEO explains his ‘moral obligation’ to keep 8chan online

The suspect in the massacre that left 51 Muslims dead in Christchurch, New Zealand, allegedly posted a white nationalist screed and link to his Facebook live feed on 8chan, a far-right message board and notorious bastion of hate speech. The suspect in the shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, that killed one person and injured three, allegedly posted a racist and antisemitic “open letter” on 8chan. And the suspect in Saturday’s attack at a crowded Walmart in El Paso, Texas, which claimed the lives of at least 20 people, is believed to also have posted a white nationalist rant on the platform.

If the connection between the 21-year-old suspect in Saturday’s massacre and the 8chan document is confirmed – and law enforcement sources told NBC News that they are “reasonably confident” that they are linked – then the El Paso attack will mark the third mass shooting in less than six months that was announced in advance on the message board. The first targeted Muslims, the second Jews, and the third appears to have been aimed at killing Latinos.

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

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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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Beto O’Rourke links El Paso shooting to Donald Trump’s ‘racist’ rhetoric – video

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The Democratic presidential candidate has accused Donald Trump of stoking racial hatred after a mass shooting in El Paso that left 20 people dead. The population of the Texan border city is 80% Latino and police said a 'manifesto' posted to the online message board 8chan suggested the attack was a hate crime. 'He is a racist. He stokes racism in this country,' said O'Rourke, a former congressman for El Paso. 'And it fundamentally changes the character of the country and leads to violence'

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Texas Walmart shooting: 20 dead after gunman opens fire – video report

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At least 20 people are dead and 26 wounded after a gunman attacked a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Early reports indicated the attacker used a rifle, while police said a 'manifesto' circulated online indicated the shooting was a hate crime. El Paso's population is 80% Latino 

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

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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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Mike Pompeo urges Australia to stand up for itself over trade with China

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US secretary of state dismisses warning by top security analyst, arguing ‘you can sell your soul for a pile of soy beans or you can protect your people’

The US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has declared “you can sell your soul for a pile of soy beans, or you can protect your people”, dismissing a warning from prominent Australian security analyst Hugh White that Australia should avoid following Donald Trump into a confrontation with Beijing that America probably can’t win.

Pompeo issued the provocative declaration during a question-and-answer session at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney on Sunday.

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US fast-food workers demand better pay amid growing violence

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A bill making its way through the Senate would set the hourly wage at $15 nationwide, to be enacted over six years

Maria Torres followed eight sprinting co-workers into the kitchen’s walk-in fridge, screaming “Gun!” They locked the door against an armed intruder.

“He was threatening everyone with a gun,” the 58-year-old McDonald’s cook said, recalling that morning last December in the Princeton Park section of Chicago. “He came in very erratic. We couldn’t understand what he was saying.”

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El Paso shooting at Walmart leaves at least 20 people dead

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  • Police say 21 year-old white man in custody after shooting at mall complex
  • Incident being investigated as a potential hate crime

At least 20 people have been killed after a shooter opened fire at a busy Walmart store packed with families shopping for the new school year in the Texas border city of El Paso, sending panicked shoppers fleeing.

Texas governor Greg Abbott said 20 people had been killed, and more than two dozen more were injured. Mexico’s President Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were among the dead and six were among the wounded.

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Iran to further reduce compliance with nuclear deal

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Foreign minister says Iran has been withdrawing in stages since US pulled out last year

Iran will take another step to reduce its compliance with a landmark 2015 nuclear deal, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Saturday, according to parliamentary news agency Icana.

Iran has repeatedly said it will reduce its commitment to the nuclear accord in stages and may even withdraw from the pact altogether unless the remaining signatories find ways to shield its economy from US sanctions. Washington pulled out of the deal last year.

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First human-monkey chimera raises concern among scientists

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Researchers reprogrammed human cells before injecting them in the monkey embryo

Efforts to create human-animal chimeras have rebooted an ethical debate after reports emerged that scientists have produced monkey embryos containing human cells.

A chimera is an organism whose cells come from two or more “individuals”, with recent work looking at combinations from different species. The word comes from a beast from Greek mythology which was said to be part lion, part goat and part snake.

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Atlanta’s confederate monuments: how do ‘context markers’ help explain racism?

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Symbols dedicated to the south’s soldiers have come under debate for not mentioning their roots in racial segregation

Atlanta’s monuments to its Confederate past cannot be taken down by law. But the city is now moving to provide much-needed historical context on the realities of slavery, the civil war and the era of Jim Crow segregation that followed.

Homages to Atlanta’s history crop up in many cemeteries and parks. Little context accompanies those stone memorials with engraved plaques referring to “heroic efforts” and the south’s soldiers’ efforts to “unite” the country after the civil war. There is no mention of racism or slavery and segregation.

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Donald Trump’s ‘go back’ comments were ‘genius’, says Nigel Farage

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Brexit leader admits racist remarks about congresswomen made him feel uncomfortable but says they were shrewd

Nigel Farage has described Donald Trump’s “go back” comments aimed at four congresswomen of colour as “genius”.

The US president’s racist remarks were widely condemned after he told the four Democrats known as the Squad to return to the “broken and crime infested places from which they came”.

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The party of white men? Will Hurd’s exit exposes Republicans’ diversity problem

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Hurd’s departure set to leave one Republican African American in Congress – and 41 of 53 sitting GOP senators are white men

Four months ago, the woman in charge of recruiting Republicans to run for Congress in the 2020 elections lectured her party about diversity.

Related: Will Hurd, only black House Republican, is latest to not seek re-election

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Nancy Pelosi teases statement on impeachment inquiry – live news

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Emerald Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, urges the New York Police Department to follow through with the firing of officer Daniel Pantaleo for the chokehold death of her father in July, 2014.

WATCH: Emerald Gardner, the daughter of Eric Garner, reacts to news that administrative judge recommends that NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo should be fired.

“We’ve waited 5 years... Commissioner O’Neill, fire Pantaleo.” pic.twitter.com/WE4R1wMLsY

The former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who resigned from the post in 2018, has replied directly (via Twitter, also) to the president’s offensive tweet earlier about congressman Elijah Cummings suffering an intruder at his house in Baltimore last weekend.

This is so unnecessary.

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Trump rattles markets as US economy adds 164,000 jobs in July – as it happened

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Markets fell sharply as Trump threatens fresh tariffs; US non-farm payrolls matched economists’ expectations in July, while June figures were revised down

The Bank of Finland governor Olli Rehn has confirmed that he has withdrawn from the race to become the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

EU is about to vote on Europe’s candidate for IMF managing director. It is an exceptionally meaningful and motivating job. However, at this stage I withdraw my name from the ballot, so that we can achieve a broad-based consensus for the European candidate, and world-wide support.

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A$AP Rocky assault trial: prosecutor calls for six-month sentence

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US rapper has been in detention since 3 July over incident in Swedish capital

A Swedish prosecutor has demanded that A$AP Rocky serve six months in prison for assault causing actual bodily harm in a case that that has outraged the US rapper’s fans and inflamed transatlantic relations.

The prosecutor, Daniel Suneson, told the court in Stockholm the musician, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, should serve a longer sentence than two members of his crew who are also accused of attacking the alleged victim, Mustafa Jafari, in a street brawl in the centre of the Swedish capital on 30 June.

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Nato and Russia trade barbs after collapse of nuclear arms treaty

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US pulls out of cold war-era INF treaty after Moscow’s ‘secret deployment’ of cruise missiles

A key international nuclear disarmament treaty has formally collapsed amid mutual recriminations between the west and Russia, and with Nato pledging to boost Europe’s military defences.

The alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Nato countries were facing a threat from previously banned Russian land-based cruise missiles that could “reach EU cities, with only minutes of warning time”.

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