US students accused of stabbing Rome police officer appear in court

Mario Cerciello Rega died after being repeatedly stabbed early on Friday in a crime that has shaken Italy

Two American students have appeared in court in Rome accused of stabbing a plain-clothes police officer to death on a street near their hotel.

Gabriel Christian Natale Hjorth, 18, and Finnegan Lee Elder, 19, from San Francisco, appeared in court in connection with the death of Carabinieri paramilitary police officer Mario Cerciello Rega, 35. The dead man, and a fellow officer, were in plain clothes when they confronted the two Americans in the wake of a drug deal gone wrong, the court heard.

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Now that Putin is Xi’s ‘best and bosom friend’, where does that leave the west?

An ever closer alliance between Beijing and Moscow has the Pentagon worried as a threat to US power in south-east Asia

It sounds unpleasant, even painful. But as they ponder the linked challenges posed by China and Russia, Pentagon strategists are earnestly discussing whether Vladimir Putin, Russia’s famously athletic leader, will perform a “reverse Nixon”.

This is neither a daring swivel on the parallel bars nor an unusual sexual position. At issue is whether Putin will emulate the 37th US president, Richard Nixon, whose groundbreaking 1972 cold war outreach to China tilted the strategic balance in America’s favour.

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‘A beautiful place with a very dark history’: sale of Manson murder house piques interest in LA

Ghost Adventures’ Zak Bagans is buying the $1.98m house with ‘very, very strong energy’ where Charles Manson’s followers killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in 1969

A Los Angeles mansion where Charles Manson and his followers tortured and murdered the former residents went up for sale this month, and attracted widespread interest from celebrity buyers.

Related: Behind the bloodshed: the chilling untold stories about Charles Manson

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Canada murder hunt: military join search as suspect’s mother pleads for safe ending

Police being given military air support as authorities scour areas of Manitoba for teenage murder suspects

Canada’s armed forces have been drafted in to provide air support as police go door to door in the search for two teenagers suspected in three killings in the country’s remote wilderness.

Authorities have urged “all Canadians” to be on the lookout for 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky, after the fatal shooting of a tourist couple – American woman Chynna Deese, 24, and her Australian boyfriend Lucas Fowler, 23 – and the murder of Vancouver professor Leonard Dyck, 64.

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South Korea: world championship athletes injured in fatal balcony collapse

Two South Koreans killed and athletes from US, New Zealand, Netherlands, Italy and Brazil injured

Two South Koreans have died and several others, including athletes attending the world aquatic championships, have been injured after a structure collapsed in a nightclub in the city of Gwangju early on Saturday, a fire department official has said.

The deaths happened when a two-level structure in the club, which is next to the athletes’ village, collapsed at about 2am local time, hitting and pinning revellers, the official said.

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Trump says agreement reached with Guatemala to restrict asylum seekers

Immigrant rights advocates say the ‘safe third country’ agreement is cruel and unlawful, though it could still be blocked

Donald Trump announced Friday that Guatemala was signing an agreement to restrict asylum applications to the US, a move that immigrant rights advocates said was cruel and unlawful.

The so-called “safe third country” agreement would require migrants, including Salvadorans and Hondurans, who cross into Guatemala on their way to the US to apply for protections in Guatemala instead of at the US border.

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Supreme court allows Trump to use $2.5bn in Pentagon funds for border wall

Move allows administration to redirect money despite lawmakers’ refusal to provide funding

The US supreme court cleared the way for Donald Trump to use billions in Pentagon funds to build a border wall.

The decision allows the Trump administration to redirect approximately $2.5bn approved by Congress for the Pentagon to help build his promised wall along the US-Mexico border even though lawmakers refused to provide funding.

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Supreme court allows Trump to use $2.5bn in Pentagon funds on border wall – live

White House announces an asylum deal with Guatemala three days after Trump threatened tariffs, among other sanctions, if it did not sign on

The president is celebrating the supreme court’s decision to allow him to spend $2.5bn on the border wall:

Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!

This wall won't make anyone any more secure. It's a futile exercise to massage your ego, and advance your racist agenda.

We should be spending this $2.5bn of our tax payers money on housing for homeless people, mental health for veterans, and healthcare for those who are unwell.

The case is not about whether the challenged border barrier construction plan is wise or unwise. It is not about whether the plan is the right or wrong policy response to existing conditions at the southern border of the United States. Instead, this case presents strict legal questions regarding whether the proposed plan for funding border barrier construction exceeds the executive branch’s lawful authority.”

The case the Supreme Court ruled on began after the 35-day partial government shutdown that started in December of last year. Trump ended the shutdown in February after Congress gave him approximately $1.4 billion in border wall funding. But the amount was far less than the $5.7 billion he was seeking, and Trump then declared a national emergency to take cash from other government accounts to use to construct sections of wall.

The money Trump identified includes $3.6 billion from military construction funds, $2.5 billion in Defense Department money and $600 million from the Treasury Department’s asset forfeiture fund.

The Supreme Court has said the Trump administration can spend $2.5bn in Pentagon funds on the border wall:

JUST IN: Supreme Court allows Trump administration to spend $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds on border wall pic.twitter.com/JVxFusMf41

NOW: In a divided decision, the Supreme Court rules the Trump administration can begin using some of the contested federal funds Trump redirected for border wall construction — the court granted the admin's request to stay a lower court injunction https://t.co/SSEU48JLNU pic.twitter.com/DPijozmm8B

Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan would have denied the stay and left in place the injunction blocking the admin from using the funds while the case went forward; Breyer would have let the govt finalize contracts, but also blocked construction during the litigation

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Sweden hits back at Donald Trump in row over A$AP Rocky detention

Ex-Swedish PM tells US president political interference in rule of law is off limits

Sweden has hit back at Donald Trump after the US president reacted angrily to a decision to press assault charges against the American rapper A$AP Rocky, insisting its independent judicial system must do its work.

“The rule of the law applies to everyone equally and is exercised by an independent judiciary,” tweeted former prime minister Carl Bildt. “That’s the way it is in the US, and that’s certainly the way it is in Sweden. Political interference in the process is distinctly off limits. Clear?”

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Film stunts under scrutiny after deaths and serious injuries

CGI-weary audiences’ demand for complex ‘real’ action is increasing the risk for performers

This week, the British stunt performer Joe Watts suffered a serious head injury on the set of the film Fast & Furious 9, at Warner Bros Studios in Leavesden, Hertfordshire, after he reportedly fell 30ft (9 metres) from a balcony. He was airlifted to hospital and has been put in an induced coma. Production on the film was shut down, and the Health and Safety Executive is investigating.

Stunt professionals are in high demand in the current climate of action-driven blockbuster films and increasing volumes of small-screen productions requiring cinema-standard action. Weary of unconvincing CGI and green-screen action, audiences are starting to want practical, unsimulated effects: humans doing spectacular stunts “for real”. However, as the volume and complexity of stunts has grown, so has the risk factor.

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Fear, confusion, despair: the everyday cruelty of a border immigration court

At a federal immigration court in El Paso asylum seekers wait in limbo as a result of Trump’s policies

Judge Sunita Mahtabfar, presiding over the El Paso immigration court in south-west Texas, kicked off the hearing by asking the 16 asylum seekers a question.

“Is anyone here afraid to return to Mexico?” she said.

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Four dead after gunman goes on 12-hour ‘violent spree’ in Los Angeles

Police have arrested suspect who fatally shot his father, brother and two others in the San Fernando Valley

A man fatally shot his father, brother and two others on Thursday during a 12-hour rampage in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, eluding an intense manhunt until plainclothes officers arrested him soon after he gunned down a city bus passenger, authorities said.

Police said they did not know what had motivated the suspect, identified as Gerry Dean Zaragoza, 26, in the attacks. “It is obviously an individual that went on a violent spree,” Capt William Hayes said. “We knew he was a danger to the community.”

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US justice department resumes use of death penalty and schedules five executions

William Barr announces he has reinstated a policy dormant for 16 years, following authorization from Congress and signing by Trump

The US government is set to carry out the death penalty for the first time in 16 years, William Barr, the attorney general, announced on Thursday, despite criticism of capital punishment as “immoral and deeply flawed”.

The justice department scheduled the execution of five death row federal inmates for December and January.

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Pro-Trump Republican aiming to unseat Ilhan Omar charged with felony theft

Exclusive: Danielle Stella, reported to support baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, held twice this year over alleged shoplifting

A pro-Trump Republican candidate for Congress who is aiming to unseat Ilhan Omar in Minnesota has been charged with a felony after allegedly stealing from stores.

Related: Trump speaks before presidential seal doctored with symbols of Russia and golf

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Donald Trump vetoes bills prohibiting arms sales to Saudi Arabia

Arms package includes thousands of precision-guided munitions and aircraft maintenance support

Donald Trump vetoed a trio of congressional resolutions aimed at blocking his administration from selling billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, last month cited threats from Iran as a reason to approve the $8.1bn arms sale to the two US allies in the Persian Gulf.

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Jeffrey Epstein found unconscious in jail cell, say reports

Financier facing charges of sex trafficking was found injured, sources say

Jeffrey Epstein, the financier facing charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls, was found unconscious in a Manhattan jail cell with injuries to his neck, US media reported late on Wednesday, citing unidentified sources.

Epstein was found by guards sprawled on the floor of cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Wednesday, media reported.

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Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rosselló to quit after weeks of protest

Rosselló says he will stand down on 2 August after key aides deserted him in the face of huge popular discontent

Puerto Rico’s embattled governor has announced his resignation following almost two weeks of continuous mass protest on the island tied to a leaked text message scandal that saw him gradually abandoned by his own party. Ricardo Rosselló’s resignation – set for 2 August – was announced late on Wednesday.

A crowd of demonstrators outside the governor’s mansion in Old San Juan erupted into cheers and singing after his announcement on Facebook Live just before midnight.

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Trump speaks before presidential seal doctored with symbols of Russia and golf

Image mysteriously displayed behind president at rightwing event features two-headed eagle clutching golf clubs

As Donald Trump addressed a rightwing crowd in Washington on Tuesday, the audience roared in support – but it was a doctored onscreen display that ultimately took center stage.

At a student summit hosted by the conservative group Turning Point USA, the president stood before what looks, to the casual observer, very much like the US presidential seal. A thorough examination by the Washington Post, however, reveals some odd tweaks to the image.

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Canada murders: father of suspect fears police shootout as third victim identified

Alan Schmegelsky fears son will go out in ‘blaze of glory’ gun battle as police identify victim as Vancouver man Leonard Dyck

The father of one of the Canadian teenagers suspected of murdering Australian tourist Lucas Fowler and his partner, US citizen Chynna Deese, has voiced fears the manhunt will come to a violent end as police identified a third potential victim.

A distraught Alan Schmegelsky told Canadian Press his son, 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky, was dealing with some “very serious pain” and he expected the search to end in “a blaze of glory” gun battle with police. “He wants his hurt to end,” Alan Schmegelsky said.

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