Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
800,000 federal US workers continue to go without pay
Donald Trump abruptly ended a critical meeting with Democratic leaders on Wednesday, calling it a “total waste of time” as the partial shutdown of the US government dragged into its 19th day with no end in sight.
The further deterioration of negotiations over the funding lapse affecting nearly 800,000 federal employees came a day after the president used his first address from the Oval Office to reinforce his demands for a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
Detention adds pressure to the rising tension between Iran and the US as Trump pursues a maximalist campaign against Tehran
Iran has confirmed it is holding a US navy veteran, Michael R White, at a prison in the country, making him the first American known to be detained under Donald Trump’s administration.
White’s detention ratchets up the rising tension between Iran and the US, which under Trump has pursued a maximalist campaign against Tehran that includes pulling out of its nuclear deal with world powers.
Couple announce divorce after a long trial separation
World’s richest man believed to be worth about $137bn
Jeff Bezos, the boss of Amazon and the world’s richest man, has announced his divorce from MacKenzie, his wife of 25 years.
Bezos, who married MacKenzie (née Tuttle) in 1993, a year before he started Amazon from his garage in Seattle, broke the news of the split in a tweet signed by both of them.
For the first time in his presidency, Donald Trump delivered a televised address from the Oval Office, urging Congress to pay for his border wall to stop the ‘security crisis at our southern border’. Shortly afterwards, the Democratic House and Senate leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, accused Trump of ‘manufacturing a crisis’
Prosecutors in Chicago and Atlanta appeal for new information after allegations of abuse are made in documentary about R&B star, who has long denied wrongdoing
Fresh investigations have been launched into allegations of sexual and physical abuse against R Kelly by prosecutors in Chicago and Atlanta, after the airing of Surviving R Kelly, a documentary that contained claims of abuse by the R&B singer.
Chicago prosecutor Kimberly Foxx urged any potential victims of Kelly to come forward, saying: “There’s nothing that can be done to investigate these allegations without the cooperation of both victims and witnesses. We cannot seek justice without you.” Atlanta lawyer Gerald Griggs, representing a couple who claim Kelly is holding their daughter against her will, has said he was approached by the district attorney’s office regarding potential abuse by Kelly.
LA is a city of concrete. From Frank Lloyd Wright’s modernist mansions to Rudolph Schindler’s tilted houses, architects working there have embraced the material. A new map by Blue Crow Media shows some lesser-known structures are just as striking
Donald Trump has used the first Oval Office address of his presidency to stoke fears of illegal immigration, repeat dubious claims about his border wall and offer no new solutions to the partial government shutdown.
In the type of made-for-TV-moment he relishes, the US president blamed criminal gangs and “vast quantities of illegal drugs” for “thousands of deaths” and faulted Democrats for failing to end the shutdown, now in its 18th day. Democrats accused him of fear-mongering.
US speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer delivered the Democratic response to President Trump's address. Pelosi said Trump was obsessed with forcing American taxpayers to pay for a wall that would be expensive and ineffective and Schumer said Trump has appealed to fear, not facts, adding: "We don't govern by temper tantrum."
US president Donald Trump uses a primetime address on Tuesday to tell Americans he needs billions of dollars from Congress for his long-promised border wall to keep out drugs, gangs and human traffickers. In an Oval Office address, he says there is a 'growing humanitarian and security crisis' at the US-Mexico border, though crossings have fallen in recent years. He claims the wall will pay for itself via a new trade deal with Mexico and asks: 'How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job?'
In a primetime address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night, Donald Trump made his case for the US to expand its wall on the southern border.
The US president blamed criminal gangs and “vast quantities of illegal drugs” for “thousands of deaths”, described the situation at the border with Mexico as a humanitarian crisis and argued that the current immigration system allows “vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs” to prey on immigrants, especially women and children.
The book chronicles Harris’ upbringing as the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, her unexpected rise in US politics and current policy vision for the country.
“There were a lot of ways Secretary Kelly could have shown responsiveness, a lot of information he could have provided,” Harris writes. “Indeed the American people had a right to this information, and, given my oversight role on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, I intended to get it. Instead, he said gruffly, “Why are you calling me at home with this?” That was his chief concern. By the time we got off the phone, it was clear that he didn’t understand the depth of what was going on. He said he’d get back to me, but he never did.”
Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who attended the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower during the presidential campaign, has been charged by US authorities with obstruction of justice.
The indictment, which was unsealed on Tuesday by the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, is separate from the special counsel investigation of Russian interference in the US election and potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
Natalia Veselnitskaya is accused of fabricating evidence in a US money-laundering case she was working on when she visited Trump Tower in June 2016 to meet senior Trump advisers including his son Donald Jr and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Federal prosecutors in New York said on Tuesday that Veselnitskaya and a senior Russian official drafted a bogus investigation report that she presented in court as supposed evidence that exonerated her client, Prevezon.
Downgrade of diplomatic role seen as a snub reflecting a general antipathy to the EU in the Trump administration
The Trump administration has downgraded the diplomatic status of the EU mission in Washington, without informing the mission or Brussels, officials confirmed on Tuesday.
Gavin Newsom mostly managed to stay on script as his two-year-old son refused to leave the stage
It’s normal for politicians to pose for pictures with their spouse and children after giving a momentous speech. But on Monday night Gavin Newsom, who was being sworn in as the 40th governor of California, discovered his family was to be the main event.
While Newsom was giving his inauguration speech, his two-year-old son, Dutch, wandered on to stage. Newsom swooped him up in his arms joking, “this is exactly how this was scripted,” before continuing to read from the teleprompter.
US security chief tempers withdrawal claims, jeopardising Turkey’s plans to target Kurdish groups
Turkey has asked Washington to hand over its bases in Syria as the Trump administration appeared to reverse plans to withdraw from the country’s north-east on Tuesday, jeopardising Ankara’s plans to launch a widespread military operation targeting Kurdish groups.
The fresh row between the two Nato allies broke out as the US national security adviser, John Bolton, visited Ankara to row back on a surprise announcement by Donald Trump in December that US forces would leave Syria imminently, abandoning Kurdish proxies who had led its ground war against the Islamic State terror group. Turkey views those same Kurdish groups as mortal foes.
Kim Jong-un goes into 2019 with momentum to build on after last year’s historic meeting with President Donald Trump. As Kim attempts to negotiate a fresh summit, the Guardian’s Tania Branigan looks at his leadership so far and Emma Graham-Harrison describes a rare trip to Pyongyan. Plus: Catherine Shoard on the annual film awards season
Donald Trump has revealed that negotiations are underway to secure a location for a new summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, after the historic meeting between the two men in Singapore last year.
It came after Kim warned in a New Year’s speech that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persisted with sanctions.
White House counsel is reviewing whether the president has the ability to declare a national emergency in this situation
Vice-president Mike Pence said Donald Trump has yet to decidewhether he will declare a national emergency over his demand for a wall along the southwest border – the key sticking point in negotiations over the partial government shutdown that has affected 800,000 federal employees.
White House counsel is reviewing whether the president has the ability to declare a national emergency in the current situation, Pence told reporters on Monday. He added that the administration would prefer to secure the funding for border security from an agreement with Congress.
Jason Dalton admitted that he shot eight people at three locations in and around Kalamazoo in 2016
An Uber driver charged with killing six strangers in between picking up passengers pleaded guilty to murder in Michigan on Monday, just before attorneys were set to interview jurors for his trial.
Jason Dalton’s surprise move came more than three years after the shootings, which occurred over the course of a few hours in and around Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Council members urge New Yorkers to demand concessions like labor standards before company gains foothold in city
Two lawmakers from Amazon’s hometown in Seattle traveled to New York on Monday to warn the city of potential unintended consequences of the tech company’s planned new headquarters.
Lisa Herbold and Teresa Mosqueda, members of Seattle’s city council, addressed a summit of activist groups fighting Amazon’s plan for a new campus in Long Island City, Queens. They told the New Yorkers that Amazon’s presence in the west coast city had driven up housing costs, that the company had ducked efforts to make them help pay to address the crisis, and that they should resist it.