Saudi Arabia’s interventions could result in seismic shift in region’s geopolitics
As the UAE and Bahrain prepared to sign a deal to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel this summer, Saudi Arabia – the regional heavyweight – was quietly urging them on.
For several months before the deals were signed at the White House, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had been laying out his rationale for a pact that would overturn regional policies towards a long-term foe.
Continue reading...David Smith’s sketch: President takes us through the looking glass amid the kneecapping of American democracy
Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law, told journalist Bob Woodward that one of the best ways to understand Donald Trump is to study Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Kushner paraphrased the Cheshire Cat’s philosophy: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will get you there.”
Wednesday was one of those days when to have a seat in the White House briefing room felts like stepping through the looking-glass into Blunderland, where the mad hatter has an authoritarian streak a mile wide.
Continue reading...Major carmakers, including Elon Musk’s electric car company, say the levies imposed last year on crucial components were ‘arbitrary’
Tesla, Volvo, Ford and Mercedes-Benz have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, aiming to end what Elon Musk’s electric car manufacturer called “unlawful” tariffs imposed on certain parts imported from China.
The lawsuits, filed in New York this week, target the 25% tariffs imposed by the US trade representative on a list of products including spare parts such as terminals.
Continue reading...Donald Trump said he wants to confirm a ninth justice to the supreme court because he believes the court will determine the outcome of the presidential election.
'I think this will end up in the supreme court, and I think it’s very important that we have nine justices,' Trump told reporters at a White House event.
The president has previously indicated the federal courts will need to become involved in the election because it will be tainted by fraud. Trump has provided no evidence for that extraordinary claim, and voter fraud is rare.
The Kentucky attorney general, Daniel Cameron, urged protesters to make their voices heard peacefully after only one police officer involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, Brett Hankison, was indicted by a grand jury. Hankinson faces three charges of wanton endangerment for endangering people living in nearby apartments, but he was not charged for shooting Taylor. The other two officers present, who also fired multiple times at Taylor in her apartment, were not charged
Continue reading...Patriots Coalition members suggested political assassinations and said ‘laws will be broken, people will get hurt’, leaked chats show
Leaked chat logs show Portland-area pro-Trump activists planning and training for violence, sourcing arms and ammunition and even suggesting political assassinations ahead of a series of contentious rallies in the Oregon city, including one scheduled for this weekend.
The chats on the GroupMe app, shared with the Guardian by the antifascist group Eugene Antifa, show conversations between Oregon members of the Patriots Coalition growing more extreme as they discuss armed confrontations with leftwing Portland activists, and consume a steady diet of online disinformation about protests and wildfires.
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A few moments ago, a driver drove into a group of protestors. There were no serious injuries, Denver police have confirmed, and a man has been detained.
#DPD Officers are at Colfax & Broadway in response to a vehicle that drove into a protest occurring at that location. No injuries are reported. One male has been detained. #Denver. pic.twitter.com/Ge8zDLZTju
JUST IN: Video from a @denverpost reporter shows the moment a driver ran their car over a protester outside the Colorado State Capitol.
The protester, Kate, told @ShellyBradbury she was not badly hurt.
Denver police say a man has been detained. https://t.co/LNPZVmAiTO
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family of Breonna Taylor, has told CNN the indictment is, “like killing Breonna all over again.”
He called her death, “Legalized genocide of people of color, because no matter how much evidence we have, they always find a way to try to legally justify it.”
Continue reading...Essential workers reported stress caused by increased workloads, understaffing, fears over Covid and struggles in enforcing social distancing
Terri Prunty Kay has worked as a cashier at Walmart in Sonoma county, California since 2011. She had never cried at work because of treatment from customers before the pandemic.
“It’s been a nightmare,” she said. “The first three months there were item limits. Everyone was angry and combative. Now it’s the masks.”
Continue reading...US president says it could have been 2.5 million deaths; Japan considers easing border controls; WHO announces record weekly cases
President Donald Trump has said the 200,000 US deaths from coronavirus were “a shame” in response to a reporter’s question about the milestone in the country’s fight against the pandemic.
As Trump was departing for an election campaign event in Pittsburgh he told the media: “I think if we didn’t do it properly and do it right, you’d have 2.5 million deaths.”
Continue reading...Photographer Luke Gilford couldn’t believe his eyes when he first stumbled across a gay rodeo. He set out to capture the joyous, tender, authentic world he saw there
Luke Gilford was at a Pride event in northern California in 2016 when he was drawn to a stand by the sound of Dolly Parton singing 9 to 5. What he found there would change his life. Members of the local chapter of the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association were promoting what they do, and how they live. Gilford looked on in astonishment. “I grew up around this world,” he says. “I had no idea this existed. I really didn’t think it was real.”
A sought-after film-maker and photographer, to whom Barbara Kruger is a mentor and Pamela Anderson and Jane Fonda muses, Gilford cuts a striking figure. A New York Times profile that same year recounted how you could often catch a glimpse of him downtown, in a hand-me-down cowboy hat, football-style shoulder pads over his bare torso.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s original draft statement justifying his firing of the former FBI director James Comey was “tinfoil helmet material”, according to a top prosecutor who worked for the special counsel Robert Mueller, and who in a new book calls the draft “excruciatingly juvenile, disorganized and brimming with spite, incoherent and narcissistic”.
Related: Mueller too timid in Trump-Russia investigation, top prosecutor claims
Continue reading...The US president says: 'Well, I think it’s a shame' when asked by a White House reporter about the 200,000 coronavirus deaths in the US – a fifth of the global total and the highest of any country worldwide. He claims the US could have had 2.5 million deaths 'if we didn't do it properly'. Trump also repeats his accusation that China is at fault for the pandemic.
Continue reading...McCain was motivated in part by Trump’s recent comments on the military, where he called war heroes ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’
Cindy McCain has endorsed Joe Biden for president, a stunning rebuke of Donald Trump by the widow of the Republican party’s 2008 nominee.
Cindy McCain tweeted on Tuesday: “My husband John lived by a code: country first. We are Republicans, yes, but Americans foremost. There’s only one candidate in this race who stands up for our values as a nation, and that is Joe Biden.”
Continue reading...Tesla CEO acknowledged the design and manufacturing process of the new cells, which he says will be half as expensive, is not complete
Elon Musk described a new generation of electric vehicle batteries that will be more powerful, longer lasting, and half as expensive as the company’s current cells at Tesla’s “Battery Day” on Tuesday.
Tesla’s new larger cylindrical cells will provide five times more energy, six times more power and 16% greater driving range, Musk said, adding that full production is about three years away.
Continue reading...China’s UN representative Zhang Jun said the country rejected 'baseless accusations' around coronavirus before introducing President Xi Jinping.
In a video address, Donald Trump said the UN had to take action against China and called for Beijing to be held accountable by the UN for 'releasing the virus'
Continue reading...Amid prerecorded speeches, secretary-general issues warning over US-China rivalry at an unprecedented moment
“Today, we face our own 1945 moment,” the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said as he opened the UN’s 75th general assembly, to a thinly populated chamber of socially distanced diplomats.
Guterres meant the historical reference as a call to action inspired by the generation who had survived the second world war and sought to build a new world. A similarly concerted effort, he said, would be needed to defeat Covid and the pandemics that may follow, and the climate emergency.
Continue reading...Italian health minister says ‘we have to be cautious’; Iran death toll one of worst in Middle East; Madrid residents advised not to travel
The EU Council, scheduled for later this week, has been postponed after its president tested positive, reports Euronews political editor, Darren McCaffery.
MEANS: EU Council due to be held this Thursday and Friday has been postponed until next week, 1st and 2nd of September
The UN summit is proving to be a bad-tempered event.
In a recorded video, the US president, Donald Trump, called Covid-19 the “China virus”, adding: “We must hold accountable the nation that unleashed this plague upon the world.”
Continue reading...Republican who voted to convict Trump at impeachment trial said decision is ‘based on the immutable fairness of following the law’
Donald Trump received a major boost on Tuesday when Republican senator Mitt Romney announced his support for considering the US president’s supreme court nominee.
Related: 'Fill that seat': Trump's weaponizing of the courts will be his lasting legacy
Continue reading...Follow live as Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin – among others – deliver video messages
...and we have photos of Xi Jinping’s background:
Some more analysis, this time from our diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, on Turkey’s talk:
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used his general assembly address to set out Turkey’s bitter objections to its exclusion from the East Mediterranean, but said he was ready to resume talks bound by international law to address their contested maritime claims in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean. By his recent rhetorical standards, the speech was one of Erdoğan’s mildest.
Continue reading...British officials hand over evidence after mother of one of accused men loses challenge
The prosecutions of two alleged Islamic State members accused of carrying out a series of beheadings can go ahead in the US after British officials handed over key evidence.
The material was given to Washington after high court judges sitting in London dismissed a challenge brought by the mother of one of the accused men.
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