Trump news - live: President rages over Mueller in Fox News-inspired Twitter storm, amid impeachment push and bid to force tax returns release

Donald Trump has warned that the antifacist movement Antifa could be declared a terrorist organisation and branded the Mueller investigation a “witch-hunt hoax” in a series of late-night tweets.As the prospect of a push in congress for his impeachment grows, the US president’s tirade comes after a US House judiciary committee asked a judge to force the release of grand jury evidence from the special counsel's wide-ranging probe.The request, filed on Friday, explicitly referenced congress’ impeachment powers and is a major step forward in the Democrats' legal fight against Mr Trump.Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load:Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom is reportedly on the verge of a move that could force Mr Trump to release his tax returns if he wants to appear on the state’s ballot in the 2020 elections.Earlier on Saturday, Mr Trump was widely-criticised for a series of tweets accusing Democratic congressman Elijah Cumming of being a “brutal bully” from a “rat-infested district”.The attacks appeared to have been inspired by a Fox & Friends report that aired minutes before the president’s outburst, which criticised living conditions in Mr Cummings’ district.Nancy Pelosi led Democratic representatives in defending Mr Cummings, accusing the US president of “racist attacks”.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2SKxF1E

Blast, gunbattle at Afghan VP candidate's office, 2 dead

The political office of the Afghan president's running mate was hit by a large explosion and stormed by several gunmen who remained holed up inside, Afghan officials said Sunday. The attack in the capital, Kabul, killed at least two people and came on the first day of campaigning for presidential elections, scheduled for late September. Vice-presidential candidate and former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh was "evacuated from the building and moved to a safe location," said Nasrat Rahimi, the interior ministry spokesman.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2K0bTo0

Cape Town - tourist hotspot where eight people are murdered a day

Cape Town in South Africa is well-known tourist hotspot, but is also one of the world's most dangerous cities.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2GyQqAm

Nasa’s Valkyrie robot could help build Mars base

The semi-autonomous robot is able to use human tools and guide itself across difficult terrain.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2YsUw2U

Mario Cerciello Rega: US teen held over officer’s killing ‘illegally blindfolded’

The photo of a blindfolded suspect was taken after his arrest over a police officer’s killing in Rome.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2YaDECN

The U.S. and Guatemala Reached an Asylum Deal: Here’s What It Means

By KIRK SEMPLE from NYT World https://ift.tt/2Yq44fd

Off-duty LAPD officer killed, 1 other person wounded in Lincoln Heights shooting

An off-duty Los Angeles police officer was killed in a Lincoln Heights shooting that left a second victim wounded, authorities said.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Y8dJfh

Dan Coats, intelligence chief who clashed with Donald Trump, 'to step down'

Dan Coats, the US director of national intelligence who clashed repeatedly with Donald Trump, is reportedly to step down from his position within days.  Mr Coats, 76, had disagreements with the president over Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Brexit. Mr Trump was said to be considering replacing him with John Ratcliffe, a Republican congressman who has been a staunch loyalist, according to the New York Times.  Mr Ratcliffe sits on the House judiciary committee, and Mr Trump was said to have been impressed by his recent aggressive questioning of special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr Coats, who was appointed by Mr Trump, has served in the role since March 2017. He clashed with Mr Trump early on, taking a hard line toward Russia that sharply contrasted with the conciliatory approach the president pursued with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. Earlier this year Mr Coats told Congress that North Korea was unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons, contradicting Mr Trump's statement that Pyongyang no longer posed a threat. He also told Congress that Iran had continued to comply with a nuclear deal that Trump abandoned. Mr Coats, a former Republican senator, served in Mr Trump’s cabinet. He was previously US ambassador to Germany under George W Bush.  The role he holds was created after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and he has overseen the work of America’s 17 intelligence agencies. Mr Coats was also out of step with Mr Trump on Brexit. In January Mr Coats made clear his opposition to a no-deal Brexit. He said: "The possibility of a no-deal Brexit, in which the UK exits the EU without an agreement, remains. This would cause economic disruptions that could substantially weaken the UK and Europe."

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2MmIRR6

Montana searchers find body of missing Oregon child

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ZjGwd4

Bernie Sanders denounces 'greed' of American drug companies

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders accused American pharmaceutical companies Sunday of letting diabetic patients die out of "greed," after he accompanied a group of Americans to Canada to buy insulin. Sanders joined the group, which took a bus from the US city of Detroit to Windsor, Ontario to restock on insulin, which costs 10 times more in the United States than in its northern neighbor. "How come the same exact medicine, in this case insulin, is sold here in Canada for one-tenth of the price it is sold in the United States?" Sanders demanded after visiting a Windsor pharmacy.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Mle4nz

Trump’s asylum deal with Guatemala threatens to plunge country into political crisis, analysts warn

In pressuring Guatemala to accept a deal to absorb vast numbers of asylum-seekers, the Trump administration has embarked on a dramatic and risky strategy to slash the number of Central Americans flooding the US-Mexico border.The accord – which was negotiated in secret and signed at the White House on Friday – could plunge Guatemala’s young democracy into a constitutional crisis, analysts warn.It could also saddle one of the hemisphere’s poorest countries with tens of thousands of Salvadoran and Honduran migrants who would be barred from making their claims in the United States.The agreement is one of the boldest steps yet taken by Donald Trump to stanch the flow of migrants to the US border.It aims to close off the US asylum system to the migrants who have crossed through Guatemala en route to the United States. They would instead have to seek protection in Guatemala.But the agreement is built on a fragile political and legal base.Guatemala’s constitutional court ruled earlier this month that President Jimmy Morales needed approval from the Guatemalan Congress to sign the accord – something he has not received.The Guatemalan president has sharply criticised the court decision, saying on Friday that “as far as we understand, this doesn’t have to go before Congress”.Some analysts said Mr Morales could get around the ruling with his argument that the deal is simply a cooperation agreement, not a treaty. But others note Mr Morales has at times simply shrugged off court rulings he dislikes.“This leaves a legacy we won’t be able to recover from, that the country’s constitution can be flagrantly violated without any kind of reaction or penalty,” said Renzo Rosal, an independent political consultant.The agreement is also likely to be challenged in US courts by opponents who say that Guatemala does not qualify as a “safe” country, because of high levels of violence.Whatever happens with the courts, the agreement has little political support in Guatemala.Mr Morales, who finishes his four-year term in January, is highly unpopular.Among the top Twitter hashtags in Guatemala in recent days has been Jimmyvendepatrias – Jimmy the sellout – as a dig at the country’s leader.Guatemalans were startled by a widely published photo showing their government minister, Enrique Degenhart, signing the agreement as Mr Trump loomed over his shoulder, an image suggesting the Central American country’s submission.On Saturday, hundreds of people demonstrated in front of the presidential palace in Guatemala City to protest the agreement, the Associated Press reported. The protesters carried Guatemalan flags and called for Mr Morales’ resignation.Guatemalan analysts have suggested Mr Morales made the deal with Mr Trump in hopes of winning support from the US government.Mr Morales faces allegations of financial crimes related to his 2015 electoral campaign but has been shielded by presidential immunity, which he loses in January. He says he is innocent.Mr Morales said the agreement would help Guatemala by “putting us in a privileged position” with the country’s top trading partner and most important ally.Guatemala holds a run-off presidential election on 11 August, and both candidates have criticised Mr Morales’ negotiation of such a broad agreement in secret.The accord “is unlikely to be sustainable”, Stephen McFarland, a former US ambassador to Guatemala, wrote in a tweet on the eve of the agreement’s unveiling.“A bitter US ‘win’ would put at risk US goals in democracy and law enforcement with the current and next governments.”While the next Guatemalan government could cancel the agreement, it would face intense pressure from the Trump administration to not do so.Mr Morales’ government signed the pact after Mr Trump threatened severe penalties on Guatemala – tariffs, a travel ban or taxes on the billions of dollars in remittances sent home by migrants in the United States.Kevin McAleenan, the acting Homeland Security secretary, said the administration plans to start the “safe third country” programme with Guatemala in August.Human rights groups, Democratic lawmakers and immigration experts have said Guatemala is too poor and underdeveloped to handle a flood of asylum applicants.Last year, Salvadoran and Honduran migrants filed nearly 58,000 applications for asylum in the United States. That same year, Guatemala received just 259 asylum applications overall.Guatemala is the number one source of irregular migration to the United States, with citizens fleeing poverty, violence, low coffee prices and drought.Eric Schwartz, head of Refugees International and a former top refugee official at the US State Department, said in a statement that the agreement “would represent a grotesque violation of both US law and human decency” and “would put at risk the lives of thousands of Central Americans”.Sonia Lucia Valenzuela, a constitutional law expert in Guatemala, said the Constitutional Court ruling was clear in instructing Mr Morales to send the agreement to Congress but that political pressures could determine what happens next.The migration agreement has been strongly supported by Guatemala’s influential business groups, who had feared US tariffs. But many current and former politicians oppose it.“If the opposition to this accord continues, that’s a sign this will escalate,” she said.Washington Post

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Kbpo2K

Emmett Till memorial will be made bulletproof after photo of gun-toting students surfaces

Emmett Till's memorial will be bulletproof after outrage over a photo of three gun-toting Ole Miss students posing in front of the sign.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/32YDaOQ

Trump signs ‘cruel and illegal’ deal with Guatemala to stop asylum seekers getting to US

The Trump administration has struck a highly controversial deal with Guatemala, which will prevent some migrants fleeing their home countries from submitting asylum applications to the US.Refugees travelling to the US who enter Guatemala, including Salvadorans and Hondurans, will now be required to apply for asylum protection from the Central American nation instead of at the US border.Under the deal Guatemala has been declared a so-called “safe third country”.The Central American nation and the US have been negotiating the deal for months.Donald Trump earlier threatened to place trade tariffs on Guatemala if an agreement wasn’t reached.“We’ll either do tariffs or we’ll do something. We’re looking at something very severe with respect to Guatemala,” the US president said on Wednesday.Jimmy Morales, Guatemala’s president, said the agreement would allow the country to avoid “drastic sanctions ... many of them designed to strongly punish our economy, such as taxes on remittances that our brothers send daily, as well as the imposition of tariffs on our export goods and migratory restrictions.” As part of the agreement the US will increase access to the the H-2A visa program for temporary agricultural workers from Guatemala. The country’s government said its labour ministry would, in the coming days, ”start issuing work visas in the agriculture industry, which will allow Guatemalans to travel legally to the United States, to avoid being victims of criminal organisations, to work temporarily and then return to Guatemala, which will strengthen family unity.”“We have long been working with Guatemala and now we can do it the right way.” Mr Trump said.“This landmark agreement will put the coyotes and smugglers out of business.”Despite the president’s optimism it remains unclear how the agreement will take effect. Guatemala’s constitutional court has granted three injunctions preventing its government from entering into a deal without approval of the country’s congress and Mr Morales himself has questioned the concept of a “safe third country”, which forms the basis of the agreement.“Where does that term exist?” he asked reporters on Friday, hours before the deal was struck.”It does not exist, it is a colloquial term. No agreement exists that is called ‘safe third country.”Rights groups have condemned the deal, with multiple experts questioning its legality.Jordan Rodas, a human rights prosecutor, said his team was studying the agreement and whether Enrique Degenhart, Guatemala’s interior minister, had the authority to sign it.Amnesty International condemned the deal, saying ”any attempts to force families and individuals fleeing their home countries to seek safety in Guatemala are outrageous.”Rights groups and student organisations rallied against the agreement in Guatemala City, gathering in front of the constitutional court.Many believe the nation, which is mired in poverty and unemployment, has no capacity to take in refugees.The problems of homelessness, severe drought, gang violence and unemployment which are endemic in El Salvador and Honduras are also present in Guatemala.Eliot Engel, a Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs said Mr Trump’s decision to sign the agreement was “cruel and immoral.”‘’It is also illegal,” he added. “Simply put, Guatemala is not a safe country for refugees and asylum seekers, as the law requires.”The president was asked on Friday if he expected to reach similar agreements with Honduras and El Salvador.He replied, “I do indeed.” Additional reporting by agencies

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ZeMxYt

Girl's murder sparks outcry and protests in Romania

Several thousand protesters rallied in Bucharest on Saturday after Romania's police chief was fired over the murder of a 15-year-old girl who had made three emergency calls to report her own kidnapping and given clues to her whereabouts. Centre-right President Klaus Iohannis said earlier the "resignations of all those who mishandled this case which had such dramatic consequences are obligatory".

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2On4JOC

UPDATE 1-Israel says Arrow-3 missile shield passes U.S. trials, warns Iran

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ZqO91i

Off-duty LAPD officer killed, 1 other person wounded in Lincoln Heights shooting

An off-duty Los Angeles police officer was killed in a Lincoln Heights shooting that left a second victim wounded, authorities said.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Y8dJfh

Dan Coats, intelligence chief who clashed with Donald Trump, 'to step down'

Dan Coats, the US director of national intelligence who clashed repeatedly with Donald Trump, is reportedly to step down from his position within days.  Mr Coats, 76, had disagreements with the president over Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Brexit. Mr Trump was said to be considering replacing him with John Ratcliffe, a Republican congressman who has been a staunch loyalist, according to the New York Times.  Mr Ratcliffe sits on the House judiciary committee, and Mr Trump was said to have been impressed by his recent aggressive questioning of special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr Coats, who was appointed by Mr Trump, has served in the role since March 2017. He clashed with Mr Trump early on, taking a hard line toward Russia that sharply contrasted with the conciliatory approach the president pursued with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. Earlier this year Mr Coats told Congress that North Korea was unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons, contradicting Mr Trump's statement that Pyongyang no longer posed a threat. He also told Congress that Iran had continued to comply with a nuclear deal that Trump abandoned. Mr Coats, a former Republican senator, served in Mr Trump’s cabinet. He was previously US ambassador to Germany under George W Bush.  The role he holds was created after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and he has overseen the work of America’s 17 intelligence agencies. Mr Coats was also out of step with Mr Trump on Brexit. In January Mr Coats made clear his opposition to a no-deal Brexit. He said: "The possibility of a no-deal Brexit, in which the UK exits the EU without an agreement, remains. This would cause economic disruptions that could substantially weaken the UK and Europe."

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2MmIRR6

Montana searchers find body of missing Oregon child

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ZjGwd4

Bernie Sanders denounces 'greed' of American drug companies

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders accused American pharmaceutical companies Sunday of letting diabetic patients die out of "greed," after he accompanied a group of Americans to Canada to buy insulin. Sanders joined the group, which took a bus from the US city of Detroit to Windsor, Ontario to restock on insulin, which costs 10 times more in the United States than in its northern neighbor. "How come the same exact medicine, in this case insulin, is sold here in Canada for one-tenth of the price it is sold in the United States?" Sanders demanded after visiting a Windsor pharmacy.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Mle4nz

Man Who Claims He Started ‘Storm Area 51’ Facebook Page Reveals Identity

The reported creator of the viral Facebook page “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” revealed his identity to KLAS-TV of Las Vegas on Thursday.Matty Roberts, a California resident, claimed he created the satirical Facebook page, which calls on people across the nation to raid Area 51, the top-secret Air Force facility in Nevada on Sept. 20, 2019. Roberts said he never expected the page to attract so much attention. Since its launch on June 27, 1.6 million people responded they would attend the public invasion, while another 1.2 million are “interested.”The Facebook page invites attendees to meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction in order to coordinate the entry, an area that has been surrounded by secrecy for decades.“If we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets. Lets see them aliens,” the event description reads.“I posted it on like June 27th and it was kind of a joke,” Roberts said. “And then it waited for like three days, like 40 people and then it just completely took off, out of nowhere. It’s pretty wild.”Roberts said he initially intended for it to be a “meme” page and got the idea after watching podcaster Joe Rogan interview Bob Lazar, an Area 51 whistleblower, about hidden UFO technology in the Nevada desert, according to the KLAS-TV segment.“It’s entirely satirical, though, and most people seem to understand that,” he said.Roberts was hesitant to come forward as the creator, fearing that the FBI would show up to his house.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2yj8da5