Trump news: White House human rights plan leaves 'no reason to be hopeful', as impeachment threat grows
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Donald Trump has announced he will be imposing a five percent tariff on all goods incoming from Mexico that will gradually increase unless America’s southern neighbour moves to bring an end to US-bound illegal immigration.
Ahead of his visit to the UK next week, Mr Trump has praised Conservative leadership contender Boris Johnson and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage as “good guys” and said he “may” meet with them in London.
The president has meanwhile continued his criticism of outgoing FBI special counsel Robert Mueller and accused him of nurturing a personal vendetta while also contradicting the White House regarding the USS John S McCain, a US Navy destroyer he denies asking to have moved “out of sight” in Japan during his recent tour as a snub to the late war hero the vessel is named after.
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Trump's national security adviser John Bolton is set to to present evidence of Iranian complicity in the attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf to the United Nations.
Speaking in London, the veteran hawk warned "threat was not over" from Iran, that the country "will be held accountable" and that there will be a "strong response" from the US should further acts of violence be carried out.
Bolton made his charge amid rising tension in the region after the US dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers and ordered the deployment of additional ground troops.
Here's our diplomatic editor Kim Sengupta.
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had a humbling week, forced to concede defeat in his bid to form a coalition government and agree to a new general election.
But here he is posing with a print-out map of his country signed by his dear friend, Donald Trump.
That scrawl next to the Golan Heights - which the US recently moved to recognise as Israeli territory in defiance of the international community, who argue it has been merely occupied since 1967 - says "Nice".
The architect of the Trump administration’s effort to add a controversial citizenship question to the 2020 US census once wrote in near-explicit terms that the addition would benefit white people and Republicans while hurting minorities, according to newly uncovered documents.
Asking census respondents whether they are US citizens "would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats" and "advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites", wrote Tom Hofeller, the mastermind behind the effort and an expert on redistricting for the Republican National Committee.
The boundaries of political maps are based upon district populations and critics of the citizenship question have estimated it would lead to an "undercount" of some 4.2m Hispanic residents across the country.
Here's Clark Mindock with more.
New Mexico landowner Brian Kolfage has been served a "cease and desist" order by the city of Sunland Park after attempting to build a private border wall in support of President Trump with $20m (£15.9m) raised through a crowdfunding website.
Kolfafge was accused of failing to fill out an application for the project and ranted on Twitter: "Here we go!! Liberals trying to intimidate us!" Mr Kolfage tweeted. "SOUND THE ALARM."
Also on the border wall, North Dakota construction firm Fisher Sand & Gravel - favoured for the job by President Trump after it promised to complete the project quicker and cheaper than any of its competitors - turns out to have a history of red flags against it, including more than $1m (£795,000) in fines for environmental and tax violations, according to CNN.
"A decade ago, a former co-owner of the company pleaded guilty to tax fraud, and was sentenced to prison", the network reports.
"The company also admitted to defrauding the federal government by impeding the IRS. The former executive, who's a brother of the current company owner, is no longer associated with it."
The Washington Post says Trump has "aggressively" pressured the Army Corps of Engineers to award Fisher a contract, apparently more concerned with getting a "deal" than the firm's checkered history.
CEO Tommy Fisher has, naturally, guested regularly on Fox News, SiriusXM Patriot and Breitbart News to promote the wall in principle and lobby for the gig. Well, he would, wouldn't he?
China is to set up a blacklist of "unreliable" foreign firms causing harm to its interest, apparently a direct retaliation to President Trump's attacks on Chinese technology giant Huawei.
The move could affect hundreds of major firms including Google, Apple and UK-based chip maker ARM.
China will set up a mechanism listing foreign enterprises, organisations and individuals that don’t obey market rules, violate contracts and cut off supplies for non-commercial reasons or severely damage the legitimate interests of Chinese companies, its Ministry of Commerce said.
Here's Ben Chapman's report.
Hillary Clinton has joined in Nancy Pelosi's attack on Facebook after the site refused to take down a doctored video of the House speaker in which her speech appeared slurred and incoherent, Clinton branding it "sexist trash".
"I think they have proven - by not taking down something they know is false - that they were willing enablers of the Russian interference in our election," Pelosi told KQED News regarding the video.
"We have said all along, poor Facebook, they were unwittingly exploited by the Russians. I think wittingly, because right now they are putting up something that they know is false. I can take it... but [Facebook is] lying to the public."
In more left-field news, pop icon Cher has been heavily criticised on Twitter for saying Donald Trump deserves to be sexually assaulted in prison and made a "Toy Boy of Big Bubba".
In a rare and surprising showing of bipartisan bonding, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Texas senator Ted Cruz - two people with very little in common - have agreed on the need for a new law banning ex-members of Congress from leveraging their political experience into lucrative lobbying gigs.
Another pop legend, Nancy Sinatra, considers this development "Groovy".
Professor and American political historian Allan Lichtman, who has correctly predicted the outcome of the last nine presidential elections, says Trump will be re-elected in 2020 unless Democrats "grow a spine" and press ahead with impeachment proceedings against him.
“It’s a false dichotomy to say Democrats have a choice between doing what is right and what is constitutional and what is politically right. Impeachment is also politically right,” Lichtman told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin on Wednesday.
Check out the man's psychedelic tie.
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