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Trump Twitter row: US House condemns ‘racist comments’

The row over US President Donald Trump’s tweets attacking four Democratic congresswomen shows little sign of abating. The House of Representatives has passed a motion denouncing “racist comments that have legitimised fear and hatred of New Americans and people of colour”.

The motion got through the Democrat-controlled House by 240 votes to 187. It follows Mr Trump tweeting that Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib – who are all US citizens – should “go back” to their own countries.

After the House’s decision, the president has come out fighting on Twitter again, writing that there is not “a racist bone in my body”. 

BBC

Twitter trends [from Trendinalia] – today from USA

Other News Stories –

Disasters and accidents

• 2018–19 Kivu Ebola epidemic
  • The World Health Organisation declares the most recent Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. (The Guardian)
• A national emergency is declared in the Philippines after more than 100,000 people contract dengue fever. (Fox News)

International relations

• Turkey–United States relations
  • The United States removes NATO ally Turkey from the Joint Strike Fighter program, following the country’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile system. Turkey had planned to buy 100 F-35 Lightning II jets. (BBC)

Law and crime

• AMIA bombing
  • At the request of Israel and the United States, Argentina officially declares Hezbollah a terrorist organization, freezing assets and expelling all members of the organization from the country. It also holds it responsible for the 1994 attack against AMIA. (Clarín) (Perfil) (TN)
• Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is sentenced to life in prison plus thirty years, and is ordered to forfeit US$12.6 billion. He accused the U.S. government of “torture and corruption” during his sentencing hearing in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York. He will likely be sent to ADX Florence in Colorado to serve his sentence. (CNBC)
• Pakistan arrests Hafiz Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been blamed by the United States and India for the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that left more than 160 people dead. (CBS News)
• A shooting in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, leaves two dead, including a Turkish diplomat. (DW)

Politics and elections

• President-elect of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen resigns from her position as Federal Minister of Defence of Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel appoints Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the leader of the ruling CDU, as her successor. (Deutsche Welle)
• 2018–19 Sudanese protests
  • Representatives of Sudan‘s military and the civil opposition sign the first of two parts of a power-sharing deal which is supposed to last until free elections in 2022. (DW)
• The U.S. House of Representatives votes 332–95 to table an impeachment-related measure against U.S. President Donald Trump. (CNN)
• During a campaign rally, U.S. President Donald Trump says “Squad” members “hate our country”. In light of recent statements made by Trump deemed as racist, the crowd of Trump supporters started chanting “send her back” in regards to Representative Ilhan Omar. (USA Today)

Science and technology

• Astronomers rule out the chances of ~30-meter asteroid 2006 QV89‘s impacting Earth in September 2019 by eliminating the possibility of its passing through an area where it would have to be if it were on an impacting orbit. Prior to this, the asteroid had been given a one-in-7,000 chance of impacting Earth. (phys.org)

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