Monday, Sep 02nd
Last update08:58:16 PM GMT
North Korea appears to be building new ballistic missiles despite recent warming ties with the Trump administration and pledges to denuclearise, reports say.
Unnamed US officials told the Washington Post that spy satellites had spotted continuing activity at a site that has produced ballistic missiles.
Reuters quotes an official as saying it is unclear how far the work has gone.
Donald Trump met North Korea's Kim Jong-un in Singapore in June.
Pope Francis on Monday accepted the resignation of an Australian archbishop convicted in criminal court of covering up the sexual abuse of children by a priest, taking action after coming under mounting pressure from ordinary Catholics, priests and even the Australian prime minister.
It was the second major announcement of a sex abuse-related resignation in as many days, after Francis’ dramatic sanctioning this weekend of a U.S. cardinal, suggesting he is keen to clean house before he heads to Dublin next month for a big Catholic family rally. The sex abuse scandal is likely to dominate the trip given Ireland’s devastating history with predator priests and the bishops who covered for them.
The Senate fight over documents related to President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court is boiling over.
Trump pick Brett Kavanaugh, a circuit judge since 2006 who previously worked for President George Bush’s administration and Kenneth Starr’s investigation, has a voluminous paper trail that lawmakers estimate tops a million pages.
Democrats want to see as many of those papers as they can, while Republicans seeking to confirm Kavanaugh before the midterm elections favor a narrower scope.
Battle lines are hardening, with senators trading accusations about whether a double standard is being applied to Kavanaugh, who if confirmed will shape the political leaning of the court for decades.
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From 1 August, thanks to the Trump administration, a commercially available software blueprint will allow people to make their own guns using ABS plastic resin and a 3D printer.
The green light came late last month, with a court settlement between the designer of the blueprint and the US state department. Gun rights advocates celebrated.
In a statement greeting the news, the Second Amendment Foundation founder and executive vice-president, Alan Gottlieb, said: “Not only is this a first amendment victory for free speech, it also is a devastating blow to the gun prohibition lobby.”
Defense Distributed, the company behind the blueprint, declared: “The age of the downloadable gun formally begins.”
An armed man barricaded himself inside a Trader Joe's grocery store in Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon, prompting a massive police response with people still inside the store.
It’s a regular stop for holidaymakers in Israel. American teenagers, some of them boys in sleeveless basketball tops, cluster on hilltop lookouts in the Golan Heights, a volcanic plateau captured from Syria half a century ago. Visitors ride quad bikes along dusty paths or spend the day touring the area’s vineyards. Signs on the roads warn of the risks to tourists: “Caution – cyclists ahead.”
For Syrians on the other side of a fortified perimeter fence, there are more pressing concerns. Thousands have gathered as close to the border as possible, gambling their lives on the assumption that Syrian government forces fighting rebels will not bring the battle too close to Israel.
It is no sure bet. From the Israeli-controlled side, the whistle of an unseen jet could be heard and then a sudden, deeper rumble. In the distance, a grey pillar of smoke punched hundreds of metres into the air as the airstrike hit.
Israel has launched an intense wave of strikes across the Gaza Strip after one of its soldiers was killed in gunfire along the border, raising fears of renewed conflict.
Explosions were seen across the coastal enclave on Friday evening and Israel said three rockets had been fired at its territory, two of which were intercepted. The military wing of Hamas, which has fought three wars with Israel since 2009, said three of its fighters were killed in the strikes.
The Israeli Defence Force did not name the soldier, but said he had been hit by Palestinian gunfire. He was the first Israeli combatant to been killed in the area since the last full-scale conflict with Gaza’s rulers, Hamas, in 2014.
Israel is in the throes of political upheaval as the country’s ruling party seeks to pass legislation that could allow for Jewish-only communities, which critics have condemned as the end of a democratic state.
For the past half-decade, politicians have been wrangling over the details of the bill that holds constitution-like status and that Benjamin Netanyahu wants passed this month.
A top National Security Council official who skirmished with White House aide Stephen Miller and other immigration hardliners was forced out this week, the latest staffing change at the NSC since President Donald Trump named John Bolton his national security adviser in March.
Jennifer Arangio, a senior director in the NSC division that deals with international organizations, was let go Thursday, according to a former White House official and a former NSC staffer. The former NSC staffer said Arangio was escorted off the premises and told her services were no longer needed.
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