Key events
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will prioritise discussions on negotiations with Iran when he meets with US president Donald Trump in Washington this week.
“On this trip we will discuss a range of issues: Gaza, the region, but of course first and foremost the negotiations with Iran. I will present to the president our views regarding the principles for the negotiations,” Netanyahu said before heading to the United States, where he will meet Trump on Wednesday.
Their meeting comes days after Iran and the United States held talks in Oman last week, after which Trump said another round of negotiations would follow, AFP reports.
Trump threatens to block bridge he previously endorsed as ‘vital economic link’
Donald Trump last night threatened to block a bridge connecting the US and Canada and made a bizarre false claim that increased trade between Canada and China would include a ban on Canadians playing ice hockey.
Trump began his latest diatribe against the US’s second-largest trading partner by claiming that “everyone knows, the Country of Canada has treated the United States very unfairly for decades”.
The president also threatened to block the scheduled opening of the $4.6bn Gordie Howe International Bridgeconnecting Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan, built by a binational partnership that won approval during the Obama administration but began construction in 2018, when Trump was president.
“I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve,” Trump wrote on Monday.
Trump himself had publicly endorsed the bridge project in 2017before construction began, in public comments and a joint statement issued by him and the then prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.
“No two countries share deeper or broader relations than Canada and the United States,” the joint statement issued on 13 February 2017 read.
“Given our shared focus on infrastructure investments, we will encourage opportunities for companies in both countries to create jobs through those investments. In particular, we look forward to the expeditious completion of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which will serve as a vital economic link between our two countries,” Trump and Trudeau said after their first meeting that day.
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Democrats say White House offer on ICE is ‘insufficient’ as Homeland Security funding set to expire
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that Democratic leaders say a proposal from the White House is “incomplete and insufficient” as they demand new restrictions on president Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement late Monday that a White House counterproposal to the list of demands they called for over the weekend “included neither details nor legislative text” and does not address “the concerns Americans have about ICE’s lawless conduct.” The White House proposal was not released publicly.
The Democrats’ statement comes as time is running short, with another partial government shutdown threatening to begin Saturday, AP reported. Among the Democrats’ demands are a requirement for judicial warrants, better identification of DHS officers, new use-of-force standards and a stop to racial profiling. They say such changes are necessary after two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis last month.
Earlier on Monday, Senate majority leader John Thune had expressed optimism about the rare negotiations between Democrats and the White House, saying there was “forward progress.”
Thune said it was a good sign that the two sides were trading papers, and “hopefully they can find some common ground here.” But coming to an agreement on the charged issue of immigration enforcement will be difficult, especially as rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties were skeptical about finding common ground.
Many Democrats who are furious about ICE’s aggressive crackdown have said they won’t vote for any more Homeland Security funding until enforcement is radically scaled back. “Dramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before a DHS funding bill moves forward,” Jeffries said earlier Monday. “Period. Full stop.”
In other developments:
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Donald Trump threatened to block a new bridge connecting the US and Canada he supported in 2017 and made the bizarre false claim that increased trade between Canada and China would include a total ban on Canadians playing ice hockey.
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The Miami Herald reported that one partially redacted Epstein files document includes an account of a 2006 phone call in which Trump told the Palm Beach police chief that “everyone has known” Jeffrey Epstein was abusing girls and Ghislaine Maxwell ‘“is evil”. Trump now says he had no idea Epstein was abusing girls and wishes Maxwell well.
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An immigration judge rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürkwho was arrested last year as part of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activists, her lawyers said in a statement.
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The US military’s Southern Command, which oversees operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced it carried out another deadly strike on Monday, killing two suspected drug smugglers in the eastern Pacific.
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A federal judge in California issued a preliminary injunction that blocks part of a new state law that bans federal law enforcement officers from covering their faces.
