Stategist Steve Bannon ousted from White House ADVERTISING Stategist Steve Bannon ousted from White House WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, the blunt-spoken and divisive strategist who rose from Donald Trump’s conservative campaign to a top White House post, was pushed
Stategist Steve Bannon ousted from White House
WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, the blunt-spoken and divisive strategist who rose from Donald Trump’s conservative campaign to a top White House post, was pushed out by the president Friday, capping a turbulent seven months marked by the departure of much of Trump’s original senior staff.
The former leader of conservative Breitbart News and a favorite in the farther-right portions of the Republican Party, Bannon has pushed Trump to follow through on some of his most contentious campaign promises including his travel ban for some foreigners and his decision to pull out of the Paris climate change agreement.
Barely more than a half-year in, Trump now has forced out his hardline national security adviser, his chief of staff, his press secretary (whose last day will be Aug. 31) and two communications directors — in addition to the FBI director he inherited from Barack Obama.
Bannon’s departure is especially significant since he was viewed by many as Trump’s connection to his base of most-committed voters and the protector of the disruptive, conservative agenda that propelled the celebrity businessman to the White House.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow if Steve is gone because you have a Republican West Wing that’s filled with generals and Democrats,” said former campaign strategist Sam Nunberg, shortly before the news of Bannon’s departure broke. “It would feel like the twilight zone.”
Finnish police shoot man who stabs 8 people in Turku; 2 dead
HELSINKI (AP) — A man stabbed eight people Friday in Finland’s western city of Turku, killing two of them, before police shot him in the thigh and detained him, police said. Authorities were looking for more potential suspects in the attack.
A suspect — who police said was “a youngish man with a foreign background” — was being treated in the city’s main hospital but was in police custody. Security was being stepped up across the Nordic country, Interior Minister Paula Risikko told reporters at a news conference.
The man’s identity and nationality were being investigated. Police said he is likely to have acted alone though it was not possible to completely rule out that other people were involved.
Police did not give any information on the two people killed or the conditions of those wounded in downtown Turku, 170 kilometers (106 miles) west of Helsinki, the capital.
Finland’s top police chief, Seppo Kolehmainen, said it was too early to link the attack to international terrorism.
Trump studying options for new approach to Afghan war
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is “studying and considering his options” for a new approach to Afghanistan and the broader South Asia region, the White House said Friday after the president huddled with his top national security aides at Camp David.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a brief statement saying Trump had been briefed extensively on a new strategy to “protect America’s interests” in the region. She did not specifically mention Afghanistan.
“The president is studying and considering his options and will make an announcement to the American people, to our allies and partners, and to the world at the appropriate time,” she said.
The administration has struggled for months to formulate a new approach to the war. But stepping up the fight in a way that advances peace prospects may be even more difficult, in part because the Taliban has been gaining ground and shown no interest in peace negotiations.
Trump met at the presidential retreat in nearby Maryland with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, top intelligence agency officials and other top military and diplomatic aides. Mattis said earlier this week the administration was “very close” to finalizing a new approach.
Dems risk culture war fight in Charlottesville response
ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s widely criticized response to white supremacist violence in Virginia has left Democrats in a quandary: how to seize the moral high ground without getting sucked into a politically perilous culture war.
Democrats have denounced Trump for blaming “both sides” for deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, and, more recently, for defending Confederate monuments.
But the party faces a complex task: While addressing race and history in ways that reflect the party’s values, Democrats risk getting sidetracked from issues like jobs and the economy that resonate with voters ahead of the 2018 midterm election.
The party has been looking to answer Trump’s populism by crafting its own middle-class brand, yet Democratic leaders across multiple states now are pushing to take down Old South monuments like the one that ostensibly sparked the events in Charlottesville, and a trio of rank-and-file House Democrats wants to pursue a congressional censure of the president.
In interviews this week before his resignation was announced Friday, White House strategist Steve Bannon gleefully suggested Democrats are falling into a trap.
Barcelona’s victims include US man celebrating anniversary
PARIS (AP) — The dead and injured in Barcelona were a snapshot of the world — men, women and children from nearly three dozen nations — testifying to the huge global appeal of the sun-kissed city.
Families, friends and government officials from Paris to Sydney, San Francisco to Berlin scrambled Friday to discover whether their loved ones and citizens were among those mowed down by suspected Islamic extremists who zig-zagged down Barcelona’s always crowded Las Ramblas promenade in a van, killing 13 people and injuring 120 others.
A related attack early Friday morning in the popular Spanish seaside town of Cambrils, south of Barcelona, took the death toll to 14. Here is a look at some of the victims:
Jared Tucker, 42, USA
Jared Tucker has been confirmed as among those killed in a deadly truck attack in Barcelona, Spain, his father said Friday.
Taylor Swift left ‘a blank space, baby’ on social media
NEW YORK (AP) — Taylor Swift had a “blank space, baby” across social media Friday — and Swifties went wild.
There was no immediate word from the Swift camp on what happened, but the “Blank Space” pop star is known for promotional trickery on her social streams ahead of major music drops.
In addition to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr, her website went dark and the hashtag “TS6IsComing” — as in her sixth studio album — trended worldwide. Her profile pictures were also removed.
All of this comes days after federal jurors in Denver found a former radio host, David Mueller, assaulted and battered Swift during a meet-and-greet in 2013. And all of this also comes as the three-year anniversary of “1989,” her last studio album, approaches in October.
Perhaps more significantly: Aug. 18 is three years on the nose that Swift dropped “Shake It Off” and announced “1989” was on the way back in 2014.
