Trump news - live: President rages at 'unstable' niece as he visits Louisiana to inspect Hurricane Laura damage

Trump heads to Louisiana as residents warned they face weeks without power following Hurricane Laura

The clean-up has begun from Hurricane Laura in the US state of Louisiana, with officials along a shattered stretch of coast warning returning residents they could face weeks without power or water.

The US toll from the Category 4 hurricane stood at 14 deaths, with more than half of those killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from the unsafe operation of generators.

President Donald Trump plans to tour the damage in Louisiana and neighbouring Texas.

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Donald Trump has tweeted for this first time on Saturday, sharing a supposed quote by former Cincinnati mayor and Trump supporter Ken Blackwell.

Democrats on the House judiciary committee have released an excoriating video alleging Donald Trump lied to Congress about his dealings with Roger Stone, which would be a federal crime.

Donald Trump appears increasingly agitated by the fact the DNC outperformed the RNC in TV ratings.

The US president has tweeted claiming the Republican convention actually outperformed the Democratic alternative when including online views. 

His claimed total audience of 147.9 million appears to have been first reported by Fox News, citing a "senior campaign official". 

Donald Trump is touting the enthusiasm of his 2020 campaign, after TV ratings showed the DNC had a bigger audience than the RNC.

Despite the US president's claims, most of the reporting by mainstream news outlets on the White House has proven to be accurate.

Hurricane Laura topples Confederate statue in Lake Charles days after vote to keep it in place

Hurricane Laura has toppled a longstanding monument to the Confederacy in Louisiana, just days after local officials had voted to keep the statue in place.

The monument, erected in 1915 in memory of Confederate soldiers in the US Civil War, stood outside the courthouse in Lake Charles, the city which has faced the most damage from the category 4 storm.

Protesters had called for the removal of the “Southern Defenders” statue but the local parish voted 10-4 in favour of it remaining in place.

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Students blamed for spike in US college town coronavirus infections

As waves of schools and businesses around the country are cleared to reopen, college towns are moving toward renewed shutdowns because of too many parties and too many Covid-19 infections among students.

With more than 300 students at the University of Missouri testing positive for the coronavirus and an alarming 44 per cent positivity rate for the surrounding county, the local health director Friday ordered bars to stop serving alcohol at 9pm and close by 10pm.

Iowa's governor has ordered all bars shut down around the University of Iowa and Iowa State, while the mayor of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, did the same in the hometown of the state's flagship university.

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The estate of Leonard Cohen, the legendary Canadian singer-songwriter, has revealed the Republican Party's used his song "Hallelujah" despite being rebuffed when asked if they could do so.

"Had the RNC requested another song, 'You Want it Darker', for which Leonard won a posthumous Grammy in 2017, we might have considered approval of that song," Michelle Rice, legal representative of the Cohen estate, said.

Following the repeated unauthorized use of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during two performances at the Republican...

Posted by Leonard Cohen on Friday, 28 August 2020

The Republican Convention has driven the election odds towards a Trump victory. But it’s not over yet

It might have been one of the ugliest political events since, well, if I’m being honest, a much darker time in the middle of the last century," writes James Moore. 

Political punters nonetheless think Donald Trump nailed it with the Republican Convention. A horrifying thought? Indeed. But the American electorate dances to the beat of its own drum and political punters know that. The latter’s assessment of what the electorate made of it all has moved them to put a ton of money on the US president.

The betting markets have moved decisively in the wake of the convention. The Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, was the clear favourite going into it, but most bookies now have the two candidates level-pegging at 10/11. You can still find Trump at evens in one or two places, though you have to look hard to find the price.

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Donald Trump claimed on Friday evening that Mexico "is paying for the wall". It is completely untrue. The American taxpayer is in fact paying for new sections of a border at the southern border.