Trump news: First arrests made in Ukraine scandal, as Trump offers to mediate between Turkey and the Kurds

The US and China's top trade negotiators will also resume their talks on Thursday for the first time since late July to try to find a way out of a 15-month trade war as new irritants between the world's two largest economies threatened hopes for progress.

Chinese Vice premier Liu He, US trade representative Robert Lighthizer and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin will seek to narrow differences enough to avoid a scheduled 15 October tariff rate increase on $250bn (£2bn) worth of Chinese goods.

But the atmosphere surrounding the talks was soured by the US Commerce Department's decision on Monday to blacklist 28 Chinese public security bureaus, technology and surveillance firms, citing human rights violations of Muslim minority groups in China's Xinjiang province. A day later, the US State Department imposed visa restrictions on Chinese officials related to the Xinjiang issue.

If negotiations break down again, by 15 December, nearly all Chinese goods imports into the United States - more than $500bn (£400bn) - could be subject to punitive tariffs in the dispute that erupted during Trump's time in office.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in Sydney, Australia, on Thursday that the tariffs were working, forcing Beijing to pay attention to US concerns about its trade practices.

"We do not love tariffs, in fact we would prefer not to use them, but after years of discussions and no action, tariffs are finally forcing China to pay attention to our concerns," Ross said.

Although some media reports suggested both sides are considering an "interim" deal that would suspend planned further US tariffs in exchange for additional purchases of American farm products, Trump has repeatedly dismissed this idea, insisting that he wants a "big deal" with Beijing that addresses core intellectual property issues.

Speaking to reporters in Washington on Wednesday, Trump said: "If we can make a deal, we're going to make a deal, there's a really good chance.... In my opinion China wants to make a deal more than I do."

The two sides have been at loggerheads over US demands that China improve protections of American intellectual property, end cyber theft and the forced transfer of technology to Chinese firms, curb industrial subsidies and increase US companies' access to largely closed Chinese markets.

But Chinese officials, surprised and upset by the US blacklisting of Chinese companies, including video surveillance gear maker Hikvision, along with the suspension of US visas for some Chinese officials, told Reuters that Beijing had lowered expectations for significant progress from the talks.

"I've never seen China respond with concessions to someone throwing down the gauntlet in this manner," said Scott Kennedy, a China trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It suggests to me that the US may have determined that progress was impossible so everyone is just going through the motions."

Other flashpoints that have cropped up in recent days include China's swift action to cut corporate ties to the National Basketball Association over a team official's tweet in support of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.

But in a possible easing of tensions, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration will soon issue licences allowing some US companies to sell non-sensitive goods to China's top telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies.

But a Commerce Department spokesman said the agency has been given no such direction. Huawei since May has been on the same trade blacklist affecting Hikvision because the United States says the company can spy on customers - an allegation Huawei denies.

Here's Adam Withnall on the blacklisting.

Here's Bel Trew with the latest on Syria, as Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatens to send millions of refugees to Europe if the EU labels its military operation against the Kurds an “invasion”.

This is weird.

America's largest spice retailer, Penzeys Spices, has spent the most advertising capital on adverts mentioning "impeachment" outside of Trump himself in the last two weeks, paying out a whopping $92,000 (£72,000), according to Axios. 

Founder Bill Penzey of Wisconsin, it turns out, is actually a long-term liberal activists who has previously attacked Trump as an "openly racist candidate" and is using his latest advertising blitz to celebrate the impeachment inquiry of a president he loathes.

Democratic 2020 candidate Andrew Yang, continues to enjoy himself on the campaign trail and took the opportunity to appear on stage with rapper Rich Brian in New York on Tuesday night.

More damning criticism of Trump from his ex-press secretary Anthony Scaramucci, who declares with some confidence the man is "finished".

The president has also been under the cosh for his recent rhetoric on social media from ex-Arizona senator Jeff Flake, who had been tipped to join Bill Weld, Joe Walsh and Mark Sanford in challenging him to a GOP primary.

Democratic House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler sounded a very similar warning over the same tweet.

Singer, actress and "washed up psycho" Bette Midler meanwhile speaks for an entire planet on Syria.

But none of the above manages to be as scathing as pop icon Rihanna though, who tells the latest issue of Vogue Trump is “the most mentally ill human being in America”.

An update on something we touched on yesterday: former South Carolina congressman Trey Gowdy has indeed decided to join Trump's impeachment defence team.

That's this guy. Who thinks this.

Preparations are underway in Minneapolis for the Trump rally tonight, where as many as 10,000 protesters are expected, according to Newsweek.

Local congresswoman Betty McCollum says Trump's latest rally is just "another stop along the road to impeachment."

"His vision of 'American carnage' is not a winning message," she adds.

"The president's outrageous conduct will be addressed in Congress through the impeachment process, but what is quite surprising are the contortions Republicans are putting themselves through defending the indefensible."

California governor Gavin Newsom, emerging as a regular Trump antagonist, has been mocking defence secretary Mark Esper over the lack of diversity at the Pentagon after he posted a picture of the Oval Office loaded up with ageing white men.

More on the Republican vanishing act from Zamira Rahim.

For Indy Voices, reporter Andrew Feinberg has the latest on the mood in DC regarding impeachment.