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      Haiti gang kills US politician’s missionary daughter and her husband

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      The daughter and son-in-law of a US Republican politician are among three Christian missionaries who have been killed by gang members in Haiti as it emerged that the long-awaited deployment of an multinational security force tasked with rescuing the Caribbean country from months of bloodshed had been delayed.Ben Baker, a Republican state representative from Missouri, announced the news of the couple’s murder on Facebook late on Thursday, writing: “My heart is broken in a thousand pieces. I’ve never felt this kind of pain.”Baker said his daughter Natalie Lloyd and her husband, Davy – both Christian missionaries in Haiti – “were attacked by gangs this evening and were both killed. They went to Heaven together.”Their group, Missions in Haiti Inc, said the couple and another member of the group named only as Jude had been “ambushed by a gang of 3 trucks full of guys” while leaving church and were “shot and killed” at about 9pm on Thursday. “We all are devastated,” the group posted on Facebook.A spokesperson for the White House national security council said the Biden administration was aware of reports of the deaths of the US citizens, saying: “Our hearts go out to the families of those killed as they experience unimaginable grief.”The killings came just hours after Joe Biden voiced optimism that Haiti’s security crisis – which began spiraling out of control in late February after a coordinated gang insurrection – could soon be solved with the arrival of a 2,500-strong Kenya-led multinational policing force.“We’re not talking about a thousand-person army that is made up of trained [personnel],” Biden said of the Haitian gangs who have plunged the country into mayhem and forced the country’s previous prime minister, Ariel Henry, from power. “This is a crisis that is able to be dealt with.”The first Kenyan members of that force were supposed to land in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, this week to spearhead the operation, with their arrival timed to coincide with a state visit the Kenyan president, William Ruto, is making to the US.Speaking alongside Biden on Thursday, Ruto also voiced confidence that the US-backed policing mission could “break the back of the gangs and the criminals that have visited untold suffering” on Haiti since the start of a coordinated criminal insurrection in late February. Armed criminals would be dealt with “firmly, decisively [and] within the parameters of the law”, Ruto vowed.But the first contingent of Kenyan officers did not arrive as planned this week, with confusion surrounding the reasons for the postponement.One source with knowledge of the mission told Reuters the Kenyan officers were given no explanation for the last-minute delay but ordered to remain on standby. A second source said “conditions were not in place in Port-au-Prince to receive the officers”.Other sources in Kenya’s interior ministry told the Geneva-based civil society group Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime that an advance team sent by Kenya had found Haiti “ill-prepared for the deployment”.Some observers suspect the delay could be related to security concerns over giving the heavily armed gangs advance warning of the mission’s arrival – something which might allow criminals to launch surprise attacks on incoming planes.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDiego Da Rin, a Haiti specialist from the International Crisis Group, said that if and when it arrived, the multinational force would face a huge task trying to subdue an estimated 5,000 gang members who control more than 80% of the capital.“The gangs have never controlled so much territory in Haiti. They have expanded their armies and their arsenals and they have established strongholds in areas the police have not been able to access, sometimes for years,” he said.In recent days, armed groups have intensified their attacks, completely or partly demolishing at least four police stations in a striking show of strength seemingly designed to coincide with the anticipated arrival of Kenyan forces.“That’s a message and it is not a veiled message … The message is: ‘Don’t come here, because if you come … you will be treated as invaders and enemies,’” Da Rin said. More

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      Bernie Moreno says he fled socialism in Colombia for the US in 1971. What does history say?

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      Bernie Moreno, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Ohio who expected to mount a stern challenge to Sherrod Brown, the incumbent leftwing Democrat, says his family fled socialism when they came to the US from Colombia in 1971, when he was four years old.Though such statements formed a central part of Moreno’s campaign message on his way to securing the Republican nomination with support from Donald Trump, they do not withstand historical scrutiny.In an interview in 2020, about his success as a car dealer in Ohio, Moreno described himself as “somebody who moved to this country a long time ago to escape what happens in most South American countries, which is socialism and the absolute prison of those ideas”.In 2021, as Moreno moved into national politics with a first run for a Senate nomination, the Cleveland Plain Dealer said he “says he came to the United States as a child with his mother and siblings to flee socialism in their native Colombia. He believes that same ideology is rising in the United States, and he wants to fight back.”But when Moreno was born, on 14 February 1967, Colombia was nine years into the 16-year period of National Front government, in which conservative and liberal parties alternated being in power as a way to avoid violence between the two factions.Furthermore, the first leftwing Colombian government in modern times is the current one, headed by Gustavo Petro and in power since 2022.Colombia has long been home to leftwing guerrilla groups. As described by the US Congressional Research Service, when Moreno lived there, the country was home to “leftist, Marxist-inspired insurgencies … including the Farc, launched in 1964, and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), which formed the following year”.Such groups, the CRS says, “conducted kidnappings, committed serious human rights violations, and carried out a campaign of terror that aimed to unseat the central government in Bogotá”.Moreno, however, has described an early childhood far removed from such worries.By his own description, his father was secretary of health under Misael Pastrana, a conservative and the last National Front president between 1970 and 1974.“We had a very, very, very, very incredible lifestyle in Colombia,” Moreno said in 2019, at a business event in Cleveland, adding that his mother moved the family to the US – initially against his father’s wishes – because she “didn’t want us to be raised as pampered indoor cats”.The move was “a jump”, Moreno said, “but it was this idea of no fear”.Contacted for comment on Wednesday, Moreno’s communications director, Reagan McCarthy, said: “No where in the [first] quote cited does Bernie say his family came to America because Colombia was a socialist country or that his family was escaping a socialist country at the time.“He very clearly was stating that many South American countries fell to socialism and his parents came to America to ensure their kids would grow up in a free society, out of fear that Colombia would eventually move towards socialism.”As indicated by McCarthy’s reference to “many South American countries [falling] to socialism”, Moreno has also spoken of a fear of being “surrounded” by socialist governments.In 2021, writing in the Toledo Blade, he said: “I was born in South America, surrounded by socialist ideology.”The same year, Moreno told the Landscape, a Cleveland podcast: “I think the [US is] going off [in] a very dangerous direction. It’s a direction I recognise. I grew up surrounded by socialist ideology, whether it’s Venezuela or Cuba [or] now Peru, and I know where this movie ends.”And in a campaign ad, also from 2021, Moreno said: “I came from a country surrounded by the ideology of radicals like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, who promised to give everyone all they needed and solve all their problems, just like [Vermont senator] Bernie Sanders and AOC [New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] are doing today.”Such claims also shake under scrutiny.Cuba has indeed been governed from the left since 1959, when Castro and the Communist party took power after a long fight. Castro was assisted by Guevara, a revolutionary from Argentina – who was killed in October 1967, when Moreno was eight months old.In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Moreno was a young child in Colombia, Venezuela was governed by Rafael Caldera, a Christian Democrat who moved to end conflict with leftwing guerrillas. Ecuador, which also borders Colombia, was also governed by a centrist at that time.Between 1968 and 1975, Peru was led by Juan Velasco Alvarado, a general who seized power in a coup d’état but governed from the political centre. The current president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, is a former member of a Marxist party now governing with the support of rightwingers.Between 1970 and 1973, Chile – more than a thousand miles south of Colombia – was governed by Salvador Allende, its first socialist president. He died on 11 September 1973 as the rightwing Chilean military led by Gen Augusto Pinochet attacked the presidential palace, in a coup backed by the CIA.After coming to the US in 1971, Moreno became a US citizen at 18. In her statement on Wednesday, McCarthy, the Moreno aide, accused the Guardian of failing to celebrate “what could potentially be the first South American-born senator”.The National Republican Senatorial Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Brown declined to comment. More

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      Nigel Farage tells right-wing US event that ‘religious sectarianism’ is new threat in UK

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      Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UKSign up to our Brexit email for the latest insightFormer Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage appeared to forget a large part of British history on Wednesday when he told a gathering of American conservatives that “religious sectarianism” was a new problem in British politics.Speaking at an “international summit” held on the eve of the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference alongside former British Prime Minister Liz Truss and other right-wing international figures, Mr Farage told attendees that Western nations are facing now a “huge internal problem” that he described as a “new phenomenon”.That phenomenon, which he said was “beginning to dominate British politics,” was “religious sectarianism”.Mr Farage was referring to the pro-Palestinian voices protesting outside the House of Commons as Parliament debated the Israel-Gaza war, and he complained about “religious hatred” that “exists against Israel, against the Jewish people” and blamed “successive labour and conservative governments” for having “pursued completely irresponsible immigration policies” and not encouraging integration by Muslim immigrants.”Now we have radical Islam is becoming mainstream in British politics. We will have by the 2029 general election, we will have a radical Islamic party represented in Westminster and this is why borders, you can’t be a proper country, unless you control your borders,” he said. “The internal threats of religious divide and sectarianism, that happening to us first, but if you’re not very careful … all of us will face it”.Mr Farage’s comments about religious sectarianism appeared to whitewash centuries of British history and leave out important moments such as the 16th century English Reformation, during which Henry VIII broke the Church of England away from the authority of the Catholic Church. The former Brexit Party leader and Ukip MEP also appeared to leave out of his analysis the bloody English Civil War, the beheading of Charles I and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, all driven by causes including sectarian disputes between Catholics and Protestants.Former UK prime minister Liz Truss and ex-Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage at CPAC in Washington DCHe also did not seem to count in his analysis the three decades of The Troubles, during which Catholic Irish Republicans, Protestant Unionists and British troops fought a quasi-guerilla war over the status of Northern Ireland which killed more than 3,500 people, the majority of whom were civilians.The decades of violence only came to an end with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which established a power-sharing devolved government in Belfast.Asked if he wanted to clarify his comments, Mr Farage – who has appeared at rallies with Donald Trump – told The Independent that he believed sectarianism was indeed a new phenomenon in Britain.“We’ve had it in Northern Ireland, we’ve seen the baleful effects of it, and it’s now coming to England. I’ve never seen it in my lifetime,” he said. More

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      Trump boosters, Biden attacks – and a Liz Truss speech: What to expect at Republicans’ CPAC event this week

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      Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailOnce again, a throng of conservative activists, Republican elected officials and young right-wingers will descend on National Harbor just outside of Washington, DC for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.CPAC has served multiple purposes throughout the years. It often showcases new conservative talent, sets the tone for what major policies conservatives will champion in the next election and often allows potential candidates for president to test the waters. Indeed, in 2011, Donald Trump gave his first political speech at the conservative gathering. It debuted his conservative star turn and laid the groundwork for him becoming the Republican nominee for president in 2016 and winning the presidency. This year, though, with Mr Trump being the presumptive nominee, CPAC – which runs from Wednesday to Saturday – will have a different tone and will serve as a booster for his campaign against Joe Biden in the general election.Here’s what to expect this week at CPAC.All Trump all the timeSince Mr Trump spoke at the conference in 2011, he and CPAC have become inseparable. Its host Matt Schlapp and his wife Mercedes, who served in Trump’s administration, became two of his most indefatigable defenders. In a reflection of how non-competitive the Republican presidential primary is, it will not feature other presidential candidates, as was the case when former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley spoke at the conference last year shortly after she announced her candidacy. Vivek Ramaswamy gave a barn-burner speech that previewed his campaign as a right-wing gadfly. This time around, there will be a heavy focus on Donald Trump, with sessions titled “Trump: Our Ace in the Hole” and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan’s panel entitled “What You Talkin Bout Fani Willis,” a dig at the Fulton County District Attorney who has investigated Mr Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. In fact, one panel will be entitled “Cat Fight? Michelle vs. Kamala,” as if to pit two female hate figures for the right against each other. Similarly, former Trump administration officials including counselor Steve Bannon, former deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka and former deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley and former secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson will speak.The Apprentice AuditionWith Mr Trump’s nomination a foregone conclusion, the real spectacle will be the slate of speakers who want to be his running mate. Representative Elise Stefanik, the formerly moderate New York Republican who is Mr Trump’s woman inside House Republican leadership, will speak on Friday, as well South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Ohio Senator JD Vance, the white-working-class-explainer-turned-Trump-critic-turned-apologist, will also make an appearance on Friday. But absent from the slate as of right now are Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Senator Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican and former presidential candidate.Similarly, Jim McLaughlin, who typically runs the CPAC Straw poll, will reveal who movement conservatives want to be the running mate for Mr Trump. Last year, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake won the staw poll. But given that she is now running for Senate in what’s expected to be a knockout race with Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego and Senator Kyrsten Sinema if she runs, she is likely out of the running. Battling on the border and BidenomicsMany polls show Mr Trump leading Mr Biden ahead of November. But Mr Trump remains incredibly unpopular with general election voters. That means they will need to find a winning message. Judging by the agenda, the battle plan seems fairly clear: hit Mr Biden on immigration and the economy. The first day will feature a panel entitled “Trump’s Wall Vs. Biden’s Gaps” that will feature Tom Homan, who served as the director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration, and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, who last week announced he was leaving Congress after the House successfully impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. In the same token, there will be panels entitled “Bidenomics: Bad for America’s Health,” with some of Mr Trump’s former economic advisers. Of course, there are some holes in this. While Americans still feel lousy about the economy, their sentiments are slightly changing and unlike in 2012, unemployment remains low. In the same token, while inflation is still ticking upward, prices are not rising as rapidly as they did in 2022. Similarly, the special election in New York’s 3rd district showed Republicans paid a price after Mr Trump and House Republicans blew up the bipartisan agreement that would have swapped restrictions for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. This might also be why plenty of the events focusing on combating antisemitism might ring hollow as wellCPAC goes globalCPAC has also not only become a showcase for Republicans wanting to boast about their conservative credentials. In recent years, it’s become a showcase for other right-wing politicians who might not find as receptive of an audience in their own home countries or as a way to show that American-style conservatism can win abroad. In this vein, Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, will speak as well as the controversial newly-elected Argentinian President, Javier Millei. In the same vein Nigel Farage, a champion of Brexit and a mainstay of CPAC, will also speak. But more peculiarly, Liz Truss, the former British prime minister whose tenure lasted only 50 days, will appear as part of her larger effort to reach out to American conservatives and rehabilitate her image. More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene accuses David Cameron of calling Republicans ‘Hitler’ as she doubles down on row

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      Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailMarjorie Taylor Greene has doubled down on her mistaken assertion that British Foreign Secretary David Cameron compared Republicans unwilling to support further aid to Ukraine to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. “Well, number one, I really could care less what Lord Cameron has to say. I just don’t care,” she told The Independent on Thursday. “And number two, he was calling us Hitler and calling us horrible names and that is extremely rude and he needs to stop making that association.“He needs to consider what he’s actually saying,” she added. “So I just don’t care. He really needs to worry about his country. I think over there, they’re having all kinds of problems, they’re entering a recession. They need to worry about their problems and leave our country alone.”This comes after the hard-right Republican congresswoman said Lord Cameron “can kiss my a**” on Wednesday after he urged the US Congress to pass aid to Ukraine and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, citing the appeasement of Hitler in the lead-up to the Second World War.The Democratic Senate has already passed a bill which would send further aid to Ukraine but the legislation faces a steep uphill climb in the House.In an op-ed published in The Hill on Wednesday, Lord Cameron wrote: “As Congress debates and votes on this funding package for Ukraine, I am going to drop all diplomatic niceties. I urge Congress to pass it.“I believe our joint history shows the folly of giving in to tyrants in Europe who believe in redrawing boundaries by force,” he added. “I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s. He came back for more, costing us far more lives to stop his aggression.“I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Putin in 2008, when he invaded Georgia, or the uncertainty of the response in 2014, when he took Crimea and much of the Donbas — before coming back to cost us far more with his aggression in 2022,” Lord Cameron, a former UK prime minister, argued. “I want us to show the strength displayed since 2022, as the West has helped Ukrainians liberate half the territory seized by Putin, all without the loss of any NATO service personnel.”“I don’t want to read it, I know the British embassy wanted me to read it – I have way too many other things to do than read his op-ed,” Ms Greene said on Thursday. James Matthews of Sky News asked Ms Greene on Wednesday: “David Cameron says that you should vote through funding for Ukraine. What do you say to that?”“I think he tried to compare us to Hitler also,” Ms Greene said, mixing up the appeasers, whose conduct Lord Cameron did cite, and the Nazi leader.Ms Greene has previously faced criticism for making comments comparing the use of masks during the pandemic to the Holocaust. She later visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and apologised for the remarks.Speaking about Lord Cameron on Wednesday, Ms Greene told Sky News: “If that’s the kind of language he wants to use, I really have nothing to say to him.”“He likened you can do to an appeaser for Hitler, in not voting through funding for Ukraine, are you an appeaser for Putin?” Matthews asked.“I think that I really don’t care what David Cameron has to say. I think that’s rude name-calling, and I don’t appreciate that type of language. And David Cameron needs to worry about his own country, and frankly, he can kiss my a**,” she added.During a visit to Poland on Thursday, the foreign secretary said that he is not someone who wants “to lecture American friends, or tell American friends what to do”, but he added, “We really do want to see Congress pass that money to support Ukraine economically, but crucially militarily in the months ahead.”Speaking at a press conference, Lord Cameron said: “We have to do everything we can to make sure that Ukraine can succeed in this year and beyond.“We must not let Putin think he can out-wait us or last us out, and that’s why this vote in Congress is so crucial.”He added: “And I say this as someone who is not wanting in any way to lecture American friends, or tell American friends what to do.“I say it as someone who has a deep and abiding love of the United States – of their democracy, of their belief in freedom – [and] as someone who really believes in the importance of our alliance.” More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene accuses David Cameron of ‘calling us Hitler’ as she doubles down on insult

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      Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailMarjorie Taylor Greene has doubled down on her mistaken assertion that British Foreign Secretary David Cameron compared Republicans unwilling to support further aid to Ukraine to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. “Well, number one, I really could care less what Lord Cameron has to say. I just don’t care,” she told The Independent on Thursday. “And number two, he was calling us Hitler and calling us horrible names and that is extremely rude and he needs to stop making that association.“He needs to consider what he’s actually saying,” she added. “So I just don’t care. He really needs to worry about his country. I think over there, they’re having all kinds of problems, they’re entering a recession. They need to worry about their problems and leave our country alone.”This comes after the hard-right Republican congresswoman said Lord Cameron “can kiss my a**” on Wednesday after he urged the US Congress to pass aid to Ukraine and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, citing the appeasement of Hitler in the lead-up to the Second World War.The Democratic Senate has already passed a bill which would send further aid to Ukraine but the legislation faces a steep uphill climb in the House.In an op-ed published in The Hill on Wednesday, Lord Cameron wrote: “As Congress debates and votes on this funding package for Ukraine, I am going to drop all diplomatic niceties. I urge Congress to pass it.“I believe our joint history shows the folly of giving in to tyrants in Europe who believe in redrawing boundaries by force,” he added. “I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s. He came back for more, costing us far more lives to stop his aggression.“I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Putin in 2008, when he invaded Georgia, or the uncertainty of the response in 2014, when he took Crimea and much of the Donbas — before coming back to cost us far more with his aggression in 2022,” Lord Cameron, a former UK prime minister, argued. “I want us to show the strength displayed since 2022, as the West has helped Ukrainians liberate half the territory seized by Putin, all without the loss of any NATO service personnel.”“I don’t want to read it, I know the British embassy wanted me to read it – I have way too many other things to do than read his op-ed,” Ms Greene said on Thursday. James Matthews of Sky News asked Ms Greene on Wednesday: “David Cameron says that you should vote through funding for Ukraine. What do you say to that?”“I think he tried to compare us to Hitler also,” Ms Greene said, mixing up the appeasers, whose conduct Lord Cameron did cite, and the Nazi leader.Ms Greene has previously faced criticism for making comments comparing the use of masks during the pandemic to the Holocaust. She later visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and apologised for the remarks.Speaking about Lord Cameron on Wednesday, Ms Greene told Sky News: “If that’s the kind of language he wants to use, I really have nothing to say to him.”“He likened you can do to an appeaser for Hitler, in not voting through funding for Ukraine, are you an appeaser for Putin?” Matthews asked.“I think that I really don’t care what David Cameron has to say. I think that’s rude name-calling, and I don’t appreciate that type of language. And David Cameron needs to worry about his own country, and frankly, he can kiss my a**,” she added.During a visit to Poland on Thursday, the foreign secretary said that he is not someone who wants “to lecture American friends, or tell American friends what to do”, but he added, “We really do want to see Congress pass that money to support Ukraine economically, but crucially militarily in the months ahead.”Speaking at a press conference, Lord Cameron said: “We have to do everything we can to make sure that Ukraine can succeed in this year and beyond.“We must not let Putin think he can out-wait us or last us out, and that’s why this vote in Congress is so crucial.”He added: “And I say this as someone who is not wanting in any way to lecture American friends, or tell American friends what to do.“I say it as someone who has a deep and abiding love of the United States – of their democracy, of their belief in freedom – [and] as someone who really believes in the importance of our alliance.” More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene lashes out over Cameron’s Nazi appeaser comparison: ‘Frankly he can kiss my a**’

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      Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailHard-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said British Foreign Secretary David Cameron “can kiss my a**” after he urged the US Congress to pass aid to Ukraine and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, citing the appeasement of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the lead-up to the Second World War. The Democratic Senate has already passed a bill which would send further aid to Ukraine but the legislation faces a steep uphill climb in the House. In an op-ed published in The Hill on Wednesday, Lord Cameron wrote: “As Congress debates and votes on this funding package for Ukraine, I am going to drop all diplomatic niceties. I urge Congress to pass it.”“I believe our joint history shows the folly of giving in to tyrants in Europe who believe in redrawing boundaries by force,” he added. “I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s. He came back for more, costing us far more lives to stop his aggression.“I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Putin in 2008, when he invaded Georgia, or the uncertainty of the response in 2014, when he took Crimea and much of the Donbas — before coming back to cost us far more with his aggression in 2022,” Lord Cameron, a former UK prime minister, argued. “I want us to show the strength displayed since 2022, as the West has helped Ukrainians liberate half the territory seized by Putin, all without the loss of any NATO service personnel.”James Matthews of Sky News asked Ms Greene: “David Cameron says that you should vote through funding for Ukraine. What do you say to that?”“I think he tried to compare us to Hitler also,” Ms Greene said, mixing up the appeasers, whose conduct Lord Cameron did cite, and the Nazi leader. Ms Greene has previously faced criticism for making comments comparing the use of masks during the pandemic to the Holocaust. She later visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and apologised for the remarks. Speaking about Lord Cameron on Wednesday, Ms Greene told Sky News: “If that’s the kind of language he wants to use, I really have nothing to say to him.”“He likened you can do to an appeaser for Hitler, in not voting through funding for Ukraine, are you an appeaser for Putin?” Matthews asked. “I think that I really don’t care what David Cameron has to say. I think that’s rude name-calling, and I don’t appreciate that type of language. And David Cameron needs to worry about his own country, and frankly, he can kiss my a**,” she added. More

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      Two dead after vehicle explosion at US-Canada border checkpoint

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      A speeding car crashed in flames on the bridge linking New York state and Ontario at Niagara Falls on Wednesday, killing two people in the vehicle and sparking a security scare that closed four US-Canadian border crossings.Hours later, federal and state authorities said investigators had found no evidence of an act of terrorism, though circumstances surrounding the crash on the Rainbow Bridge remained murky, leaving it to be determined whether it was accidental or intentional.Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, said there was “no indication of a terrorist attack” in the explosion which happened on the US side of the Rainbow Bridge, which connects the two countries across the Niagara River.“Based on what we know at this moment,” she said, “there is no sign of terrorist activity in this crash.”The FBI said in a statement it had concluded its investigation. “A search of the scene revealed no explosive materials, and no terrorism nexus was identified,” the FBI said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.Video of the crash caught on security camera and posted online by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency showed the car traveling from the U.S. side at high speed, then hitting an object and flying into the air before crashing to the ground and exploding in flames. A CBP officer suffered minor injuries in the incident. He was treated at a hospital and released, an agency official said later.Chuck Schumer, the senior senator from New York, tweeted: “I was just briefed by the FBI on the incident at Rainbow Bridge. Initial reports indicate the two people killed were in the car but nothing’s been determined on their identity or motive. They continue to investigate – law enforcement remains on heightened alert over Thanksgiving,” he wrote.Justin Trudeau excused himself from question period in Canada’s House of Commons to be briefed further, saying: “This is obviously a very serious situation in Niagara Falls.”“We are taking this extraordinarily seriously,” the Canadian prime minister added.The Rainbow bridge and three other crossings at Lewiston, Whirlpool and Peace Bridge – were closed soon after the blast, although the other three were reopened later on Wednesday.The White House said it was “closely monitoring the situation at the US-Canada border crossing”, and that law enforcement officials were on the scene and investigating.Photos and video taken by news organizations and posted on social media showed a security booth that had been singed by flames.Videos showed the fire was in a US Customs and Border Protection area just east of the main vehicle checkpoint.Speaking to WGRZ-TV, Mike Guenther said he saw a vehicle speeding toward the crossing from the US side of the border when it swerved to avoid another car, crashed into a fence and exploded.“All of a sudden he went up in the air and then it was a ball of fire like 30 or 40ft high,” Guenther told the station. “I never saw anything like it.”Ivan Vitalii, a Ukrainian visiting Niagara Falls, told the Niagara Gazette that he and a friend were near the bridge when they “heard something smash”.“We saw fire and big black smoke,” he told the newspaper.From inside Niagara Falls state park, Melissa Raffalow said she saw “a huge plume of black smoke” rise up over the border crossing, roughly 50 yards (45m) away from the popular tourist destination. Raffalow told AP in a message that police arrived soon after, urging visitors to disperse as they began cordoning off the street.Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, which borders New York state, said: “Our provincial law enforcement is actively engaged in assessing the situation. They are working with local law enforcement and are providing support as required.”About 6,000 vehicles cross the Rainbow Bridge each day, according to the US Federal Highway Administration’s National Bridge Inventory. About 5% is truck traffic, according to the federal data.With Reuters More