Iran has breached the limit on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium set under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, a watchdog has confirmed. The International Atomic Energy Agency said its inspectors had verified the 300kg (660lb) cap had been exceeded.

Iran stepped up production of enriched uranium, used to make reactor fuel but also potentially nuclear bombs, in May. It said it was responding to sanctions reinstated by the US after President Donald Trump abandoned the deal. The UK and Germany have called on Iran to reverse its decision, while the US said its strategy of “maximum pressure” would continue.(BBC)…[+]

PANMUNJOM/SEOUL, South Korea – U.S. President Donald Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea today when he met its leader, Kim Jong Un, in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas and agreed to resume stalled nuclear talks.

The meeting, initiated by a spur-of-the-moment tweet by Trump that Kim said took him by surprise, once again displayed the rapport between the two. But they are no closer to narrowing the gap between their positions since they walked away from their summit in February in Vietnam.

The two men shook hands warmly and expressed hopes for peace when they met for the third time in just over a year on the old Cold War frontier that for decades has symbolised the hostility between their countries, which are technically still at war.

Trump, escorted by Kim, briefly crossed a military demarcation line into the North side of the Joint Security Area (JSA), patrolled by soldiers from both Koreas.(Reuters)…[+]

United States Senator Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign has pushed back against online attacks about her race, comparing the latest jabs to racism faced by former President Barack Obama, as fellow 2020 candidates rallied to her defence.

During last Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate, Harris broke out from the other nine Democrats on stage, calling on her personal experiences of racial injustice as a black woman.“As the only black person on this stage, I would like to speak on the issue of race,” Harris said. She spoke of her experience growing up black, recalling a story about neighbours who wouldn’t let their children play with Harris and her sister because of the colour of their skin.

That’s when she was attacked on Twitter by a conservative provocateur for not being an “American black”. “She is half Indian and half Jamaican,” Ali Alexander wrote.

“I’m so sick of people robbing American Blacks (like myself) of our history. It’s disgusting. Now using it for debate time at #DemDebate2? These are my people not her people. Freaking disgusting.” Donald Trump Jr – the president’s eldest son – retweeted to his millions of followers the Harris critic who took issue with her identity. “Is this true? Wow,” Trump Jr commented as he shared the tweet. He has since deleted the tweet and a spokesman for President Donald Trump’s son told The New York Times that it was a misunderstanding.(Jamaica Gleaner)…[+]

A 27-year-old woman in Alabama has been indicted for manslaughter after losing her unborn baby in a shooting – despite not being the shooter. Marshae Jones was arrested on Wednesday for initiating a dispute last December that led to another woman shooting her in the stomach, local media reported.

Charges against the shooter were dismissed after a failed indictment. Pro-choice groups are now saying it shows how the state’s new restrictive abortion laws can affect other cases. The Jefferson County Bessemer District Attorney’s office issued a statement saying they are weighing whether or not to prosecute the “truly tragic case” and denying any connection to anti-abortion legislation, local media reported.

“Our office is in the process of evaluating this case and has not yet made a determination about whether to prosecute it as a manslaughter case, reduce it to a lesser charge or not to prosecute it.”On 4 December, while she was five months pregnant, Ms Jones was involved in a fight with 23-year-old Ebony Jemison outside of a Dollar General store, according to AL.com.(BBC)…[+]

WASHINGTON – Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives backed down to President Donald Trump and passed a $4.6 billion aid package to address a migrant surge at the U.S.-Mexico border without the additional protections for migrant children that liberals had sought. Trump, the Republican-controlled Senate and moderate Democrats insisted on finishing the emergency aid bill as soon as possible, without further haggling over demands for greater migrant safeguards and reduced immigration enforcement spending.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, said shortly before the vote that her colleagues were giving up their fight for now over changes to the measure, which had already passed the Senate. “At the end of the day, we have to make sure that the resources needed to protect the children are available,” she said in a statement. “In order to get resources to the children fastest, we will reluctantly pass the Senate bill.”

The House vote was 305 to 102, with 71 out of 235 House Democrats voting against the Senate bill. The measure was then sent to Republican Trump for signing into law. Trump welcomed House passage of the “Bipartisan Humanitarian Aid Bill for the Southern Border,” saying, “A great job done by all!”(Reuters)…[+]

For the second time in just over one month and the third time in two years, a Claxton Bay man has been awarded compensation by the court for wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution. The total amount awarded to him by the court after he succeeded in all three claims amounts to just about $1 million. Now the man, Mark Hagley, says he is no longer afraid of being framed by police officers and would take the necessary action if he is again arrested and prosecuted for offences he did not commit.

His latest victory took place at the Hall of Justice in Port of Spain yesterday when a High Court Master ordered that the State pay to him $200,000 in damages. Hagley had filed a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the Office of the Attorney General after he was arrested in February 2010, while liming at “Uncle’s Bar” in Claxton Bay.

According to this claim, on the day in question, he was at the location with two friends when a police jeep drove by, stopped, turned around and proceeded towards the business place. Two officers came out of the vehicle and approached him. He said, having been framed by police before in 2006, he told the officers he had nothing in his possession and that he was willing to remove his clothing to prove so.(Trinidad Express)…[+]

Ten Democrats have clashed in the first TV debate of the race to oust President Donald Trump from the White House. Liberal firebrand Elizabeth Warren, who has been gaining momentum, took centre stage at the heated forum in Florida.

Candidates sparred over healthcare and immigration, and a couple of underdogs gulped much-needed political oxygen with a few well-timed zingers. Ten other Democrats in the crowded field, including Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, will battle on Thursday night. Millions of voters were expected to tune in for America’s biggest political debates in years. The eventual Democratic White House nominee will be crowned at the party convention in July next year, before the presidential election in November.(BBC)…[+]

OTTAWA– Canadian unemployment is at an all-time low and businesses have a message for politicians ahead of October’s national election: We need foreign workers so do not make the campaign about keeping them out. Concern about immigration is on the rise in Canada, according to a recent survey, especially among Conservative voters whose party leads Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in polls ahead of October elections.

Unlike the United States where immigration is viewed by some as a threat, Canadian businesses broadly support Trudeau’s promise to boost the number of foreign workers allowed into the country every year to about 1% of the population.

“We don’t want immigration to be used as a political weapon here as it has been in the United States,” said Goldy Hyder, head of the Business Council of Canada, whose members employ 1.7 million people. “We agree with the federal government’s targets and we need to meet those targets … The facts clearly demonstrate that Canada is going to need immigrants to help grow the economy.”(Reuters)…[+]

Senior defence attorney Bert Samuels says the four Jamaican fishermen who have brought a case against the United States Coast Guard alleging egregious mistreatment and human rights violations in 2017 could have a case against their own Government.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on June 12 filed a lawsuit against the US Coast Guard seeking damages on behalf of Luther Fian Patterson, Robert Dexter Weir, Patrick Wayne Ferguson, and David Roderick Williams, who it says were “secretly detained without due process at sea in inhumane conditions on four coast guard ships for over a month”.Another fisherman was also detained in the incident on September 14, 2017 in which the men’s vessel was stopped in international waters off the coast of Haiti. According to the claim, the US Coast Guard destroyed the Jamaican-registered boat, the JossetteWH 478 and the men were held at sea for just over a month, shackled, and left exposed on the decks of multiple coast guard ships, which made stops in Guantanamo Bay, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Miami. The men say they were held under inhumane conditions, abused, and prevented from contacting their loved ones to inform them they were alive.(Jamaica Observer)…[+]

Prince William has said he would “fully support” his children if they were gay, but admitted he would “worry” about the added pressures they would face. It was something he had thought about since becoming a parent, he said. “I wish we lived in a world where it’s really normal and cool, but particularly for my family, and the position that we are in, that’s the bit I am nervous about,” he said.

The duke was speaking to young people at a LGBT youth charity in London. The Albert Kennedy Trust (AKT) supports LGBT young people who are at risk of homelessness. The duke said he backed whatever decision his children made, but added: “It does worry me from a parent point of view. “How many barriers you know, hateful words, persecution, all that and discrimination that might come, that’s the bit that really troubles me.

“But that’s for all of us to try and help correct and make sure we can put that to the past and not come back to that sort of stuff.” The duke said this was not the first time he has been asked this hypothetical question about his children. The Queen’s cousin, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, and his partner James Coyle were the first royal same-sex couple to get married last year.(BBC)…[+]