Foreign tourism to the US drops amid Trump-era policies
Al Jazeera
The number of foreign visitors to the United States continues to decline, as a range of policies put forth by the administration of US President Donald Trump has made tourists wary of travelling to the country.
In July, foreign visits to the US decreased by 3 percent year-over-year, according to recently released preliminary government data.
That decrease follows a trend that has been seen almost every month since Trump took office in late January. For five out of six months, the US has experienced a drop in foreign visitors.
“Everyone is afraid, scared – there’s too much politics about immigration,” Luise Francine, a Brazilian tourist visiting Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera.
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At least 800 dead after magnitude-6 earthquake hits eastern Afghanistan
The Guardian
A powerful earthquake that hit mountainous eastern Afghanistan has left at least 800 people confirmed dead and injured about 2,500, Taliban officials have said as rescuers struggled to reach the worst-hit villages.
The magnitude-6 earthquake struck several provinces close to the Pakistan border around midnight on Sunday, with the rugged region of Kunar the most severely affected. There were landslides and flooding.
The earthquake was shallow, taking place close to Earth’s surface, which is known to cause greater destruction. Several aftershocks were reported throughout the night and into Monday morning, which could even be felt in the capital, Kabul, more than 100 miles away.
Leaked ‘Gaza Riviera’ plan dismissed as ‘insane’ attempt to cover ethnic cleansing
The Guardian
A plan circulating in the White House to develop the “Gaza Riviera” as a string of high-tech megacities has been dismissed as an “insane” attempt to provide cover for the large-scale ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territory’s population.
On Sunday the Washington Post published a leaked prospectus for the plan, which would involve the forced displacement of Gaza’s entire population of 2 million people and put the territory into a US trusteeship for at least a decade.
Named the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust – or Great – the proposal was reportedly developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation with financial planning contributed by Boston Consulting Group.
Boy, 11, shot dead after playing doorbell-ringing prank in Houston, police say
The Guardian
An 11-year-old boy playing a common prank game of ringing doorbells in Houston, Texas, was shot dead on Saturday as he ran away from a house.
Authorities said the boy was struck several times as he and some friends were buzzing doorbells in an Eastside neighborhood.
The Houston police department have not released the identity of the boy or the occupant of the home, but said a middle-aged man has been arrested and several weapons were later recovered from the home.
Police said the boy had been playing “ding-dong ditch”, which involves ringing on the doorbell of a home and running away. A witness saw the boy ring a doorbell and flee the property before he was struck by gunfire.
“A witness stated the male was running from a house, after ringing the doorbell, just prior to suffering a gunshot wound,” police said in a police statement.
China Is About to Show Off Its New High-Tech Weapons to the World
Wired
CHINA IS PREPARING for one of the most anticipated and politically charged military events in recent years. On September 3, in Tiananmen Square, Chinawill celebrate the 80th anniversary of the victory over Japan in World War II with a spectacular military parade that is not only a ritual of historical remembrance but also a message to the entire world to be prepared for the war of the future.
President Xi Jinping and several foreign leaders and officials, including Vladimir Putin, will attend the ceremony. The Russian president’s presence is reported to have prompted several European ambassadors to consider defecting from the event, fearing it would contribute to the Kremlin’s international legitimization amid the ongoing war against Ukraine.
A Dark Money Group Is Secretly Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers
Wired
IN A PRIVATE group chat in June, dozens of Democratic political influencers discussed whether to take advantage of an enticing opportunity. They were being offered $8,000 per month to take part in a secretive program aimed at bolstering Democratic messaging on the internet.
But the contract sent to them from Chorus, the nonprofit arm of a liberal influencer marketing platform, came with some strings. Among other issues, it mandated extensive secrecy about disclosing their payments and had restrictions on what sort of political content the creators could produce.
In their group chat, influencers debated the details.
Ukraine liberates village of Novoekonomichne in Donetsk Oblast, General Staff says
Kyiv Independent
Ukraine’s 425th Regiment has liberated the village of Novoekonomichne in Donetsk Oblast and raised the national flag, the General Staff announced on Sept. 1.
Novoekonomichne, with a pre-war population of nearly 2,800 people, is located about 14 kilometers (8 miles) northwest of the embattled city of Pokrovsk.
Ukrainian assault groups spent two weeks fighting to liberate the settlement, raising the national flag in the village center on Aug. 31, according to the General Staff.
Suspected Russian jamming hits von der Leyen’s plane during Bulgaria visit
Kyiv Independent
Suspected Russian GPS interference forced European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s plane to land in Bulgaria using paper maps, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Sept. 1, citing three undisclosed officials.
The European Commission later confirmed the incident, as well as suspicions of Russian involvement.
“We can confirm there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safe,” European Commission spokesperson Arianna Podesta confirmed for the Kyiv Independent.
Sumud Flotilla for Gaza departs Barcelona again after delay due to storm
Al Jazeera
The Global Sumud Flotilla carrying aid to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip departed Barcelona again on Monday evening, several hours after poor weather forced it to return to the Spanish port, according to a journalist travelling on one of the boats.
Earlier on Monday, the flotilla – which had set off from Barcelona on Sunday – said in a statement on X that strong winds of more than 30 knots (55.6 kilometres per hour, or 34.5 miles per hour) on the Mediterranean Sea could have posed a problem for smaller boats in the convoy.
The flotilla said that it conducted a sea trial and made the decision to return to port in Barcelona to allow the storm to pass.
US: Police probing death at Burning Man festival as homicide
Deutsche Welle
Authorities in the US state of Nevada are investigating a death that occurred during the annual Burning Man festival as a homicide.
Authorities were alerted on Saturday about a man found dead in a pool of blood in the festival, which is held in the Black Rock Desert some 175 kilometers (110 miles) north of Reno
Authorities “found a single white adult male lying on the ground, obviously deceased,” the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Sunday.
Police have cordoned off a perimeter in the area where the body was found and were interviewing several festival participants.
The identity of the deceased has yet to be known, the sheriff’s office said. The body was taken to a medical examiner’s office.
Snapback sanctions expose Iran’s diplomatic dilemma
Deutsche Welle
The E3 grouping of Germany, France and the United Kingdom have moved to trigger the powerful “snapback” mechanism of UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program.
The snapback is a diplomatic tool that is part of a faltering October 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), under which signatories agreed to lift crippling international sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for Tehran agreeing to curbs on its nuclear activities.
If Iran and the E3 nations fail to reach an agreement within 30 days, all previously lifted sanctions on Iranunder the 2015 deal would be reinstated.
Iran said that it will not alter its position in the nuclear dispute.
Guatemala says it suggested that U.S. send its unaccompanied migrant children home
NPR
After planes with Guatemalan children were loaded in the U.S., then prevented from taking off by a federal judge’s decision to temporarily halt the children’s removal, the Guatemalan government said on Aug. 31 that it was responsible for recently proposing to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that the unaccompanied Guatemalan minors be returned to their home country.
In a statement published to the social media platform X on the evening of Aug. 31, the same day as the judge’s decision, the Guatemalan government indicated it wanted to prevent the children from staying in shelters and detention centers and that it supports coordinated action to reunify Guatemalan children with their families.
…
NPR asked the Guatemalan government how many children it had requested be returned from the U.S., and whether all of their parents have asked that the children be returned to Guatemala, as a U.S. attorney indicated in a hearing on Aug. 31. The Guatemalan government did not immediately respond and did not directly address those questions in its statement.
The statement appears to contain a factual error. The Guatemalan government said it suggested the idea of sending back the unaccompanied minors to Noem while she was in the country in July. But Noem visited Guatemala on June 26, after making stops in Costa Rica, Honduras and Paraguay in a tour of Central America.
More than 830 new Texas laws take effect Sept. 1. Here’s what’s changing
Houston Public Media
Soon, hundreds of bills passed earlier this year by Texas’ 89th Legislature will go into effect. As of Monday, Sept. 1, Texas will have a whopping 835 new laws on the books.
These measures touch nearly every aspect of life, from education and healthcare to public safety, property rules and support for first responders. With so many changes coming at once, Texans can expect a variety of noticeable impacts on their daily lives, plus shifts in how some state agencies operate.
To catch you up ahead of the big day, The Texas Newsroom and partner stations across the state have broken down some of the most significant measures below — plus other noteworthy new laws you may not have heard about yet.
Crime Festers in Republican States While Their Troops Patrol Washington
New York Times — no paywall
When Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, dispatched his National Guard troops to Washington to support President Trump’s crackdown on crime, Democrats and other critics wondered why he didn’t keep them within state lines.
Memphis, after all, has long been one of the most dangerous cities in the country, with a murder rate about twice as high as the nation’s capital, according to F.B.I. statistics. Nashville has a higher rate of violent crime than Washington as well.
The same questions could be asked of other Republican governors like Greg Abbott in Texas, Mike DeWine in Ohio and Mike Kehoe in Missouri, since cities under their purview all have higher rates of violent crime than the nation’s capital. Yet no Republican governor has asked for federal intervention.
