US election 2016: Donald Trump 'picks Mike Pence' as running mate
15 July
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has reportedly chosen Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate for November's election.
Trump was due to reveal his choice today, but postponed the event in the wake of the attacks in Nice which claimed the lives of at least 84 people.
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Yesterday evening, sources told The Guardian and the Indianapolis Star the businessman had selected Pence, although the Republican's camp maintained he had not yet settled on a pick.
Trump's reported choice appears to be aimed at reuniting a fractured Republican Party still reeling from his sweeping win during the presidential primaries. Pence is seen as a safe choice who would "solidify the Republican base and is popular with social conservatives", says the Guardian.
The BBC says Pence is a sensible choice, as he "has executive experience as Indiana's governor and a strong legislative resume from his 12 years as a member of the US House of Representatives".
However, he will still have work to do in courting the support of some Republicans.
"In 2015, Mr Pence botched the handling of a religious liberty-gay rights flap in his state, which cost him support in the centre and on the right. The political hangover has made him vulnerable as he has campaigned for re-election this year," says the Wall Street Journal.
Pence also publicly distanced himself from a number of Trump's positions during the Republican primaries, most notably when he took to Twitter to denounce the call for a ban on Muslim's entering the US, calling it "offensive and unconstitutional".
Sources told CNN that former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice turned down an offer from the Trump campaign to be his vice presidential running mate.
Adding a black woman to his ticket would have been a coup for Trump, says the newspaper, but Rice apparently had no interest in joining.
Donald Trump greeted with Mexican flags in Scotland
23 June
If presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump is expecting a warm welcome when he touches down in Scotland later today he is likely to be disappointed.
Mexican flags are waiting to greet the billionaire businessman, who wants to build a wall along the US border to keep out Mexican migrants, as he prepares to relaunch a £190m golf course in Turnberry.
"We did this to show solidarity with the Mexican people and many other groups that Trump has lied to and intimidated, because we've experienced it," David Milne, who owns property overlooking the golf course, told ABC News. "It was the most obvious symbol we found to illustrate our point."
Trump will face the scorn of Scottish residents as he cuts the ribbon at his luxury resort tomorrow, with many locals accusing the businessman of bullying landowners into selling their property.
"For the past ten years, we've had power lines cut off, boundary-line arguments, ongoing harassment by security guards, among other things," Milne said.
Trump's business team in Scotland "categorically disputes" any such claims.
His visit comes after more than half a million people signed a petition calling on Trump to be banned from the UK following his proposal that all Muslims be blocked from entering the US.
Protests and rallies are planned across Scotland during the Republican's three-day visit, during which he will visit another of his golf courses.
"He's notoriously disliked here," environment campaigner and Edinburgh resident Stan Blackley told Time Magazine. "When he comes, we can almost feel the hair up the spine of Scotland stand up."
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is set to ignore the Republican's visit, as is Prime Minister David Cameron, both of whom will be more preoccupied with the result of today's historic referendum.
However, Trump has been publicly invited by Scottish Muslims to visit a mosque, says Fortune magazine, although "they don’t expect him to say yes".
British man 'wanted to shoot Donald Trump'
21 June
A British man arrested at a rally for Donald Trump on Saturday has admitted he had planned to kill the Republican presidential candidate. He was held while trying to snatch a police officer's weapon.
A complaint filed yesterday in the US district court for Nevada says Michael Steven Sandford, 20, "knowingly attempted to engage in an act of physical violence against Donald J Trump ... by attempting to seize a firearm from Las Vegas Metropolitan Department officer".
Sandford drove from California to Las Vegas to carry out the shooting, despite never having fired a gun before, say court papers.
He reportedly visited the Battlefield Vegas gun range on 17 June to learn how to fire a Glock 9mm pistol.
"Mr Sandford acknowledged he knew he would only be able to fire one or two rounds, and expected to be killed during an attempt on Mr Trump's life," reports the BBC.
The Secret Service has charged Sandford with violating two federal laws. He could face up to a decade in prison if convicted.The Foreign Office is "providing assistance following the arrest of a British national in Las Vegas".
Sandford did not enter a plea and will remain in custody until a preliminary hearing scheduled for 5 July.
"For some, the violence has stirred dark memories of 1968 when Democratic presidential contender Robert Kennedy was assassinated and riots broke out at the party's convention in Chicago," says James Cook, North America correspondent for BBC News.
"This year, events have not descended to those awful depths but still, the country feels edgy and the Secret Service, which guards candidates as well as presidents, has been on high alert."
Donald Trump: 'Obama's angrier at me than at Orlando shooter'
15 June
Donald Trump has accused Barack Obama of being "more angry" at him than at the gunman who shot and killed 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando at the weekend.
The US President, visibly upset, yesterday delivered a passionate warning on how "dangerous" the Republican's rhetoric and his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the US was.
However, Trump hit back, claiming Obama's response was misdirected. "The level of anger, that's the kind of anger that he should have for the shooter and these killers that shouldn't be here," he said.
The only thing Americans could take from the President's speech was "boy, does he hate Donald Trump", he added.
Trump has condemned Obama for failing to use the term "radical Islam" when talking about the massacre and said his potential Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, has only used the phrase as a result of pressure from him. "She should not need to be forced," he told supporters.
In response, Obama said the phrase was just a political talking point, not a strategy for dealing with extremists.
"We hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests entire religious communities are complicit in violence. Where does it end?” he said.
He added that the gunman, Omar Mateen, was born on US soil.
Trump, meanwhile, hinted that he would introduce a broader crackdown on terrorism if elected to the White House, but gave no details. "Everything is going to be fair. There’s going to be total justice," he said. "But we can’t continue to live this way."
Gun violence and terrorism are important issues in the US election debate. A Politico report suggests this is the reason why both Obama and Clinton are launching coordinated attacks on the New York billionaire.
Donald Trump: Orlando victims 'should have had guns strapped to ankle'
14 June
Donald Trump has used the mass shooting in Orlando to call for greater restrictions on immigration and an increase in the use of firearms in the US.
"If you had guns in that room, even if you had a number of people having it strapped to your ankle or strapped to their waist, where bullets could have flown in the other direction right at him, you wouldn't have had the same kind of a tragedy," he said.
Despite gunman Omar Mateen having been born just a few miles from Trump in New York, the Republican presumptive nominee added he would suspend immigration from any countries with a record of terrorism against the US, Europe or its allies.
"The only reason that the killer was in America in the first place was that we allowed his family to come here," he said.
Trump's comments "played loose with the facts and was rife with inflammatory rhetoric", says CNN. The businessman claimed his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton wanted to "disarm Americans and let Islamic terrorists slaughter them, while seeming to over inflate the number of Syrian refugees and insinuating the perpetrator of the Orlando attack was a foreigner", says the network.
The "outsider" candidate was quick to "crow that he had predicted the massacre", says Time magazine, while Clinton, the ultimate insider, took a different tack.
A "seasoned politician" who was first lady during the Oklahoma City terror attack, New York senator during 9/11 and secretary of state when Osama bin Laden was killed, she has "long known how to be the voice of consoler-in-chief", it adds.
The Democrat yesterday praised President George W Bush and his decision to visit a Muslim community centre after 9/11. "To anyone who wanted to take out their anger on our Muslim neighbours and fellow citizens, he said, that would not and should not stand in America," she said. "It is time to get back to the spirit of those days."
The political backwash of the carnage in Orlando "will become clearer over the next few days when the next polls are published", says David Millward at the Daily Telegraph, but already commentators are suggesting Trump "will gain as American outrage grows at another jihadist outrage on its own soil".
Several lawmakers have called for new gun control laws after the US's deadliest mass shooting, in which Mateen opened fire with an AR-15 rifle and a handgun, killing 49 and injuring 53 in an LGBT nightclub.
Donald Trump boasts 'I called it' after Orlando shooting
13 June
Donald Trump has revived his most controversial idea to "make America great again" in the wake of the Orlando shootings which left 49 people dead and dozens wounded.
"What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee tweeted. "I called it and asked for the ban."
His comments, referring to his call to ban Muslims from entering the US, followed Sunday's deadly gun assault on the LGBT Pulse nightclub in Florida, in which lone gunman Omar Mateen opened fire and took hostages before being shot dead in a police raid.
However, Mateen was born in New York City to Afghan parents and so would not have been affected by the businessman's proposal.
Trump's plan has proven to be his most divisive stance. To his detractors, the idea carries overtones of religious segregation, bigotry and even fascism, but to his supporters, it has cemented his image as a no-nonsense leader who prioritises national security over "political correctness".
Trump also said President Barack Obama should "resign in disgrace" if he refused to brand the shooting the result of "radical Islamic terrorism".
Trump's bellicose response was in stark contrast to that of Hillary Clinton, who told the LGBT community: "We will keep fighting for your right to live freely, openly and without fear.
The presumptive Democratic nominee also called for more action to prevent violent individuals from accessing firearms.
While Clinton did not directly address Trump's comments, a separate statement from her communications director Jennifer Palmieri took a swipe at the Republican.
"This act of terror is the largest mass shooting in American history and a tragedy that requires a serious response," the statement said. "Donald Trump put out political attacks, weak platitudes and self-congratulations."
Donald Trump vows to tear up Paris climate agreement
27 May
Donald Trump has pledged to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, allow drilling off the Atlantic coast and reopen negotiations to build the Keystone XL pipeline if he is elected US president.
Speaking at an oil industry conference in North Dakota, the presumptive Republican White House nominee outlined his plans to repeal a number of legislations aimed at protecting the environment.
"It's the standard-issue GOP playbook: fewer regulations, more domestic fossil-fuel production," says Vox. "The crowd loved it."
The billionaire also took aim at the environmental position of his likely Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, telling cheering crowds: "Hillary's agenda is job destruction. My agenda is job creation."
While he failed to directly address man-made climate change, Trump "took veiled shots" at those concerned about global warming, says The Guardian.
He has, however, made similar views in the past, saying that global warming was "created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive" and demanding an end to "this global warming b*******" because "our planet is freezing".
Responding to Trump's latest remarks, Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club environmentalist group, said: "There are pools of oil industry waste water that are deeper than Trump's grasp of energy."
The businessman's speech came minutes after he announced that he now has enough nominations to secure the Republican Party's backing, after 15 unbound delegates from North Dakota declared they would vote for him at the upcoming party convention.
The support gives Trump a total of 1,238 delegates, one more than the 1,237 required.
The nomination is not official "until the balloons drop at the Republican convention in July", says BBC North America reporter Anthony Zurcher, "but the desperate attempts of the #NeverTrump movement to throw any obstacles in his path are essentially extinguished."
Still, there remains a glimmer of hope for Trump's opponents, says CNBC: "Each and every delegate has complete freedom to vote with their conscience at the convention, including who the party's nominee should be… The nomination cannot be 'clinched' or won until the delegates actually vote."
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