Gunman kills four people in shooting at Manhattan skyscraper
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.
We start with the news that a gunman killed four people at a Manhattan skyscraper that houses the headquarters of the NFL and the offices of several major financial firms before turning the gun on himself, New York officials have said.
An NYPD officer identified as Didarul Islam, an immigrant from Bangladesh and a father of two whose wife is pregnant, was among those killed. He was working off-hours as a security guard at the time, New York mayor Eric Adams told reporters, describing him as a “true blue hero”.
Authorities offered few details about the three other victims killed by the suspect – two men and a woman. A third male was gravely wounded by the gunfire and was “fighting for his life” in a nearby hospital, the mayor said.
Jessica Tisch, the New York City police commissioner, confirmed that “the lone shooter has been neutralized”. New York police also said the shooter acted alone and was dead.
Tisch said the gunman, identified as Shane Tamura, a 27-year-old Las Vegas resident with a history of mental illness, had driven cross-country to New York in recent days.
The shooting spree in the evening rush hour began in the lobby of the Park Avenue tower in Midtown Manhattan. Tisch said that surveillance videos showed the gunman exiting a double-parked Black BMW between 51st and 52nd street on Park Avenue.
Read our full report here:
In other developments this morning:
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Ghislaine Maxwell asked the supreme court to overturn her conviction for taking part in and facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes, arguing that a non-prosecution agreement with the late sex offender struck by federal prosecutors in Florida in 2008 should have barred any of his co-conspirators from prosecution as well.
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Donald Trump said that he did indeed bar Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club for “inappropriate” behavior. But the president explained that what was inappropriate was not, as his aides have suggested, doing something lewd or illegal, but hiring away staff from the club.
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An Israeli settler who was sanctioned by Joe Biden as a violent extremist, but removed from the sanctions list by Trump, was arrested in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday after the fatal shooting of a Palestinian activist. The Palestinian man who was killed was denied entry to the United States last month when he arrived in San Francisco for a series of planned talks sponsored by faith groups, including a progressive Jewish synagogue.
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The US justice department filed a misconduct complaint against a federal judge who has clashed with the administration over deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador over private comments first reported by a far-right publication.
Key events
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he was not seeking a summit with Chinese president Xi Jinping, but added that he may visit China at Xi’s invitation, which Trump said had been extended.
“I may go to China, but it would only be at the invitation of President Xi, which has been extended. Otherwise, no interest!,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Aides to Trump and Xi have discussed a potential meeting between the leaders during a trip by the US president to Asia later this year, sources previously told Reuters.
North Korea said on Tuesday the United States must accept that reality has changed since the countries’ summit meetings in the past, and no future dialogue would end its nuclear program, state media KCNA reported.
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un who is believed to speak for her brother, said she conceded that the personal relationship between Kim and US president Donald Trump “is not bad.”
But if Washington intended to use a personal relationship as a way to end the North’s nuclear weapons program, the effort would only be the subject of “mockery,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by KCNA.
“If the US fails to accept the changed reality and persists in the failed past, the DPRK-US meeting will remain as a ‘hope’ of the US side,” she said, referring to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
North Korea’s capabilities as a nuclear weapons state and the geopolitical environment have radically changed since Kim and Trump held talks three times during the US president’s first term, she said.
“Any attempt to deny the position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state … will be thoroughly rejected,” she said.
US-China trade talks resume for second day in Stockholm
Top US and Chinese economic officials arrived on Tuesday at the venue where they are conducting their latest bilateral round of trade negotiations, this time held in Stockholm, after previous rounds in London and Geneva.
Japan’s top trade negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, said on Tuesday the trade agreement with the US guaranteed Japan would always get the lowest tariff rate on chips and pharmaceuticals out of all the pacts negotiated by Washington.
“If a third country agrees with the United States on lower rates on chips and pharmaceuticals, the same rates would be applied to Japan,” he told a news conference.
Donald Trump has arrived at the opening ceremony for his new golf course in Aberdeenshire, arriving to the tune of bagpipes at the event at his course in Menie.
He thanked his son Eric, who he said had “worked so hard” on creating the New Course at the resort.
The president also thanked John Swinney, who was among the assembled audience.
Eric Trump had earlier said he and the Trump International team had created an “amazing masterpiece” at the New Course.
Diana Ramirez-Simon
US House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries expressed his concern over the “horrific shooting”, and said he was “praying hard” for the NYPD officer.
“May God watch over our city during this challenging moment,” Jeffries wrote in a post.
A large police presence converged on the area around the tower, according to Reuters journalists near the scene.
“I just saw a lot of commotion and cops and people screaming,” said Russ McGee, a 31-year-old sports bettor who was working out in a gym adjacent to the skyscraper, told Reuters in an interview near the scene.
The office building at 345 Park Avenue occupies an entire city block and houses the corporate offices for the National Football League and the headquarters of investment firm Blackstone. It also holds offices for JP Morgan Chase.
According to an ESPN reporter, Jeff Darlington, an NFL security alert was sent to employees: “Do not exit the building. Secure your location and hide until law enforcement clears your floor. Please switch phones to silent.”
This shooting is the 254th mass shooting in the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun-related violence, who defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, are killed or injured by firearms.
President Donald Trump has met with the Scottish first minister John Swinney at his Aberdeenshire golf club.
The president is opening a second course at his Menie Estate property on Tuesday and it is understood the first minister met with Trump shortly before the ceremony.
The leaders spoke for around 15 minutes, before posing together for pictures in front of a US flag and the saltire of Scotland ahead of the opening of a second course at the president’s golf club in Aberdeenshire.
Swinney has previously said he would push the president on an exemption to tariffs for Scotch whisky and raise the situation in Gaza, which also came up in the meeting between Trump and prime minister Keir Starmer on Monday.
Meanwhile, Trump was spotted on the driving range of his golf club during a delay in the opening ceremony for a new course.
Trump could be seen hitting shots from the driving range just yards where the first tee of the new course, where he is expected to be the first to tee off.
Trump caps his Scottish visit by opening a new golf course
President Donald Trump is opening a new golf course bearing his name in Scotland on Tuesday, capping a five-day foreign trip designed around promoting his family’s luxury properties and playing golf.
Trump and his sons, Eric and Donald Jr, are cutting the ceremonial ribbon and playing the first-ever round at the new Trump course in the village of Balmedie, on the northern coast of Scotland, AP reported.
The overseas jaunt let Trump escape Washington’s sweaty summer humidity and the still-raging scandal over the case of Jeffrey Epstein.
It was mostly built around golf – and walking the new course before it officially begins offering rounds to the public on 13 August, adding to a lengthy list of ways Trump has used the White House to promote his brand.
Billing itself the “Greatest 36 Holes in Golf,” the Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, was designed by Eric Trump. The course is hosting a PGA Seniors Championship event later this week, after Trump leaves.
Signs promoting the event had already been erected all over the course before he arrived on Tuesday, and, on the highway leading in, temporary metal signs guided drivers on to the correct road.
Golfers hitting the course at dawn as part of that event had to put their clubs through metal detectors erected as part of the security sweeps ahead of Trump’s arrival.
Several dozen people, some dressed for golf, including wearing golf shoes, had filled the sand trap near the tee box to watch the ribbon-cutting ceremony shortly before it was scheduled to start.
Another group of people were watching from the other side in tall grass growing on sand dunes flanking the first hole.
Gunman kills four people in shooting at Manhattan skyscraper
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.
We start with the news that a gunman killed four people at a Manhattan skyscraper that houses the headquarters of the NFL and the offices of several major financial firms before turning the gun on himself, New York officials have said.
An NYPD officer identified as Didarul Islam, an immigrant from Bangladesh and a father of two whose wife is pregnant, was among those killed. He was working off-hours as a security guard at the time, New York mayor Eric Adams told reporters, describing him as a “true blue hero”.
Authorities offered few details about the three other victims killed by the suspect – two men and a woman. A third male was gravely wounded by the gunfire and was “fighting for his life” in a nearby hospital, the mayor said.
Jessica Tisch, the New York City police commissioner, confirmed that “the lone shooter has been neutralized”. New York police also said the shooter acted alone and was dead.
Tisch said the gunman, identified as Shane Tamura, a 27-year-old Las Vegas resident with a history of mental illness, had driven cross-country to New York in recent days.
The shooting spree in the evening rush hour began in the lobby of the Park Avenue tower in Midtown Manhattan. Tisch said that surveillance videos showed the gunman exiting a double-parked Black BMW between 51st and 52nd street on Park Avenue.
Read our full report here:
In other developments this morning:
-
Ghislaine Maxwell asked the supreme court to overturn her conviction for taking part in and facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes, arguing that a non-prosecution agreement with the late sex offender struck by federal prosecutors in Florida in 2008 should have barred any of his co-conspirators from prosecution as well.
-
Donald Trump said that he did indeed bar Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club for “inappropriate” behavior. But the president explained that what was inappropriate was not, as his aides have suggested, doing something lewd or illegal, but hiring away staff from the club.
-
An Israeli settler who was sanctioned by Joe Biden as a violent extremist, but removed from the sanctions list by Trump, was arrested in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday after the fatal shooting of a Palestinian activist. The Palestinian man who was killed was denied entry to the United States last month when he arrived in San Francisco for a series of planned talks sponsored by faith groups, including a progressive Jewish synagogue.
-
The US justice department filed a misconduct complaint against a federal judge who has clashed with the administration over deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador over private comments first reported by a far-right publication.
