reuters

Catastrophic flooding triggered by Tropical Storm Harvey inundated Houston on Sunday, forcing residents of the fourth most populous U.S. city to flee their homes in boats or hunker down in anticipation of more days of "unprecedented" rainfall.

Daniel Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a letter posted on his Twitter account that Trump had failed to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis, part of "a broader pattern of behavior that enables sexism and racism, and disregards the welfare of all Americans, the global community and the planet."

President Donald Trump fired chief strategist Steve Bannon on Friday, the White House announced, ending the turbulent tenure of a rabble-rousing conservative media entrepreneur and political activist who was a darling of Trump's base.

President Donald Trump dug in defiantly on Thursday in his response to racial violence in Virginia, echoing the position of white nationalists by intensifying his opposition to the removal of monuments to the pro-slavery Civil War Confederacy.

With tears and defiant tributes, hundreds of purple-clad people packed an historic Charlottesville theater to remember the 32-year-old woman killed when a suspected white nationalist crashed his car into anti-racist demonstrators.
"They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well guess what? You just magnified her," Heyer's mother Susan Bro said to long and loud applause from those gathered at the city's 1930s-era Paramount Theater.

Undeterred by violence over the planned removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Va., municipal leaders in cities across the United States said this week they would step up efforts to pull such monuments from public spaces.

At least one vehicle hit a crowd of people gathered in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday, hours after police broke up a clash between white nationalists and counter-protesters, according to witnesses.

A U.S. district judge in Austin has rejected an effort by Texas to have a law that would punish so-called sanctuary cities be declared constitutional ahead of the measure taking effect next month. The Republican-backed law is the first of its kind since Donald Trump became president in January, promising to crack down on illegal immigration. Texas is the U.S. state with the longest border with Mexico.

Mohamed Omar, the mosque's executive director, previously said a member of the congregation saw a pickup truck speeding away from the building's parking lot just after the blast.

"I do know it's not healthy to jump to a conclusion that officers did something criminal just because their camera was off," Davis said, adding that he would wait until an internal investigation was complete before making a judgment.

Pastor Craig Paschal says the decision to turn his church into a sanctuary, and a focal point in the nationwide immigration debate, was not easy but he considered it a Christian duty.

Senate Republicans narrowly agreed on Tuesday to open debate on a bill to repeal Obamacare, but the party's seven-year effort to roll back Democratic President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law still faces significant hurdles.

President Donald Trump pleaded with Senate Republicans on Monday to "do the right thing" on health care and allow debate to begin on a measure to repeal and replace Obamacare. The Senate is expected to vote on Tuesday on whether to begin debating a health care overhaul, although Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has not specified which version of the bill the senators will vote on.

Ohio prosecutors said on Tuesday they will not pursue a third trial against a white former university police officer whose two previous trials for fatally shooting a black motorist during a traffic stop ended with hung juries.

A former suburban Dallas policeman was indicted by a grand jury for murder in the shooting death of a black teenager who was in a car moving away from the officer when he opened fire with a rifle, Dallas County prosecutors said on Monday. Roy Oliver, 37, a white officer who was fired by the Balch Springs Police Department for policy violations a few days after the shooting, was also charged with four counts of aggravated assault relating to the death of Jordan Edwards, 15, in late April.

One of the biggest icebergs on record has broken away from Antarctica, scientists said on Wednesday, creating an extra hazard for ships around the continent as it breaks up. The 1 trillion ton iceberg, measuring 5,800 square km, calved away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica sometime between July 10 and 12, said scientists at the University of Swansea and the British Antarctic Survey.

Pope Francis made one of the most significant changes in centuries to the Roman Catholic Church's saint-making procedures on Tuesday, adding a new category for people who give their lives to save others.

Donald Trump Jr. was told in an email before meeting a Russian lawyer who he thought had information damaging to Hillary Clinton that the material was part of a Russian government effort to help his father's presidential campaign, the New York Times reported on Monday.
Citing three people with knowledge of the email, the newspaper said publicist Rob Goldstone indicated in the email to President Donald Trump's eldest son that the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information, according to the Times.

A federal judge halted late on Monday the deportation of all Iraqi nationals detained during immigration sweeps across the United States this month until at least July 10, expanding a stay he imposed last week. The stay had initially only protected 114 detainees from the Detroit area.

On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear during its next term a case regarding President Trump’s ban on travel into the U.S. for people from six countries whose populations are majorly Muslim. In doing so, the Supreme Court permitted a revised version of President Trump’s ban to go into effect immediately until the case is heard. The Supreme Court’s next term will begin in October.