Friday’s top story: Netanyahu government bows to Trump by barring Muslim Democratic congresswomen. Plus, how liberal Portland became the centre of a rightwing war

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This article is more than 1 year old

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Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.

Tlaib granted entry to West Bank for ‘humanitarian’ visit

Democrats in Washington, 2020 candidates and even pro-Israel groups have condemned the Israeli government’s decision to block a visit to the country by US lawmakers Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the first Muslim women elected to Congress. Omar and Tlaib, members of “the Squad” of progressive Democrats, are outspoken critics of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. On Friday morning, Israel partially relented, saying it would permit Tlaib to visit her grandmother in the occupied West Bank on “humanitarian” grounds.

Trump’s meddling. The ban was announced on Thursday, hours after Donald Trump had publicly urged Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to bar the women entry, suggesting that to allow the visit would “show great weakness”.

No surprise. The Israeli government has designated opposition to its policies as not just illegitimate, but illegal. Its decision to ban Omar and Tlaib should come as no surprise, argues Joshua Leifer.

Court rules detained migrant children must have soap

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Immigrant boys play soccer at the Homestead child detention facility in Florida. Photograph: Brynn Anderson/AP

Migrant children detained by the US government must be given access to soap and toothpaste, a panel of federal judges has ruled, tossing out the administration’s argument that the legal standard of “safe and sanitary” conditions for children in custody did not include the provision of basic hygiene products. The judges also ruled that the children must have edible food, clean water and places to sleep.

Green card rumours. Tens of thousands of immigrants in New York City have gone without vital benefit programs amid widespread rumours that the Trump administration plans to block immigrants using public benefits from getting green cards.

How to read the recession warning signs

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Traders at the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow lost 800 points (3%) on Wednesday, its worst performance of the year. Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images

Recent economic developments, including the US-China trade war and some rollercoaster stock market fluctuations, have sparked widespread predictions from experts of a coming recession. But how should the rest of us read the signals from Wall Street and beyond? Dominic Rushe breaks down the fundamentals of the US economy, from jobs to stocks to the “yield curve”, and explains which trends are negative – and which are just worrying.

World economy worries. The US is not the only harbinger of a world economic slowdown. Larry Elliot and Philip Inman explain which other countries are causing investors concern, including the UK, China, Germany and Brazil.

Portland braces for its biggest far-right rally of the Trump era

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Far-right demonstrators and and Antifa counter-protesters clash during a similar rally in Portland last year. Photograph: John Rudoff/Sipa USA/REX/Shutterstock

Police in Portland, Oregon, are preparing for the possibility of violence ahead of what may be the city’s biggest far-right rally of the Trump era on Saturday. The so-called “End Domestic Terrorism” rally has been organized in large part by Floridian Joe Biggs, a member of the far-right Proud Boys organization, and is aimed at Portland’s antifascist groups, who in recent years have fought running street battles with rightwing activists at similar events.

Joe Biggs. Biggs is a Trump supporter, a combat veteran, and a former employee of Alex Jones’s conspiracy theory-fuelled broadcast network Infowars.

Liberal utopia? A supposed bastion of liberal values, Portland has become an unlikely rallying point for the far-right in recent years. Jason Wilson explains why.

Crib sheet

Trump has urged the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to “sit down” with pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong to settle their differences, as the semi-autonomous territory prepares for another weekend of rallies and demonstrations.

The US president has repeatedly expressed a desire to purchase the vast, icy island of Greenland from its current owners, Denmark – with “with varying degrees of seriousness”, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

North Korea has fired two more projectiles into the sea off its east coast as Pyongyang declared talks with the “impudent” South were over, a day after the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, predicted the unification of the two countries by 2045.

A judge in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, has banned food delivery apps from the city after a bike courier delivering a takeaway pizza was hit by a car – and his employer’s first concern was not for his wellbeing, but for the pizza.

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dave Grohl playing the Glastonbury festival with the Foo Fighters in 2017. Photograph: Ki Price/Getty Images

Dave Grohl’s landmark tracks

The Foo Fighters founder and former Nirvana drummer has a three-decade back catalogue to choose from as he picks the most significant songs of his career. Grohl tells Eve Barlow how Smells Like Teen Spirit changed his life, and why he never imagined himself as a frontman.

400 years since slavery: a timely reminder

As the Guardian marks 400 years since the beginning of slavery in the US, Khushbu Shah and Juweek Adolphe present a timeline of American history from an African American perspective, while Touré says the anniversary is a reminder that Trump’s white supremacist ideas represent a long, dark tradition.

How the far-right’s ‘Eurabia’ myth went mainstream

The outlandish notion of a plot by liberal elites and Muslims to destroy European civilisation was once a conspiracy theory confined to the kookier corners of the internet. Andrew Wood explains how it entered mainstream politics via Europe’s rising far-right.

The unsolved murder haunting San Francisco

A year after parts of the dismembered body of a former bartender, Brian Egg, were found in a fish tank at his home in San Francisco, his killer remains at large. Police freed the only known suspects, and Egg’s neighbours are outraged by the perceived failings of the investigation, as Erin McCormick reports.

Opinion

When white nationalists commit deadly attacks like the El Paso shooting, there are more than 50 federal laws available to address it as a matter of domestic terrorism. Why won’t the FBI prioritise it as such? Because they don’t want to, says former agent Mike German.

The FBI remains an overwhelmingly white, male organization, which may partly explain why it would treat white supremacist violence as a less serious concern than an imaginary Black Identity Extremist movement.

Sport

The LA Lakers’ star center DeMarcus Cousins was diagnosed Thursday with a torn ACL in his left knee, a workout injury that could sideline the six-time All-Star for most of the coming NBA season.

Manchester City will meet Tottenham at the Etihad on Saturday, in a game likely to feature the first appearance in a City shirt for João Cancelo, who recently signed from Juventus. That’s one of 10 things to look out for amid the weekend’s Premier League action.

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