PRESIDENT Donald Trump is visiting the US-Mexico border in a bid to bolster his case for a wall.
Trump stormed out of his meeting with congressional leaders as efforts to end the partial government shutdown fell into deeper disarray.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers will not be paid again today.
“The Opposition Party & the Dems know we must have Strong Border Security, but don’t want to give ‘Trump’ another one of many wins!” Trump tweeted yesterday before departing for Texas.
During his stop in McAllen, Trump will visit a border patrol station for a discussion on immigration and border security.
Meanwhile, at least seven people have died in the Alps after Austria, Switzerland and Germany were hit by a massive snowstorm.
The poor conditions began with a storm which swept in from the North Atlantic and across Scandinavia before hitting northern and eastern Europe where it caused moist cold air in elevated regions.
Avalanches and up to seven feet of snow were reported in the Austrian Alps which forced ski resorts to close for safety reasons.
Two German skiers died in Austria’s Vorarlberg mountains, with a third found dead near Salzburg. Another skier was killed in Bavaria after a tree collapsed, while a young woman died as a result of an avalanche in the Teisenberg mountains. Two climbers died in the Italian Alps.
Rescuers are continuing to search for missing people with more snow forecast for the areas over the next few days.
Elsewhere, a Palestinian man has been jailed for 18 years for stabbing a British student to death in Israel.
The Jerusalem district court accepted a plea bargain yesterday in sentencing Jamil Tamimi, 60, for the attack on Good Friday in April 2017.
He killed 20-year-old Birmingham University student Hannah Bladon on a Jerusalem light rail train, stabbing her multiple times before an off-duty policeman pulled the emergency brake and subdued him.
Tamimi’s defence team claimed he suffered from a mental illness and the attack was not ideologically or politically motivated.
Finally, supporters of the surprise Democratic Republic of Congo presidential winner have celebrated in the capital as the rival opposition candidate denounced the result as fraudulent.
“Today I am happy,” Felix Tshisekedi told supporters. “Happy for the people of Congo. Everyone is celebrating that there is peace.”
But Martin Fayulu alleged the results had been rigged, saying outgoing president Joseph Kabila made a backroom deal with Tshisekedi.
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