The White House announced on Tuesday that Donald Trump will not travel to South America this week as planned.

Trump had been due to attend the Summit of the Americas in Lima and travel to Bogotá, Colombia, as well. Vice-President Mike Pence will make the trip in his stead. It would been Trump’s first visit to Latin America as president. A statement issued by the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said: “At the president’s request, the Vice-President will travel in his stead. The president will remain in the United States to oversee the American response to Syria and to monitor developments around the world.”

On Monday, Trump said a decision about a US response to a chemical weapons attack in Syria was imminent. Speaking to reporters at the White House, he said: “We’re making decisions as to what we do with respect to the horrible attack that was made near Damascus. And it will be met. And it will be met forcefully. When I will not say because I don’t like talking about timing.” In April 2017, the US launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime. Trump made the decision while entertaining Chinese President Xi Jinping at his private club in Florida.(theguardian)…[+]

Yulia Skripal, the daughter of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, has been discharged from hospital, doctors have said. Just over a month after she and her father were found collapsed on a park bench in Salisbury, Wiltshire, after being poisoned with a nerve agent, medics confirmed she had left Salisbury district hospital.

Skripal, 33, flew to the UK on 3 March, the day before she and her father are believed to have been poisoned with the nerve agent novichok. She released a statement on Friday saying her strength was “growing daily”. Sergei Skripal, 66, is also making good progress and doctors hope he will be able to leave hospital “in due course”.

Speaking outside the hospital on Tuesday, its medical director, Christine Blanshard, said: “We have now discharged Yulia from Salisbury district hospital. Yulia has asked for privacy from the media and I want to reiterate her request. “I also want to take this opportunity to wish Yulia well. This is not the end of her treatment but marks a significant milestone. “Her father has also made good progress. On Friday I announced he was no longer in a critical condition. Although he is recovering more slowly than Yulia, we hope that he too will be able to leave hospital in due course.”

Blanshard gave further insight into how the nerve agent attacked the two patients and the treatment they received. “In the four weeks since the incident in the city centre, both have received round-the-clock care from our clinicians, who have been able to draw on advice and support from world-leading experts in the field,” she said.(theguardian)…[+]

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has pledged to push through a controversial package of bills targeting civil society, described by his government as the “Stop Soros” package. Orbán said his Fidesz party’s landslide victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections had given the government perhaps the strongest mandate in modern Hungarian history.

“The reason we submitted this package before the elections is in order to allow the Hungarian voters to cast their vote knowing our intention on this. This has happened and we believe we are mandated by this election to pass this law.” Among other things, the proposed laws will require NGOs that work on migration-related issues to seek registration from the interior ministry. They could be rejected on a national security basis after vetting by security agencies. Any foreign funding for migration-related activities will be subjected to a 25% tax.(theguardian)…[+]