New York :

A federal judge has dismissed pornstar Stormy Daniels' defamation lawsuit against US President Donald Trump.

Daniels sued Trump after he said in a tweet in April that her story of a man threatening her not to come forward with her story of her alleged affair with Trump was "a total con job", CNN reported.

She argued Trump's tweet, posted April 18, "attacks the veracity of her account" of the incident and that Trump's statement was "false and defamatory, and that the tweet was defamation ... because it charged her with committing a serious crime", District Judge S. James Otero wrote in his opinion on Monday.

Trump had asked Otero to dismiss the lawsuit.

"The Court agrees with Trump's argument because the tweet in question constitutes 'rhetorical hyperbole' normally associated with politics and public discourse in the US. The First Amendment protects this type of rhetorical statement," Otero wrote.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has alleged that she Trump had an affair in 2006, after he married First Lady Melania Trump and she gave birth to their son, Barron.

Trump has denied the allegation.

Daniels is also suing Trump and his former personal attorney Michael Cohen over the $130,000 payment made to her to keep silent about the alleged affair in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election.

The ruling on Monday plays no role in that case, which continues to work its way through the court system.

Trump's attorney Charles J. Harder said in a statement to CNN: "No amount of spin or commentary by Stormy Daniels or her lawyer, (Michael) Avenatti, can truthfully characterise today's ruling in any way other than total victory for President Trump and total defeat for Stormy Daniels." Avenatti, responded to the ruling on Twitter and said: "Daniels' other claims against Trump and Cohen proceed unaffected. Trump's contrary claims are as deceptive as his claims about the inauguration attendance."

Washington :

A total of 245 children from separated undocumented immigrant families were still in US custody, officials said in a court filing.

According to government figures, most of the 245 children in custody have parents who were removed from the US, reports CNN.

Of those, only 18 children are currently in the pipeline to reunite with their parents in their countries of origin, the court filings said on Monday night.

Deported parents of 125 children in custody have said they don't want their children to be returned to the countries of origin and there were 32 others in government custody for whom the American Civil Liberties Union has not yet provided notice of whether parents want to reunify or decline reunification, officials said.

The new numbers come as President Donald Trump's administration considers a new pilot programme that could result in the separations of children and parents once again.

A status hearing in the family separations case is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

In June, US District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the government to reunite most of the families it had divided, including parents and children who had been separated as a result of the administration's now-reversed "zero tolerance" policy at the border and some separations that occurred before that policy was put in place, reports CNN.

Since then, 2,070 children have been discharged from government custody and reunited with parents, according to Monday's court filing.

Riyadh :
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who arrived in Riyadh on Tuesday for talks with King Salman on missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, would also meet the Saudi crown prince, a US official said.

After talks with the king earlier in the day on what happened to Khashoggi after he walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, Pompeo would have dinner with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the official said, requesting anonymity.

The controversy over the disappearance of  Khashoggi, a US resident who had been increasingly critical of the youthful crown prince, has dealt a huge blow to his efforts to showcase a reform drive and burnish the kingdom’s image.

London :
Fourteen Iranian border guards were kidnapped on the border with Pakistan on Tuesday, an official was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

The official said the kidnappers were members of a terrorist group, but gave no more details.

“These 14 people were kidnapped around 4-5 am in Lulakdan border area,” IRNA quoted the official as saying without naming the person.

Lulakdan is in Sistan and Baluchistan Province. 

Washington :
Forty-six per cent Americans think President Donald Trump will win a second term in office, according to a new CNN poll.

The poll released on Sunday shows that people were split over whether they thought the President would win a second term with 47 per cent saying he would not.

But that’s a steep improvement for him since March, when 54 per cent of adults said they thought he would lose his bid for a second term, the CNN poll said.

The increase is a bit sharper among men (up 8 points), independents (from 39 per cent in March to 47 per cent now) and those who are enthusiastic about voting in this year’s midterms (from 37 per cent in March to 46 per cent now).

In the race for the Democratic nomination to face Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden leads a massive potential field.

The poll asked Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to choose their preferred presidential nominee among 16 possible candidates. Biden topped the list with 33 per cent support, followed by independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the 2016 runner-up, at 13 per cent.

Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris followed at 9 per cent and Senator Elizabeth Warren at 8 per cent.

The CNN poll was conducted between October 4 and 7 among a random national sample of 1,009 adults reached on landlines or cell phones by a live interviewer.