WASHINGTON: Since the US conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot in a brazen display of violence, President Donald Trump has embraced the role of spokesman in an extraordinary way.

Trump was first to confirm the news to a country in shock that Kirk was dead and first to announce that the latest suspect was in custody. He shared when Kirk’s funeral would take place and said he would attend.

Before a suspect was detained, Trump blamed, without presenting evidence the “radical left” for Kirk’s murder, with many of his followers repeating the accusation and calling for vengeance amid a wave of right-wing anger.

Kirk, a popular but divisive podcast host and author of a half-dozen books, left behind a wife, prominent friends and legions of followers after being gunned down on a Utah college campus on Wednesday where he was giving a speech.

Yet it is Trump who has taken on a central role in messaging after his political ally’s grisly public death, delivering information that typically would come from law enforcement or local officials rather than the nation’s top leader.

His actions contrast with the more cautious approach of past presidents. But they are very much in line with his penchant for direct communication, defying convention and putting himself in the middle of domestic and international issues.

“The one thing about Donald Trump is he is a very detailed individual,” said Mercedes Schlapp, a senior adviser to Trump in his first term. “Whether he is building the Rose Garden Club or we have this awful tragedy, he wants to be the one to break the news.”

Trump ordered flags to be flown at half-staff, said he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom and saw his vice president accompany Kirk’s casket back to his home state on Air Force Two — all fairly unusual ways for the US government to honour a political operative who has never held office or served in the military.

Trump had a personal and political relationship with Kirk, the co-founder and president of the conservative student group Turning Point USA he credits with helping him appeal to young voters.

“Charlie had a magic over the kids,” Trump said on Friday on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” recalling how his teenage son Barron was awe-struck by the charismatic 31-year-old activist.

Kirk was also a sharply partisan figure whose combative style and and anti-immigrant rhetoric often brought him to clash with others online and in public. His far-right views on abortion, civil rights and gun control also garnered strong reactions from the groups his comments targeted.

Trump has called for a non-violent response from his supporters but sidestepped reporters’ questions over how to unify the country in the midst of its most sustained surge in political violence since the 1970s. Trump himself was the subject of two assassination attempts last year.

Trump downplayed the extremism from the political right, telling reporters on Thursday that “we just have to beat the hell out of them,” stoking his supporters’ calls for political revenge against the “radical left.”

Twenty-two-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah was arrested on Thursday night for the shooting. Motives remained unclear, with investigators closely scrutinising messages engraved into four bullet casings. Experts have said they could reference left- or right-leaning groups.

Defining the narrative

Schlapp said Trump, a former reality television host, has come to enjoy unstructured exchanges with the press and the bully pulpit that comes with the attention lavished on him.

She noted that his approach to communication has been more aggressive in his second term in office.

“He just really wants to drive the news, and who is better to drive the news than Donald Trump? And his strategy has worked,” she said. “His administration is on offense from a media standpoint like nothing I’ve ever seen. We were getting hit all the time in the first term. It has allowed the president to define a narrative.”

There have been no briefings by Trump’s aides since the shooting. Aides regularly defer to Trump on policy announcements or the administration’s thinking, declining to “get in front of the president.”

Trump’s in-the-moment, off-the-cuff style comes with the risk of influencing a law enforcement process or later being contradicted by a clearer picture of the facts.

“Presidents typically don’t release breaking news like that,” said Yu Ouyang, professor of political science at Purdue University Northwest. “They know the impact that their words would have.”

Critics, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, took Trump to task for his remarks last week, ignoring that liberal and Democratic figures have also been the target of political violence in the US. Some commentators contrasted Trump’s repeated messaging on Kirk versus his relatively muted response to the assassination of Minnesota Democratic Representative Melissa Hortman earlier this year.

In a video message from the Oval Office on Wednesday, he said, “violence and murder are the tragic consequences of demonising those with whom you disagree” – but then only called out the rhetoric of the left.

“Even though [Trump] is trying to console at times, a lot of his rhetoric has also been very much ramping up — blaming a particular group before we even know who has done this,” said Denise Bostdorff, a College of Wooster communication studies professor who has studied presidential rhetoric.

The White House did not respond for comment. Trump’s staff touts the president’s accessibility, while many of his supporters relish his norm-busting, blunt communication style.

“Ronald Reagan was an orator,” said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser, “but Donald Trump understands the speed of news and how to get a story out there.”

For the third year running toxic blue-green algae blooms that look like pea soup and smell like rotten eggs have covered much of Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the UK and Ireland.

But this summer, the thick green veneer— so widespread it is visible from space—has been worse than ever, according to locals living near the Northern Ireland landmark.

“The lake is dying,” Mary O’Hagan, an open water swimmer, told AFP at Ballyronan, on its western shore, as ducks struggled over slick green-coated stones.

The algae growth—fuelled by industrial, agricultural and sewage pollution, as well as climate change, according to experts—has ravaged fishing and watersports, and prompted concerns about drinking water safety.

Signs banning bathing dot the lake’s 78-mile-long shoreline, including at Ballyronan, 34 miles (54 kilometres) west of the Northern Irish capital Belfast.

Nutrient-rich fertiliser and slurry run-off from farms supplying mega-firms like chicken processor Moy Park are being blamed for contributing to the pollution.

Untreated sewage spills and septic tank effluent are also suspected.

Moy Park deny polluting the lake and say the poultry sector is “highly regulated with strict limits set for wastewater quality” at all its local sites.

The algae growth is a “complex issue not specifically linked to any one sector,” a spokesperson told AFP.

‘Heartbreaking’

Lough Neagh was O’Hagan’s “training ground” during the Covid years, but she has hardly dipped a toe in the water since.

The 48-year-old told AFP she suffers from chronic health problems and swimming is her only exercise. Now she must rely on local swimming pools.

“Swimming here with its spectacular sunrises helped me when I was in a bad place in my life. It’s heartbreaking to see it now,” she said as green-tinted waves lapped the shore.

O’Hagan has joined a campaign group, “Save Lough Neagh”, and at a recent protest urged Northern Ireland’s regional government to act faster.

“Fine the polluters!” she said, calling in addition for the creation of an independent environmental agency able to punish factory farms and agri-food giants guilty of pollution.

The invasive zebra mussel species, a recent arrival in the lake’s waters, filter water but any benefit is far outweighed by the molluscs also stimulating algal photosynthesis, worsening the green water effect.

Meanwhile the algae has decimated the Lough Neagh fly, a staple for fish and birds, local fisherman Mick Hagan told AFP while casting a line in a nearby tributary river.

“This river used to be full of trout, but no longer,” said the 38-year-old wading back to dry land without a catch.

Europe’s largest eel fishery—also on the lough—suspended operations this year due to quality concerns.

Hagan’s is the first of many generations in his family not to fish for eels in Lough Neagh.

Now he runs a pizza truck at a campervan site near Ballyronan, but the powerful stench from the lough kept most tourists away this summer.

‘Doctor Sludge’

According to Gavin Knox, whose paddleboard small business also fell victim to the sludge, the foul smell can reach miles inland.

The 48-year-old launched his venture in 2022 to help people safely have fun on the water.

Working with people with learning disabilities and brain injuries as well as families, Knox said bookings gradually dried up after the algae appeared.

“Doing business became impossible,” he told AFP. “Even if there are safe places to paddle, nobody wants to do it when the fish are dying and the birds are covered in green slime.”

Forced to repay a large start-up loan, he is angry that no compensation was ever offered by the government to affected small businesses.

“It’s not fair that the people most impacted haven’t been responded to in a meaningful manner,” said Knox.

Last July the regional government launched an action plan to kickstart a fix.

But less than half the planned measures have been delivered.

The remaining steps have “delivery timelines extending into 2026 and beyond,” said a government statement sent to AFP. It did not provide further details.

With around 40 percent of Northern Ireland’s drinking water supplied by Lough Neagh, the risk of a health emergency might force swifter action by authorities, said Les Gornall, a local slurry expert whose nickname is “Doctor Sludge”.

“If Belfast suddenly cannot guarantee a clean water supply, then there would be a property and tourism crash,” he predicted.

“Maybe that prospect will jolt them into fixing the lake.”

• Nepal PM selected via Discord app.
• Over 12,000 prisoners escaped from jail.
• Regional leaders congratulate Sushila Karki. 
  

Nepal’s new leader vowed Sunday to follow protesters’ demands to “end corruption” as she began work as interim prime minister, after “Gen Z” youth demonstrations ousted her predecessor.

Sushila Karki, the 73-year-old former chief justice, has been tasked with restoring order and addressing protesters’ demands for a corruption-free future ahead of elections in six months.

Protests began on Monday sparked by a ban on social media and quickly escalated, with parliament and key government buildings set ablaze, as they fed into long-standing economic woes in Nepal.

“We have to work according to the thinking of the Gen Z generation,” said Karki, in her first public comments since taking office on Friday.

A fifth of people in Nepal aged 15-24 are unemployed, according to the World Bank, with GDP per capita standing at just $1,447.

“What this group is demanding is end of corruption, good governance and economic equality,” she added. “You and I have to be determined to fulfil that”.

‘From the streets’

Karki held a minute’s silence on Sunday for those killed in the unrest, before meetings began in the key government complex of Singha Durbar, where several buildings were set on fire during mass protests on Tuesday.

At least 72 people were killed in two days of protests, the government’s chief secretary Eaknarayan Aryal said Sunday, increasing an earlier toll of 51.

It was the worst unrest since the end of a decade-long civil war and the abolition of the monarchy in 2008.

The appointment of Karki, known for her independence, came after intense negotiations by army chief General Ashok Raj Sigdel and President Ram Chandra Paudel, including with representatives of “Gen Z”, the loose umbrella title of the youth protest movement.

Thousands of young activists had used the Discord app to name Karki as their choice of leader.

“The situation that I have come in, I have not wished to come here. My name was brought from the streets,” Karki said.

Parliament has been dissolved and elections set for March 5, 2026.

“We will not stay here more than six months in any situation; we will complete our responsibilities and pledge to hand over to the next parliament and ministers,” she added, in a speech to the nation.

‘Challenging times’

Workers put up a new signboard for the prime minister’s office in a building within the complex, but which was not torched.

Paudel, who swore Karki into office, said late Saturday that “a peaceful solution has been found through a difficult process”.

Paudel called it a “very difficult, complicated, and grave situation” in the Himalayan nation of 30 million people.

“I sincerely appeal to everyone to make the most of this opportunity… in making the election on March 5 a success,” he said.

Soldiers have scaled back their presence on the streets, where they had been deployed in large numbers after the protests.

But more than 12,500 prisoners who escaped from jails during the chaos are on the run, and present a daunting security headache.

Regional leaders have congratulated Karki, including Nepal’s two giant neighbours, India and China.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said New Delhi supported “peace, progress and prosperity” in Hindu-majority Nepal, while Beijing’s foreign ministry said it wanted to “push China-Nepal relations steadily forward”.

Buddhism is the country’s second-largest religion, and the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, wished Karki “every success in fulfilling the hopes and aspirations of the people of Nepal in these challenging times.”