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Sam Nunberg, who helped launch Mr Trump’s campaign, said he would refuse to comply with a grand jury subpoena.

“I think it would be really, really funny if they wanted to arrest me because I don’t want to spend 80 hours going over emails,” he told MSNBC.

Mr Nunberg also said he thinks the investigators believe they have something on Mr Trump.

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating if there were any links between the Trump campaign and Russia, or any effort by the White House to obstruct justice.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders would not be drawn on Mr Nunberg’s remarks on Monday, saying: “I’m not going to weigh in on somebody that doesn’t work at the White House.”

Refusing to comply with a grand jury summons could result in contempt of court and obstruction of justice charges – and, eventually, a prison sentence. It’s a steep price to pay to make a point about the scope of Robert Mueller’s inquiry.

If Sam Nunberg wants to know how bad it could get, he might familiarise himself with the story of Susan McDougal, who served 18 months in jail for refusing to co-operate with independent counsel Ken Starr’s investigation into then-President Bill Clinton’s Arkansas real estate deals.

There’s time for Mr Nunberg to change his mind and meet with the grand jury, of course. In the meantime, he’s soaking up the media spotlight and airing grievances against old campaign colleagues.

In addition, if Mr Nunberg can be believed, his comments shed light on the direction of Mr Mueller’s investigation and its apparently wide-ranging questions.

In other words, Mr Mueller’s investigation is digging deep – and probably won’t be wrapping up anytime soon.

Sam Nunberg worked on the Trump campaign in 2015 until he was fired in August that year over racially charged Facebook posts.

He was later sued by Mr Trump for $10m (£7.2m) for breach of confidentiality.

The lawsuit was “amicably settled” out of court, a lawyer for the Trump Organization said at the time.

Mr Nunberg told CNN on Monday: “I’m not a Donald Trump fan. He treated me like crap.”

In a volley of extraordinary interviews with US media on Monday afternoon, Mr Nunberg said he had met with Mr Mueller’s team for five-and-a-half hours over the weekend.

He said he had had enough of the investigators’ “pretty ridiculous” questions.

Mr Nunberg told CNN they had asked him if he had ever heard Russian spoken around Trump Tower.

“I’m not co-operating. Arrest me,” Mr Nunberg said on live television. “You want to arrest me? Arrest me.”

He said he would not appear before a grand jury to testify on Friday.

Mr Nunberg rejected any suggestion he himself had colluded with Russians to help Mr Trump win the 2016 presidential election.

Mr Nunberg appeared to contradict himself during Monday’s television interviews, suggesting that Mr Trump may have “done something”, while insisting the president was innocent.

“I suspect that they suspect something about him [Mr Trump],” he told CNN, referring to Mr Mueller’s investigators.

Mr Nunberg added: “Trump may very well have done something during the election with the Russians. If he did that, I don’t know.”

“Mueller thinks that Trump is the Manchurian candidate, and I will tell you I disagree with that,” Mr Nunberg told CNN, referring to a 1959 novel about a US politician brainwashed into becoming a pawn of foreign conspirators.

But Mr Nunberg also told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “Donald Trump did not collude with the Russians!

“It’s the biggest joke to ever think Donald Trump colluded with the Russians.”

Mr Nunberg said he had been told by former Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller that a Kremlin-connected Russian “had offered to send women up to Trump’s room” at a Moscow hotel during the 2013 Miss Universe beauty pageant.

But he said Mr Trump “didn’t want it”.

“Trump is too smart to have women come up to his room,” Mr Nunberg said.

Unsubstantiated allegations linking Mr Trump to Russian prostitutes surfaced in a research file that was part of an attempt to dig up dirt on the then-Republican candidate during the 2016 election.

The dossier was compiled by an ex-British spy, Christopher Steele, through a Washington DC research firm that was hired by a conservative website and later by the Clinton campaign.

Mr Nunberg said Mr Trump was aware at the time of a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower when a group of Russians offered his campaign staff damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

“You know he knew about it,” Mr Nunberg told CNN.

“He was talking about it a week before. I don’t why he went around trying to hide it.”

The White House has repeatedly denied Mr Trump knew anything about that meeting.

The Trump Tower encounter appears to have become a focus of the Mueller investigation.

US Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said he was “extremely worried” about the impact of a trade war, adding that it could undermine economic gains.

But Mr Trump pushed back during a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We’re not backing down,” he told reporters on Monday.

“I don’t think you’re going to have a trade war,” he said.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Monday that President Trump is “very confident” the US would win any trade war.

Mr Trump’s Monday comments came an hour after Mr Ryan released a statement urging the White House to reconsider its plan.

“We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan,” Mr Ryan’s spokeswoman AshLee Strong said.

“The new tax reform law has boosted the economy and we certainly don’t want to jeopardise those gains.”

Mr Trump’s announcement last week that he would tax imported steel and aluminium has prompted worldwide reaction.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) on Monday also called on member states to “stop the fall of the first dominoes” of a trade war.

“Once we start down this path it will be very difficult to reverse direction,” WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo told negotiators in Geneva on Monday. “An eye for an eye will leave us all blind and the world in a deep recession.”

Earlier on Monday, Mr Trump hinted that if the US achieved a better deal for itself in the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) he would abandon plans for tariffs on US neighbours.

Those tariffs could be removed for Canada and Mexico if they signed a “new and fair” agreement, he suggested.

The current round of Nafta talks, which focus on updating the 24-year old treaty, are due to finish on Monday and have achieved little.

Mr Trump has decried the US trade deficit with other countries, which he has blamed on “‘very stupid’ trade deals and policies”.

On Thursday, he said steel imports would face a 25% tariff and aluminium 10%.

He issued a threat against EU-made cars on Saturday, which he repeated during his Oval Office meeting with the Israeli prime minister on Monday.

“They have trade barriers that are worse than tariffs. They also have tariffs by the way, but they have trade barriers far worse than tariffs.”

“And if they want to do something we’ll just tax their cars that they send in here like water,” he vowed.

Over the weekend some Republicans began to question the tariff proposal and have urged the president to reconsider.

Many argue that the impact of tax cuts that were passed earlier this year will be wiped out as countries levy new tariffs on US goods and the price of metals climbs.

Senator Orrin Hatch said American citizens would be made to pay, adding that Mr Trump’s “action could very well undercut the benefits of the pro-growth tax reform we fought to get on the books”.

Senator Ben Sasse agreed that “kooky 18th Century protectionism will jack up prices on American families”.

Responding to the criticism on CNN, White House economic adviser Peter Navarro dismissed the number of Republicans opposed Mr Trump’s tariff plan.

“Guess what: He beat them,” Mr Navarro said, referring to the outcome of the 2016 election.

He added that Republicans are “dead wrong on the economics”.

Industry bodies like the US Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association have expressed deep concern.

Levi jeans and bourbon could be hit with a 25% import tax by the European Union if Mr Trump imposes tariffs on European steel and aluminium.

Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Trade, told the BBC the items were on a draft list of US goods to be taxed.

Ms Malmström told the OP’S NEWS : “We are looking at possibilities to retaliate, meaning we will also put taxes or tariffs on US imports to the European Union.”

Downing Street said that during Mrs May’s call to President Trump on Sunday she raised “our deep concern at the President’s forthcoming announcement on steel and aluminium tariffs, noting that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity in all parties’ interests”.

Zhang Yesui, spokesperson for China’s National People’s Congress, said it was natural that “some friction will exist” between the US and China, given the volume of trade between them surpassed $580bn (£420bn) last year.

But he said China would take “necessary measures” if its interests were hurt.

Canada said tariffs would cause disruption on both sides of the border. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “confident we’re going to continue to be able to defend Canadian industry”.

EU trade chiefs could apply 25% tariffs on around $3.5bn of imports from the US – targeting iconic US exports including Levi’s jeans, Harley-Davidson motorbikes and bourbon whisky.

Brazil, Mexico and Japan have said they will consider retaliatory steps if the president presses ahead with his plan next week.

The move has also been strongly criticised by the International Monetary Fund and the WTO.

The US imports steel from more than 100 nations and brings in four times more steel from abroad than it exports.

Since 2000, the US steel industry has suffered, with production dropping and the number of employees in steel work falling.

The US is the largest export market for EU cars – making up 25% of the €192bn (£171bn; $237bn) worth of motor vehicles the bloc exported in 2016 (China was second with 16%).

Sergei Skripal, 66, was granted refuge in the UK following a “spy swap” between the US and Russia in 2010.

He and a woman, 33, were found unconscious on a bench at a shopping centre in Salisbury on Sunday.

Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury has been closed by police “as a precaution”.

The substance has not been identified, but Public Health England said there was no known risk to the public’s health.

Wiltshire Police are investigating whether a crime has been committed. They said the pair had no visible injuries but had been found unconscious at the Maltings shopping centre.

They have declared a “major incident” and multiple agencies are investigating. They said it had not been declared as a counter-terrorism incident, but they were keeping an “open mind”.

Col Skripal, who is a retired Russian military intelligence officer, was jailed for 13 years by Russia in 2006 for spying for Britain.

He was convicted of passing the identities of Russian intelligence agents working undercover in Europe to the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.

Russia said Col Skripal had been paid $100,000 for the information, which he had been supplying from the 1990s.

He was one of four prisoners released by Moscow in exchange for 10 US spies in 2010, as part of a swap. Col Skripal was later flown to the UK.

He and the woman, who police said were known to each other, are both in intensive care at Salisbury District Hospital.

A number of locations in the city centre were cordoned off and teams in full protective gear used hoses to decontaminate the street.

The hospital advised people to attend routine operations and outpatient appointments unless they were contacted. It said its A&E department was open but busy because of the weather.

On the restaurant closure, police said Public Health England had reiterated the advice that there was no known risk to the wider public, but as a precaution advised that if people felt ill they should contact the NHS on 111.

“If you feel your own or another’s health is significantly deteriorating, ring 999,” police said.

Neighbours at Sergei Skripal’s home in Salisbury say police arrived around 17:00 GMT on Sunday and have been there ever since.

They said he was friendly and in recent years had lost his wife.

Eyewitness Freya Church told the BBC it looked like the two people had taken “something quite strong”.

She said: “On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leant in on him, it looked like she had passed out maybe.

“He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky…

“They looked so out of it I thought even if I did step in I wasn’t sure how I could help.”

The possibility of an unexplained substance being involved has drawn comparisons with the 2006 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.

The Russian dissident died in London in 2006 after drinking tea laced with a radioactive substance.

A public inquiry concluded that his killing had probably been carried out with the approval of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in the UK, when asked for comment on the incident, said: “Neither relatives nor legal representatives of the said person, nor the British authorities, have addressed the embassy in this regard.”

By OP’S NEWS 

What were the charges against Col Skripal?

Water suppliers say a thaw has led to burst water mains and leaks.

About 13,000 homes are without water in Kent and Sussex while thousands of properties in Wales and 10,000 homes in London also have no supply.

The industry regulator Ofwat has criticised water firms for ignoring warnings to improve planning.

Companies are warning of low pressure and intermittent supplies as they try to refill pipes which have lost water through bursts and leaks.

In south-east England, suppliers say they have been identifying vulnerable customers and providing them with bottled water.

Parts of the Midlands and Scotland are also affected by intermittent supply.

At its peak, more than 20,000 homes in London were left without water on Sunday.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said it was “unacceptable” that thousands of homes in the capital still lacked supply, adding: “I have sought assurances from Thames Water that they are doing everything possible to fix the problems.”

Several schools in London and Kent have said they will be closed on Monday because they cannot guarantee running water.

Southern Water, which had urged customers to “only use the water you absolutely must”, said it was restoring the supply to 5,000 homes in Sittingbourne, Kent.

Welsh Water said about 4,500 customers were without water and it was dealing with 200 leaks a day with “problems likely to continue over the next few days.”

Thousands of customers are also without water in parts of Birmingham, the West Midlands and Staffordshire.

Severn Trent said it had seen nearly a 4,000% increase in reports of burst pipes, while South East Water has set up a number of bottled water stations in Sussex and Kent for its 13,000 homes affected.

Yorkshire Water, United Utilities, Affinity Water, Anglian Water and Bristol Water also said they were dealing with problems while South West Water said it has an “unprecedented number of burst water mains”.

The Government’s water industry regulator Ofwat has released a statement criticising the water companies, but it accepts that the severe weather conditions “have undoubtedly had an impact on pipes and infrastructure”.

Rachel Fletcher, chief executive of Ofwat, said: “Water companies have been warned time and again that they need to be better at planning ahead to deal with these sorts of situations, including proactively communicating with customers when they anticipate issues.”

Parts of the UK are still recovering from the effects of Storm Emma, with more than 100 schools in Wales still shut due to snow or icy conditions.

In Cumbria, the RAF has been called in to flyfood supplies, coal, logs and electrical heating appliances to isolated communities, where many homes have been cut off from all supplies for five days.

And in Scotland, two Met Office yellow warnings for snow, rain and ice remain, with people being urged to travel with caution, while ongoing bad weather has been slowing down water repair works.

Scottish Water said: “Weather and road conditions have presented challenges in maintaining our usual response services and we apologise if you’ve experienced a delay in us getting to you.”

In London, customers said they could not register outages as the helpline was unavailable, while shops reportedly ran out of bottled water in some areas.

“We are putting as much extra water as we can into our local networks and fixing leaks and bursts as quickly as possible,” Thames Water said in a statement.

“Please do not use water for anything that isn’t essential. This will make a real difference.”

Jerry White, business manager at Thames Water, said engineers were “working extra hard” over the weekend.

He said there had been a “20% jump in the demand for water in the last five days”.

The problems came after a prolonged period of cold weather for much of the UK.

Water companies said cracks and splits had been caused by the freeze which are now being exposed as the pipes thaw.

Temperatures in most places increased over the weekend, however, two yellow warnings are still in place.

One, warning of snow and ice in Scotland, is in force all day on Monday. A second yellow warning for rain and snow in Scotland is in place for Tuesday.

Meanwhile, no more flood warnings remain in place although the Environment Agency has issued 15 less severe flood alerts.

It happened at this week’s NFL Combine, where the brightest young college stars bid to catch the eye of professional coaches.

Shaquem Griffin, 22, had his left hand amputated because of a condition he was born with.

But his awesome display of strength and speed is now grabbing international headlines.

The Combine is where college players are given the chance to show off their skills in front of coaches from all of the league’s pro clubs.

Shaquem only got a place at the trials after someone else pulled out at the last minute.

But he made the most of it, running the fastest 40-yard dash of any player in his position ever – 4.38 seconds.

He also bench pressed a huge 102kg 20 times, using a prosthetic hand. His previous best was 11.

His achievements have got the world of NFL talking.

He’s impressing big name pro’s too. Like JJ Watt from the Houston Texans and the Seattle Seahawks’ Richard Sherman.

Mike Mayock is the NFL Network’s resident expert on young players.

“This is a legitimate football player,” he told the NFL website, adding “Hello! Are you kidding me? Wow. … He can run.”

Fans of the sport and journalists are excited about his future.

Shaquem’s performance is expected to get him a pro contract when the selection process gets underway in April.

In a career spanning more than 40 years, he’s worked on notable films such as The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo and Skyfall.

His victory came for Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, a return to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi world.

Accepting his Oscar, Deakins said: “I really love my job.”

He graciously continued: “One of the reasons I really love it is because of the people I work with in front of and behind the camera.”

He saw off competition from Dunkirk’s Hoyte van Hoytema, Darkest Hour’s Bruno Delbonnel, and Mudbound’s Rachel Morrison, the first woman cinematographer to be nominated.

Deakins’ first nomination was in 1994 for The Shawshank Redemption.

He’s probably best-known though for his work with the Coen brothers, having shot 11 of their films, including No Country for Old Men and O Brother, Where Art Though?

He’s also also formed partnerships with Sam Mendes and Villeneuve, with whom he has made three movies.

Before this year’s ceremony, there was media speculation as to why Deakins had not been honoured with a statuette.

Variety’s opinion was “part of the problem is that so many of Deakins’ nominations have come for films that weren’t widely embraced by the Academy”.

“It’s rare for the cinematography prize to go to a film not nominated for best picture.”

Deakins himself modestly maintained he wasn’t that bothered by the lack of recognition, telling the Los Angeles Times: “I’m just proud to still be doing the job, really, and happy doing it.”

Outside the post-Oscars ceremony star-studded Vanity Fair party, BBC correspondent Rebecca Jones caught up with the cinematographer.

Asking him how he felt about his long-awaited victory, Deakins said: “This night is about the celebration of movies. It’s not about winning or losing.”

He added he hadn’t really thought about his lack of previous Oscar success: “I was just too busy working. Time passes and one day you wake up and think, ‘Oh, it’s been 23 years’.”

And his win this time was just a mark of the fact he “was just here doing it, doing the job you love and enjoying your life”.

Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya – who lost out to Gary Oldman in the best actor category – was beside Deakins. He said of Deakins’ win, he was happy for “good people, who just do the work, to be recognised, to be put on a platform and be told, ‘well done’ for the work that you’ve done”.

“For me, it fills me with joy to see that happen for Roger.

“It’s human to want to be recognised.”

And there was effusive reaction to Deakins’ success on Twitter.

Cameron Ross Burgess of Alabama approached the fence on Pennsylvania Avenue just before noon local time (17:00GMT) before taking out a handgun and firing several shots, police said.

The 26-year-old did not fire any rounds at the White House, authorities added.

President Donald Trump was briefed on the shooting at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the White House said.

Mr Trump was with First Lady Melania Trump in Florida at the time of the shooting.

Burgess, who reportedly graduated from Auburn University in 2013, had no criminal history,according to the Birmingham News.

Washington police identified Burgess in a statement on Sunday.

The man was in a large crowd when he fired the gun, the Washington Post reported, citing witnesses.

A video posted to Twitter shows many people running away from the scene.

Washington police said earlier on Twitter that they sent their “natural death squad” to the scene.

Burgess was from Maylene, Alabama, a small community in the southern state.

There have been a number of security incidents at the White House in recent years.

Most recently on 23 February, a car drove into a security barrier outside the building. A 35-year-old woman was detained.

In March last year a man armed with pepper spray spent more than 16 minutes inside the grounds after jumping the fence.

Party President Mary Lou McDonald made the comments after she and her party colleagues met Michel Barnier in Brussels.

It follows comments from Prime Minister Theresa May that she did not want to see a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Ms McDonald said the issue was now “in Mrs May’s court”.

She said the British government had to come up with Plan A and Plan B, and there could be be no overall agreement on Brexit unless the issue of the border was solved.

The Sinn Féin leader said her party was “not looking for a border down the Irish Sea”.

She said there was now a challenge for Mr Barnier to “hold steady”, but that “he gets it” on the issue of Brexit and the border.

Mrs May has also said she did not want a customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

The prime minister was responding to a legal text published by the EU as part of the Brexit negotiations with the UK.

The EU’s draft legal agreement proposes a “common regulatory area” after Brexit on the island of Ireland – in effect keeping Northern Ireland in a customs union – if no other solution is found.

Mr Barnier hosted a Sinn Féin delegation including party president Mary Lou McDonald, vice president Michelle O’Neill and MEPs Martina Anderson and Matt Carthy.

Sinn Féin is keen to stress that there should be a special status for Northern Ireland.

The party wants to know how Brexit will affect cross-border workers and will insist that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement must be protected.

The Sinn Féin president believes the only way to avoid a hard border is for Northern Ireland to remain within the customs union and single market.

The Irish border question is at the heart of EU-UK discussions and although a number of options have been tabled, there is no agreed plan of what life will look like after Brexit.

Mr Barnier set up the series of meetings this week with Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to gauge opinion.

On Tuesday, he will get a very different perspective when he hosts the DUP leader Arlene Foster and her deputy Nigel Dodds in Brussels.

The DUP opposes special status for Northern Ireland and are against staying in the customs union or single market.

The party insists that recent EU proposals would break up the UK.

Nigel Dodds has said an internal border would be “catastrophic” for Northern Ireland to be “cut off” from UK.

Last week, Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Leo Varadkar said he remained “concerned that some of the constraints of leaving the customs union and the single market are still not fully recognised”.

He added: “We will now need to see more detailed and realistic proposals from the UK. Brexit is due to happen in a little over 12 months, so time is short.”

The computers were stolen during four raids on data centres around Iceland.

The country is a popular location for data centres because almost 100% of the power generated there comes from renewable sources.

Two of the suspects are in custody, and nine have been released on bail. The stolen servers have not been recovered.

The AP newswire said police were now contacting internet service provider (ISPs), electricians and storage units, asking them to report sudden spikes in power usage or other signs the stolen servers had been reconnected. The value of the stolen computers has been put at $2m (£1.45m).

In February, Iceland’s HS Orka power generation company said it was seeing an “exponential” rise in the amount of energy being used in these data centres to mine and verify crypto-currency transactions.

For the first time, it said, the energy required for coin mining had exceeded that used by Iceland’s 340,000 inhabitants to power their homes.

The government identified the cold meat polony as the source of the listeria poisoning – but advised consumers to avoid all ready-to-eat processed meat.

Customers have descended on the factories that made the polony, to demand a refund.

The outbreak was finally traced after infecting people for more than a year.

It is believed to have originated in an Enterprise Food factory in the northern city of Polokwane. A plant owned by RCL Foods is also under suspicion. Both firms have suspended meat production.

There have been 948 cases of listeria poisoning reported since January 2017, according to Reuters.

The United Nations says it is believed to be the largest outbreak ever, worldwide.

In some people the disease – known as listeriosis – causes high temperatures, vomiting and diarrhoea. The elderly, people with compromised immune systems, and babies – both in the womb and newborn – are particularly vulnerable.

Some 180 of those infected have died.

Health authorities ordered a recall of polony, prompting supermarkets like Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Spar and Woolworths to clear it from their shelves, along with bacon, sausages and other processed meat products.

Image copyrightREUTERS

What is listeriosis?

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

• It can be caught from food containing listeria bacteria, or close contact with farm animals

• Cases usually involve unpasteurised milk or dairy products, such as camembert and brie

• Pre-packed foods, including sandwiches and paté, can also contain listeria

• Symptoms include high temperature, flu-like symptoms, vomiting and diarrhoea

• Most people infected display no symptoms, but elderly and very young people are vulnerable