While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Aug 6

US President Donald Trump on Monday (Aug 5) proposed tighter monitoring of the internet, mental health reform and wider use of the death penalty in response to mass shootings over the weekend that killed 31 people in Texas and Ohio.

Republican Trump, accused by Democrats as stoking racial divisions, said Americans must "condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy," a day after Texas officials said racial hatred was a possible motive in the killings of 22 people in the southern border town of El Paso.

A 21-year-old white man has been charged with capital murder in Saturday's shooting spree. Police in El Paso cited a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto posted online shortly before the shooting, which they attributed to the suspect, Patrick Crusius.

China is stepping away from further US farm imports after US President Donald Trump ratcheted up tensions with its biggest agricultural trading partner last week.

The Chinese government has asked its state-owned enterprises to suspend purchases of US agricultural products, people familiar with the situation said. Also, privately run Chinese crushers that had received retaliatory-tariff waivers on American soybeans from Beijing have stopped buying the commodity due to uncertainty over trade relations, other people said.

Chinese buyers have turned to South America for more of their supplies after Trump on Thursday proposed adding 10 per cent tariffs on another US$300 billion (S$414.66 billion) in imports from Sept 1, marking an abrupt escalation of the trade war between the world's largest economies shortly after the two sides restarted talks.

A six-year-old boy thrown from a tenth-floor viewing platform at London's Tate Modern gallery is a French national who was visiting the British capital with his family, police said Monday (Aug 5).

The boy is no longer in a life-threatening condition, according to London's Metropolitan Police, who appealed for further witnesses to the Sunday afternoon incident to come forward.

A 17-year-old boy who was initially detained by members of the public on the tenth-floor platform and then arrested by officers, remains in custody on suspicion of attempted murder.

Manchester United made Harry Maguire the most expensive defender in history on Monday (Aug 5) as the fallen giants of English soccer start building from the back in their bid to bridge the gap on champions Manchester City and Liverpool.

Financial details were not disclosed but British media said United had paid Premier League rivals Leicester City around 80 million pounds (S$134.41 million) for the England international, surpassing the 75 million pounds Liverpool paid Southampton for Virgil van Dijk in January last year.

Maguire, 26, signed a six-year contract with the option to extend for a further year and United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hailed his latest recruit as "one of the best centre backs in the game today".

The sprawling sex abuse scandal involving R&B singer R. Kelly expanded on Monday (Aug 5) to the state of Minnesota, where charges against him include engaging in prostitution with a minor.

The new charges come days after the disgraced superstar pleaded not guilty in New York to federal charges including racketeering, which allege he systematically recruited girls for sex while touring.

He faces separate federal charges linked to child pornography in his hometown Chicago.