When President Joe Biden visits the site of a racist massacre in upstate New York on Tuesday, he will confront not only the shocking deaths of 10 black people but a growing sense that extremism is pulling at the fabric of US society.
The trip by Mr Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, to Buffalo will be a grimly routine tradition for presidents who for decades have railed against an unstoppable parade of mass shootings.
Like all his predecessors to varying degrees, Mr Biden has promised to address gun control — or rather the lack of gun control. Like them, he has made barely a dent.
Hastily scheduled before Mr Biden's departure on Thursday for a major diplomatic trip to South Korea and Japan, the Buffalo visit will be a chance to “try to bring some comfort to the community”, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
However, what marks out Saturday's horror, in which a white man went to a mostly African-American neighbourhood and reportedly opened fire, killing 10 and wounding three, is that the man apparently wrote a document promoting increasingly widely held white supremacist ideas.
At the heart of the document —— which law enforcement believe is genuine —— was a rant about what is called “replacement theory”, which purports the existence of a leftist plot to dilute the white population with non-white immigrants.
It's a conspiracy theory that, like the QAnon narrative, has spread from the furthest fringes of society to surprisingly mainstream areas —— most notably Tucker Carlson's enormously influential nightly talk show on Fox News.
Prominent Republican members of Congress have also echoed “replacement theory” talking points, which in turn are not too distant from Donald Trump's speeches as president in which he demonised illegal immigrants as invaders, once calling them “animals”.
Mr Biden, who says he left retirement to run for president after he heard Mr Trump refusing to clearly denounce a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville in 2017, called the Buffalo killings “antithetical to everything we stand for in America”.
The murders were “an act perpetrated in the name of a repugnant white nationalist ideology”, he said.
Culture war disputes have turned everything from Disneyland to school parent meetings into battlegrounds. And after the leaking of Supreme Court draft ruling that would end a decades-old federal right to abortion, passions are intensifying.
If the ruling is confirmed, power would pass back to individual state governments and abortion would effectively be outlawed or at least severely restricted in parts of the country.
With demonstrations in favour of abortion rights staged at the weekend and the issue looming over November's midterm elections, that means plenty more fuel on the fires Mr Biden vowed to douse.
As the midterms approach, and with Democrats fearing a pounding, Mr Biden has sharpened his own rhetoric, branding Trump Republicans “extreme”.
He has coined a new label of “ultra-MAGA”, referring to Mr Trump's nationalist Make America Great Again slogan, and ruefully seems to concede that there's no one left on the other side for him to talk to.
“Ultra-MAGA” forces, he said last week, “have been able to control the Republican Party. I never anticipated that happening.”
AFP contributed to this report
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
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Safety 'top priority' for rival hyperloop company
The chief operating officer of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Andres de Leon, said his company's hyperloop technology is “ready” and safe.
He said the company prioritised safety throughout its development and, last year, Munich Re, one of the world's largest reinsurance companies, announced it was ready to insure their technology.
“Our levitation, propulsion, and vacuum technology have all been developed [...] over several decades and have been deployed and tested at full scale,” he said in a statement to The National.
“Only once the system has been certified and approved will it move people,” he said.
HyperloopTT has begun designing and engineering processes for its Abu Dhabi projects and hopes to break ground soon.
With no delivery date yet announced, Mr de Leon said timelines had to be considered carefully, as government approval, permits, and regulations could create necessary delays.
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How to invest in gold
Investors can tap into the gold price by purchasing physical jewellery, coins and even gold bars, but these need to be stored safely and possibly insured.
A cheaper and more straightforward way to benefit from gold price growth is to buy an exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Most advisers suggest sticking to “physical” ETFs. These hold actual gold bullion, bars and coins in a vault on investors’ behalf. Others do not hold gold but use derivatives to track the price instead, adding an extra layer of risk. The two biggest physical gold ETFs are SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust.
Another way to invest in gold’s success is to buy gold mining stocks, but Mr Gravier says this brings added risks and can be more volatile. “They have a serious downside potential should the price consolidate.”
Mr Kyprianou says gold and gold miners are two different asset classes. “One is a commodity and the other is a company stock, which means they behave differently.”
Mining companies are a business, susceptible to other market forces, such as worker availability, health and safety, strikes, debt levels, and so on. “These have nothing to do with gold at all. It means that some companies will survive, others won’t.”
By contrast, when gold is mined, it just sits in a vault. “It doesn’t even rust, which means it retains its value,” Mr Kyprianou says.
You may already have exposure to gold miners in your portfolio, say, through an international ETF or actively managed mutual fund.
You could spread this risk with an actively managed fund that invests in a spread of gold miners, with the best known being BlackRock Gold & General. It is up an incredible 55 per cent over the past year, and 240 per cent over five years. As always, past performance is no guide to the future.
