Hello Australia!! - No longer skating around the edges, Trump makes racism his brand - Germany puts the Marx back in Karl Marx Street - One of the heroes of the anti-apartheid movement is gone - Chance the Snapper is caught - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

By a narrow margin, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) approved Germany's center-right defense minister Ursula von der Leyen as the next President of the EU Commission, replacing Jean-Claude Juncker on 1 November - that's the day that the UK's likely next Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will take his country out of the EU with or without a deal.  Von der Leyen says she would only consider extended the deadline for a Brexit for a "very good reason".  But, she has promised the EU will play a bigger role in social welfare, tackling poverty, and women's rights.  

And now..

Donald Trump insisted he "doesn't have a racist bone" in his body, even after a series of disgusting and racist statements in which he told four US Congresswomen of color that they should go back to their own countries.  Since three of them were born in the continental US and and the fourth has been a naturalized American citizen longer than Melania Trump has, it's a ridiculous and self-negating mode of attack in addition to being racist.  One of Trump's targets, New York Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez replied:  "You don't have a racist bone in your body," she tweeted, "You have a racist mind in your head, and a racist heart in your chest.  That's why you violate the rights of children and tell the Congresswoman who represents your home borough, to 'go back to my country.'"

White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway demanded to know the ethnicity of a reporter who asked her about Trump's racist tweets.  Reporter Andrew Feinberg posed the question at a press gaggle outside the White House.  Feinberg refused the disgusting racist baiting, and said his background was irrelevant to the question.  Earlier in the day, Conway went on Rupert Murdoch's Fox News and called the four racial minority lawmakers the "dark underbelly in this country".   

Anyway..

US authorities arrested Peru's former president Alejandro Toledo on a warrant from his home country.  He's been working as a visiting professor at Stanford University in California; but prosecutors say he pocketed US$20 Million in bribes from the corruption-drenched Brazilian construction company Odebrecht during his time in office between 2001 and 2006.  Toledo's successor Alan Garcia faced prosecution in the same probe, but committed suicide.

At least ten people are dead and eight are injured in a building collapse in Mumbai, India.  This year's monsoon rains have been intense, and several older buildings - poorly constructed in the first place - haven't been able to withstand it.  "Rescue operations are ongoing and our main focus is find those trapped," said P.S. Rahangdale of the Mumbai fire department, at the collapsed 100-year old building where at least 15 families resided.  

Three decades after German reunification, capitalism is not working 100 percent in the former East Berlin.  The Berlin government has bought back 670 apartments on Karl-Marx-Allee from a private owner, reversing decades of privatization in the German capital.  Residents had been protesting for a while, saying they were being driven out of their long-time homes by gentrification and skyrocketing real estate prices.  When one private real estate company announced plans to sell the apartments to another last year, the issue came to a head.  "Berliners should be able to continue to afford living in the city," said Mayor Michael Muller, "That is why it was and continues to be our intention to buy up apartments wherever we can, so that Berlin can regain control of its property market."

South African musician and anti-apartheid campaigner Johnny Clegg is dead at age 66 after a bout with pancreatic cancer.  He was known for his embrace of Zulu culture and music, and was a huge star there - despite the government barring radio stations from playing his racially integrated bands prior to the end of government enforced segregation in 1997.  His best known hit was 1987's Asimbonanga was dedicated to Nelson Mandela, the future president who was still a political prisoner at the time.

A wildlife expert finally captured "Chance the Snapper", a growing alligator that suddenly appeared in a pond in Chicago's Humboldt Park last week.