Category Archives: Joe Biden

Trump speaks at 7 October event in Florida – as it happened

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Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are among the global leaders commemorating the anniversary of the 7 October attack in Israel today, as is Donald Trump.

At 11.45am ET, the president will hold a ceremony at the White House, where he’ll conduct a yahrzeit candle lighting alongside an unnamed rabbi. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will at 4pm plant a tree on the grounds of the vice-president’s residence in honor of the lives lost in the attack. Harris will also give a speech.

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White House blasts false claims about Hurricane Helene and relief aid

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Statement comes as president urges Congress to pass disaster-relief package as costs soar amid devastation

The White House moved Saturday to quash claims that government officials control the weather, including a far-fetched rumor circulating on social media that Hurricane Helene was an engineered storm to allow corporations to mine regional lithium deposits.

“We have seen a large increase in false information circulating online related to the federal response to Hurricane Helene,” a statement said, pointing to a “number of scam artists, bad-faith actors, and others who want to sow chaos because they think it helps their political interests are promoting disinformation about the recovery effort.”

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Biden issues terse words to Netanyahu over peace deal and election influence

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President says he does not know whether Israeli PM is delaying peace deal in order to influence US election

Joe Biden had terse words at the White House on Friday for Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he didn’t know whether the Israeli prime minister was holding up a peace deal in the Middle East – where Israel is at war with Hamas in Gaza and on a military offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon – in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election.

“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None, none. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden said, using Netanyahu’s nickname. He added: “And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know – but I’m not counting on that.”

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US south-east reels from ‘catastrophic’ devastation from Hurricane Helene

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Communities are stranded, over 200 people have died with more expected, and more than 700,000 are without power

Rescue crews in parts of the south-eastern US were still searching on Friday for those missing as they entered the eighth day since Hurricane Helene roared ashore in Florida and became the deadliest mainland hurricane in the US since Katrina in 2005.

The death toll could grow higher, having surpassed 200 on Thursday, while the sheer scale of the devastation from wind and floods has slowed efforts to find many people’s loved ones and also get supplies to stranded communities and restore power to more than 700,000 people.

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Biden says US ‘discussing’ possible Israeli plans to attack Iran’s oil industry

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President’s off-the-cuff remark outside White House over possible retaliation triggers global oil price rise

Joe Biden has said that his administration has been “discussing” possible Israeli plans to attack Iran’s oil industry in retaliation for the Iranian ballistic missile attack on Tuesday.

Biden’s off-the-cuff remark did not make clear whether his administration was holding internal discussions or talking directly to Israel, nor did he clarify what his attitude was to such an attack.

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Vance-Walz debate live: vice-presidential candidates to square off in key debate

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JD Vance and Tim Walz will go head to head in New York just weeks ahead of the general election

The White House Correspondents’ Association said it has grown “increasingly concerned” about the “lack of media access” inside debate halls.

For tonight’s vice-presidential debate, CBS is allowing only one print representative, one television representative and six still photographers, who will not be permitted to move around to take photos during the event, the group said.

The WHCA’s insistence on having a full pool inside the room isn’t just about reporters being able to witness the debates. This is about the public having multiple sets of eyes and ears to properly record these moments for history.

Jason Miller, senior adviser to Donald Trump

Donald Trump Jr, a son of Donald Trump

Tom Cotton, Arkansas senator

Katie Britt, Alabama senator

Elise Stefanik, New York representative and House Republican conference chair

Byron Donalds, Florida representative

Howard Lutnick, longtime chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald LP

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota senator

Mark Kelly, Arizona senator

Jared Polis, Colorado governor

JB Pritzker, Illinois governor

Jasmine Crockett, Texas representative

Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee

Ben Ray Luján New Mexico senator

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Biden reaffirms US support for Israel amid Iran’s missile attack

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President directed the military to aid Israel’s defense against any future assaults as US ‘fully supportive’ of ally

Joe Biden has reaffirmed US support for Israel after Iran’s ballistic missile attacks, describing the barrage as “defeated and ineffective” and ordering the US military to aid Israel’s defense against any future assaults.

“The attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective, and this is a testament to Israeli military capability and the US military,” the US president told reporters on Tuesday after Tehran launched an unprecedented salvo of 180 high-speed ballistic missiles.

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Georgia judge says women aren’t ‘some piece of collectively owned community property’ in ruling to overturn abortion ban – live

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A judge in Georgia struck down the state’s ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy

Donald Trump has been taunting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for not rushing to the areas affected by Hurricane Helene and the storm’s aftermath.

Harris has returning early to Washington DC from election campaigning out west, as the Democratic party’s nominee for president since Biden, the sitting president, quit his race for re-election in July.

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Trump visits hurricane-ravaged Georgia and makes false claims about Biden

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The ex-president said Brian Kemp, the state governor, was trying to reach the president who was ‘sleeping’, in vain

Donald Trump spoke in front of a furniture store gutted by Hurricane Helene in Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, claiming falsely that Georgia’s governor had not been able to reach Joe Biden.

Upon landing in Valdosta, Trump claimed to reporters the president had been “sleeping” and that Brian Kemp, the governor, had been “calling the president and hasn’t been able to get him”. He repeated the false claim when speaking in front of the store.

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Israel has begun ground attacks on Hezbollah inside Lebanon, says US

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Israel tells US state department it is targeting infrastructure just inside Lebanon, while Beirutis are urged to evacuate

Israeli forces appeared to have launched what sources called “limited ground operations” targeting Hezbollah inside southern Lebanon, US and other officials said late on Monday.

“This is what they have informed us that they are currently conducting, which are limited operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure near the border,” the state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, told journalists.

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US looks unable to talk Netanyahu out of planned invasion of Lebanon

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An emboldened Israel appears to believe it can safely ignore a lame duck US president and grab the chance to reset the Middle East’s security dynamics

The Biden administration is losing influence over whether Benjamin Netanyahu launches a ground invasion into southern Lebanon or not.

For more than a year, Joe Biden and his senior advisers have managed to forestall an Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon in fear of a larger war that could envelop the entire Middle East.

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Netanyahu defies calls for ceasefire at UN as Israeli missiles target Beirut

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To half-empty chamber, Israeli PM says his country ‘seeks peace’ but will continue ‘degrading’ Hezbollah

Benjamin Netanyahu shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in a defiant speech to the United Nations that was delivered barely an hour before massive airstrikes targeting Hezbollah’s leader levelled several apartment blocks in Beirut.

Addressing the general assembly in New York, Israel’s prime minister presented his country as a champion of peace and prosperity for the Middle East, even as its security forces prepared an attack that spread terror in the streets of the Lebanese capital and heightened fears of an all-out regional war.

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Biden and Harris unveil measure to tackle gun violence amid Trump clash

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Executive order aims to crack down on conversion devices and 3D guns as Harris and Trump spar on campaign trail

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris unveiled a new executive order aimed at tackling gun violence on Thursday, as the vice-president and Donald Trump clash over the issue on the campaign trail.

The order establishes a new “emerging firearms threats task force” to crack down on machine-gun conversion devices and unserialized, 3D-printed guns. The policy also calls on federal agencies to develop guidance for schools on active shooter drills to mitigate potential psychological harm to students.

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Donald Trump says he will meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday – as it happened

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Here is more from the federal indictment against Eric Adams:

In 2014, Eric Adams, the defendant, became Brooklyn borough president. Thereafter, for nearly a decade, Adams sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish govermnent official seeking to gain influence over him.

By 2018, Adams – who had by then made known his plans to run for mayor of New York City – not only accepted, but sought illegal campaign contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign, as well as other things of value, from foreign nationals.

Eric Adams, the defendant, sought and accepted illegal campaign contributions in the form of ‘nominee’ or ‘straw’ contributions, meaning that the true contributors conveyed their money through nominal donors, who falsely certified they were contributing their own money.

By smuggling their contributions to Adams through US-based straw donors, Adams’ overseas contributors defeated federal laws that serve to prevent foreign influence on US elections.

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Harris decries Trump’s ‘proposals of surrender’ as Zelenskyy visits White House

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Democratic nominee calls Republican plan to end war between Ukraine and Russia ‘dangerous and unacceptable’

Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, has indirectly denounced the Trump campaign’s policy on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine as “proposals of surrender” as the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington to present his own “victory plan”.

Addressing Zelenskyy at the White House, Harris said that “some in my country” would pressure Ukraine to accept a peace deal in which it surrendered its sovereign territory and neutrality in order to make peace with Vladimir Putin.

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Israel preparing for possible ground offensive in Lebanon, military chief says

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Strikes designed to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure before possible incursion by troops, says Israel’s top general

Israel’s top general has said the country is preparing for a possible ground operation into Lebanon amid growing international pressure for a negotiated ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.

As an intense bombing campaign inside Lebanon stretched into a third day, Israel’s chief of staff, Maj Gen Herzi Halevi, said the airstrikes aimed to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure and prepare for the possibility of Israeli troops crossing the border.

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Starmer avoids backing anti-Trump comment before potential meeting

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PM hopes to meet both candidates on US trip but attempt to see Trump undermined by Home Office minister saying he had emboldened racists in UK

Keir Starmer has said he wants to meet Kamala Harris and Donald Trump before the US election, as he declined to back one of his ministers who said the Republican candidate had contributed to racist rhetoric in the UK.

The prime minister said he was hoping to find time with both candidates as he travelled to New York for the United Nations general assembly – his third trip to the US since taking office.

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Man charged with attempted assassination of Donald Trump at Florida golf course – as it happened

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Minutes after Joe Biden finished addressing the UN general assembly, Donald Trump’s campaign released a statement warning, in apocalyptic terms, of the consequences of electing Kamala Harris.

“Under President Donald J Trump, Iran was weak, ISIS was eliminated, Hamas was cut off, historic peace was descending on the Middle East, Russia was under control and there hadn’t been a US service member killed in Afghanistan in 18 months,” the lengthy email read.

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Biden tells UN ‘we cannot grow weary’ in Ukraine’s defence in valedictory speech

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US president assumes mantle of elder statesman, defending his foreign policy record and urging Gaza deal

Joe Biden has sought to defend his foreign policy achievements on the world stage with an address to the United Nations general assembly against a backdrop of three brutal, intractable wars that have stymied world diplomats seeking an end to the bloodshed.

Addressing the assembly hall in New York on Tuesday, Biden took on the mantle of elder statesman as he alternated between a message of hope and a full-throated defense of his record on foreign policy.

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UN chief calls Middle East crisis ‘nightmare’ amid push for Lebanon ceasefire

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António Guterres says violence puts region at risk as Hezbollah and Israel seem unwilling to dial down fighting

The UN secretary general has told world leaders that Lebanon is on the brink of becoming a second Gaza, adding that the crisis has “become a non-stop nightmare that threatens to take the whole region down”.

António Guterres made his warning as diplomats meeting in New York for the UN general assembly battled to impose a ceasefire in Lebanon and to hold Israel back from a possible ground invasion.

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