Category Archives: US Politics

Democrats urge Rubio to acknowledge Israel possesses nuclear weapons amid Iran war

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Letter from House Democrats to secretary of state calls for end to ambiguity over Israel’s nuclear weapons programs

House Democrats have asked the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to publicly announce that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, arguing that Washington must end decades of ambiguity over the issue amid the conflict with Iran.

In a letter sent on Monday, 30 Democrats wrote that it was unsustainable for Donald Trump to collaborate with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on a military campaign against Iran – with the stated goal of preventing the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon – without publicly acknowledging the US ally’s possession of the bomb.

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US supreme court expedites Voting Rights Act ruling so Louisiana can redraw its maps for midterms

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Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted the decision, saying the court has hastened it ruling only twice before in 25 years

The US supreme court went out of its way on Monday to help Louisiana Republicans redraw their congressional maps before this year’s midterm elections by allowing a recent ruling that gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act to take effect ahead of schedule.

The procedural move comes less than a week after the court’s landmark decision striking down Louisiana’s congressional map and gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Usually, the court waits 32 days to formally issue its judgment to the lower court. Last week, Louisiana asked the court to speed up that process, citing the urgency with which it needed to redraw its congressional maps. On Monday, the court agreed to do so.

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Donald Trump sends warships to break Iran’s strait of Hormuz blockade

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US operation announced as ‘Project Freedom’ dramatically raises stakes in conflict

The US has launched Donald Trump’s operation to open a route through the strait of Hormuz for hundreds of ships trapped with their crews in the Gulf, in a move that brought the region back to the brink of full-scale war as Iran sought to reassert its blockade.

The US operation, which got under way on Monday after being announced as “Project Freedom” by Trump on Sunday night on his social media site, dramatically raised the stakes in a conflict that had been in a month-long period of uneasy limbo.

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Louisiana Republicans eliminate elected office won by Democratic exoneree

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Future of Calvin Duncan’s position as the clerk of New Orleans’ criminal district courthouse remains unclear

Louisiana Republicans eliminated an elected position days before a Democratic exoneree who overwhelmingly won the New Orleans-based post was set to take office on Monday.

A temporary restraining order did allow the exoneree, Calvin Duncan, to take office as scheduled on Monday morning as the clerk of New Orleans’ criminal district courthouse. But things soon turned administratively messy for Duncan when that order was frozen by the US fifth circuit court of appeals.

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Rudy Giuliani hospitalised in ‘critical but stable’ condition

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Spokesperson calls former New York City mayor ‘a fighter’ but does not say cause of his hospitalization

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, has been hospitalised and is in a “critical but stable condition”, his spokesperson said on Sunday evening.

Ted Goodman, the spokesperson, posted on social media: “Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with that same level of strength as we speak. We do ask that you join us in prayer for America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”

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Republicans ‘concerned’ after Trump threatens to withdraw more US troops from Germany

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US announced withdrawal of 5,000 soldiers last week after German chancellor said US was being ‘humiliated’ by Iran

Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw more US troops from Germany after stunning European leaders and some senior members of his own party by last week announcing the withdrawal of 5,000 soldiers from Germany.

The move left 30,000 US troops still in the country, according to CNN. But Trump threatened on Saturday that more cuts were coming. “We are going to cut way down, and we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000,” he told reporters on Saturday.

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Marco Rubio to visit Rome, reportedly to ‘thaw’ US relations with Pope and Meloni

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US secretary of state will be in Italian capital on Thursday and Friday, the one-year anniversary of Pope Leo’s papacy

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is to travel to Rome this week for a visit reportedly aimed at thawing frosty relations with the Italian government and the Vatican.

Rubio is scheduled to be in the Italian capital on Thursday and Friday, which will also mark the one-year anniversary of the papacy of Pope Leo, the first US-born pontiff.

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Trump says US navy will ‘guide’ trapped ships from strait of Hormuz amid ‘very positive’ talks with Iran

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US president’s post follows flurry of mixed signals including concern Tehran had not ‘paid big enough price’

Donald Trump has announced that the US will “guide” ships trapped by the Iran war out of the Gulf through the strait of Hormuz on Monday morning, and claimed his representatives were having “very positive” discussions with Iran.

Trump wrote on his social media site that the operation, called “Project Freedom”, would be a humanitarian gesture “on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran”.

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Political blame game begins and passengers left adrift after Spirit ceases operations

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Republicans blame Biden administration block on JetBlue deal; Democrats point to fuel price surge amid Iran war

US airlines and government officials battled on Saturday to deal with stranded passengers and stricken employees after discount carrier Spirit Airlines abruptly ceased operations – and a political and business blame game got under way over the collapse of the low-cost carrier.

“If you have a flight scheduled with Spirit Airlines, don’t show up at the airport; there will be no one here to assist you,” the US secretary of transportation, Sean Duffy, warned at a press conference after laying out measures for customers booked with the Florida-based company to obtain refunds or find discounted flights on other airlines.

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Trump says US navy like ‘pirates’ while seizing a ship in Iranian blockade

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US president says ‘we took over the cargo, took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business’

Donald Trump has said the US navy acted “like pirates” as he described an operation seizing a ship amid the tit-for-tat American blockade of Iranian ports.

“We … land on top of it and we took over the ship. We took over the cargo, took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” said Trump at a rally in Florida on Friday.

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‘Deplorable’: ICE hires firm accused of ‘torture’ to track down undocumented children

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Exclusive: Contractor denies allegations including ‘enforced disappearance’ and will help locate unaccompanied minors

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has awarded a contract to a private security company that has faced accusations of “torture” and “enforced disappearance” to assist in tracking down undocumented immigrant children who arrived in the US alone, a contracting document shows.

ICE has stepped up its work so much in pursuing these minors in the US that it has contracted out some of its mission to a third party to put “boots on the ground” and locate immigrant children previously released from US government custody.

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The White House power play post-dinner shooting: do what we say or else

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After correspondents’ dinner shooting, administration has rushed to capitalize in pursuit of its political goals

Less than 72 hours after a man was arrested for trying to assassinate Donald Trump at the White House, the justice department rushed to court to make an extraordinary filing.

The subject of the emergency was a lawsuit by the National Trust for Historic Preservation seeking to halt the construction of a new White House ballroom. A federal judge ruled earlier this month that construction had to stop, though an appeals court later paused that ruling.

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Trump claims hostilities have ended in Iran in letter to congressional leaders

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President seemed to suggest that legislative deadline to approve war no longer applies as Democrats push back

Donald Trump said in a letter sent to congressional leaders on Friday that hostilities with Iran have “terminated”, suggesting that the 60-day deadline to seek approval from the legislative branch no longer applied.

Friday marks 60 days since the US president notified members of Congress that the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on 28 February. Under the War Powers Act of 1973, the president can deploy troops to respond to an “imminent threat” but must receive congressional approval within 60 days to continue military operations.

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Trump administration says hostilities in Iran ‘terminated’ ahead of war powers deadline

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US president faced a 60-day deadline on Friday to end the Iran war or make the case to Congress for extending it

A US-Iran ceasefire that began in early April has “terminated” hostilities between the two sides for the purposes of an approaching congressional war powers deadline, a senior official of the Trump administration said on Thursday.

Donald Trump faced a deadline on Friday to end the Iran war or make the case to Congress for extending it, but the date was most likely to pass without altering the course of the war.

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Fema employees who criticized Trump cuts reinstated after months on leave

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Workers wrote ‘Katrina declaration’, warning that funding cuts made US dangerously unprepared for natural disasters

Fourteen employees with the US Federal Emergency Management Agency returned to work this week, after spending eight months on administrative leave for signing a public letter criticising the Trump administration.

The so-called “Katrina declaration”, sent last August to members of Congress and a federal council formed to help determine Fema’s future, was written as a rebuke from the workers about the dangerous erosion in US capacity to prepare for and respond to natural disasters.

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‘A new chapter’: first commercial flight from US since 2019 lands in Venezuela

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Four months after US capture of Nicolás Maduro, officials hail repairing of ties as airliner touches down in Caracas

US and Venezuelan officials have hailed a new era in diplomatic relations as the first direct commercial flight between the two countries in more than seven years landed in Caracas.

Nearly four months ago, US special forces attack helicopters and planes swept into the skies over Venezuela’s capital after Donald Trump ordered the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro.

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Trump withdraws nomination of Casey Means for US surgeon general

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US president said he was instead nominating radiologist and Fox News contributor Dr Nicole Saphier for the post

Donald Trump on Thursday pulled his nominee to become the US surgeon general, Casey Means, and replaced her.

The US president said that Means will continue to fight for the so-called Make America Healthy Again (Maha) movement spearheaded by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. He stated this was despite opposition from Bill Cassidy, the Republican US senator of Louisiana, to Means’s nomination.

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World’s largest aircraft carrier to return to US after record deployment

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USS Gerald R Ford to sail home after 10-month spell including role in Maduro capture and Middle East war

The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, will be heading home following a record-setting deployment of more than 300 days that included participating in the war against Iran and capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, two US officials said Wednesday.

The Ford will be leaving the Middle East in the coming days and returning to its home port in Virginia in mid-May, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail sensitive military movements. The Washington Post reported the development earlier.

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Florida approves US House map meant to boost Republicans in midterms

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Vote comes on same day the US supreme court rolls back a key provision of the Voting Rights Act

The Florida legislature approved a new congressional map intended to maximize Republicans’ advantage in the state as part of the national redistricting battle that Donald Trump launched before this year’s midterms.

The vote came just two days after the governor, Ron DeSantis, unveiled his proposal and the same day the US supreme court rolled back a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The decision could make it harder for Democrats to challenge Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts in ways that limit the influence of voters of color.

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‘Flailing’ Georgia attorney general condemned over charges for Cop City protesters

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Republican Chris Carr accused of trying to revive bid for governor with indictment – ‘the last gasp of a dying man’

Georgia’s top law enforcement official has drawn accusations of using the weight of his office to lift his own political fortunes by bringing a new indictment against protesters of the Atlanta police training center known as Cop City.

Amid bluster about “holding the line against antifa”, Georgia attorney general Chris Carr announced charges against three activists late last week even as his bid to become Georgia’s Republican nominee for governor limps along, with less than double-digit support in polling ahead of a 19 May primary.

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