Category Archives: US News

Revealed: Amazon told workers paid sick leave law doesn’t cover warehouses

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California workers say the company is pressuring sick employees to show up – and flouting a California law meant to protect them from Covid-19

Amazon workers in southern California’s industrial heartland say the company’s policies are forcing sick employees to work and that warehouses are refusing to comply with a state paid sick leave law meant to prevent Covid-19 outbreaks.

In the Inland Empire region outside Los Angeles, Amazon workers told the Guardian they fear losing their jobs if they are ill and stay home. At least four Amazon warehouses in the region have recorded Covid-19 cases.

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White House: US-China relationship one of ‘disappointment and frustration’ – video

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Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, described America’s relationship with China as 'one of disappointment and frustration' following the coronavirus outbreak. McEnany said Beijing had not shared the genetic sequence of the virus when it could have and refused access to US investigators, putting American lives at risk as the country struggles to contain the spread of Covid-19


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Venezuela leader calls for extradition of US security contractor after failed raid – video

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President Nicolás Maduro has called for the extradition of a US security contractor after an alleged incursion into the country to abduct him failed.

Luke Denman, one of two US citizens captured during the incident, said he was contracted to a private security firm run by Jordan Goudreau, in an an interview televised in Venezuela. While the US government has denied any role in the alleged raid, Maduro has called for Goudreau to be extradited to Venezuela 

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Coronavirus live news: New Zealand could allow gatherings of 100 from next week

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PM Jacinda Ardern outlines easing curbs to allow domestic travel and eating out; White House says US-China relationship one of ‘disappointment’; eurozone’s future threatened. Follow the latest updates

A gas leak at a chemical factory in southern India has killed at least nine people and led to hundreds being taken to hospital, amid warnings that the death toll could climb higher.

Styrene leaked from the Korean-owned LG Polymers plant during the early hours of Thursday morning when families in the surrounding villages were asleep, a local official in Andra Pradesh state said.

Related: Gas leak at chemical factory in India kills at least nine and hospitalises hundreds

Donald Trump has again suggested the US may need to accept the reality of more deaths in order to start reopening the economy, as governments around the world continued to ease out of lockdown restrictions.

Related: Global report: deaths are price of reopening, says Trump, as China warns risks remain

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Under Boris Johnson, Putin and Trump the world has uncanny parallels to 1945

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Russia on the offensive, Brexit Britain stands alone, and US disdain for European allies recalls its naivety with Stalin

Victory in Europe was made possible by a remarkable military collaboration between the main anti-Axis powers – the US, Russia and Britain. But the three-way relationship, between Franklin D Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill, was never easy, and it set a pattern of national rivalry, suspicion, fear and distrust that persists to this day.

A row over a top-secret message, known as SCAF-252, sent to Stalin in late March 1945 by Gen Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander, shows how fraught the relationship could be. In it, Eisenhower detailed his plans for the final defeat of Nazi Germany – but omitted to first consult or inform his British allies.

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‘It’s irresponsible’: Washington state sees sudden rise in Covid parties

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Gatherings held with the intent of catching, and overcoming, coronavirus are jeopardizing public health says state official

You can call them BYOC parties. That’s bring your own Covid-19.

Health officials in Walla Walla, Washington, are admonishing the sudden rise in so-called “Covid-19 parties” where non-infected guests mingle with those who have tested positive for the virus, ostensibly in hopes of speeding up the process of catching, and overcoming, the virus.

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Coronavirus US live: press secretary defends Trump over blocking Fauci’s testimony – as it happened

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A migrant detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in California has died from Covid-19, according to the ACLU.

“This is a terrible tragedy, and it was entirely predictable and preventable. For months, public health experts and corrections officials have warned that detention centers would be Petri dishes for the spread of Covid-19 — and a death trap for thousands of people in civil detention,” said Andrea Flores, the ACLU deputy director of immigration policy. “Unless ICE acts quickly to release far more people from detention, they will keep getting sick and many more will die,” she added.

Related: Coronavirus inevitable in prison-like US immigration centers, doctors say

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Venezuela: captured US mercenary claims he planned to abduct Maduro

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Luke Denman was one of two US citizens seized this week after what appears to have been a bungled bid to overthrow Maduro

An American mercenary captured after a bungled attempt to topple Nicolás Maduro has claimed he was on a mission to seize control of Venezuela’s main airport in order to abduct its leader – and he alleged that was acting under the command of Donald Trump.

Luke Denman was one of two US citizens seized by Venezuelan security forces this week after what appears to have been a catastrophically conceived bid to overthrow Maduro by sneaking into the South American country in a fleet of battered fishing boats.

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Trump reverses course and says White House coronavirus taskforce will stay

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The White House appeared to be in fresh disarray on Wednesday as Donald Trump insisted that his coronavirus taskforce would remain in place – less than 24 hours after suggesting it would be disbanded.

Related: Coronavirus US live: Pelosi attacks Trump's focus on reopening and says 'death is not an economic motivator'

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Working out in a city under quarantine – in pictures

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Over the past six weeks, New Yorkers have been exercising in unexpected ways amid the pandemic. With gyms closed and social distancing in place, how are city-dwellers staying active? Bess Adler photographed 10 unusual pandemic-inspired exercises she has come across in New York City – and this is the result

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Coronavirus live news: Trump wants to disband Covid-19 taskforce; Germany looks to reopen shops and restart amateur sport

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President says it’s time to reopen businesses as US deaths top 70,000; number of Russian cases rises by more than 10,000 for fourth consecutive day; Spain set to extend state of emergency for two more weeks

Pope Francis has urged employers to respect the dignity of workers, particularly migrants, in the face of economic difficulties brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking at the end of his general audience, held from the papal library instead of St Peter’s Square because of Italy’s lockdown, he said:

It’s true that the crisis is affecting everyone but the dignity of people must always be respected.”

Baseball fans will be let back into Taiwanese stadiums this week as the government begins relaxing some controls implemented to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Taiwan has been relatively successful at controlling the virus, with 439 cases to date and six deaths, and 100 active infections, thanks to early prevention and detection efforts. The island has never gone into total lockdown, though the government has promoted social distancing and face masks.

Related: Taiwan to welcome baseball fans back into stadiums this week

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Sleazy bosses, exploited barmaids: US cinema finally discovers the left behinds

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From The Assistant to Support the Girls, American cinema is swapping feelgood escapism for gritty unsettling realism. We talk to the women spearheading this new wave

‘I wanted it to be relatable to any woman who’s ever worked in an office,” says Kitty Green of her new film The Assistant. “Everything in the film has been in the press already. But I wanted to take viewers on an emotional journey, so they could empathise with the character.”

The #MeToo saga has been examined to near exhaustion, but The Assistant manages to add something new. Rather than perpetrators or victims, it focuses on a relative bystander: a young office worker at a New York film production company. We follow this character, played by Julia Garner, through her demeaning routine: commuting in before daybreak, photocopying, printing, taking her male co-workers’ lunch orders, clearing up leftover pizza from the meeting room (as the men come in for the next meeting, she is humiliatingly caught with a crust in her mouth).

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg in hospital for treatment on gallbladder

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The key liberal US supreme court justice is resting comfortably and will be able to continue to work

US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has had a series of health scares, has undergone non-surgical treatment for a gallbladder condition and was resting comfortably, a court spokeswoman said.

Ginsburg, 87, had a gallstone that had caused an infection and was treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, a spokeswoman said. Ginsburg was expected to participate in the court’s oral arguments on Wednesday remotely from the hospital.

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Georgia to consider charges in killing of unarmed black jogger as video emerges

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Prosecutors were reluctant to charge former police officer and son in shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery

A prosecutor in Georgia said on Tuesday he would ask a grand jury to decide if charges should be filed against a white former law enforcement officer and his son in the fatal shooting of an unarmed young black man as he ran through a small town.

The shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery outside Brunswick, Georgia, in February was captured on videotape and posted on social media on Tuesday, stirring outrage over the reluctance of prosecutors to file charges against Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis.

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New York reports 15 cases of rare illness in children possibly linked to Covid-19

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More than 100 cases of unusual illness have emerged in at least six countries as 15 New York patients aged two to 15 hospitalized

New York City’s health department has reported 15 cases of a rare but potentially lethal inflammatory syndrome in children that may be linked to coronavirus infections.

More than 100 cases of the unusual illness have now emerged in at least six countries, with doctors in Britain, the US, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland investigating the condition.

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Coronavirus US live: Pence says White House looking to wind down taskforce as death toll passes 70,000

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Republican senator Lamar Alexander said that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and House speaker Nancy Pelosi should accept Trump’s offer to make rapid coronavirus testing available to lawmakers.

“From a public health point of view, this is not mostly about protecting members of Congress. It is about protecting the people members might infect. Bringing 100 or 535 members from across the country to Washington, D.C.—a coronavirus hotspot—and then sending them home each weekend creates a highly efficient virus spreading machine,” Alexander said in a new statement.

My statement on COVID-19 testing for members of Congress.https://t.co/x3tjhVJsWo pic.twitter.com/ywRMZYye1c

Trump’s press secretary has responded to the vice president’s comments that the White House is looking to wind down the coronavirus task force in the coming weeks.

Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the White House would still be “involving medical experts” in decisions related to the coronavirus response.

Reporting on the task force is being misconstrued to suggest the White House is no longer involving medical experts. This is totally false.

President @realDonaldTrump will continue his data-driven approach towards safely re-opening.

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Bioluminescent waves dazzle surfers in California: ‘Never seen anything like it’

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Crowds are coming to see the light show as beaches begin to reopen after an almost month-long closure due to coronavirus

Mother nature has provided a radical gift to nighttime beach-goers in southern California, in the form of bioluminescent waves that crash and froth with an otherworldly light.

Related: California eases Covid-19 restrictions, allowing some businesses to reopen

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Trump loyalist set to become national intelligence director on second attempt

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John Ratcliffe was forced to withdraw his nomination for the same post nine months ago for exaggerating his security experience

A Trump loyalist nominated as director of national intelligence (DNI) looked set to sail through Senate confirmation hearings on Tuesday, only nine months after being forced to withdraw for having exaggerated his security experience.

Related: John Ratcliffe: Trump's intelligence chief pick withdraws amid qualification doubts

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‘The House is a set-up’: Trump says Fauci to testify in Senate and urges US to reopen – video

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The US president said the government's top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, would not testify in the House of Representatives but only before the Senate. He argued this was because 'the House is a set-up. The House is a bunch of Trump haters.'

He later said the US 'wants' and 'needs' to reopen amid the coronavirus outbreak

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