Category Archives: US News

Harvard to donate remainder of Jeffrey Epstein gift to victim groups

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$200,000 that remained unspent from $9.1m donation will be given to groups focusing on victims of sex trafficking and assault

Harvard University announced on Friday that it will donate the remaining $210,000 of a $9.1m gift from the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to groups that support victims of sex trafficking and assault.

Lawrence Bacow, Harvard’s president, confirmed the decision in a statement, saying a full review of Epstein’s donations determined that money he gave between 1998 and 2008 was spent “to support a variety of research and faculty activities”.

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US lawmakers demand Jeff Bezos testify over Amazon’s ‘possibly criminally false’ statements

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House lawmakers said they could subpoena CEO to testify in antitrust investigation if he doesn’t appear voluntarily

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers investigating Amazon for possible antitrust violations have demanded that Jeff Bezos testify before Congress to address statements by the company that “appear to be misleading, and possibly criminally false or perjurious”.

“Although we expect that you will testify on a voluntary basis, we reserve the right to resort to compulsory process if necessary,” seven leaders of the House judiciary committee, including the chair Jerry Nadler, wrote in a letter to the Amazon CEO on Friday.

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Global markets recoil as Trump threatens US-China trade war

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US president escalates attack on Beijing’s handling of coronavirus pandemic

Donald Trump’s threats to reignite the US-China trade war over coronavirus has triggered another sell-off in global financial markets, as the economic costs of the pandemic continue to mount.

Against a backdrop of rising tension between the world’s two economic superpowers, share prices resumed a downward slide on Friday with the FTSE 100 falling by 144 points, or 2.5%, in London.

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Foreign Office obstructed search for truth, say Harry Dunn lawyers

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Legal team for family of dead 19-year-old to seek answers in meeting with Raab aides

The Foreign Office has obstructed a search for truth into the death of 19-year-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn, lawyers for his family have claimed prior to a potentially tense meeting with aides to Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary.

Dunn died in August when his motorcycle collided with a car driven by Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US intelligence officer stationed at a US spy base at RAF Croughton, Northamptonshire. Sacoolas immediately admitted to the police she had caused the accident by driving on the wrong side of the road.

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US germ warfare research leads to new early Covid-19 test

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Exclusive: test has potential to identify carriers before they become infectious

Scientists working for the US military have designed a new Covid-19 test that could potentially identify carriers before they become infectious and spread the disease, the Guardian has learned.

In what could be a significant breakthrough, project coordinators hope the blood-based test will be able to detect the virus’s presence as early as 24 hours after infection – before people show symptoms and several days before a carrier is considered capable of spreading it to other people. That is also around four days before current tests can detect the virus.

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Armed protesters enter Michigan’s state capitol demanding end to coronavirus lockdown – video

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Hundreds of protesters, some armed, attempted to enter the legislative chamber of Michigan's state capitol, in response to moves to extend Covid-19 lockdown orders. The demonstrators gathered as Democrat governor, Gretchen Whitmer, pushed for stay-at-home orders to continue to mid-May. The state has recorded 3,789 coronavirus deaths at time of publication

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Coronavirus live news: Kim Jong-un reportedly appears in public

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North Korean leader had not been seen for three weeks; Ireland and India both extend lockdowns, while global markets fall due to threat of US-China trade war

The US president Donald Trump has offered an increasingly bleak picture for the US, telling a White House event:

Hopefully, we’re going to come in below that 100,000 lives lost, which is a horrible number, nevertheless.

The North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has made his first public appearance in nearly three weeks, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

N.K. leader reemerges from 20-day absence amid rumors over his health https://t.co/z4LhtCf7ox

Related: Kim Jong-un could be sheltering from Covid-19 pandemic, say US and Seoul

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Trump implies he has seen evidence Covid-19 was created in a Wuhan lab – video

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US President Donald Trump claims he has seen evidence of Covid-19 originating in a Wuhan lab. When asked at a press briefing if he has seen anything that gives you a “high degree of confidence” that coronavirus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, President Trump replied: “Yes, I have." He added that he was "not allowed" to tell reporters what that evidence was.

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Joe Biden to break his silence on Tara Reade’s sexual assault claim Friday

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The presumptive nominee has come under pressure to address the allegation from fellow Democrats and progressive activists

Joe Biden will publicly address for the first time a sexual assault claim against him during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday morning, after weeks of silence on the subject.

Biden, the presumptive nominee, will “respond for the first time to the recent allegation of sexual assault”, the network announced in a tweet on Thursday.

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Nasa picks Bezos’s Blue Origin and Musk’s SpaceX to build new lunar landers

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Alabama company Dynetics also chosen for moon landing project, as three firms prepare to compete

Nasa has selected three private space companies to lead the development of lunar landers for its forthcoming moon landings.

The three companies are Blue Origin, owned by Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos; Elon Musk’s SpaceX; and Dynetics, based in Huntsville, Alabama, Nasa announced on Thursday.

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Documents reveal FBI head defended encryption for WhatsApp before becoming fierce critic

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Christopher Wray defended encryption in 2015 as a lawyer, contradicting his current opposition to the practice

Christopher Wray, the FBI director who has been one of the fiercest critics of encryption under the Trump administration, previously worked as a lawyer for WhatsApp, where he defended the practice, according to new court filings.

The documents, which were released late on Wednesday night as part of an unrelated matter, show Wray worked for WhatsApp in 2015 while he was an attorney for the Washington law firm of King & Spalding.

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Coronavirus: New York subway to close at night for disinfection, says Cuomo – video

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New York state governor Andrew Cuomo has said the New York subway will close between 1am and 5am from 7 May to allow the MTA to disinfect the carriages, train and stations, and protect essential workers from contracting coronavirus

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Germany and Spain ease lockdown as Eurozone slumps 3.8% – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

We’ve launched a brand new blog at the link below. Follow me there for the latest coronavirus news from around the world, live:

Related: Coronavirus live news: Trump claims to have evidence virus started in Wuhan lab as UK is 'past the peak'

Hello, Helen Sullivan with you now. I’ll have the blog for the next few hours, so please do get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

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Coronavirus US live: intelligence report concludes Covid-19 was not ‘manmade or genetically modified’

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House speaker Nancy Pelosi was careful not to criticize Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell for calling senators back to Washington starting next week.

Pelosi and majority leader Steny Hoyer originally said the House would also return next week, but they reversed that decision after a consultation with the Capitol’s attending physician.

The office of the director of national intelligence has released an unusual statement saying officials do not believe coronavirus was manmade, echoing many health experts.

“The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified,” the statement reads.

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Four children die after Amish buggy overturns in Kentucky stream

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  • Fifth child missing but adult in vehicle swims to safety
  • Buggy carrying family was trying to cross a low-water bridge

Authorities in Kentucky said four children died and one is missing after a buggy carrying an Amish family was swept away in the current while trying to cross a low-water bridge.

Six people were in the horse and buggy that overturned on Wednesday in Salt Lick, Bath county, Kentucky state police said in a statement.

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S&P hits back in court after Fortescue Metals takes legal action to prevent publication of ore price

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Ratings agency says mining giant owned by Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’ wants to keep prices secret so it can charge more for its ore

Mining giant Fortescue Metals Group, controlled by billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, has launched legal action to stop global ratings agency S&P publishing information about the price it charges for iron ore.

A UK court has ordered S&P to stop publishing the information, which Fortescue claims is confidential, but the ratings agency has hit back in a US court, accusing the miner of trying to keep prices secret so it can charge more for its ore.

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Pressure mounts on Joe Biden to address sexual assault claim

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Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has remained silent amid new reporting on allegation of 1993 assault

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is facing growing pressure to publicly address an allegation of sexual assault made by Tara Reade, a former aide to his Senate office.

The former vice-president has remained silent about the accusation, a position that is seen as increasingly untenable in the wake of new reporting. Many major Democratic women’s organizations and prominent feminists have also declined to comment publicly on Reade’s claim that Biden, then a senator from Delaware, assaulted her in 1993.

Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, said in a statement this month that “this absolutely did not happen”, but she has not commented further.

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Who is Justin Amash and does he have a chance in the US presidential election?

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The Republican turned Libertarian announced plans to jump in the race with the hopes he can rally voters disaffected by Trump

Michigan congressman Justin Amash late Tuesday announced plans to jump into the 2020 presidential race. Amash, a former Republican turned Libertarian, had toyed with the idea for a while. His argument has been that he could rally voters disaffected by Donald Trump but disinterested in voting for a Democrat.

Amash, a five-term congressman, is known as a gadfly who has bucked Republican leadership and eagerly skirmished with his colleagues when he was a Republican. In July 2019 Amash, the only Republican congressman to vocally support impeaching Trump, left the Republican party.

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Donald Trump accuses WHO of ‘misleading’ US over coronavirus – video

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Donald Trump has accused the World Health Organization of being a 'pipe organ for China' and misleading the US over the coronavirus crisis. The US president suggested the US could take action against the WHO. 'We're coming up with a very distinct recommendation,' Trump said. 'We're not happy with it.' 

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