Category Archives: US News

Pompeo flounders on why annexation is good for the Golan but not for Crimea

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Trump’s decision to recognise Israeli sovereignty over territory it seized from Syria sets a troubling precedent, experts fear

Under intense questioning about why the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights was good but the Russian seizure of Crimea was bad, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, told senators that there was an “international law doctrine” which would be explained to them later.

It turned out there was no doctrine. The state department’s clarification of Pompeo’s remarks contained no reference to one, and experts on international law said that none exists.

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William Barr claims Trump campaign was ‘spied’ on under Obama – live

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Attorney general tells Senate subcommittee he intends to release reacted version of Mueller’s Trump-Russia report itself

Washington Gov. and presidential candidate Jay Inslee has been writing and illustrating children’s books for his grandkids for the last decade, CNN reports.

And they’re very on brand, with several of the books focusing on the warming climate and its effect on the environment.

Senator Elizabeth Warren raised $6 million for her presidential campaign in the first three months of the year.

She got 213,000 contributions from more than 135,000 donors, with an average donation of $28, according to the New York Times.

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Trump basks in Netanyahu’s victory by highlighting their personal alliance

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US president tweeted a picture of people waving Trump banners at the Israeli leader’s election celebrations

Donald Trump welcomed Benjamin Netanyahu’s election victory by underlining the personal alliance between the two men, tweeting a picture of people waving Trump banners at the Israeli leader’s celebrations.

Related: 'The future is dark': Palestinians react to Israel's election

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Iraq seeks multibillion dollar fee to receive Isis prisoners

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Baghdad in talks with US to receive remnants of terror group held in detention centres in Syria

Baghdad and Washington are in talks to transfer and place on trial tens of thousands of suspected Isis fighters and their families from detention centres in Syria to prison camps in Iraq, with Iraqi officials seeking a multibillion dollar fee to receive remnants of the terror group captured over five years of war.

Discussions about what to do with Isis members, among them thousands of foreign men, women and children, have been pushed intensively by US officials, who have also lobbied coalition partners to remove their citizens from two cramped detention centres in Syria’s north-east, which one former senior US official described as a “volcano”.

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Is Donald Trump a rhetorical genius? – video explainer

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‘People don’t like to hear this but Donald Trump is a rhetorical genius,’ says Jennifer Mercieca, an expert on political communication from Texas A&M University. Delving into Trump’s choice of rhetorical devices offers clues into how successive scandals have failed to make a dent on his popularity among his supporters. She says Trump’s mastery of rhetoric has enabled him to avoid being held accountable, make his audience feel like they are part of a secret club and have even helped him get out of a court case

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All the presidents’ busts – in pictures

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Standing nearly 20 feet high, 43 US presidents’ busts, remnants from a bankrupted theme park, are stored in Croaker, Virginia, on the property of Howard Hankins who is seeking to restore the massive sculptures. Hankins has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to relocate the statues to a place where they can be visited by all

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Warner Bros takes legal action against Trump over Batman music

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President’s campaign video featured Hans Zimmer music from The Dark Knight Rises

Warner Bros has launched legal action against Donald Trump after he used music from The Dark Knight Rises in a tweet.

The US president posted a two-minute video for his 2020 re-election campaign that featured Hans Zimmer’s Why Do We Fall? from the 2012 film. It also featured the film’s title cards.

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‘A medical marvel’: Woman lived to 99 with organs on wrong side of her body

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Medical students in Oregon made the discovery only after the death of Rose Marie Bentley

Rose Marie Bentley was an avid swimmer, raised five children, helped her husband run a feed store and lived to 99. It was only after she died that medical students discovered that all her internal organs, except for her heart, were in the wrong place.

The discovery of the rare condition, which was presented this week to a conference of anatomists, was astounding — especially because Bentley had lived so long. People with the condition known as situs inversus with levocardia often have life-threatening cardiac ailments and other abnormalities, according to Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).

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William Barr says redacted Mueller report will be made public ‘within a week’ – live

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The attorney general says the Trump-Russia investigation findings will be available and any redactions will be color coded

Barr says he doesn’t not know why members of Mueller’s team might be frustrated with him as reported in several outlets.

No I don’t. I suspect that they wanted more put out but in my view, I was not interested in putting out summaries.”

Barr declines to get into more detail about whether the Mueller report cleared Trump, as the president insists and relies on his letter.

Rep. GRAVES tries to get Barr to agree that his four-page memo concluded "No collusion, no obstruction."

BARR doesn't bite: "Well, the letter speaks for itself."

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Top Republican senator warns Trump to halt apparent homeland security purge

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A top Republican senator has warned Donald Trump to halt an apparent purge of the top ranks of the Department of Homeland Security, amid forced resignations, a renewed hardening of the White House stance over immigration and accusations that the president is manufacturing a declared crisis at the US-Mexico border.

The Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving Republican in the US Senate, told the Washington Post he was urging Trump to save the job of Lee Francis Cissna, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, who is reportedly in the president’s crosshairs just two days after the forced resignation of Kirstjen Nielsen as homeland security secretary.

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Netflix postpones Felicity Huffman film after actor admits college fraud

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  • Desperate Housewives star to admit bribing college officials
  • Actor is one of 50 people charged over university scam

Netflix has postponed the release date of a film starring Felicity Huffman after the actor agreed to plead guilty to fraud for her part in the largest US college admissions scam ever prosecuted.

Huffman, known for the TV series Desperate Housewives, is one of 13 people who have admitted paying bribes to get their children into desirable colleges such as Yale, Stanford and the University of Southern California, according to court documents.

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Nielsen’s exit is another victory for Trump adviser Stephen Miller

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The senior adviser and speechwriter is behind of some of the most restrictive components of Trump’s immigration agenda

As news broke of the abrupt departure of Kirstjen Nielsen, Donald Trump’s second homeland security secretary, reports swiftly followed that the move had been orchestrated by Stephen Miller, one of the administration’s sharpest anti-immigration voices.

Nielsen’s resignation on Sunday, following months of speculation, cast a spotlight on the forces behind the president’s controversial policies on immigration, where Miller has been shown to be squarely at the center of influence.

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Trump removes Secret Service director after ousting Kirstjen Nielsen – live

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Trump ordered firing of Randolph Alles, White House confirms, a day after forcing out Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

CNN reports Trump tried to order the border closed at El Paso late in March.

Trump eventually talked off of the decision, which would shut down a major port of entry into the United States.

Jerry Nadler, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has agreed to have special counsel Robert Mueller appear before the committee.

Today, Ranking Member Collins called for Special Counsel Mueller to appear before @HouseJudiciary. I fully agree. Special Counsel Mueller should come before the Committee to answer questions in public about his 22 month investigation into President Trump and his associates. 1/2

In order to ask Special Counsel Mueller the right questions, the Committee must receive the Special Counsel’s full report and hear from Attorney General Barr about that report on May 2. We look forward to hearing from Mr. Mueller at the appropriate time. 2/2

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Felicity Huffman to plead guilty in college admissions cheating case

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The actor and 12 other parents will plead guilty after being accused of paying to rig children’s test scores and bribe coaches

Felicity Huffman has agreed to plead guilty in the college admissions cheating scandal, the biggest celebrity name so far to admit to her involvement in the scheme. Court documents made public on Monday show that 12 other prominent parents, in addition to Huffman, will also plead guilty in the case.

The actor was accused of paying $15,000 to have a proctor boost her older daughter’s SAT score in order to ease her way into college.

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Students accused of cheating Apple out of nearly $1m in fake iPhone scheme

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Two Oregon college students allegedly submitted thousands of repair requests over the course of a year using counterfeit phones

Many of us have waited trepidatiously in the Apple Store, clasping our broken iPhone we’ve long since lost the receipt for, while the Genius Bar overlords decide whether to take pity on us and give us a new one or show us the gladiatorial thumbs down.

But two Oregon students had rather a lot more riding on Apple’s replacement policy. They allegedly frauded Apple of nearly $1m by sending the company counterfeit iPhones, claiming they were faulty, and receiving brand-new genuine models as replacements.

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Trump designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as foreign terrorist organization

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Statement marks first time US has formally labeled another country’s military a terrorist group

The United States has designated Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization, Donald Trump said on Monday, marking the first time Washington has formally named a branch of the armed forces of a foreign government as a terrorist group.

In a statement, Trump said this unprecedented step, “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft”.

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Pennsylvania governor under scrutiny for role in approving pipeline

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Tom Wolf’s office has denied he ordered permits for the Mariner East 2 pipeline, which is under criminal investigation for pollution and property damage, to be accelerated

Internal government records obtained by the Guardian raise questions about the role of Pennsylvania’s governor, Tom Wolf, role in permitting construction of a controversial fossil fuel pipeline that now faces two criminal investigations stemming from widespread environmental and property damage.

The 350-mile, $2.5bn Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids pipeline through southern Pennsylvania has sparked growing outrage. It has caused roughly 140 documented industrial waste spills into wetlands and waterways, destroying numerous residential water wells, and opening large sinkholes just steps from residents’ homes.

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Why dark-skinned black girls like me aren’t getting married

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Black women in the US marry less than others - and the numbers are even lower for darker skinned black women. Is colorism – favoring lighter skin – to blame? Dream McClinton puts herself on the line to report

I take a deep breath and ready my fingers. I admonish myself for being theatrical about something so mundane. Another deep breath.

“Here we go,” I mutter, pressing enter.

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Solange pulls out of Coachella 2019 due to ‘production delays’

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R&B star was due to do two Saturday performances at the Californian music festival

Solange has cancelled her Coachella performance a week out from the Californian festival due to “major production delays”, organisers say.

The R&B star was slated for two Saturday performances at the festival – on 13 and 20 April – but on Sunday night it was confirmed both would be cancelled.

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