Category Archives: US News

Revealed: wife of Putin’s spokesman faces questions over US tax affairs

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Former Olympic champion Tatiana Navka may have underreported income, claimed wrong status and owed unpaid property tax

Questions have been raised about the US tax affairs of the wife of Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, after records suggested she may have failed to declare her true income to US regulators and not disclosed foreign bank accounts.

Tatiana Navka, a former Olympic ice dancing champion, also appears to have wrongly claimed a potentially beneficial US tax status, according to an investigation by the Guardian.

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As El Chapo deliberations drag on, the unthinkable is asked – can he get off?

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Jury has surprised observers and unnerved prosecutors by asking for transcripts of ‘snitch’ witnesses

Whatever happens in the jury room in Brooklyn this Monday morning, people outside are starting to think the unthinkable: that Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán might get off.

It would be a reckless gambler that would bet on acquittal for the accused Mexican drug lord, but the odds shorten with each day of indecision. This is not the slam-dunk conviction prosecutors – and most of the rest of the world – were expecting.

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Afghanistan’s long road to recovery | Letter

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We should not walk away from Afghanistan even if it needs another 25 years of outside support, says Simon Diggins

Simon Tisdall’s denunciation of the US-led western involvement in Afghanistan as “17 or so years of ultimately pointless, criminal mayhem” (The US ruined Afghanistan. It can’t simply walk away now, Opinion, 8 February) is about as far wide of the mark as it is possible to be, unless you are Donald Trump. Even more curious, Tisdall then enjoins the US, presumably the “criminals” in this enterprise, not to scuttle away.

I served in Iraq and Afghanistan and am not naive enough to believe that one was the “good war”, while the other one wasn’t. But Tisdall seems to forget why we intervened in Afghanistan in the first place: to remove a monstrous regime, the Taliban, that had allowed the perpetrators of 9/11 to set up camp in their country and also terrorised its own people. Destroying the Taliban regime was the right thing to do.

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Jitters mount as second US shutdown looms after talks stall over border wall

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Bipartisan negotiators are running out of time to reach a deal over Trump’s demand for a border wall

Bipartisan negotiators in Washington are running out of time to reach a deal over Donald Trump’s demand for a border wall after talks stalled, raising the prospect of another government shutdown starting on Friday.

Leaders from both main parties sitting on a 17-strong negotiating panel must reach a deal over the disputed border security issue by Monday if there is to be time for Congress to pass legislation and Trump to sign it before the latest deadline of 15 February. Should they fail to reach agreement within hours, federal agencies, already exhausted after the 35-day shutdown that ended last month having impacted 800,000 federal employees, will yet again start to close from Friday at midnight.

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John Oliver: ‘Maybe Brexit is a great idea. There’s absolutely nothing to suggest that’

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As the British comedian’s show returns, he discusses fighting fake news, why Brexit is worse than Trump’s presidency – and his attempt to convert his kids to Marmite

The Donald Trump presidency, John Oliver observed in 2017, is a marathon. “It’s painful, it’s pointless and the majority of you didn’t even agree to run it; you were just signed up by your dumbest friend,” he told viewers. “And though you’re exhausted and your whole body is screaming for you to give up and your nipples are chafing for some reason, the stakes are too high for any of us to stop.”

Activists, politicians, judges, journalists and concerned citizens are all running the race. Some have embraced the challenge and now, past the halfway point, are finding hope as they see the 2020 election on the horizon. Others have wobbled, legs buckling, consumed by the anxiety that they will never make it. Oliver, a cheerful and charming presence in a conference room at HBO’s headquarters in New York, is surely one of those runners wearing a wacky costume, pointing out the absurdity of the exercise while embodying the stamina and stoicism required to reach the finish line.

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Elizabeth Warren launches 2020 bid with attack on ‘rigged politics’ – video

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Senator Elizabeth Warren has officially launched her presidential campaign in Massachusetts, calling for a more equal society and an end to corruption. 'This is the fight of our lives,' she told supporters in the city of Lawrence, the site of a historic workers' strike in 1912 led by women and immigrants

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Anti-opioid protesters target New York’s Guggenheim over Sackler family link

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Demonstrators call on museum to refuse donations from the owners of OxyContin

US art photographer and activist Nan Goldin brought the Guggenheim Museum in New York to a standstill on Saturday night as thousands of fake prescriptions were dropped into the atrium to protest against the institution’s acceptance of donations from the family who owns the maker of OxyContin – the prescription painkiller at the root of America’s opioids crisis.

Tourists and locals gawped in confusion as Goldin and fellow demonstrators began chanting criticism of the Sackler family, who owns Purdue Pharma. The activists handed out fake pill bottles as sheets of paper fluttered down inside the landmark building.

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‘Rigged system’: will Warren’s rage against the rich win over 2020 voters?

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While controversy around her heritage lingers, voters call the Democrat’s fight against economic injustice ‘inspiring’

On a cold, blustery January day in 1912, immigrant women walked out of the Everett Mill in the Massachusetts factory town of Lawrence demanding higher wages and better working conditions. Mill owners and city government responded in a swift and heavy-handed manner; local militias and police forces were called to the streets. Protesters died. Many more were arrested.

On a cold, blustery February day 117 years later, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren stood in front of Everett Mill to announce her candidacy for president of the United States, channeling the spirit of those women as she told her supporters that they were in a fight for their lives against a rigged system that favors the rich and powerful.

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Opioid strong enough to sedate elephants on rise in Ohio, coroners warn

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Carfentanil, described as ‘extremely potent’ and often undetectable, involved in multiple overdose deaths

Coroners in two of Ohio’s largest counties have issued drug abuse warnings following the reappearance of an opioid so powerful it’s sometimes used to sedate elephants.

Dr Anahi Ortiz is coroner in Franklin county in central Ohio. She said Friday that the county which calls Columbus home had at least three carfentanil-related overdose deaths in January.

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Senator Elizabeth Warren officially launches 2020 presidential campaign

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Massachusetts Democrat has emerged as one of Trump’s sharpest critics, calling him ‘a loud, nasty, thin-skinned fraud’

Senator Elizabeth Warren formally launched her presidential bid in Massachusetts on Saturday with a tough populist call to fight economic inequality – a message she hopes will distinguish her in a crowded Democratic field and help her move past the controversy over her prior claims to Native American heritage.

Warren – who walked on stage to the theme song from 9 to 5, the 1980s film about working women – kicked off her bid for the White House at a mill site where largely immigrant factory workers went on strike nearly 100 years ago, providing the longtime consumer advocate a fitting forum to advance her political platform.

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‘Presidential harassment’ may be Trump’s easiest phrase to repurpose

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Following ‘fake news’ and ‘witch-hunt’, the president has a new favourite buzzword – and it can describe his own behaviour

Donald Trump tore into a reporter who asked him about Democrat plans to scrutinize his personal finances on Wednesday, accusing them of “presidential harassment”.

Related: In the age of Trump and Bezos, public life is one big smutty ancient Greek vase | Marina Hyde

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Trump says Kim summit will be in Hanoi as envoy hails talks progress

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US president will meet North Korea leader in Vietnamese capital this month amid hopes of breakthrough

Donald Trump has said that US diplomats have had a “very productive meeting” with North Korean officials as he announced his summit later this month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would be held in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi.

“My representatives have just left North Korea after a very productive meeting and an agreed upon time and date for the second Summit with Kim Jong Un. It will take place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27 & 28,” Trump said on Twitter.

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‘He’s a winner’: Iowa voters warm to Corey Booker as Democrat field heats up

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Senator kicks off campaign in crucial caucus state as race to take on Trump in 2020 gathers steam

Democratic Senator Cory Booker kicked off his presidential campaign in Iowa with a call for unity, warning a crowd in Waterloo on Friday afternoon against “surrendering to cynicism” and calling for a revival of “civic grace”.

“I believe in this country,” he said at Hawkeye Community College, on the first day of a weekend trip to the crucial caucus state that marks a key moment in the beginning of his bid for the Democratic nomination . “I believe in us as a people. I’ve seen what can happen when we come together.”

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‘Wiped out before our eyes’: Hawaii offers bold plan to stop shark killings

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Proposal law would protects any shark or ray in state waters and be first of its kind in US

Sharks could soon become more numerous in Hawaii waters – and advocates say that’s a good thing.

Lawmakers in Honolulu advanced a proposed ban on killing sharks in state waters on Wednesday, after receiving hundreds of calls and letters of support from around the country. The law, which would provide sweeping protection for any shark, rather than select species, could be the first of its kind in the United States.

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Matt Whitaker set to testify before House committee following dispute – live

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Acting attorney general will be first Trump cabinet official to be brought before panel led by Democrats

A look at the front page of the Detroit Free Press memorializing John Dingell, the legendary US congressman who passed away on Thursday.

Ivanka Trump has said she knew “almost nothing” about the prospective Trump Tower project in Moscow that her father was pursuing during 2016 presidential election.

“We were an active business,” Trump said during an interview that aired Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America, while adding her knowledge of the project amounted to “literally almost nothing”.

EXCLUSIVE: Ivanka Trump has "zero concern" about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. https://t.co/4raDLDD6Xh pic.twitter.com/R18v6BW7gW

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Kellyanne Conway says she was assaulted at a restaurant last year

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Trump adviser said a woman approached her in a Mexican restaurant ‘screaming her head off’ in October 2018

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Donald Trump, has given an account of an alleged assault she suffered and her teenage daughter witnessed when she was grabbed by an angry woman in a restaurant last year.

Related: Rosenstein did not want to write memo justifying Comey firing – new book

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Risk of global recession may be low but we are heading for slowdown

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Although there is a cloud over economy, the silver lining is central banks are more dovish

After the synchronised global economic expansion of 2017 came the asynchronous growth of 2018, when most countries other than the US started to experience slowdowns. Worries about US inflation, the US Federal Reserve’s policy trajectory, trade wars, Italian budget and debt woes, China’s slowdown and emerging-market fragilities led to a sharp fall in global equity markets toward the end of the year.

The good news at the start of 2019 is that the risk of an outright global recession is low. The bad news is that we are heading into a year of synchronised global deceleration; growth will fall toward – and, in some cases, below – potential in most regions.

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Jeff Bezos accuses National Enquirer owner of ‘extortion and blackmail’

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Amazon chief alleges tabloid threatened to publish nude images of him

Jeff Bezos has accused the publisher of the National Enquirer of “extortion and blackmail” in a blogpost alleging it threatened to publish revealing personal photos unless the Amazon chief executive publicly affirmed the paper’s reporting was not politically motivated.

Bezos, who is the world’s richest man and owns the Washington Post, became the subject of tabloid papers in January after he and his wife, MacKenzie, announced they were divorcing. Shortly after, the National Enquirer published “intimate text messages” revealing Bezos’s relationship with Lauren Sánchez, a former TV anchor.

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