Category Archives: US News

Trump officials to review $9bn in Harvard funds over antisemitism claims

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Administration accuses university of failing to protect students and plans to look into federal grants and contracts

The Trump administration announced a review on Monday of $9bn in federal contracts and grants at Harvard University over allegations that it failed to address issues of antisemitism on campus.

The multi-agency joint task force to combat antisemitism said it will review the more than $255.6m in contracts between Harvard University, its affiliates and the federal government, according to a joint statement from the education department, the health department and the General Services Administration. The statement also says the review will include the more than $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates.

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‘We weren’t stuck’: Nasa astronauts tell of space odyssey and reject claims of neglect

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Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams’ story markedly at odds with abandonment narrative painted by Trump and Musk

In the end, whatever Elon Musk and Donald Trump liked to insist, astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams were never stuck, nor stranded in space, and definitely not abandoned or marooned.

The world heard on Monday, for the first time since their return to Earth two weeks ago, from the two Nasa astronauts whose 10-day flight to the international space station (ISS) last summer turned into a nine-month odyssey. And their story was markedly at odds with the narrative painted from the White House.

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More than 1,900 scientists write letter in ‘SOS’ over Trump’s attacks on science

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Members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine warned Americans of ‘real danger in this moment’

More than 1,900 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine signed an open letter warning Americans about the “danger” of the Trump administration’s attacks on science.

The letter comes amid the administration’s relentless assault on US scientific institutions which has included threats to private universities, federal grant cancelations and ideological funding reviews, mass government layoffs, resignations and censorship.

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Trump pardons January 6 loyalist and commutes jail time of Hunter Biden associate

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President issues full pardon to veteran Thomas Caldwell and commutes Jason Galanis’s 14-year prison sentence

Donald Trump has issued a full pardon to another person involved with the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and commuted the sentence of a former business associate of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s scandal-plagued son.

Thomas Caldwell, 69, of Berryville, Virginia, has been granted a pardon for his alleged role in the Capitol attack following a series of pardons Trump has given out to those involved with or present during the events on 6 January 2021.

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Epstein and Prince Andrew accuser says she has days to live after bus crash

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Virginia Giuffre writes on social media she has ‘gone into kidney renal failure … they’ve given me four days to live’

Virginia Giuffre, a victim of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein who once alleged she was sexually trafficked to Britain’s Prince Andrew, says she has just days to live after being involved in a vehicle accident.

“This year has been the worst start to a new year … I won’t bore anyone with the details, but I think it important to note that when a school bus driver comes at you driving 110km as we were slowing for a turn no matter what your car is made of it might as well be a tin can,” she wrote in a post on social media on Sunday, along with a photograph of herself lying in a hospital bed with a head injury.

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Trump’s bombing threat over Iran nuclear programme prompts backlash

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Iranian officials accuse US president of breaching UN charter and say ‘violence brings violence’

Iran has reacted with outrage after Donald Trump said the country will be bombed if it does not accept US demands to constrain its nuclear programme.

The US president said on Sunday that if Iran “[doesn’t] make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”.

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NYU canceled talk on USAID cuts for being ‘anti-governmental’, doctor says

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University called Dr Joanne Liu, ex-head of Doctors Without Borders, after planning to speak on Gaza and federal cuts

The former international head of Doctors Without Borders says she was left “stunned” after New York University canceled her presentation because some of her slides discussing cuts at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could be viewed as “anti-governmental”.

Dr Joanne Liu, a pediatric emergency physician at Sainte-Justine hospital and a professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who also served as the former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), told CTV News last week that she was scheduled on 19 March to give a presentation at her alma mater on challenges in humanitarian crises.

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Politicians criticise US efforts to make EU firms reverse diversity initiatives

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Officials in France and Belgium hit out at ‘American interference’ amid growing transatlantic tensions

Officials in France and Belgium have hit back at American efforts to impose Donald Trump’s rollback of diversity measures on Europe, which in the US has seen Disney put under investigation.

Several companies across the EU have in recent days reportedly received letters informing them that the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives also applies to firms around the world looking to do business with the US government.

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Greenland’s new PM rejects Trump’s latest threat: ‘We do not belong to anyone else’

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Newly sworn in Jens-Frederik Nielsen says ‘Trump says that the United States is getting Greenland. Let me be clear: the United States won’t get that’

The US will not get Greenland, its new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, has said in response to Donald Trump’s latest statements that he wants to take control of the vast Arctic country.

“President Trump says that the United States is getting Greenland. Let me be clear: the United States won’t get that. We do not belong to anyone else. We determine our own future,” Nielsen said.

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Trump says ‘there are methods’ for seeking third term in White House

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In interview Trump said he wasn’t joking when he alluded to a purported loophole for a third term as president

Donald Trump has said there are “methods” – if not “plans” – to circumvent the constitutional limit preventing US presidents from serving three terms.

In an interview aired Sunday on NBC, Trump was asked about his trying to stay in office beyond his second presidency, a specter he has repeatedly raised while sometimes claiming he is just joking.

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Goldberg dismisses Waltz’s Signal leak defense: ‘Numbers don’t just get sucked into other phones’

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Atlantic editor says Trump adviser’s defense for accidentally adding him to war plans chat was implausible

Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg has dismissed the explanation offered by national security adviser Mike Waltz for how he was included in a Trump administration group text chat about – and in advance of – the recent bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Goldberg said Waltz’s theory that his contact was “sucked in” to his phone via “somebody else’s contact” was implausible.

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Trump ‘running out of patience’ with Putin over Ukraine ceasefire, says Finnish president

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Alexander Stubb – who played golf with Trump this weekend – suggested deadline and US sanctions package

Donald Trump is losing patience with Vladimir Putin’s stalling tactics over the Ukraine ceasefire, the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, said after spending several hours with the US president – including winning a golf competition with him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday.

Stubb, who also spent two days with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week in Helsinki suggested in a Guardian interview a plan for a deadline of 20 April, by which time Putin should be required to comply with a full ceasefire.

Stubb pointed out that a third golf partner on Saturday, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham, already has a bill in the US Senate proposing what he has described as “bone-breaking” US sanctions on Russia if it did not accept an unconditional ceasefire.

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Minnesota officials seek answers after Ice detains graduate student

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Leaders call on federal authorities to explain actions after University of Minnesota student detained on Thursday

Officials in Minnesota were seeking answers in the case of a University of Minnesota graduate student who was being detained by US immigration authorities for unknown reasons.

University leadership said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detained the student on Thursday at an off-campus residence. Officials said the school was not given advance notice about the detention and did not share information with federal authorities. The student’s name and nationality have not been released.

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Columbia alumni rip up diplomas to protest activist Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest

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Group of Sipa graduates demonstrate against government’s jailing of graduate student, who spoke up for Palestinians

A handful of alumni from Columbia University’s school of international and public affairs (Sipa) ripped their diplomas in a show of protest against the federal government’s jailing of graduate student Mahmoud Khalil’s over his activism for Palestinians.

On Saturday, instead of participating in the university’s annual Sipa alumni day, a few dozen alumni and students gathered outside campus as part of a protest organized by Sipa’s and Barnard Alumni for Palestine groups.

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Richard Chamberlain, hero of Dr Kildare and ‘king of the miniseries’, dies aged 90

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The actor died on Saturday night in Waimānalo, Hawaii of complications after a stroke, his publicist says

Richard Chamberlain, the hero of the 1960s television series Dr Kildare who found a second career as an award-winning “king of the miniseries,” has died. He was 90.

Chamberlain died on Saturday night in Waimānalo, Hawaii of complications after a stroke, according to his publicist, Harlan Boll.

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Advertising giant WPP cuts diversity references from annual report

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Owner of Ogilvy and Grey agencies follows other multinationals in dropping or downplaying DEI policies since Trump’s election

The British advertising giant WPP has become the latest company to cut the phrase “diversity, equity and inclusion” from its annual report as the policies come under attack from the Trump administration.

The agency, which counts the US as by far its largest market, boasts the storied “Madison Avenue” agencies J Walter Thompson, Ogilvy and Grey among its top brands.

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White House correspondents’ dinner cancels anti-Trump comedian’s appearance

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WHCA says it was dropping Amber Ruffin’s performance so the event’s ‘focus is not on the politics of division’

Comedy is off the menu at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner, a once convivial get-together for reporters to meet with federal governments officials that has become too fraught for light-heartedness amid the second Donald Trump presidency.

The dinner, scheduled for 26 April, is organized by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), and it typically features a post-meal comedic interlude where a comedian sets to work on the powerful. Beginning with Calvin Coolidge in 1924, every president has attended at least one WHCA dinner – except for Trump.

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Donald Trump says he is ‘very angry’ with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine

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US president says his Russian counterpart’s questioning of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s credibility could delay ceasefire

Donald Trump has said he is “pissed off” with Vladimir Putin over his approach to a ceasefire in Ukraine and threatened to levy tariffs on Moscow’s oil exports if the Russian leader does not agree to a truce within a month.

The US president indicated he would levy a 25% or 50% tariff that would affect countries buying Russian oil in a telephone interview with NBC News, during which he also threatened to bomb Iran and did not rule out using force in Greenland.

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Biotech group warns exit of top FDA vaccine official will ‘erode scientific standards’

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Rare admonition from a sector that has largely been silent in the face of the second Trump administration

The US biotech industry’s main lobby group issued a rare warning following the forced and abrupt resignation of the nation’s top vaccine official at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), saying the loss of his experienced leadership would “erode scientific standards” and affect the development of transformative therapies to fight disease.

The statement, issued on Saturday by John Crowley of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), followed the news a day earlier that Dr Peter Marks – who led the FDA division that ensured the safety of vaccines – had resigned over what he called “misinformation and lies” from health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Stephanie Kirchgaessner contributed reporting

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Special elections to deliver voters’ verdict on Trump’s chaotic first months

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Key elections in Florida, Texas, Arizona and Wisconsin could offer a glimmer of hope to Democrats

Several elections on Tuesday will be a crucial test of the popularity of the chaotic and extremist first two months of Donald Trump’s second term and the clout of his close ally, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who has been tasked with radically reforming the US federal government.

They could also offer a glimmer of hope to Democrats – fresh off a surprise upset win in a local race in Pennsylvania last week – that their divided political party could be seeing a resurgence in its fortunes. Or, if they fail to land further blows on Republicans, it will be yet another sign that the party is destined for a long period in the wilderness amid historic lows of its popularity in recent polls.

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