Category Archives: US News

Any trade deal with US must be based on ‘respect not threats’, says EU commissioner

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Maroš Šefčovič’s remarks come after pace of talks prompted Trump to propose 50% tariff on goods from bloc

The European Union’s trade chief has struck a defiant tone after Donald Trump threatened to place a 50% tariff on all goods from the bloc, saying any potential trade deal between Brussels and Washington must be based on “respect not threats”.

The US president made his announcement after voicing frustration with the pace of progress on a trade agreement with the EU. The new rates would come into effect from 1 June.

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Hush over Hollywood: why has it become so hard to make films in Los Angeles?

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The drop in productions is causing alarm – can Tinseltown halt the exodus and reclaim its spot as the home of movie-making?

When Adam Scott was working on the hit TV show Parks and Recreation in the early 2010s, the Los Angeles studio where the show was filmed was packed – “every stage was filled and working”.

These days, he told his former co-star Rob Lowe in a much-discussed recent podcast conversation, “it’s quiet over there” – in part because “it’s just too expensive to shoot here”.

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UK employees work from home more than most global peers, study finds

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Exclusive: Staff in Britain now average 1.8 days a week of remote working, above global average of 1.3 days

UK workers continue to work from home more than nearly any of their global counterparts more than five years after the pandemic first disrupted traditional office life, a study has found.

UK employees now average 1.8 days a week of remote working, above the international average of 1.3 days, according to the Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA), a worldwide poll of more than 16,000 full-time, university-educated workers across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa that began in July 2021.

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Trump’s Russia sanctions refusal leaves Europe with few options but to wait

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Frustration is growing amid increasing signs US could wash its hands of Ukraine, but some observers counsel patience

Gen Keith Kellogg, Donald Trump’s somewhat estranged special envoy on Ukraine, is said by some US diplomats to like to joke that the president did indeed say he would solve the Ukraine crisis in 24 hours, he just never specified which 24 hours.

Dark humour may be all that is left to Europeans as they absorb not just Trump’s refusal to impose the promised “bone-crushing sanctions” over Russia’s rejection of a 30-day ceasefire but also the increasing signs that the administration will wash its hands of Ukraine and instead focus on forging a new economic partnership with Russia.

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Five New Orleans jailbreak fugitives still at large as police arrest alleged helpers

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Several people held in connection with jailbreak as manhunt enters second week and criticisms mount over jail management

Several people have been arrested on accusations of helping some of the 10 men who broke out of New Orleans’ jail on 16 May – and half of the escapers remained on the run as a manhunt for them entered its second week, according to authorities.

Police said on Friday that they had booked Casey Smith, 30, a day earlier on allegations that she provided transportation to at least two of the escapers in the hours after the jailbreak. She had allegedly admitted to doing that alongside another woman whom police took into custody on Wednesday, identified as 32-year-old Cortnie Harris, Smith’s cousin and the girlfriend of one of the escaped men, Leo Tate, 31.

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Trump warms to Nippon Steel, backing ‘partnership’ with US Steel

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Biden had blocked Japanese acquisition, citing national security, with Trump previously agreeing he was ‘totally against’ it

Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind a “partnership” between US Steel and Nippon Steel, months after insisting he was “totally against” a $14.9bn bid by the Japanese firm for its US rival.

While the US president stopped short of an all-out endorsement of the takeover, he announced a deal between the two businesses on social media on Friday.

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Trump signs executive orders to spur US ‘nuclear energy renaissance’

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President aims to construct new nuclear reactors as he implements his own energy policies and undoes Joe Biden’s

Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders on Friday intended to spur a “nuclear energy renaissance” through the construction of new reactors he said would satisfy the electricity demands of data centers for artificial intelligence and other emerging industries.

The orders represented the president’s latest foray into the policy underlying America’s electricity supply. Trump declared a national energy emergency on his first day in office over and moved to undo a ban implemented by Joe Biden on new natural gas export terminals and expand oil and gas drilling in Alaska.

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Georgian man extradited to US to face charges over poison-candy terror plot

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Officials say Michail Chkhikvishvili is the leader of a neo-Nazi group that promotes violence against minorities

The leader of an eastern European neo-Nazi group has been extradited to the United States from Moldova following his arrest last summer for allegedly instructing an undercover federal agent to dress as Santa Claus and hand out poisoned candy to Jewish children and racial minorities, prosecutors said.

Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 21-year-old from the republic of Georgia, was arraigned on Friday before a federal judge in Brooklyn on multiple felonies, including soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence.

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Four men guilty of Kim Kardashian jewellery heist in Paris

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Three pensioners and a man in his 30s jailed as four others convicted of related charges

Four men have been found guilty of breaking into a luxury residence in Paris and stealing jewellery worth millions of euros from the American reality TV star Kim Kardashian when she attended fashion week in 2016.

Three pensioners and one man in his 30s were convicted of carrying out the armed heist, which was thought to be the biggest robbery of an individual in France in 20 years. Four other people were found guilty of assisting in the plot or related charges. Two people were acquitted of accusations they handed out information about Kardashian’s whereabouts.

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British students at Harvard report ‘growing anxiety’ over US government attacks

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Trump administration’s effort to ban foreign enrolment could force students to disrupt their studies and careers

British and international students at Harvard report “growing anxiety” over their fate, as the Trump administration’s latest attack on the university could force them to disrupt their studies and careers.

On Thursday, the administration said it would revoke Harvard University’s eligibility to enrol international students, which was later temporarily frozen by a US federal judge on Friday.

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Iran-US nuclear talks end with no agreement but ‘possibility of progress’

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There were fears latest meeting could collapse but both sides appear willing for more talks on uranium enrichment

Talks between Iran and the US on whether Iran will be allowed to continue to enrich uranium inside the country have ended without an agreement, but apparently without the feared breakdown.

The indirect talks between the two sides were mediated by Oman and held in Rome.

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Court halts Trump administration’s effort to send eight men to South Sudan

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The group is in temporary custody of homeland security in Djibouti following challenges in court

Eight men the Trump administration attempted to send to South Sudan are in temporary custody in Djibouti after a federal court ruling halted their removal, officials confirmed on Thursday.

The Trump administration had attempted to send the men, who it said had been convicted of criminal offenses, to their home countries: officials said two each were from Myanmar and Cuba and the others were from Vietnam, Laos, Mexico and South Sudan.

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Trump threatens 25% tariff on Apple and Samsung phones not made in US

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Announcement wipes about $70bn off Apple shares amid pressure on company to build smartphones in US

Donald Trump has threatened to impose a 25% tariff on iPhones if they are not made in the United States, as he stepped up the pressure on Apple to build its signature product in the country.

The president wiped approximately $70bn (£52bn) off the company’s shares with a post on the Truth Social platform that said iPhones sold inside the US must be made within the country’s borders.

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Brazilian tribe sues New York Times for allegedly portraying members as porn addicts

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Defamation suit claims Marubo people were depicted as tech-addled and porn-obsessed after introduction of internet

An Indigenous tribe from the Brazilian Amazon has sued the New York Times, saying the newspaper’s reporting on the tribe’s first exposure to the internet led to its members being widely portrayed as technology-addled and addicted to pornography.

The Marubo tribe of the remote Javari valley, a community of about 2,000 people, filed the defamation lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages this week in a court in Los Angeles.

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Shooting of Israeli embassy staffers underscores US ‘era of violent populism’

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This is the latest act of violence in a string of incidents that have affected Jewish, Arab and Muslim communities

The killing of two staff of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC comes as the war in Gaza has splintered the American body politic alongside the ongoing rise in political violence.

A shooter, identified as Elias Rodriguez, shot the two people, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday after they left an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee. Rodriguez reportedly chanted “free, free Palestine” while being detained by security.

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World’s seven wealthiest countries agree to counter China’s trade practices

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G7 finance ministers and central bank governors pledge to address ‘economic imbalances’, without naming China

Top finance officials from the world’s seven wealthiest democracies have set aside stark differences on US tariffs and agreed to counter global “economic imbalances”, a swipe at China’s trade practices.

Ahead of the meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors there had been doubt about whether there would be a final communique, given divisions over US tariffs and Washington’s reluctance to refer to Russia’s war on Ukraine as illegal.

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Mahmoud Khalil finally allowed to hold one-month-old son for the first time

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Detained Palestinian activist granted contact by judge who blocked Trump administration’s efforts to separate family

Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and detained Palestinian activist, was finally allowed to hold his infant son for the first time Thursday – one month after he was born – thanks to a federal judge who blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to keep the father and infant separated by a Plexiglass barrier.

The visit came before a scheduled immigration hearing for Khalil, a legal permanent resident who has been detained in a Louisiana jail since 8 March.

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FTC drops case over Microsoft’s $69bn Activision Blizzard acquisition

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Microsoft president declares ‘victory’ in Call of Duty maker deal as FTC chair says case doesn’t fit with Trump’s agenda

The US Federal Trade Commission dropped a case that sought to block Microsoft’s $69bn purchase of the Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, saying on Thursday that pursuing the case against the long-closed deal was not in the public interest.

Andrew Ferguson, the FTC chair, is seeking to use the agency’s resources for cases that fit with Donald Trump’s agenda, such as an investigation related to whether advertisers colluded to spend less on X.

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Iran would view US as ‘participant’ in any Israeli attack on its nuclear sites

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Warning issued after US intelligence reportedly understood Israel might attack if Iran-US talks broke down

Iran has said it will hold the US responsible for any Israeli attack on its nuclear sites in remarks that set a fraught backdrop for the fifth and probably most important round of talks between Iran and the US on the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, issued the warning on Thursday after reports appeared in the American media claiming US intelligence understood Israel was planning an attack on Iranian nuclear sites – with or without American support – if the talks broke down.

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German troops start first permanent foreign deployment since second world war

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Heavy combat unit of 4,800 soldiers and 200 civilian staff inaugurated in Lithuania on Nato’s eastern flank

The German chancellor has visited Lithuania to mark Berlin’s first permanent foreign troop deployment since the second world war, as he called on allies to dramatically expand their efforts to bolster European defences against a hostile Russia.

As a crowd waved Lithuanian, German and Ukrainian flags, Friedrich Merz and his defence minister, Boris Pistorius, attended a ceremony launching the official formation of an armoured brigade aimed at protecting Nato’s eastern flank.

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