President claims without evidence that January 6 panel members’ pre-emptive clemency was not signed personally
Donald Trump claimed on Monday, without offering evidence, that pardons signed by Joe Biden were “void, vacant and of no further force and effect” because they were signed with an autopen.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an autopen as “a device that mechanically reproduces a person’s signature”.
Continue reading...US official urges stop to plan to re-evaluate Biden program to connect communities to high-speed internet, which will likely benefit Starlink
Small town USA is facing a “significant risk” that the Trump administration is going to abandon key elements of a $42.45bn Biden-era plan to connect rural communities to high-speed internet so that Elon Musk can get even richer, a top departing commerce department official warned in an email.
Evan Feinman, who headed up the so-called Bead program for the last three years, urged governors across the country to lobby their congressional delations in Washington to stop the Trump administration from implementing plans he said could have “deeply negative outcomes” for American homes and businesses.
Continue reading...Planned missiles on Kyushu said to be part of ‘counterstrike capabilities’, as fears grow over US security pact
Japan is planning to deploy long-range missiles on its southern island of Kyushu amid concerns around the Trump administration’s stance towards its security pacts and continuing regional tensions.
The missiles, with a range of about 1,000km, would be capable of hitting targets in North Korea and China’s coastal regions, and are due to be deployed next year in two bases with existing missile garrisons. They would bolster the defences of the strategically important Okinawa island chain and are part of Japan’s development of “counterstrike capabilities” in the event it is attacked, according to reports from Kyodo News agency, citing government sources.
Continue reading...Christian organizations helped create Pepfar, credited with preventing 25m early deaths, particularly in Africa
Christian evangelical organizations instrumental in creating the US program that has saved millions of lives from HIV/Aids are pressing the Trump administration to rescue the scheme from crushing cuts to foreign assistance.
The state department has said that the two-decade-old President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), which is estimated to have prevented 25m early deaths, is exempt from the cancellation of most US overseas aid. But the program is heavily reliant on logistical support from the US Agency for International Development (USAid), which has seen most of its projects killed off.
Continue reading...Page honoring Charles C Rogers for his Vietnam war service is now defunct with letters “DEI” added to website address
The US defense department webpage celebrating an army general who served in the Vietnam war and was awarded the country’s highest military decoration has been removed and the letters “DEI” added to the site’s address.
On Saturday, US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor webpage led to a “404” error message. The URL was also changed, with the word “medal” changed to “deimedal”.
Continue reading...Victim, 45, hospitalized and in stable condition as police unable to say if attack was random or targeted
A 45-year-old man was set on fire in the middle of Times Square overnight on Sunday, according to police, three months after a woman was killed on a subway train in an arson attack.
Footage from the scene captured the moments the man, shirtless and severely burned, was rushed by authorities into an ambulance after the flames were extinguished.
Continue reading...Strikes began on Saturday with the aim of punishing Iran-backed armed group for attacks on Red Sea shipping
US officials have said airstrikes launched against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis will continue indefinitely, after a first round on Saturday killed at least 31 people and injured up to 100 more.
The strikes, which aim to punish the Houthis for their attacks against Red Sea shipping, are Donald Trump’s first such use of US military might in the region since he took power in January.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Doctor Who writer says he feels ‘a wave of anger heading towards us’ and hostility in UK as well as US
Russell T Davies has said gay society is in the “greatest danger I have ever seen”, since the election of Donald Trump as US president in November.
Speaking to the Guardian at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester on Friday, the Doctor Who screenwriter said the rise in hostility was not limited to the US but “is here [in the UK] now”.
Continue reading...By standard measures such as job and GDP growth and the stock market, the US economy was in excellent shape
Donald Trump keeps saying he inherited a terrible economy from Joe Biden and many Americans believe him, even though that’s not true. During his White House marketing event for Tesla on Tuesday, Trump said the US and its economy “went to hell” under Biden. Last week, in his national address to Congress, Trump said: “We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare.”
But the truth is that by standard economic measures, the US economy was in excellent shape when Biden turned over the White House keys to Trump, even though most Americans, upset about inflation, told pollsters the economy was in poor shape.
Continue reading...Former talkshow host takes public her battle to remove her guardian, ordered by a court due to dementia and aphasia
The note dropped from the upper floor window of an assisted living facility in New York on the morning of 10 March contained a simple message: “Help! Wendy!!” it read.
For any patient inside, it would have been tragic. But, astonishingly, the writer of this note was Wendy Williams, a trailblazing television talkshow host and once one of the most recognisble daytime TV faces in America.
Continue reading...The arrival of four astronauts will allow Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return to Earth after nine months on the International Space Station
There were emotional scenes of smiling astronauts hugging and embracing in zero gravity on the International Space Station on Sunday after a replacement crew docked with the orbital outpost – a step towards the return home of two astronauts who have been stranded for more than nine months.
A SpaceX capsule delivered four astronauts to the ISS in a Nasa crew-swap mission that will allow the pair of stuck astronauts, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, to return home after nine months on the orbiting lab.
Continue reading...Pair recently met to discuss Donald Trump, Elon Musk and other political matters, Sunday Times says
Nigel Farage has reportedly met Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s adviser turned nemesis, after the Vote Leave founder suggested voters should back Reform UK at the local elections.
Cummings, who was once a sworn enemy of Farage during the EU referendum as he battled to keep control of the leave campaign, is reported to have met the Reform leader to discuss Whitehall changes, which allies said was the strongest sign yet that Farage was taking seriously the idea of becoming prime minister.
Continue reading...Up to 100 injured after Trump orders strikes in response to shipping attacks
The US has launched airstrikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, killing at least 31 people and injured up to 100 more, in Donald Trump’s first such use of US military might in the region since he took power in January.
US officials have said the airstrikes, which aim to punish the Houthis for their attacks against Red Sea shipping, may continue for weeks.
Continue reading...Several people killed in Kansas dust storm while scattered tornadoes cause fatalities in Missouri
Violent tornadoes ripped through parts of the US, wiping out schools and toppling semitractor-trailers in several states, part of a monster storm that killed at least 35 people as more severe weather was expected.
In western Kansas, a dust storm was reported to have killed eight people as high winds produced blowing dust over the interstate, causing collisions of more than 71 vehicles on the I-70.
Continue reading...Russian leader’s antagonism to Zelenskyy and lack of interest in a ceasefire leaves colossal task for US
On paper, everyone is in agreement: Donald Trump says he wants a ceasefire; Kyiv’s negotiating team has already agreed to a 30-day ceasefire proposal at marathon talks with the Americans in Jeddah; and Vladimir Putin says he accepts the idea, albeit with a few “nuances”.
But Putin’s so-called nuances are bigger than mere wrinkles, and at the end of an intense week of diplomacy around Russia’s war in Ukraine, a ceasefire – never mind a sustainable peace – still looks to be something of a distant prospect.
Continue reading...Launched by Nasa and SpaceX, the Falcon 9 is picking up Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, whose eight days on board the International Space Station became nine months
A long-awaited mission to return stranded US astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore from the International Space Station has been launched by Nasa and SpaceX.
The pair were due to spend eight days on the ISS in June, but technical problems with the experimental spacecraft that took them there have left them stuck on the orbital laboratory for nine months.
Continue reading...President denounced CNN and MSNBC as ‘illegal’ and instructed VoA’s parent agency to be eliminated
Donald Trump expanded on his threats to the media on Friday, suggesting actions of the press should be deemed illegal and subject to investigation.
“I believe that CNN and MS-DNC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat [sic] party and in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal, what do they do is illegal,” the president said during a contentious speech at the Department of Justice.
Continue reading...After a SpaceX rocket exploded, investors offloaded Tesla shares and Doge hit legal roadblocks, the world’s richest man saw his fortune sink by $100bn
Elon Musk began the week of 10 March with a friendly sit-down interview on Fox Business to talk about his work with the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and the state of his businesses. Already, it had been a trying few days for the world’s richest man, who was facing a Tesla stock selloff and fierce backlash over his attempts to radically overhaul the federal government. His net worth declined over $22bn on Monday alone.
After Musk jokingly brushed off initial questions about the mounting pressure, host Larry Kudlow asked the Tesla and SpaceX CEO how he was managing to run his numerous companies amid the chaos.
Continue reading...New memo lists 41 countries – including Afghanistan, Cuba and Syria – that could face new restrictions, evoking first-term Muslim ban
The Trump administration is considering issuing travel restrictions for the citizens of dozens of countries as part of a new ban, according to sources familiar with the matter and an internal memo seen by Reuters.
The memo lists a total of 41 countries divided into three separate groups. The first group of 10 countries, which includes Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Cuba and North Korea, among others, would be set for a full visa suspension.
Continue reading...Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy, has written op-eds and reports questioning Ukraine’s role in negotiations
A retired US general charged with helping sell the Trump administration’s Ukraine peace plan wrote a string of op-eds and reports for a rightwing thinktank in which he repeatedly questioned whether Ukraine had a legitimate part to play in peace negotiations.
Keith Kellogg also blamed the war on the machinations of a US “military-industrial complex” and “[Joe] Biden’s national security incompetence” rather than Russia’s 2022 invasion, which has been condemned across the globe and resulted in a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
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