Despite owners and networks forsaking journalistic independence, Trump continues to threaten journalists
In the telling of Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues, the US media is fake news, stocked with “radical-left monsters” who are guilty of “illegal” reporting on the president.
The reality is different.
Continue reading...A fraught history of race and immigration connect the new pope with his homeland
Pope Leo XIV, who on Thursday was elected as the first-ever US-born leader of the Roman Catholic church, has a familial bloodline that reflects his homeland’s fraught relationship with race – and why the nation’s stature as a melting pot of origins has long endured, records unearthed by genealogists show.
The maternal grandfather of 69-year-old Robert Prevost, the newly minted pope, was evidently born abroad in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, according to birth records that professional genealogist Chris Smothers cited to ABC News in a recent report. When Leo’s grandfather, Joseph Martinez, obtained an 1887 marriage license to wed the future pope’s grandmother, Louise Baquié, he listed his birthplace as Haiti, which at the time was the same territory as Santo Domingo, Smothers noted.
Continue reading...President eager to discuss trade and investment but no plans to visit Israel amid tensions over Gaza war
Donald Trump this week will embark on the first foreign trip of his second administration with a tour of the Middle East, as he looks to secure investment, trade and technology deals from friendly leaders with deep pockets amid turbulent negotiations around numerous regional conflicts, including Israel’s war in Gaza.
The tour through the Middle East is largely a repeat of his first international trip in 2017, when he was feted in the region as a transactional leader eager to secure quick wins and capable of providing support for the regional monarchies’ economic and geopolitical interests.
Continue reading...Newark’s Ras Baraka says court fight against Geo Group will go on despite being jailed and charged with trespassing
Speaking out after his arrest on Tuesday, the Newark mayor Ras Baraka said his city would continue its fight in court against the company that runs an immigration detention facility in New Jersey.
“I know there are some protests that other people are planning, and if I feel obligated to be there, I will,” Baraka told the Rev Al Sharpton on MSNBC Saturday afternoon. “This doesn’t stop the city’s contention with the Geo Group, and we’re going to continue in court with them.”
Continue reading...Ramona Sarsgaard, 18, given ticket for criminal trespassing after Wednesday’s actions against Israel’s war in Gaza
The daughter of actors Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard was among those arrested at the latest Columbia University protests, marking the latest development in the anti-war demonstrations that also led to the temporary suspension of student journalists.
On Friday, the New York Post reported that 18-year-old Ramona Sarsgaard, a Columbia freshman, was arrested during Wednesday’s campus protests where students demonstrated against Israel’s deadly war in Gaza.
Continue reading...State attorney general said company secretly tracked users’ movements, searches, voiceprints and facial geometry
Google has agreed to pay $1.375bn in a settlement in principle reached with the state of Texas over allegations the company violated users’ data privacy, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, said on Friday.
The agreement settles two lawsuits that covered three products for allegedly violating Texas consumer protection laws.
Continue reading...Meteorologists at television news stations serving Georgia and North Carolina reported feeling the tremors
A 4.1-magnitude earthquake in Tennessee woke up families and rattled homes as far away as Atlanta as it spread tremors across portions of the southern US on Saturday morning. No injuries or major damage were immediately reported.
The website for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake originated shortly after 9am EDT about 12 miles (20km) from Greenback, Tennessee, which is about 30 miles (48km) south of Knoxville.
Continue reading...As universities begin to push back on Trump’s policies, those in Republican-led states face multiple threats
Days after the University of Michigan president, Santa Ono, announced that he was leaving his post to lead the University of Florida, his name was quietly removed on Wednesday from a letter signed by more than 600 university presidents denouncing the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” with academic institutions.
As Ono is set to become the highest-paid public university president in the country, in a state that has often been at the forefront of the rightwing battle against higher education, the reversal, first reported on by Talking Points Memo, underscored the challenges of standing up against the government’s sweeping attacks on education in solidly red states.
Continue reading...US secretary of state urged both sides to de-escalate as he leads efforts to secure a solution to the deepening crisis
US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has offered US assistance in starting “constructive talks” to end the conflict between India and Pakistan, as the two states traded heavy missile fire on Saturday, prompting concerns over wider military escalation.
Rubio has been engaged in back-and-forth diplomacy between the two countries in recent days, calling for de-escalation as India and Pakistan have been engaged in daily clashes since Wednesday.
Continue reading...Legislation would radically ease research restrictions on cannabis and other schedule I substances
A recently introduced bill, if it passes, would allow research on cannabis despite its schedule I status, which some experts say could help policymakers “craft effective” legislation in the future and potentially allow more clinical research on medical cannabis.
Representatives Dina Titus and Ilhan Omar introduced the Evidence-Based Drug Policy Act of 2025 (EBDPA) last week, which would radically ease research restrictions on cannabis and other schedule I substances.
Continue reading...World Trade Organization hails ‘constructive step’ as senior figures come together to discuss tariffs
Senior US and Chinese officials held talks early on Saturday in Geneva in a tentative first step towards defusing a trade war that is disrupting the global economy, according to China’s state-owned news agency and people close to the talks.
China’s vice-premier, He Lifeng, and the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, met after weeks of growing tensions as duties on imports between the world’s two largest economies have risen above 100%.
Continue reading...The specifics of the administration’s economic masterplan – from strollers to movies to China – change by the day
Decades of economic orthodoxy failed millions of Americans, according to Donald Trump, who marched back into the White House promising to shred the status quo. But the specifics of his alternative – exactly how his administration claims it will make America great again – change by the day.
The US president declared this week to be a key milestone of his second term, as he unveiled his first major trade deal since returning to office following accelerated talks with the UK.
Continue reading...Ras Baraka, who has spoken out against Trump’s immigration policies, was at the center with Democratic members of Congress
The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested for trespass at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center in New Jersey on Friday as Democratic members of Congress also attempted to conduct what they say was a visit to the controversial facility to conduct “federal oversight”.
News of Baraka’s arrest at Delaney Hall was reported on X by Alina Habba, the acting US attorney for the district of New Jersey, and a former personal attorney and adviser to Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Kaja Sokola says disgraced movie mogul forced her to touch his genitals in Manhattan apartment when she was 16
A former model has told a New York court that the disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her when she was 16, calling it the most “horrifying thing I ever experienced”.
Kaja Sokola told jurors at Weinstein’s retrial that he put his hand inside her underwear and made her touch his genitals at his Manhattan apartment in 2002 when she was 16.
Continue reading...Exclusive: The intervention to marginalize Ricky Buria is aimed at insulating the Pentagon from any more missteps
Exasperated by the turmoil that has dogged Pete Hegseth’s office in recent weeks, the White House will block the US defense secretary’s choice of chief of staff and select a candidate of its own, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Hegseth had suggested giving the chief of staff position to Marine Col Ricky Buria after the first person in the role, Joe Kasper, left last month in the wake of a contentious leak investigation that brought the ouster of three other senior aides.
Continue reading...Officials float idea of compact of free association (Cofa), used by US to keep close ties with Pacific Island nations
US officials are discussing a plan to pull Greenland into America’s sphere of influence using a type of agreement that the United States has used to keep close ties with several Pacific Island nations, according to two US officials and another person familiar with the discussions.
Under the plan being considered, the Trump administration would propose to Greenland’s leaders that the island enter into a so-called compact of free association, or Cofa, with the United States.
Continue reading...Any Trump administration efforts to send non-Libyans to the north African country would violate a prior court order
Immigrants in Texas who were told they would be deported to Libya sat on a military airfield tarmac for hours on Wednesday, unsure of what would happen next, an attorney for one of the men has said.
The attorney, Tin Thanh Nguyen, told the news agency Reuters that his client, a Vietnamese construction worker from Los Angeles, was among the immigrants woken in the early morning hours and bussed from an immigration detention center in Pearsall, Texas, to an airfield where a military aircraft awaited them.
Continue reading...Pope faced questions about his handling of clerical sexual abuse cases earlier in his career after a survivors group filed a complaint
Groups supporting clergy-molestation survivors say they are gravely concerned and insulted by the election of Pope Leo XIV after he overcame questions about his handling of clerical sexual abuse cases earlier in his career to become the Roman Catholic church’s first-ever US-born leader.
Before Robert Prevost’s ascent to the papacy at age 69, he was leading a chapter of the Augustinian religious order in his home town of Chicago when allegations surfaced that a priest and Catholic high school principal under his jurisdiction had molested at least one student as well as kept child-abuse imagery.
Continue reading...President Claudia Sheinbaum says lawsuit has been filed after US lawmakers voted on name change
Mexico has sued Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said on Friday.
“The lawsuit has already been filed,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference, without saying where and when it was submitted.
Continue reading...Groups say plan to resume limited humanitarian assistance under strict Israeli rules ‘risks enabling war crimes’
Aid groups have voiced alarm at US moves to pressure them into accepting an Israeli proposal to resume limited humanitarian assistance to the war-ravaged territory under strictly controlled conditions.
The Trump administration has attempted to strong-arm international agencies – including the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) – into accepting Israel’s stringent rules for resuming deliveries, according to sources familiar with the discussions and news reports.
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