Category Archives: US News

Trump’s aid cuts blamed as food rations stopped for a million refugees in Uganda

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UN World Food Programme says $50m is urgently needed amid fears that Uganda may now begin forced repatriations

Food rations for a million people in Uganda have been cut off completely this week amid a funding crisis at the United Nations World Food Programme, raising fears that refugees will now be pushed back into countries at war.

The WFP in Uganda warned two weeks ago that $50m (£37m) was urgently needed to help refugees and asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and Sudan.

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Columbia University calls in police to clear pro-Palestinian protesters

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University’s president says activists refused to leave library despite warnings of disciplinary action and arrest

Columbia University asked the New York police department to help clear pro-Palestinian activists from the campus’s main library after protesters clashed with the school’s public safety officers.

Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said in a statement that protesters had refused to leave the building despite being warned that a failure to comply would result in disciplinary action and possibly arrest for trespassing.

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Brazil rejects US request to designate two gangs as terrorist organizations

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Security minister says US delegation wanted classification for PCC and Comando Vermelho to aid immigration policy

The Brazilian government has rejected a request by the US state department to designate two major criminal gangs as terrorist organizations, according to Mario Sarrubo, Brazil’s national secretary of public security.

Sarrubo said the request was made on Tuesday during a meeting between US and Brazilian officials in Brasília.

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Jon Voight defends Trump’s film tariff plan: ‘Something has to be done’

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Oscar-winning actor gives first interview to Variety since working with Trump on plan to shake up Hollywood

Jon Voight, the actor who inspired Donald Trump’s surprise statement about placing a 100% tariff on foreign-made films, has given his first interview on the supposed plan to “give people back their dignity and their jobs”.

“Something has to be done, and it’s way past time,” the 86-year-old actor told Variety while he was, according to the magazine, “driving through what sounded like a car wash”.

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Vance says Russia asking ‘too much’ in ceasefire talks with Ukraine

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Trump says ‘it’s possible that’s right’ about the vice-president’s remarks amid frustrations with Russia

JD Vance has said that Russia is asking for “too much” in its negotiations with Ukraine in the latest sign of growing frustration from Washington with ceasefire talks to end the war between the two countries.

Speaking at a security conference of senior military and diplomatic leaders in Washington, the US vice-president said that the White House is focused on getting the two sides to hold direct talks and is ready to walk away if certain benchmarks are not reached.

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House panel on campus antisemitism likened to cold-war ‘un-American’ committee

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Georgetown professor called to testify says Republican-led proceedings ‘an attempt to chill protected speech’

A congressional panel investigating antisemitism on US college campuses on Wednesday was accused of trying to chill constitutionally protected free speech and likened to a cold-war era committee notorious for wrecking the lives of people suspected of communist sympathies.

The comparison was made by David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University law centre, who told the House education and workforce committee that its proceedings resembled those staged by the House un-American Activities Committee (Huac) during and after the second world war.

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Three ex-Tennessee officers acquitted of state charges in fatal beating of Tyre Nichols

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Men, who have been convicted of federal charges, found not guilty in death of Black man, 29, after he fled traffic stop

Three former Memphis officers were acquitted on Wednesday of state charges, including second-degree murder, in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop in 2023.

A jury took about eight and a half hours over two days to find Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith not guilty on all charges after a nine-day trial in state court in Memphis. After the jury’s verdict was read, the defendants hugged their lawyers as relatives of the former officers cried. One relative yelled: “Thank you, Jesus!”

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Trump plans to announce US will refer to Arabian Gulf rather than Persian Gulf

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Move sparks outrage in Iran as diplomats try to broker deal between Tehran and Washington over nuclear programme

Donald Trump plans to announce while on his trip to Saudi Arabia next week that the US will now refer to the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia rather than the Persian Gulf.

The move has prompted outrage from Iranian leaders, and last-minute efforts are being made to persuade Trump to pull back from offending Iran in the midst of vital talks on the future of the Iranian nuclear programme. “If Trump went ahead with the proposal he would manage to unite every Iranian, pro- or anti-regime, against him, and that is a near impossible achievement,” one diplomat said.

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Court orders detained Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk returned to Vermont

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Lawyers say the Turkish national, who has been held in a Louisiana Ice center for two weeks, was illegally detained

A federal appeals court on Wednesday granted a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England for hearings to determine whether her rights were violated.

A judicial panel of the New York-based US second circuit court of appeals ruled in the case of Rümeysa Öztürk after lawyers representing her and the US justice department presented arguments at a hearing on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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China to cut interest rates in response to trade war with US

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Half-point cut to be made to banks’ reserve requirement ratio and 1tn yuan released into banking system

China will cut interest rates and inject some much-needed liquidity into the domestic economy, as the country steels itself for a bruising trade war with the US.

The People’s Bank of China said on Wednesday it would make a half-point cut to the banks’ reserve requirement ratio, its benchmark interest rate, and release 1tn yuan (£103.6bn) into the banking system.

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Biden accuses Trump of ‘modern-day appeasement’ towards Russia

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In his first interview since leaving office, former US president told the BBC he fears for US-Europe relations

Joe Biden has accused Donald Trump of “modern-day appeasement” in his approach to Russia and expressed fears that Europe would “lose confidence in the certainty of America” in his first interview since leaving the White House in January.

“He [Vladimir Putin] believes it [Russia] has historical rights to Ukraine,” Biden told the BBC. Anybody who thought the Russian president would stop if Kyiv conceded territory, as recently proposed by Trump, “is just foolish”, he said.

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Rubio says Venezuelans sheltering at Argentinian embassy ‘rescued’ by US

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Secretary of state says opponents of Maduro have left diplomatic compound in Caracas and are ‘safely on US soil’

Five members of Venezuela’s political opposition have left the Argentinian diplomatic compound in their country’s capital, Caracas, where they had sheltered for more than a year to avoid arrest, and were in the United States on Tuesday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said.

Rubio did not provide details of the group’s movements to reach the US, but he described the event as a rescue operation.

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Trump says three Israeli hostages held in Gaza have died

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US president reports three deaths and laments ‘terrible situation’ but does not provide further details

Donald Trump said Tuesday that three more hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have died, bringing the number still alive to 21.

At a White House swearing-in ceremony for his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump revealed that three more Israeli hostages have died in Gaza, meaning that just 21 of the hostages taken from Israel during the 7 October attacks remain alive.

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Woman says Boston hotel guard told her to leave bathroom because she ‘was a man’

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Same-sex couple says they were appalled after being confronted and wrongfully accused in women’s restroom

A couple visiting Boston says they were left confused and appalled after being forced out of the Liberty Hotel during a Kentucky Derby party on Saturday, following what they describe as being confronted and wrongfully accused in the women’s restroom.

Ansley Baker and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, both cisgender women, said a hotel security guard entered the women’s bathroom and demanded Baker leave the stall she was using, claiming she didn’t belong there.

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US agrees ceasefire with Houthis in Yemen after dozens killed in airstrikes

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The Houthis have agreed to stop targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea, but said attacks against Israel will continue

The US will halt its bombing campaign against Yemen’s Houthis after the Iran-aligned group agreed to stop targeting shipping in the Red Sea.

The halt – announced by the US president, Donald Trump, during an Oval Office meeting with Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, came on a day in which Israel claimed its jets had fully disabled Yemen’s main airport, including three civilian aircraft on the ground, in retaliation for a missile strike on Sunday that hit within the perimeter of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.

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Identity of second man illegally deported to El Salvador prison revealed

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Daniel Lozano-Camargo, 20, was deported in March in violation of a legal settlement over his asylum application

The identity of a second man illegally deported from the US by the Trump administration in defiance of a court order and now in detention in El Salvador has been revealed.

Daniel Lozano-Camargo, a 20-year-old Venezuelan, was deported to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot terrorism confinement facility in March under the White House’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, Politico reported.

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How Trump’s walkaway diplomacy enabled Israel’s worst impulses

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The common perception is that Trump has largely moved on, leaving an emboldened Netanyahu to his own devices

The Israeli plan to occupy and depopulate Gaza may not be identical to Donald Trump’s vision of a new riviera, but his inspiration and the US’s walkaway diplomacy have ushered Benjamin Netanyahu to the precipice of a dire new chapter in the Israel-Gaza war.

The common perception in both Washington and Israel is that Trump has largely moved on, leaving an emboldened Netanyahu to his own devices, while his offhand proposals for turning Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” have provided cover for rightwing Israeli politicians to enthusiastically support the forced resettlement of the Palestinian population.

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Rwandan talks with US over deported migrants are chance to expand its influence

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African country looks to position itself as a useful option for countries’ anti-migration policies

Talks between Rwanda and the US to host deported migrants are the latest move by the African country to position itself as a useful option for the anti-migration policies of allied governments.

Previous high-profile attempts, however, including with the UK, Israel and Denmark, failed after becoming beset by controversy.

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Trump says ‘we just want to be friends’ as Canada PM torpedoes 51st state idea

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Mark Carney said country was ‘not for sale’ in much anticipated summit between leaders at White House

Donald Trump has said he “just want[s] to be friends with Canada” after his first post-election meeting with the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney – who used the gathering to shoot down any prospect of his country becoming the 51st state.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump praised Carney – whose Liberal party won the federal election last week – for one of the “greatest political comebacks of all time”, and described the prime minister’s visit as “an honour” for the White House.

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Pentagon stopped Ukraine military aid shipments in February without Trump’s approval

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Order to cancel 11 military aid flights – which were quickly reinstated – originated in defense head Pete Hegseth’s office

Roughly a week after Donald Trump started his second term as president, the US military issued an order to three freight airlines operating out of Dover air force base in Delaware and a US base in Qatar: stop 11 flights loaded with artillery shells and other weaponry that were bound for Ukraine.

In a matter of hours, frantic questions reached Washington from Ukrainians in Kyiv and from officials in Poland, where the shipments were coordinated. Who had ordered the US Transportation Command, known as TransCom, to halt the flights? Was it a permanent pause on all aid? Or just some?

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