Category Archives: US News

Ethel Kennedy, human rights advocate, recovering from stroke

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The widow of US senator Robert F Kennedy is ‘getting best care possible’, her family said in a statement on X

Ethel Kennedy, a human rights advocate and widow of US Senator Robert F Kennedy, is recovering from a stroke she suffered last week, according to a statement her grandson, the former representative Joseph P Kennedy III, shared on X on Tuesday.

“Unfortunately on Thursday morning she suffered a stroke in her sleep,” her grandson posted on X. “She was brought to an area hospital where she is now receiving treatment.” His aunt, Kerry Kennedy, later posted the same statement.

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Zelenskyy ‘victory plan’ summit in doubt after Joe Biden pulls out

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US president prepares for arrival of Hurricane Milton as German chancellor says meeting will be rescheduled

Joe Biden has called off a four-day trip to Germany this week that had been intended to culminate in a summit to discuss Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “victory plan” for Ukraine.

The White House said on Tuesday evening that the president would stay at home “to oversee preparations for and the response” to Hurricane Milton, which is expected to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday.

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Hurricane Milton intensifies to category 5 again as Biden warns storm could be worst in over 100 years – as it happened

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National Hurricane Center announces sustained winds of up to 165mph, as US president says his team is doing everything ‘to save lives’. This blog is now closed.

Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book “War” also reveals that Donald Trump kept in touch with Vladimir Putin after his presidency ended, CNN reports.

Citing an aide to the former president, Woodward writes that there have been “maybe as many as seven” calls between the two since Trump left the White House.

But Putin — who infamously isolated himself over fears of Covid — told Trump on a phone call to keep the delivery of the Abbott machines quiet, Woodward reports.

“Please don’t tell anybody you sent these to me,” Putin said to Trump, according to Woodward.

“That son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy. He’s a bad fucking guy!” Biden said earlier this year, as Israel’s invasion of Gaza ground on.

“That fucking Putin … Putin is evil. We are dealing with the epitome of evil.” Those were the president’s thoughts, sometime after Russia invaded Ukraine.

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Trump took ‘British naval secrets’ to Mar-a-Lago, says Christopher Steele

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Former UK spy says in new book Trump ‘apparently unauthorizedly’ took secrets with him

Donald Trump took “British naval secrets” to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House, the former UK spy Christopher Steele says in a new book.

“I was reliably informed by impeccable sources that among the classified documents which Trump, apparently unauthorizedly, took with him to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his presidency were British naval secrets, some of the most sensitive ones in our governmental system,” Steele writes.

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US unions step up efforts to make case that Trump is no friend of workers

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Unions have mobilized thousands of members to convince them that Harris is a far better ally than Trump

Even though the vast majority of US labor unions have endorsed Kamala Harris, many union members support Donald Trump, and with the race so close, unions have stepped up efforts to convince those workers that Trump is no friend of unions or workers.

In Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – states that Harris badly needs to win – union households are an important voting bloc, and unions have mobilized thousands of members to engage in worksite conversations, door-knocking and phone-banking to make the case that Harris is far better for workers than Trump.

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Viktor Orbán would celebrate Trump victory with ‘bottles of champagne’

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Hungarian prime minister voiced support for former US president ahead of hosting EU leaders in Budapest

Hungary’s nationalist leader Viktor Orbán has said he will open “several bottles of champagne” if Donald Trump returns to the White House next month, underscoring his differences with mainstream European leaders.

The Hungarian prime minister is due to host fellow EU leaders for a summit in Budapest a few days after the US presidential election on 5 November.

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US states sue TikTok, claiming its addictive features harm youth mental health

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States and District of Columbia allege platform’s ‘dopamine-inducing’ algorithm can lead to anxiety and depression

More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia have filed lawsuits against TikTok on Tuesday, alleging the popular short-form video app is harming youth mental health by designing its platform to be addictive to kids.

The lawsuits stem from a national investigation into TikTok, which was launched in March 2022 by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from many states, including California, Kentucky and New Jersey. All of the complaints were filed in state courts.

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Donald Trump claims to have been to Gaza despite no evidence of visit

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Former president says territory where 41,000 people have been killed ‘could be better than Monaco’ if developed

Donald Trump’s truthfulness as well as his knowledge of Middle East geography has come under fresh scrutiny after the former president claimed to have been to Gaza – although there is no evidence of him ever visiting the war-torn Palestinian territory.

Trump raised eyebrows after the Republican nominee in November’s presidential election told Hugh Hewitt, a rightwing radio host, that he had been in the tiny coastal strip where more than 41,000 people have been killed and the majority of buildings badly damaged or destroyed in blistering Israeli military attacks responding to last year’s 7 October attack by Hamas. The Hamas attack killed 1,200 about Israelis and took about 250 hostage.

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Anthony Fauci: West Nile virus caught from mosquito ‘nearly took me down’

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US’s former longtime top public health official describes ‘terrifying’ disorientation from the virus

The US’s former longtime top public health official Anthony Fauci says his recent bout with West Nile virus “nearly took [him] down”.

In an opinion piece published Monday by the New York Times, Fauci explained how he likely contracted the virus – which spreads through mosquito bites – outside his home in Washington before he was hospitalized in August.

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Extremist politics divided this conservative California community. What will it take to turn the tide?

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Shasta county battles rising homelessness and high suicide rates, but its political agenda is focused on remaking the voting system – can the damage be undone?

This is the second of three stories on the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election in Shasta county, a region of 180,000 people in northern California that has emerged as a center of the election denial movement and hotbed for far-right politics. Read the first one here.

Tim Garman is worried about Shasta county. His community has been in the midst of a dizzying lurch to the far right, gaining national attention for its rowdy and radical politics and full-throated embrace of election conspiracy theories.

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Floridians warned ‘you are going to die’ if they don’t evacuate as Milton nears

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Thousands of evacuees clog highways as storm projected to hit Tampa Bay on Wednesday restrengthens to category 5

Florida’s western coast was making emergency preparations on Tuesday for the impact of Hurricane Milton, with thousands of evacuees clogging highways, contending with fuel shortages, and the mayor of Tampa warning residents bluntly “you are going to die” if they stayed behind.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Milton would retain major hurricane status and “expand in size” as it approached Florida after passing the Mexican city of Mérida before swerving north towards the US.

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Mountaineers who were stranded in Himalayas describe loss of their gear

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British climber Fay Manners, who was stuck for three days, says: ‘There was a big, big, long sense of silence between us’

A British mountaineer and her American companion who were stranded in the Himalayas for three days without food have described the long silence between them after the bulk of their equipment plunged into a ravine.

Fay Manners, 37, and Michelle Dvorak, 31, had been climbing the Chaukhamba mountain in northern India, when they issued an SOS message on Thursday, with nothing further being heard from them.

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Rust armorer pleads guilty to gun charge in separate case

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Hannah Gutierrez-Reed changed her plea in exchange for a reduced sentence for carrying a gun into a bar

The weapons supervisor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film Rust pleaded guilty Monday to a separate criminal charge of carrying a gun into a licensed liquor establishment.

Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed agreed to change her plea to guilty on the charge in exchange for a reduced sentence of 18 months supervised probation.

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Trump marks 7 October anniversary and criticizes ‘weak’ Biden and Harris

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Republican nominee says attack – ‘one of the darkest days in all history’ – would not have happened if he were president

Donald Trump marked the first anniversary of the 7 October Hamas terrorist attacks, which he called “one of the darkest days in all of history”, with a commemoration for victims and hostages at his golf resort in Miami on Monday night, but swiftly turned the event into an attack on Kamala Harris.

He also repeated a previous claim that the attack on Israel would never have happened if he was still in the White House.

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Fema chief warns ‘dangerous’ Trump falsehoods hampering Helene response

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Misinformation spread by Trump, his supporters and others about the hurricane has shrouded recovery efforts

A slew of falsehoods about Hurricane Helene, including claims of funds diverted from storm survivors to migrants and even that Democrats somehow directed the hurricane itself, have hampered the response to one of the deadliest hurricanes to ever hit the US, the nation’s top emergency official has warned.

Misinformation spread by Donald Trump, his supporters and others about the hurricane has shrouded the recovery effort for communities shattered by Helene, which tore through five states causing at least 230 deaths and tens of billions of dollars of damage. Many places, such as in western North Carolina, are still without a water supply, electricity, navigable roads or vital supplies.

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Hurricane Milton intensifies to category 5 as Florida braces for ‘major impacts’

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Storm could make landfall on Wednesday as state prepares what could be biggest evacuation since 2017

Hurricane Milton has rapidly intensified into a category 5 hurricane, just two days before it is due to make landfall in Florida.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami issued the updated forecast on Monday after saying the storm had become a category 4 hurricane more quickly than initially expected.

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Salmon swim freely in Klamath River for first time in more than 100 years

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News comes after Iron Gate dam was removed to let river near California-Oregon border return to natural flow

For the first time in more than a century, salmon are swimming freely along the Klamath River and its tributaries, just days after the largest dam removal project in US history was completed.

Researchers determined that Chinook salmon began migrating on 3 October into previously inaccessible habitat above the site of the former Iron Gate dam, one of four towering dams near the California-Oregon border that were demolished as part of a national movement to let rivers return to their natural flow and to restore ecosystems for fish and other wildlife.

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Kamala Harris pays tribute to victims of 7 October attacks on first anniversary

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Vice-president commits to ‘always’ support Israel’s defense as Biden condemns ‘vicious surge in antisemitism’ in US

US politicians on both sides of the aisle issued statements marking the anniversary of the 7 October attacks, with Kamala Harris paying tribute to the victims and calling, in their honor, to “never lose sight of the dream of peace, dignity, and security for all”.

Outside the vice-presidential residence, Harris, accompanied by her husband, spoke of the nearly 1,200 people, including 46 Americans, killed in Israel one year ago.

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Biden to visit Angola as global powers vie for African influence

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US and EU are supporting infrastructure projects in Angola, which has historically been closer to Russia and China

When Joe Biden travels to Angola on Sunday, it will be the first trip to an African country of his presidency and the first to the continent by a sitting US president since Barack Obama visited Kenya and Ethiopia in 2015.

It is a marker of how Africa’s 54 countries are increasingly courted by global powers, drawn to the continent by geopolitical shifts and an abundance of minerals needed for electric cars and other battery-powered technologies.

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Trump speaks at 7 October event in Florida – as it happened

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Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are among the global leaders commemorating the anniversary of the 7 October attack in Israel today, as is Donald Trump.

At 11.45am ET, the president will hold a ceremony at the White House, where he’ll conduct a yahrzeit candle lighting alongside an unnamed rabbi. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will at 4pm plant a tree on the grounds of the vice-president’s residence in honor of the lives lost in the attack. Harris will also give a speech.

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