Category Archives: US News

Tactical ad breaks and lies: rightwing coverage of DNC is exactly as expected

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Hard-right hosts resurrect racist Obama birther conspiracy theory and lament Democrats’ treatment of Joe Biden

As the Democratic party enjoys the afterglow of an exuberant national convention, the rightwing media has settled on consistent counter-programming: complaining about “joy”, hyping up pro-Palestinian protests and expressing a newfound concern for the treatment of Joe Biden.

The coverage, which has at times avoided the more pointed Democratic criticisms of Trump by cutting to ad breaks, has also including the criticism of women both for smiling too much and not smiling enough, and the coining of a new name for Barack Obama: “Barack-Stabber”.

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Anthony Fauci recovering at home after hospitalization for West Nile virus

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Former head of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease is expected to make a full recovery

Anthony Fauci is recovering at home from a West Nile virus infection, a spokesperson told news outlets on Saturday.

The former head of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease was hospitalized for six days with the virus. Fauci, 83, is expected to make a full recovery.

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Industry acts to head off regulation on PFAS pollution from semiconductors

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The Chips and Science Act has led to a production boom but experts say it could generate huge amounts of toxic waste

Producers of PFAS chemicals and semiconductors, a key part of most electronics, have formed a group that develops industry-friendly science aimed at heading off regulation as the facilities release high levels of toxic waste, documents seen by the Guardian show.

The group, called the PFAS Consortium, was formed during a boom in domestic semiconductor production spurred by the Chips and Science Act that has led to $825bn in investment aimed at shoring up the industry.

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Fewer US women received early and adequate prenatal care last year – CDC

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Decline in early prenatal care was accompanied by 5% rise in number of patients who received no prenatal care at all

Fewer women received early and adequate prenatal care in 2023, new data released this week by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows.

The small year-over-year decline comes amid tectonic shifts in women’s rights and access to reproductive healthcare in the US and in spite of a federal government initiative meant to improve prenatal care access. Seventeen states ban abortion at conception or soon after.

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Ronda Rousey ‘so, so sorry’ for prior Sandy Hook shooting denialism

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Ex-UFC superstar calls 2013 post boosting Sandy Hook conspiracy theory video her ‘most regrettable decision’

The former Ultimate Fighting Championship superstar Ronda Rousey has issued her most detailed apology yet for having once engaged in Sandy Hook school shooting denialism after Reddit users inundated her with criticism during a question-and-answer session on the platform.

Rousey on Tuesday was participating in one of the Ask Me Anything discussions that celebrities frequently have with Reddit users when she was quickly flooded with questions and disapproval about her having spread misinformation on the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 schoolchildren.

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Trump accepts RFK Jr endorsement and vows to release JFK assassination files

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Ex-president takes stage with Kennedy in Arizona, hours after independent candidate suspends White House bid

Hours after being endorsed by the third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump said he would release “all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of John F Kennedy” if he were elected president in November, as part of a proposed new commission on presidential assassination attempts, including the one that targeted him.

Speaking at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, Trump also pledged that, if elected, he would “establish a panel of top experts” that would work with Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine advocate, to investigate childhood health problems. The 13 July assassination attempt on Trump is already being officially investigated, including by the Secret Service and the FBI.

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Man accused of threatening to kill Trump arrested in Arizona

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Ronald Syvrud, 66, taken into custody over alleged social media threat as Trump pays visit to border state

An Arizona man who was wanted after threatening over social media to kill Donald Trump was arrested on Thursday, the Cochise county sheriff’s office said.

Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, was in Cochise county on Thursday when he visited the US border with Mexico as part of his campaign.

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US pilot who took magic mushrooms and tried to cut engines says behavior ‘unfathomable’

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Joseph Emerson charged with 83 counts of reckless endangerment over incident on flight to San Francisco

An Alaska Airlines pilot who attempted to shut off the engines of a passenger plane mid-flight after ingesting magic mushrooms said his actions were “unfathomable”, in some of his first public remarks after he was indicted on 83 counts of reckless endangerment.

In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Joseph Emerson described the events of 22 October as “30 seconds of my life that I wish I could change, and I can’t”.

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Massachusetts judge rules Karen Read can be retried for murder after mistrial

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January retrial likely after judge declines to dismiss two charges against Boston woman accused of killing boyfriend

The Massachusetts judge presiding over the high-profile murder trial of Karen Read has rejected a defense motion to dismiss two charges, including murder, setting the stage for the case to be retried in January after jurors deadlocked this summer.

Read, 44, is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, 46, by hitting him with her sport-utility vehicle and leaving him to die in a snowbank. She pleaded not guilty to charges including second-degree murder, manslaughter while under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of a deadly crash.

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Trump hails RFK Jr as ‘great person’ after 2024 endorsement – as it happened

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Merrick Garland announced this morning that the justice department has filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the real estate software company RealPage.

The DoJ alleges that RealPage’s algorithm provided landlords with recommended prices for rentals that allowed them to align their rents.

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RFK Jr voters on ‘frustrating’ suspension of campaign: ‘He’s playing politics’

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Kennedy supporters bitterly disappointed as independent props up two-party system by endorsing Donald Trump

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the arguable black sheep of one of America’s biggest families in politics, has suspended his campaign for president and endorsed Donald Trump – and it has rocked some of his supporters.

On Facebook, where Kennedy groups have amassed thousands of members across the country, some expressed bitter disappointment. In their view, Kennedy was a way to buck, and even break, the two-party system in the US – and while the end of his campaign hurt, backing one of the major party candidates was seen as far worse.

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Florida police officer charged with manslaughter over Black airman’s killing

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Eddie Duran charged over death of Roger Fortson, who was shot multiple times when he opened apartment door

A Florida sheriff’s deputy is facing a charge of manslaughter with a firearm in connection with the fatal shooting of a US air force member who opened his apartment door while holding a gun.

The former Okaloosa county deputy Eddie Duran was charged on Friday in the 3 May shooting death of senior airman Roger Fortson, assistant state attorney Greg Marcille said. That is a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

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Harris’s convention speech sparks live rant from outraged Trump

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Ex-president’s 48 posts during speech confirm his trouble in maintaining discipline on the campaign trail

Kamala Harris’s Democratic national convention speech provoked a torrent of outrage from Donald Trump as the former US president fired off a volley of ripostes, rebuttals and angry calls to TV stations.

Trump posted 48 times on his Truth Social network during Harris’s 37-minute presidential acceptance speech, which was nearly an hour shorter than his own effort at the Republican convention last month.

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High levels of fluoride in drinking water linked to lower IQ in children

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US government study finds association between high levels of fluoride exposure and potential neurological risk

A US government report expected to stir debate concluded that fluoride in drinking water at twice the recommended limit is linked with lower IQ in children.

The report, based on an analysis of previously published research, marks the first time a federal agency has determined – “with moderate confidence” – that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in children. While the report was not designed to evaluate the health effects of fluoride in drinking water alone, it is a striking acknowledgment of a potential neurological risk from high levels of fluoride.

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Canadian government moves to ends nationwide rail strike

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Staff to return to work and trains expected to start running in days after ministers intervene

Canada’s federal government has moved to end a nationwide rail strike that threatened to grind supply chains to a halt, less than a day after it began.

With the government saying it would force the union and rail companies into binding arbitration, picket lines came down and workers at Canadian National Railway (CN) were ordered to return to work on Friday, the Teamsters union said.

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Harris urges America to choose ‘freedom and fairness’ over Trump extremism – as it happened

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Now comes Pat Ryan, who represents a New York battleground district in the House of Representatives.

He hit out at Donald Trump for his reported insults towards military veterans, then obliquely referenced the newfound optimism Democrats are feeling since Joe Biden ended his bid for a second term:

These last few weeks have felt like a new day in America, when we are waking up, rising up, patriots, to demand a president who does not just treat our veterans with respect, but everyone with respect.

We do not retreat, we are the United States of America, we lead!

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Harris makes forceful speech – and skewers the menace from Mar-a-Lago

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Her acceptance address was short on policy and poetry, but the Democratic nominee took the fight to Donald Trump

It was not a political address for the ages. It was not even the best of the convention (no one can compete with the Obamas). But Kamala Harris did enough in her speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday to put an exclamation mark on one of the most dramatic turnarounds in modern political history.

And she made you reflect that you would not want to be Donald Trump facing her in next month’s televised debate. A speech that was short on policy and poetry was nevertheless devastating in skewering the menace from Mar-a-Lago. Trump can expect the same kind of interrogation when the two go head to head that would make most mortals tremble.

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Kamala Harris pledges to ‘chart a new way forward’ as she accepts nomination

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Democratic nominee makes sweeping convention speech and promises to prosecute case against Donald Trump

Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday with a sweeping, pointed speech in which she vowed to prosecute the case against Donald Trump and carry the country to a brighter and fairer future.

In an address that balanced optimism with scathing criticism of her opponent, Harris acknowledged her “unlikely” path to the nomination and extended her hand to voters of all political ideologies who believe in America’s promise. Harris would make history if elected – as the first woman, first Black woman and first Asian American woman to serve as president – but she instead focused on the history that the country could change in November.

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From buzz to fizzle as rumours of Beyoncé performance at DNC fly, then fade

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Multiple news sites reported the star would be a special guest at the closing night of the Democratic National Convention – but it was not to be

As Kamala Harris prepared to deliver the biggest speech of her career, one of the year’s biggest rumours snowballed online and in the media about a potential surprise guest.

In an election campaign in which anything has seemed possible, a Democratic National Convention appearance by Beyoncé, whose song Freedom is the Harris campaign’s official song, seemed for a brief moment like it could be on the cards.

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Democratic convention fails to meet uncommitted delegate deadline for Palestinian speaker

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Ceasefire movement staged sit-in after weeks of unsuccessful attempts to get representative on main stage

After a daylong sit-in, uncommitted delegates entered the United Center to take their seats among their state delegations on the Democratic national convention floor.

The Democratic convention failed to make a 6pm CT deadline that the ceasefire delegates had set for a final decision on allowing a Palestinian American to speak from the main stage.

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