US-Iranian journalist believed to have been detained in Iran

News of Reza Valizadeh’s imprisonment comes as Iran marks 45th anniversary of US embassy hostage crisis

An Iranian-American journalist who once worked for a US government-funded broadcaster is believed to have been detained by Iran for months, authorities have said, further raising the stakes as Tehran threatens to retaliate over an Israeli attack on the country.

The imprisonment of Reza Valizadeh, which was acknowledged to the Associated Press by the US Department of State, came as Iran marked the 45th anniversary on Sunday of the US embassy takeover and hostage crisis. It also followed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatening both Israel and the US the day before with “a crushing response” as long-range B-52 bombers reached the Middle East in an attempt to deter Tehran.

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Harris grabs unexpected last-minute lead over Trump in Iowa poll

In shocking result that could reshape the race, ex-president falls three points behind in a state he won in 2016 and 2020

A poll in Iowa that has unexpectedly put Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump in what was previously expected to be a safe state for the Republicans has sent shockwaves through America’s poll-watchers.

The Selzer poll carried out for the Des Moines Register newspaper showed Harris ahead of her Republican rival by three points.

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Thousands of women rally nationwide for abortion rights and feminist causes

Demonstrators from Texas to Connecticut and Washington DC carried signs and chanted: ‘We won’t go back!’

Thousands of women rallied Saturday in the nation’s capital and elsewhere in support of abortion rights and other feminist causes ahead of Tuesday’s election.

Demonstrators carried posters and signs through city streets, chanting slogans such as: “We won’t go back!” Some men joined with them. Speakers urged people to vote in the election – not only for president but also on down-ballot issues such as abortion-rights amendments that are going before voters in various states.

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Georgia judge rejects last-ditch Republican attempt to block voting

Judge allows Fulton county election offices to be open Saturday and Sunday for mail-in ballots to be dropped off

A Georgia judge on Saturday rejected a Republican lawsuit trying to block counties from opening election offices on Saturday and Sunday to let voters hand in their mail ballots in person.

The lawsuit only named Fulton county, a Democratic stronghold that includes most of the city of Atlanta and is home to 11% of the state’s voters. But at least five other populous counties that tend to vote for Democrats also announced election offices would open over the weekend to allow hand return of absentee ballots.

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Drugs and weapons seized in sweep of jail where Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is held

Brooklyn detention center holding 1,200 has been under scrutiny since two fatal stabbings this summer

Federal authorities have confirmed that they seized drugs, homemade weapons and electronic devices during a sweep of the jail where Sean “Diddy” Combs is being held on sex trafficking conspiracy charges ahead of a trial next year.

The Bureau of Prisons, which headed up the interagency sweep of the Metropolitan detention center (MDC) in Brooklyn that began on Monday, said the action was not related to Combs’s detention but was “preplanned and coordinated to ensure the safety and security” of staff and inmates.

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New Yorkers urged to conserve water after driest October in 150 years

Mayor Eric Adams asks residents to take shorter showers as city agencies ordered to prepare conservation plans

New York’s mayor urged residents to take shorter showers, fix dripping faucets and otherwise conserve water, issuing a drought watch Saturday after a parched October in the city and in much of the United States.

A drought watch is the first of three potential levels of water-saving directives, and Eric Adams pitched it in a social media video as a step to try to ward off the possibility of a worse shortage in the United States’ most populous city.

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Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib declines to endorse Kamala Harris

The Palestinian American ‘squad’ member has been critical of Harris and the Democratic party’s inaction on Gaza

Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib declined to endorse Kamala Harris at a union rally in Detroit, where the war in Gaza is the top issue for the largest block of Arab American voters in the country.

Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, is the only one of the so-called leftist “Squad” that has not endorsed the Democrat candidate. The other three members – Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York – endorsed Harris in July.

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US politics live: Women’s marches hit the streets in support of Harris as both candidates target east coast – as it happened

Harris leading Trump in new Iowa poll in startling reversal, pulling ahead of Trump 47% to 44%

Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump head to North Carolina on Saturday to try to clinch support in the south-eastern battleground state just three days before Tuesday’s US presidential election.

It will be the fourth day in a row that vice-president Harris and former president Trump visit the same state on the same day, underlining the critical importance of the seven states likely to decide the race, which opinion polls show to be on a knife’s edge, Reuters reported.

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Shark bites off surfer’s leg in Hawaii

A 61-year-old man was surfing on Friday morning when a shark bit him, completely severing his leg

A shark bit a Maui surfer on Friday and severed his leg, authorities said.

The man, 61, was surfing off Waiehu Beach Park on Friday morning when a shark bit him. Police officers who arrived to the scene first tried to control the bleeding with tourniquets. His right leg was “completely severed just below the knee,” Maui county said in a news release.

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Indiana prosecutors claim man confessed to killing two teens on hiking trail in 2017

Richard Allen’s alleged admission came after investigators struggled over case of Liberty German and Abigail Williams

Prosecutors in the trial of Richard Allen, who is accused of killing two teenage girls in Indiana, continued this week to build their case with testimony from a prison psychologist and law enforcement officials who lent credence to the allegation that Allen confessed to the murders while in prison in 2023.

Allen’s alleged admissions came after investigators struggled for years to find the person who killed Liberty “Libby” German, 14, and Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, in 2017 on a hiking trail outside the small town of Delphi.

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US students score win in push for fossil fuel divestment by private high schools

Concerned students press for their high schools – some with $1bn endowments – to reinvest in clean energy

A high school in California has decided not to invest in coal, oil or gas, instead pledging to put money into clean energy. It’s the latest win in a new fossil fuel divestment campus campaign launched by high schoolers across 11 countries that is gaining support in the US.

The Nueva School, an elite private school outside San Francisco, pledged in spring 2024 to invest a portion of its $55m endowment in renewable power. The commitment followed months of pressure from students.

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Elon Musk’s canvassing operation sued in California for alleged labor law violations

Plaintiffs accuse America Pac of several violations during its operation to support Orange county’s Michelle Steel

Elon Musk’s troubled canvassing operation on behalf of Donald Trump and the Republican party is now facing a lawsuit in southern California filed by two women who say they were cheated out of wages and expenses as they knocked on doors for an embattled Republican congresswoman.

The suit accuses Musk’s America PAC, which has poured more than $100m into this year’s election campaign, of “willful violations of the California labor code” by paying the plaintiffs less than it promised and refusing to make up the difference.

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Supreme court rejects Republican bid to throw out thousands of Pennsylvania ballots; Harris says Trump’s Cheney remarks ‘disqualifying’ – live

Justices rule swing state can count provisional ballots of voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected; Harris condemns Republican nominee’s gun remarks

Joe Biden has released the following statement on the latest job report:

In October, unemployment was unchanged at 4.1%, but the devastation from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and new strike activity, lowered job growth. Job growth is expected to rebound in November as our hurricane recovery and rebuilding efforts continue. In addition, I want to congratulate the leadership of the Machinists and Boeing for negotiating a new contract proposal that will be voted on by union members. Machinists at Boeing have sacrificed over the years and deserve a strong contract.

America’s economy remains strong, with 16m jobs created since I took office, including an average 180,000 jobs created each month over the last year – more than the year before the pandemic. We have the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in 50 years, our economy has grown more than any presidential term this century, incomes are up $4,000 over prices, and inflation has fallen nearly to its 2% target.

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Trump repeats attack on Liz Cheney and laments bad hair day at Michigan rally

Ex-president’s speech comes as race enters final stretch, amid battle with Kamala Harris to woo Michigan voters

Donald Trump on Friday tried to energize his voters during a rally in Warren, Michigan, delivering an address replete with his characteristic fear-mongering about immigrants and tangents including musings about his hair.

The former president also repeated his aggressive attack on former Republican representative Liz Cheney, one day after he said she should be under fire with rifles “shooting at her”.

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Blow for Republicans as supreme court rejects appeal over Pennsylvania ballots

Voters in key swing state will be able to cast provisional vote if they forget to put mail-in ballot in secrecy envelope

Pennsylvania voters will be able to cast a provisional vote if they make an error and forget to put their mail-in vote in a required secrecy envelope, the US supreme court ruled on Friday, a decision that could lead to thousands more votes being counted in a key battleground state where the presidential race is extremely tight.

The supreme court announced its decision on Friday on its emergency docket, giving no reasoning for its ruling, which is customary in emergency cases.

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South Carolina executes Richard Moore despite objections from judge and jurors

Moore, 59, was killed on Friday evening as the state pursues a rapid spree of killings

South Carolina has executed a man on death row, despite widespread calls for his life to be spared, including from the judge who originally condemned him to death.

Richard Moore, 59, was killed by lethal injection on Friday evening, minutes after the state’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster, announced he would not be granting him clemency.

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Columbia pays $395,000 to student suspended over protest ‘fart spray’

Israeli student filed lawsuit after suspension for spraying pro-Palestinian protesters with foul-smelling substance

Columbia University has reached a $395,000 settlement with a student who was suspended in January after spraying student protesters with a foul-smelling substance at one of several campus demonstrations in support of Palestine.

The Israeli student who received the payout had been suspended until May.

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US army soldier charged with murder of female sergeant found dead in trash bin

Wooster Rancy, 21, accused in death of Sgt Sarah Roque, 23, whose body was found at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri

A US army soldier has been charged with murder in the death of a fellow service member at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, the military announced Thursday.

The army office of Special Trial Counsel charged the 21-year-old specialist Wooster Rancy on Wednesday with murder and obstructing justice in the death of 23-year-old Sgt Sarah Roque.

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Lebanon’s PM denies US asked him to declare unilateral ceasefire with Israel

Reports of such a request emerge as Israeli jets continues to bombard Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh

The US asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire to revive stalled talks to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, according to a report later denied by the Lebanese prime minister

Two unnamed sources, a Lebanese political source and a senior diplomat, made the claim to Reuters, saying the US envoy, Amos Hochstein, had communicated the proposal to Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, this week.

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Russia sends ex-US consulate employee to prison for ‘secret collaboration with foreign state’

Robert Shonov worked for 25 years for consulate and was arrested on suspicion of passing secret information about war in Ukraine to US

A Russian former employee of the US consulate in Russia’s far eastern city of Vladivostok has been sentenced to four years and ten months in prison for “secret collaboration with a foreign state”.

Robert Shonov worked for more than 25 years for the US consulate until 2021, when Moscow imposed restrictions on local staff working for foreign missions.

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