Category Archives: US News

Former CIA officer sentenced to 30 years for sexually assaulting scores of women

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Brian Jeffrey Raymond of California was found guilty of drugging and raping women in his government apartments

A former CIA officer who drugged and sexually assaulted dozens of women was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced.

Brian Jeffrey Raymond, 48, of La Mesa, California, drugged more than two dozen women and performed nonconsensual sexual acts or made sexual contact with at least 10 women, the justice department said in a press release.

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Kamala Harris holds star-studded event with Oprah in battleground state of Michigan – as it happened

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Joe Biden will address the Economic Club of Washington DC today, one day after the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time in four years, marking a significant turning point for the economy.

While the president is expected to hail a “new milestone” in America’s post-pandemic economic recovery, his top officials said he would acknowledge there remains more work to do.

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Ex-Trump advisers help to grow pro-Russia website that spreads misinformation

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George Papadopoulos and others involved in Intelligencer, increasingly popular source of news in rightwing circles

Amid the recent crackdown on Russian influence in American media, a group of former Trump advisers and operatives have quietly helped build a pro-Russian website that frequently spreads debunked conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine, election fraud and vaccines.

Working alongside contributors for Kremlin state media, the former Donald Trump policy aide George Papadopoulos, his wife, Simona Mangiante, and others have become editorial board members of the website Intelligencer, which is increasingly becoming a source of news for those in the rightwing ecosystem.

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US cannabis company Eaze pays supervisors less than those they oversee, workers say

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Shift supervisors unable to unionize are left in limbo, despite workers claiming low pay and lack of authority

The largest cannabis delivery service in the US faces a growing backlash in southern California from shift supervisors who said they are paid less than the workers they supervise, struggle to make ends meet on low and stagnant wages, and are at odds with the company over their right to form a union.

Nearly 600 delivery drivers at Eaze in California voted to unionize in 2023 with the United Food and Commercial Workers, and secured a first contract earlier this year after threatening to strike in April.

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Boeing accused of being ‘unprepared’ for federal mediation as strike continues

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Union members ‘frustrated’ that company was allegedly unwilling to discuss wages and pensions in negotiations

Union officials have accused Boeing of being “unprepared” after talks resumed to end the US’s largest strike.

Boeing workers will be joined on picket lines by the president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), Brian Bryant on Thursday a day after the company announced plans to furlough “large numbers” of employees.

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First Thing: Trump stages first rally since apparent assassination attempt

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Presidential nominee claims God saved him and apparent attempts on his life have made him tougher. Plus, how to win at canapes

Good morning.

Donald Trump staged his first rally on Wednesday night since the second apparent attempt on his life, telling his supporters in New York that “these encounters with death” had made him stronger and attributing his survival to divine intervention.

Why did he pick New York? While Kamala Harris has a double-digit lead in the state overall, Long Island itself has moved to the right in recent years.

Why would Iran do this? Intelligence officials say the state opposes Trump’s re-election, thinking he will worsen relations between Washington and Tehran.

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The great divide: are office workers more productive than those at home?

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Amazon has told staff they must return five days a week – but experts don’t all agree that flexible working cuts output

Four years ago when the world of work was upended by the Covid pandemic, confident predictions were made that a permanent shift in remote working would follow the removal of lockdown restrictions.

Much has clearly changed since. Some of the earliest preachers of the brave new teleworking world – including the US tech companies Google and Microsoft – are among the most vocal to repent.

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California Teamsters endorse Harris after national union declines to back any candidate – live

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Union chief Sean O’Brien says ‘neither candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union’ but says member polls favored Trump

The US is still not prepared for inevitable Russian attacks on its elections, the former special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in 2016 and links between Donald Trump and Moscow, warns in a new book.

“It is … evident that Americans have not learned the lessons of Russia’s attack on our democracy in 2016,” Mueller writes in a preface to Interference: The Inside Story of Trump, Russia and the Mueller Investigation by Aaron Zebley, James Quarles and Andrew Goldstein, prosecutors who worked for Mueller from 2017 to 2019.

As we detailed in our report, the evidence was clear that the Russian government engaged in multiple, systematic attacks designed to undermine our democracy and favor one candidate over the other.”

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US House federal funding bill fails to pass as shutdown deadline nears

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Contentious government funding package championed by Mike Johnson was voted down 202-220

A government funding package championed by Republican House speaker Mike Johnson failed to pass on Wednesday, with less than two weeks left to prevent a shutdown starting 1 October.

The final vote was 202 to 220, with 14 House Republicans and all but three House Democrats opposing the bill. Two Republican members voted “present”.

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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to stay in jail until sex-trafficking trial begins as bail again denied

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Second judge refuses bail to music mogul, 54, citing possibility that he could tamper with witnesses

Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs will have to await trial on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges in a Brooklyn jail instead of his luxurious Miami Beach mansion after a second judge refused to grant a $50m bail package offered by his lawyers.

On Wednesday, US district judge Andrew L Carter Jr denied Combs’s request to be released to home detention with GPS monitoring, pointing to the possibility that Combs may tamper with witnesses.

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Body found near site of Kentucky highway mass shooting

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Investigators working to identify body located in vicinity of I-75 exit where suspect Joseph Couch opened fire

Authorities have found a body near the rural south-eastern Kentucky site where on Saturday a gunman opened fire on an interstate highway, hitting a dozen vehicles and wounding five people, police said Wednesday.

Investigators were working to identify the body, said Scottie Pennington, state police master trooper, in a social media post. It was located in the vicinity of the Interstate 75 exit where the 7 September shooting occurred near London, a city of about 8,000 people roughly 75 miles (120km) south of Lexington.

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Civil rights groups condemn senator’s questioning of Arab American witness

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Republican John Kennedy of Louisiana accuses thinktank director of supporting Hamas in heated hate crime hearing

A congressional hearing on hate crimes drew charges of the bigotry it was meant to address after a Republican senator told the female Muslim head of a thinktank to “hide your head in a bag” and accused her of supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.

John Kennedy, the GOP senator for Louisiana, drew condemnation from Democrats as well as Muslim, Jewish and civil liberties groups for the remark, aimed at Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, at a hearing staged by the Senate judiciary committee.

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Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge as he awaits retrial

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New allegations against disgraced film mogul, currently jailed in New York, not related to his overturned conviction

Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.

Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.

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Families of Americans ensnared in DRC coup plot assert their innocence

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Young Americans face death penalty for ‘amateurish’ assault in Congo that was led by one of their fathers

The family of a Utah student sentenced to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo for his alleged role in a failed coup d’etat in which his father was killed fears he and two other Americans could be executed within days without US government intervention.

Marcel Malanga, 22, was one of dozens convicted and sentenced at a military tribunal in Kinshasa last week, after the attempted overthrow of the Congolese government in May. The “amateurish” assault, which left six dead, was led by his father, Christian Malanga, a former DRC opposition leader, army captain and self-styled warlord.

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September Supermoon: the best place and time to see tonight’s bigger and brighter full moon

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Find a viewing spot that is dark and looks towards the east, which is where the moon will rise. A flat location will give a ‘really cool’ perspective, experts say

If you look up into the sky on Wednesday night, you’ll likely notice the full moon gleaming bigger and brighter than usual.

You’ll be looking at the second supermoon of the year – the term for when the moon’s orbit is closest to Earth while it is full.

How to take a good photograph of the full moon on your phone or camera

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‘It is OK to stand out’: US teen’s hands and feet are world record-setting

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Eric Kilburn, 16, says those who put others down over differences ‘are usually the most unhappy people out there’

Eric Kilburn Jr’s mother knew his feet were exceptionally big when, in his teens, she began needing to spend thousands of dollars to have his shoes specially made. But it turned out they were bigger than anyone else’s in the world who was his age – and so were his hands.

Sixteen-year-old Eric fits his 13.5in (34cm) feet in American size 23 shoes (UK size 22) – more than double the average of adult men, which is about 9 in the US. His hands, at 9.13in, easily surpass the 7.14in average for his age.

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Trump-allied Pac fires canvassing vendor in crucial states weeks before election

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Elon Musk’s America Pac replaces voter turnout operations in Arizona and Nevada with less than 50 days until election

America Pac, one of the largest and the most ambitious of the groups supporting Donald Trump’s campaign, is replacing its voter turnout operations in the crucial battleground states of Arizona and Nevada, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The political action committee, backed by billionaire Elon Musk, has ended its contract with the September Group and will hire a new company to knock on doors with fewer than 50 days left until the election.

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Trump praises Secret Service in first event since thwarted assassination plot

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Former president talks up tariffs in Flint, Michigan, and warns attendees of dangers of nuclear ‘obliteration’

Trump held his first campaign event on Tuesday since the thwarted assassination attempt over the weekend, telling a packed 6,000-seat arena in Flint, Michigan that the assassin “couldn’t even get a shot off” while describing the Secret Service’s “great” response to the threat.

During a town hall moderated by former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump took audience questions about manufacturing and the economy, among other issues. Like his first appearance after the attempt on his life in July – also a rally in Michigan – Trump appeared ready to return to business as usual on the campaign trail, and his supporters were eager to see him in action.

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Russia propaganda group behind fake Kamala Harris hit-and-run story, says Microsoft

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Microsoft researchers found that the group created a video, paid an actor to appear as the alleged victim, and spread the claim through a fake website

A false claim circulating on social media that Kamala Harris was involved in an alleged hit-and-run in San Francisco in 2011 is the work of a covert Russian disinformation operation, according to new research by Microsoft.

Researchers found that the group created a video, paid an actor to appear as the alleged victim, and spread the claim through a fake website for a nonexistent San Francisco news outlet named KBSF-TV. The Russian group responsible, which Microsoft dubs Storm-1516, is described as a Kremlin-aligned troll farm.

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JD Vance defends pet-eating remarks: ‘The media has a responsibility to fact-check’

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Republican VP nominee claims at Wisconsin rally that constituents told him ‘they’d seen something in Springfield’

JD Vance defended his comments about Haitian immigrants eating pets during a Tuesday rally, saying that “the media has a responsibility to fact-check” stories – not him.

The rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, came two days after the Ohio senator told CNN host Dana Bash it was OK “to create stories” to draw attention to issues his constituents care about, regarding inflammatory and unfounded claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had eaten residents’ pets.

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