Category Archives: US News

US cites AI deepfakes as reason to keep Biden recording with Robert Hur secret

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DoJ filing says president’s interview with special counsel about handling of classified documents could be ‘improperly altered’

The US Department of Justice is making a novel legal argument to keep a recording of an interview with Joe Biden from becoming public. In a filing late last week, the bureau cited the risk of AI-generated deepfakes as one of the reasons it refuses to release audio of the president’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The conversation about Biden’s handling of classified documents is a source of heated political contention, with Republicans pushing for release of the recordings and the White House moving to block them.

The justice department’s filing, which it released late on Friday night, argues that the recording should not be released on a variety of grounds including privacy interests and executive privilege. One section of the filing, however, is specifically dedicated to the threat of deepfakes and disinformation, stating that there is substantial risk people could maliciously manipulate the audio if it were to be made public.

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White House says ‘ball in Hamas’s court’ over Gaza peace proposal

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Comment made despite signs of division in Israeli war cabinet and Netanyahu appearing to challenge the deal

The White House insisted that the “ball was in Hamas’s court” on whether to accept a new Gaza peace proposal, despite mixed signals from Benjamin Netanyahu reflecting turmoil within his governing coalition in Israel.

The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, insisted on Monday that it was an Israeli proposal – despite the fact it had been unveiled by Joe Biden on Friday, during the Jewish Sabbath, and Netanyahu had appeared to challenge it. The Israeli prime minister said any deal that did not lead to the complete destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capacity would be a “non-starter”.

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Kevin McCarthy says ‘every American should accept’ election results

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The former Republican House speaker’s comments arrive as Trump’s guilty verdict is set to spark election integrity debates

Kevin McCarthy, former Republican US House speaker, has said that Americans should accept the results of November’s presidential race – as rising political tensions in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s campaign finance violation conviction in New York are set to inflame election integrity issues.

The relatively moderate McCarthy, who was ousted as speaker last year in a Republican power struggle and has since resigned from Congress, said on Sunday that “every American should accept the results” of the election that is expected to pit Democratic incumbent Joe Biden against the former Republican president Trump.

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Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

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Texas representative says treatment may require her to be ‘occasionally absent’ from Capitol Hill

Democratic US congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee revealed that she has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and said her treatment may require her to be “occasionally absent” from Capitol Hill.

In a prepared statement published on X on Sunday that alluded to her Christian religious beliefs, the 74-year-old Texas representative acknowledged that “the road ahead will not be easy” yet added: “I stand in faith that God will strengthen me.”

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Washington Post: Telegraph veteran to take over from Sally Buzbee as executive editor

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First woman in the role to be replaced by Telegraph deputy editor, Robert Winnett

A veteran of the UK’s Daily Telegraph is to become executive editor of the Washington Post, replacing Sally Buzbee, who is stepping down after three years at the top of one of the US’s most respected news brands.

Buzbee, the first woman to hold the post, will be initially replaced by the former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray, until this autumn’s presidential election. Robert Winnett, currently the deputy editor of the Telegraph Media Group, will then take over the role.

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Ohio police ask for help finding suspects after mass shooting that left one dead and 24 wounded

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There was a street party in the Akron area before gunfire broke out, killing a 27-year-old man whose identity was not yet released

The mayor and police chief of Akron, Ohio, called on witnesses to come forward with information about a mass shooting in the city that killed one person and wounded 24 others, some critically, over the weekend.

“This was a tragic incident which [affects] our entire community,” Akron’s mayor, Shammas Malik, said. “The sheer number of victims is shocking and disconcerting. I want to be very clear: anyone who was involved in last night’s shooting will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

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GameStop shares soar as ‘Roaring Kitty’ reveals $116m bet in Reddit post

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Roughly $390m worth of GameStop shares had changed hands before 6am ET, following Keith Gill’s first Reddit post in three years

GameStop shares surged more than 70% premarket on Monday after “Roaring Kitty” Keith Gill, the stocks influencer behind the 2021 retail trading frenzy, returned to Reddit with a post showing a $116m bet on the embattled videogame retailer.

Roughly $390m worth of GameStop shares had changed hands by 5:53am ET, more than the $343m in Wall Street favorite Nvidia, according to LSEG data.

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First Thing: Claudia Sheinbaum elected as Mexico’s first female president

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Leftwing climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City triumphs with a landslide, taking between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote. Plus, Hunter Biden trial to start

Good morning,

Claudia Sheinbaum has won a landslide victory to become Mexico’s first female president, inheriting the project of her mentor and outgoing leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose popularity among the poor helped drive her triumph.

How Sheinbaum’s victory made history: Sheinbaum is the first woman to win a general election in the US, Mexico or Canada. She will also be the first person from a Jewish background to lead Mexico.

The election campaign was marred by violence: The poll has been the most violent in modern history, with more than 30 candidates killed and hundreds more dropping out as criminal groups vied to install friendly leaders.

What will prosecutors say? They intend to use Hunter’s memoir Beautiful Things to make the case that he knew he was addicted to drugs when he denied it on the form that every person must fill out when buying a gun.

What does the president say? Biden has stuck by his son through all his troubles and that is unlikely to change now. But the trial could air potentially embarrassing family details.

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College students leave behind hoard of trash at California’s Shasta Lake

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Despite being asked to clean up after themselves, about 3,000 students celebrating Memorial Day weekend left piles of debris

College students celebrating Memorial Day weekend by California’s Shasta Lake left behind hoard of trash, according to US Forest Service officials.

Last weekend, approximately 3,000 students from the University of California, Davis and the University of Oregon partied at Shasta Lake, a 30,000-acre reservoir in the golden state, and left piles of debris cluttered around the lake.

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Couple finds safe stuffed with $100,000 cash while magnet fishing in New York

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James Kane and Barbie Agostini pull up safe in Queens park with bundles of $100 bills inside and are told by police they can keep it

A New York City couple who were “magnet fishing” in a lake caught more than they had bargained for when they pulled out a safe that had $100,000 cash inside.

James Kane and Barbie Agostini tossed a line with a strong magnet attached to the end into a lake in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens on 31 May, Friday afternoon.

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California firefighters battle wind-driven wildfire near San Francisco

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Two fire workers injured after Corral Fire, which began Saturday afternoon, spread overnight east of San Francisco

California firefighters aided by aircraft battled a wind-driven wildfire that began Saturday and continued burning early Sunday morning in an area straddling the San Francisco Bay Area and central California, authorities said.

The Corral Fire began Saturday afternoon near the city of Tracy, 60 miles (96km ) east of San Francisco, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the city of Livermore, according to the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire.

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Netanyahu tries to avoid coalition implosion over Gaza ceasefire plan

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Israeli prime minister juggles differing demands of partners after Joe Biden announced latest peace proposal

Benjamin Netanyahu is once again trying to balance the demands of centrist and far-right members of his government after a threat from his extremist allies to collapse the coalition if Israel moves forward with a new ceasefire plan for Gaza announced by the US president, Joe Biden.

In an unexpected broadcast from the White House on Friday night, Biden urged Hamas to accept what he said was a new proposal from Israel for a three-phrase plan towards a permanent ceasefire in the nine-month war.

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Trump hails Republicans for defending him and calls conviction ‘a scam’

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In Fox interview, Trump derides his conviction and baselessly characterizes it as political weaponization of US justice system

Donald Trump on Sunday lauded the Republican party for rallying behind him in the wake of his conviction on 34 felony charges in a hush-money case aimed at influencing the 2016 election.

Trump made the comments in his first sit-down press interview since the guilty verdict was returned on Friday that held he falsified business records linked to an illicit affair with adult actor Stormy Daniels. The former US president appeared on Sunday in a taped interview on Fox & Friends, a friendly forum on the rightwing channel and in which he was served up a series of softball questions by a trio of Fox hosts.

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Zelenskiy: Trump risks being ‘loser president’ if he imposes bad deal on Ukraine

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Exclusive: Ukrainian leader says bad peace deal in event of Trump victory would mean end of US as global ‘player’

Donald Trump risks being a “loser president” if he wins November’s election and imposes a bad peace deal on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, saying it would mean the end of the US as a global “player”.

In an interview with the Guardian in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said he had “no strategy yet” for what to do if Trump returned to the White House, and that the former British prime minister Boris Johnson had approached him on his behalf.

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Trump joins TikTok despite seeking to ban app as president

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‘The campaign is playing on all fields,’ an adviser to Trump’s campaign tells Politico

Former president Donald Trump has joined social media platform TikTok and made his first post late Saturday night, a video featuring the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, Dana White, introducing Trump on the social media platform.

The move came despite that fact that as president Trump pushed to ban TikTok by executive order due to the app’s parent company being based in China. Trump said in March 2024 that he believed the app was a national security threat, but later reversed on supporting a ban.

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Turkish journalist says he was attacked outside exile’s US home

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Yunus Paksoy appeared to be filming a live broadcast outside home of Fethullah Gülen when man in SUV approached

A Turkish journalist for a pro-government channel says a supporter of Fethullah Gülen, the US-based Muslim cleric accused by Turkey of instigating a failed 2016 coup, attacked him near the self-exiled figure’s home in Pennsylvania in an encounter that apparently unfolded live on air.

In a video posted on Saturday, Yunus Paksoy appeared to be filming a live broadcast outside Gülen’s home, reportedly near the area of Saylorsburg, when a man driving a dark SUV approached him.

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Predictive blood test hailed as ‘incredibly exciting’ breast cancer breakthrough

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New ‘liquid biopsy’ will act as an early warning sign to anticipate risk of tumours returning

A new blood test can predict the risk of breast cancer returning three years before any tumours show up on scans in an “incredibly exciting” breakthrough that could help more women beat the disease for good.

More than 2 million women are diagnosed every year with breast cancer, the most prevalent type of the disease. Although treatment has improved in recent decades, the cancer often returns, and if it does, it is usually at a more advanced stage.

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Stormy Daniels says Donald Trump should be jailed after felony conviction

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Ex-president should also be made ‘the volunteer punching bag at a women’s shelter’, says former actor, following guilty verdict

Stormy Daniels has called for Donald Trump to be jailed after he was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

The adult film star, who was paid $130,000 as “legal expenses” for her silence about her affair with the former US president, warned the presidential candidate is “completely and utterly out of touch with reality”.

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Students walk out of University of Chicago graduation over Israel policies

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Pro-Palestinian students staged the walkout as school withheld degrees of four seniors pending disciplinary review over protests

Dozens of students protesting Israel’s ongoing military strikes in Gaza walked out of the University of Chicago’s commencement on Saturday as the school withheld the diplomas of four seniors over their involvement with a pro-Palestinian encampment.

The disruption to the rainy two-hour outdoor ceremony was brief, with shouts, boos and calls to “stop genocide”. A crowd of students walked out in between speeches and a demonstration followed the official ceremony. Some chanted as they held Palestinian flags while others donned traditional keffiyehs, black-and-white checkered scarves that represent Palestinian solidarity, over their robes.

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Chad Daybell sentenced to death for murders of his wife and his girlfriend’s children

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Idaho case marked by Daybell and girlfriend Lori Vallow Daybell’s extremist religious beliefs about doomsday

Chad Daybell was sentenced to death Saturday for the murders of his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children in Idaho in a case marked by his and his girlfriend’s extremist religious beliefs about doomsday.

The sentence was handed down after an Idaho jury unanimously agreed that imposing the death penalty would be a just resolution to the triple-murder case. The sentence marks the end of a grim investigation that began with a search for two missing children in 2019. The next year, their bodies were found buried in Daybell’s eastern Idaho yard.

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