Category Archives: US News

Russia-Ukraine war: Lithuania hits out at Russia ‘disinformation’ over spy claims – as it happened

Posted on by

Russia had said that a Ukrainian agent had entered country from Lithuania with the aim of targeting a fuel facility

Ukraine’s president and foreign minister has pressed British foreign secretary David Cameron to accelerate the delivery of promised military aid to Kyiv, as Russia heaps battlefield pressure on depleted Ukrainian forces in the third year of war.

“It is important that the weapons included in the UK support package announced last week arrive as soon as possible,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on the social platform X, as Cameron visited Kyiv on Thursday.

Continue reading...

Trump trial to continue after vivid testimony from Stormy Daniels lawyer

Posted on by

Court hears that Keith Davidson texted National Enquirer editor on night of Trump’s 2016 victory to say ‘What have we done?’

Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial enters its 11th day following raucous testimony about his increasingly unhinged underling and the tawdry business of celebrity sex scandals.

Keith Davidson, the attorney representing Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, returned to the witness stand on Thursday. Davidson was grilled on his communications with former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard around the 2016 election and Michael Cohen, Trump’s then fixer.

Continue reading...

Eric Adams under pressure to divulge details on ‘outside agitators’ at campus protests

Posted on by

The New York City mayor has claimed police arrested protesters after non-student elements escalated the situation

The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, remains under pressure to divulge how many of the 282 people arrested at campus protests in Manhattan on Tuesday night were non-students after repeatedly claiming that “outside agitators” were responsible for escalations that prompted an overwhelming law enforcement crackdown.

Adams, a Democrat and former city police officer, was asked by local reporters on Thursday morning to give a breakdown of the arrest numbers. He repeatedly declined to provide details.

Continue reading...

More than 2,000 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested across US campuses

Posted on by

Police arrest more than 200 students at UCLA as law enforcement clears camp at Dartmouth, arresting more than 90 students

More than 2,000 people have now been arrested during pro-Palestinian protests across dozens of US college campuses in recent weeks.

Police arrested more than 300 pro-Palestinian demonstrators on college campuses on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, pushing the total past 2,000, according to an Associated Press tally.

Continue reading...

Rutgers and University of Minnesota reach resolutions with Gaza protesters

Posted on by

Schools join Northwestern and Brown in arriving at agreements with students to dismantle pro-Palestinian encampments

Students at Rutgers University in New Jersey and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis reached agreements with administrators on Thursday to peacefully dismantle their Gaza solidarity encampment protest.

Rutgers and the University of Minnesota now join Northwestern and Brown in successfully reaching deals to peacefully end their encampment protests.

Continue reading...

Text shows Stormy Daniels lawyer’s shock at Trump win in 2016: ‘What have we done?’

Posted on by

Keith Davidson gives colorful testimony at former president’s hush-money trial about how agreements came together in 2016

As Donald Trump’s presidential victory became clearer and clearer on election night in 2016, an attorney who brokered hush-money payments to bury the then candidate’s alleged sexual liaisons seemed shocked that his efforts had worked, texting his longtime confidant: “What have we done?”

So went the second day of testimony from Keith Davidson – who represented alleged Trump paramours Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal – in the ex-president’s criminal trial. The friend in question was Dylan Howard, then the editor of the National Enquirer. Prosecutors allege that the tabloid veteran kept Trump’s lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, apprised of damaging information about his boss.

This article was amended on 2 May 2024 to correct the amount of money that Davidson said in testimony that Michael Cohen sent to Stormy Daniels.

Continue reading...

Russian troops enter airbase in Niger where US soldiers are stationed

Posted on by

Move comes after west African country’s military government had told US to withdraw its troops

Russian military personnel have entered an airbase in Niger that is hosting American troops, after a decision by Niger’s junta to expel US forces from the country.

The military officers ruling the west African country have told the US to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel, which until a coup last year had been a key partner for Washington’s fight against insurgents who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more.

Continue reading...

Trump in court as hush-money trial to hear further testimony from Stormy Daniels’ lawyer – live

Posted on by

Keith Davidson is expected back on stand on Thursday; judge Juan Merchan will hold hearing on further claims Trump violated gag order

We’re still waiting for proceedings to kick off.

As defense lawyer Todd Blanche and Donald Trump are chatting at the defense table, the ex-president appears to be more animated, more engaged, than he has generally been.

Continue reading...

Manhattan DA investigating after officer fired gun inside Columbia University – as it happened

Posted on by

Incident, which did not result in injuries, under review, while in California students and faculty condemn police crackdown at UCLA. This blog is now closed.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Kaz Daughtry, has confirmed that Fordham University was among a number of educational institutions which requested police assistance on campus to disperse protests.

He said that individuals who refused to disperse has been arrested without incident.

Your @NYPDnews officers continue to protect the right to peacefully protest, but lawlessness will not be tolerated. I commend the professionalism consistently displayed by our officers.

In light of the activities that are currently happening, we further request that you retain a presence on campus through at least May 22, 2024 (when commencement and diploma ceremonies are completed) to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished.”

Continue reading...

Peloton CEO steps down as beleaguered company cuts 15% of workforce

Posted on by

Fitness company’s sales boomed during the Covid pandemic as gyms closed but sales collapsed as the world reopened

Barry McCarthy has stepped down as CEO of Peloton, the company said on Thursday, as it decided to cut 15% of its workforce to tackle a post-pandemic slump in demand for its connected fitness equipment.

In a note, McCarthy said: “Hard as the decision has been to make additional headcount cuts, Peloton simply had no other way to bring its spending in line with its revenue.”

Continue reading...

UCLA students describe violent attack on Gaza protest encampment: ‘It was terrifying’

Posted on by

Slow response from authorities left students shocked as people wearing white masks attacked pro-Palestine protesters

When Meghna Nair, a second-year student at the University of California, Los Angeles, saw a masked group of people headed toward the pro-Palestine encampment on campus late on Tuesday evening, she expected trouble.

“I knew where they were going. I had an idea what they planned to do,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Continue reading...

Campus protests: UCLA students in standoff with police as demonstrations spread across US

Posted on by

More than a thousand supporters at a pro-Palestine encampment in California face arrest by police, a day after it was attacked by pro-Israel counter-protesters

Tensions are growing at the University of California where hundreds of police in riot gear have gathered after warning pro-Palestinian protesters to disperse or face arrest, a day after their encampment was violently attacked by masked counter-protesters.

Police began forming lines near the encampment at the Los Angeles campus and ordered the dispersal of more than a thousand people who had gathered in support of the protesters on Wednesday night, warning over loudspeakers that anyone who refused to leave could face arrest.

Continue reading...

Body recovered of fifth worker who died in Baltimore bridge collapse

Posted on by

Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez was one of six construction workers killed when a container ship collided with bridge in March

The body of a fifth victim in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, has been recovered.

Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez was identified as the victim, per Unified Command salvage teams. The group, which is a joint effort by police, the coast guard and other government agencies, had reported one of their construction vehicles missing when the bridge collapsed in March and notified the Maryland department of state police, per ABC News.

Continue reading...

‘Enough with the gaslighting’: Harris responds to Trump’s insistence that he doesn’t back national abortion ban – live

Posted on by

Vice-president calls abortion access a ‘fundamental freedom’ in Florida as state’s six-week ban takes effect

Greene wrapped up the press conference by demanding, essentially, that Mike Johnson resign or be fired:

What I’m calling on is, like my colleague here said, Mike Johnson … can pray about it, think about it all weekend, do the right thing and resign, giving our conference time to elect a new leader, a new speaker of the house. He should reject the endorsement of Hakeem Jeffries and the entire Democrat leadership team. That is not an endorsement that any Republican speaker should ever want or embrace. And this vote will be called next week, and I would just want to urge all our colleagues to prepare for it. It’s the right thing to do for America. It’s time to clean house and get our conference in order and get ready to support President Trump’s agenda. God willing, he wins in November and we take back full power here in Washington in January.

I fight for his agenda every single day, and that’s why I’m fighting here against my own Republican conference, to fight harder against the Democrats.

Continue reading...

UCLA chancellor condemns ‘instigators’ who attacked pro-Palestinian camp on campus

Posted on by

Los Angeles mayor calls late-night attack by counter-demonstrators ‘abhorrent’ as footage shows people wielding sticks

The University of California in Los Angeles was reeling on Wednesday following a late-night violent attack by counter-demonstrators on a pro-Palestinian protest encampment, as the state’s governor condemned a slow response from law enforcement to some of the worst violence seen since students across the US intensified their protests in support of Gaza.

As the Los Angeles mayor called the violence “abhorrent” and California’s governor said he was monitoring the situation, UCLA announced it was cancelling all classes on Wednesday “due to the distress caused by the violence that took place on Royce Quad late last night”.

Continue reading...

Crackdowns intensify on pro-Palestine campus protests as hundreds arrested

Posted on by

Tensions continue after night of unrest at UCLA and Columbia, as New York mayor blames ‘outside agitators’ for escalation

Crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests at US colleges spread on Wednesday after protest hotspots intensified overnight, leading to some violence and hundreds more arrests amid widespread controversy over universities calling in police and claims about “outside agitators” driving escalation.

The number of arrests of student protesters had exceeded an estimated 1,300 by Wednesday afternoon since the start of the latest bout of protests two weeks ago, as more students were detained. This added to tallies by the Associated Press and Axios earlier on Wednesday, across more than 30 campuses, coast to coast and north to south.

Continue reading...

Arizona Democrats to make final push to repeal near-total abortion ban

Posted on by

Democrats pick up support of two Republicans to repeal 1864 law reinstated three weeks ago as governor is expected to ratify repeal

Arizona lawmakers are poised to repeal the state’s 160-year-old statue banning nearly all abortions.

The 1864 law, which was reinstated by the state’s supreme court three weeks ago, made abortion a central focus in the battleground state and galvanized Democrats seeking to enshrine abortion rights.

Continue reading...

Israel under pressure to let more aid into Gaza as hostage talks continue

Posted on by

Antony Blinken holds two-hour meeting with Netanyahu while Hamas considers ceasefire proposal

Israel’s leaders were under renewed pressure to allow more aid into Gaza on Wednesday after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told Benjamin Netanyahu to “accelerate and sustain improvements” seen during recent days in the amount of humanitarian assistance reaching the territory.

Humanitarian agencies say that though the number of lorries entering Gaza after being vetted by Israel has increased significantly, these still deliver only a fraction of what is needed.

Continue reading...

Marjorie Taylor Greene to force vote on ousting Mike Johnson as speaker

Posted on by

Extremist’s bid to remove House speaker appears certain to fail as Democratic leaders indicate they will table or kill motion

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene announced on Wednesday that she would move to force a vote next week on removing her fellow Republican Mike Johnson as House speaker, even though the measure appears certain to fail.

“I think the American people need to see a recorded vote,” Greene said at a press conference. “And so next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate – absolutely calling it. I can’t wait to see Democrats go out and support a Republican speaker and have to go home to their primaries and have to run for Congress again.”

Continue reading...

US judges reject new Louisiana voting map with second majority-Black district

Posted on by

Rejection by three-judge panel fuels new uncertainty about district boundaries as state prepares for congressional elections

A new congressional map giving Louisiana a second majority-Black House district was rejected on Tuesday by a panel of three federal judges, fueling new uncertainty about district boundaries as the state prepares for fall congressional elections.

The 2-1 ruling forbids the use of a map drawn up in January by the legislature after a different federal judge blocked a map from 2022. The earlier map maintained a single Black-majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black.

Continue reading...