Category Archives: US News

Son of El Chapo pleads not guilty in Chicago as mystery cloaks cartel arrests

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Officials have mixed accounts around arrest of Sinaloa co-founder El Mayo after Guzmán López turned himself in

Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of Sinaloa cartel co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in federal court in Chicago, days after his arrest in a dramatic operation in which he may have delivered his father’s former business partner to US authorities.

Guzmán López, 38, was detained on Thursday alongside Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, the other co-founder of one of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime groups, after touching down in a small plane in El Paso, Texas.

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The 1975 sued by Malaysian festival over Matty Healy’s onstage gay kiss

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Good Vibes Festival organizer seeks $2.4m after band’s violation of behavior code led to a shutdown last July

The organizer of Malaysia’s Good Vibes Festival has sued the 1975 and all of the British pop-rock band’s members individually, following lead singer Matty Healy’s purported protest against the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ law on stage.

Future Sound Asia, the music festival’s organizers, are seeking $2.4m (£1.9m) after the band’s violation of the event’s behavior code resulted in the festival being shut down last July.

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William Laws Calley, face of My Lai massacre in Vietnam War, dead at 80

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Lieutenant Calley was the only person convicted over the largest killing of civilians by US army in the 20th century

William Laws Calley Jr, the only person convicted over the notorious My Lai massacre by US soldiers during the Vietnam war, has died at the age of 80.

A lieutenant during the war, Calley was a member of Company C, which alongside his superior, Ernest Medina, he commanded during the search for Viet Cong combatants in the south Vietnamese village of My Lai and its neighbouring hamlets on 15 March 1968.

This article was amended on 30 July 2024. An earlier version stated that Seymour Hersh’s reporting led to Calley and other officers being court martialed. An internal military investigation was already underway when Hersh reported on the story.

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Republican Arizona mayor John Giles endorses Harris for President

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Mesa mayor crosses party line to back vice-president and rebuke Trump’s ‘political extremism’ in op-ed

John Giles, the Republican mayor of Arizona’s third largest city and a previous thorn in the side of his party for endorsing Democrats, has thrown his support behind Kamala Harris for president.

Giles, who since 2014 has been mayor of Mesa near Phoenix, also rebuked Donald Trump in an opinion piece for the Arizona Republic published Monday.

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‘Say it to my face’ says Kamala Harris as she again challenges Donald Trump to debate – as it happened

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This blog is closed. You can find our latest US elections coverage here.

Kamala Harris’s campaign has announced a $50m advertising blitz ahead of the Democratic national convention next month with a television ad that portrays the presumptive Democratic nominee as “fearless”.

The 60-second ad will be the first in a series of paid media efforts ahead of the convention, which begins 19 August in Chicago.

We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead. Where every senior can retire with dignity. But Donald Trump wants to take our country backward. To give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and end the Affordable Care Act. But we are not going back.

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Donald Trump repeats controversial ‘You won’t have to vote any more’ claim

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Republican presidential nominee denies threatening to stay in office after end of possible second term in Fox interview

Donald Trump on Monday repeated his weekend remarks to Christian summit attendees that they would never need to vote again if he returns to the presidency in November.

But, after being asked repeatedly on Fox News to clarify what he meant, the Republican former president denied threatening to permanently stay in office beyond his second – and constitutionally mandated final – four-year term.

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Trade row won’t hurt US and China’s emissions talks, says US climate chief

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John Podesta says negotiations ‘to find a path forward’ continue with urgent discussions planned for Cop29

Trade frictions and increasing tension between the US and China won’t affect climate negotiations between the two superpowers if he can help it, the US climate chief has pledged.

John Podesta, a senior adviser to Joe Biden on international climate policy, said the relationship between the world’s two biggest emitters and largest economies was critical to climate action, despite what appears to be a deepening gulf over trade policy.

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Francine Pascal, creator of the Sweet Valley High books, dies aged 92

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Author’s long-running high school book series sold more than 200m copies and led to a hit TV show

Francine Pascal, creator of the long-running Sweet Valley High book series, has died at the age of 92.

According to the New York Times, the author died in New York City as as result of lymphoma. The news was confirmed by her daughter Laurie Wenk-Pascal.

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Celebrity-studded ‘White Dudes for Harris’ call raises $4m for vice-president

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Jeff Bridges, Mark Hamill, Mark Ruffalo and contenders for Harris’s VP pick among 190,000 participants in Zoom call

A Zoom call meant to rally “white dudes” in support of vice-president Kamala Harris’s run for the White House raised more than $4m from about 190,000 participants, including numerous celebrities, according to the presumptive Democratic nominee’s campaign.

Guests on the call not only included contenders for Harris’s vice-presidential running mate: the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, and the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg. They also included the actors Jeff Bridges – famous for portraying the Dude in The Big Lebowski – and Mark Hamill, who secured a $50,000 donation during the call by delivering his renowned Star Wars line: “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”

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Standard Chartered plays down fears of US-China trade war under Trump

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Chief executive says tensions ‘not impacting’ business as bank reports pre-tax profits of $1.6bn for second quarter

Fears of a China trade war erupting under a second Trump presidential term are overblown, according to bosses at Standard Chartered bank, as they suggested that the country’s real estate woes were “largely in the rearview mirror”.

While the London-headquartered bank makes most of its money in Asia, particularly in Hong Kong and Singapore, its chief executive, Bill Winters, played down the impact that increasingly strained relations between Washington and Beijing might have on the business.

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US elections live: Harris backs Biden’s supreme court reforms as House speaker calls them ‘dead on arrival’

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Vice-president says action needed amid ‘clear crisis of confidence’ in the court; Mike Johnson rejects effort, saying they would ‘tilt the balance of power’

Joe Biden has called for a series of reforms to to the supreme court, including the introduction of 18-year term limits and a binding code of conduct for justices.

Biden, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, also called for a constitutional amendment to remove immunity for crimes committed by a president while in office.

This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one.

When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it. Our democracy is under assault by criminal Donald Trump.

Donald Trump wants to take America backward, to a politics of hate, chaos, and fear – this November America will unite around Vice President Kamala Harris to stop him.

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JD Vance calls Trump ‘morally reprehensible’ in resurfaced emails

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Former friend releases messages largely from 2014-2017 in which Republican VP nominee also says: ‘I hate the police’

Questions continued to mount about the political transformation of Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, after the release of emails from a former friend in which Vance called Trump a “morally reprehensible human being” and said: “I hate the police.”

The messages between Vance and Sofia Nelson, who sent them to the New York Times, were largely dated between 2014 and 2017. In one, Vance sent Nelson a section of Hillbilly Elegy, his bestseller about his Appalachian boyhood.

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Elon Musk accused of spreading lies over doctored Kamala Harris video

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Doctored campaign video featuring US vice-president reposted by Tesla chief executive watched 128m times

Kamala Harris’s election campaign has accused Elon Musk of spreading “manipulated lies” after the Tesla chief executive posted a doctored video featuring the vice-president on his X account.

Musk reposted a manipulated Harris campaign video on Friday evening in which a fake Harris voiceover says: “I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire,” and that anyone who criticises her is “both sexist and racist”.

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Bereavement in early life may accelerate ageing, research shows

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Separate study shows poor diet and added sugar also linked to rise in biological age

The stress of bereavement may accelerate the ageing process, according to researchers who found evidence that losing a loved one early in life had an impact long before people reach middle age.

Scientists spotted biological markers of faster ageing in people who had lost a parent, partner, sibling or child, but the signs were absent in others who had not experienced the death of someone close to them.

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‘Terrifying’: Democrats react to Trump saying people won’t have to vote again

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Former president told Christian supporters on Friday ‘it’ll be fixed’ in four years if he wins 2024 election

Democrats have expressed outrage after Donald Trump told a group of Christian supporters on Friday that if he wins the presidency in November, they would never need to vote again.

“Christians, get out and vote, just this time,” the former president and current presidential nominee told the crowd at at Turning Point Action’s Believers’ Summit on Friday. “You won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.”

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United Airlines flight diverted after ‘biohazard’ caused by ill passenger

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Flight 2477 to Boston landed in DC to conduct a ‘deep clean’ after crew and passengers began vomiting

A United Airlines flight was forced to divert after a passenger fell so ill on board that it caused what one crew member reportedly called a “biohazard” – and made crewmates and other passengers start vomiting.

The plane, Flight 2477 heading from Houston to Boston on Sunday, ended up landing in Washington DC so it could undergo “a deep clean”, the New York Post reported.

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Japan and US upgrade military ties citing threat from China as ‘greatest strategic challenge’

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US defence secretary says China is 'engaging in coercive behaviour, trying to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas’

Japanese and US defense chiefs, as well as top diplomats, agreed to further bolster their military cooperation by upgrading the command and control of US forces in the east Asian country and strengthening American-licensed missile production there, describing the rising threat from China as “the greatest strategic challenge.”

US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, joined their Japanese counterparts, Yoko Kamikawa and Minoru Kihara, at the Japan-US Security Consultative Committee in Tokyo – known as “2+2” security talks – where they reaffirmed their bilateral alliance in the wake of President Joe Biden ’s withdrawal from the November presidential race.

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Princess Leia’s Star Wars gold bikini fetches $175,000 at auction

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The famous costume, worn by Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi, was sold alongside a miniature aircraft used in A New Hope that fetched $1.6m

Princess Leia’s famous gold bikini worn by the late Carrie Fisher in Star Wars has sold at auction for $175,000 (£136,000, A$266,000).

The costume, made famous from the 1983 film Return of the Jedi when Fisher’s character wore it while chained to Jabba the Hutt’s throne, was bought at a sale by Heritage Auctions on Friday in the US.

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Global leaders try to dissuade Israel from increasing attacks on Lebanon

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US backed Israel in blaming Hezbollah for strike on Golan Heights but is ‘working on a diplomatic solution’

Global leaders were engaged in intensive diplomacy on Sunday to dissuade Israel from increasing attacks on Lebanon, amid fears that a wider regional war could erupt in response to a rocket strike that killed 12 children playing football in the occupied Golan Heights.

As the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, convened a meeting of his national security cabinet, the White House backed Israeli statements that blamed Saturday’s attack on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, saying: “It was their rocket, and launched from an area they control. It should be universally condemned.”

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Firefighters battle California’s seventh largest wildfire on record as thousands under threat

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The Park fire has more than doubled in size in 24-hour span to burn 350,000 acres and stretches over four counties

Thousands of firefighters continued to battle the Park fire in northern California which, propelled by extreme fire weather conditions, has become the state’s seventh-largest on record after burning for less than a week.

The Park fire, about 90 miles (144km) north of the state capital of Sacramento, had more than doubled in size in a 24-hour span to burn upwards of 350,000 acres (141640 hectares) – an area about the size of Los Angeles – and stretched over four counties: Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama, according to the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire.

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