Officers confirm man dead and five people, including a nine-year-old and 12-year-old, hospitalized as possibly two shooters at large
One person was killed and multiple people injured, including two children, in a shooting in Washington DC on Wednesday evening.
Police have issued a public alert for the car believed to be carrying the gunman that fled the scene.
Continue reading...Tokyo and Washington have struck 70 pacts on defence cooperation during Japanese PM’s White House state visit
Joe Biden and Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, have announced a new era of military cooperation during the pomp and pageantry of a White House state visit aimed at countering China.
The US president said the two nations’ forces will cooperate on a joint command structure and, along with Australia, develop a new air missile defence network.
Continue reading...Former president says Arizona abortion ban went too far as Democrats note he appointed justices who ended Roe
The Arizona supreme court decision upended Donald Trump’s gambit on abortion, a day after the former president sought to neutralize the political issue by declining to support a national abortion ban.
Trump had hoped that his announcement on Monday would keep abortion rights mostly out of the conversation ahead of the November elections, but Tuesday’s ruling showed just how difficult it will be to do that, the Washington Post’s Dan Balz writes.
All abortion politics are national, not local. Abortion developments – new laws, new restrictions, new stories of women caught up in heart-wrenching and sometimes life-threatening decisions – are no longer confined to the geography where they take place. They are instantly part of the larger debate.
There is no safe harbor for Trump and the Republicans at this point. The abortion issue is no less complex and no less difficult for many Americans than it was while Roe was in force. But politically the winds have shifted, and done so dramatically.
Continue reading...Deadly Israeli airstrike prompts comments by Ismail Haniyeh, as two sides remain far apart on key issues
Three sons and at least two grandchildren of the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, have been killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, the exiled political chief of the militant group has said from his base in the Qatari capital of Doha.
Haniyeh told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that his children Hazem, Amir and Mohammed and several of their children were visiting relatives for Eid at the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza when their car was targeted in an Israeli airstrike. Sixty of his relatives had been killed in the six-month-old war, he said, including 14 who died after an Israeli airstrike hit the family home in Gaza City in October.
Continue reading...The men pleaded guilty to state charges in brutal racist attack of Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January 2023
Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers – prosecutors said the group called themselves the “Goon Squad” – who tortured and abused two Black men in a racist attack were sentenced to between 15 and 45 years in prison on Wednesday.
Brett Morris McAlpin, formerly the fourth highest ranking deputy in the Rankin county sheriff’s department, was sentenced to 20 years. Christian Dedmon was sentenced to 25 years. Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke were both sentenced to 20 years, while Hunter Elward was sentenced to 45 years and Joshua Hartfield was sentenced to 15 years.
Continue reading...Danielle Johnson reportedly tossed infant and nine-year-old out of moving SUV after killing Jaelen Chaney, and then died by suicide
An infant girl and her nine-year-old sister who were found on a busy Los Angeles-area freeway were thrown from a moving SUV, and investigators believe their mother was responsible and died by suicide after also killing her partner, authorities said Tuesday.
The eight-month-old was pronounced dead at the scene early on Monday, and the older girl was taken to the hospital for moderate injuries, according to law enforcement officials.
Continue reading...Barbie star and producer will return to world of films based on toys with project based on the much-loved board game
Margot Robbie is set to partner with Hasbro for a new film based on the board game Monopoly.
The Oscar-nominated star of Barbie will help to shepherd the long-gestating project to the screen with her production company LuckyChap and Lionsgate.
Continue reading...Melina Abdullah joins former Harvard professor’s long-shot bid in US presidential race
The independent presidential candidate Cornel West announced on Wednesday that Melina Abdullah would serve as his running mate, joining the former Harvard professor’s long-shot bid in the US presidential race.
Abdullah, a professor of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, helped to form the LA chapter of the group Black Lives Matter, and West praised her as “one of the great freedom fighters of her generation”.
Continue reading...US prosecutors say the WikiLeaks founder encouraged and helped Chelsea Manning steal classified files before publishing them
Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he is considering a request from Australia to drop the decade-long US push to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing a trove of American classified documents.
For years, Australia has called on the US to drop its prosecution against Assange, an Australian citizen who has fought American extradition efforts from prison in the UK. Asked about the request on Wednesday, as he hosted the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, for an official visit, Biden said: “We’re considering it.”
Continue reading...Ford’s White House photographer resigns from board, alleging it refused to honor Republican over fear of retribution
Gerald Ford’s White House photographer resigned from the board of the 38th president’s eponymous foundation and alleged it refused to honor Liz Cheney, the anti-Trump former Republican congresswoman, for fear of reprisal should Donald Trump return to power next year.
The honor in question was the Gerald R Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service. Recent recipients include the former defense secretary Robert Gates; the late Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole and his wife, the former senator Elizabeth Dole; and the late secretary of state Colin Powell.
Continue reading...Nancy Fraser, professor of philosophy at the New School, condemned killings in Gaza carried out by the Israeli military
A leading Jewish American philosopher has been disinvited from taking up a prestigious professorship at the University of Cologne after signing a letter expressing solidarity with Palestinians and condemning the killings in Gaza carried out by Israeli forces.
Nancy Fraser, professor of philosophy and politics at the New School for Social Research in New York, said she had been cancelled by the university, which has withdrawn its invitation to the Albertus Magnus Professorship 2024, a visiting position, which she had been awarded in 2022. The letter was written in November 2023 following the 7 October attacks on Israel by Hamas, prompting Israel’s attack on Gaza.
Continue reading...Fumio and Yuko Kishida honoured with state dinner to recognise ‘flourishing’ relationship between US and Japan, says Jill Biden
Dry-aged rib eye steak, cherry blossoms and Paul Simon playing a selection of his songs will be the centerpieces of a state dinner the White House is hosting for Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, and his wife, Yuko. More than 200 guests are expected to attend.
A lavish state dinner is a tool of US diplomacy, and a high honour that is used sparingly and only to America’s closest allies. In the case of Japan, Joe Biden has chosen to celebrate an ally that he sees as a cornerstone of his policy toward the Indo-Pacific region.
Continue reading...Wesley Simina says the US is ‘well advanced’ in plans for $400m airport upgrade in Yap, amid rising tensions with China in the region
The US is considering military projects across the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) as it pushes ahead with plans for a $400m airport upgrade in the country to boost defence capabilities in the Pacific, President Wesley Simina said.
The region is of growing strategic importance to the US amid a battle for influence with China.
Continue reading...Brian Dorsey, convicted of murdering his cousin and her husband, put to death amid efforts by many to have his sentence commuted
Brian Dorsey, who was convicted of murdering his cousin and her husband in 2006, was executed in Missouri’s Bonne Terre state prison Tuesday despite an extraordinary effort by corrections officials and his appeals judge to have his capital sentence commuted.
Prison officials confirmed that Dorsey had been put to death by lethal injection. They said he had been pronounced dead at 6.11pm.
Continue reading...Adam Schiff introduces bill amid growing legal battle over whether major AI companies have made illegal use of copyrighted works
A bill introduced in the US Congress on Tuesday intends to force artificial intelligence companies to reveal the copyrighted material they use to make their generative AI models. The legislation adds to a growing number of attempts from lawmakers, news outlets and artists to establish how AI firms use creative works like songs, visual art, books and movies to train their software–and whether those companies are illegally building their tools off copyrighted content.
The California Democratic congressman Adam Schiff introduced the bill, the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act, which would require that AI companies submit any copyrighted works in their training datasets to the Register of Copyrights before releasing new generative AI systems, which create text, images, music or video in response to users’ prompts. The bill would need companies to file such documents at least 30 days before publicly debuting their AI tools, or face a financial penalty. Such datasets encompass billions of lines of text and images or millions of hours of music and movies.
Continue reading...Isolation and lack of health insurance also correlate to reduced mammogram rates for breast cancer
Women who are low-income, socially isolated and lack health insurance are far less likely to be up-to-date on mammograms, a breast cancer screening tool experts said is critical to reducing breast cancer deaths, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Breast cancer is one of the most common types of cancer to afflict American women, and kills an estimated 40,000 Americans each year. Cancer overall kills 605,000 Americans a year and is the second-leading cause of death, a toll the Biden administration aims to reduce through a Cancer Moonshot initiative.
Continue reading...The UK foreign secretary’s Trump dinner appeared to fail to bring support for Ukraine, and his Washington meetings don’t look any more promising
Whatever happened at Mar-a-Lago between David Cameron and Donald Trump on Monday night, was clearly going to stay in Mar-a-Lago.
Dinner at the Trump Florida residence was always going to be a stiff test of the UK foreign secretary’s influence over the former president, presidential candidate, and the man he had previously referred to variously as protectionist, xenophobic, and misogynistic.
Continue reading...Republican senator says homeland security secretary is following position of party and will not vote to remove him if it goes to trial
Alejandro Mayorkas is not guilty of a high crime or misdemeanour, the Republican senator Mitt Romney said, making clear he will not vote to remove the US homeland security secretary from office if his impeachment goes to a trial.
“Secretary Mayorkas is following the position of his party and of the president who was elected,” Romney, from Utah and his party’s nominee for president in 2012, told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Aimee Harris of Florida sold Ashley Biden’s diary to conservative group Project Veritas in actions judge called ‘despicable’
A Florida woman was sentenced Tuesday to a month in prison and three months of home confinement for stealing and selling Joe Biden’s daughter’s diary four years ago to the conservative group Project Veritas.
Aimee Harris was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by Laura Taylor Swain, the judge who called the Palm Beach, Florida, woman’s actions “despicable”.
Continue reading...Federal Aviation Administration looking into claims US aircraft maker knew of flaws but covered them up to speed production
Claims that Boeing knew of safety flaws in the manufacture of one of its largest passenger jet aircraft, but covered them up to speed production, are under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), according to a reports.
The information came from a whistleblower inside the beleaguered US aircraft maker, and relates to the structural integrity of the 787 Dreamliner jet, a report published by the New York Times alleges.
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