Category Archives: US News

Trump would ‘absolutely’ rehire Peter Navarro despite prison sentence

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Former White House trade adviser is currently serving four months in federal prison for contempt of Congress

Donald Trump has said he “would absolutely” rehire his federally imprisoned former economic adviser Peter Navarro if returned to the presidency in November.

“I would absolutely have Peter back,” Trump – who has spent more than a year grappling with more than 80 of his own criminal charges – told the Wall Street Journal. “This outrageous behavior by the Democrats should not have happened.”

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Hopes grow of G7 deal to support Ukraine with $300bn in frozen Russian assets

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Foreign ministers confident of agreement to use bank assets as security for Ukraine reconstruction loan

Hopes of a multi-country deal to use $300bn of Russian state assets frozen in the European banking system to support Ukraine have grown after it emerged that G7 ministers were confident of overcoming technical and political obstacles at a meeting in northern Italy on Saturday.

The Canadian finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, said she was optimistic that G7 leaders would reach an agreement, as support coalesced around a plan to use frozen Russian central bank assets as security for a $50bn (£39bn) loan.

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Trump ‘unified reich’ video reportedly traced to Turkish designer’s template

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CNN reports video published on Truth Social and removed hours later was made from template and placeholder text not changed

A video posted on social media by Donald Trump referencing a “unified reich” has been traced to a template made by a Turkish designer more than a year ago, according to a report from CNN.

Critics, including Joe Biden, condemned Trump over a video posted to his Truth Social account on Monday featuring a hypothetical headline from his second presidential term reading “industrial strength significantly increased … driven by the creation of a unified reich”.

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RFK Jr attacks Trump and Biden as he makes 2024 pitch to Libertarian voters

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Independent candidate pledges to pardon Snowden and drop Assange charges, and says Trump ‘caved’ over pandemic response

Robert Kennedy Jr, a longshot independent candidate for US president, has sought to woo Libertarian party voters by casting rivals Donald Trump and Joe Biden as enemies of individual freedom.

Kennedy, 70, brought Libertarians to their feet by promising to pardon government whistleblower Edward Snowden, currently exiled in Russia, and drop espionage charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder battling US attempts to extradite him from Britain.

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Singer Sean Kingston and his mother charged for over $1m fraud

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Two were arrested on Thursday after Swat team raided rapper’s rented mansion in suburban Fort Lauderdale

Rapper and singer Sean Kingston and his mother committed more than a million dollars in fraud in recent months, stealing money, jewelry, a Cadillac Escalade and furniture, documents released Friday allege.

Kingston, 34, and his 61-year-old mother, Janice Turner, have been charged with conducting an organized scheme to defraud, grand theft, identity theft and related crimes, according to arrest warrants released by the Broward county, Florida, sheriff’s office.

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Uvalde families sue Instagram and Call of Duty maker over deadly school attack

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‘Unholy trinity’ of Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense accused of ‘working to convert alienated boys into mass shooters’

Families of children who were killed in the 2022 Uvalde mass shooting have filed wrongful death lawsuits accusing Instagram, game maker Activision and weapons manufacturer Daniel Defense of enabling the massacre.

The suits were filed on the second anniversary of the school shooting, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed, and accuse the “unholy trinity” of Instagram, Call of Duty, and Daniel Defense of “working together to convert alienated teenage boys into mass shooters”.

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‘Psychologically tortured’: California city pays man nearly $1m after 17-hour police interrogation

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Officers threatened to kill the dog of Thomas Perez Jr as they pressured him to falsely confess to killing his father, who was alive

A California city has agreed to pay $900,000 to a man who was subjected to a 17-hour police interrogation in which officers pressured him to falsely confess to murdering his father, who was alive.

During the 2018 interrogation of Thomas Perez Jr by police in Fontana, a city east of Los Angeles, officers suggested they would have Perez’s dog euthanized as a result of his actions, according to a complaint and footage of the encounter. A judge said the questioning appeared to be “unconstitutional psychological torture”, and the city agreed to settle Perez’s lawsuit for $898,000, his lawyer announced this week.

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Lloyd Austin to undergo new hospital treatment for bladder problem

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Duties of US defense secretary, 70, whose cancer treatment in December was initially undisclosed, will be carried out by deputy

The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, is to undergo hospital treatment for a bladder issue for the second time in just over three months, the Pentagon has announced.

A Pentagon spokesperson, Maj Gen Pat Ryder, said the 70-year-old Austin would enter Walter Reed military medical center on Friday evening to undergo what he called “a scheduled, elective, and minimally invasive follow-up non-surgical procedure” to treat his previously disclosed bladder condition.

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US and UK to back Israel over ICJ ruling after blurring their Rafah red lines

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Having initially vowed to oppose any offensive, Washington and London are showing signs of having backed down

The US and the UK will reject the international court of justice order directing Israel to end its offensive on Rafah after slowly blurring their red lines that once stated that they could not support a military offensive in Rafah.

The line was first adapted by saying they could not support a major ground offensive without a credible plan to protect civilians, but since then the definition of what constitutes a major offensive has become more flexible.

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Haiti gang kills US politician’s missionary daughter and her husband

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Missouri state representative Ben Baker’s daughter and her husband were reportedly ambushed when leaving a church

The daughter and son-in-law of a US Republican politician are among three Christian missionaries who have been killed by gang members in Haiti as it emerged that the long-awaited deployment of an multinational security force tasked with rescuing the Caribbean country from months of bloodshed had been delayed.

Ben Baker, a Republican state representative from Missouri, announced the news of the couple’s murder on Facebook late on Thursday, writing: “My heart is broken in a thousand pieces. I’ve never felt this kind of pain.”

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ICJ ruling underlines risks for Israel as its isolation grows

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Court order is a warning that Israel’s offensive in Gaza risks creating conditions that could be framed as potentially genocidal

The provisional measures issued by the international court of justice ordering an immediate halt to Israel’s military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah represent the starkest warning yet to Israel that its offensive risks creating conditions that could be framed as potentially genocidal.

The ruling, agreed by a majority of 13-2 judges, almost exclusively cited UN agencies and senior officials – including the UN’s secretary general – to paint a picture of the disastrous situation facing Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom are children.

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Daniel Duggan loses fight against extradition to US over allegedly training Chinese pilots, magistrate rules

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The Australian former US marine pilot faces a potential prison sentence of up to 60 years on charges of arms trafficking and money laundering

Australian man Daniel Duggan, a former US marine pilot wanted in America over allegations he trained Chinese fighter pilots, is eligible to be extradited to the United States where he faces a potential prison sentence of up to 60 years, a magistrate has ruled.

Duggan appeared in court for the first time since his arrest 19 months ago, dressed in a grey suit jacket, white shirt and blue tie. From behind the security glass of the dock he blew kisses to his family and supporters, and made a love-heart symbol towards his wife, Saffrine, mouthing the words “I love you” to her.

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ICJ expected to make new ruling on Israel’s war in Gaza

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Court may order a halt to offensive, in what would be another sign of growing international isolation for Benjamin Netanyahu

The international court of justice is expected to issue a new ruling on Israel’s conduct of its war in Gaza at 3pm (1400 BST) on Friday, as the US expressed concern over Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation among countries that have traditionally supported it.

Amid speculation that the ICJ could order a halt to Israel’s offensive, a second top global court – the international criminal court – identified the three judges who will hear a request for arrest warrants against Hamas leaders, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

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Tech titan Mike Lynch testifies at fraud trial that Autonomy was ‘not perfect’

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UK founder, accused of inflating sales and misleading regulators, takes stand and says he wasn’t fully responsible for firm’s decisions

The British entrepreneur Mike Lynch took the stand on Thursday in a San Francisco federal courthouse as a key witness in his own criminal fraud trial, defending his role at Autonomy, the tech firm he co-founded and then sold.

The trial continued as planned Thursday despite the defense team moving for a mistrial over alleged improper questioning of a witness by the prosecution. Lynch’s defense team called the questioning, which indirectly referenced the tech titan’s extradition, “egregious” and ‘’highly improper” in a filing.

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House Republicans assail university head for negotiated end to Gaza protest

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Northwestern president becomes lightning rod in Republican-led committee hearing also featuring chiefs of Rutgers and UCLA

Members of a Republican-led congressional committee confronted another set of university heads on Thursday over their approach to pro-Palestinian protests in the latest hearings on Capitol Hill on a reported increase of campus antisemitism.

Republicans on the House of Representatives’ education and workforce committee repeatedly clashed fiercely with Michael Schill, president of Northwestern University in Illinois, over his decision to negotiate an end to a tented protest community rather than call in police, as has happened on other campuses.

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Huge number of deaths linked to superbugs can be avoided, say experts

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Models suggest deaths in poorer countries could be cut by 18% – or about 750,000 a year – with preventive measures

Every year 750,000 deaths linked to drug-resistant superbugs could be prevented through better access to clean water and sanitation, infection control and childhood vaccinations, research suggests.

Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, is a huge global challenge, with the evolution of drug-resistant superbugs, driven by factors including inappropriate and excessive antibiotic use, raising the prospect of a future where modern medicine fails.

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Ex-Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby spared prison for perjury and fraud

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Mosby, who led prosecution of police over Freddie Gray death, sentenced to 12 months home confinement

A former Baltimore city prosecutor who achieved a national profile for charging police officers in a Black man’s death was spared prison time in her sentence on Thursday for perjury and mortgage fraud.

Former state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby’s sentence includes 12 months of home confinement, 100 hours of community service and three years of supervised release.

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Senate Republicans block bipartisan border security bill for a second time

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Democrats had forced vote to try to prove argument that Republicans are not serious about situation at US-Mexico border

Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan border security bill for a second time, part of an attempt by Chuck Schumer to flip the script on immigration – a major political liability for Joe Biden and Democrats in this year’s election.

The 43-50 vote was far short of the necessary 60 votes needed to advance the legislation. Republicans, who have repeatedly demanded Democrats act on the border, abandoned the compromise proposal at the behest of Donald Trump who saw it was a political “gift” for Biden’s re-election chances.

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Louisiana expected to classify abortion pills as controlled and dangerous substances

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First-of-its-kind bill on mifepristone and misoprostol passed state legislature and is expected to be signed into law by governor

Two abortion-inducing drugs could soon be reclassified as controlled and dangerous substances in Louisiana under a first-of-its-kind bill that received final legislative passage on Thursday and is expected to be signed into law by the governor.

Supporters of the reclassification of mifepristone and misoprostol, commonly known as “abortion pills”, say it would protect expectant mothers from coerced abortions. Numerous doctors, meanwhile, have said it will make it harder for them to prescribe the medicines they use for other important reproductive healthcare needs, and could delay treatment.

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Senate Democrats to investigate Trump’s reported big oil ‘deal’

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Two committees inquiring after reports of ex-president’s offer to roll back dozens of regulations for $1bn campaign donations

Powerful Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into an alleged quid pro quo offer from Donald Trump to fossil fuel executives.

At a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago home and club last month, the former president reportedly told oil bosses he would immediately roll back dozens of environmental regulations if elected, and requested $1bn in contributions to his presidential campaign. It would be a “deal” for the executives because of the costs they would avoid under him, he reportedly said.

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