Category Archives: US News

Trump vows to push $1.8bn slush fund as Senate committee set to reconsider AG nomination

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After declaring ‘anti-weaponization’ fund ‘dead’, Trump reverses and says he’ll revive it despite Senate opposition

The US Senate judiciary committee has scheduled a meeting early next week to consider Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, as Donald Trump promised to revive the controversial $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund.

The meeting, set for Tuesday, comes as Blanche’s confirmation ​has stalled over a dispute between the president and outgoing Republican senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, who are seeking written confirmation that the justice department would not establish the proposed fund.

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Democrats’ ‘climate hushing’ prompts activists to turn up the volume

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Nationwide actions seek to counter view that talking about climate crisis distracts from affordability messaging

This summer, torrential rains have washed away Texas neighborhoods, dangerous heat has blanketed swaths of the country, and smoke from Canadian wildfires has choked communities as far south as Florida.

Research makes clear that global warming is making extreme weather events more frequent and severe. Yet the climate crisis has largely disappeared from the political agenda, with many Democrats who once described it as an existential threat now shying away from talking about it.

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Missing Australian hiker found dead in Wyoming, officials say

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Body of William Standish discovered in Teton mountains as investigators say fatal fall likely cause of death

A 28-year-old Australian hiker who lost contact with his family while hiking the Continental Divide Trail between Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks in Wyoming has been found dead, according to authorities.

The man, identified as William Standish, was discovered by rescuers on Wednesday morning in the Wigwams, a series of rocky peaks on the west slope of the Teton mountain range, the Teton county coroner said. Investigators say it was likely he suffered a fatal fall.

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Gavin Newsom reveals personal income of $1.7m-$2m in tax return release

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California governor and wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, release 2022-2024 filings amid Trump investigation

Gavin Newsom and his wife made from $1.7m to $2m annually from 2022 through 2024, and paid about half a million a year in federal and state taxes, according to tax returns released by his office.

The California Democratic governor’s office released more than 700 pages of tax filings spanning four years for reporters to review, offering a window into Newsom’s finances as he prepares to leave office and considers a 2028 presidential bid. Newsom’s office did not release returns for 2025, because the couple filed for an extension and will complete those returns in October.

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Is the cyclosporiasis outbreak slowing? Test-makers are hopeful

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Data by one test-maker shows a positivity drop, but rate could be influenced by number of people taking test

The maker of a popular laboratory test said the cyclosporiasis outbreak in the US may be slowing. An outbreak of infections from the single-celled parasite has grown to more than 18,000 suspected and confirmed cases in late July, the nation’s largest on record.

The midwest has been hit particularly hard in the outbreak, where public health officials have linked infections in nine states to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms’ Mexico operations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said people in at least nine states appeared to have connected cases.

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Iran strikes tankers under US escort in Hormuz strait as Trump gathers cabinet to discuss war

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Energy prices have soared again since fighting between US and Iran resumed two weeks ago as conflict spreads across Middle East

Iran has said it struck two tankers trying to pass through the strait of Hormuz under the escort of the US military as Donald Trump gathered his cabinet to discuss the stalling war and rising prices as midterm elections in the US loom.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Friday that the “non-compliant oil tankers … were struck and brought to a halt, while four other oil tankers quickly changed course and returned to their previous positions”. The military body said the ships had tried to pass through the strait via an “undeclared route” and under US aerial escort.

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Anthropic’s AI Claude escaped testing environment and hacked organizations

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Company says it discovered unauthorized access during ‘proactive review’ after rival OpenAI revealed rogue agent

Anthropic ⁠said on Thursday its AI Claude model hacked ⁠systems of ⁠three ​organizations during testing, days after rival OpenAI ⁠revealed a rogue agent had gone on a days-long ⁠hacking spree at AI ​firm Hugging ‌Face.

Claude gained ‌unauthorized access to the ‌systems during cybersecurity evaluations after a misconfiguration allowed the models to reach the internet from testing environments that ‌were supposed to be isolated, Anthropic said.

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Lindsay Clancy’s husband told police children were dead, court hears

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Officers in murder trial testify of arriving at Massachusetts home after anguished 911 call from Patrick Clancy

The two police officers focused first on Lindsay Clancy drifting in and out of consciousness in the snow after jumping from her Massachusetts home’s second-floor window in January 2023. Within minutes, they were racing into the basement after her then husband screamed that all three of their children were dead.

“I can’t wake them up – I can’t get them up!” Patrick Clancy frantically told the officers who, along with firefighters and paramedics, gave jurors first-hand accounts on Thursday of the aftermath.

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Seattle police chief resigns after deadly food festival shooting

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Mayor announces resignation of Shon Barnes after city officials faced criticism over response to Sunday shooting

Seattle’s police chief has resigned amid criticism of the city’s response to a fatal shootout at a food festival last weekend, Katie Wilson, the mayor, said on Thursday.

The announcement followed hours of speculation about whether Shon Barnes would step down, as some of his supporters said he had rebuffed Wilson’s request that he resign.

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US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference

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State department ‘takes full responsibility’ for erroneous, widely shared chart displayed at Aids conference in Brazil

A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference in Brazil ⁠this week, ​causing a stir among attenders who took screenshots and posted them online.

Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the Aids 2026 conference in ⁠Rio de Janeiro, which shows the errant map displayed halfway during a presentation about the state department’s new health agreements.

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Mandela Barnes drops out of high-stakes Wisconsin governor’s race

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Former lieutenant governor says path to Democratic nomination no longer viable as democratic socialist rival surges ahead

Mandela Barnes, the former lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, dropped out of the Democratic primary for governor on Thursday, upending the high-stakes contest less than two weeks before the 11 August election.

Barnes announced the decision in a video posted on social media, saying he no longer saw a viable path to the nomination, as democratic socialist Francesca Hong surged ahead with a commanding lead.

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Saudi Arabia prepares sea and possible land offensive against Houthis

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Yemeni sources say Saudis concentrating forces for what could be attack in central Yemen

Saudi Arabia is preparing for a major military offensive against the Houthis by sea and possibly by land in central Yemen, Yemeni sources believe, in a move to break the chokehold on its oil exports through the southern Red Sea.

Saudi forces have been seen withdrawing from the east of Yemen in what could be preparation for a land offensive. At the same time, Riyadh is trying to organise a naval coalition to protect shipping from Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab strait.

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Trump’s pick for US attorney general Todd Blanche in jeopardy as vote postponed

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Republican John Cornyn says he will not back nomination without written confirmation $1.8bn slush fund is dead

Todd Blanche’s hopes of becoming US attorney general seemed to be in jeopardy on Wednesday after the Department of Justice did not provide written assurances to a key Republican senator that a $1.8bn slush fund was dead.

The US Senate judiciary committee postponed a vote scheduled for Thursday on whether to advance Blanche’s nomination.

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Elon Musk’s xAI sues Minnesota over law banning ‘nudification’ technology

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First-in-nation law sets up test on states’ power to regulate use of AI as it tries to outlaw fake nude images of real people

Elon Musk’s company xAI has sued Minnesota over the state’s first-in-the-nation law banning “nudification” technology on websites and apps, potentially providing a test for how far states can go in constitutionally regulating the use of artificial intelligence.

Musk’s company sued on Monday in federal court, days before the law is set to take effect on Saturday and make Minnesota the first state to try to outlaw the increasingly proliferating technology that lets people use AI to create fake nude images of real people. The law was signed in May.

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Meta misses earnings forecasts after Zuckerberg media push to promote AI

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Stock tumbles nearly 8% after weaker-than-expected results, despite CEO’s blitz to tout positive effects of AI

Mark Zuckerberg’s media spree touting the positive effects of artificial intelligence did little to cushion the blow of Meta’s second-quarter earnings, which sent its stock tumbling on Wednesday.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Tuesday, the Meta chief executive expressed his optimism for a world where everyone has access to a super-intelligent machine.

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Fauci invokes fifth amendment and declines to testify in Senate Covid hearing

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Adviser to Trump and Biden for pandemic says Republican senator has ‘unhinged obsession’ with him

Anthony Fauci, who served as a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the Covid-19 pandemic, has refused to answer questions at a high-profile congressional hearing, accusing a Republican senator of having an “unhinged obsession” with him.

Fauci, the veteran former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), invoked his constitutional right against incrimination when appearing before a Senate committee on Wednesday.

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‘Each day feels like the last’: Haitians with TPS on edge as confusion clouds US work status

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US employers and Haitian immigrants live in constant uncertainty as status of work permits remains in limbo

For more than a month, Bobby Kuchinsky arrived at his Florida restaurant each morning worried about whether he still had enough staff or if this might be the last shift for some of his Haitian workers, who have spent more than a decade as cooks, busboys and oyster shuckers.

On Tuesday, he suspended six of them after they lost authorization to work in the US.

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Four women accuse Jared Leto of criminal sexual conduct when they were teenagers

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BBC documentary reports incidents alleged to have taken place when actor and musician was in 30s and 40s

The actor and singer Jared Leto has been accused in a BBC documentary of criminal sexual conduct by four women, with the alleged offences taking place when the women were teenagers.

The incidents reported by the BBC are alleged to have taken place between 2002 and 2016, when the actor was in his 30s and 40s. He is now 54.

Support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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Rogue OpenAI agent that hacked startup tried to attack other firms

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ChatGPT developer says activity by autonomous tool was not at severity or scale of what occurred at Hugging Face

OpenAI has revealed that a cyber-attack carried out by a rogue AI agent had more than one victim.

The ChatGPT developer said the agent – an autonomous tool able to carry out sequences of commands without human help – had located and used logins to access four other unnamed “publicly-available services” in addition to the US startup Hugging Face.

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US schools are struggling to keep the yellow bus running amid shortages and cuts

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Districts are reducing routes and exploring new ways to get students to class as transportation costs climb

Education officials across the United States are increasingly facing a fundamental challenge: how do they ensure that school students can actually get to their classrooms?

The bright yellow school bus might be a visual icon of US education famous around the world, but in reality it is becoming harder for districts to steer.

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