Category Archives: US News

‘A gift to Moscow’: dismay as NYPD takes part in UAE Swat games with Chechnya and Belarus

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Event has already been widely used as PR opportunity for notorious Chechen unit accused of war crimes in Ukraine

Led out by a beaming Adam Kadyrov, the son of the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, a group of muscular men sporting black beards strode on to the brightly illuminated stage in Dubai last week to receive gold medals and a $5,000 (£3,960) cheque.

The men were members of the notorious Chechen Akhmat Kadyrov special police regiment, a group that Ukrainian officials have said was responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the war with Russia. The unit had just won one of the contests at the international Swat Challenge games, which are held each year in the United Arab Emirates.

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Return of the zing: Jon Stewart is back at The Daily Show, amid a changed world

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Will Stewart’s satire still cut through in a post-pandemic world of disinformation, polarisation and fragmented media?

Barack Obama was US president. Britain was a lynchpin of the European Union. Harvey Weinstein was a powerful movie mogul. Meghan Markle was starring in Suits. “TikTok” did not mean anything and fake news meant a satirical TV program with pretend reporters.

That was the world Jon Stewart left behind when he hosted his last episode of The Daily Show on the Comedy Central network on 6 August 2015, denying a legion of fans his lacerating take on the election, presidency, impeachment, defeat, impeachment again and comeback of Donald Trump.

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EPA again OKs use of toxic herbicide linked to Parkinson’s disease

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Agency’s draft report backs paraquat’s safety but lawsuit’s plaintiffs say EPA ignored evidence of Parkinson’s risk

The US Environmental Protection Agency is doubling down on its controversial finding that a toxic herbicide is safe for use across millions of acres of American cropland, despite what public health advocates characterize as virtual “scientific proof” the product causes Parkinson’s disease.

The agency in 2021 reapproved paraquat-based herbicides for use, but a coalition of agricultural and public health groups sued, charging that the EPA had ignored broad scientific consensus linking the substance to Parkinson’s.

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Trump says he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies who pay too little

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The Joe Biden White House rebuked the former president’s comments as ‘appalling and unhinged’

Donald Trump has said he would “encourage” Russia to attack any of the US’s Nato allies whom he considers to have not met their financial obligations.

The Joe Biden White House immediately rebuked the former president’s comments, saying in a statement: “Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged – and it endangers American national security, global stability, and our economy at home.”

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Haley hopes to boost election bid with attacks on Trump’s and Biden’s ages

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Candidate’s ailing campaign will use mobile billboard in her home state to highlight her opponents’ many verbal gaffes

Nikki Haley’s Republican presidential nomination campaign in South Carolina is set to parade a mobile billboard drawing attention to rival Donald Trump’s age on Saturday, as ageing and mental acuity issues continue to dominate the US’s political discourse.

The stunt, which was scheduled to pass through Myrtle Beach, comes as Trump begins campaigning in Haley’s home state ahead of its primary on 24 February. It is scheduled to make stops outside a rally for the former president, according to the Hill, and show both Trump as well as Democratic incumbent Joe Biden appearing to fall into moments of confusion during public remarks.

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The tight end the right turned against: why Travis Kelce is the man for Taylor Swift

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Like the singer, the Chiefs football player is at the top of his field, while his support of BLM and vaccines align with her progressive politics

Travis Kelce’s star power has long been known to sports fans. But the rest of the world has caught up since the start of his relationship with the pop icon Taylor Swift.

And this pairing actually makes perfect sense – so much so that the Guardian has broken down a couple of big reasons why.

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AI firm considers banning creation of political images for 2024 elections

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Midjourney’s CEO David Holz says company close to ‘hammering’ images of Donald Trump, Joe Biden and others ‘for next 12 months’

The groundbreaking artificial intelligence image-generating company Midjourney is considering banning people from using its software to make political images of Joe Biden and Donald Trump as part of an effort to avoid being used to distract from or misinform about the 2024 US presidential election.

“I don’t know how much I care about political speech for the next year for our platform,” Midjourney’s CEO, David Holz, said last week, adding that the company is close to “hammering” – or banning – political images, including those of the leading presidential candidates, “for the next 12 months”.

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Trump campaign sees boost after boost amid bad week for Biden

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As Biden was hit by a brutal special counsel report, Trump seemed set for victory at the supreme court and his only serious Republican rival suffered humiliation

For those campaigning to bring Donald Trump back to the White House, the past week has seen much to celebrate. For those concerned for the health of American democracy, it felt like a disaster.

Joe Biden was hit by a brutal special counsel report that painted him as elderly with a failing memory, fans of Trump eager to see him on the 2024 ballot appeared set for victory at the US supreme court, and Trump’s only remaining serious challenger in the Republican primary race suffered humiliation at the polls.

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Georgia police and FBI conduct Swat-style raids on ‘Cop City’ activists’ homes

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Pre-dawn operations in residential areas resulted in a woman forced out of her home with no shirt and a man dragged by his hair

Police in Georgia, together with federal agencies, are conducting a crackdown on activists involved in a continuing campaign against a controversial police and fire department training center known as “Cop City” that has included acts of arson and sabotage against equipment being used on the project.

This week alone saw Atlanta-area raids by law enforcement that took a woman out of her house with no shirt, left a naked photo of another woman on display after ransacking a room and dragged a man by his hair – while arresting none of them.

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Biden urged to include politicians in sanctions on violent Israeli settlers

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Human rights groups also want to see executive order used to stop US groups from donating millions of dollars each year to settlers

There are growing calls for Joe Biden to use his new executive order sanctioning violent Israeli settlers to also target political leaders, including government ministers, responsible for driving attacks against Palestinians.

Pro-Israel groups and others in the US say the order is potentially a severe blow to the settlement movement in the West Bank, in part because financial sanctions could block even Israeli banks from doing business in parts of the occupied territories.

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Two people killed after small private jet plane crash-lands on Florida highway

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Bombardier Challenger 600, carrying five people, ‘pulverized’ a car and slammed into a wall, scattering pieces of it across interstate

Two people have died after a small private jet plane attempted to make an emergency landing on Interstate 75 in south-west Florida on Friday afternoon, colliding with two vehicles and bringing traffic to a halt as a plume of black smoke rose into the air.

The crash landing happened near the Pine Ridge Road exit in Collier county, just north of where the interstate heads east toward Fort Lauderdale along what is known as Alligator Alley.

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Larry Hogan launches Republican Senate bid after saying he lacks ‘burning desire to be a senator’

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Ex-Maryland governor who Republicans hope can win in blue state told podcast last year sitting in Senate would be ‘really frustrating’

Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor of Maryland who on Friday announced a surprise US Senate run, told an interviewer last year he did not “have a burning desire to be a senator”, would find sitting in the Senate “really frustrating”, thought being a senator was “not where my skill set lies”, and said that though he could win a seat, “the problem was I would win and I would have to go be a senator”.

Hogan made the stark remarks, which may now come to haunt him, in an interview last May with Johanna Maska, host of the Press Advance podcast and a former White House aide to Barack Obama.

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Ozzy Osbourne criticises Kanye West for using sample: ‘He is an antisemite’

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Rock star said he wants ‘no association’ with artist after he claims a sample of a Black Sabbath song was used without permission

Ozzy Osbourne has called out Kanye West for using a sample of his music without permission.

In a post on X, Osbourne claims he denied a request for a portion of a 1983 live version of the Black Sabbath song War Pigs to be used on West’s new album but heard it was used anyway during a listening party this week.

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Hawaii’s Big Island struck by 5.7 magnitude earthquake

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‘Strong shaking’ could be felt all the way in Honolulu on the island of Oahu, about 200 miles to the north

A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, on the Big Island of Hawaii on Friday morning, the US Geological Survey said.

No tsunami was expected, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The earthquake, which the USGS initially reported as magnitude 6.3 before downgrading it, was centered on Mauna Loa’s southern flank, 1.3 miles (2km) south-west of Pahala. Shaking could be felt as far as Honolulu, about 200 miles to the north on the island of Oahu.

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US dentist may lose eye after allegedly getting stabbed in face by ex-patient

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Louisiana police papers say Sharon Stewart went into Dr Katie Tran’s office and attacked her and others with a three-inch blade

A young Louisiana dentist is facing the likely loss of one of her eyes after a former patient went into her office and stabbed her.

The attack which targeted Dr Katherine ‘Katie’ Tran and two of her colleagues – while leading to the arrest of Sharon Stewart – is the latest chilling reminder that US healthcare professionals are suffering more workplace violence injuries than those in any other industry, including law enforcement, as the Associated Press reported last year.

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‘Gratuitous, inaccurate’: White House disputes special counsel report on Biden

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Democrats launch aggressive push back and defend president against Robert Hur’s description in report

Democrats and the White House on Friday launched an aggressive push back against a special counsel report that pushed Joe Biden’s age and memory to the front and center of the presidential election campaign and spurred a series of Republican attacks on the US president.

The special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of confidential documents on Thursday said the US president would not face criminal charges in the case but in a series of remarks characterized Biden as elderly and with a failing memory – triggering a political bombshell on an issue seen as a core weakness of Biden’s re-election campaign.

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Ex-DEA informant sentenced to life in prison for 2021 killing of Haiti president

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Haitian American Joseph Vincent, who admitted to helping plot assassination of Jovenel Moïse, is among 11 people accused

Joseph Vincent, a former informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), was handed a life sentence by a US court on Friday for his role in the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s president.

A Haitian American national, Vincent admitted to helping plot to kill the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse in his home in Port-au-Prince, including advice about the political landscape and meetings with key community leaders.

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‘Talkshow or a serious conversation?’ Tucker Carlson’s interview of Putin offered neither

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Wide-eyed former Fox host tagged along as Russian president steered the conversation through Russian history and justifications for war

“Are we having a talkshow or a serious conversation?” Vladimir Putin asked Tucker Carlson at the start of their interview on Thursday.

By the end of the two-hour conversation, the answer was clear: neither.

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‘It would be devastating’: inside Trump’s plan to destroy the EPA

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Trump has made campaign promises to toss crucial environmental regulations – including dismantling the federal body with the most power to tackle the climate crisis

Donald Trump and his advisers have made campaign promises to toss crucial environmental regulations and boost the planet-heating fossil fuel sector.

Those plans include systemically dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the federal body with the most power to take on the climate emergency and environmental justice, an array of Trump advisers and allies said. It’s a potential future that “horrifies” experts.

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US climate scientist Michael Mann wins $1m in defamation lawsuit

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Scientist wins award against conservative writers who said his work was ‘fraudulent’ and that he ‘molested and tortured’ data

The high-profile climate scientist Michael Mann has been awarded $1m by a jury in a defamation lawsuit against two conservative writers who compared his depictions of global heating to the work of a convicted child molester.

The case stretches back 12 years. In a statement posted on Mann’s X account, one of his lawyers said: “Today’s verdict vindicates Mike Mann’s good name and reputation. It also is a big victory for truth and scientists everywhere who dedicate their lives answering vital scientific questions impacting human health and the planet.”

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