Category Archives: US News

US announces new restrictions to curb global spyware industry

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State department policy will allow US to impose visa restrictions on individuals involved in misuse of spyware

The US said it will impose global visa restrictions on individuals who have been involved in the misuse of commercial spyware, in a move that could affect major US allies including Israel, India, Jordan and Hungary.

The new policy, unveiled on Monday, underscores how the Biden administration continues to see the proliferation of weapons-grade commercial spyware – which has been used by governments around the world against hundreds of political dissidents, human rights advocates, journalists and lawyers – as a major threat to US national security and counterintelligence capabilities.

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Lloyds and Santander accused of providing accounts for Iranian front companies

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Both banks deny helping Tehran-controlled oil firm PCC to move money in breach of sanctions

Two of the UK’s largest lenders, Santander UK and Lloyds Banking Group, allegedly held bank accounts for front companies that helped Iranian entities evade US sanctions, according to reports.

The news has rattled investors, who sold off shares in the two banks on Monday morning, amid fears that the lenders could face penalties if they are found to have in any way assisted Iran’s state-controlled Petrochemical Commercial Company (PCC).

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Middle East crisis: Drone strike in Syria reported to have killed six members of US-backed Kurdish-led group – as it happened

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Six members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have reportedly been killed at a base which also houses US forces

Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum report for the Guardian:

Shaadi Muqtasen’s family live in the centre of old Hebron, one of the most heavily contested, heavily militarised places in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. For Palestinian residents there, life all but stopped when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.

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Comments on Weibo giraffe post bemoan state of Chinese economy

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Social media users get around government crackdown on negativity via US embassy conservation update

A social media post about giraffe conservation has become the latest place for people in China who are unhappy about the economy to vent their frustration, as the Chinese government increasingly cracks down on negative commentary.

On 2 February, the US embassy in China posted an update on its Weibo account about tracking giraffes in Namibia using GPS technology. As of Monday afternoon local time, the post had received approximately 166,000 comments, many of them about China’s economic pains.

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South Dakota tribe bans governor from reservation over US border comments

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Oglala Sioux tribe banishes Republican Kristi Noem after she spoke about wanting to send razor wire to Texas

A South Dakota tribe has banned the state’s Republican governor, Kristi Noem, from one of the US’s largest reservations after she spoke this week about wanting to send razor wire and security personnel to Texas to help deter immigration at the southern border with Mexico.

The Oglala Sioux tribe president said Noem’s ban from the Pine Ridge reservation resulted from the fact that many arriving at the US border with Mexico are Indigenous people from places like El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, who come “in search of jobs and a better life”.

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‘Life-threatening’ storm system batters California, with flooding and high winds

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First-ever hurricane-force wind warning along coast, with millions of people under flood watches and power out for close to a million

An enormous atmospheric river-fueled storm unleashed rain and furious winds across California on Sunday, leaving destruction and hazards in its wake.

Howling winds tore down power lines and trees, and scattered debris in communities across the state, prompting officials to issue the first-ever hurricane-force wind warning along the coast. By late afternoon, streets in both northern and southern regions of California were left submerged, with far more rain on the way.

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US Senate releases draft bill to toughen border measures while securing aid to Ukraine and Israel

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Biden urges Congress to pass bill which includes measures to temporarily close border if over 5,000 undocumented people cross a day

US senators on Sunday evening released the details of a highly anticipated $118bn package that pairs federal enforcement policy on the US-Mexico border with wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and others, launching a long-shot effort to push the bill past sceptical, hard right House Republicans – whom Democrats accuse of politicizing immigration while being in thrall to Donald Trump.

The proposal is the best chance for Joe Biden to bolster dwindling US wartime aid for Ukraine – a major foreign policy goal that is shared by both the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, and top Republican, Mitch McConnell. The Senate was expected this week to hold a key test vote on the legislation, but it faces a wall of opposition from conservatives.

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Dearborn ramps up police patrol after ‘bigoted’ WSJ op-ed as Biden condemns anti-Arab hate

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Mayor Abdullah Hammoud increases law enforcement near places of worship after piece calls Michigan city the ‘jihad capital’ of US

The mayor of Dearborn has ordered more police officers onto the streets, ramping up law enforcement presence across places of worship and major infrastructure points this weekend following an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal that called the Michigan city the “jihad capital” of the US.

And on Sunday Joe Biden weighed in, denouncing anti-Arab hate and, without referring specifically to the newspaper, saying “it shouldn’t happen to the residents of Dearborn – or any American town.”

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New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium to host 2026 World Cup final as Azteca gets opener

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  • Canada’s first men’s World Cup match will be in Toronto
  • US will play group matches in Los Angeles and Seattle

New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium will host the final of the 2026 World Cup, which will take place across North America in the United States, Mexico and Canada.

The 82,500 capacity MetLife Stadium is in New Jersey but is five miles from New York City and is the home of the NFL’s New York Jets and Giants. It hosted the Super Bowl in February 2014 and the final of the Copa America Centenario in 2016.

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US says strikes on Iran-linked militias just ‘the beginning’ of its response

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National security adviser refuses to rule out targeting Iran after 85 sites were attacked in Iraq and Syria

US airstrikes on Iranian-backed militias in the Middle East were just the beginning of a sustained response, the White House national security adviser warned on Sunday, as he refused to rule out strikes on Iranian soil.

Jake Sullivan said the strikes on Friday night against 85 targets in Iraq and Syria, designed as retaliation for the killing of three US soldiers, “were the beginning, not the end of our response, and … there will be more steps, some seen, some perhaps unseen, all in an effort to send a very clear message that when American forces are attacked, when Americans are killed, we will respond and we will respond forcefully”.

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Nikki Haley: Trump spends more time ‘ranting’ than fighting for American people

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Republican candidate attacks Trump for being more concerned with himself than with country ahead of South Carolina primary

Nikki Haley pressed her case on Sunday to become the Republican presidential nominee by launching a sharp attack on her rival Donald Trump as a candidate who is set to spend more time in court than on the campaign trail this year and is intent on ranting about his own supposed victimhood rather than fighting for the American people.

With less than three weeks to go before the Republican primary in her home state of South Carolina, which many observers see as the former governor and UN ambassador’s last stand, Haley attacked Trump for being more concerned with himself than with the future of the country. She told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning TV show that his multiple court cases, in which he faces 91 charges across four criminal cases, amounted to a “real issue”.

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Overnight Israeli airstrikes kill scores in Gaza as fears grow of push into Rafah

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More than 127 reportedly killed in bombings, including in Rafah where more than a million people are sheltering

Israeli airstrikes across Gaza killed scores of people overnight, as fears grow of the military campaign intensifying in the southern city of Rafah, a tiny pocket of the territory where more than a million people are sheltering.

Amid intensifying divisions in Israel’s government over the war, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was expected to arrive in the region on Sunday, his fifth trip since the militant group attacked Israel on 7 October, killing at least 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage.

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CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’

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Insiders say pressure from the top results in credulous reporting of Israeli claims and silencing of Palestinian perspectives

CNN is facing a backlash from its own staff over editorial policies they say have led to a regurgitation of Israeli propaganda and the censoring of Palestinians perspectives in the network’s coverage of the war in Gaza.

Journalists in CNN newsrooms in the US and overseas say broadcasts have been skewed by management edicts and a story-approval process that has resulted in highly partial coverage of the Hamas massacre on 7 October and Israel’s retaliatory attack on Gaza.

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‘Making Donald Trump a loser again’: Biden wins big in South Carolina

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President derided Trump after easily winning first primary contest for Democratic presidential nomination

President Joe Biden won his first official primary election in a season that has become increasingly predictable with each contest.

Biden and the Democratic National Committee had successfully lobbied to thwart tradition and designate South Carolina the first contest for the party’s presidential nomination instead of Iowa and New Hampshire. On Saturday, Biden handily won more than 95% of the vote in the state that had launched his campaign in 2020. Long-shot candidates Dean Phillips, a congressman from Minnesota, and Marianne Williamson, a self-help author, trailed far behind.

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‘The weirdest campaign’: South Carolina delivers a win, but Biden still faces an uphill path

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The president’s decisive victory in the first Democratic primary belies a difficult campaign ahead with various strikes against him

Surprise! Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina with a high-90s percentage that would make even Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un blush.

But despite the low energy and low turnout, there was a wider narrative on Saturday about representation, the changing face of the US and a rebuke to the white identity politics of Donald Trump.

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Biden hails South Carolina primary win, saying voters put him on path to ‘making Donald Trump a loser again’ – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. You can read the full story and see the latest live results below:

In a statement released by his campaign, Joe Biden cast his victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary as an important step in defeating Donald Trump in the November presidential election:

In 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the Presidency again – and making Donald Trump a loser – again.

When I was elected President, I said the days of the backbone of the Democratic Party being at the back of the line were over. That was a promise made and a promise kept. Now, you are First In The Nation.

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Biden wins South Carolina Democratic primary for presidential nomination

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The president easily swept past his opponents Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson to gain the state’s nod for the nomination

President Joe Biden has again won the South Carolina presidential primary, his first formal primary win of the election season.

Amid low voter turnout, the Associated Press projected that Biden also won all 55 of the state’s Democratic delegates. Another seven delegates are pledged by party leaders and elected officials, such as South Carolina’s lone Democratic congressman, Jim Clyburn. Neither Dean Phillips, the congressman from Minnesota, nor author Marianne Williamson received at least 15% of the statewide vote or 15% of the vote in any congressional district, the threshold necessary to win delegates.

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US and UK hit 30 Houthi targets to further weaken Iran-backed groups

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Joint operation to further disable militias follows attacks on US and international interests amid war in Gaza

The United States and Britain struck at least 30 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday in another wave of assaults meant to further disable Iran-backed groups that have attacked US and international interests in response to the Israel-Hamas war.

Ships and fighter jets on Saturday launched strikes against the Houthis. It followed an air assault in Iraq and Syria on Friday targeting other Iran-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three US troops – William Jerome Rivers, Kennedy Ladon Sanders and Breonna Alexsondria Moffett – in Jordan last weekend.

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South Carolina Democratic primary 2024: track live results

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Follow live as the state’s Democratic voters choose their preferred candidate for the US elections

The South Carolina Democratic primary took place on 3 February, and was chosen by the Democratic National Committee as the first election contest in the 2024 election year. Joe Biden is the clear frontrunner in the primary and hopes to recapture the enthusiasm that launched his campaign in 2020.

The polls closed at 7pm.

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