Category Archives: US News

New gun safety laws take effect around US after over 650 mass shootings in 2023

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California, Illinois and Colorado among states implementing ‘red flag’ laws after US ends 2023 with more mass shootings than days

New gun safety laws are taking effect in several states around the US on 1 January after the country ended 2023 with more mass shootings than days.

States including California, Illinois and Colorado are starting the year by implementing extreme risk protection orders, more commonly referred to as “red flag” laws, as a means to prevent further gun violence. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were 655 mass shootings in the US in 2023.

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Biden offers optimistic new year’s message as Trump lashes out

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President touts US job gains and says his resolution is ‘to come back’ while ex-president repeats unproven election rigging claims

The likely candidates in the 2024 presidential match-up issued two starkly different new year messages to voters, with Joe Biden striking a note of cheerful optimism as his almost certain challenger Donald Trump, and Trump lashing out in a social media post laden with lies and conspiracy theories.

The president and first lady Jill Biden, vacationing in St Croix in the US Virgin Islands, offered a New Year’s message touting US job gains and the performance of the US economy during his administration – a message that voters have so far refused to accept.

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Trump gaining ground among Latino voters, poll shows

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Ex-president ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, wiping out Biden’s lead among crucial voting bloc

A new poll indicates former US president Donald Trump is gaining ground among Latino voters, wiping out incumbent Joe Biden’s lead among the crucial, but diverse, voting bloc.

A USA Today and Suffolk University survey showed Trump was ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, compared to Biden’s 34%, signaling a slump since 2020, when Biden garnered 65% of the approval from Latino voters.

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Nearly 200 names linked to Jeffrey Epstein expected to be made public

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List could be released as soon as Tuesday after deadline for objections to unsealing of names passes midnight Monday

Nearly 200 names connected to the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking conspiracy could be released by a New York judge as soon as Tuesday, exposing or confirming the identities of dozens of associates of the disgraced financier that until now have only been known as John and Jane Does in court papers.

A deadline for objections to the unsealing of name passes at midnight on Monday, nearly nine years after victim Virginia Giuffre filed a single defamation claim against Maxwell, daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, in 2015, that in turn produced the names in legal depositions.

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Green Day changes lyric to hit out at Trump in New Year’s Eve performance

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Band alters lyric from American Idiot to ‘I’m not a part of the Maga agenda’ during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve set

Rock band Green Day altered the lyrics of their well-known song American Idiot to criticize Donald Trump during a televised New Year’s Eve performance.

During a set on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, the lead singer, Billie Joe Armstrong, replaced the line “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda” with “I’m not a part of the Maga agenda”. The song was originally released to criticize former president George Bush in 2004.

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Man killed in shark attack in Hawaii

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Man, identified in local media as Jason Carter, died in Maui after rescue attempt, police say

A shark attack has killed a man at a spot popular with swimmers and surfers in Hawaii despite a rescue attempt, local police said.

In a statement Maui police said a 39-year-old man had died after being brought back to shore by rescuers at a beach area off the Hana Highway in Paia on the island on Maui.

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Britain ‘considering airstrikes’ on Houthi rebels after Red Sea attacks

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Defence secretary says UK would not hesitate to take ‘direct action’ after US sank boats targeting a container ship

Britain is reportedly considering airstrikes on Houthi rebels after the US said its navy sank three boats that had been targeting a container ship in the Red Sea.

Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, said the government would not hesitate to take “direct action” to prevent further attacks amid reports the UK and US are preparing a joint statement to issue a final warning to the Yemeni group.

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Former aides warn of ‘running out of time’ to prevent Trump re-election

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Sarah Matthews, Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farah Griffin insist Trump’s behavior would be worse if he wins second term

The re-election of Donald Trump in 2024 could “end American democracy as we know it”, according to three women who worked for him in the White House during his chaotic term in office.

All three gave testimony to the US House committee investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat as well as the 6 January 6 Capitol attack staged by his supporters. And they warned in an unprecedented television interview on Sunday that time was short to prevent a second Trump administration in which they insist his behavior would be much worse.

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US-Mexico border crossings in December set monthly record high

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Over 300,000 people were on track to cross as Biden makes urgent efforts to curb migrant flows that have become political liability

More than 300,000 people were on track to cross the US-Mexico border in December without authorization and are being processed by American immigration officials, a tally that sets the latest monthly record, according to government figures obtained by CBS.

The number of crossings, averaging roughly 8,400 apprehensions a day by US border agents, comes amid urgent efforts by the Joe Biden White House to curb migrant flows that have become a domestic political liability for him as he seeks re-election in 2024.

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New York sergeant, wife and two sons found dead in murder-suicide, police say

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Man fatally shot his wife and their sons before dying by suicide in a suburban New York home, according to police

A police sergeant, his wife and their two sons – ages 10 and 12 – were found dead in a suburban home in New York in what police said was a triple murder-suicide.

Watson Morgan, 49, a sergeant with the Bronxville police department, fatally shot his wife, Ornela Morgan, 43, and their sons before dying by suicide, police said. They were discovered just past midnight Saturday at the family’s home in Clarkstown – 18 miles north of Manhattan – after Morgan failed to show up for work at the police department in nearby Bronxville.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from ruling on Trump’s 2024 eligibility, Raskin says

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Democrat speaks on supreme court stepping in to adjudicate Maine and Colorado rulings that removed Trump from ballots

Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from ruling on Donald Trump’s eligibility for the 2024 presidential election, a prominent Democrat said Sunday, warning that the leading Republican candidate is seeking to become a “political martyr” as he pursues a second presidency.

Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin was speaking ahead of the nation’s highest court stepping in to adjudicate recent state rulings in Maine and Colorado that struck the former president from the general election primaries under the US constitution’s 14th amendment insurrection clause.

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‘Happy to be alive’: US woman gets limbs amputated after kidney stone surgery

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Doctors told Kentucky woman she would need quadruple amputation to save her life after kidney stone infection spread

A Kentucky woman who unexpectedly learned she would lose her legs and arms during what she thought would be a relatively routine bout with a kidney stone is confronting her plight by focusing on what she still has.

“I’m just so happy to be alive,” Lucinda “Cindy” Mullins – who’s raising two sons with her husband – recently told the Kentucky news station WLEX. “I get to see my kids. I get to see my family. I get to have my time with my husband.

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Four dead and two injured after house explosion in Michigan, police say

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Authorities say cause of the explosion has not been determined and they didn’t know whether victims were related

Authorities in Michigan say four people have died and two others were injured in a house explosion 45 miles west of Detroit that could be heard from miles away and destroyed the home entirely, leaving only the basement intact.

Police said six people were in the home. Four of those at the home died at the scene, and two others were hospitalized in critical condition. They added that they had not determined the cause of the explosion – which occurred about 3.30pm Saturday – and did not know if the victims were related.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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Maine secretary of state targeted in ‘swatting’ call after removing Trump from ballot

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Shenna Bellows is latest politician to be victim of fake emergency call to police with the intent they will show up at a residence

A fake emergency call to police resulted in officers responding Friday night to the home of Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, just a day after she removed Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the US constitution’s insurrection clause.

She becomes the latest elected politician to become a target of swatting, which involves making a phone call to emergency services with the intent that a large first responder presence, including Swat teams, will show up at a residence.

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How 2023 became the year Congress forgot to ban TikTok

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Momentum seemed to be on their side of US lawmakers this year to stop 150 million Americans from using TikTok. What happened?

Banning TikTok in the US seemed almost inevitable at the start of 2023. The previous year saw a trickle of legislative actions against the short-form video app, after dozens of individual states barred TikTok from government devices in late 2022 over security concerns. At the top of the new year, the US House followed suit, and four universities blocked TikTok from campus wifi.

The movement to prohibit TikTok grew into a flash flood by spring. CEO Shou Zi Chew was called before Congress for brutal questioning in March. By April – with support from the White House (and Joe Biden’s predecessor) – it seemed a federal ban of the app was not just possible, but imminent.

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Trump 2024 trials in limbo as supreme court becomes entangled

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Potential trial delays mean the former president could spend less time in courtroom and more time on the campaign trail

When Donald Trump was indicted in multiple criminal cases this summer, the conventional wisdom was that the former US president could spend vast amounts of time during the height of the 2024 presidential campaign stuck in courtrooms for back-to-back trials in New York, Florida and Washington.

But the reality is that with the federal 2020 election interference case on hold pending appeals, and repeated delays pushing the classified documents case behind schedule by several months, for instance, Trump may find himself in courtrooms far less than expected.

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US Navy downs missiles in Red Sea after ship attacked by Houthi rebels

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Warships responded after container vessel came under fire from Houthi rebel-held part of Yemen, says US

The US Navy has shot down two anti-ship missiles and sunk three small boats after responding to distress calls from a container ship that was attacked twice by Houthi rebels as it crossed the Red Sea over the weekend.

The US Central Command (Centcom) said it dispatched two destroyers, the USS Gravely and the USS Laboon, after the container ship Maersk Hangzhou reported being struck by a missile at 8.30pm local time on Saturday.

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Prosecutors urge court to reject Trump’s immunity claims in election subversion case

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Special counsel Jack Smith says in filing that suggestion Trump cannot be held accountable for crimes ‘threatens the country’

Special counsel Jack Smith urged a federal appeals court Saturday to reject former president Donald Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution, saying the suggestion that he cannot be held to account for crimes committed in office “threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation” of the country.

The filing from Smith’s team was submitted before arguments next month on the legally untested question of whether a former president can be prosecuted for acts made while in the White House.

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Strong waves trigger evacuation alerts on California coast on third day of storms

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Central coast officials warn of 20ft waves while San Francisco Bay Area braces for 26-30ft waves

California’s coastal communities, already battered by powerful swells from Pacific storms on Friday, faced another round of towering waves and possible flooding on Saturday.

The National Weather Service in Los Angeles forecast significant flooding in low-lying coastal areas with powerful waves and strong rip currents posing an “exceptional risk” of drowning and damage to structures like piers and jetties.

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Virginia senator Tim Kaine condemns Biden’s arms transfer to Israel

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On Saturday, Kaine joined chorus of Democrats criticizing Biden for going around Congress and demanded an explanation

Virginia senator Tim Kaine has added his voice to a rising chorus within the Democratic party questioning the Biden administration’s legislatively unconstrained transfer of US munitions to Israel.

In a news release on Saturday, the Democratic senator – a member of the Senate armed services committee – said weapons transfers must come under congressional oversight.

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