Category Archives: US News

Elijah McClain: two Colorado paramedics convicted of criminally negligent homicide in 2019 killing

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EMTs Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper injected 23-year-old with high dose of ketamine in a case that sparked mass protests

Two Colorado paramedics have been convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Elijah McClain after he was stopped by police in 2019.

The jury’s guilty verdicts on Friday for Aurora EMTs Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper mark an extraordinarily rare case of paramedics being found criminally liable for a civilian’s death in police custody and follow years of protests. Cichuniec was also found guilty of second-degree assault. Cooper was acquitted on the assault charges.

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Joe Biden’s reluctance to call for ceasefire may leave him at odds with his party

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Many young voters disapprove of how the US president is handling the conflict in Gaza, a new poll suggests

It was a messy compromise. On Friday, after a week of wrangling, the United Nations security council (UNSC) staggered across the finish line, approving a watered-down bid to boost aid to Gaza and calling for urgent steps “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities”.

The US, a staunch ally of Israel, abstained to allow the 15-member council to adopt the resolution. Joe Biden’s allies will claim that it represents progress of sorts. But it will have little impact on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe as Israel’s bombardment continues.

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Charlie Sheen allegedly attacked at home by a neighbour, US media report

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Electra Schrock arrested after alleged incident in Malibu, involving the actor, best known for sitcom Two and a Half Men

Actor Charlie Sheen has been allegedly attacked in his home by a neighbour who was later arrested by police, US media have reported.

Sheen, star of numerous movies and the hit television sitcom Two and a Half Men, was not seriously injured in the assault, allegedly carried out by 47-year-old Electra Schrock who had attacked him after knocking on the door of his home in the upmarket beachside neighbourhood of Malibu in California.

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Biden pardons thousands of people convicted of marijuana possessions

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Move is latest in round of executive clemencies meant to rectify racial disparities in the justice system

Joe Biden is pardoning thousands of people who were convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia, the White House said Friday – his latest round of executive clemencies meant to rectify racial disparities in the justice system.

The US president is also granting clemency to 11 people serving what the White House called “disproportionately long” sentences for nonviolent drug offenses.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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US and Somali forces kill al-Shabaab commander with $10m bounty on head

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Maalim Ayman was wanted over attack on airbase in Kenya in 2020 in which three Americans died

Somali troops and US forces have killed a senior commander of the al-Shabaab militant group who had a $10m bounty on his head over an attack that left three Americans dead.

“Maalim Ayman, a senior leader of al-Shabaab, was confirmed to have been killed in a joint operation by the Somali national army with assistance from US forces on December 17th,” Kenya’s information minister, Daud Aweis, said on X on Thursday.

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‘It feels very fun and freeing’: US sees ebike boom after years of false starts

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Sales surge as cities and states look to cut pollution from cars and improve options for Americans to get around

After several years of false starts, electric bikes are finally entering the American mainstream, amid booming sales of a multiplying number of models on offer and as more states offer incentives for people to ditch their cars and shift to two, motor-assisted, wheels.

This year could be considered “the year of the ebike”, according to John MacArthur, a transport researcher at Portland State University. Ebike sales in the United States leaped by 269% between 2019 and 2022, with the market size expected to have grown further in 2023, to be worth $2.59bn.

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Trump pressured Michigan election officers not to certify 2020 vote – report

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Recording shows Trump asked canvassers not to sign official document confirming Biden had won, Detroit News says

Donald Trump made a phone call in November 2020 in which he put pressure on two Republican election officers in Michigan not to sign the official document from the state confirming that Joe Biden had won the presidential election there, according to an exclusive report by The Detroit News late on Thursday.

The Detroit News outlet has obtained recordings of the call, made on 17 November 2020, where Trump, who was refusing to accept that he had just lost the White House to Joe Biden, and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel talked to Wayne county election officials Monica Palmer and William Hartmann and told them they would look “terrible” if they signed to endorse Trump’s defeat in the crucial swing state, according to the report.

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Russia warns US and Europe over reports Ukraine may get its seized assets

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Kremlin threatens ‘serious consequences’ if there is an unprecedented seizure of Russian assets held abroad

The Kremlin has threatened Europe and the US with “serious consequences”, including tit-for-tat financial seizures or even a break in diplomatic relations, if Russian assets held abroad are given to aid the Ukrainian budget and war effort.

A spokesperson for Vladimir Putin told reporters on Friday that if the Biden administration and European leaders planned to seize Russian central bank assets believed to be in excess of $300bn (£236bn) that were frozen after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, they should “realise that Russia will never leave those who do it alone”.

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‘We did it together’: New York mother and daughter graduate college on same day

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Tanisha, 36, and Barbara Wiggins, received degrees in human services together from Onondaga Community College in Syracuse

A New York mother and daughter duo have earned their college degrees together on the same day, fulfilling a lifelong dream for both of them.

With her toddler in tow, Tanisha Wiggins, 36, walked across the stage alongside her mother, Barbara Wiggins, 58, at their college, Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, New York. They were both awarded degrees in human services.

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How Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is taking over the Republican party

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Rhetoric that was widely seen as echoing Hitler was not enough for some senior Republicans to break ranks with the former president

Donald Trump has the tacit blessing of senior Republican figures as he seeks to put border security front and center of the 2024 election by deploying fascistic language to fire up his support base, political analysts warn.

The frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 has called for a sharp crackdown on immigration and asserted at a weekend rally that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.

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Psychologists pinpoint average age children become Santa sceptics

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Research found little ones typically begin to distinguish fantasy from reality during preschool years

• ‘I cried for hours’: the moments people realised truth about Father Christmas

From empty glasses of sherry on the mantelpiece to sooty footprints leading to the bedroom door, evidence of Santa’s existence is clearly irrefutable. Yet most children will begin to question it at some point – and many parents anticipate this moment with dread. Now psychologists have identified the average age when Santa scepticism creeps in, and which children are at greatest risk of harbouring negative feelings when it does.

While most adults have fallen for the myth that Santa doesn’t exist, many children still believe – even if the idea of a single individual visiting the homes of billions of children in a single night is at odds with their wider reasoning skills.

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California town proposes ban on Pride, Black and women’s history celebrations

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Far-right council members in Huntington Beach introduce agenda item to switch focus to US wars and America’s independence

The southern California city of Huntington Beach, a bastion of conservative voters, has made the move to block diverse monthlong celebrations of Black history, women’s history and Pride, in favor of observing the revolutionary and civil wars, California’s history and America’s independence.

An agenda item introduced on 19 December forbids any programming that pertains to previously established honorary celebrations for women, people of color and LGBTQ+ groups from taking place on city-owned property, including libraries, or of being featured in city communications such as social media posts, according to Natalie Moser, a city council member who voted against the action.

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House speaker’s Christian nationalist ties spark first amendment fears

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Mike Johnson’s links to key leaders prompts alarm he might try to erode elements of constitution on separation of church and state

Links between the new Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and key Christian nationalist leaders have sparked fears the devout Louisiana congressman might seek to erode elements of the first amendment, which protects key US civil liberties including freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.

Long before th eevangelical conservative Johnson became speaker, he had forged close ties with Christian nationalists like David Barton, whose writings claiming the country’s founders intended to create a Christian nation have been widely debunked by religion scholars.

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Nike to axe hundreds of jobs in bid to save $2bn amid sales slump

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US sportswear brand announces job cuts and simplification of product ranges in ‘streamlining’ of operations

Nike is to cut hundreds of jobs, simplify its product ranges and increase its use of automation as part of attempts to save $2bn (£1.6bn) in costs over the next three years amid poor sales.

The US sportswear brand said it was “taking steps to streamline the organisation” and would be spending up to $450m on the changes, mainly on payoffs for employees.

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Weather tracker: Nor’easter drenches US south-east coast

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Up to 127mm of rain falls on Florida and gusty winds and flash flooding hit parts of Georgia and South Carolina

Last weekend, a low-pressure system that had developed over the Gulf of Mexico tracked north-east across the Florida peninsula. Lashings of heavy rain and strong winds were brought to Florida during the early hours of Sunday morning, dumping up to 127mm (5in) of rain on the state in its passing.

The low-pressure system, termed a “nor’easter”, continued to track north-east, strengthening and bringing gusty winds and flash flooding to the coastal parts of the south-east US, including Georgia and South Carolina.

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Severe rainstorms hit southern California, with more to come

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Torrents of rain on Wednesday night submerged streets and prompted rescues of people and pets

A strong, slow-moving storm unleashed torrents of rain on southern California on Wednesday night, submerging streets and prompting water rescues, and residents across the region are bracing for more wet weather.

Evacuation orders were issued in parts of Ventura county due to the extreme rainfall, where the deluge dumped more than 3in of rain in a single hour, and emergency responders were inundated with calls for help through the night. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Oxnard and the city of Ventura at 1.28am due to the high-intensity thunderstorm; it expired an hour later as the risks calmed. However, the rain continued.

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Book bans use ‘parental rights’ as cover to attack civil liberties, Democrat warns

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Florida congressman Maxwell Frost, who introduced Fight Banned Books Act, says bans are ‘baseless attack on our civil rights’

The growing number of book bans in the US are using a so-called parental rights movement as cover for a wide-ranging attack on civil rights in America, a Democratic congressman has warned.

Earlier this month, a new study by PEN America revealed that there had been at least 5,894 book bans in US public schools from July 2021 to June 2023, with more than 40% of them in Florida, birthplace of a rightwing parents group called Moms for Liberty.

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Man who spent 48 years in prison for murder formally declared innocent

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Glynn Simmons, who served US’s longest wrongful imprisonment for a 1974 murder, wins rare ruling

The man who served the US’s longest wrongful imprisonment for a 1974 murder he has always denied committing has now won a rare ruling declaring him to be actually innocent of the crime.

Glynn Simmons’s murder conviction was dismissed in July after a judge in Oklahoma determined that prosecutors withheld some evidence in the case, including a police report that documented how a witness may have identified alternate suspects. The 71-year-old was freed from prison, and state prosecutors later said they would not retry him in the case because there was no longer any physical evidence.

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Colorado supreme court justices face death threats after Trump ruling

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Report finds ‘significant violent rhetoric’ against justices and Democrats online after ruling to exclude Trump from ballot

Justices on the Colorado supreme court are receiving a barrage of death threats after it ruled to exclude Donald Trump from the state’s presidential ballot next year because of his attempts to cause insurrection.

A report compiled by Advance Democracy, a non-partisan non-profit organization, said there was “significant violent rhetoric” against the justices and Democrats on social media, according to NBC News.

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Texas sends plane to Chicago with over 100 people who crossed US-Mexico border

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Spokesman for Greg Abbott says flights are result of criticism over his operation of bussing migrants to Democratic-led cities

Texas sent a plane with more than 120 people who crossed the US-Mexico border to Chicago in an escalation of Greg Abbott’s bussing operation, which has sent more than 80,000 people to Democratic-led cities across the country since last year.

The first flight, which the Republican governor’s office said left from El Paso and arrived Tuesday, was arranged a week after Chicago’s city council took new action over the busloads of migrants that have drawn sharp criticism from Brandon Johnson, the city’s mayor. The city has said bus operators began trying to drop off people in neighboring cities to avoid penalties that include fines, towing or impoundment.

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