Category Archives: US News

‘Very serious’ ceasefire negotiations in Gaza face impasse | First Thing

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Hamas has said it will not discuss releasing more hostages until Israel ends its war, while Israel has vowed to continue ‘to the end’. Plus, the women who fought back against a couch-surfing predator

Good morning.

The US has said “very serious” negotiations are taking place in Egypt on a new Gaza ceasefire and for the release of more Israeli hostages, but prospects for a deal remain uncertain as Hamas has reportedly insisted it will not discuss anything less than a complete end to Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territory.

How many Palestinians are being held in Israel? More than 8,000 Palestinians are being held in Israeli jails, according to human rights groups.

What has the French president said about Israel’s actions? Emmanuel Macron has said that Israel’s goal of fighting terrorism did not mean it had to “flatten Gaza”, referring to its response to Hamas’s attack on 7 October. “We cannot let the idea take root that an efficient fight against terrorism implies to flatten Gaza or attack civilian populations indiscriminately,” Macron told the broadcaster France 5.

What has Joe Biden said about the Colorado ruling? The president said it was “self-evident” that Donald Trump was an insurrectionist, adding he would not comment on the legal arguments or any likely intervention of the US supreme court.

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Chemical leak at Tennessee cheese factory sends 29 workers to hospital

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Two leaks of anhydrous ammonia were reported at La Quesera Mexicana in Greeneville on Wednesday morning

Twenty-nine workers at a Tennessee cheese factory were sent to the hospital on Wednesday morning after a leak of anhydrous ammonia, the Greeneville city manager, Todd Smith, said at a news conference.

The Greeneville fire department was first called to La Quesera Mexicana at 7.15am when a leak occurred during maintenance on a valve. Six people were hospitalized at the time.

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White South Carolina couple ‘harassed Black neighbors with burning cross’

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Worden Butler and Alexis Hartnett charged after FBI search house in Horry county following alleged racially motivated campaign

The FBI has searched a house in South Carolina after a white couple allegedly put up a cross that faced their Black neighbors and set it on fire.

On Wednesday morning, federal agents searched the house of 28-year-old Worden Butler and 27-year-old Alexis Hartnett in Horry county for a “civil rights investigation involving allegations of racial discrimination”, WBTW reports the agency saying.

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US-Venezuela prisoner swap includes notorious key ally of Nicolás Maduro

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Ten Americans were released in the deal, but critics say release of Alex Saab shows that corrupt Venezuelan officials enjoy impunity

Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, has managed to free a key collaborator from US custody after agreeing to release 10 Americans and 20 Venezuelan citizens from jail.

The Colombian-born businessman Alex Saab – a close Maduro ally whom US prosecutors accused of pilfering hundreds of millions of dollars from Venezuelan social programs as part of a vast money-laundering scheme – was extradited to the US in 2021 after being detained while transiting through Cape Verde.

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Trump lawyers urge supreme court to reject fast-tracking immunity decision

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Federal 2020 election interference trial is currently set for 4 March, the day before Super Tuesday

Lawyers for Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the US supreme court to reject a request from the special counsel to expeditiously decide whether he was immune from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, contending prosecutors lacked standing to bring the petition.

The argument from the ex-president was that prosecutors had no basis to appeal a lower court ruling that was favorable to them, and should instead defer intervening in the case until a federal appeals court issued its own judgment first.

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No sheep’s clothing needed: Colorado reintroduces five gray wolves

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Wolves are the first part of a plan to reintroduce the endangered species into the state after it was eradicated in the region

In an effort to restore an endangered species, Colorado just released five gray wolves in the western part of the state.

On Monday, Colorado parks and wildlife released two female and three male wolves on to remote public land. The predators were captured and brought over from Oregon, after Wyoming, Idaho and Montana refused to share their wolves citing interstate migration and financial concerns.

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Rite Aid facial recognition misidentified Black, Latino and Asian people as ‘likely’ shoplifters

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Surveillance systems incorrectly and without customer consent marked shoppers as ‘persons of interest’, an FTC settlement says

Rite Aid used facial recognition systems to identify shoppers that were previously deemed “likely to engage” in shoplifting without customer consent and misidentified people – particularly women and Black, Latino or Asian people – on “numerous” occasions, according to a new settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. As part of the settlement, Rite Aid has been forbidden from deploying facial recognition technology in its stores for five years.

The FTC said in a federal court complaint that Rite Aid used facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores from October 2012 to July 2020 to identify shoppers “it had previously deemed likely to engage in shoplifting or other criminal behavior”. The technology sent alerts to Rite Aid employees either by email or phone when it identified people entering the store on its watchlist.

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Rare Air Jordans made for Spike Lee fetch $50,000 for homelessness charity

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The shoes – which debuted as Lee’s footwear at the 2019 Academy Awards – were found in a clothing donation bin in Portland, Oregon

A pair of rare Nike Air Jordan 3s made for Spike Lee have sold for more than $50,000 at Sotheby’s after they were discovered earlier this year in the donation chute of a homeless charity in Portland, Oregon.

On Monday, the gold shoes, one of only four to five pairs custom-made for the film director Spike Lee and his inner circle, were auctioned off at Sotheby’s for $50,800. The shoes were originally discovered in April by a participant in Portland Rescue Mission’s long-term shelter program who was sorting through several clothing and shoe donations.

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Man charged in Tupac Shakur killing asks to move from jail to house arrest

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Attorneys of Duane Keith ‘Keffe D’ Davis, whose trial is set for 2024, says the 60-year-old is not getting proper medical attention

A former Los Angeles-area gang leader charged with murder in the killing of hip-hop music icon Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas is deriding the case against him as the product of speculation and second-hand testimony as he asks a judge to put him on house arrest ahead of his trial.

A 2 January hearing date was set Tuesday on Duane “Keffe D” Davis’s bid to be released on no more than $100,000 bail. His court-appointed attorneys wrote that the health of their 60-year-old client has deteriorated in jail and that he is not getting proper medical attention following a bout with colon cancer that they said is in remission.

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Would you drink toilet water? California approves wastewater for human consumption

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Regulators approve rules to let agencies recycle wastewater into drinking water for homes, schools and businesses

When a toilet is flushed in California, the water can end up in a lot of places: an ice-skating rink in Ontario, ski slopes around Lake Tahoe, farmland in the central valley.

And – coming soon – kitchen faucets.

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Ex-Haitian senator gets life in prison for 2021 killing of country’s president

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John Joel Joseph, an opponent of the late president’s party, is third of 11 suspects charged for plotting to assassinate Jovenel Moïse

A former Haitian senator has been sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to kill Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, an assassination which caused unprecedented turmoil in the Caribbean nation.

John Joel Joseph is the third of 11 suspects detained and charged in Miami to be sentenced in what US prosecutors have described as a plot hatched in Haiti and Florida to hire mercenaries to kidnap or kill Moïse, who was 53 when he was shot dead at his private home near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on 7 July 2021.

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US man formerly on death row freed after murder charges dismissed

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Noel Montalvo was in Pennsylvania prison for 20 years for murders that he blamed on his brother who died in prison

A man formerly on death row has been released from prison following dismissal of murder charges in a double slaying a quarter-century ago that he blamed on his brother, who died in prison while appealing his own death sentence in the case.

Noel Montalvo, who turned 59 on Tuesday, was freed on Monday night after York county, Pennsylvania, prosecutors dismissed charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy and burglary shortly before a retrial was to begin. He pleaded guilty to an evidence tampering charge for which the judge sentenced him to a year of probation.

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US announces naval coalition to defend Red Sea shipping from Houthi attacks

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Egypt and Saudi Arabia notably absent from Operation Prosperity Guardian as more shipping companies forgo route

The US has announced the creation of an enhanced naval protection force operating in the southern Red Sea in an attempt to ward off mounting attacks from Yemen’s rebel Houthis on merchant shipping.

Britain said it would be among the countries participating but notable absentees were Arab nations Egypt and Saudi Arabia while analysts speculated that shipping would continue to be disrupted and attacks continue.

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‘Gut punch’ US north-eastern storm leaves at least six people dead

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Deadly winter storm leaves hundreds of thousands without power and deposits flooding and freezing temperatures in its wake

At least six people were killed and hundreds of thousands were left without power as a deadly winter storm swept across the north-eastern US on Monday, depositing flooding and freezing temperatures in its wake.

Two of the deaths were in Maine in separate cases involving fallen trees, authorities said. Other deaths were reported in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and New York.

Associated Press contributed reporting

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Joe Biden plans to ban logging in US old-growth forests in 2025

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Move aims to protect millions of old-growth trees, which are better at storing carbon, but its outcome depends on 2024 election

Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday announced a new proposal aimed at banning logging in old-growth forests, a move meant to protect millions of trees that play a key role in fighting the climate crisis.

The proposal comes from an executive order signed by the president on Earth Day in 2022 that directed the US Forest Service and the land management bureau to conduct an inventory of old-growth and mature forest groves as well as to develop policies that protect them.

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Senator John Fetterman vows to block ‘outrageous’ $14.9bn US Steel sale

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Former mayor of Pennsylvania town of Braddock has long advocated for rights of US steel workers

The US senator John Fetterman has vowed to block the multibillion-dollar sale of US Steel to the Japanese company Nippon Steel, calling the potential deal “outrageous”.

The former mayor of the south-west Pennsylvania town of Braddock, which is home to a major US Steel plant, Fetterman has long advocated for the rights of American steel workers and positioned himself as a pro-union Democrat.

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‘Texas, we’ll see you in court’: migrant law sparks outcry and opposition

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Democrats call on attorney general to halt state law, while Mexican president and ACLU both say they will challenge it

As a group of Texas and Hispanic Democrats demanded the US attorney general block what they called “the most extreme anti-immigrant state bill in the United States”, signed by the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, on Monday, the president of Mexico and the American Civil Liberties Union also vowed to fight the law.

“Texas, we’ll see you in court,” the ACLU said.

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Report: California leads nation in street homelessness and youth living outside

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Experts say lack of affordable housing in state is the main cause, worsened by expiration of pandemic programs that added shelter

California continues to lead the nation in homelessness, with US data showing the state has the highest rate of unhoused people living outside in a worsening humanitarian crisis.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud) released its Annual Homeless Assessment Report (Ahar) on Friday, providing a “point in time” snapshot from January 2023. On a single day, 653,104 people experiencing homelessness were counted across the US, the highest number since the count began in 2007. The estimates are considered to be undercounts.

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Senator ‘disappointed’ in staffer allegedly filmed having sex in hearing room

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Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland – due to retire in 2025 – said Aidan Maese-Czeropski is ‘no longer a Senate employee’

The US senator Ben Cardin said he is “angry” and “disappointed” in a now-former staffer who allegedly recorded himself having sex in a Capitol Hill hearing room.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, the Maryland Democrat declined to elaborate on either the ex-staffer or the episode, video of which was leaked. But Cardin said he considered the entire sequence “a breach of trust”.

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Daniel Duggan asks to be released from jail and detained at home as he fights extradition to US

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Australian pilot accused of training Chinese military denies he is a flight risk in letter requesting NSW home detention

An Australian pilot accused of accepting cash to illegally train Chinese military personnel has denied he is a flight risk and described himself as a model prisoner in a formal request to be released into home detention.

Daniel Duggan has written to the acting New South Wales corrections commissioner from Lithgow maximum security prison where he is being held in isolated custody while he fights extradition to the US.

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