Category Archives: US News

White House condemns ‘antisemitic’ rally outside Philadelphia falafel shop

Posted on by

Deputy press secretary says protest at Goldie, owned by American Israeli chef Michael Solomonov, ‘completely unjustifiable’

The White House has condemned events outside an Israeli-style falafel shop in Philadelphia that became the focus of marchers at a “Flood Philly for Gaza” rally who chanted, “You can’t hide, we charge you with genocide” on Sunday.

It was “antisemitic and completely unjustifiable to target restaurants that serve Israeli food over disagreements with Israeli policy”, said the deputy press secretary, Andrew Bates.

Continue reading...

Former US diplomat charged with spying for Cuba over 40 years

Posted on by

Attorney general alleges ‘one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations’ of US government by foreign agent

The US government charged a former diplomat who served on the national security council in the 1990s with secretly serving as an agent of Cuba’s government for more than 40 years.

Victor Manuel Rocha was arrested on Friday, following a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation. The US ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, Rocha also worked on the national security council from 1994 to 1995. He is charged with committing multiple federal crimes.

Continue reading...

IBM unveils new quantum computing chip to ‘explore new frontiers of science’

Posted on by

Computer and AI giant rolls out machine using ‘Heron’ chips using subatomic particles instead of ones and zeros

The computer and artifical intelligence technology giant IBM on Monday unveiled a new quantum computing chip and machine that the company says could serve as the building blocks of much larger and faster systems than traditional silicon-based computers.

IBM’s rollout of what it calls Quantum System Two, which uses three “Heron” cryogenically cooled chips, comes as tech rivals including Microsoft, Alphabet’s Google, China’s Baidu and others are racing to develop machines that use quantum bits – subatomic particles that unlike the ones or zeros of traditional computing can be in “superposition” of both one and zero at the same time.

Continue reading...

Misinformation expert says she was fired by Harvard under Meta pressure

Posted on by

Joan Donovan says funding was cut off for criticizing Meta when university was receiving $500m from Mark Zuckerberg’s charity

One of the world’s leading experts on misinformation says she was fired by Harvard University for criticising Meta at a time that the school was being pledged $500m from Mark Zuckerberg’s charity.

Joan Donovan says her funding was cut off, she could not hire assistants and she was made the target of a smear campaign by Harvard employees. In a legal filing with the US education department and the Massachusetts attorney general first published by the Washington Post, she said her right to free speech had been abrogated.

Continue reading...

US air force Osprey crash wreckage and remains of five crew found off Japan

Posted on by

Aircraft crashed last week off south-western Japan carrying eight American personnel on training mission

US and Japanese divers have discovered wreckage and remains of five crew members from a US air force Osprey aircraft that crashed last week off south-western Japan, the air force announced on Monday.

The CV-22 Osprey carrying eight American personnel crashed last Wednesday off Yakushima island during a training mission. The body of one victim was recovered and identified earlier.

Continue reading...

Agreement to phase out fossil fuels would be huge for humanity, says Gore

Posted on by

Exclusive: former US vice-president and climate activist says phase-out can be only measure of success for Cop28

An agreement by countries to phase out fossil fuels would be “one of the most significant events in the history of humanity”, according to Al Gore, amid wrangling by governments at Cop28.

It would be a “welcome surprise” if world leaders agreed at the climate talks to call for an end to fossil fuels, but such a declaration would have “enormous impact” upon the world, Gore told the Guardian at the gathering in the United Arab Emirates.

Continue reading...

Former US diplomat arrested in Florida is accused of serving as an agent of Cuba

Posted on by

Manuel Rocha, 73, who once served as ambassador to Bolivia, is accused of working to promote the Cuban government’s interests

A former American diplomat who served as US ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested in a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation, accused of secretly serving as an agent of Cuba’s government, the Associated Press has learned.

Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in Miami on Friday on a criminal complaint and more details about the case are expected to be made public at a court appearance Monday, said two people who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing federal investigation.

Continue reading...

Three commercial vessels attacked in Red Sea by Houthi rebels, says US

Posted on by

US military says the destroyer Carney shot down three drones as US Central Command says they believe attacks ‘fully enabled by Iran’

Three commercial vessels came under attack in international waters in the southern Red Sea, the US military said on Sunday, as Yemen’s Houthi group claimed drone and missile attacks on two Israeli vessels in the area.

“Today there were four attacks against three separate commercial vessels operating in international waters in the southern Red Sea,” the statement from the US Central Command reads. “We have every reason to believe that these attacks, while launched by the Houthis in Yemen, are fully enabled by Iran.”

This article was amended on Monday 4 December to correct a headline error that stated the three commercial vessels were US-owned.

Continue reading...

Alaska Airlines to buy Hawaiian Airlines in deal that may face regulator scrutiny

Posted on by

Deal for $1.9bn, which includes $900m in Hawaiian Airlines debt, would keep both airlines’ brands

Alaska Airlines said Sunday it agreed to buy Hawaiian Airlines in a $1.9bn deal, including debt, putting it on track for a potential clash with a Biden administration that has shown wariness about higher fares in the industry.

The combined company would keep both airlines’ brands, rooted in the nation’s 49th and 50th states. Alaska will pay $18 in cash for each share of Hawaiian, whose stock closed Friday at $4.86 after losing just over half its value in the year so far.

Continue reading...

US prison deaths soared by 77% during height of Covid-19 crisis, study finds

Posted on by

Analysis of in-custody deaths show mortality rates were more than three times the increase in general population in 2020

A study of US prison deaths at the height of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 has found that mortality rates soared by 77% relative to 2019, or more than three times the increase in the general population.

The study, published by Science Advances last week, is the most comprehensive analysis of in-custody deaths since 2020. The report found that “Covid-19 was the primary driver for increases in mortality due to natural causes; some states also experienced substantial increases due to unnatural causes.”

Continue reading...

Beyoncé rules box office at weekend with Renaissance film

Posted on by

Post-Thanksgiving box office is notoriously slow, but concert movie defied odds, opening in first place with $21m in ticket sales

Beyoncé ruled the box office this weekend.

Her concert picture, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, opened in first place with $21m in North American ticket sales, according to estimates from AMC Theatres Sunday.

Continue reading...

HBO to develop George Santos’s ‘Gatsby-esque journey’ into movie – report

Posted on by

News that the book The Fabulist will be adapted into film comes after congressman was expelled last week

A book about the improbable rise and rapid fall of former congressman George Santos has been optioned by HBO Films, it was reported Saturday, and will be produced under the guidance of Frank Rich, a former New York Times columnist known for executive production credits on Emmy awards-winning Succession and Veep.

HBO reportedly optioned the rights to Mark Chiusano’s The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, published last week.

Continue reading...

One of the three Palestinian-American students shot in Vermont is paralyzed

Posted on by

Twenty-year-old Hisham Awartani paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spine, his family says

One of the three college students of Palestinian descent who were shot in Vermont last month is paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spine, the student’s family said.

Hisham Awartani, a 20-year-old student at Brown University who grew up in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was walking with two friends near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington on 25 November when, police say, 48-year-old Jason Eaton shot them with a handgun in a suspected hate crime. Eaton has pleaded not guilty.

Continue reading...

Muslim leaders in swing states pledge to ‘abandon’ Biden over his refusal to call for ceasefire

Posted on by

Warnings that president stance on the war risks losing support of community in states critical to his chances for re-election

Muslim community leaders gathered on Saturday in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the US, to protest President Biden’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, reiterating that the president’s stance could affect his support in crucial swing states next year.

Jaylani Hussein, director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that Biden’s unwillingness to call for a ceasefire had damaged his relationship with the American-Muslim community beyond repair. (Cair-Minnesota is not involved in his work on the Abandon Biden effort, which the organization said Hussein is doing in his personal capacity.)

Continue reading...

‘Moderate’ or Roe v Wade killer: can Trump have it both ways on abortion?

Posted on by

The former president is proud of appointing the supreme court justices who overturned the right to abortion – now the issue is a vote loser for Republicans

A few months ago, the former president Donald Trump accused the Republican party of speaking “very inarticulately” on abortion. And yet, for the GOP presidential frontrunner, inarticulateness seems to be a feature, not a bug, of his own approach to abortion.

Trump thinks he can run in 2024 as a “moderate” on abortion, Rolling Stone reported this week – even though he’s currently running ads in Iowa, a crucial state in the Republican primary, proclaiming himself “the most pro-life president ever”. It’s a title to which Trump has a legitimate claim: his three nominees to the supreme court not only handed the nation’s highest court a definitive conservative majority, but all three voted to overturn Roe v Wade in summer 2022.

Continue reading...

‘The devil was in that building’: New Orleans church orphanages’ dark secrets

Posted on by

Survivors of institutions run by Catholic diocese recall litany of sexual abuse as bankruptcy process keeps documents hidden

This is the final installment of a three-part series exploring how the archdiocese of New Orleans’s bankruptcy stands apart from other cases of its kind. The first installment ran on Wednesday 29 November 2023, and the second installment ran on Friday 1 December.

Call her Sheila.

Continue reading...

Suspect arrested in fatal shootings of three unhoused men in LA, police say

Posted on by

Jerrid Joseph Powell, 33, had already been in custody for the robbery and killing of a fourth man

A Los Angeles man who had already been arrested in another shooting investigation has been identified as the suspect in three recent killings of unhoused men, police said Saturday.

The Los Angeles police chief, Michel Moore, said 33-year-old Jerrid Joseph Powell was identified as the suspect in the three killings after authorities determined that a firearm found in the vehicle he had been driving when he was arrested earlier was linked to the shootings.

Continue reading...

Florida congressional map need not be redrawn, says court in reversal

Posted on by

September decision finding Republicans discriminated against Black voters with reconfigured districts overruled on appeal

A Florida appellate court ruled on Friday that lawmakers do not have to redraw the state’s congressional map, reversing a September decision that found Republicans discriminated against Black voters when it reconfigured districts in the northern part of the state.

The ruling from the first district court of appeal is the latest development in a long-running legal battle over Black representation in the state. In 2015, the state supreme court imposed a district that stretched from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee in order to give Black voters there a chance to elect the candidate of their choosing. From 2015 until 2022, voters in the fifth congressional district elected Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, to represent them. But in 2022, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, went out of his way to dismantle it, chopping it up into four majority-white districts that all elected Republican candidates.

Continue reading...

US House close to vote on Biden impeachment inquiry, speaker says

Posted on by

After months of Republican investigations, Mike Johnson told Fox he believed GOP conference has enough votes to launch

The US House speaker Mike Johnson signaled on Saturday that Republicans are nearing holding a formal vote to launch an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.

“I think it’s something we have to do at this juncture,” Johnson said during a Saturday appearance on Fox and Friends Weekend.

Continue reading...

Georgia county to use program linked to election denier to flag ineligible voters

Posted on by

Controversial EagleAI program connected to Trump supporter uses public records to flag people who shouldn’t be on the rolls

A Georgia county on Friday agreed to use a controversial program to identify ineligible people on its voter rolls that is connected to one of the most prominent election deniers and a key figure in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Columbia county, which is just outside Augusta, is believed to be the first place in the US to use the program, which is called EagleAI, the New York Times reported. The software matches voting data with publicly available information like post office and death records to flag people who should no longer be on the rolls.

Continue reading...