Category Archives: US News

Digested week: Avoid batrachoidal bums and gift a heated throw | Lucy Mangan

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Thankfully the 12-year-old survived five nights away but there’s still the gas bill to worry about

The child returns home today from his first ever school trip away (which is also, because we are useless, at the age of 12 his first trip abroad). He has been away for five nights, which is five times more nights than he has ever been away from us before (see uselessness above) and I have coped extremely well. Yes, I could periodically be found lying prostrate on the sofa or staring white-faced at a wall, praying to a god I don’t believe in not to let him be kidnapped, lost or killed while my husband futilely attempted to console me with the thought that school trips are not like they were in our day. “They chip them and rope them to a teacher at all times now. They probably don’t even go on the trip. They’re probably just in a room on a Luton industrial estate with some convincing holographics on the wall all week. He’ll be fine.”

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Revealed: how top PR firm uses ‘trust barometer’ to promote world’s autocrats

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Edelman, world’s largest public relations company, paid millions by Saudi Arabia, UAE and other repressive regimes

Public trust in some of the world’s most repressive governments is soaring, according to Edelman, the world’s largest public relations firm, whose flagship “trust barometer” has created its reputation as an authority on global trust. For years, Edelman has reported that citizens of authoritarian countries, including Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and China, tend to trust their governments more than people living in democracies do.

But Edelman has been less forthcoming about the fact that some of these same authoritarian governments have also been its clients. Edelman’s work for one such client – the government of the UAE – will be front and center when world leaders convene in Dubai later this month for the UN’s Cop28 climate summit.

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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs accused of sexual assault and revenge porn in two new lawsuits

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Allegations, which rapper and mogul denies, follow another lawsuit last week from former girlfriend Cassie, which was quickly settled

Sean Combs, the rapper and mogul known as Diddy, has been accused of sexual assault in two new lawsuits, after another he settled last week with former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, AKA Cassie.

The first, from Joi Dickerson-Neal, alleges Combs attacked her in 1991 and inflicted “substantial and lifetime injuries … as a result of being drugged, sexually assaulted and abused, and being “the victim of ‘revenge porn’ that Sean Combs or ‘P. Diddy’ created and distributed”. A representative for Combs has called the claims “made up and not credible … purely a money grab”.

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Jamie Foxx denies sexually assaulting woman in New York bar

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Lawsuit alleges the Hollywood star assaulted a woman while at Catch NYC & Roof, a restaurant and rooftop bar, in summer 2015

Hollywood star Jamie Foxx has denied accusations that he sexually assaulted a woman while at a New York rooftop bar eight years ago.

The lawsuit alleges in summer 2015, Foxx made comments such as, “Wow, you have that supermodel body,” while at Catch NYC & Roof, a restaurant and rooftop bar, before grabbing the woman by the arm and pulling her to the “secluded” back of the rooftop.

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Fiery Bentley crash that killed two at US-Canada border probably not terrorism, says FBI

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Rainbow Bridge was closed on one of year’s busiest days after vehicle reportedly en route to Kiss concert exploded on Wednesday

A car crash at the US-Canada border that killed two people, injured a border officer and jangled nerves ahead of the busy Thanksgiving holiday travel period is not believed to be terrorism, according to the FBI.

The agency had handed over its investigation to local officials, who are looking into why a luxury vehicle sped towards a border checkpoint, crossed a median, launched into the air, hit a building and exploded into a fireball.

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US coal power plants killed at least 460,000 people in past 20 years – report

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Pollution caused twice as many premature deaths as previously thought, with updated understanding of dangers of PM2.5

Coal-fired power plants killed at least 460,000 Americans during the past two decades, causing twice as many premature deaths as previously thought, new research has found.

Cars, factories, fire smoke and electricity plants emit tiny toxic air pollutants known as fine particulate matter or PM2.5, which elevate the risk of an array of life-shortening medical conditions including asthma, heart disease, low birth weight and some cancers.

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Racially extremist materials found in home of Ohio Walmart mass shooter

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Nazi materials among items retrieved by FBI from house of gunman who killed self after wounding four people

The FBI said the gunman who opened fire inside a Walmart in Ohio on Monday, wounding four before killing himself, may have been “at least partially inspired by racially motivated violent extremist ideology”.

It confirmed two of the victims were white and the other two were Black.

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Derailed train sparks molten sulphur fire in Kentucky

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State declares emergency and town of Livingstone evacuated, to be fed Thanksgiving dinner by CVX rail company

The governor of Kentucky has declared a state of emergency after a train derailed and sparked a molten sulphur fire.

The derailment, involving at least 16 cars including two that were carrying molten sulphur, occurred north of Livingston in Rockcastle county at about 2.23pm on Wednesday, according to railroad operator CSX.

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OpenAI ‘was working on advanced model so powerful it alarmed staff’

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Reports say new model Q* fuelled safety fears, with workers airing their concerns to the board before CEO Sam Altman’s sacking

OpenAI was reportedly working on an advanced system before Sam Altman’s sacking that was so powerful it caused safety concerns among staff at the company.

The artificial intelligence model triggered such alarm with some OpenAI researchers that they wrote to the board of directors before Altman’s dismissal warning it could threaten humanity, Reuters reported.

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Former state department official who made Islamophobic comments to vendor arrested for hate crime

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Food cart worker saw an outpouring of support from customers after news of the verbal attacks went public

The street vendor in Manhattan who was racially harangued about the Gaza conflict woke to huge lines of well-wishing customers on Wednesday as the the former state department official who was filmed berating him was arrested and charged with racial harassment and stalking as a hate crime.

Mohammed Hussein, 24, was back to work at the Q Halal Cart grill on Wednesday on the corner of Second Avenue and East 83rd Street, with lines of customers queuing for food in a sign of support.

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Taiwan poll shows dip in US trust amid growing concern over China

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Survey two months before presidential election reveals more than 80% of people think threat from Beijing has worsened

More than 80% of Taiwanese people think that the threat from China has worsened in recent years, while trust in the US has also declined in the past two years, in part because of the war in Ukraine damaging Washington’s credibility.

The results of a survey published this week reveal a portrait of Taiwanese society that is under increasing pressure as the self-governing island heads towards a presidential election in January that could have far reaching ramifications for its relationship with the world’s two biggest superpowers.

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Thursday briefing: What the meltdown at OpenAI means for the future of artificial intelligence

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In today’s newsletter: Why Sam Altman was fired as the company’s CEO, why he was rehired – and what it all means for the field

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Good morning. Boardroom coups are always pretty absorbing; a boardroom coup at a company that has set itself the lofty goal of “building artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is safe and benefits all of humanity” is more absorbing still.

The removal of chief executive Sam Altman from OpenAI, which made the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, has therefore been the subject of breathless attention since it was announced last Friday. Now Altman has got his job back, and there’s even more to get your head around.

Israel-Hamas war | Israeli officials have said a four-day Gaza truce and hostage release will not start until at least Friday, stalling a breakthrough deal to pause the bloody seven-week-old war and thwarting the hopes of families that some captives would be freed on Thursday.

Autumn statement | Jeremy Hunt sought to blunt the impact of the highest levels of taxation since the second world war with a cut in workers’ national insurance contributions, fuelling speculation about a snap spring general election. The chancellor used a fresh squeeze on public spending to pay for a reduction in NICs worth £450 a year to the average employee. See the key points and what it means for you.

Netherlands | Geert Wilders’ far-right, anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) is on course to be the largest party in the Dutch parliament, according to exit polls, in a major electoral upset whose reverberations will be felt around Europe. The PVV was predicted to win 35 seats in the 150-seat parliament, but may not be able to form a governing coalition.

Covid inquiry | Prof Sir Jonathan Van-Tam and his family were advised by police to move out of their home during the pandemic because of a threat that they would have their throats cut, he has told the Covid inquiry. Van-Tam said that he feared the scale of such abuse would put people off taking up similar roles in the future.

US and Canada | Four border crossings between the US and Canada were closed on Wednesday after a vehicle exploded at a checkpoint on a bridge near Niagara Falls, reportedly killing two people. Governor of New York Kathy Hochul said there was “no indication of a terrorist attack”.

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Two dead after vehicle explosion at US-Canada border checkpoint

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New York governor says ‘no indication of terrorist attack’ as officials investigate incident at Rainbow Bridge near Niagara Falls

A speeding car crashed in flames on the bridge linking New York state and Ontario at Niagara Falls on Wednesday, killing two people in the vehicle and sparking a security scare that closed four US-Canadian border crossings.

Hours later, federal and state authorities said investigators had found no evidence of an act of terrorism, though circumstances surrounding the crash on the Rainbow Bridge remained murky, leaving it to be determined whether it was accidental or intentional.

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Yale historian says west can break Ukraine stalemate with more military aid

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Timothy Snyder argues that ‘dropping five more queens on the board’ would allow Ukraine to prevail

Ukraine has not reached a stalemate in its war with Russia because the west can help Kyiv by “dropping five more queens on the board”, according to an influential historian of eastern Europe.

Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor, argued that continuing high levels of military aid could allow Ukraine to prevail, in response to a recent interview given by Kyiv’s top military commander, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, suggesting that the war was deadlocked.

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Former Australian deputy PM Barnaby Joyce says official JFK assassination findings didn’t ‘stack up’

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Coalition MP says he has spent ‘an awful lot of time’ researching topic, and official theory that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone is ‘implausible’

The former deputy prime minister and Coalition frontbencher Barnaby Joyce claims the official narrative of the assassination of US president John F Kennedy 60 years ago “doesn’t stack up”, saying he didn’t believe the findings of the Warren commission that only one shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, was involved and acted alone.

The member for New England said he had devoted “an awful lot of time” to researching the incident, saying his own experience using firearms led him to believe that a rifle shot from the book depository – the official conclusion of the 1964 report into Kennedy’s death – was “implausible”.

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Rainbow Bridge vehicle explosion: what we know about US-Canada border incident

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Two people who were in the car have died, police say, as New York governor says there are no signs of terrorist activity

Four border crossings between the US and Canada were closed after a vehicle exploded at a checkpoint on a bridge near Niagara Falls, reportedly killing two people.

New York governor Kathy Hochul said after a preliminary investigation there was “no indication of a terrorist attack” in the explosion which happened on the US side of the Rainbow Bridge.

Hochul added: “The world is watching to find out what’s happening here”, citing “high stress” around the Israel-Hamas war. “Based on the preliminary investigation there’s no sign of terrorist” activity in the crash, Hochul said.

Three out of four of the US-Canada crossings, the Lewiston, Whirlpool and Peace Bridge, have been reopened after being temporarily shuttered. The Rainbow Bridge remains closed.

US Customs and Border Protection said it was working closely with the FBI and federal, state and local partners and the White House said it was watching the situation closely.

Law enforcement officials have identified the registered owner of the vehicle involved in the explosion at Rainbow Bridge, according to authorities who spoke to CNN. Hochul said in a press briefing that it was an individual local to western New York.

The New York City police department has sent NYPD officers upstate to “support efforts on the ground” following the explosion.

Several services were paused or otherwise halted. International arrivals and departures have been halted at the Buffalo Niagara international airport, CNN reports the Federal Aviation Authority saying. Amtrak suspended its services between New York and Canada.

A witness that saw the crash said the vehicle involved looked like it was traveling “over 100 miles an hour”.

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Vehicle explosion at US-Canada border shows no sign of terrorism, says New York governor – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. You can read the latest stories below:

Here is testimony from a witness on the Rainbow Bridge explosion.

Describing the movement of the vehicle involved in the explosion, the witness said:

“My wife and I were walking down Main Street here and the car was coming … over 100 miles an hour. We could hardly see him, he was going that quick.

There was a car in front of him, he swerved around it and then it looked like he hit the fence and this fire started. And then all of a sudden, he went up in the air and then it was a ball of fire like 30, 40 ft high… [The car] was going towards Canada.”

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Office of judge presiding over Trump’s New York trial bombarded with threats

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Judge Arthur Engoron and his clerk have also received antisemitic abuse since a gag order imposed on the ex-president was lifted

The office of the New York judge overseeing Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial has been bombarded with death threats and antisemitic abuse following the former president’s online attacks.

Judge Arthur Engoron and his clerk, Allison Greenfield, are said to have received hundreds of threatening, harassing and disparaging messages via telephone and social media.

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Secrecy and public anger: how the Israel/Hamas ceasefire deal came about

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Increasing pressure from the US and from the families of Israeli hostages were vital in securing agreement for the four-day truce

The hostage deal that was finally agreed by the Israeli cabinet in the early hours of Wednesday was very similar in outline to what was on the table a month ago, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

In the intervening weeks, a lot has happened to turn the proposal to exchange women and children prisoners during a ceasefire into a near-reality.

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Harvard journal accused of censoring article blaming Israel for Gaza genocide

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Harvard Law Review declined an essay by Palestinian doctoral candidate Rabea Eghbariah after it had been initially approved

A prestigious journal published by Harvard Law School has been accused of censorship after it refused to publish an academic article accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, allegedly because editors feared a backlash.

The Harvard Law Review, which is run by the school’s student body, declined the 2,000-word essay – titled The Ongoing Nakba: Towards a Legal Framework for Palestine – by a Palestinian doctoral candidate, Rabea Eghbariah, after it had been edited, fact-checked and initially approved.

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