Category Archives: US News

Former Pennsylvania mayor imprisoned for shooting at Pokémon Go players

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Ida Reams served as mayor of Osceola Mills from 2013 to 2021 and was intoxicated when she confronted the two men

The former two-term mayor of a Pennsylvania town has been ordered to serve up to a year in jail for shooting a gun at – and threatening to kill – two players of the popular mobile game Pokémon Go.

Ida Reams, who served as mayor of Osceola Mills from 2013 to 2021, was intoxicated when she confronted the two male players of the augmented reality game in the parking lot of a food bank in the town in March last year.

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Binder of classified material on Russia reportedly went missing in final Trump days

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CNN and New York Times report disappearance of 2,700 pages of classified material that caused alarm in US intelligence circles

A 10in-thick binder containing nearly 3,000 pages of highly classified material related to the investigation of Russian election interference as well as links between Moscow and Donald Trump went missing in the final days of his presidency, CNN and the New York Times reported.

CNN said the disappearance raised alarms in the American intelligence community because “some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed”.

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US Congress passes stripped-down measure to release UFO records

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National Archives directed to collect reports but measure gives government departments broad authority to keep them secret

If the truth about UFOs is out there, the American government doesn’t want you to see it yet.

Just months after US space agency Nasa appointed a research director of unidentified anomalous phenomena, and promised more transparency about what it knows, the US Congress has acted to throttle the flow of information that ultimately reaches the public.

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Bernie Sanders demands answers on Israel’s ‘indiscriminate’ Gaza bombing

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Senator introduces resolution to investigate ‘humanitarian cataclysm … being done with American bombs and money’

The US’s support for Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza is facing new scrutiny in Washington following a resolution by the independent senator Bernie Sanders that could ultimately be used to curtail military assistance.

It is far from clear whether Sanders has the support to pass the resolution, but its introduction in the Senate this week – by an important progressive ally of the US president Joe Biden – highlights mounting human rights and political concerns by Democrats on Capitol Hill.

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Satanic Temple condemns vandalism of its statue by Christian military veteran

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Michael Cassidy arrested over tearing down of satanic altar – symbol of humanism and anti-authoritarianism – at Iowa capitol

The leader of an organization whose satanic altar at Iowa’s state capitol was torn down by a Christian military veteran Thursday has dismissed the vandalism as “a real act of cowardice”.

“There’s a certain point at which we need some adults in the room to tell people what … liberal, democratic values are; what they’re value is; why we uphold them; what they’re good for; and they need to stand up for these values or we are going to further degenerate in our polarism towards autocracy,” the co-founder of the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, told CNN’s NewsNight on Thursday.

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Former EPA official says agency fails to protect public from toxic pesticides

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Karen McCormack says regulators at environmental agency are discouraged from speaking up about dangerous chemicals

Federal regulators are discouraged from speaking up about potentially dangerous pesticides, according to a former agency official.

Karen McCormack, a retired Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientist who spent 40 years with the agency, told Al Jazeera’s investigative show Fault Lines that she believed the EPA was not fulfilling its mission to protect the public from harmful chemicals.

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Comedian Kenny DeForest dies after New York bike accident

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Comedian known for appearances on talkshows was struck by a car when riding an e-bike on 8 December

The comedian Kenny DeForest has died after a bike accident in New York, his friend and fellow comedian Ryan Beck confirmed.

DeForest, 37, best known for his appearances on talkshows such as Late Night with Seth Meyers and the Late Show with James Corden, was riding an e-bike on 8 December when he was struck by a car.

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‘It’s going to delay the mail’: the fight over Louis DeJoy’s USPS plan

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Trump’s postmaster general appointee is implementing a 10-year austerity plan that will slash jobs and close sorting centers

More than 500,000 workers at the United States Postal Service (USPS) will be handling billions of deliveries through the holidays. For hundreds of them, this may be their last Christmas at their current mail sorting facility and workers are warning the impact on consumers will be severe.

Donald Trump’s appointee as postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, is currently implementing a 10-year “Delivering for America” austerity plan that will slash jobs and close sorting centers.

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Costco sells $100m in gold bars in most recent quarter

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Retailer began selling bars of 24-karat gold online in September, with each release selling out ‘within a few hours’

Known for selling goods in bulk, Costco’s latest such offering – gold bars – has proved a hit, with $100m worth sold in the most recent quarter, Business Insider reported.

With demand for the precious metal rising globally amid the economic uncertainty of the past few years, Costco in September began selling 1oz (28g) bars of 24-karat gold exclusively online, with Costco members eligible to buy two apiece. The retailer has more than 72m paid memberships.

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Biden in a bind as Netanhayu ready to flout any US attempt to rein in Israel

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Israel PM has defied US calls for restraint in Gaza and told domestic audience he will not compromise

US efforts to show it retains significant influence over the Israeli government were dealt a double blow on Thursday when the Israeli defence minister said it would take months to complete the task of rooting out Hamas, and a leaked US intelligence assessment revealed up to 45% of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions that Israel has dropped on Gaza since 7 October have been unguided “dumb bombs”.

The predictions of a months-long campaign were delivered on camera by Yoav Gallant to a stony-faced Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, who had arrived in Israel to convey a message that its campaign needed to change – and preferably be wrapped up in weeks. They were later reinforced by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Neyanyahu, who said Israel would not stop until complete victory.

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Georgia teacher accused of threatening to kill student over Israeli flag, police say

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Teacher arrested after allegedly saying he would ‘cut’ student’s ‘head off’ after she told him she was offended by his Israeli flag

A school teacher in the US state of Georgia was arrested after allegedly threatening to behead a student who expressed taking offense over his Israeli flag, according to authorities.

Benjamin Reese’s arrest at the middle school named after the town of Warner Robins occurred on after a student approached and told him she was offended by the Israeli flag hanging in his classroom, the local news station WMAZ reported, citing a police account of the case.

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Curb Your Enthusiasm: Larry David comedy to end after 12 seasons

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‘I will now have the opportunity to finally shed this “Larry David” persona and become the person God intended me to be,’ star says

After almost 25 years playing Larry David, Larry David has announced that his award-winning comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm is ending with the next season.

The Seinfeld co-creator has played a curmudgeonly version of himself in Curb Your Enthusiasm since 2000, making it HBO’s longest-running comedy. Much like Seinfeld, the show draws on the humour in everyday life but the dialogue is mostly improvised around an outline written by David, who plays a semi-retired television writer.

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Judge sentences Black child, 10, to three months of probation for peeing in public

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Mississippi judge also orders child to write a book report on Kobe Bryant after officers arrested him for urinating in a parking lot

A 10-year-old Black child who urinated in a parking lot must serve three months’ probation and write a two-page book report on the late NBA star Kobe Bryant, a Mississippi judge has ordered.

Tate county youth court judge Rusty Harlow handed down the sentence Tuesday after the child’s lawyer reached an agreement with a special prosecutor. The prosecution threatened to upgrade the charge of “child in need of supervision” to a more serious charge of disorderly conduct if the boy’s family took the case to trial, said Carlos Moore, the child’s attorney.

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Andre Braugher died of lung cancer, Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor’s publicist says

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Emmy-winning actor, who also starred in Homicide: Life on the Street, died at age 61

Andre Braugher died from lung cancer, a representative said on Thursday.

When the Emmy-winning actor who starred in the series Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Homicide: Life on the Street died on Monday at age 61, his representatives said only that he had been through a brief illness, but his publicist Jennifer Allen gave the cause on Thursday.

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Rudy Giuliani defamation trial: jury deliberating on damages for former election workers – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. You can read our full report here:

Michael Gottlieb, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said that he will not provide the jury with a number for damages to be paid, Law & Crime’s Brandi Buchman reports.

Instead, he said that they must reach that number by weighing the humiliation, indignity and suffering Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss experienced based on the evidence provided.

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Uproar as after-school Satan club forms at Tennessee elementary school

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Satanic clubs, whose members do not worship the devil, usually formed in response to presence of religious groups in schools

Community members in a Tennessee school district want to banish Satan from their children’s halls after the formation of a new club was announced.

The After School Satan Club (ASSC) wants to establish a branch in Chimneyrock elementary school in the Memphis-Shelby county schools (MSCS) district.

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US Congress passes bill allowing sale of Aukus nuclear submarines to Australia

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Legislation covering a wide range of military issues clears the way for Virginia class vessels to bolster Pacific defence

The US Congress has passed legislation allowing the country to sell Virginia class submarines to Australia under the Aukus security pact.

Sweeping legislation covering a wide range of military priorities including Aukus passed the US House of Representatives on Thursday Washington time, a day after it cleared the Senate.

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Patti Smith ‘in good health’ after being hospitalised in Italy

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Singer suffers sudden illness while on tour and cancels remainder of dates

Patti Smith has been briefly hospitalised following an illness while on tour in Italy.

The 76-year-old singer had been due to perform in Bologna but she cancelled the concert after suffering what the city’s Teatro Duse venue described as a “sudden illness”.

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NBA indefinitely suspends Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green

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League announces penalty less than 24 hours after Green hit Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkić and received foul and ejection

Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green was suspended indefinitely by the NBA on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after he hit Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkić in the face and received a Flagrant 2 foul and ejection.

The league announced the penalty handed down by operations chief Joe Dumars and said the suspension begins immediately. It’s already Green’s second suspension this season.

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Biden condemns impeachment inquiry: ‘a baseless political stunt’

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House Republicans rally behind investigation authorized by party-line vote as Democrats stand united in opposition

The House on Wednesday authorized the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, with every Republican rallying behind the politically charged process despite lingering concerns among some in the party that the investigation has yet to produce evidence of misconduct by the US president.

The 221-212 party-line vote put the entire House Republican conference on record in support of an impeachment process that can lead to the ultimate penalty for a president: punishment for what the constitution describes as “high crimes and misdemeanors”, which can lead to removal from office if convicted in a Senate trial.

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