Category Archives: US News

Joe Biden unharmed as vehicle collides with presidential motorcade

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Secret Service indicate collision was accident in rainy conditions as president left campaign HQ in Delaware

A sedan hit a sport-utility vehicle in Joe Biden’s motorcade on Sunday night in Delaware, causing no injuries in what officials said appeared to be a car accident rather than an intentional act.

The president’s motorcade was preparing to take Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, to their residence in Wilmington after a campaign dinner with staffers and volunteers. Biden had stepped out on to the street when a crash could be heard down the street from Biden and his protective Secret Service detail.

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Nippon Steel to acquire Pittsburgh-based US Steel for $14.1bn

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All-cash deal will see company keep name and headquarters in Pittsburgh, where it was founded in 1901

US Steel, the Pittsburgh steel producer that was once the world’s largest company and played a key role in the nation’s industrialization, is being acquired by Nippon Steel in an all-cash deal valued at approximately $14.1bn.

The price tag for US Steel is nearly double what was offered just four months ago by rival Cleveland Cliffs. US Steel, which rejected that offer, confirmed the offering price from Nippon early on Monday.

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Judge temporarily bars removal of Confederate memorial in Virginia

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Restraining order issued after a group filed a lawsuit and a letter that was signed by more than 40 Republican congressmen

A Confederate memorial was blocked on Monday from being removed from Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia, with a court order setting back the push to remove symbols that commemorate the Confederacy from military-related facilities.

A federal judge on Monday issued a temporary restraining order barring removal of a memorial to Confederate soldiers at the nation’s foremost military cemetery. A group called Defend Arlington, affiliated with a group called Save Southern Heritage Florida, filed a lawsuit Sunday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, seeking the restraining order. A hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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Hard-up this holiday? Amazon flyer tells workers to ask company mascot for help

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Workers making $17 an hour not impressed by holiday offer from company that just tripled profits to $9.9bn

Amazon is asking workers experiencing hardship to write a letter to its company mascot, Peccy, this holiday season so “some of their holiday wishes can come true”.

A flyer from the Amazon warehouse SWF1 in Rock Tavern, New York, states: “Are you or someone you know facing financial hardship this holiday season? Peccy wants to help! Write a letter to Peccy. If the Peccy team selects you, some of your holiday wishes could come true!”

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Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee accused of sexual assault

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Rock star is sued by unnamed woman who alleges he attacked her on board helicopter in 2003

Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee has been accused of sexual assault, in an incident in 2003.

A new civil lawsuit filed on Friday by an unnamed woman, Jane Doe – and reported by Rolling Stone – accuses Lee of “forcibly groping, kissing and penetrating her with his fingers, and attempting to force her to perform oral copulation”. The woman had been invited on to a helicopter by pilot David Martz and believed she would be on a sightseeing tour around San Diego, but was told they would be flying with Lee to Los Angeles.

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US archbishop secretly backed bid to free priest convicted of raping child

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‘I join you in the prayer to guide those regarding your appeal,’ Gregory Aymond of New Orleans wrote to priest given life sentence

As he reached the end of his 41-year life, Kevin Portier had endured child rape at the hands of a southern Louisiana Catholic priest for whom he had served as an altar boy; a highly publicized trial that sent the clergyman to prison for the rest of his days; and the trauma associated with those experiences.

But one of Portier’s harshest ordeals came within his final two years alive. Representatives of the church that he had been raised to believe in approached him at his home, at his job and at a relative’s funeral to ask him to lend his support to efforts to secure an early release for his rapist, Robert Melancon.

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US to announce expanded protection force for Red Sea shipping

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Response to Houthi attacks from Yemen seeks to reassure commercial shipping companies suspending use of Red Sea

The US is to announce the launch of an expanded maritime protection force involving Arab states to combat the increasingly frequent Houthi attacks being mounted from Yemen’s ports on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The force, provisionally entitled Operation Prosperity Guardian, is due to be announced by the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, when he visits the Middle East, including the fifth fleet stationed in Bahrain. Similar to the Task Force 153 already operating out of Bahrain, the larger protection force is designed to provide reassurance to commercial shipping companies that Houthi attacks will be seen off, and the Red Sea remains safe for commercial shipping.

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DeSantis political woes deepen after chief strategist for Super Pac resigns

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Jeff Roe, who led Never Back Down, said he was stepping down from the $269m fund, just weeks before Iowa caucus

Florida governor Ron DeSantis political woes have deepened further in the wake of the surprise resignation of a chief strategist at a leading campaign fund dealing yet another blow to the right-winger’s rapidly waning 2024 presidential hopes.

Jeff Roe, the chief strategist for the DeSantis-backing Super Pac Never Back Down, said he was stepping down from the massive, $269m fund that was billed as a novel application of campaign finance laws that prevent the integration of a Pac and its spending with a candidate’s campaign.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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Richard Hunt, sculptor whose public works explored civil rights, dies aged 88

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The prolific Chicago artist created more than 160 commissioned public art pieces across the US that drew praise from presidents

Richard Hunt, a prolific Chicago artist who was the first Black sculptor to receive a solo retrospective at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (Moma) and whose public works drew praise from presidents, has died at age 88.

Hunt “passed away peacefully” Saturday at his home, according to a statement posted on his website. No cause of death was given.

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‘He’s dog-whistling’: Trump denounced over anti-immigrant comment

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Former president said undocumented immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ at political rally on Saturday

Donald Trump is facing a backlash for repeating a remark at a political rally on Saturday where he said undocumented immigrants to the United States are “poisoning the blood of our country”.

The former US president’s comments were the latest example of his campaign rhetoric that seemed to go beyond the lies and exaggerations that are a trademark of his stump speeches and instead go into territory of outright extremism or racism. In November he was widely condemned for calling his opponents “vermin”, language that echoed that used historically by dictators and authoritarians.

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US man charged in four murders lured victims with promise of buried gold

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Victims fell for alleged serial killer’s tale that he needed help finding gold in area of his Washington state farm, authorities say

An alleged serial killer in Washington state has been hit with new murder charges after authorities revealed that he may have used the same scheme to kill all four of his victims by telling them he needed their help finding buried treasure.

Richard Bradley Jr, 40, who has been awaiting trial of murder charges in the death of 44-year-old Brandi Blake since his arrest in 2021, has now been charged in the deaths of three more people, one identified from ribs buried on Bradley’s 160-acre Game Farm Park in Auburn and matched to his mother using DNA.

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Three people dead after small plane crashes into power lines in Oregon

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A possible cause of the crash and the names of the deceased were not immediately released

A small plane crashed into power lines in Oregon late Saturday afternoon and killed all three people on board, police said.

Polk county emergency services received the report of the single engine plane crash in Independence around 4.55pm, the Independence police department said in a statement posted on social media.

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Republican royalty to liberal heroine: Liz Cheney finds an anti-Trump niche

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The ex-congresswoman is unapologetically conservative, but her decision to put democracy before party has made her an unlikely heroine

It was a moment that a visitor from the year 2010 might have found impossible to comprehend. As Liz Cheney, arch-conservative and daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, walked on stage in deeply liberal Washington, the audience applauded and cheered for a full 45 seconds.

“They’re standing, Liz, wow!” exclaimed moderator Mark Leibovich, a journalist and author. “You could probably be elected to Congress from the District of Columbia if they had representation.”

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Trump tells rally immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’

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In New Hampshire former president doubles down on phrase widely condemned for echoing white supremacist rhetoric

Donald Trump, just weeks after using the fascist terminology “vermin” to describe sections of American society he dislikes, again declared at a New Hampshire rally that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.

Condemned for his previous remarks at the last rally he held in New Hampshire – where he threatened to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections” – Trump appeared to double down in Durham on Saturday.

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Senate staffer loses job after allegedly having sex in hearing room

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Video surfaced in which Aidan Maese-Czeropski was allegedly having sex in the judiciary hearing room

A Senate staffer accused of filming himself having sex in a congressional hearing room is threatening legal action after getting fired.

The explicit footage, published by the Daily Caller on Friday, shows two men having sex in what appears to be Hart 216, the judiciary room. Aidan Maese-Czeropski, a legislative aide for Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, was widely named on social media as one of the men in the footage.

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Lead contamination in applesauce possibly ‘economically motivated’, says FDA

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Food and Drug Administration is investigating facility in Ecuador and working with authorities to inspect cinnamon supplier

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday said it thinks elevated levels of lead in cinnamon applesauce that has poisoned dozens of American children could be linked to deliberate additives in the food’s cinnamon flavoring, and is inspecting a food facility in Ecuador.

There have been more than 60 reports of children reporting “adverse effects” after eating applesauce and apple puree pouches from the brands WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis. The products have been recalled.

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Diversity policies face ‘full-out attack’ in 2024, leading HR boss warns

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President of the largest human resources organization in country says national shift following George Floyd’s 2020 murder is fading

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies within US companies will “come under full-out attack in 2024”, the president of the largest US human resources organization in the US has said.

“It’s going to become a hot-button issue this year,” Johnny C Taylor Jr, president and chief executive of the Society of Human Resource Management, told reporters. The national shift to be more inclusive that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020, and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed, is already fading, he said. “We’re already seeing companies go away from it.”

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Alex Jones offers $55m to Sandy Hook families to satisfy $1.5bn judgment

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Families of the slain schoolchildren had earlier proposed an $85m settlement for the Infowars host’s lies about the 2012 massacre

The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has proposed to pay $55m over 10 years to the Sandy Hook families who sued him for spreading lies that the 2012 school massacre in Connecticut, one of the worst in American history, was a hoax.

The offer came after a Texas judge ruled that Jones, the host of Infowars, could not use bankruptcy protection to dodge the nearly $1.5bn he was ordered to pay to the victims’ families, who suffered abuse and threats from believers of Jones’s lies.

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Wishes come true for trans youth thanks to Transanta donors’ goodwill

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A project from an anti-discrimination creative arts organization pairs LGBTQ+ youth in need of help with donors willing to give it

At first glance, they could be letters to Santa Claus from any excited young child, hoping they have been good enough to earn a special gift. Meek is looking forward to hearing sleigh bells: “I think I have tried my best this year. I try to be positive,” they wrote. Alex, meanwhile, would love a bicycle and gift cards to bring some cheer to the end of an “extremely hard year”.

Look a little deeper, and all is not as it seems. The letters are genuine, but their authors are young people who are transgender or non-binary, writing not to the North Pole but to an alternative seasonal benefactor named Transanta, whose workshop exists in cyberspace.

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Nobel laureate sues French concrete maker Lafarge over alleged Islamic State support

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Nadia Murad and 430 US citizens of Yazidi background suing conglomerate over payments it made to terrorist group

About 430 Americans of Yazidi background and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad accused French conglomerate Lafarge of supporting brutal attacks on the population through a conspiracy with the Islamic State, according to a complaint reviewed by AFP.

The civil suit, filed in a New York court by attorneys that include human rights lawyer Amal Clooney references a $778m US Department of Justice fine and guilty criminal plea in October 2022 by Lafarge, which was acquired by Swiss company Holcim in 2015.

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