Category Archives: US News

Louisiana must draw new congressional map by mid-January for 2024 elections

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Deadline comes after federal court ruled that state’s current map disfranchises Black voters – one-third of the state’s population

The Louisiana state legislature has until the middle of January to enact a new congressional map after a federal court ruled that the state’s current map illegally disfranchises Black voters.

A conservative federal appeals court in New Orleans issued the deadline on Friday. According to the order, if the state legislature doesn’t pass a new map by the deadline, then a lower district court should conduct a trial and develop a plan for the 2024 elections.

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Ohio Republicans move to exclude judges from interpreting enshrined abortion rights

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After stinging defeat in a statewide vote, GOP lawmakers seek to move jurisdiction to legislature for constitutional amendment

Four Ohio Republican state lawmakers are seeking to strip judges of their power to interpret an abortion rights amendment after voters opted to enshrine those rights in the state’s constitution this week.

Republican state house representatives Jennifer Gross, Bill Dean, Melanie Miller and Beth Lear said in a news release on Thursday that they will push to have Ohio’s legislature – not the courts – make any decisions about the amendment passed on Tuesday.

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Judge blocks Idaho law stopping adults from helping minors seeking abortion

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The law was first major push since fall of Roe to explicitly block people from crossing state lines to access abortion care

A federal judge has temporarily blocked an Idaho law that prohibits adults from helping minors get an abortion.

While abortion is still prohibited in Idaho with very narrow exceptions, this week’s court order marks a victory for abortion rights advocates in the state who say the now-blocked law is unconstitutional.

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Federal agency says it stopped measuring water pollution near ‘Cop City’

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Move is bad news for local environmental groups, whose motion to halt construction will be heard on 15 November

A federal agency that monitors water quality says it stopped measuring sediment pollution levels in a creek that runs alongside the controversial police and fire department training center known as “Cop City” months ago due to safety concerns.

The issue is particularly important as a local environmental group’s motion to stop construction of the project will get its day in federal court on 15 November.

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Pro-Israel groups target US lawmakers critical of Gaza war with attack ads

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Rashida Tlaib and other Democratic members of ‘the Squad’ have been targeted but also a libertarian Republican

The pro-Israel lobby in the US is airing attack ads and beginning to back primary opponents to challenge Congress members who are not voting for or supporting Israel’s war on Gaza.

Over the last 10 days, groups that support Israel have launched ads in at least seven districts targeting those who have been particularly vocal in calling attention to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, opposing Israeli military aid or criticizing Israel’s government.

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Deadliest year on record as Phoenix heat fatalities rise by 50%

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Hottest US city, buffeted by extreme temperatures, sees 579 heat-related in 2023, with large proportion among unhoused people

Heat deaths surged by 50% in Phoenix in 2023 – the deadliest year on record after extreme temperatures pummeled America’s hottest city, official figures show.

At least 579 people lost their lives to heat this year, with senior citizens accounting for one in three deaths, according to the year’s final heat surveillance report by the medical examiner’s office in Maricopa county, where Phoenix is located. Another 56 suspected heat deaths are still under investigation.

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Contract for Hollywood actors includes $40m yearly in streaming bonuses

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Union leaders on Friday shared details of three-year contract, on AI, wage increases and end to racist hair and makeup practices

Streaming services like Netflix will pay actors bonuses amounting to roughly $40m per year as part of the tentative labor agreement reached between the SAG-AFTRA actors union and major Hollywood studios, union leaders said on Friday after their board backed the deal.

The proposed three-year contract, which the union said was valued at more than $1bn over three years, was endorsed by 86% of SAG-AFTRA’s national board.

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House speaker Mike Johnson faces key test as government shutdown is days away with no deal in sight – US politics live

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Kevin McCarthy’s replacement tasked with passing legislation to fund the government but issues that toppled predecessor persist

Meanwhile in South Carolina, Kamala Harris officially filed the Biden campaign’s paperwork to appear on its primary ballot:

Joe Biden’s victory in the state’s primary three years ago revived a presidential campaign that appeared to be flagging. After winning the White House, he successfully pushed to make it the first state to vote in the Democrats’ nominating calendar, arguing the process should better reflect the country’s diversity, though not all Democrats were happy about the decision.

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Son of top Hollywood agent in custody after woman’s torso found in dumpster

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Sam Haskell, whose father represented Dolly Parton and George Clooney, suspected of murder of wife and her parents in LA

The 35-year-old son of a Hollywood talent agent whose clients included Dolly Parton, George Clooney and a British prince, has been taken into custody in Los Angeles after a bloody torso authorities say probably belongs to his wife was discovered in a strip-mall dumpster.

Sam Haskell, who was booked on suspicion of murder on Wednesday, is also suspected of killing his wife’s parents who are missing, detectives have said.

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Joe Manchin’s Senate resignation fuels speculation of third-party 2024 bid

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Democratic West Virginia senator signalled possible White House run in announcement he would not run for re-election to Senate

The West Virginia Democrat senator Joe Manchin’s announcement that he will not run for re-election next year has triggered speculation that he might instead launch a bid for the White House as the candidate of No Labels, a third-party group which has attracted significant funding.

Manchin has long flirted with such a bid, brushing off warnings that by running he would only help elect Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate who is far ahead in the party’s 2024 nomination race.

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Trans teen loses Texas high school’s lead theater role over gender policy

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Max Hightower stripped of role over policy that students must play characters aligning with gender identity assigned to them at birth

Weeks into his senior year of high school in Texas, Max Hightower earned the lead male role for his campus’s production of Oklahoma! the musical. But the trans teen’s principal has since stripped the teen of the part, citing a new policy requiring students to only portray characters who align with the gender identity assigned to them when they were born.

Hightower and his family are now appealing the administrator’s decision to the school board while the play is put on hold pending a review.

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Trump suggests he would use FBI to go after political rivals if elected in 2024

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Trump said: ‘If I happen to be president and I see somebody doing well and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them’

Donald Trump has suggested he would use the FBI and justice department to go after political rivals should he return to the White House next year in a move which will further stoke fears of what a second period of office for Trump could mean.

Trump made the comments during an interview with the Spanish-language television network Univision. The host Enrique Acevedo asked him about his flood of legal problems saying: “You say they’ve weaponized the justice department, they weaponized the FBI. Would you do the same if you’re re-elected?”

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Peter Thiel won’t fund any 2024 races after backing Trump in 2016: ‘It was crazier than I thought’

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Thiel says in an interview that Trump had called him earlier this year to solicit $10m and that he turned down the request

Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who supported Donald Trump in 2016 and sunk millions more into underperforming Maga candidates in subsequent election cycles, has confirmed rumors that he is stepping away from 2024 political funding.

In an interview with the Atlantic, Thiel said voting for Trump “was like a not very articulate scream for help” and that things had not turned out the way he had hoped when he donated $1.25m to Trump and Trump-affiliated political funds eight years ago.

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Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to meet on sidelines of Apec summit

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‘Everything is on the table,’ US official says of first face-to-face interaction between leaders in a year, on Wednesday

The US president, Joe Biden, will meet the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, face to face for the first time in a year on Wednesday, the White House said, in high-stakes diplomacy aimed at curbing tensions between the world’s two superpowers.

The closely watched interaction, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in the San Francisco Bay Area, could last hours and involve teams of officials from Beijing and Washington.

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Ransomware attack on China’s biggest bank disrupts US Treasury market

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American arm of ICBC is latest victim of hackers and is investigating

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s US arm was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted trades in the US Treasury market on Thursday, the latest in a string of victims ransom-demanding hackers have claimed this year.

ICBC Financial Services, the US unit of China’s largest commercial lender by assets, said it was investigating the attack that disrupted some of its systems, and making progress towards recovering from it.

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Approval of divisive Alaska oil project upheld in blow to US climate goals

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Advocates warned of ‘tragic consequences’ should the project in a remote part of northern Alaska go ahead

A federal judge has upheld the Biden administration’s approval of the Willow oil-drilling project in a remote part of northern Alaska in a move that environmental groups warned will have “tragic consequences” for the Arctic.

On Thursday, the US district court judge Sharon Gleason rejected requests by a grassroots Iñupiat group and environmentalists to undo the approval for the project in the federally designated National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

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Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson: I was asked to run for US president by multiple political parties

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Actor and former wrestler says unnamed parties approached him ‘one after the other’ in 2022 after a poll revealed 46% of Americans would support his presidential run

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has revealed that multiple political parties approached him last year to see if he would run for US president, after a poll revealed 46% of Americans would support his campaign.

Appearing as the first guest on Trevor Noah’s new Spotify podcast What Now?, the actor and former WWE wrestler said a 2021 poll of 30,000 American adults led to “the parties” contacting him to ask if he was interested in running at the end of 2022.

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Robert De Niro’s production company ordered to pay $1.3m to ex-assistant

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Canal Productions liable in gender discrimination suit filed by Graham Chase Robinson, while De Niro found not personally liable

Robert De Niro’s production company was found liable on Thursday by a jury for gender discrimination and retaliation, and ordered to pay $1.3m to the Hollywood star’s former assistant.

The 80-year-old actor and director was not found personally liable by the jury in New York after a two-week trial.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene unite in push to free Julian Assange

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Maga Republican and leftwing Democrat among 16 US Congress members lobbying Joe Biden to drop extradition attempts against WikiLeaks founder

Maga Republican and fierce Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene and leftwing Democratic firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have found common ground in freeing Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The pair are among 16 members of the US Congress who have written directly to president Joe Biden urging the United States to drop its extradition attempts against Assange and halt any prosecutorial proceedings immediately.

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US Democratic senator Joe Manchin will not seek re-election in 2024

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Controversial West Virginia Democrat, 76, has for years held outsized degree of power within party

West Virginia’s controversial Democratic US senator Joe Manchin has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2024 and will instead “fight to unite the middle”.

The 76-year-old senator, who for years has held an outsized degree of power within the Democratic party and often defied its leadership, appeared in July at an event held by a political group exploring a third-party presidential bid.

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