‘Senseless crime’: beloved peacock killed with bow and arrow in Las Vegas

Authorities and neighbors seek culprit after pet bird Pete the peacock found impaled by arrow

A beloved Las Vegas neighborhood peacock has been killed with a hunter’s bow and arrow, and authorities are trying to find who was behind it.

Animal protection services officers are investigating the death of Pete the peacock, a pet that belonged to a resident in a gated neighborhood, the local news outlet KVVU reported on Thursday.

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An arrow to the chest? This wild turkey is unruffled

Residents of Carmel, California, have named the bird Cupid, and are monitoring its health, which seems unaffected by the injury

For months, a wild turkey has been spotted roaming the rolling hills of Carmel, California, with a 30in arrow sticking through her chest. It hasn’t seemed to faze her.

Local residents first began spotting the bird, who they’re calling Cupid, last winter. Since then, she has been photographed and filmed roosting in trees, foraging for grubs and evading predators and generally going about her business as if she hadn’t been impaled.

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Rich Men North of Richmond singer condemns Republicans after song used in debate

Oliver Anthony responds after politicians discuss his No 1 hit on stage: ‘I wrote that song about those people’

Oliver Anthony, the writer and singer of the mega-hit Rich Men North of Richmond, hit out at Republican candidates for president who discussed his song in the debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday.

“It was funny seeing my song at that presidential debate. Because I wrote that song about those people, you know, so for them to have to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up. It was funny kind of seeing the response to it,” the Virginian said in a statement on Friday.

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Biden jokes Trump is ‘handsome guy’ after being asked about mugshot; Harrison Floyd denied bail – as it happened

This blog has now closed

Mugshots define eras.

Bugsy Siegel peering malevolently from beneath his fedora in a 1928 booking photo summed up the perverse romance of gangsters in the prohibition age.

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Fed chair warns US inflation battle not over and hints at further rate rises

Jay Powell tells symposium in Wyoming that inflation is still too high but that US central bank will ‘keep at it until the job is done’

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell used a closely watched speech on Friday to warn that the fight against inflation in the US is not over.

Speaking at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual gathering of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell said inflation was still too high and that interest rates may have to rise further to tamp it down.

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West Virginia can restrict abortion pill sales, federal judge rules

Judge says near-total abortion ban signed by governor in September 2022 takes precedence over FDA approvals

West Virginia can restrict the sale of the abortion pill despite federal regulators’ approval of it as a safe and effective medication, a federal judge has ruled.

The US district court judge, Robert C Chambers, determined on Thursday that the near-total abortion ban signed by the Republican governor, Jim Justice, in September 2022 takes precedence over approvals from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

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Pacific Islands warn US over Chinese threat and urge Biden to increase aid

GOP-led House committee convenes on Guam as officials say Beijing working to ‘fill perceived voids in America’s assistance’

Countering China and bolstering national security dominated the conversation in a Hilton hotel on Guam, 15 hours before and oceans away from the Milwaukee arena hosting the first Republican primary debate.

Nine members of the GOP-led House committee on natural resources convened on Guam for a rare field hearing – during the summer recess – on countering China’s influence in the region.

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Hawaii officials release list of 388 people missing after Maui wildfires

Death toll stands at 115 from devastating fires as authorities say release of names ‘will help with the investigation’

The names of 388 people unaccounted for in the wake of the devastating wildfire in Hawaii have been released by officials on the island of Maui.

The list of known people thought to be missing following the fire has been compiled by the FBI, which said on Tuesday there were about 1,000 to 1,100 people on a more tentative list of those unaccounted for.

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New York man on motorbike dies after officer throws picnic cooler at head

Erik Duran suspended over death of Eric Duprey, who was driving motorcycle on Bronx sidewalk towards group including Duran

A man fleeing New York City police officers on a motorcycle died after a sergeant hurled a plastic picnic cooler at his head from close range, causing a violent crash, authorities said.

The sergeant, Erik Duran, was suspended without pay just hours after the death of Eric Duprey, 30, in the University Heights section of the Bronx, police said.

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Sarah Palin says US civil war ‘is going to happen’ over Trump prosecutions

Former vice-presidential nominee condemns prosecutors over ‘travesty’ and says ‘we’re not going to keep putting up with this’

A second US civil war is “going to happen” if state and federal authorities continue to prosecute Donald Trump, the former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin said.

“Those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tier system of justice, I want to ask them what the heck, do you want us to be in civil war? Because that’s what’s going to happen,” Palin told Newsmax on Thursday night.

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Fiji prime minister warns against US and China attempts to ‘polarise’ Pacific

Sitiveni Rabuka says island countries must be ‘zone of non-aligned territories’ and hopes big powers will avoid military conflict

The Pacific islands should be a “zone of peace”, Fiji’s prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, has said, adding that he hopes a rivalry between the US and China in the strategic region does not develop into a military conflict.

Rabuka was speaking after attending a summit meeting of several Pacific island leaders, where climate change and regional security dominated the agenda. The leaders of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia’s ruling FLNKS party met in Vanuatu on Thursday.

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Trump ‘shakes up legal team’ before surrender; Meadows booked at Georgia jail – live

Ex-president changes lawyers hours before being expected in Georgia; Mark Meadows surrenders after agreeing $100,000 bond payment

Full report: Trump ‘shakes up legal team hours before surrender

In a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll, 35% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they think the climate change is a major factor in the extreme heat that the US has experienced recently, compared with 85% of those who lean Democratic. Overall, nearly two-thirds of Americans who experienced extremely hot days said climate change was a major factor.

Young Republican voters, however, seem increasingly concerned about the climate crisis. A 2022 Pew poll found that 73% of Republicans aged 18-39 thought climate change was an extremely/very or somewhat serious issue.

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Republicans ‘deserve to lose’ if they fail to address climate crisis, says activist

Benji Backer, executive director of conservative climate group, calls question on crisis in debate ‘historic’ but laments answers

Republicans “deserve to lose” electorally if they can’t show they care about the climate crisis, according to the head of a conservative climate organization that put forward a rare question on the issue to GOP candidates in Wednesday’s televised debate.

The Republican presidential hopefuls, minus Donald Trump, were asked at the Fox News debate what they would do to improve the party’s standing on climate policy by Alexander Diaz, a young conservative who is part of the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a youth conservative group that pushes for action on the climate crisis.

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US sues Elon Musk’s SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees

Justice department alleges rocket company refused to consider asylum seekers and refugees for jobs because of citizenship status

The US justice department on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and asylum seekers.

SpaceX “routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status” from at least September 2018 to May 2022, according to the justice department.

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Trump to surrender at Georgia jail on charges he sought to overturn 2020 election

Fulton county prosecution is the fourth criminal case against Trump since March, and booking is expected to include a mugshot

Donald Trump was expected to surrender at the Fulton county jail on Thursday evening on racketeering and conspiracy charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, yielding to the criminal justice process in Georgia that will involve him being processed like any other defendant.

The former president’s arrival in Georgia follows a presidential debate featuring his main rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination, a race in which Trump remains the overwhelmingly dominant frontrunner despite his many legal troubles.

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Massachusetts man charged with putting rocks on road to damage cars

Suspect arrested after undercover detective waited in woods to see whether rock-leaver would emerge on rural road

For months, danger lurked on a dark road in the quiet coastal town of Kingston, Massachusetts. Rocks, some as heavy as 50lbs, started appearing in the middle of a rural road flanked by thick woods.

These rocks would be placed sporadically, “mostly during darkness”, each discovery appearing to involve one wayward rock. Sometimes, motorists would simply drive over the rocks without incident while at many other times, “vehicles’ undercarriages were being ripped out, causing fluid spills, disabling vehicles and even causing airbag deployments”.

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Americans at high risk advised to wear masks as new Covid variant detected

CDC said that scientists discovered a new coronavirus variant, BA 2.86, and that higher-risk individuals should be cautious

As authorities revealed that a new Covid-19 variant has been detected in the US, medical experts are emphasizing that high-risk persons resume masking to prevent potentially deadly infection. Warnings from these physicians come amid an ongoing increase in Covid-19 hospitalizations.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that scientists have discovered a new coronavirus variant, BA 2.86, during routine monitoring of wastewater. Officials said that this variant’s “large number of mutations” has prompted concerns that it could evade immunity derived from vaccination and prior infections more than other variants.

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Republican debate live: eight presidential hopefuls take stage as Trump is a no-show

Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Doug Burgum, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy take stage in Milwaukee

Onstage at the Republican presidential debate tonight is the governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum – who almost didn’t make it.

He has managed to make the event despite requiring crutches and wearing a boot after hurting his Achilles tendon while playing basketball.

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Chipmaker Nvidia crushes quarterly expectations with $13.5bn in revenue

The company’s specialized AI chips are in great demand, boosting its value to over $1tn, a first for a chipmaker

The chipmaker Nvidia has far surpassed quarterly expectations, raking in $13.5bn in revenue – over $2bn more than the $11.2bn Wall Street analysts had predicted – amid skyrocketing demand for its computer chips that power artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

The blockbuster second quarter comes at a moment of intense hype around generative AI, a mood that Nvidia has been uniquely positioned to capture. The 30-year-old company is one of the biggest winners in the AI boom and is now valued at over $1tn, with its chips powering nearly all the world’s major artificial intelligence apps, including ChatGPT.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene: ‘My name is on a list’ of Trump vice-president picks

Far-right congresswoman from Georgia tells the Guardian she ‘would be honored’ if chosen for the role

Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia “knows” her name is “on a list” of possible picks as vice-president to Donald Trump should he win the Republican nomination next year, the far-right congresswoman and conspiracy theorist told the Guardian on Wednesday.

“I’d have to think about it and consider it,” Greene said, in Milwaukee ahead of the first Republican presidential debate.

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