Category Archives: US News

Nvidia shares hit all-time high as chipmaker dominates AI market

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Rising bets that chip designer’s revenue target will surpass Wall Street estimates lift the stock about 19% from two-month low

Nvidia shares hit an all-time high on Tuesday in a buildup in expectations over the quarterly results of the chip designer that has been the biggest beneficiary of a boom in artificial intelligence.

Rising bets that Nvidia’s revenue target will once again surpass Wall Street estimates have lifted the stock about 19% from a two-month low hit last week.

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Biden launches ‘most affordable ever’ student loan repayment plan

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Announcement comes two months after supreme court struck down Biden’s original debt forgiveness plan

Federal student loan borrowers can expect “the most affordable student loan plan ever”, Biden said in a video address on Tuesday announcing significant changes to the debt from higher education held by over an eighth of the country.

The announcement comes nearly two months after the US supreme court struck down Biden’s original student debt forgiveness plan that would have forgiven $20,000 of federal student debt for borrowers who were Pell grant recipients and up to $10,000 of debt for other borrowers.

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US approves first RSV vaccine for use during pregnancy to protect babies

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CDC must now weigh in on vaccine to fight respiratory infection in vulnerable newborns

US regulators on Monday approved the first RSV vaccine for pregnant women so their babies will be born with protection against the scary respiratory infection.

RSV is notorious for filling hospitals with wheezing babies every fall and winter. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Pfizer’s maternal vaccination to guard against a severe case of RSV when babies are most vulnerable – from birth through six months of age.

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Hawaii fires: spread of conspiracy theories reveals tech firms’ failings

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From secret ‘energy weapon’ starting fires to a global cabal razing the town for an experiment – false theories are fast gaining ground

In the aftermath of the devastating wildfires in Maui, misinformation and conspiracy theories have spread online, underscoring the shortcomings of social media firms’ enforcement policies following disasters.

Conspiracy theories including that the fire was started intentionally by a secret “energy weapon” and that a shadowy cabal of global elites set the blazes purposefully to clear the land for their own nefarious uses have gained popularity.

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Chicago woman arrested over alleged threats to kill Trump and son Barron

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Tracy Marie Fiorenza, 41, allegedly made first threat in email in May and allegedly sent another in June, officials say

A Chicago woman was arrested on Monday on charges of emailing threats to shoot Donald Trump and his youngest son Barron Trump, the US attorney’s office in the Illinois city said.

A formal complaint was filed against Tracy Marie Fiorenza, 41, earlier this month in the US district court for the southern district of Florida.

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Georgia sheriff pleads guilty to groping TV judge

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Kristopher Coody pleads guilty to sexual battery over groping of Glenda Hatchett last year and sentenced to year on probation

A Georgia sheriff pleaded guilty on Monday to groping TV judge Glenda Hatchett, who recalled being so stunned that she froze when the lawman grabbed and squeezed her breast at a hotel bar last year during a law enforcement conference.

Bleckley county sheriff Kristopher Coody pleaded guilty in Cobb county state court to a misdemeanor charge of sexual battery and was sentenced to a year on probation, news outlets reported. He also resigned from the office he had held since 2017.

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Joe and Jill Biden land in Hawaii to survey wildfire devastation – live

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The Bidens are accompanied by the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Deanne Criswell

Donald Trump continues to hold a dominant lead over the rest of the GOP field in Iowa, the site of the nation’s first presidential caucuses, with 23 points ahead of his closest competitor, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, according to a new poll.

The survey by the Des Moines Register, NBC News and Mediacom of likely Republican caucus-goers, was conducted before and after Trump’s latest indictment in Georgia, and shows the former president’s lead over DeSantis increased after his latest charges.

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Homebuilder shares tumble as UK housing market weakens – business live

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A profit warning from housebuilder Crest Nicholson has compounded fears of a housing market slowdown, as Rightmove data reveals a further drop in asking prices

AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said that while weak house price data (as was “hardly a surprise”, Crest Nicholson’s profit warning has “laid bare the the scale of the impact of a housing slowdown on the housebuilding sector.”

Sales of new homes have plunged alarmingly and, while not all developers in the space are created equal, the news, allied to Rightmove’s latest reading on the property market, has had a knock-on effect on share prices in the rest of the sector this morning.

The £7,000 drop in the average asking price observed by Rightmove in the last month, allied to a big drop in transaction volumes, is the kind of statistic to make estate agents distinctly uneasy.

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Storm Hilary could still threaten life, experts say, as nearly 25m under flood warnings in US south-west – live

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Storm downgraded to post-tropical cyclone as of Monday morning but mudslides still possible

First responders rescued over a dozen unhoused people who were trapped in knee-deep water in Southern California, AP reported.

Fire officials saved 13 people who were caught in a flooded homeless encampment near the San Diego River.

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Weakening Storm Hilary leaves floods and mud behind in California

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Damage from rare tropical storm is less than feared, but experts warn of further danger as it heads to Nevada and Oregon

Vast swaths of the US south-west are reeling after Tropical Storm Hilary pummeled the region with historic amounts of rain and strong winds, even as the storm weakened on its path northward on Monday.

The rare tempest left downed trees, flooded streets, and cascades of mud and debris in its wake after slamming into the US west coast on Sunday. In California, the storm had largely cleared by Monday afternoon, and officials celebrated that damage had been less severe than feared.

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Trump should drop out of 2024 presidential race, says Republican

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Senator Bill Cassidy says ‘he will lose to Joe Biden’ as ex-president faces more than 90 pending charges

Donald Trump should drop out of the 2024 race for the White House because polling shows the former US president trailing Joe Biden as he grapples with more than 90 pending criminal charges, according to Republican US senator Bill Cassidy.

Cassidy’s comments to State of the Union host Kasie Hunt were not the first time he has denounced Trump. About two months earlier, he went on CNN and predicted that Trump would lose if his party nominated him to run for the Oval Office again, citing the poor performance of his endorsed candidates during the 2022 midterms.

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Tropical Storm Hilary reaches southern California | First Thing

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The first tropical storm to hit southern California in 84 years prompted flash-flood and tornado warnings for the region

Good morning.

Tropical Storm Hilary made landfall in Mexico yesterday and is now pummelling southern California with wind and rain. It is the first tropical storm to hit the region in 84 years, and experts are predicting life-threatening floods and landslides, with some desert regions expected to receive two to three years’ worth of rain in three days.

At least nine rainfall records were broken across California, including in downtown Los Angeles.

Amid flash-flood and tornado warnings, an 5.1-magnitude earthquake hit southern California on Sunday afternoon, and at least five aftershocks were recorded at between 2 and 4 magnitude.

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Nerves build as India moon mission prepares to make first successful south pole landing

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Chandrayaan-3 moves into prelanding orbit amid failure of Russian mission

As it was announced that Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years had crashed on to the moon, India’s own mission, the Chandrayaan-3 lander, moved into prelanding orbit.

News on Sunday of the Russian failure was met with excitement and nervousness in India: excitement that India was now poised to win the race to become the first country to land a craft on the moon’s south pole; nervousness that its mission could also go horribly wrong at the last moment.

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Weather tracker: tropical storm makes landfall in California for first time in 84 years

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Storm Hilary expected to cause severe flooding, as other parts of US and Mexico put under extreme heat warnings

For the first time in 84 years, a tropical storm has made landfall in California. Tropical Storm Hilary, with maximum sustained wind gusts of 130mph (210km/h) and a central air pressure of 943mb, advanced towards the Baja California peninsula this weekend as a category 4 hurricane, before arriving as a tropical storm in southern California late on Sunday. The last time a tropical storm made landfall in southern California was in 1939, when it flooded Los Angeles and killed nearly 100 people.

Hilary triggered California’s first ever tropical storm warning, extending from the Mexican border to just north of Los Angeles amid rainfall totals estimated to have reached 70-150mm (3-6in) across southern California. This amount of rainfall is expected to cause life-threatening flooding, and would amount to more than a year’s worth of rain across parts of California and Nevada.

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California shop owner shot dead over LGBTQ+ Pride flag displayed at store

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An man made comments about flag at Laura Ann Carlton’s store in Cedar Glen and killed her before being shot and killed by police

A business owner in California was shot and killed after a dispute over a LGBTQ+ Pride flag displayed outside her store, authorities said.

Officials from the San Bernardino county sheriff’s office said Laura Ann Carleton, 66, was pronounced dead at the scene of the shooting on Friday night.

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Former top Trump aide says he was unaware of document declassification – report

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Ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows’ admission could complicate the ex-president’s defense in his classified documents case

The former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told investigators he had no knowledge of Donald Trump either talking about or declassifying confidential information, it was reported on Sunday, potentially skewering the ex-president’s defense in his classified documents case.

Meadows’ alleged admission to the special counsel Jack Smith, reported by ABC News, suggests Trump made no blanket declassification of secret papers later seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort by FBI agents, leading to 40 criminal counts against him.

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Biden will reassure Maui fire victims they will control rebuild, says Fema chief

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Deanne Criswell says the president will visit Lahaina on Monday to meet with first responders, officials and victims

The administrator of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, Deanne Criswell, said Joe Biden will on Monday reassure the people of Lahaina they will be in control of how they rebuild when he visits the Maui community devastated by a historically deadly wildfire.

The president and the first lady, Jill Biden, will meet first responders, officials and victims, getting a first-hand look at the widespread devastation, Criswell told CNN’s State of the Union.

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Pence won’t say if criminal conviction should rule Trump out as president

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Former vice-president who once voted to expel felon from Congress says American people should decide

Donald Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, refused to say Trump should be barred from returning to the White House if he is convicted on any of 91 criminal charges against him.

“I think that he’s to be left to the American people,” Pence told ABC’s This Week, on Sunday. “Let’s have the former president have his day in court. Let’s maintain a presumption of innocence.”

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Australia to buy Tomahawk cruise missiles in $1.7bn spend on long-range defence capability

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Anti-radiation and anti-tank missiles among purchase which will be locked in just days after raucous internal debate at Labor conference over Aukus pact

The Albanese government has announced a $1.7bn spend on hi-tech missiles which the defence minister, Richard Marles, said are needed “to hold our adversaries further from our shores and keep Australians safe”.

Australia will become just the third nation after the US and the UK to have access to Tomahawk cruise missiles, with $1.3bn being spent on 200 of the long range missiles to boost the capability of the three Hobart-class air warfare destroyers.

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Hurricane Hilary approaches California amid warnings of ‘serious threat’

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‘Catastrophic’ flooding expected despite weakening to category 1 cyclone after wildfires in Maui and Washington state

Hurricane Hilary was closing in on southern California on Sunday as federal emergency officials, stretched by deadly wildfires in Maui and Washington state, warned of a “serious impact and threat”.

Despite weakening to a category 1 cyclone, the storm was still packing winds of 80mph as it approached Mexico and the south-western US, with “catastrophic” flooding expected to follow landfall.

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