Category Archives: US News

Biden begins re-relection campaign – does he have what it takes to win again?

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The oldest president in history is ditching his Covid-imposed ‘basement strategy’ for the most gruelling campaign of his life

It became known as the “basement strategy”. As the coronavirus pandemic raged outside, presidential candidate Joe Biden addressed the nation from a makeshift studio under his Delaware home, avoiding off-the-cuff gaffes and allowing rival Donald Trump to self-destruct.

But three years on, with lockdowns lifted and America mostly back to a new version of normal, Biden knows that speeches on glitchy Zoom calls or in empty auditoriums will not be enough. The president, who at 80 is the oldest in American history, is facing the final, most gruelling campaign of his life.

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Arizona man freed after nearly three decades on death row

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Barry Jones pleads guilty to lesser charge in deal to overturn his conviction for murder of four-year-old girl in 1994

An Arizona man who spent nearly three decades on death row before the reversal of his conviction over the death of a four-year-old girl has been freed from prison.

Barry Jones’s release, ordered on Thursday, came after a Tuscon-area state court judge approved a deal between prosecutors and him which involved his pleading guilty to a lesser murder charge. According to prosecutors, a medical review of the case failed to conclude that Jones caused the girl’s fatal injury, and his pleading guilty to second-degree murder involves his failure to adequately seek emergency care for the victim.

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North Korea holds key meeting as US sends nuclear submarine to South Korea

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Kim Jong-un attended the conference to review defence strategies and the country’s struggling economy

North Korea opened a key political conference with leader Kim Jong-un in attendance to discuss improving its struggling economy and reviewing defence strategies in the face of growing tensions with rivals, according to state media reports.

The enlarged plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ party’s central committee came as the US sent a nuclear-powered submarine to South Korea in the allies’ latest show of force against the North, which has ramped up its testing of nuclear-capable missiles to a record pace in recent months.

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Bug swarm: Nevada crawling with thick carpet of Mormon crickets

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Millions of crickets – or rather shield-backed katydids – migrating across state, after hatching was delayed in spring

Millions of flightless insects known as Mormon crickets have descended across Nevada, alarming residents, blanketing roadways and buildings, and fueling nightmares.

Footage shared on social media and by local news outlets captures six Nevada counties under siege, with thick carpets of bugs moving slowly and efficiently across the state. A local hospital had to deploy brooms and leafblowers to clear the way for patients to get into the building, a spokesperson for the Northeastern Nevada Regional Hospital, told local news outlet KSL.

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More than 50m Americans under severe storm threat after at least five people die in southern states – as it happened

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Extreme weather warnings issued across the US as more storms are expected; millions also warned of heatwave

Across the world this month, temperatures have accelerated to record-setting levels, an ominous sign in the climate crisis ahead of a gathering El Niño that could potentially propel 2023 to become the hottest year ever recorded.

Preliminary global average temperatures taken so far in June are nearly 1C (1.8F) above levels previously recorded for the same month, going back to 1979.

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Judge blocks implementation of Indiana ban on treatment for trans minors

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Federal judge issues order stopping ban on puberty blockers and hormones due to take effect on 1 July.

A US federal judge on Friday issued an order stopping an Indiana ban on puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors from taking effect as scheduled 1 July.

Indiana’s American Civil Liberties Union sought the temporary injunction in its legal challenge of the Republican-backed law, which was enacted this spring amid a national push by politically conservative legislatures to curb LGBTQ+ rights.

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George Floyd murder: Minneapolis police have pattern of aggression and discrimination, DoJ inquiry finds

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Merrick Garland announces findings of Department of Justice investigation into department after Floyd’s killing by officers

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, on Friday announced that the 2020 murder of George Floyd was part of a “pattern or practice” of excessive force used by the department and years of unlawful discrimination against Black Americans.

Garland held a press conference to reveal the findings of the two-year investigation by the Department of Justice (DoJ) into the conduct and training of the Minneapolis police department (MPD) both before and after George Floyd’s death at the hands of officers in the city in 2020.

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Joe Biden says mass shootings plague the US ‘every damn day’ – as it happened

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President makes speech in Connecticut at summit marking passage of tougher gun control law last year

The Minneapolis police force use excessive force and discriminate against marginalized groups, including Black and Native Americans and people with behavioral issues, attorney general Merrick Garland said as he announced the findings of the justice department’s investigation following George Floyd’s death.

“We found that MPD … engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, unlawfully discriminating against Black and Native American people in enforcement activities, violating the rights of people engaged in protected speech and discriminating against people with behavioral disabilities and … when responding to them in crisis,” Garland said.

The city council approved the court-enforceable agreement on Friday on an 11-0 vote, but not before several members expressed harsh criticism of the Minneapolis police department and other city leaders over the years.

“The lack of political will to take responsibility for MPD is why we are in this position today,” council member Robin Wonsley said.

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Obama criticizes GOP hopefuls Nikki Haley and Tim Scott over racism stances

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Former president notes tendency among Republican candidates to gloss over effects of racism, prompting pushback from both

Barack Obama has criticized two Republican presidential hopefuls, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, over their stances on race relations in America.

On a podcast interview, Obama, who became the first Black US president when he was elected in 2008, said that while presenting a hopeful message on race relations was important, “that has to be undergirded with an honest accounting of our past and our present”.

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Three people killed and one missing after tornadoes strike Texas town

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Homes in Perryton, 110 miles north of Amarillo, reduced to rubble and power was cut in the aftermath of the storm

Search and rescue crews will resume searching on Friday for at least one person missing in the north Texas town of Perryton after it was struck by one or more tornados that killed three people and sent up to 100 more to the hospital on Thursday evening, some in critical condition.

The town remained without power the day after a huge twister inflicted damage to homes and a mobile home park.

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Republicans end longest walkout in Oregon legislature’s history

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Lawmakers showed up for work Thursday after compromising with Democrats on abortion and gun safety measures

Ending a walkout that held up key bills for six weeks, Republicans showed up for work in the Oregon senate on Thursday after wresting concessions from Democrats on measures covering abortion, transgender healthcare and gun rights.

The lawmakers’ walkout – the longest in state history and the second-longest in the United States – came as several statehouses around the nation have been ideological battlegrounds, including in Montana and Tennessee.

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‘More extreme, more violent’: experts’ warning over khaki-clad Patriot Front

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Their button-up shirts and chinos have prompted mockery but experts say the far-right group is becoming increasingly violent

For years, there has been an element of the ridiculous to Patriot Front and their rallies, which can look like a sort of cosplay version of a white nationalist movement.

At a Patriot Front demonstration in Washington in May, more than a hundred Patriot Front members marched along the National Mall wearing matching outfits of beige or brown chinos and blue button-up shirts.

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Inside the war tearing psychoanalysis apart: ‘The most hatred I have ever witnessed’

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A professor was accused of antisemitism. The controversy has exploded into a bigger, messier debate about the future of psychology itself

Lara Sheehi, a psychoanalytic therapist and psychology professor from Lebanon, is a charismatic, caring and deeply ethical mental health professional, according to her friends and allies, or part of something “toxic, aggressive and narcissistically delusional”, in the words of an email sent not long ago to more than a thousand colleagues.

Sheehi has never made a secret of her political commitments. Her influences include Che Guevara and the psychiatrist and anti-colonialist Frantz Fanon, and she sometimes sports a black-and-white keffiyeh, the checkered scarf associated with Palestinian resistance. Yet neither Sheehi nor her most caustic critics probably could have predicted the chain of events that followed a graduate psychology class she taught in October at George Washington University, in Washington DC.

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Second Trump defamation trial brought by E Jean Carroll set for January 2024

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The ex-president is being sued for $10m by the New York writer who already was awarded $5m in an earlier trial against Trump

A federal judge has set a date for a second defamation trial brought by E Jean Carroll, the New York writer who last month won a $5m jury verdict against Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.

US district judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said the civil trial, in which Carroll is seeking at least $10m in damages, will begin on 15 January 2024, “unless this case has previously been entirely disposed of”.

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Trump celebrates as Westchester prosecutor closes tax investigation

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No charges filed against ex-president or Trump Organization in New York inquiry into potential golf-course tax irregularities

Make that one less legal headache for Donald Trump.

A suburban New York prosecutor said on Thursday that she has closed a multi-year investigation that focused in part on whether the twice-indicted former president or his company misled authorities to reduce taxes on properties they own.

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California seizes enough fentanyl in San Francisco to kill city’s population three times over

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Governor’s office says over 4kg of drug seized in city since May – enough to cause deadly overdoses of more than 2m people

California law enforcement officials have seized enough fentanyl, in San Francisco alone, to cause the deadly overdoses of more than 2 million people since the beginning of May. The amount, over four kilos, was enough to kill the entire city’s population three times over, the governor’s office announced on Thursday.

The seizures were made by California highway patrol (CHP) officers and are a part of Gavin Newsom’s plan to address the spread of fentanyl, blight and public safety in the city where 268 people died from accidental overdoses in the first four months of 2023, according to a report from the city’s medical examiner. All of the fentanyl was found in and around San Francisco’s historic and long-embattled Tenderloin neighborhood.

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Church hands over ‘voluminous documents’ about accused US ex-priest

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Catholic archdiocese gives New Orleans DA files on Lawrence Hecker, accused of raping child decades ago

The second-oldest archdiocese in the US has handed over “voluminous documents” involving a retired Roman Catholic priest – and accused serial predator – to the New Orleans district attorney’s office as prosecutors investigate an allegation that the cleric manhandled and raped a child decades earlier.

The district attorney, Jason Williams, revealed the archdiocese’s provision of the documents after a federal court hearing on Thursday centering on whether those materials should be more widely released as a matter of public safety and interest.

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Greg Abbott decision to bus migrants to LA condemned as ‘despicable stunt’

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Los Angeles mayor says Texas governor ‘using human beings as pawns’ amid reports migrants were not given food or drink on bus

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas’s decision to bus migrants to Los Angeles this week has been decried as a “despicable stunt”, as advocates in California reported that the group was not offered food during the 23-hour trip.

On Wednesday, 42 migrants, including 15 youth and three babies, arrived at Union Station in downtown LA, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, the communications director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights-Los Angeles (Chirla), who met the group when they arrived. The travelers he spoke to came from Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala and Haiti, and one came from China, he said, adding some told him they had been on the bus for nearly a day without any food or drink.

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Jack Teixeira, Pentagon leaks suspect, indicted by federal grand jury

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US airman charged with six counts of retention and transmission of classified documents relating to national defense, DoJ says

Jack Teixeira, the 21-year-old US airman accused of leaking confidential intelligence and defense documents online has been indicted by a federal grand jury, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.

Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, has been charged with six counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information relating to national defense, the justice department said.

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US midwest braces for smoky skies as Canadian wildfires rage on

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Air quality alerts issued in Minnesota and Wisconsin with winds expected to blow airborne pollution from Ontario blazes south

The smoke-filled skies seen across US cities last week are set to make another appearance, as Canadian wildfires rage on and winds are bringing the airborne pollution south and again triggered fears over risks to health.

Air quality alerts were issued on Wednesday for the entire state of Minnesota and large parts of Wisconsin. This time, the culprit is a series of wildfires from the Canadian province of Ontario.

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