Category Archives: US News

Top US and Chinese diplomats meet in Malta to smooth strained relations

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‘Candid, substantive and constructive’ talks were held as a possible prelude to a Joe Biden-Xi Jinping meeting in November

Top US and Chinese diplomats met in Malta over the weekend as the world’s two largest economies attempted to smooth strained relations and clear a path for their respective presidents – Joe Biden and Xi Jinping – to meet in November.

According to both Beijing and Washington, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met multiple times with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Malta, where – according to separate statements – “candid, substantive and constructive” talks were held.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells climate marchers to be ‘too big and too radical to ignore’ – live

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Demonstration falls days before the United Nations climate ambition summit, at which Joe Biden is expected to be a no-show

Actor and climate activist Susan Sarandon opened her speech by congratulating the students of New York University on the news of their university divesting from fossil fuels after years of pressure, as the Guardian first reported last week.

Addressing the crowd, she said, “You guys give me hope,” adding: “What we have to do is take responsibility and press those that are at the top to finally step up.”

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Trump says Republicans ‘speak very inarticulately’ about abortion

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Trump talks about democratic principles, ageing politicians and abortion rights in wide ranging NBC interview

Donald Trump grappled with a wide range of contentious issues in an interview with NBC that generated criticism against the network, including his thoughts on democratic principles, abortion rights and ageing politicians.

He also confirmed his interest in choosing Kristi Noem to be his vice-presidential running mate if he wins the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 as he seeks a second term in the White House.

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Power outages and one death as Storm Lee swings away from Canadian coast

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Tens of thousands without power in New England and Nova Scotia as other potentially dangerous tempests hover over the Atlantic

Tens of thousands in New England and Canada remained without power on Sunday morning after the deadly storm Lee struck Nova Scotia on Saturday afternoon as a post-tropical cyclone.

In Nova Scotia, nearly 100,000 customers were without power, according to PowerOutage.com. The US state of Maine was dealing with about 40,000 outages as of Sunday morning, and New Brunswick had about 12,000, the website also said.

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Armed man posing as US marshal arrested at Robert Kennedy Jr event

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Man was outside a Los Angeles theater where Democratic presidential candidate was scheduled to give a speech

An armed man accused of impersonating a federal officer was arrested outside a Robert F Kennedy Jr campaign event in Los Angeles.

A Los Angeles police department statement said police received a call Friday afternoon that a man with a loaded gun and holster and wearing a US marshals service badge was outside a theater where the Democratic presidential candidate was scheduled to give a speech.

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Key ‘Bidenomics’ architect calls for spending ‘race to the top’ on green tech

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Biden adviser Heather Boushey urges UK and Europe to increase climate friendly investment to reboot growth

Governments around the world must drastically increase public investment in green technologies to combat global heating and drive sustainable economic growth, a top adviser to President Joe Biden has said.

Heather Boushey, a member of the White House council of economic advisers, said countries including the UK needed to ramp up green investment to reboot economic growth, boost energy security, and protect against future inflation shocks.

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Joe Biden to meet Benjamin Netanyahu at UN in awkward rapprochement

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US president agrees to talks at general assembly despite deep unease over policies of Israeli PM’s hardline coalition

Nine months after returning to office, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is finally getting his long sought-after meeting with Joe Biden – but an awkward rapprochement at the UN general assembly is unlikely to improve the strained relationship between the two leaders.

The US president is scheduled to meet Netanyahu in New York on Wednesday, the White House said on Friday. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the two leaders would “discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues focused on the shared democratic values between the United States and Israel and a vision for a more stable and prosperous and integrated region, as well as to compare notes on effectively countering and deterring Iran”.

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AOC to headline rally at New York climate march ahead of UN summit

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March on Sunday will cap a week of more than 650 global actions and is expected to be the largest US climate march in five years

A climate protest and rally headlined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday are expected to bring thousands of activists to the streets of New York.

Under the banner March to End Fossil Fuels, protesters will push the Biden administration to take bold steps to phase out fossil fuels. The demonstration will fall days before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, which the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has described as a “no nonsense” conference meant to highlight new climate commitments.

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Flight attendants threaten strikes over low pay and unpaid work

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Alaska Airlines, American and United could all be disrupted as air crew demand fairer share of vast profits

Major US airlines have recovered from Covid-19 pandemic losses and are amassing vast profits, but amid those record-setting financial performances flight attendants are threatening strikes and calling for substantial wage increases and improvements in working conditions.

The sums of money are huge. American Airlines reported record quarterly revenue in the second quarter of 2023 at $14.1bn, United Airlines reported record revenue in the same quarter at $14.2bn and a threefold increase in profit, and Alaska Airlines also reported record revenue in the second quarter of 2023 at $2.8bn.

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California sues oil companies claiming they downplayed the risk of fossil fuels

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Civil lawsuit filed by the state targets Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP

California has filed a lawsuit against some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, claiming they deceived the public and downplayed the risks posed by fossil fuels.

The civil lawsuit filed in state Superior Court in San Francisco also seeks creation of a fund – financed by the companies – to pay for recovery efforts after devastating storms and fires. Democratic governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement the companies named in the lawsuit – Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP – should be held accountable.

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Tropical cyclone Lee makes landfall in Nova Scotia as thousands lose power

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Storm expected to approach New Brunswick, bringing winds of 70mph and relentless rainfall

Post-tropical cyclone Lee made landfall in Nova Scotia, Canada, on Saturday afternoon hours after it battered New England and eastern Canada with powerful winds and rains.

The storm cut off electricity to tens of thousands and inundated coastal roads in Nova Scotia, and left at least one person dead, according to the Associated Press. The 51-year-old man died after a tree limb fell onto his vehicle as he was driving in Searsport, Maine. The tree felled live power lines and workers had to turn off electricity before the man could be taken from his vehicle. He died at a hospital.

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Nashville elects Tennessee’s first openly transgender politician

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Olivia Hill, 57, a military veteran, joins the Nashville city council in historic election

A transgender woman won election to a seat on Nashville’s city council, becoming the first openly transgender person to be voted into political office in Tennessee.

Olivia Hill, 57, secured one of the four open at-large seats on the metro council of Nashville, a politically liberal city in an overwhelmingly conservative state.

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Texas’s impeached attorney general acquitted by fellow Republicans

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Ken Paxton, impeached in May, has been found not guilty of bribery and dereliction of duty and may resume office

After a dramatic impeachment trial that lasted more than a week, Ken Paxton, the ultraconservative Texas attorney general, has been acquitted and will be able to resume his work in elected office.

Paxton, who faced 16 articles of impeachment against him in this trial – involving bribery, dereliction of duty and disregard for official duty – and four more separately, avoided becoming Texas’s highest-ranking elected official to be removed from state office. He quickly issued a statement boasting that, in his case, “the truth prevailed”.

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Colorado mountain honoring governor who led Indigenous massacre renamed

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Members of US Board on Geographic Names voted to change name of Mount Evans to Mount Blue sky at request of tribes

Federal US officials renamed a Colorado mountain that was previously named after a disgraced governor of the state who led a massacre against Indigenous people.

Members of the US Board on Geographic Names voted to change the name of Mount Evans to Mount Blue Sky, at the request of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.

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One-year-old dies at New York City daycare and three children hospitalized

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Emergency workers responding to report of cardiac arrest find equipment used in production of illegal drugs

A one-year-old boy died and three other children were hospitalized after emergency workers responded to a report of cardiac arrest at a daycare center in New York City on Friday, authorities said.

Police said they found equipment often used in the production of illegal drugs in the home-based daycare in the Bronx. Police said they were investigating the possibility that both the dead child and the hospitalized children had been exposed to an opioid of some kind over an extended period of time, according to reports from WABC and the New York Times.

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US special counsel seeks gag order on Trump’s ‘inflammatory’ statements

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Jack Smith asked judge Tanya Chutkan to restrict ex-president’s statements in federal election subversion trial

The US special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump for election subversion has asked a judge to impose “limited restrictions” on the former president’s public statements, citing his frequent “inflammatory attacks” on the court, prospective witnesses and citizens of Washington DC.

In a filing on Friday, federal prosecutors requested that judge Tanya Chutkan issue a “narrow” gag order that would prohibit Trump from making statements “regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses” and “about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating”.

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Son of Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman extradited to the US for drug trafficking

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Merrick Garland, the attorney general, confirmed the extradition, calling it an effort to attack ‘every aspect’ of the cartel’s operations

Ovidio Guzman, son of incarcerated Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has been extradited to the US, where he is wanted on fentanyl trafficking charges, Mexican and US authorities said on Friday.

Attorney general Merrick Garland said Ovidio had been extradited, calling it the latest step in US efforts to attack “every aspect” of the drug trafficking operations run by the Sinaloa cartel associated with the Guzman family.

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Hawaii fires: number of fatalities drops to 97 as DNA tests help identify victims

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Police chief confirmed number of missing had also dropped from 41 to 31 and that 74 of the deceased had been identified

The number of confirmed fatalities from the Maui wildfires is at least 97 people, a lower death toll than what officials had previously announced, Hawaii governor Josh Green said in an interview on CNN on Friday.

State leaders said last month that at least 115 people had died in the 8 August blaze but on Friday said new testing showed they were counting multiple DNA samples from some of the victims. John Pelltier, the Maui police chief, said in a press conference that the number of missing people had also dropped from 41 to 31. And so far, 74 of the deceased have been positively identified.

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‘A fight against corporate greed’: Bernie Sanders rallies with UAW in Detroit

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Senator kicks off United Auto Workers’ largest strike against US’s big three carmakers amid record company profits

US car workers striking against the nation’s three biggest automakers “are waging … a fight against the outrageous level of corporate greed” seen across the country, Bernie Sanders said on Friday.

The liberal US senator’s remarks came on Friday afternoon during a rally with the United Auto Workers in Detroit, Michigan, kicking off the first day of the union’s “Stand Up” strikes against General Motors, Stellantis and Ford.

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Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis resign from anti-child sexual abuse charity

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Actors were on the board of Thorn when their letters defending convicted rapist Danny Masterson came to light

Ashton Kutcher and his wife Mila Kunis have resigned from the board of the anti-child sexual abuse charity he founded amid swirling criticism of their defense of fellow actor and convicted rapist Danny Masterson.

Kutcher told the board of Thorn he was standing down immediately as its chair in a letter written on Thursday and posted to the organization’s website. Kunis’s role as an observer on the board ended at the same time.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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