Category Archives: US News

‘We will succeed’: Zelenskiy says Ukraine ready to launch counteroffensive

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Ukraine’s president hints at concern over a possible Trump return in 2024 in Wall Street Journal interview

Ukraine’s president has declared his country’s military is ready to launch a long-awaited counteroffensive and hinted at concern about the possibility of Donald Trump retaking the White House.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, giving an interview to the Wall Street Journal, suggested that a significant attack could come soon and said he hoped a change in the US presidency would not impact military aid to Kyiv.

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Washington won’t stand for China ‘bullying’ US allies, Lloyd Austin tells summit

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Defence secretary also criticises Beijing’s unwillingness to engage with US on military crisis management

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has vowed that Washington will not stand for any “coercion and bullying” of its allies and partners by China, while assuring Beijing that the US remains committed to maintaining the status quo on Taiwan and would prefer dialogue over conflict.

Speaking in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s top security summit, Austin lobbied for support for Washington’s vision of a “free, open and secure Indo-Pacific within a world of rules and rights” as the best course to counter increasing Chinese assertiveness in the region.

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Protest over Pride month assembly at Los Angeles school turns violent

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Reports of fights breaking out over a book reading about inclusive families forced police officers to separate clashing groups

A protest over a Pride month assembly at a Los Angeles elementary school reportedly broke out into fights, forcing police officers to separate groups of protesters and counter-protesters who clashed over the school’s teaching of LGBTQ+ issues.

Tensions at Saticoy elementary school, part of the Los Angeles unified school district, have been rising since last month over the Pride assembly the school has planned to hold on Friday.

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Biden praises passage of debt ceiling bill in Oval Office address ahead of signing it

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President described how ‘no one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed’ during brief speech

Joe Biden celebrated Congress’s approval of a debt-ceiling suspension in a speech delivered from the Oval Office on Friday night, a day after the Senate passed the compromise bill brokered by the president and the Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy.

Biden described the bill’s enactment as “essential to the progress we’ve made over the last few years” in “keeping full faith and credit of the United States of America and passing a budget that continues to grow our economy and reflects our values as a nation”.

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US air quality as far south as Virginia affected by Nova Scotia wildfires

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National Weather Service issues air quality alert for Richmond while Maryland, Pennsylvania and other states affected

The historically intense wildfires that battered the Nova Scotia province on the eastern coast of Canada have had a severe effect on air quality as far south as Virginia and Maryland, the US National Weather Service alerted.

Four wildfires have destroyed hundreds of buildings and homes and displaced tens of thousands of people, hitting the Halifax municipality hardest. But the blazes have also sent smoke billowing over New York City, and have prompted officials from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia to report negative effects on their air quality.

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Texas woman dies of infection linked to cosmetic surgery in Mexico

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Family says Lauren Brooke Robinson, who reportedly contracted fungal meningitis, began to feel ill months after February surgery

A Texas woman has died after contracting fungal meningitis in an outbreak that has been linked to a cosmetic procedure performed in Mexico.

Lauren Brooke Robinson, 29, died on Wednesday from a fungal meningitis infection after receiving cosmetic surgery in Mexico, the local TV news station KBMT reported.

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Top US chemical firms to pay $1.2bn to settle water contamination lawsuits

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Dupont, Chemours and Corteva agree deal and 3M also reportedly considering $10bn settlement to avoid trial due to start on Monday

DuPont and two related companies said they would pay close to $1.2bn to settle liability claims brought by public water systems serving the vast majority of the US population on Friday, just days before the start of a bellwether trial in South Carolina over PFAS contamination.

PFAS maker 3M was reportedly also considering a settlement that would keep the company from having to face allegations that it was responsible for knowingly contaminating drinking water supplies around the United States.

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Padma Lakshmi leaving Top Chef after 17 years as host and producer

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Lakshmi announced on Twitter that she will be leaving the hit cooking show ahead of its 21st season

The longtime host and producer Padma Lakshmi has announced that she will be exiting the Top Chef kitchen ahead of the hit cooking show’s 21st season.

Lakshmi announced the news on Twitter and Instagram on Friday, saying that she had made the decision “after much soul searching”.

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Snow fly in US and Canada can detach its legs to survive, research shows

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Flies chilled to sub-zero temperatures amputate one or more of their six limbs to protect their internal organs

Flightless snow flies in the US and Canada can amputate their legs to survive as they begin to freeze, researchers have discovered.

Lab experiments in which the flies were chilled gradually to sub-zero temperatures revealed they can detach one or more of their six legs, an apparent “last-ditch tactic” to protect their internal organs from the advancing cold.

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Mastermind of assassination of Haiti president sentenced to life by US court

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Rodolphe Jaar, a Haitian-Chilean businessman, conspired with Colombian mercenaries, to kill Jovenel Moïse in 2021

A mastermind of the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse two years ago has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a federal court judge in Florida.

Rodolphe Jaar, a Haitian-Chilean businessman, conspired with a group of Colombian mercenaries to murder Moïse at his home in Port-au-Prince on 7 July 2021. Prosecutors at his sentencing hearing in Miami said Jaar obtained the weapons used in the “commando-style” attack that killed Moïse, 53, and seriously injured his wife.

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Joe Biden gives first Oval Office address ahead of signing debt ceiling deal – as it happened

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‘We averted an economic crisis and economic collapse,’ says president in address to the nation about deal, but will not sign bill before Saturday

Here’s more on how the debt ceiling crisis will impact the US’s credit rating, from the Guardian’s Joan E Greve.

The US is not yet out of the woods on a potential credit downgrade, even though Joe Biden is scheduled to sign the debt ceiling bill tonight to avert a federal default.

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‘I can’t’: Georgia gun shop owner to close store as US reels from mass killings

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Jon Waldman says attacks have weighed on his conscience and that Atlanta shooting earlier this month was ‘final straw’

A Georgia gun shop owner said he is closing his store in the wake of several mass shootings targeting young children, as the country reels from recent attacks and an escalating rate of killings.

Jon Waldman, a gun shop owner in Duluth, Georgia, said that he had already closed his store and will have the gun inventory cleared out by 15 June, NBC News reported.

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US colonel retracts comments on simulated drone attack ‘thought experiment’

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Colonel clarifies comments about ‘rogue AI drone’ that supposedly killed its operator

A US air force colonel “misspoke” when he said at a Royal Aeronautical Society conference last month that a drone killed its operator in a simulated test because the pilot was attempting to override its mission, according to the society.

The confusion had started with the circulation of a blogpost from the society, in which it described a presentation by Col Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton, the chief of AI test and operations with the US air force and an experimental fighter test pilot, at the Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit in London in May.

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Arizona limits future home-building in Phoenix area due to lack of groundwater

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Action set to slow population growth for one of the most rapidly expanding areas of the US amid ‘megadrought’

The state of Arizona has restricted future home-building in the Phoenix area due to a lack of groundwater, based on projections showing that wells will run dry under existing conditions.

The action by the Arizona department of water resources on Thursday is set to slow population growth for the Phoenix region, the state capital, home to 4.6 million people and one of the most rapidly expanding areas of the United States.

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Fort Bragg to drop its Confederate namesake to become Fort Liberty

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Change is part of broad Department of Defense initiative, which includes renaming numerous installations

Fort Bragg shed its Confederate namesake on Friday to become Fort Liberty, in a ceremony some veterans said was a small but important step in making the US Army more welcoming to current and prospective Black service members.

The change was part of a broad Department of Defense initiative, motivated by the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis that sparked a national reckoning on police brutality and enduring systemic racism in American society.

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Joe Biden hails ‘big win’ as bipartisan debt ceiling bill reaches his desk

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Compromise package to suspend debt ceiling passed US Senate late on Thursday with 63 votes to 36

The bipartisan bill to solve the US debt ceiling crisis just days before a catastrophic and unprecedented default was on its way to Joe Biden’s desk on Friday as the US president prepared to address the nation and hailed “a big win for our economy and the American people”.

The compromise package negotiated between Biden and the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, passed the US Senate late on Thursday.

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An ‘unbelievable deal’? The $200m mansion reportedly bought by Beyoncé and Jay Z

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40,000 sq ft manor overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu is thought to be California’s most expensive home ever

With its steep green cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Malibu is a top contender in America’s ultra-luxury real estate market. Its rise in the rankings of the favorite spots of the super-rich was solidified again in past weeks, with reports that Beyoncé and Jay-Z purchased a 40,000 sq ft oceanfront mansion in the coastal enclave.

TMZ first reported that the star couple had snapped up a modernist mansion designed by the celebrity Japanese architect Tadao Ando. With a sale tag of $200m, the acquisition appears to break the record for the most expensive home in California.

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The right Covid response? How countries outside UK are also under scrutiny

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From Sweden to the US, the handling of the pandemic has been questioned. In some cases criminal proceedings are under way

Britain’s public Covid-19 inquiry, led by the retired judge Heather Hallett, is far from the first independent commission in the world to begin examining a country’s experience confronting the pandemic.

Their formats, mandates – and their progress – vary widely according to systems and traditions, but their task is essentially the same: to assess preparedness, make a record of decision-making, review government responses and learn lessons for the future.

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Biden falls on stage at air force academy ceremony; Senate blocks student relief program – live

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US president took a tumble at the end of a ceremony honoring air force graduates in Colorado; White House vows to use veto

Supreme court justices on Thursday took aim at pharmacies who overcharge the government for prescription drugs, their unanimous ruling reopening a pathway for legal action by individuals seeking to protect taxpayers’ money.

The case involves “whistleblowers” ostensibly acting for the government, whom a lower court said could not sue pharmacies claiming their own “objectively reasonable” reading of the law allowed them to overbill federal health programs including Medicare and Medicaid.

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