Category Archives: US News

Donald Trump expects indictment ‘any day now’ in 2020 election subversion case – as it happened

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The blog is now closed, but you can read more about Donald Trump’s swirling legal peril here.

A judge in Georgia turned down an attempt by Donald Trump to stop Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state. Over the weekend, Willis said she could announce charges in the case anytime between now and the first day of September. Meanwhile, a former business partner of Hunter Biden reported for an interview with the Republican-led House oversight committee, as the GOP toys with the idea of starting impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden when they return from their August recess.

Here’s what else has happened today:

Trump is in a historically good position to win the Republican presidential primary, CNN concludes.

At a weekend rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called for stopping aid to Ukraine until the government helps prove alleged corruption by the Biden family.

Ron DeSantis’s once-promising presidential campaign is suffering from both Republican defections and his own missteps.

Trump is not only in a historically strong position for a nonincumbent to win the Republican nomination, but he is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.

No one in Trump’s current polling position in the modern era has lost an open presidential primary that didn’t feature an incumbent. He’s pulling in more than 50% of support in the national primary polls, i.e., more than all his competitors combined.

What should arguably be more amazing is that despite most Americans agreeing that Trump’s two indictments thus far were warranted, he remains competitive in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden. A poll out last week from Marquette University Law School had Biden and Trump tied percentage-wise (with a statistically insignificant few more respondents choosing Trump).

The Marquette poll is one of a number of surveys showing Trump either tied or ahead of Biden. The ABC News/Washington Post poll has published three surveys of the matchup between the two, and Trump has come out ahead – albeit within the margin of error – every time. Other pollsters have shown Biden only narrowly ahead.

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Idaho woman convicted of killing her two children sentenced to life in prison

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Lori Vallow Daybell was also found guilty of murdering a romantic rival and will serve three consecutive life terms

Lori Vallow Daybell, an Idaho mother convicted of murdering her two youngest children and a romantic rival, was sentenced to life in prison without parole Monday.

Vallow Daybell was found guilty in May of killing her children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow, seven, and Tylee Ryan, 16, as well as conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell, her fifth husband’s previous wife. Vallow Daybell will serve three life sentences one after the other, the judge said.

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California: bear soaks in hot tub to beat the heat

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Animal, found lounging in a Burbank neighborhood, climbed over a wall and headed back after it was done relaxing

With temperatures soaring across the US, people and animals alike are looking for a place to find relief. In southern California, one bear sought to beat the heat by taking a dip in a hot tub.

On Friday, police in Burbank responded to a report of a bear sighting in a residential neighborhood. The bear was filmed calmly lounging in the hot tub. After a short dip, the bear climbed over a wall and headed to a tree behind the home, police said in a statement.

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Memphis police say Jewish school shooting averted after officers shot gunman

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Officers shot and wounded armed man who fired shots and was trying to gain entry to Margolin Hebrew Academy, police say

Police in Memphis said they had likely prevented a mass shooting after they shot a man who earlier was reported to have opened fire at a Jewish day school in the Tennessee city.

In a statement and news conference, local police said they had responded to a report of a white man with a handgun shooting outside the Margolin Hebrew Academy and trying to gain entry to the building.

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Top US adviser to attend Saudi talks in bid to attract support for Ukraine plan

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Ukraine and allies seek to draw countries such as Brazil and India off the fence and back Kyiv’s proposals for ‘just and durable peace’

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, is expected to attend a meeting in Saudi Arabia this weekend at which Ukraine and its allies will try to persuade countries from the global south to back Kyiv’s proposals for ending the war.

According to officials involved in planning for the meeting, it is primarily aimed at drawing neutral countries such as Brazil and India off the fence in their approach to the Russian invasion.

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US climate change reforestation plans face key problem: lack of tree seedlings

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US tree nurseries do not grow enough trees and lack the plant species diversity to meet ambitious plans, research says

In an effort to slash carbon emissions and provide relief from extreme heat, governments across the nation and globally have pledged to plant trees. But the US is not equipped with the tree seedlings to furnish its own plans, according to a new study.

US tree nurseries do not grow nearly enough trees to bring ambitious planting schemes to fruition, and they also lack the plant species diversity those plans require, according to research published in the journal Bioscience on Monday,

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Biden administration trials website for new student loan repayment scheme

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Beta – or testing – site for ‘Save’ plan should take only 10 minutes to use and aims to cut undergraduate payments in half

The Joe Biden White House is launching a beta – or testing – website as part of its new income-driven student loan repayment plan, according to reports.

The site, which CNN first reported on Sunday, comes as part of the president’s Saving on a Valuable Education (Save) plan, which was announced earlier this year after the supreme court struck down an earlier iteration of Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.

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US nurse and her child kidnapped in Haiti, aid group announces

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Alix Dorsainvil of New Hampshire was working for Christian organization El Roi Haiti near capital Port-au-Prince

An American woman and her child have been kidnapped in Haiti, according to a non-profit humanitarian organization affiliated with the woman.

On Saturday, El Roi Haiti announced that Alix Dorsainvil and her child were kidnapped two days earlier from the non-profit’s campus while the woman served in the group’s community ministry near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

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Nikki Haley suggests Mitch McConnell should step aside amid health concerns

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Presidential hopeful makes comment after Senate Republican leader, 81, froze and was unable to speak this week

Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has suggested her fellow Republican Mitch McConnell – the longtime powerful US Senate leader – should step aside after an episode in which he physically froze and was unable to speak at the Capitol this week.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Haley was asked by the host Margaret Brennan whether she still had confidence in McConnell’s ability to lead after the episode.

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Alito ‘stunningly wrong’ that Senate can’t impose supreme court ethics rules

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Senator Chris Murphy dismisses Justice Samuel Alito’s claims that Senate has ‘no authority’ to regulate the supreme court

Senator Chris Murphy has dismissed claims by the supreme court justice, Samuel Alito, that the Senate has “no authority” to create a code of conduct for the court as “stunningly wrong”.

The Connecticut Democrat made those remarks in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, adding that Alito “should know that more than anyone else because his seat on the supreme court exists only because of an act passed by Congress”.

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‘A rerun of a soap opera’: Republican governor warns against Trump 2024 bid

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New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu attacks ex-president and says his 2024 bid is a far cry from his victorious 2016 run

Donald Trump’s campaign for president is a far cry from his victorious run for the White House in 2016, his fellow Republican and New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu said on Sunday.

“This is not the Donald Trump of 2016, don’t fool yourself,” Sununu – who recently passed on an Oval Office run of his own in part to elevate his credibility in speaking out against the ex-president – said during an interview on ABC’s This Week. “He doesn’t have the energy, he doesn’t have the fastball, he basically is droning on for 90 minutes in his long-form speeches about his legal battles, as opposed to talking about the future of this country.”

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Judge blocks Arkansas law allowing librarians to be charged over ‘harmful’ books

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Decision comes as lawmakers in conservative states are pushing for measures making it easier to ban or restrict access to books

Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled on Saturday.

US district judge Timothy L Brooks issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which also would have created a new process to challenge library materials and request that they be relocated to areas not accessible by kids. The measure, signed by the state’s Republican governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, earlier this year, was set to take effect on 1 August.

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Elon Musk reinstates Kanye West’s Twitter account after ban

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Social media platform rebranded as X lifts ban on rapper-producer imposed after swastika tweet

Kanye West’s account on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has been reinstated almost eight months after he tweeted an image of a swastika blended with a star of David.

The rapper-producer and designer, legally known as Ye, embarked on a series of antisemitic rants on social media and during interviews towards the end of last year. In October, he tweeted that he would go “death con 3” on Jewish people. His account was subsequently locked but he was soon readmitted.

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Family of US woman who died from ingesting kratom wins $11m damages

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Krystal Talavera, 39, took legal herbal extract, which has opioid-like effect on the brain, in 2021 and died shortly after

The family of a Florida woman who died in 2021 after ingesting kratom has been awarded more than $11m from a distributor of the south-east Asian herbal extract that has an opioid-like effect on the brain.

In a ruling finalized Thursday, judge Donald Middlebrooks of the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, told a company operating as the Kratom Distro to pay damages to the four surviving children of Krystal Talavera as well as her estate.

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Judge throws out Donald Trump’s $475m ‘big lie’ defamation lawsuit against CNN

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Judge Raag Singhal ruled that CNN’s words were opinion and could not be the subject of a defamation claim

A federal judge has thrown out Donald Trump’s $475m defamation lawsuit against CNN, in which the former president claimed the network’s description of his claims of election fraud as the “big lie” associated him with Adolf Hitler.

In a ruling late on Friday night, US judge Raag Singhal, who was nominated by Trump in 2019, said CNN’s words were opinion, not fact, and therefore could not be the subject of a defamation claim.

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Pentagon hit by ‘critical compromise’ of US air force communications – report

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Forbes reports claim that engineer at Arnold air force base in Tennessee had taken home government radio technologies

The Pentagon is investigating a “critical compromise” of communications across 17 US air force facilities, according to reports.

The US department of defense’s investigation comes amid a tip from a base contractor that a 48-year-old engineer at the Arnold air force base in Tennessee had taken home various government radio technologies, Forbes first reported Friday.

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‘Stop’: Black Republican congressman attacks DeSantis over slavery curriculum

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John James of Michigan says presidential contender has ‘gone too far’ as outrage grows over Florida teaching of history

Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has “gone too far” in defending his state’s new educational standards which require public schools to teach that enslaved Black Americans benefited from their forced labor by learning useful skills, Republican congressman John James has said.

James – who is Black – made his remarks in a post on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.

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US man who killed woman by driving car through BLM protest pleads guilty

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Dawit Kelete, 30, pleads guilty to multiple charges after hitting two protesters, one fatally, during 2020 protest in Seattle

A man who hit two Black Lives Matter protesters with his car, killing one of them, during a 2020 demonstration in Seattle has pleaded guilty to multiple felonies.

Dawit Kelete, 30, pleaded guilty Thursday to vehicular homicide in the death of 24-year-old Summer Taylor, the Seattle Times reported. He also pleaded guilty to vehicular assault and reckless driving charges.

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US Mega Millions lottery jackpot soars to $1.05bn

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No winner of Friday’s $940m prize, meaning only fifth time in history of Mega Millions grand prize has reached into the billions

The Mega Millions jackpot climbed to an estimated $1.05bn Friday night, only the fifth time in the history of that particular lottery that the grand prize has reached into the billions.

It has been less than two weeks since someone in Los Angeles won a $1.08bn Powerball prize that ranked as the sixth-largest in US lottery history. The winner of that Powerball prize still has not come forward.

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US officer who put handcuffed woman in car hit by freight train found guilty

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Jordan Steinke convicted on misdemeanour charges but found not guilty of more serious charges over 2022 crash in Colorado

A Colorado police officer who put a handcuffed woman in a parked police vehicle that was hit by a freight train was found guilty of reckless endangerment and assault but was acquitted of a third charge of criminal attempt to commit manslaughter during a trial Friday.

Jordan Steinke was the first of two officers to go to trial over the 16 September 2022 crash that left Yareni Rios-Gonzalez seriously injured.

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