Category Archives: US News

Can Mark Thompson revive CNN’s struggling fortunes?

Posted on by

The former BBC and New York Times chief has been tasked with revitalizing a news network that seems to have lost its way

In late summer, CNN found itself in crisis. Under the disastrous tenure of chief executive Chris Licht, the news channel had seen top anchors leave and ratings plunge.

Behind the scenes, CNN staff were grumbling about an apparent attempt to move the network’s political coverage to a rapidly disappearing center – an effort typified by the widely criticized decision to host a town hall with Donald Trump in May.

Continue reading...

Biden tours Florida hurricane damage: ‘nobody can deny impacts of climate crisis’

Posted on by

President arrives to survey damage left by Hurricane Idalia but governor Ron DeSantis has no plans to meet Biden

Joe Biden said that no one can deny the impacts of the climate crisis anymore after he visited Florida on Saturday and surveyed the damage left behind by Hurricane Idalia.

Speaking to reporters in front of fallen trees and debris, the US president pointed to this year’s extreme weather events and disasters, saying: “Nobody can deny the impact of climate crisis. There’s no real intelligence to deny the impacts of the climate crisis anymore.”

Continue reading...

Bill Richardson, former statesman and hostage negotiator, dies aged 75

Posted on by

Ex-New Mexico governor, energy secretary, congressman and UN ambassador spent his later years helping Americans held abroad

Bill Richardson, a 2008 presidential candidate, former New Mexico governor, congressman, secretary of energy and UN ambassador under the Clinton administration who later found a role as an international hostage negotiator, has died. He was 75 years old.

Richardson was reported to have died on Friday at his summer home in Chatham, Massachusetts. “Governor Richardson passed away peacefully in his sleep last night,” said Mickey Bergman, vice-president of the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which Richardson founded to promote international peace and dialogue.

Continue reading...

‘It’s like a time capsule’: 19th-century shipwreck discovered in Lake Michigan

Posted on by

Schooner Trinidad hailed as ‘significant shipwreck’ after successful sonar search reveals well preserved vessel

A long-lost shipwreck dating back to the late 1800s has been discovered in Lake Michigan.

The Wisconsin Historical Society announced that the shipwreck hunters and historians Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck located the wreck of the schooner Trinidad in 270ft of water off Algoma, Wisconsin, earlier this year.

Continue reading...

Burning Man festival-goers trapped in desert as rain turns site to mud

Posted on by

Tens of thousands of ‘burners’ urged to conserve food and water as rain and flash floods sweep Nevada

Tens of thousands of “burners” at the Burning Man festival have been told to stay in the camps, conserve food and water and are being blocked from leaving Nevada’s Black Rock desert after a slow-moving rainstorm turned the event into a mud bath.

Organizers responding to the unusual weather indicated the closures could endure, as local reports described the conditions at the festival as “treacherous” with “thick, slimy mud that clung to shoes and anything else it touched”.

Continue reading...

US pipeline protester has ‘no regrets’ after conviction for felony obstruction

Posted on by

Mylene Vialard, 54, found guilty after Minnesota trial beset by legal irregularities after effort to block fossil fuel pumping station

A non-violent environmental activist has been found guilty of felony obstruction for her role in trying to halt construction of a fossil fuel pipeline through Indigenous territory in Minnesota, in a trial beset by legal irregularities which ended with the prosecutor demanding jail time.

Mylene Vialard, 54, was arrested in August 2021 after attaching herself to a 25ft bamboo tower erected to block a pumping station in Aitkin county, northern Minnesota.

Continue reading...

Makeup artist who created prosthetic nose for Bradley Cooper film apologises

Posted on by

Kazu Hiro says he was surprised by ‘Jewface’ criticism over actor’s portrayal of composer Leonard Bernstein in biopic Maestro

The makeup artist who worked on Bradley Cooper’s movie Maestro has apologised to anyone who felt hurt by the use of a prosthetic nose, which has been criticised by some as an example of “Jewface”.

Speaking at a press conference at the Venice film festival – where Maestro, a biopic of composer Leonard Bernstein, will premiere – Kazu Hiro said he was surprised by the backlash.

Continue reading...

Santa Fe monument to controversial frontiersman Kit Carson vandalized

Posted on by

Mayor denounces ‘cowardly act’ targeting US soldier involved in death of hundreds of Native Americans in 19th century

Police in New Mexico’s capital city are investigating the partial destruction of a public monument to a 19th-century frontiersman and US soldier who had a leading role in the death of hundreds of Native Americans during Anglo-American settlement of the American West.

The monument to Christopher “Kit” Carson has been encircled by a plywood barrier for its own protection since 2020, when Santa Fe was swept by the movement to remove depictions of historical figures who mistreated Native Americans amid a national reckoning over racial injustice.

Continue reading...

Virginia library at risk after rightwing push to defund it over LGBTQ+ books

Posted on by

Samuels Library set to close on 1 October after far-right community members claimed LGBTQ+ books were pornographic

A public county library in Virginia is at risk of shutting down after a group of far-right community members launched a campaign to defund it on accusations it held “pornographic books” though in fact the works usually just explore LGBTQ+ themes.

Samuels Library in Front Royal’s Warren county is set to close on 1 October as public funding has been withheld by the Warren county board of supervisors since July, cutting off crucial financial support.

Continue reading...

US labor movement celebrates new regulation to counter union-busting

Posted on by

NLRB framework means companies committing illegal acts during unionization efforts will be forced to bargain immediately

America’s resurgent labor movement has won a useful victory with a decision by the National Labor Relations Board that will make unionization easier at firms that break the law while resisting organizing campaigns.

The new framework means companies that are found to have committed illegal acts during unionization-election efforts will be forced to immediately bargain with the union rather than just have to run the election again – which is what happened previously.

Continue reading...

Biden student-debt plan hailed as ‘big step forward’ for millions of borrowers

Posted on by

Advocates say proposals that cut debt to zero for some borrowers and reduce monthly interest payments are good news

Joe Biden’s new student-loan plan is an important and large step forward on student debt forgiveness in the US even after a previous debt reduction program was controversially struck down by the supreme court, advocates say.

When the justices ruled against Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loans per borrower in June, 40 million debt-burdened Americans were left with questions – especially as monthly payments would resume in October after being paused for over three years because of the Covid pandemic.

Continue reading...

New York plan to monitor Labor Day parties with drones prompts outcry

Posted on by

Police accused of playing ‘fast and loose’ with New Yorkers’ rights to due process and to freely hold peaceful gatherings

New York City police plan to monitor large gatherings and noise complaints over Labor Day weekend with surveillance drones, officials have announced, prompting outcry from privacy advocates.

Police said Thursday that the remote-controlled aircrafts would be deployed to keep tabs on large gatherings, including private events, as New Yorkers prepared to celebrate the weekend heading into Monday’s holiday.

Continue reading...

‘Astonishingly cruel’: Alabama seeks to test execution method on death row ‘guinea pig’

Posted on by

Nine months after Kenneth Smith’s botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogen

Kenneth Smith is one of two living Americans who can describe what it is like to survive an execution, having endured an aborted lethal injection last November during which he was subjected to excruciating pain tantamount, his lawyers claim, to torture.

Nine months later Smith has been singled out for another undesirable distinction. If the state of Alabama has its way, he will become the test dummy for an execution method that has never before been used in judicial killings and which veterinarians consider unacceptable as a form of euthanasia for animals – death by nitrogen gas.

Continue reading...

Ukrainian counteroffensive has made ‘notable’ progress in south over past three days, US says

Posted on by

White House spokesman John Kirby also said reports quoting anonymous US officials criticising Ukrainian effort were ‘not helpful’

Ukraine has made “notable progress” in its southern offensive over the past 72 hours, a top US security official has said, as Kyiv said its troops had broken through Russia’s first line of defences in several places.

In Washington, White House national security council spokesman John Kirby said the US had “noted over the last 72 hours or so some notable progress by Ukrainian armed forces ... in that southern line of advance coming out of the Zaporizhzhia area”.

Continue reading...

Two Proud Boys members get lengthy prison terms for Capitol attack

Posted on by

Dominic Pezzola sentenced to 10 years while Ethan Nordean received an 18-year sentence for roles in 2021 insurrection

Two members of the far-right Proud Boys militia group who took part in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol with the intention of keeping Donald Trump in the White House were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on Friday.

Ethan Nordean, described by prosecutors as a leader of the extremist group, received an 18-year sentence for crimes that included seditious conspiracy, committed when thousands of Trump supporters overran the Capitol building.

Continue reading...

Biden to award Medal of Honor to army pilot who rescued soldiers in Vietnam

Posted on by

President to recognize Larry Taylor, who risked his life rescue a reconnaissance team that was about to be overrun by the enemy

The White House says Joe Biden will award the Medal of Honor to a Vietnam war-era US army pilot who risked his life to rescue a reconnaissance team that was about to be overrun by the enemy.

The president will recognize Larry Taylor of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, at a ceremony on 5 September. The Medal of Honor is the American military’s highest decoration given to service members who go above and beyond the call of duty, often risking their lives through selfless acts of valor.

Continue reading...

Proud Boys member receives 10-year prison sentence for US Capitol attack – as it happened

Posted on by

Dominic Pezzola’s sentence is less than 20-year term prosecutors proposed while Ethan Nordean will also be sentenced. This blog is now closed

We’re expecting Joe Biden to soon speak about the government’s August employment report that came out a few hours ago, which shows employment growth remaining steady in the world’s largest economy, despite the sting of high interest rates, as the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani reports:

The US jobs market is holding steady as interest rates sit at a 22-year high, with US employers adding 187,000 jobs in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Continue reading...

Ohio: video released of pregnant Black woman shot dead by police

Posted on by

Ta’Kiya Young, 21, pronounced dead shortly after Blendon township shooting, in which unborn daughter did not survive

Authorities in Ohio on Friday released police body-camera video showing the fatal police shooting of Ta’Kiya Young, a young Black woman who was pregnant. Young’s family had seen the video, the family’s lawyer said.

The footage showed Young slowly accelerating toward an officer in her path as he yelled for her to stop before firing the single bullet that ended her life.

Continue reading...

Biden hails strength of economy as US adds 187,000 jobs in August

Posted on by

Number of new jobs matches July’s total, reflecting resilience of labor market even with high interest rates

The US jobs market is holding steady as interest rates sit at a 22-year high, with US employers adding 187,000 jobs in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The number of new jobs added in August is the same as the number of new jobs in July, showing that the labor market, down to levels seen before the pandemic, is resilient even with high interest rates.

Continue reading...

New York City and state fight over foie gras ban

Posted on by

Mayor Eric Adams pushes for ban but animal rights activists say Governor Kathy Hochul is ‘in the pocket’ of the industry

Ducks are back on New York’s political minds, close to four years after the city under former mayor Bill de Blasio signed a bill banning the sale and serving of foie gras in New York City, part of what he and his successor, Mayor Eric Adams, portrayed as an animal rights issue.

“The days of foie gras are gone and foie-gotten in New York City,” Adams tweeted in 2019 after the law was passed.

Continue reading...