Category Archives: US News

UK will not supply cluster munitions to Ukraine, says Sunak

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Prime minister rules out following controversial US move but says he will urge allies to increase other aid

Rishi Sunak has ruled out supplying Ukraine with cluster bombs, saying the UK will not follow the Biden administration’s controversial move and will instead press countries to boost their aid to Kyiv “in other ways”.

On Friday, Joe Biden defended what he said was a “difficult decision” to send widely banned cluster munitions to Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government. Human rights groups criticised the White House and there was unease among some Democrats, with one calling it “unnecessary and a terrible mistake”.

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Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred over 2020 election, DC panel recommends

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Washington DC committee recommends revoking former New York City mayor’s law license over attempt to overturn election

Rudy Giuliani’s law license should be revoked over his work on a failed lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results on behalf of then president Donald Trump, a Washington DC attorney ethics committee has recommended.

He now faces being disbarred in the capital after the review panel late on Friday condemned the lawyer and ex-politician for aggressively pursuing the false assertions Trump made about his defeat by Democratic rival and now US president Joe Biden.

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White nationalist publisher’s data exposed in Amazon cloud leak

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Data from Greg Johnson’s Counter-Currents sheds light on how organization promotes its ideology online

A data leak from the website of a white nationalist publisher has revealed recordings, published and unpublished documents, and hitherto-private interview recordings that shed light on the way in which the organization promotes its ideology online.

The internal data from Counter-Currents, a publishing house co-founded and run by notoriously secretive far-right ideologue Greg Johnson, was exposed in an Amazon cloud storage container that was left unlocked on the open internet.

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With Trump in trouble, Republicans step up assault on DoJ and FBI

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Critics say party that touted its law-and-order credentials now intent on wrecking institutions that get in Donald Trump’s way

When Merrick Garland was nominated to the US supreme court by Barack Obama, Republicans refused to grant him a hearing. Now that Garland is the top law enforcement official in America, the party seems ready to give him one after all – an impeachment hearing.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are moving up a gear in a wide-ranging assault on the justice department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that would have been unthinkable before the rise of Donald Trump. The party that for half a century claimed the mantle of law and order has, critics say, become a cult of personality intent on discrediting and dismantling institutions that get in Trump’s way.

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Lyft driver who worked as US interpreter in Afghanistan shot dead in Washington

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Nasratullah Ahmadyar, 31, who left Afghanistan on last flight from Kabul in 2021, died in hospital after being shot in his car

A Virginia man who previously served as an interpreter for the US military in Afghanistan was fatally shot this week working as a rideshare driver in Washington.

Nasratullah Ahmadyar, 31, was shot and killed on Monday while driving for Lyft, WUSA 9 reported. He had worked as an interpreter with the army special forces, but left Afghanistan on the last flight out of the country during the US withdrawal in 2021.

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New York steps up patrols off local beaches after slew of shark attacks

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Drones and personal watercraft among measures to protect beachgoers but expert calls for perspective over shark attack data

New York lifeguards are being trained to use drones and personal watercraft after recent shark bites off local beaches – but one shark expert believes such solutions lack specialist input.

Officials in New York’s Long Island say they are upgrading training after five people were reportedly bitten by sharks since Monday, including two minors.

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Outrage as Republican says 1921 Tulsa massacre not motivated by race

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Oklahoma superintendent Ryan Walters decried for comments on 1921 massacre in which hundreds were killed by white mobs

The state official in charge of Oklahoma’s schools is facing calls for impeachment, after he said teachers should tell students that the Tulsa race massacre was not racially motivated.

In a public forum on Thursday, Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction, said teachers could cover the 1921 massacre, in which white Tulsans murdered an estimated 300 Black people, but teachers should not “say that the skin color determined it”.

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Biden says sending cluster bombs to Ukraine was ‘difficult decision’ – as it happened

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President tells CNN he took the recommendation for controversial weapons because Ukraine is ‘running out of ammunition’

The US added 209,000 new jobs in June as hiring slowed amid signs that the economy is cooling.

The rise was the weakest gain since December 2020, lower than the 240,000 jobs economists had expected and lower than the 309,000 jobs added in May. But the increase was also the 30th consecutive month of jobs gains, and the unemployment rate ticked down to the historically low rate of 3.6%.

This alarming development requires the Committee to assess White House security practices and determine whose failures led to an evacuation of the building and finding of the illegal substance.

The presence of illegal drugs in the White House is unacceptable and a shameful moment in the White House’s history.

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Joe Biden defends ‘difficult decision’ to send cluster munitions to Ukraine

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Rights groups condemn supply of widely banned weapons and fellow Democrat calls it a ‘terrible mistake’

Joe Biden has defended the “difficult decision” to send widely banned cluster munitions to Ukraine, after he was condemned by human rights groups and a fellow Democrat said it was “unnecessary and a terrible mistake”.

Cluster munitions are prohibited by more than 100 countries. They typically scatter numerous smaller bomblets over a wide area, sometimes as big as a football pitch, and can kill indiscriminately. Those that fail to explode threaten civilians, especially children, for decades after a conflict ends.

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No charges to be filed in altercation between Britney Spears and NBA player’s guard

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Pop-star had said she was struck by Victor Wembanyama’s security when she tried to approach the basketball player for a photograph

No charges will be filed following a brief investigation of the altercation involving pop star Britney Spears, San Antonio Spurs rookie Victor Wembanyama and a member of the basketball player’s security team, Las Vegas police said on Friday.

Spears said she was struck by a security guard as she tried to approach Wembanyama on the way into a restaurant in a Las Vegas casino complex on Wednesday night. Wembanyama said a person – he later was told it was Spears – grabbed him from behind.

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Casey DeSantis ‘mamas’ video labeled ‘desperate effort’ to save husband’s campaign

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Florida first lady outlines Ron DeSantis’s hardline rightwing agenda in video accusing progressives of ‘coming after our kids’

Vowing not to let progressives “impose an agenda” on American children and their mothers, Casey DeSantis outlined the hardline rightwing agenda her husband has imposed on Florida and now wants to impose on America.

The Florida first lady did so in a new video for Mamas for DeSantis, a group supporting Governor Ron DeSantis’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

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Secret US-Russia talks over Ukraine ‘not sanctioned by Biden administration’

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Washington denies authorising former officials’ meeting with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov

Joe Biden’s administration did not sanction or support secret meetings that former top US national security officials held with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and other Russians on potential talks to end the Ukraine war, the White House and state department have said.

America’s NBC News network reported that the former officials met Lavrov in New York in April, joined by Richard Haass, a former US diplomat and outgoing president of the Council on Foreign Relations thinktank in Washington, and two former White House aides, Charles Kupchan and Thomas Graham.

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Gunman who killed 23 in racist attack at Texas Walmart given 90 life sentences

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Police say the shooter drove more than 700 miles from his home to target Hispanic people with an AK-style assault rifle at the store

A white gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack on Hispanic shoppers at a Walmart in a Texas border city was sentenced on Friday to 90 consecutive life sentences but could still face more punishment, including the death penalty.

Patrick Crusius, 24, pleaded guilty earlier this year to nearly 50 federal hate crime charges in the 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, making it one of the US government’s largest hate crime cases.

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Teen charged in connection with Baltimore block party shooting

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Shooting on 2 July resulted in two deaths and 28 people injured at a neighborhood block party in the Maryland city

Baltimore police said on Friday they had arrested a 17-year-old in connection with a 2 July mass shooting that killed two people and injured 28 at a neighborhood block party in the Maryland city.

The suspect, whom the Baltimore police pepartment did not name, “is being charged with possession of a firearm by a minor, assault weapon possession, reckless endangerment and handgun in vehicle”, the department said in a statement.

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Brazil: Amazon deforestation drops 34% in first six months under Lula

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Government data shows marked reduction against same period last year, reversing trend of destruction during Bolsonaro reign

After four years of rising destruction in Brazil’s Amazon, deforestation dropped by 33.6% during the first six months of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s term, according to new government satellite data.

From January to June the rainforest had alerts covering 2,650 sq km (1,023 sq miles), down from 4,000 sq km –during the same period last year under former president Jair Bolsonaro. This year’s data includes a 41% plunge in alerts for June, which marks the start of the dry season when deforestation tends to jump.

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Twitter threatens to sue Meta over launch of rival Threads app

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In a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, a lawyer for the Elon Musk-owned app said Meta had unlawfully misappropriated trade secrets

Twitter has threatened to sue Meta over its new Threads app, which Mark Zuckerberg has openly billed as a rival, claiming the company has violated Twitter’s “intellectual property rights”.

In a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, first published by the news outlet Semafor, a lawyer for Twitter said the company “has serious concerns that Meta Platforms (Meta) has engaged in systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property”.

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Kanye West sued by teacher fired from his California private school

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Former employee Isaiah Meadows of Yeezy Christian Academy says he was fired in retaliation for reporting unsafe conditions

Kanye West is facing legal action after a former employee of his private school in California alleged that he was fired after reporting unsafe conditions in the school.

Ye, as the rapper now goes by, was named as a defendant in a lawsuit by former employee Isaiah Meadows of the Yeezy Christian Academy, a private Christian school started by Ye, according to the lawsuit shared with the Guardian.

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‘One hell of a mess’: volunteers clean up three tons of trash from Lake Tahoe

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Cleanup effort after Fourth of July was ‘one of the worst’ in years, says founder of group behind trash collecting

A team of volunteers that included scuba divers, kayakers and snorkelers has collected more than three tons of trash from Lake Tahoe left behind by Fourth of July revelers.

Colin West, founder and CEO of Clean up the Lake, the group behind the cleanup effort, said the mess was “one of the worst” he’d seen in his years of trash collecting.

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Trump valet Walt Nauta pleads not guilty in Mar-a-Lago documents case – as it happened

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Former US president’s ‘body man’ appears in Miami court on charges relating to classified documents found at resort

Walt Nauta is facing six federal charges, including conspiracy to obstruct justice, corruptly concealing a document or record, and making false statements.

That’s fewer than the 37 federal charges Donald Trump is facing, but both men are named in the indictment brought last month by special counsel Jack Smith. You can read it below:

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OceanGate suspends operations after Titan submersible implosion

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Organization will no longer send individuals down to Titanic wreckage or elsewhere after five killed on sub

Nearly three weeks after its submersible vessel Titan imploded, killing all five people on board, OceanGate is suspending all exploration and commercial operations.

The organization posted on its website on Thursday that it would no longer be sending individuals down to the wreckage of the Titanic, or elsewhere.

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