Category Archives: US News

Pentagon leaks: US seeks to mend ties after claims Washington spied on key allies

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Defence secretary speaks to South Korean counterpart after leak suggesting US was spying on Seoul’s internal discussions on arms sales

The US is attempting to mend fences with key allies after leaked Pentagon documents claimed Washington had been spying on friendly countries including South Korea and Israel.

The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, spoke to his South Korean counterpart on Tuesday as officials in Seoul denied the possibility that the president’s office could have been the source of leaks over South Korean arms sales to the US.

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Fifth victim dies in Louisville bank shooting

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The attacker, who livestreamed the shooting, was killed by police but not before he injured eight others

A Louisville bank employee armed with a rifle opened fire at his workplace on Monday morning, killing five people – including a close friend of Kentucky’s governor – while livestreaming the attack on Instagram, authorities said.

Police arrived as shots were still being fired inside Old National Bank and killed the shooter in an exchange of gunfire, Louisville metro police department chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said. The city’s mayor, Craig Greenberg, called the attack “an evil act of targeted violence”.

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Derry crowd petrol-bombs police vehicle as Joe Biden heads to Northern Ireland

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Land Rover was monitoring a dissident republican parade commemorating the 1916 Rising

The British and Irish governments have condemned petrol bomb attacks on police in Derry on the eve of Joe Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland.

A small crowd threw petrol bombs and other missiles at a police Land Rover during a parade by dissident republicans in the Creggan area of the city on Monday. The vehicle briefly caught fire and was withdrawn.

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US declares journalist Evan Gershkovich wrongfully detained by Moscow

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The Wall Street Journal reporter was imprisoned by Russian authorities for espionage

The US state department has officially designated Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter imprisoned in Russia, as being wrongfully detained, signalling that Washington views the espionage charges against him as bogus and that he is being held as a hostage.

“Journalism is not a crime. We condemn the Kremlin’s continued repression of independent voices in Russia and its ongoing war against the truth,” the state department spokesman, Vedant Patel, said in a statement announcing the designation. “The US government will provide all appropriate support to Mr Gershkovich and his family. We call for the Russian Federation to immediately release Mr Gershkovich.”

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Nashville council votes to reinstate expelled Democrat Justin Jones

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Republican majority had ousted Jones and fellow house member Justin Pearson over protests they led demanding gun control

The city of Nashville’s governing council on Monday afternoon voted unanimously to return expelled Black lawmaker Justin Jones to the Tennessee state legislature.

The body’s Republican majority state lawmakers had expelled Jones and fellow house member Justin Pearson late last week because they led protests in the chamber demanding gun control after yet another mass shooting in an American school, this one at an elementary school in the city days before.

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Senate Democrats urge supreme court investigation of Clarence Thomas

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Chief justice John Roberts pressed to open inquiry into conduct deemed inconsistent with ethical standards

The US Senate judiciary committee’s Democratic members on Monday unanimously urged the supreme court chief justice, John Roberts, to investigate luxury trips taken by associate justice Clarence Thomas that were paid for by a hugely wealthy Republican party donor.

The senators deemed the justice’s conduct inconsistent with ethical standards for “any person in a position of public trust”, they said.

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Senate calls on supreme court chief justice to investigate Clarence Thomas’s ‘gift’ trips – as it happened

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Judiciary committee will review supreme court justice’s undeclared luxury travel with Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow

Donald Trump is trying to prevent his former vice-president, Mike Pence, from testifying to the grand jury investigating the January 6 insurrection, NBC News reports:

Earlier this month, Pence decided to drop his legal challenge to the subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating the insurrection at the Capitol in addition to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago.

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US appeals Texas judge’s ruling to suspend abortion pill approval

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Justice department calls decision ‘especially unwarranted’ because it undermines the FDA’s scientific judgment

The US government on Monday appealed a Texas judge’s decision to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of a key abortion drug, saying the ruling endangered women’s health by blocking access to a pill long deemed safe.

In a filing with the 5th US circuit court of appeals, the Department of Justice (DoJ) called judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s decision on the drug mifepristone “especially unwarranted” because it would undermine the FDA’s scientific judgment and harm women for whom the drug is medically necessary.

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Latest leak highlights how many have access to US top secret material

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Classified documents revealing Ukraine military troubles and US intel gathering against allies were probably spread through gaming servers

The evidence emerging on the leak of classified US defence documents suggests that it was probably not some dastardly hacking or disinformation plot by Russia or the US, but rather another example of how carelessly Washington handles its secrets.

The least likely version of reality is the one being circulated among Kremlin supporters, that it was a clever piece of CIA distraction ultimately aimed at demoralising Russians by showing how many lives they had lost, and how badly their war was going in Ukraine.

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Macron sparks anger by saying Europe should not be ‘vassal’ in US-China clash

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Alarm on both sides of Atlantic as French president warns against being drawn into any Taiwan conflict

Emmanuel Macron has flown into a storm of criticism after he said Europe should not become a “vassal” and must avoid being drawn into any conflict between the US and China over Taiwan.

The French president made the remarks in an interview on his plane after a three-day state visit to China, where he received a red carpet welcome by China’s president, Xi Jinping – a show of pageantry that alarmed some European China watchers.

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Trump ‘dug himself a hole’ on classified documents and role in January 6 – Barr

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Ex-attorney general says former president has ‘penchant for engaging in reckless behavior’ and why he’s facing indictments

Donald Trump “has a penchant for engaging in reckless and self-destructive behavior” and is facing a serious threat of a federal indictment over his handling of classified documents and his supporters’ deadly January 6 attack on the US capitol, his former attorney general William Barr said on Sunday.

“He’s dug himself a hole on the documents and also on the January 6 stuff,” Barr said of the former president during an interview on ABC’s This Week. “That was reckless behavior that was destined to end up being investigated. So it doesn’t surprise me that he has all these legal problems.”

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Trump lawyer says he aims to get hush money case dismissed before trial

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Jim Trusty, on ABC’s This Week, said the ex-president’s team will file ‘robust motions’ before the case even reaches its trial stage

While Donald Trump launches verbal attacks against the prosecutor and judge overseeing his criminal charges in connection with hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, an attorney for the former US president has said his main focus is on legal maneuvers aiming to get the case dismissed long before a trial jury is ever seated.

Jim Trusty appeared on Sunday on ABC’s This Week and argued that “there’s a lot to play with” when examining whether New York state prosecutors waited too long to secure an indictment against Trump and if the ex-president intended to commit any crimes with the payments at the center of the case.

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Fox News settles lawsuit with Venezuelan over election vote-rigging claims

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Majed Khalil took Murdoch broadcaster to court after presenter Lou Dobbs accused him of ‘orchestrating a non-existent scheme to fix the election’

Fox News has announced a settlement with a Venezuelan businessman, Majed Khalil, ending a defamation case in which Khalil said he was falsely accused on air of helping to rig the 2020 US presidential election against Donald Trump.

It comes with jury selection set to begin on Thursday ahead of a separate trial in Dominion Voting Systems Corp’s $1.6bn defamation lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp, over their coverage of debunked election-rigging claims.

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Ukraine’s air defences could soon run out of missiles, apparent Pentagon leak suggests

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Documents dating from February suggest looming risk to Ukraine’s ability to protect troops and vital sites from Russian airpower

Ukraine’s air defences risk running out of missiles and ammunition within weeks, an apparent leak of Pentagon documents dating from February suggests, as US defence officials raced to trace how the files became public.

One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret”, outlines in detail how Ukraine’s Soviet-era S-300 air defence systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate. It is unclear if the usage rate has since changed.

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US woman, 78, charged with bank robbery for third time

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Prosecutors say the woman was later stopped in a car with cash scattered on its floor and was ‘very stern’ with police

A 78-year-old woman with two past bank robbery convictions faces new charges after allegedly carrying out a heist in Missouri during which she handed a teller a note that said “I didn’t mean to scare you”.

Bonnie Gooch has been jailed on a $25,000 bond after she was charged with one count of stealing or attempting to steal from a financial institution in the holdup last Wednesday in Pleasant Hill, the Kansas City Star reported.

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Hawaii shark attack: surfer in Honolulu in serious condition

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A 58-year-old received life-saving treatment after being bitten on the leg by a shark, said authorities

A surfer is in serious condition after being bitten on the leg by a shark off Honolulu, authorities in Hawaii have said.

The 58-year-old man was attacked shortly before 7am on Sunday near Kewalo Basin, according to Honolulu Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Local reports suggested an 8-foot tiger shark was seen in the area.

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Puppy flung from pickup in high-speed Los Angeles police chase survives

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Eight-week-old beige pup with one blue and one brown eye tossed out of moving vehicle in designer bag ‘miraculously’ OK

A puppy that was thrown out of a moving pickup truck in Los Angeles during a high-speed police chase “miraculously” survived, according to authorities.

In a statement released on Saturday, the Los Angeles police department announced that on 7 April, at about 12.10pm in a south-east part of the city, officers started a car chase in pursuit of a suspect who was wanted in connection to an attempted murder and carjacking which occurred on 26 March.

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Profits at Apple’s subsidiary in Ireland rise to $69bn

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Main non-US division pays $7.7bn in corporation tax but $20.7bn in dividends to California parent

Apple’s main Irish subsidiary paid €7.7bn (£6.8bn ) in corporation tax last year, but paid out nearly triple that amount in dividends to its California parent company, after reporting more than $69bn (£56bn) in profits.

The latest financial filings for the subsidiary, which is facing legal challenges over its tax arrangements in Ireland, show the Irish division made the equivalent of nearly $190m a day over the year to September.

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China sends dozens of warplanes towards Taiwan as US urges restraint amid military drills

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Show of force comes after Taiwanese president Tsai met US House speaker McCarthy this week, despite Beijing warning against it

China sent dozens of warplanes towards Taiwan for a second day of military drills on Sunday, launching simulated attacks in retaliation to the island’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, meeting the US House Speaker during a brief visit to the US.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said it was monitoring the movements of China’s missile forces, as the US said it too was on alert.

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San Jose police union director fired over attempted opioid import charges

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Joanne Segovia, 64, dismissed following internal investigation into charges filed against her

The director of the San Jose police union who was charged with attempting to import synthetic opioids has been fired from the organization.

On Friday, the San Jose Police Officers’ Association fired Joanne Segovia after it completed the first phase of the internal investigation that it launched into the charges filed against her.

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