Category Archives: US News

Supreme court ethics: Senate committee approves new rules as fresh Clarence Thomas claims emerge – as it happened

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Rules passed along party lines; conservative nonprofits reportedly orchestrated a $1.8m PR campaign to defend supreme court justice
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Here’s a rundown of the ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.

Real estate transactions

Just about every week now, we learn something new and deeply troubling about the justices serving on the supreme court, the highest court in the land in the United States, and their conduct outside the courtroom.

Let me tell you, if I or any member of the Senate failed to report an all-expense paid luxury getaway or if we used our government staff to help sell books we wrote, we’d be in big trouble.

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North Korea fails to answer entreaties about US soldier who crossed border

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Travis King had finished prison term in South Korea for assault and was supposed to be returning to Texas

North Korea is not responding to US attempts to discuss the American soldier who crossed the heavily armed border and whose prospects for a quick release are unclear when military tensions are high and communication channels inactive.

Pte Travis King, who was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, after finishing a prison sentence in South Korea for assault, ran into North Korea while on a civilian tour of the border village of Panmunjom on Tuesday. He is the first known American to be held in North Korea in nearly five years.

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He’s unimpressed with his physique, but wins bodybuilding competitions … at 90

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Jim Arrington, who was recognized as the planet’s oldest bodybuilder in 2015, explains how a ‘low opinion’ motivated him

Like many in the US who are grappling with pressure to look better, Jim Arrington is unimpressed with his physique – but he says that self-perception has motivated him to keep winning bodybuilding competitions at age 90.

The nonagenarian great-grandfather spoke about how he has achieved a level of physical fitness which is superior to that of many people more than half his age in an interview published on Wednesday by Guinness World Records, which first recognized him as the planet’s oldest bodybuilder in 2015.

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Trump hosts screening of Sound of Freedom, a hit with QAnon devotees

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Ex-president holds golf club screening of child sex trafficking film, with Steve Bannon, Kari Lake and Jack Posobiec in attendance

It was an outdoor movie with a difference. Sitting in the front row: Donald Trump, the former US president. Also in attendance: extremists and election deniers. On the big screen: a box office hit promoted by followers of QAnon.

Trump, who is running for president again, hosted a private screening of Sound of Freedom, a thriller about child sex trafficking, at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Wednesday night.

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Alabama due to resume executions despite botching three last year

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James Barber due to die on Friday but granddaughter of Dorothy Epps, the woman he murdered, doesn’t want it to happen

Alabama is due to resume executions on Thursday despite botching three last year and after a review of capital punishment practices in the southern state was largely kept from public view.

The inmate set to die by lethal injection by 6am on Friday is James Barber. Now 54, he was convicted of the murder of Dorothy Epps, who was 75, in 2001.

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Trump under investigation for civil rights conspiracy in January 6 inquiry

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Federal prosecutors say they have evidence to charge Trump with three crimes over efforts to overturn 2020 election

Federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have evidence to charge the former president with three crimes, including section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights, two people familiar with the matter said.

The potential charges detailed in a target letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who also charged Trump with retaining classified documents last month, was the clearest signal of an imminent indictment.

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US soldier was reportedly laughing when crossing border into North Korea

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Soldier, identified by US and Korean officials as Travis King, gave ‘out a loud “ha ha ha”’, member of tour group says

A US soldier who crossed into North Korea while on a tour group after escaping military detention was laughing as he fled over the inter-Korean border, according to media reports.

US and Korean officials identified the soldier as Private 2nd Class Travis King, according to CBS News. King, 23, was being held in custody by South Korea at the airport in Incheon, near Seoul, and in the process of being expelled when he fled.

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Australia to gain priority access to US military equipment under Washington proposal

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Aukus requests would be handled faster than almost all applications ‘other than from Taiwan and Ukraine’

Australian requests for US military equipment would be handled faster than almost all applications “other than from Taiwan and Ukraine” under a proposal before the US Senate.

The Australian government has long viewed the complex web of US export controls as a potential barrier to the Aukus security partnership.

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Tesla beats Wall Street expectations to produce record number of vehicles

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Report comes amid concerns Elon Musk, who owns SpaceX, Neuralink and Twitter, is spread too thin

Tesla narrowly beat Wall Street expectations in the second quarter of 2023, but shares began to fall in after hours trading following an earnings call that offered shareholders little reassurance surrounding Tesla’s promised Cybertruck release and other production concerns.

Revenue for the quarter topped $24.97bn compared to analyst predictions of $24.7 bn.

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Teamsters, UPS to resume negotiations next week ahead of looming strike

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If strike were to occur, it would be the largest walkout in US history at a single private employer, costing company $170m a day

The Teamsters and delivery giant UPS look set to return to the negotiating table next week as a strike deadline of 1 August approaches for 340,000 workers represented by the union to walk off the job if a new contract agreement isn’t reached by then.

On 5 July, contract negotiations broke down between the union and UPS as both sides are still apart on issues that include better starting pay for part-time workers, wage increases for full-time workers and more full-time roles.

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Judge rejects Trump bid to move hush money case to federal court as legal challenges gather pace – as it happened

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Former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, who Donald Trump pressured to overturn the 2020 election, has been cooperating with special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection, NBC reported.

A spokesperson for Ducey yesterday confirmed that Smith’s team had contacted the former governor. “Yes, he’s been contacted. He’s been responsive, and just as he’s done since the election, he will do the right thing,” they told CNN.

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Extreme weather: heat strains healthcare systems, says WHO; Nasa to meet climate experts – as it happened

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Here are some more images from the wires of the wildfires that swept through forestland and towns north-west of Athens for a second day. The fires forced the evacuation of more than 1,000 children close to a Greek seaside resort.

Tourists flocked to China’s scenic Flaming Mountains to experience searing high temperatures amid punishing heatwaves that have scorched much of the northern hemisphere.

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Stanford president to resign over concerns about integrity of his research

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Marc Tessier-Lavigne said he will step down because he expects continued debate about his ability to lead the university

The president of Stanford University, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, has announced he will resign after concerns about the integrity of his research.

Tessier-Lavigne announced his plans to step down on 31 August in a letter to students and staff on Wednesday.

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OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush created ‘mousetrap for billionaires’, says friend

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Karl Stanley says Rush ‘definitely knew it was going to end like this’ and that he had warned Rush the craft was dangerous

A one-time passenger of the submersible that imploded over the wreck of the Titanic last month, killing five, has reportedly said he believes OceanGate’s CEO, Stockton Rush, who died in the accident, knew that expeditions of the Titan craft would end in disaster but continued to create a “mousetrap for billionaires”.

Karl Stanley, who was interviewed by 60 Minutes Australia on Sunday, told the broadcast that he’d warned his friend that the carbon fiber and titanium craft was dangerous.

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Johnson & Johnson must pay $18.8m to cancer patient in baby powder lawsuit

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Jury rules in favor of California man who says he developed a deadly cancer from heavy exposure to talc powder since childhood

Johnson & Johnson must pay $18.8m to a California man who said he developed cancer from exposure to its baby powder, a jury decided on Tuesday, a setback for the company as it seeks to settle thousands of similar cases over its talc-based products in US bankruptcy court.

The jury ruled in favor of Emory Hernandez Valadez, who filed suit last year in California state court in Oakland against J&J, seeking monetary damages. Hernandez, 24, has said he developed mesothelioma, a deadly cancer, in the tissue around his heart as a result of heavy exposure to the company’s talc since childhood. The six-week trial was the first over talc that New Jersey-based J&J has faced in almost two years.

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Canada recruits high-skilled foreigners in US – and gets 10,000 applications

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Government launches work permit for foreign workers with H-1B visa in US and meets target number of applicants in just two days

The Canadian government is recruiting high-skilled foreigners working in the United States to move to Canada instead – and the program has been so successful that it met its target of 10,000 applicants in just two days.

Canada this week launched a special work permit for foreign workers who already have obtained an H-1B visa in the US, who number nearly 600,000 and come mostly from India and China. The program’s 10,000 quota was filled in the first two days of the week, a spokesman for Canada’s immigration minister, Sean Fraser, said on Wednesday.

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Venezuela’s ex-spy chief extradited from Spain to US to face drug charges

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Hugo Carvajal, intelligence leader under Hugo Chávez, accused of providing support to drug trafficking by rebel Farc group

Venezuela’s former intelligence chief has been extradited from Spain to the United States where he is wanted on drug trafficking charges, his lawyer and judicial sources said.

Gen Hugo Armando Carvajal, who served as intelligence chief under the former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, has long been sought by US Treasury officials who suspect him of providing support to drug trafficking by the now disarmed Farc guerrilla group in Colombia.

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No let-up in Phoenix as extreme temperatures persist

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Emergency-room doctor treating heatstroke victims with large amounts of ice as Arizona city enters ninth day of lows above 90F

With no immediate let-up anticipated for the scorching heat over the American south-west – where temperatures have reached more than 110F (43.3C) in the day and not dropped below 90F (32.2C) at night – a Phoenix emergency room doctor has resorted to using children’s pools and large zip-bags filled with ice to cool heatstroke victims.

Frank LoVecchio, a Phoenix-area emergency room medical toxicologist, told CBS News that he had treated three or four cases of heatstroke over the past three days using the technique, which involves covering the patient with ice until only their eyes and mouth are showing.

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Guatemalan boy dies in Mississippi poultry plant accident

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Duvan Perez, 16, dies at Mar-Jac factory in Hattiesburg amid rollback of child labor laws across several US states

A 16-year-old from Guatemala died on Friday after sustaining a workplace injury at a poultry plant in Mississippi, authorities confirm.

The child, identified as Duvan Tomas Perez, died at Mar-Jac Poultry plant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, about two hours outside of Jackson, NBC News reported. He migrated to the US six years ago from the town of Huispache and was a middle school student.

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US Powerball players face steep odds as jackpot hits $1bn

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Wednesday’s scheduled drawing comes about nine months after California’s Edwin Castro won $2.04bn in November

Powerball players across the US are bracing for the opportunity to win what would be the seventh-highest jackpot in American lottery history on Wednesday night.

The jackpot is estimated to be about $1bn after the Powerball lottery has gone 38 consecutive drawings without a winning ticket being sold, according to the official website for the game of chance. Someone last won the Powerball on 19 April, when the top prize was nearly $253m, the jackpot – as is typical – has been growing steadily since.

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