Category Archives: US News

US army sergeant found guilty of murdering BLM protester in Austin

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Texas governor moves to pardon Daniel Perry, who was convicted of shooting Garrett Foster during rally in 2020

A US army sergeant and ride-share service driver has been found guilty of the murder of a protester during a Black Lives Matter rally in 2020 in Austin, Texas.

After an eight-day trial and two days of verdict deliberations, a jury in Travis county, Texas, found 33-year-old Daniel Perry guilty of murdering air force veteran Garrett Foster, 28. Perry is white, as was Foster.

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‘What next?’ Schumer lambasts Texas judge’s abortion pills ruling

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Democrats including Senate majority leader warn of ‘dangerous new precedent’ set by ruling and vow to fight it

Democratic lawmakers are doubling down on outrage against Friday’s ruling that threatens access to a widely used abortion medication, saying the ruling sets a “dangerous new precedent” that could harm future medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“Make no mistake, the decision could throw our country into chaos,” said the Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer on a call with reporters on Saturday. “Republicans have completely eviscerated the FDA as we know it and threatened the ability of any drug on the market to avoid being prohibited.

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Justice Clarence Thomas’s megadonor friend collects Hitler memorabilia – report

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Harlan Crow, closely linked to judge, has a signed copy of Mein Kampf and dictator’s paintings

The Republican megadonor whose gifts to the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas have come under the spotlight has a private collection including a garden of statues of dictators, including Mussolini and Stalin; Nazi memorabilia; and paintings including two works by Adolf Hitler, the Washingtonian reported.

“I still can’t get over the collection of Nazi memorabilia,” the Washingtonian quoted an anonymous source as saying, regarding a visit to Harlan Crow’s Texas home. “It would have been helpful to have someone explain the significance of all the items. Without that context, you sort of just gasp when you walk into the room.”

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New Mexico police kill homeowner after showing up at wrong address

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Farmington officers on paid administrative leave after shooting Robert Dotson while responding to call from across the street

Officers with the Farmington police department of north-western New Mexico shot and killed a homeowner when they showed up at the wrong address in response to a domestic violence call this week, according to state authorities.

The shooting happened about 11.30pm Wednesday. New Mexico state police released more details late on Thursday, and Farmington police confirmed on Friday that the three officers involved were on paid administrative leave pending a review of the case.

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Democrats condemn judge’s ‘draconian’ decision threatening abortion drug

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Party members call on Biden to do more to protect reproductive rights amid conflicting judicial rulings on mifepristone

Democrats angrily denounced as “dangerous” and “draconian” a decision by a Texas judge that threatens access to a widely used abortion medication, while demanding the Joe Biden White House do more to protect reproductive rights.

Nearly a quarter-century after the Food and Drug Administration approved the abortion pill mifepristone, the federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on Friday sought to invalidate the agency’s decision, handing down an unprecedented order that – if upheld – would severely restrict access to one of the most commonly used methods of terminating a pregnancy.

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‘Unborn human’: the anti-abortion rhetoric of Texas judge’s ruling

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Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a ruling on Friday aiming to suspend the FDA’s approval of abortion drug mifepristone

Texas-based federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on Friday issued a ruling aiming to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a common abortion drug approved for use 23 years ago that has been consistently found to be safe and effective.

It is widely believed that the anti-abortion groups who brought the case challenging the FDA’s authorization of the drug did so in Amarillo, Texas, so that it would be certain to land on the desk of this particular judge. Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by Donald Trump, is known for disregarding precedent and for weighing in on the far-right side of culture war issues.

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China to hold military drills around Taiwan after US speaker meeting

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‘Combat readiness’ exercises come after Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen met US house speaker Kevin McCarthy this week, angering Beijing

China’s military said on Saturday it had begun three days of drills around Taiwan, a day after the island’s president Tsai Ing-wen returned from a trip to the United States.

Tsai met the US House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, while in Los Angeles in Wednesday, angering Beijing, which views Taiwan as its own territory.

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Harris visits ousted Tennessee lawmakers as Republicans accused of ‘overt racism’

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GOP-controlled state house voted to expel Black lawmakers Justin Jones and Justin Pearson while sparing Gloria Johnson

Kamala Harris made an urgent trip to Nashville on Friday to meet with two Black Democratic lawmakers expelled from the state legislature for their role in in a peaceful protest calling for gun control in the aftermath of a school massacre, an unprecedented act of retaliation that sparked accusations of overt racism.

The Republican-controlled legislature voted on Thursday to expel representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, but to spare a white Democratic lawmaker, Gloria Johnson, who participated in the same protest but narrowly avoided being kicked out.

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Kamala Harris meets with Nashville lawmakers after Democrats expelled over anti-gun protests – as it happened

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Vice-president visiting lawmakers at Fisk University as Republican-controlled house’s move condemned as racist

It’s lunchtime on Friday, and we’re waiting to hear from Democrats in Tennessee how they intend to respond to the vote by Republicans to expel two young Black Democrats from the state’s House after they led a protest calling for gun reforms.

A wave of outrage followed Thursday’s move. Joe Biden blasted the move “undemocratic” while the ACLU of Tennessee, and Martin Luther King III, son of the civil rights pioneer, suggested racism was behind the action.

Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has been defending himself after reports he accepted decades or undeclared hospitality from a Republican mega-donor. Thomas, a staunch conservative, says he didn’t believe he was required to disclose it.

The Biden administration released a proposal that would forbid schools and colleges across the US from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes competing in sports.

US officials say they suspect Russia is behind the leaking and posting on social media of top secret documents, including an assessment of the country’s progress in its war in Ukraine.

Republicans in Kansas voted to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, but the bill is likely to be vetoed by Democratic governor Laura Kelly.

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Scant details emerge on fatal stabbing of Cash App founder amid safety concerns

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San Francisco police have not confirmed the circumstances of Bob Lee’s death nor arrested a suspect

Details of how the tech executive Bob Lee came to be fatally stabbed in downtown San Francisco remained scant on Friday, as those who knew the Cash App founder mourn his death and others voiced frustration with public safety.

San Francisco police found Lee, 43, on the sidewalk in front of a condominium building with stab wounds shortly after 2.35am on Tuesday. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. Details about the attack remain thin; surveillance footage released this week reportedly shows Lee stumbling along a sidewalk and seeking help in the aftermath, but police have not confirmed the circumstances of the attack or arrested a suspect.

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Trump reportedly seeks 2024 campaign role for far-right activist Laura Loomer

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Ex-president has told aides to hire failed congressional candidate and anti-Muslim campaigner, New York Times reports

Donald Trump has told aides to hire the far-right anti-Muslim activist and failed congressional candidate Laura Loomer for a role in his campaign to return to the White House in 2024, the New York Times has reported.

Citing four anonymous sources, the Times noted that Loomer, 29, attended Trump’s speech at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Tuesday night, an angry rant delivered hours after the former president pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges in New York over hush money payments, including to the porn star Stormy Daniels.

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Biden proposal forbids US schools from outright bans on transgender athletes

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Proposed rules require any decisions to restrict trans people from competing to involve important educational objectives

The Biden administration has released a proposal that would forbid schools and colleges across the US from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes competing in sports.

But teams could create some limits in certain cases – for example, to ensure fairness, according to the proposal, which did not go into extensive detail about the term.

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Ex-cop who shared cell with Jeffrey Epstein convicted of quadruple murder

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Nicholas Tartaglione faces life imprisonment after killing of four men over perceived money debt

A former New York police officer who shared a jail cell with Jeffrey Epstein at the time of the sex trafficker’s suicide executed four men and then buried them in a mass grave over what he perceived to be a debt of money, federal jurors determined on Thursday.

Nicholas Tartaglione faces life imprisonment after being found guilty of the killings of Martin Luna, Urbano Santiago, Miguel Luna and Hector Gutierrez, according to a statement from US justice department prosecutors.

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Pentagon investigates reported leak of top-secret Ukraine documents

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Classified papers said to contain details of military aid and battalion strengths before potential Ukrainian counteroffensive

The Pentagon is investigating a security breach in which classified war documents detailing secret American and Nato plans for supplying aid to Ukraine before its prospective offensive against Russia were leaked to social media platforms.

The top secret documents were spread on Twitter and Telegram, and reportedly contain charts and details about anticipated weapons deliveries, battalion strengths and other sensitive information, the New York Times reported. According to military analysts, the papers appear to have been altered in certain parts from their original format, overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and understating estimates of Russian troops killed, citing how the modifications could point to an effort of disinformation by Moscow.

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Jeremy Renner says snowplough accident was ‘my mistake’

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Avengers actor apologises to family for snowplough accident that left him close to death

The Oscar-nominated actor Jeremy Renner has said he was at fault in a New Year’s Day snowplough accident that left him close to death and apologised to his family for putting them through the ordeal.

Renner, in an interview on Walt Disney Co’s ABC network on Thursday, said he was driving the snowplough after using it to pull one of the family’s trucks out of the snow.

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China sanctions US figures after Taiwan president’s talks with House speaker

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US thinktank and Reagan Foundation targeted, as well as Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the US, in row over President Tsai Ing-wen’s trip

China has imposed sanctions on US figures linked to the Taiwan president’s visit to the US this week, as well as further restrictions on Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the United States.

The sanctions targeted the Ronald Reagan library which hosted the meeting between Tsai and US House speak Kevin McCarthy, and the Hudson Institute which hosted Tsai in New York and presented her with an award.

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‘The king has been dethroned’: Stormy Daniels speaks on Trump indictment

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The adult film star sat down with Piers Morgan for 1.5 hours, saying the former president should be ‘held accountable’

In her first major interview since Donald Trump’s indictment, Stormy Daniels has said that while she wants the former president to be “held accountable” she doesn’t believe he should go to prison.

“I don’t think that his crimes against me are worthy of incarceration. I feel like the other things that he has done, if he is found guilty, absolutely,” Daniels, 44, said in an interview with Fox Nation’s Piers Morgan released on Thursday.

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Two Democratic members expelled from Tennessee house over gun control protest

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Joe Biden and Barack Obama condemn expulsion of Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from Republican-controlled state house

Two Democratic lawmakers have been expelled from Tennessee’s GOP-dominated House, an extraordinary act of political retaliation for their role in a gun control demonstration after the killings at a Nashville elementary school last week.

Thousands of protesters have flocked to the Tennessee state capitol to support three Democratic members who were facing removal. Only two of the three were ultimately forced out.

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Coolio died from fentanyl overdose, manager says

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Grammy-winning rapper was found dead six months ago at friend’s home in Los Angeles

Grammy-winning rapper Coolio died from a fentanyl overdose, his manager said on Thursday, six months after the musician was found dead at a friend’s home in Los Angeles at the age 59.

Born Artis Leon Ivey Jr, Coolio was best known for his 1995 single Gangsta’s Paradise, from an album of the same name.

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California: stunning shift as parched reservoirs replenished by storms

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Reservoirs whose water levels had plummeted during punishing drought have recovered – but officials warn of ‘weather whiplash’

Water levels fell so low in key reservoirs during the depth of California’s drought that boat docks sat on dry, cracked land and cars drove into the center of what should have been Folsom lake.

Those scenes are no more after a series of powerful storms dumped record amounts of rain and snow across California, replenishing reservoirs and bringing an end – mostly – to the state’s three-year drought.

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