Category Archives: US News

YouTuber prankster shot and wounded by target of practical joke

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Tanner Cook, 21, was reportedly playing joke on man at Virginia mall when victim of prank shot him in abdomen

A popular US YouTube creator who prides himself on making videos in which he displays odd behavior to put people off intends to keep at it, even after one of his targets allegedly shot him nearly to death.

Tanner Cook – who regularly makes videos of himself pranking strangers for nearly 40,000 subscribers of the channel Classified Goons – was reportedly playing a practical joke on a man at a mall in the Washington suburb of Dulles, Virginia, at about midday on Sunday. A friend was recording him when things took an almost deadly turn, according to authorities as well as an interview Cook gave to the local TV station WUSA.

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Trump campaign tries to cash in on arrest with fake mugshot T-shirt

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Meanwhile, Stormy Daniels sells ‘#TeamStormy’ gear and sellers flood eBay and Etsy with novelty merch

On a day of non-stop news alerts offering minute-by-minute updates on Donald Trump’s arraignment, subscribers to Trump’s mailing list received one more breaking alert: “NEW ITEM, MUGSHOT.”

An email sent to Trump supporters showed merchandise in the former president’s official store: a plain white T-shirt featuring a clearly doctored photo of the former president getting booked. A fake chart behind him gave his height as 6ft 5in. Underneath his photo were the words “NOT GUILTY”, printed in big block letters.

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Democrats bid to use censorship law against DeSantis and ban his book

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Opponents say memoir The Courage to be Free, published in February, violates law governor signed last year

Democrats in Florida are attempting to use a state law that censors books in public schools against the governor who signed it, Ron DeSantis, by asking schools to review or ban the Republican governor’s own book, The Courage to be Free.

“The very trap he set for others is the one that he set for himself,” Fentrice Driskell, the Democratic minority leader in the Florida state house, told the Daily Beast.

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Trump vents grievances against criminal charges from the safety of Mar-a-Lago

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The former president appeared subdued in New York, only to return to his campaigning, inflammatory ways hours later in Florida

Simmering with anger and defiance, Donald Trump returned to the safe space of Mar-a-Lago and his loyal supporters on Tuesday night, seeking to turn his status as an accused criminal into a political war cry.

The former president ignored a plea from the judge in the case to refrain from inflammatory rhetoric, even launching a broadside at the judge’s daughter over her political connections.

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Trump addresses indictment in brief – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. You can read our full story on Trump’s arraignment here.

After listing off a number of grievances, attacking those involved in the multiple investigations and criminal cases against him, and rambling a number of of-repeated falsehoods about the 2020 elections, he walked off stage.

The speech was in many ways a standard performance, but shorter.

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Mexican president bemoans ‘rude’ US fentanyl pressure in plea to Xi Jinping

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Andrés Manuel López Obrador asks China to curb exports of opioid after lengthy denunciation of similar calls from US

Mexico’s president has written to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, urging him to help control shipments of fentanyl, while also complaining of “rude” US pressure to curb the drug trade.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has previously said that fentanyl is the US’s problem and is caused by “a lack of hugs” in US families. On Tuesday he read out the letter to Xi dated 22 March in which he defended efforts to curb supply of the deadly drug, while rounding on US critics.

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Trump indictment live: former president set to appear in New York courthouse in hush money case

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The first former US president to face criminal charges will appear in court at about 14.15ET (18.15 GMT / 19.15 BST)

The Hill this morning is carrying some quotes from Vin Weber, a Republican strategist and former member of the House Republican leadership. Weber is warning that the indictment of former president Donald Trump sets a dangerous precedent.

He argues that the impeachment of Bill Clinton lowered the bar for what might be considered an impeachable offence, and that the Stormy Daniels hush money case is doing the same, and risks people attempting political prosecutions of their opponents in the future. He said:

I think it’s bad for America, bad for the Republican Party and it’s bad for the political system in our country. Once you start down this path, there’s no way you’re going to reverse it. That’s what we saw with impeachment.

We’re going to see political prosecutions brought, some of them for meritorious reasons, some of them to advance the careers of the prosecutors. But all of this is harmful to America and our political process.

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Tennessee Republicans bid to expel Democrats who cheered gun control protest

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Republican legislators introduce resolution to remove trio after they supported protest in wake of Nashville school shooting

Republican legislators in Tennessee have begun the process of expelling three Democratic colleagues from the conservative-controlled house over their support for a gun control protest at the state capitol days after a deadly school shooting in Nashville.

On Thursday, hundreds gathered at the capitol to protest against the absence of gun control measures after three nine-year-old students and three staff members were killed at the Covenant school last week, according to a report in the Tennessean.

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White House appears to walk back Iowa’s ‘joke’ invitation after NCAA loss

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  • Tradition is for national champions to visit with President
  • Iowa v LSU game has provoked debate on social media

Jill Biden’s press secretary has walked back comments the first lady made about inviting Iowa’s women’s basketball team to the White House after their loss in the NCAA championship game on Sunday.

Biden watched LSU’s 102-85 victory over Iowa from the stands at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Sunday night. National champions often visit the White House after title victories, but Biden broke with tradition when she suggested Iowa could too.

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Disney chief Bob Iger calls Ron DeSantis ‘anti-business and anti-Florida’

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CEO’s comments are latest round in bitter feud between governor and state’s largest corporate employer over ‘don’t say gay’ law

Disney’s chief executive, Bob Iger, has lambasted the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, as “anti-business and anti-Florida” in the latest round of a bitter public battle between the Sunshine state’s most powerful corporation and its top elected official.

DeSantis and his Republican allies in the state legislature have targeted Walt Disney World, the Orlando-area entertainment resort that employs 75,000 people, since the company spoke out against the controversial Florida “don’t say gay” law curtailing classroom discussion of gender identity and sexuality amid mounting pressure from its employees to take a stand.

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Two construction workers killed in accident at New York’s JFK airport

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Workers trapped under collapsed rubble in trench near terminal 7 pronounced dead at the scene

Two construction workers were killed in a job site accident at New York’s John F Kennedy international airport on Monday, officials said.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, said the two workers were trapped under construction rubble at about 11am. A spokesperson for New York City’s fire department said the rubble collapsed in a trench near the airport’s busy terminal 7.

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Second autopsy performed on South Carolina teen after Alex Murdaugh case

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Stephen Smith was found dead on a highway in 2015 but lawyers for mother say no evidence links death to Murdaugh family

A second autopsy was completed this weekend on the exhumed body of a teenager found dead nearly eight years ago on a South Carolina road, according to the family’s lawyer, after the public attention surrounding Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial boosted a mother’s search for answers in the unsolved case.

Lawyers for the mother of Stephen Smith have said there is no evidence linking his death to the Murdaugh family, and state investigators have remained tight-lipped since taking the case around the same time police said Murdaugh killed his wife and son.

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US says strike in Syria has killed senior Islamic State leader

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Khalid Aydd Ahmad al-Jabouri said to have been responsible for planning IS attacks in Europe

The US military has said it carried out a strike in Syria, killing a senior Islamic State group official responsible for planning attacks in Europe.

The strike in the north-west of the country on Monday killed the senior IS leader Khalid Aydd Ahmad al-Jabouri, US Central Command said.

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Into the drink: train derails beside Montana river, tipping out cases of beer

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Coors Light and Blue Moon shipments spilled beside the Clark Fork River in Paradise, leaving a difficult mess

A train derailment beside a scenic western Montana river has spilled powdered clay and huge amounts of beer, leaving crews with a daunting cleanup.

The train derailed on Sunday across the river from Quinn’s Hot Springs Resort in Paradise, spilling cases of Coors Light and Blue Moon beer in cans and bottles, the Missoulian reported. No injuries have been reported.

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Trump arrives in New York City ahead of Tuesday court appearance

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Ex-president departed Florida around midday and is expected to appear at the Manhattan courthouse Tuesday afternoon

Donald Trump arrived in New York City on Monday, a day before he is due for a hotly anticipated court appearance where he’ll respond to the first ever criminal indictment filed against a former American president.

At about 2.15pm ET on Tuesday, he will appear at the courthouse where a grand jury convened by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg handed down its indictment last week, to learn the exact details of which laws he is alleged to have broken. At his arraignment, he is expected to be photographed and fingerprinted, but will not be handcuffed per an agreement his legal team reached with Bragg, Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina said last week.

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Actor Leonardo DiCaprio testifies in money laundering and bribery trial

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At the heart of the case is Jho Low, a fugitive accused of being the mastermind behind the Malaysian 1MDB scandal

Leonardo DiCaprio testified in a federal court on Monday morning as part of a trial involving international money laundering, bribery and a prominent rap artist.

Prakazrel “Pras” Michel – a founding member of the iconic 1990s hip-hop group, The Fugees – is accused of funneling money from a fugitive Malaysian financier through straw donors to Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Five years later, prosecutors say he tried to squelch an investigation into that same financier under Donald Trump’s administration.

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BTS’s Jimin becomes first South Korean solo artist to top US songs chart

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Jimin’s single Like Crazy is the 66th track ever to debut at the peak of the Hot 100 chart, and the first by a South Korean solo artist

Jimin, a member of the K-pop supergroup BTS, has made history as the first South Korean solo artist to land the No 1 spot on the top US songs chart, Billboard announced on Monday.

The single, Like Crazy, debuted at No 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 this week, bumping Miley Cyrus’s track Flowers out of the top spot, where it had reigned for eight weeks.

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Black former worker awarded $3.2m in Tesla factory racial-harassment suit

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Originally awarded $130m, which a judge reduced to $15m, plaintiff opted for new trial against the electric vehicle maker

Tesla will pay about $3.2m to a Black former employee after a federal jury in San Francisco ruled the electric-vehicle maker failed to prevent severe racial harassment at its flagship assembly plant in California.

The amount is far less than the $15m that the plaintiff, Owen Diaz, rejected last year in opting for a new trial. Diaz asked for a new trial on damages after the judge reduced the amount he was awarded in a 2021 ruling from $137m to $15m. Diaz accused Tesla of failing to act when he repeatedly complained to managers that employees at the Fremont factory frequently used racist slurs and scrawled swastikas, racist caricatures and epithets on walls and work areas.

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US house speaker Kevin McCarthy confirms he will meet Taiwan president in California

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China previously warned McCarthy he is ‘playing with fire’ over the meeting and risks ‘serious confrontation’

Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen will meet with US House speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday, the Republican’s office has confirmed, in defiance of warnings from Beijing that such a meeting would be a “provocation”.

Tsai is scheduled to make a stopover in California after state visits to Belize and Guatemala, Taiwan’s last remaining Central American diplomatic allies. McCarthy’s office said on Monday the “bipartisan” meeting would take place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, outside Los Angeles.

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Florida closes in on six-week abortion ban while also allowing no-permit gun carry

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Abortion legislation needs to move through house before gaining DeSantis’s likely signature while gun-carry law enacted today

Florida took another step to the right on Monday when the state senate approved a bill to ban abortions after six weeks, a measure supported by Republican governor and expected presidential candidate Ron DeSantis – who on the same day signed into law a bill allowing the public to carry concealed guns without a permit.

The latest proposal to restrict reproductive rights must still be approved by the house in the state legislature before it reaches the governor’s desk. Florida currently prohibits abortions after 15 weeks.

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