Category Archives: US News

Trump lawyer says ex-president based remarks about arrest last week on ‘rumors’

Posted on by

Trump’s prediction last week was a bust, but Manhattan grand jury could reconvene on Monday with an arraignment by end of day

Donald Trump’s lawyer has admitted that the former president based his incendiary and unfounded remarks about his imminent arrest last week on mere speculation prompted by “rumours”.

Trump ignited a week of political, media and law enforcement frenzy when he announced on his social media platform Truth Social that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday in the New York criminal investigation relating to hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Security was stepped up at the Manhattan courthouse and around the district attorney leading the case, Alvin Bragg, amid fears of renewed protests by Trump supporters, some of whom staged the deadly attack at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

Continue reading...

Two tigers briefly missing after Georgia zoo damaged by tornado

Posted on by

The Pine Mountain Animal Safari lost two of its big cats after it sustained weather damage, but found them a few hours later

Two tigers briefly went missing from a Georgia zoo after a tornado struck the state on Saturday night and damaged the facility’s infrastructure.

In a Facebook post on Sunday morning, the Troup county’s sheriff’s office announced that it received a report from the Pine Mountain Animal Safari that a “tiger … is unaccounted for inside the park”.

Continue reading...

Putin’s timeline for storing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is hard to believe

Posted on by

Although Alexander Lukashenko has agreed to host nuclear bases little construction work seems to have started

Like a lot of what Vladimir Putin says about nuclear weapons, his suggestion that Russia would start storing its bombs in Belarus may add up to less than it appears.

In February last year, Putin said he was putting Russia’s nuclear arsenal on high alert, but there was no perceptible change in the country’s nuclear posture, or any unusual movements of its weapons.

Continue reading...

Mississippi tornado: Biden declares emergency after storm kills 26 in region

Posted on by

Search and recovery efforts continue after twister hit hardest in some of the most economically deprived areas of US’s poorest state

Joe Biden declared a federal emergency for swathes of Mississippi hit by a devastating tornado, as rescue workers continued to search for survivors on Sunday morning with a death toll of at least 26 people caused by catastrophic storms in parts of the US’s deep south.

Twenty-five people were killed and dozens injured in Mississippi, throughout the state’s low-lying Delta region and around its north-east portion, with another man dying in the neighboring state of Alabama.

Continue reading...

Trump says he’s not upset over possible indictment while attacking ‘fake’ case

Posted on by

Ex-president insisted he wasn’t afraid of the investigation into hush money payments even as he lashed out at the case

Donald Trump repeatedly insisted on Saturday night he was not upset by expected criminal charges that might arise from the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into his role in paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels as he returned from a campaign rally in Waco, Texas.

But the manner of Trump’s responses to questions suggested worries about potential damage to his image, and he came across as someone angry that his good vibrations with his “Make American great again” base in Texas could be interrupted by the reality of a possible indictment as soon as this week.

Continue reading...

White House ‘very in favor’ of bill thought to target TikTok

Posted on by

Platform has drawn close congressional scrutiny because the data of users could be available to the government of China

One of the authors of a Senate bill that would enable the federal commerce department to ban technologies with links to foreign governments has said that the Joe Biden White House is “very in favor” of the measure, but he stopped short of saying whether the president’s administration has discussed possibly prohibiting the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok in particular.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said that the proposed legislation has also picked up support in his congressional chamber from 11 Democrats – of which he is one – as well as 11 Republicans.

Continue reading...

US indicts alleged Russian spy who tried to infiltrate ICC in The Hague

Posted on by

Sergey Cherkasov studied in US under false identity and is accused of working for Russian intelligence

US authorities have released new details about an alleged Russian spy who attempted to penetrate the international criminal court in The Hague, using a false identity developed over a decade.

An indictment made public on Saturday accuses Sergey Cherkasov, who US intelligence believes is an elite “illegal” operative of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. Cherkasov posed as Brazilian citizen Victor Muller Ferreira over many years.

Continue reading...

Elon Musk memo suggests Twitter worth less than half of what he paid for it

Posted on by

Calculation based on leaked offer to staff that implies firm valued at $20bn compared with $44bn he bought it for

Twitter is worth less than half of what Elon Musk paid for it six months ago having lost more than $20bn (£16.4bn) in value, according to calculations based on a leaked memo from the billionaire.

Musk suggested in memo to the social media company’s staff that it is now valued at less than $20bn. This compares with the $44bn he paid for it in October 2022.

Continue reading...

Trump describes 2024 election as ‘the final battle’ from podium in Waco

Posted on by

Former president honours January 6 rioters and delivers violent rhetoric in rally at Texas city during anniversary of Branch Davidian massacre

Donald Trump, the former US president, continued to invoke retribution and violence on Saturday when he used the first rally of his 2024 election campaign to rail against prosecutors weighing a criminal charge against him.

Efforts by Trump’s team to steer a more conventional, disciplined candidacy have wilted in recent days as the 76-year-old unleashed words and images that – even by his provocative standards – are unusually dehumanising, menacing and dangerous.

Continue reading...

Mysterious death of New York fashion designer ruled as homicide

Posted on by

Kathryn Marie Gallagher’s July 2022 death linked to ‘drug-facilitated theft’ after medical examiner’s findings of intoxication

The death of a rising New York fashion designer last year could be linked to a spate of “drug-facilitated theft” crimes in the city, authorities have revealed.

A mystery has surrounded the death of Kathryn Marie Gallagher, 35, since she was found dead in her apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side on 24 July last year.

Continue reading...

Daniel Duggan: investigation launched into imprisonment of Australian accused of training Chinese pilots

Posted on by

Duggan is fighting a US extradition request from prison, over allegations he trained Chinese aviators

Australia’s inspector general of intelligence and security has launched a formal investigation into the ongoing incarceration of Daniel Duggan, the Australian pilot fighting a US extradition request from prison, over allegations he trained Chinese aviators.

Duggan’s legal team has called for his extradition proceeding to be immediately abandoned. The 54-year-old has been incarcerated – much of it in isolation – for 157 days since being arrested in Orange in New South Wales last October.

Continue reading...

Florida principal resigns after parents decry Michelangelo’s David as pornography

Posted on by

Tallahassee Classical school’s governing board heard complaints after sixth-graders were shown classical sculpture

A Florida principal has resigned after students at a Christian charter school in Tallahassee were shown the statue of the biblical figure David by Michelangelo, prompting at least one parent to complain that the children had been exposed to pornography.

Hope Carrasquilla resigned Monday as principal of the Tallahassee Classical school after the campus’s governing board told her to either step down or be fired over parental complaints that came in after sixth-grade students were shown the 16th-century sculpture, one of the Renaissance’s most famous pieces of art.

Continue reading...

Syria: 19 killed in retaliatory US strikes on Iran-linked groups

Posted on by

Washington insists it is not seeking conflict with Tehran after responding to drone attack on coalition base

The death toll from retaliatory US strikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria after a deadly drone attack has risen to 19, a war monitor said, as Washington insisted that it was not seeking conflict with Tehran.

Further rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias took place late on Friday, prompting more strikes by coalition warplanes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Continue reading...

Explosion destroys Pennsylvania chocolate factory, killing five

Posted on by

Nine people injured in blast at West Reading plant known for manufacturing chocolate Easter bunnies

A powerful explosion at a Pennsylvania chocolate factory known for manufacturing chocolate Easter bunnies has killed five, injured nine, and left six others missing, according to one state agency.

The deadly blast also left the facility 60 miles north-west of Philadelphia obliterated a little more than two weeks before Easter. The cause of the explosion remained under investigation on Saturday morning, but officials have said they believe it may have resulted from a gas leak, WPVI reported, and warned residents to stay away from the area.

Continue reading...

Flight that killed former White House official pitched violently after takeoff

Posted on by

Plane did not encounter turbulence, but forces about four times stronger than gravity that caused it to swoop down before going up

The business jet flight that killed a former White House official earlier this month violently pitched up and down after pilots addressed cockpit warnings by switching off a system meant to keep the aircraft stable, but it did not encounter turbulence as was initially reported, federal investigators have said.

Dana Hyde’s death on 3 March was the subject of a preliminary National Transportation Safety report Friday which described a series of mishaps before and after the Bombardier plane she was on swooped out of control.

Continue reading...

Mississippi tornado: death toll of 25 highest in the state in 21st century

Posted on by

Fatalities from tornado the worst in 50 years, with more severe storms expected in the region on Sunday

Devastating storms and at least one large tornado which ripped through rural Mississippi on Friday night left 25 people dead in the state, dozens injured and rescue workers hauling people from rubble throughout Saturday, as the state reeled from its highest tornado-related death toll in decades.

Severe weather pounded several southern states overnight as the centers of destruction emerged on Saturday morning as the small, majority Black towns of Rolling Fork and Silver City in the Mississippi delta.

Continue reading...

Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder who predicted rise of the PC, dies at 94

Posted on by

Engineer, whose microchip forecast became known as ‘Moore’s Law’, foresaw mobile phones and home computers decades before they existed

Intel Corp co-founder Gordon Moore, a pioneer in the semiconductor industry whose “Moore’s Law” predicted a steady rise in computing power for decades, has died at the age of 94, the company announced.

Intel and Moore’s family philanthropic foundation said he died on Friday surrounded by family at his home in Hawaii.

Continue reading...

First global water conference in 50 years yields hundreds of pledges, zero checks

Posted on by

Non-binding commitments, paucity of scientific data and poor representation of global south left a lot to be desired at summit

The first global water conference in almost half a century has concluded with the creation of a new UN envoy for water and hundreds of non-binding pledges that if fulfilled would edge the world towards universal access to clean water and sanitation.

The three-day summit in New York spurred almost 700 commitments from local and national governments, non-profits and some businesses to a new Water Action Agenda, and progress on the hotchpotch of voluntary pledges will be monitored at future UN gatherings. A new scientific panel on water will also be created by the UN.

Continue reading...

Hotel Rwanda’s Paul Rusesabagina released from prison

Posted on by

Ex-hotelier whose actions saved lives during 1994 genocide has sentence for terrorism charges commuted

Paul Rusesabagina, a businessman whose role in saving more than 1,000 lives during the 1994 Rwandan genocide inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, has been released from prison after his 25-year sentence on terrorism charges was commuted.

Rusesabagina was accompanied by a US embassy official as he was moved from prison to the residence of Qatar’s ambassador in Kigali late on Friday, according to two senior Biden administration officials who briefed reporters in Washington.

Continue reading...

Trudeau to announce US-Canada asylum deal after Biden talks

Posted on by

Move following meetings in Ottawa with the US president will in effect close a controversial border crossing

Justin Trudeau’s government has announced a major shift in how Canada and the US handle asylum claims, a move that effectively closes a controversial border crossing, after meetings in Ottawa on Friday with Joe Biden.

Under the deal, which Canadian officials hope will temper the increase in irregular border crossings in recent months, Canada will bring in 15,000 more South and Central American migrants to Canada. The prime minister’s office said in a statement the agreement would ensure more “fairness” in migration between the two countries.

Continue reading...