Category Archives: US News

Mexican president blames US fentanyl crisis on ‘lack of hugs’ among families

Posted on by

Andrés Manuel López Obrador cites a lack ‘of hugs and embraces’ for 70,000 annual overdose deaths attributed to synthetic opioid

Mexico’s president has said that US families were to blame for the fentanyl overdose crisis because they don’t hug their kids enough.

The comment by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador caps a week of provocative statements from him about the crisis caused by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid trafficked by Mexican cartels that has been blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States.

Continue reading...

Police reportedly preparing for possible Trump indictment in New York– live

Posted on by

Manhattan grand jury has been investigating former president’s alleged hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels

A more serious concern for Congress and the White House is TikTok, the wildly popular video-sharing app that many in Washington fear is in cahoots with the Chinese Communist Party. Here’s what we know about the growing feud between the US and China over the app:

TikTok is once again fending off claims that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, would share user data from its popular video-sharing app with the Chinese government, or push propaganda and misinformation on its behalf.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war: Putin’s ‘travel options extremely limited’ after international criminal court warrant – as it happened

Posted on by

Russian president accused of ‘unlawful deportation’ of children ‘from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation’

The state-owned Russian news agency RIA is reporting that Russia’s defence secretary, Sergei Shoigu, has presented state awards to the pilots of the Su-27 planes involved in the drone incident over the Black Sea for “preventing the violation of the borders of the special operation area by the American MQ-9 Reaper drone”.

More details soon …

Continue reading...

YouTube reinstates Trump’s account after suspension over US Capitol attack

Posted on by

Platform says it ‘carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence’ before reversing ex-president’s ban

Social media platform YouTube said on Friday it was lifting restrictions on Donald Trump’s official account which were imposed after the violent January 6 attack on Congress.

Leslie Miller, vice-president of public policy, told Axios Trump’s “ability to upload new content is restored”.

Continue reading...

Leo Varadkar meets Biden after apparent Clinton-Lewinsky joke

Posted on by

Irish leader meets US president at White House for traditional St Patrick’s Day event a day after making gaffe

Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has apologised for making an apparent joke about Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, during an event in Washington on the eve of St Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Varadkar’s comment on Thursday risked overshadowing his meeting with Joe Biden at the White House on Friday for the traditional handing over of a bowl of shamrock to the US president, the most important day in the Irish-American political calendar.

Continue reading...

Levels of carcinogenic chemical near Ohio derailment site far above safe limit

Posted on by

EPA scientists assessed a dioxin cancer risks threshold in 2010, but a federal cleanup is only triggered at far higher levels

Newly released data shows soil in the Ohio town of East Palestine – scene of a recent catastrophic train crash and chemical spill – contains dioxin levels hundreds of times greater than the exposure threshold above which Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists in 2010 found poses cancer risks.

The EPA at the time proposed lowering the cleanup threshold to reflect the science around the highly toxic chemical, but the Obama administration killed the rules, and the higher federal action threshold remains in place.

Continue reading...

‘We are a little bit scared’: OpenAI CEO warns of risks of artificial intelligence

Posted on by

Sam Altman stresses need to guard against negative consequences of technology, as company releases new version GPT-4

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company that developed the controversial consumer-facing artificial intelligence application ChatGPT, has warned that the technology comes with real dangers as it reshapes society.

Altman, 37, stressed that regulators and society need to be involved with the technology to guard against potentially negative consequences for humanity. “We’ve got to be careful here,” Altman told ABC News on Thursday, adding: “I think people should be happy that we are a little bit scared of this.

Continue reading...

Black Virginia man pinned to ground by deputies before his death, family says

Posted on by

Video from state mental hospital of brutal treatment of Irvo Otieno recalls death of George Floyd, lawyer says

Video from a state mental hospital shows a Black Virginia man who was handcuffed and shackled being pinned to the ground by deputies who are now facing second-degree murder charges in his death, according to relatives of the man and their attorneys who viewed the footage on Thursday.

Speaking at a news conference shortly after watching the video with a local prosecutor, the family and attorneys condemned the brutal treatment they said Irvo Otieno, 28, was subjected to, first at a local jail and then at the state hospital where authorities say he died on 6 March during the admission process.

Continue reading...

Silicon Valley Bank’s parent company files for bankruptcy

Posted on by

SVB Financial Group files for chapter 11 protection but failed Silicon Valley Bank, now under FDIC control, is not part of it

Silicon Valley Bank’s parent company filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday, a week after the tech lender was taken over by federal regulators following a 36-hour surge of depositor withdrawals that triggered the worst bank collapse since the financial crisis.

SVB Financial Group filed for chapter 11 protection on Friday in New York bankruptcy court where administrators will set about selling off assets to meet creditors claims.

Continue reading...

A bloody delusion: how Iraq war led to catastrophic aftermath in Middle East

Posted on by

The 2003 invasion’s legacy reverberates in the emboldenment of Iran, Islamic State’s violence and the disintegration of Syria

In Baghdad’s heart of power, Iraq’s prime minister arrives at work each day in a building once used by Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein’s close adviser and foreign minister. The ruins of a Saddam-era defence building still teeter next door, 20 years after an American bomb crashed through its roof at the start of the invasion.

Not far away, the green dome of the Republican Palace – built on the orders of King Faisal II, then used by Iraq’s dictator before being occupied by the US army – sits on top of the still-standing totem of Iraq’s history.

Continue reading...

The Cure’s Robert Smith convinces Ticketmaster to refund ‘unduly high’ fees after fan anger

Posted on by

Ticketing giant will refund $10 to fans who bought cheapest tickets on the band’s US tour, and $5 to everyone else after frontman asks for an explanation

Ticketmaster will refund some of its fees to fans buying tickets for the Cure’s US tour, after frontman Robert Smith took them to task over their “unduly high” fees that were, in some cases, adding up to more than the price of a ticket.

On Thursday, Smith told fans that he was “as sickened as you all are” and he would contact Ticketmaster after many took to social media to complain about the ticket sales behemoth’s additional fees.

Continue reading...

Cash-strapped banks have borrowed $300bn from the Fed this past week

Posted on by

The central bank has lent about half as much as it provided during the 2008 crisis as banks rush to shore up their financials

Cash-short banks have borrowed about $300bn from the Federal Reserve in the past week, the central bank announced on Thursday.

Nearly half the money – $143bn – went to holding companies for two major banks that failed over the past week, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, triggering widespread alarm in financial markets. The Fed did not identify the banks that received the other half of the funding or say how many of them did so.

Continue reading...

Biden administration sides with climate lawsuit against fossil fuel companies

Posted on by

DoJ brief argues Colorado case against energy giants ExxonMobil and Suncor should be heard in state court instead of federal

The US Department of Justice filed a legal brief Thursday in support of local governments in Colorado that are part of a growing wave of local and state governments pursuing climate litigation against fossil fuel companies.

In the brief, the DoJ argued that the Colorado case against the Canadian energy giant Suncor should be heard in state court, which is considered more favourable than federal court for plaintiffs who are suing oil companies over climate change. ExxonMobile is also a defendant in the case.

Continue reading...

Billionaire Peter Thiel claims he has $50m of his own money stuck in SVB fall

Posted on by

In the wake of the bank’s crisis, venture capitalists have been trading accusations over who is responsible for the collapse

Facing heat for his investment fund’s role in triggering the run on the Silicon Valley Bank last week, billionaire Peter Thiel told the Financial Times that he had $50m of his own money “stuck” in the bank when it collapsed.

Even as Thiel’s Founders Fund was advising companies to move their money from the bank, a decision that has been widely blamed for precipitating its failure, Thiel said that he kept a portion of his own $4bn personal fortune in the bank.

Continue reading...

Whoopi Goldberg apologizes for using Romani slur on ABC’s The View

Posted on by

‘I’m really, really sorry,’ the actor said, a year after she was suspended from show for saying the Holocaust ‘isn’t about race’

Whoopi Goldberg has issued an apology following her use of a racial slur during an episode of ABC’s The View.

On Wednesday, Goldberg used a derogatory term associated with Romani people while discussing former president Donald Trump, saying that his supporters are “people who still believe that he got gypped somehow in the election”.

Continue reading...

US banks launch $30bn rescue of First Republic to stem spiraling crisis

Posted on by

Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan agree to prop up troubled bank after its shares tumbled amid wider turmoil

Wall Street’s giants moved to end the US’s spiraling banking crisis on Thursday by agreeing to prop up troubled First Republic, a mid-sized bank whose shares have been pummeled amid a wider banking turmoil.

Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and others will deposit $30bn in First Republic, which has seen customers yank their money following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and fears that First Republic could be next.

Continue reading...

Will UK follow US in demanding TikTok be sold by its Chinese owner?

Posted on by

TikTok will be concerned Rishi Sunak will match each upward ratchet in pressure from his allies

When asked this week whether the UK would ban TikTok on government phones, Rishi Sunak’s response signalled a change in stance: “We look at what our allies are doing.”

Previously ministers had seemed sanguine, even saying that whether or not the app stayed on someone’s phone should be a matter of “personal choice”.

Continue reading...

Jim Gordon, session drummer on dozens of hits such as Layla, dies aged 77

Posted on by

After playing with the Beach Boys, George Harrison and other mid-century stars, Gordon was convicted of killing his mother during a psychotic episode in 1983

Jim Gordon, a session drummer in the 1960s and 70s who contributed to hits by the Beach Boys, Steely Dan and dozens more, has died aged 77.

He died in a psychiatric prison in Vacaville, California. Gordon had been incarcerated since 1983, after he killed his mother during a psychotic episode. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic and sentenced to 16 years to life, but never attended parole hearings and never left prison.

Continue reading...

US releases footage of Russian jet crashing into American drone over Black Sea

Posted on by

Pentagon says video has been edited for length but shows events in sequential order

A remarkable video released by the Pentagon shows the moments before a Russian fighter crashed into a $32m US Reaper drone after spraying it with jet fuel on Tuesday morning over the Black Sea.

The declassified footage shows an Su-27 Flanker jet making two exceptionally close passes of the uncrewed drone, spraying fuel in front of it, a harassment tactic that US experts say has not been seen before.

Continue reading...

More than a quarter of Republicans approve of Capitol attack, poll shows

Posted on by

Survey also reveals more than half of Republicans think January 6 was a form of legitimate political discourse

More than a quarter of Republicans approve of the January 6 Capitol attack, according to a new poll. More than half think the deadly riot was a form of legitimate political discourse.

The Economist and YouGov survey said 27% of Republicans either strongly or somewhat approved of the riot on 6 January 2021, which Donald Trump incited in an attempt to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden.

Continue reading...