Category Archives: US News

A year on, many US parents are still reeling from baby formula shortage

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Families in rural towns still faced with empty shelves, purchase limitations and fewer options of infant formula

Marie Abate’s son turned six months old last Wednesday, but the joyous milestone also marked a more anxious one: half a year of worrying about how to feed him.

Abate wasn’t just concerned about trying to establish breastfeeding or setting a feeding schedule. She has a more fundamental concern: will she be able to find enough formula to make sure he doesn’t go hungry?

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Authorities identify Massachusetts ‘Granby girl’ 45 years after she was shot

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Advanced genetic testing revealed the murder victim as Patricia Ann Tucker, who was found dead on the side of a logging road

For nearly 45 years, authorities did not know the name or life story of a woman who was shot dead and left off the side of a logging road in western Massachusetts.

But authorities ultimately turned to advanced genetic testing to help them solve the mystery, and they recently figured out the murder victim was Patricia Ann Tucker, who was 28 and had a 5-year-old son when she was killed without her loved ones knowing for decades.

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‘Alligators don’t make good pets, y’all’: Texas zoo rescues reptile stolen as egg

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Woman who did not have a permit to keep alligator as a pet confessed to taking an egg from zoo near Austin 20 years ago

A Texas zoo said it had taken back an 8ft alligator which was stolen as an egg more than 20 years ago, then kept as a backyard pet.

In an Instagram post accompanying footage of three agents gingerly lifting the alligator into a truck and releasing it into a zoo enclosure, the state parks and wildlife department said: “Alligators don’t make good pets, y’all.”

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US expected to ease Covid testing for arrivals from China

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Improving situation in China prompts decision, say news reports quoting Biden administration officials

The US is preparing to relax Covid-19 testing restrictions for travellers from China as soon as Friday, according to two people familiar with the decision.

The people, who were not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Biden administration had decided to roll back the testing requirements as cases, hospitalisations and deaths were declining in China and the US had gathered better information about the surge. The Washington Post was first to report on Tuesday about the easing of requirements.

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Elon Musk backpedals after mocking disabled Twitter worker in tweet ‘storm’

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Haraldur Thorleifsson was locked out of his computer, but after nine days of no answer from the company, decided to tweet the CEO

If you’re not told you are fired, are you really fired? At Twitter, probably.

Haraldur Thorleifsson, who until recently was employed at Twitter, logged in to his computer last Sunday to do some work – only to find himself locked out, along with 200 others.

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Health nut: Hershey to debut ‘plant based’ Reese’s peanut butter cups

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The popular chocolate and peanut butter treat is one of two new ‘plant based’ offerings from the chocolatier in the next two months

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are getting the vegan treatment.

The Hershey Company said on Tuesday that Reese’s plant-based peanut butter cups, which go on sale this month, will be its first vegan chocolates sold nationally. A second plant-based offering, Hershey’s plant-based extra creamy with almonds and sea salt, will follow in April.

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Two Americans kidnapped in Mexico found dead, officials say

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Two killed, third person injured and fourth unharmed after quartet traveling for cosmetic surgery were seized in Tamaulipas

Two of four Americans kidnapped in northern Mexico have been found dead, authorities said on Tuesday, while their two compatriots were found alive, bringing to an end the frantic search that had captivated media attention on both sides of the border.

The governor for Mexico’s northern Tamaulipas state, Américo Villarreal, confirmed the news at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, adding that one person who had been found watching over the victims was in custody.

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Chuck Schumer attacks ‘shameful’ Fox News over use of January 6 footage – live

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Senate majority leader accuses host Tucker Carlson of ‘manipulating’ images of Capitol attack provided by House speaker Kevin McCarthy
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Democrats in Florida’s Republican-dominated House and Senate face a bruising legislative session, which began this morning. Outnumbered by a Republican supermajority in both chambers, the best the party’s members will be able to do on many pieces of legislation is to offer dissent.

Still, they’re as upbeat as they can be, and some are saying it with flowers. Here’s first-term state representative Christine Hunschofsky’s view as she prepares to do battle: caffeine, a desk fan and a colorful array of petals.

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Starbucks CEO to testify before Senate over opposition to stores unionizing

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Bernie Sanders had threatened to subpoena Howard Schultz if he refused to appear while workers file unfair labor practice charges

The Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, has agreed to testify before a Senate committee investigating the company’s intense opposition to national efforts to unionize its stores.

Senator Bernie Sanders had threatened to subpoena Schultz if he refused to appear before the US Senate health, education, labor and pensions (Help) committee. Sanders said Schultz had “refused to answer any of the serious questions we have asked” for over a year.

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Beloved California mountain lion P-22 laid to rest in tribal burial

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Mountain lion or cougar, who made his home in Los Angeles’s Griffith Park, was put down in December after illness and injury

Tribal leaders, scientists and conservation advocates buried southern California’s most famous mountain lion Saturday in the mountains where the big cat once roamed.

After making his home in the urban Griffith Park – home of the Hollywood sign – for the past decade, P-22 became a symbol for California’s endangered mountain lions and their decreasing genetic diversity. The mountain lion’s name comes from being the 22nd puma in a National Park Service study.

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‘Sleaze-slinging’ Fox News denounced by family of January 6 officer who died

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Condemnation of ‘so-called new network’ comes after Tucker Carlson shares footage from attack courtesy of Kevin McCarthy

The family of Brian Sicknick, the US Capitol police officer who died the day after the January 6 attack on Congress, condemned Tucker Carlson and Fox News as “unscrupulous and outright sleazy”, after the primetime host made his first use of security footage from the riot bestowed by Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker.

A statement on Tuesday said: “The Sicknick family is outraged at the ongoing attack on our family by the unscrupulous and outright sleazy so-called news network of Fox News.”

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Ex-official in Clinton and Obama White Houses dies in air turbulence incident

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Dana Hyde, 55, was flying from Maryland to New England and suffered blunt-force injuries from violent turbulence

A former official in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama White Houses died last Friday after the private business jet that the prominent Washington attorney was on experienced stability issues and encountered severe turbulence mid-flight.

The National Transportation Safety Board has since started investigating “a reported trim issue that occurred prior to the in-flight upset” that affected the plane’s altitude control and may have caused the instability.

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Biden administration urged to block extremist Israeli minister’s visit

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Several groups and individuals are rallying against Bezalel Smotrich’s visit over his comments to ‘wipe out’ a Palestinian town

The Biden administration is under growing pressure to block a visit by Israel’s extremist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, over his call to “wipe out” a Palestinian town that was the target of an attack by Jewish settlers.

Smotrich’s plan to speak at an investment conference in Washington DC next week has drawn unusually strong criticism, including accusations that he is promoting “Jewish supremacy”, from individuals and groups that are more usually ardent defenders of Israel.

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FBI searches for two Capitol attack defendants who have gone missing

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Joseph Hutchinson and Olivia Pollock, whose brother is also a January 6 defendant, had ankle monitors that were removed or altered

The FBI is searching for a Florida woman who was supposed to stand trial on Monday on charges stemming from the January 6 Capitol attack as well as another riot defendant who has also gone missing, officials said.

A federal judge in Washington issued bench warrants for the arrest of Olivia Pollock and Joseph Hutchinson III last week after the court was notified that they had tampered with or removed the ankle monitors that track their location, said Joe Boland, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s Lakeland, Florida, office.

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Massachusetts man arrested for stabbing United Airlines flight attendant

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Francisco Severo Torres also attempted to open the aircraft’s emergency door and was taken into custody after the plane landed

A man on a plane flying from from Los Angeles to Boston has been arrested after stabbing a flight attendant and attempting to open the aircraft’s emergency door, the justice department has announced.

The Massachusetts man, Francisco Severo Torres, 33, was arrested at Boston Logan international airport after United Airlines flight 2609 landed and he was charged with interference with flight crew members and attendants and using a dangerous weapon.

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Judge orders far-right Republican to pay legal costs in Arizona election lawsuit

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Mark Finchem, who ran for secretary of state, was rebuked by the court for his ‘groundless’ claims of fraud in loss to Adrian Fontes

Mark Finchem, the extremist Republican and longtime member of the Oath Keepers anti-government militia group, has been slapped with penalties for his “groundless” lawsuit seeking to overturn his loss in the election to become Arizona’s secretary of state.

Maricopa county superior court judge Melissa Iyer Julian had already thrown out a lawsuit brought by Finchem in which the rightwinger claimed that electoral fraud had cost him victory when he was defeated in November’s midterm elections by Democrat Adrian Fontes.

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Republican congressman ‘unaware’ he was posing for photo with neo-Nazis

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Matt Rosendale of Montana says he unwittingly posed for picture: ‘I absolutely condemn and have zero tolerance for hate groups’

A Republican congressman from Montana said a photo of him in front of the US Capitol with two neo-Nazis was a mistake, claiming he unwittingly posed with the men, one of whom appeared to be wearing a trench coat of a style worn by German soldiers in the second world war.

Matt Rosendale told the Billings Gazette: “I absolutely condemn and have zero tolerance for hate groups, hate speech and violence. I did not take a meeting with these individuals.

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California cuts ties with Walgreens after company limits access to abortion pills

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Gavin Newsom said in a statement the state will not do business with any company that ‘puts women’s lives at risk’

California will not do business with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, Gavin Newsom, the state’s governor, said in a tweet on Monday, days after the pharmacy chain said it will not dispense abortion pills in some Republican states.

The state refuses to do business with Walgreens or “any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk”, the Democrat said.

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Alex Gibney in the process of making ‘unvarnished’ Elon Musk documentary

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The Oscar-winning film-maker has announced he is months into making Musk, which will examine the controversial entrepreneur

Oscar-winning film-maker Alex Gibney has announced that he is in the process of making a documentary about Elon Musk.

The documentarian behind films such as Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is months into the making of Musk, “a definitive and unvarnished examination” of the provocative tech entrepreneur.

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Evangelical Christians flock to Republicans over support for Israel

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Powerful voting bloc looking to back pro-Israel politicians in hopes of dictating policy that fits their theological views

When Israel’s former ambassador to the US said his country should worry less about what American Jews think and concentrate on Christian evangelicals as the “backbone” of support for the Jewish state, he had in mind the Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee.

Hagee founded Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a group that claims 11 million members, who have had a significant influence on Republican party politics and in hardening Washington’s already strong support for Israel.

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