Category Archives: US News

Elizabeth Warren says Fed chair ‘failed’ and calls for inquiry into bank collapse

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Progressive Democrat launches offensive on politicians on the left and the right who supported Trump-era deregulation of US banks

Political fall-out in the US from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank continued on Sunday when leftwing Senator Elizabeth Warren hit the morning talk shows and repeatedly called for an independent investigation into US bank failures and strongly criticised Federal Reserve finance officials.

The progressive Democrat from Massachusetts, who has positioned herself as a consumer protection advocate and trenchant critic of the US banking system, told CBS’s Face the Nation that she did not have faith in San Francisco Federal Reserve president Mary Daly or Fed chairman Jerome Powell.

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Body of teenager found dead near Murdaugh property to be exhumed

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Death of Stephen Smith, 19, was ruled a hit-and-run but case was reopened after Murdaugh’s conviction of murder of wife and son

Two weeks after South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was convicted in the brutal murders of his wife and son, the body of a teenager who was found dead on a country road near the murder scene six years earlier is now set to be exhumed.

Sandy Smith confirmed that the remains of her son Stephen, 19 at the time of his death, will undergo a private autopsy after a GoFundMe campaign raised $43,000 to pay for exhumation.

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Knock, knock, who’s there? Alligator bites Florida man after he opens door

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Scot Hollingsworth of Daytona Beach said he heard a noise and after opening door was bitten by 9ft alligator on the thigh

A Florida man answering a knock at his front door was promptly bitten by a 9ft long alligator when he opened it to see who was there.

Scot Hollingsworth, of Daytona Beach, told local TV station WKMG that he was watching TV with his wife when he heard a bump at the door and got up to investigate.

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Trump allies and rivals rally to his defence after he claims arrest is imminent

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Former president says he expects to be arrested on Tuesday but there has been no official confirmation of the likelihood or timing of charges being brought

Top Republicans, including some of Donald Trump’s potential rivals for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, rushed to his defence after the former president said he expected to be arrested next week.

On Saturday, Trump announced he would be arrested on Tuesday in a criminal case involving hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, but there has been no official confirmation on the likelihood that charges will be brought.

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Trump claims he ‘will be arrested’ on Tuesday in New York criminal case

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Ex-president makes remark on Truth Social without any official confirmation of the likelihood or timing of charges being brought

Donald Trump has posted on his platform Truth Social that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday in the criminal case in New York involving hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Earlier this year the former US president called for protests by his supporters if he was indicted in any of the numerous criminal investigations in New York, Georgia and by federal authorities into various allegations involving illegal campaign payments, election interference, efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and keeping top secret documents at home after leaving office. On Saturday he posted: “Protest, take our nation back!”

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Joe Biden hails decision to issue ICC arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin

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US president joined by German chancellor in support of action taken after Russia’s abduction of Ukrainian children

The US president, Joe Biden, has backed the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over his role in the abduction of Ukrainian children, saying it was “justified”.

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was among other international leaders who welcomed the decision, saying on Saturdayyesterday that it showed “nobody is above the law”.

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Police stopped a Black couple in Tennessee – and took their children

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Bianca Clayborne and Deonte Williams’ case fits pattern of child welfare services fueling disparities in who gets to remain a family

Nearly a month ago, Bianca Clayborne, Deonte Williams, and their five children were on their way from Georgia to Chicago for Clayborne’s uncle’s funeral when a highway patrol officer stopped them in Manchester, Tennessee.

That moment – about 60 miles outside Nashville – has since upended their lives as Clayborne and Williams try to regain custody of their children after they say state authorities “kidnapped” them on account of a minuscule amount of marijuana in the car, the Tennessee Lookout first reported.

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‘It’s justified’: Joe Biden welcomes ICC arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

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US president says Russian leader has clearly committed war crimes and move makes ‘a very strong point’

Joe Biden has welcomed the international criminal court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for the Russian president for war crimes in Ukraine.

The US president said Vladimir Putin had clearly committed war crimes and that the arrest warrant for the Russian leader made a “very strong point”.

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Biden urgeed an investigation into how guns are peddled to kids. Will it stop the ads?

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The action is aimed at expanding last year’s bipartisan Safer Communities act, which strengthened background checks

Last year the Georgia-based gun manufacturer Daniel Defense tweeted an image of a young child with a rifle – about the same size as the child himself – in his lap. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it,” the caption read.

The post came just eight days before an 18-year-old shot and killed 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas – using a weapon made by Daniel Defense.

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Biden administration quietly resumes deportations to Russia

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Exclusive: Apparent reversal of position adopted after invasion of Ukraine sends men fleeing Putin’s draft back to Russia

The Biden administration has quietly resumed deportations to Russia, an apparent reversal of the position adopted after Russia invaded Ukraine just over a year ago, when such removals were suspended, the Guardian has learned.

Immigration advocates were taken by surprise when a young Russian man, who came to the US fleeing Vladimir Putin’s efforts to mobilize citizens to fight in Ukraine, was abruptly deported at the weekend from the US back to Russia.

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Wyoming becomes first US state to outlaw use of abortion pills

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Bill from Republican-controlled legislature comes as measures to crack down on abortion pills gather pace across the country

Wyoming has become the first US state to outlaw the use or prescription of medication abortion pills after the governor, Mark Gordon, signed into law a bill that was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature earlier this month.

The crux of the two-page Wyoming bill is a provision making it illegal to “prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell or use any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion”.

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Golf clubs and a $24K dagger: Trump failed to report dozens of foreign gifts

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Several items given to the former president, including a life-size painting of him given by El Salvador, are still unaccounted for

Donald Trump’s White House failed to report more than 100 gifts from foreign nations worth more than a quarter-million dollars, according to a US government report, and several of those gifts – including a lifesize painting of Trump given by the president of El Salvador and golf clubs from the prime minister of Japan – are still unaccounted for.

The revelations came as part of a report on Friday from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. The report details numerous unreported items, among them 16 gifts from Saudi Arabia worth more than $45,000 in all, including a dagger valued at up to $24,000, and 17 presents from India that include expensive cufflinks, a vase and a $4,600 model of the Taj Mahal.

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Elena Rybakina overwhelms world No 1 Iga Swiatek to set up Indian Wells final with Aryna Sabalenka

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  • Kazakhstan’s Rybakina beats Swiatek 6-2, 6-2 in semi-final
  • Belarusian Sabalenka cruises past Maria Sakkari 6-2, 6-3

Elena Rybakina has knocked out defending champion Iga Swiatek with a 6-2, 6-2 semi-final victory at Indian Wells on Friday to set up a clash against Aryna Sabalenka in the final.

Two months after Rybakina knocked Swiatek out of the Australian Open in the fourth round, the Wimbledon champion once again put in an impressive display against the world No 1.

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Joe Biden backs Ireland in Six Nations Grand Slam game against England

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President introduces former Ireland full-back Rob Kearney, a relative, at White House St Patrick’s Day event

Joe Biden has wished the Ireland rugby union team luck in their Grand Slam game against England in Dublin on Saturday.

On Friday, St Patrick’s Day, Biden welcomed the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, to the White House for a traditional visit and talks.

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Trump lawyer ordered to give additional testimony in documents case

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Evan Corcoran cannot invoke attorney-client privilege, judge rules, because advice could have been in furtherance of a crime

Donald Trump’s main lawyer involved in turning over classified-marked documents at the Mar-a-Lago resort to the justice department last year must provide additional testimony in the criminal investigation, a federal judge ruled on Friday, overriding his objections of attorney-client privilege.

The ruling marks a major moment in the investigation into Trump’s unauthorized retention of national security materials and obstruction of justice that could open up new avenues of information to the special counsel overseeing the matter.

In a sealed ruling, the chief US judge for the District of Columbia, Beryl Howell, found that the justice department had shown sufficient prima facie evidence that the legal advice Trump’s lawyer Evan Corcoran gave to the former president could have been used in furtherance of a crime.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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 …

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

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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”.

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Leo Varadkar meets Biden after apparent Clinton-Lewinsky joke

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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.

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