Category Archives: US News

Special counsel investigating Trump subpoenas Georgia secretary of state – as it happened

Posted on by

Prosecutor Jack Smith is seeking ‘any and all communications in any form … to, from or involving’ the former president

The January 6 committee’s mandate expires at the end of the year, and it still needs to release its report into the insurrection and decide whether to make formal criminal referrals to the justice department.

The committee’s chair Bennie Thompson has said to expect the report’s release on 21 December, while NBC News today has details of where lawmakers are in their deliberations of who to refer to prosecutors for potential charges:

Continue reading...

Man dies in crash while delivering free bikes to children in Florida

Posted on by

Army veteran Steven Pringle turned his life around with bike shop where he fixed bikes, sold new ones and gave many away

A Michigan army veteran who turned his life around with a bike shop died in a crash while delivering free bikes to children in Florida affected by Hurricane Ian, his family said.

Steven Pringle, 57, was killed in Punta Gorda, Florida, on 23 November, a few weeks after a profile in the Detroit Free Press described how his passion for fixing bikes had touched many people in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Continue reading...

Chicago’s ‘walking man’ dies nearly seven months after being set on fire

Posted on by

Joseph Kromelis, nicknamed the ‘walking man’ as he was often spotted in the city on foot, died after being set on fire in May

Chicago’s famed “walking man” has died nearly seven months after authorities said an unprovoked attacker set him on fire in a horrifying example of a crime aimed at the homeless.

Joseph Kromelis, 75, died after being set on fire in May, said the local medical examiner’s office, the local news station ABC7 reported.

Continue reading...

Ukraine calls for Patriot missiles to defend its grid and stop rise in refugees

Posted on by

Prime minister Denys Shmyhal says western air defence systems needed to counter Russian attacks and stop people from fleeing

Ukraine has called for the west to supply Patriot missiles batteries and other modern air defence systems, amid growing concern that attacks by Russia on its electricity grid could prompt a new wave of refugees from the wartorn country.

The country’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, speaking on Monday before a Ukraine humanitarian aid conference the following day in Paris, said Russia wanted “to trigger another wave of migration toward Europe” during the depths of winter.

Continue reading...

Canada: son of murdered billionaire couple triples cash reward to C$35m

Posted on by

Barry and Honey Sherman found dead in Toronto home five years ago but family frustration mounts as crime remains unsolved

The son of a billionaire couple murdered five years ago has tripled a cash reward for information about the unsolved crime amid frustration over a lack of progress in the investigation and deep rifts within the family.

Barry Sherman, the founder of drug giant Apotex, and his wife, Honey, are believed to have been killed in their Toronto home on 13 December 2017. A realtor found the couple in the basement pool area of their home two days later, with belts looped around their necks and attached to a pool railing.

Continue reading...

‘We’re really worried’: US supermarket mega-merger raises mass layoff fears

Posted on by

Kroger and Albertsons seek deal through FTC but employees say previous merger experience has them deeply concerned

Thousands of workers at two of America’s biggest supermarkets are warning of potential mass layoffs as the giant firms push for a merger.

Kroger, the second largest grocery chain in the US, and Albertsons, the fourth largest, are pushing for a merger through the Federal Trade Commission, which is reviewing the proposal.

Continue reading...

Biden faces growing pressure to drop charges against Julian Assange

Posted on by

Biden faces a renewed push, domestically and internationally, to drop charges against Assange, who is languishing in a UK jail

The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.

Continue reading...

Sanders says Sinema ‘helped sabotage’ some of Congress’s key legislations

Posted on by

Senator adds to chorus of detractors against Arizona lawmaker who left Democratic party and declared herself an independent

The popular progressive US senator Bernie Sanders would consider supporting any Democrat who might mount a challenge against his chamber colleague Kyrsten Sinema after she recently left the party and declared herself an independent like him, arguing that she has “helped sabotage” some of Congress’s most important legislation.

Sanders’s comments on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union added to the chorus of detractors against the Arizona lawmaker who has undermined the agenda of the Joe Biden White House and other progressives, including by voting down raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and reforming the Senate filibuster so that voting rights legislation can pass.

Continue reading...

China preparing fresh pretext to practise future attacks, says Taiwan foreign minister

Posted on by

Joseph Wu says that communication with China has become more difficult after a purge of some factions within the Communist party

Taiwan’s government believes China is preparing to find another “pretext for practising their future attack” on the island, its foreign minister has said, after a record-breaking year of military threats and incursions.

Joseph Wu also suggested cross-strait communications may diminish even further now that Xi Jinping has secured his third term, with last month’s extraordinary political purges of rival Communist party members severing the few unofficial ties remaining.

Continue reading...

Patti LaBelle rushed offstage after bomb threat made at Wisconsin show

Posted on by

Singer abruptly evacuated just a couple of songs into her concert after the bomb threat forced authorities to evacuate the theatre

Patti LaBelle was abruptly rushed offstage just a couple of songs into a Christmas concert in Milwaukee, after a bomb threat forced authorities to suddenly evacuate the venue.

Footage of the 78-year-old singer’s sudden evacuation from the stage at the Riverside Theater began to circulate on social media on Saturday night shortly after the incident.

Continue reading...

Nasa’s uncrewed Orion capsule splashes down after ‘historic’ moon mission

Posted on by

US space agency rejoices after re-entry of spacecraft that should clear way for possible lunar landing of astronauts by 2025

Fifty years to the day after astronauts last walked on the moon, Nasa’s uncrewed Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific on Sunday at the end of a mission that should clear the way for a possible lunar landing of astronauts by 2025.

The US space agency rejoiced in a near-perfect re-entry of the capsule which splashed down to the west of Mexico’s Baja California near Guadalupe Island. Though it carried no astronauts, the spacecraft did contain three test dummies wired with vibration sensors and radiation monitors to divine how humans would have fared.

Continue reading...

Massachusetts recount flips state house election to Democrat by one vote

Posted on by

Kristin Kassner won against Republican opponent Lenny Mirra after a recount shrunk candidates’ narrow vote deficit to one

A recount in a political race in Massachusetts has flipped a state house of representatives election from Republican to Democrat by a single vote.

Democrat Kristin Kassner won against her Republican opponent and five-term incumbent Lenny Mirra earlier this week after a recount that shrunk the candidates’ narrow vote deficit to one. The candidates were all vying for a seat based in the North Shore area, which is a coastal region between Boston and New Hampshire.

Continue reading...

Brittney Griner in Texas medical facility as political fallout over swap continues

Posted on by

Basketball star is being debriefed at San Antonio army facility as plight of other Americans held in Russia continues

Brittney Griner, the American basketball star who has been released from almost 10 months of detention in Russia in a prisoner swap with the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, is undergoing physical and mental evaluation at a Texas army facility as part of her rehabilitation to the US.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist is being debriefed at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. She arrived back in the US on Friday morning and was immediately taken for what was being described as “extensive health evaluations”.

Continue reading...

Dorothy Pitman Hughes: pioneering Black feminist dies age 84

Posted on by

Hughes toured the US with Gloria Steinem and founded the first shelter for battered women in New York City

The pioneering Black feminist Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a community activist who co-founded Ms magazine with Gloria Steinem and appeared with her in one of the most iconic photos of the second-wave feminist movement, has died. She was 84.

Hughes died on 1 December in Tampa, Florida, at the home of her daughter and son-in-law, according to funeral director Maurice Sconiers. Her daughter, Delethia Ridley Malmsten, said the cause was old age.

Continue reading...

Third Lockerbie bomb suspect now in US custody, officials say

Posted on by

Mohammed Abouagela Masud accused of setting timer for bomb that destroyed Boeing 747, killing 270 people

A Libyan accused of preparing the bomb that killed 270 people when an explosion ripped through Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 is now in US custody, officials have confirmed.

Scottish prosecutors, who have been closely involved in the investigation, said the families of those who were killed “have been told” that Mohammed Abouagela Masud had been extradited to the United States.

Continue reading...

Twitter relaunches blue tick service with higher price for iPhone users

Posted on by

Those willing to pay $8 on the web or $11 a month via Apple’s app store will get more prominence

Twitter is relaunching its subscription service on Monday, offering users verified status for $8 (£6.50) a month or $11 a month on their iPhone.

The move follows a botched revamp of the service last month that resulted in a host of impersonator accounts appearing on the platform as some users took advantage of the chance to launch bogus “verified” accounts for major companies and public figures.

Continue reading...

Georgia man accused of killing wife’s divorce lawyer and setting office on fire

Posted on by

Investigators booked Allen Tayeh on counts of malice murder and arson after body of attorney Doug Lewis was found inside building

A Georgia divorce attorney was recently shot to death – and his office was set on fire – by a client’s estranged husband in an extreme example of how contentious US family court cases can get, according to authorities.

Police in the community of Lawrenceville allege that Allen Tayeh went to the office of a lawyer representing a woman in the process of divorcing him and shot the attorney, Doug Lewis, there on 7 December.

Continue reading...

‘A remarkable sign’: flurry of wolf births offers hope for California comeback

Posted on by

Grey wolves from Oregon may now be thriving in California, after vanishing more than a century ago

In a year of environmental ups and downs, a hopeful story of recovery is afoot in California. A grey wolf pack gave birth to eight pups this spring, it was recently confirmed, offering signs of a remarkable comeback after wolves were wiped out in the state more than a century ago.

The births in the Whaleback wolf pack, based in northern California’s Siskiyou county, happened in the spring but were only confirmed by California’s department of fish and wildlife in November. They may be a sign that wolves who entered the state from Oregon several years ago are thriving.

Continue reading...

Arizona governor builds border wall of shipping crates in final days of office

Posted on by

Critics say Republican Doug Ducey’s scheme is illegal because makeshift barrier is being erected on tribal and federal land

A makeshift new barrier built with shipping containers is being illegally erected along part of the US-Mexico border by Arizona’s Republican governor – before he has to hand over the keys of his office to his Democratic successor in January.

Doug Ducey is driving a project that is placing double-stacked old shipping containers through several miles of national forest, attempting to fill gaps in Donald Trump’s intermittent border fencing.

Continue reading...

Save whales or eat lobster? The battle reaches the White House

Posted on by

Fishing gear used by Maine lobstermen is killing right whales. Will boosting a $1bn industry trump protecting an endangered species?

President Macron of France may not have realised it, but he walked into another fishing war earlier this month when he and 200 other guests were treated at the White House to butter-poached Maine lobster accented with American Osetra caviar and garnished with celery crisp.

At issue was the lobster, currently subject to a court ruling designed to prevent Maine’s lobstermen from trapping the crustacea in baited pots marked by lines that can fatally entangle feeding North Atlantic right whales. There are now just 340 such whales, with only about 100 breeding females, making the species one of the most endangered on the planet.

Continue reading...