Category Archives: US News

Trump ‘deeply wounded narcissist’ says former White House lawyer

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Ty Cobb served during the ex-president’s administration and claimed it was one of his two toxic traits dictating his actions

A lawyer who served in the White House during Donald Trump’s administration, said the ex-president is a “deeply wounded narcissist”, claiming that’s one of the two toxic traits that dictate his actions and decision making.

Ty Cobb, who stepped down in 2018 because of Trump’s disapproval of his “conciliatory” approach, also said Trump is “incapable of acting other than in his perceived self-interest or for revenge”.

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US surpasses 1m organ transplant milestone since first surgery in 1954

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Medical advocates across the country are now pushing for 1m more transplants with increasing number of patients seeking procedure

Medical advocates across the United States have launched a new push for 1m more organ transplants, after the milestone figure of the 1 millionth transplant in the US was met at the end of last week.

Since the first kidney transplant was performed in 1954, the US has surpassed over 1m transplants. Nevertheless, with more patients seeking the procedure than ever before, the demand for organ donors has grown significantly.

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Guns bought through credit cards in the US will now be trackable

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A new ISO-approved measure will also allow sharing of suspicious purchases with law enforcement

Credit card purchases of firearms in the US can now be tracked and purchases deemed suspicious can even be shared with law enforcement, according to a new measure approved by an organization that sets parameters for business transactions.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) voted in favor of creating a merchant code for firearms stores, according to Reuters.

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Two Trump officials subpoenaed for fundraising to undermine elections

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Stephen Miller and Brian Jack were summoned as authorities investigate funds related to the Save America Pac, currently sitting at $100m

Two of Donald Trump’s top officials are facing subpoenas for an investigation against him regarding fund-raisers following the 2020 elections that aimed to undermine the results of the election.

Stephen Miller, once one of the former US president’s most senior aides, and Brian Jack, his former director of political affairs at the White House, were part of a large group of Trump’s officials and allies who were subpoenaed by the grand jury this week, the New York Times reported.

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Las Vegas reporter stabbed to death spent career chasing corruption

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Public official Robert Telles arrested over death of Jeff German, who had reported bullying and favoritism in Telles’s department

In four decades of writing about the Las Vegas criminal underworld and government corruption, investigative reporter Jeff German took on plenty of powerful and dangerous people.

The hard-bitten newsman was once punched by an organized crime associate and received veiled threats from mobsters.

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Mystery over US man who lost foot in hit-and-run police say never happened

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New Mexico police say bike-builder Dillen Maurer cut off his foot with a chainsaw and did not suffer amputation in ATV accident

A prominent figure in America’s outdoor and cycling scene has lost a foot in circumstances that remain mysterious, as local police say he cut his foot off with a chainsaw, while he and his spouse maintain the amputation happened during a hit-and-run accident.

The story was detailed in a GoFundMe post by Dillen Maurer’s wife, Jenn Maurer, who recounted how her husband – an established frame-maker at Baphomet Bicycles in New Mexico – lost his foot several inches above the ankle over the Labor Day holiday weekend.

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Southern California lashed by tropical storm after record-breaking heatwave

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Fire crews make progress on massive Fairview fire, as storm set to bring cooler temperatures but possible flooding

Southern Californians welcomed cooler temperatures and spotty rain Saturday from a tropical storm veering off the Pacific coast days after a relentless heat wave nearly overwhelmed the state’s electrical grid.

Officials braced for flooding in coastal and mountain areas from the storm and feared powerful winds could expand the massive Fairview Fire about 75 miles (121 km) south-east of Los Angeles.

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Queen’s death intensifies criticism of British empire’s violent atrocities

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American commentators, academics and others are calling into reconsideration of monarchy’s lasting influences

The death of Queen Elizabeth II revived longstanding criticism in the US over the monarchy’s enrichment from the British empire’s violent colonization of African, Asian and Caribbean nations and their diasporas.

Since her death on Thursday, American commentators, academics, and a former US diplomat, among others, took to social media and elsewhere to call for fully wrestling with the British monarchy’s lasting influence in light of the monarch’s death.

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US trio jailed by Iran and accused of espionage sue former captors

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Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal held for more than a year after being stopped while hiking along Iraqi border in 2009

Three Americans who were jailed by Iran for more than a year and accused of being spies while hiking along the border with Iraq are suing their former captors, hoping to persuade a judge to award them damages for the torture they say they endured.

The lawsuit being pursued by Sarah Shourd, her ex-husband and fellow journalist Shane Bauer, and their friend Josh Fattal is being overseen by federal judge Richard Leon in Washington, who in 2019 ordered Iran to pay Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian $180m for imprisoning him for more than a year on false espionage charges.

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Bannon is not finished: his ‘precinct strategy’ could alter US elections for years

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One longtime Bannon watcher says it’s too early to count him out – even a prison term could enhance his status among the Maga crowd

When Steve Bannon heard that he was, after all, going to face charges last week for allegedly ripping off contributors to a multimillion-dollar fund to build a wall on the Mexican border, he claimed it was a sign of his success.

Donald Trump’s former strategist said his arrest on Thursday was an attempt to shut down his War Room pod and video cast because it is driving grassroots support for the former president’s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement and reshaping the Republican party ahead of the midterm elections.

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Trump backed failed campaign coup against Kushner, Navarro book says

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Ex-adviser says president in 2020 agreed that his son-in-law had to be replaced by Steve Bannon but did not dare try to fire him

In June 2020, less than five months before polling day, Donald Trump agreed to a “coup d’état” to remove his son-in-law Jared Kushner from control of his presidential re-election campaign and replace him with the far-right provocateur Steve Bannon.

The coup had support from Donald Trump Jr but according to a new book by the former Trump aide Peter Navarro it did not work, after Trump refused to give Kushner the bad news himself.

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Doug Mastriano prayed for Trump to ‘seize the power’ before Capitol attack

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The Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s governor spoke during a video call hosted by a Christian nationalist group member

A week before the Capitol attack, on a video call organised by a member of a Christian nationalist group, a Pennsylvania state senator who is the Republican candidate for governor in the battleground state prayed that supporters of Donald Trump would “seize the power” on 6 January 2021.

Doug Mastriano attended the pro-Trump rally in Washington that day, after which supporters, told by Trump to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat, stormed Congress in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

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Kamala Harris lashes out at “activist” supreme court over Roe v Wade decision

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The vice-president blasts the supreme court’s conservative majority over abortion rights in an interview with NBC

Kamala Harris has excoriated the US supreme court for being an “activist” institution after stripping away nationwide abortion rights earlier this year.

The vice-president’s remarks criticizing the supreme court’s conservative majority for its decision in June to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that established the federal right to an abortion came during an interview with Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press.

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Condolences and condemnation: Indigenous people and people of colour react to the death of Queen Elizabeth II

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While some have offered unflinching takes on the damage of British colonisation, others say the monarch held ‘a special place’ in their hearts

The reaction to the death of the Queen among Indigenous people and people of colour, including those from Commonwealth nations, has been swift and, at times, unflinching.

For many the Queen was the personification of British colonisation and the damage it has wreaked in their countries – and they were not afraid to say so. Yet others expressed their condolences for the monarch who has long held “a special place” in their hearts.

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DoJ bids to regain access to classified documents seized in Trump search – as it happened

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Joe Biden is in the intriguingly named Licking county, Ohio, where he’s at the groundbreaking ceremony of a new Intel factory and about to deliver remarks about the Chips Act, which will boost US production of semiconductors.

The White House says this particular groundbreaking is a different occasion from the usual “scripted, backslapping affairs for political dignitaries”.

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New York declares disaster emergency after polio detected in several counties

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The governor’s latest step is a way to boost low vaccination rates in areas where the virus has been found

New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, declared a disaster emergency on Friday and said the state was stepping up its polio-fighting efforts after the virus was detected in the wastewater of yet another county in the New York City area.

Health officials began checking for signs of the virus in sewage water after the first case of polio in the US in nearly a decade was identified in July in Rockland county, close to the city.

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California fights to control raging wildfires as threat of flash floods grows

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Southern California prepares for arrival of tropical storm that could affect power grid, while crews work to subdue growing fires

Tropical Storm Kay surged toward California on Friday, whipping up strong gusty winds and threatening to fuel ferocious wildfires already burning across the state.

After days of record-breaking heat that tested California’s energy capacity, baked moisture out of the drought-stricken landscapes and spurred the spread of deadly fires , the arrival of Kay, which started as a hurricane but was downgraded to a tropical storm, brought risks of flash floods and threatened more trouble for the state’s electric grid.

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Weather tracker: US heatwave breaks September temperature record

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New September temperature record reaches 107F or 41.7C in Salt Lake City, Utah

Through this week, the heatwave in the US has been continuing, allowing more September records to fall. Salt Lake City in Utah saw its September temperature record broken, with each day hotter than the last, until the current highest ever September temperature was recorded on Wednesday. The new September record is now 107F or 41.7C, which astonishingly is also tied as the all-time temperature record for Salt Lake City. It is extraordinary to record a tied record high temperature in meteorological autumn.

Farther south earlier this week, the tropical storm off the west coast of Mexico, previously Twelve-E, developed into a category 2 hurricane, bringing sustained winds of 100mph, and was named Hurricane Kay. The hurricane brought intense flooding all the way up the west coast of Mexico, from Oaxaca to Nayarit by Thursday 8 September. In the last 48 hours, Kay has weakened into a tropical storm, but continues to bring extreme rain in its path, across the Baja California Peninsula and up towards the US state of California.

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Judge rejects Trump lawsuit against Hillary Clinton over 2016 Russia claims

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Court ‘not the appropriate forum’ for former president’s complaint that Democrats unfairly linked his winning campaign to Russia

A US judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, saying the former Republican president’s allegations that Democrats tried to rig that election by linking his campaign to Russia was an attempt to “flaunt” political grievances that did not belong in court.

In throwing out Trump’s lawsuit on Thursday night, judge Donald Middlebrooks of the US district court for the southern district of Florida said the lawsuit was not seeking “redress for any legal harm” and that the court was “not the appropriate forum” for the former president’s complaints.

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Republicans help Democratic minority block near-total abortion ban in South Carolina

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Opposition by quintet means Republicans lack votes in upper chamber to end filibuster, with bill heading back to state house

Five Republicans in South Carolina’s state senate have joined the Democratic minority to reject a near-total abortion ban, thwarting the controlling party’s intention to capitalize on the supreme court’s decision to overturn federal protections for the procedure.

Their opposition at a special session called on Thursday to approve a restrictive bill passed earlier in the South Carolina House meant Republicans lacked enough votes in the upper chamber, which they control 30-16, to end a filibuster.

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