Category Archives: US News

Florida teen wins top prize by capturing 28 pythons in annual competition

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1,000 people participated in the annual challenge, which removed 231 unwanted pythons from the wild

A 19-year-old south Florida man captured 28 Burmese pythons in a 10-day competition created to increase awareness about the threat the invasive snakes pose to state ecology.

Matthew Concepcion was among the 1,000 people from 32 states, Canada and Latvia who participated in the annual challenge, which removed 231 of the unwanted pythons, the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission said.

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US mortgage rates hit 21-year high as Fed action weighs on housing sector

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Average interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose by 22 basis points to 7.16% last week

The average interest rate on the most popular US home loan rose to its highest level since 2001 as tightening financial conditions weigh on the housing sector, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) showed on Wednesday.

The average contract rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose by 22 basis points to 7.16% for the week ended October 21 while the MBA’s Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, fell 1.7% from a week earlier. Mortgage application activity is at its slowest pace since 1997.

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Alito says leak of draft abortion ruling put justices at risk of assassination

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‘Grave betrayal of trust’ made conservative supreme court justices targets, author of opinion reversing Roe v Wade claims

The leak of the draft supreme court opinion abolishing the right to abortion put members of the conservative majority at risk of assassination, Samuel Alito, the author of the draft, has said.

Speaking in Washington at a rightwing thinktank, the Heritage Foundation, Alito called the leak a month before the final ruling was released “a grave betrayal of trust by somebody” that put several justices in danger.

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Tulsa race massacre: 14 bodies to be re-exhumed in effort to identify victims

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New exhumations will be followed by new search for bodies in Oklahoma cemetery linked to 1921 atrocity

Some of 19 bodies previously exhumed for testing in an effort to identify victims of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre and then reburied in an Oklahoma cemetery will be exhumed again starting on Wednesday, to gather more DNA.

None of the remains recovered thus far have been confirmed as victims of the massacre, in which more than 1,000 homes were burned, hundreds were looted and a thriving business district known as Black Wall Street was destroyed.

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Trump bragged about new US nuclear weapons, Woodward tape shows

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Former president told Washington Post reporter: ‘We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before’

In a taped conversation with Bob Woodward, Donald Trump boasted about US nuclear weapons development.

“I have built a weapon system that nobody’s ever had in this country before,” the then president told the veteran Washington Post reporter. “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before.”

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Harvey Weinstein accuser testifies she wanted to ‘destroy’ herself after assault

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The woman alleges the producer raped her in 2013 and is the first of eight witnesses providing testimony during the trial

A woman who accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her in 2013 testified on Tuesday that the attack left her wanting to “destroy” herself.

The woman, a model and actor living and working in Rome who was in Los Angeles at the time for a film festival, is the first of eight Weinstein accusers set to testify in a courtroom in Los Angeles where the 70-year-old movie mogul is on trial on multiple counts of rape and sexual assault.

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California sheriff’s office stops Black drivers five times more often than white people, data shows

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A new report says sheriffs’ patrols spend more time conducting racially biased stops than they do responding to calls for help

Black drivers in California’s capital are nearly five times more likely than white motorists to get pulled over by sheriffs for traffic violations, according to a new report on racial profiling across the state.

Records from the county sheriff’s departments of Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Riverside show that Black Californians were disproportionately stopped across those regions in 2019, especially for minor infractions.

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Deadliest summer for heat-related deaths in Arizona’s biggest county

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Maricopa county’s 359 heat-associated fatalities this year outpace 339 deaths confirmed in 2021, figures show

This summer was the deadliest on record for heat-related deathsin Arizona’s largest county, with public health statistics this week confirming 359 such deaths just days before the end of the six-month heat season.

The jump comes amid a growing homelessness crisis in the area and raises questions about how to better protect vulnerable people in the desert south-west as temperatures soar.

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Pamela Moses sues officials after voter fraud conviction overturned

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Tennessee woman was serving six-year sentence before prosecutors’ withholding of crucial document came to light

A Tennessee woman who had a six-year prison sentence for voter fraud overturned this year is suing state and local officials for damages, claiming she was wrongfully prosecuted and incarcerated.

Pamela Moses, a 44-year-old Memphis activist, was sentenced to six years in prison in January after prosecutors said she tried to register to vote knowing she was ineligible because of a prior felony conviction. She was convicted even though two government officials, including a probation officer who conceded he made an error, signed off on a state form affirming her eligibility. The case prompted national outrage.

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Kanye West reportedly no longer a billionaire as companies cut ties

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For years critics have denounced Ye for his rightwing views and comments – but only now are they costing him his career

In the span of two weeks, Kanye West has lost his talent representation, connections to major fashion houses and other lucrative relationships over recent anti-Black and antisemitic comments.

As sports brand Adidas ended its estimated €250m partnership with West on Tuesday, reportedly costing the Black American rapper his billionaire status, many are asking if the fashion and music mogul’s actions have ended his decades-long career.

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Florida governor debate: DeSantis defends abortion ban with false claims

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Charlie Crist, former Republican who switched parties, puts governor on defensive during Florida’s sole gubernatorial debate

In the sole debate of the Florida governor’s race, the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis, was put on the defensive by his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, on subjects including abortion and DeSantis’s presidential ambitions.

Crist called Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for rape or incest, “callous and barbaric”.

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Trump aides reportedly face pressure to testify in Mar-a-Lago case – live

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Prosecutors urging two aides for more information about how documents were handled at the resort

Good morning, US politics blog readers. The steady drip of details about the investigation into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort continues, with the New York Times reporting yesterday that prosecutors are pressuring two aides to the former president for more information about how documents were handled at the south Florida property. There’s no saying yet what the revelation means, but it makes clear how many avenues investigators are pursuing as they look for answers about sensitive documents Trump took with him when he left the White House.

Here’s what’s happening in politics today:

Joe Biden will speak about America’s fight against Covid-19 at 2.05pm eastern time.

There’s a slew of debates between candidates standing in the 8 November midterm elections, including Pennsylvania’s Senate candidates Mehmet Oz, a Republican, and John Fetterman, a Democrat, who face off at 8pm eastern time.

Progressive Democrats appear to be walking back a letter sent to Biden yesterday urging more diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine.

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Man killed by New York City subway train after clothes got caught in car

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Victim’s harrowing death comes after two people were pushed in front of trains, seemingly at random, in recent weeks

A 20-year-old man was killed on Monday after his clothes were caught in a New York City subway car, which dragged him onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train, police said, in the latest grim episode for the largest transit system in the United States.

The victim’s harrowing death comes just three days after David Martin, 32, was shoved in front of a train on Friday, seemingly at random, suffering a broken collar bone. A convicted felon identified as Lamale McRae, 41, was arrested Monday in that attack.

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US basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal rejected by Russian court

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Russian court rejects appeal by Griner against nine-year prison sentence for drugs possession and smuggling

A Russian court has rejected an appeal by the US basketball star Brittney Griner against her nine-year prison sentence for possession and smuggling of drugs.

The two-time Olympic gold medallist was arrested on 17 February at a Moscow airport with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia.

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Rishi Sunak to become UK’s PM after meeting the king | First Thing

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Ex-chancellor is third Tory prime minister in less than two months and fifth in six years. Plus, the history of radical art protest by women

Good morning.

Rishi Sunak formally became prime minister on Tuesday despite losing the Conservative leadership contest to Liz Truss only six weeks ago.

What else should we know about Sunak’s background? He was educated at the prestigious boarding school Winchester college, followed by Oxford University and then had a career in finance. His business background is more California tech bro than City pinstripe, though after he took an MBA at Stanford. He is the richest MP with a fortune worth an estimated £730m.

Will Rishi Sunak find the fractured Tory party is ungovernable? Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary and one of Johnson’s most diehard allies, said Sunak had “no mandate” to govern and predicted it would be “impossible” to avoid calling a snap general election.

Washington has long accused Beijing of meddling in US politics and attempting to steal intellectual property. But the move to unmask the espionage operation marked an escalation by the justice department.

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Republicans want working-class voters — without actually supporting workers

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GOP courts blue collar voters but most favor anti-union ‘right to work’ laws and reject laws that would protect right to organize

After years of struggle, America’s labor unions enjoy greater public approval than at any time in more than 50 years. Yet even as the Republican party seeks to rebrand itself as the party of the working class, its lawmakers, by and large, remain as hostile as ever toward organized labor. It doesn’t look like that situation is about to change.

With the midterm elections approaching, and many polls indicating that the Republicans will win control of the House, nearly all Republican lawmakers in Congress oppose proposals that would make it easier to unionize. One hundred and eleven Republican House members and 21 senators are co-sponsoring a bill that would weaken unions by letting workers in all 50 states opt out of paying any fees to the unions that represent them. And at a time when many young workers – among them, Starbucks workers, Apple store workers, museum workers, grad students – are flocking into unions, Republican lawmakers often deride unions as woke, leftwing and obsolete.

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Arizona to vote on introducing more voter ID requirements

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Opponents fear the measure might result in increased ballot counting time and identity fraud

A measure on Arizona’s ballot in November could require more stringent voter identification, both at the polls and via mail-in ballots – the primary way people in the state vote.

Opponents of Proposition 309 warn it could disenfranchise voters, making them susceptible to identity fraud and taking longer to count ballots. But the measure has the backing of Arizona GOP heavyweights and the state party itself, and it comes on the heels of nonstop, unfounded claims of 2020 election fraud by Republicans here.

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Mystery car buried in Silicon Valley mansion garden fully excavated

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Authorities said no body was found, after cadaver dogs had made “slight” notifications of possible human remains

Crews fully excavated a car that police said was buried in the backyard of a northern California mansion 30 years ago and found no human remains, authorities said Monday.

The convertible Mercedes Benz filled with bags of unused concrete was discovered last week by landscapers in the affluent town of Atherton in Silicon Valley. Cadaver dogs brought to the scene made “slight” notifications of possible human remains on three separate occasions, police said in a statement.

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Two shot dead at St Louis school as White House condemns ‘senseless violence’

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Gunman, 20, shot and killed two people at Central Visual and Performing Arts high school before police shot him dead

A gunman broke into a St Louis high school on Monday and killed two people before police shot him dead.

Several other people were wounded in a deadly intrusion that is certain to reignite debate about gun control in the US, even after Congress passed a bill earlier this year that tightened restrictions on access to firearms for some people who are considered to be at risk of carrying out violence.

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Mary J Blige backs Biden administration’s cancer initiative

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The R&B superstar, who has lost numerous family members to the disease, appeared with first lady Jill Biden to announce program

The Biden administration’s initiative to spur the prevention and treatment of cancer got a dose of celebrity support on Monday when singer Mary J Blige joined Jill Biden and the American Cancer Society (ACA) to announce national meetings on breast and cervical cancer.

The ACA pledged to convene the events after US president Joe Biden and the first lady resurrected the “cancer moonshot” initiative this year. The program provides more money for research to, as Jill Biden said, “Help us end cancer as we know it. For good.”

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