Category Archives: US News

Ginni Thomas pressed 29 lawmakers in bid to overturn Trump loss, emails show

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Wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas accused of ‘undermining democracy’ after Washington Post revelation

Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, was accused of “undermining democracy” after it emerged that she emailed 29 Republican lawmakers in Arizona in her effort to overturn Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.

The Washington Post had previously reported that Ginni Thomas sent emails pressuring two Arizona Republicans to reject Biden’s win and choose their own electors.

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Rudy Giuliani charged with ethical misconduct over Trump’s big lie

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The complaint marks the second time a bar office has taken action against the former New York mayor

Rudy Giuliani has been hit with ethics charges over baseless claims he made about the 2020 presidential election being stolen while serving as an attorney for Donald Trump.

The charges were filed on Friday by the District of Columbia office that polices attorneys for ethical misconduct.The DC office of disciplinary counsel alleges that Giuliani, who is a member of the DC bar, made baseless claims in federal court filings about the results of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania. The charges were filed with the District of Columbia court of appeals board on professional responsibility.

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Hopes fade of finding missing men as Brazilian police report finding ‘apparently human’ material

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Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, missing for more than five days, had failed to show up in Atalaia do Norte at the end of a reporting trip

Hopes of finding a British journalist and a Brazilian guide faded on Friday as police announced an unsettling development in the search for the two men last seen five days ago on a remote river in Amazonia.

“Search teams found on the river, near to Atalaia do Norte, apparently human organic material,” Brazil’s federal police said in a statement.

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Workers rescued after tumbling into vat of chocolate at Mars Wrigley factory

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The pair were carrying out maintenance work on the partially filled tank at the plant in Pennsylvania

Two people were rescued after they somehow fell into a partially filled chocolate tank while doing maintenance work at a candy factory in Pennsylvania.

The incident at the Mars Wrigley plant in Elizabethtown occurred shortly before 2pm on Thursday.

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Insurers Geico ordered to pay woman who caught STD having sex in car $5.2m

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Missouri appellate court rules Geico must cover ‘injuries and losses’ from disease after 2014 incident in Hyundai Genesis

The insurance giant Geico must give more than $5m to a woman who had sex with a motorist in his car and contracted a sexually transmitted disease, a Missouri appellate court ruled.

The ruling represents a preliminary legal victory for the plaintiff over the company best known for commercials starring an anthropomorphized gecko which speaks with a British accent.

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Biden says forces behind January 6 attack ‘remain at work today’ – as it happened

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Did the January 6 committee really cut through the “thick fog of propaganda” around the attack? Not if you watched Fox News, which didn’t broadcast the hearing. My colleague Adam Gabbatt took a look at what they showed in its place:

The millions of people who tuned into America’s main television channels on Thursday heard how the January 6 insurrection was “the culmination of an attempted coup”, a “siege” where violent Trump supporters mercilessly attacked police, causing politicians and staffers to run for their lives.

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Texas school police chief says he didn’t think he was in charge during shooting

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Pete Arredondo says he intentionally left behind radios before entering school, as two more funerals are held for victims of the attack

The Texas school police chief criticized for his actions during one of the deadliest classroom shootings in US history said in his first extensive comments that he did not consider himself the person in charge as the massacre unfolded and assumed someone else was.

Pete Arredondo, the police chief of the Uvalde school district, also told the Texas Tribune in an interview published on Thursday that he intentionally left behind both his police and campus radios before entering Robb elementary school.

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Democrats promise more on Trump’s January 6 role after dramatic TV hearing

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Vivid evidence around Capitol attack laid out by committee, but Republicans dismiss first primetime hearing as political theatre

The jagged divide in American politics was on full display on Friday, in the wake of the first primetime hearing staged by the House January 6 committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol.

Democrats responded to the dramatic presentation of new evidence and stark testimony about the deadly insurrection in Washington with promises of more to come, especially around the role of Donald Trump.

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Primetime January 6 hearing shows set-piece TV can still pack a punch

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First of public Capitol attack hearings delivered precision and panache – and a narrative arc designed for maximum effect

It was one of the more unexpected takeaways of the night: in the age of six-second videos and frenetic social media posts around the clock, primetime set-piece television can still land a punch.

The first of the public hearings from the US congressional committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington by extremist supporters of Donald Trump on 6 January last year was delivered with all the choreographed panache of an old-school TV spectacular or the Super Bowl.

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China calls theory that Covid originated in Chinese lab ‘politically motivated lie’

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WHO report has said origins of virus are still unknown and recommended further investigation

China has repeated its assertion the theory that the Covid-19 pandemic began with a leak from a Chinese laboratory is “a politically motivated lie”, after the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended continued investigations this week.

“The lab leak theory is totally a lie concocted by anti-China forces for political purposes, which has nothing to do with science,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a daily briefing on Friday.

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January 6 hearing: five key takeaways from the first primetime Capitol attack inquiry

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The House select committee presented their findings that the US Capitol attack was the ‘culmination of an attempted coup’

The first primetime hearing from the House select committee investigating January 6 presented gut-wrenching footage of the insurrection, and a range of testimony to build a case that the attack on the Capitol was a planned coup fomented by Donald Trump.

After a year and half investigation, the committee sought to emphasize the horror of the attack and hold the former president and his allies accountable.

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House January 6 panel shows it still has surprises in store in televised hearing

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Analysis: Committee presented evidence that Trump said Pence ‘deserved’ hanging and Republicans in Congress sought pardons

The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection proved on Thursday night that it still has bombshells to share with the country despite a year of inquiry and intermittent revelations from behind closed doors.

In its first public hearing, in prime time, the committee also laid the groundwork for its argument that Donald Trump played a central role in the planning of the deadly insurrection.

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Florida’s manatees are dying in record numbers – but a lawsuit offers hope

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US wildlife agency agrees to review protection for habitats after conservationists sue over mass die-offs from poor water quality

The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has agreed to update critical habitat protections for manatees after legal pressure from environmental groups, as the animals continue to die in record numbers.

More than 1,000 manatees died in Florida last year, wiping out more than 10% of the state’s population, the deadliest year on record. The unusually high mortality rate for the threatened mammals has continued into 2022, with 562 deaths in the first five months.

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As America watched Capitol attack testimony, Fox News gave an alternate reality

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Tucker Carlson leads January 6 counter-programming, petulantly refusing to show the hearing: ‘We’re not playing along’

The millions of people who tuned into America’s main television channels on Thursday heard how the January 6 insurrection was “the culmination of an attempted coup”, a “siege” where violent Trump supporters mercilessly attacked police, causing politicians and staffers to run for their lives.

On the Fox News channel, however, there was a different take on the historic congressional hearings exploring the attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.

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Goodie bag to promote US industry contained ‘Made in China’ gifts

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President Joe Biden and Google chief Sundar Pichai among attendees offered free bag at development summit

A swag bag dished out by the American chamber of commerce to promote US industry at an international summit wasn’t quite on message – with some gifts bearing the slogan “Made in China”.

Delegates and attendees at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles this week have been plied with all manner of freebies and samples from various groups wanting to push their agenda.

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January 6 hearing: Trump was at heart of plot that led to ‘attempted coup’

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House panel makes case in primetime broadcast featuring eyewitnesses and video clips of Trump aides and family members

The House select committee investigating the deadly January 6 assault on the US Capitol in 2021 said Donald Trump was at the center of a sprawling conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that culminated in an “attempted coup”.

With a shocking new accounting of the worst attack on the halls of Congress in more than two centuries, the committee outlined in gripping detail over the course of two hours on Thursday night the grave threat posed to American democracy then and now by the former president’s actions.

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‘It was a war scene’: Caroline Edwards describes Capitol attack violence

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The Capitol police officer, who was injured in the insurrection, said she saw colleagues ‘bleeding, on the ground, throwing up’

Caroline Edwards, a Capitol police officer who sustained a brain injury during the January 6 attack, gave a chilling recollection of the brutal violence of that day on Thursday, telling the committee investigating the attack it was a “war scene”.

Her testimony offered key evidence for underscoring the stakes of the congressional hearing. It showed viewers at home that the attack on the Capitol in Washington DC was not an accident, but rather an intentional effort to inflict violence.

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US braces for House committee’s primetime January 6 hearings – live

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The US Department of Justice has announced a federal civil rights investigation into the Louisiana State Police following a raft of brutality cases and the fatal beating of a Black motorist, Ronald Greene, in 2019.

Greene, an unarmed 49-year-old, was arrested by six white officers with body camera footage of the incident, obtained years later by the Associated Press, revealing he had been punched, tasered and placed in a chokehold and later dragged face down in handcuffs and left prone for over nine minutes.

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Panel to connect Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in Capitol attack conspiracy

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Sources say investigators intend to show far-right militias coordinated in effort to storm US Capitol on January 6 last year

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is expected at its first hearing on Thursday evening to connect the far-right Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia groups in the same seditious conspiracy, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The move by the panel and chief investigative counsel Tim Heaphy would likely be one of the major revelations that comes from the hearing, which is expected to focus on the militia groups and how they made plans to storm the Capitol, the sources said.

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‘I won’t believe humans any more’: Johnny Depp releases self-penned ballad lamenting fame

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New single This Is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr is a ballad about the difficulties of film stardom, taken from Depp’s forthcoming album with Jeff Beck

Johnny Depp has released a new self-penned song performed with Jeff Beck, This Is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr, taken from the pair’s forthcoming collaborative album, entitled 18.

A trudging rock ballad sung by Depp interspersed with solo vocals from Beck, it hymns the 1940s film star (and innovative electrical engineer) Hedy Lamarr, though this lament about fame will inevitably be read as a reaction to the high-profile, frequently ugly defamation case he recently brought against his ex-wife Amber Heard.

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