Category Archives: US News

New Mexico wildfire rampages on as fresh blaze engulfs California mansions

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Challenging weather hampers firefighting in New Mexico, while in California, wealthy coastal enclave goes up in flames

Extreme fire conditions are continuing to fuel a massive wildfire in northern New Mexico, making it difficult for crews to contain the largest blaze in the US, which grew to nearly 260,000 acres acres on Thursday.

The continued destruction came as a smaller fire broke out in California, destroying more than 20 homes, many of them multimillion-dollar mansions, in the coastal community of Laguna Niguel.

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Twitter announces hiring freeze as two top executives leave

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News comes as Elon Musk, world’s richest man, is working to close a $44bn deal to acquire social media company

Twitter announced the departure of two top leaders in a major shakeup that comes as billionaire Elon Musk is working to close a $44bn deal to acquire the company.

In an email to employees on Thursday, chief executive Parag Agrawal said Twitter’s leaders for consumer product and revenue will leave the company. Agrawal said the company was temporarily pausing hiring, and would review all existing job offers to determine whether any “should be pulled back”.

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US congressmen to fly to London as Northern Ireland protocol concerns grow

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Exclusive: Influential delegation likely to underline Biden’s commitment to defend Good Friday agreement

A delegation of influential US congressmen will fly to London within days amid growing concern in the White House about spiralling tensions over the Northern Ireland protocol, the Guardian can reveal.

With the UK government poised to table legislation next week which could revoke parts of the protocol, arrangements are being made for at least half a dozen representatives from the US Congress to fly to Europe for a series of meetings in Brussels, Dublin, London and Belfast.

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Baseball signed by Zelenskiy sells at US auction for over $50,000

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Winning bid for Rawlings ball more than three times its estimate, with portion of proceeds going to Ukrainians displaced by war

A baseball signed by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has sold at auction for more than $50,000, with a portion of the proceeds going to Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion.

A Boston auctioneer, RR Auction, said the winning bid for the Rawlings Major League baseball was more than three times its estimate. The company will donate its $15,000 cut from the sale. The seller, Randy Kaplan, will donate an undisclosed portion of his proceeds to the global non-profit Americares.

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Saudi Aramco overtakes Apple as world’s most valuable company

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Soaring commodity prices swell oil giant’s profits as tech stock slide pegs back iPhone maker

Apple has lost its crown as the world’s most valuable company to the oil giant Saudi Aramco, as soaring commodity prices swell profits at energy companies and technology stocks continue to slide.

In a sign that the old economy is reasserting itself over the new this year, Aramco eclipsed Apple on Wednesday night amid the ongoing rout on Wall Street.

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Liz Truss to hold talks with EU amid threats to tear up NI protocol

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Foreign minister will meet Maroš Šefčovič as attorney general said to approve overriding Brexit deal

The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is to hold talks with the vice-president of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, in the first meeting since the UK threatened to remove parts of the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol.

The attorney general for England and Wales, Suella Braverman, is said to have approved the scrapping of large parts of the Northern Ireland Brexit deal, according to reports.

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IVF treatment faces ‘clear and present danger’ from US anti-abortion effort

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Warning from reproductive rights advocate comes as US states pass or debate legislation that would give full rights to embryos

In vitro fertilization treatment is facing a “clear and present danger” and could be a “casualty” of some of the proposed anti-abortion laws that are emerging across the US, according to a key advocate of reproductive medicine.

The warning comes as US states, including Louisiana, have passed or are debating new proposed legislation that would give full rights to embryos, which in some cases means fertilized eggs, created in the process of IVF and not implanted in a woman, would have the same legal rights as children.

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Mississippi school district upholds teacher’s firing for reading I Need a New Butt! to kids

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Toby Price, an assistant principal who plans to pursue an appeal with the chancery courts of Mississippi, was fired in March

The firing of a Mississippi assistant principal for reading pupils a humorous children’s book, I Need A New Butt!, has been upheld by his school district.

The book describes a boy who tries to find a new bottom after he sees a “crack” in his current bottom which makes him afraid it is broken.

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Pet dog’s barking leads rescuers to missing Texas woman with dementia

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Black labrador Max attracted volunteers who had been searching for Sherry Noppe, who had been missing for three days

A Texas woman who suffers from dementia and was missing for three days was found in the early hours of last Friday, bruised and dehydrated but safe, after her dog’s barking helped rescuers track her down.

Sherry Noppe, 63, left her home in Houston, Texas last week, to take her black labrador, Max, for a stroll. The pair never returned.

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Victims of Florida condo collapse could receive nearly $1bn in settlement

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The 12-story Champlain Towers South building in Surfside had collapsed abruptly in June 2021, killing 98 people

A nearly $1bn tentative settlement has been reached in a class-action lawsuit brought by families of victims and survivors of last June’s condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida, an attorney said Wednesday.

Harley S Tropin announced the $997m settlement during a hearing before Miami-Dade circuit court judge Michael Hanzman. Still pending final approval, the settlement involves insurance companies, developers of an adjacent building and other defendants.

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Sadiq Khan launches commission to examine cannabis legality

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Mayor of London says panel of experts will consider effectiveness of UK policies on non-class A drugs

Sadiq Khan has announced a commission to examine the effectiveness of the UK’s drug laws, with a particular focus on those governing cannabis.

The London drugs commission, to be chaired by Lord Charlie Falconer QC, a former lord chancellor and justice secretary, was one of Khan’s manifesto pledges in his re-election bid last year.

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Democrats lose Senate vote to codify abortion rights into federal law

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Final tally was 49-51, with all Republicans and one conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin, voting against the measure

The US Senate on Wednesday failed to advance legislation that would codify the right to an abortion into federal law, after it was blocked by Republicans.

It was a largely symbolic vote by Democrats to mobilize Americans around the issue ahead of a likely supreme court decision striking down the protections enshrined by Roe v Wade.

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Texas court ordered to reconsider decision to uphold prison sentence for woman who voted

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Crystal Mason was sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election

A Texas appeals court must reconsider its decision to uphold a five-year conviction for Crystal Mason, the Texas woman sentenced to prison for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election, the state’s highest criminal court ruled on Wednesday.

Mason showed up to the polls to vote in 2016, while on supervised release – which is similar to probation – for a federal tax felony. She cast a provisional ballot at the urging of election workers, which was ultimately rejected because people with felony convictions in Texas cannot vote while they are serving any part of a federal sentence.

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Democrat Joe Manchin says he will vote no on guaranteeing abortion rights – live

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Majority leader Chuck Schumer says Senate vote is among most important of the century even though it will fail to pass

• Pro-choice states rush to pledge legal shield for out-of-state abortions

• Mitch McConnell says Senate Republicans couldn’t pass abortion ban

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We’ve heard a lot about the “rival” abortion rights bill pushed by Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, and they’ve just released a joint statement explaining why they believe their reproductive rights act is preferable to the Democratic Women’s Health Protection Act they’ll vote against in the Senate this afternoon.

“I support codifying the abortion rights established by Roe v Wade. That’s not what the women’s health protection act would do,” Collins, of Maine, said in the statement.

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US inflation rate slows but remains close to 40-year high

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Consumer price index reveals costs rising by a monthly rate of 0.3% in April, down from 1.2% in March, the first fall since August 2021

Price rises slowed in the US in April but the annual inflation rate remained close to a 40-year high, leaving many Americans struggling to afford necessities including food, shelter and fuel.

The latest consumer price index (CPI) figures – which measure a broad range of goods and services – showed prices rising by a monthly rate of 0.3% in April, down from 1.2% in March, the first fall since August 2021.

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Delaware governor denounces police search of HBCU lacrosse bus in Georgia

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John Carney says stop and search of bus carrying lacrosse team from Delaware State University ‘upsetting and concerning’

The governor of Delaware has publicly condemned authorities in Georgia who searched a bus carrying a lacrosse team from a historically Black college, in what many called an instance of racial profiling.

John Carney, a Democrat, released a statement about the incident, in which police officers searched the bus carrying the Delaware State University women’s lacrosse team after stopping the driver for a traffic violation.

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New Mexico wildfire spreading north toward mountain resort towns near Taos

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Two more days of high winds and very dry conditions expected as fire warnings issued across much of the western US

Many houses near America’s largest wildfire survived the latest barrage of howling winds and erratic flames but New Mexico’s governor said on Tuesday the risk of more destruction is high and that the long-term costs of recovering from the huge blaze will soar.

Two more days of strong winds and dangerously bone-dry conditions are in the forecast before some relief is expected on Friday.

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Trump inquired if China could make hurricanes to harm US, ex-officials say

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Former president also wanted to know if it would constitute an act of war and if hurricanes could be nuked to stop them

As president, Donald Trump repeatedly asked aides if China could be manufacturing hurricanes and sending them to damage the United States, three unnamed former senior officials told Rolling Stone on Tuesday.

Trump also reportedly wanted to know if using such a “hurricane gun” would constitute an act of war, and if so, whether the US could retaliate militarily.

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Rappers Young Thug and Gunna charged with racketeering in Atlanta

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Indictment quotes multiple music videos as evidence and accuses alleged gang members of targeting other high-profile rap artists

Atlanta rapper Young Thug co-founded a violent street gang that committed multiple murders, shootings and carjackings over roughly a decade and promoted its activities in songs and on social media, prosecutors allege in a sprawling indictment that charges him, rapper Gunna and 26 others with racketeering.

The 88-page indictment filed Monday in Georgia’s Fulton county quotes multiple music videos as evidence and accuses alleged gang members of targeting other high-profile rap artists.

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