Category Archives: US News

China’s challenges to Australian ships: three reasons not to panic | Adam Lockyer

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It’s important to view encounters between the two militaries in operational context

Last week it was reported that in early July an Australian warship had been closely followed by a Chinese guided-missile destroyer, a nuclear-powered attack submarine and multiple military aircraft as it travelled through the East China Sea.

This incident followed a confrontation on 26 May, when an Australian maritime surveillance plane was dangerously intercepted by a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea.

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Towering waves in Hawaii crash into homes, barrel through wedding venue

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A strong winter storm in the South Pacific produced the swell which headed for the islands, bringing waves more than 20ft high

Towering waves on Hawaii’s south shores crashed into houses and businesses, spilled across highways and upended weddings over the weekend.

The large waves, some more than 20ft (6m) high, came from a combination of a strong south swell that peaked Saturday evening, particularly high tides and rising sea levels associated with climate change, the National Weather Service said Monday.

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White House seeks to delay decision on Prince Mohammed immunity over Khashoggi murder

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Request comes after Biden returns from Saudi trip in which he claims to have raised journalist’s murder with crown prince

The Biden administration asked a US judge for a 60-day extension before it formally weighed in on whether Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, ought to be granted sovereign immunity in a case involving the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

The Department of Justice said in a filing before a US district court that it had initiated a “decision-making process” about whether it would file a statement of interest in the case but that it would not be able to comply with the court’s requested deadline of 1 August.

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Steve Bannon appears in court as contempt-of-Congress trial begins

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Far-right Trump ally seeks to claim in federal court that he did not willfully fail to comply with subpoena

With jury selection nearly complete, opening arguments are expected to take place on Tuesday in the federal trial against Steve Bannon, the top former Trump strategist charged with contempt of Congress after he failed to comply with a subpoena from the House January 6 committee.

Bannon appeared in federal court on Monday as his trial formally opened in Washington. The far-right provocateur – one of the principal architects of Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election – is attempting to argue that he did not willfully fail to comply with the subpoena, which sought documents and testimony.

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West Virginia judge blocks enforcement of 150-year-old abortion ban

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Judge says the state’s sole abortion clinic and its patients ‘are suffering irreparable harm’

A judge in West Virginia blocked enforcement of the state’s 150-year-old abortion ban on Monday, opening the door for abortions to resume in the state.

The Kanawha county circuit court judge, Tera L Salango, granted the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia a preliminary injunction against the ban, saying that in the absence of action by the court, the state’s sole abortion clinic and its patients, “especially those who are impregnated as a result of a rape or incest, are suffering irreparable harm”.

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Indiana mall shooting: officials identify gunman who killed three people

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Gunman was a 20-year-old man who shot five people at the Greenwood Park mall before a shopper shot and killed him

Authorities on Monday identified the gunman who shot five people at a suburban Indianapolis shopping mall on Sunday, killing three of them, before a shopper shot and killed him.

He was a 20-year-old local man, Jonathan Sapirman, of Greenwood, who began firing after leaving a bathroom at the Greenwood Park Mall shortly before it closed Sunday evening, the Greenwood police chief, James Ison, said at a news conference.

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West Virginia to resume abortions after judge blocks enforcement of ban – as it happened

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Jody Hice, a Georgia congressman who believes the baseless theory that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, has been subpoenaed by a grand jury investigating efforts to disrupt the results of the polls in the state, Politico reports:

In May, Hice lost his bid for the Republican nomination for Georgia secretary of state to Brad Raffensperger, who famously rejected Trump’s appeals to swing the state’s election results in his direction.

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Prosecutor urges jury to sentence Parkland school shooter to death

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Jury to decide on death penalty or life in prison for gunman who pleaded guilty to murdering 17 people in 2018

A prosecutor on Monday urged jurors to sentence to death the gunman who killed 17 people in a mass shooting at a Florida high school in 2018.

The penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz began on Monday, the deadliest US mass shooting to go before a jury.

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Pop artist Claes Oldenburg, known for giant urban sculptures, dies aged 93

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The Swedish-born artist, who turned objects such as baseball bats, saws and clothespins into giant sculptures, died in Manhattan

Pop artist Claes Oldenburg, who turned the mundane into the monumental through his outsized sculptures of a baseball bat, a clothespin and other objects, has died at age 93.

Oldenburg died Monday morning in Manhattan, according to his daughter, Maartje Oldenburg. He had been in poor health since falling and breaking his hip a month ago.

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How a conservative US network undermined Indigenous energy rights in Canada

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Internal documents explain why oil and gas interests would benefit from a key Indigenous declaration being ‘defeated’

A US-based libertarian coalition has spent years pressuring the Canadian government to limit how much Indigenous communities can push back on energy development on their own land, newly reviewed strategy documents reveal.

The Atlas Network partnered with an Ottawa-based thinktank – the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) – which enlisted pro-industry Indigenous representatives in its campaign to provide “a shield against opponents”.

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Indiana shooting: gunman kills three in Greenwood Park mall attack

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Man entered centre with rifle and began firing in food court before being killed by armed bystander

Three people were fatally shot and two were injured at an Indiana mall after a man with a rifle opened fire in a food court and an armed civilian shot and killed him, police said.

The man entered the Greenwood Park Mall with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition and began firing in the food court on Sunday evening, said the Greenwood police department chief, Jim Ison.

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Rapper Kodak Black arrested on drug charges in Florida

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The rapper was released on $75,000 bond on Saturday after being booked into jail in Fort Lauderdale

Rapper Kodak Black has been arrested in south Florida on charges of trafficking in oxycodone and possession of a controlled substance.

The rapper, whose legal name is Bill Kapri, was previously pardoned by Donald Trump on the last day of his presidency for a previous conviction on a weapons charge. He was booked into jail in Fort Lauderdale on Friday and released on Saturday after a $75,000 bond was negotiated at a bail hearing, his lawyer Bradford Cohen told Rolling Stone.

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‘Worth waiting for’: Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck get married in Las Vegas

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Lopez and Affleck married in a small ceremony on the weekend, culminating a relationship that has stretched over two decades and two engagements

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck got married in a Las Vegas drive-through chapel late on Saturday night, culminating a relationship that stretched over two decades in two separate romances and headlined countless tabloid covers.

Lopez announced their marriage on Sunday in her newsletter for her fans, On the J Lo, with the heading “We did it”. Lopez initially made their engagement public in April on the same newsletter.

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How Uvalde killer’s family and officials missed red flags before massacre

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Report that draws from interviews with family members, phone information and testimony given to lawmakers offers the most complete account yet of shooter

Before shooting 21 people to death at Robb elementary in Uvalde, Texas, the killer had threatened suicide, menaced women, stockpiled guns and accessories and made a video of himself riding around while holding a dead cat, according to a preliminary report from a committee of Texas state lawmakers investigating the massacre.

The story of 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos – as portrayed in the report released Sunday – is one of red flags that caretakers and officials of all kinds largely missed until he went to his former fourth grade classroom and murdered 19 students as well as two teachers on 24 May in one of the deadliest school shootings ever in America.

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Report on Uvalde school shooting finds ‘systemic failures’ by law enforcement

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Nearly 400 officers from myriad agencies went to the school, but were stymied by a lack of coordination, report details

There were “systemic failures and egregious poor decisionmaking” involved in the deadly school shooting at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, a committee of state lawmakers investigating the massacre has found.

The 77-page report from the Texas legislature – released Sunday – details glaring failures in the years leading up to and during the 24 May shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead, along with 17 others wounded.

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Bernie Sanders condemns Joe Manchin for sabotaging president’s agenda

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Senator also rebukes Biden for Saudi Arabia trip: ‘I don’t believe we should maintain a warm relationship with a dictator like that’

Bernie Sanders harshly criticized prominent fellow Democrats on Sunday, accusing his Senate colleague Joe Manchin of sabotaging the president’s agenda and rebuking Joe Biden for traveling to Saudi Arabia last week.

During an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Sanders interrupted host Martha Raddatz when she said Manchin had “abruptly pulled the plug” on supporting a scaled-back version of a spending bill that is crucial to Biden’s agenda. Manchin said he would not support provisions in the bill that increase spending to combat climate change and close tax loopholes. Democrats cannot pass the bill without Manchin’s support in a US Senate that is divided 50-50, with vice-president Kamala Harris serving as a tiebreaker in the event one is needed.

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UAE sentences ex-lawyer of Jamal Khashoggi to three years in prison

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US citizen Asim Ghafoor detained in Dubai and convicted two days later of money laundering and tax evasion

The United Arab Emirates has sentenced the former lawyer of Jamal Khashoggi – the dissident Saudi journalist who was killed at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 – to three years in prison on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.

The Abu Dhabi money laundering court also ordered Asim Ghafoor, a US citizen, to pay a fine of more than $800,000 (£675,000) stemming from his in absentia conviction, the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency reported.

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Trump won’t blunt January 6 inquiry by entering 2024 race, panel member says

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‘No one is above the law,’ says Elaine Luria in response to whether Trump could shield himself from threat of prosecution by simply announcing run

Donald Trump won’t blunt the investigation by the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6th attack on the Capitol by announcing that he’s running for the Oval Office again, a member of the panel said Sunday.

Elaine Luria, a Virginia congresswoman and one of seven Democrats on the committee, told CNN’s Dana Bash, “The bottom line is that no one is above the law – whether he’s a president, former president or a potential future presidential candidate, we are going to pursue the facts.”

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Broken and distrusting: why Americans are pulling away from the daily news

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A Reuters Institute survey found that a rising number of people are avoiding the news or just don’t believe it

This might be just another negative news story. And if it is, there is evidence that many of you will turn away in despair.

The Reuters Institute revealed last month that 42% of Americans actively avoid the news at least some of the time because it grinds them down or they just don’t believe it. Fifteen percent said they disconnected from news coverage altogether. In other countries, such as the UK and Brazil, the numbers selectively avoiding it were even higher.

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The other Joe: how Manchin destroys Biden’s plans, angering Democrats

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The centrist Democrat senator has repeatedly stood in the way of the president’s most ambitious legislative aspirations and derailed fragile negotiations

Joe Biden calls him “Jo-Jo”, an affectionate nickname for the West Virginia senator who, at critical moments during his presidency, has been the Joe holding all the cards.

And this week Joe Manchin, a lonely coal state Democrat who has repeatedly stood in the way of the president’s most ambitious legislative aspirations, derailed weeks of negotiations in pursuit of a deal on a scaled-back version of Biden’s economic agenda that would win his support.

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