Category Archives: US News

Amazon labor organizers push for second union victory in New York

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About 1,500 eligible workers at LDJ5 sorting center on Staten Island vote in union ballot, after recent success at JFK8 warehouse

Amazon workers in New York will go to the polls again as labor activists push to unionize a second facility in the US following their surprise recent victory over the tech giant.

About 1,500 eligible workers at an LDJ5 Amazon sorting center in Staten Island, New York, begin voting in a union election on Monday, in a process that will continue through 29 April. Ballot-counting starts on 2 May.

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Ukrainian cities take heavy shelling as top US officials meet Zelenskiy in Kyiv

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As Russia and Ukraine mark Orthodox Easter, Russia continues assault with Zelenskiy set to request more weapons from US

Russian forces continued heavy shelling of Ukrainian cities on Sunday as people in both countries observed Orthodox Easter and the US secretaries of state and defence made their first visit to Kyiv since the invasion.

Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin arrived in Kyiv and were holding talks with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskiy, said on Sunday in a social media video.

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Ocasio-Cortez to unionized Amazon workers: victory is ‘just the beginning’

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Democratic congresswoman joins Bernie Sanders in Staten Island and says workers’ successful effort was ‘first domino to fall’

The progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Amazon’s first unionized workers in New York on Sunday that their victory was “the first domino to fall” in what she expected to be a wave of similar votes for representation across the country.

The leftwing Democrat joined Vermont senator Bernie Sanders on stage in Staten Island to celebrate the historic achievement and to call for workers in more Amazon facilities in the US to follow their example.

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Crews search Rio Grande for Texas soldier who jumped in to help migrants

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National guard soldier Bishop Evans, 22, attempted to save two people he believed were drowning but did not resurface

Search crews combed the Rio Grande for a third day Sunday looking for signs of a Texas national guard soldier who went missing in the water amid an attempt to save two people he believed were drowning.

For the first time Sunday, Texas officials publicly identified the missing soldier as Bishop E Evans, a 22-year-old specialist and field artilleryman.

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‘Get up off our rear ends’ or lose badly in midterms, Elizabeth Warren warns Democrats

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Warren gives party stark warning in CNN interview, and condemns House minority leader Kevin McCarthy as ‘liar and a traitor’

Democrats need to “get up off our rear ends” and work to bring down prices and runaway inflation, or face wipeout in November’s midterm elections, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren warns.

In a forthright interview Sunday morning on CNN’s State of the Union, the former candidate for her party’s presidential nomination also lambasted the Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy as “a liar and a traitor” after he was caught on tape lying about his support for Donald Trump after the 6 January insurrection.

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Border migrants injured after high-speed Texas police chase ends in crash

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Crash comes after authorities in March reported arresting 210,000 migrants attempting to cross southern border without permission

Sixteen people – most of whom were trying to enter the US without permission – were injured when their pickup truck crashed while being chased at high speeds by Texas police, according to authorities.

Two of those hurt were critically wounded and flown to hospitals in San Antonio by helicopter, said the sheriff of Medina county, Randy Brown, whose deputies pursued the truck at the center of the wreck.

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California family discovers five bears hibernating in crawlspace under home

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Bear League describes how family in Lake Tahoe heard ‘odd snoring-like noises’ but dismissed them before eventual discovery

A California family spent the winter dismissing odd noises that sounded a little like snoring, only to discover that five bears had spent the cold season hibernating under their house.

The Bear League group, which works to preserve bear habitat and help bears in distress largely around the Lake Tahoe basin region in the state, recounted the family’s astonishing episode last week.

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US can manage BA.2 variant ‘without disruption’, top Covid adviser predicts

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Ashish Jha says spreading variant unlikely to have much effect on the nation’s pandemic recovery

The White House Covid response coordinator Ashish Jha appeared to undercut the Biden administration’s efforts to reinstate the federal mask mandate on Sunday, stating that the spreading BA.2 variant in the US was unlikely to have much effect on the nation’s pandemic recovery.

The justice department announced last week it would appeal the decision of a federal judge in Florida to prematurely lift the mandate on air, rail and bus travel in the US, based on the assertion by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that “an order requiring masking in the indoor transportation corridor remains necessary for the public health”.

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Saudis’ Biden snub suggests crown prince still banking on Trump’s return

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Refusal to help US punish Russia and $2bn investment in Kushner fund signal crown prince’s displeasure with Trump’s successor

Saudi Arabia appears to be banking on Donald Trump’s return to office by refusing to help the US punish Russia for the Ukraine invasion, and by placing $2bn in a new, untested investment fund run by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

In seeking to persuade Riyadh to increase oil production so as to lower prices by as much as 30%, and thereby curb Russian government revenue, the Biden administration is looking for ways to reassure the Saudi government that it is dedicated to the kingdom’s security.

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Blinken due to meet Zelenskiy in first wartime visit by top US officials to Ukraine

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US defence secretary Lloyd Austin will join secretary of state in Sunday’s meeting as Russia continues attacks in south and east Ukraine

Kyiv prepared for its first wartime visit from two top US officials as Russia continued its bombardment of Ukraine, including a deadly strike in the port city of Odesa, that all but buried hopes of a truce for Orthodox Easter.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he would meet with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, in Kyiv on Sunday. The White House declined to comment.

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Meta investors brace for a difficult quarter after stocks nosedive

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After losing a record $230bn in market value due to a disappointing earnings report in February, analysts are hoping to see progress

Meta experienced a historic nosedive in value earlier this year amid a major rebrand and shake-ups to its business model – and investors are bracing for another difficult quarter.

Meta lost a record $230bn in market value after a disappointing earnings report in February, in which it revealed Facebook had recorded its first-ever drop in daily user numbers.

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Thousands forced to flee as wildfires sweep through New Mexico

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Five counties under state of emergency as high winds fan ferocious flames across US south-west

Wind-driven wildfires destroyed hundreds of structures in northern New Mexico and forced thousands to flee mountain villages as blazes burned unusually early in the year in the parched US south-west.

Two wildfires merged north-west of Las Vegas, New Mexico, and raced through 15 miles (24km) of forest driven by winds over 75mph (121km/h), destroying more than 200 buildings, state authorities said.

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Twitter uses Earth Day to announce ban on climate denialism ads

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The platform has been a source of a growing wave of climate misinformation and said denialism ‘shouldn’t be monetized’

Twitter chose Earth Day to announce it will ban advertisements that deny the scientific consensus on climate crisis.

“We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetized on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” the company declared on Friday.

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First-ever US Air Force trial of a general finds William Cooley guilty of sexual misconduct

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The major general faces up to seven years in prison after assaulting his sister-in-law at a family barbecue in 2018

In the first-ever military trial for a general in the 75-year history of the US air force, a two-star general was found guilty Saturday of abusive sexual contact for forcibly kissing his sister-in-law after a family barbecue.

Maj Gen William Cooley faces up to seven years in prison, a dishonorable discharge and the loss of his air force pay and benefits at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Monday.

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Florida bride and caterer charged after serving marijuana-laced food at wedding

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Police arrived at the venue to find wedding guests being treated for ‘symptoms consistent with that of someone who has used illegal drugs’

A Florida bride and her wedding caterer have been criminally charged after serving food laced with marijuana to their wedding guests, sickening them and sending several to hospital.

Danya Shea Svoboda, 42, and Jocelyn Montrinice Bryant, 31, who catered her wedding, face charges of violating Florida’s anti-tampering laws, delivery of marijuana and culpable negligence.

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Mark Meadows was warned of illegality of scheme to overturn 2020 election

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A former staffer testified that White House counsel said the scheme involving fake electoral college votes was not legally sound

Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows was warned the effort to overturn the 2020 election with fake electoral college votes was not legally sound – and yet proceeded anyway, the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack said Friday.

In a court filing, the panel also said that Meadows went ahead with plans to have Trump speak at the Ellipse rally that descended into the Capitol attack, only days after being expressly told by the US Secret Service that there was potential for violence on 6 January 2021.

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‘Democracy in Florida is not functioning.’ Governor’s rigged maps rob Black voters of power

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Governor Ron DeSantis’s redistricting gambit means ‘for all intents and purposes, there’s currently … one-man rule’, says one former GOP strategist

As Florida Republicans gave final approval to new congressional districts on Thursday, Black lawmakers staged a sit-in on the floor of the legislature, praying, chanting and singing that Black voters were under attack in the state.

The extraordinary moment served as a remarkable endpoint to a brazen attack by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

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Gun violence becomes leading cause of death among US youth, data shows

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A report reveals a 30% increase in firearm-related deaths between 2019 and 2020, including incidents of suicides and accidental shootings

Gun violence overtook car accidents as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the US in 2020, according to a report from the University of Michigan.

The finding was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as part of longer term research effort from the university’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention (IFIP).

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Suspect in shooting that injured four near Washington school found dead, police say

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The man was identified from video he had posted on social media that appeared to show gunshots fired

A gunman opened fire on random victims from a sniper’s nest on the upper floor of an apartment building near an elite prep school in Washington, wounding four people before taking his own life as police burst into his dwelling.

Police said on Friday evening the suspect, Raymond Spencer, 23, of suburban Fairfax, Virginia, was initially identified from video he had posted on social media that appeared to show gunshots fired from the vantage point of an upper-floor window, with the misspelled label: “Shool shooting!”

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Marjorie Taylor Greene appears in court over attempt to bar her from Congress

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Effort, brought by voters and liberal groups, to ban Republican for aiding the Capitol attack comes under the 14th amendment

The far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared in court in Georgia on Friday for a hearing in an attempt to bar her from Congress for aiding the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

A lawyer for Greene, James Bopp, tried to portray her as a “victim” of the Capitol attack, rather than an instigator.

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