US travel chaos unlikely to improve as Fourth of July looms, experts say

Over the Memorial Day and Juneteenth holiday weekends more than 3,000 flights were canceled and over 19,000 were delayed

As Fourth of July travel chaos looms, experts are warning that a combination of factors including pilot shortages, the climate crisis and even the rise of drones means the situation is unlikely to get better soon.

Over the Memorial Day and Juneteenth holiday weekends more than 3,000 flights were canceled and more than 19,000 were delayed. About 1,800 flights have been canceled so far this week, according to the Hill.

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Brand new bang: Lake Tahoe resort scraps July 4 fireworks for drones

Pyrotechnic displays pose a heightened fire risk in a time of intense drought and cause distress to wild animals

Lake Tahoe’s north shore is breaking with tradition and will replace its Fourth of July fireworks celebration with a colorful light display of an entirely different nature.

The tourist town on the Nevada side of the storied lake will offer a night-time drone light show, a display officials at the Incline Village Crystal Bay visitors bureau said carries less danger in a parched landscape primed to burn.

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New Zealand declares US far-right Proud Boys and the Base terrorist groups

Proud Boys’ involvement in US Capitol attack cited in ruling outlawing organisation

New Zealand’s government has declared that the American far-right groups the Proud Boys and the Base are terrorist organisations.

The two groups join 18 others, including the Islamic State group, that have been given an official terrorist designation, making it illegal in New Zealand to fund, recruit or participate in the groups, and obligating authorities to take action against them.

The US groups are not known to be active in New Zealand, but the South Pacific nation has become more attuned to threats from the far right after a white supremacist shot and killed 51 Muslim worshippers at two Christchurch mosques in 2019.

The New Zealand massacre inspired other white supremacists around the world, including a white gunman who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May.

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Mark Meadows’ associate threatened ex-White House aide before her testimony

It was the second warning Cassidy Hutchinson had received before her deposition, cautioning her against cooperating with the panel

Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson received at least one message tacitly warning her not to cooperate with the House January 6 select committee from an associate of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The message in question was the second of the two warnings that the select committee disclosed at the end of its special hearing when Hutchinson testified about how Donald Trump directed a crowd he knew was armed to march on the Capitol, the sources said.

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US supreme court hobbles government power to limit harmful emissions

Court sides with Republican states as ruling represents landmark moment in rightwing effort to dismantle ‘regulatory state’

The US supreme court has sided with Republican-led states to in effect hobble the federal government’s ability to tackle the climate crisis, in a ruling that will have profound implications for the government’s overall regulatory power.

In a 6-3 decision that will seriously hinder America’s ability to stave off disastrous global heating, the supreme court, which became dominated by rightwing justices under the Trump administration, has opted to support a case brought by West Virginia that demands the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) be limited in how it regulates planet-heating gases from the energy sector.

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Supreme court decisions: court deals blow on climate but Biden wins immigration case – live

In its second and final decision of the day, the Supreme Court on Thursday said Biden can terminate a controversial Trump-era immigration policy, known as Remain in Mexico. The ruling affirms a president’s broad power to set the nation’s immigration policy.

The ruling concludes the most consequential supreme court term in recent memory.

The case, which was backed by a host of other Republican-led states including Texas and Kentucky, was highly unusual in that it was based upon the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era strategy to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants that never came into effect. The Biden administration sought to have the case dismissed as baseless given the plan was dropped and has not been resurrected.

Not only was this case about a regulation that does not exist, that never took effect, and which would have imposed obligations on the energy sector that it would have met regardless. It also involves two legal doctrines that are not mentioned in the constitution, and that most scholars agree have no basis in any federal statute.

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Biden can end Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ program, supreme court rules

Ruling by 5-4 allows administration to terminate policy that forced asylum seekers to return to Mexico while claims are considered

The supreme court has issued a ruling that will allow the Biden administration to end a Trump-era immigration program forcing asylum seekers attempting to enter the US at the southern border to return to Mexico while their claims are considered.

Soon after taking office, Biden had sought to completely end the program known informally as “Remain in Mexico” and formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols.

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Virginia lawsuits indicate pattern of schools ignoring reported sexual assaults

Two lawsuits are back in front of federal judges, drawing scrutiny to schools’ failure to support students who report assaults


A pair of lawsuits that for years has plagued Virginia’s largest school system with allegations that it ignored students’ accusations of sex assaults are back in front of federal judges.

One of the lawsuits includes allegations of horrific abuse suffered by a student at a Fairfax county middle school and was the basis for a 2014 federal investigation.

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Newspapers in US closing at rate of two a week despite efforts to halt trend

Areas without a reliable source of local news tend to be poorer, older and less educated than those covered well


Despite a growing recognition of the problem, the United States continues to see newspapers die at the rate of two per week, according to a report issued on Wednesday on the state of local news.

Areas of the country that find themselves without a reliable source of local news tend to be poorer, older and less educated than those covered well, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications said.

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Kinzinger slams fellow Republican Boebert and warns of ‘Christian Taliban’

Adam Kinzinger says ‘no difference between this and the Taliban’ after Lauren Boebert’s call to end separation of church and state

A Republican congressman slammed GOP colleague Lauren Boebert’s recent call to end separation of church and state in the US, warning: “There is no difference between this and the Taliban.”

“We must opposed [sic] the Christian Taliban,” Adam Kinzinger, a US representative for Illinois, said on Wednesday. “I say this as a Christian.”

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R Kelly sentenced to 30 years on sexual abuse charges

The R&B singer, 55, had been found guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering involving women, girls and boys

The singer R Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday for sexually abusing women, girls and boys, more than 20 years after first facing allegations.

Kelly’s conviction represents a victory for survivors of sexual violence, particularly those who may hesitate to speak out against abusers for fear of retribution.

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Giuliani associate Lev Parnas handed 20 months in prison for campaign finance fraud – as it happened

• It was a mixed Tuesday for Donald Trump-backed candidates in Republican primary elections around the country. Colorado voters largely rejected most Trump-supporting candidates in Tuesday’s GOP primaries, although Lauren Boebert, the extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman, won her bid for relection.

• In Illinois, Mary Miller, who had been criticized after she declared the Supreme Court’s abortion decision as a “victory for white life” – a spokesman said she had mixed up her words – won in after she was backed by Trump. Darren Bailey, who was also endorsed by Trump, won the Republican gubernatorial primary in the state.

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CDC activates emergency operations unit for monkeypox

The move signals the initial stages of a public health concern as 306 cases of the virus have been recorded in the US

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has activated an emergency operations unit for monkeypox that signals the initial stages of a public health concern.

The Emergency Operations Center (EOC), was activated on Tuesday to boost operational support for addressing a monkeypox outbreak.

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‘You destroyed so many lives’: R Kelly victims give emotional statements

In a series of heart-rending speeches, victims delivered testimony about the impact his crimes had on their lives

The victims of R Kelly gave emotional testimony of the impact his crimes had on their lives during the sentencing hearing that saw the US singer given 30 years in prison.

In a series of heart-rending speeches, several women stood up in court, sometimes addressing their abuser, sometimes pausing for breath or holding back tears.

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Erdoğan gains from lifting Sweden and Finland Nato veto with US fighter jet promise

Analysis: deal between Biden and Erdoğan is sealed in Madrid after Nordic countries vow to control support for Kurdish terrorism

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, immediately started to reap the rewards for lifting the block on allowing Sweden and Finland to join Nato when the Biden administration said it backed the potential sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.

Speaking at a briefing call on Wednesday, Celeste Wallander, the assistant secretary for defence for international security affairs at the Pentagon, told reporters that strong Turkish defence capabilities would reinforce Nato’s defences.

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Two men charged after police find possible link to Texas migrant deaths

Men were detained leaving home listed on registration papers for abandoned trailer truck where 53 migrants were found dead

Two Mexican nationals at an address linked to the abandoned trailer truck where at least 53 migrants were found dead Monday evening in Texas have been charged with illegally possessing guns as federal authorities continue investigating the grim discovery.

Juan Claudio D’Luna Mendez and Juan Francisco D’Luna Bilbao were at a house in the 100 block of Arnold Drive in San Antonio, listed on the registration papers for the big rig that contained the bodies, which had been discovered abandoned in an industrial area of the Texas city, agents with the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms wrote in a criminal complaint.

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Secret Service agent reportedly willing to testify Trump did not lunge at him

Row comes after ex-White House aide’s explosive testimony that portrayed a violent and unhinged Trump on day of Capitol attack

Senior Secret Service agents are reportedly prepared to testify that Donald Trump did not lunge for the wheel of his vehicle or physically attack the chief of his security detail after his speech near the White House on January 6 – as a former aide said he did in sworn testimony on Tuesday.

The row follows the explosive testimony to the House January 6 committee, which painted an unhinged and violent portrait of Trump on the day of the Capitol attack, in a shocking hearing many have seen as potentially loosening the former president’s grip on the Republican party.

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Israel delays travel restrictions on West Bank in apparent gesture to Joe Biden

New rules limiting ability of foreigners to enter occupied territory are postponed before US president’s Middle East visit

Israel has delayed the implementation of strict rules limiting the ability of foreigners to enter and stay in the occupied West Bank, in what is believed to be a gesture to Joe Biden before the US president’s visit to the Middle East next month.

A statement from the high court on Wednesday said the new rules would be shelved until early September, as a decision had not yet been made regarding objections to the proposed policy.

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Election denier Tina Peters loses Colorado primary for top poll official

The Republican, a county clerk, is facing criminal charges for tampering with election equipment

Tina Peters, a Colorado county clerk who is facing criminal charges for tampering with election equipment, lost the Republican nomination to be the state’s top election official on Tuesday. She was defeated by Pam Anderson, a former county clerk.

The race was among several closely watched contests this year in which Republicans who denied the election results are seeking key roles with oversight of elections.

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US ramping up monkey pox vaccine distribution to slow down spread

The government will expand access to and increase supply of two different formulations to contain the infection

The US government is ramping up efforts to staunch the spread of monkeypox by sending hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses to states in the coming months, expanding access for those most at risk and increasing supply to areas with high case numbers.

The plan, announced on Tuesday, involves rapidly expanding access to doses of Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine – which has so far been limited – to prevent monkeypox in areas with the highest transmission and need.

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