President braked to speak with a crowd and tipped over, saying the ‘toe cages’ on his bike got caught
Joe Biden fell off a bicycle near his Delaware beach home Saturday morning, moments after greeting reporters with a wave and a cheery “Good morning!”
The president was near the end of a bike ride with the first lady, Dr Jill Biden, near Rehoboth Beach where the couple are celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary.
Continue reading...At a special Tribeca film festival event, the stars of Michael Mann’s acclaimed crime saga reminisced while offering suggestions of who could play them in a remake
Any misgivings about terseness at a Q&A panel dedicated to Heat, a film in which men prefer to let their automatic rifles talk about their feelings for them, were quickly put to one side last night at the dazzling United Palace theater in Manhattan’s Washington Heights.
The Tribeca film festival event dedicated to the 1995 crime classic from Michael Mann – who couldn’t attend due to a positive Covid test, but took care to record a video message from the Italian set of his forthcoming Enzo Ferrari movie, wistfully recalling his initial pitch all those years ago at a Broadway Diner lunch – began with an out-of-the-gate standing ovation for the assembled talent: producer Art Linson, as well as stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, a couple of guys unable to get a cup of coffee in New York without a round of applause. Things only got rowdier from there.
Continue reading...Robert Smigel, the voice behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, was among the employees detained by Capitol police
Seven staff members from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert were arrested for allegedly trespassing in a Capitol Hill building on Thursday night, authorities have said. All seven were each charged with unlawful entry.
The employees, including Robert Smigel, the voice behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, were found by US Capitol police (USCP) officers inside the Longworth House Office Building, which houses offices for members of the House of Representatives.
Continue reading...Unidentified officers said they feared hitting children outside the school, chief deputy tells the New York Times
Two Uvalde city police officers passed up a fleeting chance to shoot a gunman outside Robb elementary school before he went on to kill 21 people inside the school, a senior sheriff’s deputy told the New York Times.
That would mean a second missed opportunity for officers to stop Salvador Ramos before the 24 May attack inside the school that killed 19 children and two teachers. Officials said that a school district police drove past Ramos without seeing him in the school parking lot.
Continue reading...Police say the man fatally shot people attending monthly dinner at Episcopal church in Birmingham suburb
A 70-year-old man has shot and killed three people at a church potluck dinner in Alabama.
Police said the man, who had previously attended services at St Stephen’s Episcopal church, pulled out a handgun and fatally shot three of the participants, one of whom died in his wife’s arms.
Continue reading...Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather among those being sued, but prosecuting fraud in the crypto arena is notoriously difficult
With investors worldwide looking at a collective $1.5tn in recent cryptocurrency losses, a blizzard of class-action lawsuits are being prepared. One big question is: who, if anyone, is to blame – and who could be held to account?
With inflation and interest rates rising, the best-known cryptocurrencies have been hit with heavy and continuing losses: Bitcoin has lost more than 50% of its value this year; Ethereum, its largest rival, is down 65%; and the total value of crypto assets has dropped to less than $1tn from its November 2021 peak of $3tn. US federal regulators say 46,000 people have reported losing $1bn in crypto to scams since January 2021.
Continue reading...Clinic employees say more staffing and resources will be needed to manage an expected influx of out-of-state patients
As reproductive rights groups brace for an anticipated US supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade and strike down federal abortion rights in America, workers at these groups are organizing to unionize ahead of the expected legal changes.
About 400 workers at 28 clinics in five states in the midwest – Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, announced in late May 2022 their intent to unionize with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa. They have filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board after a majority of workers signed authorization cards and their request for voluntary recognition was turned down by management.
Continue reading...The company has said that Oracle will store all private information and is limiting the number of employees with those privileges
TikTok has said that Oracle will store all the data from its US users, in a bid to allay fears about its safety in the hands of a platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
The move comes as a report from BuzzFeed news, citing leaked audio from TikTok in-house meetings, said ByteDance employees in China have repeatedly accessed private information about US TikTok users.
Continue reading...Appeals says EPA did not adequately consider whether glyphosate causes cancer and threatens endangered species
The US Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered to take a fresh look at whether glyphosate, the active ingredient in Bayer’s Roundup weed killer, poses unreasonable risks to humans and the environment.
In a 3-0 decision on Friday, the ninth US circuit court of appeals agreed with several environmental, farmworker and food-safety advocacy groups that the EPA did not adequately consider whether glyphosate causes cancer and threatens endangered species.
Continue reading...A video of Alexander Drueke expressing his love for his mother has not yet been validated by the state department
The mother of an American military veteran who volunteered to defend Ukraine from Russian invaders and was reportedly captured recently said a video of him expressing his love for her gave her “great hope”.
Lois Drueke told the Guardian on Friday that she believes the video of her son Alexander Drueke – distributed by Russian state media – is authentic because of a phrase he uttered in the clip with his distinctively deep voice.
Continue reading...Former president attacks ‘disgraceful performance of the unselect committee’ and denies he bullied Mike Pence to overturn election
Donald Trump has launched an angry verbal attack on the congressional January 6 hearings, dismissing them as a “rigged deal” and “one-sided witch-hunt” that are “getting terrible ratings”.
In his first public appearance since the televised sessions began, Trump on Friday claimed without evidence that the House of Representatives panel has made its case using doctored videos and deceptively edited witness depositions.
Continue reading...David Wenwei Chou, 68, is accused of opening fire on a gathering at the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian church and killing one person
Authorities in California have added hate crime allegations to attempted murder charges filed against a 68-year-old who opened fire at a Taiwanese American church luncheon last month, killing one person and wounding five.
The gunman, David Wenwei Chou, is accused of attacking a gathering of members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian church in Laguna Woods in May. A 52-year-old doctor who took his mother to the event was killed.
Continue reading...President Joe Biden has cheered the Food and Drug Administration’s decision today to authorize Covid-19 vaccines for children younger than five years old, the last group of Americans that didn’t have access to the jabs.
“Today is a day of huge relief for parents and families across America. Following a rigorous scientific review, the Food and Drug Administration has authorized the first COVID-19 vaccines for kids under the age of five. As early as next week, pending recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), parents will finally be able to get their youngest kids the protection of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
Continue reading...Spider monkey dressed up as gang mascot killed in shootout, and man dies in Michoacán after trying to pet captive tiger
Mexican narcos’ fascination with exotic animals has been on display this week after a spider monkey dressed up as a drug gang mascot was killed in a shootout, a 200kg tiger wandered the streets in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, and a man died after trying to pet a captive tiger in a cartel-dominated area of western Michoacán state.
Eleven suspected gang members died in the shootout on Tuesday in the state of Mexico, which surrounds the capital. Photos from the scene showed a small monkey dressed in a tiny camouflage jacket and a tiny “bulletproof” vest sprawled across the body of a dead gunman.
Continue reading...Critics question value of US president’s visit, raising fears it will endanger dissidents and legitimise regime’s human rights stance
Rights advocates fear Joe Biden’s decision to visit Saudi Arabia will endanger dissidents abroad and be seen by the authorities there as giving the green light to restrict civil liberties domestically.
Abdullah Alaoudh, of the thinktank Democracy for the Arab World Now and son of jailed cleric Salman al-Odah, said: “Right before inauguration, he [Biden] said he will be sure to protect Saudi dissidents – those were his words. We’re not protected by someone shaking hands with the same person who is threatening us every day and taking our families hostage due to our activism here in the US.”
Continue reading...Fujian unveiled amid heightened tensions with US over self-ruled Taiwan
China has launched its third aircraft carrier, the first designed and built entirely in the country, marking a significant military advance for the Asian superpower.
The announcement comes as tensions between China and the US have ramped up in recent weeks over Beijing’s sabre-rattling towards self-ruled Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway province to be seized by force if necessary.
Continue reading...If the vice-president had acquiesced to Trump’s demand, the country could have plunged into an unprecedented crisis
The January 6 select committee showed on Thursday that Mike Pence withstood an intense pressure campaign from Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump’s advisers repeatedly tried to convince Pence to disrupt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory on January 6, even after they themselves acknowledged that there was no constitutional basis for the vice-president to do so.
Continue reading...Attorneys general say material is needed for criminal cases but congressional inquiry says it must be left to do its work
Tensions between the US justice department and the House of Representatives January 6 select committee have escalated after federal prosecutors complained that their inability to access witness transcripts was hampering criminal investigations into rioters who stormed the Capitol.
The complaint that came from the heads of the justice department’s national security and criminal divisions and the US attorney for Washington Matthew Graves showed a likely collision course for the parallel congressional and criminal probes into the Capitol attack.
Continue reading...The former VP rejected the plot to overturn the election – the death knell for Trump and Pence’s marriage of convenience
Mike Pence was described as the hero of the hour, the man who stood his ground to Donald Trump’s coup plot and saved America from a violent “revolution”.
Yet among the rows of committee members, witnesses, reporters, congressmen and women and young citizens at Thursday’s January 6 hearing into the attack on the Capitol, the former vice-president was nowhere to be seen. Pence was 500 miles away in Ohio to promote “American energy dominance”.
Continue reading...The hip-hop mogul loves to rap about his roots in Brooklyn’s Marcy housing projects. But classes in cryptocurrency show the billionaire is out of touch, residents say
Marcy Houses, the 28-acre public housing development in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, is best-known as a pillar of rapper-turned-mogul Jay-Z’s New York persona. Built in 1949 as part of a push by the New York City Housing Authority to house the city’s low-income residents, Marcy had fallen into a state of dangerous disrepair by the 1970s when Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, was growing up there.
“Where I’m from, Marcy son, ain’t nothing nice,” he raps in “Where I’m From”. “Marcy me, just the way I am always gonna be,” he declares in 2017’s Marcy Me.
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