Category Archives: US News

Biden adviser warns China will face consequences if it helps Russia evade sanctions

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Amid reports that Russia has requested military help in Ukraine, Jake Sullivan is due to meet China’s top diplomat in Rome on Monday

Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who is due to meet China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, in Rome on Monday, warned on Sunday that Beijing will “absolutely” face consequences if it helps Moscow evade sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

The White House national security council declined to comment, however, on reports that Russia has asked China for military equipment since its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

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Biden adviser rejects Republican call to ‘close skies’ over Ukraine

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Rob Portman of Ohio urges US and Nato as US intelligence community says creating no-fly zone risks escalation of conflict

A senior Republican senator on Sunday urged the US and Nato to “close the skies” over Ukraine, hours after a logistics hub and training base for foreign fighters 11 miles from the Polish border was struck by Russian forces, killing 35.

“The message coming loud and clear is close the skies,” said Rob Portman, a senator from Ohio on a visit to Poland. “Because the skies are where the bombs are coming, whether it’s the missile attacks or the airplane attacks or with artillery.”

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White House faces oil standoff with Saudi Arabia and UAE as prices soar

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Analysis: Disputes with Biden administration mean Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are likely to drive hard bargain

Joe Biden’s hardline stance on Russia has won him widespread plaudits, but with the most serious oil shock in decades now a reality, the US president’s attempt to cushion the blowback continues to meet resistance from the two allies he needs most.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, and his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, are yet to agree to a phone call with the west’s most powerful man – a scenario all but unthinkable during previous administrations.

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Barr: Trump should not be president but ‘lesser of two evils’ compared to US left

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Ex-attorney general excoriates old boss in book but refuses to budge from vow to vote for him if he is Republican nominee again

Doubling down on his vow to vote for Donald Trump if he is the Republican nominee in 2024 despite writing in his new book that Trump is dangerously unsuited for the job, William Barr said: “Elections are binary choice, and unfortunately sometimes it’s choosing the lesser of two evils.”

Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump’s second attorney general added: “I believe that the progressive wing of the Democratic party is dangerous for the United States.”

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‘Music is so different now’: Copyright laws need to change, says legal expert

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Industry figures warn that songwriters face future drawn out legal battles because the way in which people consume music has changed

Songwriters such as Ed Sheeran face a future of drawn out legal battles because the way in which people consume music has changed so much in the past half a century, a leading legal expert has warned, as she urged courts to reconsider how they interpret copyright law.

The rise of streaming on platforms such as Spotify and YouTube, combined with larger teams of writers behind hit songs, have led to a surge in high-profile copyright infringement cases in the past few years. Most recently, Sheeran is locked in an ongoing legal battle over Shape of You, Spotify’s most streamed song ever.

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Iran claims responsibility for missile strike near US consulate in Iraq

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Revolutionary Guards say target in Erbil was Israeli ‘strategic centre’ following attack in Syria

Iran has claimed responsibility for a missile barrage that struck early on Sunday near a sprawling US consulate complex in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, saying it was retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed two of its Revolutionary Guards.

No injuries were reported in the attack, which marked a significant escalation between the US and Iran. Hostility between the countries has often played out in Iraq, whose government is allied with both countries.

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MoMA stabbing: New York police still searching for man who attacked staff

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Man who was denied entrance on Saturday for previous incidents of disorderly conduct identified as 60-year-old Gary Cabana

Video from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City showed the moment a man leaped over a reception desk and stabbed two employees as they tried to flee on Saturday.

The video released by police showed a man identified as 60-year-old Gary Cabana enter the museum lobby through a revolving door then climb onto the desk and jump over it as a man carrying what appeared to be a walkie-talkie tried in vain to stop him.

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US film-maker Brent Renaud reportedly killed by Russian forces in Ukraine

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Award-winning journalist and a colleague, who survived, were fired on near checkpoint in Irpin

Brent Renaud, an award-winning US film-maker whose work has appeared in the New York Times and other outlets, has been killed reportedly by Russian forces in the flashpoint town of Irpin, outside Kyiv. A US photographer, Juan Arredondo, was wounded.

Renaud, 51, was hit in the neck and died after coming under Russian fire while working on Sunday, according to local police officials, however, that could not be independently verified.

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West Virginia Republicans miss own deadline to pass schools race bill

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Supermajority runs out of time to greenlight House version of bill but does pass abortion restriction

Republicans who enjoy a supermajority in the West Virginia legislature nonetheless failed to pass a controversial bill restricting how race is taught in public schools because they missed a midnight deadline in the final moments of the 2022 session.

Lawmakers spent weeks during the legislative session debating and advancing proposed bills similar to the Anti-Racism Act of 2022. It wasn’t immediately clear why Republicans waited until late on Saturday to take a final vote. The act had passed the Senate and House overwhelmingly and the vote was merely to greenlight the House version.

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‘Would-be tyrant’: Republican targeted by Trump at rally hits back

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Tom Rice faces Trumpist challenger because of vote to impeach over the deadly Capitol attack

A Republican congressman attacked by Donald Trump at a rally in South Carolina on Saturday called the former president a “would-be tyrant”.

Tom Rice voted to impeach Trump over the deadly Capitol attack and will face a Trump-endorsed challenger later this year.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest news: UK says Russian navy has blockaded Black Sea coast; Zelenskiy urges Nato to implement no-fly zone

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Call from Ukrainian president comes after death toll from Russian rocket attack on military base at Yavoriv rises to at least 35 people

Russian forces may have also hit an airbase in Ivano-Frankivsk early on Sunday morning, according to the city’s mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv.

“According to preliminary information, this morning’s explosions were from an attack at the airport,” Martsinkiv said, urging those who live close to the airport to relocate in a Facebook post about 7.30 local time.

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Mississippi teacher fired for reading I Need a New Butt! to children

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Toby Price’s termination for sharing the humorous children’s book has sparked criticism and a wave of support

An elementary school administrator in Mississippi has said he was fired for reading I Need a New Butt!, a humorous children’s book about bottoms, to a class of second-graders.

The incident has spurred criticism from free speech advocates, who claim the termination could have a chilling effect at a time of conservative-fueled pushes for book bans in schools across the US.

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Beto O’Rourke calls Texas governor Greg Abbott an ‘authoritarian’ and ‘thug’

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The Democratic gubernatorial candidate compared his Republican opponent to the Russian president Vladimir Putin

Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, has likened his Republican opponent to the Russian president Vladimir Putin, calling Greg Abbott an “authoritarian” and a “thug”.

As governor, Abbott has presided over draconian laws on issues including abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and voting rights. In February 2021, on his watch, a failure of the state energy grid during cold weather contributed to hundreds of deaths.

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Nevada police allege woman stabbed date in revenge for 2020 killing of Iranian general

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The woman told police she attacked the man in retaliation for the US drone strike that killed senior Revolutionary Guards leader Qassem Suleimani

A woman allegedly stabbed a man she had met on a dating website in retaliation for the 2020 death of an Iranian military leader killed in an American drone strike, police say.

Nika Nikoubin, 21, has been charged with attempted murder, battery with a deadly weapon and burglary, KLAS-TV reported.

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Two employees of New York’s MoMA stabbed after man denied entrance

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New York police said the man’s membership had been revoked for previous incidents of disorderly conduct

A man stabbed two people inside the Museum of Modern Art in New York on Saturday afternoon after he was denied entrance for previous incidents of disorderly conduct, authorities said.

Police said the two people who were stabbed were museum employees. Both were in stable condition at Bellevue hospital.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Russia will only take Kyiv if city is ‘razed to the ground’, Zelenskiy says, as Moscow threatens western shipments – live

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Ukraine’s president says the capital will only fall to Russian troops if it is completely destroyed, while Moscow warns western shipments of arms to Ukraine could be attacked

In an early morning update on Telegram, Ukraine’s State Emergency Services (SES) said rescuers in Kharkiv had recovered the bodies of five people including two children, who were killed when Russian bombs hit a residential building in the village of Slobozhanske, outside the city.

It also said workers had visited 40 separate addresses to dispose of unexploded ordnance.

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Clarence Thomas: supreme court could be ‘compromised’ by politics

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The court is set to rule this year on divisive issues including abortion, gun control, the climate crisis and voting rights

The US supreme court could “at some point” become “compromised” by politics, said Clarence Thomas – one of six conservatives on the nine-member court after Republicans denied Barack Obama a nomination then rammed three new justices through during the hard-right presidency of Donald Trump.

“You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the court,” said Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, has come under extensive scrutiny for work for rightwing groups including supporting Trump’s attempts to overturn an election.

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‘Bomb cyclone’ storm dumps snow across eastern US

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Powerful late-winter storm comes with predicted snowfall up to about 13in and potential to cause travel issues and outages

A powerful late-winter storm combining rivers of moisture and frigid temperatures – a phenomenon known to some as a “bomb cyclone” – was expected to dump snow from the US deep south all the way to the Canadian border over the weekend, forecasters said.

With forecast snowfall ranging from about 4in in northern Alabama and Mississippi to about 13in in northern Maine, forecasters expected travel problems and power outages across much of the eastern US.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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Five of seven people involved in Florida fentanyl-cocaine overdose are West Point cadets

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Six men and a woman were taken to hospitals on Thursday in an incident that highlights a two-year trend in suspected opioid overdoses

Police have made an arrest in connection with fentanyl overdoses that involved five cadets from the US Military Academy at a Florida vacation home during spring break this week.

Wilton Manors police said six men and a woman overdosed on fentanyl-laced cocaine and were taken to hospitals on Thursday. Authorities said late on Friday they had made an arrest, but did not offer specifics.

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