Category Archives: US News

Former Guantánamo prisoner on trial in France for extremism

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Saber Lahmar has been charged with encouraging jihadists to fight for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

An Algerian preacher who spent eight years in the US-run Guantánamo Bay prison has gone on trial in France for allegedly encouraging several young men to join the Islamic State group.

Saber Lahmar, a 52-year-old Algerian released by the US in 2008 and taken in afterwards by France, has been charged with encouraging jihadists to head to Iraq and Syria to fight for the extremist group in 2015.

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Beijing accuses US of ‘political manipulation’ in latest Taiwan row

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State department fact sheet amended to remove line saying US ‘does not support Taiwan independence’

Beijing has accused Washington of “political manipulation” and attempting to change the status quo after the US state department quietly amended its website to remove a line stating it did not support Taiwanese independence.

In a delicate geopolitical balancing act, the US has long acknowledged, but not supported, China’s claim to Taiwan under its version of the “one China principle”. However, experts say that policy has been eroded as Beijing has become more assertive.

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Putin could use nuclear weapon if he felt war being lost – US intelligence chief

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Avril Haines says Russian leader could see prospect of Ukraine defeat as existential threat, potentially triggering escalation

Vladimir Putin could view the prospect of defeat in Ukraine as an existential threat to his regime, potentially triggering his resort to using a nuclear weapon, the top US intelligence official has warned.

The warning on Tuesday came in an assessment from intelligence chiefs briefing the Senate on worldwide threats. The prediction for Ukraine was a long, gruelling war of attrition, which could lead to increasingly volatile acts of escalation from Putin, including full mobilisation, the imposition of martial law, and – if the Russian leader felt the war was going against him, endangering his position in Moscow – even the use of a nuclear warhead.

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Andy Warhol’s famed Marilyn Monroe portrait sells for record $195m at auction

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The Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is one of a series made after the actor’s death in 1962 and has become the ‘pinnacle of American pop’

Andy Warhol’s famed 1964 silk-screen portrait of Marilyn Monroe has sold for $195m at auction, setting a new a record for a work by an American artist.

Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is one in a series of portraits Warhol made of the actress following her death in 1962 and has since become one of pop art’s best-known pieces.

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Writer’s essay on why she plagiarized her book removed for … plagiarism

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Jumi Bello’s essay was briefly published on the Literary Hub website until it was revealed she had again lifted material

An author’s online essay on why she used plagiarized material in a novel pulled earlier this year has itself been removed after editors found she had again lifted material.

Jumi Bello’s essay, I Plagiarized Parts of My Debut Novel. Here’s Why appeared just briefly Monday on the website Literary Hub. Bello’s debut novel, The Leaving had been scheduled to come out in July, but was cancelled in February by Riverhead Books.

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Ex-pro wrestling star ‘Sunny’ charged in DUI crash that killed Florida man

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Toxicology test confirmed Tamara Lynn Sytch had blood-alcohol level three times over the legal limit at time of the accident

A member of the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame crashed into and killed a man while driving drunk in central Florida earlier this year, authorities said.

Tamara Lynn “Sunny” Sytch caused the wreck that killed Julian Lasseter on 25 March but it was not until later that a toxicology test confirmed the 49-year-old former pro wrestling personality had a blood-alcohol level more than three times over the legal limit at the time of the accident, police said in a statement to the Guardian on Monday.

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Senate Democrats aim to reveal which Republicans oppose abortion ahead of midterms – live

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Nancy Pelosi has assailed Republicans in her weekly “Dear Colleague” letter to fellow Democrats, saying once Roe v Wade abortion protections are overturned, basic human rights will be next.

In the missive, the House speaker says it is “urgent and essential” that Democrats share with the American public the “dangers of the Republican agenda” in the wake of the supreme court’s draft ruling ending almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections:

Republican state legislators across the country are already advancing extreme new laws, seeking to arrest doctors for offering reproductive care, ban abortion entirely with no exceptions, and even charge women with murder who exercise their right to choose.

These draconian measures could even criminalize contraceptive care, in vitro fertilization and post-miscarriage care, dragging our nation back to a dark time decades into the past.

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Washington Post wins public service Pulitzer for Capitol attack coverage

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Paper beat out two other finalists, the New York Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Washington Post has won the 2022 Pulitzer prize for public service journalism, for The Attack, its account of the deadly assault on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump on 6 January 2021.

The paper beat two other finalists: the New York Times, for challenging official accounts of US military engagements in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, for an exposé of electrical fires in city rental operations.

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Second set of human remains found in receding Lake Mead waters

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The shrinking reservoir in Las Vegas gave up its second discovery just a week after a barrel was found containing a man’s body

Authorities in Nevada have recovered another set of human remains from Lake Mead as a devastating drought has depleted the massive reservoir outside Las Vegas.

Two sisters paddle boarding in the lake on Saturday spotted the bones, which they initially thought were the remains of a bighorn sheep.

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Jill Biden makes unannounced visit to Ukraine and meets first lady

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Surprise trip on Mother’s Day as Biden meets with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenskiy

US first lady Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, holding a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with the nation’s first lady, Olena Zelenskiy, as Russia presses its punishing war in the eastern regions.

US president Joe Biden has not visited the country, though he expressed a desire to when he was in Poland this spring, following Russia’s invasion in February, but at that time Russian tanks were advancing on the capital, Kyiv, and he hinted that his security advisers held him back.

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Gillibrand calls abortion rights ‘fight of generation’ after ‘bone-chilling’ court draft opinion

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New York Democrat urges her party to stand up to concerted efforts from Republicans seeking to abolish constitutional right

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on Sunday called the battle over abortion rights in the US the “biggest fight of a generation”.

The New York Democrat urged her party to stand up to Republicans seeking to abolish the constitutional right, and called the draft US supreme court opinion leaked last week, revealing a conservative-leaning super-majority supports overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision, “bone-chilling”.

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US unveils new sanctions on Russia, targeting services, media and defense industry

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New measures are primarily intended to close loopholes in existing sanctions and to tighten the noose around Russian economy

The US has unveiled a new layer of sanctions on Russia, targeting services, Russia’s propaganda machine and its defence industry on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s planned Victory Day parade.

The new measures were announced as leaders from the G7 group of industrialised democracies held a virtual summit with Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a show of solidarity.

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Clothes, shoes, passports: migrants forced to dump possessions at US-Mexico wall

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Personal belongings left behind, including files and passports that could prove crucial in processing claims

In Yuma, south-west Arizona, just a short distance from a gap in the 30-foot-high border barrier between the US and Mexico, Fernando “Fernie” Quiroz collects piles of shoes, shoelaces and clothing from the dirt road and carries them to a large red dumpster already overflowing with personal belongings.

Every day, hundreds of people arrive at gaps in this stretch of border wall to request political asylum from uniformed federal border agents who stand waiting under a rudimentary metal shade structure in the Sonoran desert heat.

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British scientist says US anti-abortion lawyers misused his work to attack Roe v Wade

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Giandomenico Iannetti, a pain expert at UCL, angrily denies that his research suggests foetuses can feel pain before 24 weeks

A University College London scientist has accused lawyers in the US of misusing his groundbreaking work on the brain to justify the dismantling of Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that legalised abortion nationally in America.

Giandomenico Iannetti said his research, which used imaging to understand the adult brain’s response to pain, had been wrongly interpreted to make an anti-abortion argument.

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‘Forever chemicals’ may have polluted 20m acres of US cropland, study says

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PFAS-tainted sewage sludge is used as fertilizer in fields and report finds that about 20m acres of cropland could be contaminated

About 20m acres of cropland in the United States may be contaminated from PFAS-tainted sewage sludge that has been used as fertilizer, a new report estimates.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 9,000 compounds used to make products heat-, water- or stain-resistant. Known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, they have been linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, liver problems, birth defects, immunosuppression and more.

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Women who fought for US abortion rights in the 70s call for mass global protests

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Veteran activists say the overthrow of Roe v Wade would equate to murder, and should send warning signals around the world

It was over the Thanksgiving holiday, catching up with old high school friends, that Frances Beal heard that Cordelia had died. Like the now 82-year-old Black feminist and activist, her friend had left home to go to college, but she didn’t make it through her first year because, like anybody who wanted to terminate a pregnancy in America in 1958, she had been forced to undergo a backstreet abortion.

“She was dead because she’d had an illegal abortion. And it had gone bad. And if you take a look at the statistics, the number of woman that died from illegal abortions was tremendous,” Beal, who later joined the movement to legalise abortion, told the Observer.

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Country singer Mickey Gilley, who helped inspire Urban Cowboy, dies at 86

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Star said the film – based on his Texas club – had ‘huge impact’ on his career while in life ‘I am doing exactly what I want to do’

Country music star Mickey Gilley, whose namesake Texas honky-tonk inspired the 1980 film Urban Cowboy and a nationwide wave of western-themed nightspots, has died aged 86.

Gilley died on Saturday in Branson, Missouri, where he helped run the Mickey Gilley Grand Shanghai Theatre. He had been performing as recently as last month, but was in failing health over the past week.

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UK poised to hand further £1.3bn military package to Ukraine

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Equipment will include anti-battery radar systems, plus GPS jamming and night-vision devices

An extra £1.3bn in military support is to be handed to Ukraine by the UK, in a significant increase in support for the country as it continues to resist Russia’s illegal invasion.

In a package that marks the UK’s highest rate of military spending since the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, the funding was revealed before a meeting of G7 leaders to discuss what additional help can be given to Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s forces. Boris Johnson is also due to meet arms companies to ask for an increase in production.

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Potentially historic winds forecast as firefighters battle New Mexico wildfire

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Planes and helicopters used as hundreds work feverishly to contain largest fire burning in US


Extreme wind conditions described as potentially historic were forecast for New Mexico on Saturday and for the next several days as hundreds of firefighters and a fleet of airplanes and helicopters worked feverishly to bolster lines around the largest fire burning in the US.

Many families already have been left homeless and thousands of residents have evacuated due to flames that have charred large swaths of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in north-eastern New Mexico.

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All women and children evacuated from Azovstal; Ukraine claims it has destroyed another Russian ship – as it happened

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The UK Ministry of Defence says Russia’s most advanced units have suffered heavy losses; Pentagon defends intelligence sharing with Ukraine as ‘lawful’

Ukrainians are taking DNA tests to identify dead bodies in Bucha, the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison reports.

After weeks of exhumations, a morgue in Bucha holds more than 200 bodies that have not been identified. Some were buried without documents and are waiting to be claimed, but many are too disfigured by their deaths, or their treatment after death, to be identified by sight.

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