Category Archives: US News

Utah governor vetoes ban on trans students playing girls’ sports

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Spencer Cox is second Republican governor to overrule lawmakers who have taken on youth sports as part of political debate

The Utah governor, Spencer Cox, vetoed a ban on transgender students playing girls’ sports on Tuesday, becoming the second Republican governor to overrule state lawmakers who have taken on youth sports as part of a political debate over how Americans view gender and sexuality.

Cox joins the Indiana governor. Eric Holcomb, who vetoed a statewide ban on Monday. Holcomb said Indiana’s legislature had not demonstrated that transgender kids had undermined fairness in sports.

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Syria using maze of shell companies to avoid sanctions on Assad regime’s elite

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Exclusive: documents seen by the Guardian prove Assad minister’s boast that evading financial sanctions has ‘become a Syrian craft’

The Syrian regime is setting up shell companies in a systematic attempt to avoid sanctions, according to official documents obtained by the Guardian.

The documents, not publicly available, detail at least three companies established in Syria on the same day with the explicit purpose of operating as a shell to buy shares and manage other companies.

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Rohingya refugees welcome US decision to call Myanmar atrocities a genocide

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Refugees ‘very happy’ with declaration, while experts say ‘concrete steps’ must follow

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have welcomed the announcement by the US that it considers the violent repression of their largely Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar a genocide.

“We are very happy on the declaration of the genocide; many many thanks,” said 60-year-old Sala Uddin, who lives at Kutupalong camp, one of the many in Cox’s Bazar district that are now home to about 1 million Rohingya.

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California man rescued after being trapped in a storm pipe the ‘width of a pizza’

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He had entered the stormwater system intentionally and became stuck for two days before being rescued uninjured, but dehydrated

A man who was trapped 15ft (4.5m) underground for two days in a San Francisco Bay area storm pipe the width of a large pizza was rescued in an effort that lasted hours and involved at least 50 firefighters, police officers and rescue personnel, officials said Monday.

Officials freed the man from the 16in (40cm) pipe around 9.30pm on Sunday, said Steve Hill, spokesperson for the Contra Costa county fire protection district.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks at her confirmation hearing – finally

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Nominee talked of ‘historic chance’ to be the first Black woman on supreme court – but first she had to listen to a lot of white men

History was made Monday, as the first Black woman ever nominated to the US supreme court testified to the Senate judiciary committee. But before Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson could speak at her confirmation hearing, she first had to listen to a lot of white men.

The Senate confirmation hearings for Jackson started Monday, giving the judge and every member of the judiciary committee the opportunity to deliver remarks about her nomination.

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Supreme court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson tells Senate ‘I decide cases from a neutral posture’ – as it happened

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With the clack of a gavel, Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin opened the hearing. He began by noting Thomas’s hospitalization and wishing him a speedy recovery. He then laid out the rules, asking the audience to remain respectful and vowing to remove any loud or unruly protesters.

He then moved into the meat of his argument, touching on the significance of her nomination.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson vows to defend US constitution in opening remarks

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Ketanji Brown Jackson promised to defend the US constitution and what she called the “grand experiment of American democracy” in her opening remarks to the Senate confirmation hearings that could see her become the first Black woman to sit on the US supreme court since in its 233 years of existence.

Jackson, 51, addressed the Senate judiciary committee on Monday at the start of four days of potentially bruising partisan wrangling over her nomination. She struck a conciliatory tone, stressing her ideological neutrality.

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US watchdog plans to make companies reveal greenhouse-gas emissions

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Climate action rules announced by SEC chair Gary Gensler expected to face opposition from Republicans and industry groups

The US’s top financial watchdog proposed on Monday that publicly traded companies report information on their greenhouse-gas emissions and even those of their suppliers and consumers in one of the Biden administration’s most sweeping environmental actions to date.

The new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules faces staunch opposition from some politicians and members of the business community and will be open to public comment for at least two months before final rules are released.

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Ted Cruz laments angry supreme court hearings a day after angry airport fracas

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Texas senator filmed becoming confrontational with airport staff after missing check-in window for flight from Bozeman, Montana

In Washington on Monday, the Texas senator Ted Cruz complained that supreme court confirmation hearings have become increasingly angry and confrontational.

In Bozeman, Montana the previous day, however, the Republican was filmed becoming angry and confrontational with airport staff and an armed police officer.

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Texas wildfires: approaching storm could bring rain but also high winds

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Fires have caused two deaths, including one in Oklahoma, as largest blaze is 30% contained after burning nearly 85 square miles

Wildfires continued to scorch parts of Texas on Monday while a storm system moving through could bring much-needed rain but also strong winds, forecasters said.

The Eastland Complex, which comprises several fires in one place, had burned nearly 85 square miles in an area about 120 miles west of Dallas and was 30% contained as of Monday morning.

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Mitch McConnell: Republicans who support Putin ‘lonely voices’ in party

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Senate minority leader dodges invitation to say such Republicans should be ejected from party or face disciplinary measures

Republicans who support Vladimir Putin over the Russian invasion of Ukraine are “lonely voices” in the party, Mitch McConnell said.

But the Senate minority leader dodged an invitation to say such Republicans should be ejected from the party or at least face disciplinary measures.

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US declares Myanmar army committed genocide against Rohingya

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Designation could put global pressure on military-led government, which faces accusations at international court of justice

The US has declared Myanmar’s mass killing of the Rohingya Muslim population to be a “genocide”.

The secretary of state, Antony Blinken, made the announcement at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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US not optimistic about Ukraine talks as Zelenskiy ups pressure on Biden

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  • Ukraine president raises specter of ‘third world war’
  • Biden to travel to Poland on Friday
  • US president pressed to increase military aid ahead of Nato visit
  • Ukraine – live coverage

Joe Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations warned on Sunday there was little immediate hope of a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine, as pressure continued to build on the US president ahead of a crucial Nato summit in Europe this week.

Biden, who faces growing dissatisfaction over his approach to the war, will travel to Brussels on Thursday and then on to Poland, it was announced on Sunday night. He will hear a proposal from Poland for Nato to send a peacekeeping force into Ukraine, something Linda Thomas-Greenfield said was unlikely.

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US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas in hospital with ‘flu-like symptoms’

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Court says 73-year-old could be released in next couple of days after infection symptoms began abating

Justice Clarence Thomas has been admitted to hospital because of an infection, the supreme court said on Sunday.

Thomas, 73, has been at Sibley memorial hospital in Washington DC since Friday after experiencing “flu-like symptoms”, the court said in a statement.

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Chinese article urging country to cut ties with Putin gets 1m views

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Essay on US site republished in China before being censored, reflecting balancing act between Russia and west

When an essay from a prominent Shanghai scholar suggested China needed to cut ties with Vladimir Putin as soon as possible over the Ukraine war, the online reaction was swift.

Despite being published late on a Friday evening in the Carter Center’s US-China Perception Monitor, Hu Wei’s essay soon gained a million views in and outside China, and was republished into Chinese blogs, non-official media sites and social media accounts.

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Liz Cheney does not regret vote against Trump Ukraine impeachment

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January 6 committee member splits from fellow Republican Adam Kinzinger but says first impeachment informs panel’s work

Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the January 6 committee, does not regret her vote against Donald Trump’s first impeachment, for withholding military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to extract dirt on rivals including Joe Biden.

But Cheney also said on Sunday she was focused on lessons learned from that impeachment as she pursues the investigation of the deadly Capitol attack, the event which led to Trump’s second Senate trial.

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Marina Ovsyannikova, Russian TV protester, decries Putin propaganda

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‘I could see security dragging people away,’ says editor fined for walking into shot with sign saying ‘No War’

The Russian TV editor who interrupted a news broadcast to protest the Ukraine war said on Sunday she acted out of dissatisfaction at propaganda disseminated by Vladimir Putin’s government, and said she had turned down an offer of asylum in France despite fearing further retaliation.

Marina Ovsyannikova, who describes herself as “a patriot”, was fined 30,000 roubles ($280) by a court in Moscow last week for the “spontaneous” act of rebellion in which she appeared during the live newscast with a sign saying “No War”.

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US likely to see Covid cases rise from Omicron subvariant, Fauci says

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Biden’s chief medical adviser also says the US is ‘clearly going in the right direction’ on the pandemic

The US is likely to see an increase in Covid cases like that in Europe and the UK thanks to the BA.2 virus subvariant but not a dangerous surge, Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.

Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser also said the US was “clearly going in the right direction” on the coronavirus pandemic.

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Republican Hawley’s attack on supreme court nominee Jackson is wrong, says senator

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Senate judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin says Hawley’s attacks should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week

The Missouri Republican Josh Hawley is wrong to attack Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s supreme court nominee, and should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week, the Senate judiciary chair said.

Hawley, the Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin said, is “part of the fringe within the Republican party … a man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on 6 January of the last year.

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‘Mosquito in a nudist colony’: Republican Ron Johnson targets Fauci and Hunter Biden

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Wisconsin senator says if GOP retakes control it will use committees to move against Democrats and Biden

Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci will be prime targets of Senate Republicans should the party win control in November, a senior senator said.

Asked by the Hill what he would want to investigate should he control a committee with subpoena power, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said: “Like everything? It’s like a mosquito in a nudist colony, it’s a target-rich environment.”

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