Category Archives: US News

Derek Chauvin expected to plead guilty to violating George Floyd’s civil rights

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Federal docket entry shows hearing scheduled for Wednesday for Chauvin to change his current not guilty plea in the case

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer, appears to be on the verge of pleading guilty to violating George Floyd’s civil rights, according to a notice sent out Monday by the court’s electronic filing system.

The federal docket entry shows a hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday for Chauvin to change his current not guilty plea in the case. These types of notices indicate a defendant is planning to plead guilty.

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Kentucky tornadoes: governor says death toll expected to grow as crews sift through ruins

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Andy Beshear says over 100 Kentuckians still unaccounted for, and that number of confirmed deaths may not be known for weeks

Kentucky’s governor Andy Beshear broke down in tears on Monday as he announced the deaths of at least 74 people from Friday’s deadly tornadoes that swept across multiple midwest and southern states, and warned that the death toll is expected to grow.

The ages of those killed ranged from five months to 86 years, six of them younger than 18, Beshear said at an emotional press conference in Frankfort, the state capital.

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South Dakota teachers scramble for dollar bills to buy classroom supplies in half-time game – video

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A competition pitting 10 teachers against each other to scramble for dollar bills to fund school supplies in a city in South Dakota has been described as ‘demeaning’ and drawn comparisons with the hit Netflix series Squid Game.

The local Argus Leader newspaper reported that $5,000 (£3,770) in single dollar bills was laid out on the ice skating ring during the Sioux Falls Stampede hockey game on Saturday night, and the teachers from nearby schools competed to grab as many as possible in less than five minutes

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Aerial footage shows extent of tornado damage in Kentucky – video

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Drone footage has captured the devastation after a series of deadly tornadoes struck Kentucky on Friday. The US president, Joe Biden, declared a major federal disaster in the state, with officials saying the death toll could exceed 100 in Kentucky alone. 

The governor, Andy Beshear, said the tornadoes were the most destructive in the state’s history. One tornado that tore through four states over four hours of nighttime devastation is believed to be the longest distance for a tornado in US history. In Mayfield, a community of about 10,000 in the south-western corner of Kentucky, large twisters also destroyed fire and police stations

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Covid live: Mainland China reports first Omicron cases; Norway to tighten restrictions

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First confirmed Omicron case in mainland China is detected in Tianjin; Norway to act amid record high infections and hospitalisations

South Africa has reported an additional 37,875 new coronavirus cases, which includes 19,840 retrospective cases and 18,035 new cases, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

In the past 24 hours a total of 18,035 positive Covid-19 cases and 21 Covid-related deaths were reported.

I’m worried that PNG is the next place where a new variant emerges.”

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Adam McKay: ‘Leo sees Meryl as film royalty – he didn’t like seeing her with a lower back tattoo’

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After politics in Vice and finance in The Big Short, director McKay is taking on the climate crisis in his star-studded ‘freakout’ satire Don’t Look Up

Adam McKay calls it his “freakout trilogy”. Having tackled the 2008 financial crash and warmongering US vice president Dick Cheney in his previous two movies, The Big Short and Vice, McKay goes even bigger and bleaker with his latest, Don’t Look Up, in which two astronomers (Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio) discover a giant comet headed for Earth, but struggle to get anyone to listen. It is an absurd but depressingly plausible disaster satire, somewhere between Dr Strangelove, Network, Deep Impact and Idiocracy, with an unbelievably stellar cast; also on board are Meryl Streep (as the US president), Cate Blanchett, Timothée Chalamet, Tyler Perry, Mark Rylance, Jonah Hill and Ariana Grande. It has been quite the career trajectory for McKay, who started out in live improv and writing for Saturday Night Live, followed by a run of hit Will Ferrell comedies such as Anchorman, Step Brothers and The Other Guys. “The goal was to capture this moment,” says McKay of Don’t Look Up. “And this moment is a lot.”

Was there a particular event that inspired Don’t Look Up?
Somewhere in between The Big Short and Vice, the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] panel and a bunch of other studies came out that just were so stark and so terrifying that I realised: “I have to do something addressing this.” So I wrote five different premises for movies, trying to find the best one. I had one that was a big, epic, kind of dystopian drama. I had another one that was a Twilight Zone/M Night [Shyamalan] sort of twisty thriller. I had a small character piece. And I was just trying to find a way into: how do we communicate how insane this moment is? So finally, I was having a conversation with my friend [journalist and Bernie Sanders adviser] David Sirota, and he offhandedly said something to the effect of: “It’s like the comet’s coming and no one cares.” And I thought: “Oh. I think that’s it.” I loved how simple it was. It’s not some layered, tricky Gordian knot of a premise. It’s a nice, big, wide open door we can all relate to.

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Kentucky tornadoes: Biden declares federal disaster as hopes rise that death toll could be lower than feared

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Governor Andy Beshear had originally said more than 100 people were feared dead, but later said the estimate could be wrong

US president Joe Biden declared a major federal disaster in Kentucky after a swarm of deadly tornadoes hit the state on Friday, as representatives of a candle factory destroyed by a twister said far fewer people may have died than previously feared.

Biden had previously declared the storms a federal emergency and the move to designate the storms a federal disaster paves the way for additional aid, as thousands face housing, food, water and power shortages.

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Fauci urges Americans to get Covid booster as US nears 800,000 deaths

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Leading infectious diseases official warns Omicron variant appears to be able to ‘evade’ protection of two initial doses

The US government’s leading infectious diseases official, Anthony Fauci, on Sunday stepped up calls for Americans to get a Covid-19 booster shot, as the US is approaching 800,000 lives lost to coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

Fauci warned that the Omicron variant appeared to be able to “evade” the protection of two initial doses of the mRNA-type Covid vaccines – Pfizer/BioNTech’s and Moderna’s – as well as post-infection therapies such as monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma.

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US tornadoes: up to 100 people feared dead after historic storms – video report

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What could prove to be the longest tornado in US history has left a trail of destruction from Arkansas to Kentucky, part of a vast storm front that is feared to have killed at least 100 people in southern and central states of the US.

A candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, and an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, were just two of the buildings destroyed in Friday night’s storm, which was all the more unusual because it came in December, when colder weather normally limits tornadoes


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Kentucky tornadoes: up to 100 feared dead in historic US storms

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Dozens remain unaccounted for after tornado left a trail of destruction from Arkansas to Kentucky

Dozens remained unaccounted for on Sunday as rescuers worked overnight searching for survivors after what could be the longest tornado in US history left a trail of destruction from Arkansas to Kentucky, part of a vast storm front that it is feared may have killed at least 100 people.

Kentucky governor Andy Beshear said the path of devastation was about 227 miles (365km) long, which, if confirmed, would surpass the 218-mile Tri-State tornado in 1925, which killed at least 695 people and destroyed 15,000 homes across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

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Anne Rice, author of Interview With the Vampire, dies aged 80

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Horror writers pay tribute after bestselling gothic novelist dies of complications from stroke

Anne Rice, the bestselling author of Interview With the Vampire, has died at the age of 80.

The gothic novelist’s son Christopher Rice said in a statement on Sunday morning that Rice had “passed away due to complications resulting from a stroke”, adding: “The immensity of our family’s grief cannot be overstated.”

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It’s tough to see Ghislaine Maxwell’s team toy with such sad, broken women | John Sweeney

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Justice at work is difficult to watch when big-money lawyers go in hard as they try to discredit witnesses

The slut-shaming – or something very much like it – of the four key witnesses against Ghislaine Maxwell and her late lover, Jeffrey Epstein is, almost, a thing of beauty, a dark wonder to behold. You’ve got to admire the way Maxwell’s multimillion-dollar attorneys break her accusers on the rack of their own human frailty. No one dare call it torture: we’re watching justice at work, the Ghislaine Maxwell defence team way.

In order of appearance witness “Jane” was challenged as a drug user from a wealthy but deeply unhappy home; witness “Kate” was a drug user with a troubled mother; witness Carolyn – to give her some privacy the court accepted her request to use only her real first name – had a single parent mother who was an alcoholic and a drug addict, who became an alcoholic and a drug addict herself, who left school when she was 14, who did not, said her ex-boyfriend Shawn “have the reading ability” to say Ms Maxwell’s first name, Ghislaine. So Carolyn called her Maxwell. Witness Annie Farmer – her full real name, was 16, the child of a divorced single mum but not herself broken, not at all.

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At least 70 dead as tornadoes rip across central and southern US states

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Kentucky was hardest hit as four tornadoes, including a massive storm, devastated a town and collapsed a factory building

Seven central and southern US states were picking up the pieces Saturday after a series of powerful tornadoes intensified by severe storms ripped across the region, leaving an estimated 70 to 100 people dead.

Kentucky was hardest hit as four tornadoes, including a massive storm, devastated Mayfield, a small town 134 miles (215 km) north-west of Nashville, Tennessee. A candle factory partially collapsed when the tornado struck on Friday evening.

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Daughter of US astronaut rockets into space aboard Blue Origin spacecraft

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Laura Shepard Churchley, whose father, Alan Shepard, made history in 1961 as the first American to travel into space, was among the crew of six

The eldest daughter of pioneering US astronaut Alan Shepard took a joyride to the edge of space aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket on Saturday, 60 years after her late father’s famed suborbital Nasa flight at the dawn of the Space Age.

Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, who was a schoolgirl when her father first streaked into space, was one of six passengers buckled into the cabin of Blue Origin‘s New Shepard spacecraft as it lifted off from a launch site outside the west Texas town of Van Horn.

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Drone footage shows collapsed Illinois warehouse after tornadoes sweep US – video

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An Amazon warehouse near Edwardsville, Illinois, about 25 miles (40km) north-east of St Louis, was destroyed in extreme weather conditions on Friday night. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people were hurt by the roof collapse, but emergency services called it a 'mass casualty incident' on Facebook. One official told KTVI-TV that as many as 100 people may have been in the building, working the night shift, at the time of the collapse.

Up to 100 people are feared to have been killed after a devastating outbreak of tornadoes ripped through Kentucky and other US states on Friday night and early Saturday morning

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Trump’s ultimate yes man: how Devin Nunes embraced the role he was long accused of playing

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Congressman poised to helm Trump’s media company is poster child for the notion that, in today’s politics, extreme partisanship pays

For the first and perhaps the only time in his pugnacious political career, the California congressman and noted Trump apologist Devin Nunes is inspiring some kind of unanimity across party lines.

When news broke on Monday that Nunes was retiring from Congress to become chief executive of the fledgling Trump Media & Technology Group, nobody on the left or the right doubted he’d landed where he belonged. After 19 years as a reliably rock-ribbed Republican legislator, Nunes told his supporters that he wasn’t giving up on fighting his political enemies, just “pursuing it by other means” – and for once those enemies took him at his word.

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Supermodel Karen Elson on fashion’s toxic truth: ‘I survived harassment, body shaming and bullying – and I’m one of the lucky ones’

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She has been at the top of the industry for decades. Now she’s speaking out about the dark reality of life behind the scenes

When Karen Elson was a young hopeful trying to make it in Paris, a model scout took her to a nightclub. After long days on the Métro trekking to castings that came to nothing, and evenings alone in a run-down apartment, she was excited to be out having fun. The music was good and the scout, to whom her agent had introduced her, kept the drinks coming. She started to feel tipsy. A friend of the scout’s arrived, and the pair started massaging her shoulders, making sexual suggestions. “I was 16 and I’d never kissed a boy,” she recalls. “It was my first experience of sexual – well, sexual anything, and this was sexual harassment. They both had their hands on me.”

She told them she wanted to go home, and left to find a taxi, but they followed her into it, kissing her neck on the back seat. When they reached her street, she jumped out, slammed the taxi door and ran inside. The next day she told another model what had happened, and the scout found out. “His reaction was to corner me in the model agency and say: ‘I’ll fucking get you kicked out of Paris if you ever fucking say anything ever again.’”

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Friend, lover, fixer? Ghislaine Maxwell prosecutors home in on nature of Epstein relationship

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Federal sex-trafficking trial has shed more light on pair’s ties, and how their lives seemed intimately interwoven

Ghislaine Maxwell has long been accused of luring teenage girls into Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit for him to sexually abuse, but whatever motive for allegedly doing so has long remained a mystery.

The answer hinges somewhat on the nature of their relationship. Did Maxwell serve as the late financier’s consigliere, or act as his girlfriend and procurer?

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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