Category Archives: US News

House committee requests White House records recovered from Trump’s home

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Letter to National Archives requests files found in boxes at Mar-a-Lago that should have been turned over when Trump left office

The investigation into whether Donald Trump broke federal records laws when he took White House documents home after leaving office took another step forward on Friday when a congressional oversight committee requested the materials from the National Archives.

The letter to the archivist, from the House committee on oversight and reform, requests the content of the documents taken by Trump to Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Florida. They also asked for any records that the former US president attempted to destroy, and communications on the issue by Trump’s White House aides.

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Biden nominates Ketanji Brown Jackson to become first Black woman on supreme court

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  • White House praises ‘exceptionally qualified nominee’
  • Jackson, if confirmed, will replace retiring Stephen Breyer

Joe Biden on Friday nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the supreme court, seeking to elevate a Black woman to the nation’s highest court for the first time in its 232-year history.

Biden’s decision to nominate Jackson to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, for whom she clerked, sets up a fierce confirmation battle in the deeply partisan and evenly-divided Senate. Breyer, the most senior jurist in the court’s three-member liberal wing, will retire at the end of the court’s current session this summer.

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Russia-Ukraine latest news: multiple explosions heard in Kyiv after Zelenskiy warns tonight will be ‘the hardest’

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Reports say artillery rounds and large blasts were heard in Ukrainian capital; Russia vetoes UN resolution deploring invasion of Ukraine

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked eastern European Nato members for defence assistance.

Zelenskiy spoke with Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda on Friday to seek defence assistance from eastern European members of Nato and help in bringing Russia to the negotiating table.

We need effective international assistance. Discussed this with Andrzej Duda. Appealed to the Bucharest Nine for defence aid, sanctions, pressure on the aggressor. Together we have to put Russia at the negotiating table. We need anti-war coalition.”

Last time our capital experienced anything like this was in 1941 when it was attacked by Nazi Germany.

Ukraine defeated that evil and will defeat this one. Stop Putin. Isolate Russia. Severe all ties. Kick Russia out of everywhere.”

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J&J and distributors to pay $26bn to settle claims they fuelled US opioid crisis

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Settlements represent largest of opioid-related cases in epidemic that has killed more than 500,000 Americans over two decades

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and three major distributors finalized nationwide settlements over their role in the opioid addiction crisis Friday, an announcement that clears the way for $26bn to flow to nearly every state and local government in the US.

Taken together, the settlements are the largest to date among the many opioid-related cases that have been playing out across the country. They’re expected to provide a significant boost to efforts aimed at reversing the crisis in places that have been devastated by it, including many parts of rural America.

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Very hungry bear ‘Hank the Tank’ is in fact three bears, DNA shows

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Officials say a trio of oversized bears is responsible for home invasions that had been blamed on a 500lb black bear dubbed Hank the Tank

DNA evidence has shown that the 500-pound black bear the public had nicknamed Hank the Tank is, in fact, at least three not-so-little bears who have damaged more than 30 properties around Lake Tahoe in recent months.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife on Thursday said it would soon begin trapping bears in the South Lake Tahoe area to tag the animals and collect evidence for genetic analysis. The bears will be released in a “suitable habitat” and the agency said no trapped animals will be euthanised as part of the project.

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‘Her blood … his hands’: what the papers say about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

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Photograph of teacher bloodied by Russian attack on Ukraine dominates front pages as Putin sends his troops to war

The front pages in Britain and around the world are devoted to the shocking events in Ukraine, with graphic images of the destruction unleashed by Vladimir Putin.

A photograph of a woman with a bloodied and bandaged head in the wake of a Russian attack dominates the front of the Guardian with the headline “Putin invades”.

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Biden’s Russia warnings come to pass – what does the US president do now?

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Inflation is rising, Republicans are resurgent – and the increasingly embattled president now has a foreign policy crisis to deal with

For weeks, Joe Biden has issued urgent warnings that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could happen at any moment. The moment came overnight, when Russian troops began attacking Ukraine by land, air and sea.

For the US president – increasingly embattled at home by a resurgent Republican party – it was evidence that the White House had largely assessed the Ukraine crisis correctly, even though their preference would have been to be wrong about their predictions of a disastrous war in Europe.

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Three ex-officers found guilty on federal charges in George Floyd killing

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Trio of former Minneapolis officers found guilty of violating the civil rights of Floyd, murdered by Derek Chauvin in May 2020

A jury has convicted three former Minneapolis police officers of violating George Floyd’s civil rights.

Floyd, a Black man, was killed by white police officer Derek Chauvin. His video-taped death triggered widespread outrage and sparked anti-police brutality protests that spread across the US and the world.

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Victims dismayed as Canadian inquiry finds mystery syndrome does not exist

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New Brunswick officials say baffling disorder that causes memory loss and cognitive decline is from known neurological condition

After warning medical professionals to be on the lookout for a baffling neurological condition that produced memory loss, muscle wasting and severe cognitive decline, authorities in the Canadian province of New Brunswick have concluded that no such illness exists, a finding that has prompted skepticism and disbelief as families search for answers.

New Brunswick officials last year flagged a possible “cluster” of residents suffering from an unknown neurological syndrome, similar to those of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Symptoms were varied and dramatic: some patients started drooling, and others felt as though bugs were crawling on their skin.

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Ghislaine Maxwell juror to be quizzed in court as lawyers push for retrial

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Judge says Scotty David, who may have failed to disclose childhood abuse during jury selection, must return for court hearing

A juror in Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial who might not have disclosed childhood sexual abuse during jury selection for the high-profile case will now be questioned publicly as Maxwell’s team seeks a retrial, court papers released on Thursday said.

One newly released document also includes the written questionnaire that Juror No 50 completed during the selection process. In response to the question “Have you or a friend ever been the victim of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or sexual assault?” the juror marked the “no” box.

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Biden imposes new sanctions on Russia: ‘America stands up to bullies’

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President takes aim at Russia’s largest banks and companies but is emphatic US troops will not engage in conflict in Ukraine

Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled a fresh round of what he said would be crippling sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, declaring that Vladimir Putin “chose this war” and that he and his country would bear the consequences.

The harsh new sanctions target Russia’s largest banks and companies, effectively cutting them off from western financial markets, while imposing restrictions on the exports of advanced technology used to power the country’s military and tech sector.

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‘Putin will bear the consequences’: Biden addresses Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – video

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'Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences,' said US president Joe Biden during an address at the White House. Biden described Russian president Vladimir Putin as an assailant who launched 'a war without a cause' and a misguided dream of recreating the Soviet Union. His comments come after Ukrainian forces battled Russian invaders on three sides after Moscow mounted an assault by land, sea and air, prompting tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. 'Putin's aggression against Ukraine will end up costing Russia dearly,' Biden said

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What can the west do about Russia invading Ukraine?

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Analysis: Immediate options seem limited and fraught with risk, but if Putin wants less Nato, he may ultimately end up with more

In the wake of what the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, described as Russia’s “fully fledged invasion of Ukraine”, the west has to decide how to respond to what France’s Emmanuel Macron has called a turning point in European history.

Yet can the west now offer Ukraine more than a mixture of prayers, sanctions and diplomatic demarches? Throughout this conflict western intelligence has shown it has been able to predict Putin’s next step, but less capable of stopping it. Boris Johnson told the Ukrainian people “we are with you”, but what this western solidarity means in practice is now up for debate.

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Russia-Ukraine latest news: explosions heard inside Kyiv as Zelenskiy vows to stay in capital – live updates

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Latest updates: US secretary of state says Russia plans to encircle and threaten Kyiv; Ukrainian spokesman condemns ‘totally pointless attack’

We’re beginning to get a picture of what the Russian invasion may be aiming to achieve although with the huge caveat that everything is incredibly chaotic.

CNN has pictures of what appears to be a column of tanks crossing in the area of the Senkivka border crossing with Belarus.

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‘Putin chose this war,’ Biden says as he announces new sanctions – US politics as it happened

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Some congressional Republicans have attempted to blame Joe Biden’s foreign policy for enabling Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“These developments were not inevitable,” congressman Andy Barr said. “The Biden Administration’s weak and feckless foreign policy not only failed to deter this aggression, it invited this outcome.”

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Massive feeding effort underway to save starving Florida manatees

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First two months of 2022 alone have seen more than 300 manatee deaths as major conservation effort to rescue population

More than 80 Florida manatees are currently in rehab centers across the US as officials and conservations work to rescue a population that has been hit hard by starvation.

The data released by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and US Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday underscores the peril facing the manatees, and comes amid a major conservation effort that includes a feeding program distributing 3,000lb of lettuce daily at a site on the Florida coast.

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‘It’s a sanctuary’: the magic of quiet, low-cost, allergy-free ‘passive’ homes

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Energy-efficient passive design is catching on in New York and other cities as climate concerns rise

The first night Stephanie Silva spent at her new Brooklyn apartment was uncommonly quiet. So was the following morning and the next day. The 32-year-old native New Yorker had forgotten the last time she was able to mute the city of 8.2 million.

“It’s like a sanctuary,” Silva says, but as soon as she opens the street-facing windows, the bustling outside noise fills her living room. Once she closed the windows again, the difference was instantly noticeable. “Since moving here my anxiety went out the window,” Silva says, referring to the 10th-floor affordable apartment in Ocean Hill, part of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. But what sets this 67-unit building apart from the rest of the housing in the city is its “passive” element.

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Key inquiry into Trump’s finances in jeopardy as two prosecutors resign

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Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz of the Manhattan district attorney’s office quit amid signs that the move on Trump is stalling

One of the most aggressive criminal investigations against Donald Trump appears to be running into the sand after the two leading prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office investigating the former president’s finances resigned.

The inquiry by Manhattan prosecutors into the operations of Trump and the Trump Organization has been among the most dangerous of the many legal perils facing him. The investigation, which began in August 2018 under the former district attorney Cyrus Vance and continued under incumbent Alvin Bragg, has dug ever deeper into alleged discrepancies in the value of the family’s assets in an effort to show a pattern of fraudulent behavior.

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Biden imposes sanctions on company behind Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline– live

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House speaker Nancy Pelosi is now holding a press conference on Capitol Hill, after attending the Munich Security Conference last week.

Pelosi attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin for recognizing the two self-proclaimed republics in east Ukraine and ordering troops into the region, repeatedly describing him as a “tyrant”.

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Ukraine crisis live: self-proclaimed republics of Luhansk and Donetsk ask Russia for military aid

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Experts see move from Russian-controlled territories as final pretext for full invasion

Russia’s ambassador to the United States has hit back at the imposition of sanctions imposed by US president Joe Biden, suggesting the move would hurt global financial and energy markets as well as ordinary citizens.

According to a recent post on the Russian embassy Facebook page early Wednesday, ambassador Anatoly Antonov said:

Sanctions will not solve anything regarding Russia. It’s hard to imagine that anyone in Washington is counting on Russia to review its foreign policy course under threat of restrictions.

I don’t remember a single day when our country lived without any restrictions from the Western world. We learned how to work in such conditions. And not only survive, but also develop our state.

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