Category Archives: US News

Ghislaine Maxwell trial: third accuser’s ex-boyfriend corroborates her account

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‘Shawn’ says he drove Carolyn to Epstein’s house every few weeks, after she testified Maxwell scheduled sexualized massages with Epstein

  • This article contains depictions of sexual abuse

The former boyfriend of the third accuser to testify in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial in New York corroborated details of her account during his testimony Wednesday.

This accuser, Carolyn, had testified Tuesday that Maxwell scheduled sexualized massages with Jeffrey Epstein starting when Carloyn was 14, and that Maxwell groped her. Carolyn said that she had told Maxwell about having been sexually abused as a child.

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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US accuses El Salvador of secretly negotiating truce with gang leaders

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In 2020, Nayib Bukele’s administration ‘provided financial incentives’ to MS-13 and the Barrio 18 street gangs, US treasury says

The US has accused the government of El Salvador president Nayib Bukele of secretly negotiating a truce with leaders of the country’s feared MS-13 and Barrio 18 street gangs.

The explosive accusation on Wednesday cuts to the heart of one of Bukele’s most highly touted successes in office: a plunge in the country’s murder rate.

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Biden says he won’t send US troops to Ukraine to deter Russian threat

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President’s comments come after he said the US would provide ‘defensive capabilities’ to Ukraine

Joe Biden has said that he is not considering sending US troops to defend Ukraine in response to a Russian military buildup on the country’s borders.

“That is not on the table,” he told reporters on Wednesday, one day after speaking directly with Vladimir Putin in an effort to avert a military crisis.

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Covid news: UK reports 51,342 new infections; vaccines protect against new variant – as it happened

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Latest figures come amid concern over spread of Omicron variant; Pfizer says third jab increased antibodies by factor of 25

Germany reported 69,601 cases of Covid-19 and 527 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to the Robert Koch Institute, taking the total cases in the country to 6,291,621. There have been 104,047 deaths.

South Korean authorities are urging people to get vaccinated as case rise in the east Asian nation generally regarded as having dealth with the pandemic well.

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China accuses Australia of ‘political posturing’ over diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics

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Scott Morrison says athletes will compete in next year’s Games because sport and politics should not mix

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has confirmed Australian officials will not attend the Beijing Winter Olympics, joining the United States in a diplomatic boycott of next year’s Games and prompting accusations from Beijing of political posturing.

Morrison told reporters in Sydney it was “not surprising”, given the deterioration in the diplomatic relationship between Australia and China, that officials would not attend next year’s winter Games.

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Kellogg to replace 1,400 strikers as deal is rejected

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Strike, which began in October, expected to continue as workers seek significant raises, saying they work 80-hour weeks

Kellogg has said it is permanently replacing 1,400 workers who have been on strike since October, a decision that comes as the majority of its cereal plant workforce rejected a deal that would have provided 3% raises.

The Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) International Union said an overwhelming majority of workers had voted down the five-year offer.

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Third accuser alleges Ghislaine Maxwell preyed on her when she was a minor

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‘Carolyn’ testifies that Maxwell coordinated sexualized massages with Jeffrey Epstein, starting when she was 14

  • This article contains depictions of sexual abuse

Prosecutors in Ghislaine Maxwell’s child sex-trafficking trial in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday introduced a witness who was once the kind of minor teen on whom the Briton is alleged to have preyed.

At 14, Carolyn was vulnerable. She had an alcoholic mother and a 17-year-old boyfriend and had been raped and molested by her grandfather from the age of four. She needed money.

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Tim Cook reportedly signed five-year $275bn deal with Chinese officials

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The Information reports Apple CEO’s agreement will placate threats that would have hobbled its devices and services in the country

Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, signed an agreement with Chinese officials, estimated to be worth about $275bn, to placate threats that would have hobbled its devices and services in the country, The Information reported on Tuesday.

Apple did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

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Biden holds virtual summit with Putin amid fears of Ukraine invasion – live

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Russian state television shared a clip of the start of Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden’s virtual summit this morning, which started about 45 minutes ago.

The clip shows the American and Russian leaders greeting each other before beginning their discussion about the situation in Ukraine.

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Mark Meadows stops cooperating with Capitol attack investigation

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Attorney for former White House chief of staff cites House committee’s approach to negotiations and to other witnesses

The former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will now not cooperate with the House committee investigating the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, an attorney for the former Trump aide told Fox News on Tuesday.

Meadows indicated last week that he would speak to the panel. But on the same day the Guardian broke news of Meadows’ memoir, The Chief’s Chief, in which he detailed Trump’s positive and negative Covid tests and their cover-up before his first debate with Joe Biden last year.

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Jussie Smollett to return to witness stand after calling claim he staged attack ‘100% false’

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Empire actor faces charges he lied to Chicago police about an alleged anti-gay, racist attack in January 2019

Jussie Smollett will return to the witness stand on Tuesday at his trial in Chicago, where the former Empire actor said that claims he staged an anti-gay, racist attack on himself were “100% false”.

Prosecutors will continue cross-examining the 39-year-old, who appeared calm through several hours of testimony Monday. He told jurors “there was no hoax” and that he was the victim of a hate crime in his downtown Chicago neighborhood.

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Andrew Neil threatens to sue Jennifer Arcuri after tweet about Epstein

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Businesswoman had made claims about journalist’s inclusion in a contact book owned by Jeffrey Epstein

Andrew Neil says he has launched legal action against Jennifer Arcuri, the US businesswoman and former lover of Boris Johnson, after she made claims about the veteran journalist’s inclusion in a contact book owned by the deceased paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

In a public spat that started with a disagreement over the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines, Arcuri tagged the former BBC presenter in a now-deleted tweet that read: “Citation for @afneil: Not only is he a paid for pharma puppet but here he is on the pedo elite train. Everyone knows what happened on that plane.” Alongside were the hashtags #itsOver and #ticktock, a picture of Neil arm in arm with a woman, and a screengrab from Epstein’s address book purportedly showing Neil’s name.

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Prepare a swift response to Russia invading Ukraine, Latvia tells west

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Nato not sending a clear signal would mean ‘glue that keeps us together’ has failed, says foreign minister

A swift reprisal package against Russia – including US troops and Patriot missiles stationed in the Baltics, the cutting off of Russia from the Swift banking payments system and reinstated sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline – must be prepared now in case it invades Ukraine, the Latvian foreign minister has said.

The warning from Edgars Rinkēvičs comes as Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin prepare to hold talks about the growing tensions.

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What sanctions could the US hit Russia with if it invades Ukraine?

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Biden enters talks with Putin armed with a wide range of economic measures at his disposal – what are those options?

Joe Biden goes into Tuesday’s virtual summit with Vladimir Putin, after days of close consultation with European allies on a joint response to an invasion of Ukraine, armed with a wide range of punitive measures at his disposal.

There would be increased military support for Kyiv and a bolstering of Nato’s eastern flank, but the primary focus would be on sanctions. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said they would include “high-impact economic measures that we’ve refrained from taking in the past”.

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China attacks US diplomatic boycott of Winter Games as ‘travesty’ of Olympic spirit

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Beijing dismisses no-show and says American officials had not been invited in the first place, as other countries consider their positions

China has reacted angrily to the US government’s diplomatic boycott of next year’s Winter Olympics, as more countries said they would consider joining the protest over Beijing’s human rights record and New Zealand announced it would not send representatives to the Games.

Chinese officials dismissed Washington’s boycott as a “posturing and political manipulation” and tried to discredit the decision by claiming that US diplomats had not even been invited to Beijing in the first place.

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San Francisco restaurant apologizes for denying service to armed police

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Owners of Hilda and Jesse Restaurant say they ‘made a mistake’ after saying weapons made people uncomfortable

The owners of a San Francisco restaurant have apologized for denying service to three police officers over the weekend because their weapons made their staff “uncomfortable”.

The owners of Hilda and Jesse Restaurant apologized in a social media post published on Sunday following an outcry and calls to boycott the eatery because the officers were asked to leave shortly after they sat down Friday.

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‘We suffered for 66 years’: US ends latest Emmett Till murder investigation without charges

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The inquiry was reopened after a 2017 book claimed the white woman at the center of the case lied about Till whistling at her

The US justice department is ending its latest investigation into the death of Emmett Till, a Black teenager who was brutally abducted, tortured and killed in 1955, without filing any charges after failing to prove that a key witness lied.

Till’s family said it was disappointed by the news that there will continue to be no accountability for the infamous lynching.

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California officials determine cause of city’s ‘stench of death’

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Fire at warehouse storing beauty products caused large quantities of chemicals to enter canal, killing plants

Since early October, residents of Carson, California, have been sickened by a noxious smell coming from the Dominguez Channel that has been likened to “a rotten egg” or “the stench of death”. Now, officials have pinpointed a cause: a fire at a warehouse that stored beauty and wellness products.

South Coast Air Quality Management District, the agency tasked with investigating the foul stench, said on Friday that the large warehouse fire, which began on 30 September and took several days to extinguish, caused vast amounts of chemicals to flow into the 15-mile canal. That spurred a die-off of plants living in the waterway, which in turn produced huge amounts of hydrogen sulfide, a flammable and colorless gas that can be harmful to human health.

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Drake withdraws his two 2022 Grammy nominations

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The star pulled his nominations for best rap album and best rap performance after consultation with his management

Drake has decided to withdraw his two Grammy nominations.

Though his motive remained unclear, Variety reported the 35-year-old artist withdrew his two nominations – best rap album for Certified Lover Boy and best rap performance for his song Way 2 Sexy, featuring Future and Young Thug – after consultation with his management.

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