Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins airlifted to hospital, where she died, while director Joel Souza also injured
Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on a movie set in an accident that killed the film’s director of photography and injured its director, authorities in New Mexico have said.
A statement from the Santa Fe Sheriff’s office said Baldwin, who is acting in and producing the film Rust, had fired the prop gun in an incident on Thursday.
Continue reading...State officials called one of the most aggressive steps in the US to protect public health and safety from the dangers of drilling
California’s oil and gas regulator on Thursday proposed that the state ban new oil drilling within 3,200 feet of schools, homes and hospitals to protect public health in what would be the nation’s largest buffer zone between oilwells and communities.
It’s the latest effort by Democratic governor Gavin Newsom’s administration to wind down oil production in California, aligning him with environmental advocates pushing to curb the effects of climate change and against the powerful oil industry in the nation’s seventh-largest oil producing state.
Continue reading...Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have arrived at the memorial for Dr Martin Luther King at the Tidal Basin in Washington.
The president and the vice-president will soon deliver remarks to mark the tenth anniversary of the dedication of the memorial. Stay tuned.
Continue reading...Researchers estimate 1m sq km of seascape globally has been modified by coastal structures which bring in invasive species and damage habitat
Artificial structures have replaced more than half of the coastline of 30 cities around the world, according to new research suggesting coastal infrastructure will have a significant ecological impact if not well managed.
“Coastal hardening” – replacing natural coastal habitats with seawalls, breakwalls, wharves and other structures – is “consistently extensive” across cities in North America, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, finds a study published on Friday.
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Continue reading...US collector ‘falls in love’ with 8-metre-long dinosaur found in South Dakota and reassembled in Italy
An 8-metre-long dinosaur skeleton has sold at auction for €6.6m (about £5.5m), more than four times its expected value, to a private collector in the US said to have fallen in love with the largest triceratops ever unearthed.
The 66m-year-old skeleton, affectionately known as Big John, is 60% complete, and was unearthed in South Dakota, in the US, in 2014 and put together by specialists in Italy.
Continue reading...Revealed: documents released after six years of legal tussles uncover over 160 cases of misconduct and abuse
Shocking instances of sexual and physical abuse of asylum seekers at the southern US border by federal officers have been uncovered by Human Rights Watch, after a years-long battle to wrestle the information from the Department of Homeland Security under freedom of information laws.
A stash of redacted documents released to the human rights group after six years of legal tussles uncover more than 160 cases of misconduct and abuse by leading government agencies, notably Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Border Patrol. The papers record events between 2016 and 2021 that range from child sexual assault to enforced hunger, threats of rape and brutal detention conditions.
Continue reading...Bill Clinton has said in a video after his release from hospital that he has been touched by an 'outpouring of support'.
The former US president was hospitalised in California for a urological infection last week. He advised people on his Twitter to take care of themselves to fulfil their 'important role to play in life and in the immediate future'
Climate activists have gathered on Capitol Hill to demand that Democrats’ reconciliation package effectively address the climate crisis.
One protester with Greenpeace carried cutouts of Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and moderate Democratic senator Joe Manchin, portraying Schumer as Manchin’s puppet.
Continue reading...Nicholas Burns calls Beijing an ‘aggressor’ and that US responsibility is ‘to make Taiwan a tough nut to crack’
US president Joe Biden’s nominee to be ambassador to Beijing on Wednesday said China was aggressive and untrustworthy, insisting that boosting Taiwan’s defences against the threat of Chinese invasion should be a US priority.
Speaking to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which is due to confirm his appointment, Nicholas Burns denounced recent Chinese warplane incursions into Taiwan’s air defence zone, calling them “especially objectionable”.
Continue reading...Slew of walkouts by tech workers, unthinkable mere years ago, shows workers ‘now understand their labor power’, expert says
Employees at Netflix halted work on Wednesday and staged a protest outside the company’s Los Gatos, California, headquarters to condemn the streaming platform’s handling of complaints against Dave Chappelle’s new special.
The actions – which hundreds participated in – are the latest in a string of highly visible organizing efforts in the tech sector, as workers increasingly take their grievances about company policies and decisions public.
Continue reading...CDC will consult panel this week before finalizing recommendations for who should get boosters and when
US regulators on Wednesday signed off on extending Covid-19 boosters to Americans who got the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine and said anyone eligible for an extra dose can get a brand different from the one they received initially.
The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decisions mark a big step toward expanding the US booster campaign, which began with extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine last month.
Continue reading...Partial human remains were found on Wednesday in a Florida wilderness area where authorities were searching for Brian Laundrie, the fiance of Gabby Petito, a young woman who disappeared on a road trip with Laundrie, the FBI said on Wednesday.
They also found items believed to belong to Laundrie after his parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, took part in the search with the FBI and police, more than a month after Laundrie was reported missing after heading to the vast Carlton Reserve park.
Continue reading...Defense attorneys turn their focus to saving Nikolas Cruz from a death sentence for 2018 shooting massacre at Florida high school
Nikolas Cruz has pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder for the 2018 shooting massacre at a Florida high school, leaving a jury to decide whether he will be executed for one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.
Relatives of the victims who sat in the courtroom and watched the hearing via Zoom shook their heads or broke down in tears as Cruz entered his pleas and later apologized for his crimes.
Continue reading...Authorities have belatedly reported that one of the group of African mammals that bolted from a farm died last month
One of a group of escaped zebras that have spent almost two months running wild through the east Maryland suburbs has died, authorities said, in a blow to thousands who have followed the animals’ bid for freedom.
The fate of the zebras, who bolted from a farm near Upper Marlboro in late August, has captured the attention of people locally and beyond, with a number of Marylanders sharing videos and photos of the animals roaming and grazing on residents’ lawns.
Continue reading...The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack voted on Tuesday to recommend the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, after he defied a subpoena relating to their inquiry into the 6 January insurrection.
The select committee approved the contempt of Congress citation unanimously, sending the report to the Democratic-controlled House, which is expected on Thursday to authorize the panel to go to court to punish Bannon for his non-compliance.
Continue reading...Bank also pleads guilty to wire fraud and forgives hundred of millions of dollars of debt owed by country
Credit Suisse has been fined nearly £350m by global regulators, pleaded guilty to wire fraud, and agreed to forgive hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt owed by Mozambique in an attempt to draw a line under the long-running “tuna bonds” loan scandal.
The Swiss banking company had been accused of “serious” failings in its financial crime controls by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice that will put the bank under heavy monitoring for three years after having “defrauded US and international investors”.
Continue reading...White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to a question from a reporter about the former president filing a lawsuit to try to shield White House documents from subpoenas issued by the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection. Psaki said Trump had attempted to subvert the peaceful transfer of power.
Continue reading...Democratic senator Jon Tester has also voiced criticism of progressives’ suggestion to add a carbon tax to the reconciliation package.
“You might have problems with me on a carbon tax,” Tester said, per Politico.
Continue reading...The FBI on Tuesday raided a Washington mansion linked to the billionaire Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, as part of what media reports described as a “court-authorised search”.
Agents could be seen entering the neoclassical property located in the north-west of the US capital and standing guard outside. They sealed off the driveway with yellow tape. It said: “Crime scene – do not enter.”
Continue reading...Donald Trump has sought to block the release of documents related to the US Capitol attack to a House committee investigating the incident, challenging Joe Biden’s initial decision to waive executive privilege.
In a federal lawsuit, the former president said the committee’s request in August was “almost limitless in scope” and sought many records that were not connected to the siege.
Continue reading...