Category Archives: US News

Republicans pledge allegiance to fossil fuels like it’s still the 1950s

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Republican-led states are threatening retaliation against banks that refuse to lend to coal, oil and gas companies in effort to delay transition to clean energy

Joe Biden may be pressing for 2021 to be a transformational year in tackling the climate crisis, but Republicans arrayed in opposition to his agenda have dug in around a unifying rallying theme – that the fossil fuel industry should be protected at almost any cost.

For many experts and environmentalists, the Republican stance is a shockingly retrograde move that flies in the face of efforts to fight global heating and resembles a head in the sand approach to the realities of a changing American economy.

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Children are ‘vulnerable host’ for Covid as cases recede, US expert warns

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  • Cases plummet but children under 12 not yet eligible for shots
  • Mississippi governor defends low state vaccination rate

A US public health expert has warned that though cases of Covid-19 are at their lowest rates for months and much of the country is returning to normal life, young Americans are still “a vulnerable host” for the coronavirus.

Related: Post-lockdown summer: Americans out for fun and with money to spend

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Excited, pursuing bear: Florida officials seek unusual urban visitor

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Sightings of black bear continue but state wildlife officials unsuccessful in attempts to trap and relocate it

In a summer’s tale to enthrall inhabitants of the south-western Florida city of Naples, a black bear seen wandering around downtown eluded wildlife officials – even as sightings of the animal continued.

Police said the bear was first spotted in the city on Friday, near 12th Avenue South and 6th Street South. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to trap the bear in hopes of relocating it, the Naples Daily News reported.

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Meghan and Harry announce birth of baby daughter Lilibet

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Child named after the family nickname for the Queen, the baby’s great-grandmother

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have announced the birth of a daughter they have named Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.

Harry and Meghan’s daughter, who was born in hospital in California on Friday, weighed 7lb 11oz and has been named after the family nickname for the Queen, the baby’s great-grandmother. Her middle name was chosen to honour her late grandmother Diana, Princess of Wales, the couple said. The baby is the Queen’s 11th great-grandchild and is eighth in line to the throne.

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Biden trumpets democracy abroad in Post op-ed – as threats spread at home

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Joe Biden will use his visit to Europe this week to “rally the world’s democracies” in a reset of US foreign policy after four turbulent years under Donald Trump – all while threats to American democracy, stoked by Trump, proliferate at home.

Related: After Trump: Biden set to outline US policy to Johnson, Putin and more

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Post-lockdown summer: Americans out for fun and with money to spend

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As Covid vaccination rates rise entertainment events and rental homes and cars are selling out but companies are struggling to fill job vacancies

After more than 15 months in varying degrees of lockdown, the US is finally ready to reopen this summer – and the signs are that plenty of people are beginning to emerge into the light, with their wallets loaded and their hearts seeking song, dance and travel.

Sixty-three percent of US adults have now received at least one vaccine dose, and as life returns to “normal”, hotels and concerts are selling out, rental cars and rental homes are booked up, and visits to museums and events are soaring.

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HIV after Covid: Anthony Fauci and an army of researchers seek to regain momentum

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In the summer of 1981, public health professionals faced a terrifying crisis. Their work helped shape victories against the current pandemic – but some fear hard-won ground is lost

As Anthony Fauci marks 40 years since HIV emerged, he regrets how the extraordinary disruptions that Covid-19 have wreaked upon society have hampered efforts to tackle the major pandemic that preceded it.

Related: 'Brand-new disease, no treatment, no cure': how Anthony Fauci's fight against Aids prepared him to tackle Covid-19

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‘Urgent need’: US to donate 750,000 Covid vaccine doses to Taiwan

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Offer a welcome boost for Taiwan, which says China has interfered with its attempts to secure vaccines internationally

The United States will donate 750,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan as part of the country’s plan to share shots globally, offering a much-needed boost to the island’s fight against the pandemic.

Taiwan is dealing with a spike in domestic cases but has been affected, like many places, by global vaccines shortages. It has also claimed that China is hindering its attempts to secure doses internationally.

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Naomi Wolf banned from Twitter for spreading vaccine myths

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Many social media users applaud termination of author’s account, but some have said move is a blow to freedom of speech

The author Naomi Wolf has been suspended from Twitter after using it to spread myths about the pandemic, vaccines and lockdown.

Wolf, who wrote the influential feminist work The Beauty Myth, holds staunch anti-vaccine views. Last month she told a US congressional committee that vaccine passports would “re-create a situation that is very familiar to me as a student of history. This has been the start of many, many genocides.”

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Protests erupt in Minneapolis over man fatally shot by deputies

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Nine arrested on possible charges including suspicion of riot and arson after Thursday shooting of Winston Boogie Smith Jr

Protesters faced off with police officers in Minneapolis early on Saturday over the shooting of a man by members of a US Marshals taskforce.

Related: Minneapolis removes barricades to reopen George Floyd Square to traffic

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‘Disgusting slap in the face’: California governor slams judge as assault rifles ban overturned

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Gavin Newsom responds after Judge Roger Benitez compares AR-15s to Swiss army knives ‘good for both home and battle’

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, slammed a federal judge’s decision to overturn his state’s three-decade-old ban on assault rifles as “a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians”.

Related: America’s gun obsession is rooted in slavery | Carol Anderson

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Tom Hanks urges US educators to teach students about Tulsa race massacre

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Actor writes in New York Times that he ‘never read a page of any school history book’ about 1921 massacre

In an essay lamenting the long neglect of the Tulsa race massacre, the Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks said “white educators and school administrators” in the US had “omitted the volatile subject for the sake of the status quo, placing white feelings over Black experience – literally Black lives in this case”.

Related: ‘They didn’t talk about it’: how a historian helped Tulsa confront the horror of its past

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White House says Republicans increased offer on Biden infrastructure deal by $50bn – as it happened

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That’s all from me today. Here’s a rundown of the day’s biggest stories:

At least 10 US states have siphoned millions of dollars from federal block grants, meant to provide aid to their neediest families, to pay for the operations of ideological anti-abortion clinics.

These overwhelmingly Republican-led states used money from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (Tanf), better known as welfare or direct cash aid, to fund the activities of anti-abortion clinics associated with the evangelical right. The clinics work to dissuade women from obtaining abortions.

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Frightened terns abandon 3,000 eggs after drone illegally crashes on beach

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Departure marks one of the largest-scale abandonments of eggs ever at coastal site north of San Diego

About 3,000 elegant tern eggs were abandoned at a southern California nesting island after a drone crashed and scared off the birds, a newspaper reported Friday.

Two drones were flown illegally over the Bolsa Chica ecological reserve in Huntington Beach in May and one of them went down in the wetlands, the Orange County Register said.

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Facebook to suspend Trump’s account for two years

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Decision follows oversight board recommendation over ex-president’s post on Capitol attack

Facebook is suspending Donald Trump’s account for two years, the company has announced in a highly anticipated decision that follows months of debate over the former president’s future on social media.

“Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols. We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7 this year,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs, said in a statement on Friday.

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‘Outrageous’: why was a US health worker charged with spreading Covid?

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Attempt to hold a worker criminally liable for the spread of Covid resulted in Josefina Brito-Fernandez losing her license to work, fearing deportation

Prosecutors in Camden, New Jersey, charged a home health aide accused of inadvertently exposing an elderly patient to Covid-19 early in the pandemic in what appears to be the only case of its kind. The patient, an 80-year-old woman, died of the illness in May last year.

The attempt to hold an essential worker criminally liable for the spread of Covid-19 resulted in the worker, 51-year-old Josefina Brito-Fernandez, permanently losing her license to work and entering a probation program for fear she would be deported.

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US government report finds no evidence UFOs were alien – but doesn’t rule it out

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Officials cannot explain strange movements in skies that baffle the US military and scientific establishment, New York Times reports

US intelligence authorities have not found any evidence that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) seen by navy pilots in recent years were otherworldly alien spacecraft– but apparently did not rule it out, either.

Officials cannot explain the strange movements in the skies that continue to baffle the US military and scientific establishment, the New York Times has reported, based on information from senior administration officials who were briefed on the outcome of a much-awaited government assessment about these phenomena.

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‘This isn’t ideological’: reluctant ‘green hero’ behind Exxon coup

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Tiny hedge fund Engine No 1 says a strong climate strategy simply makes good business sense

The activist hedge fund behind ExxonMobil’s boardroom coup last week has claimed another seat from the oil giant’s board, to take the number of new directors who will push for climate action from within the company to three.

The result of last week’s shareholder vote has installed the hedge fund, named Engine No 1 after a San Francisco fire station, as a reluctant hero of the climate movement.

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European finance ministers say deal to stop global tax abuse is ‘within reach’

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France, Germany, Italy and Spain increase pressure for an end to loopholes that enable multinationals to pay minimal tax

The EU’s four biggest economies have raised the pressure for a landmark agreement to curb tax abuse by multinational companies to be reached at G7 meetings in London on Friday.

Sending a united message in a letter in the Guardian, the finance ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Spain said a critical moment had been reached to strike a blow against tax avoidance as governments around the world attempt to rebuild from the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible 7 production temporarily shut down due to coronavirus case

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Paramount Pictures pauses filming after a routine test confirms positive Covid case on set

Paramount Pictures has temporarily shut down production on the British set of Tom Cruise’s seventh Mission: Impossible film after someone tested positive for coronavirus.

“We have temporarily halted production on Mission: Impossible 7 until June 14th, due to positive coronavirus test results during routine testing,” a Paramount spokesperson said on Thursday. “We are following all safety protocols and will continue to monitor the situation.”

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